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Suspected killer takes own life
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Crime
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Ribbons of yellow police tape cordoned off several sections of a quiet neighbourhood, where a young woman was shot to death early Thursday morning. A man police had connected with the case killed himself soon after. Police and paramedics descended on the scene of the murder just after 12:30 a.m., when residents called 911 to report hearing multiple gunshots, said Cpl. Dale Carr, spokesperson for the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT). The first officers arrived at 67th Avenue and 193rd Street within minutes of the call, and found the victim, still alive but badly injured, lying in the middle of 67th. First police and then paramedics tried to save her life, but she died at the scene within minutes. She had been shot several times, Carr said. So far, the woman’s identity has not been released. She is thought to be in her early 20s. Still in the early morning hours, Surrey RCMP officers found a car believed to be associated with a suspect in the slaying, outside a Guildford home,
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Investigators did their work behind ribbons of police tape in a quiet neighbourhood on the Langley/Surrey border Thursday morning, following the shooting death of a young woman. Her suspected killer took his own life. said Surrey Const. Peter Neily. Before police could approach the car, the man apparently shot himself, inside the vehicle. Carr said he couldn’t confirm that the man who committed suicide was the suspected killer. The Lower Mainland Forensic Identification Section was expected to gather evidence at the murder scene for most of the day, and other officers were canvassing the neighbourhood for
Court hears victim beaten, strangled by Matthew Claxton
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reporters in his back driveway. D’Ercole said he went to bed at around 11 p.m. and didn’t hear a sound through the night and early morning. “I didn’t hear a thing,” he said. “I was sound asleep.” A neighbour told D’Ercole he heard the sound of gunshots, like a “pop, pop, pop,” sound. “This is a very quiet neighbourhood,” D’Ercole added. “It’s close to home, isn’t it?”
Murders
A forensic pathologist found numerous bruises, scrapes, and fractures on the body of Gwendolyn Jo Lawton.
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witnesses. Later that morning, neighbours went about their daily routine. The buzzing sound of a weedeater filled the air as a resident stood beside police tape, doing some landscaping. “It’s always quiet, here,” he said, as he swept grass clippings off the sidewalk near his home. Dressed in a house-coat, pyjamas, and slippers, nearby resident Don D’Ercole spoke to
Gwendolyn Jo Lawton was bludgeoned and strangled, the judge and jury hearing the murder trial of Aldergrove’s Davey Mato Butorac were told Thursday. Dr. Danny Straathof, the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Lawton, began testifying this week. Lawton was a tiny woman. Straathof said the victim’s body weighed 109 pounds, wearing wet clothes, and she stood 5’4”. Under direct examination by Crown
prosecutor Chris McPherson, Straathof talked about a range of injuries inflicted on Lawton, including bruises, scrapes, and torn skin. Most of the injuries had been caused by blunt force. Straathof also noted tiny pinpoint hemorrhages in the inner lining of Lawton’s eyelids. “This type of phenomenon is typically seen in strangulation,” Straathof said. He also noted a band of bruises across the front of her neck, which could be where force was applied, he said. Other injuries included circular bruises on the face, and a number of injuries on the neck. “There are some fractures in this case as well,” Straathof said. The pathologist also found puncture marks in the victim’s left arm, “consistent
with injection drug use,” he said. This was the first time the jury has heard evidence about the victim’s death. Earlier this week, Butorac’s friend Mitch Walker testified about a location where some of Lawton’s clothes were found. The rural Langley site, several miles from where her body was located, was a place where Walker and Butorac used to go to smoke pot, Walker testified. In the coming days, the trial is expected to hear from the last person to have seen Butorac’s second alleged victim, Langley’s Sheryl Lynn Koroll, before her death. The trial has been delayed several times, as witnesses took longer than expected. One day was lost this week as Butorac was not well enough to attend a day of court. Butorac is charged with two counts of second-degree murder.
Seniors’ centre still grappling with funding cuts… see page A20