A Startling New Turn of Events

Before they left Petersburg, Miller and Stogsdill received additional news. By matching x-rays his family sent north, a radiologist positively identified the remains of crewmember Michael Stewart, Mark Coulthurst’s cousin on his mother’s side. Now they’d identified four of the eight people thought to have been aboard the Investor. This new development narrowed the range of suspects. And provided hope of identifying more victims.

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But around that time, the troopers also received accounts of something entirely new — and entirely startling. Canadian reporters called to tell them that Royal Canadian Mounted Police had discovered the skeletal remains of six people in a burned out car near Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada. The bodies were believed to be those of two families who disappeared during a mid-August camping trip. The RCMP was treating the case as a mass homicide because, they said, it looked as though the car was pushed off a wilderness road and set on fire.

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Constable Gerry Dalen (right) and Sargeant Mike Easham (left) investigate the burned out 1979 Plymouth near Kamloops, B.C.

On August 2, 1982, three generations of a family set out on a camping trip. They were Bob and Jackie Johnson, their two daughters (Janet, 13 and Karen, 11), and Jackie’s parents, George and Edith Bentley. The family last contacted relatives on August 6, when Edith called a second daughter. On August 16, Bob failed to return to work, which was very unusual for the 44-year employee. A week later, he was reported missing to the local police.

The search centered on Wells Gray Park where the family had planned to meet up. On September 13, a mushroom picker reported finding a burned-out car near Battle Mountain Road that was similar to the car that the Johnsons were driving. When the RCMP officers searched the vehicle, they found the burned bodies of the four missing adults, who had been shot in the head with a .22 caliber weapon. In the trunk were the remains of the two girls. [Wikipedia]

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Crime Scene in Wells Gray Provincial Park, B.C.

Although they had no suspects, the Canadian police issued a continent-wide alert for a 1981 Ford pickup truck belonging to one of the families. The absence of the truck furthered their suspicions of foul play. And in language that sounded gruesomely familiar to the troopers, the coroner who examined the bodies made a grim report. “If someone had happened along and looked into the car,” he said,” they probably wouldn’t have identified them as human remains.” The fire was so intense it melted the car’s rooftop carrier and fused beer bottles inside the vehicle.

Was it possible the same person was responsible for both crimes? Troopers didn’t know and neither did the RCMP. But Kamloops was little more than five hundred miles from Craig as the crow flies. And these crimes were troublingly similar. After hurried consultation, the two police agencies resolved to stay in close consultation until one or both cases were solved.

Excerpts from the unpublished original manuscript, “Sailor Take Warning,” by Leland E. Hale. That manuscript, started in 1992 and based on court records from the Alaska State Archive, served as the basis for “What Happened in Craig.”

Copyright Leland E. Hale (2019). All rights reserved.


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