IS A KILLER WALKING AMONG US?

By Lethbridge Herald on March 20, 2023.

Herald file photo by David Rossiter The home of teacher Lorraine McNab is seen in this Dec. 1997 file photo.

Murders of Peter Sopow and Lorraine McNab still unsolved 25+ years later

Ron Devitt
SPECIAL TO THE HERALD

Elly Preston spends a lot of her spare time watching reality police shows and cold case file TV programs. In most of those cold files, the cases are solved by the dogged determination of police and family members.

So it’s hard for her to believe that the December 13, 1997, assassination-style murders of her brother, RCMP Sgt. Peter Sopow, and his 47-year-old schoolteacher girlfriend Lorraine McNab, near Pincher Creek have not been solved.

Sopow, the commanding officer at the Fort Macleod RCMP detachment, and McNab, were shot around 10:30 p.m. They were gunned down in the front yard of McNab’s property near Pincher Creek.

They were both shot with a .22 calibre weapon by someone who lay in wait for them to return home from an evening visiting McNab’s parents. The person or persons responsible cleaned up the crime scene and placed the bodies in the back of a horse trailer on the property.

The bodies weren’t found for two more days. By then the perpetrator(s) had long fled the scene.

A man was arrested shortly after the murders, only to be transferred to a mental health facility, and later released without charge. The man was also a teacher and had taught with McNab at Lundbreck School and they even went on one date together.

His car matched an early 1970’s maroon-coloured Mercury Cougar seen parked near the murder scene, and his description was close to the one provided by a witness who had seen the car in the area. 

Police found nothing had been stolen from the home, no sexual assault had taken place and the victims were not robbed.

The .22 calibre weapon has never been found despite searches in several bodies of water in the Pincher Creek area. 

Police received more than 1,000 tips from the public and utilized several experts in their investigation, including FBI specialists. Over the years the tips dwindled and the case handed over to the RCMP’s Historical Case Unit.

“There’s no contact (from police). It’s very depressing,” said Preston, who lives on Vancouver Island. “It’s been 25 years now and nothing’s been done.”

On her cold case TV shows, the detectives find a new clue or use DNA technology to break the case open.

“You think in this day and age something would have been done by now. I’m very surprised,” said Preston. “They haven’t told us anything.”

Peter Sopow was born in Nelson, B.C. and graduated from the RCMP training in Regina at the age of 19. He was stationed at detachments all over Alberta and settled at Fort Macleod where he earned the rank of sergeant and commander of the detachment at the age of 37.

“He was one of the youngest to become a sergeant,” says Preston proudly. “He was what you call a good policeman. He knew how to treat people and to talk to people. He was well-liked as a policeman and a person.”

She said he had plans of returning to B.C. upon his retirement from the RCMP.

“He was planning on retiring the following Mayhen this happened,” said Preston.

And although he was more than three years older, Preston said the two of them had an unshakable bond. 

She recalls him breaking his baby finger the same week she broke her baby toe. She said things like that happened all the time with the two of them.

When the murders occurred, Preston was living in B.C. but somehow knew – through her strong bond with her brother – that something was wrong.

“I was at a party, and I had to go into a back room and sit in the dark because I knew something was happening,” said Preston.

She said she had to go to counselling for a year after the murders.

“Peter had the biggest heart,” she said. “He couldn’t wait to go out and help people. He was my older brother and he was the rock of the family.”

Preston doesn’t subscribe to the theory that the teacher arrested not long after the murders is guilty of the crime. Preston has her own theories about who may have killed her brother and McNab – including the possibility of there being more than one person involved.

Preston believes the motive could have been one of the oldest in the book – jealousy.

She said her brother was spotted coming out of a jewelry store in Pincher Creek shortly before the murders. She said soon thereafter, the rumour mill went to work, and people started to believe Sopow had bought a ring for McNab with the purpose of proposing.

Preston said Sopow wasn’t buying a ring, but rather a necklace for McNab as a Christmas gift. She believes someone acted out of jealousy on that false information. 

Preston lost her dad in 2002 and she said her mom, 97, still wonders what happened to her son all those years ago.

“She’s devastated and still waiting,” said Preston of her mother. “I’m hoping to God and pray that this will be solved soon – at least before my mom passes. It’s been so hard on the family to not have this solved after so long.”

Lesley Marsh, McNab’s daughter, also has her theories about the person or persons responsible for Sopow and her mom’s death.

“There are many different possibilities,” said Marsh. “There’s all kinds of accusations.”

While the Lundbreck School teaching colleague of her mom’s remains at the top of her personal list of suspects, she hasn’t ruled out other possibilities.

Marsh said the man was determined in his pursuit of her mom.

“He wanted to take her on a date. They went on one date, and she had enough of that, and he just wouldn’t give up. 

“We’d get phone calls at the house – we had a house phone back then – and no one would say anything, they would just stay on the line. We got lots of those. A lot of the times when my mom was gone, he’d drop flowers or fish sometimes, because he had a fishpond, and leave them on the deck.”

Calls made to the RCMP’s Historical Crimes Unit were not returned by the Herald’s publication deadline. However, an RCMP media spokesperson said: “It’s still an open investigation and there is nothing new.”

On December 20, 1997, a regimental funeral was held in Edmonton for Sopow. More than 700 first responders attended. McNab’s funeral was held two days later in Pincher Creek with over 1,000 people in attendance.

Ron Devitt is a former Herald reporter who covered the case extensively.