Man serving time for Surrey murder pleads guilty to Abbotsford killing

Tanner Fox shot and killed Chad Colivas of Abbotsford in March 2022 during a botched break-and-enter, the court heard on Friday (April 10).

Details of the killing were revealed during proceedings at B.C. Supreme Court in Abbotsford in which Fox pleaded guilty to manslaughter in Colivas’s death.

Fox, 25, had initially been charged with second-degree murder and was set to go on trial later this year, but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge.

His sentencing hearing has been scheduled for June 19.

An agreed statement of facts was presented Friday by Crown counsel Angela Lee.

She said Fox and another person, Laetitia Acera, set out to commit a break-in at the Colivas home – located in the 3500 block of Latimer Street – on March 21, 2022.

Living in the home were Colivas, 41, his nephew, and his nephew’s grandparents.

Lee said Fox and the nephew knew each other, and Fox believed that drugs, money and jewelry could be found in the nephew’s ground-floor bedroom.

Fox and Acera planned the break-in over text messages on March 18.

On the night of the killing, they drove to the Colivas home using a 2002 Ford Escape that Acera had purchased, registering it in the name of a woman whose ID she had previously stolen, Lee said.

The nephew left the home at around 8:20 p.m. Fox and Acera then entered the residence using an unlocked side door, while the other occupants of the home were upstairs and did not hear anything.

Fox was carrying a loaded 9 mm handgun at the time, Lee said.

Fox and Acera left the residence, after which the nephew returned home and noticed that two backpacks were outside his bedroom door and his room had been ransacked.

He went to get his grandmother, and the two were in the bedroom when Fox returned, while Acera waited in the vehicle.

Lee said the nephew heard a door open, looked out his bedroom door and saw Fox, who pointed a gun at them. They were directed into the bedroom and onto the floor, and the grandmother began screaming, which drew Colivas’s attention.

Fox had his back to the door when Colivas, 41, entered the room. Lee said Fox turned around, thought Colivas might try to take his gun, and shot him three times.

“Chad Colivas was unarmed. In shooting Chad Colivas, Mr. Fox did not act in self-defence and Chad Colivas did not provoke him,” Lee said.

Fox left the scene in the Ford Escape driven by Acera, while the family called 911. Colivas was pronounced dead on the scene.

Evidence gathered by investigators to link Fox and Acera to the crime included text messages, cellphone photos, GPS data, surveillance video and DNA evidence.

Lee said police tracked down the Ford Escape by doing an internet search and finding it for sale on Craigslist.

After purchasing the vehicle for $1,500, they searched it and found a bullet in the front passenger side door that was of the same type used to kill Colivas.

Acera’s DNA was found on the steering wheel, two nitrile gloves and a cigarette butt. Fox’s DNA was found on a cigarette.

Lee said a search of Fox’s home in Abbotsford turned up two guns, one loaded, but neither was the one used in the killing. That gun has never been found, she said.

The Integrated Homicide Investigation Team announced on July 27, 2022 that Fox and Acera had been charged in relation to the killing.

Acera was charged with manslaughter, but that was stayed in April 2025, when she pleaded guilty to break-and-enter and was sentenced to a 14-month jail term and two years of probation.

Fox is currently serving a life sentence with no parole eligibility for 20 years after pleading guilty in January 2025 to second-degree murder for a Surrey killing.

Fox and another man, Jose Lopez, shot and killed Surrey businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik on July 14, 2022 outside a business complex in Newton.

Fox was also sentenced in July 2020 for stabbing a 17-year-old male during an altercation in a parking lot in Abbotsford.

He received an additional 119 days in jail, on top of time served, and two years of probation.