Dear Zachary, a letter to a son from his father:
On November 5, 2001, Dr. Andrew Bagby was murdered in a parking lot in
western Pennsylvania; the prime suspect, his ex-girlfriend Dr. Shirley
Turner, promptly fled the United States for St. John’s, Canada, where
she announced that she was pregnant with Andrew’s child. She named the
little boy Zachary. Filmmaker Kurt Kuenne, Andrew’s oldest friend,
began making a film for little Zachary as a way for him to get to know
the father he’d never meet. But when Shirley Turner was released on
bail in Canada and was given custody of Zachary while awaiting
extradition to the U.S., the film’s focus shifted to Zachary’s
grandparents, David & Kathleen Bagby, and their desperate efforts
to win custody of the boy from the woman they knew had murdered their
son. What happened next, no one ever could have foreseen…
If you have not, I encourage you to watch this documentary. It probably is one of the most powerful documentaries I've seen, it gives you a kick in the stomach. It's a heart-breaking, crime and consequence story, failure of the Canadian criminal justice system, a tragedy that will make you cry, yet inspirational to those who seek change.
