Then-CN Rail police officer Rob Anderson testified Wednesday that he believed he had stumbled upon a serious motor vehicle crash when he arrived at a rural intersection east of Calgary. Anderson, now a constable with the Diamond Valley RCMP, was working as a rail cop after retiring from the Calgary Police Service.
Anderson told Crown prosecutor Photini Papadatou that he observed two trucks — one engulfed in flames and another in a ditch — along with a badly injured individual lying in the middle of the road. Not seeing a potential second driver, Anderson feared someone might be trapped inside the burning pickup.
It was not until Mounties arrived about five minutes later and spoke to an individual who had fled more than a football field from the scene that Anderson discovered he had happened upon a fatal shooting scene that also left another victim injured. Anderson said his confusion was compounded by the fact that he had not been provided with any advanced information, unlike an officer dispatched to the scene would have.
Anderson stated that he approached the individual lying on the roadway, whom he later identified as Rocky View County worker Colin Hough, and attempted to determine his condition. Hough was unconscious and had shallow breathing. Anderson then turned his attention to the nearby burning truck, fearing it was still occupied. However, as he got as close as possible before being forced back by the intense heat and flames, he could not see anyone inside.
“If there had been someone in that burning vehicle, would you have been able to save them?” the prosecutor asked. “No, by the time I got close enough to it the heat and the flames were too intense,” Anderson replied. “That was my biggest fear at the time. If there had been somebody in the vehicle, I wasn’t going to be able to get them out. That would’ve been difficult to watch.”
On trial before a Calgary Court of King’s Bench jury are murder suspects Elijah Blake Strawberry and Arthur Wayne Penner. The two accused are charged with second-degree murder in the Aug. 6, 2024, fatal shooting of Hough and the attempted murder of Fortis Alberta worker Matthew Andres, who was shot in the upper forearm before fleeing.
The prosecution’s theory is that Strawberry and Penner approached the intersection of Township Road 250 and Range Road 282 with a stolen truck that had a flat tire and tried to rob Andres of his work pickup before it got stuck in the ditch. When Hough arrived a short time later, with the original stolen truck now engulfed in flames, he was shot and the culprits fled in his work truck.
Meanwhile, Andres, who called 911 while still bleeding, was grilled by defence counsel Rebecca Snukal over whether he saw her client Strawberry’s prominent face tattoos. But Andres said the person who shot him had a toque pulled down over his forehead and his face was covered from his eyes down.
