'This is your way out': Witness in Windsor murder trial grilled by defence about why she lied during earlier police interview

A key witness in a Windsor murder trial was back on the stand Tuesday, providing bombshell testimony during questioning from the defence.

The trial is regarding a fatal shooting in downtown Windsor in August of 2018, which claimed the life of 20-year-old University of Windsor student Jason Pantlitz-Solomon.

On Monday, Keima Davis-Baynes was on the stand, taking questions from the Crown and defending her decision to lie to police during an interview where she pointed the finger at the accused, Kahli Johnson-Phillips, for the 2018 fatal shooting at the corner of Ouellette and University Avenues.

She’s since walked back on her original story she told police during a series of interrogations in the summer of 2019.

Davis-Baynes was back on the stand Tuesday, this time taking questions from defence lawyer Michael Moon, who is representing Johnson-Phillips.

Moon played back a police interview from June of 2019 conducted by Windsor Police Det. Chris Shaw, who was questioning Davis-Baynes about her involvement in the Windsor shooting.

In the video Shaw said, “I don’t know what the truth is, I can only tell you what the evidence says the truth is. Only you, in your heart, know what the real truth is.”

“You’re not the person that I’m after here,” he said in the recording. “I’m just after the truth.”

“I don’t want to talk about anything,” Davis-Baynes responded in the recording.

Throughout the recorded interview, Davis-Baynes hardly speaks, except to say she was tired and wanted to lay down. She spends most of the interviews played in court looking down at the floor.

She was six months pregnant at the time.

Moon asked Davis-Baynes on the stand to focus on her demeanor throughout those recorded interviews, suggesting it was “learned behaviour from her time as a prostitute” who was deeply involved in sex trafficking.

Davis-Baynes said her behaviour in the police interview room in 2019 was typical of how she reacted when pimps would ask her for her cash, or risk suffering a beating at their hands.

“When these men ask me questions,” she said. “If they didn’t like my tone, I wouldn’t say nothing, I would just look away and not repeat myself and that went on and on and on and it doesn’t ever really stop.”

“This is the life you were living when all this happened,” remarked Moon. “Not the life you planned for you, or your child.”

“A life where men with power over you, both physical and emotional power, do whatever they want to you,” said Moon.

“Yes,” replied Davis Baynes.

“You get brought into that interview room with Mr. Shaw and you’re looking down at the floor like a good prostitute does,” pressed Moon. “You take it, and hope to God they stop at some point.”

“Yes,” said Davis-Baynes.

“For the most part, you are trying not to talk, but unfortunately, when you did talk, you made some pretty stupid lies. I’m not meaning to be harsh, but that’s true,” said Moon.

Davis-Baynes agreed.

“When you said, ‘I was never in Windsor.’ That was a lie… what were you thinking?” Moon asked.

“I had a lot racing through my mind, I was just numb and it was a lot going on in my head,” Davis-Baynes responded, through tears.

It was during the afternoon sitting when Davis-Baynes spoke about a supposed deal being worked on behind the scenes between her defence lawyer and police to get her out of prison and into protective custody, where she could safely give birth to her child.

On the stand, she agreed to waive attorney-client privilege to explain what happened next.

Davis Baynes testified she was under pressure from police and her defence lawyer to give up Johnson-Phillips, who’s not the person she initially said was involved in the downtown Windsor killing. She was instead pointing to a man named ‘George.’

“Mr. Shaw, if nothing else, has driven home pretty forcefully if you don’t talk to them, your baby is going to be waving to you through glass,” suggested Moon, to which Davis-Baynes agreed.

“The Crown seems to have a hard-on for this Phillips guy and this is what they want,” Davis-Baynes recalled hearing from her defence lawyer while she was between police interrogations.

“He’s willing to put you into witness protective custody, withdraw your charges, change your name and let you out. And in return, you give them a statement letting them know you were in the car with this Phillips guy,” Davis-Baynes recalled hearing from her lawyer.

“’This is your way out,’” she said she was told.

Davis-Baynes testified she didn’t decide about making up a story to police in that moment. But after a conversation with her mother, who Davis-Baynes said was against the idea, she said she realized it’s what she needed to do.

“My response was ‘mommy, I want to get to raise my baby,” she testified, very emotionally. “I wanna be the one to love him, because nobody’s going to love him like I’m going to love him.”

Before the jury, Moon called this “an impossible situation,” but a decision which Davis-Baynes admitted she made to her defence lawyer.

“I don’t want to be here any longer,” she testified telling her defence lawyer. “I’m losing it and I’m going to take the deal.”

“All I could think was I did not want to lose my baby,” Davis-Baynes told the jury. “I didn’t want him to go to the system and I just wanted to be a mom.”

Moon said he couldn’t fault Davis-Baynes for what she did, noting “it was wrong, but no parent would have chosen differently.”

“What we’re trying to do now is fix that wrong,” said Moon.

He then asked Davis-Baynes if her lawyer knew she was going to lie.

Davis-Baynes responded “yes.”

“Are you saying he coached you to lie?” asked Moon.

“Basically, yes,” testified Davis-Baynes.

“You did this lie, because you had been told by your lawyer that you were going to get out? That you were going to go into witness protection?” asked Moon.

“Yes, and I could put all this behind me and go home and have my baby and take care of my baby,” said Davis-Baynes.

But she says she didn’t get out.

She testified she was transferred to Thunder Bay to testify on a different trial, in what she describes as a greulling, 19-hour ride in the back of a paddy-wagon where she was shackled at her hands and feet in some of the smallest compartments of the vehicle.

“Every bump. Every time they went to make a light and didn’t make it, every pothole I, got tossed up,” Davis-Baynes recalled, “I just got pushed around in a paddy wagon.”

“That’s the first time I felt internal pain during my pregnancy,” she testified.

As soon as she got back into Windsor, Davis-Baynes testified she went into labour at the South West Detention Centre.

“So you did everything that you did at the request of your lawyer, on the advice of your lawyer and you were betrayed?” asked Moon.

“Yes,” said Davis-Baynes.

“After being put through the hell you described, your baby was still born as an inmate?” pressed Moon.

“Yes, like they said,” Davis-Baynes testified.

The defence will continue its examination of Davis-Baynes when she takes the stand Wednesday.