The wife of a man allegedly murdered by a Perth teenager has broken down while recounting how she saw her husband lying on the ground after he was stabbed trying to help a 10-year-old boy find his stolen bike.
Key points:
- Petr Levkovskiy died during a confrontation about a stolen children’s bike
- His widow has testified during the 15-year-old accused boy’s trial
- She said his last moments, her husband told her he had been stabbed
Petr Levkovskiy died in May last year near his home in the southern Perth suburb of Bull Creek when he was stabbed in the abdomen with a filleting knife by a 15-year-old boy.
His widow Anna Levkovskaya gave evidence at the Supreme Court trial of the teenager, who admits inflicting the fatal stab wound, but denies murder.
‘We wanted to help’
Ms Levkovskaya said she and her husband had decided to follow the teenager after hearing the cries of the 10-year-old, whose mountain bike had been stolen.
“For us it was important to find the truth … we wanted to help the boys because they were upset,” she told the court.
She said they were trying to follow the teenager in their car to find out where he lived when they came across him at an intersection near their home.
Ms Levkovskaya testified that after parking the car, she got out of the driver’s seat and made eye contact with the teenager before seeing him put a blade he was holding into a case.
She said she then started looking for her husband.
“I saw him lying on the driveway … in my memory I saw two young men — one was on the phone [and] the other was just around my husband.”
Husband said he’d been stabbed
Ms Levkovskaya broke down as she told the court she ran to her husband and asked him in Russian, “Did he stab you?”
“He tell me in short answer, ‘Yes'”.
Ms Levkovskaya said she didn’t see a lot of blood so she asked the two men to help her carry her husband to her car so she could take him to hospital.
However, the man on the phone said he had already called the police and ambulance.
She said her husband was not saying anything.
“I touched him … he started to be wet and pale.”
She said a lady in a car stopped and was trying to calm her down and also tried to administer first aid to her husband.
The police and ambulance arrived soon after and Mr Levkovskiy was taken to Royal Perth hospital where he died.
Under cross examination from the teenager’s lawyer, Ms Levkovskaya was asked about her husband saying to the accused before the stabbing “let’s just talk”.
It was suggested to her that no words were said but she maintained she heard her husband say those words.
The teenager has admitted he stabbed Mr Levkovskiy in the abdomen, but denies he intended to kill him, instead claiming he meant only to stab him in the leg.
The trial is expected to run until next week.