Memorials placed where 2 children died as father accused of murders appears in court

CALGARY – Teddy bears, flowers and deflated balloons now replace the flashing lights of police vehicles that were in northwestern Calgary last week, with two memorials now set up for two children found dead there.

The memorials — for a boy, 5, and girl, 3 — have gathered all sizes of stuffed animals and several notes on 14th Street NW, with messages such as “Calgary Mourns for Beautiful Angels.”

The two were found dead in a vehicle after their father, 37, turned himself in just outside of a police station in northwestern Calgary. He has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in their deaths. 

On Monday, Patricia Koller was taping flowers to one of the memorials, affixed to the side of the Calgary Police Station sign, and replacing stuffies that had been whipped about by the wind. 

She said she and her husband, John Koller, began the memorial after failing to find another in the area and speaking with people who wanted to pay their respects.

“When something like this comes up, I want to show my support because I believe for the parent to lose a child like that, she needs to know somebody cares,” she said in an interview Monday.

Others have added to it.

“It encourages me that people are caring, you know; that people do care.”

Koller said she spoke with police and they allowed them to begin making a memorial on the front lawn of the station at the sign.

A note left in the hug of a teddy bear, resting against a light pole at another memorial near where the two children’s bodies were pulled from a black SUV, read, in part, “I hope your mom can heal. I hope we can do better.”

The father made his first, brief court appearance by video Monday morning and remains in custody. A publication ban prevents identifying the children and the accused.

Court heard the father has a lawyer who is waiting for more information in the case, and he’s next scheduled to appear June 5.

Last week, police said the father phoned from a parked SUV to confess that he had killed his children, and gave them his location — which was just outside the police detachment now home to the memorial.

Police say the children’s parents were in a common-law relationship but had been separated for about a year. They lived apart and had shared custody of the children.

The mother tried to report them missing to police after the father failed to bring them back. While there had been domestic problems at the home, there had been no reported violence toward the children.

Police say he called 911 the next morning, and officers found the bodies in the back of the SUV. They were believed to have died just before midnight.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2026.