B.C. man's killing spurred housing law reform. Relatives wonder why it's unsolved

Lee Lucak poses for a picture in Langley B.C., on Friday, May 1, 2026. Lucak's cousin, Keith Scott, was found dead in a Victoria, B.C., supportive housing building in 2023. But while the homicide spurred reforms to B.C. tenancy laws, the crime remains unsolved. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ethan Cairns

It’s been just over a year since Keith Scott was found dead in a Victoria supportive housing building, and his ex-wife says their daughter still asks every day why the killer hasn’t been brought to justice.

“I don’t have an answer for her,” said Cassie Bate.

The homicide of Scott -- whose body was found by firefighters who put out a blaze in a unit at the Waterview building on Gorge Road more than a year ago -- spurred a campaign to reform B.C. tenancy laws for supportive housing buildings that passed last month.

Bate saw Scott’s body after a mortician had prepared it before the funeral, and decided not to let their daughter view it.

Police have not revealed Scott’s official cause of death.

She believes he was shot with a small-calibre firearm and then set on fire, and she said she’s seen video footage that shows who was in the unit with Scott at the time of the killing.

But Bate said she can only assure their child that it takes time for police to make sure they’ve done things right, and is unable to further explain why there’s been no charges laid in the case, which is being investigated by the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit.

“That’s all I have to answer for her and it really sucks,” Bate said.

Victoria police said the major crime unit “continues to pursue investigative avenues.”

“At this time, there is no further information to release to the public.”

The Waterview building is operated by Pacifica Housing, and CEO Carolina Ibarra said the unit where Scott was found dead on April 26, 2025, had been problematic for some time, with people who didn’t live in the building bringing in weapons and causing violence.

Scott wasn’t a tenant, and Ibarra said she couldn’t comment on the police investigation.

Ibarra had said in the days after Scott’s death that supportive housing providers were hampered by tenancy regulations from dealing effectively with trespassers and people with weapons and violent behaviour.

She and other supportive housing operators with the BC Coalition for Safe and Sustainable Supportive Housing called on the provincial government to reform the Residential Tenancy Act. They got their wish with Bill 11, which the government says will help keep weapons out of supportive housing.

B.C. Housing Minister Christine Boyle said the legislation makes it easier to evict “problematic” tenants from supportive housing buildings, while critics fear the bill will exacerbate homelessness.

The bill was drafted in response to operators’ concerns about violence and, specifically, tenants who possess weapons, providing tools for operators to de-escalate conflicts and quickly address safety issues in “rare incidents” of violence, Boyle said, including through temporary removal of tenants.

Ibarra said Scott’s death may have been avoided had the law been on the books beforehand.

“I think there was a good chance it could have been prevented because for starters, we would have had control over ensuring there were no weapons on-site,” Ibarra said.

Bill 11 may be part of Scott’s legacy, but his loved ones say they were unaware his death had prompted the calls for legal reform.

Lee Lucak, Scott’s cousin, has joined protests outside the courthouse in Surrey, B.C., along with other family members of homicide victims whose cases remain unsolved.

Lucak said her cousin had been trying to turn his life around after his involvement in the drug trade had seen him imprisoned after falling in with the wrong people.

“He ended up in jail and he didn’t want to go back there, and he was like, ‘Why am I living like this when I could just be a dad?’”

She said they were more like siblings than cousins, growing up very close together and attending the same high school in Langley, B.C.

“He looked out for me and I looked out for him,” she said. “After I found out he was killed, I couldn’t even get out of bed. I was just heartbroken. It was like losing my best friend.”

Lucak said she’s connected with other relatives of homicide victims who feel let down by the justice system, wondering if and when charges might be laid against those responsible.

She said there’s video evidence from the day of Scott’s death, and she and Bate have both tried to find out as much as they could on their own as police haven’t shared any information about the cause of death or status of the investigation.

“We know the names of everybody that were involved,” she said. “It feels like he was pushed aside. And I think that’s another reason why I do the protest, is because it just, it lets them know that we’re not going to stop fighting for answers and charges, that he’s important to us. He may not be important to you, but he’s important to all of us.”

Victoria Leonard, Scott’s girlfriend at the time, said she visited his gravesite on the anniversary of his death.

She said his killing has affected many lives, and she’s still haunted by nightmares.

“I will never have him back. It’s a tragic thing and it’s caused a lot of pain and suffering in my life as well as his family’s life, his friends’ lives,” she said. “Keith was a great person. He was like the funniest guy you’d ever meet. Just a huge heart. He was a super special person to me and we shared a lot of things in common.”

Leonard said it’s unclear exactly what happened the day Scott died, and she was too saddened to deal with investigators who reached out to her, having little faith in police given the victim in the case had a criminal history.

“I just wanted to be left alone,” she said. “They didn’t respect my boundaries.”

Patricia Scott, the man’s aunt, said his mother Roxanne is still too broken up about her son’s death to speak about it a year later.

She said the family is still in the dark about the cause of death and what exactly occurred in the unit that day, and his mother has had to ask police for updates about the investigation.

She said what is known is that five people, including Scott, were in the unit that day before the door was shut, and he didn’t come out alive.

“There was five people in that place. Keith lost his life there. So there’s only four people left to blame. How hard is it to figure it out? They have video footage and everything,” Patricia Scott said.

Cassie Bate said she believes that after Scott was shot and the other people inside the unit fled, the unknown perpetrator returned and set the place on fire.

She said her ex-husband was a good dad and well loved by her family, despite their relationship breaking down, and said painful kidney issues that started in his youth saw him put “on hard drugs to help curb the pain.... That is what spiralled him into addiction.”

“After we separated, he went completely downhill,” she said.

She said the B.C. government’s move to change tenancy laws for supportive housing in the wake of Scott’s death is a good thing because “supportive housing should be a safe place.”

But Bate said she worried the criminal case had been put on the “back burner.”

“You know everybody in the video. You’ve got the video, like, do something about it. You know what I mean?” she said.

Bate said she recalled reading comments on news stories that reported on Scott’s death, dismissing him as “just another skid in the ground” for having died in a supportive housing building where people are stigmatized.

“I don’t think that it got the attention that it should have. Like, he was doing good. He was doing better. He got out of jail … and he was trying to do better and trying to be in his kid’s life,” she said.

“He had health issues when he was a kid and they put them on super hard drugs. And then what happens from that? It just snowballs.”

“It doesn’t mean that he wasn’t a good guy,” she said. “Nobody deserves to be murdered.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 6, 2026.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press