PENTICTON, B.C. — Residents of British Columbia’s southern Okanagan will gather this evening for a candlelight vigil to honour four people shot to death in a targeted attack in Penticton.
The vigil is set to begin at 6:30 p.m. in Gyro Park, just a few blocks from a duplex where 71-year-old Rudi Winter died Monday in the first of two shootings.
Police say another man and two women, all in their 60s and 70s, were fatally shot in neighbouring homes in a separate area of the city less than an hour later.
RCMP Supt. Ted De Jager says 68-year-old John Brittain then walked into the Penticton RCMP detachment and surrendered.
The former employee in the city’s engineering department is charged with three counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder and remains in custody awaiting his next court date on May 8.
Longtime Penticton resident Sigrid Boersma says Monday’s shootings have left her feeling “shaky” and “insecure” while former mayor and current member of the legislative assembly Dan Ashton says the incidents have been “very traumatic.”
The Canadian Press