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On April 12, 1991, a group of teens attended a woodland party near Oromocto, New Brunswick, involving alcohol and drugs, including LSD. Pamela Gail Bischoff, 14, and William Wayne Dale (Billy) Stillman, 17, left the gathering together, marking the last sighting of Pamela Bischoff alive. Stillman returned home later, wet from the thighs down, cold, shaking, and sporting a cut above his eye with mud and grass on his pants. Six days later, Pamela’s body was discovered in the Oromocto River, a short distance from the party site. The time of death correlated to the evening she had left with Billy Stillman. Eyewitnesses confirmed seeing a male accompanying Pamela near the discovery site, and Stillman was seen departing the area, his pants muddied. An autopsy showed that Pamela’s death resulted from head wounds, and there was evidence of sexual assault, which included semen inside her body. Billy Stillman was arrested, released, arrested again and eventually charged and convicted in Pamela’s murder. Stillman’s appeals were based on alleged inappropriate conduct by the RCMP officers collecting important DNA evidence. This resulted in the case being heard and decided in Canada’s highest court in 1997, and a new trial was ordered.

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 Saturday, June 23, 1990, three teenagers, Brigitte Grenier, 16, Kyle Unger, 19, and Timothy Houlahan, 17, all separately attended a music festival at a ski resort near Roseisle, Manitoba. The following morning, Brigette was discovered dead in a creek in a heavily forested area within the resort. She’d been sexually assaulted, beaten, tortured and strangled to death. As both had been seen with the victim during the hours before her death, police quickly targeted Kyle Unger and Timothy Houlahan as suspects in Brigette’s slaying.

On a fall evening in 1991, police discovered the bodies of Alfred Critchley, 75, and Virginia Critchley, 73, in the Chatham, Ontario residence they shared with their son and his family. The couple had been brutally stabbed. Alfred was unconscious but alive and Virginia was barely alive. Virginia died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and Alfred died later in the hospital having never regained consciousness. After a brief search, the couple’s grandson, Jasen Pangburn, 19, was discovered partially buried in a nearby ravine. Jasen had been executed with a single gunshot to the chest from a .22 calibre firearm. Thanks to Virginia’s dying words, suspicion fell on two youths, who’d been acquaintances of Jasen Pangburn’s, Jason Shawn Cofell, 18, and a 15-year-old accomplice we’ll call C.B.

On March 26, 1997, police found the bodies of 39 members of a religious UFO cult known as Heaven’s Gate in an 830 square-metre (9,000 square foot) home in Rancho Santa Fe, a San Diego suburb. All, including the group’s leader, Marshall Applewhite Jr., had died in a ritualistic act of mass suicide. The headline on the cult’s website, which remains online today, stated, “Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven’s Gate.” Over the following weeks, as investigators probed what happened in the home, the story of the Heaven’s Gate cult emerged, each detail weirder than the next. I wrote about this story in part three, The Madness of Crowds, in my first book, Murder Madness and Mayhem. I have always wanted to cover this on Dark Poutine. I have expanded on what I wrote, especially toward the end of the story, I get into more detail about the victims. The medium of a podcast also allows for other content, including audio clips from individuals involved in the case and other details I was otherwise unable to convey in the book including a Canadian connection. That’s right, this is not an away game.

Episode 212: On the afternoon of January 27, 1993, the day before her 20th birthday, Sian Simmonds, a student who was working he way through school, was found dead in her basement suite in the Guildford neighbourhood of Surrey, B.C. She had been shot and bludgeoned. Neighbours had heard screams coming from her suite. Only days later, a man named David Schlender was arrested. Already on bail for the attempted murder of one of his cocaine dealers the year before, Schlender told police he’d been hired by another man, Brian West, to commit the murder in exchange for wiping an outstanding drug debt. The investigation of Brian West led to another man, Josephakis Charalambous, the Simmonds’ family doctor who had hired West to murder Sian. Eighteen months before her murder, Sian and her older sister Katie had filed grievances with the BC College of Physicians and Surgeons alleging sexual assault by Charalambous. Rather than face censure by the College and risk losing his substantial annual income, Charlambous had sought to silence the girls. As the truth came out about the doctor, his carefully constructed facade of the community minded healer came tumbling down revealing an ugly pattern of violence and predatory behaviour toward young women and girls.Sources:Betrayal of trust | Maclean’s | DECEMBER 12, 1994R. v. West, 1997 CanLII 3157 (BC CA), R. v. Charalambous, 1997 CanLII 3363 (BC CA), Mountie Seduced My Wife. I Want a New Trial — PressReader.comCharalambous v. Canada (Attorney General), 2009 FC 1082 (CanLII), Charalambous v. Canada (Attorney General), 2015 FC 1045 (CanLII), Charalambous v. Canada (Attorney General), 2016 FCA 177 (CanLII), Charalambous v. Attorney General of Canada, 2017 CanLII 1337 (SCC), Doctor denied day parole 27 years after hiring hitman to kill teen | Vancouver SunScandalous Case had Public Riveted — PressReader.comDocumentary pays tribute to parents of murdered children - New West RecordFamily Physician Hired a Hit Man to Silence Her…Permanently - Medical BagServing Life 25-One Guard’s Story — ScribdDr. Death M.D. by David Pietras - Ebook | ScribdDoctors Who Kill by Carol Anne Davis - Ebook | ScribdFatal Prescription: A Doctor without Remorse by John Griffiths | GoodreadsMedical Ethics | The Canadian EncyclopediaAbout CAVEATSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 188: In early October of 1994, during a bizarre, nearly simultaneous sequence of murder / suicides, in Quebec, and across the Atlantic in Switzerland, 53 members of the Order of the Solar Temple were found dead in burned out buildings. The deaths fulfilled what the cult’s leaders claimed was the group’s “final transit” or return to Unity with God required before the impending end of the world. Even though it appeared to be over, more cult members were yet to die. Over a year later, in December of 1995, sixteen members of the cult died in France. More than a year after that, in march 1997, another five cult members died in Quebec bringing the death toll to 74. The cult’s two founders, Luc Jouret and Joseph Di Mambro, were among the dead in 1994, however, some fear there may be future related mass murder / suicides by followers still practicing in secret.Sources:Cult Education Institute :: The Order of the Solar TempleOrder of the Solar Temple - Wikipedia12 Disturbing Secrets Of The Order Of The Solar Temple CultThe Cult of the Sun and the Cult of the Dead in Egypt on JSTORRead Doomsday Cults: The Devil’s Hostages Online by Alan R. Warren | BooksRead Killer Cults Online by Stephen Singular | BooksRead Cults that Kill Online by Wendy Joan Biddlecombe Agsar | BooksRead Rampage Online by Lee Mellor | BooksGlass: Akhnaten - Album by Philip Glass, Dennis Russell Davies | Spotify“Our terrestrial journey is coming to an end”: the last voyage of the Solar Temple(PDF) The Magic of Death: The Suicides of the Solar Temple | Massimo Introvigne - Academia.eduCBC Archives — The madness begins for the Solar Temple cultCBC Archives — Solar Temple cult leader Joseph Di Mambro confirmed deadMichel Tabachnik - WikipediaSwiss conductor acquitted of sect killings - SWI swissinfo.chJoseph Di Mambro | Article about Joseph Di Mambro by The Free DictionaryHistory Canada: October 4,1994: An international cult tragedy begins – RCI | EnglishCult Intervention :: Cult Education InstituteHomeopathy | HealthLink BChttps://infosect.freeshell.org/infocult/phenomene/English/HTML/doc0008.htm Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

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? Sources: United States of America v. Burns, 1997 CanLII 3271 (BC CA), United States v. Burns, 2001 SCC 7 (CanLII), [2001] 1 SCR 283, [168 Wn. App. 734, STATE V. RAFAY] [Rafay Burns Appeal Site] [Sebastian Burns 911 Call - YouTube] [On the Margins of Freedom | The Walrus] [Written In Blood - CBS News] [Confessions of Murder ; Exposing the False Confessions Created from the Mr. Big Stings by Alan R. Warren | eBooks - Scribd] [The wrongful convictions of Sebastian Burns and … - En Vero] [Give Them Enough Rope - Shawn Blore] [YouTube - Sebastian Burns Pre-Sentence Statement Part 1 of 6] https://fuqrafiles.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/WMFuqraWash.pdf Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

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 Sources: Suspected BC murderer: Vermette still on the loose | Dawson Creek Mirror $25,000 reward in Kitimat triple murder cold case set to expire  | Globalnews.ca Wanted by the RCMP: Kevin  Louis  Vermette | Royal Canadian Mounted Police B.C. town rescinds $25,000 reward for info on 1997 triple-murder. Some donors want their money back | National Post A hockey game gets rowdy, and other Kitimat police files this week – Kitimat Northern Sentinel Wanted man who fled B.C. city 16 years ago may be alive: RCMP - The Globe and Mail Experienced outdoorsman flees into forest after killing 3 young adults and injuring another with a shotgun. Police believe he may still be alive. : UnresolvedMysteries Fifteen years on, the questions remain – Terrace Standard America’s Most Wanted Fans - Kevin Vermette KEVIN LOUIS VERMETTE | Wanted For Murder (July 1997, Kitimat, BC) Wanted by the RCMP - Kevin Louis VERMETTE CANADA’S MOST WANTED: These killers are on the run; have you seen them? | Toronto Sun America’s Most Wanted - Season 22 Episode 32: May 23, 2009 - Metacritic Community Profile - District of Kitimat Unsolved Mysteries - Board With Everything amw.com | Kevin Vermette - Fugitive Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 160 - Elena Tchoudakova was a beautiful, outgoing and vibrant 23-year-old Russian woman attending Interior Design at Toronto’s Ryerson University. In January of 1995 Elena was discovered in her apartment, she’d been brutally beaten to death and left in her bathub. There were a number of suspects with means and motive but only one with opportunity. Co-host: Carol Browne Sources: [The Russian Princess Case: MacDonald, Bruce: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store] R. v. Ho, 1999 CanLII 3823 (ON CA), [50 Cambridge Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada | Housecreep] [Tchoudakova : Toronto Public Library] [Interactive: Toronto homicides since 1990 | The Star] [Can a theatre program help rehabilitate Ontario prisoners? | The Star] Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine