U of A Robbery and Murder Suspect, Travis Baumgartner, Pleads Guilty
U of A robbery and murder suspect, Travis Baumgartner, pleads guilty to murder.
Mr Baumgartner was charged with one count of attempted murder, one count of first-degree murder and two counts of second-degree murder. He was charged for shooting four colleagues of a G4S Cash Solutions crew who were busy reloading ATMs at a mall of University of Alberta in June last year. One of them survived a head shot, while the other three died. The young man, 22, entered his plea on Monday.
When Mr Baumgartner was captured at a U.S. border crossing near Vancouver after 36 hours, he was found with a backpack that had $334,000 in it. He was arrested after warrants were issued all over Canada.
He had been on the job for 3 months before he committed the crime. Mr Baumgartner was charged with one count of attempted murder of the survivor, Matthew Schuman, one count of first-degree murder of Eddie Rejano and two counts of second-degree murder of Michell Shegelski and Brian Ilesic.
The team of five G4S Security guards - the four victims and the suspect - arrived at the U of A Hub Mall at 12:10 am on June 15, 2012. They came in two armoured cars to exchange money at an ATM of a bank. Three of them were shot and murdered in the mall itself, while another was found to be critically injured with a bullet in his head outside the mall.
Rod Knecht, police chief, soon announced after having a look at the CCTV footage that investigators were looking for a suspect named Travis Baumgartner. Mr Baumgartner was finally arrested the next day at the Lynden, Wash., border crossing.
Mr Baumgartner at first claimed that he could not remember what had happened to him in the previous 3 to 4 days. He also identified himself as David Webb. David Webb happens to be a fictional murderer in the Jason Bourne series of Robert Ludlum. However, he confessed that he had been responsible for shooting all four of them. He described the shooting procedure in detail later on. He declared in the court that he was totally frustrated with the world.