On day two of Adam Mann’s jury trial for the second-degree murder of Tori Dunn, the Crown called a pair of police officers who were among the first to arrive after a 911 call reporting a home invasion and stabbing in the Port Kells neighbourhood of Surrey. The 911 call was placed at 9:49 p.m. on Saturday, June 16, 2024. Const. Sophia Banga of the Surrey Police Service testified that upon arriving at the house on 182A Street, she went inside and helped another police officer carry Tori Dunn, who had been stabbed in the abdomen, to the front yard. Banga told the jury she and the other officer used supplies from a police-issued first aid kit to try to stop the bleeding. “It was a very, very deep wound and we were trying to plug it,” Banga said under questioning from the Crown. She said she and Const. Jay Mander were using medical gauze but were unable to stop the bleeding. Banga told the court that she applied pressure to the wound while Mander was performing CPR on Dunn, before firefighters and paramedics arrived and took over. She said paramedics loaded Dunn into an ambulance. A supervising officer then told her to ride in the ambulance with Dunn to Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster. The constable said that Dunn had been in and out of consciousness while in the front yard of the home but was unconscious in the ambulance during the entire trip to the hospital. Banga testified about watching emergency room doctors continue life-saving measures on the victim before eventually pronouncing her deceased at 10:42 p.m. Dunn’s boyfriend, Trafford Wace, testified on the first day of the trial. He told the court the couple had been at his grandmother’s house for a dinner to celebrate his birthday and returned home around 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. Wace said the couple was watching TV in their living room and Dunn was falling asleep on a sofa when he got up to use the bathroom. He said he had been in the bathroom for about five minutes when he heard Dunn scream and ran out to find an intruder standing in the living room. Wace testified Dunn told him she had been stabbed – and the unidentified man then fled through a doorway into another room that led to an exterior patio. Wace said that’s when he turned his attention to helping Dunn and calling 911. In its opening statement, the Crown said that, as it presented its case, it would explain how Mann was arrested in the area within thirty minutes of the 911 call. Surrey Police Service Sgt. Jon Van Nieuwland took the stand on Tuesday and testified about initially being the supervising officer on scene. He told the court about working with other officers to clear the house to ensure there were no other victims inside, and to make sure no suspects were hiding in Dunn and Wace’s upstairs unit or in one of two basement suites. Van Nieuwland testified that at about the same time officers finished clearing the house, he learned an SPS police dog unit had located someone matching some of the initial suspect descriptors a few blocks from the crime scene. The sergeant told the court he then used a cell phone to contact a colleague with the SPS General Investigation Unit, which was going to take over the case, and got instructions on how to proceed. “He indicated that given the location of how this man was located, to essentially bag his hands in paper bags and detain him for attempted murder,” Van Nieuwland said. He then testified that a short time later he learned Dunn had been declared deceased in hospital. Crown has indicated it intends to present forensic evidence in its case against Mann, including DNA. None of the witnesses who have taken the stand so far have testified about that evidence. Mann has pleaded not guilty to the charge of second-degree murder.
