Person Page - 1118

Bedroom murder never solved

Lisa Brown
Lighthouse staff

Jason Barkhouse was asleep when a killer walked through his bedroom door in the early morning hours of June 26, 1980.

Sleeping beside him, his girlfriend of three months, Fern Casey, recalls hearing the basement steps creaking under the weight of footsteps. She tried to wake up Jason, but he was a sound sleeper.

"The next thing I remember was somebody standing in the bedroom door," Fern says. "It was a large person. They filled the doorway."

That's the last thing Fern remembers until the alarm clock woke her a few hours later. Twenty-seven-year-old Jason was driving a pulp truck for her brother and had planned to be up before daylight to get on the road.

"When the alarm went off, I guess I didn't realize that Jason was on the floor and not in bed," Fern recalls. "I kept shaking him and he wouldn't wake up, but I didn't realize there was anything wrong."

She got dressed and walked across the road to the neighbours' house. Albert Bezanson was outside working on his daughter's car so she could go to work.

"I asked him if he'd go over and see what was wrong with Jason. He must have looked at me and realized that there was something wrong. I remember lying on their couch and then I don't remember anything else," Fern says.

Albert recalls looking up to find Fern bleeding and saying she couldn't get Jason to wake up.

"There was a gouge on her head there," he says brushing his brow, "and the back of her head was bleeding. I didn't know what the heck was wrong, but I knew something happened over there that was drastic."

Nervous of what might face him, Albert called his son Blair who lived nearby. Blair went to the small bungalow and discovered his friend's body in a room covered with blood. Jason had been beaten to death and his body mutilated.

It was the beginning of a mystery that has gone on for more than two decades in the small community of East Dalhousie, just across the county line above North River and Parkdale. Despite extensive investigation, the RCMP never learned who killed Jason in his own bedroom. No one has ever been charged in his death.

Albert and his wife Ruby knew Jason well. He was Ruby's nephew and grew up just yards up the hill from their home.

There were rumours that Jason sometimes drank too much, but the Bezansons never saw any evidence of that. Jason would stop in and visit sometimes, particularly with Albert after he lost his own father when he was 19.

But on that moonlit night, Albert and Ruby didn't see or hear anything out of the ordinary. They wish they had so they could have helped solve the case all those years ago.

"It was a summer night. We had the windows up, but we never heard one thing," Ruby says.

Investigators brought in a tracking dog a few days later, but it had rained hard in the interim. The dog followed a scent to the brook below Jason's home, but there the trail ended.

The authorities believe the killer went in through the kitchen door, although there were no signs of forced entry. Fern recalls she and Jason went out for a little while before settling in for the night and thinks they might have left the door open then. At night, the doors were usually locked.

The killer left through the basement, leaving a smear of blood on the door. The brook near the house leads to Black Duck Lake a short distance away.

"I wondered lots of time if they'd have drug that lake if they'd have found anything," Ruby says. She believes investigators might have found clothing or whatever weapon was used to strike Jason.

The police told them some sort of object was used due to the injuries on the body and other evidence at the scene. The killer swung it high enough and with enough force to mark the bedroom ceiling.

Investigators spent days at Jason's small home and around the area. At one point, police said they were very close to knowing what happened, but that never materialized.

For a time, the Bezansons say, people in the rural area were frightened and nervous.

"We used to go to bed and never lock our door," Ruby recalls. "I almost barred the doors after that. We were terrified. We barred and locked everything."

The evening before his murder, Jason visited both the Bezansons and his mother, who was staying down the road with his grandmother. He was tired and told everyone he was going home to bed because he had to work the next morning.

"We have no clues. I'm sure we would have told years ago if we knew," Ruby says.

The only person who might have provided information has little recollection of the night in question. Fern was also badly beaten and suffered serious head injuries.

Her arm had a visible dent where doctors said she must have lifted it to shield herself from blows with a round object. The flesh was scraped away from the left side of her forehead down to the skull. She still has a dent in her skull on top of her head.

Doctors cut her skull to relieve pressure on her brain. She still has a plastic plate in her head and problems with her balance. She had no senses of smell or taste for years after the attack.

She was 30 at the time.

Fern doesn't recall the assailant saying anything to them. She remembers being afraid, but wasn't the type of person to faint in fright. Doctors have told her she can't remember due to her head injuries.

She was hypnotized twice, the first time shortly after her month-long stay in hospital. She was hypnotized again since, probably seven or eight years ago.

"I could only bring back so much and that was it," she says.

She's spent years wondering who was responsible for the attack. Jason had been assaulted a few months earlier, but otherwise seemed to get along well with people in the community.

Police believe Jason knew the killer. The genital mutilation would indicate the attacker felt a disgust with the morals of Jason's sexual past.

"Everybody liked Jason and as far as I know I didn't have any enemies," she says. "It used to just about drive me crazy. Every person that I would meet I would wonder if they were the one."

She has no doubt the killer left her for dead as well as Jason. Doctors told her she would have bled to death in another hour. The alarm clock saved her life.

"They wanted to kill both of us," Fern says. "I'm not sure if it was someone who was just after Jason and I just happened to be there, or if it was somebody who wanted us both. I don't really know."³

Loss still painful two decades later

Lisa Brown
Lighthouse staff

Beulah Barkhouse buried her son and she buried his car - she knew that was what he would have wanted.

It was a final act of a mother's endless love, one of the last things she could do for her boy.

She also raised his young daughter Melissa, watching tenderly as she grew into a teenager. When tragedy struck again, she buried Melissa next to her father and an older brother the girl never knew because he died in infancy. Now she lovingly tends their graves because that's all she has left to do.

For years, Beulah held onto the hope that Jason's killer would be caught. But after more than two decades, even that hope has begun to fade. Now, she says, she doesn't believe her son's murder will ever be solved.

"Not now," Beulah says. "I really don't anymore."

She thinks she knows who was responsible, but the police were never able to prove anything. Whether having that suspicion makes her son's death easier or more difficult to bear, she isn't certain. Jason's death isn't a mystery to her, but no one was ever held accountable.

"It never goes away. You think about it every day," Beulah says.

"That night that Jason was killed was so moonlight. It was just bright like day," she says. "I've never got over the moonlight. I don't sleep. I'm not afraid, the moonlight just bothers me."

Jason was a fairly quiet child. He didn't do well in school, his mother says, because his heart wasn't in it. He wasn't all that interested and probably didn't pay enough attention.

He left school early and went to work. He married at 19 and the couple lived with Beulah for a time, while Jason built a small house just down the hill from his mother's place.

Jason and his wife had a son who died at the age of seven months. Four years later, they had a little girl, who they almost lost to illness when she was still an infant. Melissa survived but spent much of her first two years at the IWK hospital.

"Jason loved her dearly," Beulah says.

Melissa was not quite three when her mother left. Beulah took over raising the child, who was just four years old when her father was killed.

Jason then got involved in a relationship with Fern Casey, who left her husband - a friend of Jason's - and moved into Jason's home. Three months later, he was murdered.

"The evening before I had gone to my mother's. My mother was a semi-invalid and I had gone to her house just down across from the community centre. I was going to stay the night with her," Beulah recalls.

"The next morning before I was up Albert Bezanson came to the door and said there was something awfully wrong with Jason," she says.

Beulah immediately went to her son's home. Albert's son Blair met her at the door and told her Jason was dead. He warned her not to come inside.

Beulah didn't listen. She stops telling her story for a minute as tears fill her eyes.

"I guess likely I called the police. Some of it's a bit fuzzy," she says, her voice cracking.

She remembers it was a hot day, one of those June scorchers that promise summer is on its way. The police told her it was too hot to take fingerprints.

Investigators came and went from Jason's home for days but there were no arrests. A few weeks later, his mother went back to the house.

"As soon as we were allowed in, I went," Beulah says. Some neighbours had already been in and replaced the flooring in the bedroom where the blood has soaked into the unfinished boards. Beulah helped clean up the rest of the house.

She later rented it for awhile. Now her brother lives there. "They weren't here around that time. They don't have the memories that we have," Beulah explains.

She visits, however, and says she doesn't mind it. She's had to be strong.

But even after 20 years, the pain doesn't go away.

"Not too much," she says, wiping tears from her cheeks. "You never get over it. Then to see his daughter die."

Melissa was killed in a car accident on her first date at the age of 16. That day would have been her father's 40th birthday.

"It's very hard," Beulah says. "I have my daughter. I don't know what I'd do without her.

Her daughter, also named Fern, lives with her. She works in Bridgewater and travels daily. They often talk about Jason as memories surface.

Beulah recalls the last time she saw her son alive. He came to see her at his grandmother's home around 10 p.m. the night before he died. He only stayed for a few minutes, saying he was tired and was going home to bed.

"It was very rare that there ever was a night that he didn't come," she says. Jason could and did talk to her about everything.

Jason was a big man, probably six feet tall or a little taller. He weighed over 200 pounds. Sometimes he sported a beard, although he didn't have one around the time that he was killed.

"He liked driving cars and he liked to drive fast. He was kind of reckless in a way," Beulah says with a fond smile. "I know there was people scared of his driving, but I never was. I always felt he could handle a car.

"He never was much to go to parties or anything like that," she adds. "Mostly he worked and then he watched television."

Although she doesn't think her son had any idea that something was about to happen to him, after his death Beulah remembered conversations they'd had.

"It was so strange," she says. "He had a Dodge car and thought it was just the greatest thing ever was."

The car still ran but needed work. Jason had great hopes of restoring it some day.

"He would say 'if anything ever happens to me Mom, I don't want anybody else to have my car.' He said 'if you want it, that's okay, but if you don't want it, I don't want anybody else to have it. I don't want anybody else to have any parts off it. I want it buried.' It's buried. I buried it quite awhile after," she says quietly.

"It was awful to have to look at that car."⁴

Barkhouse killer sought 30 years on

Nova Scotia is offering $150,000 to anyone who can help solve the 30-year-old homicide of Jason Robert Barkhouse.

The case is the latest unsolved homicide in Nova Scotia's cash reward program.

Barkhouse, 27, died after he was severely beaten in his home in East Dalhousie, Kings County, early on June 26, 1980.

The attacker who broke into the house also assaulted a woman.

Police determined that Barkhouse had been assaulted several weeks before his death.

The Department of Justice is offering up to $150,000 for information that leads to an arrest and conviction. Anyone who comes forward must give their name and contact information, and could be called to testify in court.

"Some information may now seem insignificant. But that seemingly insignificant piece of information could have a big impact on getting justice for Mr. Barkhouse and his family," Justice Minister Ross Landry said in a release.

There are now 61 cases in the Rewards for Major Unsolved Crimes Program. The homicides and missing-person cases go back to 1955.⁵

BOWDOINHAM -- George M. Bezanson, 80, of Post Road died Saturday, Aug. 7, 2004, at Maine General Medical Center, Augusta.

He was born in Waterville on July 9, 1924, the oldest son of Melbourne and Nina Barkhouse Bezanson.

He attended Waterville and Albion schools.

He proudly served in Patton's 3rd Army in Europe during World War II. He retired as a master sergeant following 35 years service in the Maine National Guard.

Mr. Bezanson was an automobile mechanic in the Waterville area for many years.

He was a former member of the American Legion in Waterville, a member of the Second Baptist Church in Bowdoinham and a former member of Notre Dame Church of Waterville.

He is survived by a son, Stephen Bezanson and daughter-in-law, Lorraine, of Winslow; a brother, Nelson Bezanson and his wife, Uda, of Paris, Ontario; three sisters, Ruth Veno of Bowdoinham, Roberta Copeland of Pottstown, Pa., and Amy Brickett of Oakland; a granddaughter, Jennifer Pelletier and her husband, Andrew, of Bingham; two great-grandchildren, Nicholas and Emily Pelletier of Bingham; several nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Friday, Aug. 27, at Second Baptist Church, Main Street, Bowdoinham. Interment with military honors will be at 1 p.m. Friday at Maine Veteran's Memorial Cemetery, Mount Vernon Road, Augusta.³

Stephen Peter "Bubba" Bezanson
1952-2014

WATERVILLE - Stephen Peter "Bubba" Bezanson, 61, of Waterville, passed away on August 14, 2014. He was surrounded by his family and close friends.

He was born September 4, 1952, in Waterville, Maine, the son of George M. Bezanson, and Yvette G. (Loubier) Bezanson.

Stephen graduated from Waterville High School in 1970. He then went on to attend St. Francis College and Northeast School of Broadcasting.

From there he went into radio and became a popular D.J. for WFAU in Augusta. His name was Steven "Bubba" Benson. He had been in radio most of his life at various stations throughout Maine and in other states. He also was a car salesman after radio and made Salesman of the year several times in the Waterville area.

Steve was an avid Boston Red Sox, Montreal Canadiens, Boston Celtics, and New York Giants fan. He had an incredible sense of humor. He enjoyed time spent with friends and family.

He is survived by his daughter, Jennifer Taylor, and her husband Dennis Taylor of Bingham, Maine; two grandchildren, Nicholas Pelletier and Emily Pelletier of Bingham, Maine.

No services are scheduled.²

Robert L Bezanson

LAKELAND, Fla--Robert Lawrence Bezanson, 63, died March 23 at Lakeland Regional Medical Center.

He was born Jan 5 1927 in Winslow, Maine, son of Melburn and Nina (Barkhouse) Bezanson.

He was an automotive mechanic for many years at Central Maine Motors in Waterville, Maine.

He was a veteran of the US Army and the Merchant Marine and was a member of the American Legion Post No 4 of Lakeland.

His first wife, Grace (Brickett) Bezanson, died in 1978.

Survivors include his wife Annie R. Bezanson of Lakeland; three daughters, Pamela Thomas and Terry Kelson, both of Oakland, Maine; and Sandra Ouellette of Sidney, Maine; a son, Everett Bezanson of Lakeland; a stepson, Gary Brown of Lakeland; two brothers, Nelson Bezanson of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, and George Bezanson of Winslow, Maine; three sisters, Ruth Veno of Bowdoinham, Maine, Amy Brickett of Oakland, Maine, and Roberta Copeland of Pottstown, Penn; 10 grandchildren and several nieces and nephews.

Services were held March 27 at Lakeland Memorial Gardens.⁶