B.C. town rescinds reward offer
Kevin Vermette left his truck at the motel where he’d been living in Kitimat, a small coastal community 650 kilometres north of Vancouver. The RCMP said he then “fled on foot into the mountain wilderness with his black Labrador dog,” a one-yearold pup.
That was July 12, 1997. Three local men had just been killed, another seriously wounded, victims of a shooting rampage at a municipal park. The lone survivor, Donny Oliveira, later recalled how Vermette had walked up to them and started firing. Seven blasts, maybe more, from a sawedoff shotgun.
“I just ran,” Oliveira told The Province newspaper. He was hit by some shot and lost a lot of blood, but he survived. His three friends did not. Mike Mauro, David Nunes and Mark Teves were in their early 20s. There was no clear motive for the murders, although Vermette had clashed with at least some of the victims, and someone had reportedly slashed the tires of Vermette’s truck the previous night.
Vermette was charged with three counts of seconddegree murder, and with attempted murder. But there’s been no arrest. He has not been spotted since he left his motel room on foot. He’s now 61 — assuming, of course, he made it out of the mountains and is now living somewhere, somehow, perhaps in disguise.
The police file remains open, but hopes investigators will crack the 18-yearold cold case are fading.
Time is also running out on the long-standing offer of a $25,000 reward for information leading to Vermette’s arrest and conviction. The local committee that established the reward fund has made the unusual decision to formally “rescind” the offer by Dec. 31.
Their patience just expired.
“We’re all getting old,” said Richard Wozney, Kitimat’s mayor at the time of the mass murder and now a semi-retired lawyer who heads the reward fund committee. “We basically decided it was time to end it.”
That, plus the fact some of the fund’s original donors have asked for their money back.
The reward seed money — almost $18,000 — was raised locally, with contributions from individuals and companies. The amount has increased over time, with term-deposit investment interest, to something more than $25,000. Wozney won’t reveal the total amount.
Nor can he say with certainty why some donors — whom he won’t name — asked to have their contributions returned. A few “might be” in need of the cash, he acknowledged. Others — perhaps half the original donors — asked that their contributions instead be directed to charities.
Putting a kill date on the reward was a tough decision, Wozney says. He hopes that just maybe, news of its retirement will provoke some last-minute tips.
The RCMP “wanted us to continue,” he said. “They would always like to have (the reward) dangling out there.” But it wasn’t their call.
“The RCMP had nothing to do with it,” said Cpl. Chris Manseau of the Mounties’ Kitimat detachment. “We don’t deal directly with rewards. That really isn’t our business.”
Rewards for serious crimes such as murder are typically raised privately, at least in British Columbia. In other provinces, governments are sometimes involved. Nova Scotia initiated a cash reward program to help solve major cold cases in 2006, for example. It made its first payment last year, after two brothers were convicted of murdering Melissa Dawn Peacock, who went missing in 2011. A tipster received $150,000.
Ottawa’s Police Services Board began administering a major crimes reward program in 2011; as of yet, no one has collected a cent.
“You can’t just show up and offer a tip in our ear, and run away and expect to be cut a cheque for $50,000,” a city police officer told the Ottawa Sun this year.
Rewards are one of the last resorts for police.
“When we’ve run into an investigative wall where we’re not getting any more information, we put a (reward) request in,” the officer said.
There was originally no time limit on the Kitimat offer, no hidden strings attached. The $25,000 reward likely spurred some people to contact the RCMP, but nothing has ever come of it.
“We’re not finished looking for (Vermette) and we won’t until we find him,” said Staff Sgt. Greg Funk, after the grisly triple murder was discovered. “We will find him.”
The case has outlived Funk; he died in 2009. If Vermette isn’t dead he’s still on the loose. Some have decided to turn the page on it all.