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Threatening text locked down LFAS
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Monique TaMMinga Times Reporter
Miranda GATHERCOLE/Langley Times
Hundreds of students listen to a speech by Daniel Germain, president and founder of Breakfast Clubs of Canada, during World Food Day events at the Langley Events Centre on Tuesday, Oct. 16.
It was a threatening text message sent to a Langley Fine Arts school student which prompted a lockdown on Wednesday morning, Oct. 17. Langley RCMP said that a female student received the text from a 32-year-old Langley man who is believed to be known to the student. The lockdown was lifted at 11:45 a.m. with several police attending the school. After receiving the text, the student reported it to the school principal who felt there was enough of a concern for student safety for police to be alerted, said Const. Craig van Herk, media relations officer for Langley RCMP. “It was out of an abundance of caution” that the principal decided to lock down the school while police began their investigation, van Herk said. Officers located the person they believe sent the text, and now have a 32-year-old Langley man in custody. The man has been charged with uttering threats. Police continue to investigate the connection between the youth and the accused.
Accused killer maintains his innocence Robert Bradshaw claims he confessed to murder to give another man street cred Monique TaMMinga Times Reporter
In the 20 or so days of Robert Bradshaw’s Supreme Court trial for the first degree murders of Marc Bontkes and Laura Lamoureux, the jury has heard about what the drug culture in Langley has done to many lives, said the Crown in their closing arguments. “It’s a world full of lies, violence, criminality,” said Crown counsel Chris McPherson on Monday morning. “It’s filled with everything we
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can’t imagine or fathom. But it’s in this world that two lives were lost and the evidence has shown that Roy Thielen killed Laura Lamoureux and Bradshaw killed Marc Bontkes. Crown hasn’t proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Bradshaw had anything to do with the murders, said Bradshaw’s lawyer Paul McMurray in his closing arguments. McMurray told a Supreme Court jury on that Crown is relying heavily on the “unreliable” evidence of convicted murderer Roy Thielen, who has already
pleaded guilty to both murders. “Thielen’s objective is to minimize his consequences and to extricate [close friend] Michelle Motola as much as he can by escalating Bradshaw’s role,” McMurray told the jury in his closing arguments on Monday. Motola, 21, has already pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the killing of Bontkes and is serving six years. “Mr. Thielen was and is a liar. His statements have been contradicted by others . . .” Thielen told an undercover police officer posing as a crime boss that he killed both himself, including torturing Bontkes. But after his arrest he implicated Bradshaw as the driver in Lamoureux’s murder and the shooter in Bontkes’ death.
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“The only evidence that looks bad for Bradshaw is the taped conversations because it sounds like he admits to the killings,” said McMurray. Police videotaped a conversation Thielen and Bradshaw had in a hotel room after homicide investigators approached Bradshaw about the murders in July 2010. His lawyer suggested to the jury that Bradshaw feared for his safety if he didn’t go along and that he agreed to implicate himself to help out Motola, whom he still had feelings for. Bradshaw took the stand in New Westminster on Thursday and told a Supreme Court jury that he had nothing to do with the murders. Bontkes and Lamoureux were
both shot dead within five days of each other in March, 2009. In the trial, it was learned that both murder victims had robbed the drug lines Bradshaw and Thielen worked for. There is also evidence that Motola accused Bontkes and Lamoureux of kidnapping and torturing her before the murders. That accusation has not been proven. Bradshaw, an admitted drug dealer who worked for a diala-dope line at the time, was taped by police in an undercover operation talking about the murders and offering details about his role in the two killings during a conversation with continued, PAGE 4
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