CHAPTER
7
Lucille Zeller was inside her small family gas station in sleepy Exshaw, where the prairies of Alberta fade into the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, listening to the wireless. Two cops had been shot dead, way east on the prairies somewhere, and the fugitive gunmen—three of them—were thought to be driving west in a stolen, unmarked RCMP car with plate number MB 29–812. Lucille raised her head and looked out the window at three rough-looking guys at the pumps. “Oh God,” she thought. “That’s the car! MB 29–812.”
She rushed out to warn her husband, Roy, who was at the pump. But before she got Roy’s attention, the men drove off, heading farther west towards Banff. Even before Lucille opened her mouth, her husband told her that there was something suspicious about the three men. They had only asked for one gallon of gas, a very unusual request. It was 7:30 p.m. on October 7, 1935. Thoroughly shaken, Roy called the RCMP in Banff.
For the past two days, the fugitives had been running undetected across the prairies, from the Manitoba–Saskatchewan border to the edge of the Rockies. Roy’s phone call put the RCMP back on their trail.
It all began when three masked men attempted an armed robbery at the Fawcett and Smith General Store in Benito, a tiny prairie town in Manitoba, almost on the Saskatchewan border. After pistol-whipping the storeowner, they made their getaway in an open touring car.
Three little villages sit slightly separated in a row along Highway 49, with Benito to the east, Arran in the middle and Pelley to the west. The border between the two provinces cuts Highway 49 between Benito and Arran, and you can drive through all three towns in just a few minutes.
Soon after midnight, in the first few minutes of October 5, the town constable of Benito, Constable William Wainwright, was on patrol with his partner, Constable John Shaw, of the Swan River RCMP detachment in Manitoba. They were in Shaw’s unmarked RCMP car when they stopped the open touring car carrying the three men and discovered it was an unlicensed vehicle. It was a trivial traffic violation, and after checking the identities of the men, the two officers let them drive away. The three in the car were young men, sons of first-generation Doukhobor immigrants. They were Joe Posnikoff, 20, John Kalmakoff, 21, and Peter Woiken, 17.
Shortly after releasing the three, Constable Wainwright and Constable Shaw realized that the men they’d just let slip through their fingers were almost certainly the bandits who’d held up the Benito store at gunpoint. The two officers immediately set off along Highway 49 to try to catch up to the vehicle again. Soon after 4 a.m., they found it on a back street in Arran, where their robbery suspects had obviously been enjoying themselves at the local dance. A fourth man, Paul Bugero, as well as two girls from the dance, had joined them. This time, the officers arrested the three men, leaving Paul Bugero and the girls in Arran to drive home in the open touring car.
Neglecting to search their suspects, the policemen bundled Posnikoff, Kalmakoff and Woiken into the back of the unmarked RCMP car. Once everyone was settled, Constable Shaw, with Constable Wainwright sitting beside him in the passenger seat, started the car and drove through the back streets of Arran, heading out to Highway 49. The plan was to take all three suspects to the Pelley police station.
Suddenly, one of the suspects pulled out a bayonet blade and attacked Constable Wainwright, slashing violently at his head and neck. The other two suspects joined in, and in the confines of the car, Wainwright was overpowered. One of the men ripped the officer’s 38-calibre revolver away from him and shot him in the head. Another pulled his own concealed gun out and blasted Shaw three times in the back of the head at point-blank range. The police car careened off the road and into the ditch, but none of the suspects in the back seat was injured.
They quickly dragged the two dead police officers out of the car. Woiken ripped Shaw’s signet ring off his finger and took his handcuffs. The men then removed Wainwright’s police belt and star, stripped Shaw of his uniform and took $230 from the officers’ pockets. After sliding the officers’ bodies into a slough in a farmer’s field alongside the road, the threesome pushed the bloodstained police car out of the ditch and drove away in it.
Their attempts at a getaway became one long series of lunatic blunders; amazingly, none led to their capture. No one had seen them murder the officers, and no one would even miss the two cops for at least a few hours, so there was no need to race away. Very calmly, the three men embarked on a brazen plan of escape. With Wainwright’s gun, all three of them were now armed. They had one entire uniform and another police belt, so they decided to pretend they were police officers and to talk their way out of the area. At 10:30 a.m.—more than five hours after the killings—they called at the farm of William Perepeluk, which was located just up the road from the murder scene. The farmer invited the three men to eat at his table. He noticed that they were all armed and that Woiken was wearing a police uniform and flashing a police belt. This seemed a little bizarre to Perepeluk, who recognized Posnikoff, Kalmakoff and Woiken from the community.
Apparently, the young men didn’t realize they’d been recognized, because they told the farmer they were detectives hunting the murderer of two policemen who’d been killed nearby. Naturally, Perepeluk hadn’t heard about the crime. No one had. As for being detectives, well, they were acting more like crazy men. They guzzled from a big jar of bootleg whisky and waved their guns around, laughing loudly and joking with each other. When they finished their meal, the three “detectives” told their host they were heading south into the United States where, they claimed, the murderer had fled. As they drove away, they misjudged the first bend in the road and rolled the RCMP car on its side. No matter. Another helpful farmer stopped and helped them right it and get on their way.
The men made two more stops on their puzzling getaway. First they each went home to their respective farms to pick up extra clothes. Then they went to a wedding reception and dance. After the dance they finally left the area, heading west. Hour after hour they travelled across the prairies, leaving Saskatchewan and pressing onward through the wheat fields of Alberta.
Early on October 7, a Doukhobor community farmer by the name of John Kollenchuk was ploughing with his team of horses in his field alongside Highway 49 between Arran and Pelley. His horses suddenly shied and stopped dead in their tracks. The farmer looked around to see what had spooked them and quickly discovered the corpses of constables Wainwright and Shaw in the nearby slough. It was a shocking discovery that sparked front-page headlines across Canada. Prominent in the news stories were the descriptions of the three “desperate Doukhobor suspects” and of the unmarked RCMP vehicle they’d stolen as a getaway car. Radio stations across the prairies immediately began broadcasting the descriptions of the men and the car—and that’s how Lucille Zeller came to hear it on the 7:30 p.m. news bulletin, just as the fugitives stopped at her husband’s gas station.
Immediately after receiving Zeller’s call, four Banff RCMP officers piled into one car and headed towards the Banff National Park gate, hoping to intercept the bandits. In the RCMP cruiser were Sergeant Thomas Wallace, Constable George “Scotty” Harrison, Constable Gray Campbell and Constable George “Nipper” Combe. When they reached the gate at the eastern end of the national park, they discovered that the stolen cruiser had already been there. The three men inside the car had refused to pay the park entrance fee and had turned around and headed east, back towards Calgary.
Meanwhile, Roy Zeller, the Exshaw gas station owner, had also called the Canmore RCMP. Constable John (Jack) Bonner took the call and learned which way the three killers were heading. He decided to drive straight out to the highway to see if he could intercept them. Constable Bonner picked up Canmore magistrate Robert Hawke on the way.
By this time, the fugitives were indeed desperate. To start with, they were almost penniless. In Exshaw they’d only had enough cash between them for one gallon of gas, and now their stolen police car was running on fumes. They didn’t even have the two dollars required to get into the park. Realizing they needed to pull off another robbery in order to get more money, they turned around, headed back towards the park gate, and pulled over to the side of the road with the intention of robbing the occupants of the first car that came along.
A Calgary businessman, C. Thomas Scott, and his wife were heading for Banff and saw three men waving flashlights beside their apparently broken-down car. The couple stopped to help, and within seconds they were staring down the barrels of two revolvers. The men demanded money. They took $10 from Scott’s pocket, but missed another $85 he’d hurriedly stuffed under the seat of the car when the guns had come out. The three young bandits were hopeless robbers. At one point, they snatched Scott’s pocket watch, but when he promised not to report them to the police, they gave it back. Then they decided the best way to get through the park gate was to let the couple drive through ahead, and they’d scoot through immediately behind them.
In a bizarre twist of fate, Constable Bonner and Magistrate Hawke witnessed the whole robbery. It turned out that when they headed west from Canmore to intercept the bandits, Bonner had accurately anticipated where the stolen car would be. He and Hawke saw it parked a short distance ahead, moments before the Calgary couple drove up. Unaware that the bandits were waiting to ambush the next car that came along, Bonner and Hawke decided to pull over and keep an eye on the vehicle. As they watched the Calgary couple being robbed at gunpoint, helpless to intervene, they suddenly realized the implication of their own situation. If they hadn’t stopped where they did, their car would have been the next car along, and they would have driven straight into an ambush. Bonner and Hawke took a few moments to gather their wits, then followed the now-moving Calgary couple and the fugitives, who were driving close behind.
Inevitably, on this cold and miserable night in October, the opening scene for a deadly gun battle was rapidly unfolding. The first four Banff RCMP officers had parked farther west of all three vehicles, intending to stop every car that came along from the east. Heading straight toward them was the car carrying Thomas Scott and his wife, followed a few seconds later by the armed men. Scott couldn’t believe his luck. He’d just been robbed at gunpoint, and here were the police, just when he needed them. As he drove up he shouted, “The bandit car is right behind me!” and Constable Combe quickly waved him through.
Sergeant Wallace and Constable Harrison stepped onto the road to stop the suspects’ car. Blinded by its headlights, they were helpless as gunfire suddenly erupted from inside the stolen vehicle. The fugitives had opened fire through the windshield, instantly dropping Harrison with a bullet to the throat. As he went down, Harrison managed to shoot out the car’s headlights, but the bandits ran their front wheels over him. He was now mortally wounded by gunfire and pinned under one of the car’s wheels. Sergeant Wallace got off a few shots, and then had to run back to the police car for more ammunition. He returned to the gun battle and was immediately hit in the chest. He went down as well. The almighty gun battle shattered the still of the night.
Leaping from the car, the fugitives ran into deep brush at the side of the road under a barrage of bullets from the other two officers—Campbell and Combe. In a moment of great heroism, Campbell and Combe ran out from their cover—amid a hail of bullets—to pull their wounded partners to safety. Combe leaped into the bandits’ car and reversed it off Harrison’s body, and Campbell dragged Harrison into the police car.
At that moment, the RCMP car carrying Bonner and Hawke screeched onto the scene. Once the two wounded officers were safely in the police car, Campbell drove them at high speed the short distance to Canmore Hospital, in a desperate attempt to save their lives.
Meanwhile, the gunfire persisted. Two of the fugitives had fled the area, but the third was hiding somewhere in the nearby bushes, firing at the three remaining law officers, who were trying to take cover behind tree stumps and fallen logs.
After dropping Harrison and Wallace off at the hospital, Constable Campbell returned to the scene and joined Combe in a search south of the road. The Canmore pair, Constable Bonner and Magistrate Hawke, searched to the north. Suddenly, Combe saw a slight movement in the bushes. He shone his flashlight and spotted one of the men crouched on one knee, carefully aiming a revolver. Combe shot him in the head, killing him instantly. Joe Posnikoff was the first of the desperadoes to die. He was later found to have four police bullets in him. He’d obviously been hit in the first exchange, before Combe finished him off. When Combe and Campbell rolled his body over, they saw that he was clutching the police special 38-calibre revolver that had belonged to Benito town constable William Wainwright.
Word was sent back to the Banff and Canmore RCMP detachments. There had been a terrible gun battle. Two officers had been horribly wounded and were clinging to life in hospital after being transferred from Canmore to Calgary. One fugitive had been shot dead, but two others had escaped.
Reinforcements were sent immediately. RCMP officers flooded in to boost the manhunt, accompanied by many Banff and Canmore citizen volunteers. The volunteers were given rifles, and teams of men threw a dragnet around the area between the Banff National Park gate and Canmore. As heavy snow began to fall, searchers kept their eyes on every trail through the forest. The railway tracks were also guarded, and police patrolled the main highway. All through the night the hunt went on, but still the two fugitives remained at large.
The next morning, the rest of Alberta learned of the gun battle when the October 8 Calgary Albertan devoted its entire front page to the story, under a rarely used five-tier headline:
TWO ALBERTA MOUNTIES SHOT,
MAN KILLED IN CANMORE HUNT
GUNMEN WHO FIRED ON POLICE
CONNECTED WITH SASKATCHEWAN SLAYINGS
Sergeant Wallace, Constable Harrison victims of gunmen’s bullets in serious condition
WIDESPREAD HUNT UNDERWAY
Dead man identified as one of trio wanted in Saskatchewan double murder
At 6:45 a.m., just as people were reading their early morning paper, a heavier pall of gloom descended on the searchers. Word came through that Sergeant Wallace had died in hospital of his gunshot wounds.
The search intensified. Then, civilian volunteers Jack White and Ed Thompson spotted the fugitives out on the snowy road. They drove hurriedly to the Banff National Park gate and reported what they’d seen to park warden Bill Neish and volunteer Harry Leacock. Both men had been deputized as police for the manhunt. Neish was very much the man for the job. He’d served in the army overseas in the First World War and was also a former Royal Northwest Mounted Police officer and a former member of the Alberta Provincial Police.
All four men immediately piled into a car, returned to the area and searched again in even heavier snow. This time, they found nothing. The civilian volunteers White and Thompson drove into Banff to tell police they thought they’d seen the fugitives. Neish and Leacock stayed behind and patrolled the area of the sighting on foot. This time they saw fresh tracks in the new snow. They were about to follow the footprints when two vehicles carrying more volunteers pulled up with urgent news. The two fugitives had been spotted farther west along the road. Neish and Leacock commandeered a passing car owned by a civilian named Ed McBride. With McBride driving and Neish and Leacock riding on the outside of the car clinging to the running boards, they headed west into the snowstorm.
In a few minutes, they saw the two fugitives scrambling up a slope through the snow. They shouted to the killers to put up their hands, but instead of a surrender, another gun battle broke out. One of the killers turned and fired at Neish. The bullet whistled over his head. Keeping cool under fire, Neish, a noted marksman, hit the gunman with two bullets from his .303 rifle. The gunman dropped. Neish heard the man scream in pain and fired again. The gunman was silent. The second fugitive ran deeper into the forest and took cover behind a fallen log. Neish instantly saw the barrel of the man’s rifle. Neish fired again, and the killer’s body contorted violently as he was hit. He then lay still.
Neish and Leacock were cautiously approaching the two fugitives when police reinforcements, alerted by the renewed gunfire, joined them. Together, Neish, Leacock and the rest of the police surrounded the two gunmen. They were both badly wounded—each had taken two bullets to the stomach. “Got them both,” said Neish.
The next moment made RCMP history. Calgary RCMP sergeant Jack Cawsey had been following the bandits through the snow with his tracker dog, Dale. The dog’s skills had led Cawsey to the shooting scene at the moment of the last shot. It was the first time ever that an RCMP tracker dog had been used to hunt fugitives, and Dale performed perfectly. On hearing the last shot fired, he leaped to attack the gunman. Unfortunately, the shooter was Deputy William Neish. Sergeant Cawsey instantly ordered the dog to release Neish. In seconds, the dog was guarding the wounded Kalmakoff until the police had him under control. Next, Dale stood watch over the other wounded man, Woiken, until he too was under police control. The car belonging to civilian Ed McBride was then used to carry the two wounded gunmen to the Banff Mineral Springs Hospital.
It had been a devastating and tragic evening. At 5:50 p.m., word came from the Calgary hospital that Constable Harrison had died from his gunshot wounds. The bullet that hit him in the throat had smashed his spinal column and ricocheted inside his body, puncturing a lung. From the hospital in Banff came word that the last two fugitives had also died of their gunshot wounds. The two gun battles in Banff National Park had left five men dead, and the total death toll since the gunmen had first made their bolt for freedom across the prairies was seven. Four of the dead were police officers. The story brought another shocking headline in the Calgary Albertan on October 9:
TWO POLICEMAN, THREE BANDITS DIE
FROM WOUNDS IN ALBERTA
BAND OF DESPERADOES WIPED OUT IN ALBERTA,
YOUNG CONSTABLE DIES
It was one of the blackest incidents law enforcement in Canada had ever experienced. Glowing testimonials were made about the two Banff Mounties, Sergeant Thomas Wallace and Constable George Harrison. Both officers were buried with full military honours, with thousands of people paying their respects. Back in Swan River, Manitoba, Constable John Shaw was also buried with a full military funeral, as was Constable William Wainwright in Benito. So many people crammed into the tiny church in Benito that the floor began to sag and was in danger of collapsing. Only when everyone trooped carefully outside could the service be carried out.
The three murderers had far more humble burials. John Kalmakoff’s parents took his body home and buried him in an unmarked grave in a wheat field on their farm. Peter Woiken’s family members, especially his father, Harry, were distraught when they heard the news that Woiken was dead. Ashamed when they learned how much grief he had brought to other families, they nevertheless wanted to take his body home to Arran for burial. However, they were poor farmers and simply couldn’t afford the cost. They never did claim his body.
Joe Posnikoff’s parents, Mary and George, travelled all the way to Banff to take one last look at their son, but they returned home to Saskatchewan without his body. Some reports say they were too poor to have his remains sent home. But other people, those the Posnikoff family had talked to out west, were convinced that Posnikoff had brought such shame on his family that they disowned him. Perhaps it was a combination of the two. Whatever the reason, the Posnikoffs also did not claim their son’s body.
Banff and Canmore authorities were now faced with a dilemma. Where would they bury the bodies of Joe Posnikoff and Peter Woiken? Residents of both towns, who had poured out their grief and sorrow at the funerals of the murdered police officers, had no such feelings for the officers’ killers. And they let their opinions be known. The authorities soon bowed to public pressure and refused to allow either Posnikoff or Woiken to be buried in the towns’ cemeteries, which left only the sacred burial grounds in the Wesley Cemetery on the Stoney Indian Reservation between Exshaw and Cochrane. But the Stoneys also refused to have the bodies buried in sacred ground. Finally, they relented somewhat and allowed the bodies to be buried just outside their cemetery.
Worried about possible public reaction, the authorities kept the burials secret. Only a clergyman, a funeral director and a gravedigger were at the site as Joseph Posnikoff and Peter Woiken were buried together in the same grave. When the three men left after the barest of services, only a small mound of stones and rocks marked the spot where the two killers had been laid to rest.