AWAITING JUSTICE
Eileen Mohan visits the grave of her son Christopher — a bystander killed in the Surrey Six murders — at Valley View cemetery. With the legal process in its 10th year, her greatest fear is that alleged mastermind Jamie Bacon will walk free.
For 10 years, Eileen Mohan has hoped and prayed for justice for her murdered son Christopher.
He was 22 when he was dragged into a penthouse apartment across the hall from his family’s home and killed with five others in what became known as the Surrey Six murders.
Ed Schellenberg, also a bystander, was servicing the fireplace in Suite 1505 at the Balmoral when he got caught in the slaughter that Friday afternoon. The others who died were young men involved in the drug trade — brothers Corey and Michael Lal, Ryan Bartolomeo and Eddie Narong.
Mohan says her life stopped on Oct. 19, 2007, when she lost her only son.
“Only I understand what it is like to go home every single day to a silent home that used to be filled with love, laughter, food, everything. The one thing I miss most is being called Mom,” she said this week as she stood by her son’s grave.
She said there have been moments of temporary relief in the decade since the slayings.
Like when charges were laid in 2009 against four Red Scorpion gangsters, including the alleged plot mastermind, Jamie Bacon.
Like when another gang member pleaded guilty to three of the murders, including that of her son, and agreed to testify against his associates.
Like when two of those charged, Cody Haevischer and Matthew Johnston, were convicted of firstdegree murder in 2014 and sentenced to life in prison.
But there have been many more moments of despair over her unimaginable loss.
“There are days where I feel fortunate to be alive and seek justice for him and see justice going through. And there are days that I really want to be with him,” she said.
Her greatest fear is that Bacon, who is accused of ordering the hit on rival drug trafficker Corey Lal that spiralled out of control, may soon get out of jail without ever going to trial.
The Red Scorpion boss at the time of the murders, Bacon has been in pretrial custody for eight and a half years, a near record in B.C.
His trial is set for March 2018, almost nine years after he was arrested in a dramatic police takedown outside his Abbotsford home on April 4, 2009.
Postmedia News has confirmed that Bacon’s legal team has filed a “Jordan” application to have the murder charge against him thrown out because of the extraordinary delays in the case.
His lawyer, Kimberly Eldred, said that application was supposed to be heard in B.C. Supreme Court starting on Sept. 11.
“Unfortunately, another matter has taken precedence. The Jordan application has not yet been rescheduled,” she said.
Like most of the pretrial proceedings in the Bacon case, the delay application will be held in a closed court with no public or media access.
Mohan finds the prospect of Bacon being freed devastating.
“For Mr. Bacon to be released without trial for the sins he has committed would be a total injustice to Christopher and a huge slap in my face,” Mohan said. “If he doesn’t go on trial, then what message are we portraying to the citizens of British Columbia and Canada?”
Schellenberg’s brother-in-law, Steve Brown, agrees.
The notion that Bacon is trying to get the charges thrown out is “bizarre,” Brown said this week.
He said he appreciates the work of the RCMP over the years, but feels like B.C.’s courts are illequipped to deal with major gang cases.
“The courts have totally failed. They have lost control of this,” Brown said. “One of my thoughts about the court system is that it is designed for peacetime and it can’t handle war. Seriously, it is a gang war and these people are criminals and they are threatening our way of life.”
He doesn’t expect a quick fix to the problems.
“The only thing that will cause change is if a judge’s or a politician’s family member experiences this kind of injustice. Then there will be change,” he said. “As cynical as it sounds, people like Ed Schellenberg are just acceptable collateral damage.”
Crown spokeswoman Alisia Adams said she couldn’t comment on the delays that have plagued Bacon’s case.
“The B.C. Prosecution Service won’t be commenting further on the circumstances of the case, or the number or nature of the pretrial applications while the matter is still before the court,” she said.
Wally Oppal, a former B.C. attorney general, judge and prosecutor, said a delay like the one in the Bacon case is extremely rare.
“It really impacts on the credibility of our system when it takes that long to bring something to justice, to bring him into a courtroom,” Oppal said.
“We need to take a good look at ourselves to see if what we are doing is good enough and obviously it isn’t.”
Oppal thinks the Supreme Court of Canada did the right thing in 2016 when it imposed time limits on completing prosecutions. The court, in the ruling known as Jordan, said trials at the provincial Supreme Court level should be completed within 30 months unless there are exceptional circumstances. At the provincial court level, there is now an 18-month limit.
“I think the Supreme Court of Canada needs to be commended for prodding the system to move and I think the system needs to do that,” Oppal said. “I don’t blame the judges. The judges work hard. I don’t want to be misconstrued as blaming them. I think there is enough blame for all of us to share.”
Lawyer Ravi Hira said he couldn’t comment specifically on the Bacon case, given that it is still before the courts. But he has firsthand experience in another B.C. case that took nine years to get to a first trial after the accused was charged.
Hira prosecuted the second trial of Rajinder Benji, who was eventually convicted of first-degree murder for the March 6, 1998, slaying of Vancouver businessman Michael Singh.
The Vancouver gangster was charged in September 1998, but his trial was repeatedly delayed after he filed 62 pretrial motions and fired 13 lawyers. His first trial ended with the jurors deadlocked. His second trial took only 13 days before the September 2008 guilty verdict.
“In terms of a murder case with a comparable delay, that is the only one that I can think of that is a case where a charge has been laid, but it has taken 10 years to get to the first verdict,” Hira said.
Vancouver lawyer Kevin Westell said it is hard to know why there have been so many delays in the Bacon matter because of the publication bans and closed hearings.
“We won’t know whether or not the actions taken on any side that led to this delay were reasonable or not until after final decisions are made,” he said.
But he said the public should feel confident that the lawyers on both sides are working hard in the case.
“There is no reason, despite how frustrating it must be for everyone, to think that the justice system participants are not doing their best to resolve this case in good faith and to the best of their ability,” he said.
A lot has happened to the key players in the Surrey Six case.
Red Scorpion founder Michael Le, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kill Corey Lal, is now out of jail after serving a three-year term.
Le’s friend Sophon Sek, who pleaded guilty to break and enter for helping the killers access the death suite, is up before the Parole Board of Canada next month seeking release.
Both Johnston and Haevischer are appealing their convictions. And both have filed civil lawsuits against the B.C. government, alleging their charter rights were violated by unusually harsh treatment in pretrial custody.
Johnston got married while in prison.
His lawyer, Brock Martland, said the date for the Haevischer-Johnston appeal has not been set because of “some complex issues that have come about that involve the amicus curiae who has been heavily involved in this case for a long time.”
The amicus is a Toronto lawyer who has represented the rights of the accused during in camera hearings throughout the Surrey Six case.
He saw his death coming. Can you imagine his last moments? If there is a judge out there listening,
I want them to understand.
The reasons for the secret hearings have never been made public.
Martland said the Surrey Six case has taken its toll at times on many of those who have been involved.
“In our role as lawyers in a courtroom, I think we — out of necessity — find some detachment, engage and do our job in the courtroom. But I suspect that a lot of the judges and lawyers involved in these cases so intensively for a long time find it does drift into your thoughts at times and it can be pretty disconcerting sometimes,” he said.
He called Mohan, who has been a constant presence in various court proceedings, “a steadfast advocate for her son.”
Mohan sat through the entire Haevischer and Johnston trial. Some of the evidence was unbearable, including the bloody crime scene photos and descriptions of how her son and the others were held on the ground at gunpoint before they were shot in the head.
She heard allegations that Bacon finalized the details of the nefarious plan to kill Lal at the World Gym in Port Coquitlam hours before the murders and while under police surveillance.
She heard that Johnston, Haevischer and the man who pleaded guilty in 2009 cleaned their guns with Windex and paper towels at Haevischer’s apartment in the Stanley, not far from the Balmoral.
She heard that the trio piled into a black BMW. She saw surveillance video of the car leaving the Stanley for the kill mission. She heard how her son’s bad luck was timing; he was leaving for a basketball game as the killers were checking the hallway. He was dragged into suite 1505. Schellenberg, the Lal brothers and Bartolomeo were already inside. Narong arrived during the unfolding nightmare.
She is haunted by the terror her son must have felt.
“He saw his death coming. Can you imagine his last moments? If there is a judge out there listening, I want them to understand. Imagine Christopher’s last moments, what was going through his mind,” she said.
It would be hours before she would learn her son was dead. Within weeks her family began to crumble. And even after 10 years, Mohan’s pain is raw and constant.
She carries framed photos of a smiling Christopher in her car so that he is always with her. People tell her she should move on. She doesn’t understand how to do that. “It is so damn difficult,” she said. Brown, who worked with his brother-in-law in their own gasfireplace company, said he confronted his loss every day after Schellenberg’s murder.
“Part of my job for about two years afterwards was to go to Ed’s customers and we would sit there and cry. I didn’t do any work. We would just sit there and cry. And they couldn’t say anything. I guess it was so cathartic.” he said.
“Every day you just have to get through the day. That’s basically your goal. Just to survive.”