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Teen charged in Yarrow murder
■ H ERONS H ERALD S PRING
Clayton Warkentin charged with firstdegree murder A 19-year-old Chilliwack man has been charged with first-degree murder in the death of a 51-year-old Yarrow woman two weeks ago. Clayton Jacob Warkentin was arrested without incident Friday evening, said a spokesperson with the Integrated Homicide Investigative Team in a statement released Sunday morning. Police said the victim and the accused knew each other and characterized incidents leading up to the murder as domestic related. The name of the victim was not released by police, nor the relationship to the accused, citing privacy reasons. Police had originally been called to the home, located in the 42000 block of Yarrow Central Road in the early hours of Feb. 24 to check on the well being of the woman who lived there. When an officer arrived police found her dead. Police called the death suspicious and IHIT was called in to investigate. “Public safety was paramount in this investigation,” Sgt. Stephanie Ashton. “This is a situation where investigators working in partnership with UFVRD RCMP were able to put the pieces together and in just over one week obtain the grounds to make an arrest.” The cause of the woman’s death has not been released. Warkentin is also before the courts on another matter, dating back to an incident in April 2015 in Abbotsford and Chilliwack which resulted in his being charged with fear of injury by another person. That matter is set for trial on March 22.
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In an annual spring time ritual, herons have begun nesting at the Great Blue Heron Nature Reserve in Chilliwack. The reserve hosts one of the largest nesting colonies in the Lower Mainland, with more than 150 nests. The reserve, located at Sumas Prairie Road and Sinclair Road, is open seven days a week.
Time line to a tragedy: New details on Janzen murders Jessica Peters The Progress A shockingly violent day in Rosedale last May left the community grieving, and wondering what led to the death of four people in the same family. Now, a series of coroner’s reports have been released that chronicle the events leading up to the deaths of Randy Janzen, along with his wife Laurel, his 19-yearold daughter Emily, and his sister, Shelley. The reports confirm that Randy was the person who killed the three women, just as he had confessed on Facebook. At about noon on May 7, 2015, Randy posted numerous, lengthy
confessions on the social media site, explaining in detail that he couldn’t watch his daughter in pain anymore and had killed her. Emily, a talented local musician, had been suffering from migraines for about a year and a half. He admitted to killing her, his wife and then his sister. The date of Emily and Laurel’s deaths is believed to be April 28, based on the timeline provided in the confession and the advanced state of decomposition of the bodies. The date of Shelley’s death, at her home in Langley, is believed to be May 5. Moments after he posted the confessions, friends started contacting the RCMP. Shortly after
that, an Emergency Response Team along with fire, police and ambulance crews surrounded the family’s Rosedale home. At 7:20 p.m. that evening, a man identified as Randy Janzen was noticed through one of the windows of the home. While police tried to make contact with someone inside the home, that never happened. A large fire erupted shortly after Janzen was seen, and members of the ERT briefly entered the home to attempt to rescue any occupants. The fire was too intense and they had to retreat, but they had noticed one body wrapped in a sheet on the main floor. The fire destroyed the home, and it wasn’t deemed safe to
enter for a full three days. When the Identification and Disaster Response Unit of the BC Coroners Service entered the home on May 10, they found the bodies of Emily, Laurel and Randy in three different locations. Both women had been shot twice, and Randy had died of a self-inflicted gunshot from a long barrel gun. Shelley was killed with two shots as well. Her body was found on May 7, covered in blankets on the floor of her home. BC Coroner Timothy Wiles mentions the family’s long struggle with migraines in the report, but does not make any recommendations in that regard. Continued: CORONER/ p5
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