homicide 2008: life and death on Edmonton's streets
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Edmonton's 2008 murder meter officially rests at 35, with the total metro area count for the year coming in at 42.
The urban tally was up two over 2007, but as 2008 ended the disposition of several suspicious death cases had yet to be resolved.
There were 36 homicides in 2006. In 2005, Edmonton set its all-time one-year murder record with 39 deaths, more than one every 10 days.
2008 ended with 23 investigations still ongoing, charges laid in nine and not laid in three.
Regarding cause of death, knives were used in 15 murders while guns were used in 14. Strangulation figured in three murders, blunt force trauma in two, and in one case cause of death is unknown because a body has not been found.
The true number of murders involving drugs and/or gangs remains unclear until suspects have either been identified, arrested or charged.
As cases were being dealt with, police identified five homicides as having definite drug or gang ties, one homicide that had suspected ties, and seven murders that had unconfirmed ties.
In other numbers, there were three homicides involving 77-year-olds, two murders of mothers allegedly committed by sons, and two cases where heinous plans were thought to be posted in advance on Facebook.
Four first-degree murder charges were laid, including one where the victim's body had yet to be found. First-degree murder is distinguished by planning and pre-meditation.
By year's end Edmonton's Somali community mourned the loss of four young men. And three of the year's murder victims were themselves suspects, or had been charged, in other murders in other years.
Of the city's 35 homicides, in only five cases was it determined the victim and the killer were known to each other. However, that number may change as progress is made in the nearly two-dozen still outstanding cases.
The Last Link takes a look back at 2008 ... life and death on Edmonton's streets.
The City |
The Surrounding Metro Area
--- related pages ---
homicide 2009 |
homicide 2007
THE CITY
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#1 - Randy George Lintner
January 13th was a rough night at The Canadian Brewhouse on 97th Street. Over a period of time in the parking lot, three separate fights had broken out ... and 46-year-old Randy George Lintner decided to walk into one of them. Police believed the same people (later confirmed to be gang members) were involved in all three melees but the fights didn't appear to have a criminal motive. Lintner made the fatal choice of stepping in as a Good Samaritan when he saw three men beating up on a smaller man. No one has been charged.
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#2 - James Mills
On January 8th a beating took place near the Greyhound bus depot downtown. Eleven days later, 46-year-old James Mills died of the cranial blunt force trauma he sustained in the attack. No one saw the beating, and it took police a while to identify a person of interest. No arrests have been made.
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#3 - Westleigh Michael LaFleur
At first police didn't know what they were dealing with ... and neither did the neighbours. On January 22nd, three or four masked gunmen staged a home invasion and they picked a known drug house ... and when they burst in they only had robbery on their mind, not the murder of 25-year-old Westleigh Michael LaFleur. The young man was visiting family when he caught the bullet, a victim of being "in the right place at the wrong time." No suspects have been identified.
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#4 - Troy Ryan Poulin
Mystery continues to surround the February 2nd stabbing death of 20-year-old Troy Ryan Poulin. Police couldn't seem to determine whether it was a random act, gang-related, or simply a drug deal gone bad. Even whether Poulin had gang connections seemed to be open to question. What is known for sure is that no charges have been laid.
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#5 - Beverly Parker
It took police a while to determine whether the death of a woman found face down in the snow outside her townhouse was simply suspicious or a murder. But four days after the February 29th discovery, police charged two people in connection with the death of 49-year-old Beverly Parker: her son and his girlfriend. Parker's death was one of two matricides of the year.
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In police circles, high-profile homicides are known as "redballs." For Edmonton police, the year's first redball was the March 12th murder of 26-year-old Shernell Sharon Pierre, a licensed practical nurse. Minutes after finishing her shift at the Misericordia Hospital, Pierre was trapped inside her burning car on 170th Street. "The victim did not die as a result of the fire," police said. Detectives took the unusual step of staging a re-enactment while rumours swirled about Pierre's past relationships. The murder remains unsolved.
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March 21st – Good Friday – turned into a bad day for the family of Daniel Raymond McKenzie. The 23-year-old was stabbed during what investigators felt was a drug deal gone bad, and that McKenzie was likely killed when other people were forced to act in self-defence. The Crown prosecutors' office recommended that no charges be laid.
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#8 - Sean Allan Kier
On March 29th, 23-year-old Sean Allan Kier was stabbed to death just outside the Diesel Ultra Lounge, a space rented inside the Coliseum Inn located across the street from Rexall Place. While police remained tight-lipped about motive and persons questioned, it was later learned that Kier was a prime suspect in the January 15th, 2005 stabbing death of 23-year-old Tony Doyle. Both murders remained unsolved.
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#9 - Alan Craig Cumming
A man who drove a school bus, piloting pub crawls on weekends for extra money, was likely stabbed to death for his tip money – possibly $50 or $60. On April 12th, 38-year-old Alan Craig Cumming called 911 from his apartment hallway reporting he had been attacked. He died before being able to describe his assailants to police who figure he may have been targeted by crackheads. The case remains open.
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#10 - Hans Alberts
It only took another four weeks for the year's second redball to come in – and the first of several homicides in 2008 where Facebook, the popular social networking site, provided insight into the actions of the accused. On April 16th – in broad daylight – 77-year-old Hans Alberts was stabbed in the middle of a shopping centre parking lot in front of his wife. The couple had just celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary at a local restaurant. Within two days police nabbed Haldane Alexander Jensen-Huot as he stepped off a bus in Regina. He was ultimately charged with first-degree murder.
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#11 - Cory Cockle
On April 20th a heavy late spring snow fell over Edmonton ... and over the body of 25-year-old Cory Cockle, found lying face down on a back deck and dead from stab wounds. Word on the street was that Cockle died as retaliation over his recent filing of a complaint that involved a brick and a car window. A "subject of interest" was identified and interviewed by investigators. He was later released and no charges have been laid.
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#12 - Ashley Quintin Charest
A late-night drug buy rendezvous turned deadly behind a strip mall in northeast Edmonton on May 15th. Police figure Ashley Quintin Charest was set up and gunned down just as he stepped out of his car. Confused witnesses offered differing statements and no arrests have been made.
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#13 - Chantel Brittnay Robertson
The June 28th murder of 20-year-old Chantel Brittnay Robertson established that whether one worked as an escort or a prostitute, the sex-trade business carries deadly risk. Robertson's last date was a bad date and she ended up buried in shallow grave in a side yard. Matthew Todd Barrett was charged with her first-degree murder.
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#14 - Scott Ladouceur
Two men "very well known to police" were shot up in a Mazda 6 on the city's northern edge on July 2nd. 24-year-old Scott Ladouceur ended up dying while his passenger, 22-year-old Marlon George Williams, ended up in Jamaica asking for police protection. Williams had previously been charged in a 2003 murder along with Terence Dashielle Miller – who himself ended up dead on August 17th (see below). Meanwhile, Ladoucer's murder has ended up in the cold case file.
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#15 - Christopher Byron Lord
Not much is known about the July 26th shooting death of 33-year-old Christopher Byron Lord. Police are only guessing about the location (the man was ditched at hospital – a common trend in 2008) and investigators have only suggested that his murder was gang and drug related. The case remains open.
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#16 - Deang Huon
The body of 40-year-old Deang Huon was found July 30th inside her downtown apartment which was lined with plastic sheets. Officers located Huon when they saw part of her leg sticking out from under some plastic in the bedroom. The woman's husband was arrested at the scene and was charged with her murder. "He wasn't acting rational. I'm mean, we aren't doctors by any means, but he didn't appear to be in a proper state of mind," a detective said at the time.
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#17 - Andrew Livingstone O'Brien
The August 5th shooting of 42-year-old Andrew Livingstone O'Brien brought the problems of the Avenue of Nations back to the media forefront. O'Brien was a well-known street figure, and a man with a family who desperately tried to help him get off his addicitions. His unsolved murder even prompted an Edmonton police staff sergeant to write a letter of tribute to the Edmonton Journal (which ironically had previously featured the man in a photo essay).
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#18 - Terence Dashielle Miller
Moments after shots were fired behind the Canadian Native Friendship Centre on August 17th, 26-year-old Terence Dashielle Miller was dropped off at a nearby hospital suffering multiple gunshot wounds. Not much else is known about the shooting other than Miller's criminal past: that he had once been charged in connection with the 2005 death of Brandon Fern, and that he and Marlon George Williams were charged with the 2003 death of Ikeche Bates. Earlier in 2008, Williams was shot along with Scott Ladouceur who was mortally wounded and the year's 14th homicide victim (see above). Both cases remain unsolved.
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#19 - Nasir Mohamad Said
On September 16th the body of 22-year-old Nasir Mohamad Said was discovered near a playground behind an elementary school. One report suggested the Toronto man's hands had been tied behind his back. Known to police in Ontario and in Fort McMurray, local investigators were still trying to piece Said's last movements in an effort to solve the case.
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#20 - Arfan Ul Haq
All told, nine rounds entered 30-year-old Arfan Ul Haq's grey Infiniti G35 early September 21st with three of them finding their mark. The car was found idling near Whitemud Drive with Haq still strapped in the driver's seat. "He is well known to police, he is well known to our gang unit," a police spokesman said, underscoring Haq's shooting was gang-motivated and that the public had nothing to fear. Case status remains open.
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#21 - Sean Stuart Auger
"They exchanged some words," a police spokesman said at the time of 24-year-old Sean Stuart Auger's stabbing death on September 21st. And until a trial untangles the puzzle of what happened in an alley off Whyte Avenue it remains a case of "He said, he said" with one man in the ground and one man in custody.
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#22 - David Owen O'Donnell
A man who tried to help the homeless – to the point of taking in prostitutes – was rewarded with the business end of a knife. Fifty-seven-year-old David Owen O'Donnell died on September 25 in a case police called a domestic dispute after a woman was charged.
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#23 - Ross Dwayne Firby
At first glance the October 25th stabbing death of 46-year-old Ross Dwayne Firby looked like an open and shut case – after all, there was only one other person in the suite when he died. However, a woman was released after being interviewed by homicide detectives and at last word, no charges had been laid, no one was in custody ... and police aren't looking for anyone else. (Update: a year later, police charged a woman with second-degree murder).
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#24 - Lawrence Nicholas Bosiak
Police had another redball on their hands after 77-year-old Larry Bosiak was found shot dead on October 26th inside his locked apartment stairwell, the victim of an apparent robbery. Despite releasing a picture of the rare gun used in the crime (thought to be stolen), the issuing of a sketch of a person of interest and even the setting up of a command post at a local Wal-Mart, Bosiak's murder ended up on the cold case desk.
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#25 - Abas Abukar
The Hallowe'en day murder of 21-year-old former Torontonian Abas Abukar made for an odd site: costumed children being escorted around uniformed and plainclothed officers as forensics staff worked the playground scene. "He was dressed good," one witness said, "And he had his hands above his head." A familiar pattern was beginning to set in: the public dumping of the gunned-down bodies of men from Ontario (see Nasir Mohamad Said above).
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#26 - Johnny Brian Altinger
The case of Johnny Brian Altinger was one of the strangest and most sensational murders Edmonton police had dealt with in years. It started out as a missing person file and a story of internet luring. It ended up a twisted tale of a stun gun purchased online, prophetic Facebook entries, a frustrated filmmaker's fascination with a fictional television serial killer ... and death imitating art. "Some of the evidence we can't disclose is even more bizarre. Once the trial goes, it will be even more mind-boggling," one detective said.
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#27 - Quentin L'Hirondelle
An all-night drinking spree early November 8th turned into a stabbing melee when a couple of men shouting gang slogans broke into a downtown apartment and stabbed 22-year-old Quentin L'Hirondelle and three others. Within a day police had arrested two men, charging one with second-degree murder.
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#28 - Andrew Stephen Frang
A couple leaving a neighbourhood pub to grab a bite to eat found out smoking can be hazardous to your health after they encountered two men asking for a cigarette. When 25-year-old Andrew Stephen Frang refused he was fatally stabbed. The November 9th murder remains unsolved.
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#29 - Maia Soukonnik
The second matricide of the year and a samurai sword made the headlines in connection with the November 13th stabbing death of 60-year-old Maia Soukonnik. Police soon arrested her 20-year-old son, a self-proclaimed martial arts expert, and charged him with second-degree murder.
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#30 - Richard Joseph Whitford
The life of small-time crook Richard Joseph Whitford came to a sad end on November 30th when the 39-year-old's body was discovered lying between two downtown apartment buildings. Police figure Whitford's murder was drug-related. So far no arrests.
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#31 - Abdul Kadir Mohamoud
The Edmonton Somali community was rocked when two of their young men were shot dead within 13 hours of each other on December 2nd. The deadly day began when 23-year-old Abdul Kadir Mohamoud was found lying half-naked in a north-end park by a woman walking her dog.
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#32 - Ahmed Mohammed Abdirahman
Gunplay in a north-end condo parking lot marked the murder of 21-year-old Ahmed Mohammed Abdirahman. Witnesses saw a dark-coloured SUV flee the area but as far as motive or suspects go police remain emptyhanded.
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#33 - Mitchell Chambers
Twenty-three year old Mitchell Chambers was the city's fourth victim of homcide in just eight days. The man was found shot in the head, slumped behind the wheel of an idling pickup truck in the city's west end. The December 7th slaying remains unsolved.
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#34 - Seven-year-old Boy
Edmonton's second-last homicide of the year almost served as a technicality, a sombre footnote marking a family tragedy. On December 21st a seven-year-old boy was stabbed in his own home – and as it turned out – by his own younger brother. For the third time in 2008, no charges were laid in a homicide case with police ruling the boy's death non-culpable.
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#35 - Steven Lee Mills
Just minutes before midight on the last night of the year, 18-year-old Steven Lee Mills was stabbed in the chest. He collapsed in the middle of 51st Avenue near the Southgate Shopping Centre. Police released images of two persons of interest but so far there have been no arrests.
THE SURROUNDING METRO AREA
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On February 21st the body of 21-year-old Brianna Danielle Torvalson was found on a remote acreage west of Elk Island National Park and about 20 kilometres northeast of Sherwood Park. Project KARE took over the case of the sex-trade worker who was last seen in east Edmonton about a month before her death. Ironically, Torvalson was found just as the trial of the only person charged so far by Project KARE, Thomas Svekla, got underway. Torvalson's murder remains unsolved.
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If it wasn't for the loss of life involved, the circumstances behind the death of 77-year-old Alex Fred Semenovich would almost be comedic. It seems Semenovich's body was stuffed into an incinerator but not everyone was told. On April 29th a family member contacted an incinerator company because the device wasn't working. A repairman found the body and Stony Plain RCMP found enough evidence to charge three generations of the same family (the elderly man's wife, daughter and grandson) in connection with the man's death.
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Mystery continues to surround the case of two men who went missing in early April from central Alberta and whose bodies were discovered May 30th by a farmer near Lamont, 67 kilometres northeast of Edmonton. Cause of death for Thomas Joseph Shaughnessy, 46, and Thomas Robert Howells, 40, wasn't released and no motive was identified in the The Lamont Double Murder, but one source said the victims had drug connections and had been shot in the head during an execution-style killing.
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The Strathcona Skeleton - Shannon Maureen Collins
The discovery of a skull by a Strathcona County homeowner's dog brought RCMP out to an acreage south of Sherwood Park on June 5th. Police checked their missing persons files but found no matches. In September the family of Shannon Maureen Collins reported her missing – she was last seen in December 2007. A year later, RCMP announced that DNA testing confirmed that the skeletal remains found were that of Collins.
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Thirty-year-old Kristopher Ryan Kratchmer was fatally stabbed July 16th near Leduc and two teens were charged with his murder. RCMP said that Kratchmer and the teens knew each other and that all three were known to police. Kratchmer's father said his son operated at the level on an eight-year-old. The motive for the murder is expected to be brought out at a trial.
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On August 25th Strathcona County RCMP received a call about human remains found by a farmer swathing his field. On September 16th Edmonton police had asked for the public's assistance in locating a missing 14-year-old boy. On November 7th RCMP announced the remains found in Strathcona County were that of Alexander Xavier Smith. Although not treating the matter as a homicide, investigators have classed the death as suspicious because of the distance between Smith's last sighting and where his body was found.
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Bullets flew through the early morning air August 30th outside the River Cree Resort and Casino on the Enoch reserve just west of Edmonton after an altercation took place inside the entertainment facility. 24-year-old Mohamed Ali Ibrahim died from a gunshot wound to the head and an unidentified woman was also injured. Five weeks later RCMP arrested two men who were each charged with first-degree murder and attempted murder. Police did not reveal if they thought Ibrahim's murder to be connected to drug or gang activity; however, Ibrahim was to be the first of four Somali men murdered in 2008 in the metro area.
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The murder of 14-year-old Emily Joy Stauffer, a pastor's daughter, took place on a warm autumn day on the edge of the small town of Edson. On September 27th two boys riding their bikes came across somebody attacking Stauffer on a tree-lined walking trail. Despite being rushed to hospital, Stauffer died and a 68-day manhunt culminated in the arrest of a fellow Edson resident.
--- related pages ---
homicide 2009 |
homicide 2007
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This page updated
12:26 2009-10-26.