Funeral To Be Held Friday For Slain OPP Const. Vu Pham

A 70-year-old man and the provincial police officer he is suspected of fatally shooting are both from a small northern Ontario village hundreds of kilometres from the scene of the shootout, but the suspect wouldn’t have made that connection, a neighbour said Wednesday.

Const. Vu Pham, a 15-year veteran of the Ontario provincial police force and a married father of three boys, died several hours after pulling over a pickup truck in the rural southwestern Ontario village of Winthrop on Monday morning. Police have said Pham, 37, was critically shot and immediately incapacitated.

Witnesses described a tense gunfight with 15 to 20 shots fired across a two-lane road in Winthrop, some 375 kilometres south of Sundridge near North Bay, where both the officer and the suspect lived at one time.

The suspect, Fred Preston, remained in critical condition Wednesday after being shot in the gunfight with two provincial police officers.

Pham, originally from Vietnam, was adopted as a boy by Dan Thompson, who became the pastor at Bethel Pentecostal Church in Sundridge, said a town resident who didn’t want to be named.

It was a stunning coincidence for the town of 1,000, she said.

“That’s why it shocked everybody in Sundridge,” said the woman, who like many other residents knows both Pham’s family – the Thompsons – and the Prestons.

Preston and Pham went to the same church when Pham was a boy, but Preston wouldn’t have connected the boy he knew to the 37-year-old police constable he is accused of shooting and killing, said one of Preston’s neighbours.

“Fred Preston would not realize at the time when this cop pulled him over that it was somebody that he knew from Sundridge,” said Alvin Chapman, who has known Preston for 45 years.

Deputy provincial police commissioner Chris Lewis told radio station AM980 in London, Ont., that police are in no rush to lay a charge against Preston.

“We believe that the person that murdered Const. Pham is in the hospital right now, so it’s not like there’s a killer running around in society,” Lewis said.

“So we’ll take our time, do things right and we’ll lay the charge when the time is right.”

No charges have been laid against Preston, but police Commissioner Julian Fantino has said he is the suspect.

Chapman said it might be better if Preston’s condition did not improve.

“I hope he passes away, because I do not want him to suffer in prison,” he said.

“It’s hard to believe. He wouldn’t hurt a flea.”

He was good with a gun, though, Chapman said.

“He and his brother, they’d target practice all the time.”

Sources tell The Canadian Press that Preston had been living apart from his wife Barb for about a year and a half and that she lives with their daughter, Anne. Preston had been living in the basement of another daughter’s house, a source said. Published reports say Preston went to his ex-wife’s residence in southern Ontario with a high-powered rifle shortly before Pham was mortally wounded.

Funeral arrangements for Pham have been made and thousands of police officers are expected to pay tribute to the slain officer in Wingham, two hours north of London, where he lived on Friday.

Heather Thompson, his sister-in-law, said Wednesday that Pham was a dedicated family man who will be greatly missed.

“I’m glad that they’re honouring him because he’s a man that should be honoured,” she said from her Sundridge home.

“He was a wonderful brother. He was a wonderful son. I don’t know where to stop. He was a wonderful man of God. He lived his faith on his sleeve. He was real.”

A service for Pham will be held Friday at 1 p.m. at the North Huron Wescast Community Complex in Wingham. Visitation will be held Thursday, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m., at McBurney Funeral Home.

Thousands of police officers from across Canada and some from the United States are expected to attend the funeral, said provincial police Insp. Dave Ross.

“The purpose behind the police funeral is to pay tribute to the fallen officer by his fellow officers from around the country and certainly from the U.S.,” he said.

“It’s a show of support mainly for the family.”

Thompson said Pham left Sundridge after high school to go to college. He lived there periodically as he attended police college and right after graduation, leaving Sundridge for good some time in his early 20s, Thompson recalled.

He worked in the Ontario communities of Parry Sound and Cochrane before moving to Wingham, she said.

---

Funeral Information

Visitation Date: March 11, 2010
Time: 2pm-4pm, 7pm-9pm
Location:  McBurney Funeral Home, Wingham, ON

A police funeral will be held at North Huron Wescast Community Complex on Friday at 1pm.

Donations

In lieu of flowers memorial donations to a trust fund in support of Constable Pham’s children would be appreciated as expressions of sympathy and may be made at any Scotiabank (account # 410120217921) or through the funeral home by cheque payable ” In trust for Heather Pham.”

Condolences

If you wish to send condolences to the family you can do so by sending an email to this email address: oppcorporatecommunications@ontario.ca  or by visiting this website.