• Much to the horror of the community, the dismembered body of Shaun Alan Clary, 27, was found at the side of the road in the 24300 block of Robertson Crescent on Oct. 26.
Homicide investigators said the Surrey man had gang ties and believe his murder was related to gang activity. There have been no arrests or updates in this ongoing investigation.
• Ten days earlier, on Sunday, Oct. 16, Robert Keith Green, 56, a senior member of the Hells Angels, was discovered seriously injured at a rural property on 72 Avenue near 240 Street. He had been shot and later died from his injuries.
The next day, 27-year-old Jason Wallace was arrested and charged with second-degree murder of Green. Wallace is a high ranking member of the 856 gang, which takes its name from the Aldergrove phone prefix. Wallace remains behind bars.
• On Dec. 4, RCMP found the body of Lucito “RJ”, “Cheeko” Santos Castillo in a Langley City apartment. His death is considered suspicious but hasn’t been confirmed as a murder, said an IHIT spokesperson. No arrests have been made and no further information is available in the case.
• Jan. 22, 2017 will mark one year since the body of Kevin Brunelle was found inside his apartment above the Langley Hotel. He worked as a cook at Baseline’s Pub on the building’s ground floor. An IHIT spokesperson said Brunelle was assaulted the evening before and died from his injuries inside his room.
No arrests have been made in this case and it remains an open investigation.
• Three young men have been ordered to stand trial for the murder of 19-year-old Nicholas Hannon of Walnut Grove.
Connor Angus Campbell, 21, Bradley Michael Flaherty, 20, and Keith William Tankard, 20, were arrested September 2015 and charged with first-degree murder. They have been in custody since their arrest.
Hannon was last seen in February, 2014. The next day, his abandoned vehicle was found at Derby Reach Park.
At the time, RCMP called his disappearance suspicious and Hannon’s family offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to his safe return.
In September 2015, the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team called a press conference to announce they had made three arrests and recovered Hannon’s body in a wooded area in Mission. The three accused were friends of Hannon.
• Vincent Cheung was so delusional due to his drug addiction that he became convinced the Justice Institute of B.C. was using a satellite in space to track his movements and that it was “zapping” his brain.
The Langley man responded by waging a campaign of terror against people linked to the institute, a public safety education facility that trains police, fire and emergency medical responders.
Cheung hired at least one person to set fires and take pot shots at people linked to the institute.
The details of Cheung’s descent into paranoia were disclosed in 2016 when he was sentenced to 13 years and six months, less one year and six months for time served.
The “bizarre and malevolent” attacks on “entirely innocent people” over a two-year period in 2011 and 2012 were “laden with danger” Vancouver B.C. Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Austin Cullen said.
• A lengthy trial got underway in Vancouver Supreme Court in 2016 for UN gang member Cory ‘Franky’ Vallee, 40, who is charged with first degree murder in the death of rival gang member Kevin LeClair.
LeClair, a Red Scorpion gang member and associate of the Bacon brothers, was gunned down in a busy Walnut Grove shopping centre parking lot in 2009.
Vallee is also on trial charged with conspiracy to murder the Bacons and their associates in the rival Red Scorpions gang.
At the time of those murders, there was a major gang war happening in the Lower Mainland.
Vallee is also charged in the murder of Langley resident Jonathan Barber and the attempted murder of Barber’s girlfriend. Barber was shot and killed while unknowingly driving a vehicle that belonged to one of the Bacon brothers. Barber had installed a stereo in the vehicle.
