An inmate in the Williams Head Institution who was convicted of first degree murder in 2004 died of apparent natural causes on June 13 in the custody of the correctional institute.
David Anthony Lowe was convicted for the first degree murder of his business associate William Rudy, who was reported missing in 1994, and his remains were found in a "secluded area in the Fraser Valley" in 1996 according to documents from his attempt at appealing the conviction in 2009.
In 1998, Rudy had purchased a building in Port Coquitlam, intending to open a nightclub, and when construction began Lowe and his brother-in-law did "considerable" work on the project and Rudy ended up hiring Lowe and and his brother-in-law to manage the club.
Lowe agreed to buy the nightclub business from Rudy for $883,000, to be paid in weekly instalments, and if Lowe became unable to make the payments, the nightclub was to be deemed unprofitable, shut down and sold. At the same time, the two men executed an unregistered trust agreement which provided that if the nightclub was ever to be deemed unprofitable and sold, the proceeds of sale would all go to Rudy.
Eventually, Lowe twice told an undercover officer acting as his boss in a criminal organization that he had killed someone with a sledgehammer and hid the body in the forest.
"Lowe repeated, and elaborated on, these statements when ultimately presented to the 'boss' on April 16, 2002. He said he killed William Rudy after finding out that Rudy intended to sell the club out from under him. He described planning the murder and carrying it out and agreed to take [the undercover] to the location of the body, in case the criminal organization would have to clean anything up on Lowe’s behalf. The two of them made trips to the general area where Rudy’s remains had been found," according to court documents.
The crown believes the murder took place on or about the early morning of Feb 22,1994 at the Rumours nightclub in Port Coquitlam.
He attempted to appeal his conviction in 2009, saying his trial was unfair because crown counsel’s cross-examination of him, which was over 19 days, was excessively long, and because it "explored in detail conduct tending to show his bad character, from which the trier of fact might infer a predisposition to offend."
The appeal was dismissed because the "case was based almost entirely on the appellant’s admission to the undercover police officers."
Lowe's next of kin has been notified, and the Correctional Service of Canada is reviewing the circumstances as they do in all cases involving the death of an inmate.
