Judge reserves decision on murder suspect

It will be a month before quadruple-murder suspect Jimmy Truong learns whether he’ll have to stand trial in connection with three gangland-style slayings.

Provincial court Judge Terry Semenuk reserved his decision Friday on whether Truong should be committed to stand trial on three counts of first-degree murder.

Semenuk delayed his decision to Sept. 18, after hearing final submissions from defence counsel Derek Jugnauth on whether there is sufficient evidence for a jury to weigh in Truong’s case.

At the beginning of the preliminary inquiry on Monday, Jugnauth was granted a publication ban on the evidence called by Crown prosecutors Adam May and Brian Holtby against his client.

The ban also applies to submissions made before Semenuk.

Truong faces four charges of first-degree murder in connection with three separate attacks in Calgary and Edmonton.

He was arrested in connection with three murders, but while free on bail in June police charged him in connection with a fourth.

Truong, 27, is charged with first-degree murder in the Sept. 20, 2016, shooting deaths of Calgarians Cuc Lung and Quang Tran.

Truong was arrested in April 2018, for the deaths of Lung, 34, and Tran, 38, gunned down while sitting in a vehicle outside their Redstone Manor N.E. home.

A five-year-old boy in the back seat of the car was uninjured.

The following month in Edmonton, Phu Phan, 30, was shot several times in a fatal attack in the driveway outside his home.

Semenuk will rule on whether Truong will stand trial for those murders.

In June, Truong was charged with first-degree murder in the August 2016 death of Louie Angelo Mojica in the community of Panorama Hills.

Truong is scheduled to face a separate preliminary hearing next March in that case.

He remains free on strict bail pending resolution of his charges.