Accused killer’s second friend testifies in BC restaurant murder trial

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A second friend of accused killer Richard Reed testified Tuesday that Reed contacted him for a ride after the 2020 Manzo restaurant slaying.

Tyler Laramie-Chan said Reed called or texted him sometime between 11:30 p.m. on Sept. 18, 2020, or early the next morning and asked to be picked up.

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Reed is charged with the first-degree murder of alleged money launderer Jian Jun Zhu and the attempted murder of his partner Paul King Jin, who were having dinner with a group of 12 people in Manzo when a gunman opened fire around 7: 34 p.m.

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Laramie-Chan told British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Jeanne Watchuk that she drove to an area of ​​Bowcock Road in Richmond and Reed walked to her car and got in.

Crown prosecutor Rusty Antonuk said in his opening that a distinctive Calvin Klein hoodie believed to have been worn by the killer that night was found partially burned in a pot at a home in Bowcock near where Reed was picked up.

Laramie-Chan said he had been friends with Reed since kindergarten and it was not unusual for him to ask for a ride because he did not have a license.

He confirmed to Antonuk that Reed later contacted him to ask for the Bowcock address where he was picked up that night.

“I went on Google Maps, put a pin on where I picked him up and sent him the address,” Laramie-Chan testified.

He also said he was with Reed hours before the murder as the two drove in Laramie-Chan’s car to UBC “to enjoy the sun.”

“We were there for about an hour, hour and a half. Then a phone call came, I don’t remember how, and we were heading back to Richmond to meet a friend,” she testified.

That friend was Gordon Ma, he confirmed, adding that he later left Reed and Ma together outside a Richmond church.

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Antonuk said earlier in his opening that Ma was captured on video with Reed just before the fatal shooting at a housing complex near Manzo.

Also Tuesday, Reed’s friend Mohammad Elburai, who previously testified that Reed had confessed to the shooting of Manzo, told defense attorney Kevin Westell that he was unsure of any of his evidence.

He said he had a bad memory and might have been repeating things he had read in online news or heard from other people.

“My memory is not that good,” he testified.

He agreed with Westell that Reed was his partner in the drug business at the time and that they sold cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine, but not fentanyl.

And he agreed that Reed had a drug problem at the time.

“Did you expect him to get clean and quit drugs?” Westell asked.

Elburai replied: “Correct.”

Like Elburai, Laramie-Chan testified in a voir dire: a trial within a trial. Watchuk will decide later whether evidence from either of them will be admitted at trial.

The trial, now in its third week, is expected to last six weeks.

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