The family of a former Winnipegger feared to have died in last weekend’s shooting in Nova Scotia says she and her husband wouldn’t have been near the gunman when the shooting started if not for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Joanne Thomas, 58, who grew up in Winnipeg, and her husband, John Zahl, 69, haven’t been seen since a gunman killed at least 22 people in the small, rural communities of Milford, Enfield, Truro and Portapique, N.S.
Thomas’ sister Lori says the couple — neighbours of the gunman, who was later shot dead by police — were supposed to be on a cruise but had been forced to cancel their plans because of the pandemic.
“I am horrified, I am saddened and I am shocked, and I think what is particularly cruel is that had it not been for COVID-19, John and Joanne would currently be on a month-long holiday,” Lori said this week from her home in Brandon, Man.
“They may have come home to a house that was no longer there, but they would have come home.”
The couple’s house, which was burned to the ground, is one of 16 crime scenes now being investigated as part of the tragic series of events.
Lori believes it’s the bodies of her sister and brother-in-law that have been recovered from the home, although police have told the family it could be weeks before the victims are identified.
She says the family hasn’t heard from the couple since the shooting.
Lori said she last spoke to her sister by phone on Friday and texted with her again the following day.
She said she was surprised her sister didn’t call to say goodnight to her and her brother on Saturday night and “found it odd” when no call came again Sunday morning.
She said it isn’t like her sister not to check in with their brother.
But then she saw news about a shooter on the loose in Portapique early Sunday morning and says she frantically started making phone calls.
“I immediately tried to contact my sister and her husband by any method that I had available to me (but) all phones went immediately to voicemail,” she said.
“I felt very early on that this was not going to end well for our family.”
‘They forgive and they live on’
Thomas was born and raised in Winnipeg and lived in the city until the age of 19 when she went to the University of North Dakota to pursue a career in speech and language development.
While in North Dakota, she met John, who is from Minnesota. The couple met and “fell in love and got married two months later,” their son Riley Zahl has told Global News.
John was a Vietnam War veteran who served in the U.S. navy, Riley said.
After spending many years as a family in Albuquerque, N.M. — where Riley still lives — the couple decided to retire to Nova Scotia in 2017.
There, Thomas helped run the laundry project at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Truro, which provides free laundromat services for those in need.
Riley and his brother Justin Zahl, who lives in Dartmouth, N.S., both called their parents “saints.”
“They wouldn’t have any hate in their hearts and they wouldn’t want anyone else to as well. They love God and all of humankind. They forgive and they live on and they would want people to do the same,” Riley said.
“They did more for me and my brother than could have been asked of anyone.”
Meanwhile, in Brandon, Lori said she’s handling herself “on an intellectual level” while taking care of her brother and waiting for what she expects to be grim news.
RCMP have reached out looking for DNA to help identify the bodies found in her sister’s home, she said.
“It hasn’t hit me, I don’t think, on an emotional level, because I need to be strong,” she said.
“It’s totally unfathomable and I keep using the word surreal, which I truly believe is overused, but it is the best word to describe the situation in which we are living.”
— With files from Rachael D’Amore