Oliver Karafa and Lucy Li are on trial for first-degree murder and attempted murder for the Feb. 28, 2021, shooting at 347 Arvin Ave. in Stoney Creek. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Oliver Karafa and Lucy Li are on trial for first-degree murder and attempted murder for the Feb. 28, 2021, shooting at 347 Arvin Ave. in Stoney Creek. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Lucy Li admitted to police that she drove her husband, Oliver Karafa, to buy an Audi Q5 hours before she drove that Audi to an industrial area in Stoney Creek where Tyler Pratt was killed and Jordyn Romano seriously hurt.
She says she was about half a football field away when she heard gunshots, and then fled with Karafa, first up to the Muskoka area — where police later found a bag of evidence that included a blond wig Li admitted to wearing at Karafa’s request when she left their Toronto condo on the way to the shooting scene.
But in her hours-long recorded interview with Hamilton police, Li repeatedly said there was more to the story that she couldn’t say before talking to her lawyer.
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In an hours-long recorded interview with Hamilton police, Lucy Li said she wanted to tell police everything, but she was instructed not to.
Court exhibit
“I have a perfectly reasonable answer to what I thought was going on,” Li said during the recorded interview played in court Monday.
Li and Karafa are on trial for first-degree murder and attempted murder for the Feb. 28, 2021, shooting at 347 Arvin Ave. in Stoney Creek. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Court heard Li was interviewed after the couple’s arrest in Budapest, Hungary, more than three months after the shooting. Li was flown back under police escort, stopping for a layover in Germany before landing on July 12, 2021, in Toronto, where she was formally arrested. She was then driven back to Hamilton, where Sgt. Troy Ashbaugh interviewed her for more than four hours starting a little before 5 p.m.
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In a police interview with Sgt. Troy Ashbaugh, Lucy Li says she was not involved in business meetings and knew nothing about whether Pratt and Romano had invested in Karafa’s personal protective equipment (PPE) business in Europe.
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Ashbaugh asks about her flight and Li says the food wasn’t bad, but it was not the best flight experience. She’s “not used to sitting in tight spaces.” They flew economy and she’s used to flying first class. Li felt bad for the officer, she says, adding that her mom was really concerned so she offered to fly all of them back privately. But that wasn’t allowed.
Li said she wanted to tell police everything. She thought it would be best so they could understand. But she was instructed not to, especially about what happened the day of the shooting.
“I feel really rude, and I don’t want to seem like I don’t want to co-operate,” Li says. “If it were up to me, I would just tell you everything but my lawyer and my mom said not to say anything.”
Yet Li does answer some questions, or at times starts to answer and then stops herself.
In a police interview with Sgt. Troy Ashbaugh, Lucy Li says she was escorted home from Hungary in economy after being arrested.
Romano was a “stripper” and Pratt a “scary gang person” who “was a drug dealer or something,” she said. She wanted nothing to do with them.
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“Right off the bat I was saying do not associate with these people,” Li said.
Some of what she said echoed what Romano told police. Ashbaugh played clips of Romano and others interviews to Li during her own interview. This includes Li agreeing that Karafa met Pratt and Romano through a friend named Sasha/Alex, who previously dated a friend of Romano.
But Li said she was not involved in business meetings and knew nothing about whether Pratt and Romano had invested in Karafa’s personal protective equipment (PPE) business in Europe. She also insisted that she would never allow Romano and Pratt to come for a business meeting at her mom’s office because they’re “not presentable people.”
Li said she met Romano and Pratt a few times, but declined to detail some of those meetings.
Li asked a lot of questions of Ashbaugh, including about how police decide who to believe. She said she was confused about why she was charged.
In a police interview with Sgt. Troy Ashbaugh, Lucy Li says she wanted nothing to do with Tyler Pratt and Jordyn Romano.
Court exhibit
Didn’t police have video of the shooting? Ashbaugh told her they do not, the video is only on Arvin Avenue and shows vehicles coming and going, but not the back of the property where the shooting took place.
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She asked how Romano was doing? Ashbaugh said she survived being shot in the heart, but the bullet travelled into her abdomen leading her to lose her baby. Court has already heard Romano was 13 weeks pregnant.
At the time of the interview Li was 25, soon to turn 26. She and Karafa were recently married and they had been together about three years, although they had known each other since high school, she said.
From the time she was 17, she worked as a financial adviser for her mom’s business, but around 2019 she asked to stop and take some time to figure out what she wanted to do. She was receiving a monthly allowance.
When she got together with Karafa, the allowance stopped and Karafa paid for things, but she said she never asked him about finances. She was aware he sometimes sold vehicles to be resold in the Europe, and otherwise believed most of his money came from businesses in Europe.
Li expressed surprise at some of the evidence Ashbaugh told her. She knew that Karafa sometimes flipped vehicles and that he was planning to sell the Audi Q5. But she said she didn’t know Karafa had allegedly messaged someone about also buying Pratt and Romano’s white Range Rover days before the shooting.
She said “oh my god,” and “this is news to me.”
Romano testified that Karafa owed them about $500,000 that was supposed to be paid in a business meeting the day after the shooting and that they were finalizing a $1.5-million life insurance policy that Li had arranged. In the video interview, Li denied there was a meeting and said Romano had twisted the truth.
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The trial continues Tuesday.
Nicole O’Reilly is a crime and justice reporter at The Spectator. noreilly@thespec.com
Nicole O’Reilly is a reporter with The Hamilton Spectator specializing in covering police, crime and the justice system. Reach her at noreilly@thespec.com.
