Friends are remembering an Ottawa construction worker who was fatally stabbed earlier this year as a strong and charismatic labourer.
Emergency crews found 34-year-old Varney Marshall dead in a home on Mockingbird Drive on the evening of Aug. 7. Police have charged another man with second-degree murder.
Daniele Cambareri owns a construction company that employed Marshall as a skilled labourer in Ottawa until a few months before his death.
He described Marshall — or “V” as people called him — as “full of life” and “the strongest guy on site” despite his relatively small build.
“You would think he was getting ready to go to the Olympics,” Cambareri said of Marshall’s agility.
‘Stronger than anybody I’ve ever seen’
The Pinecrest-Queensway Community Health Centre, which helps people find jobs, referred Marshall to Cambareri, who says he got to know Marshall a bit.
According to Cambareri, Marshall was born in Liberia. But when things got difficult there, he moved to Ghana, living in a refugee camp.
“He was in many situations where you had to swim or sink,” including having to steal food, Cambareri said.
Daniele Cambareri, Marshall’s boss, holds up a photo of his former employee. (Guy Quenneville/CBC)
Andrew Williams, one of Marshall’s construction site co-workers, said Marshall came to Canada because he felt it was a good place to live and make a career for himself.
Marshall took pride in his work and in the permanence of “what you leave behind,” Williams said.
“That one brick that is a little bit out from where it should be, if it’s crooked … that stays there for the next 100, 150, maybe 200 years,” Williams recalled Marshall saying.
Williams was also struck by Marshall’s physical strength, recalling how Marshall could carry three bags of cement — weighing approximately 91 kilograms in total — across the site, repeatedly.
“And then he’d be hanging off the scaffold somewhere chirping at the bricklayers for not going fast enough because otherwise he wouldn’t have time to have a smoke,” Williams said.
Marshall took pride in his work and in the permanence of ‘what you leave behind,’ co-worker Andrew Williams says. (Varney Marshall/Facebook)
Cambareri said Marshall made enough of an impression that he was willing to claim Marshall’s body and arrange his burial, until he learned recently from the police that Marshall’s family was claiming it.
“He would have done the same,” Cambareri said.
Williams said a small group of co-workers might still get together for a pint or two and set up an extra spot at the table. He’s also hoping to find out more about the circumstances of Marshall’s death.
“He was stronger than anybody I’ve ever seen in my life,” Williams said.
Muhammad Khattak, the man accused of murdering Marshall, is slated to appear in court on Thursday. His case is still at the bail phase.