It was just under two weeks ago that Tammy Bodman received a phone call from her son Zach that shook her to the core.
Zach, 21, said RCMP were hunting down his childhood friend Dillon Bristow, who police believed was an accomplice to an attempted gunfire robbery at Kelly's Campground on June 5.
“I just couldn't believe it. He was just like the other kids that I used to see. I just don't understand how this has happened,” said the mother, a former Innisfailian who now lives in Bowden.
Bristow, 20, and Zach were childhood friends who went to school together in Innisfail from kindergarten to Grade 5, said Tammy. But after her family moved to Bowden the friendship between the two boys faded. While Zach was able to move forward with a normal life it was not so for Bristow.
“I started hearing a few years ago he wasn't on the right track. I never heard much but he kind of strayed a couple of years ago, bouncing all over,” said Tammy. “He was a great kid. His brother, his mom and I used to be really good friends. It is really sad to me that things went the way they did. I don't understand. He is only 20. That is so young.
“I don't know if it was drugs or whatever but I heard that he was mixed up in things not good for the last few years,” she added. “I didn't think guns, shooting or stealing vehicles, but I guess bad is bad and it's all intertwined.”
Zach, meanwhile, kept a close watch of the takedown drama that unfolded in Bowden during the evening of June 12.
“He was a really good guy. I never thought this would come about, that's for sure. He didn't seem like he would take this road out,” said Zach, as he was surveying the RCMP takedown operation just a few blocks away.
“I didn't think he would go through so much trouble to stay away. It is just easier to give yourself up when it is easy. I thought he would take that road,” said Zach. “Part of me probably seen it coming. My heart said otherwise. I used to know him as a young kid but now he's sitting there at the nursery and surrounded by the SWAT tem. Holy, what is going on? I didn't see it coming at all.”
