RCMP expect to lay murder charge in Alberni cold case
For years, the 2006 murder of Kristy Leanne Morrey has hung like a shadow over the city of Port Alberni, frustrating a successive string of RCMP investigators looking for that one piece of evidence needed to break the case open.
The 28-year-old was found by a friend on Aug. 20, 2006, lying motionless under a blanket inside the home she rented on Lugrin Road. Evidence led investigators to her ex-boyfriend, Larry Darling, with whom she had an on-again, off-again relationship.
Fourteen years her senior, Darling was the opposite of boyfriend of the year, friends and family say. But within two years, he was cleared as a suspect, police said in 2011, at which point he left town. The case, in the meantime, went cold, a place where it remained until recently.
Today, Mounties are expected to announce that Darling has been arrested and charged with firstdegree murder in the death of Morrey.
When contacted Monday, the local detachment offered few details other than to say the 11 a.m. announcement would concern a major development in a cold case.
Court records, however, show that Darling made an appearance at a justice centre Sept. 11 on one count of murder for an alleged offence committed Aug. 20, 2006. He’s scheduled to make his next appearance Wednesday in Port Alberni provincial court, the records show.
When The Province wrote about Morrey’s murder in 2011, investigators also suggested new evidence had allowed them to focus on the possibility that Morrey had attracted the attention of a stalker.
Morrey’s mother, Shirley, and at least one of her friends, were also convinced as of 2011 that Darling had not played a part in Morrey’s death.
The latest development should offer some bittersweet relief to Morrey’s friends and family. Efforts to contact her mom weren’t successful, and one of her friends declined to comment until the family had spoken at the RCMP announcement.
However, in past interviews with The Province, Morrey’s friends and family described her as selfless and loving. She loved the outdoors. And perhaps most of all, she loved her family and friends.
“I remember so many times when you would call her and say, ‘I need you,’ and she would drop everything and come be by your side,” friend Julie Stewart told The Province in 2011 as part of a joint initiative with Crime Stoppers aimed at kick-starting cold-case files. “She was so intensely special to so many people.”
On the evening before her death, Morrey attended several events, including a funeral and a wedding reception. She was one of a group of five people, one of whom was Darling, who later went back to Morrey’s house, where they continued to drink.
Darling told investigators Morrey was in bed sleeping when he left with the others at about 3 a.m. It’s where she was found in the afternoon by a concerned friend, who went looking for her after she failed to show up at a wedding gift-opening.