‘Call the cops. I just shot my wife’
Man, 73, charged with murder after 70-year-old wife shot at Home Depot
A witness to Wednesday morning’s shooting death of a 70-year-old woman at the Home Depot store in Peterborough says the shooter approached him after and told him that he had just shot his wife and to call police.
“He was calm as could be,” Mike Whitney said. “It was surreal.”
Terrance Finn, 73, of Peterborough, has been charged with first-degree murder.
He appeared in Ontario Court of Justice in Peterborough on Wednesday afternoon and remains in custody. He is to return to court Friday.
The woman had been airlifted to Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto by Ornge air ambulance, where police said she later died of her injuries. Police did not identify her on Wednesday, pending notification of next-of-kin.
Whitney and his employer Derek Wing, from R&D Construction, were walking into the Home Depot on Lansdowne Street West around 8 a.m. to get contracting supplies for their day’s work when they heard “three pops” and a car engine revving.
“I parked the truck about four spots from (the victim’s car). We were walking toward the Home Depot and seen a guy approaching the car,” Wing said.
He describes hearing what sounded like fire crackers before turning his head. The man was standing beside the car holding a revolver-type pistol at his side.
“It was like a Clint Eastwood-type pistol … like an old western movie-type gun,” Wing said.
Wing said he stood there motionless while his employee Whitney took cover behind a parked car.
“We were about 15 feet away. He just stared at us holding the gun,” Wing said.
Wing said he watched as the suspect placed the gun onto the hood of the victim’s car and lit a cigarette before approaching Whitney.
“Call the cops, I just shot my wife,” said Wing, repeating what he heard the suspect say.
Wing said he could see the victim in the car, slouched over to one side with blood pouring down her face.
Whitney said he didn’t fear for his safety once the gun was on the car. It’s when he came out from behind a nearby vehicle that the shooter approached him. He then called 911 and police arrived less than five minutes later.
The shooter just stood beside the car smoking and waiting, Whitney said.
“No one sees that,” Whitney said of the experience. “It’s crazy stuff.”
The store and parking lot were closed for much of the morning as police investigated the incident.
At the scene, a handgun was visible on the hood of a vehicle. A tent had also been placed over top of a vehicle and a purse was seen laying on the ground beside the driver’s side of the vehicle.
After being closed and then restricted for several hours to pedestrian traffic only, the parking lot at the Home Depot and Staples stores had reopened by 2 p.m., police said, after investigators cleared the scene.
It’s the second domestic homicide case in less than a week in Peterborough and the Kawarthas. A 51-year-old woman and a 63-year-old man were killed in a shooting Sunday at a ranch on Spen Haven Road north of Emily Provincial Park in the City of Kawartha Lakes.
It’s the first homicide of the year in Peterborough.