WARNING: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence. 

A first-degree murder trial has begun in Kelowna, B.C., for an alleged gang member accused of killing a Naramata woman during a violent plot to retaliate against her son over stolen drugs and rival gang hits.

Ekene Anigbo, 26, a man once identified by the Vancouver Police Department as one of B.C.’s most dangerous gang members, entered a plea of not guilty as his trial began on Monday.

Anigbo is charged, along with associate Jalen Falk, with killing Kathleen Richardson in her Naramata home in 2021. The Crown alleges the pair shot Richardson during a co-ordinated gang plot to find her son, Wade Cudmore, and seek retribution for the earlier deaths of two Kamloops brothers.

Crown prosecutor Emily Yao told the court Richardson was found dead in her basement on June 9, 2021, bound with duct tape and zip ties. The Crown alleges Anigbo and Falk broke into her home early in the morning to interrogate Richardson about her son’s location, but shot her twice in the face when she struggled as they were restraining her.

Yao laid out the Crown’s case against Anigbo on the first day of the trial, which is expected to last four months and hear from dozens of witnesses, including police officers, an expert on gang slang and jargon and a person who allegedly drove the two men to Richardson’s home on the morning she was killed.

Key to the Crown’s case is communication data extracted from multiple cell phones belonging to Anigbo and other gang associates, Yao said, which were seized by police and prison officials from multiple jurisdictions.

“The Crown’s case is circumstantial with many pieces of evidence that must be considered together,” Yao told the court.

“There is no direct eyewitnesses evidence to the murder of Ms. Richardson.”

The court heard Richardson’s murder was part of an escalation of gang violence that reached the small south Okanagan community of Naramata in 2021.

Anigbo, Falk and other gang associates were in the Okanagan in a conspiracy to locate Cudmore and fellow gang member Anthony Graham in order to extract revenge on the pair for the murder of brothers Erick and Carlo Fryer and the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in drugs, Yao told the court.

In 2024, Cudmore was found guilty of second-degree murder in the brothers’ deaths. Graham was also charged with their murder, but remains at large.

The details of the criminal case against Jalen Falk are covered under a publication ban.

One of the key witnesses the Crown is expected to call is a person referred to in court as “Witness A.” Yao said the court will hear testimony they were part of the alleged conspiracy to locate Cudmore and Graham, and drove Anigbo and Falk to Richardson’s home on the day she was killed.

The court will also hear evidence connected to a shooting in Prince George in 2021, Yao said, and the arrest of Anigbo in Quesnel the next day, and the seizure of three firearms from his vehicle, Yao told the court.

The trial is expected to last four months.