A Vancouver man is now facing a third charge of second-degree murder in connection to the deaths of three women in East Vancouver in September.
Viet Quy John Ly, 54, was arrested Sept. 5 at a building near Joyce Street and Vanness Avenue where two female homicide victims were found. Prior to the arrest, 50-year-old Jinfeng Guan was found with life-threatening injuries in a residential building approximately two blocks away.
Guan was transported to hospital where she died of her injuries on Sept. 11.
Ly was charged with two counts of second-degree murder.
In an update Dec. 16, police say Ly has now been charged with a third count of second-degree murder in connection to the death of Guan.
Who were the victims?
In mid September, police confirmed that Guan was the former spouse of the accused Ly.
The connection sparked calls from a Vancouver women’s advocacy group to police to release the nature of the relationships between the accused and the victims.
Angela Marie MacDougall of Battered Women’s Support Services (BWSS) said the triple stabbing is part of a disturbing trend of gender-based violence.
“We thought that was an important consideration because we believe it’s in the public interest to understand how many intimate-partner related killings that we have in Canada, but also in Vancouver and British Columbia,” she said. “We think that’s in the public interest, and we were concerned that they were perhaps withholding that — any details about the relationship — in order to not highlight the fact that we’ve had so many killings of women by intimate partners in British Columbia over the last 13 months.”
The VPD has not yet revealed the nature of the accused’s relationship to the other two women.
Ly remains in policy custody.
– With files from Srushti Gangdev and Raynaldo Suarez
