The St. Thomas University campus in Fredericton, New Brunswick, was shut down today in memoriam of the late sociology Professor John McKendy who was murdered last Friday. McKendy died after he was struck with a blunt object.

After a brief investigation, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police closed the case after finding the prime suspect, Nicholas Wade Baker, dead in a rental car in a Moncton parking lot. Baker had been married to McKendy’s daughter since December 2007. He had previously been accused of fraudulently using a family member’s credit card and sending a series of threatening emails to the family. The RCMP has declared Baker’s death accidental.

McKendy’s colleagues and others have criticized the way police handled the series of threats McKendy received prior to his death. In an interview with CBC Radio’s Information Morning in Fredericton, sociology professor, Sylvia Hale, called for a public inquiry into the murder. She said the RCMP should have taken action at the time of the threatening emails, which occurred in early October.

Hale found allies in The Muriel McQueen Fergusson Centre for Family Violence Research, a group based out of the University of New Brunswick. The Fergusson Centre cited the RCMP’s reluctance to release information regarding the case, and urged the provincial government to take action on Tuesday.

The RCMP has denied that the police had evidence that Baker would become violent. corporal Claude Tremblay, the lead investigator on the case, has divulged few details and denied reporters’ requests for an interview regarding the RCMP’s criteria for a viable threat.

The university urged the public to remember John McKendy’s spirit of peace- making, providing counseling services and a brief break from classes to allow students to come to terms with the sudden death.

McKendy’s colleagues also cite his ideals of free inquiry and the search for truth. As his colleague Professor Michael Clow posted in an online forum, “protecting those in clear and present danger of becoming potential victims of domestic violence requires removing them to a place safe from the effective reach of those who might harm them.”

“They are willing, as a matter of policy, to write off the lives of domestic violence victims,” Clow added. “Are we?”