The house that police say Braidy Vermette and Tristen Smith had been hiding out in. Photo courtesy Wendy Fyrk
The family and friends of a Prince Albert murder victim have been closely watching the escape and recapture of one of the accused killers.
Braidy Vermette is charged with the first-degree murder of Troy Napope, who went missing in late May of 2015.
Last Wednesday, Vermette got help from two masked men and escaped from correctional officers while heading to hospital for a self-inflicted cut.
And a week later, in the early hours of Thursday Vermette and his girlfriend Tristen Smith were arrested in a home only 10 minutes north of Prince Albert that had caught on fire.
“It’s been so emotional. Like, a rollercoaster, this whole thing,” said Napope’s cousin Tamara Wolfe.
She said she’s shocked that Vermette was caught so close to home.
“You’d think he would have fled away,” she said. “You figure somebody would head for the hills.”
Police say Vermette has ties to the Tax Set, which is a small-time Prince Albert offshoot of the Terror Squad. In a photo on Facebook, Vermette can be seen displaying knuckle tattoos that say “Terror Squad.”
Before Vermette was arrested, he was asking around about Wolfe.
Wolfe said she wasn’t scared of the gang affiliations Vermette has, but did feel a twinge of fear when Vermette made an escape from correctional officers in Prince Albert with the help of two masked men.
“He had nothing to lose, nothing to prove, and he knew I was fighting hard to find my cousin’s body,” she said.
In December, Christie Napope and Tamara Wolfe came forward to MBC to try to find answers in Napope’s disappearance. Photo by Chelsea Laskowski
Wolfe moved away from Prince Albert recently, and says that’s helped her feel safe.
She describes Napope as a “thug,” not a gangster. Regardless of labels, she said he was well-respected locally. This made Vermette’s choice of hide-out more reasonable to Wolfe.
“I thought he’d be gone, I’d be like ‘oh my God, he’s probably in Saskatoon or something,’ you know. Then, he’s just outside on Buckland Road. He’s probably too scared because he thinks like somebody, those guys are gonna kill him. He’s probably too scared to go anywhere,” she said.
Wolfe says she and the family are still upset that Napope’s body has yet to be found by RCMP. He went missing late last May. Soon after, the car he’d been driving when he left the party where he was last seen was found. It had been torched.
Wolfe says it’s been an emotional year since he disappeared but with Vermette back in custody, justice can be served.
Vermette was back in court on Friday morning for a quick appearance. He was remanded to the Prince Albert Penitentiary, whereas he’d previously been held at the Prince Albert Correctional Centre’s remand unit.
He’ll be back in court more than a month from now.
Smith has a show cause hearing scheduled for next week.
Skylar Patrick Bird is the co-accused in Napope’s murder. He’s in custody and back in court in late May.