Teen claims he was ‘in shock’ as Hannah Leflar was murdered

Hannah Leflar’s mother Janet doubled over in grief as she listened Tuesday to a teen, once a friend of her daughter’s, describe her only child’s final moments.

The killer, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in February 2017, took the stand as his sentencing hearing continued. He cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

At the end of his testimony, the teen addressed Leflar’s family and said “I’m sorry for my actions. I wish I could go back to the beginning of the day and tell Hannah don’t go home.”

Detailing the day of the murder on Jan. 12, 2015, the teen maintained he thought Skylar Prockner only wanted to hurt Hannah’s boyfriend when he texted “Halloween happens today.”

He also believed Prockner was “Simply blowing off steam.”

When asked why he didn’t try to warn someone or stop the crime from happening, the teen stated: “I regret it every day.”

He still doesn’t know why he followed Prockner into the Leflar home and recalled her screaming.

“I couldn’t get her screaming out of my head.”

As Hannah’s grandmother began crying in the court, the teen maintained he didn’t think Prockner had a knife and was only hitting Hannah while using a robe to muffle her screaming.

He claimed he didn’t see blood even though the autopsy showed she had nine stab wounds to the torso and superficial cuts throughout her body.

The agreed statement of facts also indicated she was found face down with a fatal stab wound to the back of her head.

However, the teen said “She somehow sat up and looked at me with fear, pain and betrayal in her eyes. I don’t know how she knew I was there.”

When he was again asked by defence lawyer Greg Wilson why he didn’t stop Prockner, the teen claimed he was frozen.

“I couldn’t see, say, move,” he said before trailing off.

He claimed when he saw the knife he thought Prockner was going to come after him.

Asked why he continued to go along with Prockner’s requests, like discarding the knife and smashing Hannah’s cellphone, the teen maintained he was in shock.

“I went along with whatever.”

He claimed the two took a selfie at the hospital with Prockner’s bandaged hand to prove to his older brother where they were.

When he returned to his girlfriend’s house that day, he confessed what had been done to Hannah.

“Once I started I couldn’t stop until it was over in my mind.”

The teen’s girlfriend didn’t tell anyone what she knew until November 2016.

On Tuesday afternoon, as initial cross-examination started by Crown lawyer Chris White, the teen was accused of changing stories about his childhood between the various reports that have been made about him.

The teen insisted he did not do that intentionally.

He also used an analogy about “Adrenalin and blood in the brain” for why he didn’t seek help for Hannah.

“Are you just making stuff up?” White asked the teen.

White continued to question the teen.

“Knowing your friend was being butchered by Skylar a few feet from you, you were calm? No voice in your head said this is wrong?”

The teen replied there was a voice there but “I was numb, I was in shock.”

The teen also backtracked under cross-examination that statements he made during his testimony were different to those he agreed to in the statement of facts.

“I may have been mistaken,” the teen replied.

White also referenced a Facebook message between teen and friend in July 2014. In it, he wrote about “An inner demon,” and about how “Someone who acts like a bitch, will die like a bitch.”

Asked by the friend what that means, the teen replied “Murder.”

White also referenced text messages between the teen and another friend.

He wrote “Would she date a criminal?”

“I be in a gang and killing people,” said another text.

That text exchange was 15 hours before Hannah was murdered.

The cross-examination will continue Wednesday.

Prockner was sentenced as an adult in July for first-degree murder.

The Crown wants this teen sentenced as an adult as well.