‘Lethal consequences’: Advocate seeks change in light of slain Lumby woman’s police report

Tatjana Stefanski went to police detachments in both Lumby and Vernon months before she was killed to report that her safety had been threatened.

B.C.’s police watchdog is now looking into how that complaint was dealt with Dec. 18, 2023. The Independent Investigations Office said last week that its investigation “will now seek to determine what, if any role police action or inaction may have played in the woman’s death.”

Whatever they uncover comes too late to help the 44-year-old mother of two.

Whether it makes a difference to women facing violence in years to come also remains to be seen, Angela Marie MacDougall, the executive director of Battered Women’s Support Services in Vancouver, said.

For years, she said, policies have been in place to protect women in vulnerable positions but it’s not making an impact.

“What we see is that (police) are not following their own policies,” MacDougall said. “(Police) are not taking the violence seriously. They’re not believing victims when they share their concerns and their fears and every once in a while we see … that there are lethal consequences.”

BC Prosecution has not laid charges and the RCMP has not named a suspect in Stefanski’s death.

On April 13 RCMP issued an alert for the community to keep an eye out for Stefanski, who had disappeared, saying she was last seen with her ex-husband.

2:22 Daughter of Lumby homicide victim Tatjana Stefanski speaks out on her devastating loss.

A day later, her body was found in a wooded area, a short drive from the Lumby home she shared with her partner Jason Gaudreault and her two children. Police said an unnamed man was arrested near the scene and subsequently released. The investigation is ongoing.

MacDougall sees Stefanski’s plight as an example of the RCMPs “lackadaisical approach to dealing with domestic violence.”

“Maybe this is the first time in a death that we’re seeing that the IIO is involved in checking what they did or didn’t do, but it’s beyond comprehension that we could even think that the police are even remotely a remedy or even remotely an agent for public safety when we’re talking about women who are dealing with abusive (people) who will kill them,” she said.

It was Gaudreault who prompted Stefanski to make a complaint to police in December 2023 after a man she knew sent a threat to her well-being to her parents in Germany.

“I don’t know the law,” Gaudreault said. “Do I feel this should have been taken more seriously? Yes, absolutely, it should have been to the most extreme seriousness.”

Gaudreault is desperately hoping his loss prompts change.

“I hope that this investigation that the IIO is doing really is an eye-opener for all of legislation or law-makers … like how can we change this to make it better,” he said.

In recent weeks Gaudreault has been more focused on his concerns that the person who was originally arrested remains at large. He said they have come near his home, and he in turn has been moving the children home to home to stay safe.

He’s continually put out a public plea for “catch and release” policies to be put to bed and arrests be made when a suspect is known to police.

MacDougall said he’s not alone in his concerns. It’s likely that the charges aren’t coming forward due to R. v. Jordan, a court decision that put a ceiling for reasonable trial times, she said.

2:22 Daughter of Lumby homicide victim Tatjana Stefanski speaks out on her devastating loss.

“At the heart of this new framework is a presumptive ceiling beyond which delay — from the charge to the actual or anticipated end of trial — is presumed to be unreasonable, unless exceptional circumstances justify it,” reads the court decision that limits the amount of time a trial can drag on.

“The presumptive ceiling is 18 months for cases tried in the provincial court, and 30 months for cases in the superior court (or cases tried in the provincial court after a preliminary inquiry). Delay attributable to or waived by the defence does not count towards the presumptive ceiling.”

MacDougall said there have been a number of cases that have been thrown out because the clock runs out before the ceiling is reached.

“We noticed that police aren’t in lots of domestic violence cases right now,” she said.

“You know, they’re not doing charges if they don’t think they have enough evidence, because they in the past they would arrest and then do the investigation and gather the evidence … and put together the package. But now they’ll need to have the full package prepared in advance for the Crown to approve the charges because if they don’t and … time runs out, then the charges are stale and it’s useless.”