WARNING: This story contains disturbing details and is not suitable for all readers
Vancouver police are revealing new details about how they solved the horrific murder of a Vancouver couple in their Marpole home.
Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder last Thursday in the killings of Diana Mah-Jones, 64, and her husband Richard Jones, on Sept. 26, 2017.
The murder kicked off an investigation involving more than 240 VPD employees, the canvassing of more than 1,000 homes and businesses, hundreds of hours of video evidence and a price tag of about $600,000.
“The crime itself was horrific. Not to downplay any other murders, but this one was particularly horrific,” Vancouver police Deputy Chief Laurence Rankin told Global News Thursday.
“You can imagine your worst horror movie and this … couldn’t do it justice in terms of the horrific nature of the violence that was inflicted on this couple.”
Jones was slashed more than 100 times, while Mah-Jones’ throat was slit. In court, the officers who found the couple described the scene as “catastrophic.”
Along with bloody footprints, the killer left a hatchet at the couple’s home.
That hatchet proved to be the key clue that allowed detectives to unravel the case.
Officers used a bar code on the tool to connect the hatchet to a specific Canadian Tire outlet, where Kam bought his kill kit.
Police poured over hours of video, leading to an image of the suspect. Believing the killer had a connection to the neighbourhood, investigators blanketed the area with surveillance.
Almost a month to the day after the killing, a stakeout team made the breakthrough.
“A huge, pivotal moment … I remember the investigators being elated, like, ‘This is the break we’ve been waiting for all along.'”
From that point, the investigation kicked into high gear. Police followed Kam to a bank, where records revealed his identity.
An undercover officer approached Kam and asked for his help to open a bottle of water — giving police the DNA evidence they needed to connect him to the crime scene.
Rankin said the feeling among investigators at last Thursday’s verdict was overwhelmingly one of relief.
But he said he remains troubled by many aspects of the case.
For one, Kam — an economics graduate with a video game habit — had no criminal record, and no attributes that would flag him as a potential killer.
During his interrogation, Kam quietly ate a chicken sandwich and looked at gruesome crime scene photos while barely uttering a word.
“When you are dealing with someone who has never had any dealings with police to commit that kind of crime, and then to be as closed-mouth as you will in the interview, as he was,” said Rankin.
“He wasn’t moved. Which in and of itself is chilling.”
Equally troubling for Rankin is the lack of any apparent motive in the killing.
In court, Kam’s defence was that he suffered from a “gaming consciousness” and believed he was in a video game at the time of the killing.
“We don’t know why he did what he did. I mean he testified at court as to why he did what he did, but even that was contradictory,” said Rankin.
“I don’t know if we’ll ever know. Maybe he’ll have an epiphany one day and want to explain it.”
Kam’s first-degree murder conviction comes with an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years.
His sentencing is scheduled for July, when the court will hear victim impact statements.