Robert Knuckle - The Mayerthorpe Story. From Ambush to Aftermath

The Mayerthorpe Detachment, February 11, 2005. Top, L to R: S/Sgt. Gary Radford, Cst. Brock Myrol, Cst. Leo Johnston, Cpl. Jim Martin, Sgt. Brian Pinder, Cst. Clayton Seguin, Cpl. Jeff Whipple, Supt. Marty Cheliak. Bottom, L to R: Cst. Peter Schiemann, Cst. Cindie Dennis, stenographer Heather Heystek, office manager Pat Lakeman, Cst. Julie Letal, Cst. Joe Sangster. (Mayerthorpe Freelancer)

THE

MAYERTHORPE

STORY

FROM AMBUSH TO AFTERMATH

Robert Knuckle

GENERAL STORE PUBLISHING HOUSE

499 OBrien Road, Renfrew, Ontario, Canada K7V 3Z3 Telephone (613) 599-2064 or 1-800-465-6072 www.gsph.com

ISBN 978-1-897508-42-8 (Pbk)

978-1-77123-833-5 (EPUB)

78-1-77123-834-2 (MOBI)

978-1-77123-835-9 (PDF)

Copyright Robert Knuckle, 2014

Cover art, design: Magdalene Carson

Published in Canada

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher or, in case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), 1 Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1E5.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Knuckle, Robert, 1935

The Mayerthorpe story : from ambush to aftermath / Robert Knuckle.

ISBN 978-1-897508-42-8

1. Police murders--Alberta--Mayerthorpe. 2. Royal Canadian Mounted Police-Officials and employees--Crimes against--Alberta--Mayerthorpe. 3. Roszko, James. 4. Accomplices--Alberta--Mayerthorpe. 5. Trials (Murder)--Alberta--Edmonton. I. Title.

HV6535.C33M38 2009364.15230971233C2009-902730-5

For Our Grandchildren

Lakota Knuckle

McKinley Knuckle

Geneva Knuckle

Alexander Barthorpe

Samuel Chichakian

Joseph Chichakian

Silvana Chichakian

Contents

| Mayerthorpe

ON THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2005, the worst case of police mass murder in the history of Canada took place near Mayerthorpe, Alberta. On that day, a disturbed lone gunman ambushed and murdered four young members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with a semi-automatic assault rifle that killed them all within a matter of seconds.

There is tragic irony in the fact that such a dreadfully momentous event should be associated with a place like Mayerthorpe, a small and obscure rural town located on Highway #43 about 145 kms (87 miles) northwest of Edmonton.

In fact, this tragedy didnt really happen at Mayerthorpe at all but out in the countryside much closer to the rural hamlet of Rochfort Bridge, a tiny crossroads community of sixteen houses and one restaurant located in the county of Lac Ste. Anne.

The reason this atrocity will forever be associated with the town of Mayerthorpe is that three of the four slain policemen were members of the Mayerthorpe RCMP Detachment.

There have been other cases of multiple police murder involving the RCMP. Thirteen were killed during the Second World War, but that was over a period of years. Eight were killed in the rebellion of 1885, but that, too, happened in armed conflict and took place over a span of three days.

Five RCMP members drowned in Lake Simcoe in Ontario in 1958 while on a late-night investigative mission to Georgina Island; their small boat capsized in the turbulence of a sudden storm. In 1963, four Mounties died in a plane crash at Carmacks in the Yukon.

In 1962, Constables Joseph Keck, Gordon Pedersen, and Donald Weisgerber were gunned down at Kamloops, British Columbia.

On several occasions, two Mounties have been murdered at the same time. In 1970, Sgt. Robert Schrader and Cst. Douglas Anson were shot to death while responding to a domestic dispute near MacDowall, Saskatchewan. The same fate befell Cpl. Barry Lidstone and Cst. Perry Brophy at Hoyt, New Brunswick, in 1978. Constables Robin Cameron and Marc Bourdages were shot and killed by a lone gunman near Mildred, Saskatchewan, in July 2006.

The March West, 1874.

But Mayerthorpe retains the dubious distinction of being the worst case of multiple murder in the modern history of the RCMP.

Whats more, it is also a fact that the Province of Alberta is disproportionately represented on the official RCMP Honour Roll that lists all the Mounties who have died in the line of duty.

To date, thirty-nine of the 220 members on the Honour Roll have died in Alberta. This amounts to 18 percent of all the Mounties who have died in the line of duty across Canada since the inception of the Force.

This high percentage can be partially explained by the fact that the Mounties have been stationed in Alberta longer than anywhere else in Canada. The Force was initially organized as the Northwest Mounted Police in 1873 to help keep the peace in Canadas North-West Territories, which at that time encompassed the District of Alberta. The major incident that spurred the formation of the NWMP was the massacre of twenty-five Assiniboine Indians by wolf hunters and whisky traders in May 1873 in the Cypress Hills close to the Alberta eastern border.

In July 1874, a contingent of 275 of these Mounties began their famous March West from Fort Dufferin, Manitoba, and ended their western trek by establishing their headquarters at Fort MacLeod in southern Alberta. The Force was then divided in two, with half of the redcoats travelling north to Edmonton. The following year, Fort Calgary was founded.

Ever since 1874, the Mounties have policed Alberta. In 1905, when Alberta became a province, the Mounties, in essence, became Albertas provincial police. And the massive size of the province makes that a challenging task.

Alberta ranks as the fourth largest province in Canada after Quebec, Ontario, and British Columbia. It is a land mass only slightly smaller than the State of Texas, extending 1,223 kms (760 miles) from Montana in the south to its northern border with the Northwest Territories. From east to west, Albertas maximum width is 660 kms (410 miles).

The only areas in the province that the Mounties do not police are some of the big cities like Edmonton, Calgary, Lethbridge, and Medicine Hat. A few smaller communities such as Camrose and Taber also have their own police service.

Consequently, throughout Alberta there are 2,200 Mounties stationed in 107 detachments, from Waterton Park on the Montana border to Assumption, just below the southern edge of the Northwest Territories.

In 2005, Mayerthorpe had eleven members working in its detachment office, two of whom primarily worked traffic control on busy Highway #43.

Two other nearby communities that play a significant role in this story also have RCMP detachment offices. Whitecourt, a town of 8,500 situated on Highway #43 just north of Mayerthorpe, had a twelve-member unit. Barrhead, to the east of Mayerthorpe with a population of 4,600, had nine Mounties working in their detachment. Although Barrhead has a bigger population than Mayerthorpe, the latter detachment has more demanding highway responsibilities.