MISSING: Marguerite Cardwell - 09/10/73 - Calgary, AB
By: S.M.Last Updated: 04/24/20
Marguerite Cardwell
Missing since: September 1973Missing from Calgary, AlbertaAge at disappearance: 31The Disappearance of Marguerite Cardwell
In early September of 1973, 31-year-old Marguerite Cardwell did two things: she purchased a .303 calibre hunting rifle, and on September 10, she told told a friend she was planning to travel to either Edmonton or Vancouver. The mother from Calgary was never seen again.
On September 16, Cardwell’s vehicle - containing her keys, purse and personal belongings - was found abandoned on a desolate road in Dead Man’s Flats - a hamlet 20 km east of Canmore, along the Trans-Canada Highway. Formerly known as Pigeon Mountain Service Centre, it was re-named in 1985 after the gruesome 1904 murder of a man in a cabin in the area.
What happened?
Cardwell had a history of mental health problems, and she had attempted suicide before. Her disappearance was quickly labelled as a probable suicide. Investigators believed she’d driven to the remote area in the middle of the night, wandered into the woods and shot herself with the rifle.
For two days, twenty RCMP officers searched the area. There was no sign of Marguerite Cardwell nor her rifle.
Dead Man’s Flats is a hamlet in western Alberta, located near Canmore. Image source: CBC
The Man in the Hallway
A woman who lived in the same house as Cardwell later said that on the night she vanished, a man was yelling at her from the hallway in front of the door to her suite. It is unknown if this information was shared with investigators at the time.
Missing from Dead Man’s Flats
Cardwell’s daughter, Shelley Sawatzky, was given up for adoption when she was two years old. For 11 years, her mother visited her periodically, until the visits altogether stopped. Shelley didn’t learn about her mother’s disappearance until she started looking for her at 19 years old.
In 2016, Sawatzky wrote a book, Missing From Dead Man’s Flats, about the subsequent years she spent searching for answers in the case.
In 1993 - twenty years after Marguerite disappeared - Sawatzky received a box of unclaimed belongings from the rooming house her mother managed in Calgary. The box was filled with photographs, employment forms and other personal records. It contained Cardwell’s Petroleum Ski Club card, the flying license she earned while living in Montreal, and T4 forms showing proof of Cardwell’s employment at various law firms and oil & gas companies.
Shelley Sawatzky, the daughter of Marguerite Cardwell, published Missing from Dead Man’s Flats - the story of her mother’s disappearance.
The information ultimately presented “discrepancies, unknowns and coincidences” in Marguerite’s disappearance. One of the questionable items was a T4 slip from a hotel in Calgary - information which presented the possibility that Cardwell had worked there as a topless dancer. Sawatzky shared this story with one of her mother’s friends, who said that Cardwell was “the classiest woman [he] ever knew,” and had worked as a waitress at the hotel - not as a topless dancer.
During her search, Sawatzky also found Cardwell’s roommate, who told her about the man in the hallway.
In 1979, the body of a woman who looked like Marguerite Cardwell was discovered in Banff. In 2010, the remains had yet to be identified. That year, Cardwell’s cold case was re-opened.
Sawatzky submitted a sample of her DNA to the Canmore RCMP for comparison, but investigators were unable to match it to the woman’s remains, or to any other unidentified remains on file.
Did Marguerite Cardwell leave to start a new life? Who was the man yelling at her the night she vanished? Had she bought the rifle because she was scared?
Without evidence indicating Marguerite Cardwell ended her life on that night 47 years ago, it’s impossible to know what happened - and impossible to ignore the possibility that somebody, somewhere, knows what happened to her.
Physical Characteristics & Details:
Aliases: PETERSON, Elizabeth Marguerite
PETERSEN, Margaret Elizabeth
Missing since: September 16, 1973
Year of birth: 1942
Age at disappearance: 31
Sex: Female
Bio group: White
Eye colour: Blue
Hair: Brown
Height: 165cm / 5 ft 5 in
Weight: 57kg / 126 lb
Build: Slender/Thin
Complexion: Moles
Fractured/Broken Bones: Left Ankle, 2 inch screw in ankle
Investigating Agency Contact Information: If you have information about this case, please contact any of the following:
Canmore RCMP: 403-678-5519
Reference Case#: 20101321585Crime Stoppers: 1-800-222-TIPS(8477) or online at https://www.canadiancrimestoppers.org/tips
Crime Stoppers provides anonymous tippingEmail the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains at:
canadasmissing-disparuscanada@rcmp-grc.gc.ca(Case reference: 2014004543)
Links & Sources: Missing from Dead Man's Flats by Shelley Sawatzky
Tapatalk.com/Porchlight Canada
CBC.ca - Dead Man's Flats name change rejected
Last Updated: 04/24/20