Our Second Cousin Has Been Shot and Killed....
Calgary Herald
Published: Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Gunfire echoed through a downtown office tower Monday morning, as a Calgary commercial mortgage lender was shot in what's believed to be a revenge killing by a man recently turned down for a business loan.

Efforts by an employee to revive Jack Beauchamp, president of Morbank Financial Inc., were not enough. The 49-year-old father of three was pronounced dead in his 12th-floor office just after 8 a.m.

"I can't believe this would happen to a guy like him," said longtime friend and business associate Gerry Garvey of CMS Real Estate. "He was the sweetest guy you'd ever want to know."

Beauchamp's immediate family was too distraught to speak Monday night, but a family member said a statement would be issued to the media today.

About three hours after the shooting, the police tactical unit arrested a 52-year-old man at a residence on Mount Douglas Point in the city's southeast.

Late Monday, police were searching the suspect's Douglasdale home

The man, taken to police headquarters for questioning just before 11:30 a.m., had allegedly threatened Beauchamp recently, Acting Staff Sgt. Chris Matthews of the homicide unit said, adding the man was previously known to police.

Sources told the Herald that Beauchamp was likely killed in revenge for turning down a business loan. No charges had been laid by Monday evening.

Paramedics were called to an office tower at 635 8th Ave. S.W. at 8:02 a.m. after receiving a call from an office employee about a possible shooting.

Police arrived within minutes to find the deceased man with "apparent gunshot wounds," duty inspector Paul Manuel said.

Manuel added that no employees were in the office at the time of the incident.

Beauchamp was from Drumheller, Garvey said, and was a devoted family man to his wife and three teenage children.

He was a University of Alberta graduate and had been in the lending business since 1979.

Morbank Financial Inc. was founded eight years ago.

"This guy was a renaissance man in every sense of the word," Garvey said. "He loved politics and literature and history and books and art and music. He wasn't about money and loan sharking.

"He golfed and coached baseball and volunteered," he said.

"A true gentleman."

Others who knew Beauchamp are baffled by the shooting.

"I can't imagine anything he might have done that would result in something like this," said Richard White of the Calgary Downtown Association. Beauchamp served as an association board member several years ago.

"I was just in his office Friday, chatting with him," White said. "It's just baffling to me."

"The work they do is not high risk, or venture," he said of the Morbank company. "They deal with first mortgages, repeat business, short term."

A male who answered the phone at the Beauchamp residence in Lake Bonavista declined comment.

Many workers in the 25-storey office building had no idea what had happened.

"I got an e-mail with regards to someone getting shot on the 12th floor," said Cory Gutowski, who arrived for work at 7:20 a.m.

"It's a bit freaky. It hits close to home."

R.I.P Jack. You were a good person and we were lucky to be related to you. Love Erin and Meghan