‘The police have not had to be accountable’: Oshawa homicide victim’s mother speaks out

A Newcastle, Ont., mother is calling on the Durham police chief to be held accountable for his “lack of interest and communication” regarding the death of her son, Jeffrey Johnston, which marked the region’s ninth homicide of 2017.

Susan Forsyth requested the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD) to launch an investigation into Chief Paul Martin, as she says he refused to meet with her to discuss the homicide case. But the organization sent her a letter on Friday, denying to look into her complaint.

“…the fact that the Chief is refusing to see you does not rise to the level of discreditable conduct under the Police Service Act, and as such, an investigation into your complaint would be unlikely to result in a finding of misconduct,” reads the letter the OIPRD sent to Forsyth.

This is just the latest hurdle Forsyth says she has faced in dealing with police regarding her son’s case. Police discovered the 31-year-old man dead at his Oshawa home on Dec. 17, 2017, but not before Forsyth launched her own investigation and pushed police to visit the home, she says.

“The police have not had to be accountable for what they put my family through,” said Forsyth.

She said she had always been in touch with her son daily, so when she didn’t hear from him for a couple days late last year, she grew worried about what happened to him. Forsyth said she then contacted police, who met her by his home on Dec. 15. “I broke down in tears right to them and said, ‘There’s something wrong with my son. I can’t get a hold of him.'”

They didn’t want to investigate inside the house, she says, and they reassured her by saying, “He’ll be fine. Kids do this all the time. He’ll show up.”

Her brother, Richard Forsyth, then came to the house, went through an unlocked kitchen window and searched the home but did not find Johnston in there, she says.

Later that day, investigators visited the home and discovered Johnston’s body with signs of “sharp-force trauma,” according to a police release.

In January of 2018, police arrested his roommate, 43-year-old Paul Jaglal, and charged him with first-degree murder.

Victims’ rights advocate Lisa Freeman, whose father, Roland Slingerland, was murdered in the 1990s, says she feels Forsyth is being re-victimized by police after suffering the trauma she has already been through.

“I do believe that her rights as a victim of crime were violated… in not being listened to, not having her word be good enough for an investigation to start, even by knocking on a door,” said the Oshawa, Ont., resident.

After Forsyth expressed her concern to Durham Regional Police Service about the way officers have handled the case, the organization launched an internal investigation into three officers, she says. All were charged with misconduct, Forsyth says, but two of the three charges were dropped. She says police told her one of the officers was internally disciplined, but they could not tell her what the officer’s punishment was.