Front Burner - 'A dagger in my heart'

Episode Date: June 24, 2022

WARNING: This episode deals with sexual assault Rick Boguski's brother Darryl has cerebral palsy, is blind and has autism. And on April 20, Darryl's 62nd birthday, Rick was told by the RCMP that his brother had been identified as one of five victims of sexual assault that allegedly occurred at Shepherd's Villa, a group home for the severely disabled in Hepburn, Sask. The suspect, Brent Gabona, had cared for Darryl at the home for years. Since then, Gabona, 52, has been charged with five counts of sexual assault and three of sexual exploitation of a person with a disability — which court records say occurred between 1992 and 2006. But other families who had loved ones in his care wonder if there may be more victims, and are pressing the RCMP to dig deeper. Today on Front Burner, CBC's Jorge Barrera shares what he learned after his conversations with Rick — and with Gabona himself.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. And a warning before we begin, this episode deals with sexual assault. Take care while listening. For the families of residents of the Shepherds Villa Group home in Hepburn, Saskatchewan, the last few weeks have been a nightmare. On May 10th, a 52-year-old man named Brent Gabona

was charged with sexually assaulting five severely disabled individuals who were in his care. Families who trusted their loved ones in the care of a group home learned police are investigating a horrific crime. Last month, Brent Gabona was charged with eight crimes related to sexual abuse, specifically targeting those who can't speak. specifically targeting those who can't speak. Gabona worked at the home until 2009, and police believe the assaults could have taken place as early as 1992. Now other families who have had loved ones living there are wondering if Gabona may have hurt more people, and say that the RCMP's three-week-long investigation didn't go deep enough.

At this point, when we're looking at it, we're not talking about just one incident. We are talking about 17 years worth of abuse on several different individuals. My colleagues Jorge Barrera and Kimberly Ivany have been digging into this story and they've spoken to some of those families and Gabona himself. Today, Jorge is with me to talk about what they've learned about the horrific crimes committed against those most vulnerable and the lasting impact it's had on their loved ones. Hi, Jorge. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me.

I want to start today not by talking about Brent Gabona. We'll get there. But by talking about two brothers named Daryl and Rick Bogusky. You visited them at this beautiful place where they live, this ranch in southern Alberta. And what's their life like there? Well, Daryl Bogusky has cerebral palsy. He's autistic. He's blind and can't speak.

Okay, we're going to go outside and have our breakfast, okay? Let's go have our breakfast outside. Awesome. breakfast okay let's go have our breakfast outside awesome so his brother rick laguski took him from a group home in calgary right when the covid19 pandemic was hitting in the spring of 2020 and he brought him to this ranch in southwestern al. They're surrounded by rolling pasture lands, fringed by the Rocky Mountains. They can see from their porch eagles riding gusting winds, and there's hawks and swallows and magpies. And Rick brought his brother Daryl here to protect him. He thought that this environment

would be good for Daryl and it would also, you know, keep him away from, you know, the pandemic that was, you know, sweeping across Canada. Now this ranch is located about, you know, 30 kilometers north of Pincher Creek and it became a refuge for Daryl. There we go, mister. Hey, breakfast on the patio. Now, you know, Rick's life is guided by the rhythms of his brother's needs. When we went to visit, we arrived there early in the morning, and When we went to visit, we arrived there early in the morning and Rick had just, you know, got his brother out of bed, dressed him and helped him to this bed on the porch that he made for Daryl so Daryl could lie there and take in the wind and the sounds and the clean air. That's the way everyone needs to start their day, eh?

Okay, I'm putting you at the table, okay? Yep, good job. And then I'm gonna go get our breakfast, okay? You know, Rick made Daryl an omelette that he sliced and fed him morsel by morsel with a side of pineapples and strawberries. That's good, isn't it? What do you think there mister? Country style

breakfast eh Daryl? I know the reviews are good when Daryl isn't getting up and walking away so. Throughout the day he's always moving his brother around. Sometimes he'll take Daryl and their two dogs tuning Gracie and they'll pile them into the car and they'll drive in behind their their house down towards a creek that cuts through their land and he'll he'll guide daryl to um a fold-out chair and sit him there and rick will sit in the grass and he'll just listen to the creek burbling right let's turn that frown upside down because i love you how much do i love you huh to the moon and back so it sounds like when they moved out to this ranch this this beautiful ranch a couple years ago they were hoping to have kind of like a quiet, happy life there, right? And then I understand that one day in April on

Daryl's birthday, they get a call from the RCMP. And can you tell me about that call? Yeah, it was April 20th. And Rick had just baked a cake for Daryl, had lit the barbecue, grilled some steaks and was singing his brother happy birthday. When the phone rang, he picked it up. It was an RCMP officer who asked Rick whether his brother had been a resident at this group home called Shepherd's Villa in Hepburn, Saskatchewan. Rick said yes, and the officer said, well, we believe that your brother was a victim of sexual assault at that home. And this shocked Rick. It was like a dagger in my heart and and he said he cried himself to sleep that night and and he called the officer

the next morning to make sure he hadn't misheard and the officer confirmed that yes his brother was a victim of sexual assault one of five alleged victims at this group home. How did learning about these allegations change how Rick looked back on events in Daryl's life? back on events in Daryl's life. This knowledge of these alleged sexual assaults put things that had happened to Daryl in a new light. Daryl's, his whole demeanor, his personality, even his body size changed over the course of 25 years that he was there. And even when my parents were still alive and trying to take Daryl back to

the group home after a visit, he would put on the brakes. It would be like if you were to take your dog to the vet and you have to force that individual into the home. Daryl was actually kicked out of Shepherd's Villa in 2015 because of his behavior. We were told Daryl doesn't want to be touched. Daryl won't go to the bathroom. Daryl is acting out. Daryl is yelling. Daryl is screaming. So they kicked him out and sent him to a psychiatric center for about nine months, where Daryl was put on even more pills, uppers, downers, whatever they could feed him, just to shut him up. And then they shipped him off to another group home. And suddenly, Rick started to think, well, perhaps this is what triggered Daryl's, you know, behavior problems, because once he moved him to the ranch, Daryl didn't need that medication anymore.

And Rick started to feel a lot of anger and a lot of pain that his behavior and all the medication he was put under may have all been triggered to these events when he was at the group home. I can't imagine how difficult that must be to reckon with right now. The RCMP say Daryl Bogusky is not the only person that Brent Gabona allegedly abused, right? And what else do they allege he did when he was working at this group home? So because, you know, after Rick heard about these charges, he started to speak out and he would speak to local media under another name because there's a publication ban and the judge actually removed the publication ban specifically on Daryl

Bogusky at Rick's request. But I can't reveal the names of the other victims, but there is a total of five, including Daryl, so three males and two females. And of the five, three have since died. And the court records say that all these assaults happened allegedly between 1992 and 2006. Now, this all came as a result of an about three-week investigation that the RCMP launched on April 19th, leading to May 10th charges, eight counts, against Brent Cabona, a former care worker there. He was charged with five counts of sexual assault

and three counts of sexual exploitation of a person with a disability. And all these charges stem from Gabona's time at Shepherd's Villa, this group home that sits in this tree-shrouded corner of Hepburn, Saskatchewan, a town of about 780 people that sits about 45 kilometers north of Saskatoon. And we know that Gabona left that group home in 2009. How did the RCMP get word of these alleged crimes in the first place? Well, according to the RCMP, they said that they received complaints of sexual assaults at the group home on April 19th, triggering their investigation.

And I understand the victims, none of them were verbal, right? Yeah, according to family members we spoke to, you know, who had concerns about their own loved ones and contacted the RCMP, they were told that the accused only assaulted nonverbal individuals. Now, this group home, just to paint a clearer picture, you know, they were all individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities. So they needed, they need 24-hour care. Everything from, you know, bathing, changing, being led around, being fed. Very, very hands-on type of care. This is what the group home provided.

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Am I correct to say that Brent Gabona came forward with basically an admission here of guilt, and you even spoke to him? Yeah, what I can tell you based on this phone call with Brent Gabona, an admission here of guilt and you even spoke to him. Yeah, what I can tell you based on this phone call with Brent Gabon and just to give you a little background on this. So we went to Gabon's home, got his cell number and I phoned him. And then the next day he phoned me back. I understand that your family is a Christian family. You go to church and I was just wondering if that played a role in your decision to come forward. Definitely. It definitely has come to

me. And then we also spoke with his pastor of his church who confirmed this, and the pastor told us that Gabona had phoned him after he went to police and that it was now in the RCMP's hand. You asked Gabona a question that he didn't really answer, but the way he did answer it seems quite troubling. Can you tell me about that? Because we had spoken to all these families who had people in Gabona's care who were not part of the named victims, they're not the five alleged victims. They wanted to know if their loved ones were also potentially victims in this. Cabona. There's one more thing I need to ask you because I've been speaking to other people, other family members who've had their loved ones in your care and they're wondering if there were others that you may have hurt as well. Is it more than five? And he paused for about 25 seconds what what can i tell them

sorry i can't i can't i'll respond to that at this point wow so these these other families that you've spoken to uh i understand that they feel that the RCMP should have contacted them as well, the families who are not among the five victims. And what are their concerns exactly with the scope of the investigation? Well, this was a three, about three week long investigation from the complaint on April 19th to the charges on May 10th. And they questioned why it would have taken such a short time when we're talking about, you know, historical allegations of sexual assault, you know, that occurred over, based on the court records, at least 14 years in a group home that had a lot of vulnerable

individuals. And they wondered why it seemed that, based on their own conversations with officers who were involved in this, why it appeared that these charges were primarily based on it appeared that these charges were primarily based on Gabona's own words. And they felt that this needed a much broader look than it appears to have unfolded. Mm-hmm. You spoke to the parents of Derek Hawkins, so Naomi and Al Hawkins, and Derek received one-on-one care from Gabona for years. And how did Naomi and Al say Derek's behavior changed in the time that he was at the home? What did they have to say to you? Al and Naomi Hawkins actually kept all their son's records, all his medical records.

Their son Derek died in 2011 from a kidney failure. And Naomi Hawkins was actually planning to write a book about her son. And when they heard about these charges, those records raised new questions because Naomi had raised Derek until he was 18 years old. And he was generally good-natured, the kind of guy that would be sort of the bright spark in a group setting. And suddenly, after he was put into Shepherd's Villa, after he turned 18, his behavior completely turned. He became more aggressive and lashed out against others. He had violent episodes. And they actually listed all the incidents that were reported from their son over the time he was in Shepherd's Villa. And it went from zero incidents, maybe one to three incidents a month. Suddenly it spiked to nine and then it spiked to 21 their son actually was forced out of the home in november 2005 he had ripped all

the gyproc off his walls with his bear hounds and they told it when they called they told us that if we didn't come and get him immediately they would be phoning rcmp to take him to the psych ward and at the time the the the parents in their discharge meeting with Shepherd's Villa, and we actually have a record of that meeting, they asked for an investigation to determine what exactly triggered these changes in their son's behavior. And there was never any investigation into that. But now, years later, with these charges, they look at this trend, and they wanted the RCMP to actually ask Branca Bona about their son. Weaver point blank told that he was not a victim simply because he was verbal. The words

were he was he is not a victim. The accused. The accused only assaulted non-verbal. That was on his confession. Only on his word. Why anybody would believe that is beyond me. And as far as they know, their son's name never came up in any discussions between the RCMP and Brent Gabona. Wow. Did the RCMP have anything else to say about why they haven't included other residents every resident from Gabona's time at the care home in their investigation well according to another family member her name is Jacqueline Forbes her brother Dean is actually still in the home and was in a home while Gabona was there I don't believe that a line was just drawn at my brother's door and that that's where his abuse ended, was with just the individuals that he's identified.

And she says that, you know, the RCMP should have tried to obtain all incident reports from all residents who were in the home while Gabonin was there because she believes that those incident reports can show trends. And she also said that a clinical psychologist should have been used by the RCMP to contact all the families and meet with all surviving residents at Shepherd's Villa while Gabonin was there to try to help elicit some information in correlation with these incident reports. They at least deserve to be listened to, even if they can't speak. And she also said that she doesn't understand why it appears experienced detectives in sex crime cases weren't put on this file to lead the investigation. Now, we approached the RCMP about this, and they confirmed that,

you know, this was led by a local world attachment, but it did have guidance and oversight from their general investigations unit. But the RCMP told us they determined that they didn't need the help of a clinical psychologist on this, and that they had gathered all available evidence from that time period related to this case and passed it on to the Crown. And so as far as the RCMP is concerned, is this investigation over? That's it? Well, now it's before the courts. But of course, the RCMP also says, as in regards to any other allegations, you know, from these other parents who are or her loved ones who are looking for more information as to what may have happened with their loved ones. They said, well, they can't confirm or deny any investigations or what they're doing with this type of information. So so Gabona had his second court date by phone this month.

His next court date is sometime in July. And so we'll have to see what happens with that. But in the meantime, I'm wondering if we could end today where we started with Daryl and Rick Bogusky. What did Rick tell you about how he's trying to move forward with their lives? I imagine that's an incredibly difficult task right now. Well, Rick Bogusky told me that he doesn't know if he can heal from this. He doesn't know if he can repair. You know, he talks about the resilience of his brother and how his brother's, you know, has improved so much since he brought him to the ranch. You know, there's a piano there and he'll sit next to his brother and and have his brother

listen to you know the sound of the music and and he likes to to go out by the creek with his brother you know surrounded by you know this environment the mountains the winds the burbling creek the soundscape of birdsong it it provides him a bit of respite a bit of solace you know just for a moment that always seems to dissipate when they trudge back home and this darkness you know keeps emerging from the past and this pain that rick says he feels is what drives him to continue speaking out and pushing for more justice for not only his brother, but for anyone else who may have been a victim. And he feels that the way that things have unfolded in the court system is just not bringing him the closure or the peace that he's seeking. And for now, he says he's just going to keep biting and he doesn't know if there will be any respite from this pain anywhere on the horizon just yet. Jorge, thank you for this. Thank you.

Thank you for this. Thank you. Thank you. All right, that is all for today. Front Burner is brought to you by CBC News and CBC Podcasts. The show was produced this week by Imogen Burchard, Ali Jane, Simi Bassey, Derek Van Der Weyk, and Lauren Donnelly. Our sound design was by Sam McNulty and Mackenzie Cameron. Our music is by Joseph Chavison. The executive producer of FrontBurner is Nick McCabe-Locos, and I'm Jamie Pusson. Thanks so much for listening.

Talk to you on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.