Matthiew Klinck family “devastated, not surprised” by murder acquittal

By Aaron Humes: Weeks after Supreme Court Justice Antoinette Moore found 22-year-old Brandon Anderson and a minor not guilty of the murder of Canadian filmmaker Matthiew Klinck in 2016, his family says they are freshly devastated.

Klinck’s mother Louise Dallaire told Radio-Canada, French counterpart to the English public broadcaster the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC): “There’s no justice there…It brought me back to the same place I was in four years ago. All the emotions came back.”

Dallaire said she didn’t follow the trial because of the emotional toll it would have taken, CBC News reported.

“You want to just forget about it, you need to keep living,” Dallaire said. “And it wouldn’t have brought him back.”

She said an official from the Canadian consulate sent news of the verdict by email.

Klinck’s cousin, Jean-Sébastien Dallaire, was first to learn of the decision, according to CBC.

“It was not very surprising,” he said. “When my cousin was murdered, my uncle and aunt went [to Belize]. When they came back it was obvious that corruption is a big problem over there. The police can’t be trusted. The authorities, there’s no way you can trust anybody.”

Dallaire said his cousin loved Belize and its people, but he thinks Klinck was targeted because he made more money than most people in the country.

“For us naive Canadians, we live in a world where we have most of everything. It’s very hard not to be naive when you go into a place like that, and think it’s the same. But it’s not the same.”

Justice Moore cited a lack of evidence in her decision on November 27 after ruling out Anderson’s caution statement, which she considered had been improperly obtained by police, according to defense attorney Leeroy Banner.

Police were also faulted for mishandling DNA evidence on a blood-stained glove found at the murder scene and improperly interrogating the minor without parents or guardians present. The minor was represented by attorney Ronell Gonzalez.

Banner told the CBC there had been a lot of international pressure on police to make a quick arrest.

“And at the end of the day, it’s sad because the system doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because the police failed to do what they were supposed to do,” he said.

The Canadian government’s website warns travelers to Belize to exercise a “high degree of caution” due to “a high rate of violent crime throughout the country.”

Klinck, who grew up in Gatineau, Quebec’s Aylmer sector, worked as a producer, director, videographer and editor.

He directed the 2007 film Greg & Gentillon, about two small-time comedians, and the 2008 film Hank and Mike, an Easter movie about holiday mascots.

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