Aldergrove man charged with killing two prostitutes in the Fraser Valley after DNA was found in his car
Vancouver Sun
Monday, January 7, 2008
METRO VANCOUVER - Homicide investigators suspect a man charged Monday with killing two drug-addicted sex trade workers may be a serial killer who has preyed on other victims.
Police could not say Monday how many other murders may be connected to 29-year-old Davey Mato Butorac, who is alleged to have killed Abbotsford resident Gwendolyn Jo Lawton in March 2007 and Langley's Sheryl Lynn Koroll just four months later.
But RCMP Cpl. Dale Carr, of the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team, said other agencies - including the Missing Women's Task Force - are being consulted about their files.
"We are looking at him linked to other homicides," Carr told a Langley news conference Monday. "How many? It is so early to tell.
"This came to light to us just three weeks ago. There is a possibility of just about anything. We want to ensure we go through this very slowly and methodically and make sure we don't miss anythin
g." Butorac, a long-time Fraser Valley resident, was on probation for theft when both Lawton and Koroll were found murdered last year and was known to police for break and enter. He had no history of violence against sex trade workers, according to court records obtained by The Vancouver Sun.
Carr said Butorac had come to investigators' attention as a suspect in the Koroll murder last fall and police were able to get a search warrant, which was executed on Oct. 18, for Butorac's residence at 27456 32nd Avenue and his car, a 1990 white Chevrolet Cavalier.
"On Dec. 19, 2007 preliminary results from the lab identified forensic evidence belonging to Gwendolyn Jo Lawton," Carr said. "This information was presented to Crown counsel, who advised that the information did not meet the standard for charge approval.
"Investigators then set up around-the-clock surveillance on the suspect to ensure public safety while they actively continued the investigation to gather additional evidence to meet charge approval."
Butorac was arrested on Dec. 29, held for 24 hours and released for lack of evidence. But over the weekend, he was arrested again when prosecutors approved two second-degree murder charges in Lawton's and Koroll's deaths.
Carr said investigators would not release the causes of death, nor a photo of Butorac, in order to preserve the integrity of the ongoing investigation.
The body of Lawton, 46, was found last March 13 by city employees off the side of a gravel road in the Pemberton Hill area of northwest Abbotsford. The body of 50-year-old Koroll was discovered July 7 in an industrial area off Mufford Crescent in Langley.
Carr said it is not known if Butorac had any prior connection to the two women, who were working the streets because of their drug addictions.
Police believe that "Mr. Butorac really made this much more of a cowardly act by preying on these vulnerable women," Carr said.
"They were mothers, they were daughters. They were cherished friends."
RCMP Insp. Bill Fordy said other cases are being looked at in which "the victimology or the victim profile is similar and/or consistent to Koroll or Lawton."
"Mr. Butorac has been charged with two homicides whereby the victims' lifestyle led to their demise," he said.
Fordy said the Butorac investigation had come together so quickly "due to the cooperation of multiple agencies and the dedication of hundreds of police officers who sacrificed personal time with their families over the Christmas holidays to assist us in the investigation and to ensure that the public was not put in the position of danger once we had identified, once we felt he was the main suspect in these events."
Langley City Mayor Peter Fassbender praised the speed of the investigation.
"The fact that someone is taken off the street who was preying on those vulnerable people is absolutely a big win for everybody," he said. "There are no borders when it comes to those crimes."
Senior police officers from several forces said the quick arrest is proof that integration between RCMP detachments and municipal forces is aiding major investigations.
"Here you have a case of a victim in Abbotsford and a victim in Langley with a suspect that gets charged for both. So the boundaries for the purposes of the investigation become non-existent," said deputy Abbotsford police chief Richard Lucy.
The Missing Women's Task Force has identified 65 women, many of them drug-addicted prostitutes, who have vanished from Metro Vancouver streets over the years. Robert (Willie) Pickton has been convicted of killing six of them and is accused in another 20 cases.
But Fordy, who interrogated Pickton for hours after his arrest in 2002, said there are clearly other predators still out there.
"I think that any woman or any person involved in the sex trade industry should be careful and should take extraordinary steps to secure their safety. Without question, they are more vulnerable and at a greater risk of being harmed than a normal person who is not involved in that industry," he said.
As for Butorac, Fordy said police are still learning about their suspect's life.
"Mr. Butorac is subject of investigation right now. We are in the throes of trying to better understand Mr. Butorac and to better understand his actions in furtherance of this investigation."
Butorac had no regular employment, according to neighbours in the townhouse complex in Aldergrove where he lived with his dad Frank.
Discarded papers in the family recycling show that someone in the Butorac household was job-hunting on a federal government website as of Dec. 18, 2007.
The accused killer had a criminal record for theft and had also faced a charge for possessing tools to be used in a break and enter. In January 2007 he got nine months for theft under $5,000 which was then suspended for probation.
At the time of that theft, he was on probation after an earlier conviction for "trespassing at night," after being stopped by Langley RCMP in July 2005.
Butorac remains in custody after making a brief court appearance. His next scheduled appearance is on Jan. 18.
His neighbours said he was often seen vacuuming, cleaning and working on the Chevrolet Cavalier police now allege was central to his crimes. They said Butorac wasn't exactly friendly, but they were still stunned by the news of his charges.
Neighbour Alana Schneider had several conversations with Butorac, who invited her in for a drink a few months ago. She declined.
"He was sitting outside. I was walking by and we got chatting and he was doing something to his car and it was like: 'Oh yeah, do you want something to drink?' I said: 'Oh no, I am fine. I am heading back home.'"
Schneider said he is a good-looking, clean-cut guy who did not seem to be working or studying.
He was focused on his car, she said, even though he was violating condo policy by working on it in the carport.
"He was pretty much always doing something to the car," she said. "He was always polishing his rims. I would see him vacuuming it, washing it. He was always big on cleaning his car."
Schneider, the mother of a young son, said he had short dark hair and a goatee and was about five feet, 10 inches tall. He seemed fit, she said.
"He was very clean-cut. He was a good-looking guy."
Neighbour Armandina Landry said neither the dad nor son was friendly, despite the fact that everyone in the area gets along and chats regularly.
"I thought maybe he was working shifts. He was coming and going at different hours of the day and night," she said.
Landry and other neighbours noticed a police presence in recent weeks but had no idea it was in connection to a murder probe.
"I thought maybe there was a meth lab there," neighbour Liz Carter said. "I saw the police there in their white suits. I can't believe this. I am shaking just to think of it."
Vancouver Sun
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