Hi there and welcome to the next season of Canadian True Crime.

I hope you're as well as can be expected in these crazy times

and I wanted to thank you for your patience as I took some time to catch my breath over the summer.

The podcast is now back to the regular schedule with new episodes coming on the first and the 15th of each month.

And with that, it's on with the show.

This podcast contains coarse language and content of a violent and disturbing nature.

Please be advised that this episode also includes details about the hunting of large animals as a sport,

although no graphic details are given.

It was September 2006, and the Harshbarger family were traveling from where they lived in Pennsylvania

in the U.S. to the Canadian province of Newfoundland

and Labrador. It was their third hunting trip to Newfoundland. Parents, Mark and Mary Beth, were

avid hunters. In fact, they loved it so much that photos from their wedding day showed them posing

with rifles and they even went hunting on their honeymoon.

Mark and Mary Beth's farmhouse was filled with hunting trophies,

like bearskins, deerheads, and caribou antlers from the various hunting trips they'd taken.

By day, Mark was an environmental project's assessoror and Mary Beth was a stay-at-home

mum, but they lived for their next hunting trip. The fact that they had two young children

didn't hamper their plans. Hunting was a family tradition. While Mark had hunted in Newfoundland before, he was excited this time to bring along his wife and two kids, a four-year-old daughter and a seven-month-old son.

42-year-old Mark also asked his older brother Barry to come along.

Mark's favorite spot to hunt from was Moosehead Lodge in the Buckens area

of Newfoundland, and they held current licences for hunting moose, caribou and bear in that area.

In the first few days, Mark had shot a caribou as well as a small bear. His wife, 41-year-old Mary Beth,

...