True crime, legends, folklore, dark history and other creepy topics from the perspective of real Canadians.
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Out of Sight, Out of Mind: The Leprosy Colony of D’Arcy Island
Episode 332
Monday, August 26, 2024 • Duration 01:08:18
Episode 332: In this episode of Dark Poutine, we delve into a troubling chapter of British Columbia’s history that reveals the deep-seated racism and fear that plagued our past. D’Arcy Island, a small and isolated landmass off the coast of Vancouver Island, became home to a leprosy colony from 1891 to 1924. But this wasn’t just any colony; it was a place where Chinese immigrants who had contracted the disease were forcibly sent to live out their days in harsh and inhumane conditions, far from society’s view.
Leprosy, now known as Hansen’s disease, has been misunderstood and deeply feared throughout history. The disease, although not highly contagious and treatable today, was seen as a mark of shame and led to the isolation of those afflicted. The establishment of the D’Arcy Island colony was rooted not only in fear of the disease but also in the racist attitudes of the time, which viewed Chinese immigrants as expendable and less deserving of care.
Sources:
Leprosy | WHO
D'Arcy Island Marine Park
W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations: History & Territory
The Creation of Indian Reserves and their Impact On The W̱SÁNEĆ Nation
British Columbia Indian Treaties In Historical Perspective
An introduction to First Nations' history in the Gulf Islands
Tales from the Vault: The lepers of D'Arcy Island
The lepers of D'Arcy Island
The Dark Past Of D'Arcy Island • British Columbia Magazine
How a tiny island off Victoria became part of B.C.’s racist history - UBC News
‘Island of Death’: BC’s Forgotten Racist Leper Colony
Health campaigners call for an end to the use of the word leper
D'Arcy Island | Wikipedia
Chinese Canadian historic places receive provincial recognition
Chinese Canadian Historic Places | PDF
A Measure of Value: The Story of the D'Arcy Island Leper Colony By Chris Yorath | Google Books
City of Victoria Archives | International Leprosy Association - History of Leprosy
Tracadie and D’Arcy and Bentinck Islands (Canada) | International Leprosy Association - History of Leprosy
The Lepers of Tracadie
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Inside Out: The Murders of Panagiota Zerbinos and April Peregooda
Episode 331
Monday, August 19, 2024 • Duration 01:02:23
Episode 331: On November 8, 2012, in a bloody crime scene, police discovered the body of 43-year-old Panagiota “Yota” Zerbinos in her daughter’s basement suite in the Fleetwood neighbourhood of Surrey, B.C. Yota had been brutally stabbed 24 times and left under a blanket; the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, was still in her chest. Two days later, Yota’s 28-year-old daughter, Gloria Crystle Zerbinos, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. She pleaded not guilty, citing her schizophrenia, drug abuse and other complex mental health issues, claiming she was not criminally responsible for her mother’s death. Gloria was held at Alouette Correctional Centre for Women.
However, as court proceedings continued, another inmate, 51-year-old April Peregooda, was found unresponsive in Gloria Zerbinos’s cell.
Sources:
B.C. woman who killed mother sentenced for second murder while serving time | CBC News
Woman arrested in death of B.C. jail inmate | CBC News
2018 BCSC 2464 (CanLII) | R. v G.C.Z | CanLII
2019 BCSC 584 (CanLII) | R. v Zerbinos | CanLII
"Gloria Zerbinos" - Search - Newspapers.com™
Surrey woman to stand trial for allegedly murdering her mother - Surrey Leader
Surrey woman guilty of murder for stabbing her mother 24 times
Remembering the life of Panagiota Zerbinos
Panagiota Zerbinos Obituary (2012) - Legacy Remembers
From straight A's to accused of stabbing her mom 24 times
Mom's body was found in daughter's Surrey suite, trial hears
Surrey woman was afraid to be alone with her daughter, murder trial hears
Woman sentenced for prison murder in Maple Ridge
2004: Alouette Correctional Centre for Women - Province of British Columbia
Ex-stripper guilty of mother’s murder | The Province
Surrey woman who murdered her mother can apply for parole in 12 years
Facebook | Gloria Zerbinos
Integrated Homicide Investigation Team
Former stripper on trial for mom's murder suffered delusions, court hears
Vernon woman killed in jail
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Marine Disasters in NS and The Wreck of the SS Atlantic
Episode 322
Monday, June 17, 2024 • Duration 01:09:20
Episode 322: Nova Scotia's rugged coastline and treacherous waters have made it a graveyard for ships throughout history. The SS Atlantic, a White Star Line steamship, sank off Nova Scotia on April 1, 1873, in one of the worst maritime disasters before the Titanic. On its 19th voyage from Liverpool to New York with around 975 people on board, the ship ran short of coal and diverted to Halifax. Navigational errors caused it to strike rocks near Prospect, Nova Scotia. Rough seas hindered lifeboat launches, trapping many passengers below deck. Local fishermen and others aided in rescue efforts, but 562 people perished, marking it the greatest civilian loss in the North Atlantic at that time.
Sources:
Nova Scotia Archives - Where the Land Meets the Sea: Shipwrecks of Nova Scotia
HMS Tribune: Halifax's first maritime disaster is almost forgotten
Atlantic's Last Stop by Robert Chaulk
They Went Down To The Sea by lay Spicer
Hypothermia: How long can someone survive in frigid water?
The Chilling Truth About Cold Water
SS Atlantic History - Rev. Ancient's Account
The SS Atlantic | Canadian History Ehx
The Final Voyage of SS Atlantic
The S/S Atlantic of the White Star Line, disaster in 1873
HFX Studios
The Wreck of the SS ATLANTIC - Halifax, NS 1873
SS Atlantic - The Mystery of the Davidsons' Grave
The Grave of the Davidsons, from the SS Atlantic
Sable Island: Shipwrecks at the graveyard of the Atlantic
Sable Island: Shipwrecks at the graveyard of the Atlantic | CBC News
Shipwreck Treasures
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Delayed Justice — Part 1: The Murders of Kathryn-Mary Herbert & Theresa Hildebrandt
Episode 238
Monday, October 3, 2022 • Duration 01:06:50
Episode 238: In Abbotsford, B.C., on the evening of September 24, 1975, Kathryn-Mary Herbert, age 11, was abducted while on her way home from a friend’s home. Last seen The girl’s body was discovered almost two months later on the Matsqui Indian Reserve north of Abbotsford. Investigators determined that she was likely murdered on the day she’d disappeared.
In May 1976, Theresa Hildebrandt, 15, vanished without a trace from her Aldergrove, B.C. home. F Police believed she might be a runaway, but her family felt otherwise. or nearly four years no one knew what had become of Theresa. In March of 1980, her skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave off Downes and Mt. Lehman roads.
Almost exactly two years after Theresa’s disappearance, in early May 1976, 12-year-old Monica Jack was riding her bicycle near Merritt, B.C. when she disappeared. As Monica was of indigenous heritage, her disappearance fell under Project E-PANA, the RCMP’s initiative to solve the multitude of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls along B.C.’s infamous Highway of Tears. In June of 1995, Monica’s remains were discovered off a logging road on Swakum Mountain, to the west of Nicola Lake and several kilometres from where she was last seen.
Families of the victims had their suspicions about suspects and worked hard to hold police on task, to solve the murders of their girls.
Due to similarities in the cases, police believed them all, potentially, linked. After years of running down tip after tip, a man with a history of sexual assault convictions and had been living in B.C. during all three killings fell under suspicion of investigators. After a long operation which involved the employment pf their infamous Mr. Big technique to get their suspect to talk, RCMP arrested 67-year-old Garry Taylor Handlen, and charged him with the murders of Kathryn-Mary Herbert and Monica Jack in 2014, more than 36 years after the murder of Monica Jack. He was later convicted of first-degree murder.
Sadly, in regards to Theresa Hildebrant’s murder, no one has yet been charged in her killing, and 46 years later, her family has yet to receive any official answers about Theresa’s death.
Sources:
2015 BCSC 1023 (CanLII) | R. v Handlen | CanLII
2018 BCSC 1330 (CanLII) | R. v Handlen | CanLII
A Garden of Tears: The murder of Kathryn-Mary Herbert | CBC.ca
CBC: Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women — Monica Jack
Kathryn-Mary Herbert | Theyaremissing Blog
A garden of tears (2009) | ridgenfilm
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Murder in Chatham: Virginia & Alfred Critchley and Jasen Pangburn
Episode 237
Monday, September 19, 2022 • Duration 01:06:38
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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The Murder of Diana Russell (Part 2)
Episode 236
Monday, September 12, 2022 • Duration 01:15:48
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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The Murder of Diana Russell (Part 1)
Episode 235
Monday, September 5, 2022 • Duration 52:47
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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Heaven’s Gate — UFO Death Cult
Episode 234
Monday, August 29, 2022 • Duration 01:26:39
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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Falling Stars: The Belcher Island Murders
Episode 233
Monday, August 22, 2022 • Duration 01:20:04
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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Washed Away: The 1929 Newfoundland Tsunami
Episode 232
Monday, August 15, 2022 • Duration 01:18:19
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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