Dwayne Demkiw, 42, was a truck driver for FedEx in Edmonton, Alberta but he had a weekend job driving a limousine for Revolution Entertainment. Mr. Demkiw had close contact with a wide circle of friends, both personally and through social media. He also kept in touch with his parents in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. "I've never seen him in a bad mood," said one of his friends. "He was always calm, always kind of a happy-go-lucky guy. He just seemed like a harmless person, for lack of a better word." On Saturday, May 30, 2015, Mr. Demkiw attended a friend's birthday party at an Edmonton restaurant. He left early to do a driving job, intending to return to the birthday party when he was finished. The job was to chauffeur a rolling bachelor party around Edmonton in a passenger van. The party consisted of 15 men and an exotic dancer. At about two a.m. Mr. Demkiw drove the dancer back to her own vehicle and then returned to the limo garage. Security footage showed him cleaning the van in a limo bay until almost 4 a.m. For much of that time he was also texting his roommate. Then he shut off the lights and left the building. What happened next took almost four years to piece together and bring to court. Unbeknownst to Mr. Demkiw, his murderer was waiting in ambush in the parking lot when he walked to his car. Security footage from a neighbouring business showed a man climbing into a dumpster shortly after 11 p.m. The man was evidently still in the dumpster when the camera stopped working about 2 a.m. The murderer attacked Mr. Demkiw with a machete, fatally wounding him. He then loaded Mr. Demkiw into the back seat of Mr. Demkiw's black Acura and drove to Innisfail, 180 km (113 miles) south of Edmonton. Mr. Demkiw evidently bled to death in the back seat. The killer dumped Mr. Demkiw's remains along Alberta Highway 2, en route to Calgary. They were not discovered for almost a year. The killer then continued on to Calgary and abandoned Mr. Demkiw's car in a parkade, first setting it on fire. As he jogged away from the blaze he aroused the suspicions of a passerby who took pictures with a cell phone. The pictures turned out to be one link in a lengthy chain of circumstantial evidence that eventually led to the killer's arrest. The 40-year-old killer was a U.S. citizen who entered Canada illegally between July and September, 2012. The killer's former life in Washington State included a criminal record dating back 20 years as well as accusations of domestic abuse. A protection order prohibited him from approaching his wife and small daughter. In July, 2012 he was on probation after being convicted of placing fake pipe bombs in newspaper boxes, mailing powder-stuffed envelopes to the Seattle Times and threatening his former employers. His flight to Canada made him a parole violator. On September 12, 2012 the killer checked into a Salvation Army hostel in Vancouver using the name of a 23-year-old man who had recently moved to Vancouver from Ontario. In August, 2012 a family friend found the young man unemployed and living in shelters or on the street. Ominously, the man's family last heard from him on September 6, just before the killer assumed his identity. In February, 2013 the family filed a missing person report with the Vancouver police. When a detective tracked down and telephoned (as he thought) the missing man the killer pulled a successful bluff, saying that he was "fine" but that wanted to be left alone and to have no further contact with his family. By the summer of 2013 the killer was in Edmonton and had his own business, a truck, a set of tools and a bank account containing $40,000. He was also in a relationship with an Edmonton woman who, to his annoyance, continued to remain close friends with a former partner. The former partner was Dwayne Demkiw and it was his friendship with the woman that ultimately provoked the killer to murderous rage. The three socialized over the next two years and the killer actually attended two of Mr. Demkiw's birthday parties. However, the killer's relationship with the woman began to fail when the he started "showing signs of a little more aggression." Ironically, Mr. Demkiw told the woman that he feared for her safety. "Dwayne said he was scared he was going to get a call from the hospital to pick me up or identify my body." The Calgary police learned of the burning car about 10:55 a.m. on May 31, 2015. They quickly identified the owner and notified the Edmonton police. By noon the same day Mr. Demkiw's family in Saskatoon also heard the news. [Next column]

Dwayne Demkiw (Source: Edmonton Police Service via CBC News, June 8, 2015) Unable to contact Mr. Demkiw, his father Eugene called Mr. Demkiw's roommate and asked him "to knock on Dwayne's door and wake him up because his car had been stolen and was on fire in Calgary." When the roommate checked Mr. Demkiw's bedroom the bed had not been slept in. Mr. Demkiw's friends and family were immediately alarmed and news of his disappearance spread rapidly. One of Mr. Demkiw's social media friends, Darren Boisvert, decided to investigate Mr. Demkiw's disappearance and visited the limo garage. He took several pictures of the parking lot and also found two items that later turned out to be crucial pieces of evidence. One was a baseball cap with traces of the killer's DNA and the other was a sheath for a machete. The mystery of what happened to Mr. Demkiw took a darker turn a few days later when his badly damaged cell phone was found along Anthony Henday Drive, a route that links with Highway 2 to Calgary. Edmonton police searched the area but found nothing more. On June 8 the police appealed to the public for assistance in finding Mr. Demkiw. In the meantime they continued following the trail of circumstantial evidence that ultimately led to his killer. Ten months later, on the evening of April 5, 2016, human bones were found scattered in a wooded area near Innisfail, about 20 feet off Highway 2. A little over a week later DNA analysis confirmed that the bones were those of Mr. Demkiw. Since the previous May Mr. Demkiw's family and friends clung to the hope that he would be found alive. His parents maintained a memorial for him in their front yard in Saskatoon, decorating a large tree with flowers, candles, a picture of Mr. Demkiw and a banner bearing the word "Hope". "I would like to thank, I don't know who it is, that found the spot," said Eugene Demkiw. "From the bottom of our hearts, my wife and I and the whole family would like to thank them for finding my son." Meanwhile, on his return to Edmonton from Calgary, the killer spent four days in a motel while he wound up his business, gave away his tools and emptied his bank account. He then drove to Vancouver, abandoned his truck and purchased a Sea Doo which he used to re-enter the U.S. at Bellingham, Washington. Once in the U.S. he resumed his real identity. On November 12 he turned himself in to U.S. Marshalls and in December was sentenced to seven months in jail for his parole violation. The killer was scheduled to be released on June 11, 2016. On June 10 Canadian officials served notice that they wanted to have him extradited. The killer did not contest the extradition and it was granted on July 28. The killer's trial opened in Edmonton on January 14, 2019 and lasted for five weeks. The Crown called 92 witnesses and presented more than 100 exhibits. On February 21, after deliberating for three and a half hours, the jury found the killer guilty of first degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.