‘The community is grief-stricken:’ vigil planned for sisters found dead in Oak Bay

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OAK BAY (NEWS 1130) – Community members will be coming together to remember two young girls, identified by a friend and a family member as six-year-old Chloe Berry and her four-year-old sister Aubrey, who were found dead on Christmas Day.

Police discovered their bodies inside a home in Oak Bay after the children’s mother called police to report their father didn’t return them as scheduled. Officers are investigating the incident as a double homicide.

Mayor Nils Jensen says virtually everyone in the community of 18,000 has been directly or indirectly impacted by the deaths.

“It’s been very hard on our community given the ages of these children and the terrible circumstances,” he says, adding it’s also been traumatic for first responders. “All around, it’s just a terrible, tragic incident.”

But, Nils believes the community has really come together in this time of grief.

“We’ve moved through this, and we will get through this. And we’ll do everything we can to support the mother and the family of these two young, wonderful little girls.”

He adds a number of resources are in place for those feeling in distress, including students and classmates of the girls.

“We’re a small community, and there’s not very many degrees of separation between any of us in Oak Bay,” he says. “So we realized that we have to support one another individually, and also through any counselling services that may be available.”

Other resources can be reached by calling 211.

A candle-light vigil is being held for the girls at Willows Beach, a park where the children loved to play, today at 7 p.m.

“We’ve come together in grief, and we’ll go forward together with all the support we can for the family,” he says. “It really is difficult to find the exact words to describe how we feel, but because it’s such a horrendous, unspeakable crime when two children are killed. It is really hard for people to express themselves, and that’s one of the reasons we have this vigil, it’s a way that people can express themselves just by coming together, and showing their love for each other, and the love for the family and friends who are going through just a horrendous heartbreak.”

BC children’s watchdog collecting information

British Columbia’s child and youth representative says his office collecting information about two young sisters who are suspected to have been killed at a Victoria-area home on Christmas Day.

Bernard Richard says it is too early to say whether a formal investigation will be launched, but his office has contacted the BC Coroners Service and the provincial ministry in charge of child welfare and has started gathering documents.

“By law we cannot begin interviewing witnesses before the police and the Coroners service have finished their work, so it would be quite some time still before all of that is done,” he says.

 

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