Ken Brotherston Jr., the son of a former Highlands councillor who was acquitted in a high-profile murder case, has died of a drug overdose.
The B.C. Coroners Service confirmed that it is investigating the death but released few other details.
The 41-year-old died on Feb. 22.
“With the sudden passing of Kenny Brotherston Jr., his two young children will be impacted financially,” states an online fundraising page set up by his family. “In lieu of flowers and other tributes, we hope to raise funds to help with essential needs or post-secondary education. The funds will be held in trust by the maternal grandparents of each child.”
Brotherston’s sister Erica, who created the memorial page, wrote: “A limb has fallen from the family tree … I love you my brother.”
Tributes on the fundraising page, which had raised $2,000 by Thursday, describe a “good guy with a big heart” who was a great father to his children, Walker and Teagan.
Ken Jr., his brother Gregory and their father, Kenneth Brotherston Sr., were charged with second-degree murder in 2008 in connection with the death of Keith Taylor, 33. Taylor was a crack-cocaine addict from Colwood who tried to extort $100,000 from the Brotherstons.
At the trial, Brotherston Sr. testified that he and his wife, Marie, had been struggling for years to deal with their sons’ addiction to crack cocaine. He said he had taken Ken Jr. to hospital and tried to enrol him in a rehab program.
All three men were acquitted in 2010.
Supreme Court Justice Janice Dillon accepted the father’s testimony that he was acting in self-defence after Taylor came at him with a gun and a knife.
Dillon dismissed the charges against the sons on the basis that they were helping their father defend himself.
— with files from Louise Dickinson
