DOOLAN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-02-14 published
Audrey ZIMMERMAN
Friday, February 14, 2003, Page A22
Wife, mother, civil servant, scuba diver. Born January 14, 1921,
in Halifax. Died December 7, 2002, in Toronto, of a stroke, aged
Audrey ZIMMERMAN (née
TOBIN) had God on her side. By all accounts,
it was a good deal for both of them. Audrey got the impenetrable
protection of her faith. God got a follower of infinite optimism
and deepest commitment.
She was often bothered by the sex and violence in movies and
on television -- so much so that I never knew her to even watch
a newscast. Audrey's oldest and dearest friend, retired University
of Toronto professor Margaret
DOOLAN, says she'd take special
care when picking movies to attend with Audrey. It was just part
of the protective filter that people felt they needed to build
around her.
Audrey was the second youngest in a family of seven children
and, from her earliest days, she radiated an innocence that made
people want to help and protect her. She rarely needed the assistance
but, because it seemed to make others happy, she accepted it
with grace and genuine appreciation. Throughout her life, she
maintained an innocent enthusiasm that ran to the naive. How
much of that naiveté was real and how much she put on for her
own convenience, we never figured out. In some 70 years of Friendship,
Marg DOOLAN can only recall once when Audrey seemed mad at someone
and then because that person had been rude to her husband.
Audrey left Halifax in the late 1950s. She was working in the
insurance industry and her boss was transferred to Toronto. He
asked her to come along. Shortly after arriving in Toronto, Audrey
met an active and outgoing man. Matthew
ZIMMERMAN was a widower
with three children. Audrey and Matt were married in the spring
of 1959. The marriage sent a wave of concern through her family.
How would little Audrey manage with a new husband and the instant
pressure of three kids ranging in age from 3 to 15? Very well,
as it turned out, and
in January, 1960, Audrey and Matt added
a new son, David.
The pregnancy was troubling. Audrey was diagnosed with severe
diabetes in her 20s and pregnancy, especially at that time and
at her age (then 39) was considered very risky; something that
Audrey would have never even considered.
Diabetes dogged Audrey throughout her adult life and there were
many scary incidents of adverse insulin reactions. More than
once, some member of the family would arrive home to find Audrey
unconscious on the floor, with no idea how long she'd been there
the ambulance would be called and revival procedures started.
At the end of it all, Audrey's standard response was "It's okay.
I'm fine."
There were emotional challenges too. Audrey outlived all but
one of her siblings. In 1972, her husband, Matthew, died of cancer.
A few years later, she lost a granddaughter to leukemia and,
in 1997, her step-daughter, Darlene, also died.
Audrey was small but strong. She never let her diabetes or her
age interfere with her ambitions. After Matt died, she went back
to work and was with the Ontario Ministry of Health until she
retired in the late 1980s. Audrey was an avid tennis player and
downhill skier. At the age of 60, she took up scuba diving. That
led to another close call. Once, while diving at Tobermory, Ontario,
Audrey ran out of air. She was able to signal her diving buddy
but he was so much larger than she was, she couldn't share his
regulator. Fortunately, their emergency ascent worked and Audrey
continued to dive for several more years. About the only ambition
she didn't fulfill was skydiving.
Audrey placed her life in God's hands and that was all the protection
she needed. Her son, David, often said his mother didn't have
a guardian angel, she had a team of them. And they took their
job very seriously.
Kent is a friend of Audrey's son, David.
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DOOLEY o@ca.on.manitoulin.howland.little_current.manitoulin_expositor 2003-08-27 published
Helena Viola
{McGREGOR}
TOOLEY
In loving memory of Helena Viola
{McGREGOR}
TOOLEY,
May 7, 1920 to August 13, 2003.
Beloved wife of George Bruce
TOOLEY of Steinbach Manitoba.
Loving mother of Brucette
WATERSON (Doug), Theodore (Betty),
Juanita BROWN (Buster), Andre (Gail). Predeceased by sons
Douglas and James. Loving grandmother of Crystal (Mark), Michael
(Nancy), Jennifer (Paul), Jason, Sonny, Evelyn (Corey), Justin
(Brandy), Jesse (Crystal), Lynette, Shawee, Teri, predeceased by Sean
(Brucette), Bruce (Andre). Great Grandmother of Fern, Miah,
Natashia, Alexandra, Brooklyn, Riley, Cameron, Tristen and Trinity.
Sister of Rose (Harold)
DOOLEY and Geraldine (Carl)
ZIEGLER of Little
Current, Oscar
McGREGOR,
Godfrey
(Ann) and Jean-Mary Jane (Lawrence)
ANDREWS of Birch Island. Predeceased by parents Dave and Louise
McGREGOR, Theresa, Blanche, Theodore, Gordon (Rebecca), and Evelyn.
Sister-in-law of Roy (Bernice), Jim (Betty), Fred (Dianne) and Velma
(predeceased). Special Aunt to many nieces and nephews. Visitation
was held on Sunday, August 17, 2003 at the Birch Island Community
Centre. Funeral service was held on August 19, 2003 at St. Gabriel
Lalement Roman Catholic Church. Interment in Birch Island Cemetery,
Birch
Island,
Ontario. Reverend Michael
STOGRE officiating.
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DOORGADEEN o@ca.on.york_county.toronto.globe_and_mail 2003-01-24 published
Truth is emerging in Trinidad deaths
By Colin FREEZE Crime Reporter; With a report from Ken
THOMAS
in Port of Spain. Friday, January 24, 2003, Page A5
The bruised and bloated bodies of the young newlyweds washed
ashore on a remote beach in Trinidad.
Even in death, they lay close together. Inside the woman's belly
was their unborn baby. A suspicious double drowning cruelly ended
the promise of a new family.
Today, one veteran homicide investigator says that the 1994 honeymoon
deaths of Geoff
BARNES, 23, and Sherelle Ann
IMPERIO-
BARNES,
22, are the result of one of the most elaborate conspiracies
he has witnessed. Yet another theory calls the tragedy an accident.
Only now is the truth beginning to surface in court.
For years, criminal investigators have believed that the vacationing
Toronto couple was drugged and drowned in a scheme hatched by
conspirators intent on collecting life-insurance money.
Yet only one man has ever been formally accused of murder: Roland
(Bobby) DOORGADEEN, whose trial has begun in the capital of the
Caribbean island nation of 1.5 million people.
After a lengthy investigation by Trinidadian authorities, Mr.
DOORGADEEN was charged with the murders in 1998. The former Trinidadian
police officer and convicted car thief has pleaded not guilty.
But he will be hanged if a jury finds him guilty.
On the witness stand yesterday was the prosecution's star witness
his estranged wife.
Nicole DOORGADEEN testified that in May, 1994, two men in a rental
car came to pick up her husband. She said he returned much later
in the evening, bellowing from the car: "Don't come outside.
Send a scrubbing brush for me."
After the two men drove away, Mr.
DOORGADEEN came into the house
in his underwear, Mrs.
DOORGADEEN testified. He held a bottle
of chloroform, she said, adding that she later found his clothes
covered with sand.
She also testified that her husband later said he was expecting
a "large sum" of about $50,000. And that "one day, while looking
at television, he told me that he killed the Canadians and explained
how he did it," she told the court.
Her husband said he and two other men drugged the couple and
dragged them into the sea, she said. A previous witness has testified
he saw Mr.
DOORGADEEN with the Canadian couple at a beach house.
Next week, the jury is expected to hear from former Toronto homicide
detective Tom
KLATT. "I had given my word to the family that
I would follow this through to the end," Mr.
KLATT said a few
hours before boarding his flight to Trinidad yesterday.
Working with insurance adjusters and Trinidad police, Mr.
KLATT
said he discovered that a former boyfriend of Sherelle-Ann
IMPERIO-
BARNES
had taken out a $100,000 life-insurance policy on her. The insurance,
which would have paid double if her death was ruled accidental,
survived the relationship.
Despite the breakup and Ms.
IMPERIO's marriage, the ex-boyfriend
didn't sever his ties. In fact, Mr.
KLATT said, he bought the
newlyweds tickets to his home country -- Trinidad.
The ex-boyfriend still lives in Canada and has not been charged
in connection with the deaths.
"There's a simple explanation," he told a Toronto Star reporter
a year after the killings. He then referred questions to his
lawyer, who refused to say anything more.
With matters still before the courts, Mr.
KLATT did not want
to discuss the investigation further, except to say the insurance
was never collected. But the veteran of 70 homicide investigations
called the Barnes' case "one of the most complete conspiracies
that I've ever been involved in."
The nine-year wait for justice has been excruciating for the
victims' families.
"From the day it happened we said it would take a long time,"
Tom BARNES,
Geoff's 60-year-old father, said in an interview
from his home in Georgetown, Ontario
The court has already heard that autopsies uncovered traces of
cocaine in the dead couple's systems. The judge has asked the
jury to consider whether the couple might have accidentally drowned.
But Mr. KLATT, who once investigated international drug networks,
said this theory is inconsistent with his investigation.
"There was zero information, evidence, hearsay, assumption or
guesses that would suggest that either one of these two had ever
been involved with drugs, or alcohol for that matter," he said.
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