The Mayerthorpe Story

by Robert Knuckle

The three women were gathered in a room together but no one was telling them very much about the situation. They were advised that the four men had gone into a Quonset hut on an investigation and there had been no communication with them for quite a while. They were also advised that a motorized robot was being sent in to the Quonset to survey the site.

  Upon hearing that information, Anjila and Kim were horribly upset and began crying. Kelly, who was equally disturbed, kept a brave face and tried to comfort the other two.

  Their apprehension heightened as several members of the media began to gather in front of the detachment office. Eventually the media numbers grew to such a size that the three women were hurried out the back door of the detachment office and escorted to the fire hall nearby.

  Now, isolated from the distracting activity of the excited media, their wait was quieter, but more intense and no less apprehensive.

  Meanwhile, Jim Martin and Brian Pinder were on their way to the fire hall carrying the unbearable burden of being the messengers of death. They would be telling these women the worst news they would ever receive in their lives. What made it all the more devastating was the fact that the three women were so young and had shared such precious little time with their mates.

  “That was the worst day of my life,” says Jim Martin.

  Kim and Anjila and Kelly had waited in the lunchroom of the fire hall in anguish until mid-afternoon.

  Then Sgt. Pinder and Cpl. Martin came in accompanied by two other members.

  Martin says, “Sgt. Pinder did all of the talking … and it was a very tough thing for him to do.”

  All the women stood around Pinder to hear what he had to say.

  Kelly Johnston didn’t seem to be correctly interpreting his words. When Pinder told her he was so sorry that Leo was gone, Kelly asked, “Gone where?”

  Kim Gordon says she should have known what he was going to say by the look on his face.

  “His face was pasty white and there were tears in his eyes. I don’t know what he said. All I can remember is his last word — ‘dead.’”

  Anjila did hear him say, “All four officers are dead.”

  She didn’t believe it. “No, he’s not. It’s not right. Just let me see him. I know he’s all right.”

  The three women’s grief was overwhelming, their pain inconsolable.

  After that, Jim Martin went over to the detachment to tell the members in the office the terrible news.

  Cindie Dennis says, “Later in the afternoon, Julie Letal and Clayton Seguin came in. They looked awful. And they were soaking wet from lying in the snow out there.

  “Then Jim Martin came in and told us, ‘They’re gone. They’re all gone.’ He could barely speak. But I knew what he meant and I felt sick. It was horrible.”

  Peter Schiemann’s father, Don, was in Winnipeg at a church conference. His daughter Julia phoned him because she had heard that police officers in Alberta had been shot. Don tried to alleviate her fears and said he would look into the matter and get back to her.

  While listening to the radio, he heard even more alarming news that the shootings had taken place near Mayerthorpe. And that four officers were not responding to radio contact. Don Schiemann’s worst fears were realized at the Winnipeg airport when he was about to board his plane home to Edmonton.

  Superintendent Marty Cheliak contacted him and told him that Peter was dead. He apologized for giving Don such dreadful news over the phone but explained that he wanted to tell him personally before he heard the news via the media.

  Don, who was heartbroken, then phoned his wife and told her and his two children the awful news. He says, “It was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my entire life.”

  Wendell Wiebe was in the lounge at the Legion hall. He says, “There were about six Mounties in the room watching TV. Some of them were crying.”

  Wendell thought he wasn’t doing much good there. He’d heard that the firefighters were gathered in the basement of the hospital, so he decided to go over there. He wasn’t there long when the fire chief, Randy Schroeder, came in and announced that he had just learned that all four RCMP officers had been killed.

  Wiebe says, “It was one of those overwhelming catastrophes that are beyond understanding. It was simply too much to grasp. I remember I had the feeling I was floating through it … like it was a dream.”

  After Mayor Albert Schalm finished his lunch, he decided to go to the town office and stay there for the rest of the day. All afternoon he was either on the phone or dealing with the media face to face. He had refrained from calling the RCMP detachment for information because they had enough on their plate without him interfering. So Albert had to pick up his information in bits and pieces from whatever source he could find.

  What seemed to be confirmed was that the RCMP was involved in an investigation and hours ago had lost radio contact with four of their members on the site.

  But then some time after two p.m., a media person came in and said to Albert, “Haven’t you heard? Four of them have been shot … and killed.”

  “It was such a shock,” Albert says. “It’s a good thing I was sitting down at the time. I just couldn’t believe it. And then I started to think, who were they? I knew almost all of them, so I wondered who it was that had been killed.”

  Before long, Albert and everyone else in town knew their names.

  Earlier that day, Andria Gogan, who had married and was now Andria Reid, was driving her car to her house in Spring Grove. The road conditions were good, and everything seemed normal until she saw three police cars go racing by her. They appeared to be heading towards Mayerthorpe.

  When Andria got home, she asked her husband, Rachied, if he knew what was going on with all the police activity on the highway.

  Because Andria was pregnant, he didn’t want to tell her what he’d heard on the radio, so he said very little.

  Andria wasn’t satisfied with that and phoned her friend Karen Killen in Mayerthorpe.

  Karen told her, “Something major is happening … a shooting, I think. I don’t know what’s going on, but I think it’s bad.”

  On hearing that, Andria immediately got back in her car and headed for Mayerthorpe to be with Kelly Johnston. On the way, she heard on the radio that the STARS helicopter ambulance had transported two Mounties to Edmonton.

  Andria says, “So I thought to myself … well, that doesn’t sound too bad. Maybe they were just wounded.”

  She continues, “Because I couldn’t get Kelly on the phone, I decided to drive over to the Mayerthorpe hospital. As soon as I got in the door, I saw Tanya Kendall, a paramedic, walking in the hall. She was bawling her eyes out.

  “I asked her what was wrong … what was the matter?”

  She was sobbing and mumbled, “They’re all dead.”

  “Who is dead?”

  Tanya couldn’t reply.

  “Tell me who is dead.”

  “Peter, Leo, Brock, and Anthony Gordon.”

  “I was in shock. I had to sit down. That was the worst thing … the saddest news I had ever received in all my life.”

  Cindie Dennis says, “After Jim Martin informed us of our friends’ deaths, we all sat around in shock … sobbing and crying. I do remember looking outside and seeing all the media gathered around the building … TV satellite trucks, guys carrying television cameras, others with notebooks and tape recorders.

  “They gathered up Julie and Clayton and me … I can’t remember who else … and told us we had to get out of there.

  “They rushed us out the back door and piled us in the green Victims’ Services van and took us all over to Joe Sangster’s house. Almost everybody from the Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt detachments … and their families … were there.

  “Everyone was terribly upset … people were trying to talk to each other, but it was difficult, because most of us were bawling.

  “I finally got myself together and called my parents on their cell phone. They were already in the car on their way to
Mayerthorpe. They had left right after my mom phoned me in the morning. It’s a six-hour drive from their place in Pincher Creek, and now they weren’t that far away.

  An aerial view of the crime scene taken on March 3, 2005. Notice the dog’s shed at the rear of the Quonset and the distance of the fuel tank (behind the three steel grain bins) from the Quonset. (Mayerthorpe Freelancer)

  “After that, I sat around with the others watching television. The incident was all over the provincial news … every channel.”

  And soon that frightful news began to spread all across the country.

  Banner newspaper headlines announced the awful truth: Four Mounties Slain in Alberta. National radio and television programming was interrupted to convey the dreadful news to an astonished nation.

  And ever since that terrible Thursday in March 2005, the most notorious mass murder in the history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would be forever tied to tiny, unpretentious Mayerthorpe.

  7 | Devastation

  THE DEATH OF THE FOUR young Mounties sent the towns of Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt into shock. Everyone in those communities knew at least one of the policemen; lots of people knew all of them.

  Agonizing townsfolk recalled to themselves or to others the last time they had seen or spoken to one of the dead policemen. They remembered when they said hello to kindly Peter Schiemann or when they waved to friendly Leo Johnston. Brock Myrol was new to town and not as well known, but lots of people could remember the handsome young policeman who had just moved into town with his beautiful fiancée.

  Big and tall Anthony Gordon was well known and highly respected in the region, but was especially familiar in the community in Whitecourt, where he worked and lived with his wife, Kim, and their little boy.

  Any mention of the officers’ names caused people to lower their eyes and shake their heads in pain and dismay.

  These four were not just good policemen, they were the very best type of wholesome young men that Canada can produce. Each of them was bright, fit, athletic, handsome, personable, alert, curious, considerate, and extremely capable. As police officers their potential was tremendous.

  And now, in one appalling act of madness, they were gone.

  On Friday, March 4, both Shawn Hennessey and Dennis Cheeseman had gone to work. When Cheeseman heard about the murders, it was about one-thirty p.m. He then left his job at Sepallo Foods, saying he had a family emergency. In fact, he was almost physically ill when he learned what had happened after they dropped Roszko off the night before.

  Shawn remained at the Kal Tire meeting in Edmonton for most of the day. He heard what had happened at Roszko’s farm while he was listening to the car radio on his way home. The news was extremely disturbing to him.

  Shawn’s wife, Christine, was at home washing the dishes and listening to an Edmonton radio station when she heard reports that four Mounties were feared dead near Mayerthorpe.

  Christine says, “They were saying that they didn’t know about the safety of four RCMP officers, they weren’t responsive. And I was just like. ‘Oh no, that’s really sad. I wonder what’s going on.’

  “Then all of a sudden I heard the name [Roszko] and I was just … my heart sank. I was like, ‘No, no way.’”

  Christine remembers what Shawn said when he arrived home that day around four-thirty p.m.

  “He said, ‘Oh, my God,’ and he couldn’t even talk. He just went blank. The look on his face, I knew something terrible had happened. And I just sat there. He just sat there for a long time. He didn’t say anything.

  “He just said after a while, ‘Are you okay?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know.’”

  Then Shawn told Christine that Roszko had showed up at their house the night before when they were in bed. He said that Roszko was carrying a handgun and demanded help.

  He said, “[Roszko] came here with a gun, Christine, and I was so scared.”

  Christine remembers that while he was speaking, he was pale with fear.

  Meanwhile, people were showing up at the Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt detachments in droves. Men and women, children, even some entire families, began placing flowers and cards in front of the detachment offices. Among the cards were long, handwritten notes poignantly expressing each bearer’s sorrow and sadness. The common themes among the messages were words of thanks and appreciation, and promises that the four dead Mounties would not be forgotten.

  The media, with the first hint of a developing story, had started to arrive in Mayerthorpe before noon. By two o’clock, they had inundated the town and were rushing madly about trying to get a unique angle or scoop on the tragedy.

  Pastor Wendell Wiebe says the media were terrible.

  “They were intrusive and unbelievably insensitive. Their manner lacked any sense of professionalism.

  “There was such a competition among them. Everybody wanted an edge to get the inside story.

  “I remember one of our firefighters being chased by a reporter who wanted to know: ‘Did you see the bodies? Did you see the blood?’

  “People in our town are naturally cautious, but the media’s approach made them even more so.

  “Their glaring intrusion and insensitive behaviour made me angry. I wanted them to leave our town and not come back.”

  John Kyle, the vet, says, “They never bothered me … but I was working inside. There were lots of them in town … parked in front of the police station and interviewing people on the street.”

  Rev. Arnold Lotholz says, “It was my experience that the media were generally well-behaved … but I was mostly inside the Legion hall away from all the chaos outdoors. However, I do remember the phones never stopped ringing.”

  Arnold helped to set up the Legion as a command post and spent most of his day inside the building, hooking up phones and computers with high-speed Internet. He also brought in food for everyone in the hall and arranged accommodation for the police who were coming into town to help.

  So many townspeople had called the Co-op and ordered trays of food be sent to the Legion that they had much more food there than they needed.

  Lotholz remembers, “I had to phone the Co-op and tell them not to send over any more food.”

  The most difficult sight for Lotholz to deal with was when the Mayerthorpe police officers — one after another — started returning from the crime scene where they knew all hope was lost for their four colleagues and good friends.

  Lotholz says, “Around two o’clock some of the detachment officers began straggling in … all of them ashen and downtrodden. They didn’t speak … they kept a stunned silence.”

  Seeing them in such pain shook him badly.

  For the widows and the families of the dead, the first few days were a blur. Relatives came, friends dropped in, the phones rang and rang but someone else answered, food was sent over, flowers arrived, cards were read, words were spoken, nothing much registered. There was no consolation for their grief. The minutes dragged by with an aching numbness. One hour spilled into another … then another … ever so slowly. The only reprieve was sleep … when it came. The dark of night was welcome, but did not always provide relief from their pain.

  On Thursday night near Barrhead, Shawn Hennessey and his mother discussed the fact that the Winchester rifle Roszko had taken on his murderous rampage was registered to Shawn’s grandfather, John Hennessey. Fearing the rifle would be traced to John and eventually Shawn, they called for a family meeting.

  The gathering included Shawn, Dennis, Shawn’s father, Barry, and his mother, Sandy. They discussed the fact that the rifle would invariably be traced back to John and it wouldn’t be long before the RCMP would come knocking and ask about it.

  Barry claims they went along with John Hennessey’s idea to concoct a “story” as follows: John had always possessed the rifle; he had never given it to Shawn; the rifle had been stolen out of John Hennessey’s welding truck several weeks prior to the time of the murders.

  Everyone at the meeting agreed to stick
to this story when the police came calling.

  Over in Mayerthorpe, a deluge of media was descending on the town.

  Mayor Albert Schalm says, “The media scrum at my office lasted all day and went well into the evening.”

  At one point, a call came from a government secretary in Ottawa asking where he would be at 7:00 p.m. Albert told her, and at 7:00 sharp he received a phone call from Prime Minister Paul Martin.

  “The gist of his message was that he wanted to send condolences to the people of Mayerthorpe on behalf of the country. He asked me to relay his message to our community.”

  Albert left his office late, but even when he got home, the phone kept ringing.

  At 12:45 a.m. he received a call from the BBC in London, England, asking for a live interview.

  “The British radio host was very nice. He didn’t seem to understand the time difference between England and Western Canada. He told me that the Canadian Mounties are known all over the world.”

  Other phone calls came in from radio stations across the country. Several were from Toronto. One of those calls came in from a producer at 3:45 a.m. trying to set up a 6:00 a.m. live interview.

  In retrospect, Albert says he really can’t complain. “When I was dealing with the national and international media, they treated me very well,” he says. “As a matter of fact, they were very considerate … awesome, I would say. And I appreciated that.”

  For five or six days after the tragedy, Albert was so busy with the daily deluge of phone calls and interviews, he decided to take “a bit of a leave” from his farm job. “I asked my boss, Harvey Hagman, if I could have the mornings off … and he was good enough to accommodate me. He didn’t replace me, he just agreed that I could take the mornings off. Sometimes I wonder how he got along without someone, because that was our busiest time of year. And you had to be alert and careful.

  “Every half hour, we used to drive through the herd on a sleigh or a pickup truck and when we spotted a new calf, we’d lift it up and put it on the sled or on the tailgate of the truck. Then we’d drive slowly to the calving barn and the calf’s mother would follow right behind us … always followed right behind.”