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"I never thought my life would be this cold and empty.” |
Ron Mahy tears up behind his wrap-around, prescription Oakley sunglasses that are protecting his steel blue eyes from the bright spring day.
A towering, bear of a man, wearing a pair of Harley Davidson motorcycle pins on his leather riding vest, his raw emotions continue to well up from within as he talks about the loss of his eldest daughter — 36-year-old Christy Mahy. She was killed after a vehicle struck her and the bicycle she had stopped on, waiting for the crosswalk lights to change at the intersection of Russ Baker Way and the Dinsmore Bridge on Sea Island last July.
“I have two daughters, and Christy was not married, had no kids, and was the one who was going to stay with me in my old age,” Mahy said, after kneeling beside her roadside memorial just steps away from where she was killed. “Now, she’s gone.”
An unfillable void
Mahy said, he deals with the loss of Christy every day — something made worse by the fact little information about the investigation has been released since charges have yet to be laid on the suspect, despite the length of time since the incident.
Mahy said he understands the need for a thorough investigation, but feels shut out of the process.
“My expectations (of the police) were that when a family member gets killed, you’d really like to know what the process is as it’s going along,” he said. “You’re depending on them.”
Mahy said he’s been the one making the calls to the Richmond RCMP for updates that have yielded little, except for one call back when an investigating officer informed his family that the suspect had left the country.
Richmond RCMP officials, citing privacy concerns, declined any comment on the case, and have not substantiated whether or not the suspect has left Canada.
The investigation, which has included members from the the RCMP’s Integrated Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Service (ICARS), remains ongoing, said RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Annie Linteau in an email.
“ICARS is responsible for investigating the forensic aspect of all vehicle collisions that result in serious injury or death in the Lower Mainland,” Linteau said. “This is a very complex process and on average can take about six months to complete. Some incidents may only take a couple of months to process, while others may take eight or nine months to complete.”
Linteau added it’s important to remember ICARS deals with traffic fatalities or serious motor vehicle collisions and it is extremely important their analysis of an incident is thorough.
The lingering uncertainty about the matter has left Mahy feeling isolated and powerless.
“There’s a void in your life that can never be filled,” he said. “As a father, you always think you can take care of your family and keep them safe. And when something like this happens you feel useless.”
Back on track
The phone rang. It was Christy, Mahy recalled.
After a while out of the workforce for health reasons, she was trying to get her career back on track. She had been a popular employee at Nedco Electrical Supply in east Richmond for many years. And she was optimistic about the job interview she’d had at a new employer earlier in the day on July 30.
“Dad, I’m really sure I’ve got the job, I’m going out for a bike ride,” Mahy said his daughter told him over the phone, hours before she was killed.
“She was getting her life back on track again, had a boyfriend, things were turning around,” said her aunt, Cherie Crawford. “She was very kind, very giving.
“She would do anything for anybody. She had friends from all facets of life — from heavy duty bikers to wealthy people. She was just people-oriented. There were 300 people at her celebration of life.”
An important focus was Chrsity’s family life, especially after her mother, Sherie, died of breast cancer 11 years ago, her aunt said.
The loss had separated the family.
Christy remained in Richmond, living in Burkeville on Sea Island. Her dad moved to Halfmoon Bay on the Sunshine Coast, and her sister shifted closer to SFU where she was studying.
That’s why, when the family gathered about a year ago, Christy wanted to have them at her house.
“She wanted to bring that closeness back to the family,” Crawford said.
Where to from here?
The kilometres tick by on Ron Mahy’s Harley.
He’s covered an average of 10,000 km a year since he climbed back aboard it in the years following his wife’s death.
Today, when he rides to try and settle the feelings of loss, he adds Christy to his thoughts.
It works, for a while, says Ron Mahy’s sister.
“My brother has gone through hell because there are no answers, no closure at all for the family,” said Crawford. “It’s almost taken him back to the loss of his wife all over again.”
Mahy has thought about hiring a lawyer to try and help get some answers.
“But I couldn’t see myself spending $5,000 to $10,000 on something (information) that should naturally just come to me,” he said.
Mahy adds that friends have told him to be patient, since cases such as this take time to be resolved.
“But it’s a cut and dry case where nobody else was involved in the accident,” Mahy said. “How much can you investigate when there was one car involved?
“And now I’m told the person involved with this has left the country. If society has any heart and soul here we would not allow that.”
