(PARKER CROOK / iNFOnews.ca)

A Lumby man was shot three times with a shotgun in a violent home invasion in 2022, and continued to fight two robbers.

Two men, Edward Scott Coghill and Stewart Wayne Tkachuk, announced their arrival at the rural property Sept. 17, 2022 by shooting a power outlet to the lights before bursting into the bedroom, according to a recent B.C. Supreme Court decision.

James Jurica got shot in the chest, stomach and hip with shotgun pellets. His partner, Candice Kado, grabbed a baseball and hit one of the gunmen in the head hard while Jurica fought the other one. She later got hit in the chin by a pellet.

Jurica testified that when the men entered, he “saw red” and tried to grab the shotguns before he was shot, the judge said.

“He remembers being in a pool of blood on the hallway floor trying to fight with the intruders. The intruders retreated, reloaded the shotguns and fired shotgun shot into the wall. Mr. Jurica then stopped fighting. He testified that, ‘when shots started coming through the drywall, I gave in at that point,’” Justice John Gibb-Carsley wrote in a recently released decision.

When Jurica surrendered, they beat him with a baseball bat. They wore masks and black or camo clothing, making their identity as the robbers more difficult. But plenty of other evidence, including DNA on masks found in Coghill and Tkachuk’s possession that matched the blood stains found at the scene from where Kado hit one with the baseball bat.

While Jurica was down, one of the robbers watched over him while the other ransacked and searched the home. At one point, they put a gun to Kado’s head to make her open a safe. It’s unclear if she did.

They took a large, expensive television, jewelry, a bicycle and Jurica’s truck before they fled.

During the investigation, it became clear the property was being used to illegally grow cannabis clones and make ‘shatter’, which might explain why they were targeted. That fact was seized on by lawyers for both offenders, but dismissed as a reason to disbelieve the evidence of Juric and Kado.

Coghill and Tkachuk were both convicted June 13 of numerous charges including unlawful confinement and aggravated assault and firearms charges. They face lengthy sentences for bringing and using firearms in the commission of an offence, but also using a face mask while committing a crime.

A date for sentencing has not yet been set.

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