The family of a Mission B.C. woman who died after Mounties failed to properly investigate the scene of a shooting says they’ll continue to look for justice, in the wake of a court decision to dismiss a negligence lawsuit this week.
A B.C. Supreme Court judge threw out the suit, ruling it had been filed too late.
Thirty-seven-year-old Lisa Dudley and her partner, 33-year-old Guthrie McKay were shot in a home in a semi-rural area of Mission in 2008. McKay died at the scene; Dudley was paralyzed, and laid dying at the scene for four days.
Two RCMP officers responding to reports of shots fired in separate vehicles drove around the area for a short time, but never exited their vehicles to investigate or speak to neighbours.
“It was a terrible injustice that happened,” said Dudley’s stepfather Mark Surakka.
“The horrible nature of her being left to die for four days, the two police officers who drove up there didn’t, as the RCMP readily admitted, they didn’t do what they they were meant to do.”
Surakka said a decade later, the family is still waiting for a coroner’s inquest into her death.
In the meantime he said the family is planning their next moves to try and find justice.
“You can’t carry on with any real life until these issue are solved,” Surakka said.
“It’s a devastating situation, so now we have to reassess and so we’ll be talking with our lawyer and we’ll see where we can move from here. It’s been an incredibly long time and there’s a lot of duress involved, and it’s very time consuming because it never really leaves.”
Four men were convicted in the case, three on charges of first-degree murder, and one on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
-With files from the Canadian Press
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