End of Canadian Manhunt

In the past few weeks, many of us have been closely following the RCMP's manhunt for the two young men accused of murdering at least three people. After finding the bodies of McLeod and Schmegelsky I suspect that many people, specifically those who live in the general area where what appears to be their last known vehicle was found, have breathed out a collective sigh of relief. I am equally as sure that some of the RCMP officers who were doing the search in the muskeg are equally as relived.

In Canada, we have so few manhunts, that this one attracted a lot of attention. People who normally are not interested in who killed whom - wondered what happened to the young men and whether or not they had escaped. Now that their bodies have been found - we will all move on to other things to gossip about. The myriad of questions that remain including why did the original murders occur may remain unanswered forever.

The press has created the general assumption that McLeod and Schmegelsky did commit the murders. To the best of my knowledge, the police have not released any evidence proving that they did kill the three people. We may never see whatever evidence suggested that to the police. Certainly, it would appear to be highly unlikely that anyone will come forward with any sort of motive for the original murders. But one thing is clear - the families of the murdered individuals are rightly shattered. And in at least in one case, the family are angry at one of the fathers for producing such a dangerous young man(1).

I cannot imagine what it would feel like to lose a child. The pain must be overwhelming. I suspect that even the simple acts of living such as breathing are almost impossible. However, I am not sure if the pain of losing a child through violence is all that different than losing a child through an accident or a drug overdose. We allow families of individuals who have lost a child through violence to publically grieve - in fact, the media actively seek out comments from the family. However, it would appear that we are less ready to accept that the parents of the dead, alleged perpetrators are also grieving. Furthermore, there appears to be an expectation that the parents of the individuals charged need to apologize for the actions of their adult children.

No parent is perfect (ask my kids). We all mess up. Sometimes we get lucky and our kids turn out better than we could have ever dreamed. I am not sure if the parents should get all or even any of the credit. Similarly, when our kids struggle or do bad things - it is not always our fault. There are just too many events and too many people in a child's life to blame a single person. It seems to me that there are a number of people grieving over the series of events that led to five people being dead. None of those families will ever know what really happened. However, some of the families will be supported in their grief while others will be blamed and left to cry behind closed doors. As a dad, that feels unfair to me.