Heartbroken friends remember devoted mom
Double murder-suicide near Edmonton comes as shock to community
If there were red flags before Lois Gartner was killed in a double murder-suicide, her good friend believes she didn’t see them.
“She and I had talked many times in our lunch conversations and we both had the same belief. Like, ‘If someone ever laid a hand on me, I was gone,’ ” Marjean Maas says. “‘I do not stay for the kids. That’s not in me. I would never do that.’ ”
“I don’t think she knew this was coming. I truly believe that.”
Lois and her 13-year-old daughter, Sarah, were found dead after what police believe was a double murder-suicide on their quiet acreage east of Edmonton early Monday morning, before a male relative then turned the gun on himself. A statement provided by Moodys Tax, where Lois’ husband, Greg Gartner, worked as a lawyer in the Edmonton office, said the company was “shocked and saddened by the tragic events regarding the loss of a colleague and his family. It is impossible for any of us to comprehend the heartbreaking event that occurred (Monday).”
An older child survived the incident and police confirmed a 911 call was made by family member.
Maas remembers Lois as whip smart, but kind and funny; independent, but intuitive about others.
She was devoted to her two kids and chose to stay home with them, said Maas. She had a huge heart for animals, and pictures of her dogs — one of whom was also shot and killed — filled her social media pages.
For her birthday earlier this year, she asked people to donate to an Australian wildlife charity that helped animals affected by the fires there. When Maas moved to the Edmonton area five years ago, she was invited out to dinner by friends, who also invited Lois. The connection between the two women — both social butterflies and busy moms holding down the home front while their husbands worked long hours — was instant.
That first dinner stretched out for hours and, at the end, Maas said, her only question was, “When am I going to see you again?”
Maas’s husband, Jason Maas, was the coach of the Edmonton Eskimos football team at the time. While Lois had barely so much as been to a football game at that point, she and her husband, inspired by their new friendship, bought season tickets. Lois was eager to learn.
“A whistle would blow and she would ask questions like, ‘They throw this thingy and they would catch the thingy, and these people would run. What does that mean?’ ” Maas recalls, laughing at the memory.
“It was super fun and she tried so hard and she was so funny.”
Lois was fiercely supportive of her friends, and quickly became Jason’s No. 1 fan, Maas says. When the team was down or Jason’s coaching abilities were criticized in the media, Lois would come to his defence, or urge him to keep his head high.
Maas said they’d joke because Lois would defend her husband despite not having much of a clue about football, but really, it didn’t matter. “She had a clue about life and feelings and friendship.”
From football, the friendship grew into dinners at each others houses, days at the lake and trips to Mexico; one winter they skied Silverstar in British Columbia, where Lois could ski circles around her friends, Marjean said.
At home, Lois was a stay-athome mom, and Maas said she ran the show at their spacious rural property.
“She flawlessly did it. She never, never, ever, ever complained, she managed to get her workouts in, she made the most amazing healthy meals for her kids that I could never even imagine,” she said, adding Lois also shuttled her kids around and made sure they had what they needed. In turn, Maas said, they adored her.
“She was the glue of that family.”
On Friday, Maas would get off work early, so that was the day the two friends often got together, and their wide ranging conversations touched on everything from their marriages to friends to the challenges of raising teenage girls.
Lois talked a lot about Sarah’s schedule and how she wanted to make sure the teen had everything she needed, Maas said.
Sarah was athletic like her mom, but drawn to the water. She was an excellent swimmer who loved to snorkel.
“She was a quiet, introverted kid, but if you got through to Sarah, she was just the funniest thing,” Maas said. “I just thought she was such a special kid.”
As the two families spent time together over the last couple of years, Maas said she watched Sarah begin to grow up and find her feet as a young woman.
“It just breaks my heart, because I think she was just getting comfortable with who she was.”
Horse trainer Gary Coleman, who previously owned Coleman Farm just down the road from where the Gartners lived, says he introduced Lois and Greg to each other about 20 years ago and toasted them at their wedding in 2003.
He described them as the “model family” and said he didn’t see any red flags in the relationship.
“All I can tell you is it’s a complete shock to everybody … I can’t find one person that suspected anything,” he said.
In a bio on the Moodys website that has since been removed, Greg is described as a “bona fide maverick” who wouldn’t stop before finding a solution. In his spare time he rode horses and roped cattle.
The couple was “very involved” in the horse industry, Coleman said. The last time he saw Greg and Lois Gartner outside their barn just a few weeks ago, nothing seemed amiss.
“They were both in the truck and they seemed very happy, normal. We laughed about a few things and they drove off,” he said.
“There was no indication of anything.”
According to Coleman, the couple had split at some point, perhaps last fall. When they mended their relationship, Coleman said Greg was ecstatic.
“Since they got back together, Greg has, on numerous occasions, explained how happy he was,” Coleman said.
Jan Reimer, the executive director of the Alberta Council of Women’s Shelters, says it’s easy for the signs of violence to fly under the radar, and it’s hard to know what is really happening in someone else’s relationship.
As coronavirus keeps everyone at home, Reimer urges people to keep an even closer eye on friends and pay attention if they seem to be withdrawing or are less active than normal. She also wants people to know that shelters are there to help.
The last time Maas saw Lois and Greg was a couple of weeks ago, when she and her husband paid a socially distant visit. Something felt off, she said.
“My husband and I felt something. We didn’t feel it with Lois but we felt something with Greg. I don’t know,” she said, adding that they chalked it up to stress caused by coronavirus and isolation.
“I just hate that I couldn’t hug her.”