are Catholic. Although the region is legally bilingual, almost 90 percent of the population is English-speaking. The area has an aging population and old-fashioned values. It is still the kind of a place where children roam freely between houses and people invite you home for dinner and serve homemade pickles. If you’re lucky, at the meal you’ll also get fresh-caught Miramichi salmon.
The Miramichi, or the ’Chi, as some residents call it, is a world-famous salmon fishing river, with a long tradition of families coming to fishing camps along the river every summer, often renewing their connection with the same river guide or family of river guides for generations. Although there are often significant economic disparities between these visitors and the local residents, the river exerts its sway on everyone.
As its many branches come together, the beautiful river widens as it winds its way through the city and makes its final approach to the ocean. The area’s residents are passionate about their river and their region. Locals don’t so much speak of being from a particular town as they speak of their region, of being “on the Miramichi,” “in the Miramichi” or just “on the river.” The geography and character of the area gets into people’s blood and holds them there, making it hard to leave and drawing those who grew up there back when they do.
In the middle of the river, just southwest of the town, is Beaubears Island, where, during the British expulsion of Acadians in the mid-1700s, a small, desperate party of Acadian settlers retreated and starved through a long, harsh winter as they waited for a rescue that never came. The survivors were eventually driven away, though a few remained, permitting some residents of the region to trace their ancestry back to that dreadful winter on Beaubears Island. The island is now a historical site, with a visitor’s center and a ferry.
Although the murder rate is less than one per year, some of Miramichi’s murderers have been particularly memorable and dramatic. In 1979, there was Robbie Cunningham, known as “The Miramichi Axe Murderer” for the brutal way he killed Nicholas Duguay. At the time, some people fought to clear Cunningham, claiming he was innocent. Despite the clamor, officials refused to release him before his time was served. About nine months after his release, he committed another murder.
The area still struggles to live down the nickname, MurderMichi, that it got back in 1989 when one of Canada’s worst serial killers, convicted murderer Allan Legere, known as “The Monster of the Miramichi,” escaped from prison guard custody during a hospital visit and terrorized the region for seven months. While he was on the lam, Legere sexually assaulted then brutally killed three elderly women and he also tortured and murdered a priest.
Residents still talk about that uncertain time, when children played soccer outside under the watchful eyes of parents but could suddenly be called inside as a carload of Mounties pulled up and headed out into the woods. Doors remained locked. People who lived by themselves moved in with others. Gun sales rose and weapons stayed close at hand. The year that Legere was on the loose, Halloween was canceled. Few people went out after dark and any sound in the night was a cause for panic.
Even with Legere convicted and housed in a maximum security prison, residents remained uneasy, their fears periodically flamed by reports that he might be moved to a less secure facility where he would have a greater opportunity for escape. Many believed that Legere kept a list of those on whom he wanted revenge.
Almost fifteen years later, as snow fell on the city, the fear of a killer lurking in their midst was about to return. A call came in to the quiet, semi-dark Miramichi Police Emergency Dispatch Center on January 26, 2003, a snowy Sunday afternoon. David Tanasichuk reported that his wife, Maria, was missing.
David told dispatcher Joanne Young that he and his wife had been having marital problems and they had decided to spend some time apart. To enable that, Maria had taken a bus to the city of Saint John, three hours away, to stay with a friend. He stated that Maria had been gone since January 14, and that since her departure, he had not heard from his wife and he’d become concerned.
It had been an unusually dry January, but on the 26th, as if Mother Nature was making up for lost time, snow was pelting down and weathermen were predicting eight to ten inches. While civilians were buttoning up and settling in and snowmobilers, cross-country skiers and snow-shoers were jumping for joy, the police were gearing up for a miserable day of fender-benders and slogging through the streets to answer calls. There is no such thing as a snow day for a police department.
At approximately 2:30 in the afternoon, dispatch sent Constable Cheryl Seeley to meet David Tanasichuk at his residence to take his statement. The apartment was only a short distance from the police station.
Upon entering the apartment, Constable Seeley said, “Hi, David, I understand that you haven’t seen your wife since January 12?”
Tanasichuk replied, “Yes.”
He went on to explain that his wife, Maria, was extremely possessive and clingy and wanted them to be together 24/7. He said that Maria cross-examined him about where he was going whenever he left the house and watched him through binoculars when he walked down the street. He said that he and Maria had been married since 1993 and he had tolerated the togetherness because she had waited for him during his time in jail and so he felt she deserved his attention. Lately, however, he had been feeling oppressed by her scrutiny. Maria watched him every minute. She repeatedly called when he was at friends’ houses to check on his whereabouts. She quizzed him when he returned.
As a result of Maria’s anxiety and his feelings of oppression, David told the constable that Sylvette Robichaud, the counselor they had been seeing at an addiction counseling service for help with David’s drug problem, had suggested they spend some time apart. Initially, he told Seeley, he had suggested to his wife that he would go to Moncton to stay with his brother, but Maria didn’t like his brother’s girlfriend and she thought there would be too many women around. Alternatively, he had suggested that he could go to Saint John and stay with his mother and another brother, but Maria had objected to that too, saying again that there would be too many females there. She suggested that he stay in Miramichi, where there would be fewer people to distract him and he would have time to think, and she would go to Saint John instead.
In trying to explain his wife’s state of mind at the time she left Miramichi, he said that her behavior had become so difficult that his mother, who usually came for three weeks at Christmas, had left after five days. In response to the constable’s questions, he told her that Maria was not angry when she left, but might have been a little upset. To illustrate his wife’s controlling nature, he described an incident four years earlier when Maria had threatened to slash her wrists while he was out with friends if he didn’t immediately return home. He told the constable that when he did return home, she had cuts on her wrists covered with bandages.
He also told Seeley that Maria had recently found out that she had Hepatitis C and believed that she had gotten it from him due to his drug use. She had been very angry when he tested negative and said, “Why would I have Hep C and you wouldn’t?”
David said that he didn’t know what time Maria had left, as he had been at a friend’s house working on his bike between 10:00 A.M. and 4 P.M. on the 12th and when he returned she was gone. As they had no car, he assumed that she had taken the bus. He was unable to describe what clothing and footwear Maria had taken with her, stating that she had clothing from one end of the house to the other. He said she would have had $800 with her that she had taken from their safe, money they had been saving up for their headstones.
He was unable to give Constable Seeley the full name, address or phone number of the friend in Saint John with whom Maria had gone to stay, saying only that it was someone named “Cathy.” He did give the constable the names of several friends and family members who might be able to help the police in locating Maria. Seeley said that she would contact them and advise
