OTTAWA — Long before Kevin Ransdell carjacked the widow of an Ottawa police officer, he punched his pregnant girlfriend, broke into the bathroom to choke her and threatened to kill her if she left.

"He has a bit of a rage problem," Lila MacMorran testified at Ransdell's dangerous offender hearing Friday, recounting the relationship, which ended in 2004.

She described him lashing out violently — once breaking a man's nose in front of her — abusing drugs and alcohol and bouncing in and out of jail.

"I was scared to leave him before because he always threatened me if I took (our son) and left, he'd track me down and take (him) from me," MacMorran said. "He said a few times he'd kill me."

The Crown is trying to have Ransdell, 30, locked up indefinitely after his latest conviction for carjacking Anna Korutowska, slain Const. Eric Czapnik's widow, at knifepoint in June 2010.

Ransdell, whose record includes choking and robbing a cabbie and punching a police officer in the head, was on the lam from a halfway house at the time.

Defence lawyer Diane Condo asked why MacMorran at one point sent Ransdell a bus ticket to join her if she was so afraid of him.

"Obviously, you don't know what a sick relationship is, Miss," MacMorran retorted.

The hearing continues.