(Merle Robillard/NNSL photos)

Yellowknife (July 02/03) - About 35 people packed into a Yellowknife courtroom, Monday, to get a look at the four men charged with the first degree murder of Justin Hai Van Vo.

Vo's charred body was found on June 16 near the Yellowknife River pumphouse.

Each man appeared in court separately, shackled and in handcuffs.

Richard Harrison Tutin, 44, his arms covered in tattoos, raised his eyebrows and smiled from the prisoner's box.

Francis Paul Yukon gave Yellowknifer's photographer the finger as police led him into the courthouse. The 26-year-old man, who has the word "outlaw" tattooed on his arm, grinned at a girl in the courtroom.

Gerald Anthony Delorme, 36, and Dale Arnold Coutoreille, 42, showed no emotion.

All four men will remain in custody, returning to court on July 15 for a show-cause hearing.

Coutoreille, Delorme and Yukon were arrested during two raids, one at 5117 51st St. and the other at Sissons Court between midnight and 1 a.m. on Saturday.

Tutin was taken into custody later in the day.

Police used flash grenades to stun the suspects, waking up residents hundreds of metres away.

At least two of the suspects lived in the run-down little house on 51st Street alleged by neighbours to be a "crack house."

Neighbours say people were always coming and going, fighting and yelling outside the paint-chipped house, owned by Ted's U-Drives Ltd. A half-dozen vehicles in various states of disrepair are crammed in the backyard.

"I've seen them come out of there with knives before," said one source.

Another neighbour said police found blood inside the house.

One girl told Yellowknifer she went to the house once to bum a cigarette from the basement tenants. The upstairs was gross, dingy and stained, she said.

Days ago, one of the suspects asked her sister to make a telephone call for him because he believed his phone was tapped, she said.

All the neighbours interviewed said they are relieved police have laid charges and that the alleged crack shack is now closed for business.

The tension in the air on the street has dissipated, said one man, who added that someone once knocked on his door in the middle of the night and punched him in the nose.

"It was just so freaky living here."