On a dreary morning in April, 1893, John Marshall, a Portuguese immigrant and successful farmer on Sumas Prairie in British Columbia, was found lying sprawled across the veranda of his farmhouse, his body cold and lifeless. The farmers face was a mess, his nose smashed in and cracked blood covering his forehead around a jagged black hole. The shocked and unfortunate neighbour who discovered the body rushed to Huntingdon railway station to summon the authorities. An autopsy, coroners inquest and murder investigation followed. Only two days later, a local handyman named Albert Stroebel was arrested for Marshalls murder. Stroebel was an unlikely killer: short and physically disabled, locals considered him a harmless boy who seemed much younger than his 20 years. The young man the community knew was not capable of murder, and they were shocked to imagine that he could have killed the man who had treated him like family. But something had gone tragically wrong on the night Marshall died. Unravelling the mystery would take nine months and two lengthy trials that seized the attention of local communities on both sides of the Canadian-American border, splitting them into pro- and anti-Stroebel factions. Newspapers devoted page after page of coverage and throngs of spectators squeezed into the courtroom galleries. The first trial in New Westminster ended with the jury hopelessly deadlocked, the second in Victoria found him guilty and set an impending date for his execution. The heaviest hitters of BCs political and legal establishment took part including former and current premiers, an Attorney General, and a future Supreme Court justice. When the second trial ended with a guilty verdict and death sentence many in the public howled in protest, convinced that a young man had been condemned to die for a crime he did not commit. And the dramatic events would not stop there. With the condemned man sitting on death row, the case would take more twists and turns that would lead Albert Stroebel to the shadow of the gallows.
Chad Reimer has a BA Honours in History from the University British Columbia, along with an MA and PhD in History from York University. He is the author of Before We Lost the Lake: A Natural and Human History of Sumas Valley, published by Caitlin Press, which received an honorable mention at the British Columbia Historical Federations Historical Writing Competition. He also wrote Chilliwacks Chinatowns for the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC and Writing British Columbia History with UBC Press. Reimer has been published in BC History, Pacific Northwest Quarterly and a number of other journals. He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he spent his first fourteen winters before moving to the gentler climate of Abbotsford, BC, teaching for some years at the University of the Fraser Valley.
"Chad Reimer has written a riveting and impeccably researched account of a fascinating Canadian true crime story. The book is gripping from the first page." -- Josh Bloch, CBC journalist and host of Uncover: Escaping NXIVM
"A compelling, thoroughly researched tale of love and death on the BC prairie. Reimers book is a gift to history nerds and true-crime lovers alike." -- Jesse Donaldson, author of This Day In Vancouver and Land of Destiny
"A thrilling read! Reimer has produced that rare offering in true crime, a definitive account that also grips and excites. The accused and sometime-protagonist of Albert Stroebel will capture your imagination." -- Vanessa Brown, bookseller and author of The Forest City Killer: A Serial Murderer, a Cold-Case Sleuth, and a Search for Justice
