Tracy Lynn Latimer (1981-1993) had a life beyond her immediate family.
She had friends at school and in a group home. Tracy, 12, loved music, could smile laugh and move her hands. She related to other children.
Tracy lived with cerebral palsy which is caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain at birth.
The Globe and Mail’s court reporter David Roberts covered Robert Latimer’s second trial for his daughter’s murder:
“She loved music,” testified Irene Fraess, director of a centre for disabled people in Wilkie where Tracy went to school for seven years. “If you held her and walked her she had little smiles on her face and a relaxed look.”
Tracy would trigger a wheelchair switch that activated a radio. “It gave her a little more enjoyment,” said Mr. Fraess, who described Tracy as no more disabled than nine others in her care. Tracy interacted with non-disabled and disabled children at the centre where she spent eight hours a day, travelling there by school bus.
Tracy was going to school right up to the time of her death.
Rather than showing a miserable, degenerating child, [three dozen entries in Tracy’s care-record during the last year of her life] showed the girl was cheerful, eating well, and there were no references to any pain in the weeks immediately before the killing at the hands of her father.
(compiled by Sue Careless with excerpts from The Globe and Mail).