skin tissue remained. Positive identification of this body would have to be done by dental records or through medical records of bone fractures.
Three pages of handwritten information in Petre’s native language was lying on the dash between the windshield and the steering wheel. Petre had started this writing in his shack some time before he moved to the garage to end his life. The first two pages were neatly done with straight lines of words and uniform penmanship; the final page had been written in the car while he waited for the exhaust gas to do its work. Petre had taken a small square of plywood into the car to hold on the steering wheel and support his paper while he wrote. The final page was uneven in both line and penmanship; toward the end of the writing it was obvious that he was having difficulty with coordination and thought. We were fortunate that Petre was so attentive to detail; even in a near-death state he had folded the pages together and placed them where they would surely be found. Had the notes come in direct contact with the body during decomposition there would have been very little, if anything, left of them.
Finally, the photographs had all been taken and the necessary records had been carefully made in our notebooks. All that was left to do was to remove the wriggling remains. I suggested to the others that I could hear my mother calling and that I would have to leave immediately. They did not believe me and they were very blunt about it. We wrapped the upper part of the body in disposable blankets and slowly moved it toward the passenger door of the car. As we did this the legs and feet followed; mainly because the trousers were holding them together. More blankets were added as the move progressed until the body was wrapped like an Egyptian mummy. The cold storage at the morgue would eventually stop even the most determined of the maggots.
The remains of Petre were identified from dental records and he was buried by the public administrator. His niece in Czechoslovakia was unable to attend and she knew of no other living family members. Petre’s old car was towed away by a very reluctant auto wrecker and it was burned as soon as we were certain that it could provide no further evidence. The shack was also burned because it had been illegally constructed on Crown Land.
The three pages of writings were translated for us. In them, Petre told of his first meeting with the three promoters, and how they had convinced him that he would receive great returns by investing his savings with them. He told of the great friendship that rapidly developed between the four of them, and how they had included him in all their prospecting activities. He told of withdrawing cash from his bank and turning it over to these men, and how they disappeared as soon as they were sure they had the last of his money. Petre said that the actions of these three men had ruined him and that his life was now “not worth a pipeful of tobacco.” Our translator told us that the reference to a pipeful of tobacco was a Czechoslovakian colloquialism.
The writings described an intense hatred for the three promoters and talked about the one of them who cheated Petre again by dying. There was no direct confession of having harmed the two con-men; however, the translator felt that neither of them had been alive at the time of the writing.
Our investigation moved to trying to find either of the promoters. They were well known among the regular bar patrons in town. Their return without their third partner had been noted, but no one could recall seeing either of them for over a month. Obviously no one had missed them. The government records of mine claims showed several hundred claims registered over the years by the three promoters, and three by Petre. Two of Petre’s claims had been registered about the time he first met the con-men; the third was made just before the two promoters returned that spring.
The most recent claims by the three promoters had been registered late the previous summer and were all in the Creston area. We had our office in Creston make inquiries about the con-men. The records at an old hotel in Creston showed that Petre and one of the promoters had stayed for one night nearly seven weeks earlier. They were driving Petre’s old Buick, and he had paid for the room. The hotel staff felt quite sure that there had been only two of them, but they were not positive.
There were a total of fourteen claims along the Goat River near Creston; it was decided to start by searching the most recently recorded claim and work back, by date, through all of them. The police service dog and his master were called to assist. On the second claim to be searched, the dog found some bone fragments and a pair of false teeth. The teeth were identical to a dental impression of one of the missing men. The bone fragments were identified as part of a human skull. Nothing further was found in a search of the claim and surrounding area but it was obvious that someone had died violently at that claim site. We were quite sure that the false teeth told us who that person had been. Wild animals had eaten and scattered the remains; the area was common range to bear and wolverine.
The police dog team returned to Nelson and started a search of Petre’s most recent claim. The search ended at the first corner marker of the claim. The aluminum tag was inscribed with Petre’s full name and free miner’s information as required. Face down at the base of the claim post lay the third promoter. He had been there for at least a month and the maggots were nearly finished their work there as well. A starfish-shaped wound was clearly visible in the mummified scalp over the crown of the head. This appeared to have been caused by a blow that had crushed the scalp between the flat of an axe and the momentary resistance of the skull beneath it. The blow was delivered from behind; the man would not likely have been aware of his impending death. The man wielding the axe did not stop at that: he stood over the body and chopped through the neck, leaving only the tissue of the throat area to hold the head to the body. He then stepped back slightly and with a final overhand swing, buried the axe head between his victim’s shoulder blades and left the handle standing up from the wound. Petre was a very angry man.
The exact date of the killings and suicide were never determined. It did appear that Petre went home after killing the second promoter and contemplated what he had done for several days before he gassed himself.
The Greatest Goal
There are times and events that are so overwhelming that we always remember where we were and who we were with when they happened.
One of these occurred while I was working at the Golden RCMP detachment. We were in the middle of a routine day, with lots of files scattered around. Some people were calling with serious problems; some with trivial matters only they felt were worthy of police attention.
Canada was playing Russia for the Canada Cup and we had moved a television set into the office. We were busy at Golden, but not to the extent that we could not find time for important events like that game.
Several of the single members were living at room-and-board arrangements around town, and as the game began most of them drifted into the office to watch. There was a crowd around the television and most police functions had come to a stop. The game was all that we had anticipated: the Russians skated and passed as only they could; and the Canadians played the game the way they had taught it to the world, fast and rough, with great team spirit and extreme individual effort. A cheer went up each time one of the Russian players was caught concentrating too much on his precision passing and he found himself airborne. It was anyone’s game, from the opening face-off until the final seconds ticked off the clock.
Golden was a training detachment, where new recruits were teamed with more experienced constables for the first important months of their field training. This training function resulted in a lot of young single police officers living in Golden, and a lot of attention being focused on the RCMP office by the young ladies of the town. The town didn’t have a great variety of entertainment facilities, but the young guys managed to keep themselves quite busy in the social network of their adopted community.
In small, isolated towns like Golden, a portion of the needed entertainment comes in the form of practical jokes. Great effort is put into planning these stunts and setting them in motion. A complicated plan may involve half the community, and it then becomes a challenge for the planners to pull it off.
