A look back at the stories that made headlines on P.E.I. in 2024
Ferry woes, the eclipse and a break in a long-ago murder case drew in CBC readers
As 2024 comes to an end, we're taking a look back at the stories that made headlines on Prince Edward Island over the past 365 days.
From a break in a 36-year-old cold case, a mammoth snowstorm and a turbulent year for the ferry service to notable court cases, a threat to a shellfish industry, and a total solar eclipse — here are stories that shaped P.E.I. this year.
Arrest in 1988 murder case
The end of January brought an announcement many people thought would never come — an arrest in a decades-old murder case that shocked Islanders and left many members of its LGBTQ community living in fear.
In the early morning hours of Nov. 11, 1988, Byron Carr was strangled with a towel in his home on Lapthorne Avenue in Charlottetown.
The body of the 36-year-old Montague Regional High School teacher was eventually discovered with multiple stab wounds.
Carr, a gay man, had kept his sexuality a secret, but it was brought to light when he died. Police have long said they believe Carr had consensual sex with a young man he brought home, and presumed that person was his killer.
Arrested on Jan. 25 of this year was Todd Joseph Gallant, also known as Todd Joseph Irving, who faces charges of first-degree murder and interfering with human remains. The accused man would have been 21 at the time of the murder.
Charlottetown Police said evidence collected at the crime scene in 1988 let them turn to genetic genealogy, a relatively new technique that involves collecting DNA samples from crime-scene exhibits, generating a genetic profile, then uploading that profile to genealogy websites.
This can eventually lead to a familial DNA match, when the police sample is compared with samples people interested in researching their family trees have allowed to be profiled on those sites.
Carr's family must wait to find out whether they'll get the closure they've been seeking for nearly four decades. In October, Gallant pleaded not guilty to the crime, and his lawyer said he intends to challenge the admissibility of the DNA evidence.
Still, Carr's brother John told CBC News at the time of the arrest that the significant movement in the case felt like "a weight being lifted," while advocates said the work of Charlottetown police on the case in recent years has rebuilt trust between the authorities and the LGBTQ community.
Snowmageddon 2
February began with an event that likely had many minds on P.E.I. flashing back to the winter of 2015.
Just weeks into 2024, a prolonged storm dropped 60 centimetres of snow in Charlottetown and more than 80 centimetres in parts of Kings County over the course of four days.
It was the biggest snowfall since the legendary Snowmageddon of 2015 — during which 86.8 centimetres fell in two days — and the second biggest of the last decade.
Snow started falling on Friday, Feb. 2, and things hadn't really let up by the following Monday.
In the aftermath, there was extensive cleanup, some schools were closed for three days, and a provincial byelection in Borden-Kinkora had to be postponed by a couple of days so that people in the district could make it out to vote.
While we're not hoping for a repeat of that this winter, the storm did lead to a bunch of great photos from CBC P.E.I. staff and readers.
P.E.I. creates Cyberbullying Awareness Day
Prince Edward Island marked its first Cyberbullying Awareness Day on April 25, a way to honour a teenager who died by suicide after he became the victim of sextortion.
The day marked one year since the death of 17-year-old Harry Burke, who was from eastern P.E.I.
Robin Croucher, the MLA for Souris-Elmira and a friend of the Burke family, proposed the awareness day through a private member's bill that passed unanimously in the P.E.I. Legislature in March.
"We need to bring the spotlight to [cyberbullying] so that we can hopefully prevent this from happening in the future," Croucher said.
Burke, a student at Souris Regional School, died by suicide just hours after he started a conversation with a new contact on Snapchat, who posed as a girl and tempted him into sharing intimate images. Once those pictures were sent, the contact threatened to ruin his career and destroy his life by sharing the photos if the teen didn't send money.
Harry had just completed one of his last weekends of basic training for the Armed Forces reserves.
Since telling their heartbreaking story to CBC News, the Burke family has joined a class-action lawsuit that claims social media companies prioritize engagement over safety, putting young people at risk.
The case was an example of how teen boys and young men on P.E.I. are becoming targets of what police are calling the growing and underreported global crime of sextortion. There were 63 cases of attempted sextortion in RCMP jurisdiction on P.E.I. in 2023, and 34 as of the end of November this year.
A celestial event that bonded viewers
It was a cosmic event that had been talked about for years. But it lasted, at most, three minutes in the skies over Prince Edward Island.
The April 8 total solar eclipse was the last one that will be visible here for 55 years.
The results were spectacular: The temperature dropped, street lights came on, and the sunny afternoon suddenly got eerily dark.
The experience, and the cloudless weather, couldn't have been much better for the thousands of people gathered across the Island to watch.
Families gathered on blankets in parks and backyards, commuters pulled over to the side of the road, and workers took a break to peek out the window or watch from doorsteps.
Crowds looked up in amazement, through special protective glasses, as the moon gradually blocked the sun. Around 4:37 p.m. AT, during the eclipse's darkest moment (or totality), viewers let out a loud cheer.
For many, it was a once-in-a lifetime experience. The next total solar eclipse that can be seen on P.E.I. won't occur until 2079.
Workers protest immigration changes
Back in February, the P.E.I. government announced it would cut the number of people that it nominates for permanent residency in Canada through the Provincial Nominee Program.
The province intended to focus the bulk of its nominations on sectors like health care and construction, where more workers are needed. The largest reduction in nominations came in the sales and service sector, which had seen a sharp growth in nominations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In response, protesters gathered for weeks in front of the provincial legislature and other locations in downtown Charlottetown. Some engaged in hunger strikes.
Organizers said they were fighting for the 150 people on P.E.I. holding post-graduation work permits, available to international students who have recently graduated from a Canadian college or university and want to stay in the country temporarily to work.
Many then use that time to gain the relevant work experience to apply for permanent residency, which is what those impacted said they were doing when the province announced it would no longer be focusing on food service and retail workers.
The complicated issue had roots in P.E.I.'s rapid population growth over the past decade, which has placed strain on the Island's housing market and health-care system.
Meanwhile in October, the federal government announced it would slash the projected number of new permanent residencies from 485,000 to 395,000 in 2025, with further cuts to 380,000 in 2026 and 365,000 in 2027. The feds say the new plan will help stabilize population growth and relieve pressure on the housing market.
Some groups on P.E.I. said newcomers were "being cut loose" by Ottawa's reduction to immigration targets.
Podiatry regulations and a controversial practitioner
A breach in infection-control measures at a P.E.I. podiatry clinic back in June eventually led to the profession being regulated in the province. It also touched off a bizarre series of events that led to one practitioner's credentials being questioned, and criminal charges laid against him for reasons unrelated to his clinic.
In the summer, the province's Chief Public Health Office began investigating what it called a break in infection prevention measures at Johnson Podiatry.
The issues had been corrected, the CPHO said at the time, but it said clients who went to the clinic from Jan. 1, 2022, until April 8, 2024, "may have undergone procedures in which equipment was improperly cleaned and/or disinfected/sterilized and/or re-used."
Public health officials described the risk as very low, but they said they couldn't rule out people having been exposed to hepatitis C, hepatitis B or HIV.
Then, a CBC News investigation revealed that it appeared the clinic's owner, John Johnson, was not a doctor of podiatry.
Multiple people who know Johnson, including his stepmother, told CBC News he has no formal podiatry education.
His stepmother and a second person who knew him through his teenage years allege he didn't even finish high school and weren't clear whether he had completed the General Educational Development (GED) diploma equivalent.
CBC News asked Johnson for proof of his high-school and post-secondary credentials. He didn't provide them or respond to the allegations against him.
Beginning Oct. 1, P.E.I.'s College of Physicians and Surgeons became the regulator of podiatry in the province. That means it's responsible for screening and registering anyone who wants to work as a podiatrist.
The key requirement, according to the regulations: "The successful completion of a post-secondary program in podiatry approved by the [college]."
There may be no greater sign of those regulations than the actual sign on Johnson's clinic door. It used to say Johnson Podiatry. It now says Johnson Footcare, and he is described as a "foot specialist."
Then, later in October, Johnson, 26, was arrested and charged with trespassing, mischief, voyeurism and committing an indecent act. Police stressed the charges are unrelated to Johnson's podiatry work.
He'll be back in court in early 2025 to answer those charges.
Meanwhile, Johnson continues to be under investigation by Charlottetown Police with respect to his foot-care clinic. He is facing allegations that he called himself a doctor and performed medical procedures on hundreds of Islanders' feet without having any formal credentials.
A challenging year for oyster harvesters
A disease that scientists largely don't understand became perhaps the biggest threat the Island's multimillion-dollar oyster industry has ever faced.
MSX, short for multinucleate sphere unknown, was first detected in water samples taken from P.E.I.'s Bedeque Bay in July, and additional positive test results from other areas came in over the summer and fall.
While harmless to humans eating infected oysters, the disease can be devastating to oyster populations. When the parasite hit Chesapeake Bay on the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. in 1959, it killed 80 to 90 per cent of the oysters there, effectively ending the commercial fishery within a few years.
The experience of Chesapeake Bay is that oyster populations do eventually recover, developing a natural resistance to MSX and thriving once again.
But for that to happen naturally takes decades. When MSX arrived off the shores of Maine, the industry didn't wait. It gathered up resistant oyster seed from Chesapeake Bay and began breeding and growing it in hatcheries, accelerating the natural process.
Many in P.E.I.'s industry say fishing oysters is all they know, and if the oysters go away, it will be hard for them to make a change into another career.
Like many stories on this list, the effects and potential solutions will carry over into 2025 — and potentially for many years to come.
Tragedy in Kings County
A tragic series of events that began late in 2023 with the disappearance of 17-year-old Tyson MacDonald eventually unfolded throughout 2024 as a court case involving two other teenagers.
A young man from eastern P.E.I. was sentenced in November to two years in custody for manslaughter and interfering with human remains for his role in MacDonald's death.
The male, who cannot be named because he was 17 at the time of the crime, was sentenced as a youth.
MacDonald was found dead in Kings County after a six-day search in December 2023. The teenager sentenced in November, who eventually admitted to having shot MacDonald, had been among those who joined in the search for him and visited his family to offer support.
He was initially charged with first-degree murder but pleaded guilty in October to the two lesser charges.
Court heard that MacDonald and the teen who was sentenced in November had intended to go to a hockey game the night of Dec. 14, 2023, but they went to the teen's house first and there was a shotgun near the door.
"[The teen] took possession of the firearm, reckless as to whether the safety was on or off, pointed it at Tyson MacDonald and pulled the trigger, striking him in the left side of his face," according to an agreed statement of facts read in court.
The teen eventually told police that he panicked, and drove MacDonald's body to Greek River Road and left him there. He then picked up a second youth and they drove to Charlottetown.
At some point in the days that followed, the first teen returned to Greek River Road and moved MacDonald's body again.
The second youth had no knowledge that MacDonald had been killed, according to the first teen, and had no role in the death other than to back up the first teen's story of having seen MacDonald with a young woman the night he vanished. He pleaded guilty in April to misleading police and was sentenced to two extra months in youth jail.
Given the restrictions on youth sentencing, MacDonald's family and their supporters have said in person and online that they don't believe his killer received the time in jail he deserves.
With the court case now concluded, it will be a long time before MacDonald's friends and family, and the teenager who killed him, will be able to come to grips with what unfolded and the aftermath.
Silver in Paris, golden to Islanders
The athleticism and drama of the Olympic Games often glue people to their screens, but Prince Edward Islanders had an extra reason to cheer this summer.
Charlottetown native Alysha Corrigan arrived home from Paris with a silver medal around her neck as a member of the national women's rugby sevens squad.
The Team Canada forward was greeted at the airport by cheers from her family and supporters, who had been riveted to the gold-medal match against top-ranked New Zealand just days before.
The team was ranked fifth going into the Olympics but scored a stunning upset against favoured Australia in the semi-final to advance to the match for gold.
While the Canadian women narrowly lost the gold — New Zealand won by a final score of 19-12 — Corrigan gave Islanders a thrill by scoring a key try near the end of the first half.
Since returning home, the Olympic hero has focused on growing the sport for young women on P.E.I.
"If we can make someone pick up a rugby ball or stay in rugby, then we're happy. That's bigger than a medal," she said.
'I will never get to say goodbye'
A man and woman from southeastern P.E.I. were sentenced in November to three years in jail for actions they took after the death of 27-year-old Summer Kneebone in 2023.
Donald Roy Holmes and Samantha Jemima Parlee-Buell, both from Pembroke, just north of Murray Harbour, were arrested in New Glasgow, N.S., more than a month after Kneebone was last seen alive in Charlottetown on Aug. 7, 2023.
After Kneebone was reported missing, Charlottetown police asked homeowners and businesses to preserve any surveillance video they had from that evening.
Social media posts begged for information on the young woman's whereabouts, including a post submitted to the Aboriginal Alert Facebook page that flags when Indigenous people have gone missing.
According to an agreed statement of facts read in court, surveillance footage from a Charlottetown business showed Kneebone getting into an SUV in the Value Village parking lot on Aug. 7.
It was hard to discern the vehicle's make, model or licence plate, but on Sept. 5, investigators determined that the vehicle they were seeking was registered to Holmes.
Holmes told police he had met Kneebone unexpectedly at Value Village and gave her a ride to a private residence on Queen Street.
The court heard that, in an effort to divert suspicion from themselves, Holmes and Parlee-Buell told police they didn't see Kneebone after that. But according to the agreed statement of facts, Kneebone had decided to go to Kings County with them.
At some point in the hours that followed, Kneebone became unresponsive and died. The pair did not call the police.
The next day, Aug. 8, Holmes and Parlee-Buell drove Kneebone's body to DeGros Marsh in rural Kings County and buried her remains.
Police later got an anonymous tip that the two were in New Glasgow, N.S., trying to sell a vehicle matching the description of the SUV seen in the Charlottetown surveillance footage.
The two were arrested, and Parlee-Buell eventually led police to Kneebone's remains, on Sept. 15.
Both Holmes and Parlee-Buell were sentenced to three years for interfering with human remains as well as six months for misleading police.
A Nova Scotia-based medical examiner could not determine how Kneebone died, but reported evidence of "numerous nervous system stimulant drugs" in her system.
"I still look for her because she should still be here," Kneebone's mother, Irma Hughes, said in a victim impact statement.
"On her headstone there is a date, but it doesn't seem real, because we didn't get to say goodbye… I will never get to say goodbye to my daughter."
Ferry frustrations
It was a year marked by rough waters, metaphorically and literally, for the ferry service between P.E.I. and Nova Scotia.
After a summer season already plagued by frequent cancellations, MV Confederation collided with the wharf in Wood Islands on Sept. 15 and damaged its raisable bow door, sending it to the shipyard for repairs.
Then the second ship on the route over the summer, MV Saaremaa, went down for engine repairs on Sept. 22 and never returned to service before Northumberland Ferries Limited had to return it to the Quebec provincial ferry service that owns it.
In all, crossings were shut down for more than 10 straight weeks until repairs on the Confederation were complete in early December.
Politicians representing the area have been pushing Transport Canada, which owns the vessels, to take steps to guarantee two-ship service during the busiest months of the year until a long-planned new ferry is built by Chantier Davie Canada Inc., a Quebec shipyard. The latest estimate for its delivery is fall 2029 at the earliest.
The federal department responded by buying MV Fanafjord, a Norwegian vehicle ferry that underwent a refit and sea trials before departing a Scandinavian shipyard en route to Canada. It's expected to arrive in the Maritimes in time for the 2025 ferry season, which begins in May.
Transport Canada confirmed to CBC News recently that the federal government has now taken possession of the Fanafjord, and has renamed it MV Northumberland.
Here's hoping it leads to smoother sailing for the ferry service in 2025, for the sake of residents and businesses in eastern P.E.I. that were hurt by NFL's troubled season.
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