Speaker 1: More than a century ago, in the quiet foothills of
Speaker 1: Alberta's Rocky Mountains, two brothers built a small life together
Speaker 1: along the banks of the Bow River. What began as
Speaker 1: a simple frontier story of imagination, hard work, and opportunity
Speaker 1: would eventually take a dark and violent turn. One spring
Speaker 1: in nineteen oh four, that quiet stretch of land became
Speaker 1: the scene of a brutal murder that shocked the small
Speaker 1: community of Canmore. Now, the place where it all happened
Speaker 1: still carries the memory of that crime in its name.
Speaker 1: Today we discussed that story and the place that is
Speaker 1: simply called dead Man's Flats.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked
Speaker 2: and Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 1: The following podcast, audience, listener, take a good drink of that.
Speaker 2: This is my favorite one, actually is that?
Speaker 1: Well I don't okay, you guys didn't hear it, but
Speaker 1: Nicole had a massive coughing fit right when I'm trying
Speaker 1: to record the intro. So make sure you're good. Make
Speaker 1: sure your voice is all right.
Speaker 2: Okay, do you Sometimes when I'm doing like newborn sessions
Speaker 2: and stuff, I'll be completely fine, like.
Speaker 1: All photographing them just clarity.
Speaker 2: Yes, sorry, I'm a photographer, as my other jumb right
Speaker 2: into the lingo. And do you know when you like
Speaker 2: aren't allowed or shouldn't cough even though you're completely fine,
Speaker 2: Like you've been completely fine all day, but then you're
Speaker 2: in a situation and your body just like has this
Speaker 2: need to cough.
Speaker 1: Oh definitely, Okay, I can demonstrate that exact thing right now.
Speaker 1: I literally can. Okay, you ready, Okay, you're itchy right
Speaker 1: now somewhere Oh yeah, I already was, I know, but
Speaker 1: like right now, someone right now is thinking just think
Speaker 1: about you're itchy. There's gonna be somewhe where you're itching.
Speaker 1: It's probably like your back or your knee or your elbow.
Speaker 1: Something is gonna itch and you're gonna be cursing my
Speaker 1: name right now because I said it. It's the same
Speaker 1: thing with coughing or murphy.
Speaker 2: Is think about breathing, yeah.
Speaker 1: Or blinking, or where your mouth has your tongue sitting
Speaker 1: inside of it? Where does your tongue sit?
Speaker 2: How many people are like fuck off right now, probably
Speaker 2: just getting just irate with us.
Speaker 1: My bad, sorry, but it proves exactly what you're saying. Like,
Speaker 1: it's that Murphy's law, like when you shouldn't be doing something.
Speaker 1: That's when it's like, well, now.
Speaker 2: You're like yeah, because when you're reading the intro there,
Speaker 2: like I have to be really quiet and then and
Speaker 2: I was fine, but then all of a sudden, this
Speaker 2: tickle and it just like progressively got worse and I
Speaker 2: was trying to hold it in and I just couldn't anymore. Well,
Speaker 2: but anyway, I do that a lot at newborn sessions,
Speaker 2: do being like I don't want parents to think I'm
Speaker 2: sick and I'm not sick, but then my body's like
Speaker 2: a you're gonna call screw.
Speaker 1: You anyways being sick and where your tongue should sit
Speaker 1: inside your mouth if you're itchy? 're not all set aside?
Speaker 1: Have an interesting Canadian case for you today. Yeah, Now,
Speaker 1: I will say, there is not a lot of detail
Speaker 1: surrounding this case, so I did the best I could
Speaker 1: because of the lack of detail. This might be a
Speaker 1: little bit of a shorter episode, but I think it
Speaker 1: did pretty good. Okay, it's a bit of a well,
Speaker 1: it's a true crime case mixed with a bit of
Speaker 1: history in there too.
Speaker 2: Right on, these are both places that I want to well,
Speaker 2: can more I've never been to and it's like right
Speaker 2: by a bamf. It's another place I want to go to.
Speaker 2: How have I not been to these places?
Speaker 1: I've only driven through because I have gone to Calgary
Speaker 1: Comic and Entertainment Expo many times because I'm a bit
Speaker 1: of a nerd and you're not. So I've driven through
Speaker 1: there on my way to Calgary many times without you.
Speaker 1: So I've been through these places and I know exactly
Speaker 1: where this is. Haven't been to the place, but I've
Speaker 1: been through it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, let's hear about this.
Speaker 1: So if you step back in time more than a century,
Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains would feel very different than they are today.
Speaker 1: Long before highways cut through the valleys and travelers passed through.
Speaker 1: By the thousands, the mountains were a lot quieter, The
Speaker 1: forests were thicker, the towns were smaller, and much of
Speaker 1: the land between them while they remained wide open and untouched,
Speaker 1: very vast and untamed. Now. In those days, people came
Speaker 1: west chasing opportunity. Some arrived with dreams, you know, striking
Speaker 1: it rich in the mines. Others hoped to carve out
Speaker 1: a much more simple life on the land, raising animals,
Speaker 1: farming what they could and building homes whenever the valleys
Speaker 1: allowed it. Now, life in the mountains could be peaceful
Speaker 1: and beautiful, but it was also very isolated, stood miles apart,
Speaker 1: and news traveled extremely slow, and when something happened in
Speaker 1: those remote places, it often unfolded far from the eyes
Speaker 1: of the outside world. Most days would pass very quietly,
Speaker 1: but every so often something would happen that people simply
Speaker 1: couldn't forget. It may be a single random moment, or
Speaker 1: maybe a violent act, even a story whispered between neighbors
Speaker 1: until the land itself began to carry the memory of it.
Speaker 1: And sometimes those stories linger long enough that the place
Speaker 1: where they happened eventually makes you know what its way
Speaker 1: into history, even potentially its name of the land itself. Now.
Speaker 1: Long before this place became a rest stop along the
Speaker 1: Trans Canada Highway, the Bow Valley area in Alberta, Canada
Speaker 1: was already an important route through the Rocky Mountains. For
Speaker 1: thousands of years, Indigenous groups, including the Stony Nakota, used
Speaker 1: the valley as a natural corridor through the rugged life landscape.
Speaker 1: Later came explorers, furd traders, and settlers, all following the
Speaker 1: same path. Carved by the Bow River as it wound
Speaker 1: through the mountains, and by the late eighteen hundreds the
Speaker 1: region was beginning to change. The arrival of the Canadian
Speaker 1: Pacific Railway in eighteen eighty three opened the valley to
Speaker 1: large numbers of newcomers. Coal was soon discovered in the
Speaker 1: surrounding mountains, and the small settlement of Canmore quickly grew
Speaker 1: into a busy mining town. Workers arrived from across Canada
Speaker 1: and even Europe, drawn by the promise of a steady
Speaker 1: job in the mines and the chance to build a
Speaker 1: new life on the frontier. But despite the growing industry nearby,
Speaker 1: much of the surrounding land remained quiet and isolated. Now
Speaker 1: just southeast of Canmore, the Bow River flattened out as
Speaker 1: it flowed past the base of Pigeon Mountain. Here the
Speaker 1: river spilled across a stretch of low, open ground, an
Speaker 1: area locals simply referred to as the flats in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds. It was very peaceful, dotted with small
Speaker 1: homesteads and farms that were far removed from the noise
Speaker 1: of the mines. It was on this quiet stretch of
Speaker 1: land along the banks of the Bow River that a
Speaker 1: small dairy farm once stood, and it was here, in
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen o four, that a violent crime
Speaker 1: would take place and give the landscape the ominous name
Speaker 1: of dead Man's Flats. But long before the story of
Speaker 1: dead Man's Flats unfolded in the Canadian Rockies, it began
Speaker 1: thousands of kilometers away in rural France. The Marrat family
Speaker 1: lived in the Overne region, a rugged area of mountains
Speaker 1: and farmlands in central France. Their parents, Pierre and Anne Marat,
Speaker 1: were cattle farmers, raising their children in a modest rural
Speaker 1: life built around hard work and survival off the land.
Speaker 1: Now Pierre and Anne had a total of six children,
Speaker 1: though two of them unfortunately died young, which was not
Speaker 1: the most uncommon for the time. The four surviving siblings
Speaker 1: were Jean Louis, Francois, and their younger sister Eugenie. Like
Speaker 1: many young men in the area of France, the brothers
Speaker 1: spent time in the military. Several of them served in
Speaker 1: the French Army, gain experience that would later shape their
Speaker 1: lives in rather unexpected ways, but Francois in particular had
Speaker 1: a difficult military history. At some point during his service,
Speaker 1: he was discharged from the army, though the exact reasons
Speaker 1: are not entirely clear in any sort of surviving records,
Speaker 1: but that might highlight some things later on. Now. Life
Speaker 1: in rural France at the end of the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: could be difficult. Opportunities were limited, and many young men
Speaker 1: dreamed of leaving for a place where fortunes could be made.
Speaker 1: News of opportunity overseas, especially in North America, so bread
Speaker 1: quickly through villages and farming communities. For the Marrit brothers,
Speaker 1: that promise of opportunity eventually became too strong for them
Speaker 1: to ignore, and by the late eighteen nineties, two of
Speaker 1: the brothers made a decision that would set the entire
Speaker 1: story into motion. They would leave France behind and try
Speaker 1: their luck in Canada. It was in eighteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: when the two brothers, Jean and Louis, left France and
Speaker 1: set out for North America. Like thousands of other immigrants
Speaker 1: at the time, they arrived with very little money in
Speaker 1: their pockets, but with the hope that Canada offered a
Speaker 1: chance at a much better life. Their journey eventually brought
Speaker 1: them to the Beau Valley area in Alberta, a remote
Speaker 1: but rapidly developing place in the Rocky Mountains. The small
Speaker 1: mining town of Canmore had begun to grow after the
Speaker 1: coal was discovered in the surrounding mountains, and the Canadian
Speaker 1: Pacific Railway made it easier for everyone in supplies to
Speaker 1: reach the region. Now. When John first arrived in canon More,
Speaker 1: he found work as a night guard at the dynamite
Speaker 1: storage area used in the local coal mines. It wasn't
Speaker 1: glamorous work, but it was steady, and it gave him
Speaker 1: the chance to get established in the new region and country. Then,
Speaker 1: over time, John began building something of his own. It
Speaker 1: was along the Bow River flats, not far from the
Speaker 1: base of Pigeon Mountain. There he started operating a small
Speaker 1: dairy farm. The land there was relatively open compared to
Speaker 1: the surrounding mountains, and the nearby river made it very
Speaker 1: suitable for farming. Life here on the flats was quiet.
Speaker 1: The nearest town was Cammore, which was several kilometers away,
Speaker 1: and the dairy farm sat in a stretch of valley
Speaker 1: where the river widened and slowed as it passed through
Speaker 1: on the low ground.
Speaker 2: That kind of sounds like heaven.
Speaker 1: It does sound like heaven.
Speaker 2: Having a little farm in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people nowadays kind of dream
Speaker 1: of having something like that, right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, because it so I'm picturing like this piece
Speaker 2: of land it like overlooked the river and had like
Speaker 2: just like a picturesque kind of view.
Speaker 1: Right yeah.
Speaker 2: Basically oh and then they yeah, had cows like oh.
Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, Now the flats is like it is very flat,
Speaker 1: so like he's probably not too high above the river.
Speaker 1: It's like very big banks or anything.
Speaker 2: Okay, like picture if even more pretty?
Speaker 1: Really oh definitely, Yeah, the picture like that river rising
Speaker 1: would soon like engulf the land if there's like a
Speaker 1: major flood or something like that. Right. I don't think
Speaker 1: that was exactly common, but just an idea on how
Speaker 1: flat it was. So you have to think, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this area was it was shaped by the river, and
Speaker 1: eventually it kind of flattened out, carving its way through
Speaker 1: the mountains, and then slowly it became a smaller stream
Speaker 1: of water over the years, the decades, the centuries, right.
Speaker 2: Okay, because yeah, honestly, living by water like that could
Speaker 2: be a little bit freaky. We have some areas in
Speaker 2: our town that are pretty close to the river and
Speaker 2: they flood like every few years. Yeah, it's occasional, and
Speaker 2: I'm like that must kind of be stressful and kind
Speaker 2: of sok.
Speaker 1: Seing the water is so good for the soul though,
Speaker 1: Like you just you sit there on a riverbank and
Speaker 1: you hear the flowing water or the lapping waves of
Speaker 1: the ocean or a lake, even just the pond, a
Speaker 1: little splash off the shore or a fish jump. It
Speaker 1: just it's so nice.
Speaker 2: It just fills your cup.
Speaker 1: It does. Now. Jean worked hard to build a stable
Speaker 1: life here, and eventually his brother Louis joined him. He
Speaker 1: was helping on the farm while also working in the
Speaker 1: coal mines nearby. Like many men in the valley, they
Speaker 1: took whatever they could find for work. The brothers had
Speaker 1: come to Canada chasing an opportunity, and for a time
Speaker 1: seemed like they might have found it. But in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen hundreds, another member of the Marritt family would
Speaker 1: arrive in Beow Valley two. It was by nineteen oh
Speaker 1: two that word of the Marrett brothers new life in
Speaker 1: Canada had made its way back to France, and soon
Speaker 1: after that their younger brother, Francois decided to follow them
Speaker 1: across the Atlantic. When he arrived in the Bow Valley,
Speaker 1: he joined Jehan on the small dairy farm on the
Speaker 1: flats where Pigeon Creek meant the Bow River. At first,
Speaker 1: he helped with all the work around the farm and
Speaker 1: running a dairy operation in the rugged foothills of the Rockies.
Speaker 1: It wasn't exactly easy. There were long days of work
Speaker 1: that was constant, and whether it was milking cows or
Speaker 1: tending to the land or anything else that needed to
Speaker 1: be up kept on the small operation, it had to
Speaker 1: be done and they were working at it. However, Francois
Speaker 1: didn't seem to enjoy the life of a farm hand.
Speaker 1: After about fifteen months of working with his brother, he
Speaker 1: drifted away from the dairy operation and began taking odd
Speaker 1: jobs around the region instead.
Speaker 2: That is fair, okay, we have ten chickens and I
Speaker 2: feel like there are a lot of work.
Speaker 1: That's only I.
Speaker 2: Couldn't imagine how many cows they have. But also he
Speaker 2: would have kind of known what this work was like, right,
Speaker 2: he would have had to help. I imagine their farm
Speaker 2: in France.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his parents had a bit of a farm as well,
Speaker 1: so he should have known. It's not like, you know
Speaker 1: what working on a farm is any fucking news to him.
Speaker 1: He should know the labor it takes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, maybe he didn't. Like I guess it would
Speaker 2: be different though, working for your brother versus like your parents.
Speaker 2: Per se too well, and.
Speaker 1: I think part of it might have been, you know what,
Speaker 1: he left the farm life for something better and he
Speaker 1: goes to farm.
Speaker 2: Life to the same thing basically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe it was just that swap. It wasn't
Speaker 1: what he's expecting. Yeah, and then a lure of well,
Speaker 1: what's to come of these industries that are progressing? Bigger money?
Speaker 2: Right right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean next I have written here, Like many men
Speaker 1: in the Bow Valley area at the time, he eventually
Speaker 1: found work in the coal mines near Canmore. So the
Speaker 1: coal mines probably paid a lot better. I mean it's
Speaker 1: a lot more hard work, it's a lot more dangerous,
Speaker 1: but it's the basically the best paying job in the area. Now. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the third brother, Louis, he had his sight set on
Speaker 1: something else entirely, the Klondike gold Rush. It was a
Speaker 1: drawing thing for prospectors in the North and it was
Speaker 1: pulling them in by the thousands, and Louis soon left
Speaker 1: the Beau Valley area behind to try his luck in
Speaker 1: the Yukon. Now, that left Jean and Francois in the
Speaker 1: valley together. Now, by most accounts, the two brothers were
Speaker 1: very different people. Jean was seen as responsible and hard working,
Speaker 1: the kind of man who built something for himself through
Speaker 1: persistence and discipline. But Francois, on the other hand, well,
Speaker 1: he was quieter and a lot more unpredictable. Some people
Speaker 1: described him even as withdrawn and even a little strange.
Speaker 1: At first, these differences may have seemed harmless, but as
Speaker 1: time passed in Beau Valley, the behavior of Francois began
Speaker 1: to grow increasingly strange. According to later testimony, Francois started
Speaker 1: to hear things that no one else could hear. He
Speaker 1: claimed voices spoke to him, ones that he said belonged
Speaker 1: to his dead parents.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, here, I just thought he was having trouble
Speaker 2: adjusting to a new country.
Speaker 1: But that's a little bit more, a little bit more intense.
Speaker 1: So he said they were coming to him and speaking
Speaker 1: to him from beyond the grave. And along with the
Speaker 1: voices also came a constant buzzing sound in his head
Speaker 1: that he said he could never escape it. It was
Speaker 1: always there. Now. As time passed, these experiences began to
Speaker 1: shape how he saw the world around him in dark
Speaker 1: and very strange ways. In fact, Francois became convinced that
Speaker 1: his brother Jean was plotting to kill him. In his mind,
Speaker 1: Jean had built some kind of invisible electrical machine that
Speaker 1: he hid somewhere in the nearby forest. Francois said he
Speaker 1: could hear this strange device whirling at times, even though
Speaker 1: he admitted he had never actually seen it. Now, whether
Speaker 1: he had seen it in his own eye or not,
Speaker 1: though it didn't matter, because to him, this machine was real,
Speaker 1: and the voices in his head reinforced this belief too.
Speaker 1: According to Francois, the voice of his parents warned him
Speaker 1: that Jean was dangerous and that he needed to defend
Speaker 1: himself against Jean before it was too late.
Speaker 2: Oo. Okay, this is not good now.
Speaker 1: Whether the cause of this mental illness in Francois was
Speaker 1: trauma from his early military service or something else entirely,
Speaker 1: the paranoia continued to grow. Doctors who would later examine
Speaker 1: him believed he was suffering from severe hallucinations tied to
Speaker 1: a deep mental disorder that they couldn't really figure out.
Speaker 1: Some experts even suggested the condition may have been linked
Speaker 1: to his time serving in the French Foreign Legion in Africa,
Speaker 1: where harsh conditions and years of extreme hardship could leave
Speaker 1: lasting psychological damage. But in the quiet isolation of beau
Speaker 1: Valley in the early nineteen hundreds, well, there were few
Speaker 1: ways for someone struggling with mental illness to receive any help.
Speaker 1: And my likely guess is probably the only way was
Speaker 1: I bet at the bottom of a bottle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I mean even today it's still it's come
Speaker 2: ridiculously far, but it's sometimes still somewhat misunderstood for sure.
Speaker 2: Back then it's like you kind of almost hooped.
Speaker 1: You're on your own basically.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, as francois fears deepened, the line between reality and
Speaker 1: imagination began to blur more and more, and by the
Speaker 1: spring of nineteen oh four, the situation had reached a
Speaker 1: dangerous point. Francois had become convinced that his brother was
Speaker 1: an enemy who needed to be stopped. Then tensions in
Speaker 1: inside France was mind reached a crescendo. The voices he
Speaker 1: claimed to hear, the buzzing sounds, and his belief that
Speaker 1: his brother was trying to kill him. Had all become
Speaker 1: part of his everyday thinking, and on May tenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: oh four, something happened. Francois borrowed an axe from a
Speaker 1: woman named Ella may Lauder. Now, borrowing tools between neighbors,
Speaker 1: of course, wasn't unusual in small frontier communities like Beau Valley,
Speaker 1: and at the time there was nothing about the request
Speaker 1: that seemed suspicious. But in hindsight, the moment carried a
Speaker 1: much darker meaning, because that very axe would become the
Speaker 1: weapon he used in the brutal act that followed. Now,
Speaker 1: whether Francois had already decided what he was going to
Speaker 1: do or whether the plan formed some time later that
Speaker 1: night isn't entirely clear, but what is known is that
Speaker 1: the act stayed with him after he borrowed it. As
Speaker 1: night fell over the quiet flats along Bow River, the
Speaker 1: Merritt brothers returned to their usual routine. Their small cabin
Speaker 1: sat in the isolated stretch of land where Pigeon Creek
Speaker 1: met Bow River, surrounded by forest and open valley. To
Speaker 1: anyone passing by, it would have looked just like another
Speaker 1: peaceful evening in the mountains. But inside that cabin, however,
Speaker 1: darkness had crept inside. It was in the early morning
Speaker 1: of May eleventh, nineteen o four. The Quiet Dairy Farm
Speaker 1: long Bow River was still wrapped in darkness, and around
Speaker 1: five thirty a m. Francois Marette got out of bed
Speaker 1: and retrieved the axe he had borrowed that day before,
Speaker 1: while his brother Jean was still sleeping. Jean Marette was
Speaker 1: thirty two years old at the time. He was hard working.
Speaker 1: He was a dairy farmer who had gone to bed
Speaker 1: expecting to wake up and begin another day of work
Speaker 1: on the farm, but he never got that chance. Francois
Speaker 1: loomed over his brother, clutching the axe in his hands,
Speaker 1: staring down as his brother slept, and then he attacked
Speaker 1: him in his bed. The murder was sudden and brutal,
Speaker 1: and it was carried out before Jean had any opportunity
Speaker 1: to defend himself, and once the attack was over, Francois
Speaker 1: was left alone in the cabin with the blood and
Speaker 1: his brother's lifeless body.
Speaker 2: That is some savage ass shit, Yes, using an axe
Speaker 2: as a weapon. I just don't think that I could
Speaker 2: ever be okay with that, because that I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's visceral.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the visual of anyone killing someone with an axe
Speaker 2: just seems ridiculously brutal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to talk about getting personal in an attack,
Speaker 1: I think I think hammers and axes are the two
Speaker 1: that like scream personal because it's going to be savage,
Speaker 1: it's going to be bloody, it's going to be brutal,
Speaker 1: and it's gonna hurt.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And this brother, he was just sleeping. He caind
Speaker 2: wonder though if he had, well, he would never probably
Speaker 2: thought his brother would do something like this, But he
Speaker 2: would have had to have noticed some sort of change
Speaker 2: in his brothers.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he did notice there was some change, but
Speaker 1: I don't think. Yeah, like you say, he would never
Speaker 1: have thought his brother was capable of killing him.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: Now, sometimes after afterward, he carried John's body outside and
Speaker 1: brought it down to the nearby Bow river, and there
Speaker 1: he disposed of his brother by throwing his body into
Speaker 1: the water.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Now the river flowed past the low, open stretch of
Speaker 1: land with a shallow area where the current slowed and
Speaker 1: spread across the valley floor, so he wouldn't be taken
Speaker 1: away very fast. In fact, he wouldn't have been taken
Speaker 1: very far and before long the body would be discovered.
Speaker 1: But at that moment, in the early morning light of
Speaker 1: May eleventh, only one person knew what had happened, still
Speaker 1: inside that cabin. But afterwards Francois did something that would
Speaker 1: quickly draw attention to himself. Rather than fleeing the area,
Speaker 1: he went about his morning almost as if you know what,
Speaker 1: nothing had happened, And at some point after the murder,
Speaker 1: Francois traveled to Canmore, the small mining town several kilometers
Speaker 1: away where he'd been working in the coal mines. When
Speaker 1: he arrived, he reportedly began telling people that his brother
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be coming to town that day because
Speaker 1: he too did some work. He didn't just work full
Speaker 1: time at the farm. So he was telling people, Yeah,
Speaker 1: his brother's not going to be coming to work today.
Speaker 1: He's not coming. Now. That was odd, It was odd
Speaker 1: for him to make a statement like that, and it
Speaker 1: didn't go unnoticed. People paid attention when something seemed off
Speaker 1: or out of place, especially when someone began offering explanations
Speaker 1: for things before anyone had even asked any questions, And
Speaker 1: so before long word reached the authorities, the Northwest Mounted Police,
Speaker 1: the Law enforcement that was operating across the Canadian frontier
Speaker 1: at the time began looking into the situation. Meanwhile, along
Speaker 1: the Bow River Flats, Jean's body did not remain hidden
Speaker 1: after being thrown into the river. It drifted to that
Speaker 1: shallow stretch and was eventually discovered. Once the situation became clear,
Speaker 1: the Northwest Mounted Police began investigating the killing, and their
Speaker 1: attention quickly turned towards Francois.
Speaker 2: Okay, here, I was thinking he could have just gone
Speaker 2: into town and been like, my brother's on well, he's
Speaker 2: not feeling good, he's gonna you know, he's at home sick.
Speaker 2: But then if they're going to find him anyway, because
Speaker 2: the river gets very shallow, so.
Speaker 1: Well, he could have just not said anything, maybe disposed
Speaker 1: of his brother in a different way, and potentially got
Speaker 1: away with it. Yeah, you're talking like the early nineteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: On a farm, no one's going to question if you
Speaker 1: dig a little bit of a hole and bury something
Speaker 1: in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or even if he had just gone to work
Speaker 2: too and like pretended like nothing was out of the normal,
Speaker 2: and then he just said this happened while he was
Speaker 2: at work or something, right, like, well, I don't I.
Speaker 1: Mean he was attacked with an axe. You know, who's
Speaker 1: going to attack him with an axe?
Speaker 2: Might be some sort of person that's like, I don't know,
Speaker 2: doesn't like his brother could happen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you're in a remote area in a cabin.
Speaker 1: The likelihood of someone else coming in attacking him with
Speaker 1: an ass is slim, is very slim. So he's going
Speaker 1: to be suspect number one right away. So you have
Speaker 1: to hide the body to try and get away with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But yeah, like you said, just bury a hole.
Speaker 2: He probably would have gotten away with it probably.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Where did I leave off here? Okay? So once
Speaker 1: the situation was clear, the Northwest Mounted Police began investigating
Speaker 1: and their attention turned to Francois, and later that same morning,
Speaker 1: officers located him at Okaloosa Hotel in Canmore, where he
Speaker 1: was placed under arrest. From there, France who was taken
Speaker 1: into custody and charged with the murder of his brother.
Speaker 1: For the people living in Bow Valley, the crime was shocking.
Speaker 1: Violent killings were extremely rare in small mountain communities of
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds like this, and not long after
Speaker 1: his arrest, Francois was brought to Calgary. He was brought
Speaker 1: there to stand trial for the murder of his brother.
Speaker 1: During this time, serious criminal cases were smaller communities had
Speaker 1: to deal with these. They couldn't have the capacity to
Speaker 1: take it on, so communities like Canmore, for example, they
Speaker 1: were often sent to or sent to their culprits. They're
Speaker 1: people who do these crimes to larger regions for the
Speaker 1: courts and the capacity of them taking care of it
Speaker 1: makes sense. So the trial began almost two weeks after
Speaker 1: the killing, moving very quickly by modern standards.
Speaker 2: We're no kidding, I'm like, I love a streamline this
Speaker 2: is and also it was like, same day you killed
Speaker 2: your brother, you're arrested exactly now.
Speaker 1: What followed in the courtroom left many people struggling to
Speaker 1: understand what had been going through France Wois's mind. During testimony,
Speaker 1: Francois openly admitted that he had killed his brother, but
Speaker 1: the explanation he offered, while it was very unsettling to everyone.
Speaker 1: He told the courts that he believed Jean was trying
Speaker 1: to murder him using the aforementioned mysterious electrical machine hidden
Speaker 1: somewhere in the forest. According to Francois, he heard the
Speaker 1: strange device for on multiple occasions, just describing that whirling
Speaker 1: sound that convinced him his life was in danger. Now,
Speaker 1: I do have two quotes that I already kind of
Speaker 1: alluded to from Francois himself during testimony, one being quote
Speaker 1: I wanted to kill my brother because Jean tried to
Speaker 1: kill me with a whirring electric machine. And quote number two.
Speaker 1: I never saw the machine, but I heard it several.
Speaker 2: Times, and I'm assuming it's safe to assume that this
Speaker 2: machine just did not exist, correct.
Speaker 1: I think it's safe to assume that, yes, okay. He
Speaker 1: also told the courts of hearing the voices of his
Speaker 1: dead parents that spoke to him, warning him that John
Speaker 1: was planning to kill him. So, in his mind, basically,
Speaker 1: the attack, well it was it was an act of
Speaker 1: self defense. Other testimony offered different possibility for motives as well.
Speaker 1: One witness suggested that Francois may have been angry that
Speaker 1: Jean had refused to pay him for work that he'd
Speaker 1: done on the dairy farm. But as the trial continued,
Speaker 1: it became increasingly clear that Francois's mental health would become
Speaker 1: the central issue of this case. Medical experts were called
Speaker 1: to testify about his condition, and doctors described the voices
Speaker 1: and hallucinations as signs of serious mental illness. So after
Speaker 1: hearing the testimony and medical opinions, the jury was left
Speaker 1: with a very difficult task to side the fate of
Speaker 1: Francois Moret. There was very little debate about whether Francois
Speaker 1: had committed the killings. I mean, he himself had admitted
Speaker 1: to attacking his brother with the acts in the first place,
Speaker 1: but the real question before the court was whether he'd
Speaker 1: been mentally capable of understanding his actions. The testimony about
Speaker 1: the voices, the invisible electrical machine, and his growing paranoia
Speaker 1: weighed heavily on the case. At first, the jury found
Speaker 1: him guilty of the killing, but under the law at
Speaker 1: the time, that was not the end of the matter.
Speaker 1: The court still had to decide whether he was legally
Speaker 1: responsible for the crime, and ultimately the court ruled that
Speaker 1: Francois Moret was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Speaker 2: Okay, so even back then they kind of took that
Speaker 2: into consideration. Yes they did, which for some reason surprises
Speaker 2: me a little.
Speaker 1: So, rather than being sent to prison, he was ordered
Speaker 1: to be confined to a mental inn institution for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. Authorities transferred him to the Brandon
Speaker 1: Asylum in Manitoba, one of the psychiatric institutions used at
Speaker 1: the time to house people considered criminally insane. For the
Speaker 1: small community of Beau Valley, the verdict closed the legal
Speaker 1: chapter of this story. The man responsible was removed from
Speaker 1: society and that was that but the story, while it's
Speaker 1: not entirely over from here. After the trial, Francois Moret
Speaker 1: was transported over to the asylum and very little is
Speaker 1: known about his day to day life there. Records from
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds are limited, and much of the
Speaker 1: details surrounding his time there has been lost over the years.
Speaker 1: What is known, though, is that he remained confined at
Speaker 1: Brandon for several years following the trial, and Francois was
Speaker 1: a young man when the crime took place, but his
Speaker 1: time in the institution was short. On October seventh, nineteen
Speaker 1: oh nine, just five years after the murder of his brother,
Speaker 1: Francois Moret died at the asylum. He was only thirty
Speaker 1: one years old.
Speaker 2: Okay, shit, I was like he got out.
Speaker 1: He didn't get out, no, And we don't.
Speaker 2: Know why he died or how he died.
Speaker 1: No, not from what I could find.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's too bad.
Speaker 1: I mean, I imagine treatment at those places at those
Speaker 1: times were not the best. So my imagination can only
Speaker 1: come up with a few stories.
Speaker 2: Well, and then true like as well, when you get sick,
Speaker 2: there's less that can be done and stuff too.
Speaker 1: Yet for sure, and I mean honestly, who knows. They
Speaker 1: could have lobotomized him and things gone downhill after that.
Speaker 1: Who knows the It's a plethora of different things. Now,
Speaker 1: some later accounts have suggested that he may have taken
Speaker 1: his own life, though exact circumstances surrounding his death they're
Speaker 1: just unclear. But there are some places out there that
Speaker 1: claim this could be true, but it's not really known
Speaker 1: still now. Like many details from the era, the records
Speaker 1: are simply incomplete and we may never know the full truth.
Speaker 1: And with his death and responsible for the killing at
Speaker 1: the Bow River Dairy Farm faded into history. But the
Speaker 1: story was still not going to end there, because while
Speaker 1: the tragedy between John and Francois was unfolding at that time,
Speaker 1: their older brother Louis was chasing an opportunity far to
Speaker 1: the north, like thousands of others. At the turn of
Speaker 1: the century, Louis had been drawn to the Klondike gold Rush.
Speaker 1: Prospectors flooded into the Yukon hoping to strike it rich,
Speaker 1: and for the most of them their dream never materialized.
Speaker 1: But for Louis, however, it did. In nineteen o six,
Speaker 1: reports began appearing in newspapers describing a significant gold discovery
Speaker 1: at Baker Creek on the Stuart River in Yukon. One
Speaker 1: of the claims there was owned by Louis Morett. According
Speaker 1: to an article printed in the Dawson Daily News on
Speaker 1: May eleventh, nineteen oh six, the claim was producing strong results,
Speaker 1: and the report described quote fine pay being pulled from
Speaker 1: the ground and even mentioned that nuggets were occasionally being
Speaker 1: found too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like that because I feel like this family
Speaker 2: kind of has really shitty luck. So I'm glad that
Speaker 2: I guess one of them is, you know, at least
Speaker 2: kind of thriving.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, thriving is a good word for it, because
Speaker 1: by some estimates, Louis Morett earned around four hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty thousand dollars in gold between nineteen oh five and
Speaker 1: nineteen oh six, which is an enormous fortune. For the time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you adjust that to modern value, that's roughly eighteen
Speaker 1: million Canadian oly shit.
Speaker 2: He struck rich.
Speaker 1: He struck it rich. It's an incredible contrast to the
Speaker 1: events that took place back in Bow Valley just a
Speaker 1: couple of years earlier.
Speaker 2: To say that's kidding.
Speaker 1: But Louis's life later became something of a mystery. Historical
Speaker 1: records suggest that he eventually moved to Washington State sometime
Speaker 1: after nineteen eleven, where he married twice and later enlisted
Speaker 1: in the United States Army as a field artillery officer
Speaker 1: during the First World War. However, the war ended before
Speaker 1: he was deployed. Despite the fortune he was believed to
Speaker 1: have made during the gold rush, there is little evidence
Speaker 1: that Louis actually lived the life of a wealthy man.
Speaker 1: People who later looked into his story found that he
Speaker 1: worked a variety of ordinary jobs, and there was no
Speaker 1: clear explanation for what happened to the gold that he
Speaker 1: had once earned. Now, another unusual detail about the surviving
Speaker 1: members of the Moret family also emerged over time. Both
Speaker 1: Louis and his brother Francois ultimately chose not to have children,
Speaker 1: or at least not biologically instead they adopted. Now, some
Speaker 1: family researchers have suggested that concerns about hereditary mental illness
Speaker 1: may have played a role in the decision, reflecting ideas
Speaker 1: about genetics or anything like that circulating that era. Now,
Speaker 1: whatever the reason, the Moret family story ended up taking
Speaker 1: dramatically different paths when you look at it. One brother
Speaker 1: died in an asylum after committing the brutal murder of
Speaker 1: another brother, while another brother struck rich on gold in
Speaker 1: the Yukon and then quietly disappeared into history. But the
Speaker 1: place where the tragedy happened, the quiet stretch of land
Speaker 1: along the Bow River, would eventually take on a name
Speaker 1: that kept the memory of that dark moment. The story
Speaker 1: of these brothers all alive the years ticked by, But
Speaker 1: that wasn't going to be the end. Farms, small homesteads,
Speaker 1: and mining operations remained scattered across Bow Valley, and the
Speaker 1: story of the killing. Yeah, sure, it faded into history,
Speaker 1: but it didn't fade from local memory. At some point
Speaker 1: in the early nineteen hundreds, locals began referring to the
Speaker 1: area as dead Man's Flat. Exactly when the name first
Speaker 1: appeared isn't clear, but evidence suggests that it already had
Speaker 1: common use well before the mid twentieth century. One clue
Speaker 1: appears in August twenty fifth, nineteen twenty four's edition of
Speaker 1: the Calgary Herald, which used the name dead Man's Flats,
Speaker 1: showing that the nickname had had been circulating for decades.
Speaker 1: But over time, the origin of the name became a
Speaker 1: subject of debate. While many believe it referenced the nineteen
Speaker 1: oh four axe murder of Jean Morett, other explanations began
Speaker 1: to surface two One popular story involved two Stony Nakota
Speaker 1: trappers who'd been illegally trapping beaver in the area. When
Speaker 1: a park warden approached their camp. With no way to escape,
Speaker 1: the men well, they supposedly covered themselves in beaver blood,
Speaker 1: laid down on the ground, and pretended to be dead.
Speaker 1: According to the tale, the wardens saw this, ran off
Speaker 1: to go get help, and the trappers took the opportunity
Speaker 1: to escape with their pelts.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, that's actually incredibly smart.
Speaker 1: That's quite the story, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: However, historians have pointed out some problems with this story.
Speaker 1: There are no records of such an incident in the
Speaker 1: park warden's reports. Ever, taking place, and if two men
Speaker 1: had played dead, some have suggested the name would have
Speaker 1: likely been dead Men's Flats, not dead Man's Flats, being pluralized.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: Another explanation surface decades later. In nineteen fifty four, the
Speaker 1: Calgary Herald reported a story claiming that a prospector had
Speaker 1: been murdered in a cabin near the river, and then
Speaker 1: that would be where the name dead Man's Flats came
Speaker 1: from from that killing. But this explanation also has issues.
Speaker 1: The name dead Man's Flats had already appeared in newspapers
Speaker 1: decades earlier prior to this, suggesting that it had been
Speaker 1: in use long before this supposed prospector's murder took place.
Speaker 1: Because of that, many local historians believe the most likely
Speaker 1: explanation is still the simplest one. But the name dead
Speaker 1: Man's Flats traces back to the violent killing of Jean
Speaker 1: mart in nineteen oh four, when his brother Francois murdered
Speaker 1: him threw his body into the river, and then it
Speaker 1: became known as dead Man's Flats, with the name sticking
Speaker 1: over time. Now for decades, that name existed mostly as
Speaker 1: a local nickname and that was it. But things began
Speaker 1: to change in the mid twentieth century. The construction of
Speaker 1: the Trans Canada Highway in the nineteen fifties brought a
Speaker 1: steady flow of travelers through the valley. What had once
Speaker 1: been a remote farming area gradually turned into a convenient
Speaker 1: stop for motorists, truck drivers, and tourists passing between Calgary
Speaker 1: and the infamous vamp gas stations. Motels and service businesses
Speaker 1: began appearing along the highway, and the area slowly developed
Speaker 1: into a small commercial service center. For a time, the
Speaker 1: official name of the community was something much less dramatic.
Speaker 1: Between nineteen seventy four and nineteen eighty five, the settlement
Speaker 1: was formerly known as Pigeon Mountain Service Center, referencing the
Speaker 1: nearby mountain rather than the darker local legend. But the
Speaker 1: older name had never really disappeared from local use, and
Speaker 1: then official actually made a decision that surprised some people.
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty five, they gave the adopted name to
Speaker 1: the community as the new official name. It was now
Speaker 1: officially called dead Man's Flats. According to the local historians
Speaker 1: and municipal leaders, the unusual name was chosen partly because
Speaker 1: it was memorable and helped, you know, attract curiosity from
Speaker 1: travelers passing through Bow Valley, but not everyone loved the name.
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, a resident asked the municipal district to
Speaker 1: consider changing it to something a little more pleasant. Some
Speaker 1: people felt the name was too grim for a modern community,
Speaker 1: but after discussing the request, local counselors voted unanimously to
Speaker 1: keep the name.
Speaker 2: That's actually impressive, it is, but we don't really need
Speaker 2: to hide that bad shit happens either, right, I mean.
Speaker 1: Well, exactly very aware. And part of the reasoning was like,
Speaker 1: you know, historical, like the name had been used for
Speaker 1: how however, many generations, so a lot of people felt
Speaker 1: it represented, you know, an authentic piece of local history,
Speaker 1: rather than something that should just be erased and covered
Speaker 1: up with, you know, a pretty name. Because right now,
Speaker 1: as one local official explained at the time, changing it
Speaker 1: would risk becoming a form of historical revision, removing a
Speaker 1: reminder of events that shaped the identity of this very place,
Speaker 1: and so the name remained today. Dead Man's Flats is
Speaker 1: the small but growing community that's tucked along Bow Valley,
Speaker 1: just seven kilometers southeast of Canmore and about seventy eight
Speaker 1: kilometers west of Calgary. Travelers passing through on the Trans
Speaker 1: Canada Highway might stop for fuel, a meal, or a
Speaker 1: night at one of the motels before continuing deeper into
Speaker 1: the Rocky Mountains. What was once a quiet stretch of
Speaker 1: farmland along the Bow River has slowly developed into a
Speaker 1: service hub for travelers and a residential area for people
Speaker 1: working in the nearby communities. According to the twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one Eightian Census, the area has a population of three
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy seven residents, which is a significant increase
Speaker 1: from just one hundred and twenty five people in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Okay, but just hold hold the horse here for a
Speaker 2: sec Like their address is actually like dead Man's Flats, correct, Okay,
Speaker 2: I can kind of understand that that residence. Kind of
Speaker 2: concerned then that that is a videary I suppose, Okay.
Speaker 1: That's where they live. They live in dead Man's Flats.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay.
Speaker 1: So with new housing proposals and development plans, the small
Speaker 1: settlement continues to grow, but behind the modern buildings, the
Speaker 1: passing traffic, the history just still remains. More than a
Speaker 1: century ago, this quiet stretch of land was the site
Speaker 1: of a violent act between two brothers trying to build
Speaker 1: a new life in Canada. One of them would die
Speaker 1: in his bed, killed by an axe, and the other
Speaker 1: would spend the rest of his short life confined to
Speaker 1: an asylum, with things going on in his mind that
Speaker 1: no one understood. Over time, the details of the crime faded,
Speaker 1: replaced by legend and competing stories about how the place
Speaker 1: got its name. Some people still prefer the tale of
Speaker 1: the clever trappers who pretended to be dead to escape
Speaker 1: the park warden. Others pointed to the rumors of the
Speaker 1: murdered prospector, but many historians agree that the name dead
Speaker 1: Man's Flats comes from the murder in nineteen o four,
Speaker 1: when John's body was thrown into the Bow River near
Speaker 1: the shallow stretch of land where the river slows and
Speaker 1: spreads across the valley floor. Today, most people passing through
Speaker 1: the area honestly would never think twice about the name
Speaker 1: and the highway sign. But regardless, the name remains, and
Speaker 1: it's a quiet reminder that long before it was a
Speaker 1: roadside stop in the Rocky Mountains, this place was once
Speaker 1: the scene of a crime that gave the land a
Speaker 1: blood soaked scar that would stand the test of time.
Speaker 1: And that's the story of dead Man's Flats.
Speaker 2: Hmm, ding dang, ding dang, indeed freaking dang. So have
Speaker 2: you been?
Speaker 1: How often do we end with ding dang? I just realized.
Speaker 2: That that's got to be a.
Speaker 1: Lot, Like I bet you it's ninety percent of her episodes.
Speaker 1: How have I? How am I just realizing?
Speaker 2: Well, how elks do you? And this shit? Really? Okay?
Speaker 2: So have you been? There? Have you?
Speaker 1: I've driven through?
Speaker 2: You have driven through?
Speaker 1: I have driven through?
Speaker 2: Okay, See, I want to drive through. It is like
Speaker 2: a little bit of a tourist attraction of sorts. The
Speaker 2: name it makes it. The name makes it that for sure.
Speaker 1: And when I'm when I say drive through, like from
Speaker 1: my recollection of it, it's just a highway, like a
Speaker 1: double lane highway, and you have to go on like
Speaker 1: an off ramp to the community on the side of
Speaker 1: the highway. Okay, So like driving through is more like
Speaker 1: driving by it. I guess you have like mountains on
Speaker 1: the one side, and then there's just like the pullouts
Speaker 1: to go you can see like gas stations and buildings,
Speaker 1: and you pass by it and that's about all you
Speaker 1: see because it's small it's a small community.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, see it makes me want to go visit
Speaker 2: it just as a tourist, but the name alone does
Speaker 2: not make me want to go and live there. So
Speaker 2: I can kind of get that.
Speaker 1: Well, next time we go to Calgary, let's rent a vehicle.
Speaker 1: If we fly, if we drive, we can take our
Speaker 1: own vehicle. But next time we're in Calgary, let's make
Speaker 1: a point of driving over to dead Men's Flat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, take some pictures. I mean, gosh, that's like quite
Speaker 2: a story though. It's pretty. It's pretty eerie, it is.
Speaker 2: I thought it was kind of more so just the
Speaker 2: river that spot was named that, or it was like
Speaker 2: a tagline of sorts. I didn't realize it was the
Speaker 2: town's damn name.
Speaker 1: So well, it was kind of the area of the river,
Speaker 1: and the area developed its own little community. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that community is called dead Men's.
Speaker 2: I mean it's very unique. Give it that. It's kind
Speaker 2: of cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I like how it actually has history in there.
Speaker 1: And this episode, honestly, half of it was a history lesson. Really.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, imagine going anywhere though, and people are always
Speaker 2: like where do you live? Where are you from? And
Speaker 2: you have to say that liked man's flat. The follow
Speaker 2: up questions that would come, you know, would be a
Speaker 2: lot no kidding, but kind of cool too, kind of unique.
Speaker 2: I don't even know how you would really say what
Speaker 2: you would say, like you wouldn't want to go into
Speaker 2: the you know this this frick or maybe they can
Speaker 2: just recommend our podcast.
Speaker 1: Now touche to this pot touche. I'm actually curious how
Speaker 1: many of you have heard of this place and this
Speaker 1: story before. Of course, if you're local to the area,
Speaker 1: you probably know it. But if you are outside of
Speaker 1: one hundred kilometers of this place, I want to know
Speaker 1: if you've heard of this story before. I mean, if
Speaker 1: you're still close to it, I want to know too,
Speaker 1: But primarily I want to know if you are they're
Speaker 1: away one hundred kilometers from where it exists, have you
Speaker 1: heard of it?
Speaker 2: I'm thinking we're probably about what like eight hundred kilometers
Speaker 2: or so away.
Speaker 1: I think we're a little probably about seven hundred I'm guessing, okay, And.
Speaker 2: I have not heard of this at all.
Speaker 1: No, No, I have, but only because I've driven through
Speaker 1: it and I've seen the sign. I haven't heard of
Speaker 1: the story. I've just remembered the sign and then I
Speaker 1: came across the story the other day and I was like, oh, snap.
Speaker 2: Super cool story. Not cool that the brother killed the brother,
Speaker 2: but it is a very interesting story it is.
Speaker 1: But anyways, let us know what you think and let
Speaker 1: us know if you've heard of it before. I like
Speaker 1: covering these little, small Canadian ones sometimes it's fun. Thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. Don't forget to check with the
Speaker 1: description of this podcast, leave a review for us, because
Speaker 1: it's just us doing this and we do it for you,
Speaker 1: so your support goes a long way. And reviewing the
Speaker 1: podcast telling other people to check it out it goes
Speaker 1: a long way too, So thank you very much. You
Speaker 1: guys are amazing and until next time, stay wicked.
Speaker 2: B