Dark Poutine – A podcast about notorious Canadian crimes, dark history and other creepy topics as told by real-live Canadians

All Episodes

February 28, 2023 by Mike Browne

410: Redo and Update: The Monster of Miramichi

April 16, 2026April 13, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 414: In the fall of 1989, the Miramichi region of New Brunswick became a place of unimaginable terror as escaped killer Allan Legere, the Monster of the Miramichi, unleashed a seven-month rampage of sexual assault, arson, and murder. He beat to death beloved store owner Annie Flam, strangled and burned sisters Donna and Linda Daughney in their home, and tortured and killed Father James Smith in his rectory, crimes on top of his earlier conviction for murdering shopkeeper John Glendenning during a savage home invasion. We covered Legere in episodes 18 and 19 in the pre-Mathew days. But now, with his death in a maximum-security prison at age 78 on March 9, 2026, it’s time to remember the horrific crimes, the victims and the community that endured him.

Sources:

Serial Killer, Allan Joseph LEGERE – AKA The Monster of the Miramichi
Law Library | Our Unique Digital Collections | Allan Legere | UNB
Death of an inmate from Edmonton Institution | Corrections Canada
LEGERE, Allan Joseph | Serial Dispatches
18: Allan Legere – Monster of Miramichi – Part 1 (NB) – Dark Poutine
19: Allan Legere – Monster of Miramichi – Part 2 (NB) – Dark Poutine
Allan Legere Voir Dire July 1991
R. v. Legere (A.J.) (1994), 156 N.B.R.(2d) 321 (CA);
Rick MacLean & André Veniot — Terror: Murder and Panic in New Brunswick (McClelland & Stewart, 1990)

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413: Indefensible: The Murder of Dr. Mohd Abdullah

April 16, 2026April 6, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 413: On the afternoon of March 11, 2022, Dr. Mohd Abdullah left work at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops, British Columbia, that afternoon for a meeting with his lawyer. It was supposed to be a discussion about money, hundreds of thousands of dollars that Abdullah believed his lawyer had mishandled… He never returned.

Sources:

R. v Bagabuyo, 2026 BCSC 327 (CanLII)
Mohd Abdullah Obituary – Kamloops, BC
Mohd Abdullah | News, Videos & Articles
Mohd Abdullah at Thompson Rivers University
Nearly 60 pieces of evidence entered at trial of B.C. lawyer accused of murdering his client | RCI
Kamloops lawyer accused of murder granted bail
Murdered TRU faculty member remembered as quiet, kind man
Meticulous timeline built from receipts, GPS data and security footage sealed fate of killer Kamloops lawyer
Video surveillance clips show Kamloops lawyer’s movements before, after alleged murder
Former B.C. lawyer found guilty of 1st-degree murder after killing his client in 2022 | CBC News

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412: Road Trip: Los Satanicos — The Murder of Mark Kilroy

April 16, 2026March 30, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 412: In March 1989, 21-year-old University of Texas pre-med student Mark Kilroy travelled to South Padre Island with friends for spring break. One night, they crossed the international bridge from Brownsville, Texas, into Matamoros, Mexico, for drinks and a night out. In the early hours of March 13, as the group headed back toward the United States, Mark was briefly left standing alone near the roadside. When his friends turned back moments later, he had vanished. At first, they assumed they had simply become separated in the crowds, but Mark never returned. His disappearance triggered an urgent search on both sides of the border that would soon uncover something far more disturbing than anyone imagined, a discovery that exposed a hidden world of violence and horror behind one young man’s spring break trip.

The Work of the Devil | Texas Monthly
Cult commits murder at Rancho Santa Elena | March 14, 1989 | HISTORY
“Spring Break Murders” Mark Kilroy (TV Episode 2025) | IMDb
Mark Kilroy Murder – Arrests (1989) – KPRC-TV Collection
The Believers: Cult Murders in Mexico
Murder, Madness & Mayhem by Mike Browne
Kidnap, murder, ritual sacrifice | University Press
Murder of Mark Kilroy | Wikipedia
Mark Kilroy Foundation, Santa Fe, Texas
Mark James Kilroy (1968 – 1989) – Find A Grave Memorial
Memory Mark Kilroy | YouTube

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411: The Niagara Murder: The Tragic Death of Frederick C. Benwell

April 16, 2026March 23, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 411: In February 1890, the body of 24-year-old Englishman Frederick Cornwallis Benwell was found in a shallow grave near Lundy’s Lane, just outside Niagara Falls, Ontario. Benwell had travelled to Canada after corresponding with John Reginald Birchall, aka Lord Frederick A. Somerset, a fellow Englishman who advertised opportunities for young men seeking work and advancement overseas. Within days of Benwell’s disappearance, suspicion fell on Birchall, who was arrested in Buffalo, New York, and returned to Canada to stand trial. What followed was one of the most closely watched murder cases in late 19th-century Ontario.

Sources:

The Swamp of death, or, The Benwell murder by Oliver Wendell Holmes | Canadiana.ca
Catalog Record: The Swamp of death, or, The Benwell murder | HathiTrust Digital Library
Newspapers.com | Search: John Reginald Birchall
https://www.themeister.co.uk/birchall/birchall_reginald.pdf
BIRCHALL, REGINALD (Lord Frederick A. Somerset) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography
Frederick Cornwallis Benwell (1865-1890) – Find a…
John Reginald Birchall (1866-1890)
Murder as a Fine Art by Alan Blytheway
The Trial of Reginald Birchall
John Reginald Birchall | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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410: The Legend of Agnus McVee: Murder at 108 Mile

April 16, 2026March 16, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 410: In the final years of the Cariboo Gold Rush, between roughly 1875 and 1885, travellers moving along the Cariboo Wagon Road through British Columbia’s interior passed through a remote roadhouse known as the 108 Mile Hotel, about 108 miles from Lillooet on the route toward Barkerville. According to a long-told regional legend, the hotel was run by Agnus McVee, alongside her husband Jim McVee and her son-in-law Al Riley, who were accused of drugging, robbing, and murdering miners carrying gold through the region. The story claims that dozens of travellers disappeared after stopping at the inn, with some accounts later alleging that bodies were recovered from nearby lakes and that young women were held captive at the hotel.

Sources:

CARIBOO CALLING: The Legend of Agnus MacVee
The Cariboo Gold Rush Timeline
History – Gold Rush Trail – British Columbia Shaped by Nature
History and Timeline | Cariboo Gold Project
Agnus McVee – Habitual Runaway Tours
Sarah Leavitt’s comic imagines the life of Agnes McVee | CBC Books
Agnus McVee | Wikipedia
Agnes, Murderess | Goodreads
108 Mile Heritage Site – Preserving the rich history of the Cariboo

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409: The Toronto 18 — Radicalized in the Suburbs

April 16, 2026March 9, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 409: In June 2006, police carried out coordinated arrests across southern Ontario and charged 18 young men under Canada’s anti-terrorism laws. The case quickly became known as the Toronto 18. It was described as a homegrown plot, not directed from overseas but organized in suburban communities around Mississauga and Toronto.

Most of the accused were in their late teens or early twenties. Many were Canadian citizens or long-time residents. Their backgrounds varied, but research and court records show no pattern of hardened criminal histories or severe mental illness. What drew them together, investigators argued, was a shared sense of grievance over global conflicts and a growing embrace of militant ideology.

Sources:

Prime Minister comments on terror arrests | Canada.ca
Seventeen Arrested on Anti-Terrorism Charges | Canada.ca
2006 Ontario terrorism plot | Wikipedia
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day Issues Statement on Canada’s National Day to Remember Victims of Terror | Canada.ca
Toronto 18: Key events in the case | CBC News
Manitoba Law Journal, vol 44 no 1, 2021 CanLIIDocs 787
R. v. N.Y., 2008 CanLII 51935 (ON SC)
R. v. Gaya, 2008 CanLII 24539 (ON SC)

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408: The Murder of Taylor Samson

April 16, 2026March 2, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 408: In August 2015, 22-year-old Dalhousie University physics student Taylor Samson walked into an apartment on Henry Street in Halifax, Nova Scotia, carrying 20 pounds of marijuana. He never walked out.

What followed became one of Nova Scotia’s most closely watched murder cases. William “Will” Sandeson — a former university track athlete and incoming medical student — was arrested days later. Surveillance footage showed Samson entering Sandeson’s apartment. Blood and DNA evidence tied the scene to a fatal gunshot. Samson’s body was never recovered.

This is the story of Taylor Samson’s disappearance, and the long road to justice for his killer.

Sources:

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407: The Tragic End of Henrietta Knight

April 16, 2026February 23, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 407: On a quiet street in Kingston, Ontario, a 92-year-old woman named Henrietta Knight opened her front door on a summer afternoon in 1995. She was violently assaulted during a home invasion, left badly injured, and her house was ransacked. Though she survived the attack and spoke to police, paramedics, and doctors, her health steadily declined, and she died months later. What caused her death, and whether it was connected to the assault, would linger as an unanswered question for decades. This episode traces the case from its beginnings in eastern Ontario in the mid-1990s through years of silence and uncertainty, leading to a courtroom many years later, where the truth proved far harder to define than anyone expected.

Sources:

Jan 12, 1996, page 9 – The Kingston Whig-Standard at Newspapers.com™
Sep 24, 1999, page 10 – The Kingston Whig-Standard at Newspapers.com™
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2023/2023onsc1379/2023onsc1379.html
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2023/2023onsc1165/2023onsc1165.html
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc5319/2022onsc5319.html
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc4291/2022onsc4291.html

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406: Stolen Life, Stolen Identity: The Murder of Dwayne Demkiw

April 16, 2026February 16, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 406: It was a bright Sunday late-morning, on May 31, 2015, in Calgary, Alberta, when a passerby heard a bang inside an airport‑area parkade and saw smoke pouring from the trunk of a black Acura. The car was still running, licence plate gone, still aflame as firefighters moved in, and a bystander quietly filmed a lone man walking away, glancing back at the burning vehicle. When investigators opened the doors, they found no driver, but blood soaked into the driver’s seat, the door, and the back seat, telling them someone had bled heavily inside that car. The Acura was registered to a 42‑year‑old limo driver, Dwayne Demkiw, who lived three hours north in Edmonton and hadn’t been seen since he finished a late shift around 4 a.m. that same morning. While his friends frantically called his phone and posted online, police in two cities were starting to realize they might be dealing with something far worse than a stolen car.

Sources:

Remembering Dwayne Demkiw | Reel by Dateline NBC
Dwayne Demkiw – Lets bring him home | Facebook
Dwayne Demkiw | Global News, Videos & Articles
R v Steadman, 2018 ABQB 1045 (CanLII)
R v Steadman, 2021 ABCA 332 (CanLII)
R v Sproule, 2025 ABKB 91 (CanLII)
R v Sproule, 2025 ABKB 707 (CanLII)
Canadian Taxi Driver Homicides: Dwayne Demkiw
Somebody’s Hiding Something s02e03 | Crave
“Dateline NBC” The Case of the Man with No Name (2023) IMDb
Dwayne Eugene Demkiw | Obituary
Donate to Dwayne Demkiw – Justice, Grieving & Healing, organized by Jesta Menace
5 horrifying details about the murder of Canadian limo driver Dwayne Demkiw | Primetimer
Fugitive charged in Edmonton murder lived under stolen identity: investigators | Globe & Mail
Family thanks the person who found the bones of their missing son | CBC News
Homicide victim’s friend removed evidence from crime scene, murder trial hears | CBC News
After a limo driver disappears, a fugitive’s web begins to unravel and sets off an international manhunt
Liberals grilled on trial delays after Dwayne Demkiw murder | Watch News Videos Online

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405: Final Justice: The Murder of Beverley Ann Dyke

April 16, 2026February 9, 2026 by Mike Browne

Episode 405: On the 17th of May 1984, 48‑year‑old Beverley Anne Dyke was found brutally murdered in a wooded area near Moray Street and Saskatchewan Avenue on the edge of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her killing, a frenzied sexual assault and stabbing, left her family and the wider community fearing a predator was on the loose. For years, detectives chased dead ends and even a dramatic prison confession, but the real killer remained a mystery. It would take more than two decades, and a cold‑case DNA match, to finally reveal who murdered Beverley and why.

Sources:

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