Death brings back painful memories

Valerie Fortney, Calgary Herald

Published: Tuesday, January 08, 2008

When Cher Ewing heard early Monday that Leo Del Pinto had been murdered in Thailand, she felt overcome with shock and sadness.

"It just brings it home," she tells me later that day. "My heart goes out to his family -- they are at the start of a heartbreaking journey."

Ewing didn't know the handsome 25-year-old Calgarian, nor is she acquainted with his family and friends. But she shares a connection with the young man, shot dead early Sunday after an altercation outside a bar in the small Thai community of Pai. An off-duty police officer has been charged with murder.

She knows what it's like to become the victim of a violent crime far from home, in a place with very different laws and standards of policing. She's well versed in the horror, sadness and frustration of picking up the pieces afterwards -- and of the often-fruitless pursuit to see justice done.

In April of 2004, Ewing's daughter Kristen Deyell was shot dead outside a bar in Guadalajara, Mexico. After fighting to have her daughter's killer brought to justice, in 2005 Ewing was relieved to hear a suspect had been charged in connection with her murder.

But her joy was short-lived: last November, she and her husband Dave Deyell were informed by Mexican authorities the charges had been "released," a legal term unfamiliar to Canadians.

"I still don't know if he's in jail or on the street," says Ewing, who adds that officials from Canadian Foreign Affairs recently told her they were seeking further clarification.

"For years now, we've known we might have to accept that Kristen might never get justice," says Ewing. "But to be honest, I still haven't got my head around accepting that.

"I'd like to offer some words of wisdom to this young man's family, but we're not much further ahead four years later, than they are now."

Sadly, Ewing has had to deliver this kind of tough news before. A month after her daughter's death, Peter Gillies Smith of Lake Louise was murdered in northwestern Mexico; and on Christmas Day in 2006, Calgarian Mark Keffer was gunned down, in front of his wife and two young children, during a botched home invasion in Bangkok, Thailand.

In all three cases, no one has been brought to justice for the murders.

As Canadians travel more abroad -- 28.4 million Canadians do same-day visits to the U.S., while eight million visit overseas each year -- such dangers are increasing.

According to Justice Canada, in 2005-2006 there were 262 reported cases of Canadians victimized abroad; over the past eight years, more than 250 Canadians have been slain abroad.

But while the number of Canadians murdered overseas was exploding, little action was being taken on the part of Canadian officials to help families in its aftermath.

"People working at consulates didn't have any training to assist victims of crime," says Heidi Illingworth. "People whose loved ones were murdered were being treated about the same as people who'd lost their passport."

As executive director of the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime, Illingworth recently oversaw research into what was being done to help victims of crime overseas.

Their lobbying of the federal government, she says, was a factor in the creation of a new emergency assistance fund, administered by Justice Canada, for Canadians victimized abroad. It provides funds to victims and family members after a violent crime resulting in injury or death.

"You can now get financial help in retrieving a loved one's body, as well as returning to that country for judicial proceedings," says Illingworth. "It's an important step that's been taken in helping people through this process."

Such measures, though, fail to impress some on the front lines.

According to Edward Greenspan, for justice to prevail, no less than an entire philosophical shift needs to occur in the Canadian government.

"As a general rule, Canada has a reputation for not being particularly helpful to families of citizens murdered overseas," says Greenspan on the phone from Toronto.

The prominent lawyer, who most recently defended press baron Conrad Black, got into a war of words with Mexican authorities when he represented the family of Domenic and Nancy Ianiero, an Ontario couple murdered in 2006 at a Mexican resort.

"The U.S. is much more helpful to its citizens overseas, both those charged with crimes and those victims of crime," he says. "Canada should be a lot less diplomatic when it comes to defending its citizens' rights in foreign lands."

Greenspan's advice to those finding themselves or their loved ones a victim of violent crime overseas? "Get a lawyer. Don't expect your government to help."

Cher Ewing says her way of helping her daughter is to keep talking about the tragedy that shattered her family in 2004.

"I wrote to Foreign Affairs, asking them to review their policies, but I never heard back," says Ewing.

"I'm just one little voice. But it's a matter of speaking up for human rights, and the dead are as much entitled to it as the living."

September 9, 2010