Khill believed victim pointed gun at him on night of shooting

Accused said he feared for his life and acted in self-defence

Peter Khill hovered over Jonathan Styres’ pale, bloody body, picking and prodding at his legs and feet, looking for something.

“I was looking around for a gun, trying to feel for a gun,” Khill calmy told a jury Wednesday.

He never found it, nor felt it.

That’s because there was only one gun around when Styres was shot dead on the early morning of Feb. 4, 2016 — and it was in Khill’s hands.

Khill testified at his second-degree murder trial Wednesday that he didn’t check for signs of life on Styres in the immediate aftermath of fatally shooting him with a pump-action shotgun. Instead, he looked for a gun that didn’t exist.

“I had just seen what I thought was a gun (in) his hand,” Khill said of the seconds before shooting Styres. “At that point, I felt there was a serious threat to my life and I wanted to make sure that he didn’t have the capacity to hurt me or anyone else.”

Khill testified he never intended to kill Styres when he found the

Indigenous man leaning into and rummaging through his 15year-old pickup truck parked on his rural Binbrook driveway off Highway 56.

But he said he felt threatened and acted in self-defence after Styres turned toward him with what he believed was a gun.

“I yelled to him, ‘Hey! Hands up!’ ” Khill, clad in a dark grey suit, said on the witness stand. “And as soon as I yelled that command, I saw his body turn to me and his hands come together to waist height like he was holding a gun.

“The second that happened, I was blown away. I was terrified. I immediately thought I was going to be shot.”

After his now-wife, Melinda Benko, alerted him to the possibility of intruders around 3 a.m. — she was awakened by loud, successive bangs outside their bedroom window — Khill testified he relied on his four years of training as a military reservist to “get control of the situation.”

A trained millwright who now works on jet engines, Khill was a member the 56 Field Regiment based in Brantford from 2007 to 2011, the jury heard. He testified the purpose of his highly repetitive military training was to act proactively and approach stressful situations “like second nature.”

“That level of expertise I gained with them kind of really instilled in me the fact that, when you’re up against certain scenarios, including life-threatening scenarios, you have to gain control. You don’t want to be a victim,” he said.

Khill told jurors once he heard the same bangs his wife alerted him to, he grabbed his shotgun — otherwise used for hunting — removed the trigger lock, loaded two shells, racked the gun and headed for his driveway to confront Styres. He said he didn’t know Styres was alone and worried others could have already broken into his garage or house.

Asked why he didn’t call 911, Khill testified he didn’t have the time.

“I felt there was an urgent, imminent threat … and I needed to get control.”

In an opening statement earlier Wednesday, defence lawyer Jeffery Manishen implored jurors to focus on what Khill believed at the time, and whether the force he used was reasonable in that context.

“This case is about self-defence,” he said, “and it’s the Crown who has to prove to you beyond a reasonable doubt that this was not self-defence.”

The trial resumes Thursday with the Crown’s cross-examination of Khill.