A Deadly Betrayal | 10
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Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime.

On January 20th, 2006, a disturbing and unusual call came in to 911. That was the beginning of a homicide investigation and a family's desperate search for answers. As the days go on, it's getting harder and harder to cope with.

Somebody knows something. There's got to be somebody out there that knows. I'm Nancy Hixt, a senior crime reporter for Global News. Today on Crime Beat, I share how police uncovered a web of deceit and the unsettling truth that left one family devastated. This is A Deadly Betrayal.

On a cold, snowy day in January of 2006, a middle-aged man pushed a shopping cart through the labyrinth of downtown Calgary alleys, hitting every dumpster on a quest for bottles. Mid-morning, he made a grisly discovery. Huge black bag.

And it was just kind of folded over in the corner. And there was nothing on top of it or anything. I just opened the bag and looked in and, oh, geez, hey. The man was visibly shaken by what he had found. His name is David Horseman, but he asked me to call him Manny. Oh, yeah, that's a person, man. There used to be a person in there. It just kind of freaked me out, you know.

Still in shock and unsure of what to do, Manny found someone to call 911.

I was actually off duty at the time and got a call that an arm was located, a severed arm was located in a dumpster just off of our downtown area. And that the area was contained by patrol officers. And that's really all I had initially. And so driving there, I was pretty sure this wasn't going to be a legit call. Cliff O'Brien is now a superintendent with the Calgary Police Service.

At that time, he was a detective with the homicide unit. Believe it or not, we've actually had calls similar. And we have responded and we found mannequin parts. Or in one case, we were told that there was a severed hand. And when we got there, there was a glove that had been frozen up.

in the ice. And so it looked like a hand, but in fact, it was a glove. So I was pretty convinced that this was going to be another one of those types of calls. But when Superintendent O'Brien arrived at the inner city back alley, the worst was confirmed. And our forensic crime scenes unit began

a real preliminary look into the dumpster and in particular this heavy duty garbage bag that the bottle picker had found and sure enough there was a severed arm in there. Really at that point your head's kind of spinning like what do we have? Where is the rest of the victim? Who would have done this? What is this some type of payback?

In 2006, Superintendent O'Brien already had a decade of investigational experience, and this discovery came as a shock. I've not seen that in my career up to that point for sure, and so that was very unusual. You'll recall from a story I shared earlier this season that in 2006, two rival gangs were in the midst of a deadly war in the city of Calgary.

police had to consider if this could be related. During that gang war, people are trying to send messages and whatnot. And so we just weren't sure, is this part of that gang war or is this something different? We don't know if this victim was shot and then somebody's trying to send a message. I can tell you in other parts of this country, we've seen where somebody's been beheaded and that's been to send a message. So we really didn't know what we have.

Police covered off all of the usual investigative starting points. They spoke with people in the area and knocked on doors looking for clues.

One of the things we have to avoid is tunnel vision. So we can have lots of theories, but we really have to let the evidence lead us to where the evidence leads us to. So although I was going, "Jesus, there's some type of message. Is this an organized crime hit? Is it a domestic?" Like we just didn't know. Is it somebody just disposing of the body? In which case, where's the rest of the body? So

I had lots of questions, but at the end of the day, we just had to follow the evidence. It turned out Manny was actually the second person to come across the garbage bag containing the arm. As they investigated, police located another man who found the bag in a different garbage bin a few blocks away when he was out scouring for bottles the night before. He carried it to a corner where there was a streetlight so he could have a better look.

When he realized it contained a human arm, he panicked and threw it in a dumpster where Manny found it the following morning. The forensic crime scene unit actually loaded the dumpster onto a flatbed truck and brought it to a facility where we could control the environment and search through the dumpster much more methodically. Superintendent O'Brien said, first, they needed to identify the victim.

I was pretty convinced that probably the victim was deceased at this point. We did not have a lot to go on.

Police came up with several strategies and started with the least invasive technique possible. We knew that fingerprints were eventually going to be done but we have to preserve the evidence. The evidence at this particular point is the body part. And so what we did not want to do is disturb any of the evidence that might be under the nails, that might be on the fingertips, there may be fiber on the arm, there may be hair, other evidence.

We had asked the analyst of our homicide unit, major crimes, to see if she could figure out who this may be, the victim might be, based on the tattoos. Here's Calgary Police crime analyst Trish Pace.

The primary investigator was able to give me a description of the tattoo that was on the arm. So I was doing a lot of time hunting through not just the databases that we have, looking for any kind of descriptors, but also reaching out to correctional service and the jails to see if they have anyone in their database that would match that tattoo.

You'll remember Pace from last season's episode, "The Data Tells a Story." Usually what happens when I'm checking it is something will jump out. Like I'll read a case file or I'll read a person's background and it just clicks for the circumstances that we're seeing. It just makes sense that it's this individual.

And then I'll start digging in, you know, a little bit further and I see associates in the area or I see like a recent conflict or something happens to go, this is likely our person. And nothing was coming up for that. There was no missing persons files. There was no really significant hits on the tattoo.

After they secured the necessary evidence, forensic investigators took fingerprints from the hand of the severed arm and ran those prints through the police database. Once I get the fingerprints back, the victim's identified as Chad Larney. So my next step on that is to start looking into his background to see why he's ended up

or parts of him, part of him has ended up in the dumpster. So I'm looking at his background, his associates, who he's hanging out with, what he's been involved in.

Court documents revealed Chad Largy had a history with police, which explained his fingerprints in their system. So I learned that he did have a criminal history and he did have criminal associates. There was a couple of people on his associate list that were quite well known to us and had fairly significant criminal histories. He was due to go to trial early 2006 for possession of marijuana, which was a controlled substance at the time.

Now that he had been identified, Superintendent Cliff O'Brien was faced with the daunting task of notifying Chad's family of his passing. We knew that Chad had some history with the police, but it was fairly minor for the most part. We were able to track down some of his family and my partner and I drove out to talk to his mother. It was a meeting the veteran officer will never forget.

In this case, we're telling a mother that your son is dead. We're telling the mother once she kind of comprehends that, that he was murdered. And then eventually we're telling her that we only found a body part. And that is probably the most difficult next to kid notification I've done. And as you can imagine, she's devastated.

She is wondering what happened. She's wondering who he was out with, who would be the monster to do something like this. I met Chad Largy's mother, Lorraine Harris, just a few days later. I found out it was just his arm that they had found. It just broke me into little pieces because it was so brutal. By the time I closed my eyes, all I see is garbage bags and cut up body parts and

Just not making any sense. And as the days go on, it's getting harder and harder to cope with. Still in shock, Chad's mother didn't know how to share the devastating news with his little sister, Miranda. The owner from the bar came up to me and he said, is your name Miranda Harris? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, I have an important message for you. Your mom said it's an emergency and you need to call home right away. My mom said to me, she said, uh,

I have something I have to tell you and it's going to hurt. And I was like, what? And she's like, it's something to do with Chad. And I'm like, is he okay? And she's like, no. I interviewed Miranda just days after she learned of her brother's death. I'd seen him probably about a week and a half before it happened. So, I mean, I didn't even get to say goodbye or tell him that I loved him or anything like that. The last time I walked out the door, I didn't think it'd be the last time I ever saw him.

So I was just like, oh, I'll see you later. And I ran out the door and he never sent anything back. And I talked to him nothing since then. Definitely lots I'd like to say to him and tell him how much I love him. Definitely. It's hard. Chad was five years older. Miranda and I spoke for over an hour. She laughed as she told me about happier times and talked about Chad's pet bird.

Melvin, and he's like exactly like my brother. He's like sticks his little head feather up and he like struts his stuff and he'll stand in his mirror and he'll sit and whistle at himself. And my brother taught him this one thing, it's like do-do-do-do-do-do, like the thing from hockey. But moments later, sadness washed over her as she realized her brother was gone. You hear about things like this on the news and stuff in different cities. And when it really happens to you, it...

It's the worst pain you could ever feel. I would never, ever wish on anybody. I never would. But I need answers. I need to know that, you know, I can have a funeral for my brother and put him to rest and let him know that he's at peace and, you know. Somebody knows something. There's got to be somebody out there that knows. And like, if you do, I want my brother back. I want him brought to justice.

I can't know that the person still out there that did this and my brother is still out there somewhere. Superintendent Cliff O'Brien said at that point police didn't have much to go on. This really was a bizarre file in that it was a true whodunit and it started with a bottle picker that called us because of a severed arm found in a dumpster. Like that is something in movies or in novels. It was quite bizarre.

They turned to Chad's family for help in retracing his final steps. We're asking who are his friends, who would he be hanging out with, where might he be? But really what she did was she led us to Chad's dad. As far as she knew, Chad's dad was with Chad that night and that would be our next starting point.

According to court documents, Chad's father told police on January 18th, 2006, Chad went out to a bar with friends. Chad's dad admits that he had been out with Chad that night and that he was actually called by Chad to give him a ride home, to give him a ride home. On the way home though, Chad was quite upset at his best friend that he had been out drinking with

His best friend was Dean Kamanda and Chad told his dad that he was upset at Dean and that instead of going home he wanted to go to Dean's house. Chad's dad drove Chad to Dean's apartment building. He said that Dean came down and met them and then asked Chad's dad to go buy some pop so that they could have some mix for their drinks.

That was the last time that Chad's dad saw Chad alive, is what he told us. One of the things I want to do is, again, we have to follow the evidence. So we were able to take a look at phone records and we were able to see who phoned who. And so that helped us. We also went and grabbed video footage from the store where the pop was purchased. So it became clear to us that the dad was being truthful with us at that point.

And so now we have to try to track down this Dean Commander and talk to him about what happened because that's the last known person that we know of that was seen with Chad. Given the disturbing and unique circumstances, this case became high profile in Calgary. Barry Cochran was the staff sergeant of the homicide unit at the time and spoke to media about the case.

And the investigators are asking for public assistance to determine what Chad Largy's whereabouts were and activities were in relation to Wednesday, January 18th through Friday, January 20th. We do know that Chad Largy was at a friend's house during this time as well. Chad's mother, Lorraine Harris, hoped someone would come forward with information about her son's death. We were so close that I just feel like there's a piece of me missing.

I hope someday that piece will come back. I just miss him so much. I can't tell you how much I miss him. Then, a shocking development. We did have somebody come forward to us during this investigation and they actually confessed. And they confessed to killing Chad. Superintendent O'Brien said they hoped it was the break they were looking for.

One of the things police commonly use to determine the veracity of a confession is something referred to as holdback information. Holdback is evidence that only the offender and the police would know about. And so if we release holdback to the community and everybody knows about it, then what ends up happening is, depending on our tactics down the road, perhaps in a confession or whatnot, we find that...

We can't verify the truth or the veracity in somebody's statement. In this case, police interviewed a woman claiming she killed and dismembered Chad Largy. Because of the holdback that we did not release, we were able to determine that they were lying, they had mental health issues, and we were able to eliminate that individual as not being involved in the case at all.

It turned out there was further evidence recovered from the dumpster. Evidence that I need to warn you is extremely graphic and disturbing, which police never spoke about publicly. Another heavy-duty garbage bag that looked just like the first one. And when they opened that up, they found a second arm.

So we found a left arm and a right arm and it was pretty clear that one of the arms, a saw or some type of cutting instrument had been used to sever that arm and the other arm still had its joint and so it appeared as though somebody had cut around the tendons and then pulled it out of the joint.

So, investigators actually had both of Chad Largy's arms, but despite exhaustive searches, no other remains were found. A Calgary medical examiner did a careful examination of the arms. He was able to determine the left arm had five stab wounds that were inflicted when Chad was still alive, but did not cause his death.

The medical examiner's report also noted multiple cuts to both hands that were consistent with defensive type injuries. As the investigation continued, tips poured in. Superintendent O'Brien said every single one needed to be looked at. We had numerous psychics that called and spoke to both us and then ultimately to the family.

They would provide information as to where Chad supposedly was. Of course, none of that ever panned out. Then, police got a lead. Because of the publicity on this particular file, we did get a call from the RCMP just outside of town. And the RCMP officers had gone to a call where a rancher said that somebody had trespassed onto their property and had burnt a bunch of items.

This burn site was far from the original crime scene near downtown Calgary, miles and miles away. It was located in a rural area west of the city, on private property about two kilometers south of the TransCanada Highway.

Superintendent O'Brien said given the distance and the items found at the scene, he was skeptical that it was related. The burnt items were cutlery and bowls and some knives. And then one of the other pieces that we found was a coil.

that had been burnt and when you take a closer look at it, it was a door stop. It was a coiled door stop that normally you would have behind a door so when the door opens in your residence that it doesn't, the doorknob doesn't hit the wall and cause damage. Didn't really seem like it would be related to Chad's murder but you never know and so I asked for forensic crime scene unit to go out and examine the burn site.

Crime scenes investigators meticulously logged and photographed the charred items. There was an awful lot of things there and we're still trying to piece it together. Is this related? Is it not related? Officers found distinct footprints and tire tracks at the scene.

It appeared to be a large truck with dually wheels and there was snow out there so we could see those tire tracks in the snow and it was very, very clear. We also saw some footprints in the snow and you could tell some of the tread pattern in the snow so that was very important for us. And then they stumbled upon something that didn't seem to fit. Our sergeant of our forensic crime scene unit phoned me and she was quite excited.

She said that while she's standing there, and this is a very, very open area, it's an open field. She said while she's standing there and she's supervising her members that are processing the scene, that a piece of paper, small piece of paper basically blows by her, kind of rolls on the ground because of the wind. And she literally steps on it, puts her foot on it and picks it up and reads it.

It's a receipt from a store in Calgary that, and it's for minutes that were purchased for a cell phone. We do go to the store and we are able to pull the video that the store had for the time that was stamped on the receipt. And what we see is Dean Comanda in the store buying minutes for his cell phone.

Superintendent O'Brien said he couldn't believe it. That receipt connected this seemingly random burn site to their homicide investigation. We knew from talking to both the mom and dad that Dean and Chad were best friends and they had been best friends for a long time. Sometimes being lucky is okay as an investigator. And so...

Again, what are the chances that this small piece of paper didn't get burned at the burn site or that it didn't blow away before we got there or after or wasn't destroyed some other way? So this was, it was a piece of luck.

When we go back and take a look at the burn site and all the utensils and the things that were there and that doorstop, we started to wonder what kind of cleanup. Perhaps there was a significant amount of cleanup that was being done and people were trying to destroy evidence.

Evidence pointed to one man at the center of it all. Dean Comanda, the victim's best friend. We did talk to Dean on the telephone. Dean didn't want to come in for an interview and so we spoke to him on the phone and he said that Chad had slept at his house that night and then left in the morning. And he didn't know what happened to Chad or where he went after.

The police had had lots of dealings with Dean Comanda over the years, so he was known to the police. There was drugs for sure, and we know that there had been some grow-ups and whatnot, so for sure there were drugs. Generally when there's drugs, there's some type of violence as well, whether reported or not. He did become a suspect at that point. Between the burn site and what we found there, in conjunction with the video of

him buying those minutes, he definitely became a strong suspect. That's when investigators learned Dean Comanda was a suspect in another crime. We were taking a look at our databases to see what kind of background do we have with Dean in particular? What other types of files might he be involved in? And we're just trying to understand a little bit, not just about the victim, but also about our suspect.

And we uncovered that Dean was a suspect in arson. And it was an arson of a U-Haul truck that had just been rented by Dean the day before.

He's a suspect because he was the one that rented the truck and we have the receipt of when he rented the truck. We have the date, we know what the mileage was on the truck and that it was due to be returned the next day and it just didn't show up returned. It ended up being about a block away on fire.

The U-Haul truck had dually tires that matched the tracks found at the rural burn site. So when I start to look at this, I am now, of course, wondering if the truck was used to clean up the crime scene, get rid of evidence, including perhaps Chad and the remains of Chad. As police narrowed in on a suspect, Chad's little sister dealt with the trauma the only way she knew how.

It's worth the pain. I know he'd do it for me. Miranda got her brother's portrait tattooed on her back.

I'm excited because I know I'll always have a picture of my brother and it's close to me. It's right on my skin, never going to go away. Her brother was passionate about tattoos. He loved them. He spent most of his time in the shop, all his spare time. He had the whole sleeve almost done of all gargoyles and skulls and stuff. She said she couldn't understand how someone could have done something so awful to her brother.

I don't know how somebody couldn't feel guilty, especially if they watched and see how much it's affecting people. There's so many people that it affected. I'd feel more at peace if I knew where he was, if we had all of them. It's like a dream. And sometimes I do. I wish I'd wake up and my brother would be there, but he's not going to be. So it's hard.

Meanwhile, Superintendent O'Brien said investigators worked around the clock and recovered further evidence from the burned-up U-Haul. So in the cab of the truck, there were a couple of key pieces of evidence that had not been destroyed by the fire. One was footwear.

And so we found some shoes that matched the footwear impressions that we found in the snow out by the burn site. So that was pretty telling that this probably was the truck that had been out there. We also found some labels and there were labels that were from a jerry can and they had some SKU numbers and some different numbers on there and dates and whatnot. We were able to find the gas station. From the gas station, we were able to look at

At that point in the investigation, police had to find Dean Comanda's car. Crime analyst Trish Pace was asked to help.

They ask me to do up a poster, a need to identify or a need to locate for Dean's vehicle. It's disappeared from the U-Haul place, the U-Haul's been found burnt, the vehicle's not, it's not there. And from the investigator's standpoint, what's in that vehicle? Like why is it disappearing?

That bulletin was sent out not just within Calgary Police Service, but it was sent out to the rural RCMP detachments as well. And it went Alberta-wide to see if anybody could locate a vehicle matching that description or if they see a vehicle matching that description with the plate that's assigned to it.

And then, Homicide Unit Staff Sergeant Barry Cochran held another press conference to release details of a second tip they received from the RCMP. Strathmore RCMP responded to a vehicle on fire in the Chestermere area shortly after noon on Monday, January 21st. All indications that I have right now is that the vehicle is severely damaged. Superintendent O'Brien said it was clear someone went to a lot of trouble to try and destroy the car.

The VIN tag that most people know about had been removed. However, most of our vehicles have multiple vehicle identification numbers. And so we were able to determine that this car that belonged to Dean was registered to Dean. Although the license plate had been removed, a VIN tag had been removed. It was his vehicle that had been torched.

Dean Comanda's burned car was taken to the Calgary Police Forensic Bay for further examination. I think what happens is sometimes people think that maybe they watch too much TV or they read too many novels and they think that killing somebody and destroying evidence is easy and it's not. So there are, this individual took a lot of steps to try to cover their tracks.

Obviously, that's what we do for a living as homicide investigators is track down the evidence. And even if it's a small, minute piece of evidence, we're going to track it down. What we wanted to do was talk to Dean, especially in those early days, like, tell us what happened. What happened to your best friend? That seems like a pretty natural question that you would want to answer when it's your best friend.

As the investigation is ongoing, I am calling Dean regularly to try to talk to him. But we're busy and all fingers are pointing towards Dean as our offender.

Superintendent O'Brien said the clock was ticking to get inside Comanda's apartment. But first, police needed to prove they had reasonable grounds to believe that's where the homicide was committed or where evidence could likely be found. I'm worried that we're going to lose more evidence if we don't get into his house and conduct a search of his residence.

By then, the burned out U-Haul and Commander's car were all over the news. It became clear to me that Dean wasn't cooperating. He didn't want to come in and talk to us. And I was worried that he was going to continue to destroy evidence. And so we did have a surveillance unit put onto Dean so that we could follow him.

Police said what happened next showed them the extreme measures Commanda was willing to go to to avoid arrest. On one of the days, I phoned Dean and left him a message and told him that he was a suspect in our homicide and that I needed to talk to him because I was going to arrest him. We had surveillance set up on Dean

and Dean and his girlfriend came out of his apartment building and Dean was yelling as he came out. Couldn't really tell what he was yelling, but he was yelling something, got into the vehicle and they drove very, very quickly to a hospital. Our surveillance units were able to get close enough into the hospital to hear that Dean claimed to have accidentally burned his hand.

and wanted treatment for his burned hand. Police were able to determine that Commander deliberately burned himself on a frying pan to conceal a cut on his left forearm and two cuts on his right hand. Often what we will find is people that attack somebody else with a knife, especially if it's gruesome, is that there'll be knife wounds on the palm of their hand, typically from a knife slippage.

And I couldn't help but wonder if this wasn't some other type of cover-up to try to cover up a knife slippage wound. Dean Kamanda was taken into custody. When it was safe for us to do so, we arrested Dean in a bar for homicide. And his girlfriend at that time came with us as well so we could interview her. He was under arrest for second-degree murder.

Police were finally granted a search warrant for his apartment. As soon as we knew that they were in custody, we then did the entry into the apartment and executed the search warrant for Dean's apartment. That was the last place that anybody had seen Chad alive, is going into the back of the apartment building.

We have a burn site where a lot of household items had been destroyed. That appears to be the U-Haul truck that Dean had rented and that is now burned. And so, and we have Dean based on the receipt that we found out at the burn site. We have a picture of him buying minutes. We also have Dean purchasing gas and a jerry can

and that Jerry Can label was found in the truck. So when we take a look at all of these and we piece it all together, Dean is our number one suspect.

I was there and I, from the hallway looking into his apartment, I could tell that there had been a significant amount of destruction to the apartment. I could see just from the hallway, I could see carpet and underlay and baseboards that had been ripped out and were no longer there. You'll recall police recovered a burned up coiled doorstop from the rural burn site.

Again, as we start to put these puzzles together, I'm like, well, that would explain the burn site. It would explain the doorstop that we found out at the burn site. And I was pretty convinced that Dean had spent some time trying to clean up the crime scene. When we did forensic examinations of Dean's computers, we realized that he had actually been Googling how to cover up a crime scene. He had been doing his research to try to figure out how to get rid of a body.

While forensic officers painstakingly went through every inch of Dean Comanda's apartment, he was interviewed by police. Well, as you can imagine, over that period of time, we're doing our best to keep the family updated on things that are going on in the file. We want to provide them as much information as we can. And so I did tell Chad's mom and Chad's sister that we had arrested Dean Comanda.

We arrested him for Chad's murder, but no charges yet as we're still working on the investigation. But Commanda refused to speak with investigators. That's when Chad's family suggested a different approach. You got to remember that Dean and Chad have been best friends for a long time. The family knows Dean. They know him well. And one of the things that Chad's mom said was, can I please talk to him?

And I had never done it before, and I'm not sure anybody in the unit had done it. Certainly not at that point. You know, I wasn't sure if this would work, but what if it did work? And so why wouldn't we try? And why wouldn't we try to, you know, everything we could to try to get Chad back to his family and a proper burial, which is what they were asking for. So I did drive out and I picked Chad's mom and sister up and drove them to the office.

And I would say listening to her talk was gut-wrenching. Lorraine Harris' voice begging Commander for answers is burned into Superintendent O'Brien's memory. You know, it's Dean's right not to say anything, and he invoked that right. But, you know, on a personal level, when you have a mom begging somebody that she's known for years to please tell me what you did with your best friend, my son, and he...

Although it was at points somewhat emotional, he just, he chose not to say anything. He was sitting there like this and he couldn't look at us once. He broke down once and cried. I told him that I loved him and that Chad loved him. Please let us know so that we can go on with our lives. This is awful hard, waking up every night in a nightmare wondering where he is. All he would say is, "My lawyer told me not to talk."

Meanwhile, crime scenes investigators were still inside Comanda's apartment. Not only photographing what had happened within that apartment, but also meticulously searching the entire apartment. And that included bags of clothes, it included boxes and going through boxes, it included seizing computers.

And then police found Chad Largy's DNA in an unexpected location. They were able to basically get their head between the toilet and the bathtub in the back of the toilet and they found DNA there which they seized. That DNA ultimately was Chad's DNA. They also found Chad's blood on Kamanda's clothing.

They found blood, numerous drops of blood that were on the pair of jeans, on the front part of the pair of jeans. We were later able to determine that it was Chad's blood that was on those jeans. Twelve days after Chad Largy's arms were found, his best friend was held in remand accused of second-degree murder. You know, when we put it all together, know that Chad was upset at Dean.

that Chad was dropped off there. And when their phone rang five, six, seven, eight minutes later, when Chad's dad came back to the apartment, they weren't answering the phone anymore. We know that by the condition of the arms, that there were what we would call defensive wounds and that there was some type of altercation within that apartment. There's no doubt in my mind that that's where Chad was killed.

and that Dean wanted to hide the crime and dismembered Chad, his best friend, and then did his best to clean up the crime scene, which was his apartment. One of the things that I did was I drove the route that I believe Dean had driven in the U-Haul, and we went from the U-Haul rental place

to Dean's apartment, out to the burn site and back. And when we compare that mileage to the mileage that was put onto the truck while Dean had it, there's about 200 kilometers that we can't account for. Police believed in that unaccounted for mileage, Commander disposed of the rest of Chad Largy's dismembered body.

Dean Comanda didn't stand trial for murder. Instead, almost a year to the date after he killed his best friend, he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter. According to an agreed statement of facts, Comanda and the victim got into a drunken argument with Chad as the initial aggressor who punched Comanda.

Court heard the initial struggle was relatively minor in scope, but escalated when Chad grabbed a knife, which prompted Commanda to do the same. Commanda admitted he overpowered his friend and stabbed him to death, but said it was in self-defense.

The agreed statement of facts detailed that the killing was quote, excessive given the circumstances. But both the prosecution and defense acknowledged Commanda didn't have the intent to commit murder, end quote. Court heard there was no evidence of any animosity held by Commanda towards Chad. And he agreed they were in fact best friends.

Commanda was convicted of manslaughter and committing an indignity to a body. The extraordinary measures he took to dispose of Chad's body and cover his tracks were described in court as cold and calculating. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, but with credit for time already served, had eight years remaining.

Kamanda declined to make a statement in court. That convinced Chad's mother and sister he wasn't remorseful. I used to think he was a cool guy, but now I think he's scum. I despise him with every bone in my body. To look at him today disgusted me. I don't believe that for one minute. Now it's time for my family to try to get on with our healing.

In the final years of his sentence, the Parole Board of Canada deemed Comanda a high risk to re-offend. Then, according to the Correctional Service of Canada, in 2016, while out on statutory release, he went AWOL. A Canada-wide warrant was issued for his arrest. He popped up months later on social media, posting about a tattoo business he was running in Winnipeg.

He was arrested in November of 2016, with 12 days remaining in his sentence. I confirmed he was never convicted of breaching his conditions for those months he spent at large, and he didn't have any extra time added onto his sentence. Unfortunately, despite numerous attempts, I was not able to find out why.

Chad Largy's family was never able to give him a proper burial. The rest of his remains were never recovered. My mom is a mess. She's never, ever gotten okay. And come on, who would? His sister was 18 when Chad was killed. I want everybody to know that Chad was an amazing person. He didn't deserve what happened to him.

She shares memories of the good times with her own children. She tells them about the thick glasses he wore as a child, his devotion to hockey and the love she had for him. He was goofy. He had a really good personality, sense of humor. He was handsome. He was a great person.

She can't help but wonder what he would have done with his life had he been given the chance. He made poor life choices when he was younger. You know what I mean? He was in a group home and he got mixed in with the wrong crowd and made poor life choices. He just wanted to make money. But then he started to realize that he needed to change and he told me that just before he passed away.

Miranda also thinks of the man who was out looking for bottles, who did the right thing and called for help after making that horrific discovery. My brother would have been a missing person and I would have never, never known. Superintendent Cliff O'Brien said this crime will always stand out to him. He never did say exactly where he disposed of Chaz's remains. He did say that...

He drove around outside of town and he put pieces of chad into various dumpsters and whatnot, much like he did with the severed arms that we found. These are two friends, these are two best friends that had an argument that clearly led to a stabbing, a homicide and dismemberment. Again, it's a waste of a life.

After nearly 30 years of police work, Superintendent O'Brien has pretty much seen and investigated every type of crime imaginable. He takes pride in helping provide answers to families like Chad's, but he also admits every investigation leaves a mark. I think if you're working in any of these types of roles,

forensic crime scenes or as an investigator, certainly a death investigator. These files, when you're dealing with families and loved ones and you're dealing with all of the ripple effects of the impact, it inevitably does take a toll on you. There's no doubt about it. Thank you for joining me this week. And a special thank you to Superintendent Cliff O'Brien and Chad's sister Miranda for their help in sharing this story.

Crime Beat is written and produced by me, Nancy Hixt, with producer Dila Velasquez. Audio editing and sound design is by Rob Johnston. Special thanks to photographer-editor Danny Lantella for his work on this episode. And thanks to Chris Bassett, the VP of Network Content, Production and Distribution and Editorial Standards for Global News.

I would love to have you tell a friend about this podcast, and you can help me share these important stories by rating and reviewing Crime Beat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. You can find me on Twitter at Nancy Hixt, on Facebook at Nancy Hixt Crime Beat, and on Instagram at nancy.hixt. That's N-A-N-C-Y dot H-I-X-T. Thanks again for listening. Please join me next time.