November 14, 2024 • 58 mins
On the evening of May 31st, 1962. Two young boys playing near a river make a gruesome discovery. A hand sticking out of the dirt. Join us as we delve into the shocking unsolved murder of Alexandra Wiwcharuk. Learn about the tragic case that continues to puzzle investigators to this day.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Happy 420. I'm Kai and I'm Queen Reefer and you're watching Stone Cold Murder.
(00:05):
Just a PSA, if you have any information that can help solve a crime, go to
Crimestoppers.com to report any information anonymously. This podcast contains material that might not be suitable for all
audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Thanks for tuning in for a season 3 episode 3, the girl in Skatoon.
(00:27):
Skatoon.
Skatoon.
Scoot, scoot, toon.
Scoot and boogie.
Hahaha.
Sorry.
That's Todd's favorite song.
Really? Boots, Scoot and Boogie?
Yeah, you'll sing it and he'll be like, ooo.
Awww, I'm gonna do it if you just start singing it.
Yeah.
Where it has to play the music.
(00:47):
Um, no I think if you sing the chorus, he'll go with you.
He does with s*** anyways.
Alright, I'm coming over soon and I'm gonna sing Boots, Scoot and Boogie to your dog.
He likes that one and Werewolves in London.
Werewolves in London.
Awww.
Awww.
I know, it's so cute.
You should video it.
(01:08):
I do have a video.
And you should put it, oh.
I'll show you, my phone's over there.
Yeah, I need to see this. You should put it on, uh.
I'll send it to Matt so we can watch it here.
Yeah.
Todd singing Boots, Scoot, Boogie.
Todd singing Boots, Scoot, Boogie.
Yeah, he's the best.
I love him.
(01:29):
He was laying on the couch earlier today and he was like trying to
worm his way under the couch cushions because he was cold.
So I covered him up with a little blanket and he just like curled up like a little donut.
I know.
What a cutie, we don't deserve dogs.
I know.
He's the best ever.
Truly.
(01:51):
Anyways, hello everyone.
Welcome back to Stone Cold Murder.
I don't think I needed to introduce but I am gonna introduce us anyways.
Almost said Stone Cold Murder.
It's Queen Reefer.
And Matt in the booth.
(02:11):
I don't know if you have a cam or anything anymore but he's in the booth behind, right here.
Right here.
He's there.
You can't see him but we appreciate him.
So how are you doing this week?
You didn't introduce yourself.
Oh, I'm Kai.
And this is Kai.
It's me.
(02:32):
We're back.
We're here ready to share another case with y'all.
How have you been this week?
How have I been this week?
Great.
Yeah.
I've been a little brown recluse this week.
You've been a brown recluse this week.
Yeah.
You've been locked up.
I've been locked up.
Biting people.
Yeah.
(02:52):
No.
De-tearing skin.
Yeah, that too.
No, it's just we have gotten a lot of snow this week so stayed in my house, bunker down.
Stayed warm.
Oh yeah.
Did you watch any good like snow movies?
No, I just played games.
But I actually did go see the new Smile yesterday.
(03:12):
Oh, how was it?
It was good.
It was better but not better than the last one at the same time.
I don't know how to explain it.
I haven't seen the first one, surprisingly.
Yeah, it's more gory than the first one, but the smiles on the people aren't as scary.
(03:32):
Oh, but there's more gore.
Yeah.
Overall, was the movie scarier or?
It was just more mind fucking.
Oh, yeah.
You're like a lot of stuff that you thought were like real and then it won't.
Well, I'm not going to get into it too much.
Yeah, but just more of a mind twisting than the first one.
I kind of like that though.
Like, yeah, usually I can predict stuff and then it would happen, but then at the end
(03:58):
it changed and then just crazy.
Yeah, like the end of Twilight when it's that battle scene.
Yeah, like that type of switch.
Yeah, you go through all these emotions and you're like this is real life right now and
then it's like it's not real life right now.
What is this?
Yeah.
Do you remember seeing that in the theater?
And everyone's jaw was like wide open and you could hear a pencil fall and everyone's
(04:20):
like, oh, yeah, no way.
I vividly remember watching that in the theater.
Me too, just because of that part specifically.
It's good.
Good cinematic shit.
I'm pretty sure we watched it together too.
Oh, yeah.
And then we were like both like looked at each other like what just happened?
Carlisle.
Carlisle died.
(04:41):
Yeah, so that kind of that kind of mindfuck, you know?
Yeah.
Just like, wait, what?
I'm here for that because I you and I both are people that like predict endings of movies
pretty easily.
So I always appreciate a movie that can like catch me off guard.
I really enjoy that.
Speaking of, I think we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but the Anything Everywhere
(05:04):
All at Once movie.
Yeah, I need to watch that.
You need to watch it.
That is mindfucking.
I can remember to watch it.
I get stoned and forget it.
I'm going to send it right now because I'm also going to forget.
But that is also another really good one.
OK, I've had a couple of people tell me that actually.
So it's really weird.
(05:26):
But you'll appreciate it.
Like, I remember watching it and I was like, what am I watching?
And then by the end of the movie, you're like, I really want to watch it again right now
because it's like that good.
OK, it's crazy.
Did you finish Terrifier?
No, I need to.
Dang.
It's free on Tubi, man.
I know I need to.
(05:46):
I keep wanting to.
I just.
Yeah, you guys were into it.
Yeah.
That night.
I was glad Matt stayed and finished it with me.
Oh, yeah, bro.
The homie right there.
Hell yeah, bro.
But yeah.
Oh, so smile.
Did you guys eat any soup or have any hot chocolate with the snow?
(06:07):
No.
Well, apple cider.
Apple cider?
Yeah.
Yummy.
I had some of that, too.
Yeah.
Always delicious.
I also do have hot chocolate, but.
Thanks.
Yeah.
But you weren't feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
Lots of chocolate chip cookies, though.
Warm chocolate chip cookies.
The best.
(06:28):
Hell yeah.
Puppy snuggles.
Mm hmm.
It's the best kind of cinnamon rolls.
Those ones that you got that one time.
No.
Oh, those were ones.
Those were good.
Those were way too good.
I know.
I don't know what the hell they put in that, but so good.
My favorite thing about a cinnamon roll is when they're squishy like that, too.
I don't want them crunching.
I don't like crunchy rolls.
(06:48):
We don't want a crunchy roll around here.
Crunchy roll anime, but not a crunchy roll cinnamon roll or crunchy roll sushi.
I'll take that cinnamon rolls.
They need to be soft and warm and light and fluffy, squishy, decadent, sticky.
Very demure, very mindful.
(07:12):
Moist.
Anyway.
I'm done.
Moist.
Yeah.
Cinnamon rolls.
I worked through the snowstorm.
Yeah.
Per the use.
I actually worked a lot of hours this week.
I'm not going to lie.
I am toasted.
I slept all day yesterday.
(07:34):
The entirety of yesterday I slept.
How are you feeling today?
Better.
Yeah.
Much better, but I've had two Red Bulls today, so.
Damn, girl.
And an espresso.
Damn, your heart's like.
No, it's not because I don't take Adderall anymore because my company got rid of my insurance.
So I have to supplement it with all this caffeine.
(07:57):
I'm pretty sure like every episode so far we've talked about Adderall.
Because it's inhibiting my brain, guys.
Well, you know, just drink two Red Bulls and a cappuccino and you're good.
Apparently.
It's close-ish.
Not really even scrapes it, unfortunately.
Well, I think we talked about this.
Did you try the Focus drink yet?
(08:19):
Yeah, that shit was good.
Yeah.
Really good.
Really good.
Does that help your mind a little bit?
Like, I know it's not comparable to the medicine, but.
It works for me at work, which is really nice.
Because I seem to be like quite scatterbrained at work most of the time.
But I just take a dry scoop of that and.
(08:40):
Jesus.
Just a fucking dry scoop.
I used to do that for like pre-workout when I was like going to the gym a lot, but.
Your reaction is my every one of my employees reaction.
They're like.
Because that shit's thick, like even just opening it and the whiff of the powder
like actually makes me choke.
(09:02):
I just put a little water in my mouth and then I take a scoop and go and then put
more water in my mouth and then shake my head like this.
Tugboat that shit.
Blblblbl.
Tugboat.
You meant motorboat.
(09:23):
Motorboat.
I totally meant motorboat.
Yeah.
Tugboat.
Anyways, we're here for a podcast.
Anyways, no tugboat in here.
But motorboating.
Man, every episode I'm crying before the episode even takes place.
You know why?
Why?
You don't have insurance.
(09:44):
Can't get your medicine.
Yeah, I can't focus.
Help.
Little tiny violin.
All right.
Well, I'm also take a dab before we get started.
I don't know why that sounded so aggressive.
(10:05):
All right.
And this smoke break is bought to you by tugboating.
All right.
So our story starts out on the evening of May 31st, 1962.
(10:25):
Around nine o'clock, two young boys were playing near the river
and they made a gruesome discovery,
which is never good when you're just playing outside,
trying to be an innocent little child playing by the creek.
What?
The creek.
The creek.
It's not a creek either.
(10:47):
What?
It was a river.
Same shit to Frank and Krushner.
As a kid, yeah, I feel like everything is like a little fun adventure.
And unfortunately, these kids found a horrible site.
The two brothers ran to their father immediately,
who was down the river fishing a little bit or a little bit down the river fishing,
I should say.
(11:08):
And they told him what they found.
After describing the scene to him, he called the police.
And according to the local newspaper,
the boys discovered a hand that was partially sticking out of the
what they described as a shallow grave.
So you.
Yeah, could you imagine?
No, no, I know.
(11:30):
That's what that's all they saw was like a hand sticking up.
Yeah, it's like, oh, almost kind of like zombie stuff.
Yeah.
You know, OK.
The body was nude from the waist down and her clothing was ripped.
The police chief at the time named Jim Kettles was on the scene that day,
(11:50):
and he called the crime one of the most heinous and sadistic offenses
that Skatoon had seen for a long time.
Dang.
So it had to be like really bad.
Yeah.
Because I'm sure they see like a lot of fucked up shit.
Yeah.
This is in Canada to specify.
(12:11):
Sorry.
Got a little itch.
Anyways, unfortunately, those on the scene had a pretty good idea who the body was.
A woman who had been missing for about two weeks.
They had her roommate confirm that the clothing was hers,
and when she identified the clothing as her roommates,
(12:32):
the police were able to confirm their suspicion.
The body was that was found in the shallow grave was 23 year old Alexandria Wurchuck.
Alex's roommate, Pauline, called and reported her missing on May 19th, 1962,
at about 10 15 a.m. when she never showed up for her shift the previous night.
(12:58):
So on May 19th, the police had a missing person report placed over the radio
on the stations CKOM and CFCQ, and they also provided the report to a local RCMP.
So it was almost immediate that they started looking for her,
which I don't think is always the case with missing persons report.
(13:22):
A lot of times they'll make you wait 24 hours or even up to a week
to report someone missing if they have been a runaway or something like that.
You know.
Yeah, usually it's like 24 72 hours.
Yeah, which is crazy.
But also lucky for them that they had a police department that was willing to start.
(13:46):
You know, Detective Sergeant Baker said as a result of the radio broadcast,
several individuals called or came into the police station to report possible possibly
seeing her or someone matching Alexandra's description around the Skatoon area.
There was a huge search done looking for any trace of Alex or what may have happened to her
(14:07):
coming up with actually absolutely nothing, which sucks and probably why it took two weeks
to actually find her body.
Detective Sergeant Baker told Dateline that the area where Skatoon Police Service K9
had actually taken interest in during those searches, those first searches,
(14:30):
was actually very close to where Alex's body was found on May 31st.
So I think if they would have done a little bit more looking around the area,
they might have found her early on in the case.
But I'm not sure why they didn't investigate further.
Maybe they thought the dog wasn't hitting properly or something.
(14:51):
But they did say that the K9 hit or did take interest in the body.
They did say that the K9 hit or did take interest to that area.
So I thought that was pretty interesting.
Yeah, you would think like if it did take like the dog did take interest to it,
like obviously it's finding something, right?
(15:14):
Yeah.
And maybe it was just that the shallow grave was good enough to where she couldn't be seen.
And maybe it took some weather related incidents to like make her hand be seen, you know,
eventually. I'm not sure, but it was an interesting thought that I was surprised.
(15:35):
Yeah.
Alexandra's cause of death was believed to be due to a skull fracture that caused a brain hemorrhage.
Which. Oh, that's awful. Alex sustained multiple injuries,
including a laceration of the scalp, face and vulva and various abrasions of the skin.
(15:57):
So bruises of the skin, bruises, scrapes.
These were all very clear signs that Alex had suffered a vicious sexual assault
on top of being brutally murdered.
Poor thing.
I know. And that's where we'll take our first smoke break.
(16:20):
And we're back. Stoned.
All right. So I kind of left off saying that Alex had sustained multiple injuries,
including lacerations of the scalp, face, vulva and various abrasions of the skin.
And these were all very clear signs that Alex had suffered a vicious sexual assault and attack.
(16:47):
A little bit about Alexandria, Alexandra. I'm sorry. Not Alexandria, Alexandra.
Alexandra was a bright, young, vivacious and bubbly girl by all accounts.
Alexandra Warchuk was born in 1939 in the town of Endeavor.
Skata watching. And this is just east of Skatoon.
(17:10):
Skatoon.
Alexandra was the youngest of 10 children.
Damn.
Yeah, 10. That's a fuck ton of children.
The whole army.
Whole army. Whole damn army in Skatoon.
She had six brothers and three sisters in a traditional Ukrainian family who grew up on a
(17:32):
farm in Endeavor. One of her sisters,
said she always had a smile and made everybody happy, especially her parents.
Which I'm sure most of the time as the youngest, as you could relate to,
parents fucking love the young. Not that they don't love the other children, because of course they
do. But the youngest has a special place in your heart because it's the youngest.
(17:57):
But I also feel like a lot of pressure to.
Oh, I'm sure.
It has its pros and cons.
Yeah, I was able to just not.
Not feel the pressure. Well, a different kind of pressure, but yeah, not that kind of pressure.
But yeah, as the youngest, her parents really adored her.
(18:17):
Her sister said that they were best friends when they were growing up and did everything together.
Alex was just under five foot two.
So she was a short queen.
Sleigh. Yes, sleigh. Described as having a rich, reddish, dark hair and light colored eyes.
Oh, beautiful.
(18:39):
Yes. And let me tell you guys, this is where we're going to insert a picture here, but
Alexandra was absolutely goddamn beautiful.
Like I, I'm not exaggerating.
When I saw a photo of her, I was like, like gore.
Yeah, she sounds gorgeous. She was gorgeous.
(18:59):
I mean, stunning. My mouth dropped like she.
If people are familiar with traditional style tattoos, she looks like the traditional style nurse
side profile with the roses.
She has this photo that I'm going to give Matt to insert here.
And good God, like she looks like the image taken to make these.
(19:24):
Yeah, looks like someone saw her picture and was like, that is the most stunning, beautiful woman
I've ever seen. I'm going to draw her as a tattoo and memorialize her on someone's skin.
Wow. Like, but do you have the picture now?
Yeah, I kind of want to see it. I will show you.
Sorry. I'm like, I cannot not see a picture of her now that we talked about it.
Oh, yeah. Gorgeous. Right.
(19:45):
Because some reason I thought she had.
I thought you said red.
I don't. I just think this picture doesn't show it very well.
But yeah, like reddish hair. I think it's a black and white photo that they enhance, you know.
She attended high school at Skatoon Technical Collette where she was a member of the Drama Club.
Sounds fun. Am I the drama?
(20:09):
Am I the drama? Me the drama? Us the drama?
No. She was in the drama.
She was in drama, though.
The drama club. And her dream was to become a stewardess.
Which sounds fun. Yeah.
(20:29):
But at only five foot two, she was too short at the time to become a stewardess.
And they were not allowing short people to be stewardess.
So instead, in 1959, she returned to Yorkton and with support and a little financial help from her
family, Alex took up nursing instead.
(20:51):
And she did this at Yorkton Union Hospital School of Nursing.
So that's like a big career switch up.
I feel like wanting to be stewardess and traveling and, you know, enjoying that whole lifestyle to
being a nurse. That's a very big switch up.
But she seemed to enjoy it.
(21:11):
And at the time of Alex's murder, she had graduated from college from the college nursing
program in 1961 and was the only one of her family that had continued her education beyond high
school. Oh, good for her.
I know. An educated queen.
Yes. Yeah.
(21:32):
With her nursing degree in hand, she began to work at City Hospital in Skatoon in September of 1961.
And she shared a basement apartment in the city with three other nurses,
Alice Hall, Doreen Baduk and Pauline Tillis.
(21:52):
And they all worked at the same hospital.
So it made it nice that they could all share this basement apartment.
You know, they all had the same job, probably somewhat similar schedules.
So that's kind of a nice roommate situation, I feel like.
Yeah. I've had roommate situations where it's just like we're all on different schedules and
(22:13):
it makes it very weird shared space.
You know what I mean?
So Alex had a lot of things going for her at the time.
She was young, beautiful, freshly graduated from nursing.
Life was looking promising.
And with luck on her side, Alex entered a contest sponsored by a local radio station to promote,
(22:37):
of all people, country singer Johnny Cash.
Wow. I know.
Isn't that cool?
Yeah. In 1961, Johnny Cash was sent to perform in Canada.
And this was going to be in the city of Skatoon, in Saskatchewan specifically.
(22:57):
So Johnny was going to perform his recent single, which was titled Girl in Skatoon,
which is kind of cool.
Obviously, why this contest was going here in the specific city of Skatoon.
And a local radio station sponsored a contest to choose a young woman for Johnny Cash to pull
(23:19):
out of the audience and sing to on stage.
So it's kind of cool.
Yeah.
Especially if you're into Johnny Cash. I mean, Johnny Cash was cool.
Yeah.
I'll give him that.
It's Johnny Cash.
It's Johnny fucking Cash.
Johnny fucking Cash, man.
And he would have loved for you to say it that way too.
Oh, yeah.
I imagine.
The winner of the contest just so happened to be
(23:44):
Alex.
Yeah, it was Alex.
Yeah.
Of course, because she's gorgeous.
And Dateline spoke to her sister Pearl,
one of her older sisters, actually, who was actually 91 at the time that they spoke to her.
So crazy.
Wait, who was 91?
(24:05):
Her sister Pearl, when Dateline spoke to her about this, they had an interview.
Oh, I thought you meant at the time of the concert.
I was like, the math ain't math in here.
I was so confused.
It's like her older sister that's 91.
Yeah.
So, OK, I catch it.
I phrased it a little weird, but it was going to...
(24:26):
Once I said the whole paragraph, you would have understood.
I just heard 91 and I said my brain checked out.
I was like, mentally in my head, like trying to piece the pieces together.
And I was like, like that mean.
Yeah.
This ain't adding up.
Yeah.
So Dateline spoke with Pearl, one of Alex's older sisters,
(24:48):
who was 91 at the time of the interview,
but still remembered the excitement of that night.
She said, quote, that was so great that Johnny Cash was there
and made that song Girl in Skatoon.
I was there too.
And that was a great night.
End quote.
Oh, stop.
What a cutie bean.
(25:08):
I know.
He sang the song Girl in Skatoon to Alex in the Skatoon arena in front of 1500 fans.
That is a big crowd.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, just a year later, the Girl in Skatoon, Alexandra, would be dead,
which is very unfortunate.
And like, it's crazy that you can go from someone like her could go from just having
(25:37):
all of these great things in front of you to having her just completely ripped out of you
or from you, I should say, in a matter of seconds.
Nobody even knew.
In seconds, nobody even saw it coming.
You know, I mean, you never do with these kind of cases or any murder cases usually.
But like, I don't know.
(26:00):
You just think back to all the times that like you're really having a good streak
and just feeling really good and just like,
could you imagine just having someone murdered after all of this?
Yeah.
No, and it's always like people who are living life, dude, that are at the top of their game,
just, you know, content, happy.
(26:21):
Yeah.
Being a nurse, helping people, you know.
Alexandra or Alex, according to her family,
had actually won multiple beauty contests by the time she turned 21,
which fitting because she was fucking gorgeous.
She was voted queen of Kinnett's skating carnival in Yorkton in 1960.
(26:43):
And that same year, she won Yorkton's entrant in the Providence wide
Skatowatchan Wheat Queen contest.
Wow, what a mouthful.
I know.
Hold on. Say that again.
That same year, she was Yorkton's entrant in the Providence wide Skatowatchan
(27:04):
Wheat Queen contest.
Wheat Queen, Wheat Queen.
Wow. I want to be a Wheat Queen.
It sounds like folly.
Wheat, you know.
I like wheat.
Wheat's cool.
Yeah.
(27:25):
Alexandra was beautiful inside and out.
And when the discovery of her murder was shared around the community,
they were all obviously very shaken up by the news.
According to Alex's family, when Johnny Cash heard about the news,
he was on stage.
He actually stopped the show and told the audience that they were going to have to
(27:46):
take two minutes of silence in order to honor the girl in Skatoon.
Aw.
I know.
And it's said that Johnny Cash never performed that song in concert again.
Wow.
So he like really took that to heart.
Yeah.
Aw.
Yeah. Because I mean, it was that same year.
Yeah.
So like, you know, it's almost one of those like weird fate things, you know?
(28:09):
Yeah.
Like, fuck, like I just saw like out of all of the people that could have won this
contest in Skatoon, it had to be that girl and connected to Johnny Cash.
Right.
I'm sure he was like, what the fuck?
Yeah.
I would be.
Alexandra was outgoing and adored by her parents.
Alexandra was outgoing and adored by friends and family.
(28:30):
Her sister said she was a happy girl all the time.
She was such a great girl that just made everybody happy whenever, wherever she went.
Excuse me.
She made everybody happy.
Everybody smile and everybody laugh.
End quote.
That's where we're going to continue.
That's when we're going to.
Ah.
(28:50):
That's when we're going to.
Holy.
All right, now we're going to take air.
I'm supposed to be with no air.
OK, everyone, we're going to take our second smoke break now.
Smoke break to.
(29:14):
And we're back from our smoke break.
So where I left off was basically just her sister talking about how much everybody loved
Alex and what a good person she was.
So immediately after finding her body, the police got pretty much straight to work investigating
(29:36):
her murder.
Since this was a missing person case, they kind of already had a little bit of a lead
going on.
So at around eight o'clock p.m. on May 18th, 1962, Alex went for a walk before her night
shift at the hospital.
Alexandra was set to work the night shift from around eleven thirty p.m. on Friday,
(30:00):
May 18th, 1962 at City Hospital in Skatoon.
So I feel like that's a normal regular shift.
So she went on a walk before a shift and obviously she never showed up for that evening shift.
It was very unlike Alexandra to miss work.
So the hospital ended up calling her roommates and they told the hospital that they didn't
(30:25):
know where Alex was either.
And Alexander said that the roommates told the family that Alex had said she was going
to mail some letters before heading to the hospital for her shift.
So when she didn't make it back to the apartment that evening, they just assumed she went to
work.
But the next morning when she did not come back from her shift, they knew something was
(30:49):
wrong.
And they were like, well, why isn't she home?
So they did a little investigating themselves and when they couldn't find anything, they
went to the police.
Detective Sergeant Diane Baker of the Historical Case Unit of the Skatoon Police Service told
Dateline that one of Alex's roommates, who was Pauline, called and reported her missing
(31:14):
on May 19th, 1962 at 1015 a.m.
So they wasted no time, which is good roommates.
Fuck yeah.
So on May 19th, 1962, police had the missing persons report placed over the radio stations
and also provided the report to a local RCMP.
(31:38):
And Detective Sergeant Baker said as a result of the radio broadcast, several individuals
called and came forward into the police station to report possibly seeing her or maybe seeing
someone matching Alex's description in or around Skatoon.
Baker told Dateline that the police took those statements and began interviewing those who
(32:01):
had possibly last seen her.
Police also had a boat unit out on the river and this boat unit was just checking the river
banks and all around the area as where she was last seen, basically.
So she was seen down on that river walkway where her body was eventually found.
(32:25):
And that was the river that they were patrolling, but didn't find her, unfortunately.
Detective Sergeant Baker said, adding to the boat river unit, on May 23rd, 1962, one of
their canine dogs showed interest in two culverts on the bank of the South Saskatchewan River.
(32:48):
Police learned that Alex had been spotted at several locations that night on her walk,
actually.
One of these locations was being at a drug store near her home at about 8.30pm or like
8.45ish.
And there was also an unconfirmed sighting afterwards of her walking by that same river
(33:09):
bank where she was found.
Interesting.
That was probably the last place she was seen, honestly.
The search for Alexandra lasted about 12 days and they had everybody looking for her, even
at airports and everything.
So they were really doing the work, which you don't typically see, which I will applaud
(33:30):
them for.
That's a good group of people searching, I guess.
You don't usually see it going that big, unless it's like kids.
Usually kids get that kind of attention, I feel like.
Not usually adults.
So Alex's sister Ann recalled that she thought it took about two weeks before they could
(33:51):
find her.
And then she said, but we finally found her.
Alex had been buried in the river bank where those earlier unconfirmed sightings had been
reported.
And she was about six blocks from her apartment.
So not far at all.
Her body was eventually recovered on May 31st, just a few feet away from the South Saskatchewan
(34:15):
riverbed.
Alex's killer beat her in the head with enough force to fracture her skull and she was brutally
raped.
Her hand was found partially sticking out of the sand or dirt and it was actually discovered
that there was dirt inside her lungs.
Oh man.
(34:36):
Which means...
So she was probably still breathing when she got buried?
Yeah, buried alive.
Oh man.
I know it's like a huge fear for a lot of people, but I couldn't imagine just being
so brutally attacked and then buried alive like that.
(34:58):
It's... depraved.
It's horrible.
Throughout the course of the investigation, there have been over 600 statements taken.
However, there have been no arrests on the case whatsoever.
And Alex's case has gone pretty cold.
So over the next part of what I'm going to say, I'm going to go over just like a little
(35:20):
timeline of the investigation.
So we have the basic information and then there's just like a little bit of scattered
information after this.
So not a whole lot, but it is enough to... where I want to mention it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Talk about it.
Yeah.
(35:41):
So let's talk about how her case goes cold.
In 1998, a man named Ed...
I hope I say this right...
Yukaboski?
Yukaboski?
...registered a complaint with attorney general about the handling of several unsolved cases.
This happened to include Alexandra's murder.
(36:04):
And this resulted in a creation of a police squad to help look over some of those cases
that were in question, which included Alex's.
Did it say who this guy was or was it just some random guy?
He was just a random guy, I think, investigating a different case.
And he realized that they weren't handled with the care that he would expect some of
(36:29):
these cases to be handled with.
And it rubbed him the wrong way.
So he filed that complaint and it was taken to the attorney general and they did something
about it.
They made this police cold squad is what it's called.
And they went over a couple different cases, including Alex's.
(36:50):
Unfortunately, nothing really came of looking over this, but it was kind of cool that they
were at least able to bring some attention to some of these cold cases.
Because as we all know, like even if you can't solve them right away, bringing those attention
to cold cases sometimes gets them solved.
(37:13):
It does sometimes take a while, but you never know what you can discover by just keeping
a case relevant.
Especially with like new eyes on it as well, because this is what, like 30 years after
the fact.
So even just like a whole new pair of eyes, like maybe they missed something.
Yeah, exactly.
Or you know, sometimes people who commit these kinds of crimes don't always keep them to
(37:40):
themselves.
You know, someone knows something and you know, eventually their conscience catches
up to them.
Yeah.
You know, doesn't always happen, but sometimes, you know, we get lucky every once in a while.
So Sharon Rutella was a woman who was being inducted into the Order of Canada on November
(38:01):
30th, 2002.
And she knew about Alex's case and she happened to have a conversation with the Governor General
who got her in contact with someone named Leiden McIntyre.
And while Sharon was working on this case, they were able to just put a little bit more
(38:26):
effort into it with Sharon's help and this cold case investigation team that they put
together.
So the challenge was for the police and for Sharon and for this cold case team.
Because most of the witnesses had died in this case.
It was quite a while ago and by 2002, there's not a lot of people still living that happened
(38:52):
to be around this case.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And really where most of the challenges lied for them in trying to revitalize this case
in any way.
So many memories had faded for those who were still alive too because of their age that
nothing was really very reliable either.
(39:15):
But now we have technology and with the help of technology, some of the evidence, the crime
scene evidence, DNA was able to be tested but none of it was successfully tested.
So nothing actually came of being able to test the DNA but it was still tested.
(39:35):
With that not being successful, they wanted to try one more avenue in maybe trying to
find a match in DNA.
So they asked Alex's family, their remaining living family, if they could exhume Alex's
body in hopes to find any hair DNA from the murderer, I guess, from the attacker to test
(40:03):
basically.
Yeah.
So with those hopes, the family gave permission to the Skatoon police to exhume Alex's body
and they actually found a hair that was missed during the original autopsy and it was sent
to a lab in Regina to be tested.
Unfortunately in 2007, a high tech lab called Thunder Bay was able to test this DNA profile
(40:32):
and they were able to determine that it was not Alex's hair but were not able to determine
who the hair came from obviously.
So Skatoon police started collecting profiles from different suspects that were originally
obviously suspected in the case and from family members and dead suspects and family members
(40:54):
of dead suspects as well.
Two suspects were cleared named Billy McGriffin.
He was a redhead boy that someone had mentioned that lived down the street that they just
randomly was like, yeah, he could be the one.
I don't even know if the hair was red that was found on the body but he was cleared.
(41:19):
His DNA was actually collected from his daughter and able to clear him and his brother because
Billy had passed away in 1998.
So with his familial DNA, they were both cleared which is nice.
And this boy named Leslie Colson was a teenager in 1962 and he was apparently known to police.
(41:43):
He had already served jail time for sex offenses including five convictions.
So this was five convictions for indecent exposure starting in 1960.
Around the same timeline?
Yeah.
He has 19 convictions for indecent acts and two indecent assaults.
(42:06):
Oh wow.
Which, what the fuck is an indecent assault I wonder?
I didn't look it up but...
You slapping your meat on somebody?
Ew.
Sorry.
Yeah, it's probably right.
It's probably just like not an actual essay but leading up to it I guess.
(42:28):
Ew.
He had one in 1974 for having sex with a 15 year old.
And the victim ended up dying from a blow to the head and she was buried in a snowbank.
So he was serving time in a federal penitentiary in British Columbia but his DNA was also excluded
(42:53):
from the match.
Wow.
But that was oddly similar.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
He had a blow to the head.
Uh huh.
And in a riverbank?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
Is there ever like false negatives?
I'm sure because I don't know if, I've watched a documentary on DNA testing and I've also
(43:15):
listened to this podcast which is a really good podcast called Science Versus and it's
a scientist versus like different random things but this one was science versus DNA testing
and they kind of went through how DNA testing is performed and it's interesting how a lot
(43:35):
of it is an educated guess.
Like it's a graph that you're kind of like matching two things and you can get really
close but like at the end of the day it's a really really good educated guess on a lot
of things.
Yeah so it's potential that.
Yeah.
Cause that like sounds like way too like close for it not to be a coincidence or something.
(43:58):
I thought so too.
That's crazy.
Like crazy close.
15 year old victim too.
What a gross motherfucker.
So no DNA match for him.
And then we skip to 2008.
Police process the profile against 13 different persons of interest.
(44:21):
Several people have been excluded through DNA comparisons and some of them are unknown.
But most of them have been cleared.
Which sucks cause that means they really don't have anything you know.
Yeah literally nothing.
Yeah.
In April of 2008 Sharon who is the lady that we talked about earlier who was in touch with
(44:43):
the governor general way back a couple years ago.
Not a couple but yeah yeah.
You know whenever back in the story.
And had teamed up with the cold case victim unit and the police to try and resurface this
basically.
And was basically responsible for getting the DNA tested also.
(45:08):
She ended up writing and releasing a book in 2008 called The Girl in Skatoon.
A Meditation on Friendship Memory and Murder.
That's a sad book title.
I know.
Fuck.
Then in May of 2008 Alex's four nieces Patty Story 49 Lauren Phillips 57 Lynn Gertricks
(45:35):
and Gwen Tarleson which I didn't have their ages read Sharon's book.
So these are Alex's nieces.
And they decided to actively investigate their aunt's murder after that.
Which is cool.
So they're just that alone was like enough fuel to their fire to like be like oh yeah
we should reinvestigate this.
(45:57):
So that's like what I mean by just a little bit of resurfacing talking about these cases
can bubble up some of these things.
Yeah.
I was like thinking a little bit ago like I like cold cases in the sense of like it gives
like opportunity to talk about it and then maybe like opportunity for people like listening
(46:17):
to be like oh you know maybe there's a tidbit that they can give to like solve it.
But I also hate it in the fact that I hate not knowing like the outcome to it.
I'm like ugh.
I know.
I wish we knew the outcome.
Hopefully one day we will with some of them.
Yeah.
Well it brings me back to season one of Boy in the Box.
(46:39):
Yeah.
So literally the week of filming that episode they came out with like the identification
of the Boy in the Box.
Yeah.
It's huge.
And I'm sure we'll hear like more about like what happened to him.
Yeah.
Now that they know who he was.
You know.
It's huge.
It's awesome.
(46:59):
So we were talking about Alex's nieces.
They were only children at the time of their aunt's murder.
But they vowed when they grew up that they were going to solve it.
Which is adorable.
It's fun.
Yeah.
And according to Patty the book gave them the needed kick in the pants.
Over the next couple of months they interviewed over a hundred people and came up with four
(47:22):
theories and suspects in the murder of their aunt Alex's case.
The nieces unveiled a billboard in downtown Skatoon at the corner of 25th Street and 2nd
St. Louis, asking for tips in their aunt's murder.
It has a toll free number 1-866-794-1962.
(47:48):
Just in case anybody has any information.
In the first week of the nieces billboard being put up they received over 40 calls actually.
So that's pretty huge.
The four nieces actually don't live in the Skatoon area anymore.
They live in British Columbia, New York, and Alberta.
(48:09):
But they return to Skatoon every couple of months to follow up on any needs.
Which is awesome.
To have family like that man.
Like that.
Top tier right there.
It has been nearly 62 years since the murder.
Only three of Alex's siblings are still alive.
Pearl, Anne, and their brother Daniel.
(48:32):
Some of Alex's nieces have teamed up to try and solve the case that has caused their family
so much pain for so long.
And to give their aunt's remaining siblings answers.
They were all children when their aunt Alex was murdered.
Patty and Lynn were both told Dateline that they have memories of crying every time Alex
left their house.
(48:53):
They remember not ever wanting to let her go.
And they all had very special different relationships with her.
Baker said that she was totally, totally outgoing.
And she always laughed.
And she was always playing jokes.
She was just an incredible person.
There was nothing that she couldn't do or say that wouldn't make things better.
(49:17):
She was beautiful and it was really exciting because she was the only one of the family
who really continued her education, Bonnie said.
The nieces remembered how devastating Alex's murder was for the entire family.
Mother just couldn't believe it.
Just couldn't believe that something would ever happen to her.
It was very scary.
Mother was just so devastated.
(49:37):
It was so very terrible and such a sad time for us all.
Mother wouldn't come out of her bedroom and she wouldn't eat.
My dad just kept going in there and you know trying to console her.
But my mom was so depressed and so upset.
She loved her baby sister and she couldn't understand who would do such a thing.
Sorry.
(49:58):
No, it's okay.
I hear Stella.
We got a baby bean.
Stella.
Come here baby bean.
Baby.
Hi.
A baby bean.
That's Stella, Rella.
Hi baby bean.
Why are you sleeping?
You're okay.
Yeah.
(50:19):
My dad just kept going in there on her.
You know trying to console her.
My mom was just so depressed and so upset she said.
She loved her baby sister and she just couldn't understand who would do such a thing.
It was just so traumatizing in our household.
Myself and my family, we were just so disturbed Pearl said.
(50:43):
I lost 16 pounds in two weeks.
I couldn't eat or sleep or nothing for two weeks.
Alex's case going cold didn't diminish the family's desire to get answers and justice
though.
Lynn said we were doing a lot of this for my mom, my grandmother and my grandfather
but also for us.
She says that you just don't understand what a family goes through until it happens to
(51:09):
them.
I completely agree.
I don't think I could ever put myself in a mindset of any of the family or victims shoes.
I can't put myself there.
I feel like if you do you start to put yourself in a really weird thinking process.
(51:30):
And why would you want to?
In recent years Lynn has been in charge of a lot of the family investigation and she
said she keeps in very close contact with the police pushing them to find answers.
There's a lot of people that know me even if it's just by phone call and email across
Canada she said.
They even say how did you find me?
(51:52):
But it took a few courses and then I just took a private investigator course and I passed
she said.
I could find anybody I wanted.
I'm very good at it but my research is the main thing.
Lynn said that she looked through the Skatoon phone books starting in the year 1959 to find
(52:15):
anyone who lived near Alex's apartment.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Dedication man.
Dedication.
She also went through all of the old newspapers to find anyone who was charged with rape,
murder or assault in the area at the time.
Wow.
That's a huge task I feel like.
She said I sat down with 60 names after all that research.
(52:37):
It took me over a year.
I did the profiles of every one of them to see if they're still alive.
So when the historical caseworker asked me for this information it was no problem.
I had it all there.
Sergeant Detective Baker confirmed that the family has provided investigators with all
(52:58):
of the information they have discovered and that there is an open dialogue between the
investigators and the family she said.
It was like a lot of work but it was something I could try and give just a little help to
Alex's case.
Lynn said it was something that was needed which I don't know if she didn't put the
(53:20):
leg leg work in.
I don't know who would you know the amount of work that my cousins has done is beyond
belief.
Alex's niece Bonnie Parker said of Lynn they are devoted to solving it and bringing their
family closure but know that they will eventually have to hand their work over to the next generation.
I know it's like a really really sad thing to realize you know what I mean.
(53:49):
Like I guess you would assume that you would think that you would solve it but of course
I guess they don't feel that way.
Yeah especially like nothing to go off of again you know.
Yeah.
I mean they had like what 600 statements or something like that originally but nothing
(54:09):
else.
Not enough you know.
To that end the nieces have been working on passing the torch to Chantel who is Alexandra's
great niece and the great granddaughter of Alex's older sister.
It's always been a story and something that I've had to live through and through my grandma
and watch her in her dying days.
(54:32):
Still not have any answers.
Still not have the answers that she really wanted or to see justice for Alex Chantel
said.
So that was her great granddaughter.
Patty and Chantel have been working hard behind the scenes for the last few years doing research.
I think she's going to go full time with the investigation now too she said because we
(54:52):
need younger gals to help out.
Patty's daughter Samantha and Jessica have created a Facebook page and a website called
Justice for Alex in hopes of spreading awareness and gaining public interest back in Alex's
case.
The Skatoon police service also posts to their social media accounts on the anniversary of
(55:13):
Alexandra's death in hopes of renewing the public interest in the case.
That's cool.
Yeah.
I like to do that you know.
Yeah.
We appreciate everything anybody can do for us and I would like to say to our mom we are
trying our best Lynn said.
I want to try my best to solve this case for her and my grandmother and my grandfather her
(55:36):
friends and everybody and it would be the best gift that I can give my mom and to all
of them.
Oh I know.
That's so sad.
Yeah.
Detective Sergeant Baker urges anyone with information about the murder of Alexandra
Woodchuck to please contact Skatoon police service at 306 975 8300.
(56:03):
So what are your thoughts on this case?
I don't know if I really have any.
That was a lot of information.
I know the timeline I know was long and drawn out but I just felt like you know I didn't
want to diminish all of the work that they had put into it because it is a lot of work.
It's just not a lot of information was discovered out of the work which sucks you know.
(56:28):
But a lot of dedication a lot of wanting to see justice which I really really really admire
from all of these people.
Yeah it just goes to show how great of like a family they are too.
You know of like even after years of it being cold just still wanting to like dedicate your
life to give your mom and great grandma or whatever the justice you know.
(56:55):
Yeah it's incredible.
Just a really sad story overall too like he said just a whole life ahead of her she seemed
like she was really off to big great things and unfortunately will never have the opportunity
to do any of those things you know.
(57:17):
It's tragic.
Very.
If you guys have any thoughts on the case you can comment down below and let us know
what you think.
Any thoughts theories anything like that or anything you want to say to us.
Stella looks really sad over here.
(57:41):
She's tired.
She's yawning a lot.
We are going to close out the case.
Thank you all for tuning in for our third episode.
Getting stoned with us and listening to another case.
Until next time stay high stay safe and thank you for listening.
Hey guys let us know what you think down below in the comments but as always be respectful
and kind as these are serious cases that have yet to be solved.
(58:05):
If you enjoyed the show please like subscribe and hit the notification bell so you can know
when we drop our next episode.
Happy 420. I'm Kai and I'm Queen Reefer and you're watching Stone Cold Murder.
(00:05):
Just a PSA, if you have any information that can help solve a crime, go to
Crimestoppers.com to report any information anonymously. This podcast contains material that might not be suitable for all
audiences. Viewer discretion is advised.
Thanks for tuning in for a season 3 episode 3, the girl in Skatoon.
(00:27):
Skatoon.
Skatoon.
Scoot, scoot, toon.
Scoot and boogie.
Hahaha.
Sorry.
That's Todd's favorite song.
Really? Boots, Scoot and Boogie?
Yeah, you'll sing it and he'll be like, ooo.
Awww, I'm gonna do it if you just start singing it.
Yeah.
Where it has to play the music.
(00:47):
Um, no I think if you sing the chorus, he'll go with you.
He does with s*** anyways.
Alright, I'm coming over soon and I'm gonna sing Boots, Scoot and Boogie to your dog.
He likes that one and Werewolves in London.
Werewolves in London.
Awww.
Awww.
I know, it's so cute.
You should video it.
(01:08):
I do have a video.
And you should put it, oh.
I'll show you, my phone's over there.
Yeah, I need to see this. You should put it on, uh.
I'll send it to Matt so we can watch it here.
Yeah.
Todd singing Boots, Scoot, Boogie.
Todd singing Boots, Scoot, Boogie.
Yeah, he's the best.
I love him.
(01:29):
He was laying on the couch earlier today and he was like trying to
worm his way under the couch cushions because he was cold.
So I covered him up with a little blanket and he just like curled up like a little donut.
I know.
What a cutie, we don't deserve dogs.
I know.
He's the best ever.
Truly.
(01:51):
Anyways, hello everyone.
Welcome back to Stone Cold Murder.
I don't think I needed to introduce but I am gonna introduce us anyways.
Almost said Stone Cold Murder.
It's Queen Reefer.
And Matt in the booth.
(02:11):
I don't know if you have a cam or anything anymore but he's in the booth behind, right here.
Right here.
He's there.
You can't see him but we appreciate him.
So how are you doing this week?
You didn't introduce yourself.
Oh, I'm Kai.
And this is Kai.
It's me.
(02:32):
We're back.
We're here ready to share another case with y'all.
How have you been this week?
How have I been this week?
Great.
Yeah.
I've been a little brown recluse this week.
You've been a brown recluse this week.
Yeah.
You've been locked up.
I've been locked up.
Biting people.
Yeah.
(02:52):
No.
De-tearing skin.
Yeah, that too.
No, it's just we have gotten a lot of snow this week so stayed in my house, bunker down.
Stayed warm.
Oh yeah.
Did you watch any good like snow movies?
No, I just played games.
But I actually did go see the new Smile yesterday.
(03:12):
Oh, how was it?
It was good.
It was better but not better than the last one at the same time.
I don't know how to explain it.
I haven't seen the first one, surprisingly.
Yeah, it's more gory than the first one, but the smiles on the people aren't as scary.
(03:32):
Oh, but there's more gore.
Yeah.
Overall, was the movie scarier or?
It was just more mind fucking.
Oh, yeah.
You're like a lot of stuff that you thought were like real and then it won't.
Well, I'm not going to get into it too much.
Yeah, but just more of a mind twisting than the first one.
I kind of like that though.
Like, yeah, usually I can predict stuff and then it would happen, but then at the end
(03:58):
it changed and then just crazy.
Yeah, like the end of Twilight when it's that battle scene.
Yeah, like that type of switch.
Yeah, you go through all these emotions and you're like this is real life right now and
then it's like it's not real life right now.
What is this?
Yeah.
Do you remember seeing that in the theater?
And everyone's jaw was like wide open and you could hear a pencil fall and everyone's
(04:20):
like, oh, yeah, no way.
I vividly remember watching that in the theater.
Me too, just because of that part specifically.
It's good.
Good cinematic shit.
I'm pretty sure we watched it together too.
Oh, yeah.
And then we were like both like looked at each other like what just happened?
Carlisle.
Carlisle died.
(04:41):
Yeah, so that kind of that kind of mindfuck, you know?
Yeah.
Just like, wait, what?
I'm here for that because I you and I both are people that like predict endings of movies
pretty easily.
So I always appreciate a movie that can like catch me off guard.
I really enjoy that.
Speaking of, I think we talked about this a couple weeks ago, but the Anything Everywhere
(05:04):
All at Once movie.
Yeah, I need to watch that.
You need to watch it.
That is mindfucking.
I can remember to watch it.
I get stoned and forget it.
I'm going to send it right now because I'm also going to forget.
But that is also another really good one.
OK, I've had a couple of people tell me that actually.
So it's really weird.
(05:26):
But you'll appreciate it.
Like, I remember watching it and I was like, what am I watching?
And then by the end of the movie, you're like, I really want to watch it again right now
because it's like that good.
OK, it's crazy.
Did you finish Terrifier?
No, I need to.
Dang.
It's free on Tubi, man.
I know I need to.
(05:46):
I keep wanting to.
I just.
Yeah, you guys were into it.
Yeah.
That night.
I was glad Matt stayed and finished it with me.
Oh, yeah, bro.
The homie right there.
Hell yeah, bro.
But yeah.
Oh, so smile.
Did you guys eat any soup or have any hot chocolate with the snow?
(06:07):
No.
Well, apple cider.
Apple cider?
Yeah.
Yummy.
I had some of that, too.
Yeah.
Always delicious.
I also do have hot chocolate, but.
Thanks.
Yeah.
But you weren't feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
Lots of chocolate chip cookies, though.
Warm chocolate chip cookies.
The best.
(06:28):
Hell yeah.
Puppy snuggles.
Mm hmm.
It's the best kind of cinnamon rolls.
Those ones that you got that one time.
No.
Oh, those were ones.
Those were good.
Those were way too good.
I know.
I don't know what the hell they put in that, but so good.
My favorite thing about a cinnamon roll is when they're squishy like that, too.
I don't want them crunching.
I don't like crunchy rolls.
(06:48):
We don't want a crunchy roll around here.
Crunchy roll anime, but not a crunchy roll cinnamon roll or crunchy roll sushi.
I'll take that cinnamon rolls.
They need to be soft and warm and light and fluffy, squishy, decadent, sticky.
Very demure, very mindful.
(07:12):
Moist.
Anyway.
I'm done.
Moist.
Yeah.
Cinnamon rolls.
I worked through the snowstorm.
Yeah.
Per the use.
I actually worked a lot of hours this week.
I'm not going to lie.
I am toasted.
I slept all day yesterday.
(07:34):
The entirety of yesterday I slept.
How are you feeling today?
Better.
Yeah.
Much better, but I've had two Red Bulls today, so.
Damn, girl.
And an espresso.
Damn, your heart's like.
No, it's not because I don't take Adderall anymore because my company got rid of my insurance.
So I have to supplement it with all this caffeine.
(07:57):
I'm pretty sure like every episode so far we've talked about Adderall.
Because it's inhibiting my brain, guys.
Well, you know, just drink two Red Bulls and a cappuccino and you're good.
Apparently.
It's close-ish.
Not really even scrapes it, unfortunately.
Well, I think we talked about this.
Did you try the Focus drink yet?
(08:19):
Yeah, that shit was good.
Yeah.
Really good.
Really good.
Does that help your mind a little bit?
Like, I know it's not comparable to the medicine, but.
It works for me at work, which is really nice.
Because I seem to be like quite scatterbrained at work most of the time.
But I just take a dry scoop of that and.
(08:40):
Jesus.
Just a fucking dry scoop.
I used to do that for like pre-workout when I was like going to the gym a lot, but.
Your reaction is my every one of my employees reaction.
They're like.
Because that shit's thick, like even just opening it and the whiff of the powder
like actually makes me choke.
(09:02):
I just put a little water in my mouth and then I take a scoop and go and then put
more water in my mouth and then shake my head like this.
Tugboat that shit.
Blblblbl.
Tugboat.
You meant motorboat.
(09:23):
Motorboat.
I totally meant motorboat.
Yeah.
Tugboat.
Anyways, we're here for a podcast.
Anyways, no tugboat in here.
But motorboating.
Man, every episode I'm crying before the episode even takes place.
You know why?
Why?
You don't have insurance.
(09:44):
Can't get your medicine.
Yeah, I can't focus.
Help.
Little tiny violin.
All right.
Well, I'm also take a dab before we get started.
I don't know why that sounded so aggressive.
(10:05):
All right.
And this smoke break is bought to you by tugboating.
All right.
So our story starts out on the evening of May 31st, 1962.
(10:25):
Around nine o'clock, two young boys were playing near the river
and they made a gruesome discovery,
which is never good when you're just playing outside,
trying to be an innocent little child playing by the creek.
What?
The creek.
The creek.
It's not a creek either.
(10:47):
What?
It was a river.
Same shit to Frank and Krushner.
As a kid, yeah, I feel like everything is like a little fun adventure.
And unfortunately, these kids found a horrible site.
The two brothers ran to their father immediately,
who was down the river fishing a little bit or a little bit down the river fishing,
I should say.
(11:08):
And they told him what they found.
After describing the scene to him, he called the police.
And according to the local newspaper,
the boys discovered a hand that was partially sticking out of the
what they described as a shallow grave.
So you.
Yeah, could you imagine?
No, no, I know.
(11:30):
That's what that's all they saw was like a hand sticking up.
Yeah, it's like, oh, almost kind of like zombie stuff.
Yeah.
You know, OK.
The body was nude from the waist down and her clothing was ripped.
The police chief at the time named Jim Kettles was on the scene that day,
(11:50):
and he called the crime one of the most heinous and sadistic offenses
that Skatoon had seen for a long time.
Dang.
So it had to be like really bad.
Yeah.
Because I'm sure they see like a lot of fucked up shit.
Yeah.
This is in Canada to specify.
(12:11):
Sorry.
Got a little itch.
Anyways, unfortunately, those on the scene had a pretty good idea who the body was.
A woman who had been missing for about two weeks.
They had her roommate confirm that the clothing was hers,
and when she identified the clothing as her roommates,
(12:32):
the police were able to confirm their suspicion.
The body was that was found in the shallow grave was 23 year old Alexandria Wurchuck.
Alex's roommate, Pauline, called and reported her missing on May 19th, 1962,
at about 10 15 a.m. when she never showed up for her shift the previous night.
(12:58):
So on May 19th, the police had a missing person report placed over the radio
on the stations CKOM and CFCQ, and they also provided the report to a local RCMP.
So it was almost immediate that they started looking for her,
which I don't think is always the case with missing persons report.
(13:22):
A lot of times they'll make you wait 24 hours or even up to a week
to report someone missing if they have been a runaway or something like that.
You know.
Yeah, usually it's like 24 72 hours.
Yeah, which is crazy.
But also lucky for them that they had a police department that was willing to start.
(13:46):
You know, Detective Sergeant Baker said as a result of the radio broadcast,
several individuals called or came into the police station to report possible possibly
seeing her or someone matching Alexandra's description around the Skatoon area.
There was a huge search done looking for any trace of Alex or what may have happened to her
(14:07):
coming up with actually absolutely nothing, which sucks and probably why it took two weeks
to actually find her body.
Detective Sergeant Baker told Dateline that the area where Skatoon Police Service K9
had actually taken interest in during those searches, those first searches,
(14:30):
was actually very close to where Alex's body was found on May 31st.
So I think if they would have done a little bit more looking around the area,
they might have found her early on in the case.
But I'm not sure why they didn't investigate further.
Maybe they thought the dog wasn't hitting properly or something.
(14:51):
But they did say that the K9 hit or did take interest in the body.
They did say that the K9 hit or did take interest to that area.
So I thought that was pretty interesting.
Yeah, you would think like if it did take like the dog did take interest to it,
like obviously it's finding something, right?
(15:14):
Yeah.
And maybe it was just that the shallow grave was good enough to where she couldn't be seen.
And maybe it took some weather related incidents to like make her hand be seen, you know,
eventually. I'm not sure, but it was an interesting thought that I was surprised.
(15:35):
Yeah.
Alexandra's cause of death was believed to be due to a skull fracture that caused a brain hemorrhage.
Which. Oh, that's awful. Alex sustained multiple injuries,
including a laceration of the scalp, face and vulva and various abrasions of the skin.
(15:57):
So bruises of the skin, bruises, scrapes.
These were all very clear signs that Alex had suffered a vicious sexual assault
on top of being brutally murdered.
Poor thing.
I know. And that's where we'll take our first smoke break.
(16:20):
And we're back. Stoned.
All right. So I kind of left off saying that Alex had sustained multiple injuries,
including lacerations of the scalp, face, vulva and various abrasions of the skin.
And these were all very clear signs that Alex had suffered a vicious sexual assault and attack.
(16:47):
A little bit about Alexandria, Alexandra. I'm sorry. Not Alexandria, Alexandra.
Alexandra was a bright, young, vivacious and bubbly girl by all accounts.
Alexandra Warchuk was born in 1939 in the town of Endeavor.
Skata watching. And this is just east of Skatoon.
(17:10):
Skatoon.
Alexandra was the youngest of 10 children.
Damn.
Yeah, 10. That's a fuck ton of children.
The whole army.
Whole army. Whole damn army in Skatoon.
She had six brothers and three sisters in a traditional Ukrainian family who grew up on a
(17:32):
farm in Endeavor. One of her sisters,
said she always had a smile and made everybody happy, especially her parents.
Which I'm sure most of the time as the youngest, as you could relate to,
parents fucking love the young. Not that they don't love the other children, because of course they
do. But the youngest has a special place in your heart because it's the youngest.
(17:57):
But I also feel like a lot of pressure to.
Oh, I'm sure.
It has its pros and cons.
Yeah, I was able to just not.
Not feel the pressure. Well, a different kind of pressure, but yeah, not that kind of pressure.
But yeah, as the youngest, her parents really adored her.
(18:17):
Her sister said that they were best friends when they were growing up and did everything together.
Alex was just under five foot two.
So she was a short queen.
Sleigh. Yes, sleigh. Described as having a rich, reddish, dark hair and light colored eyes.
Oh, beautiful.
(18:39):
Yes. And let me tell you guys, this is where we're going to insert a picture here, but
Alexandra was absolutely goddamn beautiful.
Like I, I'm not exaggerating.
When I saw a photo of her, I was like, like gore.
Yeah, she sounds gorgeous. She was gorgeous.
(18:59):
I mean, stunning. My mouth dropped like she.
If people are familiar with traditional style tattoos, she looks like the traditional style nurse
side profile with the roses.
She has this photo that I'm going to give Matt to insert here.
And good God, like she looks like the image taken to make these.
(19:24):
Yeah, looks like someone saw her picture and was like, that is the most stunning, beautiful woman
I've ever seen. I'm going to draw her as a tattoo and memorialize her on someone's skin.
Wow. Like, but do you have the picture now?
Yeah, I kind of want to see it. I will show you.
Sorry. I'm like, I cannot not see a picture of her now that we talked about it.
Oh, yeah. Gorgeous. Right.
(19:45):
Because some reason I thought she had.
I thought you said red.
I don't. I just think this picture doesn't show it very well.
But yeah, like reddish hair. I think it's a black and white photo that they enhance, you know.
She attended high school at Skatoon Technical Collette where she was a member of the Drama Club.
Sounds fun. Am I the drama?
(20:09):
Am I the drama? Me the drama? Us the drama?
No. She was in the drama.
She was in drama, though.
The drama club. And her dream was to become a stewardess.
Which sounds fun. Yeah.
(20:29):
But at only five foot two, she was too short at the time to become a stewardess.
And they were not allowing short people to be stewardess.
So instead, in 1959, she returned to Yorkton and with support and a little financial help from her
family, Alex took up nursing instead.
(20:51):
And she did this at Yorkton Union Hospital School of Nursing.
So that's like a big career switch up.
I feel like wanting to be stewardess and traveling and, you know, enjoying that whole lifestyle to
being a nurse. That's a very big switch up.
But she seemed to enjoy it.
(21:11):
And at the time of Alex's murder, she had graduated from college from the college nursing
program in 1961 and was the only one of her family that had continued her education beyond high
school. Oh, good for her.
I know. An educated queen.
Yes. Yeah.
(21:32):
With her nursing degree in hand, she began to work at City Hospital in Skatoon in September of 1961.
And she shared a basement apartment in the city with three other nurses,
Alice Hall, Doreen Baduk and Pauline Tillis.
(21:52):
And they all worked at the same hospital.
So it made it nice that they could all share this basement apartment.
You know, they all had the same job, probably somewhat similar schedules.
So that's kind of a nice roommate situation, I feel like.
Yeah. I've had roommate situations where it's just like we're all on different schedules and
(22:13):
it makes it very weird shared space.
You know what I mean?
So Alex had a lot of things going for her at the time.
She was young, beautiful, freshly graduated from nursing.
Life was looking promising.
And with luck on her side, Alex entered a contest sponsored by a local radio station to promote,
(22:37):
of all people, country singer Johnny Cash.
Wow. I know.
Isn't that cool?
Yeah. In 1961, Johnny Cash was sent to perform in Canada.
And this was going to be in the city of Skatoon, in Saskatchewan specifically.
(22:57):
So Johnny was going to perform his recent single, which was titled Girl in Skatoon,
which is kind of cool.
Obviously, why this contest was going here in the specific city of Skatoon.
And a local radio station sponsored a contest to choose a young woman for Johnny Cash to pull
(23:19):
out of the audience and sing to on stage.
So it's kind of cool.
Yeah.
Especially if you're into Johnny Cash. I mean, Johnny Cash was cool.
Yeah.
I'll give him that.
It's Johnny Cash.
It's Johnny fucking Cash.
Johnny fucking Cash, man.
And he would have loved for you to say it that way too.
Oh, yeah.
I imagine.
The winner of the contest just so happened to be
(23:44):
Alex.
Yeah, it was Alex.
Yeah.
Of course, because she's gorgeous.
And Dateline spoke to her sister Pearl,
one of her older sisters, actually, who was actually 91 at the time that they spoke to her.
So crazy.
Wait, who was 91?
(24:05):
Her sister Pearl, when Dateline spoke to her about this, they had an interview.
Oh, I thought you meant at the time of the concert.
I was like, the math ain't math in here.
I was so confused.
It's like her older sister that's 91.
Yeah.
So, OK, I catch it.
I phrased it a little weird, but it was going to...
(24:26):
Once I said the whole paragraph, you would have understood.
I just heard 91 and I said my brain checked out.
I was like, mentally in my head, like trying to piece the pieces together.
And I was like, like that mean.
Yeah.
This ain't adding up.
Yeah.
So Dateline spoke with Pearl, one of Alex's older sisters,
(24:48):
who was 91 at the time of the interview,
but still remembered the excitement of that night.
She said, quote, that was so great that Johnny Cash was there
and made that song Girl in Skatoon.
I was there too.
And that was a great night.
End quote.
Oh, stop.
What a cutie bean.
(25:08):
I know.
He sang the song Girl in Skatoon to Alex in the Skatoon arena in front of 1500 fans.
That is a big crowd.
Yeah.
Unfortunately, just a year later, the Girl in Skatoon, Alexandra, would be dead,
which is very unfortunate.
And like, it's crazy that you can go from someone like her could go from just having
(25:37):
all of these great things in front of you to having her just completely ripped out of you
or from you, I should say, in a matter of seconds.
Nobody even knew.
In seconds, nobody even saw it coming.
You know, I mean, you never do with these kind of cases or any murder cases usually.
But like, I don't know.
(26:00):
You just think back to all the times that like you're really having a good streak
and just feeling really good and just like,
could you imagine just having someone murdered after all of this?
Yeah.
No, and it's always like people who are living life, dude, that are at the top of their game,
just, you know, content, happy.
(26:21):
Yeah.
Being a nurse, helping people, you know.
Alexandra or Alex, according to her family,
had actually won multiple beauty contests by the time she turned 21,
which fitting because she was fucking gorgeous.
She was voted queen of Kinnett's skating carnival in Yorkton in 1960.
(26:43):
And that same year, she won Yorkton's entrant in the Providence wide
Skatowatchan Wheat Queen contest.
Wow, what a mouthful.
I know.
Hold on. Say that again.
That same year, she was Yorkton's entrant in the Providence wide Skatowatchan
(27:04):
Wheat Queen contest.
Wheat Queen, Wheat Queen.
Wow. I want to be a Wheat Queen.
It sounds like folly.
Wheat, you know.
I like wheat.
Wheat's cool.
Yeah.
(27:25):
Alexandra was beautiful inside and out.
And when the discovery of her murder was shared around the community,
they were all obviously very shaken up by the news.
According to Alex's family, when Johnny Cash heard about the news,
he was on stage.
He actually stopped the show and told the audience that they were going to have to
(27:46):
take two minutes of silence in order to honor the girl in Skatoon.
Aw.
I know.
And it's said that Johnny Cash never performed that song in concert again.
Wow.
So he like really took that to heart.
Yeah.
Aw.
Yeah. Because I mean, it was that same year.
Yeah.
So like, you know, it's almost one of those like weird fate things, you know?
(28:09):
Yeah.
Like, fuck, like I just saw like out of all of the people that could have won this
contest in Skatoon, it had to be that girl and connected to Johnny Cash.
Right.
I'm sure he was like, what the fuck?
Yeah.
I would be.
Alexandra was outgoing and adored by her parents.
Alexandra was outgoing and adored by friends and family.
(28:30):
Her sister said she was a happy girl all the time.
She was such a great girl that just made everybody happy whenever, wherever she went.
Excuse me.
She made everybody happy.
Everybody smile and everybody laugh.
End quote.
That's where we're going to continue.
That's when we're going to.
Ah.
(28:50):
That's when we're going to.
Holy.
All right, now we're going to take air.
I'm supposed to be with no air.
OK, everyone, we're going to take our second smoke break now.
Smoke break to.
(29:14):
And we're back from our smoke break.
So where I left off was basically just her sister talking about how much everybody loved
Alex and what a good person she was.
So immediately after finding her body, the police got pretty much straight to work investigating
(29:36):
her murder.
Since this was a missing person case, they kind of already had a little bit of a lead
going on.
So at around eight o'clock p.m. on May 18th, 1962, Alex went for a walk before her night
shift at the hospital.
Alexandra was set to work the night shift from around eleven thirty p.m. on Friday,
(30:00):
May 18th, 1962 at City Hospital in Skatoon.
So I feel like that's a normal regular shift.
So she went on a walk before a shift and obviously she never showed up for that evening shift.
It was very unlike Alexandra to miss work.
So the hospital ended up calling her roommates and they told the hospital that they didn't
(30:25):
know where Alex was either.
And Alexander said that the roommates told the family that Alex had said she was going
to mail some letters before heading to the hospital for her shift.
So when she didn't make it back to the apartment that evening, they just assumed she went to
work.
But the next morning when she did not come back from her shift, they knew something was
(30:49):
wrong.
And they were like, well, why isn't she home?
So they did a little investigating themselves and when they couldn't find anything, they
went to the police.
Detective Sergeant Diane Baker of the Historical Case Unit of the Skatoon Police Service told
Dateline that one of Alex's roommates, who was Pauline, called and reported her missing
(31:14):
on May 19th, 1962 at 1015 a.m.
So they wasted no time, which is good roommates.
Fuck yeah.
So on May 19th, 1962, police had the missing persons report placed over the radio stations
and also provided the report to a local RCMP.
(31:38):
And Detective Sergeant Baker said as a result of the radio broadcast, several individuals
called and came forward into the police station to report possibly seeing her or maybe seeing
someone matching Alex's description in or around Skatoon.
Baker told Dateline that the police took those statements and began interviewing those who
(32:01):
had possibly last seen her.
Police also had a boat unit out on the river and this boat unit was just checking the river
banks and all around the area as where she was last seen, basically.
So she was seen down on that river walkway where her body was eventually found.
(32:25):
And that was the river that they were patrolling, but didn't find her, unfortunately.
Detective Sergeant Baker said, adding to the boat river unit, on May 23rd, 1962, one of
their canine dogs showed interest in two culverts on the bank of the South Saskatchewan River.
(32:48):
Police learned that Alex had been spotted at several locations that night on her walk,
actually.
One of these locations was being at a drug store near her home at about 8.30pm or like
8.45ish.
And there was also an unconfirmed sighting afterwards of her walking by that same river
(33:09):
bank where she was found.
Interesting.
That was probably the last place she was seen, honestly.
The search for Alexandra lasted about 12 days and they had everybody looking for her, even
at airports and everything.
So they were really doing the work, which you don't typically see, which I will applaud
(33:30):
them for.
That's a good group of people searching, I guess.
You don't usually see it going that big, unless it's like kids.
Usually kids get that kind of attention, I feel like.
Not usually adults.
So Alex's sister Ann recalled that she thought it took about two weeks before they could
(33:51):
find her.
And then she said, but we finally found her.
Alex had been buried in the river bank where those earlier unconfirmed sightings had been
reported.
And she was about six blocks from her apartment.
So not far at all.
Her body was eventually recovered on May 31st, just a few feet away from the South Saskatchewan
(34:15):
riverbed.
Alex's killer beat her in the head with enough force to fracture her skull and she was brutally
raped.
Her hand was found partially sticking out of the sand or dirt and it was actually discovered
that there was dirt inside her lungs.
Oh man.
(34:36):
Which means...
So she was probably still breathing when she got buried?
Yeah, buried alive.
Oh man.
I know it's like a huge fear for a lot of people, but I couldn't imagine just being
so brutally attacked and then buried alive like that.
(34:58):
It's... depraved.
It's horrible.
Throughout the course of the investigation, there have been over 600 statements taken.
However, there have been no arrests on the case whatsoever.
And Alex's case has gone pretty cold.
So over the next part of what I'm going to say, I'm going to go over just like a little
(35:20):
timeline of the investigation.
So we have the basic information and then there's just like a little bit of scattered
information after this.
So not a whole lot, but it is enough to... where I want to mention it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Talk about it.
Yeah.
(35:41):
So let's talk about how her case goes cold.
In 1998, a man named Ed...
I hope I say this right...
Yukaboski?
Yukaboski?
...registered a complaint with attorney general about the handling of several unsolved cases.
This happened to include Alexandra's murder.
(36:04):
And this resulted in a creation of a police squad to help look over some of those cases
that were in question, which included Alex's.
Did it say who this guy was or was it just some random guy?
He was just a random guy, I think, investigating a different case.
And he realized that they weren't handled with the care that he would expect some of
(36:29):
these cases to be handled with.
And it rubbed him the wrong way.
So he filed that complaint and it was taken to the attorney general and they did something
about it.
They made this police cold squad is what it's called.
And they went over a couple different cases, including Alex's.
(36:50):
Unfortunately, nothing really came of looking over this, but it was kind of cool that they
were at least able to bring some attention to some of these cold cases.
Because as we all know, like even if you can't solve them right away, bringing those attention
to cold cases sometimes gets them solved.
(37:13):
It does sometimes take a while, but you never know what you can discover by just keeping
a case relevant.
Especially with like new eyes on it as well, because this is what, like 30 years after
the fact.
So even just like a whole new pair of eyes, like maybe they missed something.
Yeah, exactly.
Or you know, sometimes people who commit these kinds of crimes don't always keep them to
(37:40):
themselves.
You know, someone knows something and you know, eventually their conscience catches
up to them.
Yeah.
You know, doesn't always happen, but sometimes, you know, we get lucky every once in a while.
So Sharon Rutella was a woman who was being inducted into the Order of Canada on November
(38:01):
30th, 2002.
And she knew about Alex's case and she happened to have a conversation with the Governor General
who got her in contact with someone named Leiden McIntyre.
And while Sharon was working on this case, they were able to just put a little bit more
(38:26):
effort into it with Sharon's help and this cold case investigation team that they put
together.
So the challenge was for the police and for Sharon and for this cold case team.
Because most of the witnesses had died in this case.
It was quite a while ago and by 2002, there's not a lot of people still living that happened
(38:52):
to be around this case.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
And really where most of the challenges lied for them in trying to revitalize this case
in any way.
So many memories had faded for those who were still alive too because of their age that
nothing was really very reliable either.
(39:15):
But now we have technology and with the help of technology, some of the evidence, the crime
scene evidence, DNA was able to be tested but none of it was successfully tested.
So nothing actually came of being able to test the DNA but it was still tested.
(39:35):
With that not being successful, they wanted to try one more avenue in maybe trying to
find a match in DNA.
So they asked Alex's family, their remaining living family, if they could exhume Alex's
body in hopes to find any hair DNA from the murderer, I guess, from the attacker to test
(40:03):
basically.
Yeah.
So with those hopes, the family gave permission to the Skatoon police to exhume Alex's body
and they actually found a hair that was missed during the original autopsy and it was sent
to a lab in Regina to be tested.
Unfortunately in 2007, a high tech lab called Thunder Bay was able to test this DNA profile
(40:32):
and they were able to determine that it was not Alex's hair but were not able to determine
who the hair came from obviously.
So Skatoon police started collecting profiles from different suspects that were originally
obviously suspected in the case and from family members and dead suspects and family members
(40:54):
of dead suspects as well.
Two suspects were cleared named Billy McGriffin.
He was a redhead boy that someone had mentioned that lived down the street that they just
randomly was like, yeah, he could be the one.
I don't even know if the hair was red that was found on the body but he was cleared.
(41:19):
His DNA was actually collected from his daughter and able to clear him and his brother because
Billy had passed away in 1998.
So with his familial DNA, they were both cleared which is nice.
And this boy named Leslie Colson was a teenager in 1962 and he was apparently known to police.
(41:43):
He had already served jail time for sex offenses including five convictions.
So this was five convictions for indecent exposure starting in 1960.
Around the same timeline?
Yeah.
He has 19 convictions for indecent acts and two indecent assaults.
(42:06):
Oh wow.
Which, what the fuck is an indecent assault I wonder?
I didn't look it up but...
You slapping your meat on somebody?
Ew.
Sorry.
Yeah, it's probably right.
It's probably just like not an actual essay but leading up to it I guess.
(42:28):
Ew.
He had one in 1974 for having sex with a 15 year old.
And the victim ended up dying from a blow to the head and she was buried in a snowbank.
So he was serving time in a federal penitentiary in British Columbia but his DNA was also excluded
(42:53):
from the match.
Wow.
But that was oddly similar.
Yeah.
You know what I mean?
He had a blow to the head.
Uh huh.
And in a riverbank?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
Is there ever like false negatives?
I'm sure because I don't know if, I've watched a documentary on DNA testing and I've also
(43:15):
listened to this podcast which is a really good podcast called Science Versus and it's
a scientist versus like different random things but this one was science versus DNA testing
and they kind of went through how DNA testing is performed and it's interesting how a lot
(43:35):
of it is an educated guess.
Like it's a graph that you're kind of like matching two things and you can get really
close but like at the end of the day it's a really really good educated guess on a lot
of things.
Yeah so it's potential that.
Yeah.
Cause that like sounds like way too like close for it not to be a coincidence or something.
(43:58):
I thought so too.
That's crazy.
Like crazy close.
15 year old victim too.
What a gross motherfucker.
So no DNA match for him.
And then we skip to 2008.
Police process the profile against 13 different persons of interest.
(44:21):
Several people have been excluded through DNA comparisons and some of them are unknown.
But most of them have been cleared.
Which sucks cause that means they really don't have anything you know.
Yeah literally nothing.
Yeah.
In April of 2008 Sharon who is the lady that we talked about earlier who was in touch with
(44:43):
the governor general way back a couple years ago.
Not a couple but yeah yeah.
You know whenever back in the story.
And had teamed up with the cold case victim unit and the police to try and resurface this
basically.
And was basically responsible for getting the DNA tested also.
(45:08):
She ended up writing and releasing a book in 2008 called The Girl in Skatoon.
A Meditation on Friendship Memory and Murder.
That's a sad book title.
I know.
Fuck.
Then in May of 2008 Alex's four nieces Patty Story 49 Lauren Phillips 57 Lynn Gertricks
(45:35):
and Gwen Tarleson which I didn't have their ages read Sharon's book.
So these are Alex's nieces.
And they decided to actively investigate their aunt's murder after that.
Which is cool.
So they're just that alone was like enough fuel to their fire to like be like oh yeah
we should reinvestigate this.
(45:57):
So that's like what I mean by just a little bit of resurfacing talking about these cases
can bubble up some of these things.
Yeah.
I was like thinking a little bit ago like I like cold cases in the sense of like it gives
like opportunity to talk about it and then maybe like opportunity for people like listening
(46:17):
to be like oh you know maybe there's a tidbit that they can give to like solve it.
But I also hate it in the fact that I hate not knowing like the outcome to it.
I'm like ugh.
I know.
I wish we knew the outcome.
Hopefully one day we will with some of them.
Yeah.
Well it brings me back to season one of Boy in the Box.
(46:39):
Yeah.
So literally the week of filming that episode they came out with like the identification
of the Boy in the Box.
Yeah.
It's huge.
And I'm sure we'll hear like more about like what happened to him.
Yeah.
Now that they know who he was.
You know.
It's huge.
It's awesome.
(46:59):
So we were talking about Alex's nieces.
They were only children at the time of their aunt's murder.
But they vowed when they grew up that they were going to solve it.
Which is adorable.
It's fun.
Yeah.
And according to Patty the book gave them the needed kick in the pants.
Over the next couple of months they interviewed over a hundred people and came up with four
(47:22):
theories and suspects in the murder of their aunt Alex's case.
The nieces unveiled a billboard in downtown Skatoon at the corner of 25th Street and 2nd
St. Louis, asking for tips in their aunt's murder.
It has a toll free number 1-866-794-1962.
(47:48):
Just in case anybody has any information.
In the first week of the nieces billboard being put up they received over 40 calls actually.
So that's pretty huge.
The four nieces actually don't live in the Skatoon area anymore.
They live in British Columbia, New York, and Alberta.
(48:09):
But they return to Skatoon every couple of months to follow up on any needs.
Which is awesome.
To have family like that man.
Like that.
Top tier right there.
It has been nearly 62 years since the murder.
Only three of Alex's siblings are still alive.
Pearl, Anne, and their brother Daniel.
(48:32):
Some of Alex's nieces have teamed up to try and solve the case that has caused their family
so much pain for so long.
And to give their aunt's remaining siblings answers.
They were all children when their aunt Alex was murdered.
Patty and Lynn were both told Dateline that they have memories of crying every time Alex
left their house.
(48:53):
They remember not ever wanting to let her go.
And they all had very special different relationships with her.
Baker said that she was totally, totally outgoing.
And she always laughed.
And she was always playing jokes.
She was just an incredible person.
There was nothing that she couldn't do or say that wouldn't make things better.
(49:17):
She was beautiful and it was really exciting because she was the only one of the family
who really continued her education, Bonnie said.
The nieces remembered how devastating Alex's murder was for the entire family.
Mother just couldn't believe it.
Just couldn't believe that something would ever happen to her.
It was very scary.
Mother was just so devastated.
(49:37):
It was so very terrible and such a sad time for us all.
Mother wouldn't come out of her bedroom and she wouldn't eat.
My dad just kept going in there and you know trying to console her.
But my mom was so depressed and so upset.
She loved her baby sister and she couldn't understand who would do such a thing.
Sorry.
(49:58):
No, it's okay.
I hear Stella.
We got a baby bean.
Stella.
Come here baby bean.
Baby.
Hi.
A baby bean.
That's Stella, Rella.
Hi baby bean.
Why are you sleeping?
You're okay.
Yeah.
(50:19):
My dad just kept going in there on her.
You know trying to console her.
My mom was just so depressed and so upset she said.
She loved her baby sister and she just couldn't understand who would do such a thing.
It was just so traumatizing in our household.
Myself and my family, we were just so disturbed Pearl said.
(50:43):
I lost 16 pounds in two weeks.
I couldn't eat or sleep or nothing for two weeks.
Alex's case going cold didn't diminish the family's desire to get answers and justice
though.
Lynn said we were doing a lot of this for my mom, my grandmother and my grandfather
but also for us.
She says that you just don't understand what a family goes through until it happens to
(51:09):
them.
I completely agree.
I don't think I could ever put myself in a mindset of any of the family or victims shoes.
I can't put myself there.
I feel like if you do you start to put yourself in a really weird thinking process.
(51:30):
And why would you want to?
In recent years Lynn has been in charge of a lot of the family investigation and she
said she keeps in very close contact with the police pushing them to find answers.
There's a lot of people that know me even if it's just by phone call and email across
Canada she said.
They even say how did you find me?
(51:52):
But it took a few courses and then I just took a private investigator course and I passed
she said.
I could find anybody I wanted.
I'm very good at it but my research is the main thing.
Lynn said that she looked through the Skatoon phone books starting in the year 1959 to find
(52:15):
anyone who lived near Alex's apartment.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
Dedication man.
Dedication.
She also went through all of the old newspapers to find anyone who was charged with rape,
murder or assault in the area at the time.
Wow.
That's a huge task I feel like.
She said I sat down with 60 names after all that research.
(52:37):
It took me over a year.
I did the profiles of every one of them to see if they're still alive.
So when the historical caseworker asked me for this information it was no problem.
I had it all there.
Sergeant Detective Baker confirmed that the family has provided investigators with all
(52:58):
of the information they have discovered and that there is an open dialogue between the
investigators and the family she said.
It was like a lot of work but it was something I could try and give just a little help to
Alex's case.
Lynn said it was something that was needed which I don't know if she didn't put the
(53:20):
leg leg work in.
I don't know who would you know the amount of work that my cousins has done is beyond
belief.
Alex's niece Bonnie Parker said of Lynn they are devoted to solving it and bringing their
family closure but know that they will eventually have to hand their work over to the next generation.
I know it's like a really really sad thing to realize you know what I mean.
(53:49):
Like I guess you would assume that you would think that you would solve it but of course
I guess they don't feel that way.
Yeah especially like nothing to go off of again you know.
Yeah.
I mean they had like what 600 statements or something like that originally but nothing
(54:09):
else.
Not enough you know.
To that end the nieces have been working on passing the torch to Chantel who is Alexandra's
great niece and the great granddaughter of Alex's older sister.
It's always been a story and something that I've had to live through and through my grandma
and watch her in her dying days.
(54:32):
Still not have any answers.
Still not have the answers that she really wanted or to see justice for Alex Chantel
said.
So that was her great granddaughter.
Patty and Chantel have been working hard behind the scenes for the last few years doing research.
I think she's going to go full time with the investigation now too she said because we
(54:52):
need younger gals to help out.
Patty's daughter Samantha and Jessica have created a Facebook page and a website called
Justice for Alex in hopes of spreading awareness and gaining public interest back in Alex's
case.
The Skatoon police service also posts to their social media accounts on the anniversary of
(55:13):
Alexandra's death in hopes of renewing the public interest in the case.
That's cool.
Yeah.
I like to do that you know.
Yeah.
We appreciate everything anybody can do for us and I would like to say to our mom we are
trying our best Lynn said.
I want to try my best to solve this case for her and my grandmother and my grandfather her
(55:36):
friends and everybody and it would be the best gift that I can give my mom and to all
of them.
Oh I know.
That's so sad.
Yeah.
Detective Sergeant Baker urges anyone with information about the murder of Alexandra
Woodchuck to please contact Skatoon police service at 306 975 8300.
(56:03):
So what are your thoughts on this case?
I don't know if I really have any.
That was a lot of information.
I know the timeline I know was long and drawn out but I just felt like you know I didn't
want to diminish all of the work that they had put into it because it is a lot of work.
It's just not a lot of information was discovered out of the work which sucks you know.
(56:28):
But a lot of dedication a lot of wanting to see justice which I really really really admire
from all of these people.
Yeah it just goes to show how great of like a family they are too.
You know of like even after years of it being cold just still wanting to like dedicate your
life to give your mom and great grandma or whatever the justice you know.
(56:55):
Yeah it's incredible.
Just a really sad story overall too like he said just a whole life ahead of her she seemed
like she was really off to big great things and unfortunately will never have the opportunity
to do any of those things you know.
(57:17):
It's tragic.
Very.
If you guys have any thoughts on the case you can comment down below and let us know
what you think.
Any thoughts theories anything like that or anything you want to say to us.
Stella looks really sad over here.
(57:41):
She's tired.
She's yawning a lot.
We are going to close out the case.
Thank you all for tuning in for our third episode.
Getting stoned with us and listening to another case.
Until next time stay high stay safe and thank you for listening.
Hey guys let us know what you think down below in the comments but as always be respectful
and kind as these are serious cases that have yet to be solved.
(58:05):
If you enjoyed the show please like subscribe and hit the notification bell so you can know
when we drop our next episode.
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