B.C. man killed by mob in Peru wasn’t only suspect
To his friends on the B.C. coast, Sebastian Woodroffe was a “sweet and loving” person who had set out to help people overcome their addictions.
To members of a remote Indigenous community in Peru’s Amazon rainforest, where Woodroffe had travelled to study hallucinogenic medicines, he was the person responsible for killing a beloved elderly shaman.
These were the difficultto-reconcile portraits that emerged just days after Woodroffe, 41, who hailed from the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, was reportedly killed by a mob in a grisly lynching captured on cellphone video.
“He was well-loved in the community and he was a sweet and loving person, and … this was very out of character for him,” said Brodie Dawson, an acquaintance of Woodroffe’s, from Cumberland, B.C.
Woodroffe’s body was unearthed over the weekend from an unmarked grave where he had been hastily buried. Grainy cellphone video showed a man — apparently Woodroffe — being dragged between thatchroofed homes by a cord wrapped around his neck as he begged for mercy.
Peru’s attorney general has ordered the arrest of two suspects in Woodroffe’s death. Prosecutors said the two suspects were identified in the cellphone video.
Locals reportedly blamed Woodroffe for the killing of Olivia Arevalo, an octogenarian plant-healer and defender of Indigenous rights from the Shipibo-Konibo tribe in northeastern Peru. She had been shot multiple times.
But prosecutors said Monday it was far from clear who was responsible for Arevalo’s death and that several theories were being investigated,
Officials said forensic experts were studying Woodroffe’s body to determine whether he had any involvement in Arevalo’s killing as was initially suggested after they backed away from reports that he was the principal suspect.
In 2013, Woodroffe announced in a YouTube video his decision to chart a new career path for himself. After years of catching fish, planting trees and building homes — none of it satisfying — Woodroffe said he was pursuing work as an addictions counsellor after witnessing the intervention of a family member with a drinking problem.
“I’m just totally dedicated to this. This is what I want to make my life’s work,” he said in the video.
Woodroffe explained further in a related crowdfunding page that he planned to travel to Peru to study with a Shipibo plant healer.
“Their approach to healing people is very different from what I will be learning in college and I am really looking forward to integrating the two disciplines. … I cannot stress how important it can be to retain old knowledge such as the knowledge these people have harboured in their cultural memory.”
Woodroffe said he planned to keep going back to Peru in the hopes of validating this centuries-old approach to healing so that it could be “accepted in mainstream treatment processes.” His long-term goal was to open a detox centre based around plant medicine.
Thousands of tourists are said to visit jungle lodges in Peru’s Amazon each year to try ayahuasca — a bitter dark-brown liquid brew and powerful hallucinogen made from various plants — in an attempt to heal themselves of depression, alcohol and drug addiction, arthritis, cancer and other ailments, according to a 2016 report in The Guardian.
However, consumption of the brew has also been linked to deaths and episodes of violence. In December 2015, Winnipeg resident Joshua Stevens travelled to an ayahuasca retreat in Peru in the hopes of treating a skin condition. While there, a fellow British tourist, Unais Gomes, had taken a double dose of ayahuasca and then started screaming at the top of his lungs, Stevens later told CTV News.
“‘It’s time to get your demons out brother, it’s time to get your demons out’,” Stevens recalled Gomes yelling.
Gomes allegedly tried to attack Stevens with a butcher knife and then went after two staff members. Stevens said he felt he had no choice but to stab Gomes, who died a short time later. Authorities released Stevens after concluding he had acted in self-defence.
In a weekend interview with the CBC, Yarrow Willard said his friend Woodroffe had returned from his experiences in South America feeling “troubled” and more distant.
Willard said Woodroffe was someone who liked to “poke” others and “test the boundaries of people’s beliefs” but was a “gentle person underneath all that.”
“This man has never had a gun or talked about anything along that line,” he said.
That sentiment was echoed by Woodroffe’s high school friend, Dan Clarke, who said watching the video of Woodroffe being tortured was gut-wrenching.
“He was a kind, gentle person who would do anything for anyone at any time if they asked for his help,” Clarke said.
In a Facebook tribute, Clarke fondly recalled how he and Woodroffe would often skip class to play chess.
“I remember playing chess together almost every day for 2 years. Who needs to go to class when you had Woody, weed and a good ol’ game of chess,” he wrote.
Clarke said he hadn’t seen Woodroffe in 20 years, but always remembered Woodroffe’s infectious smile, sharp wit and the way he challenged others to see things from all sides.
“To be wiped out in such a way and suffer such a horrible death is unimaginable. An entire village brutally attacking you and no one to comfort you in your final breaths.”