Monday November 25 is International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. This is an excerpt from Sensational Victoria: Bright Lights, Red Lights, Murders, Ghosts & Gardens.
Doug Guyatt was cleaning up the front yard of his Colwood home one afternoon in June 1992 when he found his wife’s severed head in a bag in the ditch. A neighbor watched from her window as the firefighter stood there screaming and hyperventilating, the Glad Kitchen Catcher garbage bag at his feet. The head of his 34-year-old wife was crudely hacked off at the jawline, her long, silver-grey hair shorn from her head. She’d been missing for 11 days.
The head turned a missing-person case into a murder investigation. The problem was without a body, police had no way to tell how she died. But even without the smoking gun or eye witness testimony, the circumstantial evidence was plentiful, and it all pointed to Doug.
Shannon had talked to a lawyer about a divorce and the couple were still sharing the house with Shannon’s 14-year-old son from a previous marriage until the house sold. She told her family and friends that she was afraid of Doug and that he’d raped her. A few days after she went missing, Guyatt told his realtor, that he couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage. The realtor testified that he told Guyatt that if the mortgage was insured against death, the policy wouldn’t pay off for seven years for a missing person.
Police found a passport Guyatt applied for shortly after Shannon’s murder, along with pamphlets on countries that did not have an extradition agreement with Canada. They found just under $5,000 in cash in his sock drawer.
Guyatt’s other problem at his murder trial was that he just wasn’t likable. He’d been married four times and confessed to hitting Shannon three months before her murder. His reason for wanting to flee the country, he said, was that his step daughter from a previous marriage had charged him with sexual assault.
Guyatt also had a strong financial motive for wanting Shannon dead. “I’d rather kill the fucking bitch than see her get anything,” he told a co-worker. “I don’t know why I’m going through this. It’d be a hell of a lot cheaper just to kill her.”
The sensational trial moved to Vancouver because of all the local publicity, took place over eight days and involved more than 30 witnesses.
Guyatt was charged with murder and died in jail in 2014. Shannon’s body was never found.
- Every six days a woman is killed by her partner in Canada
- Each year, over 40,000 arrests result from domestic violence, that’s about 12% of all violent crime in Canada. Since only 22% of all incidents are reported to the police, the real number is much higher.
- Indigenous women are 3.5 times more likely to be victims of violence compared to other women.
- About 25% of all women who are murdered by their spouse have left the relationship.
- The facts about gender-based violence
If you are in an abusive relationship, please contact one of these organizations for help:
- Ending Violence
- VictimLinkBC 1-800-563-0808 – open 24 hours a day
- Spousal Assault program, Victoria
© All rights reserved. Unless otherwise indicated, all blog content copyright Eve Lazarus.
7 comments on “Remembering Shannon Arlene Guyatt (1958-1992)”
Very tragic, and very sad that he got away with so much before this murder.
very tragic. It makes me sad.
I worked at MOTH and had spent some of my outdoor breaks getting to know Shannon 💜 I was shocked beyond belief when this happened 😢
It is sad, I went to Spencer Jr high school with the victims son, and the stepson guy guyatt jr,like his daddy guy Jr was a bully and a fat pig headed jerk like his dad guy sr
I went to high school with Shannon and lived across the street from Doug on Belair though I did not like him. He made that impossible. She was bright, smart and fun. She loved her family, especially her son, and wanted only the best for him. I’m sorry Doug couldn’t , even with impending death, come clean and help provide closure for Shannon’s family. I hope her loved ones are ok…. And that his son is not suffering for the sins of his father!
I worked with Shannon many years ago in the early 80s for the Provincial Government. I remember her as being vibrant, energetic and very smart. Several years later I saw her on Cook Street. It was a beautiful sunny day and she told me that she was engaged to a fireman. I thought, isn’t she the lucky one! I was really happy for her and at that time she sounded happy and positive about the future. So it was absolutely shocking and heartbreaking to learn what happened to Shannon. She deserved the very best in life. Shannon was a person you didn’t forget. Rest in peace Shannon.
I now work for the larger organization that he was employed by and many years later and not that many ago, coworkers found human remains under the floor of an old shed in the woods very close to his workplace not 100% sure if it was… but I heard it was her remains and you can connect the dots . The other thing I heard was from neighbors of his on Cecil Blogg, when she went missing he tried to collect her life insurance but without a body or proof of death “no payout” …..days later the head was found in the culvert by his house.