In the mid-2000s, northern Alberta became the focus of a disturbing investigation when Thomas Svekla, a convicted sex offender, was arrested after arriving at a friend’s house carrying a woman’s body wrapped in a hockey bag. Further inquiries linked him to another murder, and in 2008 he was convicted of two counts of second-degree murder, though police had long suspected him in additional cases tied to Edmonton’s unsolved “Highway of Tears”-style disappearances. While never officially confirmed as a serial killer, Svekla’s crimes exposed deep fears about missing women in Alberta and highlighted the challenges investigators faced in proving connections across multiple unsolved cases.