Raymond Paul Chase, a 34-year-old Black man from Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, was murdered on the evening of May 13, 1999, rather than October 1 as initially reported. At approximately 9:28 p.m., Chase drove his 1998 Chevrolet truck into the driveway of his home at 41 Coventry Lane. As he began getting out of the vehicle, a lone gunman approached and shot him. The attack was sudden and fatal, with Chase dying at the scene.
Immediately after the shooting, the gunman ran from the driveway toward a vehicle that had been waiting nearby on Coventry Lane. The shooter entered the passenger side, and the vehicle quickly left the area in the direction of Colby Drive. The fact that the shooter escaped in the passenger seat indicated another person was involved in the getaway, although authorities have never publicly identified either the gunman or the person driving the vehicle.
At the time of his death, Chase was involved in several local business ventures. He operated a business that constructed and sold homes in the Bissett Lake area of Cole Harbour and was also a part owner of a local drinking establishment. Authorities have never publicly established what connection, if any, those business activities had to his killing, and no official motive has been announced.
The circumstances of the attack suggested that the killer had been waiting for an opportunity to confront Chase. The gunman approached shortly after Chase arrived home, fired the fatal shot, and immediately escaped to a vehicle positioned nearby. Despite the presence of both a shooter and an apparent getaway driver, investigators have never publicly named a suspect in connection with the homicide.
Years after the murder, police continued appealing for information. On the twentieth anniversary in May 2019, the RCMP again described the killing as unsolved and asked anyone with information to come forward. Chase's case was also accepted into Nova Scotia's Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program, which offered a reward of up to $150,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons responsible.
No arrests, criminal charges, trials, or convictions have been publicly announced in Chase's murder. The identity of the gunman, the identity of the person who drove the getaway vehicle, and the motive behind the carefully executed shooting remain unresolved. Authorities continue to treat his death as an unsolved homicide and have sought information capable of identifying those responsible.
