 Terry Schwarzfeld was attacked and beaten on a Barbados beach. The Ottawa woman died on March 18, about three weeks after the assault. (File photo)
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OTTAWA -- As Terry Schwarzfeld's heartbroken family sat Shiva -- the Judaic custom of mourning -- in her Ottawa home, the man accused of killing her sat in a Barbadian jail cell.
The Royal Barbados Police arrested the 24-year-old Barbadian man at his home early Friday morning. He will be charged with murder pending the coroner's report on Schwarzfeld's cause of death. Under Barbadian law, the sentence for murder is death by hanging.
During the arrest, police seized an imitation firearm, two rings and a digital camera still bearing photographs of a smiling, suntanned Schwarzfeld and her family.
She and her daughter-in-law, Guelph resident Luana Cotsman, were attacked and robbed by a hooded man wielding a 2-by-4 as they strolled a secluded section of Long Beach Feb. 28.
An investigator from the Royal Barbados police will fly to Canada today with the recovered property so Cotsman can identify it. Police haven't decided if they'll ask her to identify her attacker in a mug shot.
"We wouldn't show Luana the photograph just for the sake of showing her," Royal Barbados Police Force Commissioner Darwin Dottin said yesterday.
"We hope it's the right person and justice is served so he can't attack anyone else," Schwarzfeld's eldest son, Luana's husband David Cotsman said while bouncing his sleeper-clad baby son on his hip yesterday. With Schwarzfeld's family sitting shiva inside, cars lined Lynhurst Ave. where Schwarzfeld and her husband Stephen Cotsman raised their three sons. Friends and family chatted quietly in small groups as bedsheets draped all reflective surfaces.
On top of the piano sat a faded photo of a beaming, young Schwarzfeld, in a bridal veil. Another smiling snapshot shows her flanked by her sons. Children's toys lined the floor in front of the fireplace and art and sculptures surrounded the grieving gathering.
The arrest doesn't ease the suffering, David Cotsman said.
"It doesn't help Luana, it doesn't help my mom," he said.
COMPOSITE SKETCH
Police assigned 10 investigators to the case, offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to an arrest, hired a psychiatrist to come up with a profile and drew a composite sketch of the suspect. "He came to our notice and we had some other information" Dottin said, confirming a reward had been awarded.
Police have three choices, under the Bahamian court system: To charge him with homicide, manslaughter or murder.
"Obviously in this case, it would be murder, because you killed with malice," Dottin explained.
The Barbados high commissioner in Ottawa, Evelyn Greaves, attended Schwarzfeld's funeral and planned to visit the family this week, he said. Police are setting up kiosks, increasing patrols and installing surveillance cameras to curb crime.
The suspect will be arraigned in Oisten District Court as soon as police receive the coroner's report from Ottawa, which they're expecting this afternoon.
Swarzfeld, 60, a beloved member of Ottawa's Jewish community, died March 18 in Ottawa hospital. She never regained consciousness after the attack. Her funeral was held in Ottawa on Friday.
BETH.JOHNSTON@SUNMEDIA.CA
