Calgary Memorial Theft: Stolen Plaque Leaves Community Reeling

CALGARY, AB — A heavy bronze plaque honouring the Brentwood Five—five young people stabbed to death at a 2014 house party—has been stolen from the Quinterra Legacy Garden in South Glenmore Park, the latest in a string of metal memorial thefts that have plagued Calgary's public spaces.

Kelly Hunter, mother of victim Josh Hunter, reported the theft and is working with Calgary Police Service on a formal investigation. The plaque, which memorialized Lawrence Hong, Joshua Hunter, Kaitlan Perras, Zackariah Rathwell, and Jordan Segura, sat at the entrance to a memorial garden completed in 2020 after years of fundraising by families and the Quinterra Legacy Garden Foundation.

"It's not just a piece of metal," Hunter said. "It's the only public marker that says their names."

The Pattern: Calgary's Bronze Problem

This isn't new. Last September, the City replaced a stolen Nicholas Copernicus plaque at Princess Island Park with cheaper materials—basically admitting bronze in public parks is now a sitting duck. In June, plaques were ripped from the historic Hart House. Go back to March, and Edmonton cemeteries lost bronze memorial markers in a similar heist.

Calgary Police logged 371 construction site thefts in 2025, up from 308 the year before. Copper wire, bronze fixtures—if it can be sold for scrap, it's gone.

The Weight of Timing

The theft comes two months after Matthew de Grood—found not criminally responsible for the 2014 murders—was granted expanded freedoms by Alberta's Criminal Code Review Board, including two-week passes to visit his family's Calgary home. The decision split the city. Victim families called it a betrayal. The review board called it clinically appropriate.

Hunter hasn't publicly connected the timing. She doesn't have to. The optics do the work.

The Fix (And the Bill)

Replacing a bronze memorial plaque isn't cheap. The Parks Foundation Calgary charges $4,500 for a standard bench dedication with a bronze marker, covering a 10-year term of installation, maintenance, and admin. Who pays this time—the City, the Foundation, or another round of grieving families raising money—remains unclear.

CPS is investigating. The City hasn't announced whether South Glenmore Park will get beefed-up security or if the replacement will follow the Copernicus playbook: same design, cheaper metal, lower stakes for thieves.

For now, the garden that was supposed to be a permanent tribute sits incomplete, with a gap where five names should be.