Kimberley Lockyer & Dale Worthman

Kimberley Lockyer and Dale Worthman were a young couple that lived together in their small Newfoundland town of Portugal St. Cove Philips. When they disappeared from their basement apartment on August 27th, 1993, it almost seemed like they had simply stepped out for a minute and fully intended on returning…

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When you hear the name of the Canadian province “Newfoundland and Labrador,” murder probably isn’t what springs to mind. Though hardly the most well-known of Canada’s provinces, Newfoundland and Labrador has a rather interesting history - previously a British colony, it became the 10th and final province to join Canada in 1949. Since then it’s primarily been known for being an extraordinarily friendly, extremely rural place, with only about half a million habitants covering it’s over 150,000 square miles (or, to put it in other terms, approximately the size of two Floridas). Unsurprisingly, the crime rate is low - it’s constantly competing with Prince Edward Island for last place for the homicide rate of Canada’s provinces, with a rate 0.77 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2020.

And yet even the friendliest, most rural, and safest of places isn’t immune to murder mysteries, as we will see today with the murders of Kimberley Lockyer and Dale Worthman. Kimberley and Dale disappeared from their basement apartment in Portugal Cove St. Philips now almost 30 years ago. Portugal Cove St. Philips in a seaside town, just outside of Newfoundland and Labrador’s provincial capital, St. Johns, with around 8,000 residents - hardly a capital of crime. And yet this disappearance and murder has kept authorities puzzled for 29 years, with no real solution in sight - in fact, over the years, this case has produced just as many questions as it has answers.

Kimberley Lockyer and Dale Worthman were a young couple - 29 and 30 years old respectively - living together in their small Newfoundland town. When they disappeared from their basement apartment on August 27th, 1993, it almost seemed like they had simply stepped out for a minute and fully intended on returning - their car was still parked outside, their wallets and IDs were still in the apartment, there was cash left in the apartment (including $2000 found under the mattress), there were dishes in the sink, the fridge was full and there was even bread left sitting in the toaster. There was no sign of a struggle, or any apparent reason for alarm - besides, of course, the fact that Kimberely and Dale were not there, and the fact never came back.

Dale was reported missing by his parents after he failed to show up for work a few days following the disappearance, on Sept 2nd, 1993. Similarly, Kimberly, who worked at a restaurant at the Airport Inn in St. John’s, never showed up to pick up her paycheck. When police went to search the couple’s apartment, they found the scene described above - everything at their apartment was in its place, as if they had been there mere minutes ago, but no sign of Kimberly or Dale.

Puzzled, police called around in search of leads. Thinking that perhaps the couple had chosen to run off spontaneously for whatever reason, they called taxi companies and airlines, asking if they had seen any travelers fitting Kimberly and Dale’s description recently, but nothing came up. They also interviewed neighbors, friends and family to see if the couple had been displaying any out-of-the-ordinary behavior, or if anyone had heard anything from the couple implying that they were planning on leaving their life behind - but no one had any helpful information. It was as if Kimberly and Dale had simply vanished into thin air.

As time passed - weeks, month, and eventually years - very little headway was made on the case. Although police said they suspected foul play in the couple’s disappearance, they just couldn’t find any solid evidence that would lead to the culprit. Almost a year after Kimberly and Dale disappeared, police would reveal their discovery that Dale had associated with a motorcycle gang in Nova Scotia in the past - an association that perhaps could have led to a motivation for hurting Dale - but no connections were found between the bikers and the couple’s disappearance. Dale’s mother also said that in the days leading up to their disappearance, Dale hadn’t given any indication that he was in any kind of trouble, or worried about someone coming after him for revenge of any sort. The trail was quickly running cold.

The years continued to pass, tips continued to come in, and searches continued to be carried out - special cadaver dogs were brought in from Ontario to search a nearby pond, rumors swirled that the couple had been seen leaving Newfoundland on a ferry - but nothing promising emerged. Police even offered a $50,000 reward for information that would lead to Kimberly and Dale - still, nothing.

As tends to happen in these cold cases where there simply seems to be nothing to go off of, police began to lose interest in Kimberly and Dale’s case, and it was deprioritized and pushed to the side. In all likelihood, they were dead - and if they weren’t dead, they certainly didn’t seem to have any interest in being found.

However, in 2006, the case would be turned upside down when a local man named Joey Oliver went to police and dropped a bombshell - he told police where the bodies of Kimberly Lockyer and Dale Worthman could be found. Following Joey’s instructions, a recovery operation was set up at the site he described - a small clearing a few kilometers down a dirt road off Thorburn Road in St. John’s. Three days after the recovery operation began, Kimberly and Dale’s bodies were found in a single, hand-dug grave, laid on top of each other. Six .22 shell casings were found a little ways off from where the bodies were found. Both Kimberly and Dale had been shot in the head, execution style. Had Joey Oliver not come forward, police said, it’s very likely that Kimberly and Dale’s bodies never would have been found.

This revelation, though it brings some sense of closure to the case, also creates many new questions - who is this Joey Oliver? How did he know where the bodies would be found? Was he, in fact, the killer? An accomplice? Or had he discovered this information some other way?

In January 2007, police held an interview with Joey Oliver in which he thoroughly detailed his version of events - the following is what he claims to be the story behind Kimberly and Dale’s deaths.

According to Joey, the day before the deaths, he and a man named Shannon Murrin had traveled out to the location where Kimberly and Dale’s bodies would later be discovered. The exact relationship between Joey, Dale, and Shannon is not made entirely clear, but all three certainly seemed to be familiar with each other, as Shannon told Joey to bring Dale out to that location the following day. Dale’s mother would later state that all three men did know each other, and they all in fact lived on the same road.

As instructed, the next day, Joey drove to Dale and Kimberly’s apartment to pick him up. He hadn’t expected Kimberly to come along, but claimed that Dale had told her to join them, saying to police “What was I going to do, tell her to stay? She was his girlfriend. He said come on. What was I supposed to do?”

On the drive out to the site, Joey says that he wasn’t concerned that this little outing was going to end in murder. It seems that Dale had committed some perceived slight against Shannon Murrin, as Joey said he was under the impression that Shannon wanted to rough Dale up a bit, “give him a few bangs,” - but nothing worse than that.

However, when they arrived at the site, much to Joey’s shock, Shannon “shot (Dale) right off the bat.” Joey claims that Shannon then pointed the gun at him, and told him to “get the fuck out of here” and to go wait for him partway down the road.

The next day, Joey returned with Shannon to the site to help him clean it up. He claims that he didn’t see where exactly the couple was buried, denied helping Shannon to bury either of them, and said he didn’t know why exactly Shannon had killed them. He told police that it was his conscience that had made him come forward, 13 years later.

Though he had given police helpful information in telling them where the bodies were located and alleging the involvement of Shannon Murrin, Joe himself wasn’t exactly off the hook. While he denied killing either Kimberly or Dale, and said he didn’t take part in the disposal of their bodies, police had their doubts as to the degree of his involvement with this crime. It was entirely possible that Joey was downplaying his role in the murders.

So, despite Joey’s denials, police told Joe only a couple of hours after his interview that he was being charged with second-degree murder. In Canada, second degree murder is defined as a deliberate killing that occurs without premeditation, and carries a minimum sentence of life in prison with parole after 10 years, though this can be extended to life in prison without parole for 25 years. Joey, it seems, was quite surprised by this charge, as his lawyer, Bob Buckingham, told reporters following Joey’s first appearance in court.

Naturally, given that Joey Oliver had accused him of this crime, Shannon Murrin publicly spoke out defending himself. Age 57 at the time of the accusation, Shannon Murrin had quite a history of being accused of various violent crimes. He had spent 5 years behind bars after being accused of raping and killing 8-year old Mindy Tran before being acquitted, and was later questioned in the murder investigation of 6-year old Corrine Gustavson. Following Joey Oliver’s accusation, Shannon Murrin contacted the media to give his response, saying that he was “an easy target,” which is why Joey Oliver named him.

“But the shovel of shit he was throwing at me came right back in his face. The tables have turned,” he told Toronto’s National Post. He also told CBC that several months before Joey Oliver was arrested, Oliver had called him and left a message, saying “Shannon, you killed both of them you cold-hearted, you're just one cold-hearted bastard. You're the one that done that, not me."

It would later come out that there were in fact, 4 total messages left on Shannon Murrin’s voicemail, all from Joey Oliver, and all rants regarding Kimberly and Dale’s deaths. In one message, Joey reportedly said “Who are you going around town saying I killed them people that was dug up…I’m gonna make sure that you go away forever.”

Now, it is very much worth noting that Joey’s accusations were not the first time police had heard Shannon’s name in connection with this case. In 1995, when he was in jail for the suspected murder of Mindy Tran, Shannon had offered to give police information on Kimberly and Dale’s murders in exchange for a prison transfer to Newfoundland (he was being held in British Colombia at the time). Although police didn’t take him up on this for whatever reason, this obvious cast him in a rather suspicious light, especially given that Shannon seems to have a strange hobby of being accused of murder. Years later, in 2007, Shannon would claim that his offer to police had in fact, been a bluff - that he had only pretended to have knowledge of the crime because he feared for his life in the British Colombia prison, and was desperate to be transferred. Notes compiled by investigators would reveal that Shannon Murrin had indeed been the prime suspect in this case all those years ago.

Small towns being small towns and all, rumors had been swirling around the two men for a while - likely due to the known association between Dale, Shannon and Joey. Although a clear and exact motive for the murder doesn’t seem to have been fully established, police suspected that it was related to drugs - that either Joey or Shannon had a bone to pick with Dale due to owing him money from a drug deal, or something of that nature, and that Kimberely had simply been an unfortunate witness that they’d had to deal with after Dale insisted she come along.

The court case against Joey Oliver continued, and after 2 years of a preliminary trial, in 2008, a judge actually upgraded Joey Oliver’s charges from second degree murder to first degree murder, as he believed that the action of the killer showed premeditation.

This new charge wouldn’t stick long, however - the following year, 2009, the state and the defense would reach an agreement. Due to the fact that Dale and Kimberely’s bodies never would have been discovered, had Joey Oliver not come forward of his own volition, the state agreed to downgrade his charges to manslaughter. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, with four years knocked off for time served. He would end up serving about 9 years, and was released on parole in 2018, an outcome which disappointed the family and friends of the victims, who seemed to be convinced that Joey Oliver was indeed the man responsible.

As for Shannon Murrin, his name was included in the agreed statement of facts put before the court in Joey Oliver’s case (to what extent and in what context is unclear), but he was never charged with anything related to Kimberely Lockyer and Dale Worthman’s deaths. He continues to deny having anything to do with the killings, and refuses to talk to the media about it any further. The official statement from The Crown (i.e, the state) was: “The Crown advises that while we accept Mr. Oliver’s version that he was not the shooter and that another person was involved, it is entirely Mr. Oliver’s uncorroborated word that the shooter was Mr. Murrin. We cannot confirm that Mr. Murrin was involved in this matter.”

Unless police aren’t revealing some other damning evidence or proof that they have, the only real evidence in this case is Joey Oliver’s word on what happened. And that is well and truly what makes this case so frustrating - we are simultaneously so close to knowing precisely what happened to Kimberely Lockyer and Dale Worthman on the day of their death, and yet so far, because there is only one man’s untrustworthy narrative to go off of. Clearly, Joey was involved in one way or another - but that’s really all we know. Due to a simple lack of evidence, the rest is really a pile of ‘maybes’ and ‘what ifs.’

What if Joey Oliver is telling the truth, and Shannon Murrin truly was the actual murderer, meaning that Kimberely and Dale’s killer is still walking free? Maybe Shannon and Joey were truly co-conspirators who share the blame equally, but Joey downplayed his part in the murders and the burial of the bodies to the police. Maybe there was another co-conspirator or third party involved that Joey didn’t want to get into trouble, so he chose to place the blame on Shannon instead? What if Joey was indeed the one and only killer, in which case he got off with an extremely light sentence for the crimes he committed? Each option seems equally as likely as the last, and in the end, only Joey Oliver for sure knows the full story of what happened the night that Kimberely Lockyer and Dale Worthman were murdered.

Unless Joey, or, if he is indeed guilty, Shannon, comes forward with the truth after all these years, we will likely never know who actually pulled the trigger.