Three years after Const. Dan Woodall's death, widow reflects on life experiences and police investigation

It was a rushed day for Claire Woodall and her husband, Dan.

They had done a quick "swap and change" with their two boys that evening — he had picked them up from daycare, dropped them off at her work and would head to his late shift as an Edmonton police constable, while Claire Woodall went home with the boys.

"He ran out the door and I was like, 'Wait a minute! Give me a kiss good-bye!' It was such a flustered day," she says.

It was the last time she saw her husband alive. Const. Woodall was shot and killed while trying to serve an arrest warrant at a west Edmonton home on June 8, 2015.

Three years later, the final report into what unfolded that evening is about to be released by the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team.

The shooting shocked the city. Woodall was the first Edmonton police officer to be killed in the line of duty since Const. Ezio Faraone died in 1990.

The confrontation in a residential neighbourhood also left another officer injured.

The suspect, Norman Walter Raddatz, set his house ablaze that night before killing himself.

In the three years since her husband's death, Claire Woodall has moved back to her native England with her children, now seven and nine years old.

She doesn't think the ASIRT report will provide a real sense of relief.

"I just want it to be laid to bed, I think. If he [Raddatz] had survived, my feeling would be entirely different. Probably I'd want a bit more ... I want to say justice, but that's not the right word.

"I think I'd have wanted it done a lot quicker. But I don't think it will change anything. I just want to be able to let them do this and then just go, let's just leave them all in peace now."

'News was getting intense'

After Woodall put her boys to bed that night, she saw buzz on social media about an incident involving a police officer. Random acquaintances started sending her messages, asking if everything was OK.

At first, she didn't know what to say. She hadn't heard that anything was wrong.

As the night went on, Woodall grew frustrated that her husband wasn't picking up his phone. And by about 10 p.m. she sensed something was wrong.

"The news was getting quite intense about an officer getting hurt," she says.

"I thought this is getting a little weird now ... You can just feel it. You can feel yourself getting all tense. You go from getting angry that they're too busy to answer the phone to, 'Right, this is serious now. ... I really don't think something is right.' "

Shooter fired from house

Const. Woodall was an eight-year veteran of the Edmonton Police Service when he went to Raddatz's home with a team of other officers. They were there to serve an arrest warrant relating to a hate crimes matter.

According to reports at the time, police battered the door and Raddatz opened fire from inside the house. Two officers were shot.

Police were able to drag Sgt. Jason Harley around the corner and out of the line of fire, but Woodall fell in front of the door.

Raddatz, 42, had an extensive hate crimes file related to the online bullying of a local family. But he did not have a significant criminal record.

Police at the time said they had no reason to believe the arrest would turn into a violent confrontation.

Claire Woodall knows the ASIRT investigation was looking at what might have been done differently that night.

"I think they're just trying to find anything that could have possibly avoided the outcome, but I don't think anything would have avoided the outcome, if I'm honest," she says.

"I'm not sure any kind of training could have prepared them for that. Because it's so different to what happened with Ezio Faraone such a long time ago. I think it's just more about the preparedness that needs to be sort of looked at now."

Woodall says she is "taking each day as it comes.

"It's brought me back a little bit, this investigation coming out. I knew it would be happening. I didn't think it would take three years. But it's sort of the final piece, just being able to slot it in and then, just let them rest.​"