Abducted B.C. student says he was taken at gunpoint

VANCOUVER - Clad only in his underpants, blindfolded with duct tape and confined to a closet by kidnappers, wealthy university student Graham McMynn found himself on the receiving end of a deadly threat.

If and when you're released, a man in a high-pitched voice told him, don't even think about talking to police.

"They said (they'd kill) my family, my girlfriend, myself,'' McMynn told the opening day of the trial of five men accused of abducting him in 2006. "They said the police won't be able to protect me forever.''

To underscore the point, he felt the barrel of a semi-automatic pistol against his head.

"He was chambering the bullet as it was pressed against my head,'' said McMynn, the boyish-looking 23-year-old son of a wealthy Vancouver businessman.

McMynn was snatched from his car on April 4, 2006, as he drove to the nearby University of British Columbia by two gun-wielding men.

They left his girlfriend Jacqueline Tran by the side of the road after taking her cell phone. But she used a passerby's phone to call 911 and she remembered the licence number of the car, which turned out to be rented.

That call set in motion a massive police investigation that Crown prosecutor Richard Cairns said involved 400 officers.

An apparent slip-up by the purported kidnap ringleader allowed police to begin an elaborate surveillance operation that eventually led them to three hideouts in Vancouver and suburban Surrey where McMynn was kept.

He was rescued from the Surrey home eight days after being kidnapped and several people were arrested in simultaneous raids at different locations, Cairns told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Arne Silverman, who is hearing the case without a jury.

But before that, McMynn was intent on staying alive and protecting his loved ones.

He testified that he told his captors he wouldn't say anything, that he just wanted to get on with his life.

At one point during his stay in the walk-in closet in the first house where he was taken after being kidnapped, McMynn was allowed to use the bathroom without his duct-tape blindfold.

He saw a door in the bathroom that he said appeared to lead outside, perhaps to a porch. But he dismissed the idea of trying to escape.

"If I did get away, they know exactly where I live,'' he said. "I didn't want that outcome.''

And if he failed, McMynn said he feared they would hurt him for trying to escape.

Anh The Nguyen, Van Van Vu, Joshua Ponicappo, Jose Hernandez, and Sam Taun Vu -- all then between 19 and 22 years old when they were arrested -- are charged with one count each of kidnapping and unlawful confinement.

Charges against a sixth accused, Tuan Nguyen, were not proceeded with.

The case has taken almost two years to get to trial despite the Crown proceeding by direct indictment, which eliminates the need for a preliminary hearing.

"There's a lot of material and there's a lot of witnesses,'' defence lawyer Lawrence Myers said outside court. "It's estimated that it's going to take about four months and that there are I think 400 witnesses.''

McMynn's ordeal began when a car carrying two men pulled suddenly into the path of his car as he drove away from his family's south Vancouver home.

Two men got out and one, wearing a red cap and brandishing a semi-automatic pistol, ordered the couple out of their car, he said.

"I thought they were trying to steal the car so I got out of the car,'' said McMynn.

Instead, they ordered him into their car and drove away. After a few minutes, they transferred him to a waiting minivan. The man in the red cap held him at gunpoint.

"He was antsy, the guy in the red hat,'' McMynn said. "It seems like he wanted to shoot me.''

McMynn said he was made to lie down on the floor, with duct tape wrapped around his head and eyes.

After driving four about 10 minutes, McMynn said the van pulled into what he believed was a garage, where he asked what was going on.

"They told me to stop asking questions,'' he said, adding he was handcuffed.

Later he was taken into the house and led upstairs, where he was ordered to strip to his underwear.

"They told me they were going to rape me, and laughed about that.''

In his outline of the case, Cairns said the kidnappers actually tried to grab McMynn on April 3 but were foiled when he ran a stop sign after spotting their car speeding up behind him for no good reason.

They changed tactics the next day and succeeded near the same spot.

But their plan apparently began unravelling within hours, Cairns told Silverman.

The alleged kidnappers were using vehicles rented under another man's name.

Though they abandoned the silver Honda Civic sedan they used to abduct McMynn, Cairns said Nguyen called the rental agency to say he had left a cell-phone charger in one of their cars.

By then, police had traced the Civic to the rental agency and got the clerk to stall until they could set up surveillance. From there they painstakingly worked out the players involved in the kidnap plot and where they were located, the prosecutor said.

Searches would later turn up disposable cell phones that were backtracked to cell towers near where McMynn was taken and where he was transferred to a white Previa minivan, among other places, Cairns said.

They also discovered forensic evidence, including fingerprints, footprints, DNA and the remains of "zap straps'' used to bind McMynn's feet, that linked him and the alleged kidnappers to the three homes and vehicles used to transport him.

McMynn testified that when he was blindfolded he was able to distinguish his captors by their voices, describing one as having a high-pitched voice, another whom he assumed was the leader and a third who had what he called a Chinese accent.

They initially referred to each other by number.

"They had numbers up to six,'' he said. "They would be saying, `No. 2, do this.' That stopped pretty quickly.''

Members of the group told him they had been hired to kidnap him and were to be paid $100,000. Another group was supposed to handle the ransom, Cairns said McMynn was told.

No ransom demand was ever made, despite pleas from McMynn's family for the kidnappers to contact them.

Cairns said the group described themselves as professionals and claimed one was a hitman.

Cairns said McMynn was moved twice and heard other people who have not been charged, including the girlfriends of two accused.

The Crown intends to call one of the girlfriends who cooked pork chops and rice for McMynn. Her name is under a publication ban because she and another witness, who's name is also being concealed, fear for their safety, Cairns said.