Police searching for female
Members of the regional Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT) are searching for at least one woman in connection with the Oct. 19 murder of six people in a Whalley highrise.
They have a thick sheaf of photos and appear to be looking for a specific person, according to several street people who have been questioned by officers.
“They’ve been here three days in a row,” said Laurie, a homeless woman standing outside the Front Room shelter on 135A Street Friday morning.
She said one officer checked her against a stack of papers, then told her “you’re not on my list.”
She said the officer wasn’t wearing the usual Surrey RCMP patrol outfit, but was dressed in dark navy-blue fatigues.
Her version of events was confirmed by other homeless people who told The Leader they saw IHIT insignia on some of the officers, and that the investigators aren’t asking questions, just checking faces.
The police were not saying whether they were searching for suspects or potential witnesses in the killings.
Workers at the Front Room said the officers entered the premises several times to look at people.
Both women and men were being checked.
A rumour is making the rounds in North Surrey that some of the victims were street-level drug dealers who were killed during a “shift change,” where one group of dealers was totaling up its take and getting ready to hand over supplies to a second group.
IHIT spokesman Cpl. Dale Carr was unavailable for comment Friday.
The murders were discovered just over a week ago in suite 1505 in the Balmoral Tower at 9830 East Whalley Ring Rd.
It’s believed two of the six victims, 22-year-old Chris Mohan of Surrey and 55-year-old Ed Schellenberg of Abbotsford, were killed because they were potential witnesses who could identify the people who also murdered 22-year-old Edward (Eddie) Sousakhone Narong, 21-year-old Corey Jason Lal and his 26-year-old brother Michael Justin Lal, and 19-year-old Ryan Bartolmeo – all Surrey residents.
Narong, the Lals and Bartolmeo were all known to police.
df@surreyleader.com
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