Today the accused in Jasper’s first murder case in decades is scheduled to make his first court appearance. In all likelihood it will be a brief one and the case will be put over to a later date in a higher court.

The incident has come as a shock to the community but is not likely to cause alarm. By all accounts this was an isolated and unusual incident involving visitors rather than residents.

The case is so unusual, in fact, that it’s been hard to pin down exactly when the previous homicide in Jasper happened. There are no local murder cases recorded in the Fitzhugh’s archives, which date back to 2006. RCMP Sgt. David Maludzinksi said there have been a few serious incidents but no homicides in town under his watch, and he’s been here since 2005.

The previous homicide in town that defence attorney Laurie Rodger can recall was a sad case in which a man suffering from mental illness killed his mother, but exactly when that happened he’s not sure. He estimates it was in the range of 20 to 25 years ago.

Contrast that to the detailed and voluminous records of homicides a few hours down the highway in Edmonton, where the accused in this case is from. In the provincial capital, murders are counted by the dozens. Individual incidents come as little surprise to the community, which only starts to get agitated when the annual tally starts to edge unusually high, as it did last year.

There were 47 homicides in Edmonton in 2011, up significantly from the 32 recorded in 2010 and the 30 in 2009. The sudden surge in numbers prompted widespread concern and changes to policing, and reasonably so.

Edmonton, of course, is much, much larger than Jasper, so it’s to be expected that there would be many, many more homicides there. With roughly a million people, the capital is about 200 times larger than our small town of roughly 5,000 residents. But even on a per-capita basis, the big city outpaces our little community by a large margin.

There were an average of 31 homicides per year in Edmonton between the years of 1999 and 2008, according to data from Statistics Canada. That’s 310 during that 10-year span. Add that to the aforementioned totals from 2009, 2010, and 2011 and you get a grand total of 419 killings since 1999.

Compare that to the one homicide in Jasper in the last couple of decades, and the rarity of such occurrences in this community becomes clear, even in a per-capita context.

Furthermore, when you factor in the estimated two million visitors who pass through this community each year, it becomes abundantly evident just how unusual homicides are in Jasper. It’s almost surprising, actually, that there have been just two cases in the past quarter-century or so.

Numbers like these offer a certain type of perspective but they of course don’t tell the whole story. The statistics don’t matter much to those directly affected by these types of crimes.

We doubt the family of Kenzie Beaton cares much at this point when the previous homicide in Jasper happened. His parents and three sisters no doubt had other things on their mind during Kenzie’s funeral, which took place on Monday in his hometown of Mabou, N.S.