A trial date has been set for next year for two men charged in relation to the 2010 fatal shooting of Mandy Johnson in Abbotsford.
Jason Himpfen, 42, and Gavin Grewal, 30, are set to go to trial on Jan. 15 in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster. They have elected to be tried by a jury.
Johnson, 22, a Langley resident, was shot and killed while sitting in the passenger seat of a vehicle on July 28, 2010 on Polar Avenue in Abbotsford. Her body was found lying on the ground next to the vehicle.
Her boyfriend, Gater Browne, was shot at but no bullets struck him and he was able to get away. Browne was said to be the actual target of the shooting.
Grewal and Himpfen were charged in June 2016.
Grewal had previously been identified by police as the leader of one of two rival gangs battling over drug turf in west Abbotsford.
He was one of three men who were the subject of a notice by police in March 2015, warning the public that the trio posed a risk of “significant harm to the safety of the community and anyone who may associate with them.”
Grewal was arrested in Port Moody – he had moved there from Abbotsford – in June 2016 and charged with manslaughter in relation to Johnson’s death.
Himpfen was arrested a few days later as he was released from the Fraser Regional Correction Centre, where he had just completed a 12-month sentence for an unrelated incident.
He was charged with second-degree murder in connection to Johnson’s death.
Grewal and Himpfen were also each charged with the attempted murder of Browne.
Following Johnson’s death, a friend said that Johnson, a single mother of a young daughter, was not involved in criminal activity and had been “at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong person.”
