EDMONTON — Four men have been arrested in three murder cases in Alberta and Saskatchewan, including one in which a head was found by a passerby in an Edmonton alley in late October.
The decapitated remains of Robert John Roth had been discovered less than a week earlier and 100 kilometres away near the Alberta town of Ranfurly.
Police say Randy James Wayne O’Hagan, 22, of Lloydminster, Alta., and Nikolas Jon Nowytzkyj, 32, of Wainwright, Alta., have been charged with first-degree murder and offering an indignity to a human body.
Ranfurly residents said Roth’s remains were found in a ditch next to a running pickup truck.
O’Hagan, along with Kyle Darren Halbauer, 22, also of Lloydminster, is as well facing charges in the death of another man. Bryan Gower’s body was found on a rural road near Kitscoty, Alta., in September.
Those two accused, along with Joshua Petrin, 29, of Edmonton also face charges in the death of Lorry Santos in Saskatoon in September.
Police said at the time that the 34-year-old stay-at-home mother was shot and killed when she answered the door of her home to strangers. Saskatoon police said Tuesday that it appears her killers had the wrong address and Santos was an innocent victim of cross-border drug dealing and organized crime.
“This was a tragic crime that left a husband without his wife and four children without their mother,” Saskatoon police Chief Clive Weighill said in a news release.
Her children ranged in age from five months to 16 years. It was one of the older children who called 911 after the shooting.
Santos worked at uranium mining giant Cameco but had been on maternity leave since giving birth to her fourth child in April.
A co-worker said at the time of the shooting that Santos was a “very special person who had a way of touching people.”