Well-respected magazine writer was one of victims in Calgary tragedy

[THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED] Of course the tragedy is that a whole family is wiped out in an apparent multiple murder-suicide in a Calgary home, but one of the five dead was not one of the family, but a talented, well-liked magazine writer named Amber Bowerman. This, according to stories in several papers, including in the National Post.

She had recently moved into the basement apartment of the house where the killings took place and was therefore in the wrong place at the wrong time. A lot of people in Alberta, where she worked, are having a hard time coming to grips with the arbitrary senselessness of her death.

She had worked for four years for Alberta Views magazine and more recently as advisor and publications editor at The Emery Weal, the student newspaper published by the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) students association. In addition, she was a frequent freelance writer for the RedPoint Media Group in Calgary, including Avenue magazine, CalgaryInc magazine and Up! magazine. She had just completed a story that is due to appear in the June issue of Calgary Inc.

""She was an extremely talented writer," said Holly Kerr, director of marketing and communications with RedPoint Media, who dealt with Ms. Bowerman's work. "Our staff is actually having a lot of trouble dealing with this, we're all kind of reeling."

[UPDATE] "Personally, I thought Amber was just a fabulous person," Colleen Seto, executive director of the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association, told CBC News.

"She always had a smile on her face. Always really positive and thoughtful. I can't imagine how her family are feeling right now."

Bowerman family spokesperson Ian Busby told CBC News the family is "devastated."

"It's hard to imagine this happening in anybody's family," he said.

"The troubling thing about how this is affecting everybody is she was one of those people that everybody sort of knows even if they don't know her by name. And they all know her as that wonderful person that's always, you know, cheery and bright."

He said Bowerman had described the home as a nice place to live, with a nice, normal family.