Jamie Bacon plans to plead guilty this week for his role in a 2007 shooting in Surrey, B.C., that killed six people, including two innocent bystanders, and became a flashpoint in a bloody gang war in the Vancouver region.
Four of the victims were targeted for their involvement in gang conflicts, but two had nothing to do with that world: 22-year-old student Christopher Mohan, who lived across the hall from the condo where the shooting happened, and fireplace repairman Ed Schellenberg, who was working in the unit.
The shooting, whose victims became known as the Surrey Six, stunned the province and underscored the risk that people outside the crime world, going about their daily business, could be victims of gang conflicts. Mr. Bacon’s trial is the final stage for the prosecution in a saga that has taken 13 years, although other verdicts in the case are being appealed.
Dianne Watts, who was the mayor of Surrey when the killings occurred, said she has never forgotten the call from the RCMP about what happened.
“I was taking in the information as I was hearing it, but I was feeling physically sick to my stomach, especially when I heard how many people had been murdered,” she said on Tuesday. “The realization that there were innocent people involved as well even further deepened that feeling.”
Jamie Baconctvbc.ca
Mr. Bacon plans to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit the murder of 21-year-old Corey Lal, one of the victims, and also counselling the murder of an associate in an unrelated 2008 incident, said his lawyer, Kevin Westell. Mr. Bacon has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of Mr. Lal. He was not charged in the other killings.
A previous trial heard that Mr. Bacon was leader of the Red Scorpion gang, which was in a conflict with Mr. Lal, a rival drug dealer. In that previous trial, the Crown alleged Mr. Bacon had demanded Mr. Lal pay a drug debt, and ordered three gunman to carry out the attack when he did not pay.
Mr. Lal, his brother and two associates were killed along with 55-year-old Mr. Schellenberg and Mr. Mohan. The subsequent investigation involved 100 RCMP investigators and resulted in the arrest of Mr. Bacon and others in 2009.
Eileen Mohan, Mr. Mohan’s mother, said on Tuesday, she was taken aback at news of Mr. Bacon’s plans for guilty pleas.
She said she learned of the development from an alert on her phone when she woke up around 5 a.m. on Tuesday.
“I looked at it and my heart just skipped a beat,” she said in an interview.
She said she was dismayed that Mr. Bacon had taken 13 years to come to accept responsibility in the case.
Now she said she is concerned about his sentence. “I hope he doesn’t get a sweetheart deal,” she said. “He shattered our lives through and through.”
Mr. Westell said there is a “shared view” on sentencing between the Crown and defence, but declined to be more specific or provide any further details. He added that Mr. Bacon’s time in custody will inevitably be a factor in his sentence, which will need to be approved by a judge regardless of any plea agreement.
Although Mr. Bacon is scheduled to appear in court on Thursday, Mr. Westell said it isn’t clear that he will enter a plea then because there are various administrative matters to deal with. For example, the two charges against Mr. Bacon are before different judges but they will need to be heard by just one of them for his guilty plea.
Dan McLaughlin, a spokesman for the B.C. Prosecution Service, also confirmed Mr. Bacon’s plans to plead guilty. He said that’s expected to happen on Thursday with sentencing to follow at a later date. He declined to comment further.
In 2014, two men were convicted of six counts of first-degree murder in the case. Their trial heard evidence that Mr. Bacon ordered an attack on Mr. Lal that led to the Surrey Six killings. Another man who helped the gunmen enter the building pleaded guilty to a charge of break and enter and was sentenced, in 2015, to a one-year prison term.
Regardless of the pending end to court matters, Ms. Mohan said her life has been a hell in which people “tiptoe around her.”
“Every day you live with it,” she said, referring to the loss of her son. “How can you bury your own beautiful son and think about a normal life?”
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