Curtis Todd Osterlund, 39, was stabbed to death June 12th, 2009.
Osterlund was Edmonton's twelfth homicide victim of the year.
A 16-year-old male juvenile was charged with second-degree murder and possession of an offensive weapon. He cannot be identified under provision of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
knife found |
charges laid |
political fallout
Homicide detectives, working on old case files since Edmonton's last murder on April 26th (that of 20-year-old Mahamed Farah Khalif), had to open up a new investigation after a man was found stabbed in the city's north end.
At about 10:10 p.m. June 12th, 2009 reports came in of an injured man stumbling in a field at 144th Avenue and 71st Street just north of Londonderry Mall.
Police and EMS arrived to find a man suffering from what appeared to be at least one stab wound to the upper body.
"The male appeared to have a stab wound to his upper torso," Insp. Joel Whittaker said at the scene.
"He was breathing, semi-conscious and appeared to need some serious medical attention."
The man was rushed to the Royal Alexandra Hospital and later died of his injuries.
"We don't have a lot to go on right now," homicide Det. Bill Clark later said. "It appears he was attacked by three individuals."
Police figure the attack took place in the parking lot attached to Londonderry Junior High School, next to a bike rack.
After the suspects fled southbound from 144th Avenue along 69th Street, the victim made his way into a field leading to M. E. LaZerte High School where a passerby saw him and called the police.
Homicide detectives were able to quickly notify family members and revealed the victim to be 39-year-old Curtis Todd Osterlund.
Police said Osterlund was known to them and was presently without a fixed address.
Osterlund's father spoke extensively with media. He said Curtis, who was trying to turn his life around after suffering the loss of his mother, was likely the victim of a random attack – read more »
Curtis Osterlund, a mechanic, was the youngest of nine siblings. He was in the process of moving into an apartment after starting a new job as an apprentice electrician when he was killed.
"Well I talked with him about 5 o'clock yesterday," Osterlund's father Gerald said the day after the murder.
"My son was at the shop and didn't tell me the address he'd moved to, but he was going to see me to borrow a truck to help move some of his things.
"And he said he would see me today. Next call I got was 3:30 this morning from the detective. The detective called to tell me he had been stabbed."
Gerald believed his son was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"To me – my opinion – it was a random attack."
Gerald said his son told him he had moved into a basement suite in a building that did not allow smoking. He figured Curtis stepped out and lit up in the school parking lot.
"He was going through the schoolyard when he was attacked," was all homicide Det. Bill Clark said. "At this time, it's too early to see a motive. We don't know if this is a random attack or not."
Born and raised in Edmonton, Curtis was the youngest of six children Gerald, a machine shop owner, had with his first wife, Dorothy. The couple had been divorced for several decades.
Described as intelligent, Curtis never had trouble finding work. However, he often quickly lost interest and quit to move onto something else, his father said.
Curtis got along well with his family, including his three stepsiblings, but he was closest to his mother.
In 2006, Dorothy died after complication from a heart transplant. Curtis had looked after his mother following her surgery, moving in with her and taking on a night job so he could take care of her during the day.
Gerald said Curtis "got off track" when his mother died and had trouble holding down jobs. "He never got into serious problems, but he never did find his way after losing his mother."
"She loved him as much as she could and he returned that. He put his life on hold to take care of her," Gerald said.
Only recently had Curtis made up his mind to get his life in order again.
"I wanted him to get on with his life because his age was against him. He was turning 40 in August and I told him, 'You're halfway through your life, my boy. You got to go on and do something with yourself.'
"At 39 and single, he was not tied down. He could have went anywhere in the world with the personality he had."
About his own relationship with Curtis, Gerald said they had minor differences but remained on good terms, seeing each other at least twice a week.
"He and I used to have disagreements, but we'd always part as father and son. He was good. He was always good. He had a real healthy attitude."
"There was never any animosity between the two of us," Gerald said. "We had a beautiful relationship. I'm proud to be his father."
The death of his youngest closely followed another tragedy for Gerald – his son Kevin died several years ago at the age of 42 from a heart attack.
"It's just something I hope no other parent has to go through," he said.
"And you never really plan for it ... you never set your state of mind for it – you can't.
Gerald said he thought it unlikely that his son would have started a fight with his attackers – growing up in a large family meant no one had a temper.
"[Curtis would] get along with anybody. Never looked for any arguments, never looked for trouble. Any place he worked, they loved him to pieces."
For those who took his son's life, Gerald expressed only sympathy and hope.
"When something like this happens, there's no such thing as hate. They have families and their family is going to suffer because of this as much as I am," Gerald said.
"You can't spend your life hating someone for something that happened.
"Punishing somebody doesn't help me, doesn't help me, ... doesn't bring back my son. Because the world out there is not interested in how much you hate, they're interested in how much you can love.
"My son is gone. All the vengeance and all the hate in the world will not bring him back."
Gerald hopes those responsible will get the help they need.
"Mistakes are made. Some make little ones, some make big ones. But everybody's able to cure their mistakes with help.
"Hate is a disease. If I talk to them face-to-face and met their parents, there would be no anger. There's nothing that anger will solve," he said.
"I would say to them, 'You've got my blessing, my sympathy. I know you will be hurting as much as I am. God bless you. I hope some good comes of this.'
"I would like to see them get caught and get helped because they're young. And everybody has to have a second chance and can be helped, as long as they start by helping themselves.
"You cannot waste your time hating something," Gerald said.
"That doesn't bring him back; that don't bring my boy back. And all it does is take my time away from my family to have hate. Hate is not part of my life."
Flowers and a teddy bear marked the spot where the 39-year-old lost his life. A Curtis Todd Osterlund Facebook group was set up by family in his memory.
"We are asking for anyone who was in the area or who lives in the area to come forward with information about what they may have seen or heard," Det. Bill Clark said in a statement.
"If anyone saw people matching the suspects' descriptions, they need to share that information with us. We are also looking for an edged weapon and we ask people to check their yards. If they find something suspicious, call police and don't touch it."
Police released descriptions of three suspects. Two were native males, 16 to 18 years old, 5-feet 6-inches to 5-feet 9-inches, with skinny builds.
One male was wearing a short-sleeved red shirt with a ball cap while the other was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and was clean shaven.
The third suspect, a native female, was described as heavy-set, 16 to 18 years old, with shoulder-length wavy brown hair and wearing light-coloured clothing.
Investigators were still trying to work out if robbery was a motive and did not discount the possibility the attack may have been random.
"There's definitely a group of hoodlums that live around this area," Det. Bill Clark later told media.
"It's one of the things were looking at. There have been a lot of robberies, mugging-type incidences in this area specifically in the last several months."
While police checked on leads, media checked in with witnesses – read more »
Anwar Fiqi was driving by when he noticed the injured man. After stopping his vehicle he ran over to help.
"We saw some guy laying down – we thought he was dead," Fiqi said.
"I asked one of the witnesses there, whether he was alive or not and he was like 'yea he is alive' but he looked like he was dead to me."
"They had towels full of red, everything," neighbour Steven Tran said. "It was pretty bad."
Living across the street from Londonderry Junior High, Maureen Cahill heard a commotion in the parking lot.
"I heard a lot of yelling and screaming," she said.
Cahill saw some young men throwing a T-shirt back and forth with another young man who had just arrived in a black car.
Through the darkness Cahill saw a man suddenly slump over a bike rack in the school's parking lot.
Then someone rode by on a bike, she said, pulling into the parking lot and appearing to check on the man.
"After that, all of a sudden there were police and ambulance everywhere," Cahill said.
Maureen and her husband Mike Costello have lived in the area for four years. Costello said disturbances in the parking lot, usually caused by drunk people from a nearby bar in Londonderry Mall, are so common they usually don't pay attention much attention to them.
"There's a lot of things that happen in that parking lot," Cahill added.
Investigators said they would also be looking at surveillance tapes from surrounding buildings.
The medical examiner later confirmed that Osterlund died as a result of being stabbed.
Knife found
There were early unconfirmed reports on June 15th that children found a bloody knife in a corner of the schoolgrounds.
Then came word that police had received a call from someone claiming they had found a knife on the roof of Londonderry Junior High School – see images »
Forensic officers removed the knife from the roof and police continued to investigate.
Charges laid
On June 18th, 2009 police announced that a 16-year-old male juvenile had been charged with second-degree murder and possession of an offensive weapon. He cannot be identified under provision of the Youth Criminal Justice Act.
He had been arrested at about 2:45 p.m. the day before at a home near 94th Street and 120th Avenue.
The youth made a brief court appearance on the 18th. Courtwatchers said the lanky teen with closely-cropped dark hair stared at the floor and appeared emotionless in the prisoner's box as the charges against him were read out.
The 16-year-old was set to make his next court appearance, by way of closed-circuit television, on July 10th, 2009.
Police credited the media for their role in bringing the case to a conclusion – read more »
"As a result of the media coverage the right people came forward," Det. Bill Clark told reporters.
"There was some information from people in the neighbourhood that was good but basically I think just the media exposure hit home with some people and key people who came forward with some key information.
"You can see when we get the cooperation and we get the people who actually have a conscience out there and feel that 'Yes, this in fact was a terrible act inflicted upon basically an innocent individual' they want to come forward and help.
"Because of that we were able to lay charges and bring this file to a successful conclusion."
Investigators said the male, a 16-year-old female, and a 22-year-old male met Osterlund in a park at 144th Avenue and 71st Street.
"There was no previous relationship at all. They were perfect strangers to each other," Det. Clark said.
"They did not know Mr. Osterlund. It's a case of strangers meeting."
After spending about twenty minutes together, an argument broke out and Osterlund was stabbed. Clark would not say what the argument was about.
Police first identified and interviewed the female, then the 22-year-old male. No charges were laid against them.
A knife believed to be connected to the incident was recovered near the scene.
"We believe we have the murder weapon," Clark said, noting that additional forensic testing was still required. "There are still a lot of people working on the case."
The lead detective revealed some background regarding the accused.
"He's new to the area from the Saddle Lake area ... just came to Edmonton in the last little while, hasn't been here that long."
Clark said the accused teen was unco-operative with officers and "invoked his right to remain silent."
Since the beginning of 2009, five teens have been charged in connection with homicides in the Edmonton metro area – all part of a trend according to local criminologist Bill Pitt »
"These kids know they're just going to get a slap on the wrist," Pitt said. "They're playing the system something wicked."
Harsher penalties under the Youth Criminal Justice Act and the careful placement of criminal youth (including institutionalisation) would be required to stem the pattern, Pitt offered.
"We're starting to see a knock on the door that something is wrong here," he said. "These kids grow up very quickly, and some of them are just damn well not wanted. We see a theme of rejection and abandonment with violent criminals."
It was later learned that the 16-year-old was a ward of the province, and until a week before the murder he was living in a group home on the Saddle Lake First Nation.
Legislation prevents the release of details of why he was in government care and for how long.
The youth left Saddle Lake and moved to Edmonton to live with his brother under a "kinship care" provision offered.
Osterlund's murder was the second in two weeks in which a teen under provincial care was charged.
On June 1st, 68-year-old Baldur "Barry" Boenke and 50-year-old Susan Trudel were found dead on an acreage at 53147 Range Road 214, east of Ardrossan.
RCMP charged two 14-year-old teens: one with two counts of first-degree murder, the other with two counts of accessory after the fact to murder.
The two teens had walked away from the nearby Bosco Homes care facility in Strathcona County on the day of the Boenke-Trudel murders.
Political fallout
As was the case after the Boenke-Trudel double murder, government critics were quick to call for a review of the provincial ward system.
NDP MLA Rachel Notley repeated her call for a public examination of government practice – read more »
"In our view this just underlines again the need for a full public inquiry into how the system is operated.
"In our view, this is indicative of the fact that the system is not working," Notley told reporters.
"We've had two kids in as many weeks, in the care of this government, charged with murder," Notley said in later interviews.
Notley added that too much care-work has been contracted out to external, often non-profit, agencies, with low budgets and underpaid, overworked staff. Workers don't have time to spend helping kids work through their behavioural problems, she noted.
"It's time they take this seriously. It is time they understand the system's not working and that we need an independent, comprehensive inquiry into how this can be done better.
"We have no faith in how the system is working. We've just had far too many tragedies."
The "wrong place at the wrong time" scenario the murder victim's father spoke of in early interviews seemed to parallel the unsolved homicide case of a man simply walking to a pizza joint with his girlfriend – read more »
25-year-old Andrew Stephen Frang died from blood loss due to a stab wound received while walking towards Royal Pizza on 118th Avenue near 124th Street on November 9th, 2008. His girlfriend said he had been stabbed over a cigarette.
Police described two men wanted in connection with Frang's murder as native males in their late teens.
Edmonton has recently experienced a rise in muggings and personal robberies in which the asking of a cigarette is an opening gambit. Often, the victims are stabbed. The near-daily incidents only make the news when the attack is serious.
Speaking earlier in 2009, Det. Clark said Edmonton's "low" murder rate was a reflection of the skills of emergency medical workers.
"I'm telling you if it wasn't for how good the paramedics and the doctors are in the hospitals, our murder rate would be over 100 a year," Clark said.
"I have no doubt about it – they are saving people who should die."
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