Cards keep Loren Leslie’s memory alive

Donna Leslie, mother of Loren Donn Leslie, has a unique way of keeping good memories of her daughter close at hand.

She had a deck of playing cards made up with images of her daughter taken from family photographs of happy times in her life, from infancy through childhood and early teenage years.

It is Leslie’s way of trying to deal with the cards life has dealt her – the brutal murder in 2010 of her beautiful 15-year-old daughter at the hands of serial killer, Cody Legebokoff.

Now that the three-and-a-half month trial is over, Donna Leslie is left to cope with her personal pain and sense of loss.

It helps to have her personalized deck of cards, she says.

Sometimes she plays a game of solitaire just so she can hold her daughter’s pictures in her hands. Despite the horrific account of Loren’s final moments and the police and pathologist testimony that she heard sitting in the courtroom every day, Donna Leslie said she “had to be there for Loren.”

People tried to discourage her from attending the trial, she said, but she knew it was something she had to do – for both their sakes.

When the jury found Legebokoff guilty of first degree murder of Loren Leslie Jill Stuchenko, Cynthia Maas and Natasha Montgomery and he was sentenced to four concurrent life terms in prison, Donna said she felt some relief. But she also felt profound sadness for all families involved. Including Legebokoff’s.

“I am just so sad for all the victims and their families… and I’m sad for Cody Legebokoff’s family too. I think they would have helped. Wouldn’t you, if you knew there was something wrong with him?”