Caution: Contains disturbing content; discretion advised.

Virginia and Alfred Critchley

Murder in Chatham.

Victim(s)

Jasen Pangburn (18M) and grandparents Virginia (73F), Alfred Critchley (77M)

Perpetrator(s)

Jason Shawn Cofell (18M), Unnamed accomplice (15)

Case Status

Closed Case

Case Years

October 6, 1991

Location(s)

Chatham, Ontario

On a fall evening, police in Chatham, Ontario, arrived at the home of Alfred and Virginia Critchley to find the elderly couple brutally stabbed, Alfred barely clinging to life and Virginia mortally wounded. Her dying words pointed investigators toward her grandson, 18-year-old Jasen Pangburn, who was soon found partially buried in a nearby ravine with a gunshot wound to the chest. The trail led to teen acquaintance Jason Shawn Cofell and a 15-year-old accomplice, who had lured Jasen to the woods, executed him, then gone to the Critchley home to silence potential witnesses. The murders, committed over stolen guns and fear of being exposed, shattered the community and became one of southwestern Ontario’s most chilling examples of calculated teenage violence.

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