“It will be a year today when we lost Colin. I still struggle. This is not something that you recover from, you get better at living with it.”
Scroll down to the bottom of a glow one-year-old tribute to the late Colin Connelly, 61, and his career as an IT systems expert working for governments in the Pacific Islands and you’ll see a recent comment from his brother.
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“It will be a year today when we lost Colin. I still struggle. This is not something that you recover from, you get better at living with it. Reading this was a nice way to connect with him. Thank you,” James Connelly wrote on Oct. 2, 2024.
THE CRASH IN SARNIA
Exactly one year earlier, on Oct. 2, 2023, a 61-year-old male driver and his 54-year-old female passenger died and another person was rushed to hospital with serious injuries after a five-vehicle crash in Sarnia. Transportation Ministry cameras showed at least two jackknifed tractor-trailers near the front of a long line of stopped traffic heading west next to the Modeland Road exit. That side of the highway was closed from about 2 pm that day until around 1 am the next morning for the investigation.
On Nov. 22, 2023, more than seven weeks later, Lambton OPP said they charged a 34-year-old Sarnia woman with two counts of dangerous driving causing death and one count of dangerous driving causing bodily harm. She was released with an unspecified court date, they added.
The names of the accused and the deceased weren’t released.
NAME OF ACCUSED NOT RELEASED
A followup request to Lambton OPP last year to get the name of the person charged with dangerous driving was denied. A media spokesperson said in November 2023 the name wasn’t being released at the direction of his superior officers. Further attempts to get the person’s court date from police weren’t responded to.
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Fourteen months later, recently obtained court records finally show Stacie Rogers, now 35, from Sarnia is facing those charges. The names of the two people who died, along with the name of the third person who was injured, are redacted in those documents.
THE COUPLE WHO DIED
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The 2023 tribute to Connelly’s work as an IT systems expert says Hey “died in a traffic accident in Ontario, Canada, on 2 October along with his partner Heather Frank.” His 2023 obituary also says the Perth, Australia resident “passed away unexpectedly on October 2nd whilst visiting family in Ontario, Canada.”
Connelly went to high school in Oakville and his funeral and celebration of life were held in that Toronto-area town last year.
A Lambton OPP police officer recently confirmed the two people who died in last year’s crash in Sarnia were from Oakville.
COLIN CONNELLY
Dozens of people have posted comments over the past 14 months on Connelly’s online tribute, obituary, and a third website launched in memory of the couple. The themes are consistent: shock and grievance over the sudden loss of a friend, co-worker, mentor, leader and innovator, but also fond recollections about an adventurous, globe-trotting man with a great sense of humor who worked as hard making memories with friends as he did ensuring children in Fiji and several surrounding Pacific Islands had access to quality education.
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Connelly was born in Portsmouth, England, and his family moved to Canada when he was six, according to his obit. After graduating from high school in Oakville, he studied at the University of Waterloo, then moved to Western Australia where he started working as an IT specialist.
“Colin built a rich life with family and amazing friends from Canada, Australia and the Pacific Islands,” his obit says.
He was also a boxing enthusiast and his passion project was the Up Town Boxing Gym in Suva, Fiji, according to an online fundraiser.
Six people co-authored last year’s tribute to him on The Australian National University’s Devpolicy Blog. One of them, Beth Sprunt, responded to James Connelly’s one-year anniversary comment about struggling with the loss of his brother and said she misses him so much, too.
“Doing this work without him is really hard, grindingly slow and vastly less joyful,” she wrote. “He was one in a million.”
HEATHER FRANK
Frank, a mother of two from Perth, Western Australia, was a web and graphic designer with 20 years of experience who co-ran a company called Frank Design with offices in Perth and Brisbane, Queensland, according to the business’ Facebook page. A post two days after the crash announced her and her partner’s sudden passing in Canada.
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Several people, including friend Andrew Broad, commented about her loss, calling her amazing, smart, funny, tenacious, and a joy to be around.
“There is a huge hole that will never be filled. I’ll miss her immensely,” he wrote.
“Heather was one of a kind. Talented, dedicated, quirky, and always so full of life. She will leave a huge hole in our hearts but an incredible legacy,” Steve Pretzel wrote.
A celebration of her life was held in November 2023 in Scarborough Beach, Perth.
LOVE OF TRAVELING
Connelly’s obit says he was lucky to know Frank for many years before they became a couple.
“She matched his love of travel and adventure and it is devastating that their life together has been so cruelly taken,” it says.
Several people commented about how happy he was spending his final years with her and about their shared enthusiasm for boating in Eastern Canada and throughout Southwestern Ontario, including on Lake Huron.
“I’m glad you finally both found true happiness in each other,” his sister-in-law, Trisha, wrote.
OPP NOT RELEASING NAME ‘AN ERROR’
Insp. Chris Avery, who oversees Lambton OPP headquarters, and Derek Rogers, OPP West Region’s media relations co-ordinator, were asked Monday about the decision last year not to release the name of the person charged with dangerous driving in this case and the comment by the spoke it was at the direction of his superiors. Rogers said the spokesperson was away and couldn’t be asked about the decision to omit the name.
“Inspector Avery and I agree that, without knowing the details, this sounds like an error on our part. It is the OPP’s media relations policy to release the names of individuals facing criminal charges in most instances,” Rogers said.
THE COURT CASE
Rogers was arrested just after 6 pm on Nov. 21, 2023, police said at the time. A preliminary hearing into the case is set to start Jan. 31 at the Sarnia courthouse. A publication ban has been ordered to protect any evidence that will be heard there ahead of the trial.
The charges haven’t been tested in court.
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