Murder charge divides town
PINCHER CREEK, AB — At 26 Darren Varley was, according to his father Jack, a hard-working young man who had grown up on the farm and held solid Christian values. Sure, he went to the pub on Saturday nights with his friends, but that was where he shared his faith with them.
"He was just like any other kid," says Jack Varley. "But he was a Christian and he was in there witnessing to other people. He led a lot of people to the Lord."
Darren's life came to an abrupt and violent end last October 3 when he was shot and killed in the Pincher Creek RCMP lockup. The officer who shot him, Mike Ferguson, was a Baptist, a respected leader in the community who worked with the youth in his church.
Ferguson was later charged with second-degree murder. An inquiry in Lethbridge beginning September 27 will determine whether the matter should go to trial.
Murder charges uncommon
The word "murder" doesn't show up very often in this town of 3,600 people, so when it does, it causes deep pain; pretty well everybody in Pincher Creek knows either the victim or the one who has been charged, and they're apt to take sides. The fact that both parties in this sad case were connected with churches only makes the situation more painful and more divisive.
"A lot of blame goes on in this town," says Murray Pura, pastor of Heartland Christian Community, a two-and-a-half year-old Southern Baptist church plant. Pura, who writes a weekly column in the Pincher Creek Echo, has written several times about the case, entreating the people of Pincher Creek to regard Ferguson, a 19-year veteran of the RCMP, as innocent until proven guilty.
"I was really attacked for taking that stance," says Pura. "Among some people there's a lynch mob mentality."
Pura got to know Ferguson when young people in his own church wanted to hold a dry grad. Some people in the community didn't go for the idea — Pincher teens had been accustomed to a "safe grad" where they're given all the booze they want but kept in a confined area — and someone began making anonymous threatening calls to the pastor.
Ferguson, who attended First Baptist Church, traced the calls. Pura declined to press charges, choosing instead to talk to the teens responsible. But the incident cemented his relationship with Ferguson.
Jack and Cheryl Varley, who then attended the Pentecostal Assembly but now go to the Full Gospel church, had never heard of Ferguson until last October 3. "I didn't know any of the police," says Varley. "We're a pretty quiet family."
Nightmare
Like many in the district of some 10,000 people, the Varleys are farmers who try to mind their own business. When Darren died and they were suddenly thrust into the legal and media spotlights, "it was a nightmare for us all."
Darren, one of three Varley children, started working right after high school. After six years with one company, he started his own business hauling logs from up north. He was away a lot, says his dad, but usually came back to Pincher Creek for the weekends. "He did attend church but not always," Jack Varley says. "He was more non-denominational."
When Darren died there was the inevitable talk around the community about what kind of character he really was. Some saw him as a drinker and a fighter, but Jack Varley doesn't believe that. "When he was killed the first thing the police did was portray him as a drunk and a ne'er do well, but that wasn't right," he says. Varley saw his son as "a really good, generous kid. He loved the Lord."
After Darren died, his parents began hearing from young people — "piles of kids" — whom Darren had befriended and talked to about God. "They were just devastated over his death," says Varley. "We never realized the impact he had."
Taking sides
The specifics of what happened on the night of October 3, 1999 — or various people's versions of what happened — can't be told until the court hears the case. That hasn't stopped people from taking sides, however. Although the town remains divided almost a year later, "pretty well all of Pincher Creek is on our side now," reports Varley.
The pastor at Mike Ferguson's church, First Baptist, did not return calls to CW. Ferguson, who has been suspended from active duty, is currently living in British Columbia. Heartland pastor Pura, in an effort to mediate a peaceful resolution, has raised the ire of Varley supporters in his weekly column.
"You often call for others not to judge, while your bias is so obvious for all to see," charges Diana Radford, a friend of Jack and Cheryl Varley, in a letter to the editor. "Darren's friends and I are angry that you continuously insist in writing about someone you never met and are not welcome to write about," writes Keith Doell, a friend of Darren's.
Dale Lang, the minister at St. Theodore's Anglican Church in Taber, about 100 kilometres east of Pincher Creek, looks on the whole situation with sadness. Lang lost his 17-year-old son Jason in a high school shooting in April 1999, less than six months before Darren Varley died.
No easy solution
"It's a very difficult circumstance," comments Lang. "I wish there was an easy solution." Lang visited Pincher Creek last December at the invitation of some of the leaders in the Pentecostal church, speaking at the church and having dinner with the Varleys.
"I think grace in a situation like this has got to be a key," Lang says. But he doesn't hold out any hope that Pincher Creek — or the Varleys — will be healed until the matter is put to rest by the court.
Dale and Diane Lang made a profound impression on the whole country when they responded publicly to their son's death not with anger and bitterness, but with words of forgiveness towards the 15-year-old who had fatally shot Jason.
But every situation, and every person, is different, Lang point out. "I don't profess to have an answer. I only share my story with people. I let them know that it was the grace of God in my life — my relationship with Jesus — that was the key to my response. I can't adequately explain my response because it's a God-given thing."
Jack and Cheryl Varley are trying to find their own resolution to the pain of their son's violent death. "We've been Christians for many years and we look at the big picture," says Jack Varley. "We know where Darren is at. We know he's saved.
"We just believe and trust the Lord."
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