Douglas Wayne Kelly-Waterfield and his young brother, Skyler Kelly, are still in shock about their father’s death one week ago on Feb. 8.
“I still can’t believe it, that he’s gone, and I’m struggling,” said Kelly-Waterfield.
“I wish that I could hang out with my dad one more time and get to be able to say I love him, and that I miss him, and I want him to know that he was a good dad,” added Kelly. “I want him to know that everybody loved him.”
They’re trying to come to terms with the death of their father, 54-year-old Rod Kelly, but also how he died.
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Rod Kelly is pictured.
Police are calling it first degree murder after a vehicle hit Kelly while he was riding his bike on the shoulder of the Comox Valley Parkway on Feb. 8 between 9 p.m. and about 10:50 pm.
The driver that hit him fled the scene.
Then, three days later, the RCMP Emergency Response Team arrested a suspect in the woods near Comox Lake after finding a vehicle of interest in the same area the day before.
Steven Squires, 45, of Cumberland now faces one charge of first degree murder and one charge of failure to stop after an accident causing death.
The thought that someone did it on purpose, as a first degree murder charge suggests, has left both sons angry and looking for answers.
“So that means you planned to run my dad down for no purpose. What, you saw a biker there and decided to run him down?” said Kelly-Waterfield.
“Nobody ever deserves to be left on the side of the road like that especially for hours,” added the younger Kelly.
They say their dad loved his career as a heli-logger and loved being outdoors.
They say he would do anything for anyone and that he made them laugh all the time.
But there has already been great sadness in this family when in 2016 their aunt, their dad’s sister, was gunned down in a double murder in Courtenay, something the entire large family is barely getting over.
“Like, that’s a hard thing for the family to go through and to keep going through,” said Kelly-Waterfield.
And as for the person who killed his dad?
“I hope he spends the rest of his life in jail,” he said.
The man charged will make his next court appearance on Feb. 29, and Rod Kelly’s sons say they’ll be there.
Dean Stoltz
