John Etter Clark

On June 3, 1956, Pete Parrott, a neighbour residing on a farm leased from Clark next to his farm in Erskine, Alberta, stopped over for a social visit.^[5] He found six bodies and one wounded person, each shot at least once through the head with .22 caliber bullets, and one shot multiple times.^[5] The wounded victim was taken to a local hospital and died shortly after.^[6]

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police descended on the scene with 14 special field agents. Clark had fled and was not among the dead, who included his wife, son, three daughters, a hired farmhand and a visitor.^[6] The murder weapon was a single-shot .22 calibre rifle that Clark had borrowed from his uncle. He was expected to travel to Saskatchewan on June 1, 1956, to help manage the Social Credit campaign in the 1956 Saskatchewan general election, but failed to show up without explanation.^[5] The victims were identified as Margaret Clark, 36, Jenena Clark, 10, Ross Clark, 7, Ann Clark, 5, Linda Clark, 4, George Anderson, 20 and William Olah, 30.^[7]

Police found Clark's body lying on the edge of a dugout approximately 550 metres (600 yd) from the farmhouse where the murders took place. It had wounds from a single self-inflicted bullet through the head and the murder weapon lying at its feet.^[2] It was found adorned in night attire as if Clark had been preparing to go to bed. Thirty-two RCMP officers who travelled the range on horseback with a team of tracking dogs conducted the search. A team of three Mounties on a Royal Canadian Air Force Otter conducted an aerial search. The Mounties spotted Clark's body from the air a few hours after the search began.^[2]

Clark had previously been hospitalized for a month and a half after a nervous breakdown in 1954, and another during the legislature's 1956 spring session.^[2]

It, along with the Cook Family murders in 1959, were the deadliest mass murders in Alberta history, until Phu Lam killed nine in Edmonton in December 2014.

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