Suspected Killer Again Taunts Cops

A telephone call to police and a threatening note wrapped around an object and tossed through a window came from the man suspected of killing teenager Tanya Smith, police said Friday.

A 911 operator fielded a call Monday made from a stadium two blocks from the police station, but the caller had fled before police arrived.

Then on Wednesday evening, someone tossed a note attached to a heavy object though the window of an Abbotsford home.

Police have not revealed either the nature of the phone call or the contents of the note. But spokesman Cpl. John Skorupa said they believe both are linked to Smith’s killer.

“The contents of the communication are, however, of a threatening nature and cause the task force to believe that the suspect will strike again,” he said.

The 16-year-old girl was killed the night of Oct. 14 after she and her friend Misty Cockerill were attacked by a man with a baseball bat on an Abbotsford street.

Abbotsford is about 35 miles east of Vancouver.

Smith was abducted and later found badly beaten and drowned in the Vedder River 10 miles away. Cockerill, also 16, survived serious head injuries and gave police a description of the attacker.

A few days later, the man police believe is the killer made a series of taunting telephone calls to police. He boasted how he’d left no clues and threatened to attack again.

The slaying and subsequent calls sent a wave of fear through this bedroom city of 150,000.

The killer dropped out of sight, leading police to believe he might have left town, and the investigation was scaled down.

But last Saturday, the headstone from Smith’s grave turned up outside an Abbotsford radio station. It was defaced with profanities and threats similar to those made by the suspect in the earlier calls.