Lethbridge, Alberta
“I saw her standing on her front lawn
Just twirling her baton
Me and her went for a ride, sir
And ten innocent people died…”
“Nebraska” – Bruce Springsteen
We have become regular funeral goers, something Bear and I never aspired to. This weekend we were in Lethbridge for a cousin’s celebration of life.
On the trip down to Bear’s hometown, we reminisced about other losses we have experienced over the years. There have been many, but the story Bear told today is about as heartbreaking as it gets.
Bear recalled a funeral she attended in 1976, when she was just nineteen. I had heard pieces of Donna Peard’s story before but never realized the extent of the tragedy.
Donna Peard – 1974 LCI Yearbook
Bear and Donna were members of the Lethbridge Collegiate Institute parade band in 1974.
Donna played clarinet.
Bear (centre, beneath the “Montana” banner) was a flag-carrier and baton-twirler.
Bear got to know Donna well when the LCI band travelled to Spokane, Washington to perform at the opening of the 1974 World’s Fair. The girls were roommates for several days in Spokane, along with Andrea (Andi) Sheridan and Gail Kirkman.
Bear has a photograph of the four girls in a bubble bath. The photo has been misplaced (or possibly hidden from me), so I have substituted this stock photo, which could be the girls of LCI.
The Spokane trip was a memorable one, and the band members kept in touch after they returned.
–
In the days leading up to the weekend of April 24, 1976, Bear and Andi Sheridan hatched a plan to go spring skiing at Lake Louise. They asked Donna Peard to join them for what was likely to be the last spring run of the season, but Donna already had plans. She and another girl intended to drive to Montana to visit Donna’s boyfriend, who was studying at university there.
After work on Friday, Bear and Andi headed north to Lake Louise. The same day, Donna Peard and her friend Carolyn Sterenberg crossed the southern border, bound for Missoula.
The decision not to go skiing that weekend, proved fatal for Donna.
The Liberty Lake Community Newspaper, “The Splash”, published an article in 2011, describing the horrific events that occurred in their community 35 years earlier.
According to The Splash, two young nursing students from Lethbridge, Donna Peard and her friend Carolyn Sterenberg both 19, were returning home after a weekend in Missoula, Montana. As they neared Rogers Pass on the morning of April 24, 1976, the weather deteriorated, to the point that the girls turned the car around, intending to return to Missoula.
Just outside of Lincoln, MT, a hitchhiker emerged on the side of the road. It was snowing and the man appeared wet and freezing. The young women stopped the car and invited the disheveled man to ride in the back seat. David Anthony Johnson (20) a drifter originally from Everett, WA had been looking for work in Montana. He hadn’t landed the job in Lincoln he was hoping for, so Johnson was hitchhiking back to Missoula when the girls picked him up.
There must be something in the water….
Ted Kaczynski (the Unibomber), another dishevelled man from Lincoln, was apprehended here in 1996.
As soon as Johnson settled in the back seat, he brandished a .22 calibre revolver and demanded that the girls take him to Spokane. He ordered them to bypass Missoula and drive west on US Highway 90.
For the next five hours, Peard drove the terrified teens and their abductor almost 200 miles, crossing two state boundaries, while the delusional monster in the back seat barked out orders.
As the car neared Spokane, Johnson ordered the girls to take several off-ramps and then get back on the interstate. He appeared to be looking for a secluded area but hadn’t found anything suitable. A little further along, Johnson ordered Peard to take the Liberty Lake exit and then turn onto South Liberty Drive, a remote, sparsely populated side road.
As they rolled to a stop, Sterenberg in the passenger seat was convinced they were going to die.
“He’s going to kill us. Let’s run.”
Peard slammed the brakes; the two women yanked the doors open and jumped. Johnson shot Peard as she was exiting the car. A coroner’s inquest determined that the bullet entered the back of Donna’s neck, exiting her lower jaw. “Death was immediate”.
Sterenberg was able to avoid two gunshots directed at her by ducking behind a passing car. One of the bullets went through the windshield of the vehicle, narrowly missing the driver, Helen Waller.
Johnson pulled Peard’s body from the driver’s seat and rolled her onto the pavement. He then drove off in the car.
Bob Sullivan, a resident of South Liberty Drive witnessed the event…
“We were looking out the dining room window. I saw this car slam on the brakes, and I heard, ‘pop, pop, pop.”
Sullivan contacted the authorities and covered the body in his front yard with a blanket.
Peard was beyond help, and her killer was long gone by the time police and an ambulance arrived at the remote location.
A widespread manhunt persisted through the night with extensive press coverage of the event.
Peard’s driverless, bloodstained car was found stuck in a trench near a golf course; SWAT teams scoured the area through the night.
Early the next morning, an alert young waitress at the Country Kitchen Restaurant in Spokane Valley, several miles from where the incident took place, observed a nervous man ordering breakfast. The man fit the suspect’s description, so Judith Kirsten called police. They arrived on scene within minutes and arrested the man without incident.
Carolyn Sterenberg survived the ordeal and returned to her family in Lethbridge.
David Anthony Johnson was found guilty of second-degree murder, incarcerated for 15 years and served an additional 4 years under parole. Johnson disappeared after his final release in 1994 and has not been heard from since.
Donna Peard’s sentence is still underway.
Bear visited Donna’s grave today. She took her old friend and band mate some flowers.
Nebraska – Bruce Springsteen
From the town of Lincoln, Nebraska Montana
With a sawed off .410 on my lap
Through to the badlands of Wyoming
I killed everything in my path
…
Well, they declared me unfit to live
Said into that great void my soul’d be hurled
They want to know why I did what I did
Well, sir I guess there’s just…
… a meanness in this world
Bruce Springsteen’s song Nebraska, is based upon a killing spree that took place in 1958. Charles Raymond Starkweather murdered eleven random people on a week-long rampage through Nebraska and Wyoming. Starkweather’s victims experienced the same cold-blooded cruelty as Donna Peard.
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