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On the evening of June 24, 1992, after she failed to pick her daughter up from school, 41-year-old Gladys Wakabayshi’s estranged husband, Shinji and her daughter, Elisa, discovered her body in the hallway of their home in Shaughnessy, a posh Vancouver neighbourhood. Gladys had been brutally slashed and bled out on the floor. Early on, after uncovering an affair between Derek James, a long-time family friend, and Gladys Wakabayashi, Jean Ann James, 52, Derek’s wife, became the number one suspect in the murder. Jean Ann refused to talk, leaving the police without enough physical evidence to lay charges. The crime would go unsolved for more than 15 years before Jean Ann James was arrested after she confessed to the murder of her friend during an intricate Mr. Big sting.

In this episode, we venture into a controversial and tragic chapter of Canada's legal history. It intertwines public health, personal relationships, and the weight of the law. We're talking about the history of HIV non-disclosure cases in Canada. Part of our journey takes us to the early 2000s, zeroing in on Johnson Aziga, a Ugandan-born Canadian resident. His name would soon become synonymous with a landmark legal battle challenging the boundaries of consent, deception, and responsibility. Aziga was diagnosed with HIV in 1996, but his numerous subsequent relationships would cast him into the national spotlight. Two women, specifically, would become central to his story: both entered into relationships with Aziga, and HIV-related complications tragically took both. The women’s names are protected under publication bans, so we cannot speak to their biographies. Regardless, their untimely deaths would raise a storm of questions about trust, disclosure, and the duty one owes to their intimate partners. Aziga was convicted of murder and deemed a dangerous offender, but argued that his race and status as an immigrant weighed against him. In 2023, the murder convictions were overturned and replaced with manslaughter charges substituted in their place.

Aurore Gagnon is probably one of the most tragic figures in twentieth-century Canadian history. She was only ten years old when she died of exhaustion and blood poisoning in her hometown of Sainte-Philomène-de-Fortierville, Quebec, on February 12, 1920. An autopsy revealed at least 54 wounds on her body, presumably inflicted over time by her stepmother Marie-Anne Houde and her father, Télesphore Gagnon. Both were later convicted for their roles in the little girl’s death. Aurore Gagnon’s story has left a lasting impact on Quebec's cultural memory, inspiring plays, films, and discussions about child abuse and children's rights in the province.

On the night of Saturday, October 25th, 1857, in Beaver Lake, a part of Simond’s Parish in St John County, a heinous crime was committed unlike anything ever seen in New Brunswick up to that point. Sure, there had been murders and arsons, but those were often the result of heated arguments or drunken brawls. But this crime was different. It’s hard to believe that anyone in New Brunswick would coldly and calculatedly murder a man named Robert McKenzie, his wife, and his four helpless children, all for the sake of money, and then burn down their property to destroy the evidence. The perpetrators, three Irish Catholics, Hugh Breen and Patrick Slavin Sr. and Slavin’s teenage son, Patrick Jr., targeted the protestant Mackenzie family, robbing and murdering them. This crime, committed on that fateful Saturday night, was, to that point, unprecedented in New Brunswick. Some still feel the crime rivals the worst in the province’s history.

In the early morning hours of July 8, 2019, Vancouver Island RCMP launched a manhunt for two inmates who had escaped from William Head, a minimum security federal institution in Metchosin, south of Victoria. The two men, James Lee Busch and Zachary Armitage had walked away from William Head the day before. The fugitives were arrested on July 9 after an off-duty RCMP officer spotted them in Esquimalt. On July 12, RCMP found the body of 60-year-old Martin Keith Payne, who had not shown up for work, at his home on Brookview Drive, in the community of Metchosin. Payne's suspicious death initiated an 11-month investigation led by the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Unit, involving several police agencies. On June 12, 2020, an RCMP news release reported that the escapees, Busch and Armitage, had been charged with first-degree murder concerning Martin Payne’s death. This event sparked serious debate about the decision-making process that led to these two individuals, both with histories of violent crime, being housed in a minimum-security facility. How had they simply walked away from their incarceration to murder Martin Payne?

In Quebec City, on October 21, 2004, Dario Gallese got an alarming phone call from his younger brother, Eustachio Gallese. In the call, Eustachio admitted to killing his girlfriend, Chantale Deschesnes, 32, and, following his brother's advice, contacted the police to report the crime. Eustachio was arrested, charged, and convicted of the second-degree murder of Chantale. In late 2006, Eustachio was sentenced to life in prison without parole eligibility for 15 years. In 2019, Eustachio was placed into a halfway house on day parole. In September, in what would be a controversial decision, his case management team allowed Eustachio Gallese to visit sex workers to have his sexual needs met, as long as he was ‘transparent’ with his case management team about these visits. On the night of January 22, 2020, Eustachio Gallese walked into a Quebec City police station and admitted to having murdered another woman, a 22-year-old masseuse named Marylène Levesque, whom he’d become obsessed with. Marylène’s body was found in the Sainte-Foy (Sant-Fwa) hotel room where Gallese said she would be. She’d been stabbed 30 times. A month later, Eustachio Gallese, then 51, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. After a public outcry inciting parliamentary debate, the Correctional Service of Canada and the Parole Board of Canada announced a joint investigation into Gallese’s release.

In this episode, we plunge into the perplexing saga of Grace Marks and James McDermott. Their story, a blend of mystery and controversy, revolves around the savage murders of wealthy Richmond Hill farmer Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper, Nancy Montgomery, in 1843. This tale continues to ignite debates about guilt, innocence, and the essence of criminality. We'll lay out a tangled web of facts and speculations surrounding these infamous figures and their crimes. We journey through Grace's life, from her hazardous upbringing in Ireland to her immigration to Canada and her involvement in one of the 19th century's most notorious crimes. We also delve into James McDermott's role and his complex relationship with Grace Marks, a subject of relentless speculation.

On January 26, 2012, Jo Anne Alexander called 911 from her residence in Richmond, B.C., pleading for help and mentioning that she had ingested sleeping pills. Upon arrival, police found Jo Anne and her husband, John Alexander, in their bed along with their deceased family dog. John was deceased and had suffered blunt-force injuries. His death was ruled a homicide. Jo Anne was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was arrested after a conversation with police and subsequently charged with second-degree murder. A B.C. Supreme Court jury found Jo Anne Alexander guilty of the second-degree murder of her husband in March. She was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 11 years. The court heard that the couple had been in severe financial distress, living off the proceeds from the sale of their home and borrowing from friends and family. In a letter to her family, Jo Anne, apparently suicidal, said the couple was facing “financial ruin” and that her husband didn’t understand. John and Jo Anne's son, David, will share his experiences over the past 11 and a half years since his father's death in the next part of this episode.

On March 27, 2020, Jacob Sansom, 39, and his uncle, Maurice Cardinal, 57, both Métis, went hunting in Glendon, Alberta. They later began driving along Range Road 484, where they were mistakenly suspected of planning a burglary by Roger Bilodeau, a white property owner. Bilodeau, 58, and his 16-year-old son, Joseph, gave chase, reaching speeds up to 150 km/h. Another son, Anthony Bilodeau, 33, was called to join during the chase. He did and brought a gun. After a confrontation at an intersection near Glendon, Alberta, Anthony shot and killed both Sansom and Cardinal. The Bilodeaus fled the scene, offering no aid, nor did they contact authorities. The victims’ bodies were discovered by a passerby hours later.

This historical, true crime podcast hosted by Kru Williams from History Television’s hit original series Deadman’s Curse: The Legend of the Lost Gold investigates the curse and legend surrounding the…