The loss of Kendall Moore, 17, and her 19-year-old friend Craig Wood early Sunday morning is a tragedy. To have two young people drown in Kwitzil Lake while there celebrating with many members of D.P. Todd secondary's graduating class of 2014, is a horrible shock.
But explaining how it happened will take time and it might never be completely solved.
At this point, the only thing everyone agrees on is that Moore and Wood drowned in a vehicle that rolled into the lake. Determining how the vehicle, with Moore and Wood inside of it, got there is the issue for RCMP investigators and for the coroner.
With no immediate answers available, the rumour mill has run rampant, both online and in person. Too many have been raised on police and medical TV and movie dramas where answers always come before the final credits, so it's frustrating when real life doesn't operate so neat and tidy.
Even with the best of intentions, many of us hear things that seem to "explain" a tragedy, so we pass it on with little regard as to whether it's really true. Psychologists have done numerous studies, in a wide variety of contexts, that show people are far more willing to accept a lie that sounds true than the truth that sounds like a lie.
And then there's everything in between, where half-truths, exaggeration and unreliable memories live.
That's particularly the case when trying to determine whether a tragic death was really an accident that could not have been prevented or whether there was, in whole or in part, someone or something at fault.
Determining precisely what happened in the final moments of Wood and Moore's lives will be a challenge.
Eyewitness testimony, particularly after a traumatic and emotionally charged event, often paints a far more accurate description of the emotional state of the witness than it does about what was happening during the crucial moments. Our brains are not the digital memory of a video recorder. It's both a blessing and a curse that our minds automatically filter what our eyes see, retaining what, in the heat of the moment, seems like the most important details and jettisoning the rest. Police are well aware that when interviewing witnesses, most people inadvertently create additional details, out of an eagerness to help and wanting to show their strong observation skills to others.
In other words, they want the investigators to think well of them.
And that's under the best of circumstances, of which 4 a.m. at a party on the shore of a dark lake in the middle of the bush is not ideal.
Most of the witnesses, including those who jumped into the water in a valiant effort to help, were likely not sober. That's not a judgment of their character nor a condemnation of their behaviour. Young people across Canada gather for parties at this time of year to celebrate graduation and their transition into adulthood, as their parents did before them.
Even if there were witnesses who hadn't had a drop of alcohol (or any other substance that might impair their senses or judgment), at the very least what they saw would be clouded by physical fatigue, lack of light (first light was an hour away) and the noisy confusion and horror when it became clear to everyone what had happened.
The frustrating reality is that whatever answers do come, they will depend on detailed, time-consuming work like measuring tire tracks, assessing the condition of the vehicle they were in, exploring the location in the lake where the vehicle came to rest and examining the bodies of Moore and Wood.
Those answers won't come today or tomorrow and when they do come, they may conflict with what eyewitnesses swear they saw and remember or they may lead to further questions that can't ever be answered.
Regardless of what the investigation finds or the rumours that circulate, there is no bringing back a son, a daughter, a brother, a sister, a niece, a nephew, a friend.
It's the only thing that matters and it's what hurts the most.
