'I can't live with myself': Gas-and-dash murder trial sees video of accused's confession

After stealing $113 in fuel for thestolen truck he'd been driving, Joshua Mitchell told ahomicide detectivehe was shocked to see thegas station attendant chasing after him, but said he never intended to harm her.

"What were you thinking at that point?" asked homicide Det. Rey Bangloy.

"This bitch is nuts," said Mitchell.

A four-hour videotaped interview between Mitchell and Bangloywas played for the jury at the accused's second-degree murder trial at the Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary on Wednesday.

In a sparse interview room at Calgary police headquarters on June 10, 2015,Bangloygave Mitchell anAdvilfor his headache, a McDonald's meal and tissue, eventually eliciting a confession out of him.

• Gas-and-dash murder trial hears off-duty firefighter, nurse and doctor tried to save injured woman

Mitchell had been arrested the day before the interview, which was two days afterRashidi was killed in the hit and run.

At the end of his interview, Mitchell wrotea letter of apologyto Rashidi's husband and six-year-old son:

"I'm really sorry this had to happen to your family. It shouldn't have happened. We tried to avoid injury to anyone. I feel so bad that this happened. I've never hurt anyone physically in my life. This is the first. I can't live with myself knowing what I've done to your family."

Just four shifts into her job as a gas station attendant at the Centex station on 16th AvenueN.W., Rashidi chasedthe burgundy Ford F350 after it drove off without paying for $113 in fuel.

Rashidi had taken the job because she and her husband both lost their engineering jobs just months after moving to Calgary from Iran with their six-year-old son.

'I told her to move'

Video surveillance played earlier in the trial shows a young man fuelling up at the Centex before hopping in the truck. Mitchell admitted to being the driver who took off without paying for gas as his passengershouted at him to drive faster.

"'Go, go, go, go, there's somebody following us,' so I hammer the gas," said Mitchell. "He told me some bitch was chasing us down."

As traffic was stopped at a red light on 16th Avenue, Rashidi ran up to it.

Witnesses testified Rashidi began to bang on the window and hood of the truck before climbing onto its hood in an effort to get the driver to pay.

"I kept reversing to go around and she kept f--king jumping in front of the car," Mitchell told Banglow. "I told her to move."

'We didn't want to hurt anybody'

Mitchell said he and his friendwho was a passenger in the truck had two options:bear spray the woman who was chasing them or try to get away.

"We tried for option two because we didn't want to hurt anybody," said Mitchell.

Mitchell saidhe slammed on the brakestrying to get Rashidi off the hood, but then blacked out, a claim Bangloy said he didn't believe.

That's the moment when witnesses described watching as Rashidi's foot got caught in the wheel well and she was pulled under the truck as it drove over her body.

160 km/h getaway

Unbeknownst to Mitchell, passersby including a doctor, nurse and firefighter attended to Rashidi as the two young men in the truck took off.

"We were going 160 [km/h] down the road."

Eventually, Mitchell said,the pair parked in an alley near the Brentwood C-Train station and ran to a friend's house, where they spent the next couple of days.

Mitchell said he considered turning himself in, but eventuallypolice showed up at the door of the home where he'd been staying.

'I could rock that truck forever'

Mitchell spentseveral minutes of the interview bragging about thestolen truck he said he'd been driving for a week and a half at the time of the incident.

"That thing can go 250 K," said Mitchell. "This guy put money into that truck ... over 100 grand."

"I could rock that truck forever ... it turned on a dime going 160."

At several points during the interview, Mitchell teared up.

"So how do you feel about this whole thing?" asked Bangloy.

"Pretty bad," saidMitchell. "I actually wanted to be a cop."

Bangloyis the14thof 24 witnesses who will be called by prosecutors Jonathan Hak and James Thomas. He will be cross-examined by defence lawyer Kim Ross on Thursday morning.