Uncover - S38 E2: Pay your bill | The Mile Zero Murders

Episode Date: August 7, 2026

The remains of two missing people are found. A father comes forward with new information about his daughter’s murder. His tip leads to a story about a well-known double murder at one of Dawson Creek’s notorious trailer parks. How do the murders of Tina Nellis and Adam Roy Isley connect with Darylyn Supernant?Host Timothy Sawa finds out more about the targets of the double murder, what might have motivated the gruesome scene, and what has made Dawson such a hot bed of criminal activity in recent years.

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This episode contains explicit descriptions of violence. Please take care. Hello. How are you doing? I'm looking for Shelly. Yeah, come morning. Place? Okay.

Great. It's the spring of 2025, and I'm sitting down with Shelly Supernet. You met her in the last episode. We're back to talk more about the disappearance of her daughter, Darylyn. Shelly invited me and producer Tiff Lamb to her home in Dawson Creek.

Where would you make you to sit up? We'll do the living room there? Just, yeah, um... Shelly sits down in her favorite rocking chair. Her partner Everett settles in a giant lounger facing their TV. And I could pull up a little chair right beside, maybe? Pulling one of those chairs right there?

I would sit here by myself and because I wouldn't reach out to people. Like, this is the most I've talked to anybody, really, I think. I would bottle it up. Sometimes it would come out, but it would be when I was by myself. Shelly's thinking back to how she was coping. In late spring of 2024, her daughter Darylind had been missing for over a year. And I was scared lots of times sitting here,

and dreading that someone's going to knock on my door or ring my doorbell and get those. drastic words. It eventually inevitably happened. An RCMP officer showed up at Shelley's home. And he brought somebody from victim services with him. And they came and told me at the door. And it was something that I've been dealing with

for the last year and a half now. Darlin's remains had been discovered. It didn't hit me as hard. when it happened, when they come and told me, I just kind of accepted it at that point, but I was into the bottle drinking probably an hour later. And friends knew and I had a whole bunch of people come see me. Shelley remembers asking the constable at her door what happened to her daughter.

But the officer was tight-lipped about how and why Daryland ended up dead, dumped in a ditch, on the outskirts of Dawson Creek. So, of course, you're not going to divulge the information to me because it's part of the investigation, I guess. Ever since Daryland had gone missing, her family had been looking for answers from the police. And now that her body had been discovered, all they were left with were more questions.

And then barely a month after Daryl's body was found, another grim discovery. We begin tonight with the human remains found this past weekend, near Dawson Creek. The remains are those of Renee Didier who went missing in December. For eight months, Renee searched for her missing cousin, Darylind. She was asking tough questions. And then she turned up dead. And so in the span of a single month, two bodies. Two of Dawson's missing had become murder investigations. By the spring of 2024, the number of missing and murdered totaled 11. And remember, this is a

a town of 13,000 people. I had so many questions. And at the stage of our investigation, the RCMP wasn't talking to me. My calls and emails had gone unanswered for weeks. I knew both Daryland and Renee lived risky lifestyles involving drugs. But that didn't explain whether two of them had been killed in the same year. I was, however, starting to gather clues. Here's Daryland's step-sister, Jordan. One of the big rumors I heard too was that she was just in the wrong place, wrong time, which would fit, like, the last rumor I'd heard about her

where she was in someone's house and wasn't supposed to be there when these people showed up. And like her, she didn't listen and didn't stay put like she was supposed to and heard something she wasn't supposed to hear, saw something. To be fair, there were a lot of rumors. Like any small town, they spread like wild, fire. But this one stuck with me. It was specific. Wrong place. Wrong time. She saw something. But what was I supposed to do with that information? Then one evening, I was talking to people who were

milling around the local homeless shelter in Dawson Creek. A man approached me out of the blue. He wanted to know if I was the guy from the fifth estate. This only happens when I'm working in small towns. He introduced himself as Daryland's father. I just felt it. I just felt it because she wasn't around anymore. She wasn't phoning dad. She wasn't, she always keeping contact with me constantly. Brad's supernance spoke to us while sitting on a local park bench in Dawson Creek. Under the shadow of the town's tallest structure. It's a bright red grain elevator with the town's name, painted in giant white letters. At his feet, sat a brown paper bag with a six-pack of coolers.

He cracked one open. My friend of mine was picking bottles. She found the body. I know she was shot. We had 22 in the head. We asked Brad what he remembered about Darylind before she went missing. She was using heroin all the time. She wouldn't stop.

I was at the same place. He doesn't come right out and say it, but the implication is clear. Rad couldn't help his daughter because he was struggling too. And today, he's grieving. And he says he'll never forget his last conversation with Darylain. Yeah, she was telling me about the implications and about the,

I didn't know what she was saying, but now I know. She witnessed a murder. Double murder, yes. She was double. She's witnessed both of them. That's why she's gone. But Brad stops talking abruptly. With a look that says, I've said too much.

I'm not saying another word. Look, leave me alone. I'm Timothy Sawa. From the CBC's Uncover and the Fifth Estate, this is the Mile Zero murders. Episode two, pay your bill. We begin tonight with breaking news. The two people reported missing last week in Dawson Creek have been found dead.

When Brad told me about a double murder, he had to be talking about this tragic story from 23. Police saying both live, quote, high-risk lifestyles. The murders happened in January of 23, about two months before Daryland's disappearance in a well-known part of town. We are headed to the Mile Zero trailer park. and mile zero trailer park is notorious for crime. Michael Popov is a reporter as well as the regular anchor for the only local TV newscast. It's operated by CTV in Dawson Creek.

Popov arrived in town about five years ago, looking forward to covering the comings and goings in a friendly, smaller community. Then, people started disappearing and dying. On our way to the scene of the double murder, Michael points out where the other recent shootings have taken place. One of them in broad daylight. Yeah, and so the shots fired that we've been experiencing normally comes at night,

but this one was really interesting because it happened at 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning. This shooting led to a high-speed car chase with a dirt bike right into the heart of Dawson. One guy leaned out of a vehicle, pumped a shotgun into the other vehicle. and blew out its back window right in the middle of town here. And I don't know of any charges that have been laid in that instance. You know, a dirt bike driver getting hit by a car and being rolled over in a ditch to a high-speed chase, a shotgun being fired, yeah, miraculously, no injuries. We're looking for unit number eight.

On the day we went to the trailer park, a woman at one of the trailers was washing a car in her drive. in her driveway. I'm not a car person, but it's bright red, massive, and probably from the 1970s, and looks more like a boat or a small plane. Across the street, a large man was mowing his lawn, beating the heat shirtless and a pair of tight jeans and work boots. Then I was approached by someone who introduced himself as the unofficial trailer park manager. He noticed we were looking at trailer number eight. He says he turned it into a workshop. because nobody wanted to live in it after what happened there. That would be it, I believe.

You'll keep outside, that one? Yeah. So what happened here? Police recall to this unit eight at the Mile Zero trailer park. And from what the police officer tells me, he was just saying to a friend of his, like, please don't be Tina, please don't be Tina, please don't be Tina. Tina Nellis was well-liked in town by everyone.

including the police. She and her partner, Roy Isley, were found that day, brutally murdered. And one of the officers walked in and came out with a look on their face of just utter defeat. And sure enough, it was Tina and Roy that were in there. And that was a year and a half, over a year and a half ago. Still no charges. That was back in 2023.

Violence in town had been escalating. But this does. murder marked a new low. It was clear to everyone. Their community was changing. Daryland's step-sister, Jordan, was also close with Tina. Tina was like, she was like one of the best people I've ever met. I love Tina so much. Like, so much. She was, um, she was like my street mom. Um, she kind of took me in when I didn't have anybody else and she didn't know me that well. But she took me in and basically said, look, like, whatever you do, just don't lie to me if you steal my dope, if you sleep with my boyfriend.

If, like, whatever you do, just don't lie to me and I'll forgive you. And she was always like that. More than anything, Jordan remembers Tina being deeply generous. And because she loved, like I said, she loved cooking for people. So she loved having, like, fresh food around. And she was so smart. like so smart. You could go to her with anything

and she would give you advice or her opinion on things and she was always right about everything. But mostly she gave me that security and comfort when I didn't have it, you know. Jordan says Tina's relationship with a man named Roy

seemed good for her. Roy had like seen me grow up in the bar, like behind the bar working and stuff. So I've known him for years. Yeah, they seemed really happy there. And, like, the last time I saw her, like, she had color in her face. Her hair was done really nice. And she looked happy.

She looked really good. Roy seemed happy, too. The last time I saw him, he was, like, learning how to, or he wanted to practice doing tattoos on people. So I let him practice on my tattoo that I have on my wrist. Jordan remembers that Tina's trailer was a home. even a home base for the community, one that Roy was glad to be part of too. The house is like really full of people when I go over there.

Before finding a home in Tina's trailer though, Roy was in Alberta where he was born and raised. He's always been my little boy. He was so cute when he was little and funny. He was very, very smart. Like he raised his children. high school. He never opened a book. He never did a homework assignment. He got 90s, A's, A pluses, all through. And we kept warning. I'm telling him, like, you need to learn how to study. Like,

oh, yeah, whatever. That's Quinton Isley, Roy's adoptive father. He raised him from age three. Now, Roy's full name is Adam Roy Isley. In Dawson Creek, he went by Roy. But his family calls him Adam. So from here on out, we'll also call Roy, Adam. Quentin is an investigator for Alberta Fish and Wildlife. He and his wife raised their family moving around to various small towns in Alberta. Eventually, Adam moved away to college in Calgary, to Sate, the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology. He partied away semester and flunked out because he couldn't.

He had no study homework scales at all. It's like, surprise, surprise. So he was 19, freshly out of state, came home, got offered a job on the rigs, and went off to work at 19 years old. We had to go buy him. He had to go buy a hard hat, a pair of coveralls, gloves, and steel-toed boots. And they came and picked him up. And off he went on his oil field adventure.

You don't need study skills to get by in the oil patch. But, I mean, quickly, he was making, like, well, he's a 20-year-old kid, he was making double what I was getting paid. $180,000 a year, $190. Adam's sister Rachel says Adam liked to spread the wealth. When he had lots of money, he would take us, like, all us and all our friends to the movies, and he'd pay for all of us and give us money for the arcade and bottle our first cars. He'd give his shirt off his back to help people if he needed help.

for a while it seemed like Adam was building a dream life he met a woman in the late 90s and they eloped they bought a house had two kids and then adopted a third they bought mobile homes as investment properties and Adam was putting money away for retirement but oil patch work meant that Adam was away from home for long stretches sometimes as far away as the Middle East and eventually that work led him to Dawson, where in just a few years, he would lose everything. Okay, so there are millions of podcasts, and maybe you're cool to stick with the ones you already know you like. But if you're just a little paranoid about missing out on the best new stuff, we can help.

Every other Thursday, the Sounds Good newsletter will bring you one must-hear show from CBC podcasts. And because we're true audio nerds, we'll also tell you about shows that we love. that we didn't make. Go to cBC.ca slash sounds good to subscribe. Resource extraction brings in young men from all over the country. They're attracted by high wages and a low cost of living in towns like Dawson Creek. For some that can work out great, they go back to where they came from,

maybe driving a new truck with enough left over for a down payment on a house. For others, it can spell trouble. lonely bored young men, far from family, with a lot of cash, become entangled in alcohol, drugs, and the sex trade. Adam's other sister, Stephanie, remembers when her brother moved to Dawson Creek. That was 2014. Yeah. Adam started coming around less, and by the time Adam was in Dawson,

his marriage was already struggling. I could think he was probably had started drugs many, years before the opportunities when you work on the rigs are there, I think. And in 2014, he got involved with a woman in Dustin Creek. And then that split up his marriage. And then he ended up staying in Dawson Creek. He ended up quitting his job. He stopped working.

Quentin says Adam tried to make ends meet through odd jobs. He drove some kind of a service, a vac truck for a while, because that's what happens. A lot of these guys, like they moved down the ladder to jobs where they may not have to pass a drug test, but by that time he was a changed person. Stephanie remembers Adam's decision to stay in Dawson. That's when things turn.

drastically started to change. They started to lose all their assets, and everything, like, their holiday trailer got repossessed. The family noticed Adam acting differently when he would come home to visit. Like the drugs changed him. He wasn't the same Adam. But he wouldn't leave. He loved Austin Creek for whatever reason.

Quinton tried to have conversations with Adam about needing to make a change. He'd tell him, You have to get help. Like, if you continue down the path you're on, you're going to end up either dead or in jail, and I don't want either one of those things to happen to you. But Adam seemed to have grown attached to his people in Dawson. He wanted to make it work there.

They were drug users, but they're also people. They're your friends. They were people who supported him and were a part of the fabric of his daily life. Not everyone who used it. is a bad person. You know, Adam was a good person. And if I know that my brother was an addict

and a good person who had a life and had people who loved him, then that same thought has to apply to other people who are using. That he was not, I mean, he was, He was special to me, but he wasn't some kind of exception to the rule. Adam never left Dawson. He ended up dead in Tina's trailer in 2023.

Three years after Adam's brutal murder, the Isleys still haven't gotten a straight answer from the authorities about the cause or motive. I think it would be fair to say that they are frustrated with how the police have handled Adam's case. For one thing, the RCMP never even reached out to them when Adam was first reported missing. Instead, it was flagged by a family member.

Yeah, it was a Sunday out shopping at Cabela's, and she texted the bulletin. And I phoned the police, like, immediately, because we had heard nothing from them. That was dated for Wednesday, and this is now Sunday. The family's especially confused by this, because Adam would visit them from time to time.

Why wouldn't the RCNP check if he'd simply gone home? The Isley's also questioned how hard the police were working to find their son and brother. Somebody reported him missing on Wednesday. And from what I gather, they found him Saturday, late night Saturday, in his home. So from Wednesday till Saturday, they didn't even bother to check his house where he lived. And when the family followed up with the police for updates, the answer from the RCMP was always the same. It's under investigation. We don't want to compromise our investigation.

And it's like from the Mounties and they said, well, they believe they knew who'd done it and why, and they just had to prove it. We've tried to reach the RCMP too, and we haven't gotten any closer to an answer than the family has. Here's what we do know. By all accounts, Adam had a pretty serious drug problem. He was seeing a woman named Tina, and she also struggled with addiction.

In fact, we know from Jordan, she was kind of a maternal figure to younger women involved with drugs and the sex trait. We know that Adam was struggling to find steady work if he was working at all. It's hard to keep a roof over your head without a job, let alone feeding an expensive drug habit. And from what we've learned, these were probably crucial factors in the murder. murders. And we know something else. Whatever happened in Trailer 8 at the Mile Zero trailer park was horrific. They said you couldn't have an open casket. The funeral people couldn't put them back together again.

You want to be anonymous today. I want to ask you why. For one, everybody knows me. And for two, that could possibly put me in a threat. The people that talk to me will be scared for their lives. The silence and lack of results from the RCMP motivated this local to take up their own investigation. We've used an actor's voice for their protection. Because I think that people should be aware of what's going on. I should be aware of what's going on.

Why? Because then I can keep my community safe. For this resident, Tina and Adams' murder stood out as especially brazen. And a warning. What the source tells me is gruesome. Just because they were having a party and how she was killed. All the drug addicts that owed money were taken into the room and shown what they were doing to her. And they were stabbing her. And Roy, her boyfriend, was tied up in the corner watching it all.

They stabbed her in the stomach several times, and then they eventually cut her throat and cut Roy's. So, and then most of the... addicts that was at the party are dead. This source said they got their information from someone who was in the trailer when it happened. We wanted to talk to them, but that person is now dead from a drug overdose. But they said the killings were meant as a warning. So she owed money? Yeah.

And Roy? I'm assuming so because they both were addicts. And when you say people were brought in so that they were. could watch what was going to happen. What was behind that? Because they had a drug bill too. And what was the message? Pay your bill or this is going to happen to you and now the witnesses are dying. We've learned there were other witnesses present in the trailer when Adam and Tina were killed. Daryland told people she was there that day. Even confiding in a local social worker, if she disappeared, this would be the reason. And that aligns with what Darylain's father told us.

She witnessed a murder. Double murder, yes. That's why she's gone. And Jordan says that's what she heard as well. Heard something she wasn't supposed to hear, saw something, and they shot her in the face for that. As for Tina and Adams' murder, back in 2023, to this day, no arrests, no charges.

And why, I mean, of all the, murders that have happened here, why do you say that one stands out? Because it's never been solved, and the cops know who did it. Yeah. Do you know who did it? Yeah, but I'm not saying. Okay. Yeah, nobody will come forward. Why not? Because they're scared, a little scared they'll be killed. Our own investigation was starting to reveal a deadly chain of events, sparked by that double murder at the Miles Zero trailer park in 2023. First, Tina and Adam. and then Darylyn who witnessed their murders, and then René was killed after asking too many questions.

And there's one more. Remember the murder of a man named Robert Gerboff? I mentioned him in the last episode. His body was found on New Year's Eve in 2023. Sources have told us Robert may have played a role in Darylind's murder, or at least in the disposal of her body. And that made Robert a potential loose end. And now he's dead.

All of these murders left this community with a lot of questions and in fear. This became even more clear to me one evening while I was at the local dive bar talking to people about the murders. I was approached by a woman I'd never met. Once again, that small town thing. She called me over, discreetly took out her phone, and showed me a photo on Facebook of a man who looked like he was in his late 20s. At the time, I had no idea who the man was. But that would change. She whispered, if we had questions about crime and violence in Dawson Creek,

this is the person we needed to focus on. Next time on the Miles Zero murders. How is he walking free on these streets today? And as I say he, you know who we're talking about. I don't want to say his name, but we all know who we're talking about. You've been listening to the Miles Zero murders from CBC's on cover and the Fifth Estate. If you want to hear another series by me, you can check out Evil by Design. The show is reported and hosted by me, Timothy Sawa.

Our producer is Tiff Lamb. Additional reporting from Mark Kelly, Grant LaFleche, and Lisa Ellenwood at the Fifth Estate. Sound Design by Graham MacDonald. Emily Connell is our coordinating producer. Our senior producer is Jeff Turner. Additional audio from CTV, CJDC News. Alia Davidson is executive producer of the fifth estate. Emmanuel Marchant is the senior producer.

Executive producers for CBC podcasts are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is the senior manager and R. F. Norani is director of CBC podcasts. If you're enjoying this show, consider checking out another series from CBC. One I really like is called Cult Queen of Canada. It really hit home for me because I grew up in a small town in Saskatchewan. And it's a story about a community just like that, and the cult that tore it apart. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca.com.