james rolheiser › other police matters › deadmonton 2006 › deadmonton › edmonton

Human remains found - Edmonton Sun photograph

At about 10:21 p.m. on August 28th, 2006 authorities were called to check on scattered bones found in a heavily bushed area on a steep hillside between 82nd and 90th Street below Jasper Avenue.

Police had to use ropes to climb down the steep embankment below 83rd Street, and the fairly decomposed remains were located midway -- about 30 metres down.

It could initially not be determined if the remains were male or female and the wide scattering indicated the body had been visited by animals.

Police sealed off the area and took a closer look the next day. "It's an ongoing investigation," a police spokesman said. "There's no obvious indication of foul play."

The next morning the remains were taken to the medical examiner's office for an autopsy. A police spokesman said it was believed the remains are that of a man.

The area is known to be frequented by homeless people. According to police the man who came across the body was not ironically of no fixed address himself.

A Bissell Centre spokesman said the area is popular with the homeless because it's secluded and quiet.

"There's a lot (of homeless) down in that area, from Riverdale to right around there. This summer, they're sleeping everywhere. There just isn't any place for people to stay. There just isn't a supply of (affordable) housing."

"The horrible thing about this is -- no one might miss him," the spokesman told the Edmonton Sun. "Because of the transient lifestyle, people come and go. When you're absolutely homeless like that, you do drift."

The body of Elaine Rowan, 41, was found May 27th, 2006 near the Shaw Conference Centre.

A woman who dropped by the scene the morning after the bones were found told police the body might be that of a man named Jim, a tenant of a nearby apartment. She said Jim went missing last April or May and was "not well."

Typical of their journalistic fashion, the Sun contacted the family of Sangeeta Khanna, the 41-year-old single mother who vanished from a Mill Woods Royal Bank parking lot April 13th, 2006.

"If they thought it could be her we would have had a call from the police," said Khanna's sister Madhu Mohan.

"We still have hope (that she could be alive), but we're just waiting. We don't know what else to do."

On August 30th police revealed some of the findings of the medical examiner's report.

The said the body was that of a man and they had good idea of who he was. Although cause of death wasn't determined, police didn't foul play was involved.

The story had seemed to come to an end when an odd twist emerged.

Leonard Moore, 43, told the Edmonton Journal he had called police about the remains on August 9th ... and again on the 28th.

Moore and his sister Wendy had been walking along the top of the cliff on the 9th when they decided to take a footpath down the embankment.

"There was this bad smell," Moore said. "(Wendy) looked down where I was standing and started getting hysteric. She said, 'Look, look, that's some human thing.' "

Moore claimed they waited three hours after calling police that night and called them back twice -- but no one showed up.

A police spokesman said they had received a call about human remains on August 9th at about 7:15 p.m. When they went to a scheduled meeting place police were unable to find the caller and repeated calls to the caller's cellphone weren't answered.

The spokesman said officers on the 28th noticed the call about the bones had come from Moore's cellphone.

On September 6th, 2006 the medical examiner’s office identified the remains as those of James Rolheiser, 52, of Edmonton.

Rolheiser was last seen on May 12th, 2006 and was presumed missing. A public appeal to locate him was issued at that time.

He was last seen in the area around the York hotel and the Bissell Centre on 96th Street between 104th and 105th Avenues.

The Edmonton Sun reported Rolheiser was seeking help for mental health problems at the time of his disappearance.

When he was last seen by his sister Janice MacDougall, Rolheiser was feeling very low and felt he needed to go to the hospital.

She drove her brother first to the Grey Nuns Hospital and then to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, but he was turned away from both places.

Rolheiser insisted on going home. His sister made plans to talk to him the next morning but Rolheiser vanished.

A family-organised search party went looking for him -- even combing the hillside where he was eventually found.

MacDougall said the health system failed her brother.

"He was a good citizen, never in trouble with the law, he worked with the labourers' union for years," she said. "And the one time he needed help, he didn't get it."

Police ruled Rolheiser’s death as non-criminal, but the medical examiner’s office is performing further tests to try to determine an exact cause of death.

While still waiting to learn the cause of his death, the sister of James Rolheiser took exception to an Edmonton Sun report that quoted a shelter spokesman as saying her brother was homeless.

"But he wasn't homeless," Janice MacDougall told the Sun. "He'd been living in a downtown apartment for five years before he went missing in May."

MacDougall said her brother often took walks in the river valley near where his remains were found.

The police ruled the death non-criminal, but as of September 18th, 2006 the city's medical examiner's office said "it's still too soon" to release details on how Rolheiser died.

Ele Gibson, resource development director for the Bissell Centre, had recently included Rolheiser among homeless people recently found dead in Edmonton in an interview with the Sun about the city's homeless problem.

Edmonton's boomtown economy and rising population is forcing social service advocates to look at expanding operations to avoid turning people away from shelters -- a situation soon to worsen as winter approaches.

In addition to Elaine Rowan, a number of "homeless" people have died in Edmonton's downtown core in recent months.

Jodi Faithful, 19, who was 5 1/2 months pregnant with twins, slipped into the North Saskatchewan River near Louise McKinney Park and drowned July 15th, 2006.

On August 22nd, 2006 Raymond Langlois, 53, was sleeping in the downtown Rosie's restaurant parking lot when he was accidentally run over and killed by an RV driver.

On February 20th, 2007 the Last Link learned that Alberta Justice was planning to conduct a fatality inquiry into Rolheiser's death.

The intent of the inquiry is to determine if his death could have been prevented.

Janice MacDougall, Rolheiser's sister, drove him to the Grey Nuns Hospital and then to the Royal Alexandra Hospital, but he was turned away at both facilities despite his wanting medical attention.

MacDougall said the health system failed her brother. No dates for the inquiry have been set.

A source has told the Last Link the cause of Rolheiser's death was ruled to be undetermined.

deadmonton 2006 - other police matters - james rolheiser