VELDHUIS o@ca.on.middlesex_county.london.london_free_press 2007-01-03 published
HADDOW,
Elizabeth "
Liz"
Eileen (née
HUTCHINSON/HUTCHISON)
Passed away peacefully on January 1, 2007 at Peterborough Civic
Hospital in 54th year after a long battle with diabetic complications
surrounded by her loving family. Beloved daughter of Eileen and
the late George
HUTCHINSON/HUTCHISON.
Sadly missed by her beloved husband
Ted HADDOW of Guelph and daughter Patricia
VELDHUIS
(Brent) of
Guelph. Dear Sister of Laraine
HUTCHINSON/HUTCHISON of Richmond Hill, Carol
DOHERTY
(Wayne) and family of Peterborough, Kathy
SSAINTOMAS
(Ken) and family of Peterborough. Loved Nana of Elicia, Rianna
and Andrew. Also missed by long time Friends Kathleen Flynn and
Rose Daypuk and many relatives and Friends that have been touched
over the years. Liz spent many years in Copper Cliff, Elliot
Lake and London. The family sincerely thanks all health service
workers for their loving care and compassion. A Memorial Service
will be held on Thursday, January 4, 2007 at Northminster United
Church, (300 Sunset Blvd. Peterborough) at 2 p.m. Private interment
at a later date. In memory of Liz, donations may be made to the
charity of your choice. Arrangements entrusted to Nisbett Funeral
Home (705) 745 3211. Back In Her Father's Arms
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VELLEND o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2007-08-28 published
Teens mourn friend's 'death by misadventure'
The body of 17-year-old Taylor
WHITNEY was found Sunday afternoon
in a backyard after he failed to make his way home from a party
By Anthony
REINHART,
Page
A10
As an avid athlete and the life of many a teenage party, Taylor
WHITNEY rarely lacked for company.
With a ready supply of jokes and a put-on Irish accent, the 17-year-old
left his many Friends in stitches whenever they got together,
which was often.
Still, no one was there when he needed it most - in the wee hours
of Saturday morning, as he struggled to make his way home from
just such a gathering. As other teens filtered off into the night,
Mr. WHITNEY wandered in the opposite direction of his parents'
Toronto home and into a backyard, where his body was found by
a neighbourhood search party on Sunday afternoon.
"Death by misadventure" is what the police called it after an
autopsy yesterday; the Richview Collegiate Institute student
apparently lost his footing and fell down an embankment behind
a house on Edgehill Road, a leafy street lined with large, stately
homes in the Royal York Road and Dundas Street West area of Etobicoke.
Toxicology tests, still pending, should reveal whether Mr.
WHITNEY
was intoxicated, but his Friends said he was experienced with
alcohol and there was drinking at the party, which was hosted
by a teenage boy whose parents were not home.
Yesterday, the dead teen's Friends struggled with guilt for not
keeping tabs on Mr.
WHITNEY, who would have started Grade 12
at Richview Collegate next week, and taken the football field
wearing his usual No. 24, or "two-four" as he called it, in a
nod to his zest for parties and beer.
"I feel kind of bad because at parties, if people start getting
out of hand or people start drinking too much, I'm usually the
one who takes care of them," said Tyler
VELLEND, a close friend
and fellow Richview linebacker. "The one time that I wasn't there
to make sure he was okay, he went missing and ended up passing
away."
Mr. VELLEND said he had planned to go to the party on Valecrest
Drive with Mr.
WHITNEY, but a last-minute chance to attend a
football camp in Virginia came along. He didn't know anything
was wrong until early Saturday morning, when text messages flooded
his cellphone from Friends asking if he'd heard about Mr.
WHITNEY's
disappearance.
When Mr. VELLEND arrived home that morning, his mother Kathy,
a Toronto police sergeant, was already organizing volunteers
for a search. She directed groups of parents, teens and neighbours
- including the boy who hosted the party and his parents - from
a command post at St. George's Junior School.
When a friend sent a text message to Mr.
WHITNEY's cellphone
at 10 a.m., police were able to determine the message was received,
which meant his phone must have been within two kilometres of
a cellular tower at Royal York Road and Dundas Street West. The
search was focused accordingly.
At about 2 p.m. Sunday, Ms.
VELLEND got the call from one of
the searchers.
"She was like, 'All right, you stay there at the meeting point,'
" her son said, while she headed to the discovery site on Edgehill
Road.
Then, with dozens of volunteers milling around him at the command
post, young Mr.
VELLEND got the call from his mother: "We're
looking at him right now, but there's no signs of [life]."
"There was total silence, and I had a can of pop in my hand and
I just dropped it," Mr.
VELLEND said. "I broke down and collapsed
on the ground."
Michael MASOTTI, another close friend of Mr.
WHITNEY, was nearby
when the search party found the body. He followed Mr.
WHITNEY's
parents down into the backyard, past a swimming pool to where
the ground dropped off steeply toward a ravine that flanks the
Humber River.
"There were logs and rocks at the bottom," Mr.
MASOTTI said,
confirming that it appeared Mr.
WHITNEY's neck was broken. "I
think it was quite sudden. He definitely didn't suffer."
Mr. MASOTTI, 16, said he attended the party briefly on Friday
night, and described it as typical of many.
"It's a house party; I mean, there's always alcohol," he said,
adding that he saw "nothing overly serious" going on.
"That's what's scary; it can happen to anyone at any time," he
said. "It happened to him and he didn't deserve it. No 17-year-old
deserves to die."
Asked if anything can be learned from Mr.
WHITNEY's death, Mr.
MASOTTI
said, "This isn't going to change drinking [among teenagers].
The one thing it will change is how people treat their Friends.
"They have to stay with their Friends, and if you see someone
who's having trouble, you don't just leave them. You pick them
up and you get them to their door."
Earlier this year, Mr.
MASOTTI said, he was with Friends, all
of whom had been drinking before a school dance. During a subway
stop along the way, one of them appeared intoxicated, but told
the others he was okay. The others continued on, only to learn
later that their friend had wound up in hospital to get his stomach
pumped.
Paul CHORLEY, another friend who attended the party, said he
and about 25 teens left the house when the party ended at about
12: 20 a.m. Saturday. Mr.
WHITNEY was among those departing, but
"I guess unnoticeably, he fell behind."
Mr. CHORLEY and Mr.
MASOTTI later heard that Mr.
WHITNEY accepted
a ride soon afterward, but got out of the vehicle a short distance
away. There, he began walking with two other teens he did not
know well, and reportedly told them "this is my street" as he
headed onto Edgehill Road, which was in the opposite direction
of his family's home on Ravensbourne Crescent, three kilometres
northwest.
Asked if Mr.
WHITNEY appeared different than normal at the party,
Mr. CHORLEY said no.
"He was just his usual self," he said. "There was no reason,
really, to take precautions; no one was really watching him because
nobody thought we had to."
Mr. CHORLEY's father, David, said it's too soon to discuss alcohol
or parental supervision in the absence of firm details about
the party, but spoke for countless parents when he described
his feelings about teenagers.
"You worry about the kids all the time," he said, adding that
Mr. WHITNEY was a good kid with loving, involved parents, like
most in the neighbourhood where he has lived all of his 51 years.
"Everything was above board. There was constant communication
within the parent group. That's why his mother got so upset when
he didn't make it home in the wee hours." (Mr.
WHITNEY's mother
called the
CHORLEYs' home at 4 a.m. to ask Paul if her son had
gone home with him.)
Calling the young man's death "a very unfortunate, tragic accident"
that has devastated parents in the neighbourhood as much as his
peer group, the elder Mr.
CHORLEY said when it comes to teens,
"You do the best you can with what you've got, and they have
to make choices, because you're not there."
Tyler VELLEND, who hopes to wear his friend's No. 24 this football
season, wishes he had been.
"I don't want to regret it," he said, "but I feel that if I was
there, I would have made a difference."
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