Mother searching for answers after son dies in OPP custody

The province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a 36-year-old man who was lodged in a Rockwood Ont. police cell.

The province’s Special Investigations Unit (SIU) is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of a 36-year-old man who was lodged in a Rockwood Ont. police cell.

According a media release from the SIU, the man was arrested in Arthur by Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) on Tuesday. He was lodged in police cells at the North Wellington Operations Centre in Teviotdale before being transferred to the South Wellington Operations Centre in Rockwood that same night.

On Wednesday morning, the SIU said he was in medical distress. First aid was administered and emergency services transported him to a Guelph hospital. The SIU said he was pronounced dead before noon.

The man’s mother said she learned her son had died while she was in court awaiting her son’s bail hearing. Faye Dzikewich told CTV she did not speak to her son after his arrest, but had asked the OPP to tell him that she would be in court for his bail hearing the next day. “I never heard a word from my son, not even asking if I could be a surety. Nobody heard from him. It was very mysterious.”

She said she had no idea something was wrong as she sat in court on Wednesday. “I sat there all morning watching everybody else in the bail court.”

Dzikewich said she sat for hours, waiting for her son to appear. “Now it’s three o’clock. While I’m sitting there in the courtroom, a phone call came in over the audio, everyone could hear that was present. It was Rockwood OPP. They called to let the judge know that my son, Nathaniel Schofield, would not be present. They said that there was a medical emergency and he had been rushed to Guelph General Hospital. They made it sound like he was still alive.”

Dzikewich then left the courtroom.