Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History

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  Wrong Turn: The Disappearance of Brady and Halkett 14.09.2026 59Min.

  Episode 436: In June 1967, two of northern Saskatchewan's most respected bushmen, Métis political organizer James Brady and Cree band councillor Absolom Halkett, were dropped off by float plane to prospect for uranium near La Ronge. A week later, their employer found the camp standing, the beds slept in, the canoe still tied to shore. Both men were gone. The RCMP searched for three weeks, found a trail of unexplained clues, and closed the case without finding either man. More than fifty years later, a small team of researchers and family members went looking for answers the original investigation never sought, and what they discovered at the bottom of a northern lake raises more questions than it resolves. Sources: Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett — Michael Nest, with Deanna Reder and Eric Bell (University of Regina Press, 2020) CBC News — "Searchers pursue the truth on mysterious disappearance of Métis leader" (2018) CBC News — "Authors explore decades-old mystery of disappearance of 2 northern Sask. leaders" (2020) MBC Radio — "RCMP says it has no plans to search northern Saskatchewan lake for remains of Brady and Halkett" (2018) Canada's History — "Cold Case North" (2021) Prairie Books Now — "50-year-old case of two men disappearing revisited, investigated from Indigenous perspective" Slaw / Canadian Law Library Review — Book review of Cold Case North Wikipedia — James P. Brady The Canadian Encyclopedia — Jim Brady Active History — "Liberation from 'That Vicious System': Jim Brady's 20th Century Métis Cooperatives and Colonial State Responses" Glenbow Museum — "Enclosing Some Snapshots: The Photography of Métis Activist James Brady" SaskCulture — "Remembering James Brady" Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police — Missing Persons Database, Absolom Halkett Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police — Missing Persons Database, James Brady Simon Fraser University — Deanna Reder faculty biography Simon Fraser University, Indigenous Studies — "Cold Case North" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  White Paper: Balloon Bombs from Japan 07.09.2026 1Std. 7Min.

  Episode 435: In November 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army began launching paper balloons from the coast of Honshu — each one carrying incendiary and anti-personnel bombs, designed to ride the jet stream across the Pacific and set fire to the forests of North America. They called the program Fu-Go. Canada called them White Paper. Over the following five months, more than sixty balloons came down on Canadian soil, from the British Columbia coast to Manitoba, and a small team of Canadian Army bomb disposal officers spent eight months recovering live ordnance from some of the most remote terrain in the country under a blanket of total secrecy that reached all the way to the Prime Minister's office.  Sources: Fu-Go Balloon Bomb — WikipediaJapan's WWII Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America — Smithsonian MagazineBalloon Bombs: Japan's Answer to Doolittle — National Museum of the United States Air ForceOn Paper Wings — IMDBOn Paper Wings Retrospective — Oregon HumanitiesOn Paper Wings — Oregon ArtsWatchOn Paper Wings Screening — Japanese American National MuseumOn 75th Anniversary, Bly Remains Connected to Tragic WWII Event — Herald and NewsJapanese Balloon Bomb Explosion Location — PBS History DetectivesWWII-Era Balloon Bomb in B.C. Blown to Smithereens — Global NewsBC Studies No. 203 — Balloon Bombs, the Alaska Highway, and Influenza: Tsek'ehne Perspectives — BC StudiesEast, Captain Charles A. Japanese Balloons of World War Two. Prince George: College of New Caledonia Press, 1993.Coen, Ross. Fu-Go: The Curious History of Japan's Balloon Bomb Attack on America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014.Mikesh, Robert C. Japan's World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1973. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Botched Justice: The Death of Crystal Taman 31.08.2026 1Std. 2Min.

  Episode 434: On the morning of February 25th, 2005, Crystal Taman, a forty-year-old dental assistant, wife, and mother of three, left her home in East St. Paul, Manitoba on her way to work. She never arrived. Stopped at a red light on Highway 59 at the Perimeter Highway, her car was struck at highway speed by a blue Dodge Dakota truck driven by an off-duty Winnipeg Police Service constable named Derek Harvey-Zenk, who had spent the night drinking with fellow officers at a north-end bar and a colleague's home. Crystal died on impact. Harvey-Zenk refused to provide a breath sample and was charged with impaired driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death, criminal negligence causing death, and refusal to provide a breath sample. More than two years later, all charges except dangerous driving causing death were stayed in a plea deal, and Harvey-Zenk was sentenced to two years less a day — served at home, with no conditions. The outcome sparked a public inquiry. Sources:TAMAN CRYSTAL - Obituaries - Winnipeg Free Press PassagesTaman Inquiry | WikipediaCrystal Ann Sveinson Taman (1964-2005) - Find a...http://www.tamaninquiry.ca/May 2012: No memory of fatal crash: Harvey-Zenk | Winnipeg Free PressReview clears police force after controversial case | Global NewsHarvey-Zenk appeared tired, not drunk, at party before crash, inquiry hears | CBC NewsProvince of Manitoba | Archived News Releases | Taman Report PublishedFormer cop finally takes the stand | Global NewsMajor changes to how police officers will be investigated | CTV NewsPolice told cousin Harvey Zenk was drunk | Global NewsJun 2012: Ex-officer from Taman inquiry sues RCMP, police | Winnipeg Free PressBringing the Thin Blue Line into Line: Bill 16, the Police Services Act, 2011 CanLIIDocs 256Disgraced cop’s lawyer slams Taman inquiry | Global News Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  If Anything Should Happen: The Ottey Sisters Murders 24.08.2026 51Min.

  Episode 433: On August 16, 1995, Avis Ottey came home to her townhouse in Scarborough, Ontario, expecting to find her daughters packing for the future. Instead, she found nineteen-year-old Marsha Ottey and sixteen-year-old Tamara "Tami" Ottey murdered in the basement. Marsha was just two days away from leaving for Arkansas State University on an athletic scholarship she had worked years to earn. She had also confided something chilling to her mother while packing her bags: "If anything should happen to me, it's Rohan." What followed was a seven-month investigation that stretched beyond the murders of the Ottey sisters. Two unsolved sexual assaults, a seemingly unrelated killing at a Toronto subway station, that of TTC employee Dimitrija Trajceski, DNA evidence, and the largest manhunt in Toronto Police history ultimately exposed the truth behind a crime driven by obsession, control, and extraordinary violence. Sources:https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/1999/1999canlii14909/1999canlii14909.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2003/2003canlii15438/2003canlii15438.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2003/2003canlii32900/2003canlii32900.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2003/2003canlii52177/2003canlii52177.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2011/2011onca311/2011onca311.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc-l/doc/2012/2012canlii5501/2012canlii5501.htmlGuilty verdict in 1995 slaying of Toronto sisters | CBC NewsWalk in memory of Agincourt Collegiate’s Ottey sistersIf anything happens to me: The murder of the Ottey sisters | Global NewsCrime Beat: If Anything Happens To Me - The Ottey Sisters | S1 E8Murder suspect appears in Canada court - UPI ArchivesMANDEL: Killer of Ottey sisters granted 60-day unescorted passRosie DiManno: Killer of the Ottey sisters, now out on parole, still has a life ahead of him, unlike his victimsMANDEL: Killer of Ottey sisters granted full parole despite riskISN CEO Revisits One of His “Most Challenging Cases” In Global TV's ‘Crime Beat’ Episode88 Valley Stream Drive, Toronto, ON, CA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Not Justice: Lynching Louie Sam 17.08.2026 56Min.

  Episode 432: In February 1884, a Scottish storekeeper named James Bell was shot dead in his cabin along Telegraph Road in Washington Territory, just south of the Canadian border. Within days, a fifteen-year-old Semá:th boy named Louie Sam was arrested on suspicion of murder and placed in lawful Canadian custody on Sumas Prairie. He never made it to trial. On the night of February 27, a mob of seventy armed and disguised men crossed the international boundary from Washington Territory into British Columbia, took Sam from his cell, and hanged him from a roadside tree 169 paces north of the border. No one else was ever charged for Louie Sam’s lynching, and the investigation into Bell’s death seems to have stopped with Sam’s death. Sources: Deadly Neighbours — Chad Reimer (Caitlin Press, 2022) The Lynching of Louie Sam — Keith Thor Carlson, BC Studies No. 109, Spring 1996 The Lynching of Louie Sam — John Vaillant, The Walrus, December 2008 Lynching Information — Tuskegee University Archives An American Mob Crosses the Canadian Border and Lynches Louie Sam — HistoryLink.org Our Territory — Sumas First Nation Sq'éwlets: A Stó:lō–Coast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley Daily Colonist (Victoria, BC), February–March 1884 — britishcolonist.ca BC Historical Newspapers — British Columbian (New Westminster) 1884, UBC Open Collections Whatcom Reveille, February–March 1884 — Jeffcott Collection, Western Washington University Archives Mesachie and Louie Sam — Chilliwack Progress, October 8, 1958 — Newspapers.com Washington State Expresses Regret Over 1884 Lynching of Canadian Teen — CBC News, 2006 Plain Injustice — Literary Review of Canada, 2022 Louie Sam — Wikipedia PDF of The Lynching of Louie Sam by Keith Thor Carlson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Street of Tears — The Crimes of Shawn Cameron Lamb 10.08.2026 58Min.

  Episode 431: In the fall of 2011, the first of three indigenous women disappeared from a stretch of Winnipeg's West End that those who worked there called the Street of Tears. Their families searched, put up posters, and made phone calls that went nowhere. The man believed responsible had been known to police for decades. His criminal record ran to 109 convictions. He was already on their radar when the final woman disappeared. This is the story of Tanya Nepinak, Carolyn Sinclair, and Lorna Blacksmith. Sources: Shawn Lamb coverage index — CBC News Tanya Jane Nepinak — CBC News Shawn Lamb sentenced to 20 years for two slayings — CBC News Police paid killer Shawn Lamb $1,500 for information — CBC News Winnipegger speaks about life on streets, alleged assault by convicted killer Shawn Lamb — CBC News Shawn Lamb gets statutory release — CBC News Convicted killer Shawn Lamb must stay at halfway house — CBC News Shawn Lamb pleads guilty to killing 2 women — Global News Landfill search progressing for Ashlee Shingoose; Tanya Nepinak family hopeful — Global News Parole Board grants Indigenous Winnipeg killer Shawn Lamb statutory release — APTN News Statement on Brady Road Landfill Search for Ashlee Shingoose and Planning for Tanya Nepinak — Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs NFSC Calls for Justice and Accountability Following Statutory Release of Shawn Lamb — National Family and Survivors Circle Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  I Don't Know Why: Phil Hartman’s Murder 03.08.2026 1Std. 11Min.

  Episode 430: On the morning of May 28, 1998, police were called to a home on Encino Avenue in Encino, California. Inside the master bedroom, they found Phil Hartman — one of the most versatile performers in the history of North American television — shot three times at close range while he slept. His wife, Brynn, had pulled the trigger sometime around 2:30 in the morning, then driven to a friend's house and confessed. By the time police arrived, she was back in the bedroom. She never came out. Phil Hartman was 49 years old and born in Brantford, Ontario. He had just wrapped his fourth season of NewsRadio. He had a film opening in July. Behind the public face of a thriving career was a marriage under years of sustained pressure — addiction, relapse, escalating volatility, and a final argument that ended in the worst possible way. The motive was listed as unknown. It remains unknown. Sources: Los Angeles County Coroner Case Report, Investigator's Report, Autopsy Report & Toxicology — Case No. 98-03785 Hartman's Death: The Police Version — Time, June 3, 1998 Reaction & Sanctions — NPR, May 28, 1998 Disturbing Details Found In Phil Hartman's Autopsy Report — Grunge, 2024 The Last Days of Phil Hartman — ABC News / 20/20, 2019 Phil Hartman — People Magazine, 1998 Jon Lovitz Blames Andy Dick for Hartman's Death — CBS News, 2007 Phil Hartman Wrongful Death Lawsuit / Zoloft — Salon, 1999 Birgen Hartman on her father's Simpsons legacy — The Hollywood Reporter, 2022 Brantford to honour Phil Hartman with mural — CBC News, 2024 Phil Hartman — Canada's Walk of Fame Phil Hartman — Brantford Walk of Fame You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman — Mike Thomas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Part 2 — Justice Prolonged: The Murder of Christine Jessop 27.07.2026 1Std. 4Min.

  Episode 429: In January 1995, DNA testing excluded Guy Paul Morin, the man convicted of the 1984 murder of Christine Jessop, from the crime. The Ontario Court of Appeal set aside his conviction, and Morin was released. The man whose semen was recovered from Christine Jessop's underwear in 1984 remained unidentified. A public inquiry led by Justice Fred Kaufman spent 10 months examining how an innocent man had been convicted twice. It produced 1,380 pages and 119 recommendations. The real killer remained unnamed for another twenty-five years — until a detective named Steve Smith, a Texas laboratory, and a forensic genealogist pulled a family tree apart and found a killer at the end of it. Sources Report of the Kaufman Commission on Proceedings Involving Guy Paul Morin — Full text (netk.net.au) The Canadian Encyclopedia — Guy Paul Morin Case Innocence Canada — Guy Paul Morin case file Toronto Life — "Inside the Hunt for Christine Jessop's Real Killer" (January 2022) CBC News — "Toronto police identify killer in cold case of 9-year-old Christine Jessop" (October 15, 2020) CBC News — "Calvin Hoover's family 'devastated' to learn police believe he killed Christine Jessop" (October 22, 2020) CBC News — "The answer to the mystery of Christine Jessop's murder leaves killer's ex-wife with painful questions" (February 2021) CBC News — "The science behind why police now believe they have the right suspect in Christine Jessop's murder" (October 2020) Global News — "Who was Calvin Hoover? The man Toronto police say killed 9-year-old Christine Jessop in 1984" (October 2020) Blue Line Magazine — "Out of the Cold: Toronto Police Solve 1984 Jessop Murder With New Science" (January 2021) RCMP — National DNA Data Bank of Canada: 20 Years and Growing Game of Crimes Podcast — "Detective Steve Smith Cracks a 36-Year Old Cold Case" (March 2022) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Part 1 — Justice Prolonged: The Murder of Christine Jessop 20.07.2026 1Std. 5Min.

  Episode 428: On October 3, 1984, nine-year-old Christine Jessop stepped off a school bus in Queensville, Ontario, and walked toward home. She was never seen alive again. Her body was found on New Year's Eve, fifty-six kilometres away. She had been sexually assaulted and stabbed. What followed was one of the most consequential criminal proceedings in Canadian history — and the quiet destruction of a man who lived next door. This is Part One of a two-part series. Sources: Kirk Makin, Redrum the Innocent (1992) — Viking Canada. Report of the Kaufman Commission on Proceedings Involving Guy Paul Morin — Full text (netk.net.au) The Canadian Encyclopedia — Guy Paul Morin Case Innocence Canada — Guy Paul Morin case file Canadian Registry of Wrongful Convictions — Guy Paul Morin Library of Parliament — Wrongful Convictions in Canada (2020) Bruce MacFarlane — "Wrongful Convictions: The Effect of Tunnel Vision and Predisposing Circumstances in the Criminal Justice System" (2006) Federal Prosecution Service — Chapter 5: Jailhouse Informers Federal Prosecution Service — Chapter 8: DNA Evidence The Canadian Encyclopedia — Morin Inquiry Report Kaufman Report — Wikipedia summary Globe and Mail — "Morin Informant Named Dangerous Offender" (2007) CBC Digital Archives — Guy Paul Morin acquitted Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation Williams Treaties — Government of Canada Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Three-Fingered Abe: The Kidnapping of John S. Labatt 13.07.2026 1Std. 5Min.

  Episode 427: In the summer of 1934, John Sackville Labatt was one of the most recognizable names in Canada. The fifty-three-year-old president of John Labatt Limited had spent nearly two decades running one of the country's largest and oldest breweries, a family business built across three generations and tested by Prohibition, the Depression, and the rum-running trade that kept it alive through both. On the morning of August 14, he left his Lake Huron summer home running late for a meeting and took a shortcut through the forest on a little-used dirt road outside Sarnia. What happened on that road set off the largest manhunt in Canadian history, triggered Canada's first kidnapping trial, and sent an innocent man to prison for a crime he had nothing to do with. Sources:John Sackville Labatt | The Canadian EncyclopediaJohn Labatt’s 1934 kidnap | The StarJohn Sackville Labatt | WikipediaLabatt Brewing Company | WikipediaProhibition in Canada | WikipediaLabatt Brewing | Company SiteLambton County's Infamous Abduction: The John S. Labatt Kidnapping - ArchivedLambton County's Infamous Abduction: The John S. Labatt Kidnapping - NewSnatched! by Susan Goldenberg - Ebook | ScribdThe Courier-News • Fri, Aug 17, 1934 • Page 10 • (Bridgewater, New Jersey)The Courier-News • Fri, Aug 17, 1934 • Page 1 • (Bridgewater, New Jersey)The Windsor Star • Fri, Aug 17, 1934 • Page 1 • (Windsor, Ontario, Canada)The Windsor Star • Sat, Sep 08, 1934 • Page 9 • (Windsor, Ontario, Canada)The Windsor Star • Sat, Feb 01, 1936 • Page 11 • (Windsor, Ontario, Canada)The Hamilton Spectator • Tue, Sep 11, 1906 • Page 9 • (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)The Molsons, The Labatts and The St.Johns | StJohnsWort.ca Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Wildfire: The Day Lytton Burned 06.07.2026 1Std. 9Min.

  Episode 426: On June 29th, 2021, Lytton, British Columbia, recorded the highest air temperature in Canadian history: 49.6 degrees Celsius. The next day, the town burned to the ground in under two hours, killing two people and destroying more than 150 homes and businesses across the Village of Lytton and the neighbouring Lytton First Nation reserves. Nearly four years later, the cause of the fire remains officially undetermined, the recovery has become its own bureaucratic disaster, and a class-action lawsuit against Canada's two largest railways is still working its way through the BC Supreme Court. This episode tells the story of the heat, the fire, the two people who didn't make it out, and the years-long collapse of the rebuild that followed. Later in the episode, Mike sits down with Tim Conrad of Butterfly Effect Communications to talk crisis communications — what the first hours of a disaster like Lytton demand, and what it takes to keep a fractured, grieving community informed years into a recovery that never seems to end. Sources: An Examination of the Lytton, British Columbia Wildland-Urban Fire Destruction Provincial Support for the Village of Lytton's Wildfire Recovery Lytton Wildfire | Wikipedia B.C. Man Says He Watched in Horror as Lytton Wildfire Claimed the Lives of His Parents | CBC News BC Coroners Service Confirms 2 Deaths in Lytton Wildfire | CBC News Man Who Lost His Parents in Lytton, B.C., Fire Wants to Go Home | CTV News RCMP Investigation Unable to Determine Cause of 2021 Wildfire That Destroyed Most of Lytton, B.C. | CBC News Track Cleared for Class-Action Suit 4.5 Years After Wildfire Swallows Most of Lytton | Williams Lake Tribune Remembering Lytton, the Town Wiped Out by Wildfire | The Walrus ⠀Guest: Butterfly Effect Communications Company Website Wildfires, Floods, and Chaos Communications Tim’s Podcast Inside an Emergency Operations Centre | Butterfly Effect Communications Video Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Lives On Display: The Dionne Quintuplets 29.06.2026 1Std.

  Episode 425: In May 1934, five identical girls were born in a farmhouse outside Corbeil, Ontario. They were the first quintuplets known to survive infancy anywhere in the world. Within weeks, the Province of Ontario had taken them from their parents. What followed was nine years inside a government-run compound called Quintland, where millions of tourists paid to watch the Dionne sisters play through one-way glass, twice a day, while their faces sold soap, cereal, and corn syrup across North America. The girls went home in 1943. The horror of what happened next took decades to come to light. Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia — Dionne Quintuplets | (Canadian Encyclopedia) Dionne Quintuplets: The Miracle Babies | (Canadian Encyclopedia) Dionne quintuplets | (Wikipedia) Dionne quintuplets | Deaths, Parents, Names, & Facts | (Britannica) The Birth of the Dionne Quintuplets | (Government of Canada) The Dionne Quintuplets National Historic Event | (Parks Canada) Dionne Quintuplets (1934—) | (Encyclopedia.com) Dionne Quintuplets (b. 1934) | (Encyclopedia.com) The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller (Scholastic Focus, 2017) | (Book) We Were Five: The Dionne Quintuplets' Story from Birth through Girlhood to Womanhood by James Brough with Annette, Cécile, Marie, and Yvonne Dionne (1965) | (Book) Family Secrets: The Dionne Quintuplets' Own Story by Jean-Yves Soucy with Annette, Cécile, and Yvonne Dionne (1997) | (Book) The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama by Pierre Berton (1977) | (Book) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Unnatural Selection — The Alberta Eugenics Act 22.06.2026 1Std. 2Min.

  Episode 424: Between 1928 and 1972, the Alberta government authorized the forced sterilization of nearly 3,000 Albertans deemed "unfit" to reproduce. They were told they were having their appendix removed. Many were children. Most had no idea what was being done to them. The targets were the poor, the mentally ill, Indigenous people, immigrants — anyone who didn't fit the province's vision of a productive society. This wasn't a fringe movement. It was backed by doctors, politicians, newspapers, and some of the most celebrated figures in Canadian history. Sources: The Canadian Encyclopedia — Eugenics History of Rights Canada — Eugenics Prairie History Journal, University of Alberta Gladue / University of Saskatchewan — Eugenics Resource Eugenics Archive Canada — Timeline Eugenics Archive Canada — Our Stories City Museum Edmonton — Leilani Muir and Eugenics in Alberta National Post — When Canada Lost Its Mind Over Eugenics CBC News — Leilani Muir, Advocate for Alberta's Sterilization Victims, Dies CBC News — Cash Settlement for Sterilized Women (BC) Alberta Law Review — Mikkel Dack Toronto Sun — The Controversial Beliefs of Canada's Famous Five Wired — CRISPR Babies and Human Genome Editing Scientific American — The Dark Side of CRISPR NFB — The Sterilization of Leilani Muir The Guardian — What Is Pronatalism? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  The Murder of Francis Rattenbury: The Man Who Built B.C. 15.06.2026 1Std. 3Min.

  Episode 423: Francis Mawson Rattenbury designed the BC Parliament Buildings, the Empress Hotel, and the building that now houses the Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as many others. He was the most celebrated architect in the province for thirty years. In 1935, he was beaten to death in his armchair in a rented house in Bournemouth, England, by his wife Alma’s teenage lover, a chauffeur named George Percy Stoner. Both Alma Rattenbury and Stoner confessed. The trial at the Old Bailey gripped the English-speaking world. What happened after the trial was even more shocking than the murder. Sources:Sean O'Connor, The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury (Simon & Schuster, 2019)Anthony A. Barrett & Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, Francis Rattenbury and British Columbia: Architecture and Challenge in the Imperial Age (UBC Press, 1983)Terry Reksten, Rattenbury (Sono Nis Press, 1978; revised 1998)Francis Mawson Rattenbury — Dictionary of Canadian BiographyFrancis Rattenbury — Biographical Dictionary of Architects in CanadaFrancis Rattenbury — WikipediaAlma Rattenbury — WikipediaNewspapers.com | Search: Francis Rattenbury Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  The Hogg’s Hollow Tunnel Disaster 08.06.2026 1Std. 9Min.

  Episode 422: On St. Patrick's Day, 1960, five Italian immigrant construction workers — Pasquale Allegrezza, Giovanni Carriglio, Giovanni Fusillo, and brothers Alessandro and Guido Mantella — died beneath the Don River in Toronto's Hogg's Hollow neighbourhood. They were trapped in a tunnel less than two metres wide with no fire extinguishers, no hard hats, and no way out. The fire was preventable. The violations were known. A foreman had been fired for raising them. No one was ever charged. This is the story of five men whose names were nearly forgotten — and the laws that exist today because they died. Sources:The history of the Hoggs Hollow neighbourhood in TorontoThe Hoggs Hollow Disaster | definingmomentscanada.caThe Hogg’s Hollow Disaster | Canadian Labour CongressHogg's Hollow Disaster National Historic EventHoggs Hollow | cobtrades.comRemembering the Hoggs Hollow disaster | spacing.caDisaster at Hogg’s Hollow | jamiebradburnwriting.wordpress.comThe Hogg’s Hollow Disaster | unionsong.comBreaking Ground The Hogg's Hollow Memorial 40 th Anniversary Project | costi.orgHogg's Hollow Tragedy (1960) | Toronto Workers' History ProjectBASTA! NO MORE FEAR! Remembering the Hoggs Hollow Disaster of 1960The Hogg’s Hollow Disaster of 1960 | dresden1957.comHoggs Hollow Disaster | wikipediahttps://www.newspapers.com/image/1001301968/?match=1&terms=%22Hogg%27s%20Hollow%22%20tunnelhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/950111466/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/1324439704/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/1227727450/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/1226718453/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/941541607/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/941541580/?match=1&terms=%22Hogg%27s%20Hollow%22%20tunnel Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Ripoffs and a Rolex: The Murder of Ronald Joseph Platt 01.06.2026 59Min.

  Episode 421: On July 28, 1996, a fisherman hauling nets off the coast of Devon, England pulled up a body. The dead man had no wallet, no identification — nothing but a Rolex watch still ticking on his wrist. When British police traced the watch, it gave them a name: Ronald Joseph Platt, 51, of Essex. When they went looking for him, they found him — apparently alive. The trail led back across the Atlantic to Ayr, a small town in southwestern Ontario, where roughly seventy people had spent years trusting the wrong man with everything they had. By the time anyone understood what he'd done, he was already gone, and Ronald Platt was dead in the English Channel. Sources:Walker, Re, 1998 CanLII 14906 (ON SC)A Hand in the Water: The Many Lies of Albert Walker — Bill Schiller (HarperCollins, 1998)Nothing Sacred: The Many Lives and Betrayals of Albert Walker — Alan Cairns (McClelland-Bantam, 1998)Walker's Trail of Pain — Maclean's (July 6, 1998)Walker Money Hunt — Maclean's (July 20, 1998)Walker Faces Daughter at First Day of Trial — CBC News (June 1998)Mysterious Mr. Walker Sentenced for Fraud — The Globe and Mail (July 2007)Fugitive Financier Sentenced to Four Years for Fraud — CBC News (July 2007)Rolex Killer Denied Day Parole from B.C. Prison — Vancouver Sun (February 2024)Albert Johnson Walker — WikipediaThe Rolex Murder — therolexmurder.com (Elaine Boyes's site)The Rolex Killer - True CrimeExplore topics about albert-johnson-walker | Crime and Investigation UK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Every Dog Has Its Day : The Case of Valentine Shortis 25.05.2026 1Std. 8Min.

  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 of them and leaving the third for dead in the darkness of the mill floor. What followed was the longest murder trial in Canadian history, a psychiatric battle that divided the country's leading medical minds, and a political crisis that reached the cabinet of Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell and the desk of the Governor General himself. The victims were John Loy, twenty-four years old, and night watchman Maxime Leboeuf, who left behind a widow and five children. The survivor was Hugh Wilson, who carried the consequences for the rest of his life. Sources:Valentine Shortis Case | thecanadianencyclopedia.caThe Queen vs. F.V.C. Shortis (microform)| Internet ArchiveThe Case of Valentine Shortis — University of Toronto Press / Amazon.caValentine Shortis Case — The Canadian EncyclopediaThe Canadian Trial of the Century: The Story of 'Cracked Shortis' — History IrelandThe Case of Valentine Shortis — Yesterday and Today — PubMedForensic Psychiatry in Canada — Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the LawMontreal Gazette Trial Coverage, October 25, 1895 — Newspapers.comProfile: Author-Professor Martin Friedland — Bill Gladstone GenealogyMontreal Cotton Company — History of the Mill at Valleyfield — MUSO Virtual MuseumManitoba Schools Question — Dictionary of Canadian BiographyMontreal Cotton Company Mills — Library and Archives CanadaSir Donald Macmaster, Crown Prosecutor — WikipediaJ.N. Greenshields, Lead Defence Counsel — Americana AristocracyHenri St. Pierre, Defence Counsel — 76th New York State Volunteers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  The 2017 Las Vegas Shooting: Canadian Connections 18.05.2026 52Min.

  Episode 419: On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on more than 22,000 concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on the Las Vegas Strip. In eleven minutes, 58 people were killed and hundreds more wounded — the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in American history. Among the dead were four Canadians: Jordan McIldoon, 23, of Maple Ridge, British Columbia; Jessica Klymchuk, 34, a mother of four and beloved school librarian and bus driver from Valleyview, Alberta; Calla Medig, 28, of Jasper, Alberta, days away from a promotion she had earned; and Tara Roe Smith, 34, of Okotoks, Alberta, who became separated from her husband in the chaos — her family spending the next day searching. At least six more Canadians were wounded. Hundreds of others came home carrying something that doesn't show up in any injury count. Sources:LVMPD Criminal Investigative Report — October 1, 2017LVMPD Final Force Investigation Team Report (Internet Archive)FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit — Key Findings, Las Vegas Review Panel (2019)CSIS Public Report 2025 — Nihilistic Violent ExtremismWhat is Nihilistic Violent Extremism? — Global NewsJordan McIldoon — CBC NewsJessica Klymchuk — CBC NewsCalla Medig — CBC NewsTara Roe Smith — CBC News Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Air Canada Flight 797: The Death of Stan Rogers 11.05.2026 53Min.

  On June 2nd, 1983, Air Canada Flight 797 departed Dallas, Texas, bound for Montreal, Quebec, with a stop in Toronto. Forty-one passengers and five crew were on board. Shortly before 7 pm Eastern time, a fire broke out inside the rear lavatory wall and burned, hidden and undetected, for nearly fifteen minutes before anyone smelled smoke. The crew declared an emergency and landed safely at Greater Cincinnati International Airport in Covington, Kentucky. The airplane touched down intact. Sixty to ninety seconds after the cabin doors opened, a flashfire rolled through the interior. Twenty-three passengers did not get out.Among the dead was Stan Rogers, folk musician, husband, father, born in Hamilton, Ontario. He was thirty-three years old, returning home after performing at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas. The investigation that followed reshaped aviation safety standards worldwide. Sources:Air Canada Flight 797Aviation Safety Network | Transcript of Air Canada Flight 797 - 02 JUN 1983Stan Rogers | SpotifyFogarty's Cove MusicStan Rogers Folk FestivalStan Rogers intros & sings "Barrett's Privateers" in One Warm Line documentary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  Murder Behind Vinyl: The Tragic Death of Lukas Strasser-Hird 04.05.2026 52Min.

  Episode 417: In the early hours of November 23, 2013, 18-year-old Lukas Strasser-Hird was violently beaten behind the Vinyl nightclub in Calgary, in an alley off 10th Avenue Southwest. He was rushed to the hospital, but the injuries were too severe, and he died later that morning from multiple stab wounds and massive blood loss. Walk with us through the events that led from a night out at the club to one of Calgary’s most closely watched murder cases, and examine how the chaos in that alley would ripple through the city, the courtroom, and the lives left behind. Sources: Lukas Strasser-Hird | Global News, Videos & ArticlesR.I.P Austin Lukas Strasser-Hird | FacebookR v Cabrera, 2019 ABCA 184 (CanLII)R v Cabrera, 2021 ABCA 291 (CanLII)R v Gervais, 2019 ABQB 344 (CanLII)R. v. Shlah, 2019 SCC 56 (CanLII), [2019] 4 SCR 136FM010_Appellant_Franz-Emir-Cabrera SCC File No.: 38677Lukas Strasser-Hird - Obituary | Calgary HeraldThe final homecoming of Lukas Strasser-Hird - National | Global News1st-degree murder conviction upheld for Calgary man in swarming death - CalgaryNathan Gervais sentenced to life with no parole for 25 years in Lukas Strasser-Hird swarming death - Calgary Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices