Blind River, in Ontario, Canada’s Algoma District, is located on Highway 17, the primary route of the Trans-Canada Highway through the province. Eighty-five miles from the American border, the town is named for the nearby river, a tributary of Lake Huron. A trading post was established at the site in 1789, and fur traders, loggers, and miners came to Blind River seeking natural resources. Just over two centuries later, someone came to Blind River seeking resources, although not natural.

In the early morning hours of June 28, 1991, a man, armed with two shotguns, arrived at the Blind River Rest Stop and demanded the possessions of a traveling couple staying there for the evening. The couple complied, but the gunman was not satisfied as he shot them both, killing one and wounding the other. Shortly thereafter the killer claimed the life of a second man who arrived at the rest stop.

No one could have foreseen the carnage that occurred at Blind River. Thirty-three years later, the victims’ families have not seen justice as the killer’s identity remains unknown.

Blind River Shoreline

On June 27, sixty-two-year-old Gord McAllister and his fifty-nine-year-old wife Jackie of Lindsay, Ontario, loaded their motor home and departed for a vacation. The couple planned to travel to Winnipeg, nearly 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles), to meet recently learned relatives of Jackie for the first time.

As the evening grew late and the couple were weary from driving approximately five-hundred-ten kilometers (three-hundred-fifteen miles), they decided to spend the evening at the otherwise empty Blind River Rest Stop.

At 12.55 a.m. on June 28, the McAllisters were awakened by pronounced knocks on their RV’s window. A man identifying himself as a police officer yelled they needed to move their vehicle. When Jackie opened the door, she saw the man had two guns, but he was not a policeman. He barged into the motor home with both weapons drawn, demanding their valuables. The couple complied, but the gunman still opened fire.

After the attacker shot Jackie twice in her chest at point blank range with both guns, Gord jumped out of the RV. As he did so, he was shot in his lower back. Once outside, Gord rolled under the vehicle in a desperate attempt for cover. His life was spared, but at the cost of another life.

A motorist had pulled into the parking lot and he, instead of Gord, became the gunman’s prey. Gord heard the man get out of his vehicle and say something to the effect of “what’s going on.” The gunman answered him with an array of bullets. Afterwards, the killer looked for Gord for several seconds before fleeing the scene.

A wounded Gord made his way to the highway where he flagged down a trucker who phoned for help. When police arrived at the scene, they found Jackie dead.

Gord And Jackie McAllister

The man Gord had seen pull into the parking lot in the midst of being attacked was twenty-nine-year-old Brian Major. He too was dead.

Brian was only about a half-hour’s drive from his Elliot Lake home. He had likely pulled into the area only to use the restroom.

Brian Major

Shortly after 1:00 a.m., a motorist was nearly hit by a blue van speeding out of the Blind River Rest Stop. The van, believed to be a mid-1980s model Chevrolet with white full sized mirrors and white mud flaps, was heading east, toward Sudbury along Lake Huron’s north shore. The tipster did not notice if the vehicle had Canadian or United States license plates.

The timing of the incident leads police to believe the van was either that of the killer or someone in the rest area who had seen something. A check of over 3,500 blue vans on both sides of the border failed to produce any leads.

Gord McAllister recovered from his wounds. He examined hundreds of mugshots of criminals from Canada and the United States without finding anyone who resembled his wife’s killer.

Gord Survives

Gord then helped police develop a composite sketch of the gunman. Newspapers throughout Ontario published the image, but no significant leads surfaced to the man’s identity.

A Composite Of The Killer

Using new computer technology, the Ontario police then worked with Gord to create a more lifelike image of the culprit. Gord said this rendering is very close to how he remembered his attacker, but the killer’s identity is still unknown.

The gunman is believed to have been approximately thirty-years-old in 1991, putting him in his early-to-mid sixties today. He was approximately five-feet-ten-inches tall with a slender build and long stringy blond hair. As his hairline appeared to be receding, he could now be bald.

The guns used in the murders of Jackie McAllister and Brian Major were a 20-gauge shotgun with #3 buckshot, and a .22-caliber rifle, either a semi-automatic Lakefield Mossburg or a Winchester Cooey.

An Enhanced Computer-Generated Image Of The Killer

Ronald West is serving a life sentence for murder, robbery, forcible confinement, and weapons offenses. In 1999, the former policeman was named a suspect in the 1991 murders of Jackie McAllister and Brian Major.

West was convicted of several 1995 home invasion robberies occurring in Sault St. Marie, one-hundred forty kilometers (approximately ninety miles) from Blind River. In 2001 he confessed to the murders of two women in 1970, while he was a policeman in Toronto. In both instances, the women, nurses Doreen Moorby and Helen Ferguson, were at home with their young sons who were not harmed.

At the time of the Blind River murders, West lived only twelve miles from the rest stop. He owned a .22-caliber rifle and a 20-gauge shotgun, the same type of weapons used in the murders, as well as a blue van similar to the one described fleeing from the crime scene. In addition, West’s former wife believes his facial features resemble the composite sketch of the killer. She believes the image looks like him wearing a blond wig.

Circumstantial evidence seems to link West to the killings, but investigators say they have nothing concrete and do not believe, as of now, they have enough evidence to charge him with the Blind River murders.

Ronald West

The now seventy-six-year-old West was denied parole in February 2022.

Staying Behind Bars

Gord McAllister later remarried. He died in 2012 at age eighty-three.

Gord Dies Without Knowing

Who Murdered His Wife

If you have any information on the murders of Jackie McAllister and Brian Major please contact the Ontario, Canada, Police Department at 705-329-6111 or 1-888-310-1122 or call Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477 (TIPS).

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/139993418/jacqueline-norma-mcallister

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/229691409/brian-donald_joseph-major

SOURCES:

• Edmonton Journal
• Edmonton Sun
• Lethbridge (Canada) Herald
• Ottawa Citizen
• Toronto Star
• Toronto Sun
• Unsolved Mysteries
• Vancouver Sun