Montreal based musician still haunted by Rupert tragedy of thirteen years ago

A town like Prince Rupert is just a litany of misery," Thorburn said. "Small and economically depressed towns have kids who are bored and don’t have the resources or the means to express themselves in a non-destructive, non-violent way. Thank God I had music and could sing about that kind of stuff and not have to actually partake in it."— Indie rocker Nick Thorburn, a former Rupert resident, who has composed a song based in part, on one of Prince Rupert’s most horrific murders…

His impressions of life on the North Coast aren’t fond, his thoughts those of someone who stepped away from a path that could have led to a very different result.

Nick Thorburn lived in Prince Rupert for six years, leaving town when he was thirteen back in 1995, shortly after the murder of Trgyve Magnusson, a visiting fisherman from Point Roberts, Washington who was brutally killed at age 34 in one of the darkest of moments for this city…

( from  the blog a town called podunk,  click on the link below to see the entire article atowncalledpodunk.blogspot.com/2 … 2026  )- 

Nick is an Indie rocker now??  Cool.

What were the details on this murder?  Happened just before I arrived here (coincidence?).

4 young teens beat the man to death down by the bottom of 11th and Water Street as he was trying to get back to his boat after a night at the bar.  If I remember correctly, the boys were all tried as youth and barely got a slap on the wrist for it.  I think the oldest 2 of the 4 were actually sent to a juvenile detention centre.

Anyways, there was quite a battle as to whether the kids would be tried as adults or not.