On October 28, 1929, the Casement family began to move. They were leaving the shack on their farm about four miles southwest of Leslie, Saskatchewan, to move to a farm on an adjoining quarter.
The couple’s eldest son, Robert, was going to take over the operation of the old farm with his good friend, George Ireland. The two planned to move into the shack once the rest of the Casement family had vacated. Robert wasn’t home for the move, however. He was up north with George’s father, helping him scout out a new homestead, so George was helping with the move in his absence.
By October 29th, most of the family’s belongings had been moved out. All that was left was some furniture. It was a wet day and school had been canceled, so the Casement children were all home to help with the move.
Several loads were taken that morning and at about noon, an uncle, Hans Casement, pulled away from the shack with another load of belongings, leaving just Roy Casement, who was only 12 or 13, and George, who was 22, alone at the shack. When he reached the new home, he unhitched his horses and went inside for lunch. As time went by and Roy and George failed to show up, Mrs. Casement sent two of her children, Lloyd (9) and Harold (10), to go and see what was keeping them.
The boys made a gruesome discovery. They found George Ireland slumped over, dead, with a gaping wound in the right side of his neck and their brother, Roy, sprawled on the floor beneath a table with the top of his head blown off.
They ran back home and as they burst into the kitchen, one of the boys said breathlessly: “Mother, the boys are shot, they are dead.” She didn’t believe them at first, but as the details poured out, she realized something serious must have happened. She sent someone for a neighbor to call the police and a doctor, and slipping on a coat, she hurried across the field herself, finding them as described, with a double-barreled shotgun lying on the floor.
Constable Ralls of Foam Lake answered the call and went out to the Casement farm. He found Roy and George, the shotgun, as well as shotgun pellets embedded in the wall behind George. There was only one exploded cartridge in the shack, the second eventually being found near the well in the farm yard. The bodies were still warm when discovered; rigor mortis had not yet begun to set in. It was a horrific scene, with Roy’s brains and blood scattered over the walls of two rooms.
As the investigation proceeded, the theory developed that Roy, either by accident or in a fit of rage, shot Ireland and was so upset that, after tossing the shell, he turned the gun on himself, ending his own life. Their reasoning for this was that one of Roy’s shoes had been removed, so that the trigger could be pushed by a toe.
This was the third tragedy in five years for the Casement family. Five years previous, five-year-old Walter had been fatally scalded when he fell into a bowl of hot curds. Two years later, their three-year-old had caught croup and died. And now another of their children was dead, and under such strange circumstances.
Adding further intrigue to the mystery, the scene of the shooting was only a few miles from where Mrs. Pengelly met her end just two years previous. (You can read about that here.)
On October 31, 1929, a funeral was held for George Ireland, who was well known in the district for being hardworking and respectable. Roy Casement’s funeral was held the following day on November 1st. His school in Leslie was closed for both days so that the children and teacher could attend the funerals, and a masquerade ball that had been scheduled for November 1st was canceled. Both George and Roy were laid to rest in the Leslie cemetery.
And that’s the story of the mysterious deaths of Roy Casement and George Ireland.
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Information for this post came from the following editions of the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon Star-Phoenix: Oct 30, 1929, Oct 31, 1929, Nov 1, 1929, Nov 5, 1929
Interested in more historical true crime cases from Saskatchewan? Give these a try:
Melanie Cole 
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