(Posted 9 a.m., Aug. 7)
Crowd marks one year anniversary of Ardeth Wood's tragic murder
By Fred Sherwin
Orléans Online

A hand written note to Ardeth Wood from Lindsey and Emma Bradshaw hangs on a guardrail overlooking Green's Creek along the Rockcliffe Parkway. Fred Sherwin/Photo

It was written down as a post script – "God Bless You". Three small words with so much meaning appearing at the bottom of a hand written note to murder victim Ardeth Wood penned by eight-year-old Lindsay Bradshaw and her five-year-old sister Emma.

Above the words was a simple sentence, "Dear Ardeth: You are an angel in heaven – please watch over us". Below the inscription a drawing of a little girl playing under the sun and a nearby tree.

The sisters hung the drawing and their note among a dozen or so fresh bouquets of flowers on the guard rail that runs along the Rockcliffe Parkway above Green's Creek where Ardeth Wood's body was found a year ago this Tuesday.

After doing so they and their mother Terry Bradshaw joined members of the Eastern Ottawa Pathway Patrol and about 30 to 40 members of the general public including Woods' family, several neighbours and a number of close friends in observing a moment of silence on the one year anniversary of her disappearance.

Ardeth's father Brenden Wood rode his daughter's old bicycle to the tribute. She was riding her brother Crispin's bike on the day she disappeared.

It was a year ago Friday that the 27-year-old PhD student left her parents' Orléans home for a bike ride down the parkway to the Aviation Museum and back. She never returned home.

Her disappearance sparked the largest search effort in recent memory and when her nude body turned up near the mouth of Green's Creek four days later it sparked the largest manhunt in the history of the Ottawa Police Service which continues to this day.

Paul and Elizabeth Kovacs place a bouquet of flowers among other tributes along the guardrail of a bridge that overlooks the site where Ardeth Wood's body was discovered a year ago. Fred Sherwin/Photo

On the one year anniversary of Wood's disappearance, her parents and siblings went to church and visited her grave site. They also continued to do countless interviews hoping the renewed publicity will generate that one lead that might help police find her killer.

"It's been a long day. There's been a few ups and downs, especially with the interviews, the memories start coming back," says Ardeth's mother Catherine Wood. "Yesterday I think we did a bit too many, but the media have their job to do in keeping what happened in the public eye and preventing it from happening again."

Also hoping to prevent what happened to Ardeth Wood from ever happening again are the 100 or so members of the Eastern Ottawa Parkway Patrol who signed for the volunteer job last spring.

Orléans resident Susanne Patten used to bike along the Rockcliffe Parkway near Green's Creek at least two or three times a week. After Ardeth's body was found she stayed clear of the area, half out of fear for her own safety and half out of respect for Ardeth.

It wasn't until she joined the patrol that she ventured down the pathway again with other patrol members.

Brenden Wood leans against his deceased daughter's bike as he talks to a well-wisher during a brief memorial tribute to Ardeth Wood on the one year anniversary of her disappearance and subsequent murder on Friday. Fred Sherwin/Photo

"Riding a bike is about feeling free and having the wind in your hair and not having to worry that someone might want to hurt you," says Patten. "What we once had has been stolen from us. It's up to us to take it back, which is why I joined the patrol, because I think it's important that we reclaim the pathways as ours."

Patten still thinks of Ardeth every time she bicycles across the bridge.

"How can you not?" she asks.

Elizabeth and Paul Kovacs think about Ardeth every time they drive past the bridge as well. The couple have been neighbours of the Woods family for the past 10 years and Ardeth used to swim with their daughter in their backyard pool.

"I remember Ardeth as being very respectful, very shy and just a really good person to be around," said Susanne Kovacs after the couple laid a bouquet of flowers against the guardrail.

Both Catherine Wood and Ardeth's brother Colum were appreciative of the size of Friday's turnout, saying the level of support continues to be heartwarming.

"It's wonderful to see friends and neighbours here, but especially people who we don't know or who never knew Ardeth," said Catherine Wood.

A memorial service is being held in Ardeth's honour later today at St. Clement's Church, 87 Mann Avenue at 11 a.m.

(This story was made possible thanks to the generous support of our local business partners.)

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