Five men were arrested on Friday and charged with murder in connection to the death of a Kamloops man who disappeared a year ago — a slaying believed to be related to an ongoing gang conflict and the city’s drug trade.
Troy Gold was last seen on Oct. 1, 2018, at his Kamloops home. RCMP initially released a standard missing persons release. Nine days later, police said they believed the 35-year-old had been murdered. A month later, police confirmed they had located Gold’s remains in the Lac du Bois area, north of Kamloops.
Nathan Townsend, 24, Darian Rohel, 45, Jayden Eustache, 25, John Wade Daviss, 39, and Sean Garvil Scurt, 48, were each arrested and charged Friday with murder in relation to Gold’s slaying. Each of the five men is in custody.
Townsend, previously described by police as having gang ties, is believed to have been a top lieutenant of Red Scorpions founder Konaam Shirzad before Shirzad was gunned down outside his Kamloops home in 2017.
Police spent several days at a Brocklehurst home belonging to Townsend’s grandparents in the days following Gold’s disappearance.
READ MORE: Missing Kamloops man murdered, RCMP say
Another of Shirzad’s former right-hand men in Kamloops, Matt Hickson, was in a vehicle with high-profile Red Scorpion Justin Haevischer when he was shot to death in Aldergrove last month.
Rohel, also believed to have ties to organized crime, is facing a lengthy prison term following a conviction last month for possession of meth and fentanyl for the purpose of trafficking. He is slated to appear in B.C. Supreme Court on Oct. 28 to fix a date for a sentencing hearing.
Gold had a lengthy criminal history himself, including a sentence in a federal penitentiary for manslaughter after stabbing a man to death on a Kelowna beach in 2001.
In recent years, Gold is believed to have been involved with gangs in the Kamloops drug trade.
Gold’s murder was the first of a number of gang-related violent incidents in the city over a period of months in late 2018 and early 2019.
On Jan. 23, two men — Cody Mathieu and Rex Gill — were shot to death in separate incidents outside hotels in Valleyview and Aberdeen. Police later said the murders were gang-related, though Gill’s slaying is believed to have been a case of mistaken identity.
On Feb. 14, police arrested a number of people following a series of robberies and a kidnapping that began in Kamloops and ended after a trip to Kelowna. Investigators said the incident was gang-related and connected to the city’s drug trade.
On Feb. 15, two people were shot at a Brocklehurst apartment. Jason Glover died of his injuries, while a woman was hospitalized with injuries suffered from a gunshot wound to the face. Police said the incident was related to the city’s ongoing gang conflict and drug trade.
Two men, Gordie Braaten and Hugh McIntosh, were later arrested and charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder in connection with the Brocklehurst shootings.
The five accused in Gold’s murder have not yet had a date set for their first court appearances.
Tim Petruk, Kamloops This Week
