'I know I'm going to find my son': Mother of Barry Bedard won't give up hope that she finds his remains

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Donna Bedard is living every mother’s worst nightmare.

No parent ever wants to bury their child, but imagine being told your son is dead, but nobody knows where he is.

Barry Bedard, 41, went missing on May 2, 2023, and Edmonton police believe he met with foul play and is presumed dead.

Over the last year, Bedard hasn’t stopped looking for her son.

“The amount of Indigenous men and women that are getting murdered and missing is ridiculous. I don’t want my son to be another statistic,” said Bedard late last week in an interview with Postmedia.

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“I know I’m going to find my son, and I’m not going to stop until I do.”

Bedard described her son as a “very kind person” with a “big heart.”

She said when Barry Bedard was younger he had dreams of becoming an electrical engineer, but in his final years of high school, he starting drinking and smoking weed, and that led him down a life of battling addiction.

For several years, she said Bedard battled a life of addiction. He had stints in and out of the Edmonton Remand Centre.

In 2006, he had a daughter and was working on turning his life around, but he relapsed again.

In 2010, he was jumped by an inmate at the remand centre and beaten so badly that it led to a brain injury.

A few years later he was involved in a major car accident that broke both his hips, pelvis and femur which caused him chronic pain.

But in 2015, Bedard had a son and vowed  to got clean and sober and was turning his life around — until he relapsed in August 2019.

‘Battle addiction’

Bedard said when her son relapsed he started hanging out with the wrong crowd and that no doubt led to his death.

“To see someone you love battle addiction is heartbreaking. It started at a young age, and he just wasn’t able to get through and beat it,” Bedard said.

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Bedard recalls the night her son went missing. He was planning to go to a barbecue at a house in north Edmonton and was never seen again.

Edmonton Police Service Det. Adam Segin is one of the investigators working on the case and confirmed with Postmedia that they have evidence that Bedard met with foul play when he went to a house in north Edmonton.

“We do believe he’s dead and that he met with foul play (at the house in north Edmonton), and we haven’t located his remains yet,” said Segin.

Segin said that they do have potential suspects and people of interest that could be connected to Bedard’s death.

“Do we have evidence at this point? Yes, we do, but I don’t think we’re at a point we have sufficient evidence to lay a charge to meet the Crown prosecutor’s likely threshold of getting a conviction,” said Segin.

“I think the potential for it to be solved is still out there, but (the case) has slowed down considerably.

“We believe there are people out there with further information that can assist with the investigation, and we encourage them to come forward.”

Bedard said she was contacted by someone with information about her son’s death just a few weeks after his disappearance.

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The details were gruesome and she was led to believe her son was killed and dismembered at a house in north Edmonton on May 2, 2023.

Over the past year, her family hired a man tracker to try and find her son’s remains and also hired a group that trains cadaver dogs to search in areas where she believes her son’s remains may be.

So far, the searches have come up empty.

She admits there have been many tough days since her son disappeared, but she’s not giving up hope that she will find his remains.

“There are days where I just want to drive into a semi-truck and just give up, but I know that I can’t stop until I find my son, and I’m not going to stop until I have him,” said Bedard.

“It’s not right that somebody did this. It’s inhumane. They treated him like he was nothing but a piece of garbage. My son didn’t deserve that. It was all because he had a kind heart, and he trusted the wrong people.”

Despite her son’s struggles with addiction, she wants him to be remembered as a man that had a kind heart and generous soul.

‘Generous and kind’

Bedard shared stories of when he was in his teens he would buy clothes, scarves and socks and hand them out to homeless people.

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She recalled a few years ago he came across a man who had a daughter’s birthday coming up but he had fallen on hard times. Her son bought some gifts and a cake for the man so he could give her a birthday party.

“I want him to be remembered for the loving person he was. He was generous and kind. He always loved birthdays, and he always made your day special,” said Bedard.

While she certainly wants justice for her son’s death, her main mission is to find her son’s body.

She’s planning some more searches in the future. As painful as this is for her, she won’t give up so her family can properly grieve his death.

“I feel so bad because there are so many other parents out there who need that closure, and haven’t been able to bury their loved one. But I’m going to, I’m going to find him.

jhills@postmedia.com

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