Michael Gibbon, Kitchener, Ont. man killed by arrow was on routine walk
'Only comforting part' was stranger's compassion for dying victim, sister Linda Leinweber says
Michael Gibbon, killed by an arrow early Monday Oct. 5 in Kitchener, Ont., was on his daily morning walk – "basically his only exercise" – when the incident occurred, his sister Linda Leinweber told CBC Radio's evening program As It Happens.
Gibbon was found Monday morning around 7 a.m. ET on the front corner yard of a home at 387 Margaret Ave. He was transported to hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
"Michael worked night shift all the time," Leinweber explained, and he had little time for anything but work or his daily walk around the neighbourhood. "He was going to retire next year," she said.
""He was born... [in] that neighbourhood, and that was the neighbourhood he's been walking around in since he could walk so there was no fear of anything happening," she said, although another sister had expressed concern that as the autumn days grew shorter the mornings were remaining dark longer.
"He was actually heading home," she says, based on information she received about the arrow's trajectory.
'Still conscious'
Leinweber said her gravely wounded brother was found by a woman looking out the window into her yard.
"She looked out the window and he was laying there – and she went out and when she saw, I mean the arrow was sticking out of him. And so she went in right away and got her son right away, she was just shaken. He called the ambulance."
"This is the only comforting part for me: he went out and covered [Michael] with a blanket and held his hand and talked to him because my brother was still conscious at that point."
Investigation ongoing
Wednesday, Waterloo Regional Police released a composite drawing of a man they believe may have information about the shooting.
"Basically we don't know a whole lot more than what's been in the news simply because they have to keep things under wraps," Leinweber said.
Police had done a 'mirror canvass,' where they visit the crime scene at the same time but on a different day, hoping to study the typical routine activity and get a sense of what may have been going on at the time of the shooting.
"What they really wanted to do was wait until this following Monday because that would be the same people [who] would be driving the same routes at the same time," but because it's Thanksgiving Monday, Leinweber said, the canvass was done almost immediately.
'No fear'
"He loved his morning walk, he loved the quiet, he loved when the sun came up, he loved the birds, you know," she said. "He had no fear of anything."
"This just leaves such a hole in our family."