admin @ Sat, 2006-09-16 08:00
Tom Dupont's body was found on the ground below his seventh-floor balcony. An autopsy showed he was drunk when he plummeted and that the fall killed him.
Police have never found an eyewitness to the moment he went off the balcony. So how can anyone know for sure what really happened that Friday night in February 2003? Is Sue Dupont's maternal instinct on the mark when she insists someone murdered her eldest child? Or is she a grieving mom who can't accept the fact her son got drunk and accidentally fell to his death?
It is an uncomfortable and sometimes hostile dynamic that exists frequently between police and grieving families. Investigators come to conclusions relatives don't agree with. Aren't satisfied with. It can last years. Even lifetimes.
"I want to know what happened to my kid," Sue says. "It wasn't suicide. And he didn't just fall off his balcony. The chances of that happening are pretty slim."
Well, actually, Tom had fallen from a balcony before. A year before his building superintendent found him dead at the base of his Stoney Creek apartment, Tom had tumbled three storeys from a Burlington balcony. He was drinking. Talking on a cellphone. And sitting on the balcony railing. That accident left him badly injured.
The night of his death, Tom and friends went out to blow their paycheques on drinks and strippers. Tom was working as a cook at The Village Restaurant in Stoney Creek and had aspirations to train as a chef. The group went to Hamilton Strip to see Tom's new girlfriend, a young woman who planned to move in with him shortly. The crew left their last bar at 2:15 a.m.
His body was found at 5:40 a.m. in the parking lot. He was neatly covered over by a comforter. His apartment door was locked with the deadbolt on. The deadbolt could be locked by a key from the outside. His balcony door was open. Detectives found no sign of a struggle. Items of value were still there in plain sight. Two sets of keys for the apartment and the lobby door were inside the apartment. Neighbours told police they did not hear anything unusual except a loud thud at about 5:05 a.m. from the area where Tom's body was discovered.
Police honed in on the girlfriend. Interviewed her many times over several months. Her story about that night kept changing. First she said she wasn't with Tom that night. But witnesses said Tom saw her at the strip club. Then she said she was with another man having sex. But that man was working out of town at the time.
The police theory was that someone was with Tom when he fell or arrived soon after. The person had a key to his apartment and was able to lock the door. They grabbed Tom's comforter and placed it over his body before leaving the scene.
That person could be charged with criminal negligence for not coming to Tom's aid. If he was obviously dead when they found him, there may be no charges at all. What's certain is that with the evidence police have right now, there is no way anyone could be charged with Tom's murder.
"What if he didn't just fall off the balcony?" asks Sue. "There's no closure for me. That's always nagging at me. I feel like I've been ripped off. I'll never see my son get married. I'll never see him have children. I don't want him to be forgotten. I feel like (someone) is getting away with it."
Detective Peter Bracci, police liaison with the coroner's office, has Tom's case file now. If new evidence surfaces, police will investigate. Until then, the case is -- for all intents and purposes -- closed.
In Bracci's experience, it is in many ways easier for next of kin to deal with a homicide than a suicide or an accident. With a murder there is someone to blame. With suicide and accidents there is guilt and uncertainty. So some families look for someone to blame.
"Some families hold out hope for years," Bracci says. "In this death, the worst-case scenario is misadventure. The investigators were tenacious with this. It was never a homicide investigation. The only curious aspect of it was that he was properly covered."
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