Wanna See A Dead Body?

Teen killers fascinate me. It’s hard not to be drawn to the immaturity and sheer evil they are capable of. We refuse to believe they could be capable of dark hatred and violence, expecting bad kids to simply outgrow their problems. I’m especially sympathetic to immigrant families, such as the parents of three 15-year-olds who murdered 42-year-old dj Eric Wong. Often times, parents are forced into low-paying jobs to provide for their families. The kids see their parents slaving away at menial jobs around the clock. Suddenly, running drugs or leading a life of crime seems like the perfect opportunity for what they see as respectability: designer jeans, fast cars, and chicks. Sadly, the greed of these three teenagers resulted in their convictions for murder.

School gossip led to killers
Three teenagers were found guilty Thursday in the slaying of Eric Wong. Through nearly 100 wiretapped phone calls and high school gossip, police tracked down the killers of the 42-year-old security guard and DJ who had befriended the 15-year-olds. This account is based on court testimony and intercepted phone calls introduced in their trial. The young offenders cannot be identified and pseudonyms are being used.

Sherri Zickefoose and Daryl Slade
Calgary Herald ©
Friday, October 1, 2004

Snow crunched under the tires of the 1987 Honda Accord as it stopped in a farmer’s field just outside the city last Jan. 6.Eric Wong, 42, and three 15-year-old boys piled out of his car. Ken, the teen who’d been driving, lit a cigarette.

“You want your cellphone back now, Eric?” Paul, the tallest of the youths, taunted while holding the security guard’s phone up before tossing it into the snow.

Wong’s angry tears shone on his cheeks in the headlights. He wanted to go home.

“Get in the car,” the driver ordered.

Walking to the passenger side, Wong reached for his phone.

Suddenly, Paul snuck up with a knife and stabbed him in the back. Another blow cut into his neck.

Blood trickled from his nose and mouth as Wong staggered, looking the driver in the eyes before falling to the ground. The passenger-side window was smeared with blood.

Mike, the slimmest boy, produced a knife and stabbed him at least twice in the chest, snapping the blade.

Paul plunged his knife into Wong’s chest one last time before searching the dying man’s pockets and stealing his wallet.

Shaking and nearly fainting, the driver slipped back behind the wheel as his friends dragged the mortally wounded man’s body to a mound of snow near a bluff of trees.

“Drive off, man,” one of them commanded after retrieving the dead man’s cellphone.

Ken, in shock, listened as his friends talked about what they had just done. It was fun to kill somebody, they agreed.

————————————-

It was the worst-kept secret ever.

Between that night and 14 days later, when the three teens were arrested, the rumour mill among friends, siblings and their high schools churned at full clip.

In school halls and phone calls, everyone who had even remote connections to the trio was gossiping about who had played what role in the vicious slaying.

Teenagers were talking murder between classes, on Internet chat sites and in phone calls, many of which were being wiretapped by police.

Night and day, they called each other at home to talk about the crime, or instant-messaged them by computer.

On the day after the slaying, the three teens and several friends went on a shopping spree with Wong’s credit cards at northeast malls.

Paul and his friends splurged on everything from designer Armani cologne and clothes to a Sony PlayStation and high-tech cellphones.

Wong’s MasterCard was rung through 18 times. At Wal-Mart, they were caught on videotape.

The teenagers had met Wong in an Internet cafe months before and struck up a friendship.

This wasn’t the first time they had stolen from Wong. Altogether, with forged cheques on the victim’s bank account, they and another friend bled more than $6,000 from his coffers.

A few hours before he died, Wong confronted them about stolen cheques.

The rumours heightened after the three teens drove friends to the killing field, showing them Wong’s frozen corpse at least twice. On the grisly tour, they also drove past the spot on the Calf Robe Bridge on Deerfoot Trail to show where they’d tossed the knives into the Bow River.

After they washed the dead man’s car — and removed all of its contents including the licence plate — the incriminating evidence was shuttled by a relative to a school dumpster in Carstairs.

Finally, they parked the car in an alley in one of the teen’s neighbourhoods.

Mike’s girlfriend, who had viewed Wong’s body two times before it was discovered by horseback riders Jan. 10, was entrusted with Wong’s car keys. Scared of getting caught, she hurled the keys onto some train tracks.

Three days after the body was found, a tip led police to Wong’s missing car.

By this time, the rest of Calgary was finding out what the teenagers already knew — Eric Wong had been slain. But only they — and an ever-growing circle of friends and teenage acquaintances — knew the details.

The car’s discovery was plastered in newspapers and on television.

Panicked, the teens and their friends started calling each other whenever the news was on, reassuring themselves that police didn’t have enough evidence to link them to the murder.

In an evening call from his girlfriend, Ken started to worry.

“You saw the news right? They’re searching the whole car, right,” he said.

“Did Paul . . . wipe it off, though?” she said.

“I don’t know if Paul wiped it off. See, Paul thinks he can get away with it and they think it’s a joke. But when you think it’s a joke, you never gonna get away with it.”

Police found fingerprints left behind by one of the teen’s girlfriends.

Paranoia began to take hold. The boys, believing RCMP had them under surveillance, began accusing each other, and pointed a finger at a fourth teen involved in the bank frauds. They blamed others of “ratting” them out.

Over 100 phone conversations taped by police revealed a plethora of gossip, innuendo and accusations among the parties who’d been privy to gruesome details of the slaying long before the authorities pinpointed the suspects.

Ken told his girlfriend in a Jan. 19 phone call — the day before he was arrested — that he was upset about who was pointing fingers at him in e-mails.

“I wonder who keeps telling everybody that I did it. . . . I wonder who told everybody that me and Paul and Mike did it,” he said. “Looks like everybody’s blaming me.”

Later, however, he added: “Hmm, I think I can get away with it. . . . I think Paul (is) gonna get away with it. . . . Unless somebody rat them out.”

The following day, two weeks after the killing, Ken was plucked from his Grade 10 class by police. Paul was arrested at home. Mike was picked up at his girlfriend’s parent’s house. They were charged with first-degree murder.

Paul and Mike took their lawyers’ advice and declined to give statements to police. Ken, the driver, initially followed suit. However, shortly after his lawyer departed, he relented and revealed what happened that night, and his apparent lesser involvement in the stabbing. He also took the officers to the crime scene.

On Thursday, youth court Judge Peter Leveque ruled that Mike and Paul were guilty of first-degree murder. Ken was found guilty of manslaughter for his role as the driver.

—–

On the ride back to Calgary the following morning after their arrests, Ken denied to his friends that he’d spilled the beans and reiterated that he was “only the driver.”

“I didn’t give them a statement, my lawyer was sitting beside me,” he told Paul and Mike, uncertain the conversation was being recorded.

“Two rats, man. These guys are two rats,” Paul chided them in a whisper.

Ken told his co-accused that police said they had questioned “a lot of people in the morning” before his arrest.

“No, somebody at the school ratted,” Ken said later during the ride to Calgary youth court.

“They accused me of this, just ’cause of the rumours they heard,” said Paul.

The trip in the police van was the beginning of a journey that culminated Thursday, when youth court Judge Peter Leveque ruled that Mike and Paul were guilty of first-degree murder.

Ken was found guilty of manslaughter for his role as the driver.

It’s uncertain whether the teenagers felt any remorse for Wong’s death, as none of them took the stand during the trial.

But while the boys were in police custody — and being taped by officers — they joked around about the seriousness of the situation.

“What ya gonna do, bad boys, bad boys,” Mike sang, mimicking the theme song from the TV show COPS as his friends laughed.

“What ya gonna do, when the pigs come for you?”

“You’re cold hearted, man,” Paul laughed.

“You’re cold hearted,” Ken added.

“Yeah, I am too, eh?” Mike agreed.

“Yeah, I know, eh.”

Brutal killing described: Tapped phone calls played in court
Wednesday, September 22, 2004
Sherri Zickefoose
Calgary Herald

Unaware the police were listening in, three teenagers talked freely on telephones about the killing of Eric Wong, their fears of being “ratted out” to police and allegations of sexual touching.Wiretapped phone calls collected by Mounties in mid-January, following Wong’s death, were heard Tuesday during a first-degree murder trial in youth court for three 15-year-olds.

Repeatedly, the teens — “K”, “M” and “P” — are heard saying to each other and to friends “the cops have no evidence . . .” and “keep your mouth shut.”

“K” is heard saying: “They stabbed him in the back . . . blood spurt all over the window. . . . The fifth time ‘M’ did it, the knife broke in half. . . . “P” stabbed him again in the heart. . . .”

“K” also said he watched as his friends “kept on doing it and doing it.”

When a friend is heard saying she hopes Wong rests in peace, “K” replies that, after the stabbing, “M” said, “Rest in peace, n—-r.”

Seventy-two phone calls recorded over six days during a second wiretap are being reviewed this week.

However, Judge Peter Leveque earlier ruled calls recorded during the first 36 hours were obtained without legal authority and he ruled those ones inadmissible.

Crown prosecutor Ken McCaffrey introduced calls that included “K” complaining with a female friend that Wong was too “touchy” with him, placing his hand on “K’s” crotch when he was trying to drive.

In another call, “P’s” former girlfriend is heard saying she told police “the truth.”

“Really? That I did it?” was “P’s” reply.

Later, “P” is heard telling a female friend he’s considering turning himself in.

“Yeah, there’s a slim chance ‘M’ will get away with this, too. It’s either me turning myself in . . . or ‘M’ turning himself in. . . . And if he does that, then I’m out. I’m here living.”

“P” also frets about another female friend telling on him: “If she rats, then we’re caught . . . but we didn’t do it, you know what I mean?”

Leveque earlier said the emergency wiretap was unconstitutional because RCMP Insp. Paul Young did not have legal authority to order an emergency interception of the accused teens’ telephone conversations.

Two of them are alleged to have taken turns repeatedly stabbing Wong until the knife blade snapped, then dragged his blood-covered body into a field just outside the southeast city limits.

Wong is believed to have been killed on or about Jan. 6.

Throughout the trial, retail staff have testified that phones, cologne and electronic games and equipment were bought on Wong’s credit cards after his death.

“They know we jacked his f—–’ Visa and s—, right? So, and then, it’s obvious that it’s us, right?” “M” told “K” over one of the tapped phone calls.

Viewing of body disgusted teen
Friday, September 24, 2004
Sherri Zickefoose
Calgary Herald

Saying she was still traumatized by the sight of a dead body, the girlfriend of a teenager accused of first-degree murder admitted throwing the dead man’s car keys on the railroad tracks.The 14-year-old wept and clutched her stomach during the first-degree murder trial of the three teenage boys in youth court at Court of Queen’s Bench Thursday.

The girl, who can’t be identified along with “P,” “M,” and “K,” said school rumours were confirmed when two carloads of friends drove southeast of the city last January to see the corpse of Eric Wong, 42.

Two of the teens are alleged to have taken turns repeatedly stabbing Wong until the knife blade snapped, then dragged his blood-covered body into a snowy field. On at least two occasions, the teens are alleged to have driven their friends to see the corpse.

Two cars — including Wong’s 1987 blue Honda Accord — filled with the three accused, the 14-year-old girl, another teenaged girl, and K’s sister and her boyfriend, travelled to the death scene and four of them stood over the body.

The girl said when she was given Wong’s car keys she threw them away. “I didn’t want to hold it,” she said.

Crown prosecutor Ken McCaffrey asked the teen what her boyfriend M told her about Wong’s death.

“I asked him and he said, ‘I hurt somebody’. . . I was, like, Who? And he was, like, ‘Eric,’ ” she said.

“He told me he killed Eric. He just put his head down and then he said, ‘ P stabbed him six times and I stabbed him four times.’ “

The girl testified that P admitted to stabbing Wong in the back and heart. She also told court that P said her boyfriend M broke the knife inside Wong while stabbing him.

Lawyer Willie deWit, who is defending P, asked the girl, who was asked repeatedly to read police statements to keep her story consistent, if she was confusing what her accused friends told her with the school rumour mill.

“It’s been so long, and I’ve gone through so much since then,” she said. “I don’t want to remember it.”

Later, McCaffrey asked the girl: “Why was Eric stabbed?”

“Because they said he tried touching them,” she replied, adding the boys told her Wong was “rubbing their legs when they were in the car.”

The emotional teenager grew weary on the stand.

“How can I remember? Who the hell wants to see a dead body? Tell me,” she snapped.