The West Vancouver Police Department will be calling in the big guns to help solve future murder cases.
The municipal police department has signed on to join forces with the RCMP’s Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.
The department decided to join IHIT because the dedicated homicide squad has “many, many resources for us to draw on,” in homicide investigations, said Const. Jeff Wood, spokesman for the West Vancouver Police Department. “Homicide investigations are complex,” he said. They are also extremely expensive, he added.
Previously, the West Vancouver Police Department called on experts in the Vancouver Police Department’s homicide team to help with murder investigations.
The change is expected to cost about $50,000 more per year, said Wood, adding that amount is in the department’s budget.
The most recent murder investigation in West Vancouver was last May, after the chopped-up body of 42-year-old multi-millionaire Gang Yuan was discovered inside his British Properties home at 963 King Georges Way. Li Zhao, the husband of Yuan’s cousin, has been charged with second-degree murder. That case is still before the courts.
IHIT has been involved in a number of homicide investigations in North Vancouver in recent years.
Most recently, the team was called in after the body of 22-year-old man Cameron Leon was discovered in Mosquito Creek near Fell Avenue and 17th Street in December.
IHIT investigators were also on the scene when the body of Peng Sun, a man in his early 20s, was found in the 900-block of Wellington Street on Sept. 29. Tianyi Zhang, 23, of Richmond, was arrested at the scene and faces a charge of first-degree murder.
A number of high-profile homicide cases remain unsolved.
Among them is the killing of cultural event promoter Rostam Poulad by someone who walked up to the door of his Upper Lonsdale home and shot him two years ago.
There have also been no arrests in the targeted killing of Brandon Hughes, 28, who was shot outside his family’s home in North Vancouver at 2 a.m. on July 23, 2009.
