A 4 year old girl is left wondering where her father is after 26 year old Patrick Uh was killed sometime between Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.
Uh left his Ladyville home before 8:00 in the night and was found dead the next day at 2:00. While his family admits he had a drinking problem, they say he never got into trouble while socializing, and he always made his way back home.
But this time he didn't, and his common law wife is left to answer her daughter's questions. Courtney Menzies spoke with her today and has this story.
It was 2:00 on Sunday afternoon when the body of 26 year old Patrick Uh was found with stab wounds. He was seen covered in blood and lying on a pallet near a freight container in the parking lot of New Moon Supermarket in Ladyville.
It is unclear how long his body had been there, but his common law wife said the last time she spoke to him was Saturday night, just before she came off work. She expected to find him at home but by the time she got there, he had already left.
She told us that she wanted him to stay at home because she had an ill feeling.
Voice of: Roxanna Aldana, Common-law Wife of Deceased
"I told him, make sure you don't go drinking, he told me no, I will just take one or two and I'm going home. Then after that he told me, Monday back to work, fresh, and I saw him happy. Then I went to work and I asked him if he already got home and he told me yes, I'm right here. He liked to drink but he didn't like to find problems with anybody. Then around 7 in the night, he came and asked what time will I be off, I told him minutes to 8 I will reach home. He asked if I wanted him to pick me up, I told him, because I know he was drinking and I didn't want anything to happen to him because I already had a feeling."
"I was hoping for him to come and touch the door 3:00 in the morning or 6:00 but nothing until I received the call that they found him."
Aldana said that drinking was Uh's only vice, but that even when he was intoxicated, he always came home. But she also explained that he was starting a new job and stopped drinking as much - which she noticed over the holidays.
Voice of: Roxanna Aldana, Common-law Wife of Deceased
"He was right there with us, spending time. Not like the other Christmases, he used to always drink and he would be sleeping. But this Christmas, he spent, even New Years."
"I never heard anybody here complain that he found problems or anything. He was a calm person, he liked to drink but lately he stopped because we had problems and I told him if he continued drinking I would leave him. But he eased off of that and he was doing his life good now and they just killed him out of nowhere for I don't know what. But if they robbed him, why did they have to kill him? Now I'm right here with pain and I don't know how to talk to my baby. Every time she asks me, mommy when is daddy coming home? She thinks he's at work because where he works sometimes they send him to San Pedro."
And now this little family will have to spend their holidays without him. But Aldana is still trying to figure out how to break the news to their 4 year old daughter.
Voice of: Roxanna Aldana, Common-law Wife of Deceased
"It hurts bad but people tell me I have to be strong for the baby but I try. But it hurts me when she asks when daddy is coming home, what happened to daddy. She's already 4 and she already understands but I told her he's working and he will come home soon knowing that he won't. And every time he used to joke with my mom and tell her, I want to marry your daughter, I told him I'm not ready for that. He was a jokey person when he drinks. A lot of people end up loving him back here because everybody was surprised that that happened to him. It's rough."
A broken knife, believed to be the murder weapon, was found with the body.
There was another murder in Ladyville over the weekend, and we'll tell you more about it later in the news.
