The former partner of a man who was shot in the head and his body abandoned in his vehicle says four months prior to his death, John Dillon Brown suffered several injuries in a bar fight in Campbell River with a group of bikers and ended up in hospital.
“He had bruises on his face, his jaw was swollen,” Nicole Herman said of the November 2015 fight, as she testified Tuesday at the first-degree murder trial of Richard Ernest Alexander.
Herman said she believed Brown fought three or four men at the Voodoo Lounge. Crown prosecutor Lorne Phipps has described the other combatants as a member of the local Devils Army Motorcycle Club and members of the Hells Angels.
Phipps said Brown’s training in mixed-martial arts allowed him to hold his own in the scrap, which was captured on surveillance video.
Brown decided he was going to sue the Voodoo Lounge because he was beaten up and no one stepped in, Herman said.
After the suit was filed, Brown was contacted by Alexander, who wanted things to be settled out of court, Phipps said. Alexander was president of the Devils Army.
A final session involving the men was set for the Devils Army clubhouse on March 11, 2016, and Brown expected to be paid, Phipps said.
Instead, the court heard Alexander shot Brown in the back of the head, put Brown’s body in the trunk of Brown’s car with the help of another person and drove 75 kilometres north to Sayward. The car and the body were abandoned there, Phipps said.
Alexander has pleaded not guilty.
Also testifying Tuesday was Dustie Woods, who knew both Brown and Alexander. She said she had known Brown during their school years and had come to know Alexander.
Woods was questioned about being at the Voodoo Lounge the night of the fight, but said she remembered very little.
“I was there with some friends,” she said. “I left.”
Despite her police statements at the time that indicated she saw at least something of what happened, she said she doesn’t remember now.
“That was five years ago,” she said.
When Brown approached her and talked about his plans to sue the Voodoo Lounge, she said, she made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with it.
“I said no. He left. That’s that.”
jbell@timescolonist.com
