True North Crime

The girls are back and they are very rusty, but still they persevere to share with you a story full of lies and murder. The Zaman family were a perfectly normal family living perfectly normal lives in Markham, except one of them was lying to everyone else in the house about his comings and goings. When the truth was finally about to catch up with him, Menhaz Zaman saw murder as his only way out.   Intro and outro music: I Knew a Guy by Kevin MacLeod  Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

Edmonton has a murder problem. Since the mid-80s Edmonton's sex workers have been disappearing, their remains surfacing years later outside the city. The RCMP formed Project KARE to investigate the murders, but few killers have been caught. Join Shelley and Rachel as they discuss the possibility of serial killer stalking Edmonton's streets.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

One of--if not the most--prolific art thieves in Canadian history is a guy you've never heard of. In fact, no one suspected John Mark Tillmann of having walked away with thousands of artifacts and antiques, but he did and he did it with style. Also he was an enormous jerk.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com   New intro and outro music is "I Knew a Guy" by Kevin MacLeod.

True story: Warlock is one of Rachel's favourite movies. Also true is that, sadly, it served as inspiration for a brutal murder in which a little boy full of life was killed by his neighbour.  Read about it in MacLean's and Life Daily. Learn more about moral panics at Psychology Today.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

Ian Thor Greene was a mystery wrapped in an enigma, wrapped in the persona of an undergraduate student at Dalhousie University. It would take some time, but eventually the cops would come to know his real name and close the case on three violent attacks in Halifax. A great article about this terrible person can be read at Halifax Magazine.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us at @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

Twenty years ago, on April 6, 1999, Pierre Lebrun showed up to his former place of employment with a grudge and a gun. Join Shelley and Rachel as they take a look at how a toxic workplace environment can end in tragedy, and learn about how and why coroner's inquests happen. A good part of this research comes from Rampage: Canadian Mass Murder and Spree Killing by Lee Melor. Read about the shooting in the Ottawa Citizen and the Globe and Mail.    Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

Candice knew exactly who raped her, but nobody believed her. Three DNA tests later, her attacker was still living free and clear until a second victim came forward. How was John Schneeberger able to "prove" he didn't do it, when other DNA evidence suggested he was guilty as sin? Shelley and Rachel discuss just how awful and awfully clever he is, and also talk a lot about gin.  This case was featured on: Forensic Files - Bad Blood 72 Hours True Crime - The Good Doctor Autopsy - Dead Men Talking  Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

Kim Anderson was a devoted Jehovah's Witness and a loving mother to her two children. She dedicated her life to her church but, tragically, her church did not support her when she needed it most.    Kim's story was told on an episode of Deadly Devotion, season 2 episode 6. Read Jim's account of the tragedy here.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

Pete Forde was a good friend to women, but never more than that. When a chance discovery was made, Forde's true nature was exposed, and the women who called him friend now had a new word to describe him.   Read the article in Toronto Life.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com  

In early October, 1994, a chalet in Morin Heights went up in flames. A few hours later another fire would destroy a villa in Switzerland. How were these two fires connected, and why were they set? TNC will take a short break for the holidays and will return in the new year. Stay safe and we'll see you in 2019!   Sources and further reading CBC archive How Stuff Works The Order of the Solar Temple: Temple of Death   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@ gmail.com 

Satanic panic swept through small-town Saskatchewan in the early 1990s, leaving behind bevy of falsely accused caregivers and cops. Read about Martensville. Read about Satanic panic in general.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

When Det. Herb Curwain arrived at Durham homicide in 1991, he was handed a cold case about a missing teen. Three years later, his dedication to finding justice for Julie Stanton would result in a couple of firsts: the first homicide inter-agency task force and the first murder conviction in a no-body trial. Watch Project Hitchhiker on CBC by clicking here.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us at @truenorthcrimepod Email us at truenorthcrimepod@gmail.com

When paramedics arrived at the house on Pitch Pine Crescent, one of them exclaimed, "I've been here before." So beings the tragic story of the Harrison family and how they were utterly failed by police.   Tweet us @tnc_pod Facebook us at @truenorthcrimepod, which also happens to be our email address (at gmail of course).   Read the article in Toronto Life https://torontolife.com/city/crime/house_of_horrors/

When Blake Leibel moved from Toronto to LA, he did so without much of a plan. He wanted to "make it big," just like everyone else. He did become temporarily famous, but likely not in the way he imagined. At his trial, prosecutors argued a graphic novel he created back in 2010 inspired him to commit meyham and murder. Is Iana Kasian's murder really a case of life imitating art, or is it the tragic outcome of an undiagnosed mental illness?

It's way too hot to discuss true crime, so Shelley and Rachel are taking a break. They'll be back in the fall with more Canadian true crime to blow your mind.

Only two provinces have laws regarding kids and vaccination, but parents can opt-out for any reason. Anti-vaxxers also tend to be big into naturopathy and can display a baffling amount of willful ignorance when it comes to their children's health. Such was the case for the Stephans, whose little boy, Ezekiel, suffered needlessly, and for Tamara Lovett whose son, Ryan, died painfully.

The first Toronto True Crime Film Festival was held on June 8 and 9, 2018, at the Royal Theatre. On the morning of June 9, a series of panel discussions took place at the Monarch Tavern, just a couple of short blocks south of the Royal. We are delighted to share with you an edited and truncated version of that talk. The panelists are Keila Woodward, Catherine Legge, Karen Herland, and Remy Bennet. The panel is moderated by Anne T. Donahue.

The torso murder has fascinated Canadians in general and Hamiltonians in particular for over seventy years. It all began when a group of kids found a "headless pig" out in the woods. That discovery would eventually lead police to a bloody car, a basement full of cash, and a beautiful woman who couldn't keep her stories straight. Although the murder of John Dick has technically never been solved, and the file on the alleged killer has been sealed forever, her legacy lives on in books, music, and film.

Polygamy is illegal in Canada, but everyone's always looked the other way when it came to the polygamist community of Bountiful, British Columbia. Only within the past few years as the BC government made any attempt to charge Winston Blackmore with breaking the law. Join Shelley and Rachel as they discuss past difficulties bringing polygamists to justice and why it's illegal in the first place.

Starting in the mid-1980s and lasting into the early 2000s, the province of Quebec was held hostage to two rival biker gangs, the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine. Join Shelley and Rachel as they attempt to delve into this violent conflict and make sense of the laws enacted as a result of the Quebec biker war.

When Shelley suggested she and Rachel cover a bank robber nicknamed "The Flying Bandit," she had no idea there were in fact two different Flying Bandits who operated in Canada at different times. Rachel shares the details of both bank robbers, and Shelley makes clear what an indictable offence is. 

Not a lot of people know the awful, gory, and tragic story of The Ant Hill Kids. They were the most violent cult in Canadian history, and while some of its members lost limbs, others lost their lives. Warning: this episode contains descriptions of child abuse and child sex abuse.

It's about a seven-minute walk between Holly Jones' house and her friend Claudia's. Sometime in those seven minutes, Holly disappeared. The morning after her disappearance, a man on the Toronto Islands made a grisly discovery. So begins the tragic tale of 10 year-old Holly Jones. Join Shelley and Rachel as they revisit this shocking crime, and learn about the Amber Alert system in Canada.

Rachel drops a bomb on Shelley when she tells her Michael Wayne McGray was born in Collingwood, ON. McGray first started killing in his teens and never really stopped. After he was arrested for the murders of Joan Hicks and her daughter, Nena, McGray implicated himself in eleven other murders. He'll give up the goods if the cops and lawyers will cut him a deal. No one is interested in dealing with him, so he just keeps talking, confessing to more and more murders. Shelley breaks down how criminals are sentenced in Canada.

Shelley and Rachel are joined by criminal defense council Jacob Stilman to discuss the "compendium of official error" that is the multiple prosecutions of Guy Paul Morin. Guy was tried twice for the rape and murder of Christine Jessop, and ultimately found guilty. But he didn't do it.

In the inaugural episode, Rachel talks about a triple homicide that went unsolved for seven years. The home invasion of a WWII veteran blew the case wide open. Shelley runs down the history of DNA as an investigavite tool.