Dean Boucher lied numerous times throughout the four statements he gave to the RCMP about the death of Robert Olson, a 12-member jury heard Tuesday.

Boucher and Mark Lange are charged with the second-degree murder of Olson, whose body was found in Wolf Creek on Dec. 27, 2004.

Boucher's defence counsel, Keith Pakkari, began presenting his case yesterday with Boucher being the first witness for the defence to take the stand in the Yukon Supreme Court trial.

Prior to the testimony, Pakkari addressed the jury, noting he plans to call four witness in addition to Boucher to take the stand.

After two weeks of listening to the Crown's case in the trial, Pakkari said the stage has been set for the third act.

'This is an old-fashioned Who done it?' ' he said in his short opening address.

As Boucher took the stand, he held an eagle feather which, he told the court, is for strength and honesty. A member of the Carcross-Tagish First Nation, Boucher said his clan is the eagle clan.

The question of Boucher's police statements came up not only in direct questioning, but also during cross-examination by Lange's lawyer, Andre Roothman. Boucher was asked about various things he told police during his four statements.

Most of his first statements to police when he went to the RCMP detachment on Dec. 27, 2004, he admitted, were lies.

'I didn't feel like getting killed just yet,' he said, holding the eagle feather throughout his testimony.

Earlier in the trial, under direct examination by Pakkari, Boucher testified there had been a plan for him and Lange to go to the police together.

When he finally decided to go to police without Lange, after learning Lange was planning to head south, he wouldn't give Lange's name to police.

On the stand, he said he didn't want to give them Lange's name because he didn't want to be a rat. Those who are seen as rats get beaten up and stabbed at bush parties, he told the court.

There was also another reason he didn't want to say Lange's name, he said.

'I still had love for my little ninja,' he said.

On Dec. 23, 2004, Boucher ran into Lange in downtown Whitehorse when he was in town on a family trip.

At the time, he said, Lange was one of his best friends. He asked Lange to come to Carcross with him to drink because he had to talk to him about something.

'He didn't want to come at first,' said Boucher, noting he kept bugging his friend to drink with him.

Once Boucher's sister said she would give him a ride into Whitehorse in the morning, Lange agreed to go to Carcross.

Before leaving Whitehorse, Lange and Boucher shared a tall can of beer at a car wash in the industrial area and continued to drink beer as they were leaving Whitehorse, with his sister driving.

Boucher said they shared one beer as they were leaving in case they were pulled over and needed to down the beer fast and crush the can.

After they got off the Alaska Highway, Boucher started drinking whiskey and 7-Up.

When they got into Carcross, he tried to get his sister to drink with them, but she wouldn't. She dropped them off at another person's house, where they drank with about three others there, he told the court.

Once they ran out of alcohol there, everyone chipped in until they had enough to buy about a case or more of beer at the store in Carcross which sells off-sales.

He and Lange got a ride part way to the store before they were let out to walk the rest of the way. As they approached the store, though, the lights went off and they were told by store staff they'd arrived just a minute too late, Boucher said.

'It all went to hell from there,' he said.

The pair then headed to one of his uncle's houses looking for more beer, but there wasn't any.

They visited the family grave site, where Lange calmed him down, he started crying and screaming at his family for being born in Carcross and for traumatic parts of his childhood, court was told.

They continued their walk looking for more beer, stopping at another uncle's house and walking toward downtown, he said.

They eventually ended up at the Caribou Hotel, which Olson owned, after running into an RCMP officer who wouldn't give him a ride home when he was asked to.

'I sure wish he gave me a ride home,' said Boucher.

They eventually ended up at the Caribou Hotel, where Olson let them in. Olson had lifted Boucher's ban from the bar the previous spring, Boucher testified.

There, Lange wouldn't drop the matter they'd been talking about earlier about Boucher's baby's mother, who told him Lange had been involved in a rape she was the victim of. She had seen Lange leaving the room, court was told.

Lange told Boucher he knew about it but wasn't part of it and would take him to those involved in the morning to prove it.

They were drinking liquor before Lange was kicked out of the bar by Olson, who overheard them talking about it.

At first Lange wouldn't leave, but once Boucher told him to, he eventually left the bar.

He came back though, telling Boucher, who he knew to have had a drug addiction, that if they could get a ride to Whitehorse, he'd buy an eight-ball of cocaine to smoke between the two of them, said Boucher.

'There was no intention of taking my uncle's truck,' he told the court, referring to Olson's vehicle.

Olson had been traditionally adopted into Boucher's family years earlier.

When Olson wouldn't give them a ride to town, Boucher asked if he could borrow the vehicle and continued to keep asking, with Olson saying no.

'This is where Mark stood up and puffed his arms out,' said Boucher, adding that Lange told Olson they were just going to take the truck.

'This is where the fight starts,' said Boucher, noting that Olson attacked Lange, hitting him with something that sounded like wood.

'He got hit pretty damn hard,' said Boucher.

Lange then jumped back and said, 'Fó- you!'

The fight continued with the two on the ground, and Lange eventually ended up keeping Olson on the ground.

'He just went ninja on his ass,' said Boucher, after describing Olson's head 'just going bang, bang' as Lange kicked it.

Boucher said he physically lifted Lange away when he saw Olson was choking.

'I seen bubbles come out,' he said.

After rolling him on his side into a recovery position, blood began flowing out of Olson's mouth and he was breathing again. Boucher helped Lange calm down.

Lange said he would be able to trade the caribou head on the wall for cocaine. They also took a paddle and pictures off the wall, and when Lange realized his uncle would wake up eventually, he tore part of the phone out of the wall.

He said he doesn't remember loading Olson's body in the truck or what he did upstairs, but doesn't dispute evidence showing he did that.

One of the next things he remembers is the Carcross Desert sign as they were leaving the community and hearing a noise in the back of the truck. Boucher said he looked back to see Olson lying next to the tailgate.

He later forced Lange to pull the truck over by grabbing the steering wheel and threatening to go in the ditch.

When they stopped, he got out, went to the back and tried to do chest compressions and CPR to revive Olson. He also asked for Lange's help three times, only to be told: 'Fó- it he's gone,' said Boucher, also noting he tried to get Lange to drive to Whitehorse General Hospital.

The next thing he remembered, they were in Wolf Creek, with Lange saying they had to drop the body.

He then remembers seeing Olson's body in the snowbank but doesn't remember how it got there.

'When I said the devil made me do it,' this is where this comes in,' he said.

Lange wasn't comprehending his name as he stood by the body laughing, said Boucher.

'It was like there was a fóó-g demon in him,' said Boucher. 'It wasn't him.'

Boucher jumped in the truck, leaving Lange there until Boucher heard a 'bang bang bang' on the truck and Lange jumped in, said Boucher.

He was only driving for a short time before the truck ended up in a ditch and Boucher jumped out and started running through the bush.

He said he could hear Lange on the highway laughing at him.

'I'm in hell literally,' he said.

Lange called to him again and was able to calm him down.

The two trekked through the woods to the Alaska Highway. When Boucher started heading in the wrong direction, Lange calmed him down and they walked to McCrae, said Boucher.

There, Lange wanted to get the truck towed out and trade the items in the truck for gas so they could head to Vancouver, the U.S. and Mexico.

When they were told at the Petro Canada station they couldn't get the tow truck, Boucher said he told Lange he wasn't going back, went into the store and told staff to call him a cab.

They went to the Pioneer Inn, and the next thing he said he remembered was being at the Salvation Army and asking for a bed. Boucher and Lange eventually took a cab up to a McIntyre home from a cabbie who gave them the ride for free.

They stayed there until Boucher turned himself into police on Dec. 27.

Though they'd planned to go to police together, Boucher said that on the morning of Dec. 27, 2004, he was pretending to sleep near a phone and could tell Lange was planning to leave town.

When he asked a girl at the house, she told him Lange was getting a bus down south. She drove Boucher to the detachment.

'She stopped at Wal-Mart and she called the police,' said Boucher.

At the police detachment, he broke down again at the front desk.

'I was in hell, man,' he said.

There, he gave his first statement to police and was kept in custody.

He noted the ill-effects of drugs he had taken in the weeks preceding his paranoia, hot and cold sweats and being scared.

Scared of being deemed a 'rat', he told police different versions of events through the four statements he made.

Roothman and Crown counsel John Phelps continued Boucher's cross-examination this morning.