The people closest to the 17-year-old Whitehorse girl accused of murdering her mother's boyfriend all gave the same assessment in their testimonies during the girl's trial this week: the teenager struggled with depression and hated living with the person she killed.

The girl has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing death of the 56-year-old man, but the Crown prosecutor is pursuing a conviction for second-degree murder.

Beginning with the girl's older brother on Monday, youth court has heard literally hours of testimony about how life was in the Crestview home where the man was killed.

No one seemed to have much sympathy for the victim.

"He wasn't a very personable fellow,” the 18-year-old said of his mother's boyfriend. "... He kind of invaded our home.”

The two men in the house got along fine, but the teenaged girl couldn't stand the older man.

"They didn't like each other,” the brother said, explaining the man would often nag at the girl, and mutter under his breath at her.

"He wasn't very nice to her,” the girl's former boyfriend said. "... His attitude and demeanour was just awful.”

He would make "crazy assumptions that made no sense,” like accusing the girl of smoking crack in her room, the girl's best friend told the court.

Although there was never any physical violence in the house, the girl's best friend recalled the man threatening the girl in his typical style during an argument.

"He said, ‘I'm going to kill the dog and you too,'” the best friend testified. "I was like ‘What?' and he just walked away like he always did.”

The girl's mother described her boyfriend as depressed, passive aggressive and emotionally abusive.

Only the girl's friends seemed to notice she was depressed too.

"No one was happy with (him) there and they wanted him to leave,” according to the girl's best friend.

She said the girl had been "on and off with depression” over the past few years.

She was happy at school, but "she didn't like her house,” the friend said, largely because "he was always at home, so there was never a time when anyone else could just chill there – he'd always be there sitting in his chair and drinking.”

"She had no freedom, no privacy,” the girl's ex-boyfriend told the court when asked to describe her living situation.

"Some of the things we take for granted, she didn't have. She couldn't walk around her house comfortably. She couldn't socialize with other people in her house outside of her room.”

The young couple's breakup earlier that summer also contributed to the girl's unhappiness, but her ex-boyfriend's house was the first place the accused went after stabbing her mother's boyfriend just after 2 a.m. on Aug. 8, 2009.

"I awoke to see her standing there in the dark, at the end of my bed,” the 21-year-old man testified Wednesday.

He hadn't read the half-dozen texts she had sent him over the course of the evening.

The first, sent a few minutes after midnight, read: "Happy new day babe.”

Another came shortly after, asking if he wanted to hang out. The young man told the court he didn't get the messages because he had already gone to sleep. A text sent at 1:03 a.m. read: "I guess this is just another sad night where I hurt and cry and break a little more.”

An hour and a half later, the final message came. "I ruined my life,” it said.

When she arrived at her ex's house, she was shaking and crying and saying that she had hurt her mother's boyfriend. It took a while to get a clear story out of her, the young man said, but eventually he pieced together what happened.

"She said, ‘I stabbed (the victim) and I got scared, so I kept going, stabbing him around the house until everyone woke up and he started screaming to call 911 so I grabbed the keys and came here.'”

She was covered in blood, the young man remembered, so he convinced her to change into some of his clothes and move her car so the RCMP wouldn't know she was there.

He told her to turn herself in, he said, but didn't want the police to pick her up right away.

Meanwhile, the girl's mother and brother were at their Crestview home, frantically trying to stop the blood flowing out of the multiple knife wounds in the man's upper body.

"She explained to me the knife wounds he may have had – chest, back, lower torso,” the ex-boyfriend told the court. "... Over 10, I think she said.

"... She said she was chasing him around the house, or the events were taking place in the living room.”

Earlier this week, the girl's brother said she told him she stabbed the man in his chair.

After leaving her ex-boyfriend's house, the girl went to her best friend's place.

"She was crying and frantic and a mess,” the girl's friend told the court. "She had little blood trickles on her face; I thought she'd got beat up.”

The girl told her friend she had stabbed her mother's boyfriend, but little else.

"We didn't talk much,” the friend said. "... We just hugged because I knew she was going away. I just hugged her because that was all I could do.”

Two hours later, the girl turned herself in to police. They seized her blood-soaked clothes, which she had put back on before leaving her ex's house, and charged her with second-degree murder.

The Crown wrapped up its case Wednesday, but the defence asked for an adjournment because a key witness had not been brought to court.

Defence lawyer Gordon Coffin, who works for the legal aid system, said he thought the court would call the psychiatrist who met with the girl after the killing.

But Judge John Faulkner said he was "baffled” as to why the lawyer would think that, and said calling that witness is Coffin's responsibility.

He granted the adjournment, however, meaning the case will likely extend into the new year.

The accused is living with a retired police officer who stepped forward when he heard she needed a reliable guardian or else stay in youth detention.

None of the witnesses, nor the victim, can be named in this case because the girl is a minor and her identity is protected from publication by law.