Port Alberni resident Arron Thompson was a high school graduate who loved poetry and had goals and aspirations he was about to pursue.
Thompson, 21, was doing everything right with his young life, and that was a victory considering early difficulties he had to overcome.
But Thompson's hopes of a future were dashed in a matter of minutes in the early morning of May 6, as he lay bleeding from a stab wound across the road from where he lived. He'd die in West Coast General Hospital a few hours later.
His parents and seven siblings were left to mourn the loss of one brother, and coping with the fact that one of their own family is accused of killing him.
Arron's brother, Archibald Thompson, 25, is facing a second degree murder charge in connection with the alleged killing. Crown counsel in Port Alberni is reviewing the matter and charges may yet change.
A deep reservoir of love and a strong familial bond are allowing the family to try and forgive their brother Archibald.
“We love each other unconditionally, all of us,” eldest sister Caroline said. “I'd say that to Archibald if he walked through the door.”
The siblings don't know what Arron and Archibald argued about May 6, but the seeds of any discontent may have been sown much earlier and through no control of their own, Caroline said.
The siblings all grew up in foster care, were mostly separated, and the homes were exclusively non-aboriginal, she said. The lack of aboriginal culture created a unique form of loneliness that influenced Arron’s life in the end, Caroline said.
Archibald was the first son and third child born to mother Marcia and her first husband Archie. Arron was born four years later; his father Marcia’s second partner.
The boys were inseparable. They played with the same toys and often dressed in similar clothes, Caroline said.
“They were really close and Archibald always looked out for (Arron),” she said. “He always took his role as the older brother seriously, even after they grew up.”
The brothers went into foster care when they were under age 10, she said. The other siblings soon followed and were fanned out across the Alberni Valley.
Once, the boys hitchhiked from their rural foster home to their mother’s apartment in town but were later returned by the police, Catherine said.
“Archibald was bounced around in care a lot. He took it harder and always wanted to be with our mom,” sister Catherine said.
The boys later lived in separate homes. Archibald lived with Catherine, and Arron with Caroline.
“I didn’t prepare with courses the way my sister (Caroline) did but I still took (Archibald) in. He’s my brother and I took him in to help,” Catherine said.
According to Caroline, Arron didn't want to be in the last foster home he was assigned to so she, in her mid-20s with children of her own, took him in.
“All he said was that he couldn’t wait to get out of there,” she said.
Arron constantly struggled with cultural isolation while living in a non-aboriginal foster home, Caroline said. Before his death he talked to his family about one day becoming a social worker.
“He realized how much he missed out on culture while he was in foster care. It was a missing piece of his life.”
Archibald meanwhile rarely spoke about his time in care, said Catherine.
He applied himself to school, graduating from the VAST alternate education program in 2008-09. He gave an aboriginal drum to school staff. He travelled during that time as well, something he often reflected back on, Catherine said.
The brothers sometimes had disagreements, but nothing that hinted at violence, Catherine said. “They’d wrestle around...but that was it.”
The siblings, seven with the same mother, and an eighth with a father in common, most of whom are adults now, forged a close bond after they left foster care, trying to make up for lost time
The family, some with children of their own, celebrate birthdays and holidays together, and frequently visit one another.
“Arron got the Army Cadet Hall for us once so we could all have Christmas dinner together,” Caroline said. “He and Archibald cooked the dinner. Arron wasn’t much of a cook but he did his part.”
After they became adults, both boys moved in with their mother —Archibald first, then Arron eight months ago. It's like they were children again, Caroline said; they’d hang out, walk, talk and play video games late into the night.
If there were issues between the two brothers, then it was exacerbated by the grinding effect of the poverty that they lived in, Caroline surmised.
Both brothers worked seasonally at a fish plant. They didn’t always qualify for employment assistance and had to resort to social assistance for an income.
“There was tension because of finances. Living in that kind of poverty made things difficult,” Caroline said.
Archibald started wrestling with alcohol issues, and he recently spent time at a treatment facility in Comox, she said.
The family doesn’t know the particulars of what happened between the two boys May 6. All they know for sure is Arron staggered out of the residence and across the road, bleeding profusely from a stab wound.
“I was at work when I found out. I went to get my sister, then I texted my mother and we went to the hospital,” Caroline said. “We weren’t sure yet if Archibald was involved.”
The two sisters and mother waited anxiously in the waiting room of West Coast General Hospital. At 10:30 a.m., doctors told the three that Arron had died.
“Archibald called mom on her cell and she told him ‘Arron is dead,’” Caroline said.
On the afternoon of the same day, an RCMP dog team flushed Archibald out of Dry Creek Park and arrested him after a short foot chase. He remains in custody. The police investigation is ongoing and a special unit of officers from Victoria is assisting, RCMP said.
At the end of Arron's funeral May 11, family and friends gathered for a luncheon at the Port Alberni Friendship Centre, the place the family's lives orbited around while growing up.
Afterward, as tables and chairs were put away, the family walked out of the centre and on to picking up the pieces of their lives.
The family is both grieving for their dead brother, but also trying to support the brother who is accused of killing him.
“Archibald is our brother and we would never turn our back on him,” Caroline said. “They are our brothers and we unconditionally love both of them.
“It’s going to be a long hard road for us to accept this but we have the strength to get through it.”
