Aspiring Pastor Charged With Killing His Wife and Homeschooled Daughters
A 34-year-old aspiring pastor in Canada has been charged with the murders of his wife and two young daughters who were found dead in their British Columbia home last Tuesday.
Jacob Forman, a plumber who was studying to be a pastor, has been charged by authorities with three counts of second-degree murder after he was accused of ending the lives of his 33-year-old, Mexican-born wife, Clara Soledad Forman, and their 7 and 8-year-old daughters, Karina Forman and Yesenia Forman, according to CTV Vancouver.
It remains unclear as to how the three were killed and what motive there was for their murders.
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The news outlet reports that Forman, who lives in the town of Kelowna, appeared in court last Thursday.
"Obviously he's facing the worst possible thing he could be facing at this point in time," Forman's defense attorney Glenn Verdurmen told CTV Vancouver. "I can't really speak for him, but he's obviously holding up in court today, and I'm able to take instructions from him."
Global News reports that during the court hearing last week, Forman showed no emotion and was ordered to be held in custody and to be denied contact with 13 select people. Forman will return to court on Jan. 19 by video link.
Clara Forman worked as a fitness instructor at a local gym called GoodLife Fitness for the past seven years.
"She touched so many lives through the classes that she taught and through all the positive interactions she had with associates and members in our club," gym owner David Patchell-Evans told the Kelowna Daily Courier. "She will be greatly missed."
The Kelowna Daily Courier also reports that the children were homeschooled with the help of Heritage Christian Online School.
"We're devastated by what's happened, Sara Kraushar, the program's head of school, told the Kelowna Daily Courier.
"There are no words to express the grief that the friends and family of Karina, Yesenia and Clara are feeling," Kraushar added. "Our hearts go out to them and we want to be there to help lift them up in prayer."
Gail Baran, who works next door to the Forman's house as an in-home care assistant, told Global News that she is shocked to hear of what happened.
"They were just very nice people," Baran said. "You would never ever think that from that family, they were very down to earth people. ... He would go to work everyday and appeared to be such a gentleman. It's a shock for all of us here."
Although Forman was a supervisor at a plumbing company, he held a volunteer leadership role at his small church, Global News reports.
Forman's former co-worker, who chose to remain unidentified, told the Columbia Valley Pioneer that he was also shocked by the news, saying that Forman "seemed like a good family man."
A current neighbor told the newspaper that the "whole neighborhood is in shock."
According to the Columbia Valley Pioneer, social media posts indicate that Clara Forman, who is from Mexico, met her husband over 12 years ago. They were engaged to be married about 11 months after they met.
On Nov. 11, 2015, Clara Forman posted about her relationship with her husband in a 10th anniversary post on Facebook, saying that she left everything behind in Mexico to come to Canada to build a life with Forman.
"Met in January, started dating in July, engaged Oct. 27, married three weeks later on Nov. 11 at sunset," she wrote. "When I married Jacob Forman I left everything I knew to come to Canada and build a life."
"God blessed our feeble efforts with good jobs, good friends, a great church family and most importantly, two of the best little humans a couple of people could ask for," she added. "Ten years later you are still the person I want to grow old with."
A vigil in honor of the slain Formans will be held on Thursday at Stuart Park in Kelowna, according to Global News.
