Three years after the unsolved killing of Jeremy Gordaneer, Victoria police have released new details about the artist’s movements on the night he was killed.
Police have said little about the Aug. 31, 2021, homicide on a quiet street in Rockland — officers were called around 5 a.m. to his mother’s home on Carberry Gardens, where they found Gordaneer, who was visiting from Edmonton, inside with life-threatening injuries.
Victoria police said at the time they did not believe there was a risk to the public, but no arrests have been made.
On the third anniversary of Gordaneer’s death, VicPD revealed details about his visit to Victoria, where he was helping his mother as she recovered from eye surgery.
Two days after arriving on Aug. 28, 2021, he met his two daughters around 5 p.m. for dinner at a downtown restaurant.
Afterwards, he stopped at a pub in the 1100-block of Government Street, before walking to his mother’s home via Fort Street. He was last seen outside the home at 7:51 p.m. that evening, police said.
Thea Patterson, Gordaneer’s wife, spoke to him on the phone as he walked home from dinner with his daughters and said he seemed happy.
Patterson spent the anniversary of her husband’s death camping in Quebec in the last spot she and Gordaneer camped before he was killed. Looking out at the island where they had previously been together, she watched the northern lights dancing in the sky.
“You look for signs sometimes when you’re in these kinds of situations, and it felt like it was a nice moment that on the night of his anniversary that we saw northern lights,” she said.
Patterson said she tries to plan something special on the anniversary of her husband’s death, which brings such strong emotions that it has physical effects on her body, bringing brain fog, anxiety and a sense of heaviness in her arms that makes movement difficult.
“It’s surprising how the body remembers a day. The trauma is real. It really surfaces around special dates,” she said.
Gordaneer, the son of the late Victoria painter James Gordaneer, grew up in Victoria, surrounded by art. He began painting at an early age, and later studied fine art and theatre.
In 2016, Gordaneer became the artist in residence at Camosun College. He had recently received a master’s degree in scenic design from the University of Alberta.
Gordaneer’s mother has created a garden in her yard to display his many sculptures.
She hopes someone will come forward with information about what happened to her son.
“Somebody out there knows something,” she said.
Police say they are continuing to investigate the killing and have again asked anyone with information who has not yet talked to police to call the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit at 250-380-6211.
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