Baumgartner in custody in Langley, B.C.
Travis Baumgartner is taken out of a van by Border Services officers at the Aldergrove, B.C., boarder crossing Saturday. Baumgartner was stopped by customs at the United States border as he tried to enter the U.S. |
A two-day manhunt following multiple slayings at the University of Alberta’s Hub Mall early Friday morning ended Saturday afternoon when Baumgartner arrived at the border crossing between Aldergrove, B.C., and Lynden, Wash., with $330,000 in cash, his mother’s stolen licence plate on the back of his Ford F-150, and no passport.
He was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection and arrested on a Canada-wide warrant by RCMP officers from Langley, said Supt. Bob Hassel during a Sunday afternoon news conference at Edmonton police headquarters.
Eight Edmonton police officers, including five detectives and three forensics investigators, flew to B.C. Saturday night and are currently “sifting through evidence,” Hassell added.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection first discovered an armed-and-dangerous alert when they scanned the back of Baumgartner’s truck with a computerized licence-plate reader. Officers approached the truck and took him into custody without a fight at about 3:10 p.m. local time. Baumgartner did not have a gun.
Baumgartner was handcuffed and put into a holding cell while border guards confirmed his identity. Because he hadn’t entered the United States, he was turned over to Canadian authorities.
Hassel credited Baumgartner’s capture to quick communication between law enforcement agencies. Border agencies were notified of Baumgartner within four hours of the shooting, he said.
Baumgartner faces three first-degree murder charges in the deaths of his fellow armoured guards Michelle Shegelski, 26; Brian Ilesic, 35; and Eddie Rejano, 39. He is also charged with attempted murder in the shooting of another guard, Matthew Schuman, who remained in critical condition in hospital on Sunday afternoon.
The four victims and alleged killer were employees of G4S Cash Solutions, an armoured car company where Baumgartner had worked since April. They were shot while delivering money to cash machines at the University of Alberta’s HUB Mall early Friday, and Baumgartner was on the run for the next 36 hours.
He was arrested at the Kenneth G. Ward border port, named in honour of a border guard who was killed by a murderer attempting to cross the border from Canada in 1979.
After news of the arrest, the family of victim Eddie Rejano gathered at HUB Mall for a candlelit vigil at the scene of the slayings.
“I’m happy, but at the same time it does nothing. He’s caught, but it’s not going to bring (Eddie) back,” said Paul Badon, Rejano’s brother-in-law. “I just hope we see the right decisions made. I want (Travis) to be in jail for the rest of life.”
Eddie Rejano’s wife, Cleo, clutched their four-year-old son, Xylar, to her chest as other family members laid down bouquets of flowers.
Vanessa Mejia said although she wasn’t related to Rejano, she thought of him as a brother.
“We were all watching the news yesterday, waiting for him to come in and do his shy little ‘Hi,’ ” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Mejia also commended Cleo for staying strong for the couple’s two boys. She said she hopes Baumgartner will make a public apology to the families of the victims.
The Aldergrove/Lynden border crossing is about 22 kilometres southwest of Abbotsford, B.C. and about 1,100 km from Edmonton.
Baumgartner’s arrest came just hours after Hassel said Baumgartner was believed to have a significant amount of money, a bulletproof vest from his G4S armoured guard uniform, and, most likely, his G4S-issue handgun. At that time, there had been no substantiated sightings of Baumgartner since the shooting, and police did not know whether he was in the city, or on the run.
Solicitor General Jonathan Denis said Saturday night he expected the process of getting Baumgartner back to Edmonton, to answer to the charges, to get underway swiftly.
“I’m happy that they’ve apprehended the suspect and even, on top of that, that he was apprehended without issue,” Denis said. “Any other scenario could have ended very badly.”
Jayme Stephenson, a former G4S employee who knew Schuman, Rejano and Baumgartner, said she was “ecstatic” about the arrest.
“I hope that justice is served when it comes to his sentencing,” she said.
She said she was “sickened” by the fact that she had spoken to Baumgartner during their training, and that he was part of their group.
“We were taught to look after each other and protect ourselves and you’re supposed to have each other’s back in that job. It was all a lie with Travis.”
In a post on Facebook on June 1, Baumgartner wrote: “I wonder if I’d make the 6 o’clock news if I just started poping (sic) people off.”
The 21-year-old describes himself on the Plenty of Fish dating website as “very laid-back,” a “people person” who is easy to get to know, and behaves like “a gentlemen” (sic) on dates. His profile runs with the caption “I’m a great guy, we don’t come along very often.”
But some of Baumgartner’s posts on social media paint a very different picture.
A June 5 post on Twitter reads: “Crosses to burn, axes to fall and down on your knees you don’t look so tall,” a lyric from the Billy Talent song, Viking Death March.
On Thursday, in the hours before the shooting, Baumgartner quoted the Joker from the movie The Dark Knight, tweeting: “One night she grabs a kitchen knife to defend herself, now he doesn’t like that ... not ... one ... bit.”
Baumgartner lived in a Sherwood Park bungalow with his mother, Sandra. She issued a public plea on Friday for her son to surrender to police.
He graduated from Bev Facey High School in Sherwood Park in 2009.
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