Two charged in Calgary quadruple homicide

CALGARY— Police say two people facing charges related to a quadruple homicide last summer knew all the victims.

“I wouldn’t go so far as to say they were targeted, but I will say that the two accused and our deceased parties were known to one another,” acting Insp. Paul Wozney of the Calgary Police Service said Wednesday.

It’s believed that “loose criminal networks” were involved in the killings, he added.

Yu Chieh Liao, who also goes by Diana Liao, and Tewodros Kebede are charged with first-degree murder in the death of 26-year-old Hanock Afowerk. The accused also face three counts of accessory after the fact in the deaths of Cody Pfeiffer, 25; Glynnis Fox, 36; and Tiffany Ear, 39.

Pfeiffer, Fox and Ear were found dead in a burned-out car at a suburban Calgary construction site July 10. Fox and Ear were sisters from the Stoney Nakoda First Nation, who relatives have said left behind 16 children between them. Afowerk, the car’s owner, was found two days later in a rural area west of the city.

Liao, 24, and Kebede, 25, are to appear in court Nov. 2.

The investigation has spanned multiple provinces and it took time for investigators to use court orders to track down information that changed the direction of their probe.

Liao and Kebede were arrested in Toronto on unrelated matters in the weeks following the killings.