From the author of The Sandy Knoll Murder, a sequel: In the spring of 1924, the bodies of three men were found just off shore of the main boat launch at Lava Lake. Then, as now, the site is a recreational hot spot of the Cascade Lakes region and nearby Bend, Oregon. The trappers had disappeared from a cabin at Little Lava Lake, isolated by several feet of wintertime snow. This is the true story of the Lava Lakes triple murder, long believed to have been the work of two men, and the search for the previously unidentifed partner of the only known suspect in the case. A chain of similar, unsolved killings points to one man as that parnter, for the case contained several inescapable facts: there was indeed a relationship between the two criminals; the bodies had been shoved through a hole in the ice of Lava Lake; one of the men had been bludgeoned, and there was a peculiar half dollar-size hole in the right side of his head. Each of these facts are suggestive, but when taken together, they are almost conclusive.
Klondike lore is full of accounts of the exploits of Dangerous Dan McGrew, Sergeant Preston of the Mounted, and the Mad Trapper of Rat River. The stories vary from outright fabrications to northern fantasies and, on occasion, real-life accounts. Strange Things Done investigates a series of murders in the pre-World War II Yukon, exploring the boundaries between myths and historical events. The book seeks to understand both the specific events, carefully reconstructed from court evidence and police records, and the broader social and cultural context within which these violent deaths occurred. The murder case studies provide a unique and penetrating perspective on key aspects of Yukon history, such as Native-newcomer relations, mental illness and the folklore about cabin fever, the role of immigrants in northern society, violence in the gold fields, and the role of the police and courts in regulating social behaviour. The investigation of these capital cases also illustrates the fear and paranoia which gripped the territory in the aftermath of a murder, and the societys insistence on quick and retributive justice when offenders were caught and convicted. The Yukon experienced fewer murders than popular literature would suggest, and fewer than most would expect given the region's intense and dramatic history, but those that did occur illustrate the passions, frustrations, angers and human frailties that are present in all societies. The manner in which the murders occurred and the way in which Yukoners reacted also reveals specific and important aspects of territorial society.
In 1939, four brutal murders occurred at three separate locations on a single day in “Cache Creek country,” a remote Alaska gold-mining region near Talkeetna. Two of the victims, Dick Francis and Frank Jenkins, had mined there for almost three decades, but disputes over mining claims in the 1930s launched the two men into protracted court battles and an arena of antagonism. By 1938, when Francis' claims were auctioned to satisfy courtordered damages awarded to Jenkins, everyone in the scattered but close-knit mining community of Cache Creek country was aware of the bitter feud. At the end of the 1939 mining season Jenkins and one of his young employees were bludgeoned to death in Wonder Gulch; three miles away, Helen Jenkins was murdered near the Jenkinses' cabin along Little Willow Creek; and, in his Ruby Creek cabin, Francis was found shot in the head with a revolver in his hand — an apparent suicide. He was thought to have first vengefully murdered the others. But an autopsy revealed that Dick Francis had been shot twice in the head. The shocked and outraged mining community began to suspect that the Jenkins/Francis feud had been ruthlessly exploited for caches of gold long rumored to be hidden on the Jenkinses' property. The case assumed sensational proportions in Alaska and, because law enforcement was minimal in this remote region, angry Alaskans clamored for a full-blown investigation by the FBI. More than sixty years later, the evidence—never made public before—whispers that justice may not have been served.
The true story based on the diaries of murderer Michel Oros. Originally, after the fatal shootout with Oros at Teslin Lake, I had no intention of writing this book. In fact, when Garry Rodgers and I sat in the Skeena Pub after he got back and discussed the details of his experience, the very idea that someone might write the story - glorifying Oros, sensationalizing the murders and trivializing Mike Buday's death - was repugnant. Black and white reprint.
In the winter of 1913, high in the Canadian Arctic, two Catholic priests set out on a dangerous mission to do what no white men had ever attempted: reach a group of utterly isolated Eskimos and convert them. Farther and farther north the priests trudged, through a frigid and bleak country known as the Barren Lands, until they reached the place where the Coppermine River dumps into the Arctic Ocean. Their fate, and the fate of the people they hoped to teach about God, was about to take a tragic turn. Three days after reaching their destination, the two priests were murdered, their livers removed and eaten. Suddenly, after having survived some ten thousand years with virtually no contact with people outside their remote and forbidding land, the last hunter-gatherers in North America were about to feel the full force of Western justice. As events unfolded, one of the Arctic’s most tragic stories became one of North America’s strangest and most memorable police investigations and trials. Given the extreme remoteness of the murder site, it took nearly two years for word of the crime to reach civilization. When it did, a remarkable Canadian Mountie named Denny LaNauze led a trio of constables from the Royal Northwest Mounted Police on a three-thousand-mile journey in search of the bodies and the murderers. Simply surviving so long in the Arctic would have given the team a place in history; when they returned to Edmonton with two Eskimos named Sinnisiak and Uluksuk, their work became the stuff of legend. Newspapers trumpeted the arrival of the Eskimos, touting them as two relics of the Stone Age. During the astonishing trial that followed, the Eskimos were acquitted, despite the seating of an all-white jury. So outraged was the judge that he demanded both a retrial and a change of venue, with himself again presiding. The second time around, predictably, the Eskimos were convicted. A near perfect parable of late colonialism, as well as a rich exploration of the differences between European Christianity and Eskimo mysticism, Jenkins’s Bloody Falls of the Coppermine possesses the intensity of true crime and the romance of wilderness adventure. Here is a clear-eyed look at what happens when two utterly alien cultures come into violent conflict.
This book has been re-edited as of September 9, 2012 Jim Richards, the senior citizen sleuth, has returned from Las Vegas and has opened up his investigation business. His first client is a housewife wanting to find out if her husband is cheating on her, but is there more to their relationship than just cheating? Is her husband a wealthy wife killer and into bondage? Is this wife going to die or will the murder of his personal Dominatrix stop his plans? To add to Jim's workload, he also takes on a murder case for a lawyer, to find a mystery woman who can provide an alibi for a man accused of butchering his wife, also a Dominatrix, an odd coincidence. Are the police or someone in high office trying to sabotage this case and send an innocent man to prison, and killing the witnesses? All in a day's work for Jim along with Penny, Buck and Will Trapper in this 3rd of a series of crime novels by Bob Moats.
Ever since he was gunned down in a torrent of RCMP bullets in February 1932, the identity of the Mad Trapper of Rat River has remained a mystery. Theories and claims have abounded, but no one yet has been able to positively identify the enigmatic loner who shunned his neighbours and led Canadas national police force on a wild chase that ended not only with his own death, but with one officer killed and two others wounded. This could be about to change.
