Family and friends gathered to grieve the passing of Tori Dunn at Valley View Funeral Home Wednesday in Surrey, less than two weeks after her death in what her family has described as a home invasion.
Rain fell gently as mourners gathered at the facility, arriving in groups, as couples, and solo, with many bearing umbrellas and flowers, dressed in a palette of black, grey, and subdued tones.
As attendees gathered to honour the 30-year-old woman, who was killed in a homicide in a home in Port Kells on the night of Sunday, June 16, they spoke in hushed tones, embracing each other and mourning her loss, filing past a 'Justice for Tori Dunn' sign posted right by the front doors.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has still not laid any charges against the suspect, who remains in custody on unrelated charges.
Global News has reported that Dunn's death was at the hands of a prolific, repeat offender, something IHIT has not confirmed.
In a press conference Monday, B.C. Premier David Eby provided his thoughts on the matter.
“My heart goes out to the family and friends of this remarkable person who has been killed,” Eby said. “And all of us want the same thing, which is the person responsible to be brought to justice and to be held accountable for this horrific crime,” Eby said.
“Here's a situation where someone was arrested for a crime, and charges were approved by Crown counsel, went to court and that individual was seeking to be released back into the community while he waited for trial. The Crown said, 'Judge, please don't do this. Please don't release this person back into the community,' and the judge made the decision to release this person back to the community where he's alleged to have committed another horrific crime.”
Eby said the judge applied the federal criminal law.
“Obviously, there was some issues that prevented the judge from making the decision to hold that person in jail while he waited for sentencing on the original crime,” Eby added.
The government is committed to continuing to work on prevention and advocacy with other provinces and the federal government on this, Eby said.
Despite Eby's comments, Aron Dunn, Tori's father, feels more must be done to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.
Surrey South MLA Elenore Sturko, said while it is true that the federal government is the one to change the Criminal Code, the administration of justice is a provincial responsibility.
“So what that means is, how many Crown counsel we have, how many judges, how many sheriffs to make sure that courtrooms can stay open,” Sturko said.
Sturko said she has spoken with people from the Crown Counsel Association and has heard countless stories about how understaffing has impacted their job.
“Not that they're not doing their best, and they're working very hard, but if you have a huge caseload, you end up triaging,” she added.
“My argument here is this isn't just about our laws. This is actually an administration of justice problem. We had courtrooms closing in B.C. over the last few weeks. It's happened for months because of lack of sheriffs. That also has an impact on justice,” Sturko said.
