Family of Teen Stabbed on Surrey Bus: ‘We Are Not Supposed to Fear Our Children Going to School’

Ethan Bespflug is shown in this undated family handout photo. The 17-year-old was fatally stabbed on a Metro Vancouver bus on April 11, 2023. (HO, Andrea Van Der Gracht/The Canadian Press)

Ethan Bespflug, 17, lost his life after being stabbed on a bus this week in Surrey, B.C., on his way home from a friend’s house. His mother was waiting to pick him up at a bus stop and was following the GPS tracker on his phone when she saw the tracker depart from his route and head to a hospital.

Bespflug had gone to the friend’s house after school. “He woke up and went to school in the morning and never came back,” Andrea Van Der Gracht, his aunt, said on a GoFundMe page set up for the family. “We are not supposed to fear our children going to school, we are not supposed to fear our children going home from school,” she said.

“Ethan was a son and a brother who was senselessly murdered when he was supposed to be safe,” she said. “Our fears of sending our children out into the world are becoming more and more prevalent in our daily lives.”

Another of Bespflug’s aunts, Daphni Miller, said, “He always helped with his siblings always told his family how much he loves us, he would give the shirt off his back to anyone that needed it.” She also set up a GoFundMe page to help with funeral costs and any other expenses as the family grieves.

Bespflug was the oldest of five, and his family had recently moved to Abbotsford from Surrey, southeast of Vancouver, partly because of concerns about crime, Van Der Gracht told The Canadian Press.

Van Der Gracht said the boy had texted a friend shortly before he was killed, saying two other young people had boarded the bus and he wanted to get off at the next stop to avoid them. They allegedly stabbed him as he tried to get off.

The RCMP has said the stabbing appears to have been a targeted, isolated incident. No arrests have been made.

Following the Tracker to the Hospital

Bespflug would often take the bus to Surrey and his mother would pick him up and drive him home. When she saw his GPS tracker heading to the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster on the night of April 11, she rushed there, too.

“I got in my car and a rushed over to the hospital searching for him,” Holly Indridson told the CBC. She soon learned he was fatally stabbed. He had succumbed to his wounds at the hospital.

“I just wanted my life to end. I think I would have traded mine,” she said. “I don’t understand why it had to be him. Why him?”

It is the second bus stabbing this month in Surrey. The first was on April 1 and was not fatal. The victim’s throat was slashed, but the victim is now recovering at home. A man has been charged with terrorism offences in that case. The RCMP said the April 1 and April 11 events are not connected.

Premier David Eby said Thursday that police are increasing transit patrols. He said Bespflug’s death is every parent’s nightmare.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.