A Superior Court jury today watched a police videotape of Ashleigh Pechaluk confessing to murdering Dennis Hoy with an axe.

The jurors who acquitted her last June did not see the recording because she wasn't properly advised of her rights to counsel and so it was ruled inadmissible, Crown attorney Tom Lissaman explained to the jury before rolling the videotape from Oct. 27, 2006.

In the statement, Pechaluk says several times that Nicola Puddicombe, Hoy's girlfriend now on trial for the first-degree murder, wasn't responsible.

"She didn't do it," a tearful Pechaluk told two detectives in a police interview room.

"I did it."

Jurors listened intently as the videotape was played on monitors while Pechaluk, who has been on the stand testifying for five days, sat rigid as she watched the recording on a monitor beside her.

Afterward, Lissaman asked her to explain the contradiction between what she said to officers that evening and her categorical denials of any involvement since then.

Pechaluk said repeatedly she lied to police that night when she said she was to blame.

"I did it to protect her," she said several times.

Earlier Friday, Pechaluk testified that she first learned Hoy was dead when his girlfriend came pounding on the door of her bedroom early on Oct. 27, 2006.

"I heard wake up, open up, and went to the door and it was Nikki," Pechaluk told the court.

"She (Puddicombe) said, `Dennis is dead we have to wake up Pat,'" Pechaluk said. Pat was Patrick Knowles, their roommate in the apartment on The Queensway near Royal York Road.

Puddicombe then walked down the hall to Knowles' room, followed by Pechaluk who said she was in a state of "complete confusion" after being woken up and still high from a joint she smoked before falling asleep.

After rousing Knowles from sleep, the three went into his bedroom where he pushed furniture in front of the door fearing an intruder was still in the apartment. Puddicombe called 911 and told the operator that after taking a shower she returned to her bedroom and found her boyfriend, an axe on her bed and "blood all over the place."

The Crown's theory is that the two women, who were lovers, planned the murder and that it was Pechaluk who swung the axe, hitting Hoy at least six times as he lay naked and asleep in Puddicombe's bed. They did it for the twin motives of love and money from his life insurance policy, the prosecution alleges.

Pechaluk has already stood trial on first-degree murder charges but was acquitted by a different jury in June.

The Ontario Superior Court jury has already heard Pechaluk, 25, testify that Puddicombe, now 36, cooked up a plot to kill Hoy, her boyfriend of a decade who was mentally and physically abusive. Pechaluk testified Puddicombe told her she would blame his slaying on the same person who had slashed his tires and say she was in the shower when it happened.

Pechaluk says Puddicombe urged her to do the killing because her "Catholic beliefs" prevented her from doing it and a couple of days before his murder shoved a romantic card underneath Pechaluk's door, Puddicombe's attempt to ratchet up the pressure, the witness told court.

After five days of questioning Pechaluk, Crown attorney Tom Lissaman asked Pechaluk point blank about her involvement.

"Did you have any participation?" he asked.

"I did not."

"Did you go into the room with an axe?"

"No."

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

"Did you go downstairs and get the axe?"

"No."

The trial continues.