The Woman in the Well: Murder at Sutherland's Shore Hotel

On June 29, 2006, on the west corner of 108^th Street and Central Avenue in the Saskatoon neighbourhood of Sutherland, a work crew discovered a woman’s body while excavating fuel tanks from an old gas station. She had been murdered, wrapped in a burlap sack, stuffed into a barrel, then thrown into a well. The Shore Hotel once sat on the site where the woman’s body was found.

Subsequent investigations by the Saskatoon City Police determined that the “Woman in the Well,” as she was soon called, had been killed sometime in the early 1900s. Her body and clothing were relatively well-preserved due to the mixture of water and gasoline from the gas station that was later built on the site.

Carole Wakabayashi, a clothing and textile historian, worked with the City police and was able to date the woman’s fitted jacket, high collared blouse, and long skirt to somewhere between 1910 and 1920. A broken golden necklace was found with the body. Also found rolled up in a ball next to the woman’s corpse were a man’s vest and trousers.

Two facial reconstructions of the Woman in the Well. Source

Dr. Ernest Walker, forensic archeologist at the University of Saskatchewan, helped the police determine that the victim was a Caucasian woman between the ages of 25 and 35, five feet and one inch tall, with a prominent nose and light brown to reddish hair. Walker extracted mitochondrial DNA from the woman’s remains, which investigators hoped would help to match to a living descendant. Police unveiled two facial reconstructions, a two-dimensional image from an RCMP facial reconstructionist in Fredericton, and a 3D model from an expert from Montreal who volunteered to work on the case. It was hoped someone might recognize the woman from old family photos. Police subsequently received about 30 calls from people across Canada and as far away as France looking for a missing mother, grandmother, or great aunt, but no DNA matches have been made to date.

The Shore Hotel

The only photo I have found to date of the Shore Hotel. Source: The Star Phoenix, December 16, 1912.

The Shore Hotel was erected in May of 1912 by William W. Shore in the village of Sutherland. Located about three miles east of Saskatoon, Sutherland was founded by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in 1908 and incorporated into a village in 1909. By the end of 1912, its population had grown from 100 to 1500. Over half of the residents were employees of the CPR.

“I have a good business here which has been growing by leaps and bounds,” Shore told the Saskatoon Daily Star in January 1914. “Since the advent of street cars, the receipts have doubled.” When the City of Saskatoon built a new streetcar line to Sutherland that year, people originally waited for the arrival of streetcars inside the Shore Hotel. The hotel must have had an unsavory reputation because, on January 14, 1914, the Sutherland Town Council requested that City of Saskatoon build a separate shelter, stating, “… it is not conducive to the morals of the community to have ladies and children awaiting the arrival of cars in the Hotel.”  

Prior to 1914 when water mains and sewer lines were extended from Saskatoon to Sutherland, water was either delivered by horse-drawn tanks to barrels in the kitchens of the town's homes, or hauled from wells. The well on the Shore Hotel site may or may not have been in active use at the time of the woman's murder.

Ownership of the Shore Hotel changed three times in 1914. On January 3rd, John King of Kindersley bought the business for $50,000. The 1914 Henderson’s Directory lists five members of the King family living in the Shore. Joseph Pelowski of Watson bought the hotel from King in July of 1914. Saskatoon real estate broker W. J. Graham handled the sale. On December 3, 1914, Graham sold the Shore Hotel to a Saskatoon man, whose name was withheld, for $51,000.

Source: The Star-Phoenix, November 23, 1927.

Prohibition (1915-1924) spelled the end for the Shore Hotel. According to Saskatoon City Archivist, Jeff O’Brien, the Town of Sutherland took the property back when the owner didn’t pay his taxes. The Henderson Directory lists the hotel as closed until 1925, when it disappears from the record. Advertisements in October and November 1927 issues of the Star-Phoenix show that the hotel building had been declared a public nuisance, dangerous to public health.Tenders were sought for the demolition of the old hotel.

Missing Persons

Who was the Woman in the Well? Was she a prostitute in this rough-and-tumble town filled with railway workers? Was she an employee at the Shore Hotel, killed by a man at the hotel? Was she a transient herself? Was the crime a domestic one?

Source: The Saskatoon Daily Star, December 27, 1912

 

One sad story. Saskatoon Daily Star, March 3, 1923

There were certainly a lot of missing persons back then. “Sorrowing Mothers, Fathers and Relatives Seeking Information in Regard to Missing Ones in Canada,” reads the headline in the December 27, 1912 issue of the Saskatoon Daily Star. “Western Canada appears to be the mecca for many people wishing to hide themselves if enquiries received here by mounted and local police during the past year are to by taken as any criterion.” The newspaper reported that, throughout 1912, hundreds of letters from anxious family members had been received by the Saskatoon police on an almost daily basis. The paper provided names and descriptions of some on the missing persons list, including several women. For example, Mrs. Charles Washam of St. John, North Dakota, was sought by her husband. “She is 5 feet tall, weighs 140 pounds, slight in figure, blue eyes, brown hair, fair complexion, brown fur hat and brown suit. Has false teeth.” 

Those last three words rule out the mystery woman found in Sutherland's well. Investigators revealed that she had one tooth that had been filled by a dentist and an abscessed tooth that would have needed attention. Sadly, despite the valiant efforts of the Saskatoon Police Service, we will probably never learn her identity.

©Joan Champ, 2019

Violence in Small-Town Hotels

Illustration by Eric Deschamps, 2003 Image source

My friend Ruth asked me when I was going to post an article about barroom brawls and other violent incidents that occasionally happen in small-town Saskatchewan hotels. Here's a sampling of some of the sad and sordid stories I've come across in my research.

Murder-Suicide at the Commercial Hotel 

The bodies of A. Willis Armstrong and his wife Hannah, owners of the Commercial Hotel in Blaine Lake, were found by their daughter Dorothy in their living quarters at the hotel on June 20, 1925. Mrs. Armstrong had a bullet hole behind her right ear. Her husband had shot her with a .45 calibre revolver and then turned the gun on himself.   

The Commercial Hotel in Blaine Lake, 1919.  Nicholas F. Zbitnoff photo Image source

The coroner’s jury concluded that the tragedy was caused by the effects of homebrew obtained from a bootlegger. “Being of the opinion that the late A. W. Armstrong might have kept sober and thus refrained from committing this awful crime … we feel that public opinion demands a searching investigation into the matter of the source of homebrew in this district….  Should the investigation bring to light the party or parties who supplied the homebrew to the late Mr. Armstrong, we ask that they should be prosecuted.”  “Home Brew is Death’s Cause, Opines Jury,” June 23, 1935, p. 1.   Click to read full story

Dorothy and her brother Leslie (about 10 years old) went to live with relatives in St. Catherines, Ontario. 

Jealousy at the White Fox Hotel

At 9:10 PM on April 10, 1959, White Fox hotel keeper Albert Boscher was shot dead by Frank Schoenburger. Albert left behind his wife, Isabel and their five children, Jeanine, Denis, Anita, Rita, and Terry. Mrs. Edith Schoenburger, estranged wife of the killer, was severely wounded during the incident. She had been living and working at the White Fox Hotel. She and Boscher, her employer, were sitting together in the hotel dining room when her husband, a labourer in town, burst in and shot them both with a heavy calibre rifle.

John Wankel, an engineer boarding at the hotel, was sitting in the hotel lobby reading the paper when he saw Schoenburger walk in carrying a rifle. Wankel said the man ripped out the wires of a pay telephone, and then disappeared into the hotel dining room.

Boscher was shot first. As Mrs. Schoenburger struggled with her husband for possession of the gun it fired again, shattering her right arm. “That wasn’t meant for you, Edith,” Schoenburger said after the bullet struck his wife. Her arm later had to be amputated above the elbow.

L. J. Vickers was drinking beer in the hotel beer parlour at about 9:00 PM when he heard the sound of gunshots. Vickers opened the door between the beer parlour and the hotel lobby only to run smack into Schoenburger who was carrying a rifle. “Get out of here or I will shoot you, too,” Schoenburger said. “Accused Seen Carrying Rifle,” Saskatoon Star-Phoenix, October 30, 1959 

The killer then disappeared into the bush surrounding the village of White Fox. RCMP searched unsuccessfully for him all night. At 645 the next day, a nervous and haggard Schoenburger turned himself in to the RCMP at Nipawin, saying he couldn’t remember anything about the night before. He denied knowledge of having killed a man and asked to see his wife.

Testifying in court in November, 1959, Schoenburger described a week of drinking in beer parlours and of hearing insinuations involving his wife and Boscher before the night of the shooting. On November 6^th, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to be hanged on January 26, 1960 at the provincial jail in Prince Albert. The hanging was delayed when an appeal was launched.

Over 30 grounds for appeal were listed by defense lawyer D. L. Tennant of Melfort during a two-day hearing in February 1960. Schoenburger’s conviction was quashed on appeal, and a second trial was opened in June, presided over by Mr. Justice Stewart McKercher.

During the retrial, Mrs. Schoenburger described her 22-year marriage, during which her husband would go on drinking binges that lasted several days. He would do things during these binges that he could not remember later. Eventually, Mrs. Schoenburger left her husband and went to live in the White Fox Hotel, where she also worked. Her husband had tried to get her to stop working at the hotel, mainly because of the rumours about her and her employer, Mr. Boscher. “Pitiful Tale is Related,” Regina Leader-Post, June 20, 1960:   

Frank Schoenburger was convicted of manslaughter for the murder of Albert Boscher on April 10, 1959, and sentenced by Judge McKercher to eleven years in the Prince Albert Penitentiary. Click here  and here and here to read more.

Fight at the Pennant Hotel 

21-year-old William Zeller of the Pennant area was charged and found guilty of stabbing and wounding Arlyn Jamieson, 29, of Cabri during a fight outside the Pennant Hotel.  Jamieson had been drinking in the bar for almost eight hours prior to the fight, and had consumed at least twelve drinks. 

The trouble started when Jamieson repeatedly used an accent to pronounce the name of Zeller’s brother Raymond, who was sitting at the same table. Zeller became angry, and after about three quarters of an hour they went outside to fight. The men wrestled on the ground in front of the hotel and Jamieson was quickly pinned to the ground by Zeller, who had been in the hotel for about two hours. After being allowed back on his feet, Jamieson wanted to continue fighting. Zeller pulled out a knife and said "I’m going to get you, boy." He cut Jamieson on his left forearm, his chin and his left armpit. Zeller testified that he pulled out the knife because he wanted to scare Jamieson away from the hotel, where he was "being a nuisance.” “Men Sentenced in Swift Current,” Leader-Post, June 10, 1980, p. 20 Click here for full story

“I Think I’ve Killed My Wife” 

Arthur Charles Colton, 63-year-old owner of the Village Inn hotel in Candiac, was charged with the second-degree murder of his wife, Doris Colton, 54, on August 29, 1981. He later told the RCMP he “just grabbed a goddam knife and let her have it.” 

Colton and his wife had been arguing and fighting during the early morning hours. She left their bedroom in the hotel for a while but came back again and started arguing all over again. Colton finally got out of bed and found his wife in the hotel bar pouring another drink. That’s when he "went nuts" and grabbed the knife. 

A transcript of a taped telephone conversation quotes the caller as saying, "RCMP, this is the Village Inn at Candiac, ah, better send the police down here and an ambulance. I think I’ve killed my wife." The caller went on to explain, "Well, I, she’s been drunk all night and she just kept on pestering and pestering. And I got so god dam mad that I just, well, I lost my temper. And I think I stabbed her to death." 

Shirley Fayant of Lebret, a guest at the hotel, testified she discovered the body on the floor of the beverage room in the middle of the night. She had been sleeping but got up and went into the nearby beverage room in search of a washroom. When she saw Mrs. Colton's body, Fayant backed into the kitchen and found Colton there, holding the telephone receiver in his lap. "Officer Says Man Told Police He ‘Let Wife Have It’ With Knife,” Regina Leader-Post, June 19, 1982, p. A5 Click here to read full story

Death at the Broadview Hotel Bar 

Matthew Troy McKay, age 18, was stabbed to death during a barroom brawl at the Broadview Hotel on the night of October 30, 2009.  Jordan Lee Taypotat, 20, received severe lacerations to his face during the same incident. McKay was from the Ochapowace First Nation, while Taypotat is from the Kahkewistahaw First Nation, both in the Broadview area. An argument apparently broke out which got out of hand. A 20-year-old man turned himself into the Broadview RCMP detachment a few days later. Click here and here to read more.

Broadview Hotel.  Image from Google Street View, 2011

 

© Joan Champ 2011

Murders at Shaunavon’s Grand Hotel

On March 16, 1940, Mah Sai, a Chinese baker in Shaunavon, was playing solitaire in a sheltered corner of the Grand Hotel lobby when he witnessed the fatal shooting of RCMP Sergeant Arthur Julian Barker by Victor Richard Greenlay. As Mah Sai watched, Greenlay fired three shots at Sergeant Barker who was putting on his boots at the foot of the hotel stairs. The policeman crumpled to the floor with a groan, and the baker ran for his life. Mah Hop, the proprietor of the Grand Hotel, was another witness to the murder on that fateful Saturday night. When he heard what sounded like firecrackers, Mah Hop ran to see what was going on. When he reached the second step of the stairs, Greenlay ordered him to get back.  “I went back fast,” Mah Hop said later.

Two months later, on the identical spot in the lobby of the Grand Hotel where Sergeant Barker died, both Mah Hop and Mah Sai were stabbed and killed in a knife fight.

The Grand Hotel, Shaunavon’s third hotel, was built in 1929 under the ownership of Fred Mah and Mah Hop. The two-storey brick hotel with 38 guest rooms was the scene of three brutal murders before it was bought by George Baird and converted into an apartment building. The Grand Hotel received Municipal Heritage Designation in 1999.

The old Grand Hotel, now an apartment block in Shaunavon, 2003. Image source

Officer Down

Victor Richard Greenlay was the 30-year-old son of Colonel and Mrs. G.L. Greenlay, highly respected ranchers in the Climax district. An officer of the non-permanent militia, Victor was formally charged on March 18, 1940 with the murder of his friend, Sergeant Barker, RCMP veteran and cattle country investigator. Barker had been visiting Greenlay in his room at the Grand Hotel just prior to the shooting. 

Shortly after the murder, it became clear that Greenlay was insane, suffering from schizophrenia. Victor Van Allen, another rancher in the south country, testified at the coroner’s inquest on March 18^th that he took Greenlay to Shaunavon that Saturday afternoon. On the way into town, some of the things Greenlay said made Van Allen realize he was not “normal.” Greenlay told Van Allen that was going to Shaunavon to see Sergeant Barker because together they would be able to prevent the Canadian government from selling horses to France. Greenlay said he feared trouble was to break out, and that “within a week there will be troops in the saddle,” adding that “Christ will appear in Germany in the form of a woman, and will turn the forces against Germany.” 

Photo of Sergeant Barker from the Leader-Post, March 19, 1940.

When they arrived in town, Greenlay phoned Sergeant Barker at about 7 o’clock and asked him to come to his room at the Grand Hotel. Barker, his wife, Gladys and their son Kenneth walked downtown, and while his family went to the library, Barker visited with Greenlay in his hotel room.  According to his later testimony, during their visit Greenlay apparently asked the RCMP officer to intervene for him with a girlfriend, and Barker demurred. When Barker left Greenlay’s room around 9:00 PM, Greenlay said he “heard a voice tell me to go out and shoot the evil beast.” He headed down the hotel stairs where he saw said he saw that Barker was not a man, but “a devil,” and he pulled the trigger of his .38 revolver three times.

Click here to see Regina Leader-Post story

After the funeral service in Shaunavon, Barker’s body was transported by train to Regina, where he was interred in the cemetery of the RCMP barracks. “The body was placed in the baggage car,” the Regina Leader-Post reported on March 19th. “In the day coach was Victor Richard Greenlay, charged with the murder of Sergeant Barker, and in the third coach was Mrs. Barker and her son, Kenneth.”  Greenlay was found not guilty by reason of insanity and confined to a mental institution.

Bloody Night at the Grand Hotel

“Jack” Toy Ying, a young waiter in Shaunavon, was upset. He was so upset that on Friday, May 3, 1940 he called Constable Robert Roycroft of the Shaunavon police force. Toy Ying laid a charge against the Grand Hotel, apparently involving a woman. He asked Roycroft to remove the woman in question from the hotel, and to get her out of town. So, at about 10 PM, Toy Ying, accompanied by a nervous Constable Roycroft, went to the Grand Hotel and searchted all the rooms. The woman was not found. 

With the town policeman still in tow, an angry Toy Ying confronted Mah Hop, the owner of the hotel, in the lobby. Their argument started out quietly, and then Roycroft noticed that the lobby was slowly filling up with other Chinese men. All of a sudden, the crowd of men jumped Toy Ying. Arms and legs were flying. In the melee, Roycroft wrestled some of the men off Toy Ying, who then saw his chance, ran out of the hotel, and headed off down the street. Behind him, Toy Ying left two dead and two injured, all as a result of stab wounds from a weapon he had concealed in his coat pocket. Police arrested Toy Ying the next day in Admiral, 25 miles east of Shaunavon.

Dead were Mah Hop, the 50-year-old hotel owner, and Mah Sai, the 45-year-old town baker. Mah Sai died on the exact spot where he had watched Sergeant Barker die from his bullet wounds just eight weeks earlier.  Both men had wives and children in China; Mah Hop also had a son in Nova Scotia. Mah Sam was in serious condition in the Shaunavon hospital with deep gashes in his leg and arm. Mah Yok had a surface wound.

Funeral services for Mah Sai were held at the United Church in Shaunavon on May 6^th. Mah Hop’s son, Mah Tun of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, arrived the following day to take charge of his father’s funeral. Both men were buried in Hillcrest Cemetery near Shaunavon.

On May 16, 1940, Toy Ying was put on trial on two charges of murder. When defense counsel, C.H.J. Burrows, K.C., Regina, asked Mah Sam through an interpreter whether he knew the woman Toy Ying wanted removed from town, Mah Sam said he had seen her in a local café, but not in Mah Hop’s room. Three other Chinese witnesses denied any knowledge of the mystery woman.

Click here to see Regina Leader-Post story 

© Joan Champ 2011

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