WINNIPEG—One of the first police officers on the scene of the beheading of a young man aboard a Greyhound bus on a Manitoba highway six years ago has taken his own life.

Ken Barker, a recently retired RCMP corporal who was a dog handler, killed himself last weekend after struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder for years.

Family and former colleagues say the 51-year-old had already seen almost two decades of horrific crimes when he witnessed the grisly scene on the Trans-Canada Highway west of Winnipeg in 2008.

Tim McLean was stabbed, mutilated and beheaded by Vince Li, who was later found not criminally responsible because of mental illness.

Barker’s family say they’re speaking out about the suicide in the hope more Mounties will seek help.

Shari Barker, the former officer’s estranged wife, said Wednesday her husband was a sensitive man who did not want to be known as the Greyhound guy.

Barker, who had two adult children, retired last month and had been on medical leave since October.

Shari and Barker’s sister, Wendy Walder, said he did get psychiatric help while with the RCMP and during his short retirement, but they both said the force has to do more to address the stigma attached to its members battling mental illness.

Shari also said his illness didn’t just force him to retire — it also cost him his marriage. “Today (Wednesday) would have been our 26th anniversary,” she said. “Ken and I separated three years ago. PTSD did it. It cost him on many levels.”

Walder said her brother’s treatment was coming along — and while he was still a dog handler, he was stationed at the airport and bus depots instead of responding to slayings — but last fall things began changing.

“With Vince Li getting in the paper about his walks, he started getting flashbacks,” she said.

“It was a very rapid decline in the last six months. He sent text messages like ‘I think I’m too broken to ever be fixed’ and he would also say ‘I wish I had cancer because then people would understand.’”

The two women rescued Barker from a suicide attempt in May, but no one got to him in time this past weekend.

“He would say the front door will be open and don’t go into the basement. Shari went there and the front door was open and she called for him and he didn’t respond. She knew not to go to the basement. She called the paramedics,” said Walder.

RCMP Assist. Commissioner Gilles Moreau said the force offers its condolences to Barker’s family. He said the force already offers help to its members and a five-year mental-health strategy, announced in May, will provide more.

Its objectives include improving employee understanding in the intervention of psychological problems, reducing the presence and effects of psychological risks and measuring the force’s psychological health-and-safety performance annually.

A recent audit found 38 per cent of RCMP members who are on long-term sick leave said mental-health problems are to blame.

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Lori Wilson, founder of the Friends of the RCMP for PTSD Awareness, said not a week goes by that she doesn’t hear about a current or former RCMP member facing a mental-health crisis.

“They are trained to be in control and control their emotions when in chaos,” said Wilson, whose husband was diagnosed with PTSD. “But what happens after that? Let us give them the tools. Let us do six-month checkups. Let us have a list of where they were before and are now. And let us talk to families.”

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