Nanaimo mill shooter Addison’s name synonymous with ‘murderous violence’

She was sweeping the floor when the phone rang.

“I knew something was wrong,” she said. “On the other end of the phone was my mother and I could tell she had been crying. She told me to sit, so I sat. Earlier that morning, my Papa, only 62 years old, was shot while getting out of his truck to go to work. I will never be able to describe the pain I felt in that moment. It was as if someone ripped my heart from my chest and dropped it ten thousand feet. All the air left my lungs.”

Dropping the broom, Paige fled to the back of the café and curled up into a fetal position on the floor.

“I kept saying, over and over, ‘Are you sure it was him? Are you sure it was him?’ I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I had just been told,” she said through tears. “When someone you love is murdered, it has a huge impact on you and your family. I believe a piece of all of us died that day with him.”

Michael, who died on the scene, was shot in the upper right shoulder by Addison, who walked to the Western Forest Products mill carrying a sawed-off shotgun concealed in the leg of his jeans.

Many family members spoke of the immense love they have for the men who died and what a hole their loss has left.

“My life has been shattered and I have felt scared and afraid of carrying on on my own with decisions I would have shared with my husband. Some small decisions, some large life decisions,” said Lorraine McEachern, whose husband Fred McEachern was shot in the lower back inside the mill and did not survive. Two days after the shooting, the two had been scheduled to go on a vacation for their 25th anniversary.

Michael Lunn’s wife Marlene Lunn spoke of a huge man with a big voice who woke up happy, danced and sang, and regularly enveloped those around him in bear hugs. Married for 44 years, she said her husband “was like the hub of a bicycle tire” who held all the spokes together. “When the hub was removed, the spokes went flying everywhere. Our family was broken,” she said, and then added that they are still trying to find “a new normal.”

Following submissions from Crown prosecutor Scott Van Alstine and Addison’s lawyer John Gustafson, Justice Robin Baird handed Addison a life sentence for each of the four convictions for murder and attempted murder. They will be served concurrently.

In his sentencing, Baird spoke of all the lives affected by Addison’s “selfish” actions, including that of his daughter, who is now 18 and recently graduated from high school.

“You have made your name in this community synonymous with gratuitous, murderous violence,” said Baird. “It’s a heavy burden of woe you have placed not just on the Lunns and the McEacherns, but on the Addisons, too.”

Baird went on to describe Addison’s actions as “precise, calculated, cold and merciless,” and characterized the shooting as an “ambush” sprung on innocent people as they went about their business.

“Mr. Addison, when you were arrested on April 30, you were around 47 and a half years old. So when you are first eligible to apply for parole, you are going to be 72 and a half years old. All of that period of life, all the remaining productive, healthy, useful years of your life, you have sent up the spout, by your inability to get over these problems which to the rest of us, seem pretty minor in the scheme of things,” Baird said, referencing the workplace grievances raised during the trial which Addison said had caused him considerable frustration.

Baird explained his decision to hand life sentences to Addison for the attempted murders of Tony Sudar, who was shot in the face, and Earl Kelly, who was shot in the lower back, and said the only reason the shooting did not result in four murders was due to luck and good fortune rather than any restraint on Addison’s part.

by Julie Chadwick

Nanaimo mill shooter Addison’s name synonymous with ‘murderous violence’

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