Jamie Bacon trial underway in Vancouver 10 years after alleged offence

A child found a rusted gun while playing in a creek in Mission in March 2018.

It was the weapon that a man who can only be identified as C.D. says he threw away after his attempt to kill Dennis Karbovanec on December 31, 2008, allegedly at the request of Jamie Bacon. 

A trial is now underway for Bacon who was involved in drug trafficking and is charged with counseling an associate (C.D.) to kill Karbovanec, Bacon's partner in the drug trade.

Watching closely from the prisoner's box  Monday was Bacon, now 33, wearing stylish glasses, a white shirt and grey sweater as Crown counsel Joe Bellows laid out the case he plans to present to jurors.

It relies on information provided by two associates of Bacon who can only be identified as A.B. and C.D., who were allegedly dispatched to do the deed, as well as several witnesses including police and hospital workers.

C.D. was apparently heavily indebted to Bacon to the tune of "many thousands of dollars."

"If he killed Karbovanec, his indebtedness would be wiped out," said Bellows. 

Crown lays out murder plan

C.D. was told that Karbovanec was not focusing on the drug business, was using a lot of oxycontin and having relations with young girls. So, C.D. was to kill him and Bacon wanted him to use Bacon's own gun. 

Karbovanec was lured to the site of the shooting on the pretence of doing a "grow rip," a robbery in Mission.

They and another man who can only be identified as A.B. met at a sports park and a fourth man provided a car that night, according to Bellows. 

That car had been stolen earlier that day from a woman while she was shopping at a Mission Superstore. 

The jury heard that 10 shots were fired at Karbovanec, but the gun jammed. As CD tried to clear it, live cartridges were discharged and two of them struck Karbovanec, one grazing his head and the other lodging in his lower back. 

Karbovanec managed to get away and to a hospital.

The shooter and his associates abandoned the car and tried to set it on fire. 

Bacon allegedly told the men that he did not want Karbovanec to know that he planned the shooting and instead wanted A.B. and C.D. to say they "were sick of the way Karbovanec was treating them."

C.D. knew he had bungled the shooting and alleges that Bacon told him he should have walked right up and put a bullet in Karbovanec's head. 

Several 911 calls were made by witnesses who heard the gunshots, saw the burning car or found spent casings and bullets.

A nurse reported that Karbovanec arrived at Mission hospital saying, "I've been shot" and a doctor saw that he was wearing a bulletproof vest and had a metal object in his back. 

When police arrived, Karbovanec was reportedly upset and was eventually discharged into the care of a man and woman who arrived to pick him up.

The metal, which was a bullet, wouldn't be removed from his back for another two weeks.  

That was similar, said Bellows, to four unspent bullets stamped "semi-automatic" found by a toddler as she walked in a local cul-de-sac with her mother a few days after the shooting.