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A few days after discovering the devastation at Snyder farm, another macabre crime scene is found just a few miles away.
Blood on the Prairie is a historical true crime podcast unravelling the century-old mystery of Grande Prairie's "Murder of Six," Alberta’s largest unsolved mass murder.
Blood on the Prairie
Episode 2: The Patan Outfit
Cris: The following is based on a true story that happened in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada in 1918. The story is based on historical primary sources including surviving case files, criminal reports, and other contemporary documents and accounts. The first-person accounts spoken throughout this narrative are taken word-for-word from the surviving transcripts. We have engaged voice actors to read portions of these transcripts, and while these quotes have been at times abridged or slightly rearranged for clarity, every word is based on the historical record.
Chris: Some of the scenes described include details of violent acts. Listener and parental discretion is advised.
Cris: The discovery of Joseph Snyder, and his nephew Stanley Snyder, shot and burned on their farm in June 1918, was big news in the Village of Grande Prairie, Alberta.
Rumours were spreading and the community was on edge. The police were entertaining the idea of a murder-suicide, believing Stanley Snyder had shot his nephew before setting fire to his own cabin and turning the gun on himself.
Now, on June 24, four days after the discovery of the Snyders, four more bodies are found on another nearby farm. With six murdered men, at two separate farms, other motives are starting to make sense.
Motives like robbery, revenge, cover-up.
In this episode, we'll meet the men of the Patan Outfit, and explore the grisly details of the Patan crime scene.
Cris: I’m Cris Seppola.
Chris: I’m Chris Beauchamp.
Cris: This is Blood on the Prairie.
Chris: On June 19, the morning before Daniel Lough discovered Joseph Snyder's burning cabin, Alexander "Sandy" Peebles found some horses wandering around in his wheat field. He recognized the animals as belonging to his nearby neighbour, Ignace Patan.
Sandy collected the animals and walked them back to Patan's farm, about a mile down the road to the west. No one seemed to be home at the Patan Place. A wagon sat in the yard, covered in a tarp. Peebles stopped at the fence, where Ignace Patan's dog was fiercely barking.
Sandy Peebles: I went up on foot and the dog met me at the fence and I could not get in. I did not try very hard.
Chris: Keeping his distance from the dog, Sandy Peebles let the horses into Patan's yard.
Sandy Peebles: I just decided that they were away and would look after everything when they came home. And I went home.
Chris: He assumed that Patan and his partners were away on one of their short trips. This would not have been unusual.
Chris: Sandy Peebles knew Ignace Patan, fur trapper. The two men had been neighbours, and perhaps even friends, for about 7 years, with only one other farm in between theirs. Patan was known for spending weeks or months away tending his trap line on the Wapiti River, alongside his partners — and roommates — Charles Zimner and John Wuwand. We'll meet them shortly.
Ignace Patan had setup his homestead in 1911, along the banks of the Bear Creek, some 7 miles, or 11km, northwest of the village of Grande Prairie. By all accounts, Patan had done quite well for himself during his time homesteading here. He had cultivated his quarter section of land, meeting all of the government's requirements for settlers at the time, and he had broken enough of his land that his crops were earning him a profit as well. As historian David Leonard explained to us:
David Leonard: Anyone who was 18 years old could apply for a homestead for $10. You pay your $10. And then if you are granted the right to homestead that quarter, you are required to live on that quarter section for six months of the year, for at least three years. You're required to build a dwelling and two outbuildings, one being a barn, of course. You are required to put an access road and then you're required to break land and clear and crop 10 acres a year for three years. And if you do that to the satisfaction of the homestead inspector, the land is yours. And that's how most of Western Canada was settled through the homestead provisions of the Dominion Lands Act.
Cris: Within his first years on the land, Patan would have built a log cabin and several outbuildings. And sometime, likely within the last few years, he upgraded his home to a two-storey, wood-frame house. This was something of an achievement among the farmers in the area in 1918, many of whom still lived in simple log, and sod-roof cabins, like Joseph Snyder's.
By any measure, Ignace Patan was a shrewd and successful entrepreneur.
It was no secret in the area that Patan and his partners were pulling up their stake to relocate north. They'd done well over the past winter, and having sold their haul of furs, the group was disposing of other possessions too. The men had withdrawn all of their funds from the bank, and had bought provisions for a long trip north and a new start, near Fort Vermillion.
As Sandy Peebles later testified, Patan told him all about his plans over lunch on the previous Sunday, at Peebles’ place.
Sandy Peebles: He spent all his time telling me what he was going to do. He and his partners were going to look for a ranch and the government was going to furnish them cattle and ship them in free and everything was laid out for a large ranch.
He said that the bunch would probably have about $5,000 to invest.
Cris: It was likely that Sandy Peebles had also visited Patan's place more than once over the years. Although according to his testimony, he hadn't been there in at least a few months. Still, Sandy Peebles knew Ignace Patan, and his partners.
He later referred to the group as "The Patan Outfit."
Chris: Over the next few days, Sandy Peebles found Patan's horses back at his crops two more times. He walked the horses home each time. On the first of these visits, he again stopped at the fence, where he was held back by Patan's dog. The house looked as quiet as it had a few days earlier. Nobody home.
Sandy Peebles must have felt a growing sense of unease, since he knew how much Patan cared about his dog. Patan had proudly shown him some tricks he had taught the dog.
Sandy Peebles: The dog was as close as he could get to Mr. Patan at all times.
Chris: When the horses turned up for the third time, Sandy Peebles suspected something was wrong.
Remember, this is just four days after the bodies of Joseph and Stanley Snyder were discovered in their burned out cabin. And Sandy Peebles was also a good friend of Joseph Snyder.
Sandy Peebles and Jospeh Snyder had worked together and travelled to the region in 1910, as part of the settlement boom.
The two men had even chosen their individual plots of land, and filed their claims with the land agent at the same time, on August 16, 1910. They eventually settled in as relative neighbours, a couple of miles apart, working their individual quarter sections and building a life in what was being marketed at the time as "The Last Great West" — The Grande Prairie of the Peace River Country in northwestern Alberta.
David Leonard: Grande Prairie became a village in April 1914, the first the incorporated community in the Peace River country, and in 1919, it was elevated to the status of a town with over 500 people. The peace river country Grand Prairie in particular was separated so far from from Edmonton, and from other areas. The railway having come in from the north, in 1916, saw the development of the of the subdivided communities of Sexsmith and Clairmont at that time, and yet, I would still argue that this area, prior to the advent of the railway, was the last major region of North America to be settled on a frontier basis, where you had people living like right on the edge of civilization, right on the cusp of survival in in many cases. And the last true frontier area, I think, because it was developed without the benefit of a railway.
Chris: The Snyder murders were almost certainly on Peebles' mind, when Patan's horses turned up for that third time, around 8 or 9 in the morning of Monday, June 24. This time, Sandy Peebles was intent on getting close to the Patan house.
It must have been a shock for Peebles when police turned up at his place a few days earlier, on the morning of the Snyder discovery, asking if he knew where Joseph was, and telling him about the fire and the first body discovered. Of course that body would turn out to be his friend Joseph.
Sandy Peebles: I took them home this time so that I could find out if anything was wrong. [...] Everything looked very quiet. I did not go very close to the house as the dog was there. I called and no one answered. Everything appeared to be as though they just quit work.
Percy Belcher: What do you mean by quit work?
Sandy Peebles: Everything was lying about as if ready to load.
Percy Belcher: Referring to Exhibit C, this is supposed to be a log building to the north of another building?
Sandy Peebles: Yes.
Chris: Patan's farm included the 2-storey main house, and at its back, a more crude log stable, or storehouse. In front of this storehouse, was the tarp-covered wagon.
Percy Belcher: "Was there anything in the wagon?"
Sandy Peebles: "I did not examine the wagon. I decided to go to the new shack where they lived. I went to go to the door and the dog was there. I looked in the window on the west side and saw nothing."
Chris: The windows had been boarded up on their upper halves, with just a portion of glass visible at the bottom. Peebles also looked into the east window, where he saw:
Sandy Peebles: "A bed with a tent or tarpaulin thrown over the whole thing."
Chris: Pressed against the window, Peebles also detected the sickly smell of decay.
Sandy Peebles: “That is when I made up my mind there was something wrong."
Chris: Returning quickly home, Sandy Peebles sent his brother Delbert into Grande Prairie to fetch the Police.
Cris: Detective Sergeant Eagan of the Alberta Provincial Police headed out to the Patan Place to investigate. He brought two colleagues, Corporal McPherson and Sgt. Woodhus. The group picked up Sandy Peebles on their way, to help them find Patan's farm.
Arriving on the scene at 7:30 in the evening, Det. Sgt. Eagan and the men found the same odd quiet at the Patan yard. The wagon lay half loaded outside the storehouse, covered by a tarp. Supplies lay strewn about: sugar, flour, other sundries. It looked like the men had been packing to leave.
Coming around to the main house, the men found Patan's dog guarding the front door.
Corporal McPherson fired several shots from his service revolver to scare the dog away, and the men finally approached the house.
The door was locked but Eagan was able to open the lock with a skeleton key. As the door opened, they immediately noticed the smell. Covering their noses and mouths as best they could, the men entered the house. Det. Sgt. Eagan led the way.
Detective Sergeant Eagan: "On entering the door we turned to our right into a furnished room used as a living room and bedroom and we found on a tarpaulin two dead bodies of two men."
Cris: Later, police would bring witnesses to the scene to confirm the identities of the bodies. These two men, found inside the house, under a tarp on a crude log and straw bed, were Ignace Patan and one of his two business partners: John Wuwand.
Wuwand was known locally as "Little John the Russian," or "Russian Jack," as reported in a local newspaper. Although whether he was Russian or not, it was tough to say.
"Little John" Wuwand had been shot in the head.
But Patan's death was more grisly.
Someone had cut Ignace Patan's throat.
Detective Sergeant Eagan: “I can remember the bodies were lying close together with the heads pointing to the north and east and the man to the left was slightly turned to the man on the right."
Cris: Leaving the main house, the men walked back around to the locked storehouse.
Detective Sergeant Eagan: "We went out to search for more bodies. We went to look in the store house and the door was locked with a chain and padlock."
Chris: Forcing the lock, Eagan found a third body, later identified as Frank Parzychowski. Parzychoswki is best described as an acquaintance of the Patan Outfit. He did some blacksmith work for Ignace Patan, but lived on his own property across the road to the north.
Parzychowksi was found just inside the storehouse door, face down. He had been shot in the back-left of the head.
Detective Sergeant Eagan: "We found the dead body inside the door. The head of the body was lying against a partition a little to the left of the entrance door. The body was lying face downwards with the left hand up over the head as if seeking protection, and was shot through the back and a lot of blood on the head."
Chris: In his right hand, Parzychowksi was clutching a small purse in his pocket, which contained $1.11 in silver coins. A pipe lay on the ground to the right of the man's corpse. Eagan testified that it looked like it had been burning when it fell there.
Detective Sergeant Eagan: “We came out of the shack and told Constable McPherson to go to town and get the coroner and Officer Commanding and notify them what we had found."
Chris: Leaving the storehouse, the men approached the wagon.
Detective Sergeant Eagan: "We found something in the wagon outside. I said it smells like a dead body but I guess it's just an old robe. There was flour, sugar, and other things thrown on top...
"I uncovered a man's head and found a body in the wagon.... The smell was overbearing and I had to get away to get fresh air."
Chris: The body in the wagon would later be identified as Patan's third partner, Charles Zimner. Described as "stooped-shouldered, and humped up" With his long brown beard, and fur trapping lifestyle, Zimner must have made for a rugged character. Zimner's body was heavily decomposed, after six days of June weather, under a tarp in the back of the wagon. He was eventually ID'd by his false teeth, with a gold tooth in the front.
Grande Prairie doctor, Joseph Conroy, would again act as medical examiner, visiting the scene that night, and then returning the next day alongside his colleague Dr. McDonald to perform the autopsies.
Dr. Conroy described the scene in the main house, where Patan and Wuwand were found:
Dr H. J. Conroy: ...on arriving at the place we went into a house and saw two dead bodies lying close together parrallel to each other. Their heads toward the north and their feet toward the south. They were both lying on their stomach. [...] The bodies were in a badly decomposed state. The floor around was stained with blood. "
Chris: The first autopsy was performed on "Little John" Wuwand, or as he was called by Dr. Conroy in his inquest testimony, "John Woodwood."
Cris: This is as good a time as any to discuss the challenges of contradictory spellings and pronunciations of names throughout the historical documents.
In most cases, we found numerous spellings of the names of major characters in this story. For example, Patan is most frequently spelled P A T A N, although it's also spelled P A T O N, and P A T T O N, among other variations. John Wuwand is one of the best examples of this, being referred to at times as Wuwand, Wudwand, Woodwood, and Wuderd, among other variants.
Much of the time, this was down to the challenge of anglicizing Eastern European names for an English speaking society, like the Dominion of Canada. With immigrants pouring in from various backgrounds, many were forced or chose to alter their names as a form of assimilation.
We also found several instances where people used first and middle names interchangeably depending on social context, or where transcribers made choices to spell orally spoken names in certain ways.
We've done our best to choose spellings and pronunciations that reflect the most common usage and our best cultural understanding.
With that out of the way, we can return to the grisly details of the Patan murder scene.
Chris: Dr. Conroy described the autopsy of John Wuwand in his testimony at the inquest a few days later. Remember, Wuwand was found in the main house, on the bed with Ignace Patan. He had been shot in the side of the head, the bullet traveling forward.
Dr H. J. Conroy: ... the first one we did was [...] John Woodwood. We found a wound in the right temple two inches posterior of the right eye and about half an inch above the right eye. [...] The wound contained hair which looked as though it had been carried there by a bullet. A second wound was found directly below the right eye which would be the exit of the bullet.
Chris: The exit wound had shattered the bones under John Wuwand's eye. In his pocket, the doctors found a small sum of money, which they turned over to police.
Regarding Ignace Patan's autopsy, Dr. Conroy would later testify in rather graphic detail that Patan had been cut at least three times across his throat:
Dr H. J. Conroy: ...Ignace Patan... This body was in a badly decomposed state. There was an old scarf found around his neck and throat. On the removal of this old scarf, a badly lacerated wound was literally covered with maggots. On further examination found that the wind pipe was completely severed in its upper part. Two of the incisions were found immediately below and cutting about half way into the wind pipe. The right jugular vein was also severed. No other wounds were found on his person and we came to the conclusion that the cause of his death was hemorrhage due to cutting of the jugular vein or strangling due to the cutting of the trachea, or to both.
Chris: Investigators would later speculate about why someone would hurt Ignace Patan this way. We'll get to that eventually.
Cris: Blacksmith Frank Parzychowski was the man found in the storehouse, near to his pipe. And perhaps owing to the locked door and cooler temperature of this north-facing building, his body was less decomposed than the others. Dr. Conroy described his wound as follows:
Dr H. J. Conroy: On further examination found a bullet hole one and a half inches posterior to the left ear. We traced the course of the bullet and found it in the frontal lobe of the brain. We came to the conclusion that this was the cause of his death, finding no other wounds.
Cris: Someone had shot Frank Parzychowski in the back of the head, apparently from the doorway of the storehouse, before closing and locking the door. Dr. MacDonald backed up Dr. Conroy's testimony, adding that the bullet found in Parzychowski's frontal lobe was:
Testimony of Dr MacDonald: ...apparently that of a 38 calibre revolver. No other wounds were found on the body."
Cris: Bearded Charles Zimner was found on the wagon, partially covered by a tarp. Zimner's head was oriented toward the wagon's tailboard and, according to the testimony of Dr. Conroy, the body was also 'in a badly decomposing state'. The wagon was stained with blood; goods and supplies scattered on the wagon and on the ground nearby. Zimner had also been shot.
Dr H. J. Conroy: …Charles Zimner. On examination found that he had a full upper plate of false teeth containing one gold tooth in front. A hole was found in the back of the skull about the medium line just above the foramen magnum. On cutting down to the bone we found a small quantity of lead adhering to the edge of the wound. We also found that the bullet had passed through the spinal cord and had lodged in the anterior part of the first cervical vertebra. No other wound was found and we came to the conclusion that this was the cause of his death.
Cris: The bodies of Ignace Patan, Charles Zimner, John Wuwand, and Frank Parzychowski had remained undiscovered for the better part of 6 days, which accounted for the heavy decomposition. Dr.'s Conroy and MacDonald later invoiced the government the sum of $26.90, for 66 lbs of formaldehyde, used to carry out their grim work.
Chris: Together with Joseph and Stanley Snyder, there were now six dead men across two farms about three miles apart.
As would become clear based on the witness testimony, the last time anyone saw people alive at Ignace Patan's, was on June 18 around 10pm, when Sandy Peebles saw five men in Patan's yard. We'll learn more about that eventually, but for now it's enough to note that no one saw any activity at the Patan farm on the following day, so the murders were estimated to have occurred: "between 9:30pm on the night of the 18th and 12 O'Clock noon on the 19th."
Either way, what this means is that the Patan murders occurred first, on the night before the Snyders were killed.
The killer, or killers, shot five of their six victims. At Patan's Place, somebody shot neighbour and blacksmith Frank Parzychowski and Patan's two partners John Wuwand and bearded Charles Zimner. Then, the next night, moved on to the Snyder farm, shooting Joseph and Stanley Snyder, and setting the cabin on fire. Each of these five men were killed by a single bullet to the head.
Yet for some reason, Ignace Patan was killed by having his throat cut, at least three times.
6 dead men. 2 farms. On two successive nights.
It was increasingly hard to believe that the Snyder case was a murder suicide, and the medical examiners believed that all five bullet wounds were consistent with .38 calibre bullets. By this time, the Snyder inquest had also confirmed that the .38 calibre revolver, allegedly thrown onto the Snyders' sod roof - had five spent shell casings still inside it. One for each of the men who were shot.
The Snyders didn't own a revolver, but Ignace Patan did: a .38 calibre Ivor Johnson revolver, consistent with the murder weapon. Patan's gun was missing from his farm.
And that ring of keys which turned up in Joseph Snyder's burned out cabin? Well, those were Ignace Patan's too. The keys were later matched to the locked doors of the Patan property.
In the third episode of Blood on the Prairie we'll delve into some surprising connections between the people involved. We'll hear from local historians to better understand the context of settler life in this remote part of Canada. And we'll hear Daniel Lough's account of just what he was doing at Joseph Snyder's Place on the evening before the Snyder murders.
Blood on the Prairie is produced by Cris Seppola and Chris Beauchamp.
We'd like to thank the South Peace Regional Archives, the Provincial Archives of Alberta, Alyssa Curry, Karen Simonson, Dr. David Leonard, Brenda Lacroix, the family of Wallace Tansem, Jason Halwa, Al Peterson, Kasper Townes, Gordie Haakstad, Richard Podsada, and Laura Beauchamp.
Blood on the Prairie was developed thanks to funding provided by TELUS STORYHIVE. Special Thanks to Tara Jean Stevens, Jessica Gibson, and the National Screen Institute.
Music used in this episode by Unrealsfx, Sid Acharya, Sivan Talmor, Kyle Preston, Ankori Ramon, Roi Shpigler, Michael Vignola, Brianna Tam, Oakfield, Ziv Moran,
Our voice actors in this episode included Lyle West, Jordon Fuller, Scott Maitland, Derek Hall, and Cameron Donald.
Blood on the Prairie is available on all major podcast platforms. For show notes and access to archival sources and other documents relating to the case — as well as photographs from both the 1918 era, and the crime scenes in 2021, find us at bloodonthepriaire.com.