Since the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team assumed the responsibility for investigating homicides from the Surrey RCMP serious crimes section in June 2003 it has taken conduct of 307 mandated cases in this city.
This includes all homicides – culpable or not – and suspicious sudden deaths and missing persons cases where foul play is suspected.
Sergeant Freda Fong said four cases have since been transferred to either another investigative unit or were returned to the police of jurisdiction (Surrey), “resulting in IHIT maintaining conduct of 303 Surrey-related investigations.”
Wong noted the total number is based on homicide investigations, not the total number of victims.
“At the onset of IHIT in June 2003, five Surrey homicide investigations were acquired by IHIT that had occurred prior to this date. These files are excluded from this analysis,” Fong told the Now-Leader.
Of the 303 Surrey investigations, 297 were determined to be homicides – 285 culpable and 12 not.
Fong revealed that 166 of 285 culpable Surrey homicides to date – 58 per cent – have been cleared while 177 of 297 (60 per cent) homicides, all told, have been cleared.
IHIT defines “cleared” cases as those in which charges have been laid or recommended, suicides, and “cleared by other means (departmental discretion).”
“Investigations in which there are multiple accused, with one charged and others yet to be charged, are considered cleared as of the date of the first clearance,” Fong explained. “However, if there are multiple accused and one dies prior to any charges being laid, the file is not considered cleared until one of the other accused parties are charged or cleared by other means.”
At this time of writing – Jan. 28, 2026 – Surrey has had three homicides in 2026.
The city had six in 2025, with five of those shootings. That’s according to the Surrey Police Service, which hasn’t included three police-related shootings in its tally.
In 2024, Surrey recorded nine homicides, and in 2023 there were 12, in 2022 there were 21, and 10 in 2021.
In 2020 there where 12 homicides, 21 in 2019 and 15 in 2018. The most the city recorded in any given year was 25 in 2013, breaking the previous record of 21 in 2005.
Meantime, the Surrey Police Service inherited 56 unsolved homicide cases from the Surrey RCMP after it became the city’s police of jurisdiction on Nov. 29, 2024.
These don’t include those homicides being investigated by IHIT.
They do include cases between 1967 and 2003 which the Surrey RCMP’s Unsolved Homicide Unit were dealing with until that unit was folded in 2018.