ST. WALBURG, Sask. — Alberta RCMP say a man found dead in Saskatchewan with his wife and two-year-old son had been held a month earlier for a psychiatric evaluation.
Mounties in Airdrie, a bedroom community north of Calgary, got a call on April 24 from relatives concerned for the well-being of the 26-year-old man and his young family.
No charges were laid and the man was taken to a hospital in Calgary. Other agencies were brought to help the family with its “ongoing” struggles, said RCMP.
On Monday, a motorist near St. Walburg, northeast of Lloydminster, spotted their bodies in a ditch.
Saskatchewan RCMP said a rifle and the family’s car were found nearby.
Mounties are investigating, but stopped short of calling it a murder-suicide.
“We’re not saying that at this point. But we are saying that there’s no indication of another party being involved in the deaths of these three individuals,” said Saskatchewan RCMP Sgt. Paul Dawson.
“We have an idea of what happened, but we don’t have the complete picture.”
Police did not release the names of the dead, however several sources confirmed they were Darren Wourms, his 23-year-old wife, Hayley, and their son, Cayden. They lived in Airdrie but had roots in Saskatchewan.
Darren Wourms was from the St. Walburg area and Dawson confirmed the couple was visiting family at the time of their deaths.
A relative at the Darren Wourms family farm said the deaths are a private matter and refused comment. A woman who answered the phone at what is believed to be Hayley Wourms’s family home also said they did not wish to comment at this time.
St. Walburg is a town of about 700 people situated in rolling countryside, with cattle farms dotting the landscape.
Mayor Tony Leeson said the news has hit the close-knit community hard.
“It’s just as though it was one of your own family that it happened to because everybody knows everybody else,” said Leeson.
Dawson said autopsies scheduled for Monday in Saskatoon should shed some light on the situation.