Trial of Surjit Dosanjh, accused of murdering his mother-in-law and teenage son, starts

SURJIT Dosanjh of Richmond on Monday pleaded not guilty to the second-degree murders of his mother-in-law Elaine Leznoff, 66, and his son Kalvin Dosanjh-Leznoff, 13, in B.C. Supreme Court.
The family members died in a fire at their Richmond house on April 13, 2015. Dosanjh was accused of setting the house on fire.
Crown attorney Andrea Spence, in her opening statement, told Justice Peter Voith that the testimony will show that the month before the fire, Dosanjh’s wife, Liane Leznoff, told him she wanted to separate and asked him to move out of the house.
Liane Leznoff will testify that Dosanjh called her continuously and threatened to harm her and any new boyfriend after he moved out, Spence told the court.
She said that evidence will be presented that Dosanjh threw a 7 Up bottle full of gasoline into his wife’s vehicle more than a week before the house was set on fire.
Police arrested Dosanjh on April 2, 2015 under the Mental Health Act and his wife was in contact with the provincial ministry of children and family development during the first week of April 2015, evidence will show.
She went to police and took their son, who was two years old at the time, to a safe house the night before the fire.
Spence told the court that on the night of the fire, Dosanjh went to the home with his oldest son, Gavin, who was 15 years old at the time, to pick up some clothing and a family album. Later, Dosanjh went back alone to the home and the fire broke out shortly after.
Firefighters found Kalvin laying face down in the hallway and Elaine Leznoff in a chair in a bedroom. All resuscitation attempts on the two failed.
The trail is scheduled to run six weeks.