Latest Episodes

Episode 420: On the night of March 1st, 1895, in the paymaster’s office of the Montreal Cotton Company in Valleyfield, Quebec, a twenty-year-old Irish immigrant named Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis shot three men — killing two…

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…

Episode 400: In October 1894, 18-year-old Frank Westwood was shot on the doorstep of his Parkdale home. The killing shocked Toronto and sparked a frantic search for a suspect. Weeks…

Episode 397: In April 1895, two young women, both twenty-one, from San Francisco’s Emmanuel Baptist Church vanished days apart. Blanche Lamont, a dedicated teacher-in-training, and Minnie Williams, a hardworking domestic with dreams of her own…

Episode 373: In the shadowy annals of North American crime, few names evoke as much dread as H.H. Holmes, a master manipulator, a conman, and a predator who thrived in the…

Episode 211: On January 27, 1896, in the tiny community of Bear River, Nova Scotia, popular fourteen-year-old Annie Kempton was brutally murdered in her home while her parents were out of town. The crime, papers said, was the worst ever seen in the province up to that point and there was an outcry for swift justice on the heels of the slaying. Two days after the crime, Peter David Wheeler, 26, an immigrant, was arrested and charged with the murder. In July of that year, Wheeler was found guilty of the crime and after his trial, made a confession that some have come to see as coerced. He was hanged less than 8 months after the murder in the middle of the night as a crowd was allegedly on their way from Bear River to lynch him.Sources:Nova Scotia Archives - Admiral Digby MuseumPlace-names of the Province of Nova Scotia : Brown, Thomas J : Internet ArchiveIn search of justice for Peter and Annie | The Chronicle HeraldBear River Historical Society | Nova Scotia, CanadaPeter Wheeler, Murder of Annie… - Admiral Digby Museum | FacebookJustice Denied - Atlantic BooksStories of our Local CharactersThe Lynching of Peter Wheeler by Debra Komar - Ebook | ScribdMaritime Murder: Deadly Crimes from the Buried Past eBook : Vernon, Steve: Amazon.ca: Kindle StoreGraveyard Tour | Fall For Bear RiverAnnie Kempton (1881-1896) - Find a Grave MemorialFolksongs from Southern New Brunswick : Creighton, Helen, 1899- : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchiveBear River tragedy retold in ‘Annie Kempton’ | SaltWireSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 198: If you’ve had any interest in the Wild West, you’ve no doubt heard of a many of the storied gunmen and bandits from the era like Butch Cassidy, Jesse James and Billy the Kid. You probably also think of the United States, but Canada has its own legends and colourful characters from the era on both sides of the border. For example, legendary gunslinger and lawman, Bat Masterson, was was born in Henryville, Quebec. Sometimes the outlaws were women, like one notorious Canadian-born, lady bandit and the subject of this episode, whose most famous alias was Pearl Hart. After a rough life with criminal exploits that started during her troubled childhood, Pearl got herself into big trouble in Arizona in 1899 and was finally taken into custody after robbing a stage coach.Sources:Pearl Hart - WikipediaPearl Hart – Lady Bandit of Arizona – Legends of AmericaBandit Pearl Hart holds up an Arizona stagecoach - HISTORYThe life and times of Pearl Hart, Ontario’s cigar-smoking, Wild West superstar | The StarPearl Hart: The Amazing Life of The Bandit QueenFemale bandit Pearl Hart: “I shall not be tried under a law in which my sex had no voice in making”The wild life and death of Old West feminist bandit Pearl HartPearl Hart - ‘Bandit Queen’ of the Old West - WednesdaysWomenPearl Hart, the Last Lady Outlaw - HeadStuffWild Women of the Wild West: Pearl Hart ~ Lady Bandit of ArizonaListen to Wildcat Audiobook by John BoesseneckerThe Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters - Leon Claire Metz - Google BooksThe Cosmopolitan — Volume 27 — Google Play BooksPearl Hart: Smooth-talking card shark led Pearl’s slide to perdition | Local news | tucson.comSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 121: In this episode we examine 3 different Canadian legends. First we look at Demon Isle a phantom island somewhere in or near the Gulf of St Lawrence. This is where French noblewoman Marguerite de Roberval was marooned by an evil uncle to star in her very own tale of demons, love, loss and survival in New France in the 1500's. Then we're off to Moncton, New Brunswick, one of the most haunted cities in the Maritimes, and the the story of Rebecca's Grave, the resting place of a supposed witch who was executed, buried upside down and concrete was poured over her tomb. Finally we hear the story of Chasse-Galerie in, or in English The Flying or Witched Canoe, one of the most famous Québecois folktales. Isle of Demons [Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic Index] [Dale Gilbert Jarvis: Marguerite de Roberval and The Isle of Demons] [Stranded on the Isle of Demons | Mysterious Universe] [Phantom island - Wikipedia] [Mystery of the phantom islands solved: Lands that disappeared on ancient maps are explained as mistakes, mirages and myths | Daily Mail Online] [How to Put a Fake Island on the Map - Atlas Obscura] [Dale Gilbert Jarvis: The Phantoms of Fishot Island, on Newfoundland’s Northern Peninsula] Rebecca Lutes, The Moncton Witch [Rebecca’s Concrete Grave] [NB - Haunted Locations] [Rebecca Lutes Gravesite - YouTube] [New Brunswick’s 7 Most Haunted Places - Huddle] [Local Haunts – The Greater Moncton Paranormal Society] [Rebecca’s Grave | Flickr] [Do you know the story of Rebecca’s Grave? | Bobsroom Dot Com] [GCR0WN Haunted Tour of Moncton (Unknown Cache) in New Brunswick, Canada created by Energizer Bunny] [Great Canadian Ghost Stories: Legendary Tales of Haunting from Coast to Coast: Smith, Barbara: 9781771512794: Books - Amazon.ca] [Rebecca’s Grave Investigation - YouTube] Flying Canoe in Quebec [French Canadian Legends - The Witched Canoe] [The Century Magazine, August 1892, pp. 496-501] [Chasse-galerie - Wikipedia] [Forteresse: Chasse Galerie] [Histoire Canada - Histoire Canada] [La légende du canot d’écorce par Robert Doucet - ONF] [Claude Dubois-  Chasse-galerie - YouTube] Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

In 1890 a mysterious character named Slumach shot and killed another man who may have come too close to his treasure. The search for Slumach's lost gold mine was on and would last to this day.