A preliminary hearing for the accused in the Western Forest Product’s mill shooting is scheduled to take place March 10-13 in Nanaimo.
Kevin Douglas Addison was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder in relation to the incident last April and according to Bobby Movassaghi, a lawyer representing Addison’s legal counsel, a trial date could come at the conclusion of the hearing.
“[The hearing] is two-fold. It’s one, for Crown counsel to introduce its case to see if it has enough to go to trial and the second tier of that would be for the accused to see the case that is being presented against [them],” said Movassaghi.
“It should be on March 13 [when] the judge will determine whether there’s sufficient evidence to commit the accused to stand trial,” he said.
Fred McEachern and Michael Lunn were killed and Tony Sudar and Earl Kelly were wounded when Addison allegedly opened fire at the Nanaimo mill on April 30. He has yet to enter a plea.
“I wouldn’t anticipate [a plea] any time soon, at least not before March 10,” said Movassaghi.
Pleas aren’t entered prior to preliminary hearings for these types of offences, he said. An official plea would come at trial.
Lunn’s family is taking solace in the fact the case is progressing through the system.
“There’s really nothing we can do, we just go one day at a time, one hour at a time some days. At least we’re moving forward and we know the justice system takes a long time and we’ll get through this all together,” said Marlene Lunn, Michael’s widow.
reporter@nanaimobulletin.com