Rampage: Canadian Mass Murder & Spree Killing by Lee Mellor

Author:Lee Mellor [Mellor, Lee]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2013-02-10T14:00:00+00:00

Bad Things, Small Package

After the gun theft, William Roszko gave up on his son and avoided arguing with him altogether. Disciplining Jimmy became the sole responsibility of the police. Social workers intervened and fostered the wayward teen out to the Ziemmers — local farmers with a solid reputation. It wasn’t long before the patriarch, Herbert Ziemmer, realized that the “quiet, ordinary boy” entrusted into his care was absolutely self-absorbed. Jimmy denounced his brother John as a “square” when Herbert praised his sibling’s work ethic. Eventually, Jimmy unleashed a torrent of obscenities at the other Ziemmer children, and was sent back to live with his mother, her second husband, and Jimmy’s newborn stepbrother Douglas. However, while Stephanie had once been overjoyed at having traded dour old Bill for the tall, handsome Marvin, she now found herself wed to an even worse wife-beater who obsessed about her carrying on affairs with other men. On one occasion, Marvin battered her so severely that he fractured her skull, and Jimmy had to drive her to the hospital. According to William, his son began to fantasize about killing his stepfather. Fortunately for Prosser, Jimmy let him live. After Jimmy dropped out of high school in grade eleven, he divided his time between petty crime and legitimate labour, trying his hand as an oil worker.

Jimmy’s criminal record began in earnest in November 1975 and continued until his death. Of all the surviving policemen who had run-ins with him over the years, veteran RCMP officer Mike Statnyk knew the depths of Jimmy’s evil better than any. In 1993, Roszko filed a formal civilian case against Statnyk for investigating him in the alleged sexual assault of several teenagers. Even though Statnyk was removed from the case, Jimmy continued to harass him, driving by his family home at all hours, and even conspiring to assassinate him. “Jimmy was always willing to step it up one. Jimmy crossed the line,” recalled Statnyk. “You know most criminals will respect a person, a member’s family … there’s boundaries that you as a policeman have, but there’s also boundaries that … criminals have. And … they know where to step and not to step.… I thought there would come a time when it would be a likelihood that I would probably have to shoot Mr. Roszko on my property out of fear for my life or my family’s life or safety.…” Statnyk echoed the statements of Jimmy’s stepbrother Doug and those of William and John Roszko: “Jimmy wasn’t used to being told.… He was used to getting his way.” Following the murders at Mayerthorpe, Alberta Justice Minister Ron Stevens requested that Gordon K. Wong, QC, conduct a review of Roszko’s past criminality. Wong’s Report on James Michael Roszko: Prosecution History, presented on September 23, 2005, reveals a versatile and extensive criminal career:

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