Stratford, Ont., suburb coping after neighbor feud turns fatal

Residents in a small Stratford, Ont., suburb are still grappling with the tragic outcome of a neighborhood feud that left two dead and two seriously injured Thursday night.

“It was seven shots within like a two-minute time span,” said Sarah Evans, who lives in the area where the shooting happened, near Bradshaw Drive and McCarthy Road W.

“Three shots and still, and then two more shots and still.”

Evans was at home when she and her husband heard 31-year-old Ricky Bilke fire shots. It was right outside their bedroom window.

“It was shocking to hear,” she said.

Police say they received multiple 911 calls around 10:45 pm Thursday. When they arrived, police say they found four people with gunshot wounds. Two of them died, including 36-year-old Jonathan Bennett. Bilke was also killed from a self-inflicted gunshot, police say.

The two injured individuals are a 43-year-old man and a woman, whose age was not given.

The shooting broke out after “an ongoing neighbor dispute,” police said.

‘An isolated incident’

While she was initially shaken up by the gunshots, Evans said she doesn’t fear for her safety.

“It was an isolated incident,” she said.

That’s a statement being echoed by many of the nearby residents in this small neighborhood, one of whom is Kira Brine.

“Honestly, I feel safe,” she said. “This was an isolated incident and I know there’s been a lot more police presence.”

Brine is close friends with the owners of the house where she said Bilke was renting a room. Brine said she had come across Bilke multiple times since he moved in.

“Any time I had an interaction with him, he was beyond kind. He always had a smile,” she said.

However, she said she did know there were issues between Bilke and his victims. She said police had been called nearly every weekend this summer and would have to settle disputes between the parties.

“This is not something that is brand new. This is something that’s been going on for several weeks now, actually several months,” said Brine.

‘Nobody expected it’

Stratford police spokesperson, Const. Darren Fischer said “there have been a number of ongoing neighbor disputes between the parties involved.”

Still, Brine said she never saw this coming.

“Nobody expected it. It was absolutely out of the blue,” she said.

All of Stratford has taken notice, and quelling the town’s worries is next up for its mayor, Martin Ritsma.

“It’s a small community where you can get across town in 12 minutes,” Ritsma said, noting that events like this can cast “fear across the entire community.”

Ritsma said he spoke with the local branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association on Friday, and moving forward he will be taking steps to ensure the Stratford council makes more efforts to recognize the mental health challenges people in the community are facing.

It’s “important that we just don’t drive on and say, ‘OK, that’s that,'” he said.

“We have work to do, and that work is important work.”