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killer of surrey businessman ripudaman singh malik also guilty in death of abbotsford man

by david carrigg
published jul 24, 2026
read time 2 minute read
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read time 2 minute read
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a person found guilty of killing high-profile sikh businessman ripudaman singh malik in surrey in 2022 has now pleaded  guilty to the manslaughter of an abbotsford man.
integrated homicide investigation team spokeswoman sgt. freda fong said tanner fox, 25, pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the march 2022 death of chad colivas in april of this year. on wednesday, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the crime.
according to police, fox and his accomplice laetitia acera broke into colivas’ latimer street home on mar. 21, 2022.
“mr. colivas was shot when he confronted mr. fox, who broke into his residence. mr. colivas was unarmed and the incident was not associated to any gang conflict,” fong said.
fox and acera were arrested in may 2023. fox was initially charged with second-degree murder while acera was charged with manslaughter.
on feb. 19, 2025, acera pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of break and enter. she was sentenced on april 16, 2025 to four years in prison and two years probation. because the court credited her with two years and 10 months for the time she spent in pre-sentence custody, she had another 14 months of jail left to serve.
“at the time of sentencing, mr. fox was already in custody for a separate homicide conviction,” fong said.
this earlier conviction was for the slaying of malik, a one-time air india bombing suspect who was acquitted at trial.
malik was found dead outside his business in surrey on july 14, 2022 – less than four months after the killing of colivas.
two weeks later, charges of first-degree murder were approved against fox and jose lopez, who were both arrested without incident.
fox and lopez entered a guilty plea to second-degree murder and in january 2025 fox received an automatic sentence of life imprisonment with no parole for 20 years. lopez received the same sentence three months later.
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court heard the pair were hired to kill malik, whom neither knew. fox and lopez would not reveal in court who hired them to kill malik.
dcarrigg@postmedia.com
david carrigg
david carrigg

i am an experienced journalist who has worked in this field for almost 30 years. i was trained in albany, western australia, for the albany advertiser at a time when they were still instructing new reporters how to write in shorthand. many things have changed in our industry since then, but the stories remain. i have written about almost everything over the years and still very much enjoy the job and the privilege it gives me meeting people from every walk of life.

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