1970 Ontario Serial Murders Investigation: The Gormley Cold Case | 72 Hours | Real Crime

[Music] they say the past is another country life was different [Music] then in rural Ontario a man went to work in the morning expecting his wife and child to be safe and sound when he came home chaos was something that happened in other people's lives somewhere else but on this early spring day one family's life and a whole Community sense of safety will shatter [Music] forever in True Crime investigation and conviction may take years but every detective knows that the crucial clue is always there somewhere in the first 72 [Music] [Applause] hours nobody should die that way I've never seen anything that horrific one of the duties of a pathologist is to determine the cause of death watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription required download V now make sure to like And subscribe Gormley Ontario 1970 local police respond to an emergency call retired police chief Don HCK still remembers even though it was over 30 years ago when I arrived I found a u husband at home very distraught very upset set and uh inside the house was uh his wife in a pool of blood it was a night table that had quite a sharp corner on it and the doctor assumed that maybe she might have fallen against it and split it back of her head [Music] open the body of Kathleen philcox is taken to the morg for autopsy to establish cause of death detective h SCS the husband Lester and asks him to describe what he saw when he came home it was strange he says that the front door was locked like most people in the area he and his wife never locked the [Music] door then he noticed that the foone was off the hook in the kitchen down the hall in the the bedroom he made the terrible Discovery detective hilik is a cop in a small town where violent crime is extremely rare he's never seen anything like this before and yet he's thinking this may not have been an accident I had the feeling that it was fall play that's what I thought next morning the autopsy confirms the detective suspicions Kathleen philov had been raped and shot to death the pathologist recovers 7 22 caliber bullets two from her back five from her head for the detective the fact that seven bullets have been fired is significant most revolvers hold only Six Bullets I don't think anybody under those circumstances would reload so right away it makes me think that it was a nine shot revolver HCK hopes his assumption will help them zero in on a suspect a nine-shot 22 is a very unusual weapon you call later the same day Don hilik returns to the Phil Cox's house investigators scour the bedroom for Clues dusting for fingerprints collecting blood fibers and hairs so you were saying that you came home detective HCK needs more information from Lester carts he claims he left his wife at home at 8:00 a.m. and was at school all day teaching his story checks out police need to broaden their investigation right at the very beginning we had to check out neighbors friends Associates uh of the family it was difficult we had to prove where they were and u Alibi them police question everyone in the community and ask men in the area for a blood sample their samples will be compared to the attacker's blood type in 1970 DNA testing has not yet been invented Labs use what is known as the [ __ ] blood typing system a simple method which can't positively identify the killer just narrow down the potential Suspects the Seaman sample from the victim shows the attacker has type A blood days into the investigation hilik and his partner are still combing through the [Music] community but many area residents are so shaken up by the murder they're not making it easy they wouldn't come to the door if you're were in plain clothes what we did was talk to people through an upstairs window most times your home is uh invaded and uh to be shot that many times in a rural area just well was just hardly believable a lot of people started going out and getting guns learning how to shoot guns people were just scared 13 days after Kathleen philco's murder police still have no serious suspects then police get a call from a frightened young boy he's found his mother on the floor she's not breathing and a strange man has just run out of their [Music] house a second murder this time the Ontario Provincial Police take the case op detective Don mcneel speaks with 8-year-old old Ben Rickman Ben tells the detective what he remembers he was in his room playing when his mother answered the door his mother came into the room and advised him that uh there was a gentleman there that uh had a sick child in the car required to use the phone later on he uh he heard what he thought to be fireworks goof in the house and and uh he went and and and he found his mother uh lying on the floor Ben saw Blood on the back of her shirt but didn't understand what had happened that's when he heard someone behind him the man looked him straight in the eyes Elaine Rickman is pronounced dead at the scene and taken to the morg the autopsy reveals that she was killed by three bullets two in her head and one in her back he LAN Rickman had also been raped biologists determined from the seamen that the killer was a blood type [Music] A and forensic analysis of the three bullets show that they were fired from the same 22 caliber gun that killed Kathleen philcox police now have a clear link between the two murders detective mcneel has to consider a disturbing hypothesis some people were thinking well is this is our first uh Ontario serial killer if it is a serial killer will police be able to catch him before he strikes [Music] again two women have been brutally raped and murdered Ontario Police fear they're dealing with their first serial killer detective mcneel returns to the Rickman house with the police artist the victim's son Ben describes the man he saw but the vicious attack has had a chilling effect on Ben's father Ben has looked into the eyes of his mother's killer and his father is afraid he's no longer safe at home his father sends Ben to stay with relatives meanwhile the Ontario Provincial Police set up a task force and lached the biggest man hunt the province has ever seen as a result of the uh bulletin that was published and was put pred in the newspapers there was a minimum of 5,000 uh leads that came in that had to be checked out while the task force follows up each lead mcneel tries to find a common link between the two murder victims both victims uh were nurses had they worked at the same hospital had they gone to training together and we could not find any common denominator where both women knew each other both husbands were School teachers and and the same thing again there was no known contact between either family despite The Uncanny similarities in the two famili familyes lives police are unable to make any direct connection between them that can help in their Manhunt weeks drag into months tips from the public dry up and the investigation slows down after a year the task force is disbanded but the case stays open 3 years after the murders out of the blue there's a break in the case mcneel gets an anonymous call telling police to check out a man named Scott Wilson apparently Wilson confessed to a friend that he was involved in something terrible around the time of the murders a gentleman came to light who uh had been acting strangely and as a result of acting strangely ended up in a mental institution with Scott Wilson away in an institution police take a trip out to his property just down the road from where one of the murders occurred they find no one around but the door to the shed is open inside they find a child's coffin clearly handmade they also find a collection of guns including a 7 7 mm rifle not the 22 caliber n shot they're looking for but evidence that the man has a taste for unusual [Music] guns detective mcneel visits Wilson in the psychiatric hospital he has a mental disorder caused by years of excessive drinking he's reported to have always been an angry violent drunk T when mcneel interviews Wilson nothing he says is coherent it's frustrating but mcneel does get Wilson to give a saliva sample for blood typing police also take a hair sample hoping to match it to a hair found at the crime scene the results come back from the saliva Wilson is blood type A the same as the killer police also discover that he was not at work on the days of either murder and in the time he's been in the Psychiatric Hospital there have been no other murders in the area with the evidence they've collected police think they could win a conviction but there's a problem Scott Wilson is unfit to stand trial so even though the case officially remains open police believe they found their killer and stop further investigation but in fact it will take mcneel more than 20 years to close this case 20 years during which forensic technology is revolutionized with the Advent of DNA testing 20 years during which Don mcneel Rises through the ranks of the opp in 1995 he's put in charge of coold cases at that particular time one of the relatives had written letter and wanted to know what the status was in regard to the investigation and uh so I volunteered for it because I knew a lot of the details of the case McNeil's prime suspect over 20 years ago Scott Wilson is long dead from brain cancer at that time he couldn't absolutely prove that Wilson was the killer now with DNA testing he thinks he can finally close the case mcneel sends the hair and saliva samples they took from Wilson to the lab here biologists will try to compare Wilson's DNA to the DNA obtained from the murderer Seaman sample one of the issues whenever you're dealing with old cases like these is how the evidence has been preserved or in fact if it's been preserved in this case the items were preserved and were preserved properly and that allowed us to go back and do the DNA work in this case two weeks later mcneel gets a call Kim Johnson from the sen franic science phone and and burst our bubble by saying not even close McNeil's whole case goes into a tail spin but sometimes lady lock is a detective's best friend just when he thinks his case has gone dead cold McNeil is handed a gift that could throw the case wide [Music] open 25 years after two unsolved rape murders detective dawn mcneel has an intriguing new lead to pursue a piece of evidence he happens to notice in a case File of a convicted Armed robber named Ron West shortly after he was arrested West's house was sold when the new owners were renovating they discovered jewelry boxes hidden in a ceiling along with a gun registration for a n shot 22 caliber handgun but records show the gun had been sold by West in 1972 McNeil considers why West would want to keep an expired gun registration I thought to myself that uh this could be considered maybe a trophy because the jewelry boxes were a trophy of the iron robberies that that he had committed and they pleaded guilty to McNeil needs to find out more about Ron West he's currently serving an 8-year sentence for his violent armed robberies at the time of the two murders in 1970 West was a police constable in Toronto's 53 division mcneel also discovers that Ron West would have been familiar with the area of the murder murders he grew up [Music] there McNeil officially reopens the case and assigns a team to investigate this new suspect one of the key officers is detective John Smith since Mr West worked for the metrot tonal Police Service in May of 1970 we had to go back and interview every single police officer that worked at 53 division in metr tronto police at that time most of the former policemen detect of Smith interviews have little memory of West but one of them remembers West well he wasn't loud he wasn't quiet he enjoyed uh a good joke and telling a good joke and it was just the one of the guys in the platoon that I sort of struck up a friendship [Music] with Ron West and Keith Rogers frequently spent their days off together r Rogers remembers a particular day in 1970 a few months after the murders they were at West's Family Farm taking some informal target practice that day stands out in Roger's memory because West was using a nine shot pistol I'd never seen uh this nine shot 22 revolver I always thought there was a six years so I was surprised to see that and I used that a fair bit to shoot out these pumpkins to hear in you know 30 years later that he's now you know a suspect in a a double homicide is it was a little shocked wow because he and West were in the same platoon in 1970 they worked the same shifts and took the same days off luckily Roger still has his memo book from those days I had a memo book that uh second memo book I'd ever written and I kept it and uh when you went worked backwards from that memo book in the days two of these murders uh my memo book put him off duty it's all beginning to add up for mcneel the nine shot gun the days off West's association with the area and his record of violence but mcneel still needs physical proof he goes to visit West in prison if West agrees to provide a sample of his DNA it can be compared to the Killer's DNA at the lab West is within his rights to refuse and he does mcneel decides to confront West with what the police know about the murders hoping he'll confess mcneel tells West they know he went to the home of Kathleen philcox on May 6th 1970 raped her at gun point and then shot her seven times in the back McNeil says they also know that West raped and shot the second victim Elaine Rickman 13 days later West is an ex cop he knows if police had enough to charge him they wouldn't be angling for his confession he says nothing after all these years McNeil feels he's within Striking Distance of the killer but he's still coming up short then another Stroke of Luck police in Ron West's Hometown send detective McNeil a letter they received from West's ex-wife this letter had been mailed to her from the jail and uh she did not want to have anything to do with him or the letter and she turned it over to the police mcneel hopes it will contain some incriminating statements but West is too smart for that then mcneel realizes what he may have in his hand when someone licks a stamp or an envelope flop generally because it's sticky they leave their cells and therefore DNA behind we can then extract the DNA and then compare it to any other samples we have in this case the DNA profile obtained from the stamp matched the DNA profile we had from Seaman in both cases with the evidence mounting against him just 5 days before his trial West pleads guilty to both murder charges it's been 30 years since the double homicide investigation began finally police and the families of the victims can close the door on the horrific events of May [Music] 1970 [Music] in court Victim Impact statements of the children of West's victims are read to the sentencing judge the full traumatic effects of the murders on the children are revealed plagued by nightmares destroyed relationships and unable to trust anyone the two boys have spent a lifetime in fear as detec of Smith transports Ron West back to the jail after his guilty plea he asks a question that has troubled him I asked him why he did not shoot the son in both homicides his response to me was who kills kids and my response to him was who kills the mother of an 8-year-old boy or an 18-month old son and leaves him motherless for the rest of their lives to which he had no response Ron West is sentenced to two life terms one for each [Music] murder a lonely man prepares for a romantic evening his date is on her way she too is looking forward to tonight they've talked about it and plan for it together this is the night they've both been waiting for a chance to fulfill their fantasies hi what are you doing but the man is about to learn that their fantasies are Worlds [Music] [Music] [Applause] Apart in True Crime invest instigation and conviction may take years but every detective knows that the crucial clue is always there somewhere in the first 72 [Music] [Applause] hours Houston 1995 xal namir is being robbed by two women they work together like pros they seem to have done this before but tonight they've made a big mistake they've brought along a rookie to guard their victim he polishes off The Knockout drink meant for xia and passes out cold xal calls the police before the women have a chance to cover their [Music] tracks the first time I uh was called into the case was during a period where we didn't know who these two women were but we knew Theo we knew what they were doing Dan Rizo Harris County Texas prosecutor a man who thinks he's jailed every kind of criminal until now in this case it was a a series of robberies that were being committed against uh men who mistakenly thought that they were going on a date with one or two women there have been six reported attacks over the last several weeks all following a similar pattern in the telecommunication dating service they would look for a category that was um more kinky thinking that if they robbed those people uh those people would be less likely to report their crime to the police uh they also seem to go after foreign men people that had uh were less sophisticated with our culture and people that would be easy EAS to locate and to victimize but xal namir is the first victim to raise the alarm in time for police to pursue the women police checked jal's phone records and discovered that several calls were made to his home from a pay phone at a Houston Hotel they went and talked to employees of of that location and someone from the hotel said yeah they were in such and such room the women are arrested they're identified as Rose turf Ford and Carolyn Stevens and they're charged with aggravated robbery because of their use of firearms and threats of violence bail for both is set high at half a million do the women secure a bail bond and are released Nancy Smith works for a bail bond company that's responsible for guaranteeing the bail making sure the women stay in Houston and attend their trial She lays down strict conditions to to ensure they don't leave town the conditions that we put on them is that the girls had to report to me every day by phone twice a week they had to come to the bond office sit down with me check in uh part of the agreement was is that Rose and Carolyn could have no communication whatsoever while Smith keeps track of rose and Carolyn Rizo begins to investigate the women's backgrounds he needs to build a case to prosecute them for the string of crimes police allege they have committed he starts with rose turford she was uh living in a very nice upper middle class neighborhood and what appeared to be a beautiful home um and um didn't appear to have any criminal background that we could find any place Carolyn's life has been lived equally far from the world of crime Carolyn Stevens likewise had no criminal background her father was a minister um a very nice family from what I understand uh although Carolyn had a history of mental distress Rizo wonders what would make these two seemingly normal women commit such crimes within 72 hours of their arrest REO gets a major break in the [Music] case we had done a search warrant at a location where they had a storage shed we found thousands and thousands of pages of letters that were written uh from a person by the name of Avery Orlando Avery every piece of these bizarre Communications is addressed to Carolyn Stevens and these are not like any correspondence Rizo has ever seen before they are written in code a seemingly random pattern of squares and lines but when properly connected they form individual letters we had to put them into some kind of an order we then had to make copies of each one so that we could draw in the lines to try and tell what in fact was being said in the letter rizo's staff works on the huge task of decoding the letters buried among the piles of paper Rizo makes another Discovery a sheath of yellow legal sized Pages covered in Rose Turf for's handwriting to his astonishment he begins reading what appears to be a diary Rose begins her story by describing a shattered marriage and her move from Canada to Houston her search to make a new life and new friends I met Carolyn Stevens while working at the hospital she's quiet and reserved and we became friends quickly she told me she also worked for a private investigator named Mr Avery in February or March 94 Carolyn became a regular in my house she was great with my daughter Lindsay and quickly became part of the family when when she needed a place to live I invited her to move in as Rizo reads on the tone of rose's diary takes a much darker turn in May 94 Carolyn disappeared for several days she returned with two gunshot wounds she said they were a punishment by Avery for blowing her part of an important investigation REO wonders what kind of man would do this Carol would show up at work with things on her arms and and her legs and uh by things we talking about bruises and and scrapes and cuts and initially Carolyn told her told Rose turford and others that she hurt herself while she was working doing landscaping eventually she said that she was being forced into uh some sort of servitude by a person by the name of Avery Rose records increasingly painful punishments inflicted on Carolyn suddenly Rose herself comes to the attention of the mysterious ious Mr Avery he sent me a note at that time outlining that if I wanted to help Carolyn it was okay as long as I kept him and his identity secret I had no intention of getting Carol in more trouble by going to the police I understood we had to play by Avery's rules Rizo is now looking for a third person linked to the crimes he needs to question Rose and Carolyn to find out more about the obviously dangerous Orlando Avery but 3 weeks after the women are released on baale Rose and Carolyn failed to appear for their weekly meetings with Nancy Smith I first called Carolyn's house and I was informed by her parents that they didn't know where she was so I turned around and called roses family and I'm told the same thing the women have vanished the bond company needs Nancy Smith to find them and fast well I'm working for somebody that's going to lose uh a half a million dollar piece on two people and that's not petty cash and the police are about to discover they have a completely different kind of Investigation on their hands Rose turford and Carolyn Stevens are wanted for a series of violent robber in Houston Texas now they vanished the only clue to the women's disappearance is a chilling note found on Rose's bed I have come to repossess my girls signed Orlando Avery Nancy Smith tries to track the women scrambling to secure their half million doll Bail Bonds Dan Rizo the prosecutor on the case joins the search for the missing women now fugitives from the law there were sightings of them all around Canada uh so we thought that they were up in Canada where Rose turford was was [Music] from Rose reports in her diary that Avery is an international criminal now it appears he has spirited the women out of the country as Rizo scours the diary for Clues to a connection in Canada he uncovers more proof of Aver's disturbing control over Carolyn she began returning from meetings with Avery covered with strange tattoos they could be removed by harsh scouring and Avery instructed the women that the markings had to be completely gone within a certain time or he would punish Carolyn again more severely one night Rose finally came face to face with her nightmare I saw Avery I was in shock [Music] he just calmly looked at me and then turned away from then on Rose knew Avery was watching them closely Avery made a point of driving by the house in his limo frequently he wouldn't stop or say anything he would just put his window down so that I could see it was him while he passed Rizo real realizes that Avery had the women in his grasp long before he kidnapped them and he controlled their every [Music] move it was always Carolyn who was communicating uh with him in person would receive a letter for Rose and it was always directed at Rose telling her what to do in case the women tried to escape Carolyn revealed that Avery had forced her to install surveillance devices in Rose's house Rose's diary details an increasingly disturbing triangle between Carolyn Avery and her Avery's escalating punishment of Carolyn becomes remorseless I ask Carolyn to look up at me and when she does pain fear and confusion are the emotions my eyes don't leave hers as I tell her I'll make everything better her tears are my response as she Whispers I hope so but Rose is helpless to protect either Carolyn or herself from Avery's reach when she does try to pull away he demonstrates his power over their lives by snatching Rose's daughter Lindsay from the family's [Music] backyard about an hour later ay came back with Lindsay [Music] he said I can't stop him from taking any of the girls anytime he was glad I was smart enough not to call the police because if I did I wouldn't see the girls [Music] again Rose makes it frighteningly clear that her life too Has Fallen totally under Avery's demonic control it's at this point in the diary that Rizo learns how Avery forced the women into crime Rose writes that he was no longer satisfied with just controlling them mentally and physically now he wanted money and this meant he had a new task in mind for Rose and Carolyn Avery called his new task The Heist game he sent Rose and Carolyn to a hotel in Las Vegas where they were instructed to begin the game by robbing a hotel guest a man approached he was already pretty drunk and made me aware that he was interested in having sex with me he talked about money but I told him I wasn't a prostitute I was just looking for a good time he had a fantasy of being with two women so we played along but we really messed up Carolyn accidentally hurt herself with the stun gun we brought thank God that guy was so drunk that he passed out he didn't even realize he was being robbed you Avery said we were pitiful and had a lot to learn Avery took charge and decided to F tune The Heist game he directed Rose to use a telec companion's phone dating service she was to concentrate on men looking for Action in three categories exotic Adventure fantasy fulfillment and threes not a crowd it was Rose's job to set up dates with the right men Rose turford would talk to them about whether they had a house you know talk about their car and basically in a very subtle way try and discern whether or not they were working um whether or not they had any property um some type of property to be wor stealing Rizo finds lists in Rose's diary that reveal the women quickly collected a detailed roster of candidates for robbery in very little time they had lined up 20 potential victims they had uh their height and their weight um they had their physical build all the different things that would help them to determine whether or not this would be the the perfect one to go after next Rizzo realizes that with Avery as The Mastermind behind Rose and Carolyn's robberies he's the most dangerous of the three it means that in order to find the women and put an end to their Crim spree police must capture Orlando Avery we used uh every law enforcement agency that we could uh muster up help from the FBI interpole actually assisted us we had descriptions we had approximate ages we had some other identifiers we had potential areas where he may be he may have lived or or owned property the quicker that we found them the better because we figured at some point we were going to end up with with uh potentially somebody [Music] dead police have now been on the trail of rose turford and Carolyn Stevens for almost 6 months the two women are wanted for a series of robberies and are believed to be on the run in Canada with their abductor Orlando Avery but in all of the sightings of the women there is never any mention of a man with them fizo the picture of Avery controlling the women from a distance just doesn't add up for myself it just seems so far-fetched that somebody some international criminal um would be would be communicating with them through thousands of pages in this block print uh code to try and tell them to do things which didn't make any sense if Orlando Avery isn't pulling the strings then what's really going on the answer could be near Nancy Smith is starting to close in on Rose and Carolyn I went to Canada twice after we had exhausted all of everything from here uh we went to Montreal and the girls had been seen there by now the pair are notorious there was a a media circus for looking for thelman Louise as they dubbed them their faces are broadcast on American television newspapers and magazines on both sides of the Border pick up the story we were back home maybe two or 3 days if that much and we got a phone call from a gentleman saying I think I have somebody you're looking for but we had already heard this so many times you're like okay just tell me what you have in Toronto the operator of a phone sex line recognizes Rose as the woman who handles the SNM calls after 6 months on the run the pair are arrested without [Music] incident they laughed about it the whole time I I mean for somebody that knew they were fixing to have to come back to Houston Texas and and face all these charges they they just laughed give us a kiss girls come on give us a little kiss Rose and Carolyn are brought back to Texas to stand trial for armed robbery while in prison both women insist that Avery visits and continues to threaten them but Nancy Smith isn't convinced if you've ever been in our jail here to visit anybody you know you have to have ID and they run you to see if you're wanted anywhere and uh nobody but that name ever came both Nancy Smith and Dan Rizo now uncover the astonishing truth about the devilish Orlando Avery there there wasn't an Orlando Avery he didn't exist Rizzo doesn't believe either woman was ever really in danger no matter how much Rose's diary claimed that she feared for her life Rizo believes the entire story was a fantasy created by Rose and Carolyn what had started out as a friendship between the two women grew into something dark violent and sexual what I did find out was that they were both in it together there was no one person who was uh the stronger and the other being the weaker Carolyn physically would was being the one abused by Rose however she also was manipulating Rose in this uh Twisted relationship they had Rizo now understands that it was Carolyn who wrote the letters she was the one setting the rules she and Rose expanded their sexual fantasies to acts of crime fueling the excitement they enjoyed in playing their dominant and submissive roles it's the power it's the control and it's the violence they enjoyed all of it yet with some something that they really were having fun with Carolyn finally gives up the Avery fantasy she admits that she created him she has offered a plea agreement and chooses to make a deal in exchange for pleading guilty to aggravated robbery Carolyn is sentenced to 10 years in prison after uh Carolyn pled guilty I said why were you doing this I mean what I I know that it there was no a why were you doing this and she said to she just kind of looked up real quietly and said it was the game was the game it's a game that Rose tur Ford can't quit she refuses to let go of the Avery fantasy at her trial she still insists that he is dangerously real she maintains her innocence but is found guilty Rose is sentenced to 30 years in prison for playing the game and losing nothing makes you grow up faster than the murder of a loved one St John's newfinland New Year's Eve [Music] 1991 a time for celebration an opportunity to start a new but this New Year someone will shock the city with an act of betrayal and brutality destined to change the lives of people here [Music] [Applause] [Music] forever in true True Crime investigation and conviction may take years but every detective knows that the crucial clue is always there somewhere in the first 72 [Music] [Applause] hours St John's police receive a frantic 911 call I just picked him the bathroom there's blood everywhere I don't know what happened by the time investigators arrive a middle-aged woman has already been declared dead her name is Catherine [Music] Carrol the 911 caller is the dead woman's son Greg Parsons I spoke to around New Years I call the house a little after 12 uh and um like said I told old her I loved her and wished her a happy New Year the 19-year-old tells police he called again on New Year's Day but got no answer I was in touch with her pretty much every day so I knew there was some something [Music] wrong when Parsons went round to his mother's house he found it was dark it was like I didn't want to look in I knew I had to and when I looked in I remember seeing blood and I I remember screaming out her [Music] name police tell Parson to go home and rest so they can begin their investigation under Katherine Carrol's fingernails police find traces of what could be human tissue apparently she tried to fight off her attacker in the washing machine police find a bath towel stained with what could be blood all the samples are sent to the lab for testing in the kitchen police get a clue about the murder weapon a knife is missing in the basement there's a broken window more than likely the Killer's weigh in police called Parsons down to the station they want more information about his mother she had some trouble with alcohol and prescription drugs but she was back in school trying to upgrade her education and get back to work so she she was a a real go-getter a fighter the police asked if Parsons and his mother got along we had been having some trouble and we we kind of made up during Christmas we made up and uh I knew she was lonely when police ask for his whereabouts on the night of the murder Greg is surprised I instantly knew that there was something majorly wrong with the questioning and uh they asked where I was that night I didn't even know about aliis he says he was at his girlfriend's house her father gave him a ride home let my dog out went to bed for the night no one can confirm Greg Parson's whereabouts between 3:00 a.m. and 10: a.m. autopsy results suggest that the murder May well have been committed between the hours of 3: and 10 cause of death is 53 slash wounds suggesting a crime of passion detec I believe Catherine Carroll must have known her attacker the police want to keep an eye on young Parsons they attend his mother's wake Katherine Carroll's murder has shocked and saddened many in her community Greg's closest friends gather in a house they all know well everyone met at my house everyone loved to be there like uh they knew they could come and go as they pleased and they knew her mom would be on the couch she was lonely and and she loved to have us around and it was just some company for Parson says he loved his mother but police start hearing a different story one neighbor says she often visited Catherine Carol the two women spent hours together sharing Secrets at one point Catherine said her son had threatened to kill her in the next few days 40 more people tell police the same chilling story then Brian one of Greg's friends suggests investigators listen to the lyrics of one of Greg's rock songs the [ __ ] walked in I took her with the Rope kill your another police believed the lyrics reveal Parson's real feelings about his mother they came to my house with the the search warrant and they were looking for clothing and uh a possible weapon unable to find the missing knife police discover blood on Parson's shoe blood typing analysis shows that the blood on Parson's shoe matches that of his mother a blood type shared by one in five people because DNA testing is not yet available the bloody towel and human tissue test results are inconclusive convinced Parson killed his mother police asked him to take a polygraph I figured all I had to do was put on this machine this machine is going to say I'm telling the truth but the polygraph investigator red me up asking me questions to uh intimidate me Parson's responses lead investigators to conclude he's lying just 8 days after finding his mother dead Greg Parsons is arrested for her murder there hasn't been a murder in St John's in 2 years the Parson's trial creates a sensation the jury hears the kill your parents song nine times in all it paints Parsons as a disturbed and violent teenager whom his mother feared on the charge of Murder in the second degree the jury finds Greg Parsons guilty guilty it was like someone took a gun and shot me in the head I couldn't believe [Music] it convicted of his mother's murder Greg Parsons is now facing 15 years in prison without parole I remember the sentencing hearing looking at the media saying that I'm innocent it was almost a beg a plea for for somebody to please help me Jerome Kennedy an advocate for the wrongfully convicted is prepared to try having followed Parson's case closely Kennedy believes the police investigation alone provides grounds for an appeal these police officers were going to solve this crime they were going to protect the citizens of St John's yet they didn't have the credentials in neither training or experience to act that way Kennedy argues that the kill your parents song has been taken far too seriously this tape was so foolish the tape was a bunch of kids in a basement putting together a stupid song the kill your parents song was played for Mom and uh she was a character and and and she she found it very funny Kennedy thinks police made another mistake when they decided to take Katherine Carrol's accusations against her son at face value Mrs Carrol cried out for attention that picture emerges of a very lonely woman a tormented woman who in an attempt to gain sympathy and attention from people will say almost anything my son's a bastard he's going to kill me none of which is based in fact and none of which is true Kennedy feels the police took one look at Greg Parson's and got tunnel vision they excluded any other Theory other than Greg Parson's being the killer just imagine the horror of going into that room opening that door looking in and just see your mother slash to pieces on the floor blood everywhere and within 6 hours you're not even the suspect you're the perpetrator Parsons tells Kennedy the police wanted a confession right away the more he maintained his innocence the worse they treated him they brought me to the police station they stripped me to my underwear I said all night long I said gentlemen I'm exercising my right to remain silent and the more I said that the more pissed off they getting it was just hours of mental torture and and and Mind Games finally I bring me to the locker bring me bring me where you're bringing me he's falling in the snow they're taunting him there was no respect for Greg Parson's constitutional rights and no respect for Greg Parsons as a human being because in their minds this man had brutally killed his mother next to finding my mother was the the second worst night of my life Kennedy convinces a Provincial Court Judge to Grant Greg Parsons an appeal and in an un precedented decision bail when Parsons is released pending a new trial not everyone is pleased I was out on a street with a big M on my shirt I was a murderer I was a monster no one would look at me it was horrific Parsons wants a normal life he marries his longtime girlfriend but living under house arrest and constant surveillance is anything but normal for the next 3 years he waits for his day in Court St John's police remain convinced he's guilty by this time advances in DNA technology mean that test results can now be conclusive eager to prove Parson's guilt police demand that all crime scene evidence be re-examined the result leave the police stunned the blood on Parson's shoe is not his mother's blood crime scene evidence contains a mixed sample from the victim and an unknown man who cannot be Greg Parsons 7 years after his mother's murder Parsons is cleared of all charges thank God for DNA that's all I can say is is is my favorite three letters of the alphabet I tell you that I figured it was all over life is going to get better I was trying to support myself support my family but no one would hire me people didn't come up to me people were afraid of me struggling uh we lived on uh $800 social assistance a month it was a terrible life desperate to know who killed his mother Parson finds he must now count on the same police force that wrongly accused him detective Bob Johnson has chosen to head up the new investigation I wasn't an advocate for Greg Parsons I was an advocate for anybody uh but I was an advocate for the truth my concern was what really happened on January 1st 1991 we reinterviewed everybody obtained statements from everybody we looked at those people see if they had strong alos and if they didn't we asked him for DNA samples we tested over 150 people for DNA we all also interviewed an excess of 2500 people 2 years into his investigation Johnson still has no idea who killed Katherine Caroll for the first time in the case police decide to appeal to the public and we're asking anybody with any information regardless how insignificant may be to come forward when one of Parson's old friends responds what he has to say breaks the case wide open after going public with his investigation detective Johnson receives a tip from one of Greg Parson's old friends he tells Johnson that after kathern Carroll's murder he and his friends often got together to talk about who might have killed her he describes how one particular evening a buddy of theirs named Brian Doyle told him Parsons had actually confessed this guy is saying that Greg killed his mother and he's laughing about it you know it wasn't a strong lead uh but it was something when investigators go looking for Brian Doyle they discover he left St John's after Parson's conviction and hasn't been seen since Greg Parsons is unaware that police are investigating one of his oldest friends struggling to make a new life for himself and his young family Parsons finds that he is still a Marked Man and I remember my oldest son coming home from kindergarten one day and said to me so nonchalantly uh dead I know why you were in jail you killed your mom that's a devastating day to have to sit down and try to explain that situation to [Music] him detective Johnson traces Brian Doyle to a factory in Ontario in the hope Doyle will leave a d DNA sample behind he's put under surveillance DNA from the saliva on Doyle cigarette is compared to DNA evidence collected during the first 72 hours of the investigation the results match 9 years after Katherine Carroll's murder investigators are certain they found her killer but there's a catch because Brian Doyle's DNA and the victims are mixed on both evidence samples detective Johnson fears case won't hold up in court to get Doyle to confess Johnson sets up a sting an undercover officer Cod named Adams starts selling Contraband at Doyle's Factory so they create a relationship where he is buying a lot of cigarettes and booze alcohol and various other things from Adams Doyle became very comfortable around Adams to a point that Adams is able to get do to participate in what he thinks is criminal activity it takes three months to gain Doyle's trust once Adams has it he tells Doyle there's someone his boss needs to get rid of permanently would Doyle be willing to help when Doyle agrees Adam says he'll have to meet the boss first Doyle wants to be part of this group uh he sees Adams doing really well he wants to be part of this and uh so he wants to impress Adams's BS Adams makes the introduction at a local Motel he neglects to tell Doyle the meeting is being recorded the boss wants to know if Doyle has ever killed anyone Doyle won't say the boss pushes if Doyle wants in he'd better talk for the first time ever Brian Doyle reveals what happened on New Year's Eve 1991 2 1 he was at a party he was drunk he was stoned for reasons he can't explain he left the party and headed for kathern Carrol's house her name is [Music] Catherine forc to open the basement window he picked up a knife from the kitchen area he went upstairs he took off all his clothes when he walked in her room I don't think he really had have figured out what he was going to do what his intentions were Mrs Carl wakes up and she realizes this Bri [Music] door said I cut her I said she wouldn't die I cut her again she wouldn't die said I cut her again she wouldn't die slash she didn't die he remembers looking in the mirror and said and just look in the mirror and there's blood everywhere he gets a shower and he puts on his clothes wash the [Music] towel Doyle cut his hand during the attack and left traces of his DNA on the [Music] towel the undercover operator said does it bother you you know what you did and he goes like this he said don't the only thing that bothers me is that you know it was amazing in 10 and 1 12 years he had not told anybody the undercover operator had done extensive work with organized crime he said it's like I sat in a room with evil for 15 minutes we now know the truth we know exactly what happened to Mrs Carol I was floored I I I couldn't believe it I met Brian Doyle when I was 9 years old he was a body of mine I kind of took him under my wing growing up in many occasion I had to protect him from people neighborhood bullies this is a guy who watched his friend go to jail for a crime he didn't commit this is a guy who was interviewed by the police and pointed them in Greg's Direction it was the ultimate betrayal and uh words can't describe it now a St John's fireman Greg Parsons has received a formal apology and financial compensation from the New Finland government for his wrongful conviction I've watched Greg Parsons grow up I've watched him deal with situations that would break most human beings but I've also seen the indominable spirit that he possesses it's hard to grieve in a normal sense of the way but uh uh I'm at peace with with Mom and with with with what happened for the murder of Katherine Carroll Brian Doyle is currently serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole for 18 years people always say be careful what you wish for you just might get it but what if you meet someone who can make your dreams come true you're on vacation at a ski resort with your new best friend you spend time together do some business together you even buy each other [Music] gifts but what you don't do is catch on to him before he checks out [Music] in True Crime investigation and conviction may take years but every detective knows that the crucial clue is always there somewhere in the first 72 [Music] hours [Music] RCMP officers receive a call from a local businessman corpal John Stein takes the report from the appearance he was a successful businessman and he had a public company that uh he was looking for investors I think over his lifespan he had several companies that um he had taken public and profited from them the businessman Martin gford tells Stein he was shocked to find $5,000 of unexpected charges on a recent company credit card bill his friend and major investor Michael vanhoven has just gone missing gford fears there may be a connection Michael vanhoven was brought to him through um another person and introduced as a potential uh investor in his business because he was looking to invest in and some companies in Vancouver the two men first met 5 weeks earlier gford needed investors for his latest invention a groundbreaking advance in ultrasound technology the more gford told vanhoven about the invention the more enthusiastic vanhoven became he said it was the kind of thing that could make a man rich van Hoven insisted on paying for the [Music] meal wealthy and eager to invest van Hoven looked to be the perfect partner gford asked vanhoven to come by his office as soon as possible to work out the details they um Talk terms of contracts and everything else and what he was looking for in an investment and they came to some sort of terms [Music] van hovind's initial investment was to be $5 [Music] million his family's Bank in Switzerland would wire gford the money van Hoven wanted their business dealings kept private he asked that gford sign a confidentiality agreement gford agreed to celebrate their new partnership gford presented van Hoven with a $28,000 Rolex [Music] watch when van hovind left his office that day gford says he was excited with Van hovind's backing he could start planning an early [Music] retirement two weeks later van hovan's wife and son arrived in Vancouver gford helped the family find an apartment in his building after years of living alone gford was happy to have people around him again he felt he'd found not only a business partner but a [Music] friend van hovind and his family included gford in everything they did van Hoven even bought gford a new pair of skis he insisted he'd join the family on an upcoming holiday in Whistler gford rented an SUV so they could all drive up together but van hovind said there was a problem he couldn't book a hotel room without a credit card Michael vanhoven said he didn't have a credit card because he normally doesn't carry uh credit cards with him so he had uh the use of the businessman's credit card to hold the hotel gford was happy to put the van hovind's reservation on his card van hovind said he'd pay cash once they got [Music] there in Whistler Gord saw van hovind his wife Teresa and their son Jean Mark every day they skied together and when van hovind and his wife went out gford baby sat a few days into their vacation van hovind introduced gford to a local businessman he had um hooked up with a real estate agent in uh in Whistler and was going around to see properties van hovind was looking to buy a house in [Music] Whistler two weeks into the Whistler vacation van hovind announced his Swiss Banker father wanted to meet the man his son had invested so much money [Applause] in so while vanhoven and his family remained in Whistler gford flew off to Geneva but the Geneva meeting did not go as planned van hovind's father had scheduling problems every day there was another delay and he ended up spending about 3 or 4 days in a hotel in Geneva but the the meeting never materialized when gford returned home he was surprised to find the SUV he had rented in the apartment garage the van hovens were not due back from Whistler for another week anxious to discuss his Geneva trip with vanhoven gford knocked on his friend's door but found found no one home he called the family A couple of times and left messages but no one called back finally He Slipped the note under van hovind's door but days later there was still no response gford then received his $50,000 credit card bill he says he felt at that point he had no choice but to call the police they see the vehicle it looks like it's an abandoned they leave a note under the door and they can see it hasn't been Disturbed so then all the alarm Bells I think start to go off Corporal John Stein must now find out what has happened to gord's friend and to gord's [Music] money Vancouver RCMP investigators are looking into The Disappearance of venture capitalist Michael van Hoven his wife and his child Corporal John Stein first tries to determine whether vanhoven is still in the country we' contacted um you know our border to to see if they could verify whether or not there was a Michael vanhoven that crossed at the border on top of that I made calls to Whistler uh to the Detachment up there to see if they had anything Whistler police talked to real estate developer Don Winsley the last person to do business with vanhoven Welsley recalls the first time he and vanhoven met I said Hi how are you what are you looking to accomplish and he said uh I want to buy a house I want to buy a castle and I said well we're not big on castles in wher at the moment and then it dawned on me there was a castle private gate uh Butler's quarters you know coach house for the cars and the limo and it was a gorgeous gorgeous place looking out over the lake totally private and it was $10 million he had an emotional orgasm when he walked in the front door and he just said this is perfect this is exactly what we need the next day uh he wrote an offer for $8 million that it was accepted vanhoven had a Swiss bank make the arrangements he told wedley a $500,000 deposit would be arriving soon wedley tells Whistler police van hovind then presented him with the confidentiality agreement while wisley found this unusual he thought about the large commission he stood to make on the sale and Let It [Music] Go police discovered that van hov's favorite Whistler hangout was the Barefoot beastro owner Andre sanok remembers the client very well he would walk from like you know to the bar to his table like it was almost like some people had never been in the restaurant could have possibly thought that he was the owner he had this sort of like air of like feeling that you know this is where he belongs and so on and he used the Barefoot definitely as his headquarters police learn vanhoven entertained at the beastro [Music] constantly in just 5 weeks he spent tens of thousands of dollars here he would actually charge his bill to the the the hotel where he was staying at and I guess he'd go through pricing on the wiess and ones that were more expensive he would just sort of order the M sh 1914 is 10,000 p270 is 3200 a don't bring 59 is 2500 but if you sort of like start asking any questions anything he had this way of like sort of having two sides and one is very Charming another one we could be like very aggressive and you know he fell like yeah this guy's going to kill [Music] me we were driving in the car and he said what's that on your arm and I said it's a tattoo I'm was a fighter pilot he said have you ever killed anybody I said what kind of a question is that he says you have haven't you and I pulled the car over to the side of the road and I said Michael if you mention it again I'm going to throw you out of the car Dawn wedley also saw van hovind's Dark [Music] Side Welsley tells police that the last he heard Michael vanhoven had left Whistler wisley has given up all hope of ever seeing the $500,000 deposit the story Stein hears from Whistler police confirm confirm his suspicions he pays Martin gford another visit so I think the first part of it was trying to convince uh the businessman that this did appear to be a con artist and that um he wasn't going to be coming back gford wants to believe that it's all been just a misunderstanding he still thought that the deal might be going through and um that was part of his concern for bringing the police in because if he had brought the police in and and um Michael vanhoven had showed up with a check or several checks uh you know he would have been embarrassed Stein is familiar with fraud but he's never come up against anyone quite like Michael Van Hoven it's rare in my job to get a an actual con artist that does this traveling Road Show type of thing he's probably moved on we might not catch him the only evidence Stein has is the rented SUV he has a team searched the vehicle for Clues Stein's partner RCM MP Corporal Cara McMillan leads the search it was all their own their personal belongings were in there in the in the suitcases that were inside the vehicle but there were no fingerprints within 72 hours of receiving Martin gord's call police get their first break inside the suitcase Corporal McMillan finds several passports bearing different names and a checkbook belonging to Christopher rokur Cara McMillan begins to process the evidence late that afternoon she does a search on the internet I just thought I would try these at the end of the day before going home one one last ditch attempt to locate this guy nothing comes up from Michael Van Hoven but Christopher rokur is a different story investigators are astonished at what they find rokur is a French citizen in America he's posed as a French member of the Rockefeller family and the nephew of film producer Dino deenus he has defrauded almost everyone he has ever met from Hollywood film stars to Fortune seekers in the Hamptons he is wanted by interpole the FBI and various American police departments but that's not all we ran the name Christopher roken Court as well on the uh us database that keeps track of criminals there was a hit that stated that uh Christopher roen Court was considered to be armed and dangerous rokur once threatened to kill a Los Angeles police officer and his family when cornered he has always shown a willingness to use [Music] violence Steiner McMillan contact Martin gford they tell him Michael Van hovind's real name is Christopher ranor and that ranor is one of the World's Most Wanted con artists then they tell gford what he needs to do if rokan Cur is going to be caught I instructed the businessman to act as if everything is normal um you know to think that the deal is still going to happen and that's what happened actually he ended up making a couple of calls rokur says he's busy sorting out the money transfer in Geneva once the conversation's over gford enters a special code that allows police to trace the call police Discover it was made in ROK onur's cell phone which means it could have been made from anywhere our biggest concern was tracking him down and how how far ahead he was going to be ahead of us and and you know we thought maybe he would be out of the country police know rokan Cur could be armed in dangerous [Music] they just don't know where he [Music] is dangerous con man Christopher rokur has robbed Vancouver businessman Martin gford of his money his future and his faith in people the object of a worldwide Manhunt rokan Cur is now on the Run ur's phone calls are the only lead police have for those calls to be traced gford has to keep rur talking was going to bite us time in order to get the transcripts from the cellular telephone company and track down where these phone calls were being made from the calls are traced not to Geneva but to Victoria British Columbia just 100 km away [Music] Sergeant Alan Cochran then head of the Victoria Police emergency response team now learns that a dangerous fugitive is at large in his community what we try to do is to use the best trained best equip people when we're going to deal with high-risk violent offenders and that's why the emergency response team was brought in Roan Cur and his family are staying at the Oak Bay Beach Hotel Cochran places the hotel under surveillance at 9:00 Cochran decides to move on ranor most of the guest our plan at the time was to call up to the room and say that his car was broken into and if he could come down to see if anything had been stolen and then when he came down that we would do a high-risk takedown arrest on him he had been alluding the police for quite some time so not only violent but an escape risk so weren't sure exactly what levels he would go to to you know evade being arrested Cochran and his team set out for the hotel just as we were getting on to Beach Drive uh Mr roken cor pulled out and we ended up passing each other nose to nose Cochran decides to take down rur right away he was really shocked I think you know like it happen so fast and you're kind of overwhelmed the first thing you said was oh they you know they brought the FBI SWAT team in to get me we kind of had a chuckle about that that it was the local Victoria team the man Alan Cochran and his team now have in custody has eluded police capture for years Christopher rur arrest makes headlines around the world World hello giord is relieved to hear the news but he still feels like a fool once you realize that you've been had um yeah it probably hits home harder knowing that you know everything in here was kind of a prop used to uh you know to rip you off rur one gfer over with his charm his acts of generosity and with his displays of wealth it keeps him off his feet it keeps him from having time to think about what's actually happened and that's you know why he was effective con artist and once once you it's you know like fishing once you hook the fish you have to work the fish the confidentiality agreements were just a distraction designed to demonstrate that rokur had serious intentions in like any con you have to keep the person at Bay and you do that by throwing different things at them and in this case buying the houses you know 10 million it kept the businessman from learning the truth Don Winsley is philosophical about the experience all of us got had basically because of our own greed and when he was arrested I almost felt sorry it's nuts I should have been ecstatic that they've coralled this little bugger but you know I think I'd almost hire him as a Salesman he is so good unlike Don wisley Martin gford has had a much harder Time Coming to Terms the businessman suffered from this uh it affected his life um it affected his livelihood it affected the public company um when you say no one gets hurt just because you don't have the bruises doesn't mean it doesn't affect you Christopher rokur has apologized to no one in his autobiography he says the shinier the hook the more the fish bite after serving a year in Canada rokur was sent to prison in the United States once he has completed his 5year sentence there he will be deported back to France to face further charges

Channel: Real Crime

Views: 280,389

Keywords: True crime, true crime documentary, law enforcement documentary, full documentary, Gormley Cold Case, Ontario Murder Investigation, 1970 True Crime, Kathleen Philcox Mystery, Serial Killer Connection, Cold Case Unraveled, Houston Heist, Rose Turf Ford, Carolyn Stevens, Orlando Avery Control, 25-Year Investigation, True Crime Chronicles, Forensic Analysis, Crime Scene Evidence, Ron West Conviction, Unsolved Murders, Ontario Serial Killer

Id: 8Z9MHIxpGmo

Length: 87min 23sec (5243 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 09 2024