There are many versions and official accounts of this fascinating true story of the murder of old Peter Demchyzn.

Below are a couple news articles and accounts of the event that happened on October 14, 1930. Since the incident, the road became known to the locals as Murder Hill Road. The name stuck, and has been called that for the past 80 years. Eventually, (around 1960) an official Highway sign was erected reading “Murder Hill Road.” The sign adorned the highway for many years, until a policy was enacted that all highway signs must be numbered roads. The villagers in Winnipegosis submitted a petition to keep the infamous road sign up, but they lost their case. The sign came down in 2005 and replaced by Road 180 North, but continues to be called “Murder Hill Road” by the locals.

– M. Grimmelt

Article printed in the Magazine Section of the Winnipeg Free Press printed on Saturday, June 6, 1942:

Six Points To The Scaffold ~ By Edward Green

Months of the Most Detailed and Disappointing Investigation Work Ever Carried on by the Manitoba Provincial Police Were Rewarded by The Evidence of a Ballistics Expert and Another Rural Murder Mystery Was Solved.

GENERAL science is merciless, but the science of forensic ballistics is more so by its cold impartiality to life or death area in the criminal courts. Today it is accepted as irrefutable evidence, pro or con, in all Canadian courts of justice, but the following story deals with the time it was first reluctantly admitted to the courts of Manitoba.

Our story opens when William Demcheson, homesteader living near Fork River, a tiny settlement on the highway between Dauphin and Winnipegosis in northern Manitoba, looked anxiously at the darkening sky. The bleak October day was drawing to a close, and the steady downpour of rain had turned to snow. The first chill touch of a long prairie winter was in the air.

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Murder Hill Road no more ~ By Billy Redekop (26 Jun 2004)

Dark name that recalled gruesome deed slips into town’s history.

WINNIPEGOSIS — If life is a highway, Murder Hill Road is where it ends.

Or so it did for Peter Demschyzn in a sensational murder case here 74 years ago. Local residents shrug when asked about the uncommon road name. Modern street names, usually dreamed up by developers, tend to promote happy thoughts, not tragic footnotes.

“It was stating a fact. The local council didn’t know what else to call it,” said Edna Medd, who runs the local museum in Winnipegosis, 380 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. It was also a case of a fatal mix-up of Model T Fords. On Oct. 14, 1930, Demschyzn travelled to town to see Dr. Alfred Medd, Edna’s father.

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