The Surakka family was relieved to hear Jack Woodruff plead guilty to murdering their daughter and her boyfriend Monday morning, but it’s one small step toward to a complete resolution of the ordeal.
Lisa Dudley, 37, and her boyfriend, Guthrie McKay, 33, were shot in their rural home on Greenwood Drive in September 2008, which according to a statement of facts entered Monday in court, had housed a marijuana grow operation.
Woodruff was sentenced to life in prison, with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Woodruff said he was going to be the shooter, and went to the house with the intention of shooting Dudley, and McKay if necessary. According to the admitted facts, he went to the back deck and fired six shots inside as the couple were watching television. McKay was hit three times, and Dudley twice.
McKay was pronounced dead on the scene. Dudley was in severe medical distress and died en route to hospital.
Mission RCMP Cpl. Mike White was given a written reprimand and docked one day’s pay in March after an RCMP disciplinary hearing determined that he failed to properly investigate the shots-fired call.
He left the scene after being there for 10 minutes and did not follow up the next day, the board of adjudication concluded.
There are still two other people, Justin MacKinnon and Bruce Main, who are charged with the first-degree murders, and Mark and Rosemarie Surakka said that ordeal, coupled with the family’s request for a coroner’s inquest into the 911 response, make the road ahead still challenging.
Rosemarie said that what Woodruff did was a “gutsy thing.
“He completely owned up to everything he did,” she said Tuesday.
– with files from Vikki
Hopes and CTV
