Crown offers evidence against accused Bacon killers

KELOWNA — Jennifer Hunter remembers the pandemonium she saw outside Kelowna’s Delta Grand Hotel just minutes after Red Scorpion gangster Jonathan Bacon was gunned down on Aug. 14, 2011.

The RCMP constable testified in B.C. Supreme Court Monday about being the first police officer to arrive at the chaotic scene.

“There were people waving their arms. There were people everywhere. People running. People screaming,” she told Justice Allan Betton.

Evidence at the trial of accused Bacon killers Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones finally got underway Monday after weeks of delays.

The three gang associates are charged with first-degree murder in the Bacon slaying and the attempted murder of four others in the vehicle with the notorious Red Scorpion leader that day.

Crown prosecutor Dave Ruse said in his opening statement that former associates of the accused would testify against them in the coming months.

And he said DNA of all three accused was found on hoodies and a ball cap discarded after the murder.

Hunter was the first witness to take the stand in a new high-security courtroom. She said she raced over to the white Porsche Cayenne that had crashed after being sprayed with gunfire.

The driver — who she learned was Hells Angel Larry Amero — was slipping in and out of consciousness. She thought he was going to die. “He was covered in blood and broken glass. He had a very large gaping wound on his arm. And he looked to be coming to and then passing out,” Hunter said.

She also saw victim Leah Hadden-Watts, who was paralyzed in the shooting, slumped forward in the back seat.

Beside her was Lyndsey Black, struck in both legs by bullets, and crying — “hysterical crying, screaming” — Hunter said.

Bacon had already been pulled out of the Porsche and bystanders were attempting CPR.

Earlier in the day, Ruse laid out the Crown’s theory of the case.

He said that former gangsters turned Crown witnesses would testify that all three accused were part of the team hunting Amero, Bacon and James Riach because the late Sukh Dhak believed the trio was behind the murder of his brother, Gurmit, in Burnaby in October 2010.

The Crown witnesses are also expected to testify that Khun-Khun, McBride, Jones and a fourth man, Manny Hairan, arrived in Kelowna early on the morning of Aug. 14, 2011 to kill Amero and his friends after they had been spotted partying in this lakeside resort town.

“They went and attended various bars, various clubhouses, including the Throttle Lockers and the Hells Angels, in an effort to locate Mr. Amero’s associates,” Ruse said.

Later that day, the Dhak associates went back to the hotel and waited.

Amero, Bacon, Riach, Hadden-Watts and Black had checked out and got into Amero’s Porsche. Bacon was in the front.

“A Ford Explorer pulled up to the passenger side of the Porsche. Gunmen opened fire from within and outside the Explorer,” Ruse said.

Ruse said the three firearms believed to have been used in the murder were found months later dumped at a construction site north of Kelowna.

Betton was going to issue his ruling Monday on a defence application to stay the charges due to the length of time the case has taken to get to trial.

But he said he needed more time to consider the arguments heard over the last two weeks and will release his ruling next week.