Four complex double-murder trials consume Vancouver Law Courts in 2019
Credit to Author: Keith Fraser| Date: Mon, 30 Dec 2019 20:35:14 +0000
Four double-murder trials have either concluded or are continuing at the Vancouver Law Courts this year.
The trial of Andrew Berry, a former economist for B.C. Ferries, on charges that he murdered his two young children — Chloe, 6, and Aubrey, 4 — began in April after a change of venue application moved the trial from Vancouver Island to Vancouver.
In September, following a fiercely contested trial, the 47-year-old Berry was found guilty by a B.C. Supreme Court jury on two counts of second-degree murder.
Police were called to Berry’s Oak Bay apartment in December 2017 after Sarah Cotton, the mother of the girls, reported the children had not been returned to her under a custody arrangement with Berry.
The bodies of the two girls were discovered in their bedrooms. They had been stabbed to death by their father, who was found injured and naked in his bathroom. The Crown alleged the accused’s injuries had been self-inflicted.
The Crown theory at trial was that Berry had been under financial pressures after having quit his job, had long-standing animosity toward Cotton and believed his estranged wife wanted him out of their daughters’ lives.
Berry testified in his own defence and denied the allegation that he murdered the girls, claiming that an unidentified assailant had attacked him and then the girls. His story was that he was a problem gambler and owed thousands to a loan shark who had a set of keys to his apartment.
• In November, another B.C. Supreme Court jury found a Vancouver senior guilty of murdering two of his neighbours in their West End highrise apartment in July 2017.
Leonard Landrick, 75, was convicted of the second-degree murder of Sandra McInnes, 57, and Neil Croker, 51. Landrick knew McInnes, a longtime resident of the building, and Croker, the building caretaker. Both victims were found stabbed to death in their apartments.
Shortly after the verdict was handed down, Landrick’s lawyer told the court his client wished to proceed with a hearing to determine whether his client was not criminally responsible because of a mental disorder.
The Crown objected. The trial judge, Justice Ron Skolrood, excused the jury but did not discharge them. Submissions that were made in the absence of the jury cannot be reported because of a publication ban that remains in place. The case is expected back in court in January.
• In September, the trial of a man accused of murdering a Marpole couple in their own home began in the Vancouver Law Courts.
The Crown’s theory is that Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam, who lived about one kilometre from Richard Jones, 68, and his wife, Dianna Mah-Jones, 64, had purchased an axe and other items several weeks before the September 2017 slayings specifically to kill someone.
Kam has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. He had been initially charged with second-degree murder.
After the prosecution closed its case, Kam’s lawyer requested an adjournment to obtain a psychological evaluation to determine the accused’s mental state at the time of the offence. The trial is expected to resume Jan. 28.
• A fourth double murder case — that of two men accused of murdering a couple on the outskirts of Cranbrook in 2010 — began in Vancouver with proceedings that cannot be reported because of a publication ban imposed by the judge.
Colin Raymond Correia and Sheldon Joseph Hunter have pleaded not guilty to the slayings of Leanne Laura MacFarlane, 43, and Jeffrey Todd Taylor, 42.
Legal submissions made during the voir dire, or trial-within-a-trial, are expected to continue with the Crown opening its case before the judge in April.
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