Payoff cash in 1992 murder-for-hire scheme finally forfeited

It was the middle of a summer afternoon in Surrey in 1992 when police approached a young man believed to have been involved in the murder of a Coquitlam woman.

As Milan Nenadic was handcuffed and searched, a package thumped to the ground. An officer told him he was arrested for possession of drugs.

“That’s not drugs,” Nenadic told police. “That’s money.”

There was $30,000 in the package.

Nenadic was one of four people eventually convicted for the killing of Alexandra Pesic, a 25-year-old recently divorced dental technician.

The group of murderers included Alexandra’s mother-in-law, Jelka Pesic.

Hours before his arrest, Nenadic met Jelka at Metrotown where she handed over the $30,000.

More than 30 years later, the RCMP have finally been given permission to forfeit that money, following a recent B.C. Supreme Court ruling.

The issue of the money ordinarily would have been addressed after the appeal process. However, an RCMP constable explained, “due to an absence of records,” police couldn’t determine why the issue of the money wasn’t handled in the late-1990s.

The issue wasn’t raised until 2017 when an RCMP constable came upon the money during a review.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Sukstorf ruled the money should be forfeited, noting neither Naenadic nor Pesic, “should be permitted to profit from their unlawful action.”

‘She wished her daughter-in-law was killed’

Alexandra and Joe Pesic married at Fantasy Gardens in 1988.

Joe’s parents, Jelka and Sava, lent the couple $80,000 so they could buy a house on Carson Street in Burnaby.

Alexandra and Joe divorced in 1991, leading to disagreements over assets as well as custody of the child’s son. Alexandra had obtained a court order which awarded her custody and forbade Joe from having access to his child in the presence of Jelka and Sam, according to a record of a 1997 appeal of the murder conviction.

Family friend Helen Katona recalled Jelka raging about her daughter-in-law.

“She said she wished her daughter-in-law was killed or be dead,” Katona said of Jelka, according to a Vancouver Sun article published Nov. 16, 1993.

Jelka called Alexandra: “an unfit mother, an unfit wife, an opportunist and a gold-digger,” Katona testified.

In November of 1990, after the couple were separated, Jelka and Sava torched a tree in front of Alexandra’s home, according to Katona. She also admitted to supplying an alibi for the couple and lying about her own involvement.

In the lead-up to Alexandra’s murder, Katona testified that Jelka said: “It will be over soon.”

Katona also recounted Jelka and Nenadic holding a whispered conversation in Jelka’s bedroom on Aug. 2, 1992.

Three days later, Alexandra was leaving work and getting into her car on Cottonwood when a red IROC Camaro drove by. The man in the passenger seat fired two bullets, killing Alexandra.

A few days later, Jelka told Katona three men were involved and the murder weapon was a semi-automatic gun, according to Katona.

During the trial, Crown counsel contended Pesic orchestrated the murder through Nenadic.

Lawrence Delorme and David Segoviano were also convicted.

When Segoviano was arrested police found an address book with Delorme’s phone number.

At 2 a.m. on Aug. 5 – about 16 hours before Alexandra was murdered – a police officer had spotted Delorme walking the area on Cottonwood where the shooting occurred.

Police later found Delorme’s fingerprints on the IROC licence plate and his partial palm print on the gear shift knob.

Delorme claimed that he stole the IROC, but only because his wife’s cousin’s boyfriend needed tires.

He said he stashed the car behind Lougheed Mall while waiting for his wife’s cousin’s boyfriend to come up with the cash for the tires.

Four witnesses said Delorme might have been driving the IROC during the murder.

Delorme said he was in bed for most of the day when the murder took place.

Police searched Delorme’s home and found a note with contact info for Segoviano and Nenadic.

“He had no explanation for the note found in the shoebox except to say that it was his wife’s shoebox,” according to a record of the appeal.

A former girlfriend of Segoviano’s also said he and Delorme were friends.

The court dismissed the appeals from Delorme, Jelka and Nenadic. Segoviano had been tried and convicted separately.

No dispute

Nenadic did not respond to recent queries from police regarding the pending forfeit of the $30,000.

Asked if she planned to lay claim to the money, Jelka stated she was: “not involved in Alexandra Pesic’s murder and, therefore, the money did not belong to her,” according to the judgment.