Eric Kirkpatrick made a brief court appearance Monday and was charged with first degree murder for the killing of his former boss at an office Christmas party last Friday.

He was arrested that evening, just hours after 40-year-old Benjamin David Banky, the C.E.O. of TallGrass Distribution Ltd., was shot to death in front of dozens of colleagues.

Kirkpatrick appeared tired and disheveled, wearing red prison-issue coveralls. He stood quietly in the prisoner's box and did not speak during the proceedings at Vancouver's Provincial Court.

He was remanded in custody at North Fraser Pretrial Centre in Port Coquitlam until Dec. 29.

The company, a wholesaler of natural health products, remained closed Monday.

Kirkpatrick's lawyer, Richard Fowler, said the 61-year-old remained on suicide watch and told the judge he hadn't eaten since his arrest.

"He is not able to sleep because he is double bunked in a cold cell with someone who is withdrawing from drugs," he said.

Fowler called the conditions at the pretrial centre unacceptable and said he planned to speak to officials about it on Monday.

Fowler did not say much about his client's frame of mind, but a man with the same name and age as Kirkpatrick had been posting comments online and described himself as depressed after the death of his wife.

Meanwhile, Banky's friends and family spoke glowingly of a family-oriented man who was intelligent, and musically and linguistically inclined.

"He was incredibly bright, a very caring person and incredibly family-oriented," said Nancy O'Higgins, a longtime family friend of the deceased and his parents.

O'Higgins and her husband Eric, both retired journalists, knew Ben as a baby because they worked in the media in Ontario with Ben's father Jake before both families moved west, six months apart.

The O'Higgins' attended Ben's wedding a couple of years ago on Hornby Island, one of the Gulf Islands, where his parents now live.

"They weren't married very long, just a couple of years."

She said Ben and his wife grew up as neighbours on Hornby Island.

"That was how Ben and Linda knew each other."

Ben attended school in his early years in White Rock but got most of his education in Victoria where his father worked for Broadcast News, which is now part of The Canadian Press.

She said he travelled to China for a while, where he studied Mandarin and was quite fluent.

"I was so incredibly impressed that he spoke Mandarin that that really stuck in my head," said O'Higgins.

John Banky, Ben's older brother, spoke briefly from the parents' home Monday, alluding to his brother's musical abilities.

"He spoke a few languages and could play any instrument made by man," said his brother.

At a weekend news conference, Vancouver police spokesperson Cst. Tim Fanning said Kirkpatrick had been let go from TallGrass on Thursday.

Fanning didn't know how long the suspect had worked at the business.

The other people at the office party were able to escape without injury, Fanning said.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Leah Hendry and a file from Canadian Press