Tag Archives: Canada

IS A SERIAL KILLER LOOSE ON THE HIGHWAY OF TEARS?

There’s a lonely road stretch in remote northwestern British Columbia, Canada having a huge number of unsolved missing and murdered women cases. It spans 450 miles between the small cities of Prince George in the province’s interior and Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast. Over the past 40 years, more than 40 women mysteriously disappeared or died from foul play in that area. Most of their circumstances remain unknown. The road’s geographically known as #16 or the Yellowhead Route but—for good reason—locals call it the Highway of Tears.

The Highway of Tears murders and the women’s suspicious disappearances began in 1969. They continue today with the last case of modus operandi (MO) similarities happening in December 2018. Although police officially remain cautious about confirming links, many in-the-know suspect there may be many more crimes with victims fitting the mold.

In 2005, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) formed a task force called E-Pana to look at the area’s unsolved missing and murdered women cases. The RCMP is Canada’s federal force having jurisdiction across the nation and in the region. The task force initially identified 18 cases but soon expanded their investigation to include similar files eastward along Route 16 to Hinton, Alberta as well as south along Highway 97 to Kamloops, BC and along Highway 5 from Merritt to Clearwater.

Two significant independent government inquiries or investigations into the Highway of Tears and related matters also happened. One was a British Columbia Provincial Symposium held in 2006. The other—a recent, national commission called the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Inquiry. It’s called that because many victims were of indigenous or First Nations ethnicity.

Despite the massive police and public effort, no one’s been caught for most of the crimes. As well, many of the victim’s bodies remain hidden and undiscovered. That leaves people wondering if there’s a serial killer loose on the Highway of Tears.

The Highway of Tears Victims

Without exception, every victim in the Highway of Tears (HOT) sphere is female. That includes confirmed murders as well as unsolved disappearances. Another harsh fact is many victims originated from aboriginal or First Nations backgrounds. It’s a reality that can’t be overlooked.

Project E-Pana (named so after the Inuit spirit that guides souls to the afterlife) used four criteria to qualify a murder or suspicious disappearance as a Highway of Tears or HOT case. These parameters were sound and valid, as many homicide and missing persons cases in the north have other circumstances that don’t suggest a commonality the HOT files have. Out of great precaution, HOT investigators are very careful about using the “SK-word”—Serial Killer. To be on the HOT list, the E-Pana victim profiles are:

  • Female
  • High-risk lifestyle
  • Known to hitchhike
  • Found or last seen near Highways 16, 97 & 5

Females who hitchhike and practice a high-risk lifestyle around this remote road network are easy prey. Many come from physical, sexual and substance abusive backgrounds. Many are sex workers and drug users as well as having alcoholic tendencies and serious mental/emotional disorders. And, many women victims are from indigenous communities with a host of social problems.

Police investigators feel most, if not all, Highway of Tears cases are stranger-to-stranger relationships. Police don’t like the serial killer term because of public ramifications, but it’s a classic serial killer pattern to pick up strangers and have their way. Most lone-operating killers leave little evidence behind at their crime scenes, take little with them, make sure there are no independent witnesses and they rarely confess. That combination makes these predators so hard to catch.

First Nations women are particularly vulnerable. Along the main Highway of Tears stretch from Prince Rupert to Prince George there are 23 different indigenous communities or reserves. Most of these little places have few facilities like medical services, educational outlets and recreational opportunities. As well, poverty is a gigantic problem in Canada’s First Peoples settlements. They simply can’t afford private transportation.

Combined with personal issues and the need to be mobile, many at-risk women are alone on side of the road with their thumb out. They’re perfect opportunities for men with deviant desire. Here is a list of who fell victim in the deadly web called the Highway of Tears and throughout the entire region.

  • Gloria Moody — 27, Murdered near Williams Lake, October 1969
  • Micheline Pare — 18, Murdered near Hudson’s Hope, July 1970
  • Helen Claire Frost — 15, Missing from Prince George, October 1970
  • Jean Virginia Sampare — 18, Missing from Hazelton, October 1971
  • Gayle Weys — 19, Murdered near Clearwater, October 1973
  • Pamela Darlington — 19, Murdered at Kamloops, November 1973
  • Coleen MacMillan — 16, Murdered near Lac La Hache, August 1974
  • Monica Ignas — 15, Murdered near Terrace, December 1974
  • Mary Jane Hill — 31, Murdered at Prince Rupert, March 1978
  • Monica Jack — 12, Murdered near Merritt, May 1978
  • Maureen Mosie — 33, Murdered near Salmon Arm, May 1981
  • Jean May Kovacs — 36, Murdered at Prince George, October 1981
  • Roswitha Fuchsbichler — 13, Murdered at Prince George, November 1981
  • Nina Marie Joseph — 15, Murdered at Prince George, August 1982
  • Shelley-Anne Bascu — 16, Missing from Hinton, May 1983
  • Alberta Gail Williams — 24, Murdered near Prince Rupert, August  1989
  • Cecilia Anne Nikal — 15, Missing from Smithers, October 1989
  • Delphine Anne Nikal — 15, Missing from Smithers, June 1990
  • Theresa Umphrey — 38, Murdered near Prince George, February 1993
  • Marnie Blanchard — 18, Murdered near Prince George, March 1993
  • Ramona Lisa Wilson — 16, Murdered near Smithers, June 1994
  • Roxanne Thiara — 15, Murdered near Burns Lake, November 1994
  • Alishia Leah Germaine — 15, Murdered at Prince George, November 1994
  • Lana Derrick — 19, Missing from Terrace, October 1995
  • Deena Braem — 16, Murdered near Quesnel, September 1999
  • Monica McKay — 18, Murdered at Prince Rupert, December 1999
  • Nicole Hoar — 24, Missing from Prince George, June 2002
  • Mary Madeline George — 25, Missing from Prince George, July 2005
  • Tamara Lynn Chipman — 22, Missing from Prince Rupert, September 2005
  • Aielah Saric Auger — 14, Murdered at Prince George, February 2006
  • Beverly Warbick — 20, Missing from Prince George, June 2007
  • Bonnie Marie Joseph — 32, Missing from Vanderhoof, September 2007
  • Jill Stacey Stuchenko — 35, Murdered near Prince George, October 2009
  • Emmalee Rose McLean — 16, Murdered at Prince Rupert, April 2010
  • Natasha Lynn Montgomery — 23, Murdered at Prince George, August 2010
  • Cynthia Frances Maas— 35, Murdered near Prince George, September 2010
  • Loren Dawn Leslie — 15, Murdered near Prince George, November 2010
  • Madison “Maddy” Scott — 20, Missing near Vanderhoof, May 2011
  • Immaculate “Mackie” Basil — 26, Missing near Fort St. James, June 2013
  • Anita Florence Thorne — 49, Missing from Prince George, November 2014
  • Roberta Marie Sims — 55, Missing from Prince George, May 2017
  • Frances Brown — 53, Missing near Smithers, October 2017
  • Chantelle Catherine Simpson — 34, Suspicious Death at Terrace, July 2018
  • Jessica Patrick — 18, Murdered near Smithers, September 2018
  • Cynthia Martin — 50, Missing near Hazelton, December 2018

The Case for a Highway of Tears Serial Killer

These 40+ known cases all have a similarity beyond the E-Pana parameters. That’s the peculiar pattern of how they met their fate. Investigators assume most victims did not know their assailant and unsuspectingly fell into a fatal trap. And that trap may have been set by a serial offender.

Before assuming that one or more serial killers have been on the loose in the E-Pana project and the entire cases associated to the general Highway of Tears area, it’s necessary to define what a serial killer is. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a serial killer is an offender who commits “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone.” Serial murder is defined as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.”

This is a fairly tight description for a multiple killer. It fits someone on a path or destiny rather than a mass-murderer who goes on one rampage and causes numerous deaths. Most people associate serial killers with notorious Americans like Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway or Albert DeSalvo. They were particularly nasty people. But, British Columbia had its share of these vicious villains. Noteworthy BC serial killers were Clifford Olson who killed 10 or more children and Robert “Willie” Pickton who did-in 49 women and fed them to his pigs.

Most serial killers operate alone and have a distinctive pattern or modus operandi. Experienced police investigators know to look for crime patterns and identify similarities. One of the main indicators is victim profiling. In almost all of the cases brought under the Highway of Tears investigation umbrella, the victim’s background and vulnerability stand out. Other indicators are the time frame and location.

In missing persons cases, investigators naturally start with where and when the victim was last seen. They also look for abandoned items such as a vehicle, their purse and contents or their phone. Where bodies are found, investigators look for the mechanism or means of death. Most of the Highway of Tears and related victims were strangled—the exact strangulation method being held back as it’s known only to the police and the perpetrator.

In the Highway of Tears periphery—and it is a periphery because what started as an investigation along the Prince George to Prince Rupert road quickly branched off to a much bigger area where a mobile serial killer could have easily traveled within a day. What’s really notable in this overall murder and missing persons combined investigation are the time periods. There are nine distinct activity calendar groups:

  • 1969-1974
  • 1978
  • 1981-1983
  • 1989-1990
  • 1993-1995
  • 1999-2002
  • 2005-2007
  • 2009-2014
  • 2017-2018

This date grouping shows a burst of start-stop, start-stop and start-stop. There could be many reasons for this such as the perpetrator being repeatedly incarcerated, moving out of the geographical area or, in the case of Gary Ridgway—the Green River Killer from Seattle—he nearly got caught and thought he’d give it a rest for a while. But, it seems more likely there are multiple offenders in the overall Highway of Tears file. In fact, police have already caught, convicted or identified five different HOT-profile men.

The Police Catch or Identify Serial Killers in the Highway of Tears Investigation

To be fair, not all the murdered or missing women in the previous list are true Highway of Tears victims from BC Highways 16, 97 & 5. As the investigation grew, it expanded to include a wide net of confirmed or suspected murders across the mid-section of semi-rural British Columbia. That was a natural progression. It’s a logical and competent way of investigating a broad range of offense dates and locations.

Long before the E-Pana probe in 2005, which started as a look at the cases on Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, the RCMP knew there was a pattern emerging. In 1981, they held a multi-jurisdictional meeting called The Highway Murders Conference to look at commonalities of historic unsolved murders and missing persons cases. Over 40 detectives from across BC and Alberta met in Kamloops and presented their case facts. This was the original start to a massive investigation that’s still highly-active today.

In the years following the Highway Murder Conference, the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies solved some of the “HOT” killings and disappearances. They were able to profile offenders under the FBI’s serial killer definition. Here are the five serial killers known to have committed murders on the overall HOT list.

1. Cody Alan Legebokoff  — He was convicted of the 2009/2010 Jill Stuchenko, Natasha Montgomery, Loren Leslie and Cynthia Maas murders near Prince George. Legebokoff is serving life in prison.

2. Brian Peter Arp — He was convicted of the 1989 near-Prince George murders of Theresa Umphrey and Marnie Blanchard. Arp is also serving a life sentence.

3. Edward Dennis Issac — He was convicted of the 1981/1892 murders of Nina Joseph, Jean Kovacs and Roswitha Fuchsbichler in Prince George. Issac is still serving out his life sentence

4, Gary Wayne Hanlin — He was convicted of the 1978 Monica Jack murder at Merritt and faces new charges for killing another pre-teen girl. Hanlin got a life sentence, as well.

5. Bobby Jack Fowler — This known serial killer died in an Oregon prison in 1986. Post-death DNA analysis linked Fowler to causing the 1973/1974 Kamloops area murders of Coleen McMillan, Gail Weys and Pamela Darlington. Given the time frame pattern and location, Fowler may also have killed Monica Ignas in Terrace.

Known Highway of Tears Serial Killer Bobby Jack Fowler – MacMillan, Weys & Darlington murders

The Highway of Tears Public Investigations and Inquiries

Over the years, the mass of unsolved murders and missing women’s cases have been front and center in British Columbia and Canadian spectrums. Local, national and international interest spread, and took on a scope much larger than the cases committed along the original roadway called the Highway of Tears. Hundreds of thousands of hours and millions of dollar have been exhausted trying to rectify what went wrong and how future tragedies could be prevented.

In 2006, the British Columbia probe called the Highway of Tears Symposium released a report with an objective look at the entire factors causing victim vulnerability. They made rational and constructive recommendations that, if correctly implemented, could drastically reduce the potential for other women to end up on the HOT list. The symposium divided their solution into these four categories:

  • Victim Prevention
  • Emergency Planning and Team Readiness
  • Victim Family Counselling and Support
  • Community Development and Support

The Highway of Tears Symposium offered 33 separate recommendations on how to reduce victim risk and how to organize a holistic crime prevention program throughout the at-risk region. Most of the recommendations were solid, common-sense steps that could be practically implemented. One of the primary actions was to increase public transit along Highway 16 so the women wouldn’t need to hitchhike.

Other smart points in the action plan were making the police and public officials more responsible for spotting women placing themselves at risk and intervening on the side of the road. The report recommended a network of safe houses and a community watch program be integrated across the area. Many more recommendations addressed education and economic support for vulnerable women.

It’s been 13 years since the Highway of Tears Symposium did its necessary and valuable work. Sadly, very few of their well-thought-out suggestions ever materialized. An example is that it took 11 years before a simple and reliably-scheduled public transit bus service hit the Yellowhead Highway. Some of the risk prevention literature has been well written and promoted, though.

The Canadian Federal Government’s cross-country consortium called the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (IMMIWG) took public problem probing to a whole new level. What started as a Highway of Tears inquiry expanding the plight of First Nations women turned into a f-fest where three of the leading commissioners quit in frustration and disgust. It seemed everyone with a grievance to grind and an agenda to advance hijacked the focus and spun it around. By the time the $53.8 million off-track inquisition ended, the indigenous women core concern expanded to include every fringe interest lumped into a category called 2SLGBTQQIA. That’s an acronym for 2 Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex and Asexual.

On June 4, 2019, the Canadian Prime Minister championed the IMMIWG report release with this quote, “Earlier this morning, the national inquiry formally presented their report, in which they found that the tragic violence that Indigenous women and girls have experienced amounts to genocide”. The Prime Minister’s critics were quick to point out the United Nations definition of genocide:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

What started as a well-intentioned review of what happened to cause the Highway of Tears-related murders and suspicious disappearances totally missed the mark in the Canadian Federal Government’s sights. While the HOT Symposium operated with honorable intentions, the IMMIWG was a farce. It contributed little, if nothing, to the cause and likely did more harm than good. The IMMIWG failed to make positive recommendations for future harm prevention and investigation improvements. Ultimately, the IMMIWG blamed colonialism for oppressive behavior on margins of society. It seems the IMMIWG forgot many of the Highway of Tears victims were white heterosexual women born and raised in mainstream Canada.

Is a Serial Killer Loose on the Highway of Tears?

The answer is yes and no. There isn’t , and never has been, one lone serial killer continually at work on the Highway of Tears or in the surrounding geographical area. The right answer is there are many serial killers out there who’ve traveled those remote highways for years. Without a doubt, at least five separate serial killers contributed to some of the forty-year carnage. It’s highly-likely a large number of the yet-unsolved cases are the work of still-to-be-caught perpetrators. And, it’s also highly-likely some murders and abductions are one-offs.

Will all the Highway of Tears related murders eventually be solved? It’s highly-unlikely that’ll happen given the time gone by and the limited evidence available. However, there’s good reason to be optimistic some old and cold cases will be cleared. Back in the 70s, no one saw how powerful forensic DNA typing would be. We’re only now starting to tap the new familial database mines. Back in the 70s, no one saw how effective the Mister Big undercover sting would work on serial killers. And, back in the 70s, information sharing was nothing like what’s happening today.

So, no one knows what’s to come. Thanks to high-tech science combining with cool cop creative minds, we’re in for an interesting crime-solving drive down the Highway of Tears.

DID ALIENS REALLY ABDUCT GRANGER TAYLOR?

On the evening of Saturday, November 29th, 1980, then 32-year-old Granger Taylor departed his parent’s farmhouse near the town of Duncan in the Cowichan Valley on southern Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Granger vanished—apparently into space—never to be seen alive again. Some closest to Granger believe his mysterious disappearance was an actual close encounter of the third kind. They’re convinced that, somehow, aliens really did abduct Granger Taylor.

Alien abduction stories are rare—exceptionally rare. Most people dismiss an alien abduction story as pure bullshit or the product of a mentally impaired mind amplified by hallucinogens. But the theory of Granger’s alien encounter and subsequent space trip are based on interesting facts. That’s partly because Granger Taylor told his friends and family about ongoing telepathic alien contact and left a note explaining what he was up to the night he left home forever. Here’s what Granger’s message said:

“Dear Mother and Father, I have gone away to walk aboard an alien ship as reocurring dreams assured a 42 month intersteluar voyage to explore the vast universe, then return. I am leaving behind all my possesions to you as I will no longer require the use of any. Please use the instructions in my will as a guide to help. Love, Granger.”

Hearing a will mentioned in a run-away note immediately raises suicide suspicions. However, Granger modified his will and replaced the words “death” and “deceased” with “departure” and “departed”. The problem with suspecting suicide in Granger’s case was he had absolutely no sign of suicidal thoughts or tendencies. In fact, Granger Taylor had everything to live for. He was an exceptionally bright and gifted man.

The best description for Granger was an eccentric genius. Although Granger was odd in some ways and did a few things outside the lines, no one ever called Granger Taylor crazy. Associates described Granger as “eccentric”, “a prodigy”, “brilliant” and a “mechanical guru”. Over his short time on earth, Granger lived up to these terms and more. However, there’s far more to the Granger Taylor story.

Was this an actual case of alien contact?

Granger Taylor

Granger quit school after Grade 8. He said he’d learned every academic thing he needed to know including reading, writing and arithmetic at a level far beyond his years. Granger went to work repairing and building machinery. He proved a natural machinist and mastered self-taught skills ranging from welding to electronics.

They say Granger was somewhat shy and reclusive, although by no means antisocial or a hermit. He was a large man but extremely gentle and generous. Granger was never one for girls or the party scene, rather he immersed in mechanics and engineering. He remained single and attached to his parents where he slept in his childhood bedroom on their 21-acre rural property.

At age 12, Granger scratch-built an automobile powered by a one-cylinder engine he designed. By 14, he could tear down and rebuild practically every type of motor vehicle and moved on to heavy equipment. That took in logging trucks, farm tractors and vintage bulldozers.

One of Granger’s most ambitious projects was rescuing a derelict steam locomotive from an abandoned logging site. He disassembled the train engine and packed it piece-by-piece from the bush to his farm. Over time, Granger restored the locomotive to full working order. Today, it sits on display at the British Columbia Forest Museum in Granger’s home town of Duncan.

Not satisfied with wheels and tracks, Granger developed a keen interest in flight. His mechanical curiosity was unbounded and he longed to understand how airplanes operated. As strange as it seems, Granger source the fuselage of a World War II Kitty Hawk fighter plane. As with the locomotive, Granger found parts for the plane. What he couldn’t buy, he built.

Within two years, Granger made the Kitty Hawk airworthy. Although he didn’t have an airstrip at his farm, let alone a pilot’s license, Granger’s intelligent creativity came up with a flight plan. He installed restraint bars in the back of the plane and then chained it to a massive tree. By powering up the engine and working the flaps, Granger elevated the aircraft and held it to hover.

Granger’s farm plane was a huge community hit. Many people watched him demonstrate the fighter which he eventually sold to a collector for a tidy sum. Speaking of money, Granger was no slouch when it came to business. By the time he disappeared, Granger amassed a considerable bank account which he left for his parents.

Although Granger was somewhat reserved, he was exuberant about helping the local youth. Granger gave his time and teachings to help kids throughout the Cowichan Valley. There was never a hint of impropriety with young folks associating with Granger and he never had the remotest hint of being troublesome in the community.

Granger Taylor was clearly project-orientated. Once he mastered the mechanics and engineering principles of mobility like vehicles’ locomotives and aircraft, Granger extended his interest horizons. He began studying spacecraft which led to his curiosity about intelligent alien lifeforms and what advanced technology they likely possessed.

Granger made it his mission to find out. The late 70s were a time fixated on the possibilities of space and space life. This was the time of TV shows like Star Trek and movies such as Close Encounters and Star Wars. UFO reports were common and a few alien abduction stories sporadically surfaced.

Granger watched, read and observed everything he could about space travel and what machines would take him there. That led to Granger Taylor building a flying saucer. He made it from two huge satellite TV dishes and welded together a convincing concoction which, for all the world, looked like the classic UFO shape often depicted in alien contact stories.

Granger didn’t intend his flying saucer model to fly. Rather, he used it as a think-tank where he’d spend hours in quiet thought—meditating is a good analogy—and it was during long periods of solitude and altering his state of consciousness that Granger Taylor began to have episodes where he reported telepathic contact with voices from beyond.

One of Granger’s closest friends and confidants was a man named Robert Keller. Bob Keller was younger than Granger—just in his late teens when Granger departed. Bob still lives in the Cowichan area and firmly believes Granger was in full control of his faculties despite disclosing his conversations with distant deities.

Bob Keller also described a side of Granger many didn’t see. It turns out Granger Taylor loved smoking marijuana. He did some of his best thinking while stoned. Keller states he and Granger would seal up the space ship and turn it into a giant hotbox where they’d blast away and reef themselves into another reality.

During these weedy sessions, Granger elaborated on his recurring alien contacts and how they’d offered him safe passage to distant parts so Granger could experience advanced technology first-hand. Granger told Keller that his departure day was approaching and leaving the earth was something he had to accomplish.

Bob Keller also disclosed that besides cannabis, Granger experimented with hallucinogens—specifically LSD or acid. In later media interviews, Granger’s sister confirmed the LSD abuse but was steadfast it was simply a curiosity for Granger to expand his mind. There were no reports Granger was a habitual drug user with bad trip troubles that would negatively affect or impair his thought process.

Granger Taylor’s parents also confirmed Granger “did some drugs” but he had no substance abuse issues, including alcohol. Granger didn’t drink. The parents were also adamant Granger showed no sign of mental illness and absolutely no hint of suicidal plans. To all Granger’s family members and friends, Granger was on a continuous curiosity voyage and it was a natural step to seek higher knowledge.

Granger’s Parents – Jim & Grace Taylor

Family and friends were divided about the alien abduction theory surrounding Granger Taylor. Some believed it and some didn’t. But all agreed Granger’s whereabouts was a total mystery. As Jim Taylor (Granger’s father) put it at the time, “It’s hard to believe Granger went off in a space ship, but if there is a flying object out there, he’s the one to find it.”

Granger Taylor’s 42-month hiatus expired on May 29th, 1984. During the time, Jim and Grace Taylor kept their back door unlocked and their son’s bedroom intact in the remote hope the ship would land and Granger would return unharmed. It didn’t work out that way.

In 1986, nearly six years after Granger left the note for his folks, forest workers discovered a giant blast site in the woods. Not too far from the Taylor farm, as the crow flies, there was an overgrown debris area roughly 600 feet in diameter. This was off a secluded service trail near the top of Mount Prevost which is the high point overlooking the Cowichan Valley.

Strewn about the blast site were vehicle parts. Shrapnel was embedded in trees well above the ground and other parts were driven deep into the soil. The police investigated and soon tied the blast site to Granger Taylor. Within the debris field were parts displaying the vehicle identification number (VIN) recorded on Granger’s pickup truck. A police dog search found fractured human bones, the largest being a left-arm humerus. And, sadly, Grace Taylor confirmed that clothing remnants recovered from the site were consistent with a shirt she’d made for their son.

There was nothing left of Granger Taylor’s body to make a positive ID. His skull and teeth weren’t found, and this was the days before prevalent DNA testing. However, the circumstances were sufficient for the coroner to confirm Granger’s death and the police were satisfied there was no foul play—despite the enormous explosion.

Officially, Granger Taylor’s missing persons case was closed with his classification of death being “undetermined”. Coroners have five death classifications available to wrap up their investigations—natural, accidental, suicide, homicide and undetermined. Common sense dictates no case could arguably be made of Granger dying from natural causes. Additionally, there was no evidence that someone killed Granger to establish a homicide ruling.

It’s a stretch to think Granger accidentally blew himself up, certainly not with a force of that magnitude. That leaves a hard look at suicide. However, coroners must follow a guideline called the “Beckon Test” where the balance of probabilities must overwhelmingly support a conclusion the decedent intentionally took their own life.

In Granger Taylor’s case, the coroner obviously struggled with firmly concluding the death was a suicide. One supporting pillar for a suicide conclusion is any history of suicidal thoughts, expressions or tendencies. In Granger’s case, there was nothing—absolutely nothing—in his past to suggest he was planning a suicide. Within the normal understanding, that is. It appears the presiding coroner ruled with caution and gave Granger the benefit of the doubt despite knowing about suspicious occurrences happening the day Granger Taylor said goodbye.

Jim Taylor reported that a “significant” volume of dynamite disappeared from his farm along with Granger. The Taylors were licensed to keep and use explosives for stump clearing on their land. Granger was completely familiar and competent with using dynamite and engineering explosive demolitions.

Something else happened on November 29th, 1980. A “100-year” storm hit the Cowichan Valley that evening. It knocked down trees and killed power across the area. Granger knew it was coming, and he’d told Bob Keller that the aliens would arrive under the cover of a storm to camouflage their presence.

Granger was last seen leaving a diner where he was a usual patron. This was about 6:30 pm. It’s a half-hour drive from the restaurant to the top of Mount Prevost through a tight, switch-backed dirt road. Around 8:00 pm, residents at the mountain’s base heard a loud “Boom!” It wasn’t consistent with storm thunder.

Looking back, there’s no doubt Granger Taylor died in a vehicle explosion. The evidence is overwhelming and conclusive. There’s also no realistic doubt Granger orchestrated the blast that ended his life. The question is why.

Why did an apparently untroubled and free-thinking man do something so outrageous? Why did Granger plan his demise and tie it to contacting alien intelligence? What in this world was going on in that brilliant mind?

I don’t think this puzzle can be solved. It can only be speculated. Perhaps the answer lies within the mind and where sources for ideas originate—no matter how bizarre, creative or devastating these notions can be.

Most people believe in some sort of a higher power that provides all information necessary to govern the universe. You can call it God, Infinite Intelligence or Mother Nature. Regardless of the name, human minds seem programmed to tap into this source of ideas that Plato called “Forms”. That’s where the word “information” derives.

Granger Taylor was a remarkable man. In life, he was inventive and inquisitive. Many similar people are described as a blend between nuts and geniuses. Maybe it’s because their thoughts are so far out on some intelligence plane that “normal” people like me can’t relate.

Possibly a genius like Granger projected his thoughts into a part of the universe not experienced by most humans at this point of our evolution. Maybe, in return, some sort of thought pool—call it an alien presence, if you’d like—responded to Granger and communicated in some telepathic way. Strange things happen. Think how lesser species like spiders get instructions to build web structures that humans can’t recreate with our current technology.

There’s an argument that Granger had some sort of undiagnosed mental trouble. Compounding the mental illness, his mind might have been polluted by illicit drugs. But that doesn’t wash given Granger’s history and the mass of literature indicating few people, if any, are driven to a thoroughly planned-out suicide by a mellow pot buzz or a good acid trip.

No. Something else had to be going through Granger Taylor’s head when he rocketed himself and his truck on top of the mountain. Perhaps it was a true belief he’d mentally connected with alien intelligence forms and the only way to leave his earthly shackles and join them was by blowing himself into space.

If that’s the truth then maybe, in some bizarre psychological way, aliens really did abduct Granger Taylor’s mind.

HOW COPS HARASS CITIZENS — THE WETASKIWIN, ALBERTA WAY

Police harassment is a serious issue. No one wants to be hassled by the cops. That’s true, but the vast number of contacts between the police and the public are really good. However, there’re rare times where some cops overstep their civil boundaries and exercise questionable behavior when dealing with citizens. Then, there’s time for fun.

Most police harassment complaints are trumped up or leave something out about what started the conflict. Over my years in policing, I can honestly say I never saw a case where an officer intentionally went overboard without there being some sort of provocation on a citizen’s part. Maybe that’s because I’m from Canada where we’ve got polite policing down to a science—especially our red-coated Mounties who start reading suspect rights with a “Sorry”.

I won’t say legitimate police harassment doesn’t happen. But, I will say there’re usually two sides to a story. Speaking of stories, I got a laugh the other day when a friend shipped me a letter from Wetaskiwin’s local newspaper. For those who’ve never heard of Wetaskiwin, it’s a small town 40 miles south of Edmonton, in the Province of Alberta in western Canada. Like so many Canadian prairie towns, Wetaskiwin has the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) maintaining their right.

They’ve also got an RCMP Sergeant with a great sense of humor. Part of the Wetaskiwin, Alberta RCMP detachment’s community service is maintaining a newspaper crime page. This article was so bang-on that I had to steal the content and post it on DyingWords. With no apologies for plagiarism or copyright invasion, here’s how the good Sergeant replied to this reader question:

 “I’d like to know how it’s possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?”

Sergeant Dooright: “First off, let me tell you this—it ain’t easy. In Wetaskiwin and rural surrounding areas, we average one cop for every 505 people. Only about 60 percent of our cops are on general duty (or what you might refer to as “general patrols”). This is where we do most of our harassing.

The rest are in non-harassing units that don’t allow them to contact with day to day innocents. And, at any given moment, only one-fifth of the 60 percent of general patrols are on duty and available for harassing people. The rest are off duty. They don’t want to be bothered harassing people on their own time.

So, roughly, one cop is responsible for regularly harassing about 6000 permanent residents at any given time. When you toss in the commercial business and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you got a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 15,000 people a day. Or maybe even more.

Consider this—your average cop’s eight-hour shift runs 28,800 seconds long. This gives that cop only two-thirds of a second to harass a person. Then they have just another third of a second to sip a Tim Horton’s coffee, scarf a donut, and then find a new person to harass. This isn’t an easy task. Far from it.

To be honest, most cops aren’t up to the challenge day in and day out. It’s just too tiring. What we do is utilize some trade tools to help narrow down those people we can realistically spend time giving quality harassment.

PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to focus on a person for special harassment. For example, “My neighbor is beating his wife” is a code phrase often used. This means we’ll come out and give somebody some special harassment. Another popular one is, “There’s a guy breaking into a house.” The harassment team is then put into action.

CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars with no insurance, or drivers with no licenses and the like. It’s lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light. Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, they are drunk or have an outstanding warrant on file.

LAWS: When we don’t have phones or cars and have nothing better to do, there are actually books that give us ideas for reasons to harass folks. They’re called “Statutes”. These include the Crimes Act, Summary Offences Act, Land Transport Act and a whole bunch of others.

Laws spell out all sorts of things for how you can really mess with people. After you read the law, you can just drive around for a while until you find someone violating one of these listed offenses and harass them. Just last week, I saw a guy trying to steal a car. Well, the book says that’s not allowed. That meant I had permission to harass this guy.

It is a really cool system we’ve set up, and it works pretty well. We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because, for the good citizens who pay the tab, we try to keep the streets safe for them, and they pay us to “harass” some people.

Next time you’re in small-town Wetaskiwin, Alberta, Canada, give me the old “single finger wave”. That’s another one of those codes. It means, “You can harass me.” It’s one of our favorite harassment go-aheads—and I love getting away with it.”