Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. In 1992, Delene Hempel had just married the love of her life, moved into a new home, and started a new waitressing job. But on her way home from her second shift, the 26-year-old vanished.
Her abandoned car was found parked on the side of the highway. Police scoured the area for clues and tirelessly tracked down both staff and patrons of the bar where she worked, the place she was last seen. Months later, Delene was still missing when the case took another tragic turn. You think the worst is over and well, obviously the worst has happened, but then you got to go through everything again.
I'm Nancy Hixt, a senior crime reporter for Global News. Today on Crime Beat, I share what happened to Delene Hempel and the groundbreaking investigative strategies that solved the case. This is part two of The Second Shift. Delene Hempel went missing on November 17th, 1992. That Christmas was especially difficult for her husband, Troy Hempel.
Yeah, I mean every time the phone rings, yes, you're jumping and I had lots of people call my house who were not well. You know what I mean? Like lots of people would call with tips saying they saw her here and there and so you have to get those checked out but that was a daily thing through with my house.
He missed his wife, and her disappearance was still very much a mystery. Always held out hope, right? Glimmer and each a glimmer of hope, but it always did fade by every passing day. It was hard not to let his imagination take over. By then, police had managed to track down more than 300 patrons who were in the bar the night Delene vanished.
Corporal Doug Morrison from the RCMP Calgary Major Crimes Unit was the primary investigator assigned to the case. He said it was during those interviews that he met a woman that became integral to the case. A young lady who was a nursing student at the U of L
was seated in Confetti's Bar and Grill in one of the booths in the area where Delene Hempel served, and she became my star witness, so to speak. Corporal Morrison said this young woman witnessed several interactions between Delene and a patron. After she started observing him and listening to him and listening to Delene going back to him,
that she very quickly realized that this guy was basically hitting on her. The witness told Corporal Morrison it was clear the man was making Delene uncomfortable. She said right off the bat, he just didn't fit the mold there. And he was very persistent in his conversations with her.
Just trying to be friendly on the second day on the job. Didn't want to cause an issue where she would lose her job. That information, coupled with the doorman's account that Delene asked to be escorted to her car, prompted investigators to ask the witness for help with a composite sketch. Corporal Morrison said her attention to detail was remarkable.
With a detailed sketch of a possible suspect, police said they needed to be strategic with their next steps. We don't really want to give that out to the public because then we're going to be just inundated with calls. Well, he looks like this guy, looks like that guy.
The next step of the investigation really kind of hinged on finding Delene Hample. You'll recall that Delene's car was found on November 17, 1992, near Cheadle, a small rural community east of Calgary.
There, the search efforts continued well into spring. We didn't have any evidence to prove that it was a homicide. But as time drags on, unfortunately, in our line of business, you know, you have that feeling that, you know, obviously this isn't going to end very well. Delene's husband, Troy, refused to give up.
Then, on April 9th, 1993, nearly five months after she disappeared... I was actually out searching as well with a group of people. And the weird thing was I've never had one since, a migraine that I could not get rid of that day. So I actually left the search and then came home because I just was not feeling well.
And that's when they found, somebody found a body, right? And I knew, I knew that was Delene. I just, I just knew. A couple out for a walk discovered a body just a few kilometers from where Delene's car was found. Corporal Morrison has a clear recollection of the location and the disturbing scene. It was in a bush area, in a kind of an isolated area, only farmland around there.
And so it ended up being about two kilometers away from the village of Cheadle. It was an abandoned railway line and that ran all the way to hook up with another railway line to the west of Cheadle and so on and so forth. So a couple were out walking one afternoon in April and fortunately they looked over and were able to determine that they saw
a hand out of the ground in this yellow grave. - A heavy police presence converged on the area. - You know, you have to appreciate when she went missing in November,
of '92 that the ground would have been frozen, you know, because you're dealing with that time of the year around here. So digging a grave is rather difficult. So the person that did this had dug a grave, but it was a shallow grave. So enough to cover the body, so to speak, and then a number of dead branches and tree limbs and so on and so forth were laid over as well to kind of cover up that area.
Dental records confirmed the worst. The body found in the shallow grave was Delene Hempel. An autopsy provided the cause of death. Determined that she had been killed by two shots to the back of her head. So we were able to picture it back to shortly after her abduction from where she was parked.
that she was probably murdered, probably in hours after that. So right around the time when the disappearance first was reported. Corporal Morrison remembers the difficult conversation that followed. Then we went out and met with Troy. We phoned in advance and said we'd like to come out. By this time, it was all over the news that a body had been discovered near Cheadle.
And so it was all over the news. So it was just a matter of closing that door for them. Good evening. It is Delene Hemphill. The long, agonizing search for the missing woman ended about an hour and a half ago when RCMP informed her family that the body found in a field east of Calgary Friday night was Delene's. Yeah. 30 years later, I'm still emotional. Yeah, it's always difficult, you know, when you're
when you bring the bad news to people about a loved one. So it's never easy. A funeral was held for Delene Hempel on April 17, 1993, five months to the day after police believed she was killed. Her sister, Jalene Cosco, delivered the eulogy.
You just come to realize that even though she was only here for 26 years, she had a tremendous impact on a lot of people's lives. Delene's husband, Troy, was devastated. At that time, life was over for me, to be quite honest with you. I'd made up my mind that once they found her, that what's the reason for me to be here, right? So, yeah, yeah.
That was my plan to just end it all. I just remember looking over one last time at my dogs and they just looked at me like, what are we going to do? You can't leave us. So that's when I made the decision to, no matter how hard it was, I was going to try to live my life.
Corporal Doug Morrison said with the case now deemed a homicide, the investigation intensified. But there were some challenges. You know, we don't have any real forensic evidence. We never did locate the weapon. At that time, police were already pursuing another lead. One they hadn't shared with the family or the public.
You'll remember the composite sketch that was created with the help of the star witness, the one who was at the bar the night Delene Hempel disappeared. Police decided not to release the sketch to the public and instead shared it internally with other officers to see if anyone recognized the suspect.
One of the first to respond regularly patrolled the Trans-Canada Highway east of Calgary. That included the Cheadle, Strathmore and surrounding areas. Without hesitation, the officer gave Corporal Morrison a name. He says, "That's Steve Burns, he lives in Cheadle." He says, "I charged him with speeding here not too long ago." So I said, "Oh, isn't that interesting?" He said, "Oh yeah, you know, he's been charged here, he's up on some charges here."
with another young lady. He was convicted of robbery prior and he ended up doing an extensive time, ended up doing, you know, five or six years in the penitentiary and then subsequently was up on charges of kidnapping and sexual assault of another female in the Strathmore area.
It was a major break in the case, but it was based on a sketch. Police still needed to place Stephen Bairns at the bar the night Delene disappeared. So, as an added measure, police included Bairns in a photo lineup and showed it to the star witness from the bar. And she was able to pick Stephen Roy Bairns out of that lineup just like that.
The suspect was put under surveillance. And not long after, Stephen Bairns became the target of a covert operation. We were able to garner two undercover operators. One was an experienced operator from BC, and the other operator was an inexperienced, a younger operator from Alberta here, from up around the Edmonton area. So we brought those two individuals together
here in Calgary, met with them and met them within a hotel and subsequently provided them some information of our situation or crime scene and some information of our main suspect. This was a groundbreaking operation. It was one of Canada's very first Mr. Big sting operations used to target a suspected killer.
By 1992, we hadn't done very many of these. I want to say certainly less than 10. For myself, I think this was my third or fourth one.
working on a file of this nature. And this was one of the first ones ever done in the province of Alberta. We aren't identifying this officer for safety reasons. He's retired now, but he spent more than three decades with the RCMP. And for the majority of that time, he worked undercover. The vast majority of my career, I spent...
working drug work, homicide work, and undercover duties. I was in uniform in various communities through BC and Alberta. In this case, his target was the primary suspect in the homicide of Delene Hempel, Stephen Behrens. So physically, he was clean shaven. Stephen Behrens was clean shaven. He had glasses. I recall he, I don't know why I recall this, but he did tell me the prescription on his glasses were quite weak.
But he wore glasses all the time. Short hair, neat and tidy. He was about 5'9" or 10", 175 I would say. Pretty muscular guy. He's kind of built like a very lean, sinewy build to him. He told me that he was taking anabolic steroids and he took me into his kitchen to show me, I think it was liquid testosterone he had.
So presumably he was using steroids for a time. I was also told that Stephen Baird's had a long record history of robbery and that he had been charged previously with sexually assaulting a woman using a firearm.
He was not convicted of it because she refused to testify and relocated to another part of the country. So he basically got away with it. The officers planted themselves into Barron's life in a very strategic and unsuspecting way. Myself and my partner, first we had a rundown truck. We were going to be working at a local farm, building, installing fence posts in rural southern Alberta.
He had already been, he meaning Stephen Behrens, had been a part of that same work team, but he was no longer with that crew. We ended up meeting Stephen Behrens right at his house. When our truck broke down in front of his house, we went and knocked on his door to seek assistance. Some of the work crew was actually in his house socializing at the time, so by virtue of having credibility with them, we had credibility with him. That quickly turned to
showing us his truck he had for sale, knowing that ours was not running very well, that we might have a desire to buy his truck. And then our cover story evolved from there. It didn't take long for Behrens to join their fictitious criminal organization. As he and I are getting to know one another, and my partner, he becomes quite comfortable with us, even just showing up at his house quite frequently, which was rather unique for anybody, really, in terms of...
my experience dealing with criminals, but he felt very comfortable with that to the point that invariably it would happen where we'd see just a woman walking by the house or we'd be out in a bar or we'd be driving in a vehicle and he would often just talk under his breath what he would like to do to that woman. And it's very graphic, very horrific comments non-stop.
We quickly realized that this guy, well, not getting any credit, but he's the real deal. This guy is as bad as it gets. When I first met him, he very quickly had a will, desire and aptitude to get involved in right off the top in terms of smuggling what he thought was counterfeit cigarettes and talked
non-stop about his will to get involved with firearms smuggling and very quickly even said that he was willing and capable of anything. Police came up with a number of undercover scenarios involving drug trafficking. As each ruse unfolded, there were a series of admissions made by Barons.
I need to warn you, while I won't go into graphic detail about what happened, the admissions that were made are extremely disturbing. Now this would be about, I would say, two to three weeks after we first met. And as we're leaving the drug deal, it goes well and he's quite pumped about it. He's quite excited that it went so well.
And I start to talk a little bit about, 'cause he keeps bringing on about guns and how, you know what, if you need me for anything bigger, I'm totally comfortable whacking people, whacking being one of his favorite vernaculars for killing people. And I say, you know, you keep saying that all the time. I said, you know, I hear people tell me that often, but when it comes time to actually do it, they could freeze up. He said, no, he won't freeze up because he knows, he knows he won't freeze up because he's done it before. And I basically asked what, a guy and a girl? He said both.
He said, "Do you remember that girl I told you about that was found not far from my place?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well," then he came around and said, "Yeah, that was me. I killed her." Not long after that, the officer took a newspaper along with him as a prop. They listed a number of women who were murdered recently in Alberta. I want to say that the article was suggesting that maybe Nicol was going to be investigated for that. And Delene Hempel's name was in that list.
So I was reading the paper that morning, I thought this might be of some benefit. Later that day, he used the article as a way to stimulate a very specific conversation. So I pulled out the article and I said, you know, I'm really having a hard time believing you're telling me the truth because you look at this, it looks like the police are looking at this other guy for the murder. And so he read the article and he was, I was watching him and he was extremely intense reading this article. Dialed right in and then he got
wildly excited and he pointed at the paper, he said, "No." He yelled at me, he said, "Elaine Hempel, 26th." He said, "That was me, that was basically, that was my murder. He didn't do it, I did. I'm telling you the truth, I wouldn't lie about that." And so, yeah, with the hold back information and how defiant he was with respect to my challenge there, there was no doubt in my mind that we had the right guy.
Following that, about a week later is when we attempted the Mr. Big scenario. So we had another officer come in and play the role of Mr. Big. The officer said in this final scenario, when Barron's finally met Mr. Big, they were planning a large drug deal. But in efforts to insulate him, making sure that we weren't bringing heat on our organization, that if he had outstanding physical evidence that we could help dispose of that drug,
He should want to help us help him. Very hot day. He had me drive, he and I, to his dad's farm, and then he pulled out two bikes. We got on two bicycles and rode down about a kilometer and a half on the gravel road, put the bikes down, and then we walked into the area.
where Dillian Hempel's remains were found. The undercover officer recalled this day like it was yesterday. Every expression made or word uttered by Barron's forever etched in his brain. I'd never been there before. And as we walked up, I didn't know what to expect. And there was a little memorial in the dirt there. He was absolutely riveted with shock. It was almost like he was in
kind of a state of hypnosis or something because I was even trying to get an answer out of him. Are you okay? He's like, I haven't been back here since I did this. And he said, that must be a memorial of family put there. What do you think? I said, yeah, yeah, it probably is. I said, but you know what? We got business to attend to. So let's not get freaked out by that. Let's move on here. So he found the hole that he started to dig that he, that he failed at, pointed that out to me, but he couldn't quite remember based on landmarkings that he had
from the wintertime now that everything's overgrown in the summer, he couldn't quite remember where the hole where the clothes were. And we dug most of the next couple of hours trying to find the right location. We never did. We never did recover her effects. The undercover officer said Barron seemed irritated. He was absolutely motivated to find that spot. He was getting really, really frustrated. He said, "Everything's overgrown now. I don't really recognize
a whole lot. I don't see anything obvious. You know, the grass is high now and I recall saying that it was an extremely hot day. I was really uncomfortable, but I was going to stay there till
till long after he left if I had to try and find her clothing. But he actually had like a softball size of mosquitoes just swarming around the back of his neck, hammering him the whole time we were out there. And even that didn't deter him from trying. Just soaking wet with sweat, digging, digging, digging, and he just wouldn't let it go until finally he just said, "You know what? I'm at a loss. I just don't know where to look anymore."
There's an interesting point after that. I shared with him some experiences, obviously fictitious experiences I had depositing people's clothing, burning them and throwing them in a duffel bag in the ocean, that kind of thing. And he said, yeah, I should have done that or I should have done that. He never really came up with any alternative to the clothing except that, yeah, I thought I was doing the wise thing by burying them. But I guess if I can't find them, it's a good thing the police won't be able to.
Despite the fact they didn't find the evidence they were searching for that day, this marked the final undercover scenario. Police said given the earlier confessions made by Behrens, they felt they had enough. As we drove back into Calgary and he and I exited my vehicle, we were both arrested. Well, I was arrested as a ruse with him and then he went off to jail, went off in their custody.
Next time I saw him was in the court case. In August of 1993, nearly nine months after Delene Hempel vanished, Stephen Behrens was charged with first-degree murder. Corporal Doug Morrison said officers did an exhaustive search of Behrens' home in Cheadle. They also returned to the area where Delene was buried, just a few kilometers away. We had the University of Calgary police
assisted us. I went there a number of times and we brought, they had invented our ground penetrating radar so it would tell us anomalies in the ground. So we did that for, gosh, a day, day and a half, and weren't able to come up with any reasonable, you know, area to dig. No further evidence was found. Corporal Morrison told me he interviewed Barron's following his arrest and
He was shocked to learn his new friends were actually police officers. He was somewhat surprised that our operators were actually, you know, policemen. And, yeah, surprised at the amount of evidence we did have. And subsequently never told us the whole real story, but certainly admitted his innocence.
his involvement. Behrens pleaded not guilty and following a preliminary inquiry was ordered to stand trial for the first-degree murder of Delene Hempel. In the fall of 1994, the case against Behrens was presented to a jury.
Delene's husband, Troy Hempel, only attended the trial once, the day he had to testify. I just remember I couldn't even look up in the courtroom, right? I just said, because he was right there, right? No, I didn't know what I was going to do. I didn't know if I was, what I would do in that situation, right? I wanted to kill him, right? That's what I wanted to do.
The star witness, who was at Confetti's restaurant and bar during Delene's second shift, told jurors about the conversations she overheard. He was the only one sitting at the bar, and our star witness was back in the booths, you know, listening to some of this and kind of looking at the facial, you know, and like I say, she turned out to be the, you know, star witness really because she provided the composites and stuff, so...
Undercover officers involved in the Mr. Big Sting operation also testified. But I will say that of anybody that I ever had to work on in my policing career, Stephen Behrens was the most vile human being that I ever encountered. There wasn't a moment that went by that he wasn't saying something absolutely despicable or horrific, offensive, and...
Even in terms of the details that he provided to me about what he did with respect to this homicide case, I'm still not even comfortable talking about it because it was absolutely terrible. This case was the one and only time I actually turned to the judge and said, "If there's family members in the courtroom, they might want to leave and not hear the details because they're so graphic."
Veteran defense lawyer Alan Heppner represented Behrens. There was some holdback evidence that was involved as well, that they always do, police do that with regularity, dealing with some evidence that only the culprit or people close to him or her would know. The evidence was very strong and overwhelming in terms of a circumstantial case, but the Mr. Biggin confessions that they pieced together was part of the bigger picture.
Hapner presented a rather unique defense to the jury. He was such a liar, and I think I used the term lowlife. I used the term lacking in virtues, that nothing he said could be believed. Like he was just nothing that was reliable in his testimony. So the essence of the defense was that there was no smoking gun other than the...
The 15 scenarios where the police pieced together confessions that he had made. But the jury believed the evidence against Behrens. He was convicted of the first-degree murder of Delene Hempel and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Why Behrens targeted and killed Delene Hempel never came out in court.
But the officers I spoke with always felt it came back to his spurned advances that night at Confetti's bar. In policing, we often say this is not a braggable offense. One can only assume that was a motive, especially given the circumstances that are true, that he wouldn't stop hitting on her all night. You may be wondering if Behrens was also at the bar during Delene's first shift.
You'll recall she told her husband a patron was giving her a hard time that night as well. Police were never able to answer that question and we'll never know for sure. Stephen Bairns took a lot of secrets to the grave. Twelve years to the day after Delene Hempel's body was found, her killer took his own life. He was found dead inside of Kingston Penitentiary.
An inquest was held in front of a jury with the purpose of determining the circumstances surrounding his death. I obtained a summary of the inquest which stated: "In the days leading up to Bairns' death, he was housed in a segregation area of the prison at his own request. He was seen by various correctional staff, including the warden and the prison nurse.
Witnesses at the inquest testified that several staff specifically asked about mood and intention for self-harm with a negative response. On April 9, 2005, a correctional officer found Behrens hanging in his cell. The jury deliberated for over an hour and returned with a verdict that Behrens died by suicide. No recommendations were made.
Both Delene's husband and her sister said the news gave them some closure in a horrific chapter of their lives that would have otherwise been difficult to close. I never wanted to get close to anybody. It was because I knew eventually this guy was eventually going to get out of prison. And what was I going to do then? I didn't know. I really didn't know what I was going to do back then. I knew what I wanted to do, but I didn't know.
I didn't know if that was going to happen or not. So him dying in prison, fantastic. It's saved, yeah, it probably saved me from doing something silly in the future, right? So that was huge. It's a big burden lifted off my shoulders. 2022 marked 30 years since Delene's disappearance. Jelene thinks about her sister every day. When I think about
what she would be like now. I imagine the same warm person with lots of interests, very social, lots of friends. We kind of condense our grief into what we call Tinker Days. Her birthday, the anniversary of when she went missing, and the anniversary of her murder. June 21st, November 17th, April 9th. Losing Delene changed the course of Troy Hempel's life.
You're 22 years old and you have everything taken away from you. After he testified in the trial, he left the city. He said he couldn't bear to hear details of what happened to his wife. Immediately, next day, he got in my vehicle and drove all the way to Los Angeles, actually. I enrolled in a race car driving school because it was always a dream of mine to do that. And yeah, I drove down to Los Angeles.
to L.A. and did that. I could be with Delene and I could be away. Troy said it was an escape and mentally it was what he needed at the time. And just live day by day. Try to live every, you know, just deal with whatever happens the next day because your life is a bag of emotions. And at times you got tired
bad thoughts going through your brain, right? And you have to control them. You have to, when you make a decision, a goal to live. And I made the decision to live for my dogs, but also because I wouldn't want her to do that too, right? That's what I mean. I put my reverse, tried to put myself in her shoes and her in the mine. And I wouldn't want her to kill herself. I would want her to try to live the best life she possibly could. And so that's
That's what I've always tried to do is just to try to live as best I could all the time. When he finally returned to Calgary, he faced some difficult situations. Of course, it happened a few times where people would recognize me and it would immediately, it would put me into a shell right away. Just because I was so afraid that people who got to know me for who I am
would now feel sorry for me or judge me differently maybe. So I always kind of tried to suppress that. And I was fearful of finding love again because, I mean, to go through that again, to have someone missing, someone you love, someone who's your life, and they're missing and you don't know where they are,
It's a horrible feeling and I never wanted to go through that ever again. So I had always worried, I'd always feared that maybe I was going to be a little too overprotective if I ever found love again. So that scared me. I didn't want to put anybody through that.
More than a decade after Delene's death, when he wasn't looking, Troy did find love again. I'm pretty lucky to be able to experience love again and build a beautiful family from this. You know, come out of this tragedy and to be where I am today is a win for me.
A cross marks the spot where Delene Hempel's vehicle was found. Her memory lives on. Troy Hempel's daughter's middle name is Delene, and her sister's son's name is Dylan. I always think about her in the good times. Thank you to Troy and Jalene and Delene's mother for trusting me to share her story.
If you or someone you know is in crisis and needs help, resources are available. In case of an emergency, please call 911 for immediate help. For a directory of support services in your area, visit the Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention at suicideprevention.ca.
If you're in the USA, you can call or text 988 for direct access to a suicide and crisis lifeline. Crime Beat is written and produced by me, Nancy Hixt, with producer Dila Velasquez. Audio editing and sound design is by Rob Johnston. Special thanks to photographer-editor Danny Lantella for his work on this episode.
And thanks to Chris Bassett, the VP of Network Content Production and Distribution and Editorial Standards for Global News.
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