‘Living a nightmare’:
Teacher’s murder still unsolved.
It’s a short drive from the West Edmonton Walmart to Mike and Jolene Cote’s house. The rustic-styled two-storey is shielded from the other acreages in a subdivision outside Spruce Grove by a thick stand of poplars. The exterior of the house remains unfinished, and reminders of Jolene are everywhere: The camper they used for family adventures, her silver Jeep Liberty, the trampoline and playset she put together for the children.
And the spot at the side of the driveway, where Mike Cote says he found his wife’s body in the grass.
On the evening of Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2011, Jolene played in a soccer tournament in Edmonton with her women’s team, the Spruce Grove Saints. After the game, the women ate birthday cake and celebrated their win before heading home. On her way out of the city, the 36-year-old teacher stopped at Walmart, leaving the store at 10:40 p.m. with her shopping cart piled high.
“I’ve gone over that night for two years,” Cote says. “There’s not a night that doesn’t go by I don’t stand up and look out the window and ask what the hell happened. Why didn’t I wake up? Why wasn’t I there to protect her?”
Cote says he’d planned to go to the soccer game, but decided not to because it was late and their four-year-old daughter was cranky. Instead, he says he told his wife to wake him if she felt like celebrating, and later he fell asleep reading to their two children in the couple’s bed.
“I said, ‘I love you, good luck,’ ” he says. “That’s the last time I talked to her.”
Cote says he awoke in the morning surprised that the children were still in bed with him, because Jolene usually carried them back to their own beds in the night. He says he thought at first that Jolene may have been up marking students’ work or cleaning. He says he didn’t know anything was wrong until he went outside and found her body.
“I’ve never felt skin that cold. I didn’t know what to do, how to protect her. I brought her in and I put a blanket on her. I put a towel on her head. She had a big gash on her head.”
Around 6 a.m., Cote called 911. Jolene’s death was declared a homicide the next day.
Cote describes it as feeling “like you’re living a nightmare.”
The murder stunned neighbours in the quiet subdivision and in the broader community of Spruce Grove, but it was particularly shocking to those who knew Jolene. The honey-blond was a physically fit, popular and well-liked teacher, a classic soccer mom who appeared to get along with everybody she knew.
More than 1,000 people attended her funeral. Two years later, a memorial Facebook page has more than 800 members, and Jolene’s sister, Rhonda Berg, says new people ask to join the group almost every day. But, despite the attention from the community — and a $50,000 reward — Jolene’s death remains unsolved.
RCMP investigators will not speak about the case, with spokeswoman Josee Valiquette saying only that it remains under investigation.
Cote says he knows police, and possibly others in the community, considered him a suspect “right from Day 1.”
“That’s the first thing the police told me. … I feel sick thinking about it,” he says. “I can’t let it bother me … The people who are close to me and know me, know the kind of relationship we had.”
In the wake of Jolene’s death, the 37-year-old carpenter says investigators interviewed him for hours “more than once,” and scoured their house and property for days.
“They went through my bank accounts, computers, phones. … You feel absolutely violated. And the only thing I can tell myself is they’re doing their job ... and that’s the only thing that gets me from not getting too angry with them.”
The items Jolene bought at Wal-Mart were still in the Jeep when her body was found, but her wedding and engagement rings were gone, as was a diamond pendant necklace Cote gave her as an anniversary gift. Three months after the slaying, RCMP released pictures of Jolene’s jewelry and footage of her leaving the WalMart store, in the hope it would spur new tips and information.
Trina Pfannmuller says it’s excruciating to watch the images of her sister’s final moments. “(You want to) stop her, yell at her, something,” Pfannmuller says. “It’s like a horror movie when you know what’s going to happen.”
Berg says she wonders whether someone could have followed Jolene home from Wal-Mart. Cote says there were two people arrested on his driveway in the summer, and police have never told him why. He says he also wonders whether Jolene could have been killed by a student.
Asked what he would say to those who suspect he killed his wife, Cote says: “If they’re thinking that, they already have their mind (made up). That’s fine. They don’t know me and they don’t know my family. … People are going to think what they want.”
The scenarios are endless, the answer maddeningly elusive.
“I totally avoid that piece of highway,” says Jolene’s mother, Dorothy Commandeur. “Because it just feels like she drove down that highway on her way home … to what?”
The approaching second anniversary of Jolene’s death began weighing on the family weeks ago, creating deep feelings of unease and dread, triggered by the changing colour of the leaves, by the sting of fall’s icy winds.
Her family marks Jolene’s life every way possible. A centrepiece keeps her presence at her mother’s dinner table, and she looks out smiling from photos hanging on the walls. Block wooden letters spell out “Love you,” a craft painted by Jolene’s daughter for Mother’s Day.
Pfannmuller and Berg regularly post and report a poster of Jolene on Facebook, reminding people that the murder remains unsolved, and that any piece of information could help. Some days, it feels as if the only thing they can do for Jolene.
“Our family needs some peace of mind,” Berg says.
“It’s not going to make us feel any better. It might actually make us feel worse. It will, I’m sure … but at least we will have that constant racket out of our brains … constantly wondering what happened, and why this happened, and who did this. At least that will stop, and this story will have an ending.”