Man accused of killing Montreal store owner previously convicted in fatal B.C. stabbing

A Montreal man charged with first-degree murder in the death of a convenience store owner appeared in court Friday, a day after police launched a manhunt that ended with his arrest.

Xavier Gellatly, 35, is accused of killing 55-year-old Chong Woo Kim. Police found Kim unresponsive inside his convenience store around 7:30 a.m. Thursday. Paramedics confirmed his death at the scene.

Authorities searched for the suspect through the city’s metro system before arresting him hours later inside Complexe Desjardins, a downtown office tower and mall.

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Provincial business records indicate Kim owned the Fleur Bleue convenience store on Berri Street, near the Laurier metro station, where the killing occurred. Court records show Gellatly lived in an apartment about one kilometre from the business.

Court documents show Gellatly has a lengthy criminal history that includes a 2015 conviction in British Columbia for stabbing a woman to death.

He was sentenced to seven years in prison in Vancouver in February 2015 after pleading guilty to manslaughter in the 2012 killing of Chelsea Holden and to aggravated assault for stabbing another man seven times, causing permanent nerve damage.

According to a B.C. Supreme Court sentencing ruling, the attacks occurred after he got into a fight with the man at a hotel.

Holden, a mother of two, “was entirely innocent and apparently little more than a bystander,” the judge said at sentencing.

Gellatly’s murder case is scheduled to return to court on May 4.

— with files from The Canadian Press