The story of Laura Letts-Beckett, a woman from Westlock who drowned in 2010 while on holiday near Revelstoke, B.C. with her husband Peter Beckett, has now been turned into an Amazon series.
Letts-Beckett drowned on Aug. 18, 2010 and over a year later her death was ruled a homicide. Beckett was arrested and charged with his wife’s murder.
But Beckett is a free man today.
He lives in Roatán Honduras where he owns and operates a catamaran charter.
He receives his deceased wife’s teacher pension of $38,000 annually and will for the rest of his life.
Beckett received an unknown insurance amount that could be about $664,000, according to a recently released three-part Amazon Prime series In Cold Water: The Shelter Bay Mystery directed by Trish Neufeld from Vancouver.
Letts-Beckett was a beloved schoolteacher at the Pembina North Community School in Dapp, just north of Westlock.
Amazon’s three-part series details the events and the legal happenings with Peter Beckett.
“The people in Westlock were wonderful,” said Neufeld.
“It was difficult to get people to talk to us. They were afraid.” Neufeld explained about the challenges in finding local people to give Letts-Beckett a voice in the series.
Residents were also leary of sharing their stories of Letts-Beckett with The Town & Country This Week however some residents recall her as a kind person who touched the lives of many.
“She was my third-grade teacher. She was so sweet,” one resident recalled with fondness.
Letts-Beckett appeared to be the opposite of the larger-than-life personality of Peter Beckett.
“I heard the splash. I realized Laura wasn’t there, but I couldn’t save her. It was the worst day of my life,” said Beckett in the Amazon series.
Beckett went to trial twice for the murder.
The first in 2016 in Kamloops was a hung jury, also reported in the Westlock News.
The second court trial in 2017 in Kelowna ended with Beckett being found guilty and charged with first-degree murder.
He was sentenced to life in jail with no parole for 25 years. Beckett was incarcerated from August 2011 until Dec. 2020 when his conviction was overturned due to procedural errors by the judge and prosecutors.
The prosecution attempted to have Beckett re-tried for the murder, but the Supreme Court of Canada refused.
The Amazon series shares opinions and knowledge from people involved or connected to the case with many differing points of view.
“He was not going to have a fair trial. He was showing signs of mental illness,” said defence lawyer Donna Turko.
“I don’t know when he is telling the truth and when he is not telling the truth,” said RCMP Major Crimes Sgt. Terry Jacklin.
“I have been to many deaths in my career. There is something wrong with this,” stated retired Staff Sgt. Jacquie Olsen.
Witnesses claimed that Laura suffered physical and psychological abuse from Beckett after they were married in the Amazon series.
Allegedly, Laura’s cousin Virginia Lyons-Friesen shared that Laura had claimed Beckett had threatened her, telling her how she was going to die – by drowning.
Telling her she would not know when or where, but she would die by drowning.
The Amazon series did not interview Lyons-Friesen but told of the disclosure by Letts-Beckett to Lyons-Friesen.
Reportedly, detectives surmised that Laura was killed for money with insurance policies, mainly for accidental death.
Laura was not wearing a life jacket and could not swim.
The Amazon series detailed Beckett allegedly hired a hitman to kill Laura’s parents, a police officer– Sargent Terry Jacklin, lawyer – Raymond Barlow and Laura’s cousin Lyons-Friesen.
There was a convicted informant who told of Beckett’s actions to have witnesses and Lett’s family members killed. Beckett was charged with counseling to commit murder and obstruction of justice.
“The informant said that Peter asked him to kill pretty much everybody in the case,” remarked Turko.
There are many questions left unanswered.
Beckett was never faced a court trial for plotting the murders of five people due to a court guideline change, the Jordan principle, that the filings could be admissible for only 30 months without going to trial.
“I did not kill Laura. I loved that girl, and she loved me. The biggest miscarriage of justice I think in the world,” Beckett said.
Neufeld shared how the case came to her attention.
“A New Zealand producer director who is from Peter’s hometown in Hawkes Bay had written to Peter in prison for about 5 years. He was really interested in the story.”
“Peter was released on bail and at that point he needed to get to Canada to produce a single or a trailer (for the production) in Dec. 2020.”
“They contacted me and then I became the director producer.”
Neufeld said they filed some of the material in April 2021 and the show was approved by Amazon in February 2023.
“It took us a year and then nine months of editing, overlapping, so it was finished late last summer.”
“Our intention was to show here's an event that happened. You can't call it a murder. You can't call it like it was. You can't prove that it happened.”
“The defence lawyer reiterated, from a legal perspective, a person needs to be innocent or needs to be not guilty or needs to be not charged because there was actually no evidence.”
