Latest Episodes

In October 2008, 38-year-old Johnny Altinger was looking for love online and, thinking he’d found it, was lured to his death in a dingy south Edmonton, Alberta garage. Johnny believed he would meet the girl of his dreams, but a Star Wars and Dexter-Morgan-obsessed serial killer wannabe and 29-year-old amateur filmmaker named Mark Andrew Twitchell awaited him in the garage’s darkness.

In early March of 1946, John Dick, a 39-year-old streetcar conductor in Hamilton, Ontario, disappeared. Weeks later, five local children found John’s torso on the city’s outskirts — his head and limbs were missing. Suspicion soon fell on John’s wife, Evelyn, who was arrested and charged with the murder. The pair had had a whirlwind courtship and had been married only months before John turned up dead.

On September 5th, 1998, between 11:00 and 11:30 pm, Brianne Ruth Wolgram was last seen at the 7-11 store in Revelstoke, BC., in the company of three young females whose identities are unknown. Five days later, Brianne’s abandoned car was discovered 30 km south of Revelstoke, towards the Akolkolex Falls & River, on Echo Lake Road. Inside the car was her wallet, driver’s license and $200, but there was no sign of Brianne. Nearly 25 years later, Brianne’s family and friends are left wondering whatever became of the shy 19-year-old. Police have not ruled out foul play in her disappearance.

On September 28, 2016, a police dog discovered the nude and decomposing body of a young woman on the grounds of Gabriola House, a famous and, at that time, abandoned mansion on Davie Street in Vancouver’s West End. The body was that of Natsumi Kogawa, 30, a Japanese woman who’d been in Canada on a Visa to study English since May that year. Natsumi’s friends and family had not heard from her since September 8, and she’d been officially listed as a missing person four days after that.

At 12:53 am on the morning of October 15, 2018, a frantic, garbled 911 came in from the Closs Family just west of the City of Barron, Wisconsin, U.S.A. There is screaming throughout the 45 seconds of the call from what seems to be two different females. Police arrived shortly after 911 was placed. Inside the home were the bodies of James and Denise Closs. They’d both been shot to death. It was soon discovered that the Closs couple’s 13-year-old daughter, Jayme Lynn, was missing.

In our last episode we heard of the murder of eleven-year-old Kathryn-Mary Herbert in Abbotsford, B.C. The 1975 murder went unsolved for nearly 40 years. Less than a year after Kathryn-Mary was killed, another girl from Abbotsford, Theresa Hildebrandt, 15, also went missing. Her body turned up in 1980, she’d been murdered. Two years after that and more than 200 kilometres from Abbotsford, another girl, Monica Jack, 12, went bike riding near Merritt, B.C. and was never again seen alive. Her remains were not found until 1995 near Nicola Lake, she too had been murdered. Police believed that all three murders were connected. They had only circumstantial evidence on one suspect they presumed had committed all three killings.

In Abbotsford, B.C., on the evening of September 24, 1975, Kathryn-Mary Herbert, age 11, was abducted while on her way home from a friend’s home. Last seen The girl’s body was discovered almost two months later on the Matsqui Indian Reserve north of Abbotsford. Investigators determined that she was likely murdered on the day she’d disappeared. In May 1976, Theresa Hildebrandt, 15, vanished without a trace from her Aldergrove, B.C. home. F Police believed she might be a runaway, but her family felt otherwise. or nearly four years no one knew what had become of Theresa. In March of 1980, her skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave off Downes and Mt. Lehman roads. Almost exactly two years after Theresa’s disappearance, in early May 1976, 12-year-old Monica Jack was riding her bicycle near Merritt, B.C. when she disappeared. As Monica was of indigenous heritage, her disappearance fell under Project E-PANA, the RCMP’s initiative to solve the multitude of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls along B.C.’s infamous Highway of Tears. In June of 1995, Monica’s remains were discovered off a logging road on Swakum Mountain, to the west of Nicola Lake and several kilometres from where she was last seen. Families of the victims had their suspicions about suspects and worked hard to hold police on task, to solve the murders of their girls. Due to similarities in the cases, police believed them all, potentially, linked. After years of running down tip after tip, a man with a history of sexual assault convictions and had been living in B.C. during all three killings fell under suspicion of investigators. After a long operation which involved the employment pf their infamous Mr. Big technique to get their suspect to talk, RCMP arrested 67-year-old Garry Taylor Handlen, and charged him with the murders of Kathryn-Mary Herbert and Monica Jack in 2014, more than 36 years after the murder of Monica Jack. He was later convicted of first-degree murder�. Sadly, in regards to Theresa Hildebrant’s murder, no one has yet been charged in her killing, and 46 years later, her family has yet to receive any official answers about Theresa’s death.

Episode 216: In Quebec, on April 15, 1763, after a supposed confession and hasty trial by an English military tribunal, 30-year-old Marie-Josephte Corriveau was convicted of murdering in brutal fashion her second husband, Louis-Étienne Dodier, and was sentenced to death. She was hanged with haste, three days later. Her body was then put on display in a form-fitting metal cage and placed at a crossroad where for the next five weeks, she stood as a warning to others considering domestic homicide as an answer to an unhappy marriage. When her cage disappeared locals believed that the Devil himself had come and taken Marie-Josephte to hell. It said that La Corriveau's spectre haunts the crossroads still.Sources:Marie-Josephte Corriveau - WikipediaUncertain Justice by F. Murray Greenwood, Beverley Boissery - Ebook | ScribdKilling Women by Wilfrid Laurier University Press - Ebook | ScribdThe History of Gibbeting by Samantha Priestley - Ebook | ScribdLa destinée de la Corriveau « Histoire du QuébecLégende de la Corriveau – Voyage à travers le QuébecLes anciens Canadiens - Philippe Aubert de GaspéIl était cent fois La Corriveau : anthologie : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchivePressReader.com - Macabre DiscoveryCanadian Mysteries of the Unexplained: Investigations Into the Fantastic, the Bizarre and the DisturbingBiography – CORRIVEAU, MARIE-JOSEPHTE, La Corriveau – Volume III (1741-1770) – Dictionary of Canadian BiographyThe Legend of La Corriveau: Québécois Folklore and The Politics of Nation-Making in Canada by Leslie SavathLa Corriveau: A woman victim of Society? by Isabelle ParentView of From Vilified to Victorious: Reconceiving La Corriveau in Anne Hébert’s La Cage | Studies in Canadian LiteratureLa Corriveau | The Canadian EncyclopediaThe Hanging Cage That Held An Infamous Québec Murderess - Atlas ObscuraCanadian Urban Legends: La Corriveau of Quebec City | NUVOA Shrine for Marie-Josephte Corriveau and for all women who are victims of domestic violence - UBC Library Open CollectionsA Shrine for Marie-Josephte Corriveau - KooZA/rchClassic French-Canadian Folktales: Volume I (English Edition; Annotated) eBook : Beaugrand, Honore, Frechette, Louis-Honore, Peters, Hammerson: Amazon.ca: Kindle StoreCage of la Corriveau on display in Lévis | CBC NewsLa Corriveau: The Gibbet of Quebec — YouTubeFrench Mourning in the 1700s - Geri WaltonSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 213:Toronto theatre magnate and enigmatic millionaire Ambrose J. Smalldisappeared without a trace on December 2, 1919, only a day after having made a lucrative deal to sell his ownership interests in his chain of theatres including the Grand Opera House in Toronto. People interested in the case suspected one of two theories were the most likely for the tycoon’s abrupt disappearance — either Small had run off and had into hiding under his own steam, or someone had abducted and very likely killed him. This case has become one of Canada’s oldest mysteries as more than 100 years later, there is yet no answer as to Small’s ultimate fate.Sources:Ambrose Small Case | The Canadian EncyclopediaCanada West | The Canadian Encyclopedia$1,750,000 in 1919 → 2022 | Inflation CalculatorBiography – SMALL, AMBROSE JOSEPH – Volume XIV (1911-1920) – Dictionary of Canadian BiographyDisappearance of Ambrose Small - WikipediaThe Doe Network: Ambrose Small - 1891DMONThe Mysterious Disappearance of Ambrose J. Small | Grand Theatre LondonWhat Really Happened to Ambrose Small? | Maclean’s | January 15, 1951How the mystery of Ambrose Small became Toronto’s most captivating cold case | The StarThe Mystery Of Ambrose J. Small, The Missing Millionaire - Ripley’s Believe It or Not!Ambrose Small, Toronto’s most sensational mysteryThe Grand Mystery of Ambrose SmallAmbrose Small, The Ghost of the Grand TheatreInvestigations following the finding of these human bones near Humber… News Photo - Getty ImagesAMBROSE SMALL: CANADA’S COLDEST CASE CLOSED!The Missing Millionaire by Katie Daubs | Penguin Random House CanadaCanadian Mysteries of the Unexplained: Investigations Into the Fantastic, the Bizarre and the DisturbingWild Talents by Charles Fort - Ebook | ScribdMysteries of Ontario by John Robert Colombo - Ebook | ScribdGhost Stories of Canada by John Robert Colombo, Jillian Hulme Gilliland - Ebook | ScribdSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 210: In the summer of 2003, Ardeth Wood, a 27-year-old PhD candidate studying philosophy at the University of Waterloo, was enjoying a well needed break at her parent’s home in the Orleans neighbourhood of Ottawa. In the early afternoon of August 6, 2003, wanting to take advantage of a beautiful, warm summer day Ardeth borrowed her brother’s bike to go for a ride. Ardeth never came home.Ardeth’s disappearance triggered one of the largest searches in Ottawa’s history up to that point covering the almost 200 kilometres of bike paths around the capital city and its suburbs. Five days later, Ardeth’s body was discovered. She’d been drowned on purpose and then hidden by her killer in a densely wooded area along the banks of Green’s Creek. Police had no suspects. Fearing for their own safety, many of the residents of Ottawa were terrified to use the parks and bike paths for some time even with increased police patrols. It would be more than two years before charges were laid against the man accused of Ardeth’s murder.Sources and Further Reading:The Disappearance of Ardeth Wood An Anthology of True Crime by Pete Dove - Ebook | ScribdArdeth Wood - WikipediaMurder She Solved - The Pathway Predator - Dailymotion VideoArdeth WOOD | Obituary | Ottawa CitizenArdeth Mary Margaret Wood (1975-2003) - Find a Grave MemorialThe value of virginity? « knitnut.netUniversity of Waterloo — September 10, 2003: Scholarship remembers murdered gradA Mother’s Grief – The Healing Power of Forgiveness | Nourished Motherhood BlogArchived Ardeth RememberedArchived A death that touched an entire cityArdeth Wood murder resonates 10 years later | CBC NewsInterview with Colum Wood — YouTubeGlobal study on homicideKristen Gilchrist (2010) “Newsworthy” Victims?, Feminist Media Studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/14680777.2010.514110Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine