Witness in Windsor murder trial changes story during testimony

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

A Windsor murder trial dating back to a shooting five years ago resumed in Superior Court Thursday, with a witness who was in Windsor the night of the shooting taking the stand.

But things took a turn when the witness, Keima Davis-Baynes offered a different story on the stand than the one she told police during a taped interview back in July 2019.

The case revolves around the shooting death of Jason Pantlitz-Solomon, who was shot multiple times at the corner of Ouellette and University Avenues in the early morning hours of Aug. 27, 2018.

Kahli Johnson-Phillips is charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder.

Davis-Baynes was in the car that drove to Windsor the night of the shooting, but instead of pointing to Johnson-Phillips as the driver, she offered a different name of the person driving the car.

She told the jury she lied during her sworn testimony to police in 2019 but said she was telling the truth in court Thursday, saying she decided to tell the truth today, her first chance to do so in more than five years. She said the person who drove with her to Windsor was named George.

Assistant Crown attorney Bryan Pillon quizzed Davis-Baynes on the discrepancy.

“Is it that you’re trying to protect Mr. Johnson-Phillips?” Pillon asked.

“No, I have no reason to protect Phillips,” she said, noting she hasn’t seen Phillips in years and that she’s “trying to move on” with her life.

The Crown requested a legal application to play a recording of Davis-Baynes’ police interview from July of 2019 for the jury, a request granted by Superior Court Justice Pamela Hebner.

The first chunk of the six-hour video was played in court Thursday.

In the police interview, Davis-Baynes detailed her day on Aug. 26 and Aug. 27, when the shooting took place, to a Windsor Police detective.

Most notably during that police interview, Davis-Baynes detailed that she, along with a man named “Blanco” — or Kahli Johnson-Phillips — and an unknown person sitting in the back seat drove from Mississauga to Windsor in a white Nissan Altima in the late hours of Aug. 26.

She explained that she had been seeing “Blanco,” for a short period, that they met at a barbecue, but she didn’t know much about him. In her sworn testimony, she also didn’t know why they were going to Windsor and claimed was never told.

She detailed the drive as quiet, with not much talking and mostly just listening to music.

Davis-Baynes said they arrived in Windsor sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m., Aug. 27, around the same time as the shooting.

She explained after driving around for a bit, the white Altima was parked near a downtown strip club. She said the two men, Blanco and a man unknown to her, got out of the car, leaving her alone. She claimed she never got out.

Davis-Baynes told police just a few minutes passed before the two men came rushing back to the car and they quickly drove off.

She told police she never heard gun shots and still didn’t know what they were in Windsor for. But during the drive home, Davis-Baynes said she received a Snapchat message from a Windsor friend who told her there was a fatal shooting.

She said the friend sent along a picture of Jason Pantlitz-Solomon.

During the interview, she told police it was later Monday evening, back in Mississauga, when she started to feel uneasy about what happened in Windsor earlier that morning.

“I didn’t feel comfortable. My aura I was getting, I had a bad feeling. I just felt off,” she told the Windsor Police detective in the video recording.

She said she was out with Johnson-Phillips in Mississauga Monday evening when she questioned him about what he does for a living, as she hadn’t known him for a very long time.

“I just asked him what do you do? What’s the deal? You’re very secretive. He had no answer for nothing. He told me to stop bugging,” Davis-Baynes told the detective. “He had this stare.”

Shortly after that, she told police the pair drove to an unknown property in Mississauga. After an interaction with some of his friends, the two got back into the car. Davis-Baynes said Johnson-Phillips got out of the car to urinate, and that’s when police descended on the white Altima.

Davis-Baynes said she was arrested and police found a gun in the back seat. She called the experience “traumatizing.” She said she didn’t know any weapons were in the vehicle.

During the police interview, the Windsor Police detective asked her about a man named “George” who during an earlier interview with police she suggested was the person she went to Windsor with.

The detective asked her once again, “now that she was being truthful” if the driver of the car was George, or if that was just a name she gave.

Davis-Baynes tearfully responded: “There’s nobody named George.”

The detective asked again: “There’s no George, it’s Blanco the whole time?”

“Yes,” Davis-Baynes replied.

The jury is expected to hear the remainder of the police interview when the trial resumes Monday.