Calgary, Alberta, Canada

I don’t know that I have the words to describe adequately an event that has happened to our family very recently. We all suffer the loss of a loved one at some point in our lives; a parent, a grand-parent, a sibling and yes, even a child. Most losses are due to a natural cause; sometimes a freak or bad accident; occasionally suicide. Catastrophic depending how one views the loss as we all react differently.

To lose a child to murder, I only ever read about that in the newspapers and it always happened to someone else.

Well, we are that “someone else”. Please find the attached link:

http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/10/21/family-of-calgary-man-killed-by-sucker-punch-speak-out

10 days before his 42nd birthday, our kind and gentle son, Brian Ludwig, was murdered about 2:45 AM on Sunday, the 26th August 2012. Brian was the victim of a “One-punch Homicide”. He was killed at the end of his participation at a Charity Golf Event.

He was felled by a coward who threw him a “sucker punch” to the back of the head and immediately fled the scene of the crime.

But what else would you expect from a coward? Certainly not to hang around and face the music like a man nor accept any responsibility for his actions. According to other patrons of the pub, the man was either drunk or on drugs - ?? But that is still no excuse for taking another human beings life. He was arrested later that day around 6:00 in the evening. So far, all we have been told by the police was that, yes – he was known to police but NOT in the assault category. Hence forth, the immediate release from jail and the low dollar amount of his bail. This man is 27 years old.

The detectives arrived at our home about an hour after his arrest to inform us that Brian was the 7th homicide victim in Calgary this year and they had the perpetrator in custody. Lots of witnesses came forward throughout the course of the day. The following day, after the autopsy, the medical examiner informed us first of the cause of his death; they labeled it “blunt force trauma” and then released that information to the general public.

We buried him the day after his daughter’s 14th birthday; 31st August. Quite the birthday present. And so begins the legacy of an incomprehensible and violent act. For the rest of her life, Mikita’s reminder of her birthday will be her father’s murder.

On Saturday, 25th August 2012, Brian attended a charity golf tournament sponsored by Swigs Neighborhood Pub for the “Cedarbrae Community Association” to raise funds to support their yearly community activities. He had attended this event every year, not because he lived in the area but because several of his friends did. Brian and his friends were not regular patrons of Swigs Pub but regularly attended some of their fund-raising events.

The awards banquet after the tournament was held at the Pub which was packed to capacity. It was not closed to the public and therefore local patrons could still mozie up to their favorite drinking hole to bolster their egos’ and their courage. And that is what happened to several of their regular attendees. Man #1 was a participant of the Charity golf event; man #2 was not. Man #1 and man #2 were known to each other.

Around 11 o’clock that evening, Brian got into a cordial side-by-side discussion at the bar with man #1 about the dismal state of the Toronto Blue Jay’s pitching staff. That verbal disagreement ended and the two parted friendly and went their separate ways.

Around 2:40 AM, members of the golf tournament party called taxis to take them home and a few of the guys were milling around outside the Pub smoking, talking and waiting for the cabs to arrive when man #1 approached Brian again and re-kindled the same discussion. After a few minutes of this verbiage which was more heated than the one inside the bar, there was some pushing and shoving between the two men (according to the police detective that we spoke to). Brian was walking away from this fellow, when the alleged perpetrator (man #2) emerged from the bystanders behind him and sucker-punched him to the back of the head. Brian never saw his killer.