A B.C. man initially acquitted in the 2010 double shooting murder of a Cranbrook couple has now been convicted and sentenced to life in prison without parole eligibility for 14 years
B.C.’s Court of Appeal in October 2024 ordered a new murder trial for Colin Raymond Correia following his April 2024 acquittal in a double killing.
Correia and Sheldon Joseph Hunter were charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Leanne MacFarlane and partner Jeffrey Todd Taylor.
RCMP were called to a shooting at a rural residence off Highway 3/93 in May 2010, and found a woman dead and a man with severe injuries of which he later died.
At the time, RCMP said it was a targeted incident but that the dead were not the intended targets.
Correia and Hunter were found not guilty by Justice Arne Silverman. But a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeal for B.C. unanimously overturned the decision regarding Correia last fall.
Correia returned to B.C. Supreme Court where he pleaded guilty.
Judge Michael Tammen said Correia admitted some years later to police that his co‑perpetrator shot Taylor almost immediately.
“The other man then made a gesture indicating that Mr. Correia should shoot Ms. MacFarlane, which he did,” Tammen said “He fired a single shot into Ms. MacFarlane's torso. The second man then shot Ms. MacFarlane several more times. Ms. MacFarlane died instantly. Mr. Taylor died later at hospital.”
The home was part of a two-unit building. In the other half were Leanne's sister-in-law, Lise MacFarlane, and her son James.
“The two shooters then went to the adjacent unit and terrorized the occupants there,” Tammen said. “Terrified, Lise MacFarlane ran into a spare bedroom, and hid and later called 9-1-1. Her son, James, hid in his bedroom after seeing the intruders moving outside the house.”
Tammen said in sentencing Correia that the murders have had significant impacts on an extended family.
“Leanne MacFarlane and Mr. Taylor were murdered in the confines of their own home, a place where all individuals have an expectation of safety and security,” Tammen said. “Lise MacFarlane and her son were terrorized by masked and armed intruders in their home.
“I received victim impact statements from both Lise and James MacFarlane which describe the horror they faced and the lasting impact on them,” the judge said. “Both now suffer from post‑traumatic stress disorder, and in Ms. MacFarlane's case, depression and survivor's guilt.”
Tammen stressed that "a life sentence means that the offender is subject to strict monitoring and conditions imposed by the Parole Board of Canada for the rest of their life, even if they are released into the community."
The Court of Appeal decision
Writing for the court, Justice Mary Saunders said the police's theory was that MacFarlane and Taylor were killed by mistake, and that the intended target was a previous tenant of the residence who was a member of a rival criminal gang.
That man, Saunders said, was Doug Mahon.
Saunders said the gang rivalry had resulted in an earlier plan to kill Mahon.
“That plan had involved Mr. Correia (among others) engaging with a third person to carry out the alleged murder plot, but that person did not follow through on the plan,” Saunders said.
The judge said Correia was tried and convicted in 2013 of conspiracy to murder in relation to that plan, and sentenced to 13 years’ incarceration.
“Mr. Correia had served a significant portion of his sentence for conspiracy to murder and was on parole when he was arrested on June 8, 2018 and charged with the two counts of murder now before us,” Saunders said.
She said Correia made inculpatory statements in a police interrogation.
“At trial, he was acquitted of the murders following a ruling that his inculpatory statements were inadmissible under the common law confessions rule because they were induced by a combination of police trickery and his diminished ability to think clearly that had contributed significantly towards his decision to speak to police,” Saunders said.
However, Saunders found Silverman erred in law in labelling the impugned police conduct as “police trickery” in two ways.
“The verdict of acquittal, therefore, cannot stand,” Saunders said. “I would set it aside and order a new trial.”
