B.C. killer Tanner Fox adds another homicide to his bloody CV

Killer pleaded guilty to manslaughter in March 2022 shooting death of Chad Colivas, 41, during botched break-and-enter

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Published Apr 13, 2026  •  2 minute read

Tanner Fox.

Tanner Fox isn’t very good at this crime thing.

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At least the getting-away-with-it part.

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The 25-year-old pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the March 2022 shooting death of Chad Colivas, 41, during a botched break-and-enter. He was initially charged with second-degree murder but pleaded guilty to the lesser charge.

Fox, however, isn’t going anywhere.

The convicted killer is currently serving a life sentence with no parole eligibility for 20 years after pleading guilty in January 2025 to second-degree murder after a Surrey, B.C., homicide.

Homicide victim Chad Colivas.

According to cops, Fox and another man, Jose Lopez, shot and killed businessman Ripudaman Singh Malik on July 14, 2022, outside of a business complex in the Surrey neighbourhood of Newton. Fox also took the fall in July 2020 for stabbing a 17-year-old boy during an Abbotsford, B.C., parking lot confrontation.

The apprentice crook was served up 119 days in jail for that escapade plus two years of probation.

Believed there was drugs in the house

The Chilliwack Progress said Fox and femme fatale Laetitia Acera, 32, who at one time was wanted on 119 charges, planned a break-in at Colivas’ home where he lived with his nephew and the nephew’s grandparents.

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The connection was between Fox and the nephew. Fox believed drugs, money and jewelry were in the nephew’s first-floor room. Fox and Acera drove to the target in a 2002 Ford Escape that Acera bought and registered the vehicle in the name of a woman whose ID she had stolen.

When the nephew left, the hapless pair entered using an unlocked door. Fox was packing a loaded 9-mm handgun.

Laetitia Acera.

But when the nephew returned, he realized something was wrong when he saw his ransacked room and two backpacks outside the door. According to prosecutors, he got his grandmother and both were in his bedroom when Fox returned.

Acera waited in the SUV.

Grandma started screaming

The grandmother began screaming, drawing Colivas’ attention. When he entered the room, a startled Fox turned around and shot Colivas three times.

“Chad Colivas was unarmed. In shooting Chad Colivas, Mr. Fox did not act in self-defence and Chad Colivas did not provoke him,” prosecutor Angela Lee said, adding that Colivas died at the scene.

Detectives linked the two low-renters to the crime via text messages, cellphone and GPS data, surveillance video and DNA evidence. Once cops zeroed in on Tanner Fox, they recovered two guns from his home but neither were used in the murder.

Acera was charged with manslaughter, but that was stayed in April 2025, when she pleaded guilty to break-and-enter and was sentenced to a 14-month jail term and two years of probation.

Fox will be sentenced on June 19.

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