CBCNEWS — Marketplace
20260816 013000 UTC
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[00:01:22] And we begin tonight with the first murder of the year in Dawson Creek.
[00:01:27] [Mark] January 2025.
[00:01:29] Gunfire rings out in Dawson Creek.
[00:01:32] One man is shot at this hotel and survives.
[00:01:35] Across the street,
[00:01:37] another man shot in an apartment isn't so lucky.
[00:01:41] [newscaster] Now, police are not commenting,
[00:01:43] but CJDC TV News has learned
[00:01:45] Johnny Joel Freeman was murdered.
[00:01:48] [Mark] Johnny Joel Freeman,
[00:01:50] a local man with a lengthy criminal record.
[00:01:53] In this case, the Mounties made an arrest.
[00:01:56] 23-year-old Nolan Schmidt was taken into custody
[00:01:59] the night of the murder. And yet what finally seemed like a win
[00:02:03] for the Mounties was anything but.
[00:02:06] I think that he is just an individual
[00:02:09] that feels rage
[00:02:11] and he doesn't have the proper outlets for it, right?
[00:02:14] [Mark] Outreach worker Jan Atkinson believed Schmidt
[00:02:17] was a ticking time bomb with mental health issues.
[00:02:21] Here's Schmidt when he was a kid
[00:02:23] in a video posted on Facebook.
[00:02:26] That's three times, bud. Look at this shit.
[00:02:29] [Mark] And it was clear to Atkinson years ago,
[00:02:32] the ticking time bomb would explode.
[00:02:35] I was upset that he had the opportunity
[00:02:38] to even be out in the community. He'd been caught with weapons in the car.
[00:02:42] He was a drug runner, he's a drug dealer. [Jan] I think he was a drug runner.
[00:02:46] He hung around with some bad guys.
[00:02:48] He did some really bad things.
[00:02:50] [Mark] And one day Atkinson says Schmidt took a run at her
[00:02:53] when he was staying at the shelter where she worked.
[00:02:56] He was pretty angry with me
[00:02:57] and he started running towards me,
[00:03:00] and he was pretty hyped up. And were you afraid for your own safety?
[00:03:04] Yeah, yeah. [Mark] That's when Atkinson wrote this letter.
[00:03:08] Schmidt was going back to jai,
[00:03:10] and Atkinson gave the judge a long list of reasons
[00:03:13] why he needed to stay there and get help.
[00:03:16] "I am begging the courts to remand
[00:03:18] Mr. Schmidt into custody," she wrote.
[00:03:21] I had written a letter to the judge being like,
[00:03:23] "You know, blood's gonna be on your hands."
[00:03:28] If he's released back into the community. If he's released back into the community.
[00:03:31] What was your fear?
[00:03:33] My fear was that he would murder somebody.
[00:03:37] ♪
[00:03:42] Do you like coming out here to get a little peace and quiet?
[00:03:45] Yeah. Usually there's an engine running, but. [chuckles]
[00:03:49] [Mark] Andy Tylosky calls the Peace River region
[00:03:52] "the last of the Wild West."
[00:03:54] He's a farmhand who grew up here.
[00:03:58] He remembers Nolan Schmidt as a kid.
[00:04:03] [Andy] I knew his mom from her days as a bartender in Fort St. John.
[00:04:06] She always spoke about her son, and she was just proud, as proud as could be,
[00:04:10] about this young man. She was the glue in Nolan's life then.
[00:04:14] Yeah, yeah, they were very, very close.
[00:04:17] [Mark] Until she died when Schmidt was 18.
[00:04:21] [Andy] He found her. -What did that do to him? -It just wrecked him.
[00:04:27] He lost his sense of hope. The most important thing to him,
[00:04:31] the only rock he had in his life.
[00:04:32] And he told me at the funeral he just started drinking,
[00:04:38] because that was the only way that it kind of numbed the pain.
[00:04:41] And he never really stopped.
[00:04:44] [Mark] Tylosky remembers years later, Schmidt contacted him from ja.
[00:04:48] He had a sentencing hearing and needed to tell the judge
[00:04:51] he had a place to stay, so Tylosky showed up
[00:04:54] to court to give Schmidt a chance to go straight.
[00:04:58] I was gonna provide him a relatively safe environment,
[00:05:01] as much as I could. But you, at that point in his life,
[00:05:04] -you were his last hope. -Pretty much, yeah.
[00:05:08] [Mark] But Tylosky says within a month
[00:05:10] things started to fall apart.
[00:05:12] -Was he doing drugs? -Oh, he was cracked right out.
[00:05:15] As soon as he got his first welfare check, it went right up the pipe.
[00:05:19] [Mark] When Tylosky accused Schmidt
[00:05:20] of stealing money from him, things got violent.
[00:05:23] [Andy] We're driving just from downtown Fort St. John,
[00:05:26] just happened to be passing the police detachment
[00:05:30] when he pulls my kitchen knife out on me and goes,
[00:05:34] "Give me-- Like, you're not gonna do this with me.
[00:05:36] I will, you know, kill you," basically.
[00:05:41] [Mark] The police in nearby Fort St John
[00:05:43] defused the situation and took Schmidt into custody.
[00:05:46] At that point, Tylosky thought he was done
[00:05:48] with Schmidt for good, assuming he was behind bars.
[00:05:51] But then his phone rang.
[00:05:53] Two hours later, I get a call from him: "They've released me.
[00:05:57] They just wanna get rid of me out of the jail." Like, they didn't wanna deal with him.
[00:06:00] But here's a guy...
[00:06:03] who is...
[00:06:06] a loose cannon, who has mental health issues.
[00:06:09] I mean, there's warnings on file about this guy.
[00:06:14] -He's pulled a knife on you. -Yeah. [Mark] He's been arrested by the police.
[00:06:17] And they just release him and say "Good luck"?
[00:06:20] Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess so. That was that.
[00:06:23] We have to remember that police officers are people too,
[00:06:26] and nobody likes to work harder than they have to.
[00:06:28] [scoffs] I think it's sometimes where it comes down to. Like, he would have been a lot of paperwork,
[00:06:32] a lot of trouble for them to deal with.
[00:06:36] [Mark] Two days later, Johnny Joel Freeman was shot dead.
[00:06:40] Yeah, but it certainly wasn't some sort of coordinated gang attack, I can tell you that much for sure.
[00:06:44] [laughs] And I'm lucky in a lot of ways.
[00:06:46] -[Mark] Could have been you. -It could have been me.
[00:06:51] You know, I think we just all lost a little bit more faith
[00:06:54] in the system that we're supposed to trust.
[00:06:57] And until we can trust the system,
[00:06:59] people aren't gonna have trust in coming forward.
[00:07:02] Nothing's gonna happen. -[Mark] Nothing gonna change. -No.
[00:07:07] [Mark] Some things never change.
[00:07:09] Four months later in Dawson Creek, another murder.
[00:07:13] It was mid-April when police discovered an abandoned truck
[00:07:17] on this lonely stretch of dirt road southwest of town.
[00:07:21] Inside the truck, the body of Emily Ogden.
[00:07:25] The RCMP gave her the unlucky distinction:
[00:07:28] she was Dawson Creek's murder victim number 13.
[00:07:33] That abandoned truck belonged to a well-known drug dealer
[00:07:36] in Dawson Creek, and a familiar name to us:
[00:07:39] Arron Linklater. It had been just over a year
[00:07:43] since five people stormed his house with guns in the middle of the night.
[00:07:47] But time hadn't erased Linklater's lasting memory of that violent night.
[00:07:52] There was a girl in the situation.
[00:07:53] She was laughing at me. I'll never forget her laugh.
[00:07:58] [Mark] That girl was Emily Ogden,
[00:08:00] Dawson Creek's 13th murder victim.
[00:08:03] Let me take you back to the home invasion-- Absolutely.
[00:08:06] Because the woman who laughed in your face
[00:08:09] -is Emily Ogden. -Yep. She's dead.
[00:08:11] She winds up dead and her body's found in your truck.
[00:08:14] Yep. My house was broken into and my truck was stolen.
[00:08:17] I was drunk, came home.
[00:08:19] I had no idea what exactly the circumstances are to it.
[00:08:22] I was blown away, 'cause I woke up
[00:08:24] really, really intoxicated still. Then I got taken into custody.
[00:08:28] I had no idea of all the details. It was like--
[00:08:31] You have no idea that Emily Ogden was dead? -No. -Do you have anything
[00:08:35] -to do with her death? -No. But you know that you're a suspect.
[00:08:38] -Yeah, prime. -Prime suspect.
[00:08:43] But the police aren't the only ones
[00:08:45] who think Linklater killed Emily Ogden.
[00:08:47] He says everyone in town believes that too,
[00:08:50] including Emily's criminal friends.
[00:08:53] Do you walk around now with a bulletproof vest? -I do. -Why?
[00:08:57] Major Crimes came here and said that my ex-girlfriend and I,
[00:09:00] that our lives are directly in jeopardy.
[00:09:02] -Somebody wants to kill you. -Yeah.
[00:09:05] And I just told them to get in their Jeep,
[00:09:08] and I said, "Can you guys go around the block
[00:09:10] and park right over by the neighbour's house?
[00:09:13] Because that's where the line up to kill me begins.
[00:09:15] Get the fuck off my property."
[00:09:19] [Mark] By April of 2025,
[00:09:21] the police had their hands full in Dawson Creek.
[00:09:23] Another unsolved murder, and every indication
[00:09:27] the cycle of violence would continue.
[00:09:29] We live in a farming community,
[00:09:31] but it's like, we have this new generation of entitled children.
[00:09:35] -Do you know what I mean? -[Mark] Entitled and armed.
[00:09:38] Entitled and armed, and it's just,
[00:09:41] I've never seen anything like it.
[00:09:45] [Mark] When we come back, we follow a new lead
[00:09:47] in the mysterious disappearane of this man from Dawson Creek.
[00:09:51] My name is Mark Kelley. I'm with the CBC program The Fifth Estate.
[00:09:54] We're asking questions about the disappearance of Cole Hosack.
[00:13:17] of Canada's Wild West, then there's a growing need
[00:13:20] for a sheriff to ride into town and clean it up.
[00:13:26] With 13 homicides in four yea,
[00:13:28] Dawson Creek now has a murder rate
[00:13:30] 14 times the national average.
[00:13:36] Families of the victims continue to wait for answers.
[00:13:40] It's a wait that aches.
[00:13:44] Take the case of Cole Hosack.
[00:13:46] He's been missing for almost two years.
[00:13:49] He was passing through Dawson Creek
[00:13:51] when he stopped at a bar to ring in the New Year. The police have confirmed
[00:13:55] there was an altercation outside the bar. And then what happened?
[00:13:59] And then he's just never seen again.
[00:14:02] [Mark] But how could he just disappear? Exactly.
[00:14:06] [Mark] His mother, Julie Hosack, has been pleading for help,
[00:14:09] searching for answers ever since.
[00:14:11] I could feel that there's fear in Dawson Creek right from the beginning.
[00:14:16] [Mark] The Fifth Estate has learned late last year
[00:14:18] the Mounties arrested and questioned a suspect in the case:
[00:14:23] Matt Lawton.
[00:14:25] We also learned the last persn Cole Hosack called
[00:14:28] the night of his disappearance was the same Matt Lawton,
[00:14:31] a suspected drug dealer in Dawson Creek.
[00:14:35] So we went to Lawton's house armed with questions.
[00:14:39] Hey, Matt. My name is Mark Kelley, I'm with the CBC program The Fifth Estate.
[00:14:43] We're asking questions about the disappearance of Cole Hosack.
[00:14:48] [Mark] His family is looking for answers,
[00:14:49] and we are just looking for your help to explain
[00:14:52] about what happened that night.
[00:14:57] [Mark] He had your phone number.
[00:14:59] He made a call to you. It was the last call he made.
[00:15:04] [Mark] Why would he have your number?
[00:15:09] We don't know where he is, Matt. His family is looking for answers.
[00:15:17] [Mark] In the end, the Mounties released Lawton without charg.
[00:15:20] The RCMP now say they are treating
[00:15:22] Hosack's disappearance as a murder.
[00:15:25] The case remains unsolved, and still no sign of his body.
[00:15:32] Behind the fear in Dawson Cre,
[00:15:34] there is one name that rises above the rest:
[00:15:37] Tanner Murray, the infamous repeat offender,
[00:15:40] arrested last year with a small arsenal of weapons.
[00:15:44] And the more people learn about Murray and his criminal convictions,
[00:15:47] the more suspicious they've become. Do you think Tanner Murray had something to do
[00:15:51] with Renee's death? No comment.
[00:15:56] Are you afraid that commenting on that could get you more death threats?
[00:16:00] Yes. 100%.
[00:16:04] I don't personally know Tanner. Just what he's done to people.
[00:16:09] Which is?
[00:16:10] Drugs. You name it.
[00:16:14] Well, if you know this, presumably police know this. [community member] Oh, the police know,
[00:16:18] but they've got to get the evidence. -Nobody will come forward. -[Mark] Why not?
[00:16:21] [community member] They're scared. Yeah, people in town have told us
[00:16:25] they don't even wanna mention his name because they fear that
[00:16:28] that could mean trouble for them.
[00:16:31] What impact does Tanner,
[00:16:34] or has Tanner Murray had on the community of Dawson Creek?
[00:16:38] I think he's mostly just instilled a real sense of fear.
[00:16:40] I think until Tanner, you know, sees some accountability,
[00:16:45] I think that that will continue to be an issue.
[00:16:49] [Mark] Murray has never been charged with murder,
[00:16:52] but his criminal record continues to grow.
[00:16:54] This spring, the RCMP in neary Grande Prairie, Alberta,
[00:16:58] pulled over an SUV with stolen license plates.
[00:17:01] Inside the vehicle?
[00:17:03] Tanner Murray, who was wanted for violating his probation.
[00:17:07] The RCMP later turned up a guitar case filled with guns
[00:17:10] and drugs-- cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamines--
[00:17:15] and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
[00:17:18] Murray is now being held without bail.
[00:17:24] We're here at the courthouse in Grande Prairie, Alberta,
[00:17:27] where Tanner Murray is facing a string of criminal charges related to his arrest
[00:17:31] with that guitar case full of guns and drugs.
[00:17:34] Well, his lawyer made an appearance before a judge
[00:17:36] here this morning, saying at this stage,
[00:17:38] Murray will not plead guilty.
[00:17:40] So that means, much to the relief of the people in Dawson Creek,
[00:17:44] Tanner Murray will remain in custody... for now.
[00:17:49] While Murray is in jail, his half-brother isn't.
[00:17:53] This is Jessie Ray Stevens.
[00:17:55] This year, he changed his profile picture to this,
[00:17:58] armed with a Beretta pistol.
[00:18:00] He was in custody until recently,
[00:18:02] when attempted murder charges against him were dropped.
[00:18:05] The witness failed to show up and testify.
[00:18:09] After Murray's arrest in Grande Prairie, Stevens posted this picture.
[00:18:13] It's him with Murray as kids, with an ominous warning...
[00:18:29] Also on the receiving end of threats, Arron Linklater,
[00:18:33] the drug dealer we interviewed this spring.
[00:18:35] He spoke by phone to Fifth Estate producer Timothy Sawa
[00:18:38] days before we returned to Dawson Creek this fall.
[00:19:19] [Mark] When we went back to speak to Linklater this fall,
[00:19:21] we found the RCMP forensics team entering his house.
[00:19:27] Day turned to night before we got an indication
[00:19:30] about what was happening insi.
[00:19:34] We've been outside Arron Linklater's house now
[00:19:36] for several hours, waiting for answers.
[00:19:39] We weren't sure whether the RCMP had taken him into custody
[00:19:42] or charged him with any crimes.
[00:19:44] But just minutes ago, the body removal unit arrived,
[00:19:48] and it became clear to us,
[00:19:49] Arron Linklater would not be leaving his home alive.
[00:20:11] [solemn music]
[00:20:15] Police are calling his death suspicious.
[00:20:18] No one has been charged.
[00:20:21] In our interview, Linklater told us how lethal drugs are used
[00:20:25] to quietly kill people in Dawson Creek.
[00:20:29] Is there a salt shaker in the room? Okay. I'm gonna show you something
[00:20:33] about how much carfentanil it takes to kill a human body.
[00:20:37] That's enough to kill three people.
[00:20:40] So it's an assassin's drug. Guy will come over and party,
[00:20:44] make like you're his best fucking friend in the world. "Hey, man, here's a gram for you,
[00:20:47] here is a gram for you, and here's gram for you.
[00:20:49] But this gram, it's just for you."
[00:20:54] [Mark] Despite the threats, one of the last things Linklater told us?
[00:20:58] He wasn't gonna run from the fear.
[00:21:13] [Mark] We wrapped up our investigation with questions
[00:21:15] for the RCMP at their headquarters in Surrey.
[00:21:19] This time we're sitting down with Staff Sergeant Kris Clar,
[00:21:22] a senior media relations officer in BC.
[00:21:25] We spoke with Superintendent Wijayakoon.
[00:21:29] He said, "Give us six months, and we will have
[00:21:33] a measure of success for the families
[00:21:36] in some of these cases." That was one year ago.
[00:21:39] Since then, there have been no arrests
[00:21:43] in the investigations into the 11 missing or murdered.
[00:21:46] There have been no charges.
[00:21:48] Is this your measure of success?
[00:21:52] So I just actually spoke with Superintendent Wijayakoon
[00:21:55] about this very thing. I think he probably regrets adding a timeline there
[00:21:59] because we're still hopeful
[00:22:02] that we will come to success in some of these investigations,
[00:22:06] and I think we're very close to that still.
[00:22:09] As you build your cases,
[00:22:12] people in town are watching the people
[00:22:14] that they suspect are murderers walking free in the community.
[00:22:17] I think the biggest misconception here is,
[00:22:21] you know, knowing and proving
[00:22:24] are two completely different things.
[00:22:28] We can say that we know this person did it.
[00:22:31] But we need to, and I think more importantly,
[00:22:35] prove that in a court of law
[00:22:37] and successfully prosecute that
[00:22:40] so that the families of the victims do get that justice.
[00:22:45] [Mark] We showed the staff sergeant the photo of Jessie Ray Steve,
[00:22:48] Tanner Murray's half-brother, pointing a pistol.
[00:22:52] What message do you think this picture sends people in the community?
[00:22:56] Well, it's obviously a direct threat.
[00:22:59] Appears to be a direct threat.
[00:23:00] To anyone to speak ill of his brother,
[00:23:04] or to testify against his brother, for example.
[00:23:09] Well, I wouldn't wanna speculate, but...
[00:23:12] it's a general threat.
[00:23:17] [Mark] Days before we went to air,
[00:23:19] the RCMP found another body, this one in a burned-out vehie
[00:23:23] near this area the locals call Dead Man's Curve.
[00:23:26] It's the third body discovered here
[00:23:29] in this bloody string of violence.
[00:23:31] The RCMP is treating this latest case
[00:23:33] as yet another homicide,
[00:23:36] Dawson Creek's 15th.
[00:23:41] Shyann Hambler's two cousins are among
[00:23:43] the murdered in Dawson Creek.
[00:23:46] There's a lot of fear in this town. [Shyann sobs]
[00:23:53] How do you take that fear away? [Shyann] There's somebody behind this,
[00:23:57] and somebody has to know something.
[00:23:58] I just wish that whoever knows this can come forward.
[00:24:02] I'm proud to stand up for them,
[00:24:05] because who else is gonna stand for somebody
[00:24:08] and say something if it's not me?
[00:24:13] [Mark] When you look at the cycle of violence,
[00:24:16] which sort of started shortly after
[00:24:18] you arrived in Dawson Creek,
[00:24:21] do you see it ending any time soon? I do.
[00:24:27] You know, I have to have, like, a belief that people are,
[00:24:30] you know, gonna do the right thing, and I have to have faith
[00:24:33] that people are gonna have a bit more courage, right?
[00:24:36] So, yeah.
[00:24:40] [birds cawing]
[00:24:46] [theme music playing]
[00:24:52] Hi there Canada.
[00:24:56] The funny, not so funny thing about the
[00:24:59] world right now is the thing you maybe didn't see coming.
[00:25:04] My favorite word? Tariff. Minimum 10% tariff on
[00:25:08] all imports. We're already hearing about layoffs. He is
[00:25:12] trying to break us.
[00:25:15] So you have questions. How should Canadians be preparing
[00:25:19] for that next trip? How seriously are you taking
[00:25:22] this threat? How is Hamilton bracing for
[00:25:24] tariff impact? And while your elbows have been
[00:25:27] up, elbows up, for us it's the sleeves rolled
[00:25:30] up. Because you need answers.
[00:25:34] Our journalists countrywide and all over the world are on the
[00:25:38] case. Canada, we got you and we are right
[00:25:42] there, right beside you trying to make
[00:25:45] sense of it with you.
[00:27:53] [sirens blaring]
[00:29:39] ♪
[00:30:32] we're in Vancouver's downtown east side,
[00:30:34] the epicenter of a poison drug crisis in Canada.
[00:30:38] Since 2016, more than 4,000 people have died
[00:30:42] of opioid overdoses in this city.
[00:30:44] More than 50,000 across Canada.
[00:30:47] The main killer is fentanyl.
[00:30:49] [siren wailing]
[00:30:51] I was overdosing, like, upwards of twice a day. I think the way that I'm going now, like,