British Columbia·Video

'I'm not an immoral person': Accused admits evidence shows he's a killer

A man on trial for the murder of two complete strangers recounted one of his victim's last moments of life Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court.

Accused murderer claims he knew he killed two people but had trouble believing he was responsible

Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam is pictured in the witness box as he watches the video of his interrogation in relation to a 2017 double homicide. (Felicity Don)

Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam admits to killing two people — including a 68-year-old man with a walker — but insists he's not an "immoral" person.

Speaking from a B.C. Supreme Court witness box at the end of a long day of cross-examination Tuesday, the 29-year-old accused murderer attempted to explain some of the many questions left by his testimony.

Only minutes before, he had held autopsy photographs of 68-year-old Richard Jones and 64-year-old Dianna Mah-Jones and calmly discussed attacking them with a pocket knife and a hatchet.

He had also admitted to searching the internet for news stories about their deaths after "realizing" he had killed the South Vancouver couple in their home on the night of Sept. 26, 2017.

And yet he claimed he wasn't putting on an "act" when police questioned him about the killings during a taped interview and he insisted — when left alone in the interrogation room — "I didn't kill anyone. How can I be sorry?"

"I admit that I killed Mr. and Mrs. Jones because the evidence shows that I killed Mr. and Mrs Jones," Kam told Crown prosecutor Daniel Mulligan as he apologized for not knowing how to "describe such feelings."

"I know that I'm not an immoral person but if you kill somebody you feel remorse and guilty."

But Kam insisted that he hadn't felt those emotions when a police investigator initially confronted him with the evidence against him — only shock and frustration.

"It's weird," he concluded. "But it's just how it is."

'It wasn't like a video game, was it?'

Kam's nearly five-minute monologue came near the wrap of the seventh-day of his testimony in his own defence. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first degree murder in the deaths of Jones and Mah-Jones.

His lawyer plans to argue that Kam was in the throes of a mental disorder that left him functioning as though he were inside the fictional world of a violent computer game at the time of the killings.

"Why is your DNA on this knife?": Watch as police interrogate Kam

'You're an animal': Police interrogate accused killer Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam

5 years ago
Duration 2:00
Raw surveillance video shows police trying to get answers from Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam who is accused of stabbing a couple to death in their home in 2017

As Mulligan questioned Kam, the prosecutor asked him if he thought he was in a video game when surveillance footage caught him strolling out for dinner in the hours before he attacked the couple.

He also asked him about the way he pulled a hatchet out of his backpack in the minutes after he hid behind a tree upon sighting Mah-Jones who had just arrived home with a trunk full of groceries.

"Did you have to dig through the backpack?" Mulligan asked. "So it's not like you were able to just push a button on your keyboard and make a hatchet appear in your hand?"

Kam claimed he didn't understand.

"It wasn't like a video game, was it?" Mulligan said.

'I covered her mouth'

Kam bought the hatchet, pocket knife and gloves at Canadian Tire in the weeks before the killings. Mulligan suggested he was preparing to commit murder and took pains to prepare and to cover his tracks.

Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam has admitted to killing Diana Mah-Jones, 64, and Richard Jones, 68, in 2017. But he has pleaded not guilty to first degree murder. (Airbnb.ca)

Kam described forcing his way into the home as Mah-Jones tried to keep him out. He said they stood "for a while."

"And then the next thing I knew we were on they ground and she was screaming for help," he said.

"I covered her mouth. It didn't quite block the sound of the scream so I moved my hand down to her throat. And then I pushed my other hand to hold on to her throat."

Kam later described hiding after hearing a noise and then stabbing Jones in the torso repeatedly before he fell to the floor.

He said he then killed him by hacking at his neck with the hatchet.

The statue of Themis, Goddess of Justice in the atrium of the Supreme Court. It is a blind goddess holding a scale.
Rocky Rambo Wei Nam Kam is on trial in B.C. Supreme Court. He has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder. (Peter Scobie/CBC)

'It's disgusting'

Kam remained calm on the stand, considering Mulligan's questions about his motivations and weighing his answers according to what he said would or would not have made sense given the unique circumstances of the slayings.

He said it didn't make sense to think he might have killed Jones because he was a potential witness but admitted it was "logical" to think he might have tried to keep people from seeing the bodies and blood because "it's disgusting."

In addition to strangling Mah-Jones, Kam also slit her throat.

He stabbed both victims dozens of times and inflicted a number of shallow cuts to Jones. But he rejected the prosecutor's suggestion that he wanted to inflict pain.

"I don't think I have such knowledge or skills," he said.

Kam's DNA was found beneath Mah-Jones' fingernails as she scratched his face during the struggle. 

But Kam insisted he didn't drag both bodies into a shower stall to destroy evidence.

The cross-examination is expected to come to a close on Wednesday morning and testimony from a defence witness on Kam's alleged fixation with video games and comic books is scheduled to begin in the afternoon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jason Proctor

@proctor_jason

Jason Proctor is a reporter in British Columbia for CBC News and has covered the B.C. courts and the justice system extensively.