Accused allegedly consumed cocaine in hours before Windsor woman killed

File photo of the Superior Court of Justice in Windsor, Ont., Nov.19, 2013. (Melanie Borrelli / CTV Windsor)

Windsor, Ont. -

The jury trial of Jitesh Bhogal continues in Superior Court, with details about the accused’s actions on June 10, 2018 being heard from the witness stand.

Bhogal, 31, is facing a single charge of first degree murder in the death of Autumn Taggart, 31.

Crown witness Michelle Altiman was called to the stand late Tuesday.

Altiman told the jury she was living in what she referred to as “a crack house,” beside Taggart’s apartment building in 2018.

Altiman says her “on again, off again boyfriend” Jake Thompson introduced her to a man who went by the name “Jay” on June 10, 2018.

“He (Thompson) told me he had met someone referring to as Jay and asked me if I could get some cocaine for him,” Altman testified.

Altiman described “Jay” as clean cut and well dressed, “he wasn’t a street person” she told the Jury.

“He was the gentleman seated right over there,” Altiman said in court, as she looked in the direction of Jitesh Bhogal.

“I told him my name was Krystal,” Altiman testified. “I didn’t tell him my real name.”

Altiman told the jury she, Bhogal, and Thompson went to a nearby bank to get money before driving to a restaurant parking lot to meet her drug dealer.

Altiman says she bought $50 worth of cocaine first for Bhogal.

“He wanted to make sure it was good. He didn’t want to buy garbage,” Altiman testified.

After testing the drugs, Altiman says Bhogal asked her to go back to the dealers car and buy an “eight ball” of cocaine.

The group left the parking lot, and returned to University and McKay Avenue, where Altiman says she directed Bhogal to park behind 1382 University Ave.

“It was an easy spot for me,” she testified. “I was gonna take off and not give him his dope.”

Altiman confessed “it was a routine” for her and Thompson to steal drugs from people they knew.

Altiman says she crushed the cocaine with a plastic card, and made five lines on the console of Bhogal’s SUV.

After snorting a line of cocaine herself, Altiman told the jury she directed Thompson to do the same, before offering to Bhogal.

“It was enough time for Mr. Thompson and I to dip out on him,” Altiman told the jury.

When they left his vehicle, with the majority of Bhogal’s cocaine purchase, Altiman says they fled through an alley behind Taggart’s apartment into the house next door, and went up to the second floor.

Altiman says because the windows of that house were “busted out,” she could hear Bhogal calling out for her and Thompson to return.

“He (Bhogal) wasn’t pleased,” she testified. “He was pretty pissed off he had got ripped off.”

During her testimony Altiman admitted to having a criminal record for various offences including theft, assault with a weapon, and possession of stolen items.

She testified in June 2018 she was a drug user who also consumed alcohol and beer.

The trial will continue Wednesday.