On Friday, May 18, 1962, 23-year-old Alexandra Wiwcharuk disappeared. Her body was discovered 13 days later in a shallow grave on the riverbank of the South Saskatchewan river. She had been beaten, sexually assaulted, and buried alive. 60 years later, her murder remains unsolved.
Alexandra Wiwcharuk was born in 1939 in Endeavour Saskatchewan, the youngest of ten children in a traditional Ukrainian family. She grew up with hopes to become a flight attendant, but didn’t meet their height requirement, she was only 5’1”. Instead, in 1959, she started nurses training at the Yorkton Union Hospital School of Nursing, and graduated in 1961.
She was young, vivacious, and beautiful. She was voted queen of the Kinette Skating Carnival in Yorkton in 1960. She went on to represent Yorkton in the province-wide Saskatchewan Wheat Queen contest.
In 1961, a local radio station was promoting an upcoming concert for singer/songwriter Johnny Cash. They ran a radio contest where they would choose one girl to be The Girl in Saskatoon. Alex won the contest, and at the concert, in front of 1,500 fans, she was serenaded by Johnny Cash as he sang his song, “The Girl In Saskatoon.”
That September, she began her nursing career and took a job at the City Hospital in Saskatoon. As many young nurses did at the time, she shared an apartment with three other nurses, Alice Hall, Doreen Badduke, and Pauline Tyllis.
Around 8pm on May 18, 1962, Alex left home after telling her roommates she was taking a walk before her shift that night. She made a few stops along the way, stopping at Mead’s drugstore between 8:30 and 8:45, and then between 9 and 9:45, she was spotted by a group of boys near the South Saskatchewan River, where they were fishing.
She never showed up for work that night.
13 days later, on May 31, Alex’s body was found when a 6-year-old boy was exploring the bushes along the riverbank. He spotted a hand protruding from a shallow grave and notified authorities.
An autopsy showed that she had been sexually assaulted, and her skull had been fractured by a blow from a concrete block. It also revealed dirt in her windpipe and her cause of death was listed as suffocation. She had been buried alive sometime before 10pm on the night she disappeared.
Police jumped to action, and immediately began searching for her killer. Unfortunately, with the delay in time from when she was murdered and when she was found, meant they had little evidence to go from. Still, the Saskatoon police managed to compile a list of 1100 names to question, with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) conducting interviews with an additional 100.
As you might expect, there were claims, rumors and complaints. People questioned Alex’s character, and what might have led to her murder. There were rumors about the sons of prominent families in the city. And then there were complaints that the police weren’t doing their jobs. In the end, all leads led them nowhere, and by 1970, the case had gone cold.
Family and friends never gave up though.
In the late 1990’s, author Sharon Butala found herself pondering Alex’s unsolved murder. She had attended high school with her, and was invested in finding out the truth. She reached out to retired police officer Ed Yakubowski, who had been a beat cop at the time of the murder, but moved up the ranks over time.
Yakubowski had his own suspicions about the murderer from the beginning. When he took over the murder and robbery squad, he was finally able to look through Alex’s file, consisting of approximately 1700 files, including 650 interviews and statements. In the end, his efforts turned up nothing substantial. Even after his retirement, he continues to find himself vested in learning the truth.
Sharon was not deterred. On November 30, 2002, she was being invested as an Officer in the Order of Canada. During a formal dinner, she found herself conversing with the Governor-General, Adrienne Clarkson. As they spoke, Alex’s story came up, and Clarkson urged her to talk to Linden MacIntyre.
In 2008, she published her book, The Girl in Saskatoon: A Meditation on Friendship, Memory and Murder.
Since 1962, technology has come a long way. In 2004, Alex’s family gave the Saskatoon police permission to exhume her body. Further examination turned up hair that didn’t belong to Alex, and had been missed during the original autopsy. DNA analysis against evidence has been run, and that has allowed them to exclude several potential suspects.
In 2007, Molecular World, a high tech lab in Thunder Bay, found a DNA profile that did not belong to Alex. Based on this, police were able to start collecting samples from suspects, or family members of deceased suspects. During this process, two more suspects were cleared, including Billy McGaffin, a boy who had seen Alex by the river that night. McGaffin died in 1988.
They were also able to clear Leslie Klassen, who was a teenager at the time of Alex’s murder. Since 1960, he had served jail time for sex offenses including five convictions for indecent exposure. Over the years, he racked up a total of 19 convictions for indecent attacks, and 2 indecent assaults.
In 1974, Klassen had killed a 15-year-old girl whom he was having sex with. She had been hit in the head and buried in a snowbank. For that, he is currently serving time in a Federal Penitentiary in British Columbia.
The family has never given up. Today, Alex’s four nieces, Patty Storie, Lorain Phillips, Lynn Gratrix, and Gwen Taralson continue their own investigation. In October 2008, they commissioned a billboard in downtown Saskatoon at the corner of 25th Street and Second Avenue asking for tips. Within the first week, they had over 40 calls.
As of May 2017, they have narrowed their list of suspects down to three, two alive, and one dead. “We girls have put a lot of effort and a lot of time towards our aunt, and the reason is because we love her, we respect her, and will always try to find who did this,” said Gratrix.
Anyone who has information relating to the murder of Alexandra Wiwcharuk is asked to contact the Saskatoon Police Service at 306-975-8300, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477, or their local law enforcement agency.
Another famous, unsolved murder, is the Black Dahlia. Who killed her, and why?
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