Neighbour recalls noise, late-night parties at condo where gang member was killed

Neighbour speaks out after North Vancouver murder A neighbour of a North Vancouver condo where a 30-year-old gang member was murdered recalls noise and late-night parties at the unit.

A North Vancouver condo unit where a 30-year-old gang member was murdered last week was the subject of numerous noise complaints over the past three years, a neighbour told CTV News Wednesday.

"Ourselves and our neighbours who share a wall with him were complaining pretty much immediately about parties starting at like 3 a.m. on a weekday and going for 24 hours. Just crazy amounts of noise in the lobby—constantly, constantly parties," said Michael Rothwell, who has been living in the Seylynn Village high rise for about three years.

Rothwell said noise started about six months after he moved in, and that residents in the other two units that share the floor as well as those on the floor below have all filed complaints.

The RCMP's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team has confirmed that Gavinder Grewal was found dead at around 8 p.m. on Friday in a unit on the top floor of the tower, located in the 1500 block of Fern Street near Keith Road and Mountain Highway.

Rothwell said he left his apartment around 7 p.m. that night, shortly before the murder is believed to have occurred.

When he returned from a Christmas party at around 1:30 a.m., he saw a heavy police presence and was questioned for more than an hour.

While police assured Rothwell that the shooting was targeted and that there's no danger to other residents in the building, he says the incident is frightening.

"Someone was murdered like 30 feet from our front door…The fact that they were somehow able to get into the building and somehow get up to the top floor is scary," he said. "It's disturbing and something could have happened and innocent people could have been caught in the crossfire."

Grewal had a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for extortion and drug trafficking. In 2016, he was charged with manslaughter in connection with the 2010 death of 22-year-old Mandy Johnson, whom police allege Grewal shot in the passenger seat of her boyfriend's car in Abbotsford.

Investigators said Grewal was "associated" with the condo unit, but wouldn't confirm if he lived there.

The couple who own the condo say they aren't sure who was living there.

"One of the girls in the office, we left it up to her to rent our place out," Bridget Eppich told CTV News Sunday. "That's the consequence for that, right."

Rothwell, however, says it's the owners' responsibility to make sure that whoever they're renting to doesn't pose a safety risk to neighbours.

"Choosing to be ignorant and choosing to cover your ears and ignore it is no excuse," he said.

"I think it's completely unacceptable that someone with known gang ties, with manslaughter charges is allowed to live 20 feet from my house with us having no idea and then having a murder being committed right there."

IHIT detectives are still working to determine the details of how Grewal was killed and his current gang affiliations.

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact investigators at 1-877-551-4448 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).

With files from CTV Vancouver's Breanna Karstens-Smith