“Intent on killing”: Crown begins case against Zachary Wittke

The first degree murder trial against Eganville’s Zachary Wittke is officially underway in Ottawa. The 22 year-old is facing several charges, including first-degree murder, in the September 2017 crash in Arnprior that killed 65-year-old Sheila Welsh. Wittke is accused of stealing a truck and intentionally slamming into Welsh’s car. Wittke has pleaded not guilty in the case. According to media reports, yesterday, court was told that the morning of the incident, Wittke texted a friend saying that thinking about killing people and himself every day was getting to him and he needed to act on it before it drove him nuts.  The Crown also played a Facebook live video from a year earlier, in which Wittke, in a stolen pick up,  is heard taunting the police and telling them that if they chased him, he’d kill anyone in his path.  He was later sentenced to 18 months in jail for that incident, and had only been out of jail a month before the incident that killed Welsh.  Welsh’s children attended the first day of the trial at the Ottawa courthouse.  Court resumes today.