(Supplied: Blood on the Prairie, Facebook)

By Abby Zieverink

Unsolved Mass Murder

Local podcast launching to focus on infamous 1918 Grande Prairie murders

Jan 22, 2022 | 6:00 AM

Two local podcasters are gearing up to release the first episode of Blood on the Prairie.

Back in March 2021, Chris Beauchamp alongside Cris Seppola were awarded $10,000 in funding by TELUS STORYHIVE to produce a crime podcast that dives deep into the unsolved mass murder case of six men in the Grande Prairie area in 1918.

Beauchamp says episode one of Blood on the Prairie will launch on January 26 and details what they later reveal to be the first of the two crime scenes for the unsolved mass murder case.

“Episode one takes us through the initial discovery that was discovered first. It takes us through what investigators found on that scene, it takes us through the community reaction. People were locking their doors and arming themselves. It (then) takes us into episode two, where we discover that there’s a second scene and a whole second set of clues and facts,” he explained.

Beauchamp says the first three episodes are roughly 30 minutes long and stay fairly chronological to what the public and investigators knew at the time of the murder, back in 1918.

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He adds after episode one of Blood on the Prairie is released this upcoming Wednesday, the rest of the episodes will be released once a week.

“As we get into the case a little bit more in subsequent episodes with the foundation of the facts of the case presented already to the audience, we can jump around in time a little bit more and we can get a little bit more complex in our own ability to story-tell in the right way,” he said.

Beauchamp adds episode four is scheduled to be the longest episode to be released and will be more of a deep dive on the Peace Region.

Beauchamp believes the podcast will have eight episodes total.

“As a story, and the way we are telling it, it’s a murder mystery and we are almost trickling the information out as we tell the story,” he added.

“There are so many details, so many characters and names and events that we can’t just dump it all out in one hour, for instance, it’s going to be a slow burn and we are really taking our time with the material and presenting it to the audience, so they (the listener) can get a good understanding of not just the facts of the case, but also what are some of the considerations of looking at an event from 100 years ago.”

Over the past year, Beauchamp says and Seppola did a lot of reading, research, and writing for the podcast, which he mentions brought a lot of information to light.

“Even digging through the sources we first started with there were quite a few of archival sources that we got from the different archives,” explained Beauchamp.

“Even starting with that huge amount of material, every single document you look at leads you down another rabbit hole of more documents or organizations to reach out to. So it’s been an ongoing research project to even just get through that information.”

He adds research also included talking to family descendants of the case and local historians.

“Specifically Alyssa Curry who was the former Director of the South Peace Regional Archives and Dr. David Leonard is really the historian of the Northern Alberta Region and beyond the former head of provincial archives himself but, Dr. Leonard has given us his time more than once as well as some of his own research materials.”

Beauchamp tells EverythingGP after all the hard work both he and Seppola have put into the project, he says finally launching the podcast is both exciting, yet nerve-wracking.

“We’ve been working really hard on this, and now we are about to put it out into the world and everyone is going to have an opinion on what we’ve done and hopefully people find the material compelling and engaging and they love it as much as we do,” added Beauchamp.

“It’s been really amazing to see the impact this project is already having on our community, there is a lot of interest, we’re getting a lot of social media attention. A lot of people who have maybe a personal connection to the case or maybe heard this story told in their own family who are really excited to hear what we do with it.”

Blood on the Prairie podcast will be available on all major podcast platforms as of January 26, 2022.

More information can be found on their Facebook page.