The Tragic Case Of Theresa Vince
Condensed from articles written in the London Free Press September to December 1997
Original articles written by Jane Sims

On June 2, 1996  Theresa Vince, 56, was shot to death in the Chatham Sears store where she had worked  for the last 25 years.  Theresa was shot by her store manager Russell Davis, who then turned the gun on himself. Vince, a wife, mother and grandmother was to retire from Sears at the end of the month.

Theresa Vince, the human resource supervisor at Chatham, Ontario, Canada had filed a sexual harassment complaint against her store manager, Russell Davis in January of 1995. The complaint was given to Ana Lankin, the regional human resource manager of Sears. The complaint stated that Russell Davis harassed  Theresa Vince with unwanted compliments. Lankin offered Theresa Vince different options on how to settle the matter. Vince decided to talk to Davis and tell him how she felt.  She later told Lankin that Davis had offered an apology but had started to increase and criticize her work.  Lankin said she would ask Vince on her monthly store visits how things were going. Vince continued to state that Davis had increased her work load but that she didn't want to carry the complaint any further. In fact Davis had continued to harass Vince by phoning her at home on her days off, calling her into his office up to 20 times a day and staring at her while she worked. Lankin admitted that she never talked to Davis about the harassment or asked  any other employees at the store about the problem. It appears that Theresa Vince was extremely bothered by this harassment but did not want to get Davis fired because he was the breadwinner for his family. On the day of the shooting Russell Davis came to work on his day off with two handguns in his briefcase. Davis asked Vince who was working her last Sunday before retiring, to stay after work so that they could go over a performance audit of the store. After the store closed Davis shot Vince in the head and chest before shooting himself twice in the head. The question remains what could have Theresa Vince, her fellow employees and Sears management done to prevent this tragedy from happening. Every employee and employer must know what constitutes sexual harassment and what steps need to be taken to prevent this from ever happening again.