Victims of Homicide conference helps family members heal

A conference is helping the healing process for those who have had family members lose their lives by homicide.

The two-day Victims of Homicide conference in Edmonton is intended to bring together victim’s families and others to explore the circumstances of those impacted by homicide.

READ MORE: Conference focuses on helping families of missing and murdered victims

Jane Ordzyk is one of those people. Her son, Tim Ordzyk, was one of two people found dead at the Crown Packaging Paper Plant in Sherwood Park on Oct. 1, 1994.

Initially, RCMP thought the two men had been electrocuted, but two days later the medical examiner’s office discovered they were both shot in the head three times.

“It just throws you for a loop because, why? Who would want to kill him? He had no enemies,” Ordzyk said.

Jason Dix was charged with the killings and spend nearly two years in jail, but the case against him was tossed out of court. Dix later received $750,000 in compensation.

Ordzyk still doesn’t know why her son was killed, but she said the Victims of Homicide group has helped her recovery. It holds a biennial gathering in Edmonton.

“Every year that we have one it’s another step towards healing because our hearts get lighter as time goes on. You don’t like to use the term ‘time does heal’ but it does,” she said.

“Okay, this has happened and you have to deal with it.”

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Keynote speaker Ashley Wellman, University of Central Missouri associate professor of criminal justice, said there’s a lack of understanding and support for family members of victims of cold cases.

“You see a lot of added trauma on these survivors because they’re trying to navigate their own grief maybe within a family context, maybe within a cultural context, and we’re told how we should grieve, but no one can tell somebody that,” Wellman said.

“There’s really not a great path. There’s the traditional grief pattern that people experience, not the case with a sudden, violent, traumatic death like homicide.”

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Wellman said cold case survivors are among the strongest and most resilient people she’s met.

“They already know so many of these tools and the survivors around them are the ones who are really going to make a difference for them,” Wellman said.

“But one of the things I try to leave the survivors with, whether their case is solved or not, is that a homicide is never going to be fully grieved. That’s their new reality.”

The conference runs until Tuesday at the Delta Edmonton South.