SHE ‘BEAT THE ODDS UNTIL NOW’
Woman shot outside her East Vancouver home described as a loving mother of a promising young hockey player
Janice Nicole Bryant was a loving mother who “beat the odds until now,” family members say.
The 33-year-old Vancouver woman, the mother of a promising young hockey player, was shot Tuesday outside her East Vancouver home and later died. Police were quick to say Bryant was targeted and that it wasn’t a random shooting.
The victim’s cousin, Danielle Gentile, believes the same. She suspects Bryant was targeted by people out to hurt her husband. Last May, Bryant’s husband was wounded several times himself in a shooting in East Vancouver, Gentile said. Bryant was with him at the time.
This time, as Gentile put it, “they don’t want him dead, they just want him to suffer.”
It was around 5 p.m. on Tuesday when police began to receive reports of gunshots in a neighbourhood around East 7th Avenue and St. Catherines Street.
Bryant was born in Prince Rupert and moved to Vancouver 10 or 12 years ago, Gentile said. By that time she had already met her husband, she said.
Gentile wasn’t comfortable with Bryant’s living situation and said she once offered to pay for Bryant, her husband, and her daughter to move north “to get away from that lifestyle.”
But the move never happened and instead, her husband clamped down on Bryant’s access to family, Gentile said.
“She recently reached out to all of us. … She was always monitored on the phone and we didn’t clue in that she needed help,” Gentile said through tears.
When asked about Bryant’s husband, Const. Jason Doucette, a Vancouver Police spokesman, declined to provide information.
Gentile remembered Bryant as a meticulous, thoughtful and generous person. She wasn’t into drugs, and had been sober for four years, she said.
Bryant did her best to raise her daughter, Brianna, Gentile said. Her daughter wasn’t close to her father, and didn’t call him “dad.” Instead, Brianna is close to her stepfather, who encouraged her to get involved in hockey.
“Hockey saved her childhood,” Gentile said.
Brianna now plays hockey at a college in Saskatchewan and recently made Team B.C. for the National Aboriginal Hockey Championships.
Bryant always struggled to pay to keep her daughter in the sport, Gentile said.
“It almost makes me believe that the reason why she wouldn’t leave her husband was to make sure Brianna has a strong future and could afford the hockey,” she said.
Doucette said police had made no arrests in connection with the shooting as of Wednesday. More than a dozen officers scoured the area of the shooting for evidence that day.
Police have asked anyone in the area at the time of the shooting who may have seen something — however unimportant it may seem — to call investigators.
A gofundme fundraising page has been set up in Brianna’s name. Proceeds will go toward her education.