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Dead man at Kamloops jail had violent link to Penticton

Daryl Vic Belseck sentenced here in 2013 for 10-day spree that included damaging local businesses and threatening a police officer
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Daryl Vic Belseck

A man who died behind bars this week in Kamloops had a violent criminal history in Penticton.

Daryl Vic Belseck, 52, was discovered Monday in his cell at the Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre. His death is not considered suspicious, ‎though the B.C. Coroners Service is still investigating.

In May 2013, Belseck pleaded guilty in provincial court in Penticton to eight offences, include uttering threats and assaulting a peace officer, and was sentenced to 225 days in jail.

Court heard Belseck was first arrested around 2 a.m. on Nov. 27, 2012, near the Lakeside Resort after a dispute with a taxi driver over a $10 fare. During the melee that followed, Belseck kicked the driver, then punched a witness who tried to help.

Hours after his release from jail later that day, police were called to pick up Belseck at the now-closed downtown Tim Hortons, where he showed up with a wound on his face and asked an employee to call an ambulance. The employee locked the shop to prevent Belseck from entering, but he became agitated and kicked in the glass door.

Belseck encountered police again 10 days later after he was refused service at the Three Gables liquor store and, in anger, knocked the shop’s cash register to the floor.

A store employee tussled with Belseck, who then went outside and threw rocks through a window. Police took Belseck to the hospital for treatment of injuries he sustained in the scuffle.

While at hospital, he told an officer, “You’re going to get a bullet in your head,” and, “I’m going to drag your wife behind my car,” court heard.

Defence counsel Dave Johnson told the court his client suffered a brain injury in 1999 when he was swarmed by a group of assailants who beat him with a baseball bat.

Belseck told the court he was drinking at the time of the offences — despite a court order against it — to thin his blood because he couldn’t afford the medication necessary to treat an unspecified heart condition.

His is the second recent death at KRCC. Dylan Levi Judd, 20, was found dead in his unit there Nov. 10 while awaiting a bail hearing. Judd’s death is also still under investigation.

With files from Kamloops This Week