Murder victim’s daughters want RCMP to admit killer was a former officer

A daughter of a woman shot and killed in a Nova Scotia murder-suicide last month has named her mother’s killer as her stepfather, a retired RCMP officer.

Now, Tara Graham is calling on the Mounties, who have said the Privacy Act prevents them from releasing such details, to stop protecting one of their own and do the same.

“It doesn’t mark the whole RCMP by holding somebody accountable,” Graham told the National Post. “Just hold that person accountable and stand for the fact that you don’t agree with what these people are doing.”

And not just for their mother and the family left to mourn, they now say, but so her story raises awareness about the growing seriousness of intimate partner violence.

Graham alleges her mother, Brenda Tatlock-Burke was killed by her husband of 33 years, Mike Burke, at their home in Enfield, N.S., northeast of Halifax, on Oct. 18.

Just two days prior, the mother of four and grandmother to eight was wrapping up a nearly two-month visit with her daughters in Alberta.

“It was a lot of good quality time that I’m really thankful that we got because … this was the most amount of time we’ve ever spent with her than in any other year,” Graham recounted.

Before her mother left, Graham said her mom told them she was serious about abandoning her marriage to Burke, with whom she long had a fraught relationship.

Graham never previously thought Burke would physically hurt her mother, but knowing a separation was coming on her mother’s return, she asked Tatlock-Burke if she thought he’d hurt her.

She said no.

“When I asked about her safety when she was leaving, grabbing ahold of her or being aggressive is what was in my mind. I would never in my wildest imagination have thought he was capable of doing this.”

For its part, the RCMP has said very little of what is believed to have occurred that day.

The initial press release about “two suspicious deaths” discovered following a wellness check only mentions that “the individuals were known to one another.”

An update four days later revealed a 59-year-old woman was killed by a 61-year-old man who then died “due to self-inflicted injuries.”

Feeling as though their mother’s death at the hands of her partner was being “minimized,” the sisters turned to the media, which led to the RCMP confirming the nature of the incident.

In an email to the National Post, RCMP public information officer Cpl. Guillaume Tremblay confirmed it is a case of “intimate partner violence and that a firearm was used.”

But the RCMP still refuses to name either of the deceased, citing the Privacy Act.

“We’re unable to confirm or disclose any personal information, including individual’s names and past employment status, unless it’s to advance an investigation,” he wrote.

Graham, however, insisted she doesn’t want the RCMP to offer public information that could affect the investigation.

“What is relevant is that they’re protecting their own while inadvertently not protecting victims.”

That desire for justice and transparency has been emboldened, Graham said, by the responses they’ve received since coming forward in the media and through social posts calling for increased awareness of domestic violence.

“It’s important to know that he was an RCMP officer because of the lack of resources that she probably had, the undermining that she and so many other women are given when they try to call for help but because their spouse is RCMP the trust is automatically given back to the accused.”

Hearing their stories has made Graham reflect on her mother’s reality, too, and her own inadvertent blindness to subtle indications that someone close to her needed help.

“Now that I see it and I can look back and I see all these little signs, I don’t want to say that I have guilt, but there’s all these little signs that I feel like if maybe there was more public awareness or maybe people talked about it more, I might have spoken up sooner or louder.”

For now, though, she hopes the RCMP will release their identities so her mother’s story can be known alongside the celebration of her life.

“She was a really fun, outgoing person and the more people I speak to in our family and our friends, she just made so much time for people that I didn’t even realize, like some things I didn’t even know she had done,” Graham recounted. “I just don’t even know where she found the time to spread herself the way she did.”

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