Ritualistic Killing?: Investigating The Linda White Case (True Crime Documentary) | Real Stories

[Music] [Music] [Music] my father was a tireless advocate for the law he was a criminal prosecutor some say ruthless others say righteous I'm cut from the same cloth I can't really remember who I was before I became a cop it's my job to make bad things happen to bad [Music] people I think it was somebody who Linda knew and trusted it's terrifying something is wrong and you don't know what I knew what she wasn't found she was murdered she wasn't easily intimidated it doesn't make any sense that it could have been somebody like her but it [Music] was I was called and told that there had been some remains found when the police arrived they just said well that the identification had been made and yes it was your sister was an awful day I don't know whether she was dead quickly or easily we pursue Our Lives because we have to I would like to know what took place back then and of course I want to know why it happened we've all grown older uh Linda didn't have a chance to grow [Music] older [Music] how did you feel Joan to hear that she had gone missing terribly worried the police were suggesting the person shows up a day or two later and there's been some misunderstanding when did the police start taking this seriously as suspicious say it was 2 days before the police really get start to show some degree of considerable concern I don't like it when a case like this goes this long unsolved in my opinion this case is very solvable we want an answer we really want an answer the idea is we get Justice for Linda that's what this is about so with your blessing we would like to do that we certainly have mine I and mine Linda White's case is personally important to me for a couple of reasons number one it's a London case number two it's a western case my hometown my University my mission at this point my moral imperative my professional obligation is to throw every possible resource I can muster at this case I've been a cop and a professor of criminology for years and I've used that experience to assemble a squad of Civilian subject matter experts they must approach each case completely unbiased to not box themselves into conventional thinking to bring fresh eyes and new technologies to the table their job and mine is to investigate the coldest of cold cases the murders That Time [Music] Forgot next case Linda White original file number 19681 60533 this is 1968 this is the oldest case that you will have to examine the facts are as follows November 13th 1968 Linda white age 19 student at the University of Western Ontario writes a French midterm she asked some friends to go out after the exam they declin she says she's going to go home she's last seen leaving that exam on her way home and in fact fails to turn up over the next 24 hours at which point her roommate gets worried calls the police police insist in spite of people's worry she'll probably be back in a couple days it's speculated that Linda stressed out over midterms had a firste freshman meltdown and probably ran away this case was cold before it even started her family starts doing some leg work themselves they refus to accept the theory that she would have run away she had no cause no reason to run away whatsoever days turn into weeks weeks turn into months worry begins to mount her family undertook much of the early investigation on their own following up with eyewitness sightings suggesting that she was still alive a telephone call on May 9th 1973 almost a full five years after Linda went missing Dash those hopes skeletonized remains over 100 kilomet from where Linda was last seen at that exam were found dental records confirm the skeleton in the woods buried beneath some leaves and brush was that of Linda White the clothes were found considerable distance away near the town of Tilson ber no jewelry found on or near the body and in fact never recovered that includes the medical alert bracelet Linda always wore on her right wrist Not only was The Medic Alert bracelet not found but in fact the whole arm was missing so let's start with some questions we have a cause of death at all there is no cause of death that was ever established but we do know the police immediately ruled it a homicide in part because she hadd been gone for so long and also because no clothing was found on or near the body can you tell me more about how her body was found the body was found supine no real burial only the arm was missing that's right and was there any evidence of animal activity as you and I are going to deduce whether or not part of the skeleton was taken away by animals if not then we're looking at a completely different scenario all right I'm going to go around the table and I want to hear first action items Renee I'm interested in where her body was found and the state of her skeleton and if there's anything more we can do with that data today an archaeological assessment of the dump site itself good Linda's last scene here in London fast forward nearly 5 years her remains show up over 100 colomet from where she was last seen talking about someone driving with Linda's body on board a vehicle whether alive or dead for a significant distance 1 month earlier 40 km west of where her body was found her clothing is found I've never seen anything like this so Peter I need you to conduct a geographic profile overlaying these data points onto other potentially related cases if there are other cases committed by the same offender the map will show it I'm honest the most interesting fact about this case case is the wide Geographic extent of where Linda was last seen and where her skeletal remains were discovered whoever did this put this huge distance between London and Linda's remains and I want to know why Dan as the media strategist I need you to collect the preliminary data get that data to Peter so he can start populating our map of potentially related cases bear in mind the social context of this crime London in 1968 was is a Cess pool polluted with sexual deviant my instincts tell me whoever did this is still around let's thought this case out let's go they ruled this disappearance as a runaway who knows in those initial few hours what kind of a head start the perpetrator got the fact that 45 years have gone by since Linda's murder is daunting but there are so many interesting points to touch on I'm really just eager to dig into the facts this case is fraught with challenges we have no eyewitnesses no forensic evidence we have a skeleton in the middle of the woods 45 years have now passed since the murder of Linda White her case is by far the most challenging that this squad of civilians has faced 5 years after her disappearance Linda's skeleton was discovered over 100 kilm from where Linda was last seen her right arm was missing all of her clothes were missing no cause of death could ever be established I've tasked Peter with tracking down where Linda's body was dumped Linda's remains were found in a wooded area the task at hand is for me to find out who owns it get permission from them to set up a perimeter and conduct a crime scene investigation comparing historical aerial photographs with contemporary satellite imagery I'm very sure that this is the [Music] place hi there I was just wondering if you're the land owner of that stand of trees right over there yes we are if we can apply contemporary forensic analysis then we may find the clues that help solve the murder of Linda White on 1973 her skeleton was found right in that standard trees i' like to ask your permission to access the site where Linda was found because my team and I would like to set up a forensic investigation no problem okay so how do we actually access the place you could access it from the the dirt road if you go out the laneway and turn left it's very hard to see I actually wasn't aware of that road until we lived here even when I was younger and living in the area they would have to know that that road was there someone who local to the area had no idea this Lane even existed then there's no way a killer would have transported a body here and chosen it as a dumb site they would have had to have prior knowledge of the location in order to find it in the first place I'm at the London Library today to gather information to start working on our Geographic profile I tked Peter and Daniel with doing deep archival Research into Killers including sexual murderers and kidnappers who were active in the area in the 1960s and on to the 1970s I need them to analyze and account for any and all commonalities Linda White was killed 45 years ago and as a result there's no quick or easy way to do this we just need to draw on our traditional methods of of searching the archives just go at it till we find as much as we [Music] can [Music] in and around London at the time Christian McGee okay he was responsible for killing um a girl in 1974 another one in 1975 another one in 1976 he could have been around when Linda was murdered he's a serial killer I also found a sexually motivated serial killer who was ultimately found not guilty by reason of insanity another one yeah Russell Johnson he killed three women at least all in their early 20s in guf and London what I'm looking at here is comparative analysis if you will Linda White's murder on a map we then continue to collect as much data as we can about other comparable murders and map those on top of Linda's murder and see if any patterns arise and if these other homicides reinforce Linda's pattern then we may have [Music] something I'm checking in on Rene's progress with a series of photographs I've given to her that depict the state and position of L skeleton and the burial environment where lindis skeleton was found she's excavated numerous bodies and various stages of decomposition including fully skeletonized remains like lindas do you have some sense of what we might be dealing with here in terms of burial activity I don't think that there was so much of a a shallow grave as much as the remains were placed on the surface one of the first things that struck me was the body position I've never seen a skeleton laid out this way either in a forensic setting or archaeologically to be sped with all the limbs pointing in different directions is very strange this this body has been posed if you were going to just dump a body and cover it in Brush you would not take the time to pose it like this you can see that here we have the the left arm and the right arm is missing it does seem strange to me as well that only the arm would be missing when I first saw the photographs of Linda's remains despite their poor quality there were a few things that struck me as unusual I wasn't able to explain the fact that her arm was missing from the shoulder joint down that was inconsistent with anything I'd ever seen or heard of in the past even in cases where remains are properly buried if they're not deep enough animal scavengers will dig to find the source of the smell of decomposition and Scatter remains from within a grave so for something left on the surface to be so intact with the exception of the right arm it just doesn't speak to me of a natural process it seems as though this is due to deliberate human activity on the part of the perpetrator it's been staged with no evidence of clothing other evidence or artifacts so there was very specific placement of Linda's body at this scene for reasons that we still don't know was there a stretch of time where she was still alive between when she went missing and the 5 years later when she was discovered it'll be really important to determine just how long she's been there because that will speak to who we should be looking at as Suspects gather your tools your equipment and uh we're going to have to go out and do some field work the missing arm from Linda skeleton is very troubling it suggests it was something very deliberate something very calculated something very sadistic question we need to uncover and do so quickly is what kind of person would do this and why I think that's an interesting thing this one piece will make 52 layers watch on mobile devices or the big screen all for free no subscription or fired Linda White disappeared in 1968 at the age 19 her skeleton was then discovered 5 years later now more than four decades on the squad and I are tasked with starting over Rene has discovered indicators that Linda's missing arm may have been taken by her killer this disturbing Revelation combined with the long distances traveled by the murderer are very specific crime signatures Peter has come up with the names of two confirmed Sy who were active in the area at the time and I'm very curious to see if they have some bearing on Linda's case so Peter Dan your Geographic profile he found two convicted serial killer rapists that might have been in the area at the time of Linda's murder one being Russell Johnson the other one being Christian McGee I know these cases inside and out in the case of Linda White we're dealing with someone who is highly mobile Johnson and McGee killed victims in their own homes there's no concealment no body placement no deposition or burial shallow or otherwise we're dealing with a much different type of offender by all accounts we can exclude both Johnson and McGee in this case let's meet again in a couple days so that Road's coming up just here where that line of trees takes off and if you turned up here in the night you wouldn't be able to see your hand in front of your face out here the killer drove this path sometime before November 1968 there's no way you would just instinctively turn up this path and hope for the best the night with a body on board you would have to be pretty sure that no one else was up here this grave site archaeological excavation will help us determine whether Linda was actually killed here or killed elsewhere deposited elsewhere and then moved here as sort of the final resting place lying beneath this Rush alone but in a location the killer could recognize and return back to nobody knew where to find her I mean that to me is what I'm thinking about so what we need to do is do a systematic search of this area we're looking specifically for Linda's medical alert bracelet or any evidence of animal [Music] activity Peter in your search Lane just up ahead there seems to be a bone lying parallel to that tree can you tell what it's from it's definitely not [Music] human you can see here these kind of scalloped edges that's all the kind of evidence of rodent nwing there's no evidence of kind of a carnivore activity all right let [Music] baggot Renee got a hits now this is pretty much centered on where we think Linda's body was found so best case scenario we find this bracelet mhm what's that going to tell us about the case one of the potential explanations why her arm was missing was because of that medical alert bracelet and perhaps its ability to identify her but if it's actually here then why take the arm without that Associated artifact exactly this might be there we go it's too bad hoping for more the main piece of information we're trying to get from the soil is the level of acidity that would have affected how quickly Linda's body would have decomposed in this environment it may also provide us some hints as to whether Linda's body was here the entire time or whether it was moved from another location this killer knew that this spot existed this is a premeditated dump site this is remarkable in terms of crime scene Behavior we're dealing with a very specific type of killer a sadistic highly organized and likely Psychopathic killer I've t sanella with meeting a global expert on ritualistic crimes to gain insight into what kind of killer would take Linda's arm and why knowing this will help narrow down our investigation by creating a psychological profile of the killer I also want to verify our suspicions that Linda was not at the burial site for the full 5 years she was missing I'd like to start off by telling you that it's almost certain Linda White's arm was taken by a person what would that mean definitely a big sign it's not a typical murder if somebody's going to hide the identity of the person they'll cut off the hands or the head or pull the teeth out so that you can't do dental records or you can't do fingerprints so if it's just one arm it's not about that it definitely in this person's mind has specific meaning and it probably makes them either feel good or powerful or sexually excites them Linda's body was found concealed by Fallen branches there was no grave dug it would probably indicate that it was a dump site or that she may have been somewhere else for a while Linda's body was found spayed positioning the body is one of the common signs of a ritualistic crime this is really sick this is somebody who's very disturbed likely somebody who's killed before and it's probably going to kill again it's been over 45 years but there's no doubt in my mind that if this person is still alive they're very much a threat they may still be hunting looking for victims the squad of civilians subject matter experts and I are examining with fresh eyes the case of 19-year-old Linda White who vanished in 1968 her fully skeletonized remains were then found 5 years later in a shallow grave we hear on the campus where Linda wrote a French exam the night she disappeared her last verified whereabouts Danny was able to find a person who'd been posting online about Linda as a turn turns out this Poster's roommate was the last person to actually see Linda White alive it's a very interesting development and at an interesting time so this door is the general vicinity where Linda White was last seen around 8:15 the night of the exam we now know that in fact this person drove her somewhere the night she disappeared she didn't just vanish in thin air in further conversation with this Anonymous web poster and his roommate the location that they regularly drove Linda to and they assumed was her home was in fact not her home at all it's not corroborated yet which is in part why we're going there she was last seen walking by this building so this is the spot based on their account she was dropped off on this corner adjacent this building routinely and they assume she lived there well that's that's the question was she going somewhere else on this street your focus now is who lives in this building and along this street I'll leave it to you I'll check back later okay is there any connection any point in common between someone along this road and Linda White at the time of her disappearance one of the key objectives at this point is the data analysis we need to figure out how we can plot Linda White's murder in the context of what else was going on in the area at the time something I found is what I think is a connection these are all murders of young women spanning from 1966 to 1970 in the London area have Linda White and we have sah oconnell who was 15 years old these cases are still unsolved I found another one mhm 196 sex murder of 20-year-old he admitted smothering her to death raping her and leaving her partially clad body in a bush lot Bush lot yeah similar to Linda White being left in a woodlock and this was just north of that is not that far away from London you draw a line from London through and you get to where Linda White was dumped what's this guy's name David we have a connection between unsolved murder cases in the 1960s and 1970s white and oconnell and and one victim whose killer has been convicted the fact that we have a conviction the fact that records will exist for this case that's our starting point to begin to bootstrap her way towards connecting it to other cases such as lindus I'm here at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology to meet with Dr Helen leblan who's a world renowned entomologist primarily to determine what kind of time line we're looking at to go from Linda's body when it was left there to the full skeletonization I'm also hoping she can tell me whether Linda's arm is missing as a result of animal Scavenging or deliberate human activity these are some of those photographs that I'd sent you from when Linda's body was first recovered by police there were a number of trees and branches pulled on top of the body to conceal it would that be sufficient to prevent access by animals absolutely not my analysis to date suggests that Linda's remains were not at the recovery site for the full 5 years what did these photographs suggest to you about how long Linda's remains were at the site if you get an environment that's cool and damp Canada is not a dry Aid environment and you'll see a lot of this white cheesier waxy stuff um on the body and that's adosphere and the shallow burial is great for the formation of adosphere and so you expect to see some adosphere formation in a shallow burial like this we know there was no adaper on Linda's skeleton but given the shallow grave and the moist soil conditions there should have been seems highly unlikely that her body could have been at the recovery site for the full 5 years one more method we can use to test this hypothesis is to test the pH balance of the soil that we collected at the burial Sint so a pH of five is that terribly significant it would have been an optimal condition for osere to form the pH level confirms that Linda's body was not at the recovery for the full 5 years the question is where was she in the case of Linda White the squad of Civilian Specialists and I have discovered information never before known in this 45-year-old mystery the body being moved to the burial site years after she was last seen a new lead that Linda was not last seen of the school but was in fact dropped off in a residential neighborhood by a classmate sometime after the exam right now I'm on Western Road I'm here because this is where Linda had been dropped off that was the last place she was seen Alive by anyone that we know hopefully someone's still around that was here at that time connect that to Linda figure out why she was coming here is there anyone like over 60 living in that you would know of all students yeah I'm trying to find people that live right along here in 1968 being so close to the main campus it's all young people now and it would have been all young people then most renters wouldn't be here for any more than four years at the most hopefully someone's still around that was here at that time connect that to Linda figure out why she was coming [Music] here [Music] Peter I've been waiting with great anticipation to see what you've come up with in terms of other cases on the Smartboard here we have a map of 22 cases that we've narrow downed three cases that we believe bear a striking resemblance to the murder of Linda White okay case number one starting with a case from 2012 we come across an attempted kidnapping a stranger on Stranger attack committed by an 80 plusy old as salent in 2012 he's in his ' 80s right which would have put him into his mid-30s um back when Linda was killed that's uh completely consistent with serial killer ages certainly within the range he traveled with his intended victim for some time prior to her Escape he was abducting and hunting along a rural road what else makes this case relevant there was some similarities to the white case firstly being the fact that he was taking her towards a wood lot and he said you're very pretty I want to keep you for a long time the victim testified that the man kept slowing down and looking for some trail off the road that's all we know at this moment what's your second case this is the case with the second longest distance between place last seen and body discovered zarah's body was discovered about 4 years after she disappeared in 1970 the body was not fully buried it was is covered up by a piece of bark from a nearby tree now our third case is focused on a 20-year-old female victim from the 1960s murdered and dumped on the outskirts of town her clothing was discovered in at least two separate locations prior to Linda's murder or at least her disappearance so this is a solved case it is a solved case and who is the killer her killer was David and when was he arrested he was was arrested 197 before Linda White's remains were recovered comparing s ell case and this earlier case there are overwhelming commonalities to Linda White not only M Mo but also signature this is what you're going to do next I need you to plot each of these significant cases separately see if you can come up with a probable home base for the killer Renee see if you can obtain the autopsy reports the murder of and the 1970 murder of Soro conell Daniel we need to learn more about this octogenarian kidnapper and where he was in November 1968 without putting too much pressure on you don't drop the ball now every once in a while a case comes along that uh reminds you just how Disturbed the world can be and jars you I mean to me this is a case that that uh you know thankfully you don't see a lot [Music] of be able to get both autopsy reports just one I was not able to obtain the autopsy report in the unsolved murder of s a Connell however I was able to acquire both the autopsy report and trial transcripts related to the conviction of David in the murder of what does it reveal the soft tissue all along the length of her left arm is missing and there are small teeth marks at both ends of that defect and I cannot think of any scavenger that would only take the soft tissue down to the bone in such a limited area even more unusual the left ear is completely absent the perpetrator drove back to a shed that he was renting which is near where the victim was picked up right when the police went back to try and find the shed it had been torn down but the debris of that was all buried in a farmer's field they searched the field and recovered several items the documents indicate clothes including an old jacket and other unspecified items were found in the dump and sent to the crime lab for testing but the documents don't say whether those items could be tied specifically to either the killer or the victim the fixation on the arm in particular takes us to Linda's case and the amputation of the Year also takes us to Linda's case where we see a combination possibly of both there's some very clear similarities between the victim being transported from where they are initially picked up to being left Exposed on the surface in a wooded area missing body parts being deliberately removed it's quite striking this is literally the missing link between Linda's case and not only this murder in 1960 but I think numerous other cases I'm going to take these findings forward to uh an outside expert to verify I'm about to speak with one of my mentors in this field Dr Eric hickey for my money the world Authority on necrofilia which is murdering victims in order to procure uh or obtain a body for various purposes what stands out to you in terms of consistencies between the 60 the 68 and the 70 cases to recap teenagers surface burials very well concealed what you've told about the surface burials the clothing scattered there's all those things are you know to me would suggest that you're probably looking at the same person Dr hickey is also a recognized expert in similar act evidence or the ability to connect crimes based on signatures and connect victims to single Killers specifically serial killers given also that there are not a lot of necrophiles who are out there killing their victims and doing this to them I would look at as a series and make the assumption is a series until I can prove otherwise Dr hickey is convinced that these three cases are related based simply on the circumstances as I've provided them to him he believes these crimes are part of a series with a single offender thanks again Eric with this Spate of sexual homicides in the late 60s in London and area seems to me now years later we're dealing with a common signature no question we're dealing with a psychopathic serial killer tremendous progress has been made in the case of Linda White the squad and I have discovered more new information in this 45-year-old mystery than I had ever hoped there's still some loose ends but I'm confident that we can put the pieces together and we'll have something substantial to present the police and Linda's family Monte made some Headway when it comes to the final known hours of Linda's life back in London just 100 M north of where she was dropped off there is a woman with the same last name as her tutor I tracked this woman till 2001 and she's possibly passed by now that's kind of Where the Trail Ends this could explain why Linda wanted to be dropped off there at this point we don't know if her killer abducted her from that Street or somewhere else we don't know yet Renee my analysis suggests that Linda's body was moved to the location where it was found one to two years prior to it being discovered Soo oconnell 1970 she's discovered four years later also very well secluded and the pathologist in that case suggested that she had only been there for one or two years as well and we know that in the earlier murder of her body was discovered just by chance only a month after she was kidnapped and murdered maybe her killer had plans to move her body too what might account for that we're looking for a perpetrator who would have kept the victims close to them either alive or dead for several years prior to disposing of the bodies Daniel what have you discovered about this 80s something yearold who was charged last year with attempted kidnapping and assaulting his case is currently before the courts and the alleged perpetrators is being held in custody there is a publication ban but I discover that the man has a history of sexual assaults dating back to the 1990s geographically however it's about 250 km from London but I think it's very important to include this into our report that narrows down our list significantly we're left with just one other person to further examine in the murder of Linda White Peter that's where you come in thean rosmos Formula on Linda White and sah oconnell rosmos formula is a mathematical equation designed to find the most likely residence of a serial killer based on his crimes if we assume that one serial killer was is responsible for multiple kills then we can pull these locations and more accurately come up with an estimate of where the serial killer lives rosmos formula identified two equally likely offender residences from these three cases ingol highlighted by the red region here on the map and Kitchener at the upper right of this map finally the mean Center of all these cases lands right on the town of Ontario this is precisely where the man convicted for the 1960s murder kept a Woodshed where he walled up the souvenirs he took from that crime scene a crime that bears remarkable similarities not only to Linda White but to Sor oconnell I mean this is amazing to see this at work that cannot be dismissed as a coincidence in 6 weeks we have effectively reopened this case on our own this is stunning and thank you I'm just so confident that uh that the police are going to reopen the case when we were first uh assigned this case I thought boy are we ever in for it you just never know do you the squad can take this case no further and the police have received our research and [Music] Analysis the night Linda disappeared a new lead is suggesting she did not hitchhike home from the exam in fact she was driven by a acquaintance a classmate it opens up a realm of possibilities in terms of what happened that night so that brings us to the next question which is which is more likely that this is someone known to her an acquaintance a classmate a friend even or a stranger we're looking at a significant distance from where Lind was last dropped off to where she was found the longer the distance driven the greater or the more elaborate the attempts to conceal Remains the more it indicates a stranger on Stranger attack we start looking at similar cases girls of Linda's age and looking at 60 years worth of cases there are at least two other cases involving London and area girls who were driven considerable distances and who were found in remote isolated locations not unlike how and where Linda was found the link here is a Man convicted and then slaying of this man was never questioned about Linda's case he was never questioned about the other two cases this is the man whose name we are going to be putting forward to the police a man named [Music] David this guy that you suspect is still alive he's been paroled for the for the 1960s murder and is still alive oh there's no wonder that so little was accomplished in 45 years when we have been operating all these this time that her last spot scene was at the college and when her remains were found that she was alive when she got there and now it's neither one of those things seemed to be what really happened it's amazing what you found in 6 weeks mhm now that you've heard that the likelihood is more that it was a stranger how did you feel about that it's makes things better that gives me some comfort in that uh it's likely she wasn't betrayed by a friend looks good on you guys done a fabulous job yeah thanks good job well done thank you [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Real Stories

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Keywords: documentary 2023, full length documentaries 2023, documentary movies - topic, free documentaries on YouTube, Real stories uk, real stories full documentary 2023, real stories, Cold case, True crime, Unsolved mystery, Investigation, Linda White, Serial killer, Forensic analysis, Crime documentary, TO CATCH A KILLER, Criminology, Civilian experts, Cold case reexamination, Murder investigation, Forensic evidence, Ritualistic crime, New leads

Id: OdvaUkrhcEI

Length: 44min 58sec (2698 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024