John Etter Clark

John Etter Clark (March 29, 1915 – June 3, 1956) was a provincial politician, teacher and farmer from Alberta, Canada. He was a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1952 until committing one of the deadliest mass murders in Alberta history and killing himself.

Early life John Etter Clark was born in Stettler, Alberta, in 1915. He became a part-time school teacher and a farmer. Clark inherited the farm founded by his father. He married Margaret Dinwoodie in 1947 and they had four children.

Clark ran for a second term in the 1955 Alberta general election. He won a sizable majority to defeat two other candidates and hold his seat.

Mass murder and subsequent suicide On June 3, 1956, Pete Parrott, a neighbour residing on a farm leased from Clark next to his farm in Erskine, Alberta, stopped over for a social visit. He found six bodies and one wounded person, each shot at least once through the head with .22 caliber bullets, and one shot multiple times.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police descended on the scene with 14 special field agents. Clark had fled and was not among the dead, who included his wife, son, three daughters, a hired farmhand and a visitor.

Police found Clark's body lying on the edge of a dugout approximately from the farmhouse where the murders took place. It had wounds from a single self-inflicted bullet through the head and the murder weapon lying at its feet.

Clark had previously been hospitalized for a month and a half after a nervous breakdown in 1954, and another during the legislature's 1956 spring session.

It, along with the Cook Family murders in 1959, were the deadliest mass murders in Alberta history, until Phu Lam killed nine in Edmonton in December 2014.