Since I reported on this blog on the tragic murder-suicide in Orangeville/Mono some new information has come to light about this very sad story.

The young son Connor, 14 of Heidi & Hugh Ferguson has disputed some of the published accounts of what happened that fateful day defending his father.

“My father was a wonderful man and was not the crazy man that shot at cops during the event as you stated,” wrote the couple’s son in an e-mail.

“You would never understand the full story behind the … situation between my mother and father,” he stated.

Connor wrote the e-mail to Sun Media objecting to a published account from a neighbour who told a reporter the man shot the tires of an Ontario Provincial Police van. Police have now confirmed that no shots were fired at police and said the van had driven over a spike belt police laid out on a roadway.

The full details of what initially sparked the tragic chain of events may never be known but according to OPP Constable Peter Leon the police received an initial call about an hour before the shooting involving a domestic dispute at the Orangeville address. There was no weapon involved in the initial incident, but police wouldn’t say if Heidi Ferguson was threatened or assaulted. Orangeville police were “actively investigating the original call and they were called back to the residence,” Leon said.

The whole incident has shocked many friends, neighbours and the community.

“It was such an amicable breakup,” said Bridget Wilson, a neighbour who knew the Fergusons for 19 years. “I never heard a bitter or a nasty word from either of them. I get a headache thinking what could have gone so horribly wrong.”

“Everything was fine,” said Wilson, who recalls they hosted a party two weeks ago for the lacrosse team their teenaged son, Connor, plays for. Their daughter, Courtney, is 19.

“This is completely out of character,” Penny Bogner (Heidi Ferguson’s mother) says of the allegations against Hugh Ferguson. “They were really remarkable people. They were friendly even though they separated.”

Todd, a teen who worked with Courtney at Boston Pizza, said he remembers her saying a few months ago: “My parents are still good friends – thank God for that.”

Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit continues the investigation.

Tragedy has struck a family in Mono Township just north of Orangeville. A mother of two teens apparently wanted to cut ties with her estranged husband and move on with her life but her plans ended when he instead went to her rented home in Orangeville and shot her. As she fought for her life in hospital, the man 42-year-old Hugh Ferguson faced off against police before turning a gun on himself.

Just before midnight Saturday police were called to a domestic disturbance at an Orangeville house. Police later were called back to the house and found that a woman had been shot. She died after being airlifted to Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, says a statement issued by the SIU (Special Investigations Unit).

The 39-year-old woman, identified by friends and neighbours as Heidi Ferguson, ran to her neighbour’s home on Westdale Ave. to get help after being shot late Friday. Her ex-husband, identified by neighbours as Hugh, 42, then fled to his home in Mono Twp. north of the town where he barricaded himself in the house for several hours in a tense standoff with the OPP tactical team before killing himself.

Hugh Ferguson a hunter had about 10 firearms in his home and ended up shooting out the tires of an OPP van during the standoff , neighbours said. The standoff ended just before 6 a.m. when police confirmed Hugh was dead.

Friends and neighbours said the couple had been separated since about last fall, but maintained an amicable relationship.

Neighbours of the couple’s Mono home on Madill Dr., which is up for private sale, say the couple hosted a party two weeks ago for the lacrosse team their high school son, 13-year-old Connor, plays on. The couple also have another teen, daughter Courtney, now at university.

“It’s kind of hard to believe,” said a friend who didn’t want to be named. “There were no signs.” He said he last saw Hugh Thursday night, and “he seemed a little bit cooler, which is unlike him,” adding the man was usually upbeat emotionally.

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New Articles about the story:
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/09/13/10867271-sun.html
http://toronto.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20090912/Orangeville_Deaths_090912/
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/694880