Sheri Bryan has spent the past five years mourning her son’s death. Anthony Conklin, 20, was hit while skateboarding along Mapleview Drive just east of Bayview Drive at about 1:30 a.m. April 9, 2020.
“I miss him, and I love him, and I wish he was here with us,” said Bryan from a memorial created on the fence along Mapleview Drive East, steps from where her son was hit five years ago.
“[He was] on his way home from a friend’s house when he was struck down by someone not paying attention to the road,” said Bryan.
According to court records, Conklin was hit in the middle of the road by a Mazda 3 driven by an off-duty York Regional Police officer who was on his way home from work that night.
“If that was me or you or anybody else, we’d be in handcuffs that night but this officer, he was allowed to go home before the paramedics even arrived,” said Conklin’s friend Robbie Briggs, who has led the creation and maintenance of the memorial for his best friend.
The driver said he was travelling about 70km/h when he crashed into Conklin.
A Barrie police reconstruction report, however, found the officer was likely travelling about double the speed limit that night - at highway speeds somewhere between 104 and 125km/h.
“The fact he lied to the first officer saying that he was going the speed limit and then that same detective who was here, he himself said if he was going the speed limit Anthony might’ve survived this,” said Briggs who considered Conklin his brother.
The officer, who lived in Barrie at the time, was subsequently charged with careless driving causing death in the crash that killed Conklin. The report revealed the man did not provide a full statement to investigating officers who first arrived on scene and was not tested for possible impairment by Barrie police.
Then a year later, the Crown withdrew the charge against him citing no reasonable prospect of conviction, saying Conklin was wearing all black clothing, in an area with a lack of streetlights and a witness who said she barely saw Conklin as she passed by him that night.
Three years after the crash, in April 2023, Conklin’s grief-stricken mother who was deep in depression and struggling with her mental health and addiction found herself spiraling out of control. Sheri Bryan was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and while that charge was later withdrawn by the Crown. Bryan was accused of stalking, making threats and planning to kill the man’s child before taking her own life so he could feel what it was like to lose a child. Bryan was convicted of criminal harassment, uttering a threat, and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose and sentenced to time served.
“I guess I tried to take justice into my own hands, which I should not have,” Bryan told CTV News following her release from custody May 31, 2024. “I paid for my crime. Now we’re going to get some justice for Anthony.”
Bryan had been charged after she was captured on surveillance cameras carrying a kitchen knife near the man’s home. She admitted to taking about 60 Xanax pills prior to her arrest. Bryan spent more than a year behind bars, and was released last May and was greeted by her son’s friends and loved ones as she left the Barrie courthouse.
“All told Ms. Bryan was held in pre-sentence custody for 411 days. Ms. Bryan’s culpability notwithstanding she too is a victim and the victim of a criminal justice system that, in my opinion, sought to protect a police officer at the expense of seeking justice for Ms. Bryan’s son Anthony,” said her defence lawyer Andrew Perrin.
“It was a York Regional Police officer, Mr. Christopher Brozny, that tragically struck the 20-year-old son of Ms. Bryan with a vehicle on April 9, 2020, and it resulted in Anthony’s death on April 11, 2020,” revealed Perrin. “Christopher Brozny was speeding on the night in question in a residential area. He was not administered a breathalyzer test when police arrived on scene. He was not charged with a criminal offence, in fact, on July 21, 2020, Mr. Brozny was charged with the provincial Highway Traffic Act offence of careless driving causing death. On March 23, 2021, that charge was withdrawn at the request of the Crown,” he added.
“Ms. Bryan had not been advised of the reason why [the Crown] decided to drop the charge before notifying Sheri Bryan of the withdrawal,” Perrin stated.
While Bryan and Conklin’s friends and family seek justice, they say they will continue to honour him with the colourful memorial site that displays his picture and sentimental keepsakes as a reminder of the young life lost in the crash.
“We take care of it every year. We come down and we clean it up a couple of times a year. This year we decided to give it a full makeover. But this is all we can give him right now,” said Briggs.
