Accused killer alleges victim shot herself

Did Michelle Stobbe die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound or did John Elwood Cameron kill her?

That was the central question facing a jury as it began hearing evidence in Cameron's second-degree murder trial Monday.

Stobbe, 28, was visiting Cameron's Donald Street apartment on July 1, 2014, when she suffered a single gunshot wound to her neck and died.

Cameron, 38, hosted "a little get together" at his apartment earlier that evening, Crown attorney Sheila Doe said in an opening address to jurors. Guests included Stobbe and Cameron's brother, James Cameron.

"Drugs and alcohol were present," as were John Cameron's guns, a 9 mm Beretta and a rifle, Doe said.

Later, only John Cameron and Stobbe were left in the apartment. That's when Stobbe was shot, Doe said.

At 1:45 a.m., Cameron sent a text message to his brother reading "Holy f--k, she shot herself bro."

It was another 75 minutes before Cameron called 911, Doe said.

"This girl, she took my f--king gun … was playing around … she shot herself in the f--king head," Cameron could be heard telling a 911 operator in an audio recording played for jurors.

When police arrived minutes later, Cameron had been joined by his brother, jurors heard.

"They were both visibly upset," Const. Michael Thiessen testified. "John was crying quite heavily."

Thiessen said he patted both men down for weapons before other officers took them away for questioning a couple of minutes later.

"John did not respond to anything I asked him," Thiessen said. "He was steadily crying for the short period I was with him."

Pathologist, blood stain expert to testify

An RCMP blood stain expert is expected to testify that the gun was wiped down after it was fired, while a pathologist will tell jurors Stobe was killed by an intermediate range shot, Doe said.

Jurors will also hear testimony from James Cameron, who "will tell you about what he did when he received that text message, what he saw, and what he did upon returning to John's apartment and about what his brother John said to him," Doe said.

"In the end, we will argue, when the gun was fired, John Cameron's finger was on the trigger," Doe said.

The trial is scheduled for three weeks.