Killer bullied sons, ex-wife, records show
Corry MacDougall at centre of what RCMP calls double murder-suicide
Hundreds of people held candles and released balloons into the night sky Thursday to remember two boys killed in a murder-suicide earlier this week.
Ryder, 13, and Radek MacDougall, 11, and their father Corry MacDougall, 39, were found dead Monday in his Spruce Grove home. The boys died of gunshot wounds, with RCMP calling the case a double murder-suicide.
After a raw outpouring of grief at a vigil Tuesday in Whitecourt, where Ryder and Radek grew up, this was a more solemn occasion in Central Park in Spruce Grove.
Organizers handed out coffee and hot chocolate, and a few people glided around the skating oval that surrounds the park.
Stepdad Brent Stark spoke briefly, telling the crowd to “give your family some big squeezes.”
After the vigil, people turned and hugged each other.
“There’s so much love here, I don’t have the words,” said Tracy Stark, the boys’ mother. She thanked people for their support.
All the speakers mentioned the hockey community. The vigil, which took place outside Grant Fuhr Arena, was full of boys in hockey jerseys.
Brent Stark said there may be intense competition during games, but off the ice “it’s one big happy family.”
Spruce Grov eMayor Stuart Houston said his nephew was best friends with Ryder.
“He was the best friend anyone could have,” his nephew told him.
Houston said the community of Spruce Grove will pull together to support the Starks.
The vigil capped a day when new details emerged about the man responsible for the killings. MacDougall had a contentious relationship with Tracy Stark, who — in years of court documents — made troubling allegations about her ex-partner bullying their children and having violent outbursts.
The couple married in 2004, divorcing in 2013. Family court documents in Edmonton show the parents battled for years over custody, visitation and MacDougall’s failure to pay child support.
In an affidavit filed February 2015, Stark recounts several examples of her ex-husband’s violent outbursts. She alleges that one day he came home to find that she had cooked a frozen shepherd’s pie for dinner, only to have him throw it against the wall and say he “doesn’t work all day to eat a frozen meal.” She also claimed that one year he threw their Christmas tree out the window. She also alleged that MacDougall once threw a plastic toy at Ryder, causing an injury that required stitches and left a scar.
In an earlier affidavit dated July 4, 2014, Stark details a number of alleged incidents to demonstrate belittling and bullying of her children by MacDougall, as well as his defiance of visitation rules. Stark alleges that in 2013, Radek, then an eight-year-old who loved to sing and dance, decided to take a year off hockey so he could try hip-hop dancing.
After a visit with MacDougall in October, Radek came home and said he wanted to quit dance and go back to hockey. He confided in his mother that MacDougall had called him a “girlie boy” and mocked him throughout the visit. She said that while speaking to Radek on the phone, MacDougall would call him a “quitter,” and that for the next visit he told Radek he would only be picking up Ryder. Stark also alleged that on numerous occasions MacDougall called Radek fat, and would ask Stark what she was going to do about it.
In the same affidavit, Stark said that during a nine-day visit with MacDougall in November 2013, she received a call from Ryder’s hockey coach saying her elder son had not shown up for his games on a weekend, and that the following Monday, the school called to report her children were absent. After numerous calls to both MacDougall and Ryder’s cellphones, Ryder answered and told her his father had instructed him not to tell her they were at their aunt’s house, Stark alleges.
Stark said that on Nov. 19, 2013, an emergency family order was granted, which gave the police authority to locate MacDougall and remove the children from his custody. However, she said the local police refused to act on the order, saying it was “illegible.”
Stark in an April 2012 affidavit expressed concerns over MacDougall’s mental health as he pressed for more time with the boys. She claims in the affidavit that he told her multiple times that he was contemplating suicide.
Stark’s affidavit goes on to claim that in July 2011, when she told him she wanted to take the kids on a holiday to California, he “told me on the phone that some days he wakes up and wants to end it all and that he wants to kill himself so he doesn’t have to work to pay me.”
None of the allegations made by Stark has been proven in court.
But in a May 2012 affidavit, MacDougall claimed he “never told Tracy or anyone else that I wanted to commit suicide.” In other affidavits, he denied Stark’s allegations of bullying and mistreating his sons.
In the years after their separation, Stark and MacDougall each filed numerous documents arguing over child support payments and custody. Though the visitation conditions changed over time, the court consistently ordered that the boys would live primarily with Stark.
Other records suggest MacDougall was having trouble meeting his financial obligations in recent years. According to a statement of claim filed by Royal Bank of Canada in 2014, MacDougall defaulted on repaying more than $300,000 on a line of credit, and the bank was preparing to foreclose a property in Whitecourt that MacDougall had put up as collateral.