Nevertheless, his confession to McNish was the break the Mounties had been looking for. They now believed they had sufficient evidence to convict Dennis Cheeseman with aiding and abetting Roszko in the Mountie murders.
However, Cheeseman’s confession would not suffice to convict Shawn Hennessey. In Shawn’s case, Cheeseman’s revelations would be considered hearsay and inadmissible. Therefore, after an extended conference among the RCMP investigators, a decision was made to deploy undercover operators to obtain more evidence from both Dennis Cheeseman and Shawn Hennessey.
An undercover operational plan or “sting” named Project Kourage was approved on March 21, 2006, and went into action a few days later.
In recent years, undercover operations have become a significant factor in the realm of police investigations. The RCMP has approximately 1,500 of its members qualified as trained undercover operators. At any given point in time, about 600 of them are engaged in undercover operations. About five percent of these operatives are female.
All those qualified as undercover operators with the RCMP across Canada are listed in a central registry in Ottawa. In each member’s dossier, there are photos and up-to-date information regarding the operator’s location, rank, responsibilities, education, interests, hobbies, areas of expertise, personality traits, languages spoken, etc.
When an undercover operation is required, the lead investigator in a case submits a request through the Division Undercover Coordinator for suitable undercover operators based on the specific needs of an investigation. The Coordinator then offers the assignment to chosen personnel in consultation with the various members’ detachment commanders.
Undercover work is voluntary; therefore, members selected for a particular operation have the right to refuse. If they do accept the undercover assignment, they are still required to maintain their ongoing responsibilities at their present posting.
The first element of the Mayerthorpe sting was initiated when the RCMP sent an undercover operator2 to Barrhead to befriend Shawn Hennessey. The new man in town posed as a welder and demonstrated to Shawn his interest in snowmobiling and quadding, two activities that Hennessey really enjoyed.
Shawn was leery of the operator, suspecting he might be an undercover cop. But despite his suspicions, Hennessey continued to associate with him and invited him to go snowmobiling and quadding.
Even when the new man’s girlfriend came to join him, Shawn and his wife, Christine, remained cautious. Nevertheless, the Hennesseys did continue to associate with the new couple.
The second phase of the “sting,” which ran parallel to and in conjunction with the first, focused on Dennis Cheeseman.
In October 2006, a female undercover operator managed to develop car trouble outside of Sepallo foods. As Dennis was leaving work, he stopped to help her. Actually, her car had been rigged with a kill switch that would disable the motor at just the right time.
Dennis tried his best to start the car, but he couldn’t get it going. He gave the operator a ride to a nearby restaurant, where, during a brief conversation, the women revealed she had just broken up with her abusive boyfriend.
Cheeseman volunteered to keep an eye on her disabled vehicle until she could have it removed from the Sepallo parking lot.
Their meeting ended with their exchanging phone numbers.
In the weeks that followed, the female operator made numerous phone calls to Cheeseman in relation to her broken-down vehicle.
Early in the undercover operation, the Mounties wanted to set up listening devices in the Cheeseman and Hennessey residences. To get Dennis out of the house, the female operator invited him to her annual Christmas party. Dennis accepted her offer, and he, in turn, invited her to his Christmas party.
While they were at the operator’s party — and the Hennesseys were away from the house, too — the bugs were installed in the home. The operator’s Christmas party was an elaborate hoax. Everyone at the party was a Mountie — even Santa Claus, who made a late-night surprise visit to hand out a few gifts.
Cheeseman was a willing participant in these events that helped develop their relationship. Ultimately, he became smitten with the woman and came to think of her as his girlfriend. To cool the situation, the operation handlers introduced a reason for her to get away for a while. The story they devised was that her beloved grandfather was dying and the operator needed to leave to be with her family in Manitoba. But even while she was gone, she stayed in touch with Cheeseman.
The entire RCMP undercover operation was designed to ensure that a suitable distance was maintained between the female operator and Cheeseman. By design, they made sure that there was no opportunity for an intimate relationship between them. Including the Christmas party in December 2006, the female operator and Cheeseman saw each other only on five occasions. All of these meetings were in public places, and at three of these meetings, there were other undercover operators present. The remainder of their relationship was conducted on the phone.
It was at the staged Christmas party that the female operator introduced Cheeseman to “an old school friend.” He was also an undercover operator.
After Cheeseman had been introduced to the female operator’s old school friend, the RCMP effected a scenario whereby she was supposedly beaten and robbed by her abusive ex-boyfriend. A makeup artist distorted her appearance to make her look as if she had been badly beaten.
The operator’s old school friend suggested to Dennis that he was going to deal with the ex-boyfriend. Cheeseman offered to go along. Although Dennis was told he did not have to get involved, he insisted that he go to help get back the money the boyfriend had stolen from the female operator.
On February 24, 2007, they tracked the ex-boyfriend to a hotel south of Calgary. While Dennis searched the room for money, the old school friend took the ex-boyfriend, who was also an undercover operative, into the bathroom and pretended to beat him up. Dennis could hear the banging and screaming as the boyfriend faked being hammered.
Having accomplished their mission, Dennis and the male operator left the hotel as real buddies. Not long after that, the operator offered Dennis employment, purported to be illegal, which Cheeseman readily accepted.
Although Cheeseman did not see the female operator again, they did communicate by text messages on a few occasions.
Shawn and Christine Hennessey watched Dennis and the new woman’s relationship grow with mixed emotions. On one hand, they were happy for shy and reticent Dennis, who never seemed to have much luck with women. On the other hand, they were concerned that she might be an undercover cop who was plying Dennis with her attention for her own purposes.
Meanwhile, the male operator revealed to Cheeseman that he was a member of a criminal gang. Very soon after they met, he offered Dennis the choice of either participating or not in a simulated crime where the operator’s gang was going to steal a mini-loader from a guy who owed them money.
Dennis made the choice to involve himself. During the heist, he used bolt cutters to sever a chain that secured the trailer and the mini-loader. He also hooked up the trailer as the undercover operator watched.
After the loader escapade, other assignments followed.
Dennis was invited to participate in a caper that involved the gang members’ stealing a boat. He chose to be actively involved. Then he willingly took part in the theft of a truck full of cigarettes.
The biggest deal he was involved in was helping to unload crates of automatic weapons from a private plane that landed at the small airport in Edson, Alberta. Dennis assisted in transporting the weapons to an Edmonton warehouse and acted as security during the sale of the guns.
Dennis was paid for everything he did that involved a staged crime. They gave him $500 to unload the illegal gun shipment. They passed him $300 for participating while they stole equipment from people who owed the gang money. He got $700 for participating in the cigarette heist.
On every occasion that Dennis got together with the gang, they
told him he didn’t have to take part in any of the criminal activity. But they stressed that their gang operated under a strict code of honesty and trust. They expected every gang member to be completely honest with each other.
To this end, Cheeseman disclosed to five undercover operators on four separate occasions that he had been involved with the murder of four RCMP members at Mayerthorpe. The leader of the gang, “Mr. Big,” was aware of Cheeseman’s involvement in the Mayerthorpe murders and invited Dennis to attend a meeting with him to clarify the details of his participation in that crime. During their meeting, the leader of the gang congratulated Dennis for his good work. He said that gang members had told him that Dennis had a bright future with their organization.
Then Mr. Big told him the gang had connections with a major satellite company in the United States. He advised Dennis that this company constantly took detailed photos of the prairies. And if any pictures existed that would show Cheeseman driving James Roszko back to his farm on the night of the killings, the gang might be able to make the photos disappear.
It was then that Cheeseman disclosed the details of his involvement in the Mayerthorpe shootings.
On the drive home from this Kelowna meeting, Cheeseman reiterated his involvement with the Roszko incident to one of the high-ranking gang members. Dennis gave this undercover operator a lot of the details about what had happened that night when he and Shawn drove Roszko back to his farm.
Dennis told the man that when he saw the lights of the police cars at Roszko’s property, he said he and Hennessey were sure Roszko was going to kill the police.
Dennis said, “Obviously we knew he was going back to kill RCMP officers. He said he was pretty much going to go and take care of business. He was pretty much going to burn the Quonset hut, burn down the trailer, and then just leave.”
In May and June of 2007, Mr. Big pushed Cheeseman to recruit Shawn Hennessey to join the criminal gang. But Shawn resisted. He told Dennis that he had a young family and he didn’t want to jeopardize his life with them by getting involved with criminal activity that could land him in jail.
Dennis Cheeseman continued to work with the criminal organization. He actually took a lead role overseeing undercover operators in a series of extortion-based scenarios.
Meanwhile, the undercover operators in Barrhead continued to socialize with Shawn and Christine on a regular basis. As they became friendlier, Shawn disclosed a version of his involvement in the Mayerthorpe shootings. The version he offered minimized his involvement to something less than criminal.
But on July 6, 2006, Mr. Big confronted Cheeseman and told him that his involvement in the Roszko case was bringing a lot of police heat down on the criminal organization. He proposed — almost insisted — that a meeting with Cheeseman and Hennessey be set up to discuss their mutual problem with the RCMP investigation.
Cheeseman was able to induce Shawn to join him at a meeting with the big boss at the Barrhead airport. And this was the reason why: In April and May of 2007, the gang had offered Shawn employment with the promise of a big payday. He turned this down. But this time, the incentive to get him to meet with the big boss was based on the fact that the RCMP investigation was closing in on Shawn. And Hennessey was aware, through Cheeseman, that Mr. Big could potentially make evidence disappear.
So Shawn Hennessey agreed to attend the meeting.
Because Shawn was concerned about being taped on a recording device, he didn’t want to get into Mr. Big’s car. Consequently, their entire meeting took place outside the vehicle.
As they walked along the runway, Shawn admitted to driving Roszko back to his farm.
Shawn told him that the Winchester rifle was to be used as a “scapegoat,” by which he meant that Roszko would use the rifle if the Mounties caught him or had him under fire.
He also told Mr. Big that he had known Roszko for ten years. He said he had worked for four years with Roszko on his grow-op and auto chop shop. He claimed the money was good and he believed that he was the only person that Roszko trusted.
Shawn also advised him that in the two and a half years since the murders had occurred, he had never told anyone what had happened with him and Roszko. He said he hoped Mr. Big could be trusted.
The undercover operator, as Mr. Big, recorded every word that Shawn said.
Mr. Big told Hennessey that Cheeseman had admitted Shawn’s involvement in the Roszko affair to him.
Shawn replied, “Which then brings another guy that knows that … which brings me a step closer to fucking years [in prison].”
Shawn told Mr. Big that all he knew was that Roszko was going to burn down the Quonset, which housed the marijuana plants and the chop shop. As for the Winchester rifle, he said, “He told me I had to give it to him. He didn’t give me an option. He told me he had no intentions of using it. None.”
Shawn also admonished himself for getting Dennis involved in the Roszko ride. He admitted that Dennis had nothing to do with the marijuana operation. He said to Mr. Big, “Why I ever went out and asked Dennis to come with me, I don’t know. I do now know. Comfort!”
After the airport meeting, Shawn went back to Barrhead with Dennis and then he returned to work.
The next day, Hennessey had a second meeting with Mr. Big.
When Mr. Big asked Shawn if he believed Cheeseman’s statement that it was Roszko’s intention to kill police that night, Hennessey responded, “Yes.”
Mr. Big said to Hennessey that it only made sense that with his guns and with his socks over his feet, it was clear that Roszko intended to “whack” the police.
Hennessey appeared to agree with that, saying, “Yeah.”
That admission was what the police were looking for.
That same day — Saturday, July 7, 2006 — Dennis Cheeseman was arrested in the Edmonton suburb of Sherwood Park. He was charged with four counts of capital murder as a party to the offences committed by James Roszko. He was jailed in the Edmonton Remand Centre.
When Shawn Hennessey heard about Dennis’s arrest, he knew he would be next.
On Sunday, July 8, he and his wife were visiting at her cousin’s house in Barrhead. When Shawn went out to get something from his car, he was swarmed and taken down by the Edmonton ERT. Christine saw this and ran out to help him. She, too, was taken down by the emergency unit.
Shawn says, “There were rifles everywhere. They had my wife face down on the driveway, dragging her through the dirt.”
Like Dennis, Shawn was charged with four counts of capital murder and incarcerated in the Edmonton Remand Centre.
After the arrests, RCMP Deputy Commissioner Bill Sweeney held a news conference at Edmonton Headquarters. He opened by saying, “Today we have been able to provide Canadians with the first significant update on the Mayerthorpe investigation.”
Regarding the two accused, he said, “They were in the same community as James Roszko and were associates over an extended period of time.”
He added, “It’s not necessarily that they committed the crime directly, but they were somehow involved in facilitating the crime.”
When Sweeney announced the charges against Hennessey and Cheeseman, Peter Schiemann’s sister Julia whispered to him, “Thank you.”
Anthony Gordon’s mother was also in attendance and wiped a tear from her eye as the arrests were announced.
The families of the four dead officers had been contacted about the developments in the case a few days before the arrests went down.
Barry Hennessey, Shawn’s father, told a reporter for the Grande Prairie Herald–Tribune that he just couldn’t believe his boy could be involved in such a crime. “It’s a huge loss to all of us. It’s worse than a death. Everybody loved him. He didn’t do nothing, as far as I’m concerned. I’m just a lost parent right now.”
The RCMP investigation had taken twenty-eight months, using over 200 officers for various periods of time. The cost of the investigation was calculated to be in excess of two million dollars.
> There was criticism of the RCMP investigation.
Some said it was far too costly. The police say that every investigation into multiple murder is expensive.
Others claimed that since Roszko, the killer, was dead, such a widespread investigation was unnecessary. The law says if there were persons who enabled Roszko to commit his heinous crime, they deserve to be punished.
Christine Hennessey said the police were just looking to blame someone and they settled for Shawn and Dennis.
The RCMP say they didn’t want to blame just anyone. They wanted to determine whether or not someone had helped Roszko commit these multiple murders. And when they uncovered enough evidence to support a conviction in this regard, they closed in and made their arrests.
Some insist the Mounties tried longer and harder in this case than they would have if it had been civilians who were murdered. The RCMP disagree. They say that to solve this case, their investigators did nothing different from the normal operating procedure than they would have done on any major case investigation.
The author believes that the RCMP investigators would have worked equally hard to solve any major crime of this calibre. But surely the fact that their comrades were murdered would have given them an added incentive to do their very best work.
9 | Before the Courts
On July 9, 2007, Shawn Hennessey and Dennis Cheeseman were jointly charged with four counts of first-degree murder as parties to the offences committed by James Roszko.
As described in the Criminal Code of Canada, any of the offences listed below qualify as first-degree murder.
First-degree murder is planned and deliberate; contracted; committed against an identified peace officer; perpetrated while committing or attempting to commit one of the following offences: hijacking an aircraft, sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, and forcible confinement or hostage-taking; perpetrated while committing criminal harassment; committed during terrorist activity; committed while using explosives in association with a criminal organization; perpetrated while committing intimidation.
The Mayerthorpe Story Page 17