Key takeaways:
- The judge denies letting probers keep proof in a case that’s been static for five years.
- A B.C. Supreme Court judge has declined to allow police to hang onto proof collected through a search warrant about the 2016 killing of a lady in Richmond.
- Police failed to alert a suspect adequately and didn’t send a proof for analysis.
The BC murder case goes static:
Failures by investigators to study proof and adequately warn a suspect in the 2016 demise of a B.C. woman seem to have directed to the case going “static” and a judge’s denial to allow police to keep proof they’ve been saving for five years.
In a judgment released this week, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Peter Edelmann stated he admitted that “the murder of a young lady is among the heaviest of offenses, and there is a substantial public interest in the investigation of such crimes.” Source – cbc.ca
But the judge figured he had no option but to reject an application for further custody of a cellphone and biological exhibits killing investigators have held for years without appropriate permission.
The conclusion is another reversal for B.C.’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team — the second time in less than a year, a murder case has been affected by an offense of the laws governing proof taken through search warrants.
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B.C.’s Attorney General requested Edelmann to allow IHIT to keep the exhibits — even though the initial period of imprisonment passed long ago — because it would be in the general interest to do so.
But the judge noted the killing squad’s shortage of action on the file in rejecting the proposal.
“Unfortunately, resources have only just been given to this probe after a considerable period when it was inactive,” Edelmann reported. Source – cbc.ca
“It would appear obvious that investigators in 2016 estimated that, given the issues with the probe, it was not in the public interest to commit more resources to it at that time.” Source – cbc.ca
