Still healing two years after triple-murder suicide outside Claresholm

Sunday marks the two year anniversary of one of western Canada’s most shocking murder-suicides.

On December 15th, just ten days before Christmas, Derek Jensen gunned down four people on a highway just outside Claresholm before turning the gun on himself.

Among the victims, Jensen’s ex girlfriend Tabitha Stepple, Shayna Conway, and two baseball athletes Mitch Maclean and Tanner Craswell who had promising futures in the sport.

A former friend and teammate, Tyson Ford, tells Global News he visits a roadside memorial every year to remember his friends for who they were and not the tragic event that took their lives.

“You never really think that phone call is coming and when it does it’s hard to process at the time. You don’t know where to look, where to go and it’s something that really takes a lot of time to set in and accept the reality of the situation you’ve been put in,” he adds.

It remains a hard reality to accept even two years later but three crosses along Highway 2 are a sobering reminder of that night’s events.

The boys coach from the Prairie Baseball Academy, Todd Hubka, says the pain doesn’t go away but time has helped to heal wounds.

“I don’t think you ever find peace over something like that. Do I forgive? Yah, I forgive. If you don’t it’s hard to move on. I don’t blame anyone for what happened, it happened and it’s over with. But it’s something I’ll never forget that’s for sure,” he says.

Tyson smiles as he recalls Craswell and Maclean’s attitudes and smiles both on and off the field.

“Tanner, he was a grease ball, is what we called him. Loved to be dirty and played the game exceptionally hard. Mitch was an all around athlete. He was good at everything, and you didn’t know where it came from because he was just a skinny, skinny little guy,” he recounts.

Stepple has been described by her father as a role model and someone who had a zest for life.

The lone survivor of the shooting, Shayna Conway, remains at her home in Prince Edward Island.

Tributes have poured in the last two years from bracelets, to scholarships and an annual memorial baseball game.

According to the Chief Executive Officer with Lethbridge’s YWCA, Kristine Cassie, it’s almost important to remember the senseless act of violence that claimed those four young lives every anniversary.

She says while many may be inclined to minimize the violence, it’s important to learn from such incidents so we can prevent such tragedies in the future.

“Many people do that to protect the victim and perpetrator of the crime, because nobody wants to believe this ugliness can happen in our society but it does, “ she adds.

A scholarship has also been created at Lethbridge College for criminal justice students.