Community still in shock

BY MARC LALONDE

The Chronicle

The only things out of place on quiet Woodside Crescent in Beaconsfield were the flowers laid at the scene of a horrific murder-suicide that left a mother and her two daughters dead and their alleged killer — family patriarch Dragolub Tzokovitch — clinging to life in an undisclosed hospital.

Police were called to the home, nestled into a leafy curve in the road close to Beaconsfield United Church at 11:20 a.m. Saturday after receiving a 911 call from someone who may have been a friend of Tzokovitch’s, Montreal police spokesman Anie Lemieux said. When they arrived, they found Tzokovitch bleeding from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. The bodies of his wife, Mila Voynova, 40, and the couple's daughters, Iva, 17, and Alice, 10 were found in the home. The girls and Voynova had been shot hours before police got to the home. The murder weapon was registered to Dragolub Tzokovitch, Lemieux said. At press time, Lemieux couldn't confirm that Tzokovitch e-mailed a friend and told him to call 911 just before he shot himself.

“There’s a very good possibility a friend called 911, but we still can't confirm that as a fact,� she said.

Neighbours said they saw nothing leading up to the incident that would've led them to see the incident coming.

“They were fairly quiet, but they were nice people. They didn't really do anything out of the ordinary,� said one elderly neighbour, who preferred to remain anonymous.

A group home for intellectually disabled people sits down the street. Supervisor Steven Smith said the older daughter was a compassionate, kind girl.

“The clients didn't really know her well, but they knew (who Iva was),� he said. “She would walk down the street, smile, wave and say hello to the clients. I work Monday to Friday, and I saw that girl walk by every day. I didn't know anything about her. She was just a human being. We’ll never see her again. That’s a terrible way to finally get to know someone; when they're dead.�

Counsellors were dispatched to John Abbott College in Ste. Anne de Bellevue – where Iva studied — and to St. Paul elementary school, where Alice attended Grade 5. Spirits were also low at the West Island Women’s Centre, where Voynova taught exercise classes. The couple had been divorced in 2002, but reunited. Allegations that the marriage was once more unstable swirl around the case.

It marks the fifth murder case in the last decade and change in that part of the West Island. The section of northern Beaconsfield and southern Kirkland from the Pointe Claire border to Sherwood Plaza saw Rev. Frank and Jocelyn Toope horrifically beaten to death in their beds in 1995, followed by Edward and Margaret Fertuck — who were killed by their schizophrenic son Jeffrey, who then committed suicide in May 2001. Later that year. John Bauer killed his wife, three sons, father-in-law and business partner before turning the gun on himself, despondent over financial difficulties.

In June 2002, Mariano Gonzalez was stabbed by his son Phillippe, then 27. The younger Gonzalez, mentally ill, was sent to the Phillippe Pinel Institute, a hospital for the criminally insane.

“It's a lot,� said Montreal police Station 1 Cmdr. Michel Lecompte. “I was reminded of the Bauers with this incident. When people aren't in their right state of mind, they do things that aren't normal. I tell people, 'the person that you knew and the person who did that are not the same person.�

Lecompte was at a loss to explain why the seemingly peaceful streets of Beaconsfield have seen so much pain and loss.

“We have our share. We have more than our share. I don't know why, but it's a tragedy,� he said.