The Mayerthorpe Story

by Robert Knuckle

  That same morning of March 3, Deputy Commissioner Gary Leoppky, the acting commissioner of the day, called from Ottawa and spoke to the “K” Division commanding officer, Assistant Commissioner Bill Sweeney.

  They were both concerned that the situation at Roszko’s farm looked ominous. Leoppky wanted to make sure if a major investigation should be required, the RCMP would be ready to proceed in a precise and politically correct manner.

  Because of public perception, they agreed there would be a strong need for independent oversight of the Mayerthorpe investigation, one that presented a clear understanding that “K” Division was not examining the incident on its own. To satisfy this requirement, the man they chose to bring in was Chief Superintendent Al MacIntyre, an experienced homicide investigator who was in charge of the Major Crimes Section of “E” Division (British Columbia).

  MacIntyre, who was fifty-three years old and originally from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, had twenty-four years’ experience in homicide. In 1983, he helped convict two brutal thrill killers in Alberta. He had also led the homicide task force that solved the murders of the nine strikebreakers at the Giant Gold Mine in Yellow-knife in 1992. MacIntyre had been alerted to the Mayerthorpe situation since its onset and was stunned when he learned that the four young members had been murdered at the farm site.

  Chief Superintendent Al MacIntyre. (RCMP)

  At 12:20 p.m. on March 3, MacIntyre received a phone call from Deputy Commissioner Gary Leoppky, who asked him to be the lead investigator in the Mayerthorpe case. Leoppky tasked him to pull a team together immediately and bring it to Alberta to lead the investigation. MacIntyre accepted the assignment and advised Leoppky that he and his team would be at the crime scene by the following morning.

  About half an hour before that, Inspector Bob Williams, driving alone from Edmonton, had arrived at the Mayerthorpe Detachment office. As he was parking his car beside the building, Superintendent Brian McLeod and his Edmonton ERT members began arriving, car after car, in the parking lot. Shortly after that, Superintendent Brian Simpson and his Red Deer ERT crew started to pull in. Within minutes about twenty-five heavily armed ERT members in their camouflage uniforms were mustering in the parking lot.

  The first thing Williams did was to acquire an office for himself in the detachment. From there, he immediately connected with the Division’s Emergency Operating Centre, with which he stayed in contact throughout the day.

  Williams says, “We still didn’t know precisely what was happening out at Roszko’s farm, but I remember thinking things weren’t looking very good.”

  When the robot went in and determined the worst, ERT commander Brian McLeod phoned Williams with the bad news. “We have four members down and one suspect down.”

  Williams says, “That was close to three p.m. And at that point I knew my Major Crimes Unit would be responsible for a principal role in the homicide investigation.

  “And with the sheer size of the operation … the number of investigators that would ultimately be involved in the case, I knew the Mayerthorpe Detachment building would not suffice as a command centre.

  “When I first drove into town, I had noticed the Royal Canadian Legion building across from the detachment. Now, I thought that would be a facility that could serve us very well.”

  Williams remembers, “The people in charge of the Legion were most willing to accommodate us. They were more than supportive. They let us use the entire main floor of the building.”

  To secure the crime scene and start processing evidence, Williams named Sgt. Jerry Dunn as supervisor of the investigation. Corporal Kevin Quail and Cst. Garry Lotoski were given the responsibility of gathering evidence exhibits, logging and tagging them, and storing them.

  The next thing Inspector Williams did was to establish his command triangle. He would be at the top of the triangle, Inspector James Hardy would be at the second point and serve as the primary investigator, and Constable Valerie Lahaie would assume the third point as file coordinator.

  Both the second and third points of the triangle were immense jobs.

  Hardy would coordinate and supervise every aspect of the investigation. He would be responsible for the speed, flow, and direction of the process, deciding what was to be done, the order in which things were to be done, and who would do them.

  Lahaie was responsible for managing the administrative aspect of the investigation. This entailed all the electronic files and all the paperwork generated by the investigation. Every task and each bit of information had to be logged and filed including evidence exhibits, interviews, interrogations, autopsy results, forensic reports, items for disclosure, media releases, etc.

  “I knew this was going to be a massive file,” Williams says, “and I needed the best possible people in those two positions. Both Inspector Hardy and Constable Lahaie had extensive experience and both of them were extremely capable in their respective areas. Lahaie was well-trained. She was meticulous with paperwork and with the gathering and retrieval of electronic information.”

  Williams remembers, “I knew the investigation was going to be a big job … an enormous undertaking … but we had the very best people in place and we were given tremendous support. Anything we needed, we got.”

  Throughout that first day, the technical specialists from the “Informatics” Branch were busy installing multiple phone lines and setting up a myriad of computer stations and their requisite power connections.

  That evening, Al MacIntyre and his selected crew from “E” Division caught a Westjet flight to Edmonton. His special team was comprised of six members, each of them amply experienced and extremely capable.

  Inspector Don Adam, in his early fifties, was known for his criminal investigative ability and his comfort in the interview and interrogation room. He was also a no-nonsense, industrious police manager who was good at keeping other investigators focused and on task.

  Staff Sergeant Brenden Fitzpatrick, in his early forties, was a smart, energetic policeman held in high regard for being a tenacious, hard-working criminal investigator.

  Sergeant Bruce Hulan, in his early fifties, was a well-known, well-liked, seasoned criminal investigator with a reputation for being thoughtful, thorough, and dogged in his determination.

  Corporals Paul McCarl and Matt Toews were young, aggressive homicide investigators who were tireless workers noted for doing the heavy lifting and hard digging on any case assigned to them.

  Sarah Russell was a gifted young civilian member who would share her expertise with Alberta’s Constable Lahaie, who was in charge of all electronic data entry, retrieval, and analysis. Sarah had a special skill. Using the RCMP software called “E & R” (evidence and reporting), she had developed a unique ability of being able to convert the evidence of a major crime into a logical format.

  The Vancouver team spent the night at an Edmonton hotel; at 6:30 a.m. the next morning, they arrived in Mayerthorpe and reported to the command post in the Legion hall.

  Their first meeting that morning was with the police unit that assesses police needs for a particular project. This unit has the authority and the means to rapidly provide essential equipment and resources for the special investigators. These would include such items as police cars, cell phones, laptops, desktop computers, and all other necessary office equipment.

  At 8:00 a.m., MacIntyre met with Inspector Bob Williams, and together they united the “K” Division and “E” Division members into working partnerships. This included the command triangle, where MacIntyre and Williams would share command, although MacIntyre, with his higher rank and assigned responsibility, was considered to be in charge.

  With their responsibilities clearly defined, each of the investigators staked out a small working area on the long banquet tables that were set up around the Legion hall. The hall itself, as well as a few other small rooms in the building that would be used for interviews, was secured and declared off limits to anyone except authorized police personnel. The RCMP had determ
ined that no member from either the Mayerthorpe or Whitecourt Detachments would be allowed to work on the investigation in any capacity.

  Over the course of the investigation, over 200 officers worked in the Legion hall, coming and going as they performed their various assignments and duties.

  Al MacIntyre says, “The guidelines I stressed to all of them were pretty straightforward. They had to do it right. They needed to be thorough and careful. There was no sense in rushing.

  “There was to be no such thing as an informal statement. They were to get everything on tape … on video or digital or audio. And the evidence they collected needed to be clearly articulated … clearly unambiguous. It wasn’t about what evidence looks like today but what it would be like two or three years down the road … when we went to court. The evidence needed to be seized and articulated; the record needed to be clear.”

  Many of the working members were selected for their special skill sets and had been sent to Mayerthorpe by their various detachments. Some members had asked for permission to leave their home detachments to serve in Mayerthorpe. Others took their holidays and volunteered to serve their time in the Legion hall. Seven members from Calgary were taking an interviewing course in Edmonton. All of them volunteered to come in and help the investigation in Mayerthorpe. Other members came from all over Alberta. Some came from as far away as Nova Scotia or from the proximity of British Columbia. Forensic Identification Specialists were dispatched from Edmonton, Winnipeg, Regina, and Halifax. A forensic firearms team drove in from the Regina Crime Lab to investigate all aspects of the involvement of firearms in the Mayerthorpe crime.

  For the next two weeks, the Mounties would use an arsenal of investigative techniques: interrogation, interviews, physical and electronic surveillance, searches, forensic identification, and analysis.

  After several briefing meetings on that Friday morning of March 4, Al MacIntyre, Don Adam, and Bob Williams drove out to Roszko’s farm. The crime scene was securely contained. A perimeter had been established where the police checked all vehicles coming near the farm. There was absolutely no access to the property from any unauthorized person.

  After MacIntyre, Adam, and Williams presented their credentials, they were admitted and received a thorough briefing on the crime scene and the crime itself. Personnel on site familiarized them with all aspects of Roszko’s inner compound, his buildings, and the lie of the land on his property.

  Elsewhere, the RCMP had set up checkpoints on several roads near Roszko’s farm where they stopped cars and asked the drivers and their passengers whether or not they had seen or heard anything regarding the incident.

  The crime scene was a busy place. Searches continued unabated. Using infrared and other scanning equipment, police persevered with their attempts to recover evidence. They employed ground radar to determine if there were any signs of disturbance to the land. This was done to see if anything had been buried in the earth or uncovered from it. Techs from Ident (Forensic Identification Section) and the Explosives Disposal Unit swept the farm with metal detectors and sifted dirt inside the Quonset hut looking for shell casings. Oil drums, water casks, and other paraphernalia were removed from inside the Quonset. All of it was examined and stored for future reference. Backhoes were brought in, just in case any digging had to be done.

  That evening, back at the command centre, Sgt. Jerry Dunn phoned Al MacIntyre at 6:40 p.m. He had spent the day at the Edmonton Medical Examiner’s Facility as a witness to the autopsies of the four murdered Mounties.

  MacIntyre recalls, “He described the devastating injuries the .308 calibre bullets had caused. I could hear the sheer upset in his voice as he explained their types of injuries. It was obvious there was clearly no chance of survival for any of them … absolutely no chance.

  “That was very upsetting to me. The killer was obviously so violently angry. The number of shots he fired was so over the top. I could imagine the hell the members went through … the time they had for terror … waiting … as they went down, one after another. It was very distressing for me to think about that.”

  Day after day, with MacIntyre and Williams in the lead, the investigative process went on. There were digital photograph screenings, forensic analysis reports, applications for search warrants, development of flow charts, constant overviews, and briefings.

  At the outset of the case, one of the first procedures that the police had employed was to apply for five different search warrants.

  The first was for Roszko’s cell phone records. These indicated that prior to the time of the murders, Roszko had made phone calls to his mother, his sister, his aunt, and to Kal Tire in Barrhead. He had also made several calls to phone numbers that were eventually traced to a man named Shawn Hennessey.

  This same Shawn Hennessey was a person who was suspected to be selling marijuana grown on Roszko’s farm.

  Another of the search warrants addressed the .300 Winchester Magnum rifle and the ammunition for it that was found beside Roszko’s body. In short order, the RCMP traced the Winchester hunting rifle to John Hennessey, the grandfather of Shawn Hennessey.

  Shawn Hennessey immediately became a person of interest to the police.

  When Shawn heard the news of the police massacre late in the afternoon of March 3, he was afraid. “I was absolutely terrified of the involvement I had,” he says, “and I didn’t know what was going to come out of it.”

  He says that he decided to “lie low.”

  His primary concern was that the Winchester rifle he had given to Roszko was registered in his grandfather’s name. John Hennessey, his grandfather, had given the rifle to Shawn two years previously when he thought the government planned to eliminate the gun registry requirements.

  Shawn and his mother, Sandy, discussed the fact that the rifle was registered to John and that the police would undoubtedly check that out by seeking out the grandfather and questioning him.

  Shawn contacted his grandfather and told him that James Roszko had taken the Winchester from Shawn’s home the night before the murders and definitely had it on him when he attacked the police. After that conversation, John Hennessey says it was his idea to tell the police that his rifle had been stolen from the back of his welding truck in October 2004. Shawn and his mother and dad agreed that they all would stick to this “story.” In so doing, the Hennessey family had all agreed to perpetrate an orchestrated cover-up concerning the Winchester rifle.

  On Sunday, March 6, four days after the murders, the RCMP came to John Hennessey’s house and asked him about the Winchester rifle. As planned, the old man lied to them. He said he usually kept his rifle behind the seat of his welding truck but he hadn’t seen it since October 2004. It was his belief that the rifle had been stolen from his truck.

  When a writer from the Globe and Mail interviewed John and asked him how it was that Roszko had possession of John’s rifle, John told them, “I don’t know how he got it.”

  Shawn told the Globe and Mail that he had known Mr. Roszko as a customer at Kal Tire for the previous four years. He said he had visited the property once but he rejected allegations in one of the police search warrants that he was selling marijuana for Mr. Roszko.

  This was the first in a series of lies and misrepresentations that Shawn would tell the police and the media.

  He said he felt ill when he first heard of the murders and denied any suggestions that he played a role in the killings. “I’ve never been in a situation like this before,” he said. “I’ve never been accused of such huge things. This is absolutely beyond me.”

  Yet all throughout the RCMP investigation Shawn Hennessey did not act like he was innocent. Neither did Cheeseman. They lied about where they’d been and what they’d done. They denied assisting Roszko in any way.

  Over the duration of many months, the police questioned Shawn Hennessey approximately fifteen times. Sergeant Terry Kohlhauser conducted many of those interviews. Some of the sessions took place at Hennessey’s residence; a few occu
rred at Kal Tire where Shawn worked. One lengthy formal interview took place at the Barrhead Detachment office. Some of Kohlhauser’s conversations with Hennessey were informal interviews where the two men stood around and talked to each other.

  In all of these interviews, Shawn provided basically the same information each time and refused to admit any involvement in the murders. He constantly lied about his involvement with Roszko on the night before the massacre.

  In one affidavit, an officer who interviewed him wrote: “Shawn Hennessey said he knew James Roszko for approximately three to four years. He said he went to Roszko’s farm and put a stereo in his Camaro for Roszko during the summer of 2004 and the next time he attended the property he looked at a car his wife wanted to purchase. The third time, he did some yardwork for Roszko.”

  As for the events leading up to the murders, it was Hennessey’s contention that when Roszko came by his place, he insisted that Roszko could not park his truck there. He said Roszko left. He denied having any knowledge of how the rifle ended up at Roszko’s place.

  But the police weren’t buying his denials.

  Another police observation read: “Hennessey is a person to which Roszko would turn for assistance.”

  As time went on, Shawn became more and more testy with the media. When a reporter phoned him, Shawn angrily replied, “I don’t want to speak to you people.”

  To another newsman’s question he answered, “That’s none of your business.”

  The police interviewed Shawn’s mother and Dennis Cheeseman several times as well. Each and every time, they admitted nothing and maintained the family’s concocted “story” with regard to the Winchester rifle.

  Hennessey’s boss at Kal Tire, Steve Hunter, told the media that he thought Shawn was smeared by the simple fact he knew James Roszko. He told Michelle Collins, a writer for the Edmonton Journal, “There’s no story with Shawn. It’s been almost a year now, and if the police had anything on him, they would have charged him … Shawn didn’t take his [Roszko’s] truck or help him in any way.”