Latest Episodes

This is part 2 of our coverage of the Gay Purge in Canada. Last week, we uncovered the origins of the Canadian government’s purge of gays and queer folk, a campaign that began in the early years of the Cold War. This week, we take a chilling dive into one of the government’s most sinister methods—the Fruit Machine. This pseudoscientific device was meant to expose gay individuals through invasive tests, and how the RCMP and military’s attempted Purge of gays from civil service continued unabated all the way through to the 1990s.

Episode 231: Gerald Vincent Bull was a smart cookie. He graduated from the University of Toronto at 20, got a master’s degree at age 21, and at 22 earned a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering from the University of Toronto’s newly created Institute of Aerodynamics. Magazines touted him the ‘boy rocket scientist’. Nations sought him for his innovative ideas regarding long range artillery, ballistics and other military related endeavours. He was charged several times with breaching arms embargoes, even spending time in prison, a sore spot for the proud scientist. Eventually he became involved in Iraq’s ‘Project Babylon’ in which he was asked personally by then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to build a Supergun which would launch weapons into space, giving Hussein the capability of bombing targets 1000’s of kilometres away. This obviously worried Iraq’s neighbours in the Middle East. Before the project was completed Gerald Bull was assassinated, shot five times outside his apartment building in Brussels, Belgium. A lot of nations hated Gerald Bull and some, no doubt, wanted him dead, but it remains a mystery who was behind his killing. It isn’t clear who actually pulled the trigger in the murder of Gerald Bull, most likely it was someone either within, or acting on behalf of, one of those governments who’d felt threatened by Bull’s activities and alliances.

Episode 230: Over a period of 22 months, between January 1969 and January 1971, 3 women in Southwestern Ontario were brutally murdered in 3 different towns. These women’s names were Isobella “Belva” Russell, Edith Authier, and Jane Wooley. Police solved the case of the third victim, Belva Russell, a matter of weeks after the crime. The perpetrator, Gerald Thomas Archer was convicted and imprisoned. There were obvious similarities between all three crimes. For several reasons the initial investigators on the cases missed them. Gerald Thomas Archer got his freedom in 1985, when he was 65. He was a drifter and passed away in 1995. Five years after Archer’s death, his family made police aware of new information. Through DNA, were police able to connect him to the murders of  Edith Authier, and Jane Wooley.  Gerald Thomas Archer, had been a serial killer and had walked free for the last ten years of his life.