Search for justice takes son to Mexico
Daniel Corbett was searching for closure during his recent trip to Mexico.
The 24-year-old visited his father’s grave. He saw the house where he was killed. He went to the jail where the Victoria man accused of his death is behind bars.
He was in Mexico for two weeks in all, accompanied by his mother and stepfather and a family friend who speaks Spanish. They drove 1,000 kilometres in a four days, “searching for the truth to bring justice to my father.”
But things, he said, are still very much in limbo.
Roger Corbett, a 49-year-old Metchosin businessman, had been in Mexico for only 12 hours before the altercation that left him dead.
He was fatally stabbed on Nov. 13, bleeding to death in the arms of a friend. The pair were in Chicxulub Puerto in Yucatan province visiting another friend, Brian Slater.
Slater has been arrested in connection with the stabbing and is being held in jail in Yucatan.
Daniel Corbett asked to see Slater.
“I had no intentions of necessarily speaking,” he said. “I wanted to be in silence and allow him the opportunity to say something if he wanted. I didn’t want to project any emotions or give him any sense of power that he’s destroyed my well-being.” His request was denied. The home where his father died still had police tape across the front door and was being guarded around the clock by a police officer when Daniel Corbett visited.
He said his father planned to buy the property with Slater, to make it a retreat for his family and friends.
“The irony is that it happened in the house he was going to take ownership of,” he said.
“It was very real and solidifying having to think that not too long ago that was a place that was going to be something very good in my father’s life and it turned very tragic.”
Roger Corbett’s body is in an above-ground gravesite and cannot be repatriated until after the criminal trial, his son said. That’s been difficult for the family — they are trying to decide whether to have a memorial service now or wait until a proper funeral can be held.
“It’s very much in this kind of limbo,” he said.
The prosecution team has until the end of May to complete its investigation. The trial is expected to start in July or August, and Daniel Corbett plans to be there. “I’m the living victim, so to speak.”
He said he’s been very impressed by the Mexican justice system and that prosecutors and officials at the Canadian consulate have provided as much information as they can.
“The support we’ve received from both governments in Canada and Mexico has been fantastic.”
Daniel Corbett said the trip was a bittersweet process of getting to know his father.
Roger Corbett owned a painting company, Corbett Painting Ltd., which his son described as a “one-man success show.”
Roger Corbett and Slater were friends for more than a decade and Slater worked on and off as a painter.
Daniel Corbett said his father taught him how to succeed in the face of adversity, a lesson that helps steer him now.
He has set up an online fundraiser to help pay for costs of repatriating his father’s body and to pay for the funeral, travel expenses and legal fees. He also plans to set up a trust fund for his younger brothers, Byron, Andrew and Chuck, who are all under 16.
“I want to be sure my family has the support it needs.”