Closure comes closer after three years

The Daily has a front page story in its Thursday edition about the three year ordeal of Prince Rupert’s McLean’s’, who faced every parent’s horror, that of the murder of their son.

Police in Victoria recently announced that they had arrested a suspect in the three year old case and had charged a Victoria man with the murder of 29 year old Alex McLean in an Esquimalt park.

The Daily’s story traces the path that the McLean’s have followed since learning of their son’s death and how the Victoria police and RCMP combined forces to investigate the murder.

The tale of the lengthy road to what everyone hopes will be justice, can be followed below.

Long wait for justice may be nearly over
By Sarah Fox
The Daily News
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Pages One and Three

Three years after the death of their son Alex, Prince Rupert’s Gabe and Dorothy McLean are welcoming the fact that a man has been charged with their son’s murder.

“We’re happy about it, we’re glad to hear the news, it always makes you feel better when you feel like something’s being done and you’ve gotten to a point where you see the result,” said Gabe McLean.

“We’ve waited a long time, so now from the point of view of justice for my son, I’m going to wait and see how it pans out.”

Alex McLean, 29, was shot in an Esquimalt park in October 2003 and his murder is one of 42 charges four men are facing after a year-long investigation by a previously secret Greater Victoria police homicide unit.

One of the four men, Daniel Aitken, of Victoria, is charged with the first degree murder of Alex McLean.

“We’ve been through the whole process since the day our son died and after that you never get to end the process; you become attuned to it, you have your moments, you have your teary moments and your emotional moments and you have your moments where you think ‘geez I wish they’d get moving’ but now we have a moment where we can be happy,” said Gabe McLean.

“We really hope that in the future there will be justice for Alex, which is really all we want.

“We’ve put closure to the things that we need to at this point and now we’ll put closure to this phase of it when we see the final result, because we won’t know what that is until it hits the courts. It takes time.”

Investigators from Victoria and the RCMP first worked independently to solve McLean’s death, but a year ago they formed the Integrated Homicide Enforcement Action Team (IHEAT).

Existence of the 11-officer special unit was made public for the first time July 31 at a joint police news conference.

When the McLean’s first found out about their son’s death, there was no special unit in existence, although according to Gabe McLean the idea had come up when RCMP members were consulting with the family about their case. Gabe McLean immediately began a letter-writing campaign pushing for some form of joint action between the Victoria police and the RCMP in solving the death of his son.

“Initially, when the investigation started, right after Alex was murdered the police officer had talked about the resources that he had and some of the things that affect how they investigate things.

“One of the things that came up was an integrated homicide investigation team,” said Gabe McLean.

“I thought that was a really good idea and if it was going to do anything to help the case for my son then I was going to write letters, one of them was printed in the paper … and I wrote letters to the RCMP, the Attorney General, the MLA and I really hope that helped get some funding to (form IHEAT).

“What I’m hoping now is that this investigation team will stay together so that they can follow through on all these other cases because, lets face it, if people like the fellow that murdered my son are still on the street, then there are other people at risk.

“So if (IHEAT) can do something about that, that’s awesome. I actually wanted to see that province wide, and I’m really glad to hear that it was a team like that because we’re grateful to all those guys.”

The McLean’s would like to express their gratitude to City West for helping establish a confidential tip line (1-866-807-TIPS) and to all the police officers and investigators involved, for their help in apparently solving the case of their son’s death.