Original subtitles

- [water trickling] - [loon calling]

[birds chirping]

[boat engine starts]

[dramatic music playing]

[woman screams]

[static]

A New Zealander living in Canada has been charged with murdering his wife.

[reporter 2] Laura Letts-Beckett, beloved teacher, drowned in August of last year.

They were on vacation from their home in Westlock, Alberta.

[reporter 4] It had been believed that while on a fishing trip,

Laura Letts-Beckett had fallen out of a boat and drowned in these icy waters.

Fifty-year-old teacher Laura Letts-Beckett died in August last year.

Initially, her husband claimed she fell off a Zodiac while they were fishing.

Now, police say it was murder.

[camera clicks]

[Jacquie] He's looking at a minimum of 25 years in jail.

[Tim] Was this a murder or a tragic accident?

[Terry] There were two people on a boat and one of them drowned.

Only one knows what happened, who's alive.

[no audio]

How can you possibly put a first-degree murder charge

on the husband of the deceased that's going through grievous trauma?

He had so much to gain, money-wise.

Life insurance policy is up to about $850,000.

This was the start of the campaign

to turn Laura's drowning into a murder.

[Jacquie] It was obviously not a typical case.

It was a highly unusual case.

He wants the family whacked, he wants officers blown up.

[Tim] We're talking about hidden diamonds and dynamite.

And now he's also charged with plotting to kill these five witnesses.

I was astounded that this man was facing this charge.

Twenty-seven judges and justices

came and went off R v. Beckett.

The biggest miscarriage of justice, I think, in the world.

[dramatic music playing]

[light music playing]

[Colin] Shelter Bay, it's a beautiful spot.

Tourist destination for the world.

It's a cold body of water.

People do drown in there, and there's been close calls in our park before,

but this was pretty real.

The first time I met Peter and Laura was the first year

that I worked at the campgrounds.

They'd roll in in this big bus RV.

They normally stayed for like two weeks at a time.

I spent a lot of time at their picnic table.

Peter's like a jovial guy.

He took on this persona. The campground unofficial host, I guess.

Laura was like a classic schoolteacher.

She was caring. She was really sweet.

They spent a lot of time out on the water.

This was somebody I knew, and this was somebody who wasn't there anymore.

You know, somebody who died.

Yeah. I still don't really know what to believe.

I was the non-commissioned officer in charge of Revelstoke Detachment.

[siren wailing]

There had been a sudden death down at Shelter Bay.

When I arrived at the scene, Peter was wrapped in a blanket.

The constable on duty gave me a rundown of what his story was.

You're in an isolated area with nobody around,

nobody to back up what you're saying.

And some of what he was saying was suspicious.

There's something wrong with this.

This isn't your typical whodunit.

Things he was saying didn't make sense logically.

I don't know when he's telling the truth or when he's not telling the truth.

Only the truth comes out of my mouth.

I loved that girl. She loved me.

Truth is stranger than fiction.

[Jacquie] I recall him mentioning to me that he had taken a tranquilizer

or something to that effect.

I've been to many deaths in my career,

and that's the only one that I can recall

that ever said that he took a tranquilizer.

[birds chirping]

[Peter] Woke up on August 18th.

Another beautiful day.

I used to wake up early

and, uh, with my love in bed, I'd go out fishing.

Normally about 4:30, five o'clock,

it's great time for the rise of the rainbow trout that Laura loved.

I come back about 8:00 or 8:30.

Had, uh, breakfast, which was normal.

As a pretty successful fisherman.

We made love.

Had a shower.

He did mention at one point that prior to going out fishing, they made love.

And I don't think that question was ever asked of him.

[Peter] This particular day, Laura wanted to go into Revelstoke,

do some laundry, and do a bit of shopping at thrift shops.

She loved thrift shops.

And then headed back to the lake

and the campground about 2:30, three o'clock,

and out in the little Zodiac for our afternoon fish.

[boat engine starts]

[Peter] This particular day, she brought a four-and-a-half-foot umbrella.

First time ever.

[Jacquie] He indicated that she had an umbrella.

He also said that she could not swim,

but was not wearing her life jacket.

[Peter] Off we went hitting up the coastline,

fishing the drop-off which is between 10 meters and 30 meters from shore.

Laura was reading.

The book she had in the boat that day was called, I Saw the Lord.

She had suggested that we go in to try

and get some more shade because it was really hot.

I was pulling in one of the two rods I had out as I was coming to shore.

My focus is out the back of the boat.

And I heard this splash winding in one of the two rods.

I realized that Laura wasn't there.

I spun the boat around.

I could see her bright yellow shorts in the water.

I went over the side to dive down to grab her.

[heart beating]

[Peter] And I made six, maybe ten attempts to do that.

[Jacquie] He tried to recover her.

However, he was too buoyant due to his size.

[Peter] I knew this wasn't working.

I realized that I need to get some weight.

We were only 20 meters offshore.

Swam and then waded to shore, grabbed a rock.

Just instinctive stuff from my diving days.

Used the rock under my arm to give me some negative buoyancy.

Grabbed her, dropped the rock...

then proceeded to take it ashore.

The rock, it did not make sense to me.

[Peter] I started administering CPR.

Just giving lots of air to her.

And the amount of water that came out of her nose,

hitting the side of my face, was one of those paralytic moments

of PTSD that I had for years.

I couldn't save her.

Losing my other half, it's still hard.

It's the worst day of my life.

We inspected the Zodiac as much as we could,

to look for any evidence that we could find.

It's a small Zodiac.

Very overcrowded.

We didn't see any claw marks or anything on the side of the vessel

that would indicate that she was trying to struggle to get back into it.

There was a life jacket sitting in the boat.

Apparently, she was sitting on it.

So that was on her end of the boat.

But she does not swim.

Was not wearing a life jacket.

His story did not make sense.

[Peter] It was not homicide or murder.

I knew that.

But was it an accident or was it suicide?

[dramatic music playing]

Hey, buddy.

Hi.

Hi.

Hey. How was your day?

Hey, how was your day?

I only knew Laura to be smiling and happy.

She was always there, ready to help.

Now, Laura's family, their main farm operation was a big operation.

Huge amounts of land, and they're still very successful farmers.

Bob shall be ready to retrieve within a moment's notice,

the most obscure item requested for,

for various business equipment that dots our farmyard.

[Karen] How I am related to Laura is our moms are cousins.

And as families, we spend time with each other.

And Laura was bossy, but that's okay.

Bossy's good.

She was a firstborn.

She's an older sister to two boys.

She had a lot expected of her.

And I think she rose to the occasion.

[Shirley] She studied at the University of Alberta

and got her Bachelor of Education.

And she was a marvelous teacher.

The kids loved her.

She wanted to be independent.

The money that her parents had didn't influence her whatsoever

and she didn't rely on that at all.

Very wealthy.

They own a lot of land.

They garnered their respect from the community

from being involved through their church.

[church bells clanging]

We were all raised in a Brethren church.

They called it the Open Brethren.

We have a faith, and a very strong faith,

and it was decades deep and generations deep.

I guess there are some that could have seen it as being a bit extreme.

But it--to me, it was like another evangelical church.

In terms of religion,

she followed whatever her family wanted her to follow.

And that actually is probably a lot of her turmoil.

Her family didn't believe in marrying anyone who had been divorced.

When Laura went off to university, she met this young man.

He was the one.

And she just didn't know what to do

because she know her family would not accept him.

And then she got involved with a local doctor in town.

But because he was a divorced man,

that was the deal-breaker.

I knew she was heartbroken, not being able to step forward

and do what her heart said instead of what her parents said.

I think that was the impetus for the trip to New Zealand.

She was looking for something fun, and she found some fun.

[Peter] You're never very far from the water in New Zealand.

I was born in Hastings, New Zealand.

I came from low-socioeconomic family.

We would all go out and pick fruit to fund our summer holidays.

Traditionally, everybody holidays at the beach.

Motor camps, swimming, surfing, scuba diving.

Spent a lot of time in the water.

I loved fishing with my father.

It was one of his favorite sports.

Always fished, yeah.

Always boated.

And, uh, out of that evolved Unimog Adventure Tour,

and gannet and coastline tours.

Our love story began on the 30th of November 1995.

I came down from the hill,

pulled up outside the Visitor Information Centre

in Napier with the Unimog.

The guests got on, including this little Canadian.

Laura's about 5'5" and probably then maybe 110 pounds.

Very, uh, articulate, is Pete.

And he--and he's easy to talk to.

And he could get on well with, um, a lot of the customers.

[low chatter]

Can talk up, uh-- talk up a storm when required.

[inaudible]

[Peter] After we went with the green ex-army vehicle

around the rugged coastline to Cape Kidnappers,

to the largest mainland gannet colony in the world.

So they went for their walk, and I went out diving for paua or abalone.

When they all came back,

I was cleaning the abalone.

Paua shell is used for jewelry.

It's beautiful on the inside.

She asked if she could have a shell.

And I said, "Of course you can."

[Phil] When I first met Laura,

she was in the front of the cab of the truck with Peter.

Very quiet person.

Seemed to be very shy. Yeah.

Like chalk and cheese.

Peter was larger than life.

Gregarious.

Could be charming, charismatic.

[Peter] We're driving back, and she's asking me about paua.

"How do you eat them?"

And I said, "Well, I've got some in the fridge at home now."

I said, "Would you like to try some?" And she said, "Yeah, I'd love to."

And at that moment I thought, "I just invited her for dinner."

I just met this girl. And I'm not like this.

Anyway, we talked from maybe seven o'clock

to one o'clock in the morning.

And then the next day,

they were all over each other.

Held hands, cuddled, kissed.

She--I don't know.

She just clicked with me for some reason.

I ended up touring her around the island in one of my rental cars.

And I think on day two,

I said to her, "You were abused as a child, weren't you?"

And she said to me, "How can you possibly see through all my masks?

How could you possibly know my innermost-kept secret?"

And I said, "I don't even know why you wear your mask.

Why do you?"

And that was the relationship we had.

Like, every time I wanted to phone her, the phone would ring.

[dialing]

Laura would come to school some days very, very tired

because she'd been on the phone for hours with this fellow.

[Peter] And, you know, we spent five years apart

between 1995 and 2000.

[Laura] "Dear Peter, hello to you from Canada!

There has not been a day go by

that I have not thought about you since we last spoke.

I would love to be transported there in an instant,

to sip kiwi wine and eat paua fritters

and have one of our wonderful talks.

As always and forever yours, Laura."

My first marriage lasted 23 years.

We were separated when I met Laura.

It took a while for Peter to come to Westlock.

I wasn't convinced that my marriage was over.

My children were still young,

and we reconciled.

But the marriage never got any better.

And Laura and I, our love wouldn't die.

The first time I visited Canada

was Christmas Day, year 2000.

And it was just like we hadn't been apart.

That was my first white Christmas. Incredibly romantic.

And I made the decision to move to Canada.

When we first met Peter, he was, you know, funny.

He just encapsulated joy, really.

And everybody kind of fell in love with him.

We actually thought he was a great guy, like, just jovial.

He was great friends with her parents.

[Peter] Laura's parents, Park and Beth Letts, loved me.

[Shirley] I don't believe that her parents knew

about Peter and his marriage and children,

and I don't believe she wanted them to know.

[Peter] We married on the 5th of July 2003.

We had a beautiful wedding.

It was at the Westlock Inn, about 120 guests.

I was received with open arms

from her family and all of her friends.

Everything was hunky-dory.

[dramatic music playing]

My boss knew that I had warned my staff

to stay away from Peter,

and that started some talks happening on that end to--

for me to need to follow up with the police.

This was the third year that they had come back.

But the third year was a little different.

Peter was aggravated and more confrontational.

The first night in the campground, he was asking for firewood.

He was saying the bundles are getting smaller,

they're getting more expensive.

He was coming at me a little bit.

It was a bit of an uncomfortable situation.

And, uh, you know, he was drunk,

and he definitely was like visibly intoxicated.

The next evening, Laura came up to, uh, hang out with me,

and, uh, we were laughing and having a good old conversation.

And, um, Peter zipped off in his boat

and did a big U-turn out in the water

and, uh, went to the front of his bow and, you know,

was standing on the front of his bow

with his hands on his hips starting at me.

[dramatic music playing]

He's an intimidating guy.

He's like six and a half feet tall, and he's just a big presence.

It was a really disturbing thing. I didn't--it was a bad feeling.

It was definitely one of those things

where the hair on the back of my neck was standing up.

I made sure to warn my staff to stay away from him.

I think it's best if we just keep our distance from him and deal with Laura.

That was kind of my last main interaction with Peter and Laura,

and I think the last time I saw Laura.

[dramatic music playing]

[Jacquie] We wanted to have a forensic pathologist,

but the coroner couldn't justify a forensic pathologist

when we had only suspicions and no evidence.

So he made the decision that it was going to be a pathologist

and not a forensic pathologist.

There was no evidence of murder,

but evidence in a drowning is very difficult.

They drown. They have lungs full of water.

Unless you find a bump on the back of the head or something,

it's very difficult to prove that there's something untoward in it.

[dramatic music playing]

The decision had to be made how we get Laura back to home.

[Shirley] Her mom and dad had one request of Peter,

that he bring her home.

They wanted to see her one last time.

They wanted to bury her.

They wanted--you know, they wanted her home.

We were ten hours away.

The most practical solution under the circumstances was cremation.

They never had an opportunity to say goodbye.

I just wanted to get back home with Laura.

You're in a fog.

I don't remember setting the ashes

in her seat of the motor home

with her teddy bears,

Ernie and Audrey,

cuddling her.

And she was there.

We at that point were like, "This is very suspicious."

I think he did something.

Uh, we all think he did something.

[dramatic music playing]

Shortly after Laura passed, there was a phone call that was made

to the Revelstoke detachment by one of Laura's cousins,

who relayed some very shocking information.

[Shirley] My cousin had relayed one story to me

about Peter telling Laura,

one day she would die,

and that she would die on a lake.

And that she would never know when that day might be.

[Terry] She wouldn't know when and wouldn't know where,

but Peter was telling her how.

Laura had a cousin, Virginia Lyons-Friesen.

She made this crazy statement.

And I thought, "Wow.

How does that get picked up and turned into a murder investigation?"

At that point, the file was given lock, stock, and barrel to Major Crimes.

[camera whirs and clicks]

[Terry] We started with the investigation

at the end of November

in a clandestine manner...

[cameras clicking]

...which included surveillance and wiretap.

Intercepting private communications of Peter,

installing listening devices within his home.

I didn't even know that they were running an investigation.

I had no reason to believe that there would be.

[camera clicking]

[Terry] On May 2011, we did a general warrant

and we executed it surreptitiously into Peter's residence.

Laura loved to journal, or she was a journaler,

and wrote down her thoughts or whatever was going on in the day,

and we thought maybe there would be information

that would be gleaned from what she had in her journals.

[Laura] "Were we ever real and genuine with each other?

I know I was.

The abuse that you pointed out in the very brief encounter with me

really took me off guard.

Very insightful. Eerily so.

I saw that as a healthy spiritualness,

but perhaps it was all deceptive maneuverings that took place.

Perhaps I was just a walking billboard

with loneliness, rejection, humiliation,

and a broken heart written all over me."

[Terry] In the fall 2007,

there had been some issues between them and their marriage,

and Laura and Peter separated.

[Gail] Just out of the blue one day,

she calls because Peter had left

and she was going to a lawyer.

Well, that was a bombshell.

[Peter] Laura's parents had discovered the fact

that I had had one previous 23-year marriage.

At first when I came to Canada,

we said it's none of their business that I had been previously married.

Why should we tell them? We know what the end result will be.

They wanted to affect an immediate divorce.

All the papers were drawn.

They were strategically served on me by my birthday.

Lots of threats

and allegations of physical and emotional abuse

that were totally untrue just to justify it.

I took the motor home.

I thought there needs to be a cooling-off period here.

This ain't my problem. This is Laura's problem.

She's lost two previous loves because of this family dynamic.

I'm going.

And he was gone.

He took the motor home,

and as far as I-- well, he went to the States

and he was gone.

[Peter] But I hadn't given up on reconciliation.

And of course, in the end, we reconciled.

[Jacquie] Major Crimes talked to some of her family and relatives

and friends in Westlock.

I don't know whether Peter was physically abusive,

but he had a temper

and he... he would show anger,

and that must have been very intimidating.

I really feel like Peter is a bully.

[Terry] There was a contact that was made by one of Laura's cousins,

and she wanted to pass on some information

that she believed was very relevant to the file.

[Shirley] Peter would stop the motor home out in the middle of nowhere,

and he would drive away and leave her there.

She could have been miles from anywhere.

She'd have to walk to the nearest town,

or whatever she could find.

And, like, who does that?

I just told the police everything

that I had heard through the family

that might make him think that they should investigate.

If you look at it through the lens

of them being in this troubled marriage,

murder becomes, you know, more of a believable narrative.

We believe one of the motives was financial gain.

Laura was described as a very frugal person,

and people saw that her lifestyle changed considerably after she met Peter

and became involved with a relationship with him.

Laura drove a very old,

in good condition, SUV.

All of a sudden, there were flashy cars and a big motor home.

[Gail] The BMW and Jaguar.

Like, a Jaguar?

That's just not Laura.

Laura was careful with her money.

Um, Peter was the opposite.

[Gail] The honeymoon, in Laura's opinion, was disastrous.

He had her. He got her, hook, line, and sinker.

He was now married to her. He now had access to her finances.

He couldn't live the lifestyle he wanted to live without money,

and he was obviously not prepared to earn it himself.

Laura was the main breadwinner of the family.

Well, he did have a few jobs.

I know he drove a bus, I think, for a while,

but it never seemed like he had a full-time,

long-term job.

He got a job as a long-haul trucker, and he was fired.

He's told us he quit, but I did know from someone else that he was fired.

[Tim] Peter had allegedly a lot to gain from her dying.

Her pension, the vehicles, the motor home, the boats.

Peter gained a lot financially

through his time with Laura.

That's the only reason I could see

that the motive was here, was about money.

[Terry] Laura was life-insured between I think four or five different policies.

The last one that was bought by Peter came into force

just a little over a month before she died,

and that particular claim or policy was for accidental death only.

Is everybody

whose wife is insured guilty of murder

because the wife has got insurance?

The life insurance angle,

that's the only thing they had to hang their hook on.

During the investigation, we obtained several statements from Peter.

We realized there was more and more discrepancies about what happened

between the different versions we were either learning ourselves

through our direct communications with Peter,

or through intercepts as a result of the wiretap.

And then we did the, uh, reenactment in June.

We wanted to get his version of events again,

capture that as best we can.

Obviously not close to the shore, or is this okay?

- Yeah, this is fine. - [Peter] Okay.

[Terry] First time that Peter met me face-to-face,

and where he was introduced to me was when we did the reenactment.

I was the operator of the boat that Peter was on.

[Peter] We were coming in to get some shade,

and that's when I heard a splash.

I immediately grabbed my other rod thinking I'd hooked up...

which is a fisherman's instinct, correct?

And the beach umbrella came down between us in the boat.

And I start winding, and after a couple of seconds,

I said, "Laura? Laura, where are you? What's happening?"

I hear nothing.

[Terry] That night of the incident, Peter relayed the fact

that Laura went in the water yelling and screaming, flailing her arms.

I don't hear "Peter." I don't hear screaming.

I hear nothing.

And I'm looking for Laura, and it's like she's gone.

I turned the boat around

and I saw her flailing.

She was head up.

And I just flicked off my glasses

and went over the side to get her.

And then I'm diving and diving and diving.

And she's getting further and further away from me,

and I'm getting more and more tired.

I'm in a panic situation, and I have to get some weight.

And I picked a rock from the shore here,

and I couldn't see Laura in the water.

And that's when I saw bubbles coming up.

[Terry] He says he finds Laura below the surface.

If you think about the fact that you're on shore

and looking out in the lake of water, where do you start?

[Peter] And I remember putting the insides of my feet

around her neck and on her shoulders.

Many inconsistencies about how he brings her to the surface,

from going down and pulling her up to going down and hooking her with his legs.

That's where I tried to revive Laura, right here.

Eventually, we made our way to the shore.

[man] Peter, were you wearing shoes that day?

[Peter] No, they were floating out there in the water.

- [Terry] Did you lose them then? - [Peter] Yeah.

Oh, no, I recovered them. I was wearing these.

- [man] Those were the ones here? - [Peter] Yeah.

Peter, at what point did your shoes come off then?

[Peter] When I was first diving for Laura.

[man] So, when you first went in then?

- [Peter] Yeah. - [man] Okay.

I believe the question advanced from that was,

"Well, why do you still have them?"

Did you lose both of them?

No, they were just floating out in the water.

These things float like Crocs.

Do you remember when you were able to retrieve them?

[Terry] Peter never thought about why he still has the shoes.

Well, uh, maybe...

maybe when I was pushing the boat back in on the shore.

Had we caught him in a position where he didn't have an answer?

It wouldn't have been before that

because all of my priorities and efforts

were on retrieval and resuscitation.

Okay.

I think the only time where we really saw a turn in his demeanor

was the talk about the shoes.

I'm getting pretty wet to you guys.

Basically, at that particular point in time,

he shut down the interview.

Why change?

There should be no reason to change your story.

It's about saving the life of a--of a human being

and, uh, the truth is the truth, right? So...

[dramatic music playing]

Well, nothing happened for a full year.

We thought, "There's nothing happening, nothing's gonna happen."

As far as I know, he just carried on life.

It left our community with a feeling of unease.

Uh, I felt it, um, and I don't think I was the only one.

[dramatic music playing]

[Peter] It was the 12th of August,

and Laura drowned on 18th of August.

Six days short of one year.

The fog was just starting to lift.

I was with very good new friends,

going for a ride to their place on a beautiful day.

The home that he had been staying at was within, I'm gonna say,

a few hundred meters of the US-Canada border.

Given the proximity to the US-Canada border,

we had some concerns of him possibly absconding from jurisdiction

to face these offenses.

[police siren wailing]

[Peter] We were just entering Grand Forks,

and the driver got pulled over.

But instead of the officer coming to her side,

They came to my side and said, "Are you Peter Ernest Edward Beckett?"

And I said, "Yeah."

They said, "You're under arrest for first-degree murder."

A Westlock man has been charged with first-degree murder

in the death of his wife.

Laura Letts-Beckett died last August.

[reporter 2] Peter Beckett left his family, his business,

and his council seat to start a new life in Canada.

But just over a year ago,

his Canadian wife Laura Letts-Beckett drowned in these icy waters.

[man] Go ahead and have a sit there.

Peter Ernest Beckett, you're under arrest for the following offenses.

There's a saying in the RCMP,

and it's well-known throughout the criminal justice system,

that the RCMP always get their man, even if it's the wrong one.

That's changed now.

The saying is now, the RCMP always get their man,

even if there was no crime to begin with.

The criminal justice system in Canada

is paved with these types of injustices.

[cell door closes]

[dramatic music playing]