Man sentenced to life in prison for brutal murder of brother of Lapu-Lapu accused killer
CBC
WARNING: This story contains graphic details of a homicide.
A judge has sentenced a man to life in prison, with no chance of parole for the next 11 years, in the 2024 killing of Alexander Lo, the brother of Kai-Ji Adam Lo who is accused of the Lapu-Lapu Day alleged car-ramming attack that killed 11 people.
Forty-one-year-old Dwight Kematch pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in July and in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver Friday, he acknowledged the “ripple effect” that the murder had on Lo’s brother.
Kai-Ji Adam Lo listened to the sentencing virtually, from a forensic hospital, according to Crown prosecutor Mark Myhre. The case of the alleged Lapu-Lapu Day attack has not yet been heard in court.
Kematch and Lo met through the dating app Grindr, according to the agreed statement of facts read out in court.
The two met at Kematch’s Vancouver house after midnight on Jan. 28, 2024.
The court heard that the pair went to Kematch’s room and started to have sex.
But “something set Kematch off,” according to the statement of facts, and Kematch, who was drunk, began assaulting Lo first with his fists, then with a hammer and later with a knife.
Lo’s roommates, his sister and brother-in-law, heard Lo yelling for help.
Kematch stopped only when his brother-in-law yelled to call the cops.
Police arrested Kematch, but Lo was unconscious and life-saving efforts were unsuccessful.
Myhre told the court Lo was vulnerable as a smaller man and described the offence as “absolutely brutal."
He said Kematch had a “golden opportunity" to stop attacking Lo when his brother-in-law intervened and took away one of the weapons.
“He did not do that.”
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