Man accused of killing 15-year-old Alfred Wong to face retrial

Crown prosecutors will re-try the man accused of killing a gangster and an innocent teenager in Vancouver in 2018.

It comes after the double murder trial of Kane Carter came to a surprise end with a deadlocked jury Tuesday, with the judge making the rare move to declare a mistrial.

Carter was charged with second-degree murder in the deaths of gangster Kevin Whiteside and innocent bystander 15 year old Alfred Wong – who was killed in the backseat of his parents’ car during a gunfight on a busy stretch of Broadway more than six years ago.

“It’s very rare for juries in Canada to not be able to reach a verdict and for a mistrial to be declared, especially in criminal cases,” Kyla Lee, a llawyer with Acumen Law said in an interview with CTV News on Wednesday. “Judges have an obligation in jury trials to encourage juries, when they indicate that they’re having difficulty reaching a verdict, to encourage them to do more and reach a verdict.”

Crown had argued that Carter fired several shots from a van parked south of the intersection of Broadway and Ontario Street.

Prosecutors said Carter was shooting in response to Whiteside firing first at one of Carter’s associate’s – and that one of those bullets hit Wong. The van was then spotted 45 minutes later on video driving into the parking garage of a building carter lived in.

Police found bullet casings and gun residue in the van when they discovered it four weeks later.

Carter will be back in court next month via video conference – and a new trial likely won’t begin until sometime next year.