Suspect has history of violence in Langley

Homicide investigators and police forces across the Lower Mainland are co-ordinating a manhunt for a violent thief who is suspected in a domestic shooting and is believed to be armed and on the run in a stolen vehicle.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team says Barry McQuarrie, 33, is believed to be driving a stolen 2008 Toyota Highlander with B.C. licence plate 338 JNP.

McQuarrie is wanted for questioning in a fatal Cloverdale shooting that is believed to be motivated by an ongoing domestic dispute.

Gregory Quesnelle – a 32-year-old with a lengthy criminal record mostly related to property crime – was found injured in a townhouse 17400-block 57th Avenue after police responded to reports of gunfire just after midnight on May 13.

Quesnelle was taken to hospital but died of his injuries.

IHIT investigators quickly put out an alert for McQuarrie, who allegedly fled the scene in a stolen KIA Borrego SUV. A criminal record search shows McQuarrie has a long list of property theft convictions and charges related to a shooting.

For police in Langely, this case must seem like déjà vu.

In 2005, police said Barry James McQuarrie, 24, a drug-addicted thief, was “spiralling out of control” after a shooting in Langley.

McQuarrie had “really become more volatile over the past two weeks. He’s armed and dangerous and he has to be brought in,” Langley RCMP spokesman Dale Carr said at the time.

McQuarrie was a “person of interest” in the shooting of a 35-year-old man in Langley’s Willoughby area in that incident.

“He is a known substance user,” Carr added in 2005. “He will take pretty much anything he can lay his hands on.”

In that case, the victim fully recovered after surgery. After police caught McQuarrie in 2005 he was charged with aggravated assault, discharging a firearm with intent to wound, use of a firearm and possession of a weapon for dangerous purpose. He was found guilty.

In 2005, McQuarrie apparently tired of running, according to police. On Friday, IHIT spokesperson Sgt. Adam MacIntosh used social media call-outs on Twitter urging McQuarrie to turn himself in.

MacIntosh wouldn’t comment on details of McQuarrie’s criminal past, the nature of the relationship between McQuarrie and the victim, or whether other victims are receiving grief counselling, or if any children were traumatized at the crime scene.

“We are not speaking about his criminal records… (domestic details) are not something we are speaking about now,” MacIntosh said.

McQuarrie’s Facebook page shows him posing beside a white Maserati, flexing his tattooed arms, and listing his religious views as: “F-ck. the police.”

His posts from 2012 say that he is “in a relationship.”

This March, commenting on his own relationship post from two years ago, Mcquarrie wrote: “What a joke this turned out to be… worst thing I did since baby mom drama.”

- Sam Cooper is a reporter for the Vancouver Province