‘I thought I was going to die’

A Fortis Alberta field worker has told a Calgary jury he believed he would be killed when a gunman approached his rural worksite east of the city, shot him without warning and pointed a pistol at his head — an incident that also left a county employee dead.

Testifying in Calgary Court of King’s Bench, survey worker gun described how what appeared to be a routine roadside encounter turned into a violent ambush on Aug. 6, 2024, near the intersection of Township Road 250 and Range Road 282, just east of Calgary. 

He said he had been doing survey work when a white Dodge Ram with a flat tyre pulled up nearby.

Andres told jurors he initially believed the occupants of the truck needed help. 

“I thought they were going to come over and ask for some sort of assistance,” he said, according to the Calgary Herald. He said that changed when he saw one person coming towards him and pulling a covering over their face. “I looked up and I saw someone come up and pull a facemask over their face so I didn’t see any face at that point,” he testified.

Jury hears step‑by‑step account of ambush

Andres said the individual then opened fire without warning, striking him in the right upper forearm. “The next thing that happened was I felt the shot go through my arm,” he told the court, according to the Calgary Herald report. He said the assailant, whom he described as carrying a silver pistol, had exited the passenger side of the Dodge before the shooting.

After being hit, Andres said he turned toward the gunman and saw the weapon aimed at him. “After I felt the shot I turned to look at the individual and yes he did (have a weapon),” he said. “They were pointing it at my head.” He told the jury the gunman then demanded “keys,” and he indicated they were in his still‑running Fortis Alberta work truck.

Andres testified that he lay on the ground on his stomach as instructed, while the armed man walked away and returned twice. “I thought I was going to die,” he told jurors. When he believed the gunman had moved farther away, he ran to a roadside ditch some distance from the scene. Looking back, he said, he saw his company truck had been moved and was nose‑down in a ditch, with “the white dodge … pretty much engulfed in flames.”

_{Elijah Blake Strawberry, captured on a surveillance camera in the days after the shootings, was arrested about a month after Colin Hough was killed. (RCMP )}

Fatal outcome and charges before the court

From the ditch, Andres said, he saw a white GMC pickup approach and slow near the location. “As soon as they slowed down … I saw two figures rush out towards the vehicle and heard shots. Three or four shots,” he testified. He told the jury the GMC then fled northbound and he saw a person lying on the road.

Andres called 911 from his position in the ditch, and a recording of that call was played in court for jurors. RCMP later confirmed that a Rocky View County worker was fatally shot in the incident, while Andres was injured. The discovery of a burned‑out vehicle and the body prompted a major police response in the rural area northeast of Calgary.

Two men, Elijah Blake Strawberry and Arthur Wayne Penner, are on trial facing charges of second‑degree murder, attempted murder and two counts of armed robbery in connection with the events of Aug. 6, 2024. 

The trial, being heard in Calgary Court of King’s Bench, is scheduled to run for four weeks, according to the Calgary Herald.