It’s every parent’s fear—the late-night knock at your door, the grim-faced police officer on the other side, the news that your child is dead. Floyd and Karen Wiebe experienced that horror when their son, T.J., was murdered in January 2003. It’s a case that sent shockwaves through the city, both for its brutality and the exposure it gave to a drug culture that continues to run rampant and destroy countless lives.
The Wiebes have become well-known throughout the city as advocates for justice. They have vowed to do everything they can to spare other children and parents from a similar ordeal. I’m proud to now call them friends. I spent much time getting them to know them while sitting in various courtrooms over the years covering the numerous hearings for their son’s four accused killers. Outside court, I’ve been honoured to emcee their annual fundraising gala named in their slain son’s memory.
This is their story.
MARCH 2005
They stood before the packed courtroom, looking their son’s killer directly in the eye. Anthony Pulsifer sat stone-faced in the prisoner’s box as they began to speak. At one point he appeared to be wiping tears from his eyes.
“My heart physically hurts so much I’m amazed it still beats,” said Karen Wiebe. The Winnipeg schoolteacher described constantly being haunted at the horrific circumstances of the crime.
Trevor “T.J.” Wiebe was just 20 years old when his life was stolen as part of a sadistic plot cooked up by his so-called friends. “How I wish I could hold him again,” his mother said.
T.J. was lured out of his home, injected with a syringe, strangled with a shoelace, stabbed in the throat and left to die in a frozen field south of Winnipeg in January 2003. His body was found five weeks later as the snow began to melt. An autopsy revealed Wiebe actually died of cardiac arrest, likely from a combination of the attack and having ingested cocaine and crystal meth that would have increased his heart rate, Dr. Charles Littman told jurors.
A large photo of the victim, taken just days before he vanished, was set up in court for all to see. Pulsifer’s lawyer, Randy Janis, had objected to it being allowed, saying it was prejudicial and would turn the sentencing into a “memorial service.” But the judge agreed at the request of the Crown and family members who wanted everyone to see what they had lost.
“He was truly a special gift from God to us,” said Floyd Wiebe, T.J.’s father. He described all of the milestones which would never come. “I shall not be able to dance at T.J.’s wedding,” he said.
Four people had been charged in the senseless killing. Pulsifer was the first to be resolved, having just been found guilty of second-degree murder for his role in the attack. Pulsifer, 23, now faced a mandatory life sentence with no chance of parole for at least 10 years.
It had been a high-profile trial which provided a startling glimpse into Winnipeg’s growing problem with crystal methamphetamine, a popular and highly addictive street drug. That was the drug with which Wiebe, his accused killers and several suburban friends were all heavily involved in both using and selling. More than two dozen witnesses had testified during the three-week case, including several friends of Pulsifer who, like him, were involved in the use of crystal meth.
Wiebe’s so-called best friend was aware of a plot to attack him but did nothing to warn him—even when the young man asked if he was being set up just hours before he was brutally murdered. “They wanted to jack him, to put him out,” Trista Hildebrand had told jurors during the trial. Yet she remained silent, and admitted she even helped the accused who had formed the plan by telling them about some of Wiebe’s valuable possessions. “He asked me if he was being set up. I didn’t really answer him. I told him just to come and pick me up after lunch,” said Hildebrand, who had been arguing with Wiebe the day of his death. He never made their lunch date. Instead, Wiebe went with several men on the bogus premise of buying a car stereo system and never returned.
Hildebrand said her boyfriend—a youth co-accused who couldn’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act—was angry with Wiebe for apparently stealing marijuana from him. He also didn’t like the time Hildebrand was spending with Wiebe. Wiebe, in turn, was angry with Hildebrand for recently moving into her boyfriend’s apartment.
“I think he was just looking out for my best interests,” said Hildebrand, who denied there was any romantic connection between herself and Wiebe. She told jurors that all of the accused decided to target Wiebe on January 5, 2003 in what she thought was going to be a robbery. She claims Pulsifer pulled out a “great big green-and-black knife.” Hildebrand told the men Wiebe would likely be carrying a video camera, drugs and a few thousand dollars. “T.J. always had lots of drugs on him,” she said.
Another witness described how Pulsifer had calmly confessed to murdering T.J. by choking him “until he turned blue” and then cutting his throat with a knife. “Anthony was going on about how he killed T.J. [Wiebe]. He was asking me if I’d ever seen the fear in someone’s eyes. I kept telling him to shut up,” Mallory Johnson told court. She told jurors the confession came just days after Pulsifer and two co-accused were openly talking about injecting Wiebe with a syringe. “They were trying to find the best way to kill T.J. They were asking me what they could put into needles,” said Johnson.
After Wiebe was dead, Pulsifer spoke about his failed attempts at drugging the young man, Johnson said. “He said they tried sticking needles into his neck and it didn’t even give him a headache. He said it didn’t work so he had to strangle him with his bare hands,” she said. “He just kept going on and on about seeing the fear in someone’s eyes. It made me very uncomfortable.” Johnson didn’t say what type of chemical she believed they injected into Wiebe.
Johnson admitted she would smoke crystal meth as often as once an hour, and would sometimes be awake for six straight days because of the high she would get. Other young witnesses had also openly discussed their addictions to meth, along with other drugs, such as ecstasy, LSD and ketamine. Johnson told jurors she stayed silent about Wiebe’s death and even helped dispose of evidence by dumping the accused’s clothes in a dumpster along Portage Avenue. Johnson and her friend, Kelly Fernandez, say they were paid $37 and ordered to get rid of the evidence by Pulsifer and the other men.
But not everyone could keep the killing secret. Chantel Skehen, then a girlfriend of one of the accused, came forward to police days after reading in the newspaper about Wiebe’s body being found. Skehen, 19, testified that Pulsifer and her boyfriend had confessed to her about the killing in early January.
“He told me they had done something terrible. He told me they had killed somebody, that Anthony had done it and he went along to make sure there was no evidence left behind,” said Skehen. The two men were showing off several items they claimed to have stolen from the victim, including cash, drugs and a video camera. Skehen said they even played her a home movie on the camera that showed a young man she now knows to be Wiebe.
“[Her boyfriend] said that’s the guy Anthony killed,” she said. “They beat him, and Anthony said he choked him and mentioned something about cutting his neck.” Pulsifer was “very calm and quiet” while talking about the killing, said Skehen. Both men claimed Wiebe was killed because “money was owed.” Pulsifer then left the city a few days later to hide out in Calgary, she said.
In a four-hour videotaped interview with police, Pulsifer claimed he had no choice but to kill Wiebe. He said he tried to warn his “friend” that there was a plot to murder him just moments before he plunged a knife into the young man’s neck and left him to die. “I remember telling T.J. what these guys were trying to do to him. I told him to save himself, get out of the city,” said Pulsifer. Pulsifer claimed Wiebe reacted to the news by lunging at him with a knife. Pulsifer said he had no choice but to defend himself by attacking Wiebe. Homicide investigators repeatedly confronted Pulsifer about the claim, saying it went against the evidence and “dishonours” Wiebe’s memory.
Pulsifer’s story changed dramatically from the start of the police interview, when he claimed he didn’t even know who Wiebe was. He then later claimed to have “blacked out” and not remember any part of the killing before finally getting into specific details about two hours later. Eventually, Pulsifer told police the pair were friends and former schoolmates who got mixed up in Winnipeg’s drug scene.
Pulsifer said two other drug “associates” decided they wanted Wiebe dead because of an ongoing dispute over stolen narcotics. Pulsifer and another man were then told to finish Wiebe off. The plan was hatched about three days before the killing, he said.
“We were forced to do this. We were threatened with our lives, our children’s lives,’“ Pulsifer told police. Pulsifer claimed the two men who orchestrated Wiebe’s death wanted him to kill at least two other enemies, plus collect drug debts. “They said, ‘You do this or you’re next on the list,’” he said.
Queen’s Bench Justice Perry Schulman now had the option of raising parole eligibility as high as 25 years. Jurors who convicted Pulsifer were asked for their recommendation. They suggested making it 15 years. Crown attorney Brian Bell was seeking 20 years. “This was not a spontaneous act,” Bell said in his sentencing submission.
Pulsifer apologized to the Wiebe family for his actions in a letter read aloud by his lawyer. He claimed he wasn’t the “monster” everyone likely thought he was. “I have spent many days and nights thinking of everyone who has suffered,” he wrote.
Schulman ultimately went with the jury’s recommendation, raising parole eligibility to 15 years. “This was a brutal, senseless act which is difficult to comprehend,” said Schulman. He noted that Pulsifer presented as an intelligent, polite and articulate man. “It’s bizarre to realize that life was of so little value to the conspirators that the victim could have been anyone in the group for whom someone took a dislike,” said Schulman.
Outside court, the Wiebes said they hoped what happened to T.J. served as a wake-up call to other parents about the city’s growing drug problem. They told the Winnipeg Free Press the story of his promising life—and violent death—should send a chill up every family’s collective spines.
“This is a real sad commentary on society. Parents and police have to get together to deal with the drug problem. Our generation of parents have been raised that if you do this and this and this, things will turn out a certain way,” said Karen Wiebe. “But when two and two equal five, how do you deal with it? You just don’t know how to fix the problem, how to get kids out of it.”
Police and justice officials agreed that hard drugs such as crystal meth were becoming a major concern in the city. Crystal meth was an increasingly popular street drug that was commonly used in the club and rave scene for the high-end rush it produced. It could be smoked or snorted.
“If it can happen to our family, it can happen to anyone,” said Floyd Wiebe. “Since T.J. was killed, we have had so many parents come up to us and say, ‘You have no idea how close my kid has come to where T.J. ended up.’”
Wiebe’s killing had struck a chord with many Winnipeggers, not only for the brutal facts which emerged during Pulsifer’s trial but because T.J. didn’t fit the typical stereotype of someone who would fall victim to the shady drug underworld. After all, this was a smart young man who grew up in the cozy suburb of St. Vital, had two devoted parents, two loving siblings and a large network of extended family and friends. T.J. had attended French-immersion classes at École St. Germain and Collège Jeanne Sauvé and then transferred to Glenlawn Collegiate, where he graduated in 2000 with an unblemished record. When he wasn’t in class, Wiebe was often at the family cabin in Nopiming Provincial Park, where he snowmobiled in the winter and swam in the summer.
Wiebe’s dream was to become an underwater welder, doing work on boats or oil rigs far from his Winnipeg home. He was already certified as a scuba diver and was enrolled at Winnipeg Technical College learning how to become a welder. Wiebe had first learned about scuba diving while on a family holiday in Hawaii. But drugs began to change everything. And as hard as they tried, Floyd and Karen Wiebe were powerless to stop what became a downward spiral. The Wiebes described how their son’s drug problem first surfaced when he got into a car accident in 2002 and police found him in possession of LSD and Tylenol 3. T.J. pleaded guilty and was given a $300 fine.
Wiebe began using crystal meth, then dealing the drug to support his habit. That put him in touch with several shady people—including all of those now accused in his death. “Everyone knew one another because of it,” a police source had said shortly after the slaying.
The family had tried to intervene, and Wiebe had reluctantly agreed to attend a drug counselling program. He was killed the day before his first scheduled meeting. “That was taken away from T.J.,” said Floyd Wiebe. “As parents, we were on top of everything we could be.”
The Wiebes still faced a long legal road, as the other three accused remained before the courts. But they were adamant about ensuring their son’s death wouldn’t be forgotten. They wanted to make a difference. They had big plans.
MARCH 2006
He had certainly helped plot the grisly murder of T.J. Wiebe. But a Winnipeg jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether Dominic Urichen played a direct role in the killing. The result was a hung jury and mistrial on the charge of first-degree murder. Jurors spent two full days deliberating before telling the judge they’d reached an impasse. They did, however, deliver a guilty verdict on an additional charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
“The jury found that other people committed the murder and he did not actively participate in aiding and abetting it,” said defence lawyer Greg Brodsky. The Crown asked for a 17-year sentence for Urichen.
“I loved my son T.J. from the day he opened his eyes until the day you closed them,” Floyd Wiebe said while reading a new victim impact statement in court. He then walked past a poster-sized picture of his son that was on display in the courtroom and gave it a kiss. “The fact... people planned for my son to die is unfathomable. There is no reason T.J. should have been murdered. Every time I hear of the plan to kill him, I get sick to my stomach and go into a very dark hole.” Wiebe said.
His wife, Karen, told court the killing and subsequent drawn-out legal process had taken a heavy emotional and physical toll on her family. She recently had back surgery to relieve stress-induced pain, while Floyd had suffered two heart attacks.
Urichen was ultimately sentenced to 12 years. It was a far cry from the life sentence he faced had he been convicted of the original murder charge.
“No time is enough. It won’t bring our son back,” Karen Wiebe said outside court.
A third accused had just struck a last-minute deal to resolve his case without going to trial. Chad Handsor was set to begin his first-degree murder jury case but admitted to the lesser offence of second-degree murder. At his sentencing hearing, he offered a sobbing apology for his role in the crime. He was given a mandatory life sentence and had his parole eligibility raised to 15 years—the same penalty given months earlier to co-accused Anthony Pulsifer.
Once again, the Wiebes directly confronted the killer in court. “What gave you the right to take my son’s life? Every day I get to my office and say good morning to a photo of T.J. on my desk. That’s not good enough. I want to be able to hug my son, to speak with him. But I can’t,” said Floyd Wiebe. Karen Wiebe described the constant nightmares she had of her son losing his struggle to live. “Do you see the fear that I see in my dreams?” she asked Handsor.
The victim’s younger brother, Chad Wiebe, said he didn’t believe Handsor was remorseful. “I saw you look at me in court one day and laugh. You killed my brother. Pleading guilty only says you didn’t want to be convicted of first-degree murder,” he said.
APRIL 2006
He was the alleged mastermind of a notorious murder. The three men he allegedly recruited to carry out the crime had already been sent to prison. But the 20-year-old Winnipegger wouldn’t be going down with them. In a stunning decision, he walked out of court a free man after Queen’s Bench Justice Joan McKelvey found him not guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The man, who couldn’t be named because he was 17 at the time of the slaying, had managed to dodge a legal bullet by the slimmest of margins.
“There are clearly very suspicious issues... involving this accused. He had a motive. There was evidence, albeit from unreliable sources, that he set in motion the plan to kill T.J. Wiebe. However, there are huge gaps in the evidence,” wrote McKelvey. “It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine what happened in this case involving this accused without making quantum leaps and speculating as to the nature and intent of the evidence. This difficulty is particularly enhanced given the haze of drug abuse under which all these young people operated.”
McKelvey called Wiebe’s killing “an act of extreme depravity and brutality.” “He lost his life and has left a family and friends who mourn him on a daily basis. The tragedy involves not only the loss of life, but the milieu of drugs which overtook this group of young people,” she said. “While I may believe or have suspicions that this accused had some part in the untimely death of T.J. Wiebe, I cannot be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt.”
The accused broke out in a huge smile while his father, a major executive at a high-profile Winnipeg company, hugged his wife and other family members. Wiebe’s stunned family, friends and supporters—including relatives of several other recent Manitoba homicide victims—were angered by the verdict, shouting “Shame on you” and “Where’s the justice?” towards McKelvey as she left court.
Floyd Wiebe said it was difficult to understand how the man who allegedly came up with the plan to kill his son could escape blame. “Society should be very scared. If the justice system was working properly, he’d go down like the other three,” he said outside court. Wiebe noted that several judges had previously commented on the strength of the Crown’s case against the youth.
“The evidence showed [the youth] planned this murder, supplied the weapons of death, received drugs afterward and even bleached the supplied murder weapon,” Queen’s Bench Justice Brenda Keyser said in her March 2004 decision to deny the youth bail.
“The evidence points the finger at [the youth], as the absolute main planner of this murder. It all started with him,” said provincial court Judge Lynn Stannard in her December 2004 decision to order the youth to stand trial following a preliminary hearing. The youth was accused of recruiting Dominic Urichen, Anthony Pulsifer and Chad Handsor to kill Wiebe, whom he believed had stolen drugs from him. He may have also been jealous of Wiebe for being friends with his girlfriend, court was told.
“Without [the youth], T.J. would be alive. These three people were hired hit men who didn’t even know my son. [The youth] did,” said Floyd Wiebe.
The mother of the youth accused had testified how she was losing her grip on the drug-addicted teen in the months before the grisly killing. “He was very pale, always had dark rims around his eyes, was very skinny. He was always stoned,” she told court. “He very rarely remembered much of what we talked about.”
Pulsifer had previously told police in a videotaped statement that the youth accused had hired him to do the grisly job. However, the Crown’s case against the youth took a major hit when Pulsifer retracted his entire statement at the youth’s trial. He now claimed he and Handsor concocted a bogus story to implicate the teen.
Handsor claimed he played no role in Wiebe’s killing, but implicated the youth when testifying for the Crown. However, he also admitted to dozens of lies in his original police statement. “Handsor’s evidence cannot be relied upon. He is incapable of the truth. Handsor was caught in so many lies it would be dangerous to in any way rely upon his testimony,” McKelvey said in reaching her decision.
Meanwhile, the Crown had tried to call the final co-accused, Dominic Urichen, but he had refused to testify. That led to him being cited for contempt of court—and slapped with an extra year behind bars in addition to the 12 he was already serving. Urichen blamed his silence on not wanting to be labeled a “rat.”
“Compliance of the law isn’t optional. And there will be consequences for failing to testify,” McKelvey told him. “This was, without question, an interference with the administration of justice.”
One that had greatly helped the alleged puppet master of the murder plot go free.
MAY 2007
They knew all about the horror of losing a child to drugs—and then to violence. And now they were planning to do everything in their power to prevent more families from going through a similar hell. In the years since T.J’s death, the Wiebes had become strong local advocates on behalf of victims—opening up their home and cabin to other families of slain children and often sitting side-by-side with them during painful court proceedings. And now they were attempting to affect change on an even bigger scale with an ambitious fundraising effort. Their son’s memory would be front and centre when the Wiebe’s hosted the first-ever “TJ’s Gift—A Gala Evening.”
The goal was simple. The Wiebes planned to raise at least $40,000 which would go into sustaining The T.J. Wiebe Education and Awareness Fund, which was set up after their son’s tragic death as a means of keeping his memory alive and steering others away from the dangerous lifestyle that reeled him in. The Louis Riel School Division had partnered with the Wiebes and would provide students access to the fund for peer education and drug awareness projects.
“We need to reach as many kids as possible,” said Karen Wiebe. “We know kids will listen to other kids. And we can provide them with another vehicle for education,” added Floyd Wiebe. Getting funding for a project—be it a school play, a lecture series or a science project—would come with a major commitment.
“They have to take a drug free oath,” said Floyd Wiebe. “Now, I realize it’s just a piece of paper they sign. But I truly believe that if a kid who’s maybe 13 and signs that, and two years later is in a position [where drugs are present or being offered], well, maybe he or she remembers what they signed and it’s another cog to make a positive choice,” he said.
The Wiebes had been overwhelmed with support from family, friends and even complete strangers—both after their son was killed and when they recently launched their effort for the fundraiser. A Calgary resident, listening to Floyd Wiebe speak recently on a national radio show, called up and bought a corporate table for $1,000 simply as a kind gesture. Then there was the woman who approached Wiebe to speak of her own young son’s struggles with drug addictions, and how he’d turned his life around by learning about what happened to T.J. Several Winnipeg Free Press articles about the murder still hang in his bedroom.
“We do a fair amount of outreach these days,” said Karen Wiebe.
DECEMBER 2012
It was always the toughest time of year, save for the anniversary of the day their son was murdered. Now Floyd Wiebe was sharing new insight into his family’s loss. He wrote a powerful blog post which was published in the pages of the Winnipeg Free Press. It spoke of how the pain lingered, long after the final court case had ended.
I recently attended the Manitoba Organization of Victim Assistance candlelight service. It’s held at Christmas time, for families who have lost family members through homicide.
MOVA is a club that no one wants to belong to. To be in a room filled with families that are like me is, well, indescribable, to say the least.
There is so much emotion, so much pain and so many memories. We are all there because “someone” decided to kill a member of our family.
Whether that “someone” is in jail for life without parole for 25 years, or served 15 months, or is having Christmas with his family because he was declared “not guilty,” doesn’t really mean anything. What does mean something is that we do not have our family members with us. No legal system or sentence will fill that void. It’s not possible.
When Christmas Day comes, there is an empty chair. Some families leave that chair empty at the dinner table to remember the one missing. Some families reflect on memories at the table. Some don’t talk about it at all because they simply cannot. Some families have stopped having Christmas altogether. There is no “right” way to do this. You do what your heart and emotions allow you to do.
The first two Christmases after my son died were spent in the Caribbean, as there was no way we could spend it at home with all the traditional festivities of fun, food and Santa. When the third Christmas came, my daughter said she wanted Christmas at home from now on, and that’s all it took. My wife decided we needed a TJ Christmas tree, and for many years, we decorated it exclusively with angels and “TJ” decorations, ones that he made in school and church as a young child and the ones that he particularly liked. The one ornament that was always in front was the ball saying “TJ’s First Christmas.” They don’t make balls that say “TJ’s Last Christmas.”
Unless you have lost a family member in this way, you can never understand what it is like. And I hope that you never can, because we don’t want you in this club.
When I tell a stranger what happened to TJ, I sense a horror inside that person. I sense what they are saying to themselves at that moment and thinking of their own children. I do not sense an understanding. When I speak with a person in the club, I sense warmth, a connection like no other, a closeness and a sense that they know what it’s like. You can even see it. At the candlelight service, we all realize why we are there and how we got there. We greet each other on common ground.
This year, the founder of MOVA, Darlene Rempel-Fillion, was guest speaker. It’s been 28 years since her son Rob was murdered. Her voice broke as she spoke, she stopped to compose herself, and we all knew intimately what was going on in her mind. I remember thinking how raw that emotion was after 28 years.
As you can see, we do not “get over it.” There is no closure, as people like to think there is. We do, however, move on, but we never get over it. We do laugh, a lot, and we still enjoy life, but it’s a very different life indeed.
This is my 10th Christmas without my son. It seems like yesterday in so many ways. Merry Christmas to all.
MARCH 2013
The young man who allegedly cooked up the plot to kill T.J. Wiebe had walked free years earlier. Now one of the three men convicted for their role in the decade-old killing was about to regain his freedom. All of this despite the fact Dominic Urichen was hearing “command hallucinations” to stab strangers, had been deemed a high risk to violently reoffend and was found to have little understanding of how to cope in society and stay out of trouble. Urichen had now served two-thirds of his sentence, and the National Parole Board informed the victim’s family Urichen was about to be set free on statutory release.
“It is not the fact that he is getting out of jail on parole. What I object to is that he has done absolutely nothing in jail for 10 years to rehabilitate himself,” said Floyd Wiebe.
Urichen’s parole documents included several references to him still showing little insight into his offences, wreaking havoc with staff and other inmates behind bars, and due to a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, having violent hallucinations about going on a stabbing spree.
“Is this the kind of person that Canadians want walking around in their community?” Wiebe asked. “Obviously people have to be released slowly into the community so that they can reacquire what it is like to live in a community. But when he is having the exact issues that he had going into jail and 10 years later still has those same issues, does society not have more responsibility?”
In one paragraph, the parole board warned Urichen “has been incarcerated for many years and the contributing factors to your offending are still outstanding, suggesting that you will easily engage in drug use and association with negative peers, leading to a deterioration of your mental health, significantly increasing the risk you pose.” The parole board did have the ability to suspend statutory release and keep Urichen behind bars until the expiry of his full sentence if they felt there was a grave risk to society.
Wiebe wondered why that wasn’t being done in this case. “If this doesn’t meet the criteria of keeping someone in, I shudder to think what it does take,” he said.
The very first T.J.s Gift Gala ended up surpassing expectations and raised a total of $54,000. The annual fundraiser has been going strong ever since, supplemented by other community efforts such as the “Rockin’ for Choices” concert which sees thousands of local teens from dozens of schools pack into the MTS Centre to watch a Battle of the Bands combined with a positive, drug-free message. Life, of course, goes on. But the Wiebes have now dedicated their lives to helping other families avoid the kind of tragedy which consumed them. One only needs to check out their website—www.tjsgift.com—to fully grasp their efforts.
In May 2014—while emceeing the eighth annual gala fundraiser event—I was moved by a speech from a young man who was perhaps headed down a similar road as T.J. He bravely got up before a crowd of strangers and told his story of how a murder victim he never met may have saved his life. About how hearing T.J.s story when Floyd Wiebe spoke at his high school made him re-consider his own choices in life: his increasingly chronic drug use, his negative peers. And how he was able to make a clean break from all of that. That young man graduated high school in June of 2014 and faces a bright future if he can stay on track. The Wiebes have heard many similar stories over the years. It’s what motivates them to keep going. It truly is T.J.’s gift.