Preliminary inquiry begins for suspect in four slayings

CALGARY Quadruple murder suspect Jimmy Truong will likely learn by the end of the week if he’ll be ordered to stand trial on three of the four first-degree murder charges he faces.

A five-day preliminary inquiry commenced Monday to determine if Truong should face a jury trial in connection with the gangland-style shootings of a Calgary couple and an Edmonton man.

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, who were 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 in the community of Rapperswill.

Truong was free on bail and set to face his preliminary inquiry when he was charged this past June in connection with a fourth homicide.

Truong is charged with first-degree murder in the August 2016 death of Louie Angelo Mojica in the Calgary community of Panorama Hills.

Mojica was declared dead on the scene after emergency crews found him in the front seat of a white Dodge Charger. Truong is scheduled to face a separate preliminary hearing next March in that case.

At the request of defence lawyer Derek Jugnauth, provincial court Judge Terry Semenuk ordered a publication ban on the evidence being presented this week by Crown prosecutors Brian Holtby and Adam May.

Holtby said they expect to call 18 witnesses in the hearing.

Truong remains at liberty under strict conditions, including that he wear an electronic monitored ankle bracelet.