A man found guilty of murdering New Westminster trucker Vic Fraser 16 years ago will not have his conviction overturned.
Gary Donald Johnston was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2011 for murdering Fraser in his sister’s Surrey home during a botched robbery in 1998.
Johnston appealed, arguing the trial judge erred in admitting a statement given by his brother, failing to exercise caution with considering evidence from an “unsavoury” witness and relying on a confession Johnston gave to an undercover officer during a Mr. Big-style sting.
But three B.C. Court of Appeal justices disagreed, saying the judge made no such errors. They dismissed the appeal on April 11.
Johnston had broken into Jeanie Fraser’s Bridgeview-area house on March 10, 1998, when her brother Vic interrupted him. Because the two men had met previously, they initially greeted one another kindly.
But the court heard that Johnston panicked, picking up two knives from the kitchen and stabbing Vic in the neck several times, so hard that the blades broke from the handles. He then kicked him, dropped a clay pot on his head, stole his wallet and fled.
Johnston wasn’t arrested for the murder until 2009, after he admitted the stabbing to an undercover officer posing as a crime boss.
