The Mayerthorpe Story

by Robert Knuckle

  That Friday night, RCMP Superintendent Marty Cheliak announced that Roszko’s white pickup truck had been located near Cherhill by Alberta’s Rural Crime Watch organization.

  The media immediately began to wonder how Roszko had managed to travel the twenty-some miles from Cherhill to his farm on Range Road 75. And this question soon became the main topic of discussion and speculation among just about everyone in the county, if not the country.

  Christine Hennessey’s reaction to this news item was that it now seemed that people were wanting to blame someone for helping Roszko.

  As the media continued to scour the area for a new angle on the story, they did respect the RCMP members’ privacy and stayed away from them.

  And that was a godsend, because all of the Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt Mounties, from the youngest to the oldest, were suffering from deep shock. Some of them had seen the bodies of their dead friends, and as one member recalls, “Their injuries were horrific.”

  Many of the members endured horrible flashbacks of the incident. Most of them had recurring nightmares. Almost all of them would eventually be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

  Each of them was offered immediate leave, and they were replaced at their posts by members from other nearby detachments who came in and served on a rotational basis.

  Jeff Whipple says, “I remember those first few days, but it’s all pretty hazy. I would go in to work one day. The next day I would feel awful and I’d stay home. Then I’d go back in. Then another day, I’d see the psychologist. I was in, off, back in, off … everything seemed like a complete blur. And this went on for months after the incident.”

  Cindie Dennis’s parents stayed with her at her house near Sangudo for a few days. They cared for their young daughter and comforted her, tenderly aware that she had suffered such a terrible blow so early in her police career.

  Cindie remembers: “Even in those first few days, I realized how much I was going to miss them. They were all such fun to be with. I didn’t know Tony Gordon, but I heard so many nice things about him. But the three I knew … Peter and Leo and Brock … everyone just loved them. And now I was going to their funerals.”

  Sergeant Bob Meredith, the staff relations representative responsible for the Mayerthorpe Detachment, had rushed to town within an hour of the shootings. He remembers how the RCMP called in three psychologists as well as a dozen peer counsellors to assist the members and the families of the slain Mounties. All of these people in pain were urged to talk about their feelings and seek professional help if they felt they needed it.

  The RCMP has a comprehensive member assistance program, but it is up to each individual to ask for help. For the Mounties to insist on their members’ accepting this assistance would make it appear as if they were having this support forced upon them.

  Members were also free to seek medical professionals on their own or seek help from the federal occupational health centres operated by Veteran Affairs.

  Within the course of the first week, a special meeting called a “Critical Incident Debriefing” was held to go over the specific details of the Mayerthorpe incident from beginning to end. Because the trauma of the experience was still so fresh and painful for the Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt members, their attendance at this meeting was not mandatory.

  On March 12, an open letter to the public signed by Sgt. Brian Pinder and Staff Sgt. Tom Pickard, the respective Detachment Commanders for Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt, read as follows:

  On behalf of the members, staff, and their families of both Mayerthorpe and Whitecourt Detachments we would like to express our gratitude to the people of our communities, our province, and our country for the overwhelming support we have received.

  The deaths of our four friends and colleagues has been a tragedy beyond comprehension and we as a family needed some days to be together in private grief. However, we need the communities we serve to know that their outpouring of support, love, prayers, hugs, flowers, and caring has touched all our hearts, the hearts of our families, and the families of Constable Peter Schiemann, Constable Leo Johnston, Constable Brock Myrol, and Constable Anthony Gordon. You have eased a burden that could not have been borne without your support. For that we are eternally grateful.

  We are proud of our communities, proud to live in them, and proud to serve and protect them. We are still here and please know that we will see you soon.

  There is no doubt that the local members and the families of the deceased Mounties suffered most from the horror of the multiple murders, but the residents of the communities were deeply affected, too.

  “It was like a bomb went off,” says Margaret Thibault. “There wasn’t time for anger. It was too big … you’d look into the eyes of your friends and neighbours and the shock was reflected back at you.

  “There was a solemn quiet among us … like after a great storm passes or after an explosion happens or a bomb goes off. What is there to say? People were still sorting things out … digging deep inside themselves for their strength.

  “The quiet came from a combination of shock and denial. You cannot accept something this huge in one moment.”

  John Kyle agrees. “I was working in the clinic and someone came in and told me. I couldn’t believe it. I had seen two of those guys just this morning when they picked up the meat. I was stunned.

  “When I went out later, it was very subdued, very quiet in town. Everyone was shocked and saddened. It was like they didn’t know what to say.”

  “It was all-consuming, “ Margaret says. “The pain was visible … palpable in peoples’ body language. Just to breathe was a challenge at first.

  “Nobody was running around wild or screaming. We stayed close to home and remained calm. We visited each other’s houses, shared food together, and tried to sort things out through the rubble of our hearts and minds.”

  Residents reached out to each other in quiet conversations, away from the prying eyes and ears of reporters.

  Albert Schalm says, “You could talk to your neighbour, or virtually anyone in town, without feeling like you were intruding. It was just people leaning on each other, venting their feelings.

  “There was some anger, but it was hard to know where to direct it. People would say, ‘Why did this happen? Who can we blame?’ But at this point the only person you could blame was James Roszko, and he was dead.”

  Margaret Thibault remembers, “There was lots of hugging, and people were touching other people on the shoulder to assure each other we weren’t living in a nightmare.

  “It took a while before tears came. We had to shift gears and get back to some sort of normalcy first.”

  To get away from it, some people got out of town.

  Margaret and some of her friends went to her cabin on the lake.

  And then the funerals began.

  The first of these was for Peter Schiemann.

  On the eve of his funeral, Queen Elizabeth II sent a message to Alberta Lieutenant-Governor Norman Kwong.

  It read: “Prince Philip and I were shocked to learn of the deaths of the four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers in Alberta. Please convey to the families of those killed our sincerest condolences on their terrible loss. Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this most difficult time.”

  Peter’s funeral was held on Tuesday, March 8, in St. Matthew Lutheran Church at Stony Plain west of Edmonton.

  A Greyhound-type bus was chartered to transport detachment personnel to the church. This included uniformed officers, civilian employees, their husbands, wives, and a few of the members’ parents.

  Many local citizens drove down in car pools.

  The service was preceded by a procession of tartan-clad pipers leading a large contingent of police officers to the church.

  Inside, 1,400 mourners filled the pews while another 600 watched the service on closed-circuit television in two gymnasiums at Memorial Composite High School. Among them were 800 police officers who had come from far and wide.
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  During the service, Peter’s coffin was draped with a Canadian flag on which lay his Stetson and his holster and gun.

  The congregation heard Peter’s heartbroken younger sister Julia say, “He was a son and a brother whose love for his family was evident at all times.”

  Peter’s older brother Michael could barely refrain from sobbing as he concluded his comments by declaring to Peter, “I’ll leave you with five words: I’ll talk to you later.”

  Dr. Ralph Mayan assured the Schiemann family that they were not alone in their grief, because millions mourned with them. He recalled that Peter had attempted to assuage his father’s fear of the dangers of police work by telling him, “If something should happen, you won’t need to worry. I’ll be with Jesus in heaven.”

  Dr. Mayan said that Peter even joked to his sister that he wanted to be buried with a bag of potato chips and a flashlight because it would be dark and he’d get hungry. And Peter’s family planned to honour his request.

  Peter’s father, Don Schiemann, a Lutheran pastor, told reporters his son saw his job as a vocation that God had drawn him toward. His advice was: “Don’t ever pass up an opportunity to tell your child that you love them.

  “I know with all my heart that God will bring some good out of the death of these men. And the first good that I know of is that Peter is in heaven.”

  The churches in Mayerthorpe played a significant role in helping the community get through this most difficult time. Forgiveness was a theme that was emphasized throughout the week in all of the churches.

  Ed Broadway, a minister at the Whitecourt Baptist Church, said the Roszko family needed some consideration and understanding in this tragic situation.

  He said, “They have gone to the police and expressed their apologies. They have been very forthright. They are seeking some comfort just like the rest of the people.”

  At Sunday mass at St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church, the priest asked his parishioners to pray for James Roszko and consider the circumstances that led to his downfall and caused this incident.

  Rev. Wendell Wiebe began his Sunday service with the words: “Ugliness and sorrow have filled our week. Hope starts today.”

  Mayerthorpe residents make a point of distinguishing between the man who committed the murders and members of his large extended family. Roszko’s relatives are dotted around Mayerthorpe, Whitecourt, and the surrounding countryside. Twenty-eight of them are listed in the phone directories pertaining to this area.

  Colette McKillop, who owns an insurance business and also served as head of the Mayerthorpe and District Chamber of Commerce says, “We protect our own. Just because they are relatives, the community is not going to hold that against them … ever.”

  James Roszko’s brother George, an oil field contractor from Whitecourt, says his neighbours and coworkers rallied to his side after the shootings. “They realized this had nothing to do with us.”

  At an evening service, Pastor George Ridley prayed, “Lord, we also want you to pray for the Roszko family, the family caught in the middle of all this sorrow.”

  Mayor Albert Schalm said he didn’t want anyone to target the Roszko family.

  Some of them are stellar citizens. Lil Roszko, the widow of Fred, runs the Case dealership in Mayerthorpe. She is a prominent citizen who is considered to be a great community person.

  Margaret Thibault says, “Lil is widely known and appreciated for serving on town committees and helping to raise funds for various causes. She is just a great woman. Everybody respects her.”

  All of Jimmy Roszko’s brothers and sisters are law-abiding citizens who are gainfully employed. Several of them practise trades or professions in the area.

  But even James’s own family is divided about their feelings for him.

  He and his father had been estranged for over nine years. Their relationship was never very good, but it deteriorated even further when Bill found out that James was using marijuana. Bill still believes that drugs were the cause of his son’s bizarre behaviour. As James got into one difficulty after another with the law, Bill came to think of him as a “loser.” And he told him so.

  When Bill, a self-proclaimed devoutly religious man, heard that his son had murdered four policemen, the eighty-year-old man was shattered. He described the massacre as “terribly evil.”

  “The devil from everlasting hell could not have done what Jim did … the way he shot police. I feel very sorry for the families of the policemen. They were trying to stop a situation of bad behaviour, and they got shot.”

  During an interview with the press about the tragedy, he referred to James as a “wicked devil” whom he believed “is now in hell.”

  Bill said, “He had an angry streak as far back as I can remember … and a lifetime hatred for police.

  “I am his father, but he was not my son.”

  Bill claimed he had not spoken to Jimmy for nine years and made it clear he would not be attending his funeral. “I’ll be making a bad sin to have anything to do with it.”

  In contrast to those sentiments, James’s mother, Stephanie, who divorced Bill when James was twelve, grieved the death of her eccentric son. She says, “My son was not the devil.”

  But she will admit that he did have a fierce temper. “When he gets a grudge against someone, he will be mad at you for the rest of your life. That’s the way he is.”

  It seems Stephanie had always been more tolerant of James. Some say she was unfailingly supportive of him. Others say he could do no wrong in her eyes. She was known to aggressively confront people in defense of her darling Jimmy.

  She helped him, too. After he quit his work in the oil fields of the Northwest Territories in the 1980s, Stephanie allowed him to live with her and her third husband at their farm. She even encouraged him to run a small herd of cattle on their land.

  Jimmy’s now infamous white pickup truck is registered in Stephanie’s name. And it is her belief that the whole problem with the bailiff’s coming to Jimmy’s farm to repossess the truck was caused by the automotive agency.

  She maintains that Jimmy claimed the tailgate on the truck was dented or defective and he had asked them for a new one. When the dealership wouldn’t comply with his demands, Jimmy refused to pay them and, as a consequence, they wanted the truck repossessed.

  His sister Josephine, who lives nearby in Whitecourt, seemed to understand him best and was particularly close to him. She spent hours on the phone talking to him, counselling him.

  She said, “He wasn’t the monster they made him out to be. He had a good heart and he never hurt us in any way.”

  Roszko’s twenty-two year-old niece Deirdre expressed her love for her uncle: “He often came to our rescue when bills couldn’t be paid and there was food to be bought.

  “We’re not only grieving. We have to deal with the anger of society which makes it even harder.”

  James Roszko’s brother George hadn’t seen Jimmy in the past fifteen years. He says, “Jim was trouble. Who knows what was rolling around inside his head? Whatever it was, it had nothing to do with the rest of us.

  “He was just a sick little man who did a sick, awful deed. He should have been deemed a dangerous offender and locked away years ago.”

  John Roszko is a finishing carpenter and the father of an Edmonton police officer. John was not enamoured with his younger brother James.

  After hearing of his lethal rampage against the police, he lamented, “Sadly, I cannot find it in me to grieve for my brother.

  “He was never much of a brother to most of us. I don’t know … it would be like mourning a stranger. Somehow I feel a sense of relief that he is no longer with us.”

  John wrote condolence letters to the families of the four constables murdered by his brother. He wanted them to know: “We’re going to apply all our efforts to see that something good comes of all this.”

  John went to the National Memorial in Edmonton to honour the fallen four and said that he wanted to attend their fun
erals but was concerned that he would not be able to “contain his emotions.”

  It is John’s opinion that his brother did not conceive and carry out his daring and devious plan on the spur of the moment. John maintains that James had been planning to exact his vengeance on the RCMP for years because he believed the police had been persecuting him. “This was something he was thrashing around for many, many years.”

  John also feels there was likely no way that the police could have prevented the slaughter. He said that the four officers didn’t have a chance against his brother because it was “on his property” — a little phrase that speaks volumes.

  In choosing these words, John implies that James was familiar with the fields around his farm and knew the best way to approach his Quonset hut unnoticed. John’s choice of expression means that James was acquainted with every nook and cranny in his steel Quonset hut, he knew the entrances and passageways, and he was acutely aware of every item strewn on the floor throughout the place.

  His implication is that James could stealthily approach and enter his Quonset hut and move about inside it without the police’s being aware of his presence. And that appears to be precisely what occurred.

  Roszko’s funeral was held on Thursday night, March 10, at Park Memorial Funeral Home in Mayerthorpe. Several of his family members were present at the small, unpublicized, thirty-minute service. James’s father did not attend. His sister Josephine Ruel stayed her loyal course, remembering some nice things about her infamous brother who had forever linked the family name to a national atrocity. Roszko’s remains were cremated and the disposition of his ashes is unknown.

  That same Thursday morning, an extraordinary memorial service was held in Edmonton to honour the four fallen Mounties. In its magnitude and solemn pageantry, it was one of the most remarkable ceremonies ever witnessed in Canada.

  Melanie Grower, a spokesperson from the Prime Minister’s Office, offered an explanation as to why the service would have such an impact on the nation: “There are thirty-two million Canadians whose hearts go out to these families.”