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[00:01:23] And we begin tonight with the first murder of the year in Dawson Creek.
[00:01:27] [Mark] January 2025.
[00:01:30] Gunfire rings out in Dawson Creek.
[00:01:33] One man is shot at this hotel and survives.
[00:01:36] Across the street,
[00:01:38] another man shot in an apartment isn't so lucky.
[00:01:41] [newscaster] Now, police are not commenting,
[00:01:44] but CJDC TV News has learned
[00:01:46] Johnny Joel Freeman was murdered.
[00:01:49] [Mark] Johnny Joel Freeman,
[00:01:51] a local man with a lengthy criminal record.
[00:01:54] In this case, the Mounties made an arrest.
[00:01:57] 23-year-old Nolan Schmidt was taken into custody
[00:02:00] 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
[00:02:12] and he doesn't have the proper outlets for it, right?
[00:02:15] [Mark] Outreach worker Jan Atkinson believed Schmidt
[00:02:18] was a ticking time bomb with mental health issues.
[00:02:22] Here's Schmidt when he was a kid
[00:02:24] in a video posted on Facebook.
[00:02:27] That's three times, bud. Look at this shit.
[00:02:30] [Mark] And it was clear to Atkinson years ago,
[00:02:32] the ticking time bomb would explode.
[00:02:36] I was upset that he had the opportunity
[00:02:39] 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.
[00:02:49] He did some really bad things.
[00:02:51] [Mark] And one day Atkinson says Schmidt took a run at her
[00:02:54] when he was staying at the shelter where she worked.
[00:02:56] He was pretty angry with me
[00:02:58] and he started running towards me,
[00:03:01] and he was pretty hyped up. And were you afraid for your own safety?
[00:03:05] Yeah, yeah. [Mark] That's when Atkinson wrote this letter.
[00:03:09] Schmidt was going back to jai,
[00:03:11] and Atkinson gave the judge a long list of reasons
[00:03:14] 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.
[00:03:22] I had written a letter to the judge being like,
[00:03:24] "You know, blood's gonna be on your hands."
[00:03:29] If he's released back into the community. If he's released back into the community.
[00:03:32] What was your fear?
[00:03:34] My fear was that he would murder somebody.
[00:03:37] ♪
[00:03:43] Do you like coming out here to get a little peace and quiet?
[00:03:46] Yeah. Usually there's an engine running, but. [chuckles]
[00:03:50] [Mark] Andy Tylosky calls the Peace River region
[00:03:53] "the last of the Wild West."
[00:03:55] He's a farmhand who grew up here.
[00:03:59] He remembers Nolan Schmidt as a kid.
[00:04:04] [Andy] I knew his mom from her days as a bartender in Fort St. John.
[00:04:07] She always spoke about her son, and she was just proud, as proud as could be,
[00:04:11] about this young man. She was the glue in Nolan's life then.
[00:04:14] Yeah, yeah, they were very, very close.
[00:04:18] [Mark] Until she died when Schmidt was 18.
[00:04:22] [Andy] He found her. -What did that do to him? -It just wrecked him.
[00:04:28] He lost his sense of hope. The most important thing to him,
[00:04:31] the only rock he had in his life.
[00:04:33] And he told me at the funeral he just started drinking,
[00:04:39] because that was the only way that it kind of numbed the pain.
[00:04:42] And he never really stopped.
[00:04:45] [Mark] Tylosky remembers years later, Schmidt contacted him from ja.
[00:04:49] He had a sentencing hearing and needed to tell the judge
[00:04:52] he had a place to stay, so Tylosky showed up
[00:04:54] to court to give Schmidt a chance to go straight.
[00:04:59] I was gonna provide him a relatively safe environment,
[00:05:02] as much as I could. But you, at that point in his life,
[00:05:05] -you were his last hope. -Pretty much, yeah.
[00:05:09] [Mark] But Tylosky says within a month
[00:05:11] things started to fall apart.
[00:05:13] -Was he doing drugs? -Oh, he was cracked right out.
[00:05:16] As soon as he got his first welfare check, it went right up the pipe.
[00:05:19] [Mark] When Tylosky accused Schmidt
[00:05:21] of stealing money from him, things got violent.
[00:05:24] [Andy] We're driving just from downtown Fort St. John,
[00:05:27] just happened to be passing the police detachment
[00:05:30] when he pulls my kitchen knife out on me and goes,
[00:05:35] "Give me-- Like, you're not gonna do this with me.
[00:05:37] I will, you know, kill you," basically.
[00:05:42] [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
[00:05:49] with Schmidt for good, assuming he was behind bars.
[00:05:52] But then his phone rang.
[00:05:54] 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.
[00:06:01] But here's a guy...
[00:06:04] who is...
[00:06:07] a loose cannon, who has mental health issues.
[00:06:10] 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.
[00:06:18] And they just release him and say "Good luck"?
[00:06:21] Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess so. That was that.
[00:06:24] We have to remember that police officers are people too,
[00:06:27] and nobody likes to work harder than they have to.
[00:06:29] [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.
[00:06:37] [Mark] Two days later, Johnny Joel Freeman was shot dead.
[00:06:41] Yeah, but it certainly wasn't some sort of coordinated gang attack, I can tell you that much for sure.
[00:06:45] [laughs] And I'm lucky in a lot of ways.
[00:06:47] -[Mark] Could have been you. -It could have been me.
[00:06:52] You know, I think we just all lost a little bit more faith
[00:06:55] in the system that we're supposed to trust.
[00:06:58] And until we can trust the system,
[00:07:00] people aren't gonna have trust in coming forward.
[00:07:03] Nothing's gonna happen. -[Mark] Nothing gonna change. -No.
[00:07:07] [Mark] Some things never change.
[00:07:10] Four months later in Dawson Creek, another murder.
[00:07:14] It was mid-April when police discovered an abandoned truck
[00:07:18] on this lonely stretch of dirt road southwest of town.
[00:07:22] Inside the truck, the body of Emily Ogden.
[00:07:25] The RCMP gave her the unlucky distinction:
[00:07:29] she was Dawson Creek's murder victim number 13.
[00:07:34] That abandoned truck belonged to a well-known drug dealer
[00:07:36] in Dawson Creek, and a familiar name to us:
[00:07:40] Arron Linklater. It had been just over a year
[00:07:44] since five people stormed his house with guns in the middle of the night.
[00:07:48] But time hadn't erased Linklater's lasting memory of that violent night.
[00:07:52] There was a girl in the situation.
[00:07:54] She was laughing at me. I'll never forget her laugh.
[00:07:58] [Mark] That girl was Emily Ogden,
[00:08:01] Dawson Creek's 13th murder victim.
[00:08:03] Let me take you back to the home invasion-- Absolutely.
[00:08:07] Because the woman who laughed in your face
[00:08:09] -is Emily Ogden. -Yep. She's dead.
[00:08:12] She winds up dead and her body's found in your truck.
[00:08:15] Yep. My house was broken into and my truck was stolen.
[00:08:18] I was drunk, came home.
[00:08:19] I had no idea what exactly the circumstances are to it.
[00:08:23] I was blown away, 'cause I woke up
[00:08:25] really, really intoxicated still. Then I got taken into custody.
[00:08:29] I had no idea of all the details. It was like--
[00:08:32] You have no idea that Emily Ogden was dead? -No. -Do you have anything
[00:08:36] -to do with her death? -No. But you know that you're a suspect.
[00:08:39] -Yeah, prime. -Prime suspect.
[00:08:44] But the police aren't the only ones
[00:08:46] who think Linklater killed Emily Ogden.
[00:08:48] He says everyone in town believes that too,
[00:08:51] 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,
[00:09:01] that our lives are directly in jeopardy.
[00:09:03] -Somebody wants to kill you. -Yeah.
[00:09:06] And I just told them to get in their Jeep,
[00:09:08] and I said, "Can you guys go around the block
[00:09:11] and park right over by the neighbour's house?
[00:09:13] Because that's where the line up to kill me begins.
[00:09:16] 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.
[00:09:24] Another unsolved murder, and every indication
[00:09:27] the cycle of violence would continue.
[00:09:30] We live in a farming community,
[00:09:31] but it's like, we have this new generation of entitled children.
[00:09:36] -Do you know what I mean? -[Mark] Entitled and armed.
[00:09:38] Entitled and armed, and it's just,
[00:09:42] I've never seen anything like it.
[00:09:45] [Mark] When we come back, we follow a new lead
[00:09:48] 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.
[00:09:55] We're asking questions about the disappearance of Cole Hosack.
[00:10:06] The moment you believe the whole world is actually a
[00:10:09] facade, then it gets so hellishly
[00:10:11] dangerous. We'd like to find a way to get in there.
[00:10:14] Especially if Jessica was living in there. Walk me
[00:10:17] through that day. You knock on the door,
[00:10:19] tell me everything. I think the pink. Yeah,
[00:10:22] the pink one with the balcony. That's the hotel. And when you
[00:10:25] say kids are going to suffer, you were not talking
[00:10:28] hypothetically. You were suffering. I watched kids
[00:10:31] suffer. It's debilitating. It's scary. And they're trying to
[00:10:34] hide that fear of is my child dead or alive?
[00:10:36] Imagine you're a kid coming from school. They could walk
[00:10:39] upon you like this.
[00:10:42] All it takes is this and your influence. You're saying that
[00:10:46] the only time family members came was one thing. They're
[00:10:49] lying because they won the key. Why would they lie?
[00:10:52] Why wouldn't her doctor line? The biggest part of it was that
[00:10:55] we haven't been listened to. They just didn't listen.
[00:10:58] There's never been a worse time to call this referendum. Quebec
[00:11:02] separatists, Alberta separatists. It's like,
[00:11:04] no, we're just regular folk that
[00:11:06] want to free and independent country. How many workers are
[00:11:10] in this IT army? Somewhere between 2:00 to 5:00
[00:11:12] 1000. It seems pretty clear that it's definitely in the
[00:11:15] thousands. How cool are are you in North Korea right now?
[00:11:19] No. Are you North Korean? Sounds like he was inside. Yeah,
[00:11:23] he's because she said he wasn't interested. But how would that
[00:11:26] have happened? Right. Yeah. I'm gonna approach.
[00:11:29] OK. You want? Are you OK going on your own?
[00:11:34] Watch my back.
[00:13:52] of Canada's Wild West, then there's a growing need
[00:13:55] for a sheriff to ride into town and clean it up.
[00:14:01] With 13 homicides in four yea,
[00:14:03] Dawson Creek now has a murder rate
[00:14:06] 14 times the national average.
[00:14:11] Families of the victims continue to wait for answers.
[00:14:16] It's a wait that aches.
[00:14:19] Take the case of Cole Hosack.
[00:14:21] He's been missing for almost two years.
[00:14:24] He was passing through Dawson Creek
[00:14:26] when he stopped at a bar to ring in the New Year. The police have confirmed
[00:14:30] there was an altercation outside the bar. And then what happened?
[00:14:34] And then he's just never seen again.
[00:14:37] [Mark] But how could he just disappear? Exactly.
[00:14:41] [Mark] His mother, Julie Hosack, has been pleading for help,
[00:14:44] searching for answers ever since.
[00:14:46] I could feel that there's fear in Dawson Creek right from the beginning.
[00:14:51] [Mark] The Fifth Estate has learned late last year
[00:14:54] the Mounties arrested and questioned a suspect in the case:
[00:14:58] Matt Lawton.
[00:15:00] We also learned the last persn Cole Hosack called
[00:15:03] the night of his disappearance was the same Matt Lawton,
[00:15:07] a suspected drug dealer in Dawson Creek.
[00:15:10] So we went to Lawton's house armed with questions.
[00:15:14] Hey, Matt. My name is Mark Kelley, I'm with the CBC program The Fifth Estate.
[00:15:18] We're asking questions about the disappearance of Cole Hosack.
[00:15:23] [Mark] His family is looking for answers,
[00:15:25] and we are just looking for your help to explain
[00:15:28] about what happened that night.
[00:15:32] [Mark] He had your phone number.
[00:15:34] He made a call to you. It was the last call he made.
[00:15:39] [Mark] Why would he have your number?
[00:15:44] We don't know where he is, Matt. His family is looking for answers.
[00:15:52] [Mark] In the end, the Mounties released Lawton without charg.
[00:15:56] The RCMP now say they are treating
[00:15:58] Hosack's disappearance as a murder.
[00:16:00] The case remains unsolved, and still no sign of his body.
[00:16:07] Behind the fear in Dawson Cre,
[00:16:09] there is one name that rises above the rest:
[00:16:12] Tanner Murray, the infamous repeat offender,
[00:16:15] arrested last year with a small arsenal of weapons.
[00:16:19] And the more people learn about Murray and his criminal convictions,
[00:16:22] the more suspicious they've become. Do you think Tanner Murray had something to do
[00:16:26] with Renee's death? No comment.
[00:16:31] Are you afraid that commenting on that could get you more death threats?
[00:16:35] Yes. 100%.
[00:16:39] I don't personally know Tanner. Just what he's done to people.
[00:16:44] Which is?
[00:16:46] Drugs. You name it.
[00:16:49] Well, if you know this, presumably police know this. [community member] Oh, the police know,
[00:16:53] but they've got to get the evidence. -Nobody will come forward. -[Mark] Why not?
[00:16:56] [community member] They're scared. Yeah, people in town have told us
[00:17:00] they don't even wanna mention his name because they fear that
[00:17:03] that could mean trouble for them.
[00:17:06] What impact does Tanner,
[00:17:09] or has Tanner Murray had on the community of Dawson Creek?
[00:17:13] I think he's mostly just instilled a real sense of fear.
[00:17:15] I think until Tanner, you know, sees some accountability,
[00:17:20] I think that that will continue to be an issue.
[00:17:24] [Mark] Murray has never been charged with murder,
[00:17:27] but his criminal record continues to grow.
[00:17:30] This spring, the RCMP in neary Grande Prairie, Alberta,
[00:17:33] pulled over an SUV with stolen license plates.
[00:17:36] Inside the vehicle?
[00:17:38] Tanner Murray, who was wanted for violating his probation.
[00:17:42] The RCMP later turned up a guitar case filled with guns
[00:17:46] and drugs-- cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamines--
[00:17:50] and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
[00:17:53] Murray is now being held without bail.
[00:17:59] We're here at the courthouse in Grande Prairie, Alberta,
[00:18:02] where Tanner Murray is facing a string of criminal charges related to his arrest
[00:18:06] with that guitar case full of guns and drugs.
[00:18:09] Well, his lawyer made an appearance before a judge
[00:18:11] here this morning, saying at this stage,
[00:18:13] Murray will not plead guilty.
[00:18:16] So that means, much to the relief of the people in Dawson Creek,
[00:18:20] Tanner Murray will remain in custody... for now.
[00:18:25] While Murray is in jail, his half-brother isn't.
[00:18:28] This is Jessie Ray Stevens.
[00:18:30] This year, he changed his profile picture to this,
[00:18:33] armed with a Beretta pistol.
[00:18:35] He was in custody until recently,
[00:18:38] when attempted murder charges against him were dropped.
[00:18:41] The witness failed to show up and testify.
[00:18:44] After Murray's arrest in Grande Prairie, Stevens posted this picture.
[00:18:48] It's him with Murray as kids, with an ominous warning...
[00:19:05] Also on the receiving end of threats, Arron Linklater,
[00:19:08] the drug dealer we interviewed this spring.
[00:19:10] He spoke by phone to Fifth Estate producer Timothy Sawa
[00:19:14] days before we returned to Dawson Creek this fall.
[00:19:54] [Mark] When we went back to speak to Linklater this fall,
[00:19:56] we found the RCMP forensics team entering his house.
[00:20:02] Day turned to night before we got an indication
[00:20:05] about what was happening insi.
[00:20:09] We've been outside Arron Linklater's house now
[00:20:12] for several hours, waiting for answers.
[00:20:14] We weren't sure whether the RCMP had taken him into custody
[00:20:18] or charged him with any crimes.
[00:20:20] But just minutes ago, the body removal unit arrived,
[00:20:23] and it became clear to us,
[00:20:25] Arron Linklater would not be leaving his home alive.
[00:20:47] [solemn music]
[00:20:50] Police are calling his death suspicious.
[00:20:53] No one has been charged.
[00:20:56] In our interview, Linklater told us how lethal drugs are used
[00:21:00] to quietly kill people in Dawson Creek.
[00:21:05] Is there a salt shaker in the room? Okay. I'm gonna show you something
[00:21:08] about how much carfentanil it takes to kill a human body.
[00:21:12] That's enough to kill three people.
[00:21:15] So it's an assassin's drug. Guy will come over and party,
[00:21:19] make like you're his best fucking friend in the world. "Hey, man, here's a gram for you,
[00:21:22] here is a gram for you, and here's gram for you.
[00:21:24] But this gram, it's just for you."
[00:21:29] [Mark] Despite the threats, one of the last things Linklater told us?
[00:21:33] He wasn't gonna run from the fear.
[00:21:48] [Mark] We wrapped up our investigation with questions
[00:21:50] for the RCMP at their headquarters in Surrey.
[00:21:54] This time we're sitting down with Staff Sergeant Kris Clar,
[00:21:57] a senior media relations officer in BC.
[00:22:01] We spoke with Superintendent Wijayakoon.
[00:22:04] He said, "Give us six months, and we will have
[00:22:08] a measure of success for the families
[00:22:11] in some of these cases." That was one year ago.
[00:22:15] Since then, there have been no arrests
[00:22:18] in the investigations into the 11 missing or murdered.
[00:22:21] There have been no charges.
[00:22:23] Is this your measure of success?
[00:22:27] So I just actually spoke with Superintendent Wijayakoon
[00:22:30] about this very thing. I think he probably regrets adding a timeline there
[00:22:34] because we're still hopeful
[00:22:37] that we will come to success in some of these investigations,
[00:22:41] and I think we're very close to that still.
[00:22:44] As you build your cases,
[00:22:47] people in town are watching the people
[00:22:49] that they suspect are murderers walking free in the community.
[00:22:52] I think the biggest misconception here is,
[00:22:56] you know, knowing and proving
[00:23:00] are two completely different things.
[00:23:04] We can say that we know this person did it.
[00:23:06] But we need to, and I think more importantly,
[00:23:10] prove that in a court of law
[00:23:12] and successfully prosecute that
[00:23:15] so that the families of the victims do get that justice.
[00:23:20] [Mark] We showed the staff sergeant the photo of Jessie Ray Steve,
[00:23:23] Tanner Murray's half-brother, pointing a pistol.
[00:23:27] What message do you think this picture sends people in the community?
[00:23:31] Well, it's obviously a direct threat.
[00:23:34] Appears to be a direct threat.
[00:23:35] To anyone to speak ill of his brother,
[00:23:39] or to testify against his brother, for example.
[00:23:44] Well, I wouldn't wanna speculate, but...
[00:23:47] it's a general threat.
[00:23:52] [Mark] Days before we went to air,
[00:23:54] the RCMP found another body, this one in a burned-out vehie
[00:23:58] near this area the locals call Dead Man's Curve.
[00:24:02] It's the third body discovered here
[00:24:04] in this bloody string of violence.
[00:24:06] The RCMP is treating this latest case
[00:24:09] as yet another homicide,
[00:24:11] Dawson Creek's 15th.
[00:24:16] Shyann Hambler's two cousins are among
[00:24:18] the murdered in Dawson Creek.
[00:24:21] There's a lot of fear in this town. [Shyann sobs]
[00:24:28] How do you take that fear away? [Shyann] There's somebody behind this,
[00:24:32] and somebody has to know something.
[00:24:33] I just wish that whoever knows this can come forward.
[00:24:37] I'm proud to stand up for them,
[00:24:40] because who else is gonna stand for somebody
[00:24:43] and say something if it's not me?
[00:24:48] [Mark] When you look at the cycle of violence,
[00:24:51] which sort of started shortly after
[00:24:53] you arrived in Dawson Creek,
[00:24:56] do you see it ending any time soon? I do.
[00:25:02] You know, I have to have, like, a belief that people are,
[00:25:05] you know, gonna do the right thing, and I have to have faith
[00:25:08] that people are gonna have a bit more courage, right?
[00:25:11] So, yeah.
[00:25:15] [birds cawing]
[00:25:21] [theme music playing]
[00:27:28] [sirens blaring]
[00:30:25] I'm Adrian Arceneaux, chief correspondent for CBC News. Here's what's making news right now.
[00:30:32] >> Deana: SHELL OWE. I'M ASSUME -- HELLO.
[00:30:36] I'M ASSUME -- HELLO. I'M DEANA SUMANAC-JOHNSON.
[00:30:38] I'M DEANA SUMANAC-JOHNSON. WELCOME INSIDE THE CBC NEWS
[00:30:42] WELCOME INSIDE THE CBC NEWS ROOM.
[00:30:43] ROOM. FOUR CANADIANS ARE ON BOARD A
[00:30:47] FOUR CANADIANS ARE ON BOARD A PASSENGER FLIGHT EN ROUTE TO
[00:30:54] PASSENGER FLIGHT EN ROUTE TO BOSTON.
[00:30:56] BOSTON. IT NOW AAPPEARS THAT THE
[00:30:59] IT NOW AAPPEARS THAT THE U.S. -- APPEARS THAT THE U.S.