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FRIDAY April 19, 1996

Family questions case handling BY MICHAEL BECKER News Editor

LAST YEAR something went terribly wrong inside the head of young Benjamin Lee Wight and he killed himself.

One year later, five members of a coroner's jury face the task of attempting to determine if something broke down in a system ostensibly in place to assist and heal peopte ir crisis.

Wight, 21, was found dead on April 19, 1995. in West Vancouver. He had parked his silver 1985 Mustang under the Lions Gate Bridge. It was hidden in a stand of trees. He had diverted the exhaust. Carbon monoxide poisoned him.

Fannily and friends believe the death could have been prevented. They knew he was mentally ill and suicidal. Hie needed help.

’ Benjamin’s mother Adrienne Arinobu began testimony on Wednesday at the opening of the inquest into her son's death, She was followed by Benjamin's girl- friend Anna-Marie Hinde. Emotions were raw.

Presiding coroner Dr. Sid Pilley cautioned all that a coroner’s inquest exam- ines the circumstances of a death. The process is not about judging guilt or find- ing legal responsibility.

Benjamin lived with his mother, step-father Terry and sister Vicky. His natur- al father had little-to-no contact with his son.

Benjamin’s girlfriend Anna-Marie lived with her mother and young daughter ‘in the same North Vancouver townhouse complex, in the 200-block of West 14th Street. They were neighbors. He began dating her in December of 1994. Benjamin would just have to slip through the garage to see Anna-Marie.

Before his brain began to malfunction, Benjamin trained in aircraft mechan- ics at BCIT. He graduated in 1993. Bea got a job at BC Rail in North Vancouver. In the weeks prior to his death he worked at J.R. Laser in Richmond.

Everybody loved Benjamin. His manager admired his hard-working attitude, his personality and enthusiasm. Benjamin was pretty good at covering up the trouble in his head. There were early signs, but they were difficult to read.

He went through the normal ups and downs as a teen. His mother just saw exaggerated behavior. She found it difficult to differentiate between a tecnage boy acting out and a young man with a mental illness. He punched the wall semetimes. He was the most normal of her three boys.

But by early 1995, Adrienne and Terry became very cancerned about Benjamin's behavior. His thought processes became so erratic that Adrienne could hardiy listen to what he was saying, There was no reasoning with him.

Adrienne’s husband is of Japanese descent. At the time, Tokyo was the target

’ of terrorist gas attacks.

. “Benjamin was very concemed that something bad was going to happen to us because he was present,” his mother testified at the inquest. “He said we would be better off with him away from us.”

He obsessed about the death of Melanie Carpenter. She looked somewhat like his girlfriend, He kept notes of media reports of the case. He visited as many

NEWS photo Brad Ledwidge

Canyon crazy

LORIN HUGHES drops into a Capilano River pool. Hughes and kayake; Dan Studer made the most ef the spectacular location. They are with the Purple H-z2 kayaking school. See Illness page & =m

mOer Ci

Love, loss,

BY MIGHAEL BECKER

Mews Editcr HE SAID he wanted to die in her arms. it wasn’t supposed to be this way. The past is broken. Time hasn‘t fixed it yet. ; Not so long ago, Anna-Marie Hinde met Benjamin Lee Wight. One day a young man with intelligent. blue eyes and a mop of tousied dark hair approached her in the car park of her North Vancouver townhouse. He said her cat was keeping him company while he worked on his car. Over the next five months she would love and lose Ben. _ ; She was a mental health worker ata home for schizo- phrenics and manic depressives. She knew the symptoms

shown by those with hurt minds,

On Feb, 27 faust year he came to her and said he didn’t want to see her anymore. He was haviag all kinds of delu- sions about Melanie Carpenter. In one of them, Ben felt his foster father in the Okanagan had somehow orches- trated the murder and was now planning to have Anna- Maric killed to ruin their happiness.

He left and came back later that evening. He was cry- ing and his eyes were bloodshot. Ben showed Anna- Marie a red rope, He had gone iato the woods of Grouse Mountain and laid down on the ground for hours. He

vanted lo hany himself. A wolf or coyote came upon him and “got him out of that thought,” he told Anna-Marie.

He said that as a teen he made a suicide pact with a friend. He said he hanged himself then, but the rope

See Ordeal pase &

Mu

ANNA-MARIE HINDE, right, lived a five-month trial by fire as her boyfriend Benjamin Lee Wight, left, became mentally ill.