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The Canadian Press - ONLINE EDITION

Islanders play catch in honour of two P.E.I. baseball players killed in Alberta

By: The Canadian Press

Posted: 12/19/2011 3:01 AM | Comments: 0 | Last Modified: 12/19/2011 3:40 PM

Keith Craswell, father of Tanner Craswell, is embraced by a friend as students, staff and ordinary Islanders play catch outside Colonel Gray High School, the alma mater of Tanner and his friend Mitch MacLean, in Charlottetown on Monday, Dec. 19, 2011. The two promising baseball players were killed Thursday along with Tabitha Stepple of Lethbridge, Alta. in a roadside shooting in Alberta last week. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

CHARLOTTETOWN - Students, staff and ordinary Islanders played catch outside a Charlottetown high school today in memory of two former students who were killed in a roadside shooting in Alberta last week.

Dozens of people donned ball gloves and tossed baseballs on a field outside Colonel Gray High School, the alma mater of Tanner Craswell, 22, and his friend Mitch MacLean, 20.

The two promising baseball players were killed Thursday along with Tabitha Stepple of Lethbridge, Alta.

Police said Stepple's former boyfriend, Derek Jensen, rammed the car they were in on a highway south of Calgary.

He opened fire, killing the trio and wounding a fourth person in the car, 21-year-old Shayna Conway, also of Charlottetown.

Jensen then killed himself.

Colonel Gray principal Kevin Whitrow said Craswell and MacLean were too old to have gone to school with many of his current students, but the two were still known by many.

"There's a lot of students who know them through baseball and they know them through family and friends and the connections throughout the community," he said.

Whitrow said school staff and teachers who taught the two and knew them well have been deeply affected.

He said people were invited to play catch and do "whatever they feel like doing" during the unusual memorial to the former students.

MacLean and Craswell were promising baseball stars with the Lethbridge Bulls of the Western Major Baseball League. MacLean was named rookie of the year and Craswell was an all-star shortstop.

Craswell, MacLean and Conway were all studying at Lethbridge College.

Investigators have determined Jensen was searching for Stepple early Thursday along Highway 2, south of Calgary, when he spotted her car stopped at a 7-Eleven store in Claresholm. Stepple and three friends in the car were making a quick pit-stop on their way from Lethbridge to the Calgary airport.

When they got back on the road, Jensen continued to follow the car for another 1.5 kilometres, then quickly rammed it from behind and opened fire on everyone inside. He next turned the 9-mm handgun on himself.

Funerals for the two men are planned for Thursday and Friday.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said both men's funerals are on Friday.

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