Father of Saskatoon homicide victim says son was more than his addictions
CBC
Terry Romanski says he knew by the May long weekend that something bad had happened to his son.
Terry runs a sandblasting business in Alberta. He said his son Chad Romanski, 31, struggled with addictions through much of his adult life — sobriety was a moving target — but that Chad never completely lost touch with family. By May, Chad was living "all over" in Saskatoon and fighting, again, to get clean, Terry said.
Terry said he got what proved to be a final text from Chad at 1:16 a.m. on May 13.
"Dad, can you send me $30, I'm running low on gas?"
There were no texts or phone calls after that.
Days later, Chad's white Dodge Journey turned up on the 1500 block of Avenue F N., the keys still in it.
The family reported his disappearance to police and made a missing person poster, the image showing a gaunt young man in a ball cap with tattoos wearing a black tank top. Terry said there is still a disconnect between that image and the son he saw in a photo taken a year before.
The wait ended on June 4, when Saskatoon police called Terry and said they'd found his son's remains in a shallow grave. Chad's death is being considered a homicide.
Days later, Terry and his brother stood together next to a shallow grave in a thick stand of trees and brush in George Genereaux Urban Regional Park on the western fringe of Saskatoon. The park, off Range Road 3063, is bracketed by fields, train tracks and Highway 7.
"I needed to see, from my own eyes. I needed some kind of closure," Terry said in an interview.
He spoke to his son.
"I told my boy I loved him, that he was at peace now. He wasn't in pain anymore."
Chad was born and raised in Saskatoon, the youngest of two, with an older sister. Terry described his son as "a handful."
"He played hockey. He liked to get into mischief. He was a cocky little kid, right? He played video games a little while back in his younger days."
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