Was Tania Murdered?

 

Tania Murrell [pronounced Tohn-ya Murl] was a 6-year-old Edmonton, Alberta girl who vanished on a bitterly cold day in January 1983.

No one has heard from Tania in three decades. No one has been charged with her disappearance either … although as you’ll read in this post, Edmonton Police eventually identified a prime suspect — a close acquaintance of the family.

The man was questioned by police on at least two occasions. In fact, homicide detectives interrogated the suspect for 11-hours one day, but came up empty. The lead detective said he was “99-point-5 percent” positive the guy was Tania’s abductor — and killer. 

The following is my account of what happened from the time of Tania’s disappearance to now. This tragic story is based on interviews with Tania’s parents, the child’s grandmother, her babysitter, friends of the family, the suspected abductor and killer, his former roommate, an Edmonton Police detective — and two psychics. 

If you don’t believe in psychics, this isn’t for you. Then again, maybe it is.

                   T A N I A   M U R R E L L  –  T H E   U N T O L D   S T O R Y

THE ABDUCTION

In the first weeks of 1983, Edmonton was in the middle of a prolonged cold snap. It was a frosty minus-30 degrees celsius or so [22 below on the Fahrenheit scale] just after 11 a.m. on the 20th of January when young Tania Murrell walked out of Grovenor Elementary School at 10345-144 Street in the city’s west end.

Tania was bundled up and on her way home for lunch. She didn’t have far to go; her home — a small, rented bungalow at 10426-145 Street — was only about a block and a half away.

Vera Stortz was at the Murrell house waiting to serve her niece a hot meal.

Tania’s mother, Vivian, worked at a bakery a mile distant. Her father, Jack, was a carpenter and built new houses for Alldritt Homes on the city’s south side. There was another child in the family: John, 4.

Some described Vivian and Jack Murrell as party-hard people who loved their booze, pot, rock music and Harley Davidson motorcycles. But to most, they were simply two young parents whose hearts were ripped out when their child vanished, never to be seen again.

When Tania failed to show up for lunch, Vera phoned Vivian at work. Right off the bat, Vivian didn’t have a good feeling because it was unusual for her daughter not to head straight home from school. She hoped Tania had simply gone to a friend’s house, but a “mother’s intuition” told her otherwise.

Vivian drove home immediately. When she got there, she learned that Vera had already been out looking for the child. Jack made a beeline to the house as well.

Here’s a partial scan of Tania’s ‘missing’ poster showing key information about the small girl, including what she was wearing at the time she disappeared:

BAD NEWS

Tania would surely be home after school, friends assured the nervous parents. But when Vivian dropped around to the elementary school, she got some bad news: Tania had not returned to class. And there was more bad news: classmates and friends hadn’t seen her either.

Everyone was becoming increasingly concerned.

Vivian phoned the police and an officer dropped by the house.

The situation became truly worrisome when Tania didn’t come home that evening. Where the hell was she?

The parents tried to remain positive, but there were just too many red flags. Their last, faint hope was that Tania spent the night at a friend’s house and forgot to tell them. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case. When the child failed to show up for class next morning, the alarm bells really went off. There was now little doubt that something terrible had happened.

Edmonton Police didn’t know what to make of the disappearance and neither did most reporters, myself included. I was working for CBC Radio News in Edmonton when police fired off an alert about a missing child. Next morning reporter Ruth Anderson was about to head out the door to cover the story. I asked Ruth to hold off until school started; my thinking was that it made no sense getting worked up over a youngster who may have slept over at a friend’s house.

I was wrong; the mother was right. Vivian said she had a gut feeling something awful had happened when her daughter didn’t come home for lunch.

Both she and Jack were now frightened, Jack more so. Afraid that someone might recognize him from media reports, the father shaved off his beard. There were reports that Jack — a biker [though not a gang member] — owed somebody money. It’s my belief that Tania’s disappearance had nothing to do with a debt.

Vivian Murrell in kitchen of her house on 145 Street
[Photo courtesy of Edmonton Sun]

Police started going door-to-door and a volunteer search effort sprung into action. The mysterious disappearance of a 6-year-old got a lot of play in the media, although some radio and TV reporters and news readers mispronounced the girl’s name as “Tan-ya Mur-rell.”  Friends of the Murrells didn’t recognize Tania’s name when they first heard it on the news.

The spelling of Tania’s name in newspaper stories was sometimes screwed up as well. One headline screamed, ‘WHERE IS TANYA?’ Even the child’s ‘missing’ poster had her name wrong.

What had happened to little Tania? Police began going through a list of known pedophiles living in the area, and there was a pile of them. Vivian was shocked to find out that so many perverts lived within a one-mile radius of her house. One sexual deviant in particular was a lot closer than she realized.

When someone vanishes, everyone has a theory as to what went down and why. Like a fog rolling in, rumours about “vindictive bike gangs” began to blanket the city. I lost track of the number of tips we received in the newsroom that Tania had been abducted by bikers.

A PERSONAL MESSAGE TO THE ABDUCTOR

Several days after Tania vanished, I was looking for a new “angle” to the story, something that hadn’t already been covered. I drove around to the Murrell residence, parked out front and walked to a door on south side of the house. I knocked. Before anyone could answer, I was joined by CBC Television news reporter Warren Michaels and his cameraman. From a back alley they’d spotted me standing by the door and, uninvited, trudged through the snow to join me. I thought, so much for this interview.

The door opened. Jack Murrell — his eyes red and puffy from crying — glared at three media strangers wanting to talk to him during this most painful time. Before slamming the door in our faces, the man uttered two words: fuck off. I looked at Warren, he glanced back … and we left.

That’s how I met Jack Murrell.

I returned to my car and fired up the engine. But I shut it off, grabbed my cassette tape recorder and returned to the side door. The TV guys were no longer around; they had abided by Mr. Murrell’s request.

Again I knocked on the door. And again Jack opened it. “I thought I told you to fuck off!” he shouted. I shot back, “You don’t tell me to fuck off.” Jack apologized and held the door open, all the while explaining that he was upset because his daughter was still missing. I told him I understood, as I have children of my own. Jack then hung his head and began to sob.

“Maybe I can help you find Tania,” I offered. “How can you do that?” Jack asked. I explained that if he and his wife recorded a personal message to the abductor, I could put it out on the radio … and perhaps the person who took his daughter will hear it and set her free.

“You think that’ll work?” Jack queried. I said, “What do you have to lose, man?” I handed him my Sony 142 tape recorder and a microphone. My only instructions were that they speak from the heart and not read from a script. I also told Jack I’d drop by in the morning to pick up my gear. I returned to my car and drove home.

Next morning Jack was waiting with the tape recorder and the important cassette when I knocked on his door. I was anxious to hear what the couple had to say, so I played the recording as I made my way to the CBC building on 75th Street, on the south side. The gut-wrenching message from the distraught couple left me in tears.

Jack and Vivian spoke from the heart all right. They told whoever had Tania that they didn’t care to know who he was … all they wanted was their daughter to be dropped off in a safe, warm place, like a shopping mall. And if money was what he wanted, they said they didn’t have much but would do their best to get him some.

Jack and Vivian fought through the tears. They said they missed Tania terribly, as did her dog Harley.

Courtesy of the Murrell Family and the Edmonton Sun, here’s a photo of Tania with her pets. Harley is the black lab.

Peter Hutchinson, producer of Edmonton-AM, CBC Radio’s current affairs program, teared up when the tape was played in studio. The voices of a distraught couple pleading for the safe return of their young daughter not only shook staffers at the CBC, it stunned Edmontonians who had their radios tuned to Edmonton-AM.

A day or so later, Jack and Vivian Murrell followed it up with a news conference in their small living room where they essentially made the same plea, but this time in front of a group of reporters and TV cameras.

Not long after Tania vanished, so did Harley. It was another hit for the Murrells.

THE SEARCH

Police checked out hundreds of leads, but not all were genuine or well meaning. One man phoned the police tip line to reveal that Tania’s remains would be found at the bottom of a certain sewer drain. Police checked it out. Notta. Officers traced the call and charged the guy with mischief. Another bozo later tried to extort the Murrells for money. He got a 3-year prison sentence.

‘Missing’ posters went up everywhere — on telephone poles, at bus-shelters, truck stops and in shopping malls. Hundreds of city blocks were searched; Edmonton Police called it the largest door-to-door search in the city’s history. Little Tania was now on minds of many, not just folks in Edmonton but across Canada and the United States. Her story would eventually be featured on the U.S. TV show, Unsolved Mysteries.

Volunteer searchers — friends of the family and concerned citizens — searched day and night for Tania. They checked ravines, back yards, abandoned vehicles and garbage cans.

I was with a group of searchers one night when garbage cans were being searched. We wondered if we’d come across the child’s severed head or body parts. It was still bitterly cold and the feeling was that if Tania had been murdered, it would have been difficult for the killer to put her corpse in the ground.

Edmontonians turned on the morning news hoping to hear the girl had been found and was back with her family. Everyone wanted a happy ending to this story, but it never came. Turns out, no one found a trace of Tania. Her abductor was either lucky, clever … or both.

The owner of the Edmonton Oilers Hockey Club, Peter Pocklington, quietly offered a 25-thousand dollar reward for information leading to Tania’s safe return. Pocklington also gave the Murrells tickets to attend an Oiler game; the Murrells visited with ‘Peter Puck’ and the players in the dressing room after the game. Pocklington was never publicly identified as the businessman who put up the reward money.

PSYCHICS

Shortly after Tania vanished, the Edmonton Sun published a story where a psychic was quoted as saying that Tania had been taken by a bearded man. For a few days, every man with a beard in Edmonton was given second looks.

Vivian Murrell contacted leading psychics in the U.S. and Canada hoping to get clues to what happened to her daughter. Not one asked for money, although some did say if they had to fly to Edmonton they’d want their airfare paid.

Vivian got information all right, but she couldn’t verify much of it. She shared with me an interesting ‘finding’ from a female psychic in the United States: the man who took Tania had driven by the Murrell house just before he went to the school. If that was true, the abductor not only knew where Tania lived — but may have known her parents as well. It made sense to go by the house first; Jack’s vehicle might have been there. The abductor would have been in serious trouble had he tried to scoop Tania with her biker dad looking on.

THE EX-MOUNTIE PSYCHIC

One medium — a former RCMP officer — flew to Edmonton from British Columbia to help out. I hung out with the guy and listened to what he had to say. It was my first time with a psychic and I tried to keep an open mind about what he was ‘reading.’

About half a mile northeast of Tania’s home, the medium identified a house he claimed was ‘connected’ to Tania. I checked into it. Well. It was the home of one of Tania’s child friends and Tania had been there a number of times visiting. Weird. How does that happen?

The psychic said I had much to learn about the Spirit World. He criticized me for being impatient, saying the information I wanted would come in its own time.

The medium also claimed that a significant amount of spilled human blood was in the basement of a house not far from the Murrell residence. He described the house as having a steep arch [similar to a lancet design] over its front door, but he didn’t know if the blood was Tania’s …

I located a deserted house matching that description [it was the only one like that in the area], and I mentioned the address to Tania’s father. After I left, Jack broke into the house and — what do you know? — came across a bloody mess on the concrete floor in the basement. It was a false alarm, however. According to police, a former tenant had cut himself while working with a power saw and hadn’t cleaned things up.

Sympathetic police made allowances for Jack’s break-in — said they understood his desperation — but warned he shouldn’t be doing stuff like that.

Before Tania was abducted, the Murrells had plans to move to a larger house nearby. They eventually did — to a rental at 9913-151 Street.

The ex-Mountie-turned-psychic showed up one night at the new Murrell residence asking for keys to their old home, the one on 145 Street.

I was with him when he unlocked the front door of the small house. We flicked on the hall light and walked around, our footsteps and voices echoing in the empty rooms.

It was especially eerie standing in the children’s bedroom, in the northwest corner. How the parents must have wept when they packed Tania’s clothes and toys into boxes. I cannot tell you how sad I felt standing in that empty room.

The ex-police officer asked if I’d climb up and see if the attic door was sealed. It was — with plenty of old paint. “That’s not good police work,” he commented, as I landed on the floor with a thud. “Police should have checked the attic door, but obviously it has not been opened in a long time.” He pointed out that immediate family members are often suspects in serious crimes like this.

We then went to check out the basement, flicking on a light switch at the top of a flight of old, narrow wooden stairs. Nothing happened. The light wasn’t working. Not to worry. Armed with a flashlight, we slowly made our way down into the dark basement … mindful of every step because there was no railing.

We were soon in for a heart-thumping surprise.

While Mr. Psychic was shining his light above the ceiling beams, I wandered off to the southeast corner of the basement. Here was a storage room of some sort, with a door on it. The door was wide open, but I didn’t walk in because it was too dark. And so I stood there, with my back to the door, watching Mr. Psychic’s flashlight beam flit here and there.

Suddenly, from just behind me, someone shouted, “Who’s there!!?” I nearly pissed myself. The Murrells forgot to tell us a boarder still lived in the basement. Thank you Vivian for the near heart-attack. The ex-Mountie remained calm. In the dark room was the boarder, a man in his 20s, sleeping in a bed with the covers up to his face. He gave his name, told us where he worked [Gainers Meat Packing] and answered our questions. He also talked about Tania.

Apparently police had checked him out; the guy was clean.

About a month after Tania’s disappearance, Vivian remarked that she felt completely at peace after a long talk on the phone one night with a female psychic in Calgary. She said it was first time in weeks she didn’t have to take sleeping pills to get to sleep.

MEDIA ATTENTION DIMINISHES

Time moved on; the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months. It was a sad spring, a sad summer, a sad Thanksgiving and a particularly sad Christmas. Vivian and Jack still put up Tania’s stocking.

Tania was no longer a lead story. She was no longer a story period, save for the odd update when Vivian gave a talk about missing children, or when she or Jack commented on the anniversary of the abduction.

Jack, Vivian and John Murrell – January 1984
[Photo courtesy of the Edmonton Sun]

I dropped around to the Murrell home occasionally to see if anything was shaking, but often there was nothing newsworthy to report. Vivian did say if her daughter was abducted, she hoped that whoever took her was wealthy and “spoiling her rotten.” She wondered if Tania had been scooped by a rich man living in the Middle East. That struck me as a bit silly, but I didn’t share that with her. Hope was keeping the mother alive … and somewhat sane.

I asked Vivian if reporters were ‘using’ them. “Yes,” she said, “you’re trying to ‘sell papers’ … but we’re using you too — to find our daughter.”

THE TANIA MURRELL MISSING CHILDREN SOCIETY

Vivian Murrell decided to fight the problem of missing children head on and so she set up a charity, calling it The Tania Murrell Missing Children Society. It was the first Canadian agency to deal with missing children. Not long after, Child Find Alberta was launched.

Celine Stevenson had just started elementary school when she met John Murrell. “A sturdy looking boy with shaggy blond hair, a slight lisp to his husky voice,” she recalls of the 6-year-old, “and the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. On his very first day of grade one, our teacher made him stand in front of the class and basically had him showcase his claim to fame as the brother of a kidnapped child. It was awful.”

Turns out, the Stevensons and Murrells were close neighbours and Celine and John would eventually spend time at each other’s homes. “John’s parents were very kind people,” she recalls, “[they tried] to maintain a positive and happy home atmosphere. [However] I was aware of their sadness and could see their daughter’s disappearance had broken them.”

“They always made me promise to phone them the second I arrived home, and most times John would insist on walking me there himself.”

“Sometime in the following year they moved away, and I never saw them again.”

One summer evening I had a chance meeting with Jack in Spruce Grove, just west of Edmonton. A rodeo or horse show perhaps? Not sure. I was told that Jack Murrell was there and so I went looking for him. I found Jack out in the parking lot by himself, standing between some cars. He was crying. I said, “what’s wrong?” Jack swore and said he would like to see one of my girls abducted, then I’d know how it felt.

Jack was different than Vivian that way. Vivian often cried — always apologizing for the way she looked, as if that was important — but she never lashed out.

In 1987, things went off the rails with Vivian’s charity and with her family. That year, Vivian, Jack, John and baby Elysia quietly slipped out of Edmonton. A story broken by Gary Gee and Philippa Dean of the Edmonton Examiner thrust the family back into the news again when the Alberta Government began raising questions about money raised for Vivian’s charity. Had Jack and Vivian buggered off with the money?

There were now two more mysteries: where were the Murrells … and what happened to the money people donated to Vivian’s charity?

I received a tip that the family had relocated to British Columbia’s Okanagan Valley, possibly to Kelowna, its largest city. Cam Ford, Senior Editor [News Director, if you will] at CBC Radio News in Edmonton asked if I’d fly to the Okanagan and look for the Murrells. Certainly, I said and landed in Kelowna where I rented a red sports car.

Finding the Murrells was like trying to find a needle in a haystack; the Okanagan was a large area, all spread out along Okanagan Lake. I checked out as many construction sites in Kelowna and region as I could, but no luck. No one had heard of carpenter Jack Murrell. Frustrating. More than once I thought, what the hell am I doing here?

I finally hit pay dirt on the edge of town, at a sprawling trailer park, where the Murrells had stayed for a short while. Fortunately, Jack had some loaned some stuff to a man still living in the park … and he drew a map where the Murrells could be found. The guy was a rough sort, but he was okay. I recall him jumping from his door to the ground, a meter below, landing with a thud in the dirt in his bare feet … and not being bothered by it. The man owned an old motorbike, and put it this way, it wasn’t a Honda Gold Wing.

I followed his directions and drove north out of town, stopping briefly to pick up something at a store on the way. It was pitch dark when I arrived at a small cabin, surrounded by trees and overlooking a lake. Before I rapped on the door, I stood quietly and listened for voices inside. When I heard Jack and Vivian talking, I knocked. Jack opened the door. “Aw fuck,” he announced, turning back to break the news to his family, “they found us.”

I wasn’t welcomed, but my case of cold beer was … and that got me in the door. I told the Murrells I would not reveal their location, but that folks back in Alberta wanted to know about their charity — and if contributors had been ripped off. Fair questions, I thought. Vivian did all the talking; just as well, because Jack was hot under the collar about being “discovered.”

The Murrells were making a living by picking fruit in one of the many orchards in the Okanagan.

Vivian explained that things just got too “heavy” in Edmonton and her world was caving in on her. She said she couldn’t go anywhere without people asking about Tania.

The money was all accounted for, Vivian assured. “Everything is all in here,” she said, breaking away from the kitchen table to point to several dirt-covered cardboard boxes stacked on their small wooden deck. Vivian promised to get in touch with Harold Baker at Alberta Consumer and Corporate Affairs and explain things.

The three of us polished off half the beer that night, okay, maybe most of it, Jack cooled down, the kids went quietly to sleep and we parted on good terms. It was the last time I saw Jack and Vivian Murrell.

According to Alberta Consumer and Corporate Affairs, Vivian kept her word and contacted them. I can’t say if the financial issues surrounding the charity were ever resolved. Who knows? Maybe a kind-hearted government bureaucrat sat back in his leather chair, twirling a pencil and pondered … what’s really important here? … missing money or a missing child? Perhaps the Alberta Government treated the Murrells the same way it treats energy companies: with ‘special considerations.’

I returned to Edmonton physically and emotionally drained and filed stories for CBC Radio, for both local and national news. CBC Television lugged a camera over to the radio newsroom and did a quick hit for its evening cast. The Murrells were back in the news again. Who knows? Maybe this time Jack grew a beard.

Bill Ringrose, one of the editors at CBC TV News, heard my taped interview with Vivian. He called over to the newsroom and said, “shit, she sounds drunk!” I said, “Bill, she was just very tired …”

What did police think of psychics? The impression I got — at least from this file — was that police looked at all evidence … but publicly, would not admit to using mediums.

Edmonton Police would eventually get their best information on the Tania file courtesy of a psychic living in Southern British Columbia.

CLAIRVOYANT [PSYCHIC] RALPH HURST

I met Ralph Hurst in 1984 at a news conference at the posh Westin Hotel in downtown Edmonton. The ‘newser’ had been arranged by organizers of a psychic fair. Hurst was one of half a dozen mediums in a conference room on the second floor.

An equal number of reporters, myself included, asked questions. We later broke up for ‘one-on-one’ interviews with the psychics. I selected a soft-spoken man with a British accent, Ralph Hurst of Clearbrook [near Abbotsford], B.C.

Hurst was a nervous sort and my opening comment did not put him at ease. I said his business sure had its share of fakes. Hurst agreed, but said he wasn’t a fake.

I asked, “is it true we have ‘spirit guardians’ who look over us?’ “Yes,” the Brit answered, adding, “I can see your guardian, just above your left shoulder … he’s Chinese.” I said, “interesting, didn’t know that … may I ask him something — in Chinese?” Hurst didn’t bat an eye. “Go ahead,” he said. I fired off my question: 你是如何在中国.

Hope I spelled that right.

Hurst replied, “He says his health is fine. What did you ask?” I said, “I asked how he was!” Without missing a beat the psychic shot back, “Well, there’s your answer. Do you have any more questions?” That one handcuffed me, and I shut up. As far as I could tell, Hurst didn’t know any Mandarin Chinese.

As a child growing up in England, Hurst explained, he often played with kids from the ‘Spirit World’. Just as his parents were amazed their young son could see ‘ghosts,’ the child was equally amazed others couldn’t see them.

Hurst once remarked that dealing with Spirits was like looking out a window at night … he could see his own reflection as well as the Spirits.

I asked Hurst if he could come up with information on a missing 6-year-old Edmonton girl. “Does her name begin with ‘T’?” he asked. I said, “Correct … you heard about her on the news? …” “No,” he replied, “I picked that up off you.”

Hurst went on to say he felt Tania was now in the Spirit World, meaning she had died and crossed over.

He also claimed the Murrells had two other children, not one. I shook my head and said, “That ain’t right Ralph … there’s only one other child, a boy.” Hurst stood firm. “No, I’m picking up there’s a second child.” I pointed out that I knew the family well and his claim of another child was proof that psychics sometimes screw up. Hurst stood his ground, insisting there was not only a second child, but that the child was living with the family. That made his claim even more ridiculous.

In spite of our differences, we parted on friendly terms.

A few days later, I phoned Vivian Murrell to share with her my encounter with the B.C. psychic. Before I could give her an update, she exclaimed, “Byron, I’m going to have a baby”! Whoa. That hit me. I phoned Hurst in British Columbia, but he was not at home and so I left an apology with his wife. [Hurst was in hospital suffering from exhaustion] The man later called back to say, “Forget it, don’t worry about it.”

Elysia Murrell was born on November 12, 1985. Last I heard, Elysia was a single mom and living in Niagara Falls, Ontario — Jack and Vivian’s old home before they moved out West.

 HURST’S READINGS

Hurst then mailed a cassette tape with his “reading” of the Tania case. I found little concrete information in this initial reading.

Hear psychic Ralph Hurst. The reading, recorded in 1985, runs 7:15.

Download: ralph-h-psychic1.m4a

What was interesting was that — according to Hurst — Jack Murrell was in a “sticky financial situation” and somebody wasn’t happy with him … but Hurst felt it had nothing to do with his daughter’s disappearance.

I never did make a connection to the letter “J” or “Jacob.” Did ‘J’ stand for Jack or John?? Who knows.

[In a later reading -- not recorded -- Hurst said the suspect had taken another life. More on that later in this post.]

Hurst also said that Tania was not a “silly girl” and that she wasn’t prone to going off with strangers. He nailed that one. Vivian trained her daughter not to talk to strangers specifically. The mother beat on pots and pans on the sidewalk, telling Tania, “I’m a stranger! … I’m a stranger! … run into the house!” Let’s face it, how many parents go to those lengths? Did Vivian Murrell have a premonition that somebody would grab her daughter one day?

Had Vivian ‘street-proofed’ her daughter from the dangers of talking to strangers? According to Brenda Dawson, Tania’s babysitter, she sure did. Dawson recalled a time she was driving near the Murrell house, it was raining and on the sidewalk was Tania and her brother, John. The kids were on their way home. Their babysitter offered them a lift — but they refused to get in her vehicle.

The fact that Tania willingly got into somebody’s car in front of her school that fateful day in January 1983 suggests Tania knew that person very well. The list of possible suspects was suddenly manageable.

Dawson also revealed that Tania would sometimes run around the house in her underwear — in front of guests, including the man eventually identified as the prime suspect in her disappearance.

THE PRIME SUSPECT

I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I tried to make sense of it all but it was a bit like trying to assemble a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing. Tania probably knew her abductor, of that I was convinced. He may have had a beard and wore a baseball cap, as the psychics claimed. In any case, the description matched a man — a family acquaintance — whose initials for the purpose of this story will be PS [for 'prime suspect'].

Let’s bring him into the story …

PS volunteered to screen phone calls [tips] made to the Murrell house. He was a likeable enough guy, but an asshole. PS greeted me one evening when I went around to the Murrell house, stopping me on the short flight of stairs leading up to the kitchen. He pushed his finger on my chest and announced to everyone that I was not a reporter but a “fucking cop.” There sure was a lot of cussing going on at the Murrell residence.

PS and I later walked out into the cold night, lifting lids off garbage cans and poking around. He said his hands were freezing and so I loaned him my gloves. If I was a cop, I was at least a thoughtful one. PS seemed strangely disinterested in what we were doing that night. For a man who was close to Murrells, it struck me as odd. However, at that point I did not suspect PS as a molester, abductor … or killer. I thought he was just a dolt who hung out with the Murrells.

I asked Dawson if she had more information to offer. She sure did, handing over a poem PS had written shortly after Tania disappeared. The poem creeped me out. At this point, no one but PS, Dawson and myself had read it. PS wanted Dawson to type it out so he could enter it in a contest.

He titled his prose Could Never Be.

Tho the day be far away, or the night just closing in

Remembering the fun they had that day and feelings possessed within

Gazing into the distant stars, the plans they made, so bright and new

As they walked along that deserted beach, all their problems, were so few

The time alone, just themselves, warm new feelings, so tender and strange

Nervous thoughts of love, of making love, passionately, their lives would change

Undisturbed, but for the waves, closely embraced, on the beach they lay

The summer ended much too soon and for them, their final day!

Precious new feelings that they shared, knowing soon, would have to end.

The tears flowed with their final kiss, it was their first love, they couldn’t pretend

Often they wished, to turn back time, oh, for time to have stood still!

Aye, to turn back time, but time goes on, it’s nature’s will

To return some day, they said they would, but I knew — we never could.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the poem was about Tania.

Here’s a copy of the original, handwritten document. [Last I heard, the original was on file in the Homicide Section at the Edmonton Police Service, main building, downtown]

REFLECTIONS ABOUT THE PRIME SUSPECT

Brenda Dawson described PS as “very intelligent, someone who read a lot … who liked to write poems and put his thoughts down on paper.” “But when he drank,” she cautioned, “he was different … weird.” “And when he was drunk, he was really strange. He wouldn’t remember a bloody thing … he became ‘polarized’ and would pass out.”

Dawson said it was hard to maintain eye contract with PS because his eyes were moving all the time. She described him as “nervous, jittery … with his fingernails bitten.” “He seemed kind of mellow, not feminine, not queer,” she said, “wasn’t manly, but not a wimp.”

According to Dawson, PS often slept over at the Murrell house and was quite friendly with kids.

I tried to find out as much as I could about the guy: where he worked, how he became involved with the Murrells, his lifestyle, behaviour, the car he drove, acts of kindness, acts of wierdness, anything. I discovered it was Vivian who first met PS when the two worked for a landscaping company in the city.

Terri, a friend of the Murrells, said PS was often drunk. She said he occasionally passed out on the floor or on the couch … and that when he was drinking, he had a “split personality.” She said PS would sit at the table drinking — calm and collected — then fly into a rage … but would return later, okay. She noted he was more offensive to women than to men.

No one had much good to say about the man.

A friend of the family said she warned Vivian that PS “gave her the creeps” and that she should watch him. She said Vivian assured her the guy was okay.

This chilling story is from Melsi, a fellow who shared an apartment with PS for about a year: one night the two were playing cards and drinking when, unprovoked, PS grabbed an empty beer bottle and smashed his companion in the face, knocking him to the floor. Melsi recalls, “it was like a firecracker had gone off in his head.” PS got pounded out and told to find another place to live. Melsi then threw a couple of worn but effective cliches my way: “There is no light at the end of his tunnel … and he’s a man whose oars are not in the water.”

I asked Melsi, then living in British Columbia, if he suspected PS had scooped Tania. “Yes,” he said, “I always thought [he] took her.” “Did you ever tell anyone that?” “No.” I wonder how many other people suspected PS, but kept their thoughts private.

I was later to discover Melsi wasn’t the only one who feared PS had molested and murdered Tania.

A story was that PS was driving with the Murrells — the family on an outing to a lake south of Edmonton — when he reached over and turned off the ignition, sending their station wagon off the road and into the ditch. Guess at the time it seemed like a fun thing to do.

Another disturbing story had to do with the time Jack and PS were enjoying some beer at the Murrell house one night and Jack fell asleep on the couch. Jack woke up to find PS trying to pull down the zipper on his jeans.

Other than that, PS was just another fun-loving guy who did his bit to keep beer companies in business.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing is that Jack and Vivian Murrell let PS take Tania [and John] camping ALONE. Explain that to me.

It was Dawson’s understanding that PS had been molested as a child, but I was never able to confirm that.

Had PS avoided the scrutiny of the Edmonton Police? No. He was given a truth-verifier [lie detector] — and told that he’d passed it. Truth is, the results were inconclusive because he was intoxicated. PS wasn’t tested a second time. Explain that to me also.

Hurst and I again connected in the mid-1980s, while he was in Edmonton for another psychic fair. We sat in a booth at a Boston Pizza restaurant near the city’s downtown core. I said, “I have something to show you” and handed him the poem — a sheet of paper inside a clear plastic sleeve. Hurst asked if he could remove it. I said sure. He turned it over and closed his eyes. “Oh,” he shuddered, “whoever wrote this has great remorse … he’s crying and saying I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry …”

Hurst read the poem and handed it back without commenting on it.

I asked Hurst if he could tell how Tania died. He said he could feel a squeezing pain on his throat and pressure at the back of his neck. Strangulation. He claimed Tania’s body was fully clothed and that she hadn’t been dismembered. According to Hurst, the corpse initially had been hidden in a cool area, such as a basement or a freezer, where it remained for a number of weeks.

PS returned to Ontario in the spring of 1983, several months after Tania disappeared.

According to Hurst, the child’s fate was sealed after she told PS she was going to tell her father about something they’d done.

According to an Edmonton Police detective, just before Tania was abducted, the family was out for an evening meal at a restaurant and Tania was acting up. Police now suspect the child was out of sorts because she may have been molested.

Hurst and I then drove to the west end. I parked my car outside Tania’s elementary school. Hurst asked me not to interrupt him as he “went back” to the morning of January 20, 1983.

There’s a set of main doors at Grovenor Elementary School where staff and children come and go. Hurst said Tania did not leave by way of those doors, that she left through a door at the south end of the building. [correct, according to police]

According to Hurst, there was a lot of what he called “smoke” at the rear of the sedan Tania stepped into. The ‘smoke’ in fact was exhaust fumes visible because of the extremely cold weather.

Hurst’s account is that the passenger door swung open and Tania willingly got in the vehicle. He claims PS was looking at two other children about 60 feet [18 meters] ahead of Tania. This was news to me. According to the psychic, the kids were on the same sidewalk, walking north on 144 Street — but didn’t glance behind them; if they had, they might have seen Tania and got a glimpse of her abductor and his vehicle. [correct again, according to police]

The medium said PS was “shit-faced” [drunk] and that he’d driven by the school a number of times searching for Tania. Hurst also believed that PS had driven by the Murrell house just before heading over to the school.

I told Hurst I’d take him to the Murrell house, one street over. He said, “just drive to the street, I’ll find the house.” He did. “That’s it,” he said, pointing to a small white bungalow on the west side. I stopped the car and Hurst asked me to pull ahead a bit. “At the back, on the right,” he said, pointing, “… that was her bedroom.” Correct. Wow. I said, “that’s crazy, how the hell do you do that?”

Hurst claimed that Tania’s body was stuffed in three garbage bags and buried about two feet down in a “soggy area.” He had three “signs” where the body would be, but even that was just a general area, not a specific location. The signs:

1. →  a broken-down fence
2. →  a large letter ‘A’
3. →  a small body of water

While it’s interesting, it’s sure not much to go on. I pulled out a map of Edmonton showing the North Saskatchewan River and some man-made lakes. Hurst said the body of water he “saw” was much smaller than anything on the map. Frustrating.

Hurst and I then drove to an area where PS had lived, which wasn’t all that far from where Tania was scooped. We headed south on 149nd Street and turned left into a ‘well-to-do’ neighbourhood. We were now on Summit Drive, a quiet road that snakes along the southern edge of MacKinnon Ravine Park. Near 143rd Street, Hurst shouted, “Stop! There’s the broken-down fence!” To our left was the railing of a wooden fence that had fallen down. Sign #1. Hurst was pumped.

We climbed down into the ravine at the 142nd Street bridge, a structure supported by a number of massive concrete pylons. At the very top of one of the pylons [southwest corner] was a spray-painted, large letter ‘A’, more than 4 feet tall. There was a circle around it. How the heck anyone got up there to do that is beyond me. But who cares. Sign #2.

Where the pylon was buried in the ground was a large depression, filled with water. “There’s the water,” announced an excited Hurst. Sign #3.

I was worked up too. But my excitement quickly diminished when Hurst said he wasn’t very good at locating dead bodies.

I had no idea where to start looking on the heavily treed ravine, though I did return, finally, in the summer of 2012 with a metal detector and a shovel, hoping to pick up a metal zipper, buttons or metal clasps on the child’s winter boots. I was assisted one day by two private detectives from Calgary, Bruce Dunne and Shelley Nowell.

I returned three more times to the ravine, once with reporter J.T. Lemiski of CFCW Radio. We found numerous buried cans, nails, an old axe head, part of the frame of a very old bicycle … but no clothing or skeleton wrapped in garbage bags. Frustrating again. And I took a few spills to boot.

I figure that only 10-15 percent of the area was scanned with the metal detectors. Is the body there? Be damned if I know.

EDMONTON POLICE FLY TO ONTARIO TO QUESTION PRIME SUSPECT

In the early 1990s I tracked PS to a city in Southern Ontario, thanks to a call I put in to his mother, also living in Ontario. I queried where I could find her son. She sounded worried and asked, “This is about Tania, isn’t it?” I said, “Yes it is.”

From time to time, I met with an old school chum who’d joined the RCMP after high school. Ken Chambers worked out of K-Division in Edmonton. Ken was sincere, thoughtful and thorough. One day over lunch at Pizza Hut, just south of the CBC Building, I brought up the Tania Murrell case, sharing with Ken some findings that may not have been known to police, certainly information that wasn’t public.

It wasn’t long before Ken got on the blower to the Edmonton Police. That prompted a phone call to the CBC Radio Newsroom from a Detective Ian Shoaf. Shoaf wanted to talk about Tania Murrell. I said, okay but let’s have 2-way communication and share information. Shoaf agreed. We agreed to meet on a Saturday afternoon at his office on the second floor of the main police building downtown.

Shoaf was the lead detective on the Tania file, having taken over from two others. I found him upfront and cooperative. Shoaf went through my notes, and I poured through his files on Tania, all neatly contained in a 4-drawer metal filing cabinet. The officer’s notes were well organized.

After we traded information and chatted for a while, Detective Shoaf leaned back in his chair and announced, “he’s our man.”

A few days later I drove out to the ravine with Detectives Shoaf and John McLeod, the first on the Tania file. We drove there in an old, unmarked police cruiser. McLeod seemed disinterested, not so Shoaf. McLeod remained in the cruiser while the younger Shoaf and I scampered down the embankment.

The officers talked about the possibility of having a sniffer dog help locate human remains, then wondered — that owing to the passage of time — if there would be anything for the dog to find.

Neither man was too keen on searching the ravine as Shoaf had a hunch that Tania’s body was buried somewhere in Strathcona County, an area PS was familiar with.

According to Shoaf, they found the vehicle PS owned at the time of Tania’s abduction [in a wrecker's lot] … but too much time had passed and they couldn’t get any evidence off it.

Police later made plans to fly to Southern Ontario to confront the suspect. I suggested to Shoaf that if he and PS had a game of chess, he’d get his ass whipped. PS was a piss-tank, but he was no dummy.

Detectives Jim Cessford and Ian Shoaf met with PS on the anniversary of Tania’s abduction. According to Shoaf, they went around to the suspect’s house very early in the morning and were surprised when he opened the door and greeted them. “Was he tipped off you were coming?” I asked. The detective didn’t know. I hadn’t said a word to anyone.

PS accompanied the two detectives to an Ontario Provincial Police building nearby where the cops went at him non-stop for 11-hours. According to Shoaf, PS initially denied writing the poem [‘Could Never Be’], then fessed up to it.

He also downplayed his association with the Murrells, saying he barely knew them … and he couldn’t remember the name of the Murrell’s missing girl. “Really?” said Shoaf, “then why did you name your own child ‘Tania’?”

The bottom line is that the detectives could not crack PS.

They offered him second-degree murder and therapy, but the response was “fuck you … you ain’t got a body.” If PS was an innocent man, his comment was sure interesting. Yet another red flag.

What threw off the interrogation was a phone call that was put through to the interview room by mistake. The officers had asked that NO calls be put through. However, to take the call, they had to hit the pause button on their interrogation. [The call was about a pizza delivery] Police said the interruption came at the absolute wrong time because PS was on the ropes and the phone call — which surprised everyone — gave him time to regain his composure.

Shoaf says his last words to PS were that he didn’t want him to kill himself [“you fucker”] because he wanted him alive.

I was at the Edmonton International Airport to meet the two detectives when they returned home on a late flight. I watched the pair ascend the escalator, side by side. Their eyes shouted what their lips feared to say. There would be no breaking news from CBC reporter Byron Christopher that night.

What it came down to is that police had enough on PS to charge him, but not enough to convict him. What was especially frustrating for the officers was that their suspect did not deny killing Tania.

In a 20th of January 1993 interview in the Edmonton Sun, Shoaf told reporter Tom Olsen “He [the suspect] was associated with the family and was in Edmonton at the time. Those people who were close to the family have identified him as the fellow.” Shoaf went on to say that more than 20 people suspected the individual.

“The absence of a body points to the theory Tania knew her abductor,” wrote Olsen. Shoaf added, “A stranger has no feelings towards the victim, they’ll just dump the body.”

A CONNECTION TO THE KEVIN REIMER MYSTERY?

Was PS a predator? In one of his readings, Clairvoyant Ralph Hurst said that PS had taken another life, a boy whose name began with ‘K’. Hurst thought the name might be Kevin, but wasn’t sure. That name rang a bell because of Kevin Reimer, the 9-year-old who mysteriously vanished from Elk Island National Park in Strathcona County, east of Edmonton, in June 1979.

At the time, PS worked in Strathcona County.

The boy’s remains were eventually found in woods near the national park. My friend, Ken Chambers of the RCMP, who was part of the initial search, swore the body wasn’t there when they looked. Ken — then stationed at the RCMP Detachment in Sherwood Park — said he and many other officers walked nearly shoulder to shoulder, poking the ground with long sticks … and no way was that body there. Ken’s conclusion is that the corpse was dumped in that location some time after the police search.

Detective Shoaf said he called the RCMP for more information on Kevin Reimer’s disappearance. He says Mounties ruled Reimer’s death accidental. Don’t know if I buy that. According to Shoaf, the ‘Good Samaritan’ who notified police that people were frantically searching for a missing boy was not a family member, but none other than PS. I haven’t seen the RCMP file to confirm that. But if the information is correct, I’m convinced that Kevin’s death was not an accident.

Click on the little arrow to hear a telephone interview with Vivian Murrell recorded in January, 1993 — 10 years after Tania disappeared. Our talk runs about 21 minutes. Vivian touches on her recollections of the day her daughter vanished, some private memories of Tania, the controversy surrounding her charity, how family was doing that year [1993], her shame of knowing the prime suspect; her frustration with the Edmonton Police … and a message to the people of Edmonton.

Download: vivian-murrell-1993-edit.m4a

In August 2010, long-time family friend Heather Hansen visited Vivian Murrell at her home in Peachland, British Columbia. Heather was also a volunteer with Vivian’s charity. The two talked about old times and shared some laughs, as old friends are prone to do.

Heather says one thing that wasn’t funny was that Vivian was not able to retrieve the manuscript she wrote ['Where Is Tania?'] and loaned to the Calgary-based Missing Children Society of Canada. Vivian hoped her manuscript didn’t end up like her daughter: missing.

It’s not known what became of that document. Chantal Bazinet, who works in media relations for Missing Children, in a sing-songy sort of voice, said she was looking into it. The pledge made on 12 February 2013. I’ll let you know what comes of this.

TANIA NOW HAS COMPANY?

Vivian Murrell died on New Year’s Day, 2011 at her home — a story broken by CFCW Radio in Edmonton. According to other media reports, Vivian’s boyfriend came home and found her dead on the couch. Heather says Vivian had suffered a brain aneurysm in 2005, the same year Jack Murrell died from kidney failure.

I tried contacting Ralph Hurst recently to give him an update on the Tania Murrell file … but learned that Hurst had died from cancer. I hope my old friend is still following the case from the ‘Other Side.’ Come on Ralph, get off your butt and give me a sign … do some ‘nudging.’

Hurst once said he did not want a dime of the reward money, but he also didn’t want any of the money to go to Tania’s parents. He felt they were partly responsible for what happened because it was they who brought PS into their lives.

Last I heard, Detective Shoaf had retired from the Edmonton Police Service after some serious medical issues. He once told me that the Tania file would haunt him for as long as he lived. If there’s any police officer who needs closure to a case, it is Detective Ian Shoaf on the Tania Murrell file. That man put his heart and soul into solving this mystery. I tip my hat to him.

[If you gain one nugget from this post, it's this: look beyond the news release and the news stories. Police officers [Detective Shoaf, for example] and reporters too numerous to mention went beyond the call of duty to get to the bottom of a child’s disappearance. Because we failed doesn’t mean the mystery isn’t solved.]

Shoaf did say that police questioned the Murrells about PS — but the Murrells defended him, saying [I hope I have the quote right] “Oh no, not – -! he’s our friend!!” No, Vivian, he was your drinking buddy … and a sexual deviant. Police — and more than a dozen people — believe he did in your daughter.

 

 CONTACT FROM THE RCMP IN OTTAWA 

What prompted this ‘update’ on Tania Murrell wasn’t so much that the 30-year-anniversary is in January 2013. It was a message on my Facebook page in the spring of 2012. The note was from Bill Brown, a special investigator working with the RCMP in Ottawa. Brown, a former City of Edmonton policeman, was looking for information on the Tania case. In a phone call and some emails, I shared with him what I knew.

Now you know all this as well.

When I phoned Brown a month or so later to see what was up with Tania, he said nothing was happening — that it was an EPS [Edmonton Police Service] file. That’s the last I heard from him.

I don’t know what became of PS. That story is for another day.

It’s my understanding that police know where the prime suspect now lives.

Following her mother’s death, Elysia Murrell told reporters she believed her older sister is still alive, that she was abducted and brainwashed into thinking her parents didn’t want her anymore. Elysia also revealed that her brother John has been in and out of jail, and that she’s had little contact with him.

HOW THE MEDIA WORKS …

Since this blog story was posted on 10 October 2012, no ‘mainstream’ media outlet did an update on the Tania Murrell mystery — until the 30th anniversary of the abduction rolled around. Suddenly, little Tania was back in the news again.

All along, the media outlet with perhaps the best coverage of Tania’s disappearance has been the Edmonton Sun. What’s surprising and disappointing is the Edmonton Journal’s coverage this time around: zip! What’s with that? It looks like the paper couldn’t come up with anything original, so it simply ignored the story.

On Friday, 18 January 2013 reporter Gary Poignant did an update for the Edmonton Sun. In large part, Gary’s story was based on two interviews: with Vivian Murrell’s sister, Vera [mentioned earlier in this post] … and Brandy-Jo Ewashko, one of Tania’s playmates.

What’s new in the Sun story is that 30 years after the fact, Brandy-Jo Ewashko now reveals that when Tania was abducted she was on her way to a 7-11 convenience store, in the opposite direction — and not to her home. At the time of Tania’s disappearance that critical piece of information wasn’t mentioned to police, certainly not to the news media because we would have put the story out there.

The new information, like a lot of stuff on the Tania file, is of course “un-verifiable.” Given Tania’s character and training by her mother — and the freezing temperature at the time — it’s hard to believe the child would suddenly head off to a convenience store instead of going straight home, where a hot meal was waiting. Then again, who knows? Only two people know the answer, and one is likely now in the Spirit World.

Here is a 23 January 1983 story by Gary Poignant of the Edmonton Sun, featuring an interview with then 6-year-old Brandy-Jo Ewashko [click on 'I think Tanya got stealed'  to read the story]:

Edmonton Sun : 23 January 1983

Notice there’s no mention of Tania on her way to a convenience store.

The most recent Sun coverage prompted this critical yet diplomatic response to the Sun website from Tania’s younger sister, Elysia Murrell. Click on the image below to read Elysia’s note.

           Correspondence from Elysia Murrell 21 January 2013

The gist of what Elysia Murrell is saying is that the new information on Tania wandering off to a 7/11 is likely bull … and it’s ticked off her family.

The next mainstream media outlet to do a story on the 30th anniversary of Tania’s abduction was CFRN Television, CTV’s Edmonton affiliate. Without source attribution, CTV’s website story reads:

“The little girl had gone to school with her brother, and was supposed to go home with him for lunch that day, but it’s believed that she headed in the opposite direction instead towards what was a convenience store …”

“Believed?” By using believed, CTV avoids giving credit to the Edmonton Sun. That’s not unusual. By not giving credit, the public may think CTV actually got this information on its own. Smoke and mirrors. It’s all about making an impression.

It gets worse. On 22 January 2013, the Vancouver Sun [not affiliated with the Sun Media chain] published a Canadian Press story on the 30th anniversary of the abduction of Tania. Notice how unconfirmed information has suddenly morphed into a fact. Again, click on the image to enlarge.

“But for some reason she headed in the opposite direction instead, toward what was a convenience store …”

Here’s a summary of the latest events:

a) a new twist to the Tania story — 30 years later, a child’s memory is jogged with information that has Tania’s relatives raising their eyebrows as to its credibility;

b) a TV station grabs the Sun information — without giving credit — and does its own story;

c) another news organization rewrites the TV copy, but passes off the new information as “fact” …

d) yet another news outlet prints the new information as if it were gospel.

And that folks, is why the public does not — and should not — have complete faith in the mainstream news media.

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

30 years later, there’s still no sign of Tania … and her disappearance has landed no one in court. Yet a lot has happened in three decades, as one can imagine. Tania’s parents [Jack and Vivian Murrell] have both died. Dead too is one of the early detectives on the Tania file, John McLeod. Psychic Ralph Hurst has also crossed over.

Last I heard, John Murrell was eating prison food in British Columbia; Elysia Murrell was in Ontario; PS was in Ontario; Sun reporter Tom Olson was doing communications work with the Alberta Government; CBC-TV reporter Warren Michaels was doing communications work for “Cold-FX” [where he got nailed and fined for "insider trading"]; CBC Radio Senior Editor Cam Ford moved to Australia and became a lawyer in Melbourne; CBC Radio reporter Ruth Anderson is news director at CTV Barrie, Ontario; CBC Radio Producer Peter Hutchinson is station manager at CBC Radio in Victoria, British Columbia; RCMP officer Ken Chambers is retired and living in the Maritimes; Edmonton Police Service Detective Ian Shoaf works in law enforcement for the Alberta Government; Vera Stortz is in Edmonton; Peter Pocklington is in California … and yours truly is semi-retired and living in Edmonton.

I strongly believe Tania Murrell is deceased, murdered the same day she was abducted.