Canadian police examining passing of Walmart representative tracked down in store's stroll in broiler

 Canadian police examining passing of Walmart representative tracked down in store's stroll in broiler

On a chilly autumn morning in the small town of Mapleview, Ontario, a mystery began to unfold at the local Walmart Supercenter. The day started like any other—customers bustled in and out, grabbing groceries, electronics, and household items. The employees were busy with their morning tasks, organizing shelves, stocking the back room, and preparing the store for the weekend rush. No one could have predicted that by the afternoon, the store would become the site of a crime scene.

Officer Sarah Trudeau had just settled into her chair at the Mapleview Police Department when the call came in. It was a strange one—a local Walmart employee had found the body of a man in the store’s industrial walk-in freezer. The victim, it seemed, was no stranger to the store: he was a regional representative from Walmart’s corporate office, Mark Collins. His body was discovered by a stockroom clerk who had gone into the freezer to retrieve some inventory. Collins had come to Mapleview for a routine audit, but now he was the subject of a very different kind of investigation.

When Sarah and her partner, Detective James Hargrove, arrived at the scene, the air was thick with a mix of curiosity and dread. The store had been evacuated, and the staff stood outside, huddled in groups, whispering nervously. They were a tight-knit community, and nothing like this had ever happened before.

Inside the store, the air was colder, both literally and figuratively. The freezer where Collins' body was found was at the back of the store, hidden from the main floor behind a maze of shelves and stockroom chaos. As Sarah and James approached, they could see the outline of the man’s body through the frosty glass window. The sight was unsettling—Collins lay crumpled on the floor, his eyes wide open, his face pale from the freezing temperatures.

“Doesn’t look like he was expecting this,” James muttered, crouching beside the body.

“No signs of struggle,” Sarah added, noticing how neatly Collins' clothes were still arranged. It didn’t look like he had been in a fight. “But something’s off. People don’t just lock themselves in a freezer.”

The police forensic team arrived soon after, and the examination began in earnest. Collins had died of hypothermia, but what was peculiar was that the door to the freezer had been locked from the outside. Even more strange was the fact that Walmart’s freezers weren’t supposed to lock at all, according to store management. Something had been tampered with, and it didn’t take long for the police to figure out that this wasn’t just a tragic accident.

Sarah’s first step was to interview the employees who had been in the store that morning. She started with Lisa Marsh, the stockroom clerk who had found the body. Lisa was in her mid-twenties, pale, and visibly shaken.

“I just went in to get some frozen produce,” she said, her voice trembling. “When I saw him, I thought he was a mannequin or something at first. But when I got closer—" her voice broke off, and she shivered despite the warmth of the break room where the interviews were taking place.

“Did you notice anything unusual before you went into the freezer?” Sarah asked gently.

Lisa shook her head. “No, it was just a normal day. But Mark—Mr. Collins—had been acting a little strange when I saw him earlier. He was walking around the backroom, talking on his phone, like he was upset.”

James leaned in. “Upset about what?”

“I don’t know. I couldn’t hear much, but he seemed agitated. He kept saying something about numbers not adding up.”

With that clue in hand, Sarah and James started to piece together Collins' last hours. A look into his phone records revealed that he had been on the phone with someone from corporate just an hour before he died. The conversation, however, had been cut short, and no one had heard from him since.

As they delved deeper, they discovered that Collins had been investigating something within the store’s finances. There had been a series of discrepancies in the inventory reports—items that were being marked as sold but never leaving the store. It was as if someone was manipulating the system to skim money from the business, and Collins had been close to figuring it out.

The investigation took a darker turn when Sarah discovered that someone had manually disabled the security cameras in the backroom area right before Collins entered the freezer. Whoever had done this knew the store’s layout and the security protocols well.

“An inside job,” James remarked, crossing his arms. “Someone who knew what they were doing.”

They began to scrutinize the employees more closely. Among the staff, one name kept coming up: Derek Malone, the store’s assistant manager. Derek had been with the store for years and was well-liked by his colleagues. But lately, according to several employees, he had been acting differently—more stressed, more secretive. He had been the one overseeing inventory reports, the very reports that Collins had been investigating.

When they brought Derek in for questioning, his nervous demeanor only heightened their suspicions. At first, he denied everything, claiming he had no idea what had happened to Collins. But under the pressure of Sarah’s steady questioning, cracks began to show in his story.

Finally, after hours of interrogation, Derek broke down. He confessed that he had been skimming money from the store for months, manipulating the inventory records to cover his tracks. Collins had been sent to Mapleview after corporate noticed the irregularities, and when Derek realized that Collins was onto him, he panicked.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like that,” Derek sobbed. “I just needed more time to fix everything. I thought if I could lock him in the freezer, it would scare him, give me a chance to cover my tracks. But then—he didn’t make it out.”

Derek had rigged the freezer door to lock behind Collins, thinking he could buy himself some time. But his plan had gone horribly wrong. Collins had been trapped inside, and by the time anyone found him, it was too late.

The case wrapped up swiftly after Derek’s confession. He was charged with manslaughter and fraud, and the Walmart Supercenter returned to its quiet routine, though the shadow of the incident lingered. For Sarah and James, it was a reminder that even in the most ordinary places, dark secrets could lurk beneath the surface.

As Sarah left the store for the last time, she looked back at the building, now just a simple supermarket again. But for her, it would always be the place where one man’s desperation had led to tragedy, and where the cold truth had finally come to light.