Body left on street a warning, gangster testifies

 

The purported leader of the Greeks gang didn't worry that the body of murder victim Ronald Thom was left on a street in Vernon, B.C., because he wanted to send a message to others not to cross the gang, British Columbia Supreme Court heard Friday. A former gang member turned Crown witness testified he had no concerns about leaving Thom in public view after the May 2005 killing because that is what Peter Manolakos wanted. "Everything was clean in terms of the shell casings," said the man, who cannot be identified under a publication ban. "There were no identifying fingerprints. And I was instructed to leave him in the middle of the road." Crown prosecutor David Jardine asked the witness why Manolakos wanted Thom left as he was. "To set an example for future RCMP collaborators," the witness replied. Earlier, the man testified that Manolakos ordered the hit on Thom because he thought Thom had provided information to police about the Vernon gang. He said accused killers and gang members Dale Sipes and Sheldon O'Donnell had accompanied him to shoot Thom. And he told jurors that he had asked another accused, Douglas Brownell, to lure Thom to a remote spot outside Vernon, though Brownell was not aware of the murder plot. After the slaying, an associate of Brownell called the witness to complain that Brownell has been unwittingly implicated. "He had claimed that we were setting up Doug and we were going to war," the witness said. He testified he lied to Brownell's associate by claiming that: "Doug knew full well what was going to happen and that he should relax and that if he didn't believe me he could put a bullet in me right then and there." "At the end of the conversation he said to me, 'Well any guy that says that I have got to believe him,' " the witness said. During his six days on the stand, the man recounted details of the slayings of Thom on May 30, 2005, David Marniuk in the summer of 2004 and Thomas Bryce in November 2004. Manolakos, Sipes, O'Donnell, Brownell and Leslie Podolski each face charges in connection with one or more of the slayings. All five accused have pleaded not guilty. The jury trial began under tight security at the Vancouver Law Courts last May and is expected to wrap up late this year.

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