Legacy of courage, support: Candace House establishes deep roots on fifth anniversary By: Katie May Posted: 4:01 PM CST Monday, Nov. 27, 2023 Last Modified: 5:32 PM CST Monday, Nov. 27, 2023 Updates

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The jury deliberated for nearly 12 hours before convicting her daughter’s killer.

During those tense hours in December 2022, Dana DesRoches and her family were gathered at Candace House, sharing their memories of Hailey Dugay, who was shot and killed in what the judge called a “senseless, inexplicable” act of violence outside Gimli in November 2018.

They talked about how much the 20-year-old loved animals and children, and made little jokes about how unexpected happenings in the court process might be a sign from Dugay.

“It brought a lot of us together,” DesRoches said about their time at Candace House, during the end of the second-degree murder trial.

“It allowed us all to be vulnerable, but it also allowed us to be able to talk about the good things, about my daughter, and (brought) us all together, which you know, sitting in a coffee shop or restaurant, you necessarily wouldn’t get.”

Candace House, the Kennedy Street landing pad for families of homicide victims participating in the criminal court process, is marking its fifth anniversary this week.

When it opened in November 2018, in a former commercial space less than a block away from Winnipeg’s downtown provincial courthouse, it relied on donors to get off the ground. Now that the physical space and social services at Candace House have expanded — running with the vision of Cliff and Wilma Derksen to create a safe space they didn’t have when their daughter was murdered nearly 40 years ago — the facility still relies on donations to keep running.

“To keep coffee and tea flowing and boxes of tissues circulating for grieving families, to make sure there’s “enough blankets to wrap around people,” said executive director Cecilly Hildebrand.

Over the past five years, Candace House has helped about 1,300 people who lost loved ones in more than 140 homicides in Manitoba.

“It allowed us all to be vulnerable, but it also allowed us to be able to talk about the good things, about my daughter, and (brought) us all together, which you know, sitting in a coffee shop or restaurant, you necessarily wouldn’t get.”–Dana DesRoches

The organization started meeting families earlier and staying with them longer, helping guide them before a trial begins and keeping in touch long afterward. Recently, it began offering space for families to attend virtual parole board hearings.

When it first opened, Hildebrand said, organizers considered whether the facility might one day be able to assist victims of other crimes, such as domestic violence or sexual assault. However, the need is so immense just focusing on homicide cases has kept Candace House busy.

In the past five years, local homicide rates have increased dramatically and so, too, has the length of time the court process takes.

“Over the course of the last few years, it’s become very, very clear that the focus needs to remain on homicides and criminal fatalities, because there’s just such a great need in our city for support for families who have been impacted in that way,” Hildebrand said.

“It hurts, and it’s beautiful — is probably how I would summarize the last few years. It is the honour of my life to walk with people in their trauma and grief, but there is nothing like the sound of a mother’s wail,” Hildebrand added.

“It is something that rips at your soul unlike almost anything else. The courage I see, the way the families remember their loved ones and share that with us, the deep relationships that we have formed with our partners, that is beautiful.”

This month, the four-person staff was trying to help eight families at the same time, including those of the four Indigenous women police say were victims of an alleged serial killer in 2022.

Pre-trial proceedings for Jeremy Anthony Michael Skibicki began Nov. 6; he pleaded not guilty to four counts of first-degree murder.

To support the victims’ families during that process, Candace House worked with 26 staff from nine different agencies, Hildebrand said.

Candace House staff sit with victims’ families in court during murder trials and make sure they have a homey spot to debrief at 183 Kennedy St. during court breaks. Prepared meals are available so families don’t have to worry about rushing around trying to grab a bite in the limited time they have until court resumes.

DesRoches recalled having to scramble in the freezing cold to try to find parking, food and space to talk during the first two weeks of the trial of William Comber, who was eventually convicted of second-degree murder in Dugay’s shooting death.

DesRoches and her family didn’t find out about Candace House until the third and final week of the trial.

“It was a huge difference,” she said of having its staff as her trauma-informed guides through the court process. “Sometimes, you would leave the courtroom and your head would be spinning a little bit. And it just helped to clarify a lot about what was happening and what was said.

“It gave us a safe place to be able to kind of sit and process everything that had been going on over the trial.”

That’s what Wilma and Cliff Derksen envisioned for Candace House, created in memory of their daughter, Candace, who was 13 when she went missing on her way home from school Nov. 30, 1984. Her body was found about six weeks later.

In the years following her death, the Derksens were repeatedly contacted by other similarly grieving families, but they couldn’t support them through the re-victimization of a criminal trial.

At the grand opening of Candace House, Wilma Derksen called it “a kind of miracle,” thinking about how the first-of-its kind space came to be.

Reflecting now, nearly 40 years after Candace’s death and some 18 months after Cliff died at age 76, Derksen said she couldn’t feel any better about how Candace House has turned out.

“I wanted it to have a grand living room, with food and large places to meet,” she said. (It has that, plus professional office spaces for meetings and more.)

“It is everything that we had envisioned and more… Often, we’re disappointed with things in life, they don’t quite measure up; I think this exceeds our vision of it.”

Although she initially resisted naming the facility after Candace, Derksen said it brings joy to her memory, instead of sadness.

Derksen has since stepped down as an honorary board member and isn’t involved in its operations. Her daughter, Odia Reimer, represents the family on its board.

To see how vital a service Candace House is and how it’s helping families is the “ultimate justice,” Derksen said.

“It frees me,” she said. “I think that when your daughter’s been murdered, you lose faith in humanity, you lose faith in life, you can just fall into the depths of despair, right? And I think this brings it all back.

“We can trust that there’s something good that can come out of something bad.”

Like the Derksens, DesRoches is trying to do something good in her daughter’s memory. She expressed hope more people in the criminal justice system will become aware of Candace House and how much it can ease families’ anxiety in the face of repeated court delays that interfere with the grieving process.

The family has set up Hailey’s Way (haileysway.com), a charity dedicated to helping youth in the Interlake.

“I wanted to leave a legacy for her,” DesRoches said. “I didn’t want her death just to be something so meaningless and ugly.”

katie.may@winnipegfreepress.com