Attempted murder trial hears grim testimony
Man says he was attacked with a hammer and had his eyes gouged out in a home in North Vancouver
A man who was involved in the criminal underworld described in court this week how he was attacked with a hammer and had his eyes gouged out after he tried to blackmail people who ran a marijuana grow-op in North Vancouver.
Ronald Perry, 68, described in horrific detail how he was violently beaten inside a Norgate area bungalow by two men on Sept. 2, 2009.
Perry had gone to the house to try to make a deal with the boss of a criminal gang who was angry at him for his earlier involvement in a grow-rip of a marijuana operation in Lions Bay in November 2006.
Perry described being attacked by two men in the house, including being hit with a hammer. At one point, he said he was pinned to a couch and one of the men reached around from behind and gouged out Perry’s eyes with his fingers.
“I didn’t even realize my eye had been torn out at that point. I didn’t feel it,” he said.
“He said, ‘I’m going to pop it like a grape.’”
Robin Landrew Pryce, 42, of Surrey and Paul Joseph Defaveri, 50, of Squamish, are both on trial for the attempted murder and aggravated assault of Perry before provincial court Judge Steven Merrick. Both men have pleaded not guilty.
Perry testified he went to a house in the 1600-block of Phillip Avenue in August 2009 and talked to a man and a woman there, saying he knew they had a grow-op in the basement and he wanted to talk to their boss. On Sept. 2, 2009, Perry said he returned to the house and offered the couple money to get in contact with their boss.
He was reaching for it when suddenly he got hit on the head.
“I thought I’d been shot,” he said. “I felt my legs buckling.” Perry said he wasn’t sure how many times he was hit or who hit him.
After his eyes were gouged, he said his wrists and ankles were hog-tied behind him with zap straps and a black drawstring bag was placed over his head.
“They said two or three times, ‘Why don’t you just die?’” Perry said.
Then, he said, he heard a woman’s voice saying, “Not here. Don’t do it here.’”
Perry said he blacked out and came to lying on the floor of what felt like a van. He was eventually transferred to the back of his own car. He said when he next regained consciousness, he heard a woman’s voice, and then he was in an ambulance. Perry said he spent 11 days in hospital and ended up losing his left eye. He also pointed to large scars still visible on his scalp.
Perry said he later went back to the house with a hatchet, determined to “straighten some things out.”
He said the house was cleared out, but he found papers with the names Marney King and Paul Defaveri on them. He looked them up on Facebook, he said, and recognized them as the couple in the house.
The trial continues.