True crime, legends, folklore, dark history and other creepy topics from the perspective of real Canadians.
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Spooktober 2026: Headless Mary â The Ghost of Griffintown
Episode 440
Monday, October 12, 2026 ⢠Duration 01:03:19
Episode 440: In 1879, Montrealâs Griffintown was a crowded working-class neighbourhood shaped by Irish immigration, heavy industry and life along the Lachine Canal. On June 27, Mary Gallagher entered a tenement at the corner of William and Murray streets, where a morning of drinking with her friend Susan Kennedy ended in a brutal killing for which Kennedy was accused.
The crime became one of Montrealâs most enduring ghost stories. For generations, residents have said that Mary returns to the corner every seven years, searching for her missing head. In this Spooktober episode, we examine the documented case, the legend it inspired and the changing neighbourhood that kept her story alive for nearly 150 years.
Sources:The Ghost of Griffintown: Mary Gallagher's Haunting LegendMary Gallagher | Haunted MontrealMary Gallagher â The Ghost of Griffintown / WKT2 26Calling all ghost hunters: Headless Mary may return to Montreal tonight | CP24Headless Mary | ScholasticMeurtre de Mary Gallagher | WikipediaThe Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ¡ Tuesday, July 08, 1879The British Whig, Kingston, Ontario, Canada ¡ Monday, June 30, 1879Montreal Gazette, Quebec, Canada ¡ Wednesday, October 01, 1879Montreal Gazette, Quebec, Canada ¡ Saturday, October 04, 1879The Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ¡ Thursday, July 03, 1879The Montreal Star, Quebec, Canada ¡ Saturday, July 05, 1879The British Whig, Kingston, Ontario, Canada ¡ Saturday, November 29, 1879The Gazette, Montreal, Quebec, Canada ¡ Tuesday, October 07, 1879The Montreal Gazette Thu, Oct 02, 1879 ¡Page 4Ottawa Daily Citizen ⢠Mon, Jun 30, 1879 ⢠Page 1 ⢠(Ottawa, Ontario, Canada)The British Whig, Kingston, Ontario, Canada ¡ Monday, July 07, 1879St. Louis Globe-Democrat, Missouri ¡ Thursday, October 02, 1879Ottawa Daily Citizen, Ontario, Canada ¡ Thursday, October 02, 1879Ghost of Griffintown | ConcordiaLes origines dâune lĂŠgende irlandaise⌠montrĂŠalaise ! | banq.qc.ca
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Spooktober 2026: Road Trip â The Possessions at Loudun
Episode 439
Monday, October 5, 2026 ⢠Duration 01:04:01
Episode 439: In September 1632, plague was tearing through Loudun, France, when the Ursuline nuns began reporting apparitions, unexplained blows and violent physical attacks. During a series of exorcisms, the voices speaking through the women named a local priest: Urbain Grandier.
Grandier was intelligent, outspoken and surrounded by scandal. He had also made powerful enemies. As clergy, physicians and royal officials entered the case, reports from inside the convent became part of a much larger struggle involving religion, medicine, politics and the law.In this episode, we examine the Possessions at Loudun and the people who tried to explain them. Were the nuns experiencing a supernatural attack, a shared psychological illness or something shaped by suggestion and institutional pressure? What happens when investigators settle on an answer before they finish asking questions?
Sources
The Possession at Loudun by Michel de CerteauThe Devils of Loudun by Des NiauDocuments pour servir Ă lâhistoire mĂŠdicale des possĂŠdĂŠes de Loudun by Gabriel LeguĂŠSĹur Jeanne des Anges, supĂŠrieure des Ursulines de Loudun: autobiographiePossĂŠdĂŠes de Loudun, Affaire des (1632â1634)âThe Possessions at Loudunâ by Craig E. StephensonâLa possession de Loudun (1632â1637) by Sophie HoudardâMass Sociogenic Illnessâ by Robert E. Bartholomew and Simon WesselyâDivine Punishment or Disease?âThe Devils of Loudun by Aldous HuxleyJeanne des Anges bibliography and manuscript recordâEdict of NantesââTarantism, Dancing Mania and Demonopathy: The Anthro-political Aspects of âMass Psychogenic IllnessââLooking Back: The possessions at Loudun | StephensonThe Possession at Loudun by Michel de CerteauMalleus Maleficarum Index | Internet Sacred Text ArchiveThe Devils of Loudun by Edmund Goldsmid, free ebook download | Global Grey
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The Expulsion of the Acadians: Grand PrĂŠ
Episode 438
Monday, September 28, 2026 ⢠Duration 57:22
Episode 438: In September 1755, more than four hundred men from Grand-PrĂŠ, Nova Scotia, were summoned to their parish church and told their land, homes, and livestock had been forfeited to the Crown. They would not be going home, and neither would their families. The Acadians, French-speaking Catholic settlers who had farmed the Bay of Fundyâs tidal marshes for more than a century, were about to be deported in one of the largest forced removals in North American history.
Here we tell the story of what the Acadians of Grand PrĂŠ built, why the British destroyed it, and what became of the families torn apart and scattered across the Atlantic world. More than ten thousand Acadians were forcibly removed from their homeland over the course of the operation, and by some estimates, nearly half did not survive the decade that followed.
From Lieutenant-Colonel John Winslow, who carried out the deportation, to RenĂŠ Leblanc, the elderly notary who refused to abandon his people, we follow the Great Upheaval from the shores of Grand-PrĂŠ to the bayous of Louisiana, where the Acadian legacy lives on as Cajun culture.
Sources:L'Histoire de l'Acadie | Moncton.caExpulsion of the Acadians | WikipediaHeritage Minutes: Acadian Deportation | YouTubeHistory of Acadia | The Canadian EncyclopediaCentre d'ĂŠtudes acadiennes Anselme-Chiasson, UniversitĂŠ de MonctonAcadian Expulsion (Plain-Language Summary) | The Canadian EncyclopediaView of The Deportation of the Acadians from Ile St.-Jean, 1758 | AcadiensisThe Records of British Government at Annapolis Royal, 1713-1749 | Nova Scotia ArchivesPapers Relating to the Acadian French - 1714-1755 | Akins, Thomas BeamishPapers Relating to the Forcible Removal of the Acadian French from Nova Scotia - 1755-1768 | Akins, Thomas BeamishNotes on Nova Scotian Privateers by George E. E. Nichols | Archives of New BrunswickGreat and Noble Scheme by John Mack FaragherThe Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History by Christopher HodsonParks Canada - Expulsion of the Acadians National Historic EventThe Acadian Deportation, Women, and Refugee Resettlement in the British and French Atlantic (1755-1793)Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie by Henry Wadsworth LongfellowGrand-PrĂŠ National Historic Site | Memorial churchLandscape of Grand PrĂŠ | UNESCO World Heritage Site 2012
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Over the Wall: The Ty Conn Story
Episode 437
Monday, September 21, 2026 ⢠Duration 56:23
Episode 437: Tyrone William âTyâ Conn became the first man in over forty years to climb over the wall at Kingston Penitentiary, Canada's oldest and most secure federal prison. Born to a teenage mother in 1967 and adopted at age three by a prominent Belleville psychiatrist, his childhood unravelled into a cycle of theft, institutionalization, and escape that would follow him for the rest of his life. By the time he was thirty-two, a string of armed bank robberies and repeated prison breaks had compounded into a forty-seven-year sentence, a number that raised eyebrows given that not one of his crimes had ever physically harmed another person. On May 6, 1999, using a homemade ladder and a length of sewn canvas, he scaled Kingston's wall and disappeared into the Ontario countryside, setting off a thirteen-day manhunt that captivated the country. What happened when police finally caught up with him in a Toronto basement apartment two weeks later remains, to this day, a matter of dispute, one his own mother was never able to get answered.
Sources:Tyrone William Conn | Brief BiographyTy Conn: A Life Imprisoned (2000) | The Fifth EstateTy Conn : My Brother The Outlaw | YouTubeTy Conn : My Brother The Outlaw | FacebookWho Killed Ty Conn by Linden Macintyre, (Paperback) | IndigoTy Conn Project Materials - York UniversityTy Conn | WikipediaTyrone Conn's escape ends in death | CBC News7 Things You Need to Know About Kingston PenitentiaryNiagara Falls Review ⢠Wed, Mar 14, 1984 ⢠Page 8The Kingston Whig-Standard ⢠Thu, Mar 15, 1984 ⢠Page 1The Ottawa Citizen ⢠Sat, Mar 07, 1987 ⢠Page 8The Kingston Whig-Standard ⢠Fri, Jun 30, 1989 ⢠Page 2The Kingston Whig-Standard ⢠Mon, Dec 18, 1989 ⢠Page 9The Kingston Whig-Standard ⢠Thu, Jun 28, 2001 ⢠Page 1The Kingston Whig-Standard ⢠Thu, Jun 28, 2001 ⢠Page 10
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Wrong Turn: The Disappearance of Brady and Halkett
Episode 436
Monday, September 14, 2026 ⢠Duration 59:52
Episode 436: In June 1967, two of northern Saskatchewan's most respected bushmen, MÊtis 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 â Michael Nest, with Deanna Reder and Eric Bell (University of Regina Press, 2020)
CBC News â "Searchers pursue the truth on mysterious disappearance of MĂŠtis leader" (2018)
CBC News â "Authors explore decades-old mystery of disappearance of 2 northern Sask. leaders" (2020)
MBC Radio â "RCMP says it has no plans to search northern Saskatchewan lake for remains of Brady and Halkett" (2018)
Canada's History â "Cold Case North" (2021)
Prairie Books Now â "50-year-old case of two men disappearing revisited, investigated from Indigenous perspective"
Slaw / Canadian Law Library Review â Book review of Cold Case North
Wikipedia â James P. Brady
The Canadian Encyclopedia â Jim Brady
Active History â "Liberation from 'That Vicious System': Jim Brady's 20th Century MĂŠtis Cooperatives and Colonial State Responses"
Glenbow Museum â "Enclosing Some Snapshots: The Photography of MĂŠtis Activist James Brady"
SaskCulture â "Remembering James Brady"
Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police â Missing Persons Database, Absolom Halkett
Saskatchewan Association of Chiefs of Police â Missing Persons Database, James Brady
Simon Fraser University â Deanna Reder faculty biography
Simon Fraser University, Indigenous Studies â "Cold Case North"
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White Paper: Balloon Bombs from Japan
Episode 435
Monday, September 7, 2026 ⢠Duration 01:07:08
Episode 435: In November 1944, the Imperial Japanese Army began launching paper balloons from the coast of Honshu â 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.Â
Sources:
Fu-Go Balloon Bomb â WikipediaJapan's WWII Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America â Smithsonian MagazineBalloon Bombs: Japan's Answer to Doolittle â National Museum of the United States Air ForceOn Paper Wings â IMDBOn Paper Wings Retrospective â Oregon HumanitiesOn Paper Wings â Oregon ArtsWatchOn Paper Wings Screening â Japanese American National MuseumOn 75th Anniversary, Bly Remains Connected to Tragic WWII Event â Herald and NewsJapanese Balloon Bomb Explosion Location â PBS History DetectivesWWII-Era Balloon Bomb in B.C. Blown to Smithereens â Global NewsBC Studies No. 203 â Balloon Bombs, the Alaska Highway, and Influenza: Tsek'ehne Perspectives â 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.
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Botched Justice: The Death of Crystal Taman
Episode 434
Monday, August 31, 2026 ⢠Duration 01:02:45
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 â 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 copâs lawyer slams Taman inquiry | Global News
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If Anything Should Happen: The Ottey Sisters Murders
Episode 433
Monday, August 24, 2026 ⢠Duration 51:15
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 Collegiateâs 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 âMost Challenging Casesâ In Global TV's âCrime Beatâ Episode88 Valley Stream Drive, Toronto, ON, CA
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Not Justice: Lynching Louie Sam
Episode 432
Monday, August 17, 2026 ⢠Duration 56:15
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 SemĂĄ: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 Samâs lynching, and the investigation into Bellâs death seems to have stopped with Samâs death.
Sources:
Deadly Neighbours â Chad Reimer (Caitlin Press, 2022)
The Lynching of Louie Sam â Keith Thor Carlson, BC Studies No. 109, Spring 1996
The Lynching of Louie Sam â John Vaillant, The Walrus, December 2008
Lynching Information â Tuskegee University Archives
An American Mob Crosses the Canadian Border and Lynches Louie Sam â HistoryLink.org
Our Territory â Sumas First Nation
Sq'ĂŠwlets: A StĂł:lĹâCoast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley
Daily Colonist (Victoria, BC), FebruaryâMarch 1884 â britishcolonist.ca
BC Historical Newspapers â British Columbian (New Westminster) 1884, UBC Open Collections
Whatcom Reveille, FebruaryâMarch 1884 â Jeffcott Collection, Western Washington University Archives
Mesachie and Louie Sam â Chilliwack Progress, October 8, 1958 â Newspapers.com
Washington State Expresses Regret Over 1884 Lynching of Canadian Teen â CBC News, 2006
Plain Injustice â Literary Review of Canada, 2022
Louie Sam â Wikipedia
PDF of The Lynching of Louie Sam by Keith Thor Carlson
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Street of Tears â The Crimes of Shawn Cameron Lamb
Episode 431
Monday, August 10, 2026 ⢠Duration 58:34
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 â CBC News
Tanya Jane Nepinak â CBC News
Shawn Lamb sentenced to 20 years for two slayings â CBC News
Police paid killer Shawn Lamb $1,500 for information â CBC News
Winnipegger speaks about life on streets, alleged assault by convicted killer Shawn Lamb â CBC News
Shawn Lamb gets statutory release â CBC News
Convicted killer Shawn Lamb must stay at halfway house â CBC News
Shawn Lamb pleads guilty to killing 2 women â Global News
Landfill search progressing for Ashlee Shingoose; Tanya Nepinak family hopeful â Global News
Parole Board grants Indigenous Winnipeg killer Shawn Lamb statutory release â APTN News
Statement on Brady Road Landfill Search for Ashlee Shingoose and Planning for Tanya Nepinak â Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs
NFSC Calls for Justice and Accountability Following Statutory Release of Shawn Lamb â National Family and Survivors Circle
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Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History, a podcast by Dark Poutine / Curiouscast - Stats, Episodes and Rankings - My Podcast Data
