Utter Devastation

"This is a day to mourn the loss of members of our community and to provide support to family, friends and university community members. This was a house party off campus and today is not the day to evaluate activities on campus. But I can tell you that Bermuda Shorts Day is a 53-year-old tradition at our university. We have students doing support in the community, at the Drop-in Centre, at Ronald McDonald House, and it concluded yesterday at five o'clock.:"
Elizabeth Cannon, president, University of Calgary

Signs of a party remain in the backyard of a home after five people were stabbed to death at a home on Butler Cres. NW on April 15, 2014.   Photograph by: Colleen De Neve, Calgary Herald

 

The rampage was surreal. Who might have envisaged a laid-back day of relaxation, talking among friends, barbecuing, just hanging out together and appreciating life on a day that is a tradition with the university, that for most of those present at the house party in rented quarters on a quiet family street, would end as it did? Neighbours whose homes surrounded the house where the ten young people had gathered were hardly aware a party was in progress. All was in order.

Except, eventually there was gross disorder. And that happened when one invited young man, recently accepted to study law at the university after achieving his undergraduate degree there, arrived from his workplace to join his friends. The son of a Calgary police officer of over 30 years' service, he was well liked and appreciated for his quiet, unassuming demeanor and friendliness. Who might have thought this well-bred, respectful man would suddenly become psychotic?

"I don't think these people had a chance to defend themselves. A situation like this is really hard on us; students are trying to find their place in the world and make a difference. Something like this makes you feel there's no hope."
"It's just surreal ... they were all mellow people. They were not into drugs or anything like that. I'm going to go to their funerals."
Rachel Shabalin, Calgary student

Medical examiner staff remove one of the bodies from a home as Calgary Police Service members investigated after five people were stabbed to death at a home on Butler Cres N.W.   Photograph by: Colleen De Neve, Calgary Herald

"He seemed to get along well with everyone", said one of his classmates from St. Francis High School, recalling the teen he'd attended high school classes with. "I don't think anyone ever had anything bad to say about him, and he never had anything bad to say about anybody. Every time we saw each other, we'd catch up", said another old classmate of the boy she had shared classes with at high school. This was 22-year-old Matt de Grood.

Who was arrested by police soon after he had plunged a knife into the bodies of five of his friends; Lawrence Hong, 27; Zackariah Rathwell 23, Josh Hunter, 22; Jordan Segura, 23; and Kaitlin Perras, 23. They had all attended that quiet party to spend time with their friends, never imagining they would never emerge again alive, free to go on with their promising lives. It is as beyond belief to their parents that their children will never come home again, as it would have been to them.

According to the police account, when Matt de Grood arrived at the rented Calgary house, he "obtained a large knife", and with it, stabbed each of his victims several times. Methodically, hitting them in just the right places for maximum effect, striking those body zones easy enough to reach if the victims are in any way unaware, incapacitated, sleeping, and rendering them vulnerable to a very swift death due to loss of blood.

"It is unusual" to have five stabbing victims in a single incident and have all five die. That's the kind of outcome usually associated with gunshot wounds. "It really just depends on what you hit, what part of the body. It comes down to bad luck", said Dr. Homer Tien, trauma director at Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital, asked to comment on the situation.

Traumatized is as good a word as any to describe the utterly bleak and desolate emotional state of dreadful bereavement of all those parents. That would include the parents of Matt de Grood.