Family devastated as charges stayed in 2018 fatal hit-and-run near Terrace

Charges against two Surrey men accused in a deadly hit-and-run near Terrace nearly eight years ago were stayed weeks before their B.C. provincial court trial was scheduled to begin. Taylor Stogryn, 37, and Conrad Wierzbicki, 35, were charged with indignity to human remains and obstructing justice. Stogryn was also charged with failing to stop at the scene of the 2018 collision that killed Cameron Kerr, 30. Kerr’s brother said the family met with RCMP and Crown counsel on Wednesday, Oct. 14, and was told the Nov. 2 trial would not proceed and the charges against both men had been stayed. Garrett Kerr said the family was devastated and found it hard to understand how the justice system had reached this point.

Kerr was walking home along the shoulder of Highway 16 in the early morning of Sunday, Nov. 18, 2018, when a hit-and-run driver struck and killed him four kilometres west of Terrace. His brother said the family was told the case had collapsed because a key witness, a forensic pathologist, gave testimony that was not as anticipated and would no longer support a likely conviction. Garrett Kerr said the indication given to the family was that investigators could not confirm the men had moved the body, so they could not establish that they had stopped, knew what they had struck or realized they had killed a person.

The BC Prosecution Service generally does not provide reasons for staying charges, except in rare cases. In a statement, it said the decision in this case was made “due to a material change in circumstances that meant the charge assessment standard was no longer met.”

Criminal lawyer and former Crown prosecutor Rob Dhanu, K.C., said it is relatively rare for a case to fall apart so close to trial. He compared the Crown dropping serious and complicated charges on the eve of trial to a developer putting up a high-rise and watching it crumble just before residents move in. Dhanu said the Crown would need to resolve the issues that undermined its case before trying again to pursue justice. Police could technically continue investigating, he said, but it was highly unlikely the Crown would lay charges again. Garrett Kerr said the decision left the family with no shred of hope and felt final.

Stogryn and Wierzbicki were allegedly among a group of seven on a hunting trip when Kerr was fatally struck. RCMP allege his body was rolled into a ditch, where it remained until he was discovered hours later. Within days of the collision, RCMP seized a Ford F-350 with a broken mirror on Haida Gwaii and identified a Lower Mainland driver as a suspect. Repeated pleas by Kerr’s family and RCMP for those involved to come forward were met with what the family described as a code of silence. After charges were laid in 2025, Garrett Kerr said it was unimaginable that those involved could remain silent, show no empathy for Cameron’s loved ones and refuse to come forward.

The BC RCMP Major Crime Special Projects Unit later took over the case. In 2023, it won a court fight to retain a critical piece of evidence—the suspect truck’s right-side mirror—for another year. According to the ruling, video showed a Ford F-350 towing a boat through Terrace on Nov. 18, 2018, with an intact passenger-side mirror; CCTV in Prince Rupert hours later showed the same truck with the mirror broken off. BC RCMP said Thursday that the investigation remains open. Kerr’s family said it has great respect for the work police and the Crown put into the case.

Garrett Kerr said it was difficult, and that he knew RCMP had done everything they could, but the system was not set up to bring those involved to justice. He said the family was there not because RCMP were human, but because “two other guys are inhuman.” He also had a message for Stogryn and Wierzbicki: if they had driven their truck into the river, Cameron would have immediately jumped in and swum halfway across to save them, despite not knowing them. “He would have done anything to help someone who was in trouble,” Garrett Kerr told Global News.