Rest in Power, Matthew Hutchings 💔

 

💔 Rest in Power, Matthew Hutchings 💔

Date: May 30, 2025
By: Tina Winterlik aka Zipolita

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Today, with a heavy heart, I join many in mourning the tragic death of Matthew Hutchings, a 20-year-old UBC student whose life was cut short far too soon. His body was found near the SkyTrain tracks by Commercial-Broadway Station on May 29, 2025.

This is a heartbreaking loss — one that shakes our community and leaves deep questions, grief, and anger in its wake.

Matthew mattered. He was someone’s son, someone’s friend, someone who had dreams, plans, and love to give. His disappearance gripped many with concern. And now that concern has turned into sorrow — and for many of us, rage.

I write this not just in mourning, but in frustration.
Because just two weeks ago, I saw something disturbing near the SkyTrain tracks — a man lying on his back, his friends watching helplessly or high, the scene full of pain and danger. I tried to report it to TransLink. They told me to call police. They were rude. I was shaken. And now I wonder...

Did I witness someone dying? Did I witness Matthew — or someone like him — in their last moments?

We may never know.
But I do know this: it’s not enough to say “no foul play suspected.” When someone dies from toxic drugs, that is foul play. When someone lies helpless on the ground and the system doesn’t respond, that’s a crime. When our society allows people — especially youth, especially Indigenous women, especially the vulnerable — to die silently near public transit stations, alone and ignored, that’s a failure.

Matthew deserved better.

We owe it to him — and to every soul lost in this poisoned, indifferent world — to say their names. To see them. To speak out. And to demand that compassion, support, and justice no longer be optional.

Rest in Power, Matthew.
You will not be forgotten.

💔🕊️
—Zipolita