Thea Patterson saw her husband Jeremy Gordaneer for the last time on Aug. 29, 2021, when she drove him to the Edmonton airport to catch his flight to Victoria.
Two years after that last goodbye — and two years after the unsolved killing of the artist — Patterson retraced their steps in Lisbon, a city they had loved and worked in, and scattered some of his ashes in the ocean.
“It’s hard. It’s very fresh today,” she said Tuesday through tears. “It’s very difficult for everyone, to compound his loss and to continue to have no closure. The open, unanswered situation is definitely challenging.”
Police have provided few details about the Aug. 31, 2021 homicide on a quiet street in Rockland. Officers were called around 5 a.m. to his mother’s home on Carberry Gardens, where they found Gordaneer inside with life-threatening injuries. Despite attempts by first responders to save his life, he died. At the time, Victoria police said they did not believe there was a risk to the public.
Gordaneer, who had been living in Edmonton, was visiting his mother to support her as she recovered from eye surgery. Patterson had spoken to him by phone earlier that night as he walked home after having dinner with his daughters, Sylvie and Clea. He seemed happy, she recalled.
The Gordaneer family has released a statement appealing for anyone with information about Jeremy Gordaneer’s murder to come forward.
“We are grateful for the kindness and respect that the VicPD and RCMP have shown us since this nightmare began. We also appreciate that the police are determined to follow best practices to maintain the integrity of this homicide investigation,” the statement said.
“However, we are disheartened that in two years, it appears to us that little progress has been made towards solving the murder of our beloved Jeremy. It is difficult to go on with our lives with so many questions unresolved, and disturbing to think that the person responsible could still be out there.”
The family called on the federal and provincial governments to prioritize money and resources for DNA analysis and other crucial investigative tools.
“Doing so could help secure both justice for Jeremy, and peace of mind for all the families and communities across B.C. who are affected by this kind of senseless crime,” the statement said.
Patterson said she understands that DNA processing times are very long, which frustrates her “because you imagine the more time passes, the trickier it gets,” she said.
She said she has stopped reaching out to police because with no new information, it feels pointless. She knows they will contact her if there are any breakthroughs in the case.
Patterson said she will continue to work on her Ph.D and other artistic projects in Montreal in early September.
“I’m trying to piece my life back together but it’s hard and confusing and challenging. We were collaborators, entwined in every aspect of our lives,” she said.
“I really miss his sense of humour. He was very funny. He was a clown and so his way of being in the world was one of joy and laughter. He made everyone around him smile and people loved him. He had a way with people. In his work, he had a way of softening all the edges and making collaborative scenarios fun and rich. There was joy in the process.”
Patterson said she is frustrated, angry and confused because there doesn’t seem to be any scenario where Gordaneer’s murder makes sense. She also worries that as time passes, she will never find out what happened.
She understands police have to be careful about what they share, but said the lack of information makes it harder.
“I think that’s the case for all victims, that weird sense that you don’t have access to information. To know there are other people who know more about your loved one than you do is another challenge among many.”
Gordaneer and Patterson went to Oak Bay High together and reconnected in the mid-2000s in Montreal, where they started collaborating on dance projects. They married in Montreal in 2018.
Gordaneer is the son of the late Victoria painter James Gordaneer and grew up in Victoria, surrounded by art. He began painting at an early age, and later studied fine art and theatre.
In 2016, Gordaneer became the artist in residence at Camosun College. He had recently received a master’s in scenic design from the University of Alberta, and was moving into a new phase of his career.
His death and the loss of his artwork to come is “a profound loss” to the theatre and arts community in Victoria, Montreal and Edmonton, Patterson said.
The Victoria police, the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit and the national communication service of the RCMP did not provide any further information on the case or about the DNA testing backlog.
Anyone with information related to the case is asked to call the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit’s information line at 250-380-6211, or submit a tip online at vicpd.ca/ gordaneertips.
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