If, while jogging down a forest trail, you run into a menacing, psychotic-looking stranger who starts running after you, don't wait until after someone else is murdered there to notify the authorities.
Wendy Ladner-Beaudry might well be alive today if any of the three witnesses who earlier encountered a scary stranger at the very murder scene had notified the cops. The three came forward as callers to a CBC radio on line programme discussing the case and the safety of the Spirit Regional Park near the University of British Columbia. If there were three witnesses who called a radio show, how many others must have seen this guy and also did nothing about it?
"We were chased by a man who initially was just hanging around near a trail intersection," said a caller who didn't want to be named.
"As soon as we went by the intersection and turned deeper into the woods, he went pounding after us," she said.
Another caller said she was walking through the park two days before the homicide and crossed paths with a man near the same spot where Ladner-Beaudry's body was found.
She said the man looked at her with a "chilling, almost psychotic expression" that left her shaken.
She said the encounter was so disturbing she reported it to police two days after news of the homicide was reported in the media.
With citizens this responsible I guess it's not surprising that the Vancouver Police still haven't come up with a suspect in the killing. As a society are we becoming so insular, so disengaged that we're losing the collective power to protect ourselves?
