Soldier’s mother wonders whether showing suicide video was worth it

Soldier’s mother wonders whether showing suicide video was worth it

Sheila Fynes, speaks about her son Cpl. Stuart Langridge's battle with post-traumatic stress disorder and the ongoing struggle with National Defence following his death during a news conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, Thursday October 28, 2010.

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - Sheila Fynes couldn’t sleep most nights this summer, wondering whether she made the right decision in allowing a public inquiry to view a 34-minute military police video of her son’s lifeless body hanging from a chin-up bar in his barracks.

The graphic, disturbing images of Cpl. Stuart Langridge, were never released to the news media, but the commission investigating the military’s handling of his suicide played it in public, as part of a series of hearings last spring.

His mother and stepfather, Shaun Fynes, wrestled with the question of showing the video almost up until the day it was played.

“There are times when I think I’ve shared the most personal thing about Stuart’s life and I hope, ... I hope it wasn’t for nothing,” said Sheila Fynes in an interview with The Canadian Press from her Victoria home.

Langridge hanged himself on March 15, 2008, and his body was left in place for four hours while investigators documented and searched through everything in the room.

The video sometimes zoomed in on his head and face. Federal lawyers representing the Defence Department argued in advance that if the video were to be shown, it would have to be in its entirety.
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