For The Love of Wild Horses

"We had no eyewitnesses, no forensic evidence, no confessions, no information from the public to give us a lead that we can follow up on, so the polygraph was our next logical step."
"But if you are an honest person, and you didn't take that money, then you can say so and validate your credibility."
"If this was a drugstore and there were only three employees, it would be a lot easier. But we have a health facility with 108 employees -- and we can't rule anybody out."
RCMP Corp. Justin Hewlett, Baie Verte, Newfoundland

"Come up with the money and I'll forgive you."
"I don't want to take them to court. I just want them to come back to me, face to face, and give back what they took from my brother."
Kevin Seymour, Harbour Round, Newfoundland

The wild horses of Cape Bonavista -- Photo Brian Casey

Should the missing money be found, Kevin Seymour envisions using it to replace the simple wooden crosses of his father, mother, and two brothers at the Roman Catholic Cemetery in Harbour Round with stone markers complete with identifying inscriptions, maybe even a white-stone border around the family plot, something pleasant that would help to dispel the unpleasantness of knowing that his younger brother's life-savings were taken from him when he was dying, in the care of Baie Verte Peninsula Health Centre.

Those savings were never entrusted to a bank. His brother distrusted banks. He, in fact, was a painfully introverted man, shy and distant with those he did not know. Those were the carefully-put away life savings of a hermit who died at age 59. The savings were never put far from his sight, in fact. Carefully stacked and put away in a wallet secured in a pouch that was always kept around his waist. The life savings amounting to paper bills totalling $22,000.

"He took that money everywhere. But he never really went anywhere, just around Harbour Round. You can walk around this harbour and nobody would ever hurt you here", explained his brother.

For company, and valued companionship the recluse whose name was Edward Seymour, younger brother of Kevin Seymour, there were his two wild horses. Wild they might have been, but they were loyal to him and useful to him as companions and fellow workers, helping him to work his land, to haul firewood for sale so Edward Seymour could sustain himself and maintain his wild horses, Blackie and Shadow.

Then there was the day that Kevin stopped by his brother's home just up the road from his own, to find him lying unresponsive on the ground. He called an ambulance that took him to hospital and the pouch with its wallet and the life savings were placed in the hospital's safe. And, it would seem, that's when the pouch, the wallet, and the $22,000 disappeared. That was discovered when Edward Seymour died a few weeks on.

The health centre has 108 employees. The Baie Verte RCMP detachment has seen no progress whatever in their investigation of the theft, though almost a year has passed since Edward Seymour's unfortunate death from a brain tumour. They called in the force's Truth Verification Unit for the purpose of conducting polygraph tests on the staff of the health centre. The hospital has co-operated, and so far no one on staff has objected to being subjected to the test.

The news that from among 108 people one chose to betray a trust is extremely sad. On the other hand, a family in western Newfoundland has adopted the two wild horses, Blackie and Shadow, and there, with their new owners they are doing well, according to Kevin Seymour: "My brother loved those horses. They were his life."