By Steve Weatherbe

IN EARLY 1983 Saskatchewan citizens could talk about little else but the brutal murder of Joann Wilson.

She was the former wife of prominent politician Colin Thatcher, himself the son of a former premier.

Within the month, Colin Thatcher was charged – and in the fall came the sensational trial, ending with the grim-faced Thatcher’s conviction.

With a ringside seat throughout was freelance journalist, budding novelist and budding Christian Eric Hemming Nelson.

Unassigned by any newspaper, but with inside knowledge of many of the personalities in the case, Nelson took his notes assiduously.

Like everyone else, he speculated freely about alternatives to the theory proposed by the Crown prosecutors.

The prosecution maintained that Thatcher had killed his ex-wife to prevent her from keeping custody of their three children – and also from getting half of the family farm and business, as provided in the province’s then-new divorce legislation.

Thatcher was not paroled until 2006, probably because he had always maintained his innocence – affirming that claim with his 2009 book, Final Appeal: Anatomy of a Frame.

Thatcher had long since become a Christian, and in jail often led Bible studies.

Meanwhile Nelson had judged the prosecution’s case to be full of flaws and pursued the inconsistencies, still on his own hook – while writing unsold novels, occasional news stories and driving a cab to make ends meet.

“I got involved. I chased down leads and virtually solved the mystery,” he told BCCN from his home somewhere on Vancouver Island.

Nelson is leery of giving away his precise location because, after a decade of trying to find a publisher for his thinly novelized treatment of the JoAnn Wilson murder, he’s finally put it out under his own label, West House Publishing.

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“If you read between the lines, it’s clear who I think did it,” said Nelson cagily.

And he’s worried that the man whom he believes bludgeoned Wilson to death in her garage 27 years ago will also read between the lines.

As well, the novel alleges at least the incompetence of the Regina police, and at worst their conspiracy – with the Crown prosecutors – in the framing of Thatcher.

Nelson noted that 90 percent of the novel is fact and based on the Thatcher trial, and that the 10 percent fictional component is the romance he inserted for human interest.

But he also pointed out, for the record, that his book is about a fictional accused murderer named Plummer, not Thatcher.

The book also accurately describes Nelson’s own growth in faith, through his novelized avatar/reporter Chris Haggard – and his coming to terms with the role of his beloved but distant father, and with his failed marriage.

It is long for a legal novel – 531 pages – but Nelson figures that amount of detail on a trial would have been unbearable in a non-fiction work.

Thus the latest revelations are often explained by the hero/reporter while having dinner with his faithful girlfriend, Patsy.

Nelson said that he, like Haggard, was followed by police and chased by motorcycle gangsters during his years of post-trial research.

He also believes that God led him to sit in on the trial in the first place, to pursue his private investigation, and to publish the book.

Nonetheless, he is still facing obstacles.

Plans to get his website up at the same time as the book was printed have not materialized; so people will not yet be able to order it online at westhousepublishing.com.  

He said he welcomes email inquiries at: erichemmingnelson@yahoo.com.

To those who want to know whom he fingers for the murder, he advised: “Read the book.”

August 2010