‘This could have been me’
Veteran angry over decision not to hold inquiry into former soldier’s murder-suicide
When former Canadian soldier Lionel Desmond committed suicide after killing his wife, mother and young daughter earlier this year, Gregory Swiatkowski read about the tragedy and imagined the same thing happening to him.
“This could have been me,” said the former member of the Royal Canadian Navy. “And there’s a lot of veterans who feel the same way across the country.”
Swiatkowski served in Halifax as a sonar technician between 2002 and 2012 before he was medically discharged, having been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2008
On Monday, he said he felt compelled to speak out about his experience after he learned Nova Scotia’s medical examiner had ruled out conducting a fatality inquiry into the four shooting deaths.
Desmond, a 33-year-old veteran of the war in Afghanistan who suffered from PTSD, took his own life after shooting his 52-year-old mother, his wife Shanna, 31, and their 10-yeard-aughter Aaliyah.
The killings on Jan. 3 in Upper Tracadie, N.S., prompted a difficult debate over soldiers with PTSD, domestic violence and what should be done to prevent such tragedies.
Autopsy records have since been handed to the family’s nearest relatives, but medical examiner Dr. Matt Bowes has decided not to conduct an investigation under the province’s Fatality Investigations Act, spokeswoman Sarah Gillis said in an emailed statement. She did not offer reasons for the decision.
Swiatkowski, who uses a service dog and medical marijuana to deal with his PTSD, said the decision made him furious.
“We’ve been waiting for some answers for a long time on this,” he said in an interview from his home in Kelowna, B.C. “When I was reading this story from Nova Scotia, I was ready to snap ... We deserve better than this. This can’t be just swept under the carpet.”
Catherine Hartling, Shanna Desmond’s aunt, has renewed her call for some sort of public inquiry, saying other family members want the same thing but are still too distraught to speak out.