[Intro]
Welcome listeners to another episode of Beyond the Unknown. Im your host Joli, and Im Quinn, and today, we are covering a tragic case of domestic abuse and a missing person found in the bottom of a pond in Alberta. How are the two situations related? Who was the perpetrator? … Who was the victim? Stay tuned to find out.
Quinn: content warning – Please we aware that this episode contains discussion about domestic abuse which may be traumatizing for some of our listeners. If you or someone you know is suffering from abuse, please visit the government of Canada website for resources based on geography and specific types of abuse. We will link this website on our website and social media posts.
[BODY]
So I am bringing us back to Eastern rural Alberta, once again, in a small town called Holden. If you check out our social, I’ve put a map to show how close this is to the Capital city of Edmonton. Once I started uncovering a few interesting stories in this eastern Alberta area, I continued to find many more. If you are new here, and haven’t heard be drone on and on about rural Alberta yet, these are communities that are primarily supported by the agricultural industry where most people are either farmers or leave their home to work in the oil patch. Farms are varied but typical either, or some combination of, grain farming and cattle.
For grain farmers, every late summer and early fall is a make or break situation. This is when the monumental task of harvest takes place. If the weather had cooperated, you will have had enough rain, but not too much, and enough sun, but not too hot, and your grain will be plentiful. If not, and the weather was harsh and too dry, as Alberta’s climate often is, your harvest return could be somewhat dismal. What you make in harvest in turn is how you (1) make a living (2) pay off any debts you would have accrued to actually seed the grain, and (3), if you also have livestock on your farm, this money would help support that sector of your business.
So why am I going on and on about this, well, this is an integral part of our next story about the Naslund family. The Naslund family consisted of Helen and her husband Miles, and their three sons Wesley, Darrell and Neil. In Holden, for the Naslund family, their livelihood dependended on this relatively uncontrollable situation, and they were at the mercy, as all farmers are, of mother nature. They also farmed sections of land that weren’t of the greatest quality, and this matters greatly when the weather is also uncooperative, as good quality land can help crop thrive under some pretty hard circumstances. Unfortunatley, time and time again, this family was let down and the crop yields were simply not enough to cover the debts and feed the family, and they were at risk of losing their livestock. In order for them to make ends meet, Helen worked as a manager at an equipment rental company. From the outside, it seemed as though their story was similar to so many in the area, but what was happening behind closed doors, was very dark and evil, and it is rumored that the entire community was reasonable aware of what was happening, and no one tried to help……
Why don’t we start from the beginning and get to know Helen Naslund and her life as she knew it until DATE at the age of 41.
Helen’s maiden name was Speed. She was born in 1964 and was the youngest of 8 children. Her parents, somewhat aloof and unaffectionate, operated a dairy farm in central alberta. Life wasn’t always easy however and the family moved around a lot to make a go of their farming. Her parents were however dedicated to their family. Helen kept to herself mostly but she was known to be very hardworking. At 16, Helen moved to Camrose just south east of Edmonton to make a life of her own. She got a job working in a mall Cafeteria. Camrose is a town that is south-east of Edmonton – just went there today for the second time in my life! It is actually a booming metropolous when it comes to small towns in Alberta and has a population of around 19000 – which is pretty big for a classic small farming town. I am always blown away by all the amenities there haha. At 18, Halen met and married 21-year-old Miles Naslund. Helen didn’t seem to have much of a choice in the matter. Apparently Miles saw her and decided he wanted to get to know her, and essentially followed her around until she agreed to go out with him. Then she started spending most nights at his trailer. Miles then sold his trailer and moved into her apartment. This made Helen a little uneasy as she had just gotten freedom from her family and did not want to be tied down. She had big dreams of being a paramedic and owning her own farm. She tried to leave him but he flew off the handle and guilt tripped her, saying he had no where to go and no one loved him. One thing lead to another and the pair had only been together a few months before tying the knot in 1983. Helen figured that even if they wrent a perfect match, their farm owning goals lined up. After marriage, Miles started to become more and more controlling.
Shortly after marriage she gave birth to her first son, and would later give birth to two more sons. Helen was described as a very happy and joyful woman and mother. She had hobbies and interests. She was an avid barrel racer and would complete in rodeo events, but eventually, she sold her horses, gave up competing and stopped going out altogether. Apparently she stayed out a little too late one night after barrel racing, and Miles flew off the handle. Helen then told her horse and stopped barrel racing. Eventually, the neighbors stopped calling and visiting, children no longer allowed to come over to play on the Naslund farm, and even Helen’s parents reduced the frequency of their visits to once per year. So what was going on at the Naslund farm that was driving people away?
To set the stage for the first part of the couple’s marriage, we should talk about the economy in the 1980s. Although the Albeta economy had been absoluteing booming due to oil, in the 80s, the economy took a massive downturn across the board and interest rates spike. So, if you weren’t paying off your debt, you would be racking up mighty high additional debt thanks to the high interest rates.
Miles had a temper and overtime he turned to alcohol more and more. The more he drank, the more rageful, cruel and belligerent he became. Sometime in the 90s, he bought a .357 Magnum gun which he kept loaded and either on his person or next to him at all times. Most might not see owning a firearm as a farmer particularly threatening, but farmers typically use their weapons to protect their livestock from prey, and this isn’t how Miles was ever described as using his firearm…this was a weapon of control to use on his family members. Whether it be to threaten to kill them or even, more commonly, threatening to use it to kill himself.
In both Helen’s and her son’s accounts, Helen had been abused physically and psychologically throughout her entire marriage. Helen worked at and outside of her home to keep the bills paid. When outside of the house, Miles would request to know exactly where she went and who she spoke to. All of her time had to be perfectly accounte for. She was not allowed outside of the house without Miles unless to go to work. When she would come home from work, she had to cook dinner for the family, and she would tend to all of the farm chores. It was even Helen doing all of the cow checks in the wee hours of the night in freezing temperatures with newborn babies and toddlers to take care of, as all the child rearing was her job as well. Miles would threaten her a gun point or beat her if she did not start cooking soon enough. He would say things like “if you don’t stat effing cooking supper, ill fucking kill you”. She couldn’t even so much as make an independent decision regarding the types of meals to make, as he once beat her for cooking macaroni twice in one week. He even locked Helen in a room for 1-2 days with her sons on the other side at gunpoint. Which was the ultimate form of torture, knowing her sons were at the mercy of this man and she was completely helpless, because the abuse did not stop with Helen, her sons had been abused as well, and would often get caught up in the altercations in an effort to save their mother from getting beaten up. Her son recalls many swollen eyes and split lips in an effort to protect his mother. He recalls her often being punched in the chest or stomach, or shoved to the ground. Her son Wes recalls being whipped with a bull whip as a punshiment for getting in trouble as school. Miles smashed Wes’s head into the windshield of a truck that he had accidentally crashed. Helen tried to stop Miles, but she was a small woman and was often helpless against the brutal force of her husband. Helen did threaten to leave, but her son recalls her being shoved into their bedroom, and when she came out, she was crying. She told her son that she could not leave as Miles threatened to find and kill her if she left. She was completely and utterly trapped. Helen attempted to end her life on multiple occasions to try to escape the nightmare, and once was nearly successful. Although she was very clearly in a terrible situation, she was truly helpless due to Miles’ threats against her and her children, so she stayed.
During the labour day long weekend in 2011, one of the busiest times on the farm, Helen returned home from work to find Miles drunk on the couch, rather than working out in the field. Miles awoke from his drunken stupor, grabbed his gun, and ordered Helen and their youngest son to finish the farm work. So Helen and her son did as they were told. Even though she was tired from a long day work, she continued to work through the day, and did so the following day as well. That night, after working the farm two straight days without help from Miles, Helen set to cooking their dinner as she always had. She set the meal on the table and laid out the food. Miles came over to the table, inspected it, and violently shoved all of the plates, cutlery and food from the table saying that the meal wasn’t fit for a dog. He continued to threaten and harass Helen and her two adult sons living at home. IT wasn’t until he passed out that night that the family finally got a break from his relentless abuse.
That night, Helen retrieved a .22 caliber revolver stored in a cabinet in their farmhouse. She went to her marital bedroom where Miles was sleeping and shot him in the back of the head.
She ended his life, finally putting an end to the 26 yearlong history of abuse.
Helen went to the basement to wake her 19-year-old son Neil. Darrel was also asleep in the basement but was not woken by his mother. Miles’ and Darell were described as somewhat close, so perhaps that’s why he was not involved. Together, Neil and Helen pulled the body from the bedroom and somehow got it inside of a large metal toolbox. They then added weights to the toolbox and welded it shut. They then drug the toolbox to a slew on their property, a slew is like a pond. There they tossed the toolbox and watched it sink out of sight. Helen then took the bloodied items from the bedroom and burned them. Working for an equipment rental company, Helen was able to get an excavator from work to use to bury Miles’ car. Neil and Helen then went to tell her son Wes what had happened.
On September 6, two days following the Miles’ murder, Helen reported him missing. The story given was that Miles had left the farm in his car to go buy a part they needed for the farm, but he never returned. It was implied that he likely ended his own life, and this is genuinely something he frequently threatened to do. He was also a wellknown alcoholic and quite frankly known to be an ass hole, so rumour has it, people didn’t look super hard for him. There were no missing posters or community search parties. Most had their suspicions about what actually happened, and were quite franky just happy he was gone.
Over the next many years, Helen and her sons kept the secret about what really happened on Sepmteber 4, 2011. They maintained the story that he left one day and never returned. Meanwhile, Helen worked several jobs around town and the secret was kept. And for 6 years, Helen was finally free.
Unfortunately, though, Helen’s peaceful existence was once again about to be turned upside down. In 2017, the middle son, Darrel, for no apparent reason, told other people in town while at a local bar, that his brother and mom killed and buried his dad. Obviously, word got around and the RCMP became involved. RCMP searched the Naslund farm and recovered the metal tookbox from the slew. Inside, they found Miles’ partially decomposed body.
Helen and Neil turned themselves in.
Helen was charged with first degree murder, but later plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter. Neither lawyer mentioned her history of abuse as a factor to be considered, but instead focused on the “indignity done to the body” and in choosing the length of Helen’s sentence, there was absolutely zero mention of her nearly 30 years of being a victim, but instead said, and I quote “This was a callous, cowardly act on a vulnerable victim in his own home, so his domicile, by a partner”. Helen was given an 18 year sentence. Helen agreed to this deal as it would lessen the sentence faced by her youngest son Neil.
The 18 year sentence is and at the time was seen as extremely harsh. No one considered her history of abuse, not even her own lawyer. It was messed up. Additionally, sometime in 90s, a law passed in which “battered women XXX” should be considered, and thus this often reduced the penalty for women killing abusive partners, as often, they killed to save their lives, but the judge here said that it wasn’t relavent. The lawyer defending her even said he “struggled to use the battered woman” angle in the case. This case infuriated me beyond belief. …..I don’t even know.
Luckily, Helen’s case and her 18-year sentence sparked outrage across the nation. A woman who was a victim of abuse, questioned by male officers and detectives, repreented by and against men, by a jury of men. The legal system is in many ways still geared towards men. A petition was organized by a grassroots advocacy group called “women who chose to live” and over 18000 signatures were collected by 2021. Another petition in Ontario got over 25000 signatures. There were many factors that caused such outrage, one being that there seemed to be zero focus on the fact that Helen was a battered woman. The sentencing judge also focused heavily on Helen’s use of a firearm, but this was countered by the fact that men often kill women with their bare hands, by strangulation but most women often cant overpower a man due to strength/size imabalance, thus a weapon is the only means of defence. They also pointed out that there should have been more emphasis on weather or not that the weapons in the house had ever been used against the woman herself, and in this case, Miles’ threatened his wife and sons with his gun regularly. Another noteworthy point is on the matter of prior convictions for intimate partner murder. So, in Canada, since COVID-19, a woman is killed by her partner every 2.3 days (which previously was every 6 days). In 90% of these cases, the killer was the man. Some of these men received far lesser sentences than Helen, and these men were the violent offenders who ultimately killed their partner! Until Miles’ murder, Helen wasn’t even the offender! Anywho, when we look at a few cases, one guy in 2017 choked his wife to death and got 8 years! Ten less than Helen. Another guy in Alberta, sawme province, murdered his wife and cemented her in the basement and his initial sentence was only 7 years! In 1986 there was a woman who shot her husband in the back of the head with a gun after an altercation and she had also been a longtime abuse victim, a jury of 11 men and 1 woman found her not guilty of all charges.
Finally, in February 2021 Helen asked the Alberta Court of Appeal to review her case. When the case was reviewed, Helen’s sentenced was reduced by half, to 9 years minus time already served. Additionally, Helen was acknowledged to clearly not have entrenched criminal behaviour and showed excellent behaviour throughout her time served and thus has been granted unescorted 72 hour absences. In 2022, she was granted day parole. When she is eventually release, she will live with her sister Sharon, and her friend guy, who now owns the Naslund farm and actually paid her defence fees, says her job at A1 rental company will always be waiting for her.
[Outro]
So there you have it, the story of Helen Naslund, forced to take matters into her own hands to do something that would likely ultimately save her life, and it ended up costing her dearly. I just want to note that, if you are thinking..why didn’t she just leave him? This is such an outdated view, but I feel obligated to say a few things here. One, the psychological abuse and learned helplessness creates a feeling of being unable to leave. Thereis often an element of financial abuse as well making it very challenging for a woman to leave. Also note that the highest risk for murder is within the first 18 months of leaving the partner as the violence escalates significantly. We will leave you with that for thought. If you or someone you know is a victim of abuse, we strongly encourage you to visit the government of Canada website for regional resources. We have put the link on our website and social posts.
[Transition Music]
Joli: Thank you for joining us for another episode of "Beyond the Unknown." If you have a story you’d like to share, please email us at moody.mediaprod@gmail.com. You can reach out on our website, and who knows, your story might be featured in our next episode.
Quinn: All of our sources for this episode can be found on our website: beyondtheunknownpod.com.
And don’t forget, if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a review.
Joli: Until next time, listeners. Stay curious and remember that the unknown is always just beyond the shadows.
Both: BYEEEE
