OUR AGED MOTHER DISAPPEARED MTL. POLICE REFUSE TO INVESTIGATE

 

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On October 7, 1996, I was attacked and robbed in my home at 4995 Prince of Wales, NDG, Montreal where I had been living with my parents for two years while under treatment for cancer. Less than a week prior to the attack, my niece, Dawn McSweeney and her boyfriend, Alex Lavergne had suddenly moved in with us. My mother said it was because Alex Lavergne's family intended to do him harm and he needed to hide.

 

The police I called to help me removed me from my home and left me in the street, alone and destitute without as much as a coat.

 

In April, 2004, I found that my mother had disappeared from her house and no one knew where she was. I went to the police. The police phoned Dawn's mother, Debbie McSweeney. She told them that I was just trying to cause trouble. Once again, the police refused to investigate. No one in the family ever saw our mother again.

 

In June, 2007, we learned from Paperman Funeral Services that our mother had died while in the care of Dawn McSweeney's mother, Debbie Rubin McSweeney. 

After our mother's death, we learned that, in 2005, a total stranger named Kenneth Gregoire Prud'homme had made a will in our mother's name.

That new will benefited Debby McSweeney, Dawn McSweeney and the liquidator, Kenneth Gregoire Prud'homme.

All my parents' children and grandchildren who were the heirs of my parents' own wills were omitted from Kenneth Gregoire Prud'homme's 2005 will.

 

The following report appeared on my blog, DAWN MCSWEENEY in May, 2007.

http://dawnmcsweeney.blogspot.com

A family member is not allowed to murder you, but in Montreal, Canada, a family member can steal everything you own and the police do not consider it a crime. In Montreal if you cannot afford a lawyer, you are at the mercy of the police. I am the victim of a robbery that tore my family apart. The thief was my (then) teenage niece. I told the police who the thief was and begged them to come and see where my possessions were being held. The police refused repeatedly. Subsequently, the mother of the thief, my youngest sister, took over all my family's possessions and my mother has not been seen by anyone for several years. Only the thief's family knows where she is. The police refuse to do anything about it It is not libellous to tell the truth. Here is the whole story.

It started in October 1996, when I was attacked and robbed in my parents' home where I had been living for two years while recovering from breast cancer.

 

Suddenly at the beginning of October, my teenage niece Dawn and her boyfriend Alex moved in with us. Within a week of Dawn's arrival, on October 7, my mother suddenly attacked me without any apparent reason and without any warning. In shock, I called 911 for help to escape the violence. I would not lift a finger to defend myself against my aged mother.

One of the two officers who responded to my distress call 'helped' me out the door without as much as a coat. In front of my assailant, the officer told me that I must never return.

This police officer's unilateral decision to evict me, forbidding me to return home, gave all my most precious belongings, as well as my aged parents' lives and property into the hands of my teenage niece.

This action was taken without any investigation. There was no legal procedure. No hearing. No court procedure. No trial. No judgment. No background to support such an action. No justification. The officer just decided to do it. And then - he did not file a report.

Widowed, unemployed and fighting cancer, the police abandoned me in the street alone, cold, homeless and destitute. My entire life was locked up behind me, in Dawn's hands. I pleaded with the police at the local police station to file a report, to go to the house and see for themselves. They refused again and again, saying, "Your mother ask you to be patient and everything will be return to you." For five months, the Montreal Police refused repeatedly to file a report. At 60, I had to start life again - from scratch.

Shortly after the robbery, my insurance company, Prudential - to whom I had paid premiums for more than 30 years - washed their hands of the matter, saying that the police had not filed a report on time. I told them I would not accept compensation. I just wanted them to investigate - to go to the house and see my belongings there with their own eyes. All my boxes and cases were clearly marked with my name and inventoried. Like the police, Prudential refused to investigate.

The police finally did an investigation months later. It appeared to be a serious investigation, but later they told me that they had found no fingerprints on the items Dawn returned to me. But Dawn handled those things and I handled them. If there had been any kind of investigation, they would surely have found at least my fingerprints. But the police detectives insisted that there were no fingerprints whatsoever on those things. They did not say the fingerprints were smeared. They insisted there were none.

Quebec's Police Ethics Commissioner wrote me: "The police have large powers and vast Authority .... The case is definitively closed". Large powers - to help criminals? Vast authority - to rob widows ?

Montreal Police Archives just ignored my requests for the report. To obtain a police report, you must have a lawyer. But I can't afford a lawyer.

But you can get a consultation with a lawyer for $35.00 to $50.00. The Bar Association gives you the name of a lawyer who tells you that your case is not important enough for him to waste his time. Your money has already slipped into his right-hand pants pocket.

I asked my member of the Quebec National Assembly, Russell Copeman, for help. He told me that the Police Ethics Commissioner has the last word and that's that - unless you have a lawyer.

( Many years later, after Kenneth Gregoire Prud'homme - a complete stranger  to me - applied for a court order declaring that I was insane and dangerous, Russell Copeman wrote a letter asking that the judge who issued the court order - in four minutes, without ever speaking to me, and without any evidence whatsoever - be found at fault. Of course the authorities said that the judge did nothing wrong.)

I appealed to Premier Jean Charest. He wrote to say that the theft of all my jewellery and the fruit of my life's work and the personal treasures my husband left to me, is "a civil matter of an unfortunate nature." Grand larceny is a civil matter ?

A few years after the robbery, a family member let slip that $2000.00 in cash had been stolen from my parents in 1996. That's when it all came together: That's why my mother attacked me.

Because I had become a Christian, my mother believes that I gave her money to the Anglican Church.

A few years ago, I was told my mother was in hospital and I went to visit her there. On my second visit, I showed her all the empty jewellery boxes Dawn had returned to me months after the robbery. My mother refused to believe that it was Dawn who robbed me. "That would be too terrible to believe," she said. But she did not find it too terrible to believe that I was a thief, because I am the one who had become a Christian.

MY 91 YEAR-OLD MOTHER IS MISSING !

The family was torn apart by Dawn's crimes. My father died in 2000 without knowing the truth about what happened.

April 2004: I went to see the police again because Dawn's mother, my sister Debbie, has moved our mother out of our family home and no one knows where she is.

Debbie obtained power of attorney from both my parents. Every other member of the family, the CLSC social services, fire protection services and even police detectives, were barred from my parents' home thereafter. Now my mother is missing. The home of our youth looks like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie, doors and windows over grown with dead vines. So I went to the police station to file a missing person report.

To acquaint the young officer with the background of the case, I showed him pictures of the dinner ring my grandmother gave me and my designer ring - which were among the many things Dawn stole. The officer asked if I have proof that I own those rings.

Yes, in March, 1997, when Dawn returned my files, I gave the police copies of the certificate, the appraisal, insurance papers, receipts and photos, and the note from my grandmother. (I have the originals of all the documents and there are many copies.) Then the police finally agreed to write a report of the theft.

He said, "The papers prove these (rings) are yours: That's theft."
"Yes," I said, "That's what I've been telling the police all these years."

The officer advised me to go to Montreal Police Archives and ask for copies of the police reports. "BUT TO DO THAT, YOU HAVE TO HAVE A LAWYER."

I'm a pensioner. I can't afford a lawyer. But I am not eligible for legal aid.

The officer could not file a missing person report - because Debbie told him that she knows where mother is. To see your mother or to get information about where or how she is, you have to file a civil suit. "BUT YOU WILL NEED A LAWYER."

Still, that would take months! Can't the police check on my mother now ? Sorry.
To sue Dawn for the theft, "You must file a CIVIL suit. BUT YOU NEED A LAWYER."

But surely it's a CRIME to steal jewellery and money ! In any case, I don't want compensation. I want only what is mine. The officer is really sorry.

My father was a very honest and conscientious man. After all those years of hard work and devotion to the family business, he resigned and left his position and his job empty-handed, without pensions or benefits - on a matter of principle. But when I was attacked and robbed, he was too frail and ill to defend me, too intimidated to oppose Dawn who had taken over the family home by deceiving my mother. My father was worn out. He didn't know who was telling the truth and he didn't want to have to choose between me and Dawn. So he obeyed my mother, as he always had, and they both signed over everything to Dawn's mother, Debbie.

In the end, Dawn and her entourage stole everything of value that belonged to me and everything that belonged to my parents and my siblings. No family member has been allowed to see my mother since the robbery. We don't know where she is or what her condition is. And no one will do a thing about it - except me.

I will never give up, but I am 71 years old and it is so hard to fight all alone. I want to make it very clear that I will not accept money or "compensation" from anyone. I am not looking for money: I am fighting for that rare and elusive treasure - JUSTICE - and I will not settle for anything less.


IN QUEBEC:

IF YOU ARE RICH, YOU CAN HIRE A LAWYER.
IF YOU ARE A CRIMINAL, QUEBEC WILL PROVIDE A LAWYER.
IF YOU ARE A CRIME VICTIM, THERE IS NO HELP.
IF YOUR MOTHER IS MISSING, THAT'S YOUR OWN PROBLEM.

That is "Justice Quebec Style".

I am living it AND FIGHTING IT.  I wish you were too.

Phyllis Carter