Robert Berglund's father Eric was a pioneer Fort William taxi driver who had been in the business since 1917. At 21, Robert was the eldest of eight children. After graduation from high school he worked at various jobs in Fort William and then spent two years in Detroit where his married sister lived. Three months before his death he moved back to his home town and began working as a night driver for his father. Shortly after six p.m. on the wintry evening of Tuesday, November 26, 1929, Robert was seen talking to a tall, dark man dressed as a lumberjack. The man had spent the afternoon drinking in various beverage rooms and police were later able to get good descriptions of him. Shortly before 6:30 p.m. Robert met his father Eric at the Avenue Hotel and told him he had an out-of-town trip to Murillo, a village 14 km (nine miles) west of present-day Thunder Bay. Robert asked Eric how much he should charge for the trip and Eric told him six or seven dollars. "Be careful with the car," Eric warned him. "See that there is water in the radiator and that the tires are in good condition." Those were the last words he spoke to his son. "As soon as my boy left I began to think about the long, lonesome trip and thought to myself that my boy should be careful about who he takes out these days. This began to prey on my mind and about five minutes after my boy left I ran out to get a glimpse of the man and also to tell Robert to put chains on the car. But he was gone before I could see him." Robert Berglund and his passenger had vanished into a snow storm. Eric Berglund spent an increasingly anxious night waiting for his son to return. "They have to be careful who they take out on these long drives at night," he told a reporter. "On account of the hard times due to the approaching winter, we are always careful as to the kind of characters we take out." Morning confirmed his worst fears. Shortly before eight p.m. the driver of a car headed out of Fort William noticed the Berglund taxi parked on the wrong side of Arthur Avenue about five miles from the outskirts of the city. The same driver notice the taxi still parked there when he returned about nine o'clock. In the meantime a second driver also noticed the taxi when he passed shortly after eight o'clock. The car was parked on a steep grade just across the Six Mile Bridge and the grade made it awkward for drivers to stop and investigate. As a result it wasn't until nine o'clock the next morning that a truck driver looked inside the taxi and discovered Robert Berglund's body. He had been shot in the back of the head with a .38 calibre bullet. Berglund's hip pocket had been turned out so robbery was the obvious motive, though Eric Berglund said his son carried little or no money. Police found some change in his pockets including a bent 50-cent piece that he carried as a good luck charm. Some people speculated that the killer had deliberately parked the car in a difficult position to delay discovery of the crime but the evidence suggests bungling and panic. [Next column]

Robert Berglund met his father at the Avenue Hotel shortly before setting out on his fatal trip. (Source: Toronto Public Library Virtual Reference Library) The car was parked so close to a guard rail that there was no room to open the left side doors. As well, the back doors were locked and blood stains on the inside door handles showed that the killer found himself trapped in the car after shooting Berglund. At first the killer tried to back the car away from the guard rail. Mr. Berglund's body had been moved from behind the steering wheel and was sprawled across the front seat with the legs straddling the emergency brake lever. Marks in the snow showed that the rear wheels had spun. When his attempts to move the car failed the killer had to crawl over Mr. Berglund's body to exit from the right front door. In doing so he left blood stains on the right running board. Several inches of snow covered the car the next morning and obliterated any tracks that the killer might have left behind. There was little snow underneath the car showing that it had sat in the same position all night. The police investigation found that Mr. Berglund had visited a woman in a hotel on the evening before his death. The woman and a male acquaintance were recent arrivals from Montréal. Police held them both on vagrancy charges while they checked for past criminal records but they quickly determined that the pair had nothing to do with Mr. Berglund's death.