CALGARY -- The Crown says there's no doubt that a man charged in the hit-and-run death of a gas station worker in Calgary is guilty of murder.
It says Joshua Cody Mitchell was fully aware that his actions two years ago were likely to cause the death of Maryam Rashidi or cause bodily harm that would probably kill her.
Rashidi tried to stop a driver from leaving a Centex station without paying for $113 in fuel, so she climbed onto the hood of the stolen truck before falling off and being run over.
Prosecutor Jonathan Hak told the jury during his closing arguments Thursday that the case is not a "whodunit" and there's no doubt who was driving the truck.
He said Mitchell knew why he was being pursued by Rashidi and was willing to do what it took to shake her off the truck "no matter what the cost."
Hak said juros have to decide whether Mitchell is guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter.
Court heard earlier in the trial that Rashidi chased the truck across a parking lot and onto the busy Trans-Canada Highway where the vehicle got stuck in traffic. She banged on the passenger window, then stood in front of the truck with her hands up.
Rashidi, 35, was run over after the truck swerved and she fell off the hood.
Braydon Brown, who was a passenger, testified he still has nightmares after seeing "the look of fear in her eyes" when the truck was put in drive.
In an interview with police played in court, Mitchell said he tried to shake Rashidi off the vehicle but it didn't work.
"I braked a bit. She fell off. And then I blacked out after she grabbed back on," Mitchell told the officer. He added that he didn't remember running over Rashidi.
At the end of the interview, Mitchell wrote a letter to the woman's family expressing his remorse.
"I'm really sorry this had to happen to your family," he wrote. "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."
Rashidi and her husband, Ahmed Mourani Shallo, emigrated from Iran in 2014. Both got engineering jobs in Calgary, but when the Alberta economy started to decline, they were laid off.
Rashidi took the job at the gas station and had only been working there for a couple of weeks.