THE WEDNESDAY
CANADIAN COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER AWARD 2012
JUNE 6, 2012 www.tricitynews.com
TRI-CITY NEWS Take a Tour de PoCo
Diamond sings & more
SEE LIFE, PAGE A16
SEE ARTS, PAGE A30
INSIDE Tom Fletcher/A10 Letters/A11 A Good Read/A18 Sports/A34
Donald Hay dies in prison Hay held Abby Drover captive for 181 days By Gary McKenna THE TRI-CITY NEWS
CBC PHOTO
Donald Alexander Hay, 79, was jailed in 1977 for the kidnapping of Abby Drover the year before.
Donald Hay, who in 1976 kidnapped 12-yearold Abby Drover and held her captive for 181 days in a bunker beneath his Port Moody garage, has died, according to Correctional Service Canada.
Hay, 79, had been serving an indeterminate sentence at the Regional Psychiatric Centre in Saskatoon when he died of natural causes early Sunday morning following a lengthy illness at the institution’s hospital. According to Lorraine Guay, the assistant warden of management services at the facility, Hay was living in a hospital within the facility, where inmates with physical
ailments are treated. “It is a wing of the Regional Psychiatric Centre,” she said. “We have a different wing built for physical health care housed within the fences of the regional psychiatric centre.” The hospital served inmates from correctional centres across the province and Guay would not confirm whether Hay had been residing in the psychiatric centre prior to his move to the health
care facility. Hay has been serving a life sentence since February 1977 for kidnapping and forcible confinement, and an eight-year concurrent sentence for sexual interference with a girl under 14. His last review was in late 2006, when his application for day parole from his jail in St. Albert, Sask. was denied.
‘LIMITED INSIGHT’ From the National Parole Board ruling regarding Donald Hay’s 2006 parole application: “Despite your participation in several core programs over the years, file information reported that you continued to minimize the effects of your offending on the victim. You also had a tendency to blame others and your alcoholism for your actions. The board found, from your responses at the hearing, that you failed to accept full responsibility for your criminal offences, minimized your actions and demonstrated limited insight into your criminal behaviour.”
see ‘PLEASE PLEASE DON DON’T’, T , page A6
Rub a dub... what? Coquitlam man swatted by bear while in hot tub By Sarah Payne THE TRI-CITY NEWS
A Coquitlam man relaxing in a hot tub in Whistler over the weekend got a surprise visit — from a bear. The 55-year-old was in the backyard of a home on Casabella Crescent on Sunday afternoon when he felt a heavy blow to the back of his head. The blow was strong enough to pitch him forward in the hot tub. When he turned around, he was face to face with a large male black bear. He yelled at the bruin and managed to scramble inside the house as the bear tried to climb into the tub after him. When Whistler Mounties arrived, they found the bear about 100 m away as it was walking into a wooded area; the bear was killed. see REASON FOR FOR,, page A3
DIANE STRANDBERG/THE TRI-CITY NEWS
Tree experts Paul Buikema and John Gillespie (foreground), in front of the East Lawn building on the Riverview lands, discuss an evergreen tree that died. Many of the trees on the Riverview lands were planted 100 years ago when the hospital property was first identified as the site for B.C.’s botanical garden. The arboretum, started by provincial botanist John Davidson in 1911, was eventually moved to UBC but the trees remain and have been added to over the years. In addition to a rich collection of non-native trees, such as ginkos, Spanish chestnut, Serbian spruce and beechwood, the 244-acre site is lush with magnolias, rhododendrons and roses. Riverview Hospital is closing this summer after nearly 100 years of operation. The province has hired a consultant to conduct a heritage values study of the property. The tree walk was hosted by the Riverview Horticultural Centre Society to mark 20 years of stewardship and advocacy on the property.