Senseless

It is a story of neighbours who didn’t like each other. One afternoon in May, tensions boiled to confrontation. One brought words to the fight—the other brought a 4,500 lb truck. Moments later Jeff Vader lay dying on Kelly Road. Now Eric Menard faces up to 14 years in jail charged with dangerous driving causing death.

For four days last week about 20 people filed in and out of the unforgiving wooden pews that serve as seating at the courthouse on Union Street in Picton. The family, friends and neighbours of Jeff Vader came every day to see that justice was done for their friend and companion.

The verdict on Menard’s actions will be delivered on February 10.

Our newspaper has stayed with this story through nearly three years of police work, court procedures and trial. We felt compelled to follow this to the end to try and give our readers a rational explantion for the events of that Friday in May. Or at least some lessons that might inform our own lives or those of our readers.

Sadly, there are no lessons to be learned here—no wisdom to be gleaned from the terrible events of May 6, 2009. It is just a heartbreaking and disappointing story.

It is clear Eric Menard is an odd duck. His tales of worldy accomplishments would strain credibility in an elementary schoolyard— yet Menard is a 38-year-old functioning adult.

We learned surprising little of Menard’s actual background, however. We learned nothing about what went on in his cluttered and strange home. Despite wild claims of achievement it was never made clear what Menard does to earn a living. Perhaps these things are not necessarily relevant—yet there is a hunger to know what kind of person finds himself in such circumstances.

We know he felt persecuted and was generally disliked by his neighbours.

We know nothing, however, about what triggered events on May 6. It may have been a gesture or a look. The trial did little to examine the motives and intent of Menard on that day.

We know that Jeff Vader’s life ended violently and needlessly at 56 years of age. We know that Debbie Vader’s sorrow and anguish will never be extinguished. Dave Baverstock will never again speak to his lifelong friend.

Through the tedious hours of procedure and technical testimony there emerged, however, small bits of humanity.

Mrs. Lewis had dropped off her last student on her bus route on that fateful Friday afternoon. She decided to take Kelly Road home. It wasn’t her normal route, but she hadn’t been down the road in a while and wanted to see what was new.

She could not have imagined what she would find. Lewis was the first on the scene. She came across Debbie Vader on her knees, cradling her dying husband’s head at the side of the roadway. Menard was leaning on his mailbox next door.

Mrs. Lewis did what she could to help. But there wasn’t much to be done. Emergency services were on their way. Lewis noticed Jeff’s hat lying on the road—thrown from the impact of the truck, which had propelled him 20 metres across the road. She picked up the hat and gave it to Debbie.

This instinctive act would later be used by Menard’s defence attorney as evidence the crime scene had been altered. But for this observer, Lewis’s actions seemed an attempt to restore a measure of dignity to circumstances that were beyond comprehension.

Perhaps that is indeed the only fragment of insight in this tragic story. That despite the senseless agony we can inflict upon one another—most of us strive to do better. In the face of inexplicable horror there are those among us ready to offer a weak and trembling hand of compassion.

Sometimes it is all we can do. All there is.

rick@wellingtontimes.ca