A podcast about notorious Canadian crimes, dark history and other creepy topics as told by real-live Canadians
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
Episode 159: In the early 1980s near the small town of Rulo, Nebraska a white-supremacist cult leader named Michael Wayne Ryan and his band of followers took over a local farm essentially stealing it from the property owner. They burglarized nearby businesses and residences to fund their survival after the upcoming battle of Armageddon prophesied in the Books of Revelations.
Ryan, a proponent the Christian Identity movement’s doctrines with links to an anti-government group called Posse Comitatus spewed antisemitic views, the supremacy of the white race and planned to take down the government. In 1982 Ryan was arrested for the torture and murder of, Luke Stice, the 5-year-old son of the property’s former owner and the torture killing of one of his followers, 27-year-old, James Thimm.
Co-host: Carol Browne
Episode 158 – Twenty-three-year-old nurse and former beauty queen, Alexandra Wiwrachuk, thought the warm spring night in 1962 would be perfect for a walk down by the river before her midnight shift at Saskatoon’s City Hospital. Alexandra did not show up for work that night, and it was not until thirteen days later that children stumbled upon her broken body in a shallow grave. Someone had savagely beaten the young woman, brutally raped her and then buried her alive, leaving her to die. Nearly sixty years later, no one has ever been brought to justice in Alexandra Wiwcharuk’s murder.
Co-host: Carol Browne
Read more158 – The Girl in Saskatoon: Who Murdered Alexandra Wiwcharuk?
Episode 157 – From the late 1920s until after the Second World War, Lila and William Young ran the Ideal Maternity Home and Sanitarium for Unwed Mothers at East Chester, Nova Scotia. The pair have been referred to as ‘baby farmers’ who sold healthy newborns to wealthy couples with the means to pay and left the less viable to die of starvation. Estimates are that more than 100 and as many as 400 to 600 babies may have died in their care. Many of these deceased infants were quietly buried in wooden butter boxes at various sites around the area, while it is believed that others may have been disposed of in the nearby Atlantic Ocean.
Co-host: Carol Browne
Episode 156 – In 2006, Thomas George Svekla, 38, a man who’d been in and out of trouble since 16, became the focus of a murder investigation lead by the Project KARE task force. Svekla was a suspect in as many as twelve murders. He was only ever charged with two slayings, that of Theresa Innes and Rachel Quinney, but was designated a dangerous offender for his long history of violent offences.
Co-host: Carol Browne
Read more156 – Canadian Boogeyman – Dangerous Offender, Thomas Svekla
Episode 155: The holidays can be a notoriously hard time for people who either miss loved ones or have a hard time being around them so much. For those reasons, we take a break from all the murder and mayhem and try to bring you a little holiday cheer with a bit of a dark edge. This year, for our fourth Christmas, themed episode, we learn about the global depictions of Santa Claus, some dark Christmas traditions from around the world, and Krampus, the Christmas Demon.
See you in the new year!
Co-host: Carol Browne
Read more155 – Christmas 2020: Santa Claus, Ghost Stories and Krampus, the Christmas Cryptid
Episode 154 – Twenty-three year old Gordon Adrian Kralt had been the caretaker for a Bible camp on Vancouver Island when he went missing on Halloween in 1970. Gordon was found two weeks later, he had been brutally slain. Tracking down Gordie’s killer uncovered a career psychopath who was believed to have killed before. Co-host: Carol BrowneWritten by: Josina De Bree …
Read more154 – Dirty Dr. Stewart: The Murder of Gordon Kralt
Episode 153 – Between 2002 and 2005, Charles Eli Kembo, a refugee from Malawi, murdered four people, his business partner, Arden Samuel, his stepdaughter, Rita Yeung, his girlfriend, Sui Yin Ma, and his wife, Margaret Kembo, whose body has never been found. He set up elaborate schemes to steal their identities, set up false bank accounts, insurance claims, and run up credit in his victims’ names.
Read more153 – Serial Killer: The Life and Crimes of Charles Eli Kembo
Episode 152: In November of 1992, a twenty-four-year-old woman came forward to Kipling, Saskatchewan RCMP, accusing a respected local doctor, John Schneeberger, of sexual assault. After years of ridicule from other Kipling residents who refused to believe her claims, the young woman finally found some justice. When the truth saw the light, it uncovered one of the strangest and most devious criminals in Canadian history.
Co-host: Carol Browne
Promo:True Crime Island
Read more152 – Bloody Lies: The Crimes of Dr. John Schneeberger
Episode 151 – On January at 10:30 p.m., a 911 operator took a call from a seemingly distraught sixteen-year-old girl. When Peel Police arrived at the Mississauga, Ontario home two teenage girls, Sandra, 16, and Beth, 15, led them upstairs to the bathroom where their mother, Linda Andersen, 43, lie face down, deceased in the tub. For almost a year the police believed Linda’s death was a tragic accident, but they learned differently from a young man who could not keep a secret any longer.
NOTE: Aliases used to protect the identities of young offenders.
co-host: Carol Browne
promo: Minds of Madness