TRAIL LEADS FROM DRUG RAID TO MURDERS

It Took Police Years To Connect All The Pieces

A complex police investigation into organized crime's involvement in
cocaine trafficking began almost eight years ago when a large cache of
the drug was found in a car stopped by police on the Trans-Canada Highway.

On Sept. 24, 1995, Chilliwack RCMP discovered more than 135 kilograms
of cocaine hidden inside a vehicle that had been rented in Alberta.
Two Quebec men were charged with possession of a narcotic.

Five days later, the RCMP drug squad found 170 kilograms of cocaine
along with an AR-10 assault rifle in a home the 2900-block of East
Fifth Avenue in Vancouver.

After the drug busts, seven murders took place in 1995 that police
believe were tied to the cocaine trade.

First, Eugene Uyeyama, 35, and his wife Michele, 30, were allegedly
tortured and killed in their Burnaby home before it was set on fire in
December 1995.

It is believed the Uyeyamas were killed because they were involved
with a criminal organization with links to a Colombian cocaine cartel
and the couple were considered informers who had apparently talked to
police about protection.

Then, five people were murdered at an Abbotsford farmhouse in
September 1996: Raymond Graves, 70; his wife Sonto Graves, 56; their
son David Kernail Sangha, 37, and family friends Daryl Brian Klassen
and his wife Teresa Klassen, both 30.

The Graves were allegedly killed because they owed a drug debt. The
Klassens, who were also involved in the cocaine trade, apparently
dropped by to visit the Graves and were killed.

But it would take years before various police departments throughout
the Lower Mainland made any connections between the murders and the
drug seizures.

One of the first breaks in the case came during an investigation that
involved former Richmond housewife Tami Morrisroe, who claims she
infiltrated a Vancouver criminal organization in 1995 to help prove
that her father had been wrongly convicted of murder.

Tami Morrisroe had met a man while visiting her father, Sid Morrisroe,
in prison; the man told Tami that her father had been framed and he
knew who was behind the frame-up.

Morrisroe said years ago that she met the man after he was released
from prison and he allegedly got her involved in counting out millions
of dollars in drug money.

Morrisroe, realizing later that she was in over her head, turned to
police for help. The RCMP enlisted her as a police agent and used
electronics experts to place a listening device in her purse, which
transmitted conversations with members of the alleged criminal
organization.

After new information arose two years into the cocaine-murder
investigation -- there is a ban on publication of what the new
development was -- police first began a murder investigation, followed
by a drug investigation.

Last summer, after a 20-month joint police investigation, three men
were charged with the alleged drug murders: Robert (Bobby) Moyes was
charged with the five murders at the Abbotsford farmhouse along with
co-accused Mark Therrien, 39.

Moyes was also charged with the murders of the Uyeyamas along with
co-accused Salvatore Ciancio, 40.

Last Oct. 10, Moyes pleaded guilty to seven counts of first-degree
murder and received a mandatory life sentence without parole for 25
years.

Moyes was already serving a life sentence for robbery when he took
part in the alleged contract killings.

Ciancio and Therrien are still facing separate murder trials next year
in Chilliwack and Vancouver.