Top Stories of 2024: Homicides and chilling trials keep police and prosecutors busy

One man fled the scene, police said, while six days later Nanaimo RCMP considered her death a homicide.

To date no charges have been laid in relation to Corrigal’s death.

Later in the year the second homicide investigation commenced with the Sept. 12 discovery of a man’s body near an encampment in the bushes not far from Nanaimo Curling Club off Wall St.

Several days later, Nanaimo RCMP categorized the death of 42-year-old Lee Harland a homicide.

Police believe Harland was killed between Sept. 9 and Sept. 12.

No charges have been laid in relation to his death.

Early this year a pair of chilling, unprovoked homicide cases in Nanaimo orchestrated by men with severe mental health challenges were resolved in court.

Simon Baker, 24, was found not criminally responsible in B.C. Supreme Court in Nanaimo for the death of 41-year-old Denise Alick.

He’ll remain in custody at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam indefinitely.

Baker pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for attacking Allick with a knife outside Baker’s grandparents’ home in Nanaimo on Eighth St. on the evening of June 30, 2022.

There was no known prior connection between Baker and Allick, a Victoria woman.

Justice Douglas Thompson found that Baker was ravaged with mental health and substance abuse issues, including a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

“I find that it was likely that this terrible event unfolded within seconds. I find that Mr. Baker reacted on impulse rooted in paranoia when he stabbed Ms. Allick with little or no opportunity for rational consideration,” justice Thompson stated.

In late March, 33-year-old James Carey Turok was also deemed not criminally responsible for a high-profile fatal stabbing attack of beloved 79-year-old Buzz Coffee House employee Eric Kutzner.

Despite pleading not guilty to second degree murder for the Feb. 12, 2022 incident, Turok’s mental state determined he couldn’t appreciate the nature of his crime.

Psychiatrists for both Crown counsel and the defence determined Turok suffers from schizoaffective and bipolar disorders.

He was hospitalized in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2020 under the Mental Health Act.

Upon his arrest after stabbing Kutnzer 12 times after accessing an unlocked side door prior to the cafe opening for the day, police used a taser to get Turok under control.

Police reported he then shouted, “He’s a zombie, he’s a zombie”, in referrence to Kutzner.

Turok stated he wasn’t guilty, declaring: “It is negative to my reality.”

A high-interest trial rocked the Nanaimo area this summer following the senseless stabbing death of 29-year-old Fred Parsons at the Maffeo Sutton Park playground late on the evening of Sept. 5, 2022.

Two men in their early 20’s, Mark Jayden Harrison and Aiden Matthew William Bell, were convicted of manslaughter after pleading not guilty before a B.C. Supreme Court jury.

Evidence presented at trial stated a confrontation between two groups of people unknown to each other intensified.

Parsons, who had autism, was with his girlfriend and another friend that night when a group of three young people approached.

Bear spray was unleashed by the instigating group and Parsons was stabbed several times during the chaos.

Fred Parsons was a universally beloved Nanaimo resident. (Submitted photo)

While no video evidence of the fatal incident was captured, surrounding video footage sufficiently placed Bell and Harrison at the scene.

Pending sentencing arguments are anticipated to hear that Bell stabbed Parsons, while Harrison was responsible for unleashing the bear spray.

Another preventable death was a once beacon of light, 27-year-old Amy Watts.

Following an extensive police investigation in which he tried to evade responsibility, former boyfriend Kyle Gordon Ordway eventually pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was handed a four-year jail sentence this past fall.

Due to pretrial credit, Ordway’s sentence effectively worked out to a maximum provincial institution sentence of two years.

He pushed Watts off a nearly 50-foot-high embankment near Nanaimo City Hall following an argument late on the evening of May 7, 2021.

Watts’ body laid at the bottom of the drop-off behind buildings on Wallace St. near Albert St. For nearly a month until the former social worker’s body was found.

B.C Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Power scolded Ordway’s egregious post-offence conduct.

“Even if Amy Watts was unlikely to have survived the fall, the failure to seek police and medical assistance leaves many questions about Amy’s death unanswered.”

Ordway and Watts had been mired in a dysfunctional relationship involving drugs, abuse and poverty.

Arguably the most shocking and perplexing murder case in many years in Nanaimo resulted in a guilty verdict against 28-year-old Paris Jayanne Laroche.

She was convicted by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Robin Baird of second-degree murder on July 19 following a lengthy trial in Vancouver in relation to the death of Sidney Joseph Mantee.

Justice Baird determined that the pre-meditation threshold had not been satisfied for a first-degree murder conviction for the early morning March 2020 slaying at a Rosehill St. Apartment unit.

Justice Baird stated the killing was a matter of revenge, not a pre-planned murder.

“I find as a fact that Ms. Laroche turned in for the night, she set her alarm for an early hour the next morning because she had to go to work. Her plan for the day was to process fish, not kill Sidney Mantee,”

Laroche slit her defenceless estranged boyfriend’s neck with a knife as he slept face-down on a living room mattress.

Paris Laroche is facing a life-sentence after being convicted of second degree murder. (Submitted photo)

She then chopped up his remains, stored body parts in the fridge and then disposed of the remains throughout Nanaimo for several months.

In late April 2021, an undercover police investigation swiftly secured a confession from Laroche after she owned up to the homicide to multiple people close to her.

The trial heard that Laroche was on the receiving end of an abusive relationship, however Crown prosecutor Nick Barber argued the woman’s response to the bad treatment was unreasonable and not an act of self-defence.

While Laroche is facing a lifetime prison sentence, her parole eligibility still needs to be established between a range of 10 and 25 years.

Laroche has remained locked up since she was charged in 2021.

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by NanaimoNewsNOW staff

Top Stories of 2024: Homicides and chilling trials keep police and prosecutors busy

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