For a second day, forensic investigators were combing over the scene, looking for any clues that might help identify the person or persons responsible for a shooting that claimed the life of a Nanaimo man Saturday morning.
“The deceased has been identified as 34-year-old Troy Dax McKinnon of Nanaimo,” said Cst. Gary O’Brien of Nanaimo RCMP. “His family has been notified. [It’s] still a very active investigation with multiple officers from sections within our detachment investigating it.”
McKinnon’s online court records show numerous criminal convictions between 2002 and 2013.
In 2015, he was sentenced to seven years in prison, less time served, for playing a significant leadership role in a 2011 kidnapping in Vancouver thwarted by police.
This is news to his neighbours in Nanaimo.
“Seemed like a normal guy,” said Chaker Espinoza. “He had two dogs that he walked. [I] didn’t think twice that he’d be a criminal.”
Late Saturday morning, residents in Hawthorne Corner heard five to seven shots ring out. The passenger window of McKinnon’s Mercedes Benz shattered as he was gunned down.
First responders rushed to the scene but despite resuscitation attempts, McKinnon was declared dead shortly after.
Witnesses saw a car with several people in it speed away.
Shortly after neighbours reported the car was on fire, potentially dumped, three blocks from where the shooting occurred.
“The scene where the deceased was found is still being processed,” said O’Brien. “[It] should be released later today and the secondary scene where there was a vehicle fire that has been released.”
The whole incident has shaken those who were close by when it happened.
“You see things like this in the movies,” said Espinoza. “Thinking Nanaimo and all this happening in your backyard is kind of crazy.”
Mounties say they are investigating whether the shooting is connected to a drive-by shooting in front of Hawthorne Corner on Wakesiah Avenue in March of 2016. But neighbours say they believe McKinnon only moved into the housing complex in the last two or three months.
Kendall Hanson
