WARNING: This story contains graphic details and is not suitable for all readers.
Friends of a woman killed with her husband in a random attack in 2017 are speaking for the first time about their loss and her legacy, ahead of the killer’s sentencing hearing that’s set to begin on Wednesday.
Dianna Mah-Jones, 64, and Richard Jones, 68, were killed inside their Vancouver home in an attack involving a hatchet and a baseball hat that the trial judge called “incomprehensible.”
“We loved her. She was so vibrant,” said Gwen Epstein, a friend of Mah-Jones who was a retired occupational therapist and dedicated dancer.
“Dianna is my inspiration. I’m so inspired by her independence, her braveness, how fit she was,” friend Danielle Bradley added.
Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam was found guilty in June on two counts of first-degree murder.
Kam slashed Jones more than 100 times and cut Mah-Jones’ throat, then ate a peach and drank milk from the couple’s fridge before leaving their home.
Key pieces of evidence in convicting Kam were a tiny speck of Mah-Jones’ blood discovered on the hinge of his glasses and his DNA found under Mah-Jones’ fingernails.
“Oh, she would have fought to the end. She would have,” friend Dell Catherall told Global News.
“I don’t know what his face looked like, but it would have been like he’d been in a cat fight. She was ferocious, but only ferocious when she had to be strong, like it was her strength and her toughness. So it would have been horrible. Absolutely horrible.”
The couple’s friends said they hope Kam will get two life sentences. The hearing begins on Wednesday, with victim impact statements, in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver.