Canadian True Crime - The Murder of Daniel Levesque [2]

Episode Date: January 25, 2019

[Part 2 of 2] Jordan from The Nighttime Podcast interviews Daniel's mom, Stacey—revealing more details that will make anyone with a respect for justice scream.Look out for early, ad-free release on CTC premium feeds: available on Amazon Music (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. Full list of resources, information sources, credits and music credits:See the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hi everyone, this is part two of the story of the murder of Daniel Levec, a case I covered collaboratively with the Nighttime podcast. If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, I'd encourage you to listen to that right now. If you did listen already, this part 2 is a must listen. As I mentioned, in this part, Jordan from Nighttime interviews Daniel's amazing mum Stacy, who unpacks the story from the perspective of Daniel's family, going into more detail about the crazy web of lies spun by Joshua Brado. Stacey also talks about Daniel's life, including the first tragedy the family suffered,

the loss of Daniel's little brother Christian, when Daniel was only three and a half, and how the family recovered. Stacey goes on to talk more about the legal battles, including the controversy over Daniel's autopsy where his cause of death was surprisingly attributed to cocaine toxicity instead of being hit in the head with a hammer. She then talks about the constant stalls in the court case

and then Joshua's plea deal and how it affected the family before updating us on the latest infuriating turn and where they are now. You are going to scream. You'll also hear the own. only song that Daniel ever recorded professionally just days before his death. This was the session that was unfortunately paid for by Joshua Bredo, but there is a heartwarming tale behind how it was finished off after Daniel's death. So please take a listen and afterwards make sure you subscribe to the Nighttime Podcast.

It's one of my favorites. You are tuned to the Nighttime Podcast. focused on the fringe of Canada. Welcome back to a collaborative two-part series covering the life and the tragic death of Daniel Leveck. In part one of this series, Christy Lee on the Canadian True Crime podcast shared a narrative account of the twists,

turns, lies, and the violence that led to a 20-year-old musician Daniel Levec being found beaten to death in a Victoria, BC condo. We learned how Daniel, a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy from small town Ravlestoke, BC, moved to the comparatively big city of Victoria to pursue his dream of finding a career as a performing musician. Tragically, Daniel would only get a handful of weeks in Victoria to make things happen, as his time there and the dreams that brought him there would be

snuffed out by the manager of the 7-11 Daniel had taken a job at. That manager, Josh Brito, befriended Daniel and weaved an intricate web of lies that played off Daniel's kindness, generosity, and his trusting nature. The lies would finally catch up to them both when Daniel showed up to what he thought was Josh's condo in what he expected to be an orientation for a new career as a legal secretary for Josh's mother's law firm. Instead, Daniel only found betrayal. There was no orientation, no job, there wasn't even a law firm.

There was just the manager of the 7-Eleven, Josh Brito, a man, Daniel. Daniel thought to be a friend, but he couldn't have been more wrong. As Josh attacked the much smaller Daniel with a hammer, all the while preventing his desperate escape, the true nature of their relationship was revealed, but only when it was far too late. Josh was obsessed with Daniel, and the lies had been little more than Josh's way to pursue a sexual relationship with the heterosexual employee of the 7-11 he managed. In tonight's episode, we'll dig even deeper into this story that should not be a sexual way to make anyone with a respect for justice scream. I'll be joined by another victim in the

senseless crime. Daniel Levec's courageous mother, Stacey Third. When Christy and I decided to collaborate on this story, we did so with the goal of not only telling the story of Daniel's death, but celebrating his life and highlighting the injustice his family received from Canada's legal system. To take us on this uncomfortable walk through a mother and a family's worst nightmare, I invited Daniel's mom, Stacey Thurr, to join us. Although what we discuss is at times hard to listen to and even harder to imagine, Daniel's mom felt it important that people know this story, both the good and the bad, as hard as that part is to tell.

What will come next is portions of our extended conversation about her amazing son Daniel, his life, the legacy he left behind, and the darkness that sadly snuck its way into his story. We'll start at the beginning, the very, very beginning. When I first found out that I was expecting Daniel. I was 20 years old, and it was an unexpected pregnancy and pretty scary at the time. His father, Stephen and I were high school sweethearts and scared and young and all that. But once Daniel came along, he changed our life completely forced us to grow up and be parents.

and he was just a joy from the very beginning. Where in Canada was it that he was born? He was actually born in Camelope, B.C., only because I had some complications with my pregnancy, but we did live in Rubble Stoke at the time. He was fine. He was a little, tiny, little baby, only five pounds, 10 ounces. But big personality right from the get-go. He was super funny and extremely intelligent.

Before he could even talk, he would wake up in his crib, singing and singing songs. that didn't have words. They were melodies that he would make up and I don't know how a six and seven months old infant can know how to make a melody without knowing music was just quite amazing. We always marveled

at it quite a bit. And like I said, did everything really early. He walked early, he talked early, and when he talked, he didn't ever shut up. He was such a talker and he was articulate and thoughtful and very, very

sensitive little heart even when he was a child. And when he was 21 months old, we had our second child and his name is Christian and he was the apple of Daniel's little eyes. He just thought his baby brother was the best thing ever and he was the best thing ever. And yeah, when Daniel was three and his baby brother was just over a year, their dad and I split up and remained, both of us remained in Revelstoke at the time. and yeah he's very much part of their lives and we stayed fairly good friends and for most of the time and agreed that raising our boys to love each parent was paramount and that's what we did.

I've read a lot of your blog where you share a lot of real personal information and one of the things you shared on the blog was a story of a loss your family suffered early in Daniel's life, that being his younger brother. Could just tell me a bit about how that affected Daniel as a young boy, you know, living with that type of loss? Yeah, when Daniel was three and a half years old, February 17th in 1995, my mother and my grandmother had come to visit us for Christian's birthday. His second birthday was approaching and we were having a little party with all his friends. And they arrived on Thursday night and the boys and I went and picked them up from the Greyhound Station and brought them back to our house. and my grandmother had my room and Daniel and my mother were sharing Daniel's room and the baby had his own room in a crib and it was about 10 o'clock in the morning and the baby still hadn't woke up for the morning so I went in to go wake him up because he was wanting to visit with his grandmothers and he had passed away in the night.

It was a terrible, terrible thing clearly. Daniel was standing right by my side when I found him in his crib and of course started screaming. screaming hysterically and Daniel was asking me, Mommy, what's wrong with the baby? And consequently, he was without any real cause of death known, they attributed it to sudden infant death syndrome. And so here was my three and a half year old little boy, now my only child that had to watch me go through

and his father, of course, go through, you know, burying his little brother, not understanding why his brother wasn't around anymore. And it affected his life, not in necessarily a negative way, more of a life's too short kind of way. He was so compassionate, and even when he was still so small, you know, I would start to cry, and he would be watching his cartoons, and he'd just reach over, and he'd wipe the tears from my eyes,

and he'd say, don't cry, Mommy, and he would continually do that day after day. Here was my three, then, four, then five-year-old son. He even knew then how hurt it was for a mother to have to bury a child. he recognized early, early, early on in his life that he was different than most kids because he knew loss. But knowing loss always, you know, you don't know true joy until you've had true loss, and he knew that. And we were very open about all of that, always answering questions.

He did go to counseling for a while when he was very small, but they really thought that he was processing this loss quite well, and I think he really did. But it was always a little empty spot in his heart for obviously. reasons and he he just missed his little brother and we talked about him a lot though. Now aside from, you know, experiencing loss like this early on, what else do you see as some defining moments in Daniel's life that helped shape the man he became? Well, music was a huge deal to him and he was a poet and a singer and he wrote things all the

times, poems and writings of things that just would blow your mind, to be honest. He called himself the boy who thinks in song, everything was about music, you know, how he spoke, how he wrote, how he processed his feelings. Mommy, you've got to listen to this song. Just listen to this song, listen to the words. He'd say to me all the time. And music's always been a very big part of my life, too. Our family sings all the time.

We're singing in the shower. We're singing to our cats. It was our life. Music was our life. And music was what made him who he was, for sure. A lot of the story that we'll talk about takes place. in Victoria, BC, and I understand his motivation to leave home and go to Victoria, had a lot to do with his interest in music. Can you talk a bit about when he decided to go to Victoria and what

his reasoning was? Absolutely. Just to back it up a tiny little bit, when Daniel, Daniel was very intelligent, pretty much a straight-A student throughout his whole high school career. We all, and elementary, we all had huge hopes for him. He wanted to be all sorts of things while he was growing up and they were, you know, from a doctor to a chef to anything that would use his brains and his creativity and he was really, really excited about his future. And then when he was in about, I think when he was about 18 years old, he said, you know, Mom, I decided what I want to do for a living? And I said, what's that?

And he said, well, I think I want to move to Seattle and work in a coffee shop so I can play my music. And I was like, oh, that's not really going to university. but that dream of doing that in Seattle changed to Victoria. He had two wonderfully close friends who were brother and sister, and they were encouraging him to come west. And so one day he just said, Mom, I want to move to Victoria,

and I was so happy to hear that because Rebel Stokes is a very small community, and I thought Daniel needed to be somewhere bigger. He really had kind of outgrown Revelstoke, and his music, he just wanted to play music. So he packed up what little he owned and decided I'm going off to Victoria, I'm going to find a job, and I'm going to play my music, and I'm going to get discovered. And it was really, I very much encouraged him to move to Victoria.

I thought it would be so great for him. And how old was Daniel when he did move to Victoria? He moved to Victoria in June of 2011, which was just after his 20th birthday. His birthday was March 25th. He spent his birthday in Revelstoke, but moved about a week and a little bit over a week later. And I understand from the time he arrived in Victoria, it wasn't very long until he crossed paths with who would become his killer, Josh Brito. Can you tell me about how Daniel and Josh became connected, how that happened?

Absolutely. So Daniel was hoping for this one job when he was arrived in Victoria, and when that didn't work out, he decided he better hit the pavement looking for a job. And on this particular day, I'm not 100% sure exactly the day I'd have to look, but it would be about the middle of June. He said, I'm going to take the bus into the city with one of my friends, and we're going to go to the work BC, it's called here, where you can look for jobs and write resumes and things.

And I'm going to find something, and I'm going to apply it all sorts of places. He's pretty excited about it, and I wished him the best. And as the story went, he said he got off the bus, and the bus stopped outside of 7-Eleven, and there was a big we're hiring sign in the window. So he thought, well, I'll apply there first. He walked into that 7-Eleven and asked if he could speak to the manager because he was wishing to apply for a job.

Later on that day, he messaged me and said, Mom, he told me that exact story and said, I never have you made it to work, B.C. The manager came out from the back room at 7-Eleven, and he hired me on the spot. I start tomorrow, and I was like, well, good for you, Daniel. He said, you know, maybe don't tell everybody, that I work at 7-11, it will only be temporary mom, but he said, I need to start somewhere,

and the manager seemed to really like me, and I'm looking forward to starting there. And, of course, the manager was Josh Brito at the time, although Daniel didn't know him by that name, that he introduced itself as Josh Buxton to Daniel. We know from court he'd seen Daniel on the closed circuit television, and he came out to look at him, and when he hired him on the spot, he said to Daniel, you know, you look just like the lead senior from Headley. That just really, that was the beginning of the stars in Daniel's eyes, I think. This guy thought he was great already and he only known him for five minutes. So that was how they met and he did start the next day and their friendship started that day as well and just

progressed until August 3rd. But, you know, again, this was the middle of June and Daniel died on August 3rd. So it really wasn't that much time to get to know each other. But in that time, they did a lot of things. So that was how they were introduced. And when I hear the stories of Daniel and Josh's relationship, the word that comes to mind to me is like grooming. It seems like Josh was really trying to win Daniel over and exaggerate his position in the world,

Josh's position in the world, that is. Are you aware of when this really started with Josh, again, quote unquote grooming, Daniel? Yes, actually. It started literally on the very first day that he started work. I remember receiving a text from Daniel saying, Mom, my due boss is so cool.

He, you know, he, he, he, I don't really understand why Josh felt that he had to build himself up to Daniel. I mean, Daniel was such a easygoing kid who just liked everybody. And he, I imagine that if Josh had been honest about who he was, Daniel would have cared, you know, cared for him as a friend as much as. he did with the stories. But yeah, I don't disagree with the word grooming in a way because he started from the beginning. And one of the first things that he shared with Daniel was that his parents were both wealthy lawyers that owned a law firm in Calgary and one in Victoria.

He told Daniel that his parents owned an upscale apartment right downtown, Victoria, and that that's where he lived. He explained to Daniel that he had no bills, whatsoever that he just worked at the 7-Eleven for extra money so this is how he could afford all these fancy dinners and going out to the bars and buying Daniel drinks and plying him with anything that Daniel wished for and what he wished for he also told Daniel that he was involved in a with a mayoral candidate in Victoria who was running for for mayor that year and that he was his political advisor is what Josh said and that he knew all sorts of people.

And I remember Daniel telling me a story that they were walking down government street and Victoria said and stopped this man who was some sort of a politician. And he said, oh, I don't remember the man's name. I don't know if I ever knew. But Daniel said, Mom, it was so cool. Josh stopped him right in the middle of the street and said, oh, so-and-so. I want you to meet my friend Daniel. And Daniel, this is the finance minister for British Columbia.

The gentleman, you know, shook Daniel's hand. And, you know, Daniel was in awe. He's like, man, Josh knows so many very important people. When in fact, you know, I imagine this finance minister was probably just shook everybody's hand. And Josh made it sound like he knew him personally. That's how Daniel thought, which I'm sure he did not know that person at all. Sorry to pull you out of the conversation, but I want to take a moment to set up what you're about to hear. During our talk, Stacey and I spent a significant amount of time discussing the near endless and puzzlingly elaborate lies that Josh Frito constructed.

it, presumably to impress and gain the attention of her son Daniel. This section of our talk, sadly, could have formed a series of episodes, but in the interest of time and clarity, I'll instead highlight the lies that most closely relate to the events leading to Daniel's death. After we take a short break, you'll hear some pieces of the conversation that I see as sort of a collage. I suppose you could call this section of the episode, Josh Brito's Collage of Deceit. We'll get to that right after this break.

He gave a big sob story to Daniel. Daniel had recently broken up with a girlfriend, his longtime girlfriend from Norway, when he was in Victoria, is when they broke up. So he had a bit of a broken heart, and Josh explained to Daniel that he had a fiancé that had just broken up with him. Josh explained she had dumped him for no real reason.

He explained to Daniel that his mother, Josh's mother had bought him and his fiance, a all-inclusive ticket and trip to Cuba, but now she couldn't go because now they were broken up. So he eventually, within a couple of weeks of knowing Daniel, and asked Daniel if he maybe wanted her ticket, Daniel just thought that was the best idea ever. Daniel had never really been anywhere except Norway,

never been anywhere hot, and he just thought that would be such a great idea. He explained to me very many times how he felt that him and Josh were helping each other get over their, broken heart. He also told Daniel that he himself had been in law school. He had only one year left to become a lawyer, but he quit because his father had fallen ill with cancer, terminal cancer, in fact, and had subsequently died a few months before he met

Daniels. This is a story that he was telling. After his father's supposed death, they found out that his father had taken on a lever that had produced a child. And now this woman was contesting the will because she had an heir to this massive fortune that the father had left behind and that the whole family was an upheaval because of it. And all of this is not true at all. But Daniel felt so sorry.

You know, poor Josh had so much on his plate. Like, here he is, the glue to his family and trying to help them all through all this terrible time with his father's estate. Plus, his girlfriend has just dumped him. It was just one, like, a sympathetic story after another, just playing on Daniel's heartstring. You know, I think Daniel said to me one time, I don't know what bad things happened to give people. What we have found out since, of course, is that Josh did have a girlfriend. He liked her very much.

He met her family. They all knew him. They thought he was a great guy. Once Daniel came into his life and hired on, everything changed with their relationship. He stopped talking to her. He started lying to her. He was making up things. She was getting very frustrated and would never let Daniel and her meet.

He kept those two parts of his lives very compartmentalized. And the one and only time that their paths crossed, she had come into 7-Eleven. And he introduced Daniel to her as one of the regional managers of 7-Eleven. And he said, don't talk to her. She's not a very nice person. And so Daniel stayed away thinking that she was this regional. manager when in fact, after speaking with her, which I have many times, I find out that it was actually her.

She couldn't understand why Daniel wouldn't talk to her. Daniel was afraid to speak to her because she was apparently very mean to Josh, which isn't true. And so he made very big efforts to keep the two of them away from each other so that there was never any known relationship between any of them. All the while, admitting later on, of course, Josh saying that his few. feelings for Daniel were changing and they weren't healthy feelings and he was attracted to him on more than a friend level, which he knew very well that Daniel was not, that he was attracted to women and was dating a few women and had gone on some dates and Daniel didn't know.

Daniel didn't know that he was gay. Now those were just a sample of the lies and misrepresentations Josh had fabricated during the two months he knew Daniel. But in this quickly escalating game of dishonesty, Josh was about to take a big step, one that would soon lead to Daniel learning the true nature of their relationship, tragically when it was far too late. As we get back to the conversation, Stacey will describe the non-existent job at the imaginary law firm that Josh promised Daniel. So I would say at the end of July, I started getting messages from Daniel about this law firm in Victoria

was looking for a new legal secretary, this law firm that does not exist. Let's keep that in mind as I tell this story. But Josh coached Daniel to believe that Josh had spoken to his mother, who was the president of this law firm, and that they were to meet Daniel because he highly recommended Daniel as a potential legal secretary that could be trained on the job.

The mother apparently agreed and thought that this was a great idea and hired Daniel without, you know, just on Josh's word. Again, Josh would very often type messages to his mother, and I say in quotations, accidentally send them to Daniel and then say, oh, sorry, that one was for my mom, but any messages he was saying things like, oh, Daniel, so good with people, he's so smart, he's such a quick learner, you know, and all these things, blah, blah, blah. So Daniel was very excited, so excited as a matter of fact,

he'd given a two weeks notice at the 7-Eleven. He was going to go to work for this one, law firm in downtown Victoria. And he gave us two weeks notice to be finished in and around the middle of August so that he could come home, wanted to have a little visit with us. Plus, they were, of course, going to Cuba, because

Daniel had agreed to go with Josh to Cuba on the fake holiday that didn't exist. I saw Daniel for the last time on July 31st, I believe it was. I was in Vancouver. Daniel took the ferry over from Victoria to Vancouver and had

a nice beautiful dinner with my grand mother. Daniel was explaining to us how, you know, he was so excited about this new job. He was going to meet his new boss on August 1st. She was flying in from Calgary to meet Daniel and they were going to start an orientation. I asked him at that time, you know, do I need to help you buy some clothes maybe? Like, should we get you some dress pants and things? And he said, no, the firm has a clothing budget.

Part of my orientation will be going to a suit store and will be buying me some suits. It's part of my package. he did ask me at that time to make him a dentist appointment. He felt that he needed to get one of his teeth fixed. And the only reason I mentioned this is because he said, I'm going to be home in the middle of August. I'd like to go to the dentist. And then a day and a half later, he messaged me and said,

oh, Mom, I talked to Josh about my dentist appointment. You don't have to make it because I guess the law firm has a very great dental plan and I'll just do it here. So Josh had convinced him that he would be getting paid so much more money at this law firm. He would have this clothing allowance. It would afford him the ability to buy beautiful dress clothes. He was going to be trained for a career that Daniel would be very, you know, we looked very much forward to. And on top of it all, this very new best friend of his, his mother was going to be Daniel's boss and he thought that was just great. He said

August 1st rolled around and she was unable to come. Josh said, sorry, we're going to have to phone this orientation. His younger brother, Matthew, had fallen ill. And he was, her mother was not able to travel that day, but that she had rescheduled her, her arrival to be August 3rd when Matthew felt better. Of course,

none of that was true. No law firm. No passage. No. Are you aware of Daniel having any doubts about Josh's stories? Or would he have gone into this completely believing the stories Josh has told and the lies he built? Yeah. He really did believe.

leave them. When I did see him that day, that last time that I saw him on July 31st, I did say to him, how come, you know, how come he's being so nice, you know, like, whatever, I couldn't, I, I had some doubt. I wasn't, I don't know if I was really suspicious, but I just thought, I said, why, why, why, why would he be so interested in helping you? And he just said, Mom, that's just who he is. He's the, he's the nicest person in the world. He's just, he's taken me under his wing and he's just wonderful to me. My only speculation was I couldn't understand why he chose Daniel. As a matter of fact, I have a message that I sent to him that said, tell him thank you. Tell him thank you from me. I'm just so happy that he's so good to you, you know, and please tell him

thank you. That was one of the last messages I sent to him, actually. I understand that you ended up being one of the final people that Daniel spoke to, which turned out to be before he went to this orientation for the quote-unquote law firm. As you mentioned, it had been delayed quite a bit, this meeting of Josh's mother. But I believe when it finally was going to happen, Daniel had spoke to you shortly before going. Can you tell me a bit about that communication? Yeah, absolutely. It was August 3rd. He, um, messaged me first thing in the morning and he said, this is word for word. Good morning, mom. Wish me luck. It's my orientation day today with a bunch of happy faces. And I said, good luck, Daniel.

I'm so proud of you. I know she's going to love you. You know, good luck today. Just be yourself and, you know, not, you know, that's how I said it. And he was very thankful. And then, you know, that was probably, I think, around noon that afternoon. And then at 2.30, he messaged me again. And he said, I'm on my way, Mom.

Daniel didn't have a car, so he was getting on, I now know he got into a bus, onto a bus, and he said, I'm on my way now, I'm heading over to Josh's apartment, what he thought was Josh's apartment, which wasn't his apartment at all, was that other girlfriend that he had. And I'm headed there now, so he just let me know at 235, I believe, or 238 was the last text I got from him, and he was dead by 5. And when, like, so you got that message at around 235, when did you hear that something went wrong and something had happened? Like, how did this news get to you?

It's kind of a, well, this whole story is sad, but it's very sad. When I didn't hear from Daniel after his orientate, his supposed orientation, I thought it was kind of unusual, especially because he was so excited. But I did know he had other plans after and such just figured I would speak to him in the morning. my son Joel and I went to a movie that night and got home a little bit late. I was to be resting for work and so the incident took place around 5 p.m. that night. By the time it was all said and done, they went by Daniel's driver's license and found Jackson at the house on the address on Daniel's BCID, informed Jackson of what had happened. and that was how the police at around 22 o'clock that night found out who I was.

Of course, I have a different last name than Daniel, so they were able to know from Jackson that I lived in Revelstoke, and they contacted the Revelstoke RECNP that night. The RCMP came to my house at 1 o'clock in the morning on the force and knocked, and Joel and I did not hear them. They came back again at 3 o'clock in the morning and knocked again. We didn't hear them again. And then at 8 o'clock in the morning, it woke Joel up.

and it was the police you could see them and he didn't know why they were coming to the door of course he thought it might have something to do if you can believe this is how innocent our life used to be Joel had a

freestanding basketball net and out in our driveway and he thought that maybe the police wanted it moved and that was the first thing he thought when he saw the gentleman at the door they asked if they could speak to if I was home

and if they could speak to me and he came to get me and he said mum the police are at the door. And as soon as those words at my ears, I screamed Daniel. Like, I just knew something had happened to Daniel. I don't know how I knew that.

But I ran down the hallway and they said, are you supposed to see there? And I said I was. And they said they regretted to inform me that my son Daniel had died on the night before. And I collapsed in my 15-year-old son's arms, of course. fell backwards in despair. The rest of it's kind of a blur,

but the RCMP here in Revelstoke, very kind. They brought a victim services fellow with them. He stayed with me while I threw up in the toilet. Could only say to me by giving me a card of who to call. I was meant to call a Victoria policeman, and I don't know what he was. I only ever spoke to this fellow. once, but he was able to tell me

that Daniel had been involved in an altercation. This was a couple of hours after I found out when I was trying to piece it all together that he was involved in an altercation and that, you know, he wanted to know as much as he could about Daniel and things like that from me. One of the very first things I said to him

is how's Josh and the fellow said on the other end of the phone said, why would you ask about Josh? And I said, well, he's one of Daniel's best friends and if Daniel was out, he would have been out. They spent, you know, a lot of time together, and I just, if Daniel was involved in something,

then Josh might be hurt too. That was my first, you know, funny that I should have thought that. They were very shocked. They immediately wanted to know the relationship between Daniel and Josh, and I explained to them that they were friends, close friends, and that he was his employer. He was the manager of the 7-11 in the Torla.

And then I said, why are you asking me so many questions about Josh? and that was when they informed me that Josh was also involved in this altercation and that he was currently being held responsible for Daniel's death. So that was my first knowledge of that. I still didn't know what happened. People were reporting in the news that Daniel had been stabbed. The police at that stage would not confirm or deny how Daniel died or anything.

They could only tell me that he was dead and that Josh was in custody. Now, could you tell me when you learn the story of what actually happened in that apartment and tell me as well what the version of the story was that you heard? So the police were very tight-lipped right from the beginning. What they could tell me, for sure, was that there had been an altercation in that apartment that both Daniel and Josh were both had been both injured. And that once taken to the hospital, it was noted by one of the physicians that the doctor did not think that Josh had been the victim,

but probably the aggressor. Daniel had died. Josh was superficially wounded, and it was very contrary to the story that Josh told. When he called 911 that evening, he told the police, and then again when they arrived, that Daniel had freaked out on him

and attacked him with a knife and stabbed him, and in retaliation, Josh had hit him with a hammer. He pretended to be the victim, him the entire time. When they walked in, Daniel was face down on a pile of blankets and pillows. When they turned him over, they recognized that he was in medical distress. He was already blue. He wasn't breathing. When they saw Josh, he was laying on the floor, covered in blood. They treated him immediately, took him priority to the hospital. When it came out, of course, in trial, it was determined that the lion's share of the blood on,

Joshua was closed, that was Daniel's blood. He had, in fact, after having said that Daniel had stabbed him, it was determined, forensically that he had attacked Daniel first and went rummaging through the drawers in the kitchen and found a knife and stabbed himself. They know that because Daniel's blood was in the drawer where the knife was stored. Josh's story did not add up right from the beginning. As a matter of fact, he went straight from the hospital with band-aids, because that's all he required. He did not even require a stitch in any of his wounds.

He was remanded straight away to the Victoria Police Department. And look, they didn't charge him immediately. They had to go to a judge and charge him. But it was within the first two days that he was actually charged with secondary murder. And then it was a big job. It was a huge job. to determine what actually happened because all the while for the next six years Josh would deny having anything to do with Daniel's death and maintain that he was the victim and that everything he did was in self-defense. What the police told me was what we know and what we can prove are two different things and they just spent years and years.

It felt like doing that, you know, finding things that they could use to prove that Daniel was a victim because they truly believed it. They knew that Daniel was the victim. But thankfully, they had such a good friend of team that they were able to gather a lot of evidence that they were, it was painstaking for them. They made at their point to prove that they knew that the story where Josh was telling was not true. Initially, investigators may have been reasonably certain that Josh was the instigator, but for some reason, charges were dropped shortly after they were originally laid. And I understand this had to do with the original, I don't know if we were. was the autopsy or the ruling of how Daniel died. Can you talk about what led to those original charges being dropped

and Josh being basically let go, I think, two months after the pact? Yeah, absolutely. First of all, the charges were never dropped. They were stayed. Important to note that because charges being dropped would mean that he was no longer under investigation, and that was not true. The charges were stayed, which meant that until they could get more evidence, they, which they intended on doing, that that door was still open.

When they took Daniel's body to Vancouver to the forensic pathologist Dr. Carol Lee, she did his autopsy and the manner of death was ruled, death by cocaine toxicity. That's something I hadn't mentioned and feel very uncomfortable with in all of these stories, is that it was the fact that Josh was buying cocaine and Daniel was using it as well with him. but there was indeed cocaine in Daniel's body that day and so Dr. Carol Lee determined that that was the cause of death. And that was a huge blow to us. It was something I was unaware of. I didn't know of Daniel's drug use.

It wasn't a major issue in his life. It was determined by the toxicology tests. The toxicologist did testify saying that Daniel was a less than recreational user by the amounts of residue left in his body. but it was known through the investigators that the amount of cocaine that was in Daniel's body was not of lethal dose. They believed that with their whole hearts

and continued to fight for Daniel because they did not believe that Dr. Lee had done a proper report on his actual autopsy. You know, it was noted that Daniel had been struck on the head at least two times with a hammer so hard that the hammer was broken. The head had broken right off.

It was, you know, that's pretty hard hit to, back of his head to break a hammerhead off of it. So, you know, there was that as well as the fact that he was black and blue. He'd fought for his life. He was screaming to be let go. There were neighbors that heard this. There's neighbors that testified at trial that they heard him open the door and say, help me, somebody help me, and then the door slammed shut.

And then please let me go, please let me go. You know, all these factors were things that Dr. Carol Lee knew. and ignored as far as we were concerned. We did end up getting another forensic pathologist to look at Daniel's notes. Of course, he didn't ever see Daniel himself, so he could only go by what Dr. Lee's notes and photos and things like that. But it was determined after Dr. Lee looked again at Daniel, changed her manner of death to be cocaine toxicity in the setting of violence.

So she did acknowledge after her second review that there was violence, silence of cotrimmy to Daniel's death. But the original autopsy is what led to Josh's charges being stayed at the moment. He was released early December of 2011 and was to remain free until December of 2012. And what is it that changed about a year after Daniel's death that led to the charges being put against Josh again? Was it the change in the cause of death, or what was it? It was partly the change in the manner of death. But on top of that, and most importantly, they knew it wasn't self-defense,

but they needed to prove how they knew that. And by the interviews with the neighbors hearing Daniel calling for help and knowing by reading Josh's texts about his feelings for Daniel and his want of a sexual relationship with Daniel, that they were able to charge him with first-degree murder, forcible confinement, and sexual assault. Daniel was not sexually assaulted at the time, but because the attack took place during an attempt to sexually assault someone,

that immediately upgraded the murder charge to first-degree murder. And now these charges were placed almost six years before a verdict was eventually matter or a plea was made. What led to such massive delays in this case? Well, we did go to court in 2015. It started in January of 2015 and went to March 2015. We had a jury that had been selected that was present every day. And in three months, it was one delay after another.

You know, the defense doing their job was able to just put up roadblocks where a lot of the evidence that we had were speculations. everything was speculation. Just salt in our wounds. You know, he was just kept asking for recess, has kept suggesting that he needed more time for this. And in fact, he'd had four years to get his stuff together. There was a couple of little glitches with the Crown's case, too,

that were unfortunate, some oversights, not necessarily with evidence in itself, but just of processing. Of course, the defense, being a good defense lawyer, he was able to take advantage of those. And in fact, with all the delays and all the time that the jury had to have to be excused, the judge at the time did declare a mistrial in March of 2015, which a mistrial, of course, is not an innocent verdict of any sort.

Josh was remanded back to the Victoria prison that he was in. And we were to go back to court again the following October. Of course, that didn't happen either. It was just another thing after another thing after another thing, after another thing. Yeah, it just, when the Jordan decision came down in 2014, which was a decision about the Supreme Court of Canada involving a speedy trial, I knew that Josh's lawyer was arguing about that, wanting to have a decision made on his behalf regarding the amount of time that he had sat in remand. He'd been in there since December of 2012, and here it was 2016. That was a big battle for us, too. there was nothing that the crown could really do.

Law is law. It was indeed a fact that he had been in remand longer than he should have been because of legal delays, because of lack of court time, because of, you know, just scheduling conflicts. There was all sorts of stuff that was beyond so many people's control that led to the possibility that he would be released without charges at all. You must have a, there was a maximum amount of time you were allowed to be in jail before having start to finish from arrest to trial.

I knew that this was going to be a problem for us, and it definitely was. They did do the argument shortly before the plea deal had come up. They had done an argument in front of a judge where the Crown argued why we should continue on with the trial, and the defense argued why he should be released because he'd been in jail too long, which was by his design,

he never ever one time asked for bail. He didn't ask for any kind of release He stayed in jail this entire time. And, well, and it benefited him to, in the end. Having said that, the judge never did come up with a decision on his human rights being violated with the time frames. Because before the judge actually made that decision, the defense approached the crown with a plea. When they approached them with the plea deal, I was told immediately. And part of the

The pros of it Would be that there could be no appeal Whatever he was sentenced to Whatever he was to serve Would be the end of it And we would never have to go to trial again And for myself and my two children That was huge to me

This the whole legal battle For the last six years Took such a toll on my children And myself and my finances It was just so excruciating Another pro pro for the plea deal was that the crown did make it clear that it was

very likely that he may not ever get anything he may be released with no charges at all because of the Jordan decision that was a very very big possibility and having said all that if that was to have happened there would have been no accountability which was extremely important to my kids and I

and to Daniel's father and not only that, but by even just this plea, which was far less than what he deserved, he will always have a conviction on his record. He will never be able to walk around without people knowing that he's done what he's done and had everything been dropped and we didn't win anything, he would be a free man for the rest of his life and wouldn't be anything we could do about it. So there was that too, like the guarantee of having some sort of record, some sort of, you know, he had to register his DNA and, you know, he had to, you know, he had to register his DNA and, you know,

He had to admit something. He had to say something. When you make a plea deal, you have to tell them what happened. And he did tell them his version, which was similar to what I thought, similar to what the Crown thought. I mean, he couldn't keep lying anymore. He had to take some accountability, and that was huge to me in particular. And what was the story that he told in his version? The story that he told was that he had lied.

that he was in a very bad place at the time. He was a heavy drug user and drinker, which was unlike his character before. This is what he said. He had developed an unhealthy infatuation with Daniel and had desired more than a friendship with him. He lured Daniel to the apartment that day on the pretense that he was going to have an orientation.

The law firm that did not exist with a mother that did not come there, isn't a lawyer. And he said that when dad, Daniel arrived. He told him that there was no orientation again, that Daniel started to figure things out, started to ask questions about all the lies that he'd been telling and got very mad and wanted to leave.

Josh then said that the prospect of Daniel leaving his life forever and possibly telling everybody of all his lies was enough for him to want to not let Daniel go. And in a fit of rage, he himself attacked Daniel. And that Daniel fought back. and then he did admit that he did make it look like he was the victim. He stabbed himself. He admitted all of those things, which I do think are all true.

What I don't agree with is I don't think Daniel ever questioned him. And I could be wrong. I feel like, especially because Daniel's wounds are on the back of his head, my personal feeling is that Daniel didn't know what hit him, literally. But other than that, it was everything that we had already proved. So, you know, it was very easy for him, for Josh, to be able to give the statement of facts using all of the stuff that he could not disprove with his lawyer. He basically told us nothing we didn't know.

And I imagine that there is far more to that story. And now what he eventually was charged with through this plea deal was manslaughter, which led to a much shorter time in prison. And of course, given the amount of time he spent before his conviction, getting credit for time served, He was only, I believe, originally scheduled to have, I believe, about two years in prison after his conviction. But that, and again, I'm getting to the, what I see as another big injustice. And that's Josh's early release from prison and the way your family was, I guess, unformed of this.

Can you just talk a bit about when you first learned that he actually got out quite a bit earlier than anticipated? Yeah, absolutely. his sentence after time served was for two years less a day, which afforded him the ability to be sentenced in a provincial prison rather than a federal. I knew that Josh was a model prisoner, so to speak, he was very, you know, manipulative and charming and can be on his best behavior.

And I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that it would continue. Also, not just his actual sentence, but in the ruling all of Daniel's family and specifically a few other witnesses were given a no contact order. He is not to be anywhere near us. You know, no contact is to be made with us. And when he was to be released, we were to be notified. My son Joel had an idea that maybe he had been released already,

and I said, well, I didn't think he had been. You know, I thought to myself, that's probably, you know, it's too early, Joel. I expect he'd at least spend 18 months, but to ease your mind, I will look into it. And I contacted a few people to say, you know, how will I find out about this? How will they tell us? Do they have our address, you know, whatever?

And in the process of looking into it, I found that he'd already been released in October and we were never notified, which was especially devastating to our community, to my daughter. She was terrified. She's terrified. Not that she needs to be, but just the fact that this guy is out and not. of us knew was horrifying to us that don't know how that slipped through the cracks, but no matter how much I wish it didn't, it did. And yeah, it's an uproar. Our community is up in arms. The world should be up in arms. This man is out, and he shouldn't be out anywhere.

He shouldn't be out anyways, never mind on his behavior after 16 months. And now, Josh's history before Daniel, before the situation with Daniel and Daniel's murder, that's been the subject of a few news articles I came across. At what point did you learn Josh's history as like a quote-unquote con artist? It started right away, actually. We had people from Prince George contacting us about things that he'd done as a juvenile when he was 16 years old. Other people in Cranbrook were calling us and telling us about what he'd done there with the MPs there and then Calgary. And, you know, you just had to start Googling his name, which is something that has been kind of a mantra for our family since.

You know, Google everyone you know, because had Daniel known his real name, which he didn't, he told him that his name was Josh Buxton. But if you are to Google his name, Joshua Brito, up comes articles from 2008, 2009 of all the things that he'd done in Calgary, in Prince George, in Cranbrook, in Victoria. every single one of these instances that he was involved in where he was a liar, a manipulator, a cheat. Those were already in the news. We just didn't know about them. But it was at the urging of other people to look into some of these things

that we were able to find out who he was. And Daniel had no idea. I can't help but imagine, like, when you think back to Daniel and who he is and, you know, in your life with Daniel, it must be hard to not have, you know, the darkness of his death kind of interfere with your memories of him. So I just wonder, when you think of Daniel, does the way his life end it affect your memories of the good times with him? Or are you able to separate this?

For the first while, I couldn't. I definitely couldn't. I felt so cheated, having already lost a child. and having to bury my second one, it was very difficult for me to look past the unnecessary death. And I know the difference between something that can be blamed and something that can't. And then when it came to Daniel's death, so tragically, so innocently on his part,

that I, and I had someone to blame, it was very difficult for me to separate my love for Daniel himself and my drive to find out what really happened and make sure somebody paid for it. We just loved Daniel so much. Everybody did. His father, his stepmother, and everybody who loved Daniel, his friends, family. Like, we couldn't let go of all the good about Daniel.

And to be honest, when you think about his death, everything that made him Daniel is what got him killed, his love for people, his loyalty, his willingness to believe everything you say because why would anyone lie about something like that? We celebrate him all the time, you know, and I think, I do think, though, I could have got a lot easier lost in the bad side of it if I didn't have these other two children to raise, that I wanted them to see that there can still be joy in their life, there can still be sunshine. And we've had our bad times. I mean, I've had to collect Joel downtown after work one time when he just, you know, couldn't hold it in anymore. He's been such a little rock.

this poor 15-year-old boy who suddenly became the man of the family. And our little Lainey, you know, we sheltered her quite a bit when all the bad stuff was happening because it wasn't fair that she was 12 years old and had to be thrust into the spotlight of hate and vindictiveness and resentment and death, something she couldn't understand at her age. You know, and it's been very difficult. But it's made us stronger and we're very, very brave. Throughout our talk, you mentioned a lot, you know, the community and people of Ravelstoke identifying you and your family members. And even in what I saw online, like there's the Facebook group of people sharing their memories of Daniel.

Can you talk a bit about the support you received, not so much from your family, but from other members of your community or, you know, other people? Oh, I would love to do that. Rebel Stoke is a sweet little town. You know, it's full of extremely loving and caring people. They were, Rebel Stoke got behind us full force. I couldn't have asked for a better situation in such a terrible situation. You know, there was 1,500, you know, almost 1,500 people at Daniel's funeral, people I didn't know.

He was just, he touched so many lives and they, in return, supported us. He had such a huge and wonderful network of friends. as do I. I'm so fortunate for that, that we're able to hold our heads and hold our hands while we wept openly in the grocery store sometimes. You know, Daniel was loved by so many people. And everybody, I like to think that everybody would have that, you know, the love of a community when something so tragic died. But our little Revelstoke had been through a lot. Not starting with Daniel's death, but Daniel's death being in the middle. We lost seven young people in less than a year in a small community like this it was just very hurting and none of them were the same situation

as each other they were all very tragic and very very sad but we knew grief in this little town of ours we knew how hard it was for families and you know if there could ever be a story about a little town that pulls together for the hearts of mothers and fathers of lost children it would be rebel stoke right there they just did every i couldn't i can't thank this community enough and my friends and Daniel's friends. And I always call myself the luckiest, unlucky girl in the world, and that's who I am. You know, we had such a tragic situation,

but had so many people pulling for us and working for us. And it really could have been a very opposite experience for us, as negative as it was and as horrifying and as painful as this experience with losing Daniel and then the process afterwards. I am overwhelmed at how many people love. of us and care for us, and I just, I couldn't be more thankful. It's at this point that our discussion ended. Well, at least the part of the talk that I planned to be recorded.

But due to a stroke of good luck, I forgot to click the stop button and end the recording, something I don't recall ever having done before. But in this case, I'm so thankful that the tape kept rolling. After the episode credits, an unplanned piece of our discussion will serve as the perfect setup for Daniel's only professional piece, of recorded music, a cover of the Leonard Skinnerd song, Simpleman. So be sure to stay at the very end of this episode and hear the gift that Daniel was so excited about sharing with the world, his music.

But before we get to that, I want to give a few thanks and wrap up this episode. First, I want to offer my most heartfelt condolences to the friends, family, and loved ones of Daniel Levec. Despite having such a shocking and tragic end, Daniel's story is about so much more than any monster could overshadow. And Daniel's fortunate to have left behind many loved ones to maintain and celebrate his legacy. One of the driving forces of that, of course, was our guest, Stacey Thurr, his mother. Stacey, you're quite simply amazing.

Speaking to you was not unlike receiving a master course in what it means to be a mother. I'll be forever in awe of your dream. drive, perseverance, positivity, and the love you display for your children. And with that, I'll end this episode of Nighttime. A huge thanks to Christy Lee of the Canadian True Crime Podcast for collaborating with me on this series. I encourage everyone who isn't already listening to subscribe to her show. She's the real deal.

And a big thanks to the Canadian duo Voxomnia for providing the theme for this series. You can find Vox Somnia through the link in the episode notes. And if you like music, do yourself a favor and get somber with Vox Somnia. If any of you listening want more from nighttime, please check out the patron group. It's a dollar a month and it allows you to support the show and access the supporter exclusive feed, which provides ad-free early releases of episodes in addition to prior episodes that are no longer available on this free feed. You can join by visiting patreon.com slash nighttime podcast.

With that mentioned, I'd like to thank the current patrons of the show and welcome the newest members to the group. Megan M. Mitzi, Muncie, T.J. and Jennifer G. I sincerely appreciate the support your show nighttime. For anyone else who'd like to support the show but can't help financially, you can give me a big hand by telling your friends about me and leaving a positive review on Apple Podcasts or whichever equivalent. you use. If any of you listening want to stay up to date with my activities on and off the show,

follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. I use the handle at Nighttime Pod. If you have any story ideas or any feedback on the show, I'd love to hear from you at nighttime podcast at gmail.com, or you can send me a voice message using the contact section of my website. So until next time, take care of each other, hug your loved ones tight, and let me know if you see anything weird. The Nighttime Podcast is written, hosted and produced by Jordan Bonaparte. Copyright, Jordan Bonaparte. And I was going to include some music.

I found a recording of Daniel that seems like it was professionally recorded of him singing a Leonard Skinner's song. Yeah, yeah. Are you aware of any other music he had recorded? No, that's the only one he recorded, actually. And he recorded it on July 28th, like shortly before his death, and that's why there's only one. It was just in a little studio in Victoria that did this and it's quite a remarkable story too. So what happened was he had this studio time paid for by Josh actually.

And he went in and that was the first song he was going to sing. So what he did was he laid out the guitar tracks, acoustic guitar and then the singing. So he had two guitar tracks on it. And then after his death, the studio approached us and asked if they could finish the song for him. And so we had his friend Jack, his friend, Jamie Fitchett playing the electric guitar, some of the people in the studio playing a few other things, and that's where that final recording came from.

But at his funeral, we played the acoustic version. I had never heard it until he died because it's just been recorded on the 28th and they worked to master it so that I could at least have the acoustic version and we were able to play it at his funeral.