But ... Why?

"At Health Mart 2000 we believe that the road to optimal health may be achieved thru a natural approach, using Herbs and Natural products given to us by GOD, as our inheret (sic) right as his adopted children; and a continued daily effort to know our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the way to Salvation and ever Lasting Life."
Health Mart 2000, St. Paul, Alberta website

"We'll probably be grappling with this for a long time, because I don't know if anybody can make sense of what happened. To me [Mr. Quadros] was an ordinary person, a businessman, a father and a husband, and to have this happen, I can't explain it. It's just unexplainable. So there's something else that we are missing, whether it can be identified through autopsy, or some other stressor in his life that put him in this situation. I've never seen him like this, so I don't know what pushed him to this. Right now it makes no sense at all."
"All of the community should be thinking of everybody who is affected by this incident and trying to help them all out."
Glenn Anderson, mayor, St.Paul, Alberta

St. Paul Cathedral   The funeral for Gilbert Dasna was held at the St. Paul Cathedral, St. Paul, Alberta on Monday, May 19, 2014 .

 

The slain and the slayer are both dead. Whatever was the motivation for the surprise attack and resulting suicide-by-police, both are beyond reach of enquiry. If there was a logical reason for what happened in this small town of six thousand souls located northeast of Edmonton, or even a remotely explicable one beyond the blank mystery that presents itself, it may have died with the two men. Unless somehow who has special knowledge decides to step forward and clear up the confounding mystery.

From the website quotation the owner of the town's local health food store was a religious man of great devout conviction. He had in his life the kind of stability that a self-owned business, a spouse, children and familiarity of his peers along with respect in the town provides. If there were mental health issues aside from what is generally known in a small town atmosphere where everyone seems to know everyone else's business, it presents as an issue no one seems to have been aware of.

The man whose life this health food store owner destroyed had been living in the town for the past three years. A young missionary priest from Cameroon whose sister, a nun, raised him. He had briefly returned to his native Africa when his sister was killed in a car crash. She had been his inspiration to the priesthood and his firm belief in the presence of an Almighty God; had taken her little brother under her protective and nurturing care on the death of their parents.

When Father Gilbert Dasna responded to a knock at the door of his rectory on May 9, he was confronted by John Carlos Quadros, 55, who owned the alternative health food store on the main street of the town, located a mere block distant from the St.Paul Cathedral and its rectory. It's doubtful that he was given much time to react, seeing himself standing in the doorway of the rectory, before him a familiar face holding in his hands a firearm. At that close range, Father Dasna was shot multiple times in the chest.

Police shot Mr. Quadros dead as he sat in his truck. First,  however, he had sped away from the rectory with three constables of the local RCMP detachment after him, and a high speed pursuit ensued, gunfire reverberating through the town's residential streets. The female RCMP officer at the wheel made a decision to stop the rampage, and back on the main street again, drove directly into the path of the speeding truck. Mr. Quadros's black Dodge truck rammed into the police truck, crushing it, crushing his own vehicle and with Mr. Quadros in the driver's seat, he was shot by police.

The RCMP officer at the wheel suffered badly crushed legs necessitating immediate surgery. She is expected to recover. While the two male officers in the confrontation received treatment for less serious wounds, one gunshot injury included. Inside Mr. Quadros's truck an investigative search revealed multiple weapons. "It could have been way worse, with the gunfire through residential areas and into the downtown core. People heard it across town", said Mayor Anderson.

Father Dasna's remains are scheduled to be returned to the cemetery operated by his religious order in Nigeria. Father Dasna is returning to the place of his birth. His work in Canada is over. He is known for having said at a funeral for a local 11-year-old girl: "We are the people of faith, we are the people of hope."