B.C. review board finds suspected police killer unfit for trial

Police officers and firefighters salute as a hearse carries RCMP Const. Shaelyn Yang's casket after her regimental funeral, in Richmond, B.C., on Wednesday, November 2, 2022. The 31-year-old officer was stabbed to death while helping a City of Burnaby employee issue an eviction notice to a man living in a tent at a local park. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

A man accused of first-degree murder in the 2022 killing of RCMP Const. Shaelyn Yang in a Burnaby, B.C., park has been found unfit for trial by the British Columbia Review Board and has been ordered held in custody.

The ruling, which went into effect on July 16, will keep Jongwon Ham at the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital in Coquitlam, B.C., for at least one year, when the disposition is reviewable.

Ham is charged in the killing of Yang, a mental health and outreach worker for the RCMP, who was stabbed to death on Oct. 18, 2022, when she tried to speak to a man in a tent in Broadview Park.

Last Tuesday’s hearing was Ham’s first public assessment since a B.C. Supreme Court judge found him unfit to stand trial in April.

The judge then referred the matter to the B.C. Review Board, which is an independent tribunal that assesses the mental health of those criminally accused.

The hearing was subject to a publication ban on anything about Ham’s conduct in the criminal proceedings, including how he intended to plead, his statements about the alleged offence, and discussions between Ham and his lawyer.

B.C.’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, said in a statement in December 2022 that the man in the tent was shot and wounded by Yang but there were no reasonable grounds to believe the shooting constituted an offence.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 21, 2026.