A jury has found Arthur Penner and Elijah Strawberry guilty of second-degree murder and armed robbery in connection with the August 2024 death of Colin Hough. The fatal incident occurred on a rural road east of Calgary while Hough was perfoorming his duties as a Rocky View County employee.

The fatal intersection north of Chestermere

The violence began on August 6, 2024, when a stolen truck with a flat tire pulled over on a rural road east of Calgary. According to the report, a masked individual shot Matthew Andres in the arm before stealing his vehicle and driving it nose-down into a ditch. During the encounter, Andres told the shooter to take his keys, believing he was going to die.

Colin Hough, an employee for Rocky View County, witnessed the smoke and flames rising from the wrecked vehicle and stopped his truck to assist . Tragically, Hough was killed during the confrontation, an event partially captured by video footage from a nearby semi-trailer driver showing a figure collapsing in the middle of the road. The chaos at the intersection north of Chestermere turned a roadside mechanical issue into a deadly criminal encounter.

DNA matches link Penner and Strawberry to the stolen vehicle

The prosecution's case relied heavily on forensic links between the suspects and the crime scene. Jurors heard evidence that DNA found on items at the intersection and inside the stolen truck matched both Arthur Penner and Elijah Strawberry. These biological markers provided the primary connection between the men and the stolen property used durring the robbery.

The pursuit of the suspects involved a significant manhunt across the region. While Arthur Penner was arrested five days after the shooting, Elijah Strawberry remained at large for a month. Police eventually located Strawberry hiding in a home on the O Chiese First Nation,leading to his eventual trial at Calgary's Court of King's Bench.

The Crown's 'two shooters, two guns' theory

During the trial, prosecutor Photini Papadatou presented a theory of shared culpability to explain the involvement of both men. She argued that the incident was not the work of a lone actor but a coordinated crime involving two distinct perpetrators working in tandem.

As the repot states, Papadatou urged the jury to convict by emphasizing the scale of the violence, claiming the offenses involved "two shooters, two guns, two stolen vehicles, [and] two robberies." Although Penner and Strawberry originally faced attempted murder charges, those specific charges were withdrawn during the course of the trial.

The missing identity of the specific shooter

Despite the guilty verdict, the defense highlighted a significant gap in the direct evidence presented to the jury regarding the specific identity of the gunman. Defense lawyer Alex Seaman argued that the prosecution failed to provide a definitive link between a specific individual and the actual act of pulling the trigger.

Seaman pointed out that the jury never heard testimony from a witness who could specifically identify which man was responsible for the shots fired at Andres or Hough. The defense maintained that the lack of photo lineups or direct eyewitness identification meant the case remained a puzzle with too many missing pieces to establish a reliable picture of individual responsibility.