Pod Insights Personally Sorry About The Kid, Episode 1: Where’s Paul? About this episode Alex worshipped his older brother, Paul. But when Paul was killed by a speeding police car at age 14, Alex almost immediately started to forget him. First his voice. Then his laugh. Then pretty much everything else. But what if those memories could be retrieved? Through a series of intimate conversations with family and friends about Paul’s final moments alive, Alex begins to explore why Paul’s death has become the only thing he remembers.
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0:30 Speaker 01 This is a CBC Podcast.
0:40 Speaker 02 When I was a kid, I was a bit obsessed with my older brother Paul.
0:45 Speaker 02 I was always tagging along after him and his friends, trying to make him laugh, make him proud.
0:52 Speaker 02 We'd play ball hockey for hours on end in my parents' basement. And whenever one of us would score a goal and raise our stick to celebrate, we'd poke a hole in the ceiling.
1:03 Speaker 02 After a while, there were so many holes that my dad made us play on our knees, using mini sticks we got at some tournament.
1:11 Speaker 02 By the end of those nights, our knees were scabbed and raw. But we didn't care.
1:25 Speaker 02 You'd think those nights would be some of my favorite memories of my brother Paul.
1:30 Speaker 02 But the truth is, I only know they happened because that's what I've been told.
1:37 Speaker 02 I don't really remember my brother at all.
1:45 Speaker 03 The McKinnons were the fourth Montreal family this year to bury a relative killed by a police cruiser.
1:50 Speaker 04 It was a tragedy, a horrible accident that took the life of a 14-year-old and one which would have far-reaching implications.
1:57 Speaker 05 There'll be a coroner's inquest as well as a police investigation into his death.
2:06 Speaker 02 I was 10 years old when Paul died. He was 14 and he was hit and killed by a police cruiser outside of school. I remember the moment I found out. I remember my sister's eulogy at his funeral. I remember my mom eating nothing but melba toast and cheese for months. And I remember the look on the face of the cop who killed him during the years of inquests and trials. But when it comes to memories of Paul himself, alive, everything is just gone.
2:41 Speaker 06 Okay, can I have a camera? I just want to try something. This is Paul McKinnon signing off. Bye bye, good night. Dead or alive?
2:53 Speaker 02 I'm Alex McKinnon and this is Sorry About the Kid. A podcast about me trying to get to know my brother 30 years after he was killed. And wanting to make sense of how the trauma surrounding Paul's death has shaped the grief and lives of those of us left behind. Chapter 1. Where's Paul?
3:30 Speaker 02 Can you just say a couple of things?
3:32 Speaker 07 Testing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.
3:34 Speaker 02 Perfect. Okay. So Dad, what do you remember most about Paul?
3:43 Speaker 07 Um, I remember his smile. Um, his laugh.
3:49 Speaker 02 Oh, you still remember his laugh?
3:50 Speaker 07 Oh, yeah.
3:52 Speaker 02 Oh, lucky.
3:53 Speaker 07 Um, when he was little, it was like, almost like a little machine gun laugh. He was a, he was a laughing kid. He really was a happy guy. Generally, he had a sweaty smell. Because he was active, he was a very active fella. He didn't sit still a lot.
4:21 Speaker 02 Even though Paul and I were really close, it was only a week or two after he died that I started to forget things about him. At first, it was his voice, then it was his laugh. And pretty soon, it was entire chunks of our life together. Inside jokes, moments we shared, till it was basically all gone.
4:44 Speaker 02 When I called my mom on Paul's birthday this year, she had all these stories about him that I was there for, but have no memory of whatsoever.
4:52 Speaker 04 When we went camping, there used to be a Christian camp, and he sold snakes that he had just collected to the Christians. And then he sold grass to feed the snakes. And it was just grass that he picked up. And he had no clue what the snakes liked to eat, but he sold them a bunch of grass.
5:18 Speaker 02 My sister Sarah's memories also seemed closer to the surface than mine. She was 16 when Paul died and had more years with him. Before I came along, the two of them were a team.
5:29 Speaker 07 Well, we were a team in that I was in charge. And then I had an assistant. I had a sidekick and gopher. And you were a kid who really liked memories a lot, which is kind of funny that you're doing this podcast now. So you'd often say, "Oh, do you remember when we went to..." Like, you liked to kind of bring up happy memories as a kid.
6:01 Speaker 02 My family and I talk about Paul pretty often. There are pictures of him all over the place. And my daughter and my sister's kids know all about Uncle Paul.
6:12 Speaker 02 But sometimes I feel I'm grieving something the rest of my family is not. A void rather than a person.
6:21 Speaker 02 And not only have I forgotten Paul, but I've forgotten pretty much everything before the day he died.
6:29 Speaker 02 That day, I can see play out like a movie inside my head.
6:39 Speaker 02 October 25th, 1990 was a Thursday. And by then, most of the leaves had already fallen in Montreal. Halloween decorations lined the streets. And I'd already decided on my costume: a nun. That was my go-to for a few years running, which I thought was hilarious. I came home from school late that night. And I remember noticing there were more cars parked outside our house than I'd ever seen before. I remember walking up the stairs, and my sister opening the door. She grabbed me by the shoulders and led me inside. My mom was sitting on a chair near the hallway. A bunch of my relatives were seated around the edges of the room.
7:23 Speaker 02 "Where's Paul?" I remember asking. But I think I already knew. Somehow, looking around that room, I knew. My mom walked over to me and said, "Alex, a terrible tragedy has happened in our family. Paul is dead." I collapsed on the ground.
8:00 Speaker 02 I want to know what other people remember about that day. And try to find out why Paul's death has become my strongest connection to him.
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8:57 Speaker 01 When you lose someone you love, it's a complicated process. Going through their things, settling their affairs, and figuring out what to do with the hole in your life that they have left. But you've got to imagine it's more complicated when that person that you love was beloved by millions around the world. Adam Cohen, the son of the late legendary Canadian poet and songwriter Leonard Cohen, sat down with us in Montreal to talk about his dad. And he talked about learning his dad's songs for the first time and then singing them together with his own son. You can hear that conversation now on Q with Tom Power wherever you get your podcasts.
9:44 Speaker 02 This has changed a lot.
9:47 Speaker 04 The school, yeah.
9:52 Speaker 04 So this is where he was hit.
9:56 Speaker 02 And you remember it kind of being a day like today, right?
9:59 Speaker 04 Yep, it was maybe even a little warmer. It might have been a little warmer. It was kind of a beautiful day, I think, from what I remember.
10:12 Speaker 02 The year he died, Paul was in grade nine at Laola, an all-boys high school 20 minutes or so from our house.
10:21 Speaker 02 He had a paper route he'd run each morning before school.
10:24 Speaker 04 Paul used to get up quite early in the morning and deliver his lapres. And then he'd sit on the swing on the front deck, and he'd read the sports page. Then he'd come up and he'd have a shower, and he'd go to school. And so this all happened quite early, and I would basically be in bed, maybe reading. And I was sitting in bed, reading. And Paul had the bathroom door open, and he was combing his hair. And I saw his reflection in the mirror as he was combing his hair. And then he said, "Bye, ma," and left for school.
11:10 Speaker 02 The school bell rang at 2:50 that afternoon, as it always did. Usually, Paul would head into the basement locker rooms to get changed for football practice. He'd get home around 5, have dinner, do homework, maybe go out and play hockey or hang out with friends. This day, though, was different.
11:30 Speaker 03 We stayed late that day because word in the street was that a friend of ours was going to get beaten up by some kids who were older than him.
11:39 Speaker 02 This is Greg, Paul's best friend at Loyola, who would joke around with him in class and sometimes sneak beers with him on the weekends.
11:47 Speaker 03 Paul and I actually hung out after school that day because we wanted to protect this guy. And so Paul and I, you know, milled about the locker room to see if there was going to be some action, and nothing ended up going down. And so, you know, we wandered out of the school. People were milling about, people were coming out of the main building, sitting on the steps, and we were chatting and kind of scanning the buses to figure out who would have to run first, which was, again, a very traditional Loyola High School boy activity. You did your 25 to 50-yard dash from the beginning of that staircase all the way to your bus.
12:28 Speaker 03 Paul's bus was across the intersection on the other side, and off he went. And as he was running, he looked over his shoulder at me before he entered into the street. And so what I remember was this police cruiser, it just literally appeared coming past the bus. And Paul was crossing, and that's when I saw Paul turning and seeing the car coming at him. And that's when the car impacted. I just remember him flying in the air.
13:16 Speaker 02 A woman in her car waiting at the red light remembers hearing a bang and seeing a rainbow of books flying out of Paul's backpack, arching across the sky.
13:26 Speaker 02 But for Greg, everything went still.
13:31 Speaker 03 What struck me was really the silence of the moment. There was just all of this silence. In the background, I could hear the faint screech of, you know, tires breaking. And that was it. That white noise of people coming and going was gone. And I dropped my bag and I ran to where he basically, he flew to and found him under the back of a parked car. He had fallen under a car parked on Sherwood Street and his, his body was under that back bumper. And the students who were there, you
14:14 Speaker 03 know, they, they were kind of lined up on the sidewalk and they were just looking at him. And I just pushed my way through and went right up to him. I remember crouching over and I called to him, eyes were closed, he wasn't responsive. And I will never forget this. Um, when I looked at his legs, I could tell that the bones of his legs were pressing through the trousers. And the panic that he was gravely injured just absolutely took over me.
14:56 Speaker 03 I knew enough not to move him. And when I couldn't get him to wake up and I was calling out to him and calling out to him, I ran from him all the way back to Loyola. And I remember tearing into the office at the time and yelling, someone needs to call for an ambulance and someone needs to call Paul's parents.
15:24 Speaker 02 The school secretary called my mom.
15:26 Speaker 04 And she said, "Mrs. McKinnon, there's been an accident. Paul's been hurt."
15:34 Speaker 04 And I said, "What happened?" And she said, "I don't know." She said, "Could you come to the school? I'm not quite sure what his injuries are."
15:45 Speaker 04 And I had a vision that Paul was like, looking very embarrassed, sitting up and maybe had like a broken arm or something.
15:56 Speaker 02 Meanwhile, back at the scene, the ambulance arrived. The school soccer coach remembers getting a group of nearby college boys to lift the car Paul landed under, so the paramedics could pull him out.
16:09 Speaker 04 There was a hu- a big crowd, a big crowd.
16:15 Speaker 02 My mom's friend Joan, a nurse, remembers getting a call from my mom, asking her to go meet her at the school. Joan ended up arriving first.
16:25 Speaker 04 I somehow pushed my way in and saw Paul lying there.
16:33 Speaker 04 And he just looked perfect to me, perfectly fine to me, although he was not responding. But I remember when your mother arrived, they would not let her, they would not let her come to Paul. And I told them, "Your mother, she has to, she has to. She's strong, she can do this." And they listened to me. And your mother, I very luckily was able to speak to him. She spoke to him.
17:13 Speaker 02 Did he respond?
17:15 Speaker 04 No, he couldn't respond. No, he did not respond. It's hard to know if he- He hurt it, but I think if anything, he might have hurt her.
17:28 Speaker 04 I went down and I told him, you're gonna be okay. You know, you're a strong boy, you're gonna be fine. He didn't look pale, or he didn't look, he looked okay. The only thing I did notice was that I saw there was a bulge in the top of his head, and it was kind of pulsating.
17:49 Speaker 04 And I wanted to go in the ambulance with him, and they said, no, we're gonna have to treat him right away. He said, you follow us to the hospital.
18:00 Speaker 04 By the time I got to the hospital, we went to where they told us to go. And this doctor came out, and she was hysterical. And she was saying,
18:14 Speaker 04 I've never seen anything like this. He's lost his foot. I thought, he doesn't have a foot. She said, his foot was taken off by the something. And I thought, how did I not see that? His foot was gone. I mean, he looked fine, except for this bulge in his... And I was right at his feet. And she was hysterical, and she said, it's shattered, he's shattered.
18:44 Speaker 02 My dad was at work when he got the call, saying one of his kids had been injured, and to go to the hospital.
18:51 Speaker 02 When he arrived, he didn't know which one of us had been hurt. Because for some reason, Paul had both his Medicare card and mine. But finally, he found his way to the right room.
19:02 Speaker 07 There was quite a few people in the room. I couldn't see Paul. I mean, I saw the bed he was on, and so on, but I couldn't get anywhere near. He was bandaged up. I could see a bit of his nose and face, but that's all. All sorts of things go through your mind, but you pray to God, you think, pray to anything.
19:25 Speaker 02 My parents were told to stay in the waiting area, while Paul went in for surgery.
19:31 Speaker 04 The doctor came out, and he said, I don't think I can do anything for him.
19:39 Speaker 04 And I said, oh, yes, you can, you know, you can. I have confidence in you, don't worry. And he kind of said...
19:48 Speaker 07 You know, he's, he'll never see again. He's blind.
20:00 Speaker 07 And, um.
20:05 Speaker 07 So then he asked if we would be willing to donate any of his organs. And I said, no, I, I, you're gonna, you're gonna save him.
20:19 Speaker 07 Cause I don't, I didn't want them to go in there and just. And they said, you have to make up your mind now because, um. They can't do it after you die. And I couldn't do it. I said, no, I, I think there's a chance. He's very strong.
20:42 Speaker 07 And they came out shortly after and said that he was gone.
20:52 Speaker 07 It felt like something was being torn out of my brain. I had a headache like you couldn't believe.
21:02 Speaker 07 And it just felt like something was pulling it coming, just being torn out. It's just somebody just tore a piece of flesh out.
21:13 Speaker 07 Never felt the same after that.
21:25 Speaker 07 What was that like, leaving the hospital?
21:30 Speaker 07 I sort of remembered being like, we didn't want to leave Paul there.
21:36 Speaker 07 Both of us. I remember talking with your mom and we both felt, no, no, we can't leave him here. We can't leave him here.
21:43 Speaker 07 We, we sat there and sat there, but then I knew that you and Sarah would be coming home from school. And we had to get home for you and Sarah. And then we.
22:02 Speaker 07 Go home.
22:07 Speaker 04 I drove your parents home.
22:11 Speaker 04 Your mum and dad were in the backseat. Quiet, as I recall, quite quiet. With maybe an occasional sob. But very quiet. A hard, a quiet drive home.
22:31 Speaker 04 It was unreal.
22:35 Speaker 04 We walked in and Paul's running shoes were still on the porch.
22:43 Speaker 04 We left them there for months.
22:57 Speaker 02 So you got home and do you, who told Sarah? Was it you or mum?
23:03 Speaker 07 I think we both did.
23:07 Speaker 02 When I came home, I remember the first thing I said was, "Where's Paul?"
23:13 Speaker 07 I remember you saying that. "Where's Paul?" Yeah.
23:18 Speaker 02 And I just remember kind of collapsing.
23:25 Speaker 02 It's hard to describe how I felt at the moment my parents told me about Paul. I fell to the ground, I know that. But not because I fainted or couldn't hold myself up anymore.
23:38 Speaker 02 I just thought that's what I should do. Or more like, I didn't know what else to do.
23:45 Speaker 07 And I remember looking at you, just think, you were just bewildered, you just,
23:50 Speaker 07 you were crying, it was, it just was horrible.
23:57 Speaker 02 Not long after, I was in the kitchen when the phone rang. It was Paul's old girlfriend, Zoe. She wanted to see if he could sneak her and some friends into the upcoming dance at his school.
24:09 Speaker 06 Remember this part?
24:11 Speaker 02 I do.
24:11 Speaker 06 Yeah, so I had the very unfortunate timing when I called you and I said, you know, hi Alex, is Paul there? And you said, no, he's not. And I was like, really? And you and you said, no, he's not. He's dead. You said it really loudly. I mean, you must have been so angry. And you hung up. Um, and and then I called back and somebody in your family, I think it was your dad, explained the whole thing to me. And it was so horrible and I felt so bad for calling. Um, but you know, I called because that's who Paul was. He was the guy who would get you in to the fun dance and um,
24:55 Speaker 06 it was a horrible day. It was so unnecessary, you know?
25:05 Speaker 02 Word of Paul's death soon spread. There were rumors. Some of his friends went out and overturned a cop car that night. Others took the news differently.
25:15 Speaker 02 It was on the news and they had announced it. Um, some accident, somebody got hit by a car in front of Loyola. This is Benji, one of Paul's childhood best friends, who we used to play hockey with on our knees in the basement. And my first thought was, oh, my God, I can't believe it. I wonder if Paul saw what happened.
25:36 Speaker 02 So that so that
25:40 Speaker 02 so that was on the radio and uh, so I think Joey called me and told me, did you hear what happened? Joey was like bawling and I just, I didn't understand.
25:54 Speaker 02 I just didn't understand what was happening.
26:01 Speaker 02 And at night, I think I went to hockey anyways. I was just
26:07 Speaker 02 I was just frozen. I just didn't, I just didn't know what was going on. And I remember crying at the hockey rink. And I played the game, but I I don't know what I was doing. I was probably just skating circles the whole time.
26:29 Speaker 02 Later that night, I'm not exactly sure when,
26:34 Speaker 02 two police officers arrived at our house, carrying a brown cardboard box.
26:40 Speaker 02 My sister answered the door.
26:43 Speaker 02 They weren't the cops who'd hit Paul, but she still wouldn't let them in.
26:49 Speaker 02 They dropped the box at her feet and said, "Sorry about the kid. We're just doing our job."
26:58 Speaker 02 My sister opened the box. It was filled with Paul's blood-soaked clothes.
27:05 Speaker 04 It was like his leather jacket, it was all torn up. There was blood on it and it was... Yeah. You know, I just sat next to that box for an awfully long time.
27:23 Speaker 04 You and Sarah did not want to go upstairs that night. You slept on the living room floor.
27:29 Speaker 04 And I went upstairs and
27:34 Speaker 04 I remember, I didn't even know I was doing it. I spent the night screaming. Just screaming.
27:43 Speaker 04 Did you sleep that night? No, I screamed all night. I didn't even know I was screaming.
27:50 Speaker 04 It was physical pain. It was like, it was like being in physical pain. It wasn't a thought. It wasn't... I just screamed.
28:04 Speaker 02 In the days after Paul's death, a lot of people were coming by the house. Some of them we didn't even know. Maybe they'd heard about the accident on the news.
28:15 Speaker 02 There was one couple there who'd lost their son 20 years earlier. They tried comforting my parents, telling them that even though they still think about him every day, it does get easier. It does get better.
28:32 Speaker 02 I remember watching them from a few feet away and thinking, "Wow. 20 years. How can you still be so hung up on him after 20 years? Get over it."
28:44 Speaker 02 I think about that couple often. About how naive I was. It's been 30 years since Paul died and here I am. Still processing it all.
28:58 Speaker 02 And I can't help but think about the cops coming to our house that first night. And how everything that happened afterwards. The media blitz, the fight to uncover the facts, the years of legal turmoil.
29:12 Speaker 02 How did I let it all erase my memories of my brother?
29:17 Speaker 02 And how do I get them back?
29:28 Speaker 02 On the next episode of Sorry About the Kid.
29:31 Speaker 04 I did not want to forget. I didn't think I'd be able to take the shock again if I ever forgot for a moment, if I ever fell asleep and forgot.
29:43 Speaker 04 So I woke up every morning and said, Paul's dead. Because I think in some ways, it took your mom and dad away too, you know what I mean? They're never the same. There is no way that a person is the same after they lose a child. You're not the same.
30:05 Speaker 02 Sorry About the Kid is written and produced by me, Alex McKinnon, and Mira Burtwyn-Tonack. Editing and sound design by Mira Burtwyn-Tonack. Jeff Turner is our senior producer. Our theme music is by David Drury. S.K. Robert is our coordinating producer. Our associate producer is Caitlin Taylor. Our logo is by Mathilde Corbe.
30:28 Speaker 02 R.F. Newrani is executive producer.
30:31 Speaker 02 Follow Sorry About the Kid on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. And if you like the show, tell your friends about it. It would mean a lot to us. Thanks for listening.
30:52 Speaker 02 For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/podcasts.
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