A Campbell River killer was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 23 years for the second-degree murders of two men.
Darcy Kozak was sentenced by Justice James Williams in Victoria B.C. Supreme Court on Friday for killing Kenneth Robinson, a 45-year-old homeless man from Nanaimo and Kenneth Allan Leask, 44, from Powell River.
Kozak was also handed an 11-year concurrent sentence for the murder of Campbell River’s Luc Dulude whom Kozak met while in jail.
Kozak, 40, had already pleaded guilty Aug. 30 to two counts of second degree murder and one count of manslaughter in Dulude’s death. He was originally facing three counts of first degree murder. A three-month long trial in B.C. Supreme Court was avoided with Kozak’s guilty pleas.
During sentencing, the court heard how Kozak tortured his victims before killing them.
Kozak confined, stabbed, burned and beat Robinson in a trailer near Shawnigan Lake in May 2007.
Robinson was then left to die under a tarp, as revenge for allegedly stealing Kozak’s truck.
One year later, Kozak, who was angered by Leask spending $5,000 he was given to start a marijuana grow-op, hung Leask upside down and beat him over a period of several days before smothering him with a plastic bag. His body was dumped in the ocean off of Campbell River.
Dulude’s body was found in December 2008 in an abandoned commercial building – a former bakery owned by a company of Janice Bridges, Kozak’s girlfriend – in Willow Point.
Dulude was a career criminal who moved to Campbell River from Kamloops in August 2008 after being released from prison following his sixth robbery conviction.
In the fall of 2008, Dulude was shot in the abdomen by a friend of Kozak’s in a garage in Campbell River.
He was wrapped in plastic still alive and his body was put into the back of a pickup truck.
One week after Dulude’s body was found, Kozak was discovered in a Campbell River motel room in possession of a loaded handgun.
He was arrested, charged with weapons offences and later served 30 days in jail after coming up with a plea agreement.
In June 2007, Kozak led police on a wild chase near Victoria which resulted in eight accidents.
Kozak pleaded guilty to several charges stemming from that incident and received one year in jail, but was given credit for pre-trial custody of seven-and-a-half months.
In Friday’s sentencing, Justice Williams set parole at 23 years because he took into account Kozak’s guilty pleas which allowed the families to avoid testifying during a court case.