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

170 – Slippery as an Eel: The Tale of Ernest Cashel

May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 170 – In November of 1902, a rancher named Issac Belt from Haynes Creek near Red Deer, Alberta, had gone missing. Investigating officers had gone to Belt’s ranch to question a young man calling himself Bert Ellsworth, who was suspected of horse theft, who had been lending a hand there. That young man and Belt were both missing.

Police discovered the man claiming to be Ellsworth at a camp on the outskirts of Calgary. Some of Belt’s personal belongings were in Cashel’s possession, and Cashel was wearing Issac’s clothes. In reality, his name was Ernest Cashel, a 21-year-old American. He was on the run from U.S. and Canadian authorities for forgery and other crimes, including escaping from custody several times.

Cashel was arrested and charged with theft and later charged with Isaac Belt’s murder, convicted and sentenced to hang. Cashel escaped one last time, only days before he was to be executed, and was on the run for more than a month before being recaptured and sent to see his maker via the hangman.

169 – Worst Case Scenario: The Murders of Chloe and Aubrey Berry

May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 169: On the evening of Christmas Day in 2017, upon gaining access to an Oak Bay, British Columbia apartment, police discovered a bloody crime scene. In the suite were the bodies of six-year-old Chloe Berry and her four-year-old sister, Aubrey Berry. They had been murdered in their beds. First responders also discovered Andrew Berry, Chloe and Aubrey’s father, naked, seriously injured and bleeding in the apartment’s bathtub. He had penetrating injuries to his left chest and throat. First responders took Andrew by ambulance to Victoria General Hospital for treatment. He’d eventually have a rather tall tale to tell about what had taken place that day.

168 – The Murder of Nadine Anne Taylor

May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 168 – On the evening of July 28, 2010, Nadine Anne Taylor, a 29-year-old woman in Halifax, Nova Scotia, left the Convoy Avenue apartment in Fairview she shared with her boyfriend, Gene. Nadine, who did not have a telephone, told Gene she needed to make a call, left her home and walked a nearby payphone to make a call. She was never seen alive again.

167 – Did They Get it Right? The Rafay Family Murders

May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 167: On July 13, 1994, just after 2:00 am, police responded to a 911 call from Sebastian Burns, 18. Sebastian and his friend, Atif Rafay, also 18, claimed they had discovered ‘some kind of break in’ and multiple deaths at Atif’s family home in Bellevue, Washington. A bloody crime scene awaited the first responders. All three of the victims, Tariq and Sultana, Atif’s parents and his sister, Basma, had been bludgeoned to death. Right away, something felt off to the Bellevue Police, who focused their attention on the pair of young men who’d reported the crime. But did they get it right?

166 – Hate Crime: The Murder of Aaron Webster

May 21, 2021May 20, 2021 by Mike Browne

In the early morning hours of November 17, 2001, officers from the Vancouver Police were dispatched to the Second Beach area of Stanley Park. Several callers to 911 indicated that there had been some kind of altercation and a group of man had badly beaten another man.

Two VPD constables arrived at the Second Beach parking lot within minutes of being called to find a distraught man frantically providing CPR to a bloodied man on the ground. The man on the ground was naked except for socks and shoes. Police assessed the man’s condition and immediately called for an ambulance. The paramedics from the BC Ambulance Service arrived quickly, but determined that it was too late.

Aaron Zane Donald Webster, 42-year-old and a member of Vancouver’s gay community, was dead. He had been brutally beaten with a blunt instrument and his killers had skittered off into the night leaving Aaron to die. Aaron’s death would be come to be recognized as Canada’s most well-known and notorious cases of ‘gay bashing’.

Guest Host: Mathew Stockton (Steve the dog’s dad)

165 – Frenzy: The Killing of Traci Lynch

May 21, 2021March 9, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 165: On the afternoon of July 24, 2015, RCMP were called by the residents of 192 Pleasant Grove Road, outside of Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island. They said that the night before there had been a fight between a man, Joel Lawrence Clow, 46, and a woman, Clow’s 40-year-old on an off again girlfriend and mother of one, Traci Lynn Lynch. Responding officers knew they would be investigating a domestic dispute, they’d dealt with Traci and Joel before. Things became more serious when cops discovered Traci, deceased on Clow’s property.

164 – On the Run: Triple Murderer Kevin Louis Vermette

May 21, 2021March 9, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 164: On July 12, 1997, in the town of Kitimat, British Columbia, after months of tension, tempers boiled over, and a violent altercation took place between a mad man and four young men. Three of the men, Michael Mauro and Mark Teves, both 20 and 21-year-old David Nunes were dead, and another, 20-year-old Donny Oliveira, was barely clinging to life after a local man named Kevin Louis Vermette allegedly blasted away at the group with a sawed-off shotgun before disappearing into the brush. He is still on the loose almost 24 years later.

Co-host: Carol Browne

163 – Twice Hanged: The Life and Crimes of Bennie Swim

May 21, 2021March 9, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 163: In New Brunswick, in the fall of 1922 a convicted double murderer named Bennie Swim was hanged for the murder of the woman he loved, his first cousin Olive and her husband, Harvey Trenholm. Bennie didn’t die the first time, so the authorities hanged him again.

Co-host: Carol Browne
Promo: Murderish

162 – Death on the 505: The Shooting of Sammy Yatim

May 21, 2021March 9, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 162: In July of 2013, on a busy summer night in downtown Toronto, police received several calls about a man on a streetcar brandishing a knife and threatening passengers and the transit operator. After an encounter with police lasting only 50 seconds, 18-year-old Sammy Yatim had been shot nine times and later died from his wounds. As videos of the incident surfaced, many people were outraged, claiming that the police had used excessive force and calling for the head of the officer who had pulled the trigger.

Co-host: Carol Browne
Promo:Ignorance Was Bliss

161 – The Murder of Alison Parrott

May 21, 2021March 9, 2021 by Mike Browne

Episode 161 – On a warm July day in 1986, 11-year-old Alison Parrott was lured from her Toronto home by a man on the phone claiming to be a sports photographer who wanted to take photos of the young athlete. Two boys discovered Alison’s body in a heavily wooded section of Kings Mill Park two days later. She had been bound, raped and strangled to death. It would take a decade before science caught up to the point where her killer could be brought to justice.

Co-Host: Carol Browne