Those who knew him said he seemed incapable of such heinous crimes. But last week, Terry Driver, 31, a dedicated father of two, onetime Boy Scout leader and son of a decorated former Vancouver police sergeant, was charged with the attempted murder of Misty Cockerill and the first-degree murder of Tanya Smith in Abbotsford, B.C. The 16-year-old schoolgirls were attacked while walking home from a party in the early hours of Oct 14. Since then, a man claiming responsibility - the so-called Abbotsford Killer - has repeatedly taunted police, threatening to strike again. Cockerill, who escaped the attack with severe head injuries, has been under police protection. And the 110,000 residents of the Fraser Valley community, 70 km southeast of Vancouver, have lived with fear. "If it's him, he's going to burn in hell for what he did to my daughter," Terry Smith, the dead girl's father, said outside the courtroom last week. "I just hope and pray the legal system does its job and Tanya can rest in peace."

But rather than bringing peace to a city in desperate need of answers, Driver's arrest raised more questions. On the advice of the Crown, police refused to divulge details of their evidence. They would say only that after releasing tapes of the killer's voice on April 30, they received a tip leading them to Driver. According to Const. Elly Sawchuk of the Abbotsford police, further investigation revealed "enough evidence to lay charges, and for the Crown to accept those charges."

Abbotsford police have a great deal riding on Driver's conviction. In December, they arrested and charged George Evenden, 28, in connection with a June, 1994, rape in the city. At the time, they said that Evenden, who bore a striking resemblance to a widely circulated composite picture of Smith's killer assembled from Cockerill's recollections, was also a "strong suspect." Evenden was held for nearly two months until DNA evidence cleared him. The shaken community again faced the reality that the killer remained at large.

This time, police say they are sure they have the right man. At week's end, police said that in addition to the original tip they had at least three other crucial pieces of evidence against Driver. They declined to discuss the evidence in detail, but expressed confidence it would lead to his conviction. But striking anomalies remain in the case. Unlike Evenden, Driver, who is husky with a full head of reddish-brown hair, bears little resemblance to the police composite, which shows a thin, hollow-cheeked man with a receding hairline. And Lisa May - a 25-year-old waitress who gave police a description of a man she directed to a pay phone moments before Smith's killer called police on Halloween night - told the Abbotsford News that Driver "is not the man" she saw. "He's too big," she said, adding that the man she thought was the killer was thinner with sharper features.

Police countered by saying that composites assembled from the recollections of traumatized victims are often inaccurate. And May, they emphasized, had not seen the man actually using the pay phone, which is located outside the bar where she works. Still, other questions remain. Police believe that Smith's killer is linked to three attempted rapes between September, 1994, and the summer of 1995. Interviews with the victims, they recently announced, suggested that the suspect had an anchor tattoo on one of his forearms. Last week, Abbotsford tattoo artist Brian Martin claimed that he had given Driver his first tattoo starting in August 1995. But it was a snake-like tribal design etched on Driver's calf.

Those who know Driver well were shocked by the charges. Dorothy Dyck, who along with her husband, Robert owns Abbotsford Printing Inc., the company where Driver has worked as a lead pressman for the past four years, told Maclean's that he had no tattoos on his forearms. "He was a great guy, a good employee," she said. "There was no reason to ever suspect him of anything." Others were stunned. "My impression was that he was a fairly normal sort of guy," said 75-year-old Olga Craig, who until February lived across the street from the Drivers and their children, Kenny, 6, and Beth Ann, 3. "When he came home, the kids would be standing at the door waiting for him and they'd run out saying, 'Daddy, Daddy.' He'd pick them both up in his arms and walk into the house. He really, really loved his children."

Such recollections prompted the Abbotsford News to run the headline "Mr. Nice Guy or monster?" above Driver's photograph. Still, despite the fact that Tanya Smith's family has been disappointed before, they now believe the Abbotsford Killer is in custody. "The police have told us they are confident it is him," Tanya's uncle, Dean Fougere, told Maclean's. "At this point, that's good enough for us." The question, though, is whether it will be good enough for a court of law.

Maclean's May 20, 1996