Hirsch-Creek Park:
On Saturday July 14, 1997, at around 9:30 pm, campers at Hirsch-Creek Park and campground just north of Kitimat, BC, heard eight gunshots. They called police.
The officer who arrived at the scene found three young male residents lying dead in and beside a car in the campground parking lot, covered in blood. A fourth young man was found clinging to life in the trees a few feet from the car. He had lost 60 percent of his blood and was rushed first to Kitimat General hospital and then airlifted to Vancouver.
The names of the dead are Michael Mauro, David Nunes and Mark Teves, all aged twenty. Twenty-one-year-old Donny Oliveira survived.
Kevin Vermette:
Kevin Vermette and his red chevy pickup were well known around town and witnesses passed along the number plate to police who quickly verified that the truck belonged to Vermette. When they reached the motel where he lived, they found Vermette’s truck parked in its usual spot outside room #5. Vermette had returned to the motel, taken his dog and his shotgun and headed into the bush. By the time police entered his motel room, he already had a 10-hour head start.
Vermette was an experienced hiker and knew how to survive in the heavily forested area and back country trails and logging roads that surrounded the town.
By the end of 2000 police were no closer to catching him.
Posters had been splashed all across Canada with Vermette’s image and offers of a $17,500 reward.
Two extensive police searchers had turned up only animal bones.
America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries did segments on the case.
More than 900 tips and sightings had come in from the public but whenever police responded to a tip, they found nothing. The tracking dogs never picked up a scent. The helicopter equipped with an infra red heat seeking radar never got a hit.
Last May 2024 the RCMP sent out an up-to-date composite drawing of Vermette, and he remains on the RCMP’s most wanted list.
Is Kevin Vermette dhttps://bit.ly/3XuKu2Cad? Maybe. But what I did learn while researching this story and talking to people of Kitimat, nothing was really as it seemed. Listen to the podcast and see what you think.
Copies of my new book, Beneath Dark Waters: The Legacy of the Empress of Ireland Shipwreck, are available through my publisher Arsenal Pulp Press, or preorder from any independent bookstore across Canada
Show Notes:
Sponsor: Erin Hakin Jewellery
Music: Andreas Schuld ‘Waiting for You’
Intro: Mark Dunn
Related:
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