Comox Valley RCMP reopen assault investigation 11 years later

CHEK

WATCH: Eleven years after he was viciously beaten and left for dead, a Comox Valley man is hopeful he will finally get some answers. April Lawrence reports.

Parry Gallagher has spent the last 11 years wondering who nearly beat him to death and why and now he may finally get some answers as Comox Valley RCMP reopens the case.

“[They] asked me a bunch of questions once again, and asked me what I had remembered, and they’re willing to open the investigation once again,” said Gallagher.

Gallagher and some friends were at the Courtenay House Hotel March 8, 2007, celebrating the nightclub’s final night in business when he got separated from his friends. The next thing he remembers is waking up in Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria.

“He suffered such severe injuries during that assault he wasn’t able to tell police what happened, not at that time and not now,” said Comox Valley RMCP Const. Monika Terragni.

Gallagher spoke to police at the time but never heard any more of it, until last November when he saw a CHEK News story.

“As far as I was concerned it was dropped until the news came out about Matthew Holland,” he said.

Holland was testifying as a paid police agent in a drug trial in Victoria last fall when he confessed to violently beating two men in the past and leaving them for dead.

One was on the Malahat, the other behind a bar at a nightclub in Courtenay.

Michael Mulligan was the lawyer who questioned Holland on the stand that day ? Perry Gallagher called him after seeing the story.

“How many unsolved beatings involving stomping in the head really are there in Courtenay,” questioned Mulligan.

So Gallagher went to Comox Valley RCMP. Now, six months later, they’ve reopened the investigation but won’t confirm any link to Holland’s testimony.

“At this time I’m not going to make that connection, what I want people to focus on is that we need witnesses that were in the area at that time and that’s what’s going to help us forward our investigation right now,” said Terragni.

RCMP can’t use Holland’s witness stand confession as evidence and say they are looking at any and all suspects.

The BC RCMP, who hired Holland as an agent for that drug case, said he told them about those potential murders, that they were investigated, and that they couldn’t find any evidence to corroborate his stories.

All Parry Gallagher wants is answers.

“I would really like to know, I would love to get some closure on this and see what happened to me.”

April LawrenceApril Lawrence

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