Killer on loose after deadly ATM heist

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A G4S employee consoles a colleague after three G4S employees were shot and killed and a fourth critically injured. (GREG SOUTHAM / POSTMEDIA NEWS)

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Travis Baumgartner (CP)

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Michelle Shegelski (CP)

EDMONTON -- Police believe a robbery that ended with the shooting deaths of three armoured-car guards at the University of Alberta was an inside job and murder warrants have been issued for one of the crew.

Edmonton police Supt. Bob Hassel said officers were searching for Travis Baumgartner, 21, who faces three charges of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder.

"We now believe we have reasonable and probable grounds that this is the person who is responsible for this horrific and terrible crime," Hassel said Friday.

"We sincerely believe Baumgartner is armed. He's dangerous. And we're urging the public to use extreme caution."

Baumgartner was believed to be driving a Ford F-150 truck with Alberta licence plate ZRE-724. Edmonton police, RCMP, Canada Border Services officials and U.S. Customs agents were involved in the search.

Baumgartner was one of five G4S guards making a delivery to an ATM machine in a mall-residence complex on the campus after midnight Friday.

Moments later, passers-by came upon the ghastly scene. Two guards were found dead by the bank machine and a third was critically wounded. The other guard was found dead by a G4S minivan on the street. Baumgartner was nowhere to be found.

A second G4S vehicle, an armoured car, was found hours later parked and idling on the side of the road near an east-end G4S compound. Police haven't said how, or if, that car was involved.

The dead are two men and a woman. The critically injured guard is a man.

Names have not been officially released, but Henrietta Shegelski of Lac du Bonnet, Man., confirmed the female victim was her daughter-in-law, Michelle Shegelski, who was in her mid-20s. A Facebook page devoted to the guards identified the other two dead as Eddie Rejano and Brian Ilesic. Matthew Schumann was identified as the injured man.

Henrietta Shegelski said her son, Victor, married Michelle in April.

"Everyone that knew her, loved her," she said. "She was just part of our family from the minute we saw her."

Henrietta Shegelski said Michelle worked for G4S for several years. She said Victor is a former soldier who worked with Michelle at the company for a year before going back to school at the U of A.

She said Victor was devastated.

The shootings occurred at HUB Mall, a block of shops, eateries and student apartments on the east end of campus.

One bystander photo of the scene posted to Facebook showed three people from G4S lying in front of the bank machine, emergency crews working on them.

Ian Breitzke said he saw police pulling out bodies. The 21-year-old accounting student said he was watching TV in his room and heard a man in a room behind an ATM crying out in pain.

"When the police came in about 10 minutes, they ended up busting down the door (of the ATM room) and pulling out all the bodies that were in there," he said.

"Another couple of moments after that (they) pulled the man who was still alive out of the room."

The search for Baumgartner included the area around his home in Sherwood Park, on Edmonton's eastern outskirts.

Steven Munz, a friend of Baumgartner's, said his buddy had been with G4S for about three months and hoped eventually to become a police officer.

"But he felt he really didn't have what it took," Munz said.

He said Baumgartner completed two weeks of training in Calgary before starting the night shift in Edmonton.

"He said he enjoyed it more than any other job."

He said Baumgartner like to play video games and had worked in the oilpatch and in construction before G4S.

He said he was surprised police think Baumgartner could be involved, but had noticed he'd changed in the last year.

"Over the last year I've kind of noticed him slowly changing as a person. It's almost more irrational the way he thinks.

"I didn't think he was capable of something like this, but who knows, right?"

In a profile on a dating website, Baumgartner bills himself as an armoured-car guard who is into gaming and recreational drug use. He says he's 6-4 with a laid-back personality, a healthy workout regime and a "10" physique. "I'm a great guy. We don't come around often," he writes.

On his Facebook page, Baumgartner had recently posted some violent quotes from the villianous Joker in the "Dark Knight" movie, which included a violent bank heist.

On June 1, he posted the following: "I wonder if I'd make the six o'clock news if I just starting popping people off."

Steinberg confirmed the guards were armed, but would say little else.

The university was put in lockdown after the shooting.

-- The Canadian Press

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 16, 2012 A21