[Otto-matic]

http://www.calgarysun.com/2017/02/23...algary-murders

While the evidence against him was overwhelming, convicted killer Douglas Garland very nearly got away with triple murder.

If not for the uniqueness of the pickup truck he drove to the crime scene and the keen eye of his sister, Patti, the murders of Alvin and Kathy Liknes and their little grandson, Nathan O’Brien, may have gone unsolved.

CCTV footage from a neighbour’s of the Likneses captured a dark-coloured, older-model pickup truck with recognizable features driving around the area the morning the victims disappeared.

By the time the truck made a third pass, after daylight broke, it was clear it was a green-coloured vehicle.

When police circulated a still image of the truck, Patti Garland immediately recognized it as her brother’s — a man with a years-long grudge against Alvin Liknes, who happened to be the father of her then-common-law husband, Allen Liknes.

Garland’s homestead of horrors would never have been the subject of a massive police search, which uncovered evidence that established not only had he brought his victims there, he tortured them, according to findings by Justice David Gates, before dismembering their bodies and incinerating them in a burn barrel.

Had police not been led to the farm by Patti Garland’s recognition of the truck, aerial photographs that showed the three victims lying on the grass near outbuildings at the southern end of the Airdrie property would never have been found.

In all likelihood, those images would be buried in some archive inside city hall in Airdrie, their importance unknown.

Those pictures only became meaningful after it was learned Garland was a suspect and his property was of interest to police.

Thankfully his sister had the courage to call in the tip to the police.