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On a rainy day in May 2010, Joe and Marilyn Singleton returned from dinner to their rural acreage near Taber, Alta.

The couple usually left the lights off to save energy. But on this night, the lights were on and a dilapidated station wagon was in the driveway. Mr. Singleton parked behind it and headed through the garage, grabbing a small hatchet used to chop kindling on his way in.

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Inside, the house had been trashed — furniture knocked over, dishes smashed, pictures torn off the wall; jewellery, cash and video games were missing.

Mr. Singleton left his wife to call 911 and headed out into the driveway, where a burglar was trying to flee in the station wagon.

“I told him to sit there, the police are coming, we’ll sort it out,” he recalled in his first public interview. “That’s when he put his car in reverse and smashed into our car.

“Then he put the car into drive and it was then I thought, my God he’s going to smash into the garage door to get away and my wife was right on the other side.”