SASKATOON – An aunt testified Tuesday about the gunshot and her nephew’s screams the night his girlfriend was killed in a Saskatoon apartment in November 2022.
Robbin Vermette took the stand in the second-degree murder trial of her nephew, Andrew Rosenfeldt, who is accused of killing 25-year-old Nykera Brown. Vermette said she was in her bedroom on the evening of Nov. 15, 2022, when the sounds of the couple’s ongoing argument stopped.
“All of a sudden I hear a bang and I hear Andrew screaming,” Vermette told the court. “He came to my room and said, ‘Auntie, something happened to Nykera.’”
He then urged her to cal 911. By the time she was dressed, Vermette testified, “there were at least 10 cops in my living room.”
The court heard that Rosenfeldt and Brown lived in the living room of Vermette’s small, cluttered one-bedroom apartment in the city's King George neighbourhood. Vermette said the couple argued frequently, “two-four days a week,” and had been fighting for about half an hour before the gunshot.
Under questioning from Crown Prosecutor Elizabeth Addabor, Vermette said she had never seen a gun in the house.
“If I saw a gun the person with the gun would be out on their tush,” she said. “I grew up with guns, but I don’t like them.”
Defence Chris Murphy focused on Vermette’s state of mind at the time she gave her statement to police in 2022, noting her comment to police that she had “so many drugs in my system” that night. Vermette uses a wheelchair and has significant health issues requiring medication.
But Saskatoon Police Service Sgt. Brock Lynden, who interviewed her, testified Tuesday that she was coherent and straightforward.
“She was able to answer the questions I was asking. She was not presenting as falling asleep or trailing off.”
Rosenfeldt was arrested on Nov. 15, 2022, and charged with second-degree murder.
Brown had been listed as a missing person by Saskatoon police in the months before her death. Her mother, Cathleen Balon, said she had tried to get her daughter away from Rosenfeldt.
Before Brown went missing, Balon said she talked to her every night and “told her how beautiful she was, how she was better than this.”
Brown’s favourite food was tacos, her favourite colours were purple and hot pink, and her son was her world, said Balon previously.
The defence is expected to call three Saskatoon Police officers as witnesses this week.
Rosenfeldt's non-jury trial is being held in Saskatoon Court of King's Bench before Justice Heather MacMillan-Brown.
ljoy@sasktoday.ca
