2007-01-15

The Edmonton Journal is officially blind

Triple Tragedy
Joel Kom, Edmonton Journal
Published: Sunday, January 14, 2007

Three men lay on the floor of the nightclub. Two were dead. The other was about to die.

Patrons screamed and scrambled to escape as friends ran to the three men. They cradled their heads, searching frantically for signs of life. The police tried to round up witnesses to the shooting while emergency crews cut away the clothes of the wounded survivor. He soon stopped breathing. Thomas Orak, Jacey Pinnock and Dave Persaud had never met before they died at the Red Light Lounge last October in Edmonton's worst homicide in nearly three decades.

Other than the way their lives ended, they seem at first to have little in common. They were born in three different countries and were raised in vastly different circumstances: war for one, a nomadic suburban life for another, wealth followed by near-poverty for the third.

Besides the fact that all three were immigrants, only the Redmonton Urinal could possibly believe that absolutely no common thread bound these three men together: