Dark Poutine

Episode 237: 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.

Sources:

2007 CanLII 76511 (ON SC) | R. v. Cofell | CanLII

The Essex and Kent Scottish – Canada.ca

Chatham triple-murderer granted parole after almost 25 years in prison | CBC News

Teenage triple-murderer whose killings rocked Chatham, region gets parole after decades in prison

Search — Jason Shaw Cofell — Newspapers.com

Cofell, Jason – Canadian Crimeopedia

Chatham-Kent, ON Crime Rates & Map

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Episode 236: In our last episode, we heard about the murder of 61-year-old retiree, and beloved mother, grandmother and recent great-grandmother, Diana Russell. On February 22, 2002, after her car was found abandoned, in out-of-the way Boston Bar, her family became concerned. Diana was not answering her phone and no one knew where she was.

She was later found by police in the basement of Kelowna ,B.C. townhome. Diana had been beaten, hogtied, raped and then strangled. The number one suspect was no stranger to the family. He was Ronald Leal Fowler, an ex-boyfriend of Diana’s eldest daughter, Michele, and father to that daughter’s two-year-old son, Brandon. 

After killing Diana, Fowler had fled in her car, but after it became hopelessly stuck after a freak winter mud and snow slide he’d hitchhiked to Vancouver. Fowler was arrested there after the truck driver who’d dropped him off in the Lower Mainland called police about the sketchy guy who’d ridden with him.

Fowler, who’d illegally walked away from half-way house in which he’d been living, claimed amnesia due to drug and alcohol binge at the time. He denied responsibility for Diana’s murder and maintains that position to this day.

Diana’s remaining family was left to pick of the pieces of their broken lives. This crime is still a painful wound for them, ripped open by Fowler’s every appeal and applications for parole. In the second part of this episode we hear from Collin Lucksinger, Diana Russell’s grandson, as he shares with us his feelings about the his grandmother and the crime.

Sources:

Facebook — Biography of Diana Russell

Search Castanet News – Ronald Fowler

2006 BCSC 1215 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2006 BCSC 1214 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1876 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1875 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1874 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

CN BC: Drug Experts Differ Over Blackouts – Rave.ca

Femicide

RamsReef — Twitch

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Episode 235: On February 22, 2002, a vehicle was found in the ditch off the Trans-Canada highway near Boston Bar, B.C.

The car was registered to 61-year-old mother, grandmother and recent great-grandmother, Diana Russell, who was nowhere around the car. RCMP obtained a key to Diana’s Kelowna townhouse and went inside finding the woman partially clothed body underneath some mattresses and furniture. She’d been hogtied, raped, beaten and strangled.

Police quickly determined that Ronald Leal Fowler, 31, was a person of interest in the murder. Fowler, father of one of Diana’s grandchildren after a brief relationship with Diana’s eldest daughter, Fowler was later dramatically captured in Vancouver. He was then charged and in 2006 was convicted of first degree murder.

Diana Russell’s daughter Valerie MacPherson kindly shared her writings about her family’s pain around the time of the murder and the twenty years since. In part 2 we will hear from Diana’s grandson, Collin Lucksinger, as he shares first hand his thoughts and feelings around Diana’s murder.

Sources:

Facebook — Biography of Diana Russell

Search Castanet News – Ronald Fowler

2006 BCSC 1215 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2006 BCSC 1214 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1876 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1875 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

2005 BCSC 1874 (CanLII) | R. v. Fowler | CanLII

CN BC: Drug Experts Differ Over Blackouts – Rave.ca

Femicide

RamsReef — Twitch

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Episode 234: 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, California, 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 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 involving Canadian connections which includes one of the victims, Erika Ernst, 40, who was from Calgary, Alberta. That’s right, this is not an away game. 

Sources:

Get Help | Talk Suicide Canada

Heaven’s Gate — How and When It May Be Entered

YouTube — Heaven’s Gate Cult Initiation Tape Part 1

Heaven’s Gate : Federal Bureau of Investigation — Internet Archive

Video Anonymous Heaven’s Gate caller who directed police to mansion, 25 years after tragedy – ABC News

Heaven’s Gate, 25 Years Later: Remembering Lives Lost in Cult

CNN – Some members of suicide cult castrated – Mar. 28, 1997

Heaven’s Gate Survivor Lost His Soulmate to Suicide Cult

Facilitating You! – You are the love you have been looking for.

Erika Ernst (1956-1997) – Find a Grave Memorial

Cult Test | Cult Escape | Are you In A Religious Cult?

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Episode 233: During the harsh winter of 1941, as World War II raged elsewhere, closer to home, a tragedy occurred on the remote, ice-covered island archipelago in Hudson Bay called the Belcher Islands. After witnessing a dramatic meteor shower, a tribal group of Inuit people believed the world was ending. Inspired by a copy of the New Testament Bible translated into Inuit syllabics by Anglican missionaries, 27-year-old Charlie Ouyerack, self-professed shaman of the tribe, claimed he was the second coming of Jesus Christ. Charlie determined his friend, Peter Sala, a skilled hunter and navigator, to be God. Their cult, Charlie, Peter, Peter’s sister Mina and their followers, labelled any deniers as satanic heretics, eventually leading to the brutal murders of nine people within the group.

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Epidsode 232: The strongest earthquake ever recorded in eastern Canada, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, occurred at 5:02pm Newfoundland time on the 18 of November in 1929. It was felt as far west as Ottawa and as far south as New York City. The quake, centred around 250 km south of Newfoundland along the southern edge of the Grand Banks caused a massive sub-ocean landslide. Two and a half hours after the quake a series of tsunami waves smashed into Newfoundland’s isolated Burin Peninsula devastating property, upending the fishery and causing 28 deaths.

Sources:

The Tsunami of 1929

The 1929 Magnitude 7.2 “Grand Banks” earthquake and tsunami

1883 Rossi-Forel Scale of Earthquake Intensity

Report a felt earthquake

View of The Newfoundland Tsunami of November 18, 1929: An Examination of the Twenty-eight Deaths of the “South Coast Disaster” | Newfoundland & Labrador Studies

90 years later, a tsunami in southern Newfoundland still brings vivid memories | CBC News

A disastrous tsunami’s lethal legacy in Newfoundland – Macleans.ca

1929 Grand Banks earthquake – Wikipedia

The Wake by Linden MacIntyre – Ebook | Scribd

Newfoundland Tsunami – Water – SOS! Canadian Disasters – Library and Archives Canada

CBC News Indepth: The South Shore disaster: Newfoundland’s Tsunami

GEOSCAN Search Results: Fastlink

Get prepared for an earthquake – Province of British Columbia

THE ASSESSMENT OF GEOLOGICAL HAZARDS AND DISASTERS IN NEWFOUNDLAND: AN UPDATE

Dominion of Newfoundland – Wikipedia

Newfoundland and Labrador – Wikipedia

Welcome to Newfoundland and Labrador – Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada

History of Nova Scotia, Jan 1920 – Dec 1939

Get prepared for an earthquake – Province of British Columbia

Surviving A Tsunami—Lessons from Chile, Hawaii, and Japan

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Episode 231: Gerald Vincent Bull was a smart cookie from North Bay, Ontario. 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.

Sources:

Gerald Bull – Wikipedia

Gerald Bull | The Canadian Encyclopedia

The tragic tale of Saddam Hussein’s ‘supergun’ – BBC Future

Superguns 1854–1991 by Steven J. Zaloga, Jim Laurier – Ebook | Scribd

Bull’s Eye: The Assassination and Life of Supergun Inventor Gerald Bull eBook : Adams, James: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store

Strange Crime by Editors of Portable Press – Ebook | Scribd

Three in the Back, Two in the Head by Jason Sherman – Ebook | Scribd

Ready the Cannons! by William Gurstelle – Ebook | Scribd

Who Killed Gerald Victor Bull | PDF | Mossad | Central Intelligence Agency

Gerald Bull │ Super Gun │ History Documentary │ YouTube

NYT — Gerald Bull — Wayback Machine

Israel to kill in U.S., allied nations – UPI.com

Doomsday Gun (TV Movie 1994) – IMDb

CBC Archives — Who killed Gerald Bull?

Gerald Bull

The Man Behind Iraq’s Supergun – The New York Times

Dr. Gerald Bull: Scientist, Weapons Maker, Dreamer – People – CBC Archives

THE GUNS OF SADDAM – The Washington Post

A Brief History of the HARP Project

Gerald Bull, 62, Shot in Belgium; Scientist Who Violated Arms Law – New York Times

Remarks by President Biden on a Successful Counterterrorism Operation in Afghanistan | The White House

The Mossad

Mossad | History & Functions | Britannica

Was Gerald Bull murdered by the Mossad? | CBC.ca

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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.

Promo: 

Evidence Locker Podcast

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Thomas_Archer

https://www.facebook.com/vintagelondon/photos/a.449810945145208/1187331708059791/

https://www.facebook.com/vintagelondon/photos/a.449810945145208/822774754515490/

https://www.facebook.com/vintagelondon/photos/a.661428090650158/668089943317306/

https://www.newspapers.com/clip/48417869/the-windsor-star/

https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=kTM_AAAAIBAJ&pg=5456%2C768541

https://www.retrosuites.com/

https://www.history.com/topics/1960s/1967-detroit-riots

The home of Hugh Smith in 1971. 53 Wellington Street, Chatham.

The downtown Chatham Hotel in 1935. Where Belva Russell worked in 1971.

The Rankin Hotel in 1965. Where Belva and Reginald first stopped for a drink on the fateful night.

 

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Episode 229: In our last episode we learned about the life and first two murders of British serial murderer Dennis Andrew Nilsen. He was arrested after police discovered human remains he’d flushed down the toilet at 23 Cranley Gardens in Muswell Hill, a Suburb of North London. In this episode we’ll learn about Nilsen’s next twelve murders, what happened after his arrest and the aftermath of his crimes. A number of Nilsen’s victims remain unidentified to this day.

As Dennis Nilsen was a necrophile, some of the information we are about to share are intense and may be very disturbing to some. Listener discretion is strongly advised.

Sources:

How Serial Killers “Cool Off” Between Murders | Psychology Today Canada

Dennis Nilsen’s house where he dismembered and cooked victims sold with gruesome warning – Mirror Online

Strangled, chopped up and burnt: The Sheffield man slayed by evil serial killer Dennis Nilsen | Doncaster Free Press

Sheffield man’s brutal murder to feature in new TV drama about serial killer Dennis Nilsen | The Star

The Real ‘Des’: The Dennis Nilsen Story: what happened to Carl Stotter? | HELLO!

– Memoires of a Heroinhead –

Dennis Nilsen – Wikipedia

Dyno-Rod Local Drains & Plumbing Experts | Fixed-Price | 24/7

Killing For Company: Masters, Brian: Amazon.ca: Kindle Store

Dinner, Drinks & Death ; The True Story of Dennis Nilsen by Alan R. Warren – Ebook | Scribd

A Plague of Murder by Colin Wilson, Damon Wilson – Ebook | Scribd

Watch Memories of a Murderer: The Nilsen Tapes | Netflix Official Site

The Real Des: The Dennis Nilsen Story

Reddit — Dennis Nilsen

Spotify Playlist – Nilsen’s Favourite Tunes

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