Mike Youds/Kamloops Daily News
The Kamloops Daily News is reporting that three Cranbrook men have been found guilty of counselling to kill a rival drug dealer in 2009.
The B.C. Supreme Court jury returned its verdict on a string of murder-conspiracy and weapons charges late Sunday afternoon, April 28,After four days of deliberation — said to be the lengthiest jury deliberation since the 2009 trial of Allan Schoenborn.
The trial of Lonnie Adams, Lorne Carry and Colin Correia, which began Feb. 6, was held amid extra security at the courthouse in Kamloops.
Sentencing is expected to follow in a month's time, the Daily News reported.
While all three were pronounced guilty on the counselling to commit murder charges, Adams was found not guilty of the separate charge of conspiracy to commit murder. Carry and Correia were both convicted on the counselling charges.
Carry, 31, the only one of the three not held in custody during the trial, was also convicted of possession and attempt to transfer an AK-47-like automatic rifle.
Correia was also convicted of possessing and attempting to transfer a restricted handgun.
The Crown's case in the trial hinged upon the testimony of police agent and career criminal Garry Shank, a parolee who agreed to become an informant after he was found in possession of an AK-47 in 2009. He said he was hired to kill Doug Mahon by the three men. Mahon was part of a drug gang that was involved in a shooting with Kootenay rivals outside a Cranbrook bar.
Shank testified earlier in the trial that before becoming an agent, Correia and Carry set him up with a semi-automatic rifle and ammunition. His "heavy work" was to kill Mahon for $10,000.
But defence lawyer Don Campbell said conversations recorded by RCMP during the scenarios show Adams had no knowledge of Shank's eventual arrest in a trailer late in 2009, when he was busted by RCMP in possession of the rifle.