The person who camped had heated some water or prepared food over the fire. Cut marks on a log near the fire were from an axe being used to break up and split wood. The snow was packed by foot prints all around the fire area and between there and the vehicle; tracks wandered around the landing as the camper had gathered wood for the fire. Tracks led a few yards away from the car and the fire to where a man had urinated in the snow on two or possibly three occasions. The foot tracks on the landing all appeared to be from the same pair of shoes; they were about a size eleven man’s boot very similar to the charred remains of the boots worn by the burned man.
A three-gallon plastic gasoline can was lying in the snow a few yards from the fire. The can smelled of gasoline but there was no liquid left in it. The threaded cap was hanging from a plastic strap around the neck of the can. The can sat in the snow with the opening toward the top; had there been fuel remaining in the container when it was placed there, it would not have spilled. The packed snow between the car and the fire showed traces of colour where small splashes of gasoline had been spilled. Traces of partially burned and melted clothing were in and around the ashes of the fire, and similar particles were in the snow all around where the vehicle had been parked. The snow beside the vehicle, on the side away from the fire, was flattened in about a ten-foot circle where a person had been rolling and thrashing around. Burned and melted pieces of clothing were mixed in the snow throughout this rolled area. A melted nylon zipper, possibly from a jacket, was the largest and about the only piece that could be identified.
The evidence at the camp site seemed to indicate the man had been there for a few hours and that he had been alone. It appeared he had opened the gasoline container and poured the contents over himself, then tossed the empty container to one side and walked into the fire. He caught fire from head to foot, moved around the parked car at least one full circle, and then began to fight the fire by rolling and thrashing around in the snow. The extensive burning to his head and face indicated that he had remained standing for some time during the fire.
The fire on the man and his clothing burned itself out or was extinguished by his rolling in the snow. By the time the fire was extinguished, the man was nearly nude; his waist belt, part of his trousers and most of his underwear were all that remained, along with most of his boots and the portion of his socks that was inside the boots.
After the fire had burned out, the man got into his car, started it and drove toward the highway. He spun the wheels in the snow for the first few yards but then controlled the car and drove it with the caution necessary to traverse the slippery and steep road. When he reached the large landing below where he had been camped, he became lost and started up the other fork of the road, away from the highway. He drove up the narrow road for nearly a mile to the first place where he could safely turn the car around, and then he turned the car by moving it back and forth and steering to the extreme right and left. He then returned to the log landing and found the road to the highway.
After daylight that morning the area where the car had been parked on the highway was searched. Patches of skin from his hands were located, along with the complete skin from several fingers. The fingers still had the details of fingerprints and were later used to establish positive identity of the dead man.
The contents of the car were viewed and listed in detail. The car was packed full of personal effects, camping gear and books. We concluded that the man had been living in the car or camping from the car for a considerable time prior to his death. Many of the books in the car were textbooks and manuals dealing with engineering. We asked a civil engineer to have a look at the books. He felt that the owner of a collection of books like that was either an engineer or was in the advanced stages of becoming one.
The car also contained three thick volumes about devil worship. These books were worn and dirty. Each one had several bookmarks at pages which were noticeably more worn and dog-eared than the other pages of the books.
News of the person who had burned to death at Golden spread rapidly. Within a day of the incident, people from the construction camp at Mica Creek, where a hydro dam was being built on the Columbia River, contacted us saying they thought they knew who the dead person was. Although we could only give a vague description of the man—his height and weight, but very little more—our description of the car and that it was packed full of effects left little room for doubt.
The mystery man had worked at the Mica Creek construction site on several occasions since the project had started, and most recently during the past ten days. He was a very well-qualified civil engineer who had first come onto the site in the beginning stages of construction, and had convinced the engineering staff to let him demonstrate his skill at planning and drawing some portions of the project. His work was excellent; the management people at the project would have been pleased to have him as part of their team, but he would finish a small project and then disappear. He had returned to the site for the third time on this last occasion and, like each time before, there was a project for him and he tackled it with determination and skill.
The man was described as a social misfit who was a loner to the extreme; he would write notes to others at the site when he could have turned his chair and spoken with them. He would eat his meals in the camp dining hall, but he would always go there at quiet times and sit in an area away from everyone else. Some had approached him in the dining hall, but they found that he was so ill-at-ease with them that he would get up and leave before he finished his meal.
We obtained a name, address, birth date, and next of kin from the employment records at the construction site. This information matched with the registration records of the car and was later confirmed by the fingerprints we had picked up on the highway. He had been fingerprinted years earlier when he was employed in a high security project in eastern Canada.
His family was traumatized, but not surprised, by the news of his death. He had been an ideal child, an excellent student, and a very promising young adult. He graduated with honors as a civil engineer and had undertaken additional studies to gain further qualifications. It was during his later studies that his personality changed and he withdrew from all others. He shunned everyone; his family had not heard from him for about five years.
The coroner’s inquiry ruled that the death was suicide, and attached no blame to any living person.
Domestic Violence
Throughout most of my service in the police business, domestic violence was swept aside by advising the victim to come to the police office on the next business day to start the process by the swearing of information, charging the perpetrator with assault. The victims chose not to, or were too terrified to start a court action in nearly every instance. In the few cases where the process was started, only a very small number actually went to court.
The threat of prosecution and its ensuing publicity could make a teetotaling, gentle and loving, generous and providing husband-of-the-year out of the most brutal wife-beating bastard in the community. Unfortunately, these amazing metamorphoses usually only lasted long enough to convince the victim to drop the court action.
Many of us were shocked by the first few domestic incidents we attended under the guidance of a more senior policeman. We witnessed assaults, or the result of assaults, which left us sickened and wishing that somehow the victim would gather the courage to take revenge in some form, or at least get out of the abusive relationship. This rarely happened, though. In most cases, the abuse just went on and the recipient somehow managed to survive for another day and another