The most wanted man in Canada turned himself in Tuesday to the very RCMP detachment in northern Saskatchewan that he blamed for many of his troubles, and where the two officers he is accused of shooting to death were based.
According to police, Curtis Alfred Dagenais, 41, appeared to be in good condition despite his apparent 12-day run from police through swamps and brush after Spiritwood RCMP constables Marc Bourdages, 26, and Robin Cameron, 29, were shot after a chase on July 7.
Both died of severe head wounds on the weekend after more than a week in hospital.
"There's a sense of relief that the objective that we have been striving for since Friday night - his safe arrest, his safe surrender - has been affected," Sergeant Brian Jones said at a hastily called news conference in Regina just one hour after Mr. Dagenais walked into the detachment at 4 p.m. and was taken into custody.
"We're just glad that he did," Sgt. Jones said of the surrender.
Mr. Dagenais faces two charges of first-degree murder as well as a charge of attempted murder in connection with shots that were fired at a third officer who was not injured in the melee near Mildred, Sask., about two hours north of Saskatoon.
"It's very nice to have it happen this way ... this was a perfect ending to this sort of tragedy," RCMP Superintendent Rob Nason said.
Police said Mr. Dagenais' friends, who are from Mildred, Sask., picked him up outside the original search area. They will be questioned, but aren't suspected of aiding and abetting Mr. Dagenais during his run from the law, Supt. Nason said.
Officers took Mr. Dagenais to hospital briefly to be treated for an ankle injury, but he was otherwise in good health, police said.
At the manhunt's peak, about 250 officers were searching for the fugitive, who is expected to make his first court appearance Wednesday in North Battleford.
Mr. Dagenais faces two charges of first-degree murder as well as a charge of attempted murder in connection with shots that were fired at a third officer who was not injured in the melee near Mildred, about two hours north of Saskatoon.
Police contacted the families of the dead officers, as well as that of Mr. Dagenais, soon after his arrest.
"Our first thought was relief that there's no possibility of other Mounties being hurt or the public," said Cal Parenteau, a close friend of Constable Cameron's family. "It's what Robin would have wanted."
Pastor Leigh Sinclair, who speaks on behalf of Mr. Dagenais's mother, Elsie, and his sister, Grace, said the call took them aback.
"It was hard to believe," she said.
Earlier Tuesday, Elsie, who lives across the street from the RCMP detachment where the incidents began on July 7, issued a plea for her son to turn himself in to authorities.
That came after the Edmonton Sun published a five-page letter said to be from Mr. Dagenais, in which police and his sister are blamed for the shootings.
"They've [RCMP]confirmed that it is his handwriting," said Denis Allchurch, a Saskatchewan Party MLA who lives in Spiritwood and represents the area.
The letter was postmarked Friday in Shell Lake, Sask., not far from where the officers were shot. That suggested to police that their suspect might never have been far from where police were searching and that he might have received help.
The letter, written in capital letters on paper ripped from a spiral notebook and signed Curt Dagenais, also includes key allegations about the police chase that have never been made public.
During what police have described as a 27-kilometre chase, the letter alleges that police "would ram me hard, hoping to spin me out of control, hoping that I would roll."
According to a source close to the RCMP, the officers had been trying to force the suspect to stop by ramming their vehicle into the back of his truck. At one point, the force of the ramming caused the air bags to deploy in the constables' vehicle.
"They were rendered helpless by the air bags," said the source, adding that shortly afterward, the two officers were shot with a rifle, with one of the bullets first hitting Constable Cameron, then Constable Bourdages.
The source said an internal memo containing a detailed account of what happened was e-mailed to RCMP members after the shooting. The memo also asked members not to talk with the press, the source said.
Mr. Allchurch said police told him not to comment Monday night when the letter surfaced in the paper's newsroom. He added that the missive also bears the tone of the Curt that he knows - someone who blames police and his family for his problems.
"I feel terrible about what has happened, but they [the police]would not leave me alone," Mr. Dagenais wrote in the letter.
Sgt. Jones said Tuesday that police would not comment on the contents of the letter, but that it was being authenticated through handwriting analysis and other tests.
Any confirmation that the handwriting looks like Mr. Dagenais's is "preliminary" and by "initial analysis," he added.
Police had been combing a 208-kilometre area around Mildred, but said they had found no trace of Mr. Dagenais. Shell Lake, which is 34 kilometres - about a half-hour drive - southeast of Spiritwood, was not within the search area.
The letter, which the Sun partly blacked out, recounts the domestic dispute at Elsie's house that allegedly preceded the shootings. Mr. Dagenais wrote that he turned to Spiritwood police that night to ask for help to "remove some so-called family of mine" from the home where his mother lives.
He noted that he owns the house with his mother, not his sister, whom he said he wanted removed from the property.
"She has told me things to mislead me, to give herself more time to screw me over as to division of family property due to the divorce of ... my parents," the letter said.
Family members had said previously that division of property connected to the split between Elsie and Mr. Dagenais's father, Arthur, initially sparked the dispute. In the letter, Mr. Dagenais complains that the Mounties wouldn't help him that night and cites lawsuits he and his father filed against the police.
Art Dagenais filed a lawsuit against his ex-wife, a number of Spiritwood police officers and the Minister of Justice in the Saskatchewan Court of Queen's Bench. In his statement of claim, dated January, 2006, he accused the police and his wife of malicious prosecution, abuse of power and a "high-handed and callous disregard" of his rights.
He is seeking $1-million in damages.
In the letter to the Sun, Curtis Dagenais explained that as he sat outside the house that night in his pickup truck, he was approached by Constable Cameron, who allegedly told him he was under arrest for assault and assault with a weapon. He fled the police, he wrote, because he felt he was "within my rights."
He said his pickup truck finally stopped at some trees, but that he couldn't get out before Mounties started firing at him.
"They wanted to 'kill me,' to hush me about their dirty work," he wrote.
The letter contained no description of how the officers were mortally wounded.
The Shell Lake post office serves the village of 250 residents and handles between 30 and 100 pieces of mail a day, according to Canada Post spokesman Malcolm French. The only mail boxes in the resort and farming community are inside the outlet and outside for after-hours service.
Staff there don't remember seeing Mr. Dagenais, and if they had, would have contacted police, Mr. French said.
The area is well known to Mr. Dagenais.
"He's actually classed as a member of this community," said a worker at the Shell Lake Co-op.
The worker, who asked that her name not be used, said she has known Mr. Dagenais for years and that people around town would recognize him.
"I had no problem with him. He's an all-right man," she said of her dealings over the years with him.
Asked whether she was shocked to hear that an acquaintance is caught up in a double murder investigation, the woman said, "I was a little surprised, but given his upbringing I'm not surprised," referring to years of alleged abuse he suffered from his father.
Mag Szabo, who runs the Mag's Soup 'n Such diner down the road from the Spiritwood RCMP detachment, said residents were glued to their radios as news spread that Mr. Dagenais had turned himself in.
"I'm so relieved. I was always very scared that something else was going to happen," she said. "We can go to sleep at night now without worrying."
Ms. Szabo said she thinks Mr. Dagenais had help.
"He couldn't have survived out there alone. How did he mail that letter by himself?"
The RCMP have released few official details about the final minutes of the altercation, citing the continuing criminal investigation.
Earlier Tuesday, Sgt. Jones offered little insight when asked about a Globe and Mail report earlier this week that the RCMP requested an ambulance more than an hour after police say the officers were shot on July 7.
"I'm going to take that question and go back and see if there's some specific information, because if that information is inaccurate, we'd like to correct that, but I'm just not in a position at this stage ... to answer that," he told reporters.
The Mounties have always maintained that the shootings ended at 9:15 p.m., but the operator of Spiritwood's ambulance said the RCMP didn't summon an ambulance until 10:24 p.m.