Police say a man’s death in Castlegar last week is now being treated as a homicide.
They have identified the victim as Jean-Luc Noel Levesque, 51. He had no fixed address but was known to travel between a number of communities in the area, police said.
They have not established a motive, they added.
The RCMP major crime units are now investigating the death, which police previously classified as “suspicious.”
Police say that around 11:30 p.m. on Thursday they responded to a call of an unresponsive man near the CIBC at 1801 Columbia Avenue.
“Mr. Levesque was not a known resident of Castlegar, and as we work to determine what brought him to the area, we believe there are people who may have seen the victim or interacted with him prior to his death,” RCMP spokesperson Dawn Roberts said in a news release.
“We are asking those people – as well as anyone who may have any info about this homicide – to please call police. This is a tragedy and we want to bring closure to Mr. Levesque’s friends and family.”
Anyone who may have seen something or has information on this incident is asked to call RCMP at 250-365-7721.
Mike Lowton, the manager of Glacier Honda, witnessed some of what led up to the tragedy.
He said he was fueling up his truck at the Shell station across the street earlier that evening.
“I noticed a few people hanging around the CIBC, which I didn’t think was abnormal,” he said. Some of them left, leaving two men who got into an argument.
One of them got into an older Ford Escape and started to drive away, but the argument continued. Lowton said as he drove away, the men were “still talking with arms waving.”
He found out the next day that a homicide had occurred.
“It doesn’t make me feel great that this has happened close to home,” he said.
