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Your Independent Local Newspaper Established in 1918 VOLUME 103: ISSUE 45
WEDNESDAY, JULY 7, 2021
TOFIELD FIRE CHIEF DAVE OLEKSYN RETIRES.
tofieldmerc.com
TOFIELD MUNICIPAL LIBRARY GETS A NEW MANAGER.
SEE PAGE 2
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Man nicknamed ‘Septic Tank Sam’ for 44 years is Gordon Edwin Sanderson MOUSH JOHN Editor
The man whose identity has been a mystery for 44 years has been identified as Gordon Edwin Sanderson, a 26year-old Indigenous man from Manitoba who had been living in Edmonton. In April 1977, his body had been found in a septic tank on a farm just outside Tofield. Brutally disfigured and mutilated beyond recognition, he had been shot and wrapped in a sheet, finally being dumped headfirst into the tank. Ever since then this case had kept the RCMP and investigative community intrigued even though they weren’t able to get any successful leads.
Last Wednesday, June 30, the RCMP in a statement said he had been identified through the use of the novel forensic technique of Genetic Genealogy. Collaborative efforts by the RCMP and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) to identify the male victim spanned over 40 years, with various RCMP investigators interviewing potential witnesses and tracking down leads, and OCME medical examiners working with forensic anthropologists to develop biological profiles and forensic dentists to compare dental records to reported missing persons. In October 2017, the Alberta RCMP Missing Person Unit (MPU) announced that a Na-
tional DNA program focusing on the identification of unidentified remains was being launched. The program allows investigators to obtain DNA from people who have a missing family member for potential match against unidentified human remains on the DNA index. It was hoped that this new program would provide some answers in this case. In 2019, Alberta RCMP MPU sent a partial DNA profile from the 1977 unidentified human remains that had been developed in 2012 to be compared to this new Canadian DNA database, without success. It would take the emerging field of Genetic Genealogy to provide a break in this case. In 2020,
What’s Inside Loose Ends: Keeping Your Cool PAGE 5
RCMP responds to several thefts and mischiefs in the community PAGE 5 Gordon Edwin Sanderson, who lived in Edmonton was 26 years old when his body was found in 1977. He is survived by an older sister and a daughter. Alberta RCMP MPU and the OCME sent biological samples to Othram Labs of Woodlands, Texas in the hopes a full-DNA
profile suitable for analysis could be developed. Othram was successful
Editorial: No Proof of Vaccination required within Canada PAGE 6
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l a u CLOVERLODGE STAMPEDE n n A 41st
SATURDAY & SUNDAY, JULY 24 & 25
Saturday Start time: 4 pm Sunday Start time: 1 pm Raffle for the Wheelbarrows will be made on Sunday before the Bull Riding
Located ted just j north of the Viking g Golf G Course C in the NE corner of Viking For more information, call 780-385-8847 or 780-385-0556