The RCMP have been notified after work crews on Department of National Defence land at Rocky Point discovered a cache of newspaper clippings about the 1992 murder of Shannon Guyatt.
Guyatt was murdered and beheaded by her husband, Doug. Her head was found but not her body. Doug Guyatt died at 67 in August 2014 at the Pacific Institution in Abbotsford without ever revealing what he did with the remains.
CFB Esquimalt spokeswoman Capt. Jenn Jackson said the clippings were found inside a building that is slated for demolition. She said the RCMP were contacted “as a precaution.”
The RCMP will be able to decide if there is something to follow up, Jackson said.
“They were the lead on the case at that time, so they’re the ones who are best positioned to make that determination.”
At the time of Doug Guyatt’s death, police said they wanted to find the body of Shannon Guyatt so that there could be a proper burial and the family could have closure.
West Shore RCMP Staff Sgt. Harold Trupich said then that police were still investigating.
“Every avenue we can pursue, we will pursue to see where we can go with this,” he said. “You want to make sure nothing is missed from someone who might know something.”
Shannon Guyatt disappeared on June 17, 1992. Soon after that, Doug Guyatt learned he could not collect on insurance without proof of her death, and days later he produced Shannon’s head — saying he found it in a garbage bag in a ditch in front of their Colwood home on Cecil Blogg Drive.
Investigators believe that he killed Shannon in order to collect on a life-insurance policy so he could pay off the mortgage on the house.
Doug Guyatt was found guilty of second-degree murder in 1994 and sentenced to life with no chance of parole for 15 years.
