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On the evening of Mindy's disappearance. I saw a man crossing a road close to where Mindy had been abducted and mistaking him for a former acquaintance of mine, (referred to as suspect B) stopped to speak with him. I was surprised when this person attempted to conceal his identity from me and fled with the suitcase he was carrying into the trees on the south side of Springfield road. Approximately 1/2 an hour later, by chance, I again saw this person returning from the same area and out of curiosity and suspicion, decided to follow him in my vehicle in order to confirm his identity. His destination turned out to be 1420 Collison road which was not suspect B's residence. Suspect B looked quite similar to the eventual prime suspect Shannon Murrin, and lived only one block away. I left the area shortly afterwards unaware that a little girl had just been abducted. The person carrying the suitcase saw me and knew that I had followed him to his destination. Several other people at that residence, and in that neighborhood also saw my vehicle as I slowly drove around the Tran's neighborhood between 7:45 and 9:00 PM. To them, I would have appeared to be acting suspiciously. see- see witness statement) Mindy Tran's body was later found where this suspicious man had been heading with the suitcase. I was fully intending to tell this story to the police but had delayed doing so at the time due to extenuating circumstances. I recognized the lead RCMP investigator from the past, and a photo of the prime suspect released by the RCMP caused me to to reflect upon past events. I began to ask my own questions about the suspect and his past association with some mutual acquaintances. I believe that the person I had followed was Shannon Murrin and that he was the same person known to me in the past as the Kelowna rapist profiled in this news report from 1980. see- original newspaper story see- photo comparison A vehicle matching the description of mine, an older Jeep Cherokee, was initially suspected in Mindy's abduction and was reported on. This was quickly silenced by the police and in follow-up newspaper reports that stated. " there was no problem with the jeep in relation to the Tran case". Several months after Mindy's abduction, the public was again asked to provide vehicle descriptions at a field office set up in the Springfield road park area where Mindy's body had been found. Ron Griffiths, an RCMP Constable working the Tran investigation, was photographed at this site in 1995 collecting these vehicle reports. see- photo
During the fall of 1998 I was preparing to go to the police with what I
knew and began speaking on a phone from my brothers residence about doing so. Shortly
afterwards, in early 1999, I was
assaulted and threatened by a person holding a knife to my throat during a home
invasion. The motive was not robbery, but rather to deliver a death threat
against me. The threat was very specific, "to not even
think about ratting on anyone" or they would be back to cut me in half. The
home invasion suspects claimed to be the RCMP, were dressed like an RCMP swat
team, and are by all indications
protected by the RCMP. The invasion suspects have also been identified as
associates of suspect "B".
Surprisingly there may be an explanation for these strangely coincidental events, one that explains both the home invasion at my brother's residence and the flawed Tran murder investigation. The key to understanding the entire Tran case has never been publicly told. Aside from the fact that I had seen and been seen by the murder suspect, I also knew about Shannon Murrin from the past. I and others knew that he was an RCMP informant/agent, and that his handler in the past had been RCMP Sgt. Gary Tidsbury, the lead investigator in Mindy Tran's murder investigation. Suspect "B" was also a long time member of this same informant/agent group handled by Gary Tidsbury. The RCMP knew that I had witnessed an event involving Murrin and Tidsbury in the 1981 disappearance of a girl named "Elizabeth" believed to have been from the Campbell River area. These past events may provide the background to understanding what really happened in the Tran Investigation. An RCMP member has since privately confirmed that Elizabeth is officially listed as a missing person from Campbell River for 1981. see- past events) I had been led to believe that the RCMP had conclusive evidence, including DNA, available to confirm the identity of Mindy Tran's killer. Given the apparent evidence, and my fear as a result of the death threats, I delayed going to the police believing that my testimony was not required. Immediately upon hearing that the DNA evidence had been washed from Mindy's clothes and that Murrin was subsequently acquitted, I became even more suspicious. With a missing girl from the past already on my conscience, and now this bizarre coincidence of encountering the same suspect thirteen years later while he was in the process of abducting a child, I felt personally obligated to provide this information to the designated authorities no matter the danger. How do you know if the actions of the RCMP members involved are known to and authorized by their superiors unless you ask? Everyone would at
first assume that there must be some department within the RCMP, the media, the courts,
or our government system, that would not condone
these actions and would at least investigate. I circulated flyers, publicly requested information,
sent letters to politicians, contacted the media, and
called for an inquiry. I even offered a cash reward for evidence of my
vehicle having been reported to the Mindy Tran investigators. Surprisingly, the newspaper
for the day containing the story and sketches of the first suspect vehicle,
(mine), is one of the few newspapers missing from the Kelowna library archives.
I provided
a preliminary statement outlining these past events directly to a Surrey RCMP member. I have not
been allowed to sign or to even view the draft copy written by the RCMP member on my
behalf. I had been led to believe that the RCMP would not be able to just ignore
the new information given the amount of detail supplied. I
was unaware at the time the statement was given, that the former Kelowna Superintendent
from the time of
the Tran investigation, had since taken over the Surrey Detachment.
The
Surrey RCMP apparently just directed my information back to Kelowna's
Supervisor, Sam McLeod, against my expressed concerns. No one within the RCMP has
responded to or spoken to
me since. If
the events that obstructed me from becoming identified as a witness in Mindy
Tran's case were merely
co-incidental or accidental, the RCMP should still have been investigating the new information provided to them.
They
did not even request the specific address to where I had followed the
suspect. I would have to assume that they already knew. These events became the subject of an Official Public Complaint against the
RCMP, as well as a lawsuit filed by my brother against the
RCMP. The RCMP Public
Complaints Commission is in possession of evidence of these crimes.
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Contact- info@mindytran.com |
