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Addiction, depression, desperation — Chad Romanick had been struggling a long time before the day he killed himself in a garage surrounded by Windsor police.
A jury heard Monday during the start of a coroner’s inquest that Romanick had interactions with emergency departments, a crisis counsellor, and police in the months before officers showed up to arrest him for attempted murder.
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“No one decides when they get up in the morning, ‘today I want to become a drug addict and lose everything I love,’” Sherry Lamas, Romanick’s widow, told the jury in a prepared statement at the start of proceedings. “Neither did Chad. The Chad that we loved was gentle, patient and thoughtful. He was proud, too proud, and maybe that was what led to the downward spiral. He didn’t want to believe he was depressed. Why would he be? He had everything that he wanted. He thought he could fix this himself and didn’t ask for help until he was well into his addiction and then he became someone else.”
Romanick, 34, died Sept. 15, 2017, from a self-inflicted shotgun wound to the head after barricading himself in his garage in the 1500 block of Betts Avenue in Windsor. He was a suspect in an Amherstburg shooting.
The inquest into the circumstances surrounding his death, which is mandatory under the Coroner’s Act, is expected to run for eight days with 12 witnesses.
Romanick’s troubles had been mounting in the months leading up to this death.
During a summary of the case from inquest counsel Roger Shallow, the jury heard that on July 11, 2017, Romanick walked into the emergency department at Windsor Regional Hospital and spoke with a crisis counsellor.
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After an interaction with Windsor police three days before his death, Romanick was taken by ambulance to the emergency department where he saw the same crisis counsellor. He had called 911 twice. The calls were coded as a person in crisis.
The shooting that brought tactical officers to Romanick’s Windsor doorstep happened early the morning of Sept. 15, 2017, in Amherstburg.
A 31-year-old man had suffered a shotgun blast to the chest. Police previously said the victim survived.
Sgt. John MacDougall, a team leader with the Windsor police Emergency Services Unit (ESU) at the time, testified Monday he received a call from Amherstburg police about the shooting around 9:30 a.m.
He said Amherstburg police had identified Romanick as the shooting suspect.
Investigators pinged Romanick’s phone, learned it was on his property on Betts Avenue in Windsor, and applied for a warrant. Police blocked off the street and surrounded the property.
At 11:31 a.m., MacDougall said he called Romanick’s cellphone. It went to voicemail.
He testified that he called Romanick’s phone a total of 20 times. Each call went unanswered.
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MacDougall said he also used a megaphone to reach whoever was in the house, and intermittently sounded a police siren in case someone in the house was asleep or passed out.
At 11:51 a.m., MacDougall sent a text message urging Romanick to call him. It went unanswered.
Police eventually found an address and phone number in MacGregor for what they believed was Romanick’s family.
MacDougall called from the street outside the Betts Avenue house. Clare Romanick, Chad’s father, answered. They spoke for 11 minutes.
MacDougall testified that Clare Romanick, now deceased, told him Chad was not working, had been depressed, that someone got him addicted to crystal meth, and that he might be suicidal.
At one point during the conversation, MacDougall said Clare Romanick received a text message from his son.
MacDougall testified that Clare Romanick told him his son wrote in the text that voices were telling him to do things.
At 1 p.m., while still speaking with Clare Romanick, MacDougall said it came over the police radio that officers heard what sounded like a “muffled gunshot” in the garage.
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“It was apparent we needed to formulate a plan to access that garage,” said MacDonald.
They tried contacting Romanick again by cellphone and loudspeaker. No response.
The garage security code didn’t work. MacDougall said police tried to send a “robot scout” remote camera into the garage, but couldn’t find a way to get it past the clutter and shelves piled up against the windows.
They started prying open the garage door.
At 2:05 p.m., an officer peeking through the hole in the door spotted a person in a corner of the garage who wasn’t moving. Officers moved in. It was Romanick.
The shotgun was on his lap. A red pipe was beside him. Police believe Romanick used the pipe to reach the shotgun trigger. At 2:11 p.m., Romanick was pronounced dead.
“People always ask why I stayed,” said Lamas, who is scheduled to testify later in the inquest. “I stayed because he was worthy of our love, worthy of our health. And worthy of a chance to help himself. Chad Romanick was a good man who made the wrong decision. And I know that if he had known how it would have turned out, how his family have grieved his loss, he would have made a better choice.”
twilhelm@postmedia.com
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