The murder of Karver Morford got wider media attention last week after RCMP investigators held a news conference in Surrey.
RCMP Sgt. Jennifer Pound said investigators now have “a group of persons of interest” in the case, but more information is needed before charges can be laid.
“We need specific evidence that would move us forward to making arrests and laying charges,” she said.
“We believe Karver was targeted (but) the reason he was targeted, we still need to find that out.”
Unlike many murder victims, Morford, 35, had no links to drugs or criminal activity. He suffered from epilepsy and kept to himself living in a remote location in Ryder Lake.
“Karver was truly an innocent victim,” Pound said, and what led up to his death in November, 2010 is a mystery.
“What could have possibly prefaced this homicide?” she asked. “That’s why we need for people to come forward and shed some light on this.”
It’s also a mystery to Karver’s parents, Jim and Judy, who first told their story to The Progress in September last year.
“Why someone chose him, at that time, in that place, is incomprehensible to us all,” Judy said in a statement to the media last week.
“Our only hope is that there really is no perfect murder, and that this is not the one to break the mold,” she said.
“We are sure that someone out there knows something about this heinous crime that took the life of our son, and that person needs to do the right thing and get the burden of knowledge and guilt off their chests and into the hands of the investigating team.”
It was Karver’s father, Jim, who found his son’s body on Monday, Nov. 8 inside the rustic Ryder Lake house. Judy had seen Karver just two days earlier on Saturday, Nov. 6.
Sometime in between, someone made their way up the kilometre-long driveway, which was not much more than a rutted and overgrown pathway, to the house where Karver’s blue and grey Ford 250 pickup was parked outside.
What happened next only the killer or killers can say.
Police are holding back the cause of death to protect the integrity of their investigation.
Judy asked Chilliwack area residents to remember that Karver’s life was “stolen from him ... and those of us left behind need to stand up for him since he can no longer stand up for himself.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team tipline at 1-877-551-IHIT or email ihittipline@rcmp-grc.gc.ca.
Anonymous tips can be made by calling Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS or left on their website at www.solvecrime.ca
rfreeman@theprogress.com
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