deadmonton 2006 - thomas tipo orak
Thomas Tipo Orak, 18, was shot to death October 29th, 2006.
Dwayne Anthony Nelson, 22, was charged with three counts of second-degree murder, two counts of aggravated assault and one count of assault causing bodily harm.
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Thomas Tipo Orak was one of three men shot as part of the Red Light Lounge Triple Murder. For the latest developments into the investigation of his death, please visit the Red Light page.
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Thomas Tipo Orak, his mother and four siblings came to Canada in 2001 as refugees.
They had fled a civil war in Sudan for a more peaceful life in Edmonton.
Orak's biological father stayed behind and doesn't yet know his son was shot during Edmonton's worst case of multiple murder.
Friends who were with Thomas said Orak was "caught in the crossfire" and took at least one bullet to the head as they were leaving the bar.
"He wasn't involved. He doesn't fight. He's quiet," Nyandeng Lwal, 23, Orak's cousin told the Edmonton Sun. "He doesn't deserve what happened to him. It's sad."
Bolis Wol, one of Orak's best friends, described to the Edmonton Journal how a night of dancing ended with Orak lying dead on the floor.
Early on October 29th Wol, Orak and another friend arrived at the Red Light Lounge at about 1:00 a.m.
They had been to the nightclub a few times before and enjoyed the lounge's hip-hop music.
An hour into their stay, a fight broke out on the dance floor.
Wol and Orak decided it was time to leave. Just as they were making their way towards the exit, one of the men who had been evicted due to the fight came running in.
"All I see is he start popping the gun," Wol said. He didn't know how many shots were fired.
"I look and find [Orak] was down."
Wol's friend was lying motionless near the middle of the lounge with what looked like a bullet wound to his head.
Bolis called 911 and then called Orak's family to deliver the bad news.
Wol was aware police were looking into gang links but said neither he nor Orak were ever involved in any gangs.
It was a lifestyle they avoided during their time together at St. Joseph Catholic High School.
Tipo's family also said Thomas was not part of a gang.
Orak adopted the role of his family's father figure after coming to Canada with his mother, two sisters and two younger stepbrothers.
He looked after his stepbrothers in the family's northeast Edmonton townhouse while his mother worked the night shift at a long-term care centre.
"He was a pillar in the whole house," Daniel Ding, father of one of the younger boys, told the Journal.
Ding had sponsored the family's immigration to Canada.
Orak was looking forward to attending a mechanic's course at NAIT and was to start a job at the Royal Alexandra Hospital on the Monday after the shooting.
After high school he worked on an assembly line, earning enough money to buy an early 1990s green Ford Probe.
Ding wasn't sure how the family would cope. He said he hoped the city's Sudanese community and Canada's generosity would help.
"They have gained a lot of things here," Ding said of the family. "Coming to Canada was a bright thing."
"He was a very nice kid. He was responsible for the family. His mom is a single woman," family friend Peter Schuang told CBC Edmonton.
Contradicting the Journal story, Schuang told CBC Orak's father was killed a long time ago in Sudan's civil war.
Edmonton's small Sudanese community was recently rocked by news of the murder of Nyibol Chuol.
The 27-year-old woman, a three-month pregnant mother of two, was stabbed to death and her body was found September 16th, 2006 east of Edmonton.
Her husband, John Both, 41, was charged with second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a body.