CHILLIWACK TIMES
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Thursday, November 27, 2014 A3
BLACK FRIDAY SALE
4 DAYS ONLY — SALE STARTS NOVEMBER 28TH
CHEVROLET.CA
Grow-operation produced pot worth millions
CLIENT : DOCKET : AD # : SIZE : FONTS : RESOLUTION : INSERTION DATE: PUB : PROOF : DATE :
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COURT BRIEFS
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Teen pleas in tragic death
A 19-year-old man pleaded guilty in Chilliwack Court on Tuesday to dangerous driving causing death in connection with a tragic accident last summer. Ryan Mitchell Potts was scheduled to go to trial, but instead made the plea. On Aug. 25, 2013, 18-year-old Adam Burchart fell out of the box of a pickup truck travelling on Boundary Road in Yarrow. The teenager died at the scene of the late night accident. Burchart was one of two men riding in the box, and another man was in the truck that Potts was driving. All four men were from Chilliwack.
Accused claims innocence
A convicted killer arrested in connection with an unrelated attempted murder from 2009 in Chilliwack had his second court appearance this week, and again professed his innocence. “I just want to tell the court I’m innocent of these allegations,” Gregory Wayne Hiles said in Chilliwack Court Monday via video link from the Surrey Pretrial Centre. Hiles is charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault and robbery in connection with a Dec. 23, 2009 incident in Chilliwack. The 35-year-old was convicted of manslaughter in the 2000 beating death of 19-year-old Christopher Ford in Halifax.
Horse abuse sentence
A Chilliwack woman was given a $500 fine and forbidden from taking care of large animals for three years after pleading guilty to two animal cruelty charges. Suzanne Peterson told Judge Steven Point Monday she took on the already sick animals when she had the money to take care of them. Point accepted her claim that once she was hit with financial difficulties, she couldn’t care for the horses any more and worked with the SPCA to relocated them.
Paul J. Henderson/TIMES
Brian Harrison shows where thieves broke down a door in his friend’s Chilliwack home last Wednesday. It was the first of three break-and-enters at the home in a six-day period.
‘YOU SHOULDN’T BE HAVING TO LIVE LIKE YOU ARE BEHIND BARS’ Three break-ins in the last six days, four in the last year By Paul J. Henderson phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
T
iny wood shavings scattered in a doorway at Pedro Carreon’s downtown Chilliwack home could be evidence of a patient thief. The splintered wooden frame and shattered leaded glass door, however, illustrates an end to that patience.
And the fact that the 83-year-old’s home and garage has been broken into four times this year—including three times in just six days last week—is a sign of a persistent thief. “You shouldn’t be having to live like you are behind bars,” Brian Harrison told the Times. Harrison is a friend of Carreon’s who has been watching the house while the elderly man, who suffers from Alzheimers, among other ailments, is in the Philippines. Carreon lives in the small, somewhat dilapidated house downtown Chilliwack with his sister who is in her 70s. The woman left the convent in the Philippines to care for Carreon here in Chilliwack. The two are currently in the Philippines and have been there for close to a month.
“He’s worked hard all his life and his sister has been dedicated to her religion,” Harrison said. “And then they have to deal with this.” It started last Wednesday, Nov. 19, when a thief or thieves broke in through the locked side door on the house. By the look of the shavings on the floor, someone tried to file away the wood enough to get at the lock. But eventually they just smashed the leaded glass door in half. When Harrison and his wife got to the house Thursday, the inside had been ransacked, drawers dumped out, cupboard contents tossed around the house. Then on Friday, it happened again. Whoever was trying to break in got into the back laundry room, but couldn’t get into the main house. This time, though, he or she or they found a win-
dow into the basement from which they stole tools. On Saturday, Harrison decided to stake the house out to see if he could see something. He watched from a van across the street from 11 p.m. until 3 a.m. Sunday, but spotted nothing. Then Sunday night, the garage was broken into although there was nothing of value to steal. Harrison called 9-1-1 in each instance, but RCMP officers who attended were able to offer little help. “The guys are really nice but I know we are not a priority,” he said. “Surely something more can be done.” The house in question is cluttered inside and on the lawn outside. High cedar hedges surround the property. Harrison said police suggested those { See CRIME, page A6 }
{ NOSE, from page A1 }
Art Director: Director: were discovered inCreative an “extremely elaborate” operation under a Quonset hut Copywriter: in an underground bunker Account Manager: that produced an estimated $3 million to $5 million of drugs a year. The operation was fed using a system that illegally piped water from nearby Elk Creek, and the lights were powered by way of stolen electricity. The property’s caretaker, Darryl Ness, was found guilty of production and possession of marijuana in 2012. Crown counsel Michael LeDressay had asked for a stiff sentence due to the size of the “monstrous criminal enterprise,” but Justice William Grist gave the 64-year-old an 18-month conditional sentence. McConnell’s lawyer began last week by reiterating Crown arguments from the preliminary hearing. Instead of distancing the man from the property, McGowan argued the property owner was intimately connected with 7630 Nixon Rd.—and the grow-op itself—as a lead up to argue the man’s Charter rights were violated. (Interestingly, four years ago, a different lawyer argued that city hall should not file notice on title of the property because of hazardous conditions because the McConnell was an “innocent victim” who knew nothing of the grow operation on his property.) On Tuesday in court, Nixon Road neighbour Clint Marvin faced questions about the time in 2007 when he discovered an “apparatus” in Elk Creek leading him to suspect there was a growop on McConnell’s property. Marvin told police what he suspected, they attended his property but he said he never heard back from them. That was two and a half years before the bust. McGowan focused on a walk Marvin took with officers onto a water right-of-way he has on 7630 Nixon Rd., presumably to further the argument that officers acted improperly, even trespassed on the property of the accused. Later on the stand Tuesday was City of Chilliwack bylaw enforcement official Jaris Marshall who attended the property the day of the bust to inspect it at the invitation of the RCMP. McConnell’s trial is scheduled to continue the rest of this week.
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