VANCOUVER – For four days after being shot in her Mission, B.C., home last September, Lisa Cheryl Dudley sat gravely wounded, unable to move, glued to the chair by her own pooling blood.
Neighbours heard the shots and shouting and dialed 911.
Police drove to the area, looked around, saw nothing and left.
Her family believes that if more had been done to follow up on the Sept. 18 call, Dudley would not have died while being loaded into a medevac helicopter after she was finally found Sept. 22.
An internal RCMP investigation has found that a 911 operator failed to provide critical information that could have led police to Dudley, 37, and slain boyfriend Guthrie Jolan McKay the night they were shot.
The probe also found that the lead RCMP officer that night “did not properly investigate a report of shots fired” by failing to talk to the neighbour who originally called 911.
“She would be alive if those officers had done their job,” Dudley’s mom, Rosemarie Surakka, said this week. “There were six shots fired. What would it take? What if there were six bodies?”
The Surakkas want a coroner’s inquest to be held so there can be a full airing of what went wrong the night the couple was targeted for death by unknown assailants.
“We want an inquest because we need some answers,” stepfather Mark Surakka said.
However, coroner Vince Stancato wrote the family earlier this month that a committee had decided it was too early to convene an inquest.
“The committee felt that it was premature pending the ongoing criminal investigation and decided that until the criminal investigation is completed, this matter will be held in abeyance,” Stancato wrote.
The Surakkas said the inquest into the deaths and the police response the night of the shooting would be completely separate from the criminal investigation of the targeted hit.
They were so frustrated by Stancato’s response, they hired lawyer Cameron Ward to appeal the decision.
Ward wrote to the B.C. Coroners Service Friday saying Dudley’s death is “exactly the kind of case that should be the subject of an inquest” and that the family and the public should know what happened that night.
“Negligence or incompetence on the part of the three RCMP members who investigated the 911 caller’s reports of gunshots may have contributed to Lisa Dudley’s death and allowed the perpetrators of the homicide to escape,” Ward wrote. “The RCMP may wish to keep the tragic circumstances from public scrutiny.”
Ward also said the neighbour who found Dudley and McKay the afternoon of Sept. 22 said the couple “and evidence of the shooting were clearly visible from outside the residence.”
“Lisa Dudley must have been immobilized and suffering from gunshot wounds for a period of some 90 hours before she was discovered,” Ward said. “Had any of the three RCMP members who investigated the report of gunshots found her, she may well have survived.”
Ward said Tuesday he had received no response so far.
Vancouver Sun
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