Original Broadcaster Captioning (Enhanced). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:01:23And we begin tonight with the first murder of the year in Dawson Creek.
00:01:27[Mark] January 2025.
00:01:30Gunfire rings out in Dawson Creek.
00:01:33One man is shot at this hotel and survives.
00:01:36Across the street,
00:01:38another man shot in an apartment isn't so lucky.
00:01:41[newscaster] Now, police are not commenting,
00:01:44but CJDC TV News has learned
00:01:46Johnny Joel Freeman was murdered.
00:01:49[Mark] Johnny Joel Freeman,
00:01:51a local man with a lengthy criminal record.
00:01:54In this case, the Mounties made an arrest.
00:01:5723-year-old Nolan Schmidt was taken into custody
00:02:00the night of the murder. And yet what finally seemed like a win
00:02:03for the Mounties was anything but.
00:02:06I think that he is just an individual
00:02:09that feels rage
00:02:12and he doesn't have the proper outlets for it, right?
00:02:15[Mark] Outreach worker Jan Atkinson believed Schmidt
00:02:18was a ticking time bomb with mental health issues.
00:02:22Here's Schmidt when he was a kid
00:02:24in a video posted on Facebook.
00:02:27That's three times, bud. Look at this shit.
00:02:30[Mark] And it was clear to Atkinson years ago,
00:02:32the ticking time bomb would explode.
00:02:36I was upset that he had the opportunity
00:02:39to even be out in the community. He'd been caught with weapons in the car.
00:02:42He was a drug runner, he's a drug dealer. [Jan] I think he was a drug runner.
00:02:46He hung around with some bad guys.
00:02:49He did some really bad things.
00:02:51[Mark] And one day Atkinson says Schmidt took a run at her
00:02:54when he was staying at the shelter where she worked.
00:02:56He was pretty angry with me
00:02:58and he started running towards me,
00:03:01and he was pretty hyped up. And were you afraid for your own safety?
00:03:05Yeah, yeah. [Mark] That's when Atkinson wrote this letter.
00:03:09Schmidt was going back to jai,
00:03:11and Atkinson gave the judge a long list of reasons
00:03:14why he needed to stay there and get help.
00:03:16"I am begging the courts to remand
00:03:18Mr. Schmidt into custody," she wrote.
00:03:22I had written a letter to the judge being like,
00:03:24"You know, blood's gonna be on your hands."
00:03:29If he's released back into the community. If he's released back into the community.
00:03:32What was your fear?
00:03:34My fear was that he would murder somebody.
00:03:37♪
00:03:43Do you like coming out here to get a little peace and quiet?
00:03:46Yeah. 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."
00:03:55He's a farmhand who grew up here.
00:03:59He remembers Nolan Schmidt as a kid.
00:04:04[Andy] I knew his mom from her days as a bartender in Fort St. John.
00:04:07She always spoke about her son, and she was just proud, as proud as could be,
00:04:11about this young man. She was the glue in Nolan's life then.
00:04:14Yeah, 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.
00:04:28He lost his sense of hope. The most important thing to him,
00:04:31the only rock he had in his life.
00:04:33And he told me at the funeral he just started drinking,
00:04:39because that was the only way that it kind of numbed the pain.
00:04:42And he never really stopped.
00:04:45[Mark] Tylosky remembers years later, Schmidt contacted him from ja.
00:04:49He had a sentencing hearing and needed to tell the judge
00:04:52he had a place to stay, so Tylosky showed up
00:04:54to court to give Schmidt a chance to go straight.
00:04:59I was gonna provide him a relatively safe environment,
00:05:02as 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
00:05:11things started to fall apart.
00:05:13-Was he doing drugs? -Oh, he was cracked right out.
00:05:16As soon as he got his first welfare check, it went right up the pipe.
00:05:19[Mark] When Tylosky accused Schmidt
00:05:21of stealing money from him, things got violent.
00:05:24[Andy] We're driving just from downtown Fort St. John,
00:05:27just happened to be passing the police detachment
00:05:30when he pulls my kitchen knife out on me and goes,
00:05:35"Give me-- Like, you're not gonna do this with me.
00:05:37I will, you know, kill you," basically.
00:05:42[Mark] The police in nearby Fort St John
00:05:43defused the situation and took Schmidt into custody.
00:05:46At that point, Tylosky thought he was done
00:05:49with Schmidt for good, assuming he was behind bars.
00:05:52But then his phone rang.
00:05:54Two hours later, I get a call from him: "They've released me.
00:05:57They just wanna get rid of me out of the jail." Like, they didn't wanna deal with him.
00:06:01But here's a guy...
00:06:04who is...
00:06:07a loose cannon, who has mental health issues.
00:06:10I 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.
00:06:18And they just release him and say "Good luck"?
00:06:21Mm-hmm. Yeah, I guess so. That was that.
00:06:24We have to remember that police officers are people too,
00:06:27and 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,
00:06:32a lot of trouble for them to deal with.
00:06:37[Mark] Two days later, Johnny Joel Freeman was shot dead.
00:06:41Yeah, 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.
00:06:52You know, I think we just all lost a little bit more faith
00:06:55in the system that we're supposed to trust.
00:06:58And until we can trust the system,
00:07:00people aren't gonna have trust in coming forward.
00:07:03Nothing's gonna happen. -[Mark] Nothing gonna change. -No.
00:07:07[Mark] Some things never change.
00:07:10Four months later in Dawson Creek, another murder.
00:07:14It was mid-April when police discovered an abandoned truck
00:07:18on this lonely stretch of dirt road southwest of town.
00:07:22Inside the truck, the body of Emily Ogden.
00:07:25The RCMP gave her the unlucky distinction:
00:07:29she was Dawson Creek's murder victim number 13.
00:07:34That abandoned truck belonged to a well-known drug dealer
00:07:36in Dawson Creek, and a familiar name to us:
00:07:40Arron Linklater. It had been just over a year
00:07:44since five people stormed his house with guns in the middle of the night.
00:07:48But time hadn't erased Linklater's lasting memory of that violent night.
00:07:52There was a girl in the situation.
00:07:54She was laughing at me. I'll never forget her laugh.
00:07:58[Mark] That girl was Emily Ogden,
00:08:01Dawson Creek's 13th murder victim.
00:08:03Let me take you back to the home invasion-- Absolutely.
00:08:07Because the woman who laughed in your face
00:08:09-is Emily Ogden. -Yep. She's dead.
00:08:12She winds up dead and her body's found in your truck.
00:08:15Yep. My house was broken into and my truck was stolen.
00:08:18I was drunk, came home.
00:08:19I had no idea what exactly the circumstances are to it.
00:08:23I was blown away, 'cause I woke up
00:08:25really, really intoxicated still. Then I got taken into custody.
00:08:29I had no idea of all the details. It was like--
00:08:32You 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.
00:08:44But the police aren't the only ones
00:08:46who think Linklater killed Emily Ogden.
00:08:48He says everyone in town believes that too,
00:08:51including Emily's criminal friends.
00:08:53Do you walk around now with a bulletproof vest? -I do. -Why?
00:08:57Major Crimes came here and said that my ex-girlfriend and I,
00:09:01that our lives are directly in jeopardy.
00:09:03-Somebody wants to kill you. -Yeah.
00:09:06And I just told them to get in their Jeep,
00:09:08and I said, "Can you guys go around the block
00:09:11and park right over by the neighbour's house?
00:09:13Because that's where the line up to kill me begins.
00:09:16Get the fuck off my property."
00:09:19[Mark] By April of 2025,
00:09:21the police had their hands full in Dawson Creek.
00:09:24Another unsolved murder, and every indication
00:09:27the cycle of violence would continue.
00:09:30We live in a farming community,
00:09:31but it's like, we have this new generation of entitled children.
00:09:36-Do you know what I mean? -[Mark] Entitled and armed.
00:09:38Entitled and armed, and it's just,
00:09:42I've never seen anything like it.
00:09:45[Mark] When we come back, we follow a new lead
00:09:48in the mysterious disappearane of this man from Dawson Creek.
00:09:51My name is Mark Kelley. I'm with the CBC program The Fifth Estate.
00:09:55We're asking questions about the disappearance of Cole Hosack.
00:10:06The moment you believe the whole world is actually a
00:10:09facade, then it gets so hellishly
00:10:11dangerous. We'd like to find a way to get in there.
00:10:14Especially if Jessica was living in there. Walk me
00:10:17through that day. You knock on the door,
00:10:19tell me everything. I think the pink. Yeah,
00:10:22the pink one with the balcony. That's the hotel. And when you
00:10:25say kids are going to suffer, you were not talking
00:10:28hypothetically. You were suffering. I watched kids
00:10:31suffer. It's debilitating. It's scary. And they're trying to
00:10:34hide that fear of is my child dead or alive?
00:10:36Imagine you're a kid coming from school. They could walk
00:10:39upon you like this.
00:10:42All it takes is this and your influence. You're saying that
00:10:46the only time family members came was one thing. They're
00:10:49lying because they won the key. Why would they lie?
00:10:52Why wouldn't her doctor line? The biggest part of it was that
00:10:55we haven't been listened to. They just didn't listen.
00:10:58There's never been a worse time to call this referendum. Quebec
00:11:02separatists, Alberta separatists. It's like,
00:11:04no, we're just regular folk that
00:11:06want to free and independent country. How many workers are
00:11:10in this IT army? Somewhere between 2:00 to 5:00
00:11:121000. It seems pretty clear that it's definitely in the
00:11:15thousands. How cool are are you in North Korea right now?
00:11:19No. Are you North Korean? Sounds like he was inside. Yeah,
00:11:23he's because she said he wasn't interested. But how would that
00:11:26have happened? Right. Yeah. I'm gonna approach.
00:11:29OK. You want? Are you OK going on your own?
00:11:34Watch my back.
00:13:52of Canada's Wild West, then there's a growing need
00:13:55for a sheriff to ride into town and clean it up.
00:14:01With 13 homicides in four yea,
00:14:03Dawson Creek now has a murder rate
00:14:0614 times the national average.
00:14:11Families of the victims continue to wait for answers.
00:14:16It's a wait that aches.
00:14:19Take the case of Cole Hosack.
00:14:21He's been missing for almost two years.
00:14:24He was passing through Dawson Creek
00:14:26when he stopped at a bar to ring in the New Year. The police have confirmed
00:14:30there was an altercation outside the bar. And then what happened?
00:14:34And 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,
00:14:44searching for answers ever since.
00:14:46I 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
00:14:54the Mounties arrested and questioned a suspect in the case:
00:14:58Matt Lawton.
00:15:00We also learned the last persn Cole Hosack called
00:15:03the night of his disappearance was the same Matt Lawton,
00:15:07a suspected drug dealer in Dawson Creek.
00:15:10So we went to Lawton's house armed with questions.
00:15:14Hey, Matt. My name is Mark Kelley, I'm with the CBC program The Fifth Estate.
00:15:18We're asking questions about the disappearance of Cole Hosack.
00:15:23[Mark] His family is looking for answers,
00:15:25and we are just looking for your help to explain
00:15:28about what happened that night.
00:15:32[Mark] He had your phone number.
00:15:34He made a call to you. It was the last call he made.
00:15:39[Mark] Why would he have your number?
00:15:44We 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.
00:15:56The RCMP now say they are treating
00:15:58Hosack's disappearance as a murder.
00:16:00The case remains unsolved, and still no sign of his body.
00:16:07Behind the fear in Dawson Cre,
00:16:09there is one name that rises above the rest:
00:16:12Tanner Murray, the infamous repeat offender,
00:16:15arrested last year with a small arsenal of weapons.
00:16:19And the more people learn about Murray and his criminal convictions,
00:16:22the more suspicious they've become. Do you think Tanner Murray had something to do
00:16:26with Renee's death? No comment.
00:16:31Are you afraid that commenting on that could get you more death threats?
00:16:35Yes. 100%.
00:16:39I don't personally know Tanner. Just what he's done to people.
00:16:44Which is?
00:16:46Drugs. You name it.
00:16:49Well, if you know this, presumably police know this. [community member] Oh, the police know,
00:16:53but 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
00:17:00they don't even wanna mention his name because they fear that
00:17:03that could mean trouble for them.
00:17:06What impact does Tanner,
00:17:09or has Tanner Murray had on the community of Dawson Creek?
00:17:13I think he's mostly just instilled a real sense of fear.
00:17:15I think until Tanner, you know, sees some accountability,
00:17:20I think that that will continue to be an issue.
00:17:24[Mark] Murray has never been charged with murder,
00:17:27but his criminal record continues to grow.
00:17:30This spring, the RCMP in neary Grande Prairie, Alberta,
00:17:33pulled over an SUV with stolen license plates.
00:17:36Inside the vehicle?
00:17:38Tanner Murray, who was wanted for violating his probation.
00:17:42The RCMP later turned up a guitar case filled with guns
00:17:46and drugs-- cocaine, fentanyl, methamphetamines--
00:17:50and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
00:17:53Murray is now being held without bail.
00:17:59We're here at the courthouse in Grande Prairie, Alberta,
00:18:02where Tanner Murray is facing a string of criminal charges related to his arrest
00:18:06with that guitar case full of guns and drugs.
00:18:09Well, his lawyer made an appearance before a judge
00:18:11here this morning, saying at this stage,
00:18:13Murray will not plead guilty.
00:18:16So that means, much to the relief of the people in Dawson Creek,
00:18:20Tanner Murray will remain in custody... for now.
00:18:25While Murray is in jail, his half-brother isn't.
00:18:28This is Jessie Ray Stevens.
00:18:30This year, he changed his profile picture to this,
00:18:33armed with a Beretta pistol.
00:18:35He was in custody until recently,
00:18:38when attempted murder charges against him were dropped.
00:18:41The witness failed to show up and testify.
00:18:44After Murray's arrest in Grande Prairie, Stevens posted this picture.
00:18:48It's him with Murray as kids, with an ominous warning...
00:19:05Also on the receiving end of threats, Arron Linklater,
00:19:08the drug dealer we interviewed this spring.
00:19:10He spoke by phone to Fifth Estate producer Timothy Sawa
00:19:14days before we returned to Dawson Creek this fall.
00:19:54[Mark] When we went back to speak to Linklater this fall,
00:19:56we found the RCMP forensics team entering his house.
00:20:02Day turned to night before we got an indication
00:20:05about what was happening insi.
00:20:09We've been outside Arron Linklater's house now
00:20:12for several hours, waiting for answers.
00:20:14We weren't sure whether the RCMP had taken him into custody
00:20:18or charged him with any crimes.
00:20:20But just minutes ago, the body removal unit arrived,
00:20:23and it became clear to us,
00:20:25Arron Linklater would not be leaving his home alive.
00:20:47[solemn music]
00:20:50Police are calling his death suspicious.
00:20:53No one has been charged.
00:20:56In our interview, Linklater told us how lethal drugs are used
00:21:00to quietly kill people in Dawson Creek.
00:21:05Is there a salt shaker in the room? Okay. I'm gonna show you something
00:21:08about how much carfentanil it takes to kill a human body.
00:21:12That's enough to kill three people.
00:21:15So it's an assassin's drug. Guy will come over and party,
00:21:19make like you're his best fucking friend in the world. "Hey, man, here's a gram for you,
00:21:22here is a gram for you, and here's gram for you.
00:21:24But this gram, it's just for you."
00:21:29[Mark] Despite the threats, one of the last things Linklater told us?
00:21:33He wasn't gonna run from the fear.
00:21:48[Mark] We wrapped up our investigation with questions
00:21:50for the RCMP at their headquarters in Surrey.
00:21:54This time we're sitting down with Staff Sergeant Kris Clar,
00:21:57a senior media relations officer in BC.
00:22:01We spoke with Superintendent Wijayakoon.
00:22:04He said, "Give us six months, and we will have
00:22:08a measure of success for the families
00:22:11in some of these cases." That was one year ago.
00:22:15Since then, there have been no arrests
00:22:18in the investigations into the 11 missing or murdered.
00:22:21There have been no charges.
00:22:23Is this your measure of success?
00:22:27So I just actually spoke with Superintendent Wijayakoon
00:22:30about this very thing. I think he probably regrets adding a timeline there
00:22:34because we're still hopeful
00:22:37that we will come to success in some of these investigations,
00:22:41and I think we're very close to that still.
00:22:44As you build your cases,
00:22:47people in town are watching the people
00:22:49that they suspect are murderers walking free in the community.
00:22:52I think the biggest misconception here is,
00:22:56you know, knowing and proving
00:23:00are two completely different things.
00:23:04We can say that we know this person did it.
00:23:06But we need to, and I think more importantly,
00:23:10prove that in a court of law
00:23:12and successfully prosecute that
00:23:15so 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,
00:23:23Tanner Murray's half-brother, pointing a pistol.
00:23:27What message do you think this picture sends people in the community?
00:23:31Well, it's obviously a direct threat.
00:23:34Appears to be a direct threat.
00:23:35To anyone to speak ill of his brother,
00:23:39or to testify against his brother, for example.
00:23:44Well, I wouldn't wanna speculate, but...
00:23:47it's a general threat.
00:23:52[Mark] Days before we went to air,
00:23:54the RCMP found another body, this one in a burned-out vehie
00:23:58near this area the locals call Dead Man's Curve.
00:24:02It's the third body discovered here
00:24:04in this bloody string of violence.
00:24:06The RCMP is treating this latest case
00:24:09as yet another homicide,
00:24:11Dawson Creek's 15th.
00:24:16Shyann Hambler's two cousins are among
00:24:18the murdered in Dawson Creek.
00:24:21There's a lot of fear in this town. [Shyann sobs]
00:24:28How do you take that fear away? [Shyann] There's somebody behind this,
00:24:32and somebody has to know something.
00:24:33I just wish that whoever knows this can come forward.
00:24:37I'm proud to stand up for them,
00:24:40because who else is gonna stand for somebody
00:24:43and say something if it's not me?
00:24:48[Mark] When you look at the cycle of violence,
00:24:51which sort of started shortly after
00:24:53you arrived in Dawson Creek,
00:24:56do you see it ending any time soon? I do.
00:25:02You know, I have to have, like, a belief that people are,
00:25:05you know, gonna do the right thing, and I have to have faith
00:25:08that people are gonna have a bit more courage, right?
00:25:11So, yeah.
00:25:15[birds cawing]
00:25:21[theme music playing]
00:27:28[sirens blaring]
00:30:25I'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.
00:30:36I'M ASSUME -- HELLO. I'M DEANA SUMANAC-JOHNSON.
00:30:38I'M DEANA SUMANAC-JOHNSON. WELCOME INSIDE THE CBC NEWS
00:30:42WELCOME INSIDE THE CBC NEWS ROOM.
00:30:43ROOM. FOUR CANADIANS ARE ON BOARD A
00:30:47FOUR CANADIANS ARE ON BOARD A PASSENGER FLIGHT EN ROUTE TO
00:30:54PASSENGER FLIGHT EN ROUTE TO BOSTON.
00:30:56BOSTON. IT NOW AAPPEARS THAT THE
00:30:59IT NOW AAPPEARS THAT THE U.S. -- APPEARS THAT THE U.S.