Four months before Tatjana Stefanski’s body was found in a wooded area, mere minutes from her home, she went to the police.
On Dec. 18, 2023, she told officers at the Vernon and Lumby detachments a man she knew had contacted her family back in Germany a day earlier and said he was going to harm her.
How that complaint was handled by RCMP is now the subject of an investigation by B.C.’s police watchdog, the Independent Investigations Office, Stefanski’s partner Jason Gaudreault has confirmed.
Neither the police nor the IIO were willing to comment about that investigation until Friday morning.
The police watchdog put out a case update on its website a week earlier, saying only that it was investigating a Dec. 23, 2023 case that resulted in a death in Lumby. No details indicating that it had anything to do with Stefanski were offered. Friday it sent out a press release, linking the earlier complaint to an April 14 death.
Its circumspect approach mirrors that of Gaudreault, who said he does not want to cast doubt on the investigators who are doing the best they can in conditions he believes better protect suspects than victims of crime.
He did, however, say that the concerns they raised that day weren’t taken seriously enough.
Nobody has been charged in Stefanski’s April 14 death.
The day before the 44-year-old’s body was found she was seen speaking with her ex-husband and police sent out an alert looking for her.
When her body was found, RCMP said they made an arrest of a suspect and that suspect was subsequently released. They never named the suspect.
There has been little comment from authorities.
That has been the subject of continual frustration in Lumby, a close-knit town of only 2,000.
“I think the person who’s suspected of doing something this heinous should be detained until, you know, at least we can feel safe,” Mayor Kevin Acton said shortly after Stefanski’s death was made known.
“It puts the village in a situation where that family is feeling vulnerable.”
Gaudrealt has been vocal about the challenges he’s faced, juggling being the caregiver to Stefanski’s two children and managing the grief of losing a loved one with no one being held accountable.
“Switching vehicles jumping from vehicle to vehicle, from house to house, friends and whatever else and everybody’s keeping quiet, and some people don’t even want to take us in because they’re scared that he’s going to come back after us,” Gaudreault said earlier in the month.
At one point, he had shut down his home-based business while they were in hiding, which he said took away all his income and further undermined their well-being.
“So we’re the ones that are being treated like the prisoners,” he said.
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