Suspect’s movements puzzle family
Daughter of former N.S. man wanted in Colombia doesn't know why he would return to Canada
The daughter of a former Halifax County man wanted by Colombian police in connection with a woman’s death says she doesn’t know why he would have come back to Canada.
“I don’t know. I was under the impression from every article I read that he was on his way to Thailand or trying to get somewhere (without an extradition treaty) out in the middle of nowhere,” she said. “That’s what made sense to me, because he doesn’t have anyone here. I’m shocked that he’s here.”
She said all of Jesse Gilbert Wiseman’s family lives in the United States, and as far as she knows he has no real contacts or support networks in Canada.
The woman didn’t want her name published because she and other members of Wiseman’s family have already been getting hateful messages on social media from people following the case, and she doesn’t want to invite more.
Wiseman, 50, is accused in the death of 20-year-old Laura Isabel Lopera whose body was found in early February, stuffed in a suitcase in the apartment he had been renting in Medellin. Last week, a passenger on the Via Rail train from Vancouver to Toronto said he was convinced he encountered Wiseman on the train Feb. 21.
Wiseman was once a wrestling coach for high school students in HRM and the province’s Canada Games team, and some of his former athletes have said a video taken by the train passenger does appear to show Wiseman on the train.
‘SEEMS LIKE HIM TO ME’
The daughter agreed.
“My mom saw it and said she was certain It was him, and I looked at the screen shot and it certainly seems like him to me.”
She said she has been completely estranged from her father for five years, but didn’t have much contact for several years before that, after he and her mother — Wiseman’s first wife — separated two decades ago.
She said her childhood immediately after the split involved her and her sister have court-mandated visits with Wiseman on school holidays only, as her mother had moved to Ontario.
Wiseman was not always kind before her parents split, she said, and things worsened after to the point she stopped visiting when she was still a young teen.
The last interaction she had was 2019 when she contacted him about required contributions that he was supposed to make toward her university tuition. “He didn’t, and then he insulted me, so that was it,” she said.
She described her father as someone who “is very intimidating, he enjoys making people feel small.
“He was manipulative, he would try to pit my sister and I against one another or against our mom.”
She said Wiseman “was violent in that he would throw things or punch holes in walls, but he never threatened violence to us.”
ONLINE THREATS
The online vitriol directed towards members of Wiseman’s family seems to be mostly by people making the link between him and relatives on his friends list on Facebook, his daughter said.
“I believe what happened is Colombian citizens… found his profile and then went to people with the same last name as him and started messaging them.
“It’s upsetting, some threats of ‘we’ll find you and hurt your children,” and ‘how do you feel about so-and-so being a murderer,’” she said.
But, she said, she doesn’t think many members of his family have contact with him either.
“People will go crazy about true crime, and I get that, but maybe focus your attention on the person who did the thing.”
She said she doesn’t think any family members are overly concerned about the comments and they are just from people angry about the woman’s death, but they have caused some anxiety and some of the family have changed their last names or profile pictures on social media to try to reduce the comments being directed toward them.
The daughter said she has tried to look up the Colombian authorities online but hasn’t been able to figure out the right people to contact, “but I also don’t feel like I have helpful information. It’s not like I have contact info for him, and I don’t think members of my family do either.”
She tried to call RCMP in Ottawa on Feb. 14, “just to put my name out there as a contact if they were looking for someone who might have information on him.”
But that office put her through to another detachment, and then Halifax, but no one had any knowledge or knew where to direct her, she said.
“They didn’t seem to be aware, but I don’t know if the person I talked to was an officer or administration staff.”
She said a relative on Wiseman’s side of the family said last June that he had moved to Ecuador with — or to be with — a new girlfriend, but she doesn’t know who that was.
“I’m completely speculating, but I’m guessing it could be someone he met online and he moved there.”
Officials in Colombia have issued a blue notice through Interpol, which asks member nations for additional information about a person’s identity, location or activities in relation to a criminal investigation.