Cindy McEwen has many stories of her son Logan Ring, and they are all woven with the same threads: generosity, thoughtfulness and compassion.
McEwen said Ring used to ask the bus driver to drop him off before his house, so he could pick flowers for her along his walk through the field. She said that after payday one time, he gave $150 to someone on the street because he thought they needed it.
“He would drop everything and come help you,” McEwen said.
Ring’s body was found in the parking lot of the Rings, Ruts and Remnants trailhead in Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park in November 2016.
Nearly a year later, five people have been charged with second-degree murder, including Ring’s ex-roommate, 19-year-old Tanisha Perrault, and her parents, 38-year-old Jolene Epp and 49-year-old Colin Perrault.
Todd Donaldson, 48, is also charged.
But friends and family say the arrest that stung the most was one of Ring’s friends, Rebecca Kuhlman.
“When they told me it was Becca, I was really sunk. My heart was shattered,” McEwen said.
“Everyone doubted her, but he is the one that stuck by her,” Jacob Wiebe, Ring’s friend, said. “He trusted her over everyone else.”
Some friends close to Ring think he might have been killed over a dispute with Perrault. When they lived together, he thought she was mistreating her animals, Austin Undseth, Ring’s friend, said.
“I’m sure their intention was to drag him out there and scare him over it, because he was ruining her life over Facebook, and basically took him out there to scare him, and it went too far,” Undseth said.
Perrault was charged with animal cruelty two months before Ring’s death.
One horse, six goats, one dog, three cats, a dead dog and two deceased reptiles were seized in an investigation into Perrault’s alleged animal cruelty, according to Kaley Pugh, Animal Protection Services of Saskatchewan’s executive director.
But McEwen thinks there is more to her son’s death.
“There has to be, because this doesn’t make sense. And if it’s just over dogs, then my son died for absolutely nothing.”
Ring leaves behind his now three-year-old son Axel.
“Axel was his everything: his light, his star, moon, everything,” McEwen said. “Axel has a lot of Logan’s features, but the eyes, it’s like the same purity, love and they’re just crystal blue.”
Wiebe said Axel was everything to Ring.
“He wanted a family and that’s what his big thing was,” he said.
Although Ring struggled with addiction throughout his life, he was clean, had nearly completed his GED and was looking for jobs at the time of his death, according to McEwen. She said it was infuriating that his life was taken just as he was setting out on the right path.
The three women and two men accused in Ring’s death are expected to appear in Swift Current provincial court via videolink on Nov. 8.
– With files from Jules Knox
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