Image: M. Vanden Bosch / PML / Homicide investigators on scene Saturday, processing Thursday's double murder.

By Laurice Gomes

Crime

‘Uttering threats always means that the man tells her, ‘I will kill you”: Women’s shelter demands answers following double homicide in Chilliwack

Jul 25, 2022 | 1:39 PM

CHILLIWACK — A double homicide in Chilliwack on Thursday left two women dead. There are unconfirmed reports one was the mother of the alleged shooter’s child, and the other was a former girlfriend. Eric John Shestalo, 50, escaped the scene and a women’s shelter in Vancouver is demanding answers.

Hilla Kerner, who is a frontline worker for Vancouver Rape Relief & Women’s Shelter, said that often when women are murdered by their current or former male partner, the accusation against the woman is that they didn’t report anything to the police.

“Clearly that accusation cannot be made in this case,” Kerner said. “And sometimes the police say they didn’t believe the woman or they didn’t have enough evidence —obviously this is not the case because there are charges against this man, so it was known that he was violent.”

Shestalo failed to show up in Chilliwack Law Courts Thursday morning on charges of domestic assault and uttering threats.

“One of the charges against him was uttering threats,” Kerner said. “I’ve been working with battered women for more than 25 years, and I can tell you that uttering threats always means that the man tells her, ‘I will kill you’.”

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Kerner believes that because no measures were in place—either to keep Shestalo in custody or by other means, he was allowed to follow up on his threats.

“This case is devastating because women lost their lives, because children are being left without mothers, because family and friends lost their loved ones,” she said emphatically.

Kerner said that when a domestic homicide such as this one takes place, abusive men use it as leverage to instill fear in their victims.

“They tell their female partners, ‘You see? This is what I’m going to do to you if you go to the police,’” she said. “Men are using it to show women that there’s no point in expecting the police to protect them.”

Shestalo was found dead Monday (July 25) in the Bridal Falls area.

Image: Supplied by RCMP / Eric John Shestalo, 50, wanted for the murder of two women.