Thursday September 25, 2014 (Vol. 39 No. 77)
V O I C E
O F
W H I T E
R O C K
A N D
S O U T H
S U R R E Y
w w w. p e a c e a r c h n e w s . c o m
Step forward: A Surrey mom of two is taking on next month’s Peace Arch Hospital Foundation Pumpkin Run for the second year in a row, as she gets her life and health back on track. i see page 11
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Community reacts
Sound sight obscured Sound,
Anger over teen’s death
No coroner advice in train fatality Tracy Holmes Staff Reporter
Kevin Diakiw & Tracy Holmes Black Press
Surrey’s mayor is furious after learning a man previously convicted of violent sexual offences and considered a high risk to reoffend has been charged in the killing of 17-year-old Serena Vermeersch. “It’s senseless that another young life is taken,” Dianne Watts said Tuesday. The body of Vermeersch was found around 7 p.m. Sept. 16 in thick brambles in the 14600-block of 66 Avenue. Raymond Lee Caissie, 43, was arrested early Saturday morning in Vancouver and has been charged with second-degree murder in her death. After hearing it was Caissie who was charged, Watts said it’s unthinkable that a high-risk offender might be responsible. Raymond Caissie Caissie was accused placed in Surrey last year after serving 22 years in jail for forcible confinement, robbery and sexual assault with a weapon. His conditions upon his June 2013 release included not having contact with his victim, not to possess a knife, except for eating, and not to have any other weapon or restraint tool, including wire or duct tape. He was also to keep the peace and remain in B.C.
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Last week’s death of Serena Vermeersch has reignited calls to tighten rules dealing with high-risk offenders. At that time, Watts expressed changes in the years that followed outrage he had been released had any impact at all. when still considered dangerous. “That was always my greatest Caissie’s criminal record includes fear – are they listening?” Camtheft, break and enter and posses- eron said Tuesday from her home sion of stolen property. He was in Ontario. last released from jail in March. “It’s hard to believe that 20 years Suzanne Anton – (later) for us, and B.C.’s minister of jus- ❝We’ve got to protect here we go again… tice and the attorney our kids. They can’t let Once again, somegeneral – has said all one has slipped these guys out.❞ systems that are in through the cracks.” Marilyn Cameron, place were followed in Cameron’s daughmother of Pamela Caissie’s case. ter, Pamela, was But Watts says that killed on Oct. 4, just shows the system is broken. 1994 by repeat offender Mitch“The loss of life is a huge price to ell James Owen – who had been pay,” she said. released from jail the November For Marilyn Cameron, the prior, after serving two concurmother of a teen who was killed rent 10-year sentences for rape two decades ago in South Sur- and robbery. rey, the accusation against Caissie Owen pleaded guilty to firstmakes her wonder if appeals for degree murder in connection with
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Pamela’s death and is serving a life sentence. In 2020, he will be able to apply for parole. It’s a moment Cameron hopes will never materialize. “We’ve got to protect our kids. They can’t let these guys out,” she told Peace Arch News. Family friend Bonnie Moy – who was instrumental in the development of Realty Watch, a system that fans out alerts to realtors in the community – agreed. “The cops can’t be everywhere,” said Moy, who plans to place flowers in Pamela’s memory at South Surrey’s Forever Garden on Oct. 4. “These people, they should be somewhere where they’re not on the street. (Vermeersch’s death) just shows you how far we haven’t come.” i see page 4
The death of a woman on East Beach train tracks 14 months ago has been ruled accidental. According to a long-awaited coroner’s report on the death of Anita Lewis, the 42-year-old who died of multiple blunt-force injuries suffered July 14, 2013 when she was struck by a passenger train as she jogged across the tracks at the pedestrian crossing in the 15600block of Marine Drive. In the report – released to Peace Arch News Tuesday – coroner Cynthia Wicks concludes Lewis likely didn’t notice the train until it was too late. Video surveillance from the train shows Lewis looking west while approaching the tracks, the report notes; the train came from the east. “It’s reasonable to conclude that Mrs. Lewis didn’t hear the train due to the fact that she was wearing headphones,” Wicks writes. “Mrs. Lewis was looking westbound and her baseball hat’s rim may have affected her peripheral vision, therefore it’s quite likely she never noticed the train until the last second.” Noting Transport Canada had recently ordered that trains travelling “between dusk and dawn” blast their horns intermittently as a safety warning, Wicks made no recommendations. (The order now says from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., and the blasts are to be sounded repeatedly.) Regarding the time it took to complete the report, B.C. Coroners’ Service spokesperson Barb McLintock said the service is “always the last out of the gate.” i see page 4
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