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

Miscarried Justice – The Murder of Sandy Seale & Conviction of Donald Marshall Jr. (NS)

September 9, 2019September 9, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 090 – On evening in late May of 1971 police responded to reports of a young black male, Sandy Seale, having been stabbed in Sydney, Nova Scotia‘s Wentworth Park. A 17-year-old indigenous man, named Donald Marshall Jr., son of the Mi’kmaq Grand Chief who’d been at the scene, and injured himself, was later charged with the crime. After spending almost 12 years in prison Marshall was exonerated by a fresh RCMP investigation after new evidence was presented to Marshall by a friend. Donald Marshall Jr. was freed and the real killer, Roy Ebsary, was eventually convicted, and one of the largest inquiries into a wrongful conviction in Canadian history was launched.

Photo: provided by Marshall Family to the Canadian Encyclopedia

Billionaire’s Daughter: The Kidnapping of Cynthia Kilburn (BC)

September 9, 2019September 2, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 089 – Four days before Christmas in 1990 a North Vancouver woman named Cynthia Kilburn was kidnapped from her home. A threatening ransom note asking for $8.5 million was found pinned to the door of her home; her two children, 4-year-old twins, were found bound, but unharmed, in an upstairs bathroom. Unknown to most of her neighbours, Cynthia is the daughter of the philanthropic BC billionaire businessman and Canada’s fourth richest man, Jim Pattison. The kidnappers knew who they had, but their poorly thought out scheme did not go as planned.

088 – Away Game: Burke and Hare – The Anatomy Murderers

August 28, 2019August 26, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 088 – Over a ten month period, starting in late 1827, a pair of Irish born serial killers William Burke and William Hare killed 16 people, for fun and for profit in Edinburgh, Scotland. The corpses of their victims, twelve women, three men and one child, were taken to Surgeon’s Square and sold off to anatomist Dr. Robert Knox, for use in his anatomy classes.

087 – The Murder of Amber Kirwan (NS)

August 19, 2019August 19, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 087 – On the morning of October 9, 2011, 19-year-old Amber Kirwan failed to show up for an arranged ride home after leaving a local billiards hall in New Glasgow, N.S. After a massive search for almost a month Amber’s body was found in a shallow grave in the nearby village of Heathbell. The man eventually charged and convicted of the crime had a surprising background. Should he have been in the community at all?

086 – The Altona School Shooting of 1902 (MB)

August 11, 2019August 12, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 086 – In October of 1902 the small, quiet Mennonite community of Altona, Manitoba was shaken by violent events at the hands of one of their own. The teacher at their one room school opened fire on three school trustees after an argument, wounding all three. He then returned to the school and shot three students, all daughters of the trustees he’d shot earlier.

085 – Date with Death – The Murder of James Shannon (BC)

August 4, 2019August 5, 2019 by Mike Browne

episode 085 – The day before Valentines Day in 2008, James Shannon, a nurse from Port Alberni, BC, met up with another man he’d met on the web site, Plenty of Fish. Although James was looking for love, the man he brought into his home brought something much more sinister. Days later, after not showing up for multiple shifts at work, James Shannon was found brutally murdered in his home. The man who committed the act, Kim Winslow Rothgordt, was claiming he’d been raped and was too intoxicated at the time to know what happened. The truth was nowhere near his claims.

Photo credit: Phil Smith on Flickr per CC licence

084 – Emanuel Jaques – The Shoeshine Boy Murder (ON)

July 31, 2019July 29, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 084 – July 28, 1977 was a hot summer day on the corner of Yonge and Dundas streets in what was then Toronto’s seedier area. Three boys were shining shoes of passersby for change. After a day of work with little profit a tall, friendly stranger arrived with two pairs of shoes he needed shined. Claiming he had more lucrative work elsewhere he lured one to the younger boys, 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques, away. Emanuel was never seen alive again and the horrifying circumstances around his death divided the city.

083 – The Minto Murders – Verna Decarie & Fred Fulton (NB)

July 31, 2019July 22, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 083 – The village of Minto, New Brunswick was rocked by the events occurring in April 2005 when a grisly murder scene was discovered at 358 Slope Road. Edlerly but active residents, Fred Fulton, known for his love of playing and listening to country music and his kind, wife Verna Decarie lay dead, butchered in their small rural home.

The village got it’s second blow when it became clear that one of their own, a 22-year-old neighbour of Fred and Verna’s, named Gregory Allen Despres was sought as a person of interest in the murders. He was on the run.

Bringing justice to this case would not prove an easy task in spite of a heap of evidence.

082 – Domestic Horror – The Murder of Donna Jones (ON)

July 15, 2019July 15, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 082 – On the morning of December 6, 2009, Ottawa paramedics and police responded to what sounded like a frantic 911 call placed by a man at a residence in the Bayshore area. The man was screaming that his wife was not breathing. Upon arriving they found the owner of the home, 33-year-old Donna Jones, deceased on a makeshift mattress on the basement floor. Donna’s injuries and her time of death did not match the story that her husband Mark Peter Hutt was telling. Investigators would uncover a brutal history of abuse and torture ultimately leading to a heinous murder.

WARNING: This podcast includes graphic descriptions of violent domestic abuse and murder.

081 – The Cult of Brother XII and his Treasure (BC)

July 12, 2019July 8, 2019 by Mike Browne

Episode 081 – in the late 1920 and early 1930’s a group called the Aquarian Foundation, led by a self-professed spiritual guru who called himself Brother XII set up just south of Nanaimo B.C. Brother XII drew wealthy followers to his cult with his promises of salvation through a coming apocalypse. As we’ve seen many times since the lust for power, sex and money corrupted the group, who, after scandals and cruel treatment turned on Brother XII.

He and a female follower, he claimed to be his wife, absconded with some of the treasure that the group had amassed. However, many believe there are still millions of dollars worth of Brother XII’s gold hidden somewhere in the area.

Photo from the collection of Melody Wilson-Claridge