Ten months after three men were found guilty of murdering Nadia Gehl in 2009, Gehl’s family finds itself in another fight.
A life insurance policy on Gehl had a payout of $200,000.
Court testimony suggested that collecting that payout was one of the factors weighing on the mind of Ron Cyr, Gehl’s husband and the sole beneficiary of the policy, when he enlisted friends Dennis Zvolensky and Nashat Qahwash to kill Gehl.
The Gehl family had hoped to collect the insurance money themselves after Cyr’s conviction, but a little-known law means they won’t see a cent.
“This shouldn’t happen to anybody ever,” father Nicholas Gehl tells CTV.
“This is extremely – I don’t know what the right word is, but it’s unfair without a doubt.”
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 1992 that if the named beneficiary on a life insurance policy is found to have murdered the insured person, they can’t collect the money – but neither can anyone else.
“The insurance company gets to keep the money. They get to keep the premium, they get to keep the interest on the premium, everything,” says Gehl.
Changes to provincial insurance legislation to allow judges to award insurance payouts to families of murder victims are in the process of being made, but the bill has yet to be proclaimed by the lieutenant-governor.
Gehl says he’s not fighting this battle for the money, but for his daughter.
“She had a sense of justice about this stuff, and she’d appreciate it,” he says.
“It’s the only reason why I’m doing it.”
Cyr is appealing his conviction. If successful in the appeal, he could receive $500,000 from two of Nadia Gehl’s life insurance policies.
