B.C. man pleads guilty to double murder

VANCOUVER — A Richmond man has pleaded guilty to murdering his former girlfriend and a friend of hers who was visiting from Israel.

According to search warrant documents, at the time of the July 2015 slayings, Maurio (Mo) Salehi had broken up with Iryna Gabalis, 56, and was upset that her friend, Dmitri Faktorovski, had arrived in Vancouver.

On Monday, Salehi pleaded guilty in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster to the seconddegree murders of Gabalis and Faktorovski. The pleas by Salehi, who was initially charged with two counts of first-degree murder, came after a judge issued several rulings dealing with the search warrant. Attached to one of the rulings is information to obtain a search warrant for Salehi’s Richmond residence, including access to his cellphone.

The document notes that a co-worker of Gabalis told police that Gabalis had told her that she had observed Salehi hiding behind a pillar at the Vancouver airport on July 14, 2015, when she went to pick up the Israeli man.

Gabalis did not confront Salehi as she wished to spend time with Faktorovski, says the document.

On July 16, 2015, Gabalis’s son went to his mother’s home in Coquitlam when he was unable to contact her. In a statement to police, the son said he couldn’t get into the home at first because his key didn’t work in the door, but that he gained access through an open window. He called out to his mother and went upstairs and saw blood and a dead man at the top of the stairs. The man was later identified as Faktorovski.

The victim’s left thumb was almost cut off and there was a deep gash in his back. The body of the mother was found in the master bedroom.

Salehi is expected back in court in March for sentencing. Second-degree murder carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison with no parole eligibility for between 10 and 25 years.