Embracing Bob's Killer is a Canadian documentary created by Sue Ridout about which explores the nature of forgiveness and what compels a widow to embrace her husband’s killer.
The documentary originally aired in Canada on CBC-TV on 22 February, 2007. It is an hour long.
Embracing Bob's Killer aired in South Africa on DStv's Zone Reality channel on Sunday 24 February 2008, at 21h00.
Repeat
Monday 25 February: 01h00
Synposis
It's the oddest thing, watching them walking and talking together, if you know that Katy Hutchison was widowed eight years ago, and Ryan Aldridge is the man who killed her husband.
Embracing Bob's Killer is an intimate documentary exploration of the relationship between a beautiful and vivacious widow and the young man who killed her beloved husband Bob.
It's also a hard look at the nature of forgiveness, and at our human need to judge even this most “divine” of acts.
If someone killed your husband, the father of your children – would you forgive? What could possibly compel a widow to embrace her husband's killer?
It was a national story when it happened, New Year's Eve 1997 in Squamish British Columbia. Bob McIntosh - the charismatic captain of the Canadian triathlon team, and the father of five-year-old twins (a boy and a girl) – went down his street at about 22h30 to investigate a drunken teen-age party. He didn't come back.
The autopsy showed that he died from a kick to the head, which severed a major artery.
Katy Hutchison: “It was like an animal reaction dropping to my knees when I was told Bob was dead. It was almost like I was out of body looking at myself on the ground groaning.”
Yet she's forgiven the young man who delivered the fatal blow.
Katy's also built a career from the wreckage of her old life, telling “The Story of Bob” in auditoriums across Canada.
While still serving time in prison for manslaughter, Ryan joined Katy onstage for this multimedia presentation, a cautionary tale about hard-partying and poor decision-making.
But when you see Katy and Ryan stand up together, the key message becomes forgiveness – the pain, the power, the weirdness. It's very hard to take your eyes away from these two, whose lives crashed together so terribly, but who have formed a kind of collegial friendship.
Embracing Bob's Killer is a complex, layered story of healing, hope, anger, and ambition.