And it wasn’t long before he became the go-to guy at the detachment.
He says, “Mayerthorpe was my first command, and we had a lot of junior members looking for answers. Sometimes they’d come out to my place and we’d go over a file together sitting outside at a picnic table.
“I told them if they had a problem, they could call me at any hour. Sometimes when they had a tough call to make, they’d phone and ask me to come along, especially if it was a domestic at a troubled home. More than once, a member called at two or three in the morning and I’d tell them to come over and pick me up.
“On one of my two-week holidays I made the mistake of staying home and ended up working ten of my fourteen days off.”
The members at Mayerthorpe learned to appreciate Jim Martin. He was their mentor, a terrific boss, and an effective leader who would never ask them to do anything that he wouldn’t do himself. By 2005, Jim Martin was the beating heart of the Mayerthorpe Detachment, as well as a vital part of the local community.
He and his wife, Melanie, and their eleven-year-old daughter, Haley, lived on a farm south of Mayerthorpe. The Martins used to throw detachment parties at their farm every summer or whenever a new member arrived or an experienced member was transferred out.
“The members would all pitch in and we’d buy a bunch of steaks and throw them on the barbecue. Everyone would bring a potluck dish, and after we ate, we’d play bocce ball or lawn darts. Then we’d sit around a bonfire and tell stories. It was a good way for the spouses to meet each other.”
Jim was also a dynamic member of the Mayerthorpe community. He would either initiate activities or contribute his support to anything that would help integrate the Mounties with the local residents. His reputation around town was held in the highest regard.
Rev. Arnold Lotholz of Mayerthorpe’s Pentecostal Assembly told the author, “Jim Martin is a really good guy. He’s very outgoing and totally involved in our community.”
The other person who was a primary witness to all phases of the Roszko tragedy is Margaret Thibault. Margaret was fifty-three years old when the Roszko incident began, and although she was not a police officer, she worked out of the detachment office as the Coordinator of Victims’ Services. In this capacity she provided support for victims and witnesses of crime from the areas around Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt.
Margaret, her husband, Frank, and their children, Tony and Sheylan, had moved to Mayerthorpe in 1978. Frank was in management in the forest industry and Margaret took a job as a reporter with the Mayerthorpe Freelancer, a weekly newspaper with a circulation of 2,500 readers. She became the editor of the paper in 1987 and then moved to Victims’ Services in 1994. Her varied career gave her intimate knowledge of the local residents and allowed her to become very involved in community activities.
The eleven years she worked out of the detachment office brought her into close contact with all the Mounties. Most of them thought of her as their den mother and went to see her for help and advice.
Members of the Mayerthorpe Detachment 2004 fundraiser. Back row, L to R: Sgt. Brian Pinder, Constables Al Starman, Clayton Seguin, Julie Letal, Peter Schiemann, Leo Johnston. Front row, L to R: Cst. Joe Sangster, Connor Price, Cpl. Jim Martin
Peter Schiemann with his mother, Beth, Christmas 2001.
In March 2005, the Mayerthorpe Detachment was comprised of the following members: Pinder, Martin, and in descending order of seniority, Constables Joe Sangster, Al Starman, Clayton Seguin, Leo Johnston, Julie Letal, Cindie Dennis, and Brock Myrol.
Corporal Jeff Whipple had an office in the Mayerthorpe building, but was not part of that detachment. He was in charge of Traffic Services (highway patrol) for a long stretch of Highway #43 and a section of Highway #32 that ran from Swan Hills almost to Edson. Whipple, forty-five, was born and raised in Saint John, New Brunswick, and had served twenty-three years as a Mountie in various locations throughout Alberta.
Peter Schiemann arrived at Mayerthorpe in November 2000. He was originally assigned to general duties, but in the fall of 2004 was transferred to Traffic Services under Cpl. Whipple. Peter was from Stony Plain near Edmonton and soon became one of the most popular members in Mayerthorpe. The son of Don Schiemann, a Lutheran minister, Peter was a graduate of Concordia College in Edmonton, where he pursued many interests. He played the violin, sang in the school choir, was a proficient scuba diver, and had even given skydiving a try.
In college, Peter had been a decent student, but when he went to the RCMP Training Academy (Depot) in Regina, he loved it so much he excelled — in both the classroom and in all other phases of his training. Peter was particularly good on the firing range, where he earned his marksmanship badges for pistol and rifle shooting. He relished his assignment to Mayerthorpe because it was less than an hour from his home in Stony Plain. So it was an easy drive for him to stop in and see his mom and dad and have dinner with them and his brother, Michael, and younger sister, Julia.
Schiemann’s boss, Jeff Whipple, says, “Peter was a very motivated individual who had definitely found his calling in the Force. He was a lot of fun to be with and had a tremendous work ethic. He had a great future ahead of him and I had no doubt that someday I would be working for him.”
Whipple remembers that Peter was extremely close with Cst. Armand Liborion, who had been with Traffic Services, but was recently seconded to provide computer training on a new information system that was being introduced all across the province.
Armand was like a father figure to everyone in the Mayerthorpe Detachment, but he was particularly close with Peter, who spoke to him constantly to ask his advice and get his opinions.
Margaret Thibault really liked Peter. “He was a sweet and gentle person who was very dedicated to everything he did. He had a strong religious faith that he never foisted on anyone. He was helpful and loyal to his friends, but more than anything else, he was an excellent police officer.”
Cindie Dennis was just twenty years old when she arrived at Mayerthorpe in July 2003 to become the junior member of the detachment. She and Peter quickly became best of friends.
“Peter was always sweet and kind to everyone. We had such a fun relationship. We went out for dinner a few times and on one occasion went to a bar in Edmonton. But it was generally better to go to a member’s home. It was simpler … we knew who was on or off shift.
“We attended lots of detachment parties at Joe and Heather Sangster’s place and out on Jim Martin’s farm.
“Peter was a big part of my life.”
Their closest friends in Mayerthorpe were Heather Dills and Troy Heystek. Heather was the steno at the detachment and Troy was a paramedic with the ambulance service who was waiting to be accepted into the Mounties. When Heather and Troy were married in 2003, Peter was Troy’s best man and Clayton Seguin was one of his groomsmen.
Cindie and Peter wearing their mountain-climbing gear, August 2004.
Peter and Cindie after climbing Thunder Mountain in southern Alberta, August 2004.
Cindie says, “I was new to town but was invited to their wedding and the reception that was held on a ranch south of town.”
In August 2004, Cindie and Peter went on a three-week holiday to her grandparents’ ranch near Lundbreck in southern Alberta. Cindie’s mom, Shelly Ann, was an outfielder on a local softball team and invited Peter and Cindie to play a few games with the team in one of its tournaments.
Cindie and Peter went bike riding and scuba diving in the Old Man River with her dad, Val. At one time, Val had been an electrician but he joined the RCMP when he was fifty years old.
Then Peter, Cindie, and her mom and dad went on a motor trip through Logan Pass in the mountains on a scenic route known as “The Road to the Sun.”
“We went down to Waterton, all through Montana, and partway into Glacial National Park … on a one-day circle drive in my dad’s car.”
Back at the ranch, they rode her grandparents’ horses.
Cindie remembers, “At first, P
eter was scared silly. He looked very uncomfortable on his big horse. But after a couple of hours, he really got good at it. He loved riding fast, and I couldn’t get him to stop.
“As he was riding, he was picking Saskatoon berries … they’re like blueberries … the bears eat them. Peter was picking them off the tall berry trees and eating them as he rode.
“On our way back to Mayerthorpe, we stopped and had a meal with Peter’s parents, Don and Beth, and told them all about our trip. Julia Schiemann, my sister Bonnie, and Lincoln Nedjelski, a member from Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, were there too.”
Cindie says that she and Peter used to argue about all kinds of silly things.
“We teased each other a lot. One time he told me he could make better sweet and sour meatballs than I could. So we had a contest. His tasted pretty good. But I suspected something wasn’t right. Then I saw a package in the garbage and realized they were from the M and M meat shop. I confronted him about that and he had to admit it.
“Peter used to tell me, ‘If I can’t find a wife, you’re my backup.’”
“I told him, ‘You can forget that, buddy.’”
Another of Peter’s close friends was Andria Gogan, who was the paramedic supervisor with Mayerthorpe’s Associated Ambulance Service. It covered the County of Lac Ste. Anne. Andria was in charge of two full-time ambulances, two paramedics, and five emergency technicians.
When Peter first came to Mayerthorpe, he rented a three-bedroom duplex in town and shared it with a Mountie named Chris Pittman, who was Andria’s boyfriend. When Pittman was transferred to Montreal, Andria and Peter remained close friends.
Andria loved to cook and often had some of the Mounties and her emergency medical technicians over for dinner.
“It was all very informal. Peter was a single guy and I would call him up and say, ‘C’mon over.’ Jim Martin would come to my place too, when he didn’t have time to get home to his ranch out of town.
“There were usually five or six at my place for Easter or Thanksgiving. We had turkey dinners at Christmas on several occasions. On one of Peter’s birthdays I made him a cake and we had a little party.
“If I wasn’t cooking, we’d order Chinese food from the restaurant ‘on the hill’ at Sangudo. And there were lots of breakfasts together at the Lariat Restaurant in town.”
Andria says that the Mayerthorpe detachment was a very close, tight-knit group.
“They stuck together big time … and most of them were really nice.
“But Peter was really special. He was very religious. And he was very kind. But he was a Mountie ‘through and through.’ He could be very assertive when the situation called for it. I saw that on calls he made on the highway where I was involved.”
In the summer of 2003, Andria, Chris Pittman, and Peter took a car trip to her mother’s house in Vancouver and then went for a long drive down the coast of Oregon.
Peter loved to drive. His passion was cars. He kept a little notebook where he recorded the make and model of every car he ever owned. And he was very comfortable behind the wheel of his police cruiser, especially at high speeds.
Margaret Thibault says, “Peter was lovely with his family. I remember one day when he brought his grandmother Elizabeth to the detachment and showed her around. And there was a time in his third year when he took his father on a ‘ride along’ to demonstrate the type of work he did on one of his shifts.”
Cindie Dennis claims, “Peter was going nowhere but up. He laid more drug charges than the whole detachment combined. It came easy to him. All of the charges he laid came from stopping cars on the highway. He had a nose for drugs … for picking out a vehicle and finding stuff.”
The next Mountie to arrive at the Mayerthorpe Detachment after Peter Schiemann was Leo Johnston. Leo and his identical twin brother, Lee, were born in 1972 on a farm near Lac La Biche, Alberta. In 1992, when they were twenty, they both applied to join the Edmonton City Police.
Lee says, “We did just about everything together.”
But their applications were denied and they were told to reapply when they were older.
Then they both started racing motorcycles. When they turned pro, they began to race for money prizes in Calgary, Phoenix, Minnesota, and the Canadian National Series in Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia.
But Lee quit racing to become a Mountie and entered Depot in March 1997.
One week before Lee was due to graduate, Leo was involved in a serious racing accident in Calgary, where he sustained severe head injuries, a collapsed lung, and multiple broken bones. It took him three years to fully recover.
During that period, he began dating Kelly Barsness, a dental assistant from Sherwood Park. Kelly had been working as an auxiliary member of the RCMP. She, too, had been involved in a boating accident on Lake Okanagan, where she suffered a severe head injury that led to long-lasting memory loss.
Leo entered Depot in October 2000 and did well there, especially in the physical requirements, where his athletic ability gave him a decided edge. When he was assigned to Mayerthorpe, Kelly moved there to be with him. And the first person Leo met at the detachment was Peter Schiemann. When Peter discovered that Leo and Kelly didn’t have a place to live, he invited them to stay with him. Leo accepted Peter’s kind offer and he and Kelly stayed in Peter’s duplex for the next five weeks. During this time, the three of them became very close friends. Then Peter bought a house and moved out. Soon after that, Leo and Kelly, too, bought a house.
As time went by, Leo and Kelly met other couples.
Kelly says, “Two of our closest friends in the detachment were Joe and Heather Sangster, who lived close by.”
Joe Sangster was a Maritimer. He was a little younger than Leo, but he had a lot more police experience. He had served twelve years with the Brandon Police, two years in Calgary, and then joined the RCMP. Leo admired Joe’s passion for police work and his willingness to tackle the hard issues.
Margaret Thibault says, “Joe was a firecracker … a go-getter who would take on any file with enthusiasm. He was very intent on cleaning up the streets and making them safe for people to use.”
Depending on who was working what shift, Leo and Kelly spent a lot of time with the Sangsters, sharing dinners and barbecues or watching DVD movies.
And the friendship between Leo and Peter remained strong, too. The bond between them stemmed from the fact that they shared the same wholesome values and practised a common, sensible approach to police work.
All three of them — Leo, Peter, and Joe — l oved being part of the Mayerthorpe community. They participated with other members from the detachment in a fundraiser that Jim Martin, Joe Sangster, and Margaret Thibault organized for a local boy named Connor Price who was suffering from the same type of cancer as Terry Fox.
For the fundraiser, all of the Mounties shaved their heads. And with the help of the media and the participation of Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, the detachment raised $20,000. This money helped the family with their expenses, particularly their travel costs for getting back and forth from their home in Sangudo to Connor’s medical appointments in Edmonton.
Leo was a big man, weighing in at 200 pounds.
Margaret says, “Leo was a very strong guy and a very good policeman. But he loved to laugh and kid around. He told the corniest jokes. He would tell one and then say, ‘Do you get it?’ And we’d all say, ‘Yes, we got it, but it’s not funny. Get some better jokes, Leo.’
“He was like a big kid. He was forever saying ‘Wow!’ for the least reason or at the slightest little surprise.
“But he also said to me, ‘Margaret, I don’t know why anyone would complain about police work. This is the best job in the world. I love this job.’”
When Cindie Dennis arrived at Mayerthorpe, Leo was her trainer. For the first two months, they rode together in the same cruiser. For the next four months, she was on her own but remained under Leo’s wing.
She says, “Kelly wouldn’t go to bed until Leo c
ame home. She stayed up if he was out somewhere or working on shift.
“Sometimes Kelly would bring him a double chocolate chip muffin as a special snack and he’d go over the top thanking her. His reaction was amazing.
“Other times we’d stop at his place for a glass of milk or a bowl of soup. That gave Kelly and I a chance to visit.
“I remember they had two big black dogs they treated like babies.”
Kelly still has both dogs. “They’re both Black Labs crossed with Chow. Belle belonged to Andria Gogan and she had to give her up when she moved. We got Hershey from a home outside of town.”
Ex-mayor Albert Schalm was the Johnstons’ next-door neighbour. He remembers the dogs when Leo was building them a house in the backyard. But mostly he recalls Leo. “He was very nice with my kids. They were impressed with his uniform but he was so natural and friendly with them. They loved talking to him. Kelly was friendly with our children, too. They really liked her.
“And Leo was just so honest. One time, he borrowed my power saw and damaged its carbide-tip blade. So he bought me another one. Leo’s philosophy was if he broke something he had borrowed, it had to be returned in a better condition than when he took it.”
Cindie Dennis says, “Leo was very smart, but he suffered a bit from loss of his long-term memory. Consequently, he made meticulous, intricate notes. Leo had more notebooks than any of us. We’d go on a call and he’d start writing. Then, when I thought we were finished, he’d still be writing. I’d say, ‘Let’s go, Leo.’ But he wouldn’t budge. He’d just keep making notes.
“It could be irritating, but it sure prepared me well, especially with my interview skills and for my police exams.”
Cindie continues, “He was always so cheery. When he came in every morning, he would greet everybody he met and always used their names. He’d say, ‘Good morning, Cindie … or Patty … or Julie.’
The Mayerthorpe Story Page 5