WHO'S KILLING VERNON'S DRUG DEALERS?

Police Say The Dead And Missing Were Involved In The Drug Trade

VERNON - Five suspicious deaths and two disappearances in the past
two years, all involving people linked to Vernon's cocaine and heroin
trade, has led to the formation of a new police task force to
determine whether the cases are connected.

"We're trying to determine if there is any relationship between any
or all of these disappearances and any or all of the homicides," said
Cpl. Red Leibel, a Vernon RCMP investigator assigned to the investigation.

"We're trying to make sense of it all."

Leibel said the task force, formed in October, consists of about 20
officers from the RCMP "E" Division serious crimes unit, the
Southeast District RCMP criminal intelligence section and Vernon RCMP
detachment.

Leibel said that so far, the one common element to emerge is that all
the victims were involved at a low level in Vernon's drug trade.

Whether the killings are linked to organized crime is one of several
possibilities the task force is examining, Leibel said.

Police have said as far back as a year ago that the Hells Angels, a
biker group that police allege is a criminal organization, was trying
to establish a Kelowna chapter in an effort to expand into the Okanagan.

Police say that whenever an organized crime group moves into a new
area, there is always concern that a bloody turf war will result.

While police aren't linking the Vernon cases to the Hells Angels,
they are investigating that possibility.

Leibel said that, like all urban centres in B.C., Vernon struggles
with a thriving illegal drug trade.

"On a per-capita basis, we match up," he said. "It's a provincewide issue."

On Wednesday, task force members began searching a warehouse in
Vernon, looking for clues as to the whereabouts of David Barry
Marnuik, 47, of Vernon, who went missing around July 14, 2004.

Police said he may have been abducted by two or more men, and have
released composite drawings of two of the kidnapping suspects in
hopes of getting public help in identifying them.

Leibel said the search also relates to the disappearance of Stanley
Wade Polak, 33, of Falkland, who was last seen in March, 2005.

Leibel said both cases are considered suspicious. Police won't say
whether they believe the missing men are still alive.

In the past two years, four men and one woman have been killed in or
around Vernon, beginning with the death of 60-year-old Jeffrey Drake of Vernon.

Drake's body was found in August 2004, dumped in the Adventure Bay
area of the city. Police said the body had likely been there a month
before it was discovered, but confirmed the cause of death was the
result of foul play.

Three months later, Thomas Bryce was found badly beaten near Kin
Beach. He later died.

This year, three more names were added to the investigators' list.
The body of Robert Lyon Hewison, 43, of Vancouver was found dumped on
a remote dirt road on the Okanagan Indian Reserve, south of Vernon,
in March. An autopsy confirmed Hewison had been shot.

In May, 31-year-old Ron Thom was found shot to death on Commonage
Road in Vernon. The body of 38-year-old Belinda Scott, Thom's
common-law wife, was discovered in August near Hope. She was last
seen in Vernon's downtown core in May, and police believe she was
killed at the same time as Thom.

Both Thom and Scott were Vernon residents.