Fate of Kevin Mantla now rests with presiding judge

Kevin Mantla will have to wait until May to find out whether he is guilty of first degree murder, attempted murder and aggravated assault.

Lawyers in his trial spent Thursdaygiving their final submissions in his three-week trial.

Mantla, 38, is accused of a bloody attack in a Yellowknife apartment almost two and a half years ago that left Elvis Lafferty dead and Lafferty's partner, Mantla's ex-girlfriend, with numerous serious injuries.

In his closing argument, Crown prosecutor Blair MacPherson said Mantla had a motive to commit the crime: he was jealous that his girlfriend had left him and was now seeing another man.

MacPherson said one of the three children who witnessed the attack provided evidence of the motive. The child testified that she asked, "Why are you doing this?" as Mantla was stabbing Lafferty's partner. The child said Mantla replied, "Because she's cheating on me."

MacPherson said Mantla's motive was also evident in the threatening phone callsLafferty's partner says she received from Mantla the day before the attacks. The girlfriend whose identity is protected by a publication bansaid Mantla warned her he was "coming to get them" in one call and said "you guys are going to die" in another.

That afternoon Mantla boarded a flight from Gameti to Yellowknife. A friend who he met at the Gameti airport testified Mantla said he was upset about his girlfriend.

"This guy knew what he was doing from start to finish," said MacPherson.

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But one of Mantla's two lawyers said Lafferty's partner didn't mention anything about him threatening to kill them to police or at the preliminary inquiry.

Defence lawyer Charles Davison suggested the partner's testimony about the calls and about the night of the attacks should be given very little weight.

"She was adamant, she wasn't drinking and she didn't see anybody else drinking [in the apartment in the hours before the attack]," Davison said. "That was clearly contradicted by the testimony of Archie Lafferty and Mary Jane Lafferty[parents of Elvis Lafferty]."

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The parents testified the four adults in the apartment that night were drinking. Davison said that cast a cloud over all of the partner's testimony.

Davison also highlighted inconsistencies in the testimony of other Crown witnesses, including two children who testified. Davison said the trauma of waking up to a bloody knife attack would also affect the witnesses' memories of the attack.

But MacPherson said the two children who testified were the strongest Crown witnesses. He said they were the only ones whose perceptions were not clouded by drinking. He said they both testified and identified Mantla, who they knew, as the assailant and said that he damaged a phone cord after the attacks to delay calls for help.

Justice Louise Charbonneau said she would give her verdict May 24.

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