Food prices rising Co-ops could be a good way. p6
Heritage homes labours of love. p25
THE NEWS
Squeezed Maple Ridge Museum needs room. p8
www.mapleridgenews.com Friday, August 24, 2012 · Serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · 50¢
Coroner still checking on inmate’s death Victor Crane may have been in Fraser Regional cell for three days by M o n i s h a M a r t i n s staff reporter
Shane MacKichan contributor
Maple Ridge firefighters battle flames in old house on the corner of 223rd Street and 117th Avenue, in Port Haney early Thursday.
The B.C. Coroner’s Service has yet to decide whether to call an inquest into the death of an inmate, three months ago at a Maple Ridge men’s prison. An autopsy conducted on Victor Francis Crane has failed to reveal what killed him, although Ridge Meadows RCMP rule out foul play. Crane was found unresponsive in his cell just before 9 p.m., May 20 at the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, where he was serving a 75-day sentence. See Inmate, p5
Fire rips through Haney Seven left homeless in the middle of the night, blaze suspicious by M o n i s h a M a r t i n s staff reporter Seven people have been left homeless by a fire that destroyed two homes in Maple Ridge early Thursday. The fire started around 3:30 a.m. in the 11700-block of 223rd Street, near the downtown core. Witnesses report the fire began near the carport of one house
Baby Girl as flames and moved quickly to set ablaze surrounding engulf another house trees and a hydro pole. beside it. “Our dog kept runJessica Laxton, who ning back in and hidlives in the second ing by her cage,” said house, woke up to Laxton, as she stood on someone banging on 223rd Street watching her door and windows, an excavator tear apart shouting “Fire! Fire!” what’s left of her home. Laxton jumped out of “There were blue bed, grabbed her hussparks everywhere band Bill Connell by Grootendorst from the hydro lines. his hand and ran outI was just screaming side barefoot, dressed in boxer shorts and a red house and screaming. We just lost everything we owned. Absolutely coat. Her husband braved smoke and everything.” All Laxton and her husband intense heat to rescue their dog
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managed to save were their wedding rings. The gifts they received from family at their wedding a year ago are destroyed. “The teddy bear I had since I was one, the cradle my dad built for my little sister … it’s all gone,” said Laxton. The couple’s cats – Jack and Suki – ran out of the house but are believed safe, lost somewhere in the neighbourhood. “The firefighters worked really hard to save our home,” said Connell. The couple who lived above them were not so lucky. See Fire, p4
Index Opinion Along the Fraser Letters As we age Acts of Faith Sports Classifieds
6 6 7 18 35 39 42
Restoring life to an age-old waterway, as traffic roars by. See story, p3
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