WEST VANCOUVER Police confirmed today that the body found late Tuesday on Cypress Mountain was 35-year-old Vahid Mahanian of West Vancouver.
This comes four years after the man had been seriously injured during a shootout at Richmond's Dover Park. He was among two groups who opened fire on each other, exchanging more than 150 shots.
Mahanian spent two full years recovering from his injuries and had 15 surgeries.
His body was found by trail maintenance volunteers a short distance off Cypress Mountain Road, about one kilometre northeast of the High View lookout.
Mahanian was reported missing by his friends on June 30, three days after he was last known to be in contact with friends and family.
An autopsy conducted earlier Thursday failed to determine the cause of death and police are treating the death as suspicious.
Mahanian's car still has not been found. He had been driving a blue 1994 Pontiac Grand Am with the B.C. licence plate 051 RAN
Investigators are asking anyone who may have noticed suspicious activity near the recovery site, or who has information regarding Mahanian's whereabouts since June 27, to contact the West Vancouver police department at (604) 925-7300.
A detective with the Vancouver police department is assisting in the investigation, police said.
Two others wounded in the 2007 shootout were gangsters Nikki Tajali and Sahand Askari.
Mahanian's mother Showkat earlier told The Vancouver Sun that her son had never been in a gang but was a childhood friend of Tajali.
The mother said her son and Tajali's brother David had gone to the park that day to try to resolve a dispute they had with others.
"One of the brothers asked him to go. He went to help a negotiation," she said. "He just got out of the car and saw there were people with guns."
Since the shooting, Mahanian graduated with honours from the University of B.C., the mother said.
He had also applied for a pardon in connection with a home invasion in North Vancouver in 1997, in which his then-girlfriend a one-time extra on The X-Files was his accomplice.
The pair, dressed in black and toting machine guns, broke into the house of a businessman. They received a four-year prison sentence for the crime, which Mahadian's mother called a foolish mistake.
She said her son had worked hard to turn his life around and had nothing to do with either Tajali brother.
David Tajali was gunned down in Calgary in September 2009.
After the Dover Park shooting, Askari moved to Iran, but returned last fall for two months, during which time he was the target of a shooting but escaped injury.
nhall@vancouversun.com
