Break-in robs grieving Penticton man of mother’s items

PENTICTON – The holidays haven’t been as happy for Brian Moore as he had hoped. Sunday morning the Penticton man discovered his vehicle was broken into.

“Both the driver and passenger windows were smashed, the back hatch window was smashed,” says Moore.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Both the driver and passenger windows were smashed, the back hatch window was smashed," says Moore.

He says this comes just two days after his mother passed away suddenly from heart failure.

“She was up at her sister’s place in Enderby because this year I was going to be working through Christmas and she likes to spend Christmas with her sister and all her nieces,” says Moore.

On Saturday, Moore went to the residential care home in Penticton where his mother lived to collect her items. He loaded up his vehicle with her personal belongings and even an urn which he planned to take to a funeral home on Sunday. But all of that was stolen when his vehicle was broken into. He has a message for whoever’s responsible.

“If you really realize what you’ve done to a few people’s lives, there’s been a little bit of tragedy over the last couple of days and you basically put the icing on the cake,” he says.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "If you really realize what you've done to a few people's lives, there's been a little bit of tragedy over the last couple of days and you basically put the icing on the cake," he says.

Friends of Moore and his fiancée, Brenda Filipenko, invited the couple for an unplanned night out at the Barley Mill Pub on Saturday night.

“We had a couple so we decided to leave the vehicle in the parking lot. We locked it up and got a designated driver to get us home,” says Moore.

Barley Mill staff retrieved some items which were found discarded outside the pub.

“It’s a little bit of Christmas decorations,” says Filipenko.

But they say everything of value, minus a few photos, is gone. Among the items reported to be stolen were a television that belonged to Moore’s mother, her clothing, stuffed animals, even some cash meant for her great-grandkids.

“They are starting their first bank account,” says Moore.

“These people, when they do these things, they don’t know what they’re doing and the devastation that might be there already. That’s what really makes me upset,” says Filipenko.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "These people, when they do these things, they don't know what they're doing and the devastation that might be there already. That's what really makes me upset," says Filipenko.

Police are looking into whether surveillance video can be obtained from the pub and are asking anyone who may have seen anything to contact them. In the meantime, Moore is staying positive, saying that’s just what his mother would have encouraged him to do.