UNDER ATTACK - HOW DAWN MCSWEENEY DESTROYED OUR FAMILY

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It's 3:00 A.M., Monday, August 9, 2010. I was just awakened by a nightmare. My mother had suffered a stroke. I knew it was a dream. My mother died in June, 2007 after being kept in total isolation from her family by the self-proclaimed "partners in crime" for almost ten years.

 

I should have tried to go back to sleep, but I knew I could not until this chapter in our family's nightmare was written.

 

The Montreal Police, my Member of Parliament, Marlene Jennings, Quebec's Human Rights Commission, Quebec's Ombudsman - none of them will take action against Dawn McSweeney and her partners in crime. I don't know how they sleep at night. Perhaps it is easy for them because they are not human but rather, "institutions".

 

To our so-called "public servants", the case of Dawn McSweeney is trivial, a pesky nuisance that will not go away, like a fly that keeps buzzing around your head that you can't quite swat. But then, these institutions have office staff to make such intrusions disappear. Just delete.

 

Yes, "Just delete." No need for elected officials, people with nice offices and important titles, to have to deal with a thief or the family she destroyed. Such matters are unworthy of their time and concern.

 

But down here on earth, the Rubin Family, of which I am the eldest daughter, has been suffering for more than thirteen years, because a Montreal Police officer helped the thief, Dawn McSweeney, to rob us, and in so doing, shattered our family.

 

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.

 

There had been no argument, no conflict with my parents that I was aware of. My mother had started acting strange - stranger than usual - that summer. She would just sit and stare at me, but I had no idea about what was going on. I just felt something was wrong and I had reason to believe that Dawn McSweeney was at the root of it. My mother's mood had changed quite suddenly after friends from Ontario had paid me a rare - unique - visit that summer. Right after they left Dawn told my mother - in my presence - that those friends actually hated me. It was after that bizarre experience that I started to feel uncomfortable about my mother's behaviour.

 

I started looking for an apartment of my own, but I was sick from the cancer treatments and I could not work. The apartments available for a welfare cheque were quite awful to see and smell. I kept looking.

 

On October 7, I was coming downstairs from my room to go look at apartments and then to go to a meeting at the church. I was holding my purse, my bible and a clean pair of pumps that I liked to wear in the church.

 

As I came down into the foyer, I was suddenly attacked - physically attacked - by my mother ! Words will not be able to convey to you the shock. Perhaps if you have ever fallen down a flight of stairs or been struck by a car, you might remember the feeling. Many of you "Crime Survivors" have suffered great losses, so I know you understand what I am saying here. But most people will not be able to imagine it.

 

My mother tore my purse and bible from my hands and tore at my clothes. The shoe bag dropped to the floor I think. She was screaming at me. She was screaming, "Where's my money? What did you do with my money!"

 

Shock! Shock ! I couldn't breathe. She pulled my bible out of the case and started tearing through the pages. She went through my purse. It was daytime, I know, but it was Darkness ! All these years later, I am having trouble putting these memories on the page. It was Darkness ! What money? I don't know if I uttered a word. I couldn't breathe. I was hot. I was cold. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it. Was I sweating? My legs felt weak. I was going to faint. I resisted.

 

I grabbed the telephone from the side table and started to dial 911. She lunged at me, dropping my bible and grabbing the phone. My mother used a walker, but at that moment, she was not using it. She held onto the phone and I held on. I didn't know she had that strength. I had to call for help. I was in hell and there was no one to help.

 

I pulled the phone away from her and rushed up five or six stairs with it. I knew my mother could not climb the stairs. I was shaking from the inside out. I dialled 911.

 

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. The officer told me - in front of my assailant - that I could not take anything with me and he warned me that I must never return to the house. He handed me my bible, my purse and my shoe bag, and "helped" me out the door - physically. The police put me out in the street in front of my home and drove away.

 

I went to the Mariette Street station and begged them to go to the house and see for themselves. All my boxes and cases were inventoried and every one of them had a number and my name was printed clearly on every item. There were documents, insurance papers, appraisals and photographs to prove ownership. But the officers just kept telling me to be patient and everything would be returned to me. They refused to investigate.

 

The saga began. The tragedy multiplied. The family was torn apart.
That action by the Montreal Police placed all my life's most precious belongings and the lives and property of my aged parents into the hands of Dawn McSweeney and Alex Lavergne. Dawn then had months, days and nights, unfettered and free, to go through all my belongings and, at her leisure, pick out the most valuable items, before returning the empty jewel boxes and cases to me in March, 1997.

 

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, our beloved baby sister, Debbie. She told them that I was just trying to cause trouble. Once again, the police refused to investigate. No one in the family - except Dawn and Debbie and their partners in crime - ever saw our mother again after the robbery.

 

Once I learned that my mother was in hospital, and I went to visit her. On my second visit, I showed her all the empty jewel boxes Dawn had returned. She said she could not believe that Dawn would do such a thing.

 

Our mother died in June, 2007. We learned later that the "partners in crime" had made a new will in our mother's name in 2005, when she was 92 years old. She had been handicapped mentally and physically for decades, and she had been kept in total isolation for almost ten years by this group.

 

All the children and grandchildren named in our parents' own wills were excluded from this new will. Only Debbie McSweeney, Dawn McSweeney and a stranger named Kenneth Gregoire Prud'homme benefit from the will they made. And the Montreal Police? They do nothing.

 

All this agony could have been avoided, prevented altogether, if the Montreal Police were honest. But on October 7, 1996, it was my great misfortune, and the beginning of a family tragedy, that one Montreal Police officer decided on the spur of the moment, to help the thief who was robbing me. After that, the Montreal Police at the Mariette station covered for that police officer and the chain of cover-ups had begun.

 

You can read all the details at http://dawnmcsweeney.blogspot.com
and at
PHYLLIS CARTER'S JOURNAL - http://phylliscartersjournal.blogspot.com.

 

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