Kalamalka Lake drowning part of planned suicide pact: coroner

The drowning death of a 32-year-old Lethbridge, Alberta man last summer was a suicide.

That’s the conclusion of a coroner’s report released Tuesday into the death of Shane Allan Letkeman.

Letkeman was found dead near the shore of Kalamalka Lake in the Cosens Bay area last June by someone out paddle boarding.

In her report, Coroner Margaret Janzen says Letkeman’s death was connected to a suicide pact he’d made with another man.

Curtis Wilson, also from Lethbridge, went missing last summer around the time Letkeman’s body was found.

Wilson’s family said he and Letkeman left Lethbridge together. The family believed there was evidence the two were together up until the last evening Wilson was heard from.

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The coroner does not name Wilson specifically, but says the day before Letkeman was found dead he “and the other male sent messages to family and friends alluding to suicide, saying goodbye, and that they loved them.”

A rental car was also found in the Cosens Bay area on the same day Letkeman’s body was located.

“Near the car Mr. Letkeman and the other male had set up a bit of a camp. Their cellphones and some illicit drugs were located there,” wrote Janzen in her report.

“Mr. Letkeman’s phone was broken but review of the other cellphone revealed messages between the two indicating their intention to kill themselves in a suicide pact.”

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The coroner said Letkeman had pill fragments in his stomach and “high levels of methamphetamine and fentanyl” in his system.

Following the discovery of Letkeman’s body a series of well-publicized searches of the lake and surrounding area were conducted for Wilson.

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The coroner’s report says that as of May of this year “the other male had not been located.”