A New Westminster jury on Wednesday found Adam Mann guilty of second-degree murder in the 2024 stabbing death of Surrey resident Tori Dunn.
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The B.C. Prosecution Service says Adam Mann was found guilty by a jury in New Westminster, B.C., on Wednesday in the 2024 home-invasion murder of Surrey resident Tori Dunn.
Mann is scheduled to appear in court next Thursday to set a date for sentencing.
The attack occurred on June 16, 2024, at Dunn’s home in Surrey’s Port Kells neighbourhood, where she was stabbed and died from her injuries.
According to the prosecution service, Mann’s DNA was found on the handle of a knife that also carried Dunn’s blood. Mann told the court he picked up the knife on the side of the road before police arrived and arrested him.
The case drew public attention in part because Mann was facing an unrelated aggravated assault charge at the time and had been released on bail, prompting calls for bail reform from Dunn’s family.
Dunn’s family launched a petition calling for a legal review of what led to Mann’s release and for changes intended to prevent similar tragedies.
B.C. Premier David Eby previously said that in July he had asked his team to reach out to the Dunn family to discuss the case and to look for ways to support the family’s calls for reform.
The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team said in a June statement that Mann, an Ontario resident, was found by Surrey police while they were on their way to Dunn’s home.
The prosecution service says a pre-sentencing report described Mann as an “unmanageable risk” unsuitable for community supervision, following a home-invasion conviction in Ontario more than a decade earlier.
Court records cited by the prosecution service indicate Mann’s criminal history dates back decades, including a 2009 sentence of 12 years in prison for robbery and weapons offences related to a home invasion, which Mann unsuccessfully appealed.
The prosecution service also cites an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling from 2010 that said Mann had 22 previous convictions by age 25, including violent offences involving firearms and robberies, and described a pre-sentence report as “very bleak.”
The prosecution service further notes that in December 2014 Mann was convicted of assault after spitting on two employees of the Atlantic Institution in Renous, N.B., where he was incarcerated.
B.C. court records cited by the prosecution service state Mann was found guilty in 2021 of publication of an intimate image without consent involving an offence in Abbotsford, and earlier this year was found guilty of possessing a weapon for a dangerous purpose and wilfully resisting or obstructing a peace officer.
The prosecution service says the court also found Mann guilty of breaching a probation order on June 5.
The B.C. Attorney General, Niki Sharma, said on June 28 that the government would look at what happened and push Ottawa to “ensure the federal Criminal Code is responsive to public safety needs.”
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