Partner of Vancouver Lapu-Lapu day attack victim shares tale of grief, sorrow, and hope
Posted May 5, 2025 1:15 pm.
Last Updated May 5, 2025 5:06 pm.
Jendhel May Sico is described as a person who lived her life to the fullest. On Saturday, April 26, she was celebrating the Lapu-Lapu Day festival with those she loved most — her cousin, AJ Sico, and her boyfriend.
Jendhel was one of 11 people tragically killed that day during the car-ramming attack. Her cousin AJ remains in hospital. In the past week, the beloved Vancouver barber has undergone emergency brain surgery. At his bedside throughout the ordeal is his partner of four years, Vanessa Nadege Hill.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO 1130 NEWSRADIO VANCOUVER LIVE!Nadege Hill tells CityNews about the day their lives changed forever.
“I guess when the SUV went through the crowd, AJ was with his cousins, and so he was with Jendhel. He was with Jendhel’s boyfriend, Blaine,” she explained.
Nadege Hill says one of AJ’s co-workers called her, saying that he couldn’t get a hold of him, and told her about what happened at the festival.
“I started frantically calling him. I was calling him, I was texting him, and his location was outside of the John Oliver Secondary School, so it was along the street where it had happened, and it just hadn’t moved,” she shared.
“But in my head, I was thinking, ‘Okay, if something had happened, he’s there. He’s not going to answer me because he’s running around helping people, like he’s making sure everybody around him is okay. He’s grabbing people if something terrible had happened.'”
Nadege Hill raced to the site of the attack, meeting another one of AJ’s cousins behind police tape. She says at that moment, AJ’s location was just around the corner from where she was.
“Now, I know something has happened, and I was just begging them, ‘Please, if his body is there or something, can you please just let me know?’,” she explained. “But obviously it’s an active crime scene, so they’re doing their job. They can’t let people in. But we were begging them, ‘Please, can you let me know if AJ is there,’ and they couldn’t tell us anything.”
“So, I broke down talking to the police, and had to gather myself, because we still had to find him, and I didn’t believe he was there. … I have never cried so hard, when I thought he was just around the corner and just not being able to get to him was really challenging.”
Nadege Hill says she found out that he had actually already been taken to Vancouver General Hospital, and she and her family rushed to get there.
“That night was very hard for us, because AJ was also there with his cousin, Jendhel, and the whole night we were looking for Jendhel. We knew that AJ was there, but they did not know where Jendhel was for the longest time. Jendhel, tragically didn’t make it. They weren’t able to show us her for days after she was missing for days, and so her parents were … I can’t even imagine, I can’t even imagine what her parents were going through,” Nadege Hill said.
She adds that she can’t adequately put into words what Jendhel was like.
“Jendhel was genuinely the sweetest soul. She was absolutely gorgeous. She was so kind and so loving. She always would bring everybody into the conversation. She never wanted you to feel excluded. But I think that she was one of the sweetest people that you could ever meet,” Nadege Hill said.
As for the future and AJ’s recovery, Nadege Hill says that while he’s making progress, it’s going to be a lengthy process.
“Because he had a pretty big stroke, it’s going to be a pretty long road to recovery. He works as a barber. He works on his feet, he works with his hands. He needs his motor skills to cut everybody’s hair, and he’s not going to be able to do that for a very long time,” she explained.
“We’re so thankful that so many people have donated to him, but he’s going to need a lot of help, and he’s going to need a lot of rehabilitation moving forward, not only for his legs, but for his mental state,” Nadege Hill added.
She explains that AJ has already overcome so much in just a short amount of time.
“The only way to describe it is miraculous, because he has so many people praying for him,” Nadege Hill said. “But when he first got in, he his legs were completely shattered from his thigh. His other leg was broken in many places. He had liver lacerations. He had internal bleeding. They didn’t think he was gonna make it.”
“And now today, he’s off his ventilator. He was squeezing my hand this morning, and today is the first day that he was able to do that. So I’m just so happy about that. I’m just so happy he was able to do that.”
A 30-year-old Vancouver man, Kai-Ji Adam Lo, remains in custody, charged with eight counts of second-degree murder in relation to the Lapu-Lapu Day attack.
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With files from Charlie Carey.
Editor’s note: A misspelling of Vanessa Nadege Hill’s surname has been corrected in all instances. CityNews regrets the error.
