The sale of a Kamloops home, expected to alleviate some of the financial strain on a family whose world has been in tatters since a violent attack nearly a decade earlier, has yet to be completed.
Kristopher Teichrieb’s home was listed for $850,000 last year, after a B.C. Supreme Court judge ordered its sale on behalf of Jesse Simpson, the teen he beat into a coma with a baseball bat eight years ago.
The sale process was expected to be completed on Wednesday, but there are lingering matters to be dealt with, and so another court date was set.
“What have I been doing is fighting for him for the past eight years and three months for some kind of justice,” Sue Simpson, Jesse’s mom, said outside the courthouse.
She’s opted not to speak about the specifics of the legal process until it’s over.
That said, Simpson has become accustomed to the stops and starts of the judicial system over the years and the most recent hearing was just another roadblock in a journey that started when Teichrieb mistook Jesse, then just a teen, for a thief and assaulted him.
Jesse suffered catastrophic injuries in the 2016 attack, including a skull fracture and significant brain swelling, which left him in a coma for nine months.
He now lives in a care home usually reserved for people in their later years, and will need 24-hour care for the rest of his life. Only recently was he given the green light to go home for weekend visits.
In the years that followed the attack, Teichrieb walked a different path. He pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault in 2018 and was sentenced to seven years in prison minus time served. He has been out on statutory release since 2021.
The sale of his house was ordered after Teichrieb was found responsible for damages in a civil lawsuit. He owes the Simpson family $7 million, according to a court decision, none of which they have seen.
He had tried to evade selling the home by handing it over to his parents for a minor amount, though the court wasn’t deterred.
How much will eventually make it to Simpson remains to be seen, though it’s all very much needed.
“It will take $3 million to care for Jesse for the rest of his life,” Simpson said. “I’ve been fundraising for the past eight years for Jesse. We need a van for Jesse. We need a lot of things every day for him to come home to have a life again.”
The night before the latest court date, she said that Jesse suffered another setback. He had kidney stones and another in a long list of surgeries was expected.
With so many health issues, Simpson said she’s also been Jesse’s care aid and nurse since that attack, and said that some financial help would allow her to be her son’s mom again, and maybe the chance they need to enjoy their lives, ever-so-changed, together.
To raise money, Simpson is publishing a book.
“My book will be a fundraiser for Jesse for the rest of his life to help him so that we can just live life … and it can be happy quality of life, which Jesse deserves,” she said.
“And in some way, I need to do that for him. So my book is healing for us. It’s our story and Jesse’s journey that a lot of people haven’t heard and it’s a story that needs to be heard.”
Simpson also has a GoFundMe account set up in Jesse’s name.