Accused drove SUV similar to shooters’, murder trial hears
KELOWNA — Michael Jones got a ticket for not wearing his seatbelt while driving a vehicle similar to the one used in the Jonathan Bacon killing, a Kelowna court heard Monday.
Jones was behind the wheel of a green Ford Explorer that was pulled over during a routine traffic stop in Vancouver, RCMP Const. Ryan Lee testified.
“He was pleasant. Nothing stuck out about him,” Lee said of Jones’s behaviour during the five-minute traffic stop on April 21, 2011, on Bridgeport Road near the Vancouver airport.
Four months later, on Aug. 14, Bacon was murdered and four people with him were wounded during an ambush outside the Delta Grand hotel in downtown Kelowna.
Witnesses have previously described the shooters as getting into a green or grey Ford Explorer. A burnt-out Explorer with B.C. licence plate No. 974 TFS was found in Lake Country a few hours after the shooting.
The licence plate was the same as that on the Ford Explorer Lee pulled over during the seatbelt check, court heard Monday. Lee said his check of insurance documents showed the vehicle was registered to another person, whose name was not given in court.
There was another man in the Ford Explorer when the vehicle was pulled over, court heard. When asked by Lee, he gave a name but produced no identification.
Much of Monday’s proceedings related to whether what the passenger said would be allowed as evidence. Justice Allan Betton said he would rule on that matter later.
Jones, Jason McBride and Jujhar Khun-Khun are charged with murdering Bacon in a gangland dispute.
They are also charged with attempting to murder Hells Angel Larry Amero, James Riach, Leah Hadden-Watts and Lyndsey Blackfour, who were with Bacon in a Porsche Cayenne when it was shot up with 38 bullets outside the hotel’s front doors on a Sunday afternoon.
The trial continues.