Mounties in Alberta say a man who was on the lam has been found and charged with two counts of second-degree murder after a husband and wife died in a targeted shooting on a northern, rural road.
Cpl. Troy Savinkoff says Grande Prairie Rural RCMP received a call for an active shooting early Saturday morning near the local intersection of Range Road 35 and Township Road 730.
Savinkoff says David Lagace, 54, and his wife, 44 -year-old Michelle, were found dead next to their car on the road, and their alleged shooter was nowhere in sight.
The spokesman says investigators quickly identified a suspect named Curtis Phillip Halladay, 42.
The RCMP spokesman says he can’t provide more details on how Halladay was identified, but he was well known to the couple.
The suspect was found and taken into custody just after 1 p.m. on the same day of the shooting in a town northeast of Grand Prairie called McLennan.
“(The couple) had been driving (before) the shooting, and it was at that Range Road 35, Township Road 730 location, very, very near that location, where the shooting occurred,” Savinkoff said in a Sunday interview.
Savinkoff said while investigators searched for Halladay, an alert notifying the nearby public to keep an eye out for an armed man remained in place until his arrest.
“As the investigation unfolded, we not only had a suspect, but we also had a concern that, (because) he had just committed these really atrocious crimes, he had access to weapons,” Savinkoff said.
Mounties said in a news release Sunday that their thoughts go out to the family and friends of the victims.
Halladay is set to appear in court on Jan. 8.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 28, 2025.