I met Craig at a gym downtown Vancouver called Neighborhood
Gym because it was a gym that was open 24 hours.
It was on the corner of Drake and Granville St.
It was right across from the Cecil nightclub, which was a
strip bar. So we'd get a lot of strippers
in the but we had a lot of doormen, bouncers that worked
out there. You had people that were kind of
more in the gangster life, male strippers, female strippers, gay
community worked out there. It was a very popular and
colorful place and I loved it because it was great people
watching. Even in that environment.
Craig stood out to be. Craig looked like a younger
version of George Hamilton. He's an old movie star who's
always tanned and they had very similar facial features.
Craig was very avident to working out.
He was in the bodybuilding and he did use steroids and selling
steroids to lot of the bodybuilders and bouncers and
people that were who worked out at neighborhoods gym.
Craig told me he was from Toronto ON told me he had a pass
where he did go to jail. I believe it had to do with
cocaine. He mentioned to me too that he
had passed drug addiction issues with cocaine and he said that he
used so much cocaine in the past that he had liver issues in
Toronto. He owned a Corvette.
In his height of his addiction, he sold his Corvette for 30
grand and he spent all that money on cocaine in less than
one month. So he had addiction issues, he
said. He was also in prison in back in
Ontario. He's always talk about all these
mob connections. He's wise guys and I I didn't
know if that was true or not. But anyways that's what he told
me. But he, as I said, I like the
guy. He had good stories.
He was very crismatic. He he's kind of person that when
you're around, he always made you laugh and he kind of lifted
your spirit up, you having a crappy day.
He was always fun to hang out with, but he had a lot of corks.
I met him at the time when he was still working at the Four
Season Hotel, and then one day he's abruptly quit.
He never gave the details of why he quit the job, but he did.
He quit really, with almost like no notice there.
He would never go out to eat at restaurants, but he had, he
seemed to have some kind of strange food phobia.
He would never eat out. Other than that, he was a very
health conscious person. When I knew him, he was really
into working out. He did use steroids, which I
thought was strange if he had a lot of liver issues, especially
from doing so much cocaine. He never used cocaine in front
of me. He never drank in front of me
and he was always very sober, even if we would go out to a
nightclub or something. He drank coffee or water.
He didn't drink alcohol ever in front of me, thought that he was
a person who had a past, had a few corks.
I got Craig work and we work together for almost an entire
summer and he was a very hard working guy.
He showed up for work every day. He worked very hard.
It was a pretty hard job. It was never once ever
complained, always was in a good mood, and he was actually a
great guy to work with. Then when that job finished, I
went back to doing more bouncing.
He told me that he got a job at the Odyssey, which was a gay
nightclub, but then he dropped the bombshell on me.
He told me the reason, like he told me straight up the reason
why he got a job at the Odyssey, specifically dealing cocaine,
which really shocked me. And one of the things about the
Odyssey, even though it was a gay nightclub, it was an open
secret. There was a lot of cocaine in
that nightclub. So straight or gay, if you
needed cocaine for your party night or or needed to get more
and that and the Odyssey was open.
It was a place to go. Like it was an open secret that
you walk in. He was getting steroids from a
group of people that would that lived in Chilliwack and I have
no idea how he met these people from Chilliwack.
That is a mystery to me. These people in Chilliwack and
he did tell me they were neo Nazis.
They were actually real neo Nazis that dealt cocaine sold
guns and as he referred that they like to play army.
He said he could even buy hand grenades and for he was getting
cocaine from and he told me that their cocaine was so pure that
when he worked at the nightclub at the Odyssey, the the the how
he was getting customers is that he was promising not to step on
it, not to cut it with anything and he was going to sell it
cheaper. And if memory serves me correct,
around 1995 cocaine was going for about $100 a gram.
He was selling it for 80, promising it to be pure and and
not to be stepped on or cut with anything.
So obviously he started to do well and get customers pretty
fast. Truly underestimated the type of
blowback and the seriousness of of organized criminals in
Vancouver. Cuz he again he would tell a lot
of stories about, you know, mobsters that he knew in Toronto
and I never. I never skipping ahead.
When I did talk to a homicide detective after he was murdered,
I did mention that he would talk about mobsters and wiseguys and
they said they looked into it. They didn't see any connections
of it. They I I went to his apartment
one time and soon as I walked in, you know, he showed me this
huge amount of money that he made.
I think the money I think there was like 20 grand in a big role
and he was excited because Welfare Wednesday was coming up
and every drug dealer knows on welfare Wednesday and BC pre
make pre pretty much guaranteed to make double the amount of
money that you normally made. So he was excited because he was
going to take his big cash flow and he was going to buy a ton of
cocaine and he was going to make all this money on welfare
Wednesday. And.
And he showed me, he did, you know, he showed me this huge
block of cocaine that he currently had and it was, you
know, it was an impressive block.
It was the probably list. It was quite big.
He had to use his whole hand that kind of show it to me.
And I was, you know, quite shocked about, you know,
disturbing again is that here I walk in, you know, we, yeah,
we're close friends. I've known him well.
We work together. We traveled to Mexico together,
not even in 2 minutes of being in his apartment.
He showed me the amount of money he has and he showed me his
massive stash of cocaine and I. So this continued on.
He worked at the Odyssey for about seven months.
I believed to be honest, he when he was doing this, I actually
stopped hanging out with. I felt that he was diving in
deep waters, that he really was under estimating.
One of the last times I saw him, I was walking by his apartment.
He lived on Penril Street. I believe he lived.
He was in front of his building and he walked up to me, goes,
oh, I just dropped the dime on a guy.
And I'm like, what now? From the neighborhood I grew up
in, You know, ratting on dealers, Ratty.
Being a rat is like the worst thing possible.
And now he's telling me, and he's probably telling other
people that he snitched out some other dealer.
I guess he was having some some issues with, and I think this
other dealer also worked at the Odyssey.
He just all I remember about him, he didn't give me the guy's
name. I wouldn't say it anyways, but
he didn't say the guy's name. He just referred to this guy as
French Canadian. He said this guy had a very hot
temper and he was very temperamental and you know, he's
a French Canadian cocaine dealer.
He's probably, you know, obviously he's going to be a
little, you know, high strung. And he told me flat out he
dropped the dime on this guy. To be honest, I was actually
hoping that he would get arrested rather than one of
these dealers get his hands on. Because what I understood too,
you know, this is of information that I found after his murder,
is that the people that were in charge, you know, again, we're
talking about a lot of money. And here's an Odyssey nightclub
that's a very popular nightclub. It's extremely popular.
If you went by on the Saturday, Sundays, you know, it was a
packed place. And then then I'm sure it did
well during the weekday. And we're talking about millions
of dollars of cocaine being sold, you know, each year.
And here's a guy just walks in and starts undercutting and
trying to get all that money for himself.
And he was making a lot of money.
He was very active and he started dealing out of his
apartment too. And he you know, I did.
I stopped that. As I said, I stopped hanging out
with him. But I would call him often
because I was truly worried about him and I was secretly
hoping he was going to get arrested.
My gut feeling I knew something terrible was going to happen to
him around the close to the timeline of his demise.
I I called him one time I was OK.
He he told me about dropping a dime.
So now I'm really worried about him.
So I'm calling him. I I used to call him at least
once a week. So one day on the phone he calls
me and he says, oh I just bought a 45 caliber handgun from the
Nazi guys. Him being involved with Nazis
always disturb me too because you know, I I I'm, I'm a person
of color. You know I'm half Icelandic, but
I'm on my dad's side is native black and other stuff.
So I'm. I have a lot of melatonin in my
skin and he's never ever expressed any type of like
racist ideologies. And you know even at the gym
there was a lot of black guys and people of every color and he
was always friendly with anyone and I never ever heard of make a
racist remark about any people. So him being involved with neo
Nazis was always kind of very disturbing.
So I try to think well, maybe it's just for business but still
it it's it's kind of disturbing, right.
He said he bought a handgun, a 45 caliber handgun from these
Nazis. So I'm thinking, wow, he must be
getting serious or he's getting scared.
Maybe he's getting threats. This is, Are you being
threatened? Because he again, big mouth
telling everyone is business, telling everyone he's dropping
Dimes, you know, writing letters to the nightclub that he was
telling cocaine. And like, he's making a lot of
noise, But then he drops another bombshell, which I think is
like, Oh my God, like, are are you retarded or are you really
starting to use cocaine? Because I think towards his
death, I I truly speculate that he was using cocaine because
earlier I asked him if he was and he said he wasn't because he
had liver issues, but I think he was at the end.
Then he told me that he doesn't have the handgun anymore.
He's he mailed it to his father and I'm just like, what?
Okay? That sounds kind of dumb, but
then he told me that he was planning to move back to Toronto
and he's been mailing his assets.
He's been buying a lot of stuff with all his cocaine money, and
he was mailing and stuff. And I'm thinking, if you're a
dealer and you're selling cocaine and you're ratting
people out and you're you got to be smart enough to know that
you're burning bridges and you're pissing people off.
But I, I, I, But I think in his delusion, he didn't think anyone
was going to happen to him because maybe he did think that
he was some kind of wise guy or something, you know, because he
did. Like, as I said, he did talk a
lot about all these mafia connections he had, which again,
none of them have ever been substantiated.
And when I talked to the police, they said, no, we didn't find
any of that, right? So moving forward here, he drops
a dime. You know, he's doing stupid
things. He's buying guns and bailing it
to his dad. And then he told me that he
painted his entire apartment because his apartment was white
in the very white, very bright. And he painted the whole
apartment, apparently flat block.
And the police said even the light fixtures.
As I said, I stopped going there because I didn't really want to,
you know, be seen or hang out with him because I knew
something dangerous was going to happen.
And it did so and then he told me he bought a boa constrictor.
So we had to. He now he lives in a flat block
apartment and he has boa constrictors.
And then he told me he was hanging a lot around this
transgender woman who was his neighbor seemed to spend a lot
of time with. I got the sense there was kind
of like a relationship. And and the reason why I believe
this is because even though I never met this woman, he told me
he started dating this woman Is the first time in in about two
years that he ever mentioned, you know, actually dating or
actually having some kind of sexual experience with the
woman. Like, again, he never talked
about that. So he told me he met a woman
named Lana who who apparently he said had Russian organized crime
tech ties. Like, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't think she was in the
Russian mafia, but apparently her family or whatever had these
connections. According to Craig, he started
also seeing this transgender woman that was his neighbor and
apparently when this Lana got a wind of this, she was so upset
and so enraged that she threatened him at knifepoint.
And and Craig actually told me that he was afraid of her.
He was afraid of this woman. And here's a guy who's dropping
Dimes on hardcore drug dealers and going into the Odyssey with
big elbows and a loudmouth and undercutting all the dealers
there. And first time he actually have
ever expressed fear, like he was actually said he was afraid of
this woman. Asked him sorry, how did he even
meet meet this Lana. Well, there is another nightclub
that's called Celebrities. That's it's a gay nightclub, a
lot of straight people, every people there.
But it's primary gay night. He said he was going to
celebrities and he met Lana and they had actual sex in the
nightclub in some, you know, secluded place.
And he was so enthralled by her and stuff and and then when she
found out about the trans transgender woman, she
apparently had made her just go completely psychotic and he said
he was afraid of her. So then there's that, you know
the neo cat season and I'm pretty sure that if they found
out that he was going to gain nightclubs and dating a
transgender woman, they would not like that.
And then there's the dealers that he ratted out on toes he
was stepping on at the Odyssey because I know for a fact
talking to people, he pissed a lot of people off.
Again, we're talking a lot of money.
So leading up to his death, I I didn't talk to him for a while,
but but the strange thing happened is I had a clock radio
that I would set as alarm clock. So instead as an alarm, a radio
would go off. And I used to listen to a lot of
talk radio, you know, in the background.
When I did work or whatever I did around the house, I'd have
the talk radio playing. The alarm went off.
I'm laying in bed. It was December 21st, and they
said a man's body, a victim of homicide, was discovered in the
West End on 1155 Pendrell St. the apartment where he lived.
And I knew instantly it was Craig, because it was just like
no one was doing the crazy things in that apartment
building to that level, attracting that much attention
and creating that many enemies than this guy.
So I try to call him a bunch of times, no answer, no answer,
straight to voicemail, straight to voicemail.
And I had the sick feeling in my stomach.
And then a couple days later I get a call from a homicide
detective from Vancouver police and I and I told them
everything. I went and met them.
I told them yes. I knew he was selling cocaine at
the at the Odyssey. He had a crazy Russian
girlfriend that he was afraid of who threatened him at knife
point. Apparently he was dumb.
He told everybody that would listen to him about how much
money he was making. He showed me even where he even
hid his money in his apartment. You know, he showed me his
cocaine stash. He showed me he was.
He was telling me all kinds of stories, right?
And I said to him he had a huge mouth.
And then I told him about the handgun.
I said, he also told me he bought a handgun from these
Nazis. I told him about the Nazis and
and the cops and yeah, yeah, we know about the guns.
So therefore I established that these nasties real except part
of my. I'm wondering, I was like, did
he make these Nazis up? Like it wasn't.
Was it like kind of a new story that he was always talk about
these mobster guys, So I was never sure if these guys even
existed that it was something he made-up.
But then the cops said yes and then the cops said something
really disturbing. They asked a lot about his
sexuality. They I found out through other
sources to the way he was tortured.
He was he was tied. He was bound and he was sexually
basically was sexually assaulted.
He never. And the other thing was kind of
disturbing. They did ask a lot about his,
his Nazi ideology, his beliefs. And I said, well, that's kind of
shocking because I know him, we were pretty close friends and
you know, we had other friends of color that were black and you
know, of other, you know, racial.
He's, as I said, he never ever made any kind of racial remarks
or anything like that. But they said he had a lot of
Nazi neo Nazi literature, like quite a lot of it.
And so these Nazis were real, right.
A weird love triangle with a transgender woman and a Russian
mobster. Neo Nazis, you know, whole slew
of drug dealers pissed off that he was undercutting them.
Cops did not give me details about how he died but they did
kind of say between his lines and said yeah, it was pretty
brutal and and they kept mentioning the sexual element.
So it was it was very clear that he died in a There was a very
sexual component of how he died. I when I talked to people you
know through the Grapevine who also knew about this case and
also knew him and and and one of the strange things too that a
friend of mine, Kevin told me when was Kevin?
I mentioned on this pod on this podcast, every time I make a
podcast he knew a lot of people and kind of more that Underworld
than I did at the time. And he told me that he heard
that he was tied up and basically he was he was
violently sexually assaulted with even with objects and
stuff. So he died in a very terrible
way. Like it just I couldn't imagine
like you know how he went out and then he wasn't found for
they believe that he wasn't found for about 3 days and that
that's what my understanding was.
You know it wasn't a surprise but it was obviously awful about
how he died. 5I followed up with the police a few times just to
say hey if you guys just got a period of curiosity was a friend
has there been any developments They said they were looking for
that Russian woman, Lana. They never did find her as far
as my understanding. I think this is like there's I
think what makes this case difficult there we there was so
many people that could have done it.
I do appreciate you listening And God, you know, as again,
this one is one that always has haunted me.
And you know, Craig Abraham, rest in peace.
Sorry what happened to you, brother.
But God, you know, I hope you're in a better place.
And I'm going to close it out on here.
Thank you so much for listening. Have a great day.