Jimmy Melvin Jr. charged with first-degree murder
Halifax police have charged notorious crime figure Jimmy Melvin Jr. with first-degree murder in the 2009 slaying of Terry Marriott Jr.
Police announced the charges Sunday afternoon after Melvin Jr. was arraigned in the Central Nova Correctional Facility in Burnside where he was held, waiting to appear before a judge at Halifax provincial court on Monday.
“The charges… are the culmination of years of hard work by investigators and civilian employees,” said Supt. Jim Perrin Sunday afternoon.
Perrin wouldn’t say exactly how police got to the point of charging Melvin Jr. in the case, but did say he’s been a suspect the entire time.
“This investigation has obviously been underway for over six years now, and an opportunity presented itself to investigators in the past several weeks that we were able to advance the file to where it is today,” he said.
Perrin said the arrest was made at 8 p.m. Saturday night after police had waited for Melvin Jr. to leave an address in the 600 block of the Bedford Highway.
“Officers were focusing on a particular area because we believed he was there, then he chose to leave the area in a vehicle,” he said.
When Melvin pulled out of the parking lot, police pulled him over, smashed out one of his windows, removed him from the vehicle and arrested him.
A source told Metro that Melvin Jr. was arrested outside the Howard Johnson hotel, at 636 Bedford Highway.
The murder happened on Feb. 20, 2009. Police were called in the late afternoon about an injured man inside a home on Whitehead Road in Harrietsfield.
Officers found Marriott Jr.’s body in that home, and determined he’d been shot, and the incident was not random.
There has been a long-standing crime feud between the Marriott and Melvin families, and Melvin has also been charged with the attempted murder of Marriott Jr. in 2008 – an incident previously unreported to police.
Asked whether Sunday’s charges will result in violence between the two families, Perrin said police had “no reason to believe that any subsequent incidents will come as a result of today’s events.”
The case was part of the province’s reward program – meaning tips could’ve been worth $150,000 – but Perrin said that “wasn’t a factor” in these charges.