'Someone is going to listen': Friend of murdered N.S. woman relieved RCMP actions being reviewed
CBC
WARNING: This story contains disturbing details
Suzanne Davis scrolls through the messages on her tablet, warm sunshine falling on words her best friend will never read.
Davis still writes to her friend Susie Butlin, five years after Butlin was killed in her home in Bayhead near Tatamagouche, N.S., by a neighbour she'd reported to police for sexually assaulting and harassing her.
She tells Butlin how much she misses her, how Butlin's children are doing — and how she will never stop fighting to have Butlin's story heard.
But now she has good news to share.
On Tuesday the chairperson for the Civilian Review and Complaints Commission (CRCC), the RCMP's national watchdog, announced it will investigate how the Mounties handled Butlin's case leading up to her murder.
"I was like, I cannot believe this. I cannot believe that someone is going to listen. And out of the blue," Davis said from her home in Truro Heights, N.S.
"It's caused so much pain and heartache … she should never have died. This should never, ever, ever have happened."
Butlin was shot and killed by neighbour Ernie (Junior) Duggan on Sept.17, 2017. He was eventually convicted of second-degree murder, and given a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 20 years.
The outline of the CRCC review from chairperson Michelaine Lahaie said she decided to launch the investigation after reviewing materials in Butlin's case and finding "several areas of concern" with how the RCMP responded to Butlin's complaints about Duggan.
The CRCC will look at all the events leading up to Butlin's murder, including her sexual assault complaint from August 2017 and the peace bond application against Duggan that the RCMP suggested she should pursue.
According to the agreed statement of facts of Butlin's murder, Butlin's peace bond application angered him even more than her spreading the word of the alleged sexual assault. He made threatening phone calls to Butlin "non-stop," Davis said, and during one incident in the month before the murder he was acting so aggressively his wife called the RCMP, worried for Butlin's safety.
But, while officers responded and talked to Duggan about his "problems" that night, he was only charged with impaired driving when the same Mounties saw him driving soon after.
Despite Butlin's regular calls to the RCMP reporting that Duggan had guns, may have vandalized her property and was leaving harassing phone calls, no actions were taken.
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