Black Bear Attacks On Lee Randle Morris & Carol

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Welcome back to Scary Bear Attacks! Today’s episode takes us to the small town of Zama City, in northwestern Alberta, Canada. Zama City is billed as a hamlet and is said to be Alberta’s northernmost city. The last census there said fifty two residents called it home and the population trends down negative twenty nine percent. The oil and gas industries are the main employers here and with everything becoming more mechanized and automated the human populations in the area are in a steep decline.
The area around Zama City is woodland and wetlands primarily and is home to the threatened wood bison herd as well as deer, moose and woodland caribou herds. The First Nations Tribe called the Dene Tha has long running ties back to the land and find themselves in power struggles with the government and corporations over resources there. It turns out politicians and corporate opportunists aren’t the only predators here as it is also home to coyotes, foxes and black bears. It is in this beautiful setting that our episode takes place today.
At a remote drilling site, operated by Can-Tex Drilling & Exploration Corporation, it was a normal day of dangerous and difficult work for the thirty workers there. The site was located about forty kilometers, or twenty five freedom units, if you are from the U.S., northwest of Zama City.
Forty four year old Lee Randal Morris was a geologist at the remote drilling site and originally hailed from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. At around four fourty five PM, Lee decided to take a walk and headed down toward the creek a few hundred yards from the drilling site camp. By dinner time, at five thiry PM, he had not returned and no one had heard from him since he had left a short while before.
The residents and employees of the camp had been warned not to leave the area alone. There are many dangerous animals nearby and without help, you can end up in a situation that can be deadly, or just get lost in the thick woods surrounding the camp.
Twenty Four year old Carol Marshall worked at the drilling site as a general laborer. She originally hailed from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and had relocated here for work.
One of Carol’s work associates, twenty one year old Martin Ellis ran some heavy machinery at the drilling site. According to the sources I found, the two young people were at least friends, and possibly romantic interests of each other.
At around seven thirty PM Carol and Martin decided to go for a walk and smoke some after dinner cigarettes together near the same creek that Morris had headed toward earlier that evening. As they neared the dense vegetation along the creek, a large black bear suddenly appeared only about fifteen feet away. Carol and Martin immediately panicked and ran away as fast as they could, while Martin headed toward the first tree he could find to climb. As he pulled himself up into the canopy of the tree, Martin’s attention was on climbing and he lost sight of Carol and the bear. When he finally got to a precarious perch, he looked around and saw the bear mauling Carol. For several minutes he watched it bite and claw his friend and could do nothing about it.
When Carol stopped moving, the bear seemed to shift its interest. It glanced up the tree only a few yards away, toward Martin. It slowly lumbered to the base of the tree Martin was sheltering in. It seemed to be mulling over the effort required to climb the tree and pull Martin from its limbs.
About eighty yards back toward the camp, Martin saw a flash of motion in the bushes. He watched incredulously as the son of the camp foreman, Bud Whiting, came bounding into view. Martin yelled at the Whiting boy to leave and get help. He warned him there was a black bear beneath the tree he was in and that it had killed Carol. The Whiting boy dashed back into the brush to get help.
A few short minutes later, Bud Whiting arrived at the location with his son, and his rifle. Bud got to within shooting range and fired at the black bear. His shot wasn’t immediately fatal, but it drove the bear off allowing Martin to climb down.
A few of the people from the camp came down to where Carol’s body was lying. They began to look around and see how to best retrieve her body. They could see a large patch of disturbed soil about three or four yards from her body. As they investigated closer, they could see the body of Lee Randall Morris buried underneath dirt and sticks scraped from nearby. It was clear the black bear was claiming Mr. Morris’ body as his food and had cached him for later consumption.