George Anthony Lenhard, a 28-year-old White/Caucasian man, was a constable with the Regina Police when he was killed while on duty on the evening of August 6, 1933. Lenhard was patrolling the northeastern outskirts of Regina, Saskatchewan, an area then made up largely of warehouses, small industrial properties, railway lines and stretches of open prairie. Because the territory was so large, he traveled his beat by bicycle.
He had been on patrol for less than an hour when, near the Canadian Liquid Air plant, he noticed three men behaving suspiciously along a cinder path running from Winnipeg Street toward the railway tracks.
Two nearby witnesses, Donald Campbell and Ardyce Aney, were close enough to observe much of what followed. Lenhard dismounted and ordered the three men to stop. One refused. When the constable repeated his command, the man produced a handgun and turned it on him. Lenhard was still near his bicycle as the armed man forced the confrontation toward the wall of the industrial building. The gunman opened fire before Lenhard could effectively defend himself. Lenhard attempted to reach the service revolver he carried beneath his tunic, but the attacker continued shooting. Three bullets struck him. The gunman then fled west toward the railway tracks and turned south along the tracks, while the other two men escaped in the opposite direction.
Despite his wounds, Lenhard remained alive long enough to crawl along the wall of the Canadian Liquid Air plant. He managed to reach a partially raised sliding door and force himself into the building, where an employee came to his assistance. Lenhard collapsed shortly afterward and died from his injuries. An autopsy determined that one bullet passed through his right arm below the armpit, another entered low in his back and traveled through his chest near the heart, severing a pulmonary artery, and a third entered his right breast and passed through his back after striking the upper portion of his heart. His death came only one day after his birthday.
The response was immediate and extensive. Inspector Fred Toop mobilized available Regina officers, called for an ambulance and alerted the hospital while assistance was sought from the Mounted Police and railway police. Officers were rushed to the city's outskirts in an effort to seal escape routes. Highways, railway traffic and other routes out of Regina were watched as authorities conducted what became one of the largest manhunts the city had experienced. An inquest began the following day under Coroner W. A. Thompson. The investigation also prompted scrutiny of how Regina officers carried their weapons. Because Lenhard's revolver had been concealed beneath his tunic, the coroner's jury recommended that officers thereafter carry their sidearms outside their tunics so they could be reached more quickly.
Witnesses provided only limited descriptions of the three men. The shooter was described as tall, heavily built and appearing to be around his late twenties, while the other two appeared younger and smaller. The men wore dark, shabby clothing. Investigators received numerous tips, including a report from a Regina resident who said he had nearly struck a man with his automobile near a railway crossing shortly before the shooting and believed the man resembled one of those being sought. Authorities and the public considered several possibilities, including whether the killing might have been connected to recent burglaries or attempted break-ins in Regina. There was also speculation that members of the notorious Sankey kidnapping gang could have been involved, but the descriptions supplied by the witnesses reportedly did not correspond with known members of that gang. Another theory was that the three men were transients who had recently come to Regina during the 1933 World Grain Fair, which had brought large numbers of visitors into the city shortly before the murder.
A $1,000 reward was announced for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the three men responsible. Police pursued leads across southern Saskatchewan, but the identities of the men seen confronting Lenhard remained unknown. The investigation eventually went cold. Nearly nine months later, on April 25, 1934, authorities detained Matt Kowalchuk in Regina for questioning about Lenhard's murder. Kowalchuk was described at the time as an alleged member of a group involved in freight-car robberies and had reportedly been sought because investigators believed he might possess information about the killing. Questioning did not result in a murder charge, and Kowalchuk was subsequently taken to Portage la Prairie in connection with an unrelated outstanding warrant.
Lenhard was buried in Regina Cemetery following a large funeral procession on August 9, attended by police, firefighters, railway employees and thousands of residents who lined the streets. He became the first Regina police officer killed in the line of duty. A memorial plaque and portrait were later placed in the police station, and a granite monument was erected at his grave. Despite the witnesses, intensive manhunt, reward, subsequent questioning of possible persons of interest and decades of attention to the case, no one was ever charged, tried or convicted of murdering George Anthony Lenhard. The identities of the shooter and his two companions remain unknown, and the 1933 killing remains an unsolved Regina homicide.
