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Crown Ward Double Murder

June 4, 2009 permalink

Two Alberta crown wards have committed a double murder. The names of the boys remain secret. If they were published, the public could find out the reasons, usually frivolous, for taking them from their real families, and could find out their treatment in foster care, such as their prescriptions for psychotropic drugs. As it is, we will find out none of these things, and the failings of the child protection will remain hidden.

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Victims named in 'random' double murder

Updated June 3, 2009

Susan Trudel, 50, and Baldur (Barry) Boenke, 68, killed in a rural Strathcona County double murder earlier this week appear to be victims of random violence, according to the RCMP.

Their alleged killer is a 14-year-old boy who disappeared from the nearby Bosco Homes child care facility.

He has been charged with two counts of first degree murder.

A second 14-year-old boy who also escaped from the property has been charged with two counts of being an accessory after the fact to murder.

The 14-year-old boy accused of murder and his alleged accomplice — also 14 — disappeared from the Bosco facility on Sunday.

How Trudel and Boenke were murdered has not been revealed by the RCMP, which is still investigating the crime.

At a Monday press conference, RCMP Const. Wally Henry stated trauma was visible on their bodies, but ruled out a potential shooting.

According to Cpl. Daren Anderson of the Strathcona County RCMP detachment, the two boys were reported missing by Bosco Homes staff around 5:20 p.m. — about 20 minutes after staff first realized the boys were gone.

The boys weren’t located until an Edmonton Police Service officer initiated a traffic stop on a carelessly driving pickup truck in Edmonton at 2:45 a.m. the following morning.

An EPS investigation on the truck showed it was stolen and from a resident of Strathcona County. Local RCMP attempted to locate the owner of the vehicle and was pointed by a relative to the residence where the owner had been doing yard work the day before.

When RCMP arrived at that residence, the bodies of a man and woman were discovered.

“Its horrible,” said Gus Royzcki, the executive director of Bosco Homes at a Wednesday morning press conference. “Any loss of life is a tragedy.

Our heart goes out to the friends and relatives of the deceased.”

Anderson characterized the killings as a “completely random incident.”

The two teens were at Bosco Homes were they were arrested by the RCMP on Saturday, May 30 for vandalism and theft in Ardrossan, Anderson said. A court date in July was set and they were turned over to Alberta Child and Family Services.

“The criteria to have these two youths detained in custody was not there,” Anderson said.

Child and family services, in turn, gave the boys to Bosco Homes to keep track of them and ensure they stay out of trouble.

Since the bodies of the deceased weren’t discovered until 5 a.m. the following day, it leaves about an eight- to nine-hour window in which the murders could have occurred, Anderson estimated.

Despite recurring issues of children vanishing from Bosco Homes, which is located near the Uncas area of Strathcona County, Anderson said that there is a “very low percentage of crime in that area” that can be attributed to those youth.

He added there was no need for residents in the area to be alarmed or concerned.

Royzcki said the facility’s practice is to notify the RCMP as soon as Bosco Homes’ staff realizes a juvenile is missing.

It is not unusual for staff to locate the juvenile before he or she completely leaves the 120 acre property.

RCMP can then notify members of its Strathcona County Crime Watch program, which consists of 1,650 families, Anderson said.

All absent without care youths are considered a high priority, whether or not they are missing from Bosco, Anderson added.

Royzcki said the staff-to-juvenile ratio at the facility is three-to-one.

Bosco Homes sits on a 120 acre site, but because it is not an in-custody facility, there are no walls to keep juveniles from leaving the property.

Royzcki said the sides of the property are contained by forest on two sides, a body of water, and some fences.

Regardless, both Anderson and Royzcki acknowledged that it is not unusual for juveniles to leave the property.

Royzcki characterized the 120-acre facility with five large bungalows where juveniles commonly play with staff in the area’s playground and go to school on site.

Representing Alberta Child and Family Services, Cheryl Oxford said she couldn’t comment on the teens’ past or low long they have stayed at Bosco Homes in an effort to protect their identity.

She said she was attending the news conference with the RCMP and Royzcki to be open and to re-assure that Bosco Homes has a good record.

While making an effort not to underestimate the situation, she said “We have a very good relationship with Bosco Homes,” including no quality of care concerns.

The accused will appear in Sherwood Park’s youth court Tuesday, June 9 for the murder charges.

Royzcki estimated that the facility is located about 9.6 km. away from the property were two adults were found dead.

According to the Criminal Code of Canada, first degree murder charges apply when the murder is planned, or death is associated with sexual assault, kidnapping or forced confinement.

mdimassa@sherwoodparknews.com

Source: Sherwood Park News

News from the trial confirms that the killers were wards of the group home, but still conceals the names of the accused, blocking answere to the important questions.

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Teen confessed killings to undercover RCMP officer

Ardrossan acreage
In June 2009, RCMP did a walkabout at the scene of the a dual murder on an Ardrossan acreage.
Photograph by: Supplied , Screencap

EDMONTON - A teenager on trial for the 2009 killings of Susan Trudel and Barry Boenke confessed to the murders to an undercover RCMP officer in a recording played at his trial Monday.

The youth, who cannot be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, was unknowingly recorded when he spoke about the killings to the officer as they drove in a vehicle on March 30, 2012.

The teen tells the officer that he fled the Bosco Homes youth facility on May 31, 2009, and reached the piece of Boenke’s property where Trudel lived in a trailer, roughly 10 kilometres from Bosco Homes, near Ardrossan. He told the officer he had stolen a handgun from a stored vehicle nearby and shot Trudel and Boenke outside the trailer.

“I shot the guy in the middle of the head,” the teen said. “And then I dragged her, drug her inside and hit her in the back of the head with an axe.”

Boenke survived being shot in the head, the teen said. “He was still alive, so I beat him with a two-by-four.”

Throughout the confession, the teen mentioned how he specifically tampered with evidence to confuse investigators. He covered his shoes in plastic during the crime, bleached and burned his clothes, used rifle shells in the handgun, fired randomly outside the trailer to create further bullet holes, and then spread Trudel’s blood across her kitchen ceiling to make odd patterns for investigators to find.

“It was to throw them off,” he told the undercover officer as loud rap music played in the background. “They wouldn’t know how it got there.”

He dragged Trudel into her trailer “because the cops would assume a 14-year-old couldn’t,” he said.

The teen was 14 when Trudel and Boenke were killed. He was 16 when the recording was made. Now 17, he faces two charges of second-degree murder.

The teen was recorded after murder charges against him had been dropped. At the time, he had sat through his preliminary hearing, where he saw and heard all the evidence gathered after the killings.

Court has heard the teen’s charges were brought back after he was the target of a “Mr. Big” operation. In such circumstances, an undercover officer elicits information from a suspect under the pretence that they are being recruited into a criminal organization and need to admit crimes to gain trust.

The officer in the recording commended the teen after his story is complete. “I wasn’t 100 per cent sure you were one of us, but you’re solid. Taking care of business. Doing what you have to do.”

Some of the teen’s admission has already been disproven in court. The teen said he targeted Trudel’s trailer because it was known to have a large amount of crack-cocaine in a freezer, which an investigator testified was not there. He said that Trudel and Boenke were “smoking crack” outside the trailer when he arrived. Toxicology tests showed neither had the drug in their system.

The teen claimed he had beaten Trudel with an axe, then bleached the weapon before he left it beside her body. RCMP Staff Sgt. Dean Funnell, a bloodstain pattern analyst, has already testified that there was no evidence the axe was cleaned and there was blood on it.

“The bloodstains are not consistent with the axe being used,” Funnell told court.

Also, the teen said he had twice shot Trudel and Boenke but the medical examiner found at least three bullet wounds in both of them.

Other parts of the confession fit the evidence already heard in court. The blood trail that Trudel left shows that she was injured outside and then attacked again in her kitchen, where she died, which fits the teen’s account of her death.

The teen said he took apart the handgun he used, bleached the parts, then threw them in a nearby ditch. The gun has never been found.

The teen also told the undercover officer that a second teenager who fled Bosco Homes with him was “scared” and remained in a vehicle while the killings occurred.

“I want him gone,” he said of the second teen. “He knows exactly everything.”

The second teen and the undercover RCMP officers have yet to testify in the trial.

The recording has been presented as evidence in the trial by Crown prosecutors, but not yet accepted by the judge.

The trial continues.

Source: Edmonton Journal

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