Last week must have been one of the worst in the history of Dufferin County.

It began with the abduction of Sonia Varaschin at some time overnight Sunday, a deed so horrific that it cast Orangeville in at least the national limelight.

Then there was the death of a young Orangeville man on Highway 400; a reported suicide at the Norpeel motel; and finally the death of a Shelburne teen in a single-vehicle collision on the Second Line of Amaranth.

Perhaps the week should serve as a reminder that we in Dufferin are not immune to crimes of violence, roadway fatalities and self-inflicted death.

We have had other reminders. I have covered at least seven murder trials since returning from Alberta in 1989, probably more.

(For the police chiefs’ and my Facebook detractors, only two of those involved firearms. One of those was ruled self defence and the other was manslaughter.)

Apart from those, there have been serious crimes of violence that have not come to trial, including a recent murder-suicide.

Apart from last week, there were two Orangeville murders within about a week of each other in about 2002. One of those, perpetrated by two teenagers and an adult, was so horrific that the details of the occurrence were too gory to publish in this newspaper. In the other one, a distraught husband killed his wife by dragging her through the Wal-Mart parking lot under his van. She had been at Family Transition Place but foolishly had met him at what she obviously must have felt would be a safe public place.

Not all crimes I viewed were of a violent nature. There was the trusted woman, a former bank employee, who bilked her friends out of more than $600,000. There was a woman at about the same time who was convicted on multiple counts of fraud, and who cost a friend of mine at least $30,000.

Beyond that, there are numerous acts of assault that we never hear about; and thefts; and vandalism; and what-haveyou.

We are no longer the “holier than thou” rural community we might have been in the past. Or have we ever been? A glance at century-old newspapers from Orangeville and Shelburne might paint a different picture.

Which brings me to a point.

There is a world of difference between the news releases I get from Orangeville Police Services and Dufferin OPP and from the information on the court dockets.

In their defence, I have to say that both of those services appear to be doing a creditable job of solving crime – but their lack of complete information might be lulling the public into a false sense of security.

I get almost daily releases – sometimes multiple – from Nottawasaga OPP. Colleague Dan Pelton tells me he gets similar from Grey County.

It got worse last week when Central Division OPP handled the releases in the disappearance of Sonia Varaschin from her blood-spattered Orangeville townhouse and the finding of her blood-soaked car beside the town hall,

It took several days for the OPP to acknowledge that Sonia had been the victim of foul play which, in my lexicon, can be any act of violence.

Even then, the OPP (not the local detachment) said there had been a random act. But the media officer would not say whether there had been forced entry to Sonia’s home.

Finally, he admitted what any observer would have known to be the truth: that the act had been carried out by someone familiar with the town, and likely known to Sonia – or Sonia was known to him.

A “random act.” Think about that one. Such a description could have only the predictable result of scaring the bejabbers out of the public; raising the fear of,

who’s next.”

All that said, I appreciate the need for investigators to throw the criminals off track by making it appear they are headed in the wrong direction.

I am not a stranger to investigations – but that was a long time ago. My training was by an RCMP officer who had served in counter-intelligence in the Gouzenko era. His edict was that it is virtually impossible to find someone in hiding.

Someone knows. Look for the person who knows,” Neil McFadyen advised me.

Neil also recommended the reading of the story of the CIA, Masters of Deceit.

From my background, no matter how strongly I feel the OPP could have done better with news conferences and releases, I have to make allowance for their need of secrecy.

Secrecy? Even when a human body was found in Caledon, police took no questions from the media. The obvious one would have been, “was the body wrapped in a beige comforter?” What was the purpose by that time of not disclosing the condition of the body?

Be all that as it may, I would wish for more comprehensive information about the day-to-day activities of the local police.

I would strive to let the public know that they are hard at work.