Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History

Latest Episodes:

Miscarried Justice – The Murder of Sandy Seale & Conviction of Donald Marshall Jr. (NS) Sep 09, 2019

Show notes

Episode 090 - On evening in late May of 1971 police responded to reports of a young black male, Sandy Seale, having been stabbed in Sydney, Nova Scotia's Wentworth Park. A 17-year-old indigenous man, named Donald Marshall Jr., son of the Mi'kmaq Grand Chief who'd been at the scene, and injured himself, was later charged with the crime. After spending almost 12 years in prison Marshall was exonerated by a fresh RCMP investigation after new evidence was presented to Marshall by a friend. Donald Marshall Jr. was freed and the real killer, Roy Ebsary, was eventually convicted, and one of the largest inquiries into a wrongful conviction in Canadian history was launched.
Photo: provided by Marshall Family to the Canadian Encyclopedia
Sources:
Regina v. Marshall, 1972 CanLII 1345 (NS CA), <http://canlii.ca/t/hv00k>
R. v. Ebsary, 1984 CanLII 3507 (NS CA), <http://canlii.ca/t/g9nx0>
R. v. Ebsary, 1986 CanLII 4648 (NS CA), <http://canlii.ca/t/gc47w>
Wikipedia - Donald Marshall Jr
Mi’Kmaw Culture - Overview
Justice Denied: The Law Versus Donald Marshall by Michael Harris
Real Justice: Convicted for Being Mi'kmaq: The story of Donald Marshall Jr.
Royal Commission on the Donald Marshall, Jr Prosecution - PDF
Global News: N.S. introduces policy ensuring fair treatment of Indigenous Peoples in courts
Documentary - The Donald Marshall Jr. Story

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Billionaire’s Daughter: The Kidnapping of Cynthia Kilburn (BC) Sep 02, 2019

Show notes

Episode 089 - Four days before Christmas in 1990 a North Vancouver woman named Cynthia Kilburn was kidnapped from her home. A threatening ransom note asking for $8.5 million was found pinned to the door of her home; her two children, 4-year-old twins, were found bound, but unharmed, in an upstairs bathroom. Unknown to most of her neighbours, Cynthia is the daughter of the philanthropic BC billionaire businessman and Canada's fourth richest man, Jim Pattison. The kidnappers knew who they had, but their poorly thought out scheme did not go as planned.
Sources:
Dead Ends: BC Crime Stories by Paul Wilcocks
R. v. Mulvahill, 1992 CanLII 347 (BC SC)
Seven Arrested After Kidnapping
Kidnap victim picked for judges' committee
What happened to Kataoka - Vancouver Sun
Newspapers.com
Jim Pattison Group

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Away Game: Burke and Hare - The Anatomy Murderers Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Episode 088 - Over a ten month period, starting in late 1827, a pair of Irish born serial killers William Burke and William Hare killed 16 people, for fun and for profit in Edinburgh, Scotland. The corpses of their victims, twelve women, three men and one child, were taken to Surgeon's Square and sold off to anatomist Dr. Robert Knox, for use in his anatomy classes.

Sources:
BurkeandHare.com
The Anatomy Murders by Lisa Rosner
Dr. Heinrich Von Staden’s The Discovery of the Body
Sanjib Kumar Ghosh’s Human Cadaveric Dissection
The Diary of a Resurrectionist - 1811-1812 by James Blake Bailey on Gutennburg.org
Mental Floss: The Era of the Body Snatchers
Mortsafes - The Vintage News
Burke and Hare: Serial Killing for Science (Ghastly Tales of Scotland) | Documentary
Broadside regarding the Burke and Hare trials
The History of Burke and Hare - 1884 by George MacGregor

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The Murder of Amber Kirwan (NS) Aug 19, 2019

Show notes

Episode 087 - On the morning of October 9, 2011, 19-year-old Amber Kirwan failed to show up for an arranged ride home after leaving a local billiards hall in New Glasgow, N.S. After a massive search for almost a month Amber's body was found in a shallow grave in the nearby village of Heathbell. The man eventually charged and convicted of the crime had a surprising background. Should he have been in the community at all?

Sources:
R. v. Falconer, 2016 NSCA 22 (CanLII) http://canlii.ca/t/gp1bx
Pictou County Advocate - archives
Obituary of Amber Donna Kirwan
Timeline of Events in Amber Kirwan’s murder - Cape Breton Post
Surveillance Video at Dooly's - The Advocate
Murder of Taxi Driver - Robert Gerald LeBlanc
The song Taxi Phone by Dave Gunning

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The Altona School Shooting of 1902 (MB) Aug 12, 2019

Show notes

Episode 086 - In October of 1902 the small, quiet Mennonite community of Altona, Manitoba was shaken by violent events at the hands of one of their own. The teacher at their one room school opened fire on three school trustees after an argument, wounding all three. He then returned to the school and shot three students, all daughters of the trustees he'd shot earlier.
Sources:
Spectator Tribune Article
Newspapers.com
School Shootings in Canada at Wikipedia
A Pictorial History of Altona
Winnipeg Free Press Article
Murder and Madness in a Mennonite Village

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Date with Death - The Murder of James Shannon (BC) Aug 05, 2019

Show notes

episode 085 - The day before Valentines Day in 2008, James Shannon, a nurse from Port Alberni, BC, met up with another man he'd met on the web site, Plenty of Fish. Although James was looking for love, the man he brought into his home brought something much more sinister. Days later, after not showing up for multiple shifts at work, James Shannon was found brutally murdered in his home. The man who committed the act, Kim Winslow Rothgordt, was claiming he'd been raped and was too intoxicated at the time to know what happened. The truth was nowhere near his claims.
Photo credit: Phil Smith on Flickr per CC licence
Sources:
R. v. Rothgordt, 2014 BCSC 1215 (CanLII)
Port Alberni on Wikipedia
MacLeans Magazine - Canada’s Most Dangerous Places 2018
Port Alberni ‘a safe place to be’ despite crime rate, says RCMP
Thunder Bay Podcast - CANADALAND
B.C. man convicted in second-degree murder of nurse in 2008 gets new trial
Gay Panic Defense on Wikipedia
BC judge says gay panic defence no longer valid

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Emanuel Jaques - The Shoeshine Boy Murder (ON) Jul 29, 2019

Show notes

Episode 084 - July 28, 1977 was a hot summer day on the corner of Yonge and Dundas streets in what was then Toronto's seedier area. Three boys were shining shoes of passersby for change. After a day of work with little profit a tall, friendly stranger arrived with two pairs of shoes he needed shined. Claiming he had more lucrative work elsewhere he lured one to the younger boys, 12-year-old Emanuel Jaques, away. Emanuel was never seen alive again and the horrifying circumstances around his death divided the city.

Sources:
Book - OUTRAGED, by Robert J Hoshowsky
Newspaper.com
Wikipedia - Emanuel Jaques
Global News - 40 years Later
Court Case - R. v. Woods, 1980 CanLII 2928 (ON CA)
Court Case - Regina v. Betesh, 1975 CanLII 1451 (ON CJ)
Facts about child molestation

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Dark Poutine - Trailer Jul 26, 2019

Show notes

True crime, legends, folklore, dark history and other creepy topics from the perspective of real live Canadians.

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The Minto Murders - Verna Decarie & Fred Fulton (NB) Jul 22, 2019

Show notes

Episode 083 - The village of Minto, New Brunswick was rocked by the events occurring in April 2005 when a grisly murder scene was discovered at 358 Slope Road. Edlerly but active residents, Fred Fulton, known for his love of playing and listening to country music and his kind, wife Verna Decarie lay dead, butchered in their small rural home.
The village got it’s second blow when it became clear that one of their own, a 22-year-old neighbour of Fred and Verna’s, named Gregory Allen Despres was sought as a person of interest in the murders. He was on the run.
Bringing justice to this case would not prove an easy task in spite of a heap of evidence.
Sources:
R. v. Despres, 2008 NBQB 99 (CanLII) http://canlii.ca/t/1vz0x
R. v. Despres, 2007 NBQB 154 (CanLII) http://canlii.ca/t/1rb00
Wikipedia - Gregory Despres
SFGate Article
Global News articles about Shepody Healing Centre in NB

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Domestic Horror - The Murder of Donna Jones (ON) Jul 15, 2019

Show notes

Episode 082 - On the morning of December 6, 2009, Ottawa paramedics and police responded to what sounded like a frantic 911 call placed by a man at a residence in the Bayshore area. The man was screaming that his wife was not breathing. Upon arriving they found the owner of the home, 33-year-old Donna Jones, deceased on a makeshift mattress on the basement floor. Donna's injuries and her time of death did not match the story that her husband Mark Peter Hutt was telling. Investigators would uncover a brutal history of abuse and torture ultimately leading to a heinous murder.
WARNING: This podcast includes graphic descriptions of violent domestic abuse and murder.
Sources:
R. v. Hutt, 2013 ONSC 2267 (CanLII)
CBC - Mark Peter Hutt police interview
Canada.com - Trial Coverage
Canada.com - More Trial Coverage
Psychology Today - How the brain works against abuse victims
Ottawa Citizen - Articles by Chloe Fedio and Andrew Seymour
Domestic Abuse Resources in Canada:
http://endingviolencecanada.org
Canada's Department of Justice
Canada's Treatment Programs for Men Who Abuse Their Partners