An advocate for the Katzie Slough restoration project, who once ran for Pitt Meadows city council has died.
Scott Magri, who also spent years running from demons from his past, passed away Saturday, March 28, from a heart attack in Salmon Arm, at the age of 57.
According to friends, Magri, who was a Pitt Meadows resident for more than four decades, drove himself to Salmon Arm Hospital Saturday afternoon because he wasn’t feeling well, and he was in the waiting room when he had “a massive heart attack.”
Although medics worked on him “for quite a while” there was nothing more they could do.
Magri was only 10 years old in 1979 when he was “indecently assaulted” while living in a Pitt Meadows trailer court by Gilles Joseph Paul Brophy, of Quebec, who pleaded guilty to the offence 37 years later. Brophy was given a nine-month conditional sentence, a year’s probation, had to provide a DNA sample and is on the national sex offender registry for 20 years.
Magri attended Pitt Meadows Secondary School, but would grow up delving into a life of crime and addiction to the opiate Oxycontin, becoming a drug dealer and gang affiliate.
He would later write a book chronicling his past called “Lessons: Crime, Games and Pain”, although, he explained after the book was published in 2012, he wrote it while he was still under the influence of the opiate.
Once he hit rock bottom and found purpose in his life, Magri worked with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society to restore his favourite fishing hole in Pitt Meadows, the Katzie Slough.
In 2014, he ran for Pitt Meadows city council, but lost with only 1,224 votes.
He was a longtime employee of CP Rail as a car man, doing repairs and maintenance.
Local environmentalist Jack Emberly wrote online that he was shocked over Magri’s death.
“He was not only a friend to many including me, but a champion of Katzie Slough and the environment,” wrote Emberly.
“My brain has been flooded with the memories of fishing trips adventures ‘Big Buddy’ and I shared. He was bigger than life in so many ways. I will miss greatly miss him as will so many others who appreciated his uniqueness,” he said.