St. Junious homicide trial begins in La Crosse, six years after a deadly stabbing on 7th Street

A jury in La Crosse has begun hearing witnesses in the homicide trial of Anquin St. Junious.

The 45-year-old St. Junious is accused of fatally stabbing Virgil Stewart inside a taxi six years ago on South 7th Street, in January of 2019. St. Junious was charged a week after Stewart was killed, but various delays postponed the trial until this year.

After jurors were seated on Monday, they heard testimony from police officers and the victim’s girlfriend, Kelly Sanders. They heard tape of a 9-1-1 call made by Sanders as she was driving Stewart to the hospital. During her own testimony, Sanders said Stewart was holding his chest after being stabbed, “and then he took his hand down, blood came streaming out like a fountain.” Prosecutor Michael Tobin says Stewart was described as telling Sanders “he stabbed me,” reportedly referring to St. Junious.

Defense attorney Brian Severson argues that “the story keeps changing” about how Stewart was killed, and he says the prosecution’s case is based on a “theory.”

Another video shown to the jury was from a bodycam of a La Crosse police officer who questioned St. Junious and his wife in a motel room after the crime, when the defendant said that someone was “trying to kill me.” St. Junious is also accused of trying to choke his wife after the stabbing, and of forcing her to say that she stabbed Stewart, in self-defense.

The St. Junious trial resumes Tuesday, and is expected to last most of the week.