Murder trial presented with Facebook evidence

Steps were taken Friday during a B.C. Supreme Court trial to draw a link between a man accused of participating in a double murder and an alleged nickname.

On the banner of Perry Andrew Charlie’s Facebook page is a stylized drawing of the word “Unique,” the court heard from two RCMP officers who testified separately.

Charlie is facing two counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder with a firearm in the deaths of Thomas Reed of Burns Lake and David Franks of Prince George.

He is also charged with attempted murder with a firearm in relation to Bradley Knight, the soul survivor of the Jan. 25, 2017 targeted shooting.

Co-accused Seaver Tye Miller and Joshua Steven West have each pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and Aaron Ryan Moore to two counts of criminal negligence causing death and await sentencing.

Crown prosecution is theorizing that a hit had been ordered on Franks after he had offended someone in the local drug scene.

On Friday, Prince George RCMP Staff Sgt. Kent MacNeill testified he came across the Facebook posting in the hours after the shooting when RCMP had pulled over a van carrying two of the four. Charlie was later apprehended at the Caledonia Trailer Park.

Then the plain clothes commander of the detachment’s serious crimes unit, MacNeill indicated going on social media was among the first steps he had taken in the effort to track down Charlie.

Evidence from the social media platform also showed Charlie was Facebook friends with the other three.

Following MacNeill, RCMP Cpl. Jeff Bingley took the witness stand.

Now in Kamloops, Bingley told the court he was stationed in Takla Landing north of Fort St. James for two years, ending in the fall of 2014, and knew both Charlie and Miller, both in the course of his work and in passing.

He said Charlie was in the community about half the time he was there and Miller less so.

Bingley recalled a moment when he and a friend were going through Facebook on a computer and noticed Charlie’s Facebook page.

Like MacNeill, he noted a banner with the drawing.

It was “one of those things that sticks in your mind and pops out umpteen years later,” Bingley said.

In earlier testimony, Timothy Lee, who had been driving the van that had allegedly carried the four to the scene of the shooting, referred to someone named “Unique” sitting behind him.

Bingley also testified that it appeared Charlie and Miller were friends.

He noted a time when he saw them in the Takla Landing potlatch house sitting beside each other and talking.

The trial continues Monday.