Identified! Canada - Tofield, AB, 'Septic Tank Sam' Ntv/WhtMale 1046UMAB, Apr'77 - Gordon Edwin Sanderson

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Some speculation here. Is it possible that this killing is gang related? The level of violence and overkill suggests something more than a crime of passion or even a sexual sadist. He was bound and beaten, shot four times, burned with a butane torch and cigarettes. That sounds like some kind of payback mixed with a form of interrogation.

There were a lot of bike gangs in Alberta in the late 70s fighting for dominance. They had chapters in Red Deer and Edmonton and Calgary.

Bikers are known for being attracted to rural farmhouses. In the early 2000's 8 Bandidos got shot to death in an Ontario hamlet. In Quebec they hang out in rural areas too, not just in large urban areas.

I know our UID doesn't seem to be wearing what we envision when we think of bikers but they don't always walk around in their patch jackets and leather vests.

All those injuries our UID received, the burns, beatings, bullets are standard operating procedure for disgruntled bikers. And the coup de grace, the neutering of a male suggests it might have been a power struggle. IMO
 
branmuffin said:
Some speculation here. Is it possible that this killing is gang related? The level of violence and overkill suggests something more than a crime of passion or even a sexual sadist. He was bound and beaten, shot four times, burned with a butane torch and cigarettes. That sounds like some kind of payback mixed with a form of interrogation.

There were a lot of bike gangs in Alberta in the late 70s fighting for dominance. They had chapters in Red Deer and Edmonton and Calgary.

Bikers are known for being attracted to rural farmhouses. In the early 2000's 8 Bandidos got shot to death in an Ontario hamlet. In Quebec they hang out in rural areas too, not just in large urban areas.

I know our UID doesn't seem to be wearing what we envision when we think of bikers but they don't always walk around in their patch jackets and leather vests.

All those injuries our UID received, the burns, beatings, bullets are standard operating procedure for disgruntled bikers. And the coup de grace, the neutering of a male suggests it might have been a power struggle. IMO
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Could be! I don’t know the first thing about bikers in the seventies though :p
 
Fellow Sleuthers!

I asked Greg for some more info, he’s the kindest investigator I have ever encountered! He told me this:

“Hi Ronin,

Sam has some Indigenous ancestry and from his teeth had a high fever at a young age.

FYI: I'm a bit of a history buff and interested in peoples' ancestry.

-Greg”

Now repeat after me: thank you, Greg! :D:p;)
 
Although isotopes suggest that Sam was from the Alberta area, it is interesting that judging by his clothing they thought he was from elsewhere. Thinking Sam moved away for a while, came back and was slaughtered.
Did he unknowingly mess with a biker's girlfriend, help her get away? speculation, imo.
rbbm.
1046UMAB
''Clothing: Blue Levi work shirt with snap buttons, gray T-shirt, blue jeans, gray wool socks, brown imitation Wallabee shoes.''

''Based upon the victim's clothing, it is suspected that he was a farm laborer or construction worker and was likely not from Alberta.''
 
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This seems like a crime of retaliation to me and people have been known to take justice into their own hands, particularly back in the 70s when Alberta’s population was much smaller and a tad “rougher around the edges” than it is today. In the late 70s, if Sam was employed, good chance it was in the oilfield, Alberta’s first boom time so the location he was found wasn’t necessarily where he resided.

If the RCMP can determine the identity of this person, perhaps a connection will be made from Sam to another unsolved homicide from ‘77 and earlier for which he was the perpetrator. JMO

A few from Edmonton, just as an example.
1970 - 1979
 
branmuffin said:
Is there a list of rule outs?
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Greg is unable to provide a list of rule-outs. Here’s what he said:
“Hi Ronin,

Sorry for the delayed response. I am afraid I am unable to provide you a list of names of people that have been ruled out as being Sam. I'd suggest most of the missing persons on the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR) website have been looked at and there are couple we are still looking at.

Cheers,
Greg”
 
The main biker gangs (one-percenters or outlaw bikers) in Alberta in the 1970’s were the Rebels MC and the Grim Reapers MC. Rebels MC later disbanded in the late 90’s and the Grim Reapers MC patched over to become a Hells Angels chapter. That’s often how the larger 1%-er clubs like Hells Angels MC or Bandidos MC expand, by absorbing local clubs into their own organisations.
(Hells Angels MC and Rock Machine MC fought a bloody war in eastern Canada in the late 90’s.)

In my opinion, there are two factors that could indicate biker involvement.
The first is where his body was found, in my opinion it was well hidden and not meant to be found. Where I work, we have a number of bikers who have disappeared and are presumed murdered because of internal conflicts in their clubs. Sam’s case reminds me of this.
The second factor is his injuries, it’s massive overkill. This indicates either punishment or being tortured for information or a confession.

So, this leads to two hypotheses:
1. Sam was associated with a biker gang and was killed in an internal conflict between him and the gang. The violence would then be punishment.
2. Sam was associated with a biker gang and was acting as an informant to law enforcement, was found out and killed. The violence would then be to extract information from him.

But in both cases he would probably be known to law enforcement, especially if he was an informant. His handler would know if he didn’t check in or kept in touch. So why would he stay unidentified for so long?
 
Captain Beck said:
The main biker gangs (one-percenters or outlaw bikers) in Alberta in the 1970’s were the Rebels MC and the Grim Reapers MC. Rebels MC later disbanded in the late 90’s and the Grim Reapers MC patched over to become a Hells Angels chapter. That’s often how the larger 1%-er clubs like Hells Angels MC or Bandidos MC expand, by absorbing local clubs into their own organisations.
(Hells Angels MC and Rock Machine MC fought a bloody war in eastern Canada in the late 90’s.)

In my opinion, there are two factors that could indicate biker involvement.
The first is where his body was found, in my opinion it was well hidden and not meant to be found. Where I work, we have a number of bikers who have disappeared and are presumed murdered because of internal conflicts in their clubs. Sam’s case reminds me of this.
The second factor is his injuries, it’s massive overkill. This indicates either punishment or being tortured for information or a confession.

So, this leads to two hypotheses:
1. Sam was associated with a biker gang and was killed in an internal conflict between him and the gang. The violence would then be punishment.
2. Sam was associated with a biker gang and was acting as an informant to law enforcement, was found out and killed. The violence would then be to extract information from him.

But in both cases he would probably be known to law enforcement, especially if he was an informant. His handler would know if he didn’t check in or kept in touch. So why would he stay unidentified for so long?
Click to expand...

If an informant was missing, though, who would submit the information? If the person was a police informant, depending on his family and background, maybe he wouldn't let anyone know what he was doing because it could endanger their lives. And the police wouldn't likely advertise an informant was missing.

The seventies was a time of migration of people from the east to the west with stops in between. The person could be from anywhere.

ETA: And perhaps this individual is missing by his family but they've never formally informed LE because they know his involvement with gangs could come back to bite them. MOO
 
branmuffin said:
If an informant was missing, though, who would submit the information? If the person was a police informant, depending on his family and background, maybe he wouldn't let anyone know what he was doing because it could endanger their lives. And the police wouldn't likely advertise an informant was missing.
Click to expand...
If he was an informant, he would have had an assigned handler who would receive information from him and keep in touch with him (NB that’s how it is today, not sure if it was like that in the 70’s). If he went missing, the handler would know. It would not be revealed that he was an informant (it never is) but he wouldn’t have stayed unidentified.

branmuffin said:
The seventies was a time of migration of people from the east to the west with stops in between. The person could be from anywhere.

ETA: And perhaps this individual is missing by his family but they've never formally informed LE because they know his involvement with gangs could come back to bite them. MOO
Click to expand...
Good points. Apparently isotopes indicate he was from Alberta but the clothes indicate the opposite so he likely grew up there, moved away and then returned.
 
CSI Alberta

CSI Alberta: The Secrets of Skulls and Skeletons

Peter B. Smith
Heritage House Publishing Co, Feb. 1, 2011 - True Crime - 144 pages
CHAPTER 4
''Ten gripping tales of murder and missing persons show how skulls and skeletons reveal their secrets to forensic investigators. A skull is found on a scree slope high above the mirror-calm waters of Spray Lakes. Bones rumoured for years to be buried in a Medicine Hat backyard are finally dug up. The trussed and tortured skeletal remains of an unknown man are found in a septic tank near Tofield. These baffling Alberta cases show how dogged, old-fashioned detective work combines with modern forensic techniques in the search for the truth''.
rbbm.
 
I was just wondering about his illness and what type of illness could affect bones and teeth. There are several, some like rheumatoid arthritis would show on autopsy. Some like Cushing's syndrome don't appear until adulthood. One thing that did stand out for me in the list was anorexia. Anorexia is considered a psychological ailment because it causes malnutrion. I don't think our UID had anorexia but it's very possible he was malnourished at a young age.

One of the darkest parts of Canadian history was removing young aboriginal children from their parents and placing them in residential schools. They were mostly in the west from BC to Saskatchewan with many in Alberta. Here is a link:
Institutions

It's very possible this UID was placed in a residential school at a young age. Residential schools were no picnic for the children. They were forced to learn another language and punished if they spoke their own. There are many horrendous stories regarding how native children were treated, causing several generations of damaged children. The Canadian government even used native children as guinea pigs. Here's a link:
Hungry Canadian aboriginal children were used in government experiments during 1940s, researcher says.

So I believe this individual could very well be a victim of Canada's residential schools and his bones and teeth might be a stark reminder of that. I also think because the policy was to provide no dental care during the length of the experiment is the reason for such extensive dental records after the experiment was over. Perhaps the RCMP should be looking at dental records in residential schools.

Link:Native children deprived of care

As a Canadian I am horrified and disgusted we did this to those poor children. We were no better than those we fought in WW2. :(
 
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Thinking that Sam might have been sick as a child with TB, polio or scarlet fever, imo, speculation.
Vignettes from a pre-immunization Canada as childhood vaccination rates plummet | National Post
''Thousands were paralyzed by polio as late as the 1950s
In 1921, a 39-year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt visited New Brunswick for a family vacation. He climbed into bed with a serious fever, and when he awoke he could not feel his legs. This nightmarish scene would play out thousands more times in Canada, often to children, until the advent of the Jonas Salk-invented polio vaccine. “Paralysis Spreads Throughout Canada” read a Globe and Mail headline in September 1937 after polio fatalities and paralyses began to crop up everywhere from New Brunswick to Alberta. In 1953 Canada recorded a peak of 481 polio deaths. Even as polio immunization was in full swing by the late 1950s, the disease went out with a horrifying finale.''

Tuberculosis was once Canada’s leading cause of death
''Well into the 20th century, the only treatment for the disease was bed rest and fresh air in a quarantined facility known as a sanatorium. There were 19,000 beds in these sanatoriums by 1953 and any Canadian showing symptoms of the disease would be forced into them for years on end.''

Scarlet Fever..
LETTER: Reader recalls his time in quarantine in the 1950s - BarrieToday.com
''At the time, this was a notifiable disease. Cases had to be reported to the public-health authorities. They visited my home, gave my parents instructions and quarantined the house.''

An official notice was taped to the front door stating that scarlet fever was inside and barred entry to anybody but my parents.
 
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