B.C. Slayings Linked To Cocaine, Police Say -- 5 Killings At Farm Showed Elements Of Underworld Involvement
ABBOTSFORD, B.C. - At least three of five people found slain at a Fraser Valley farm are linked to the cocaine trade, police said yesterday.
The killings had elements of underworld involvement, Constable Elly Sawchuk told a news conference. "It's a very targeted attack on these particular individuals," she said.
Sawchuk wouldn't say how they were killed.
She identified three of the dead as Raymond Graves, 70; his wife, Sonto Site Graves, 56, who lived in the farmhouse; and Darryl Klassen, 30, of Abbotsford.
Sawchuk said all three had criminal records and were involved in the cocaine trade.
"The victims' role in the drug trade is yet to be determined," she said. "There's a whole circle of people we're dealing with here."
The two other victims haven't been positively identified.
No weapons or drugs were found on the property.
Police haven't ruled out a connection between the multiple slayings and a six-hour police standoff at the farm in March. Police closed in after someone shot Balbir Singh Sidhu, 38, in nearby Chilliwack. The man survived the attack.
Raymond and Sonto Graves and another man were charged with attempted murder in that case. They were free on bail awaiting a preliminary hearing in December.
Sawchuk said Sidhu is among those whom police plan to question.
Police went to the house on Wednesday after someone reported there appeared to be no one at the farm - one of dozens in the flat, green fields of the Fraser Valley about 50 miles east of Vancouver.
A local television station quoted an unidentified witness as saying she recently saw a black truck at the farm and two people acting strangely.
"I saw one male was inside the fence and there was a black truck had driven toward the fence and it looked to me like it was another male," she told BCTV.
Investigators have had several phone tips.
"We haven't identified any suspects at this time but we have several persons that we're looking at," Sawchuk said.