'You’re lying': Crown grills accused about his actions the night a Windsor mother was killed

Windsor, Ont. -

For a second straight day, Crown Attorney Ilana Mizel questioned Jitesh Bhogal about his actions on June 10, 2018.

Warning: Article contains graphic content.

Bhogal, 31, is charged with a single count of first degree murder in the death of Autumn Taggart, 31.

“You’re lying to us about what you remember and what you don’t remember Mr Bhogal,” Mizel said Friday in Superior Court.

“The memory loss that you’ve described this particular evening is nothing more than a convenient attempt to cover up what only you know, which is what actually happened in Miss Taggart’s apartment.”

Bhogal has told the jury he does not remember how he got into Taggart’s University Avenue apartment or why he was there in the first place.

Bhogal previously testified he was “slightly upset” after he was robbed of cocaine he had purchased by Michelle Altiman and Jake Thompson.

Evidence was also heard, Altiman hid Bhogals’ drugs in her genital area, so he would have to drive them from a west-end restaurant, back to the crack house where she was living at the time (which was directly beside Taggarts’ building).

The Crown believes Bhogal was in fact, angry that he had been “duped” not once but twice by the same people.

Mizel asked him “You were screaming so loudly that people in that apartment might have heard you.”

Bhogal replied, “it’s possible, yes.”

He told the jury he was likely searching for Altiman and Thompson in Taggart’s apartment.

In previous testimony, the jury heard evidence Taggart suffered minor bruising on her genitals, and that Bhogal “could not be excluded” as the potential source of DNA found on her genitals.

The Crown is alleging Bhogal searched Taggarts’ genitals for his drugs and that is why she woke up, and started screaming.

Bhogal has already testified, he put his hands on her face and mouth to get her to be quiet so he could leave the apartment.

Mizel put to him “You smothered Miss Taggart with your hands and arms Mr Bhogal.”

He replied “It would seem so.”

A pathologist previously testified a person can become unconscious if their airway is blocked after 30 seconds.

Mizel asked the jury to look at the courtroom clock, and she stopped her questioning until 30 seconds had gone by, during which time, the courtroom was totally silent except for the sounds of Bhogal sniffling from being emotional on the stand.

The Crown then peppered Bhogal with questions about what he did to Taggart.

He denies putting her in a choke hold, but when asked if he squeezed her neck with all of his strength, Bhogal replied “I don’t believe so, no.”

Bhogal told the jury he did CPR on Taggart, including counting down five or six of her ribs for the perfect place to do chest compressions.

He recalls doing 15 chest compression and breathing in her mouth three times.

Here is the interaction that followed :

Mizel “You claim to have performed CPR on Miss Taggart correct?”

Bhogal “I do yes.”

Mizel “And you claim to recall that, correct?”

Bhogal “I do yes.”

Mizel “But you want this jury to believe that you don’t remember what happened seconds before you claimed to do that?”

Bhogal says he is describing what happened out of a sense of moral obligation to do what’s’ right when a life is lost.

“I made bad choices that night Madam Prosecutor,” Bhogal told Mizel.“I didn’t do what was right afterwards. I was afraid of prosecution.”

Bhogal told the jury he was arrested two months after the murder, but he admitted he had the means to have disappeared and evaded police.

“It makes no sense for me to come here and say half truths or mistruths, as you would suggest,” Bhogal told Mizel.

Bhogal says he made a series of bad choices that night.

“I chose to engage in the pursuit of an impulse to try cocaine,” Bhogal told the jury. “Everything after that is improper and reactionary and its incorrigible that it led to somebody’s death.”

Bhogal then agreed with Mizel that “in the moment” his choices were reactionary “with some intent behind them.”

More details to come.