Video shows homicide suspects before one vanished
Police believe man was victim of foul play, those with him know what happened
SHAAMINI YOGARETNAM
Two men police believe were involved in an Ottawa homicide and who then fled to Thunder Bay are captured on video in what police are now probing as the final moments of one of their lives.
Justin “Milky” Duncan and Jonathon “Jonny” Ranger, suspected by police to be involved in an Ottawa double shooting in May, were together in Thunder Bay in the early morning hours of Nov. 22. That’s when Duncan, 23, was last seen alive before disappearing in a mystery that’s left his family desperate for answers and police in two Ontario cities with suspicions of homicide.
Duncan, a father of two who is known to both Ottawa and Thunder Bay police, was reported missing on Nov. 24 by a friend, two days after he was last seen at a housing complex on Limbrick Street in Thunder Bay.
On Friday, Thunder Bay investigators released video surveillance footage from the housing complex.
In the time leading up to the footage, Duncan and his group of friends, who were celebrating the birthday of his brother’s girlfriend, are believed to have been at a downtown Thunder Bay strip club called Centerfolds. Duncan’s brother, who was in Thunder Bay jail at the time of Duncan’s disappearance, was not with them.
In the surveillance video, taken from cameras at the housing complex where police say Duncan was last seen, two vehicles — a silver pick-up truck and a white sedan — pull up to a parking lot. Ranger, in a tan jacket and wearing jeans, is seen getting out of the driver’s side. The video shows Ranger, Duncan and five others exiting the vehicles.
Police believe Duncan was the victim of foul play and that those with him the night he vanished know what happened to him. However, police have not been able to locate his body.
Thunder Bay detectives say Duncan was involved in the drug trade in their city, while homicide detectives in Ottawa also had Duncan on their radar. Northern investigators believe Duncan was part of a group they call the “Ottawa crew” — a growing group of Ottawa residents moving north for the drug trade. That crew includes Ranger, who was arrested by Thunder Bay police in a New Year’s Day drug and firearm raid. He remains in custody in that city.
The Ottawa homicide squad continues to probe the fatal shooting of Nicholas Kim, 30, at his lover’s town home on Farriers Lane in Ottawa’s south-end in May 2016. Katrina Galloway — Kim’s new lover, as well as Ranger’s ex-girlfriend and the mother of his child — was also wounded in the shooting. Police believe Duncan and Ranger, captured on video both before and after the shooting, fled to a parked car before leaving the city entirely.
Duncan’s family hasn’t heard from him since. syogaretnam@postmedia.com twitter.com/shaaminiwhy