A trial date has been set for the man charged with the 2017 killing of Clarence Crothers of Abbotsford.
Jeffrey Charles Halicki, 51, is scheduled to start his trial Sept. 23, 2019 on a charge of second-degree murder. The proceedings are estimated to last eight or nine weeks.
Crothers, 62, was found deceased July 4, 2017 in his suite in the McMath apartment building in the 33000 block of Braun Avenue in Abbotsford.
Police and ambulance personnel were called to the building at about 7:15 a.m. to a “suspicious circumstance” in the building.
They have not elaborated on what precipitated that call.
When they arrived, they discovered Crothers’ body and determined he had sustained injuries “consistent with homicide.”
His cause of death has not been released nor has a motive for the killing.
Police announced on Aug. 14, 2017 that Halicki had been charged in relation to Crothers’ death. They said he had been a suspect early in the investigation.
Police said Crothers and Halicki knew one another. Crothers was wheelchair-bound due to a spinal injury he had sustained during his work as a heavy labourer.
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