GUELPH – It was just over one year ago, on Sept. 21, when police knocked on Judie Moore’s door with news that would change the course of nearly 15 years of agony.
Wellington OPP had arrested Mapleton Township residents David Alexander Halliburton and Anastasia Marie Halliburton in connection with the October 2008 death of Moore’s son, Lucas Shortreed.
Close to midnight on a Friday in October, Lucas was walking eastbound on the shoulder of Wellington Road 17 after leaving an Alma party when he was struck by a car that fled the scene.
Lucas was pronounced dead shortly after. He was just 18 years old.
News of the arrests last year shook the community, and jarred family and close friends since resigned that after so many years they would never find out who was responsible for leaving Lucas to die at the roadside on that chilly autumn night.
Now, sitting in a Guelph courtroom on Sept. 26, the journey for Lucas’ family is approaching a close — at least in the legal sense.
Family and friends fill the courtroom; there’s no room to spare on the wooden pew-like benches.
Wearing a grey shirt and black tie over grey pants with no belt, David Halliburton stands before Justice Matthew Stanley and pleads guilty to charges of obstructing justice and failing to remain at the scene of an accident causing bodily harm or death.
At 56 years old, he’s short and balding, with thin grey-white hair and a beard.
David and Anastasia Halliburton. (Facebook image)
Anastasia Halliburton, a short 54-year-old woman with shoulder-length, wavy brown and blond hair, stands wearing a black shawl and a red shirt as she pleads guilty to charges of obstructing justice and improper storage of a shotgun.
As Crown attorney K. Paul Erskine reads an agreed statement of facts aloud, details emerge about the case that not even Lucas’ family knew about.
After officials from the Centre of Forensic Science determine a 1995-97 white Dodge Neon struck Lucas, killing him instantly, police look into hundreds of like vehicles registered with the provincial transportation ministry, and all those within a 100-kilometre radius of where Lucas was struck, Erskine says.
Detailing three occasions when investigators visit the Halliburtons’ former Mapleton home, the court learns police spoke to Anastasia about the obvious white Dodge Neon parked at the Sideroad 21 property.
During visits to the property in 2008 and 2009, police find the vehicle has no damage consistent with hitting Lucas on an 80km/h road, launching his body 30 feet airborne, Erskine tells the court.
In 2013, police even use the Halliburtons’ Dodge Neon to create a reenactment designed to generate leads on the cold case.
Little do police know, the vehicle they’re looking for is right there, sitting out of sight.
A break in the case finally comes in June 2022 with a tip.
Police secretly check out a large, stationary trailer on the Halliburtons’ property, and while executing a warrant on Sept. 21, seize a heavily-damaged white Dodge Neon stored behind a false wall in the trailer.
The Halliburtons are out on bail days later, when police secretly intercept a conversation in which David Halliburton tells a family member he was responsible for Lucas’ death.
He had a few beers, he says, and struck Lucas when driving home.
“[David] Halliburton admitted he struck Lucas Shortreed who was standing in the middle of the road, and that he saw Mr. Shortreed at the last second, but it was too late to avoid him,” the prosecutor says, reading from the statement of facts.
David tells his 11-year-old son, who is riding in the back, that he hit a deer.
The windshield is shattered, their faces lacerated from the glass, and the car roof partially caved.
Then he finishes the remaining five-kilometre drive home, leaving Lucas on the side of the road. Anastasia is home, and she tends to their wounds.
“Even if I was stone-cold sober, I would have done the exact same thing,” David says during the intercepted conversation with a family member.
Bleach is later poured over the car to remove DNA evidence, and it’s hidden in the trailer.
An image posted to Facebook shows police with a white Dodge Neon at the former Mapleton residence of David and Anastasia Halliburton (Facebook image)
Another white Dodge Neon is purchased, and the licence plates and vehicle identification numbers swapped.
The Halliburtons never volunteer to police that they know the answer to a gnawing question torturing Lucas’ family – the same one emblazoned across the province on posters lining highways, plastered on tucks and hung in windows: Do you know who hit and killed Lucas Shortreed?
Lucas’ mother Judie Moore stands beside Justice Stanley in the courtroom on Tuesday with straight, shoulder-length grey hair, wearing an orange shirt covered by a shawl.
She reads her victim impact statement into the record.
“I will always be recovering from Lucas’ death,” she says.
Having to identify her son’s body in Hamilton, on what happened to be the day she was moving homes, “still haunts me.”
The impact of losing a child cannot be described in words, she tells the court, her voice breaking as tears fall in the courtroom.
She tells of the stress and friction developing between her other children and family over the years; of the blame she places on the stress following her son’s death for a downturn in her health, leading to a recent open-heart surgery; of the exhaustion of having to see her son’s face staring back at her everywhere she went.
For the Halliburtons, who are sitting with their defence lawyers, she has few words.
“You lack the compassion and empathy” to understand, she says.
It takes all her energy to “choose to be a survivor” each day, she tells the court.
“I just have to live my life the best I can,” she adds, telling the Halliburtons, “[I] survived the burden of your deceit.”
Lucas’ father Patrick Shortreed flew in from outside the province to read his impact statement into the record.
“Lucas is gone, and all he might have been,” he says, looking at the couple.
He touches the hand of Lucas’ sister Jenneen Beattie as he passes by, returning to his seat.
“You will never comprehend how you’ve wrecked my life,” Jenneen says, looking at the Halliburtons.
As her family and the community cried out for answers, the Halliburtons chose silence, she says.
Lucas’ grandfather Gerald Shortreed, former Wellington OPP detachment commander Scott Lawson and Lucas’ mother Judie Moore, seen in 2013. (Advertiser file photo)
Wiping tears from her eyes, Jenneen speaks about emotional wounds reopening each year as her brother’s birthday passes. He would be 33 years old today.
Now, she says shadows of mourning and loss cloud her life.
Lucas’ uncles, John and Jim Moore, also read their statements aloud, telling the court who their nephew was and what he meant to them.
The court hears about a “spirited,” “funny” and “kind” kid; a “gentle giant” who loved canning peaches with his grandmother and spending time with his younger cousins.
The courtroom fills again on Tuesday afternoon for the judge’s sentence.
“[David], along with Anastasia, chose to hide this,” Justice Stanley says.
Some women sitting in the packed rows are sobbing.
“It was calculated, by design, and intentional,” Stanley continues.
Although Lucas died because he was struck by David Halliburton – his spinal cord torn, ribs fractured, organs lacerated and bones broken – the Halliburtons are facing charges related to what came after, court hears.
Both sides concede Lucas shouldn’t have been walking down the road that night, and it’s likely the collision was a tragic accident.
“It’s not about the driving; it’s about the actions since then,” Stanley explains.
Although David was behind the wheel that night, Stanley says the blame for what followed is close to equal.
The damage from the couple’s “callous conduct,” the judge says, has caused a “ripple through the community.”
Considering aggravating and mitigating factors, past case law and sentencing principles, Stanley says a joint sentencing proposal put forward by the Crown and defence lawyers “is appropriate.”
There are murmurs in the courtroom, and several people are shaking their heads in disagreement.
The judge sentences David to prison for two-and-a-half years, and prohibits him from driving for three years.
Anastasia is handed six months of house arrest, with the final two months subject to a nightly curfew, followed by a year of probation and 200 hours of community service.
Lucas Shortreed seen in his final school yearbook photo. File photo
Though the sentence pales in comparison to what’s been taken from her, Lucas’ mother believes justice extends beyond courtroom walls.
“We have all the community support,” Judie says outside court on Tuesday afternoon, as tears are shed and words of solace are shared among family and friends hugging one another.
Judie likens the journey getting here to an “emotional marathon.”
Feeling exhausted, she says the family has crossed the proverbial finish line, finally getting their day in court.
“It’s freeing, really,” she says.
In the case of Lucas Shortreed, whose given name means “bringer of light,” what once was shrouded in darkness has at last been brought to light for all to see.
