The Disturbing Nature of Russell Williams

hey you and welcome my name is mike and in this whole video we're going to talk about this guy the big guy colonel russell williams which means we're also going back to canada sorry not sorry colonel russell williams was exactly that a high ranking bigwig in the canadian armed forces over the course of his life and career which we will talk about he would become a shining star an elite top gun pilot in the canadian military for a while and we'll get into that and we'll also talk about the very nature of this kind of enigmatic person so let's have a good [Music] russell williams was born not in uh canada but in merry old england so uh i guess this one's not on you canada we're talking brumsgrove people near birmingham the year he was born was 1963 ce and he was the first child of cedric and christine they moved to canada while russell was a baba he would have a brother harvey born in canada russell williams is his daddy cedric though he seemed to go by his middle name dave got himself a job at chalk river laboratories something to do with nukes and [ __ ] i think dangerous substances are removed from this flask so that was the family you know until it wasn't see old daddy dave was a bit of a bastard man to his wife christine leading to their divorce in 1969 but it wasn't just that see the williams family got to know another family in canada in the neighborhood the sovkas lynn and jerry savka the williamses got to know them real well wink wink one of the reasons for the divorce was that dave was off nuken linsopka so the williams family split up interestingly however christine ended up marrying jerry savka so they did the old switcheroo anyways christine williams became noni sovka she used her middle name and moved with her new hubby jerry and sons russell and harvey to scarborough ontario which would in a couple of years you know become paul bernardo and carla malka's stomping ground can i ask questions but that's another story russell would take his stepfather's name of sovka but we'll just stick to williams for now and he done growed up as a child he was well behaved shy polite he went to high school at birchman collegiate in toronto delivered the globe and mail newspapers and learned the piano and the trumpet in 1979 the sovkas russell included moved to south korea jerry having to oversee a nuclear reactor project russell returned a year later enrolling at the boarding school of upper canada college in 1982 russell went on to study politics and economics at the university of toronto's scarborough campus around this time russell went back to using the williams surname at university it seems that guys get out the violins russell was just a tad lonely you know his biological dad lived in new york state while his stepfather and mom they lived in hawaii and this is when some flashes of what russell will become come one thing was that his roommates called him drill sergeant he would keep the place spotless demand they wear slippers and he also got a reputation for being a bit of a trickster he'd prank people all the time one thing he'd do would pick the locks of other people's rooms hide in there and then jump out and scare them so we learned pretty early and pretty quickly how to you know pick the old locks and break into people's homes it would've been you know better off if he didn't learn that he got himself a girl though when she broke up with him he was crushed moving swiftly on so after earning his degree finishing up his studies he remained in scarborough he worked part-time at the university waited tables at red lobster and watched top gun again and again and again who can blame him probably not healthy though after turning down a job with the mounties russell williams joined the canadian forces in 1987. these canadian university students are getting a degree a salary and that important first job all funded by the canadian armed forces want a degree in the future we're under recruiting in the yellow pages it's your choice your future that's when his dream became a reality baby he got his wings in 1990 and worked as an instructor in manitoba the next year he was promoted a captain and that same year of 1991 he married mary elizabeth harriman at an intimate ceremony in 1994 russell was transferred to ottawa there he worked with vip's high-ranking government officials transporting them all around the place sure there he is yapping away with the queen of england over the years he gradually rose up the ranks in the canadian forces major lieutenant colonel served as a commanding officer in the middle east done all this air force [ __ ] he returned to canada in 2006 and in 2009 he became colonel russell williams you will salute him what a guy what a hero you know serving his country until yikes now there is a report that during a tour of duty in dubai 2005 he developed some kind of a chronic back pain and started taking a prednisone for it prednisone is used to treat a variety of inflammatory and autoimmune diseases and at least anecdotally has been linked to violent behavior a former co-worker said that russell had been on strong medications that changed his behavior well it's worth mentioning but it doesn't exactly explain what he would want to do and become [Music] let's just get into it so we got russell described as an elite pilot and shining star top gun ain't got [ __ ] on him his wife mary elizabeth was an associate executive director with the heart and stroke foundation of canada a noble career also the marriage seemed happy enough they both enjoyed golfing and gardening and they had a house in westbrook village in ottawa and things were good however during the week russell lived alone in their cottage in tweed over two hours away from ottawa he lived there during the week as the place in tweed was only 45 minutes from the military base he worked at this arrangement was probably a bad idea he had way too much time on his hands time he wouldn't um put to good use in 2007 he started breaking into homes around tweed and he would do the same in 2008 in ottawa why you ask well i hear you barking big dog let me tell you cause yeah to take pictures like this obviously come on you know yourself like [Music] it seems he would scope out neighbors homes and if no one was home he would enter and steal girls and women's underwear and other personal items in one case he broke into the home of a 12 year old girl this was a neighbor and spent almost three hours taking pictures of himself posing in her underwear and pleasuring himself in another case pictures revealed him lying on the bed of a 15 year old girl having a big wank and holding a stuffed bear yeah it's uh as [ __ ] doesn't he would sometimes leave behind little notes you know thank you one time writing mercy on a girl's computer so at least he was polite many of russell's uh victims were unaware he had even broken in and sometimes he would do to the same house more than once gross burn that [ __ ] down so he would do this a lot over 60 times and take a lot of these pictures it burned into my mind so now it has to be burned years yeah remember how i said he would break into places uh you know that were there were unoccupied empty houses you know when people were out and about um well him breaking into empty houses would go out the window just like he would go in the window his first victim was asleep in her tweed home with her infant daughter when he broke in bound and blindfolded her fondled her and took pictures of her while she was naked two weeks later he broke into the home of another woman punched her in the head and did the same as he did to the previous victim in november 2009 russell broke into a home near belleville about 30 minutes from tweet he stole a shitload of lingerie a freaking porno video and a sex toy he then left a message on the owner's computer daring her to call the police and said that the judge would enjoy seeing her dildo probably not as much as russell enjoyed seeing her dylan so however you know here we are seeing like escalation right it would start off with just breaking in and then stealing things and then attacking people is going to open up and up and that escalation would continue to escalate [Music] to keep his flight status as a pilot active russell flew at least once a month usually in an airbus a310 38 year old corporal marie franz como worked as a flight attendant on many of these flights in late november 2009 she missed a work shift after returning home from a trip to india a work trip to india when her boyfriend popped by her home to see what was up he found her body see russell as her commander basically had access to all of her information when she was in india russell broke into her home he rummaged through her stuff took pictures stole lingerie all the usual stuff you know the russell classics when she returned from india she noticed and blamed her boyfriend who obviously denied it then a couple of days later he broke in again this time he hid in the basement and was planning on waiting till she went to sleep however when she went looking for one of her cats she entered the basement and saw the cat staring at russell she didn't see his face as it was covered and before she could do anything he beat her multiple times with a flashlight when she was unconscious he wrapped her face with duct tape and tied her to a pole he then began recording himself beating and sexually assaulting her at one point even bringing in more lamps as the lighting wasn't quite up to his standard after two hours he placed a piece of duct tape over her nose and watched her suffocate he then cleaned up the scene and went to work the wing obviously is a community unto itself but it can't be very successful without being closely connected to the communities that surround it that's been clear to me is as a very important element to develop and that was his first murder he would stop breaking into places uh for a little bit until january 2010 came around 27 year old jessica lloyd lived alone on rural highway 37 which runs from tweed to belleville russell's stomping grounds on the 29th of january 2010 she failed to show up for work as an administrator for school bus line her family were quickly alerted and they rushed to her home in the driveway they found her purse her glasses but no jessica a missing person's investigation began and the officers noticed two things one was footprints in jessica's back garden and another was quite distinctive tire treads near her place a search began it actually included personnel and search and rescue aircraft from cfb trenton authorized by colonel russell williams and so being the main lead to go on the ontario provincial police began conducting extensive canvassing of all motorists using highway 37 which ran by her home hoping to find a match to those tire treads and they did no prizes for guessing who was driving the car the tire trieds were from a nissan pathfinder to be exact during the stop russell was like yeah guys don't look you know too close i got i got a sick kid i kind of gotta go uh can we hurry us up maybe you know don't look too closely kid real sick so when they match the entire treads to his car he was put under surveillance and then suspicion only grew when the police you know pretty quickly realized he didn't have any kids on the 7th of february 2010 russell williams was brought in for questioning he walked in wearing the same boots he had worn to uh jessica's place which was probably not a good idea but uh he thought he could talk his way out of it hey i'm cool i'm just one of you guys colonel russell williams pleased to meet you well let's see you just have to see harrison the guy was speaking with me whatever night that was was for us as well oh yeah took every number i had yeah now they were doing some pretty thorough interviews that night yeah absolutely glad to see it i'm just going to move the gloves here that's a little microphone make sure there's nice and clear um as you can see here everything in this room is videotaped and audio taped check uh you've been interviewed by the police in a in a room like this before i have never been in here oh no okay you know obviously our approach to cases like this is that uh we don't give up on somebody being alive until we get evidence that they're not so because of that we're treating uh jessica's case as an emergent situation obviously um so we're fast forwarding things that we might normally take our time with and that's why we're here on a sunday afternoon so uh again i appreciate it um we're gonna do a pretty thorough interview today okay um and the reason for that is because uh the last thing we want is to be calling people back again and again and again okay um so what we're gonna do is we're gonna go over a number of things and uh i'm gonna explain what all those are to you okay probably have it a little bit sergey what's right gum just all okay well there's nothing there if you want to toss it or river i appreciate that i want to explain to you exactly what's going on here okay um jessica uh lloyd is um is one of uh four cases that we're currently investigating okay um and essentially what's happened is over the past uh about four or five months um there have been four occurrences that like i said that we're looking into uh two of those occurrences occurred in september of 2009 um and very briefly they were up in the uh the tweet area uh they involved uh somebody entering uh two different women's houses um in the evening hours and uh committing uh sexual acts okay uh in uh november of 2009 a young lady by the name of uh marie franz uh cuomo yeah was found uh murdered in her home and right yeah and uh we believe that there was a sexual component to that crime as well and um then most recently we have jessica lloyd's disappearance okay so essentially when you look at those kind of crimes we're looking at a number of different uh potential criminal charges right we're looking at issues all the way from the most serious one which is first degree murder kidnapping sexual assault break and enter with intent to commit sexual assault yeah um forcible confinement okay and uh so what i want to make sure you understand and this is what we've been doing with everybody been talking to is that clearly when we find out who's responsible for one or all of those crimes uh they could be charged with one or all of those offenses okay whether it's you or whether it's anybody else right is there any reason you want to call lawyer now no okay he stuck to a plan b cooperative blah blah blah give them whatever they want casual like the police had linked jessica lloyd's disappearance to the murder of marie francomo you know you've kind of almost hit the nail on the head about some of our issues that kind of make us want to talk to to russell williams okay um because essentially uh there was a a connection between you and all four of those cases would you agree geography and then yes i drive past uh yes i would have to say there's a connection here so the next thing we need to cover off is uh well i'll just ask you this straight out uh given the types of crimes we're investigating uh do you get much chance to uh to watch television shows csi things like that i do watch uh i prefer law order but i do watch csi occasionally okay so you have an idea of obviously the forensic capabilities things like that are out there what would you be willing to give me today to help me move past you in this investigation what uh what do you need well um would you be willing to supply things like fingerprints blood samples things like that yeah okay um footwear impressions yeah okay all right um i think that's what we're gonna we're gonna ask you to do okay all right so one question about this russell said you know on the 24th of november the night marie francomo died he was out dining with the misses my wife and i had dinner because she was here for work and then i headed back okay um well that's these are the kind of things i'm trying to draw out here that's helpful to us do you remember where you had dinner well i don't remember exactly the restaurant but it was in westboro because that's where our house was being built at the time so we had dinner you know in a restaurant that we would expect to be able to frequent uh once the house was finished okay remember how you paid uh one of us would have paid by mastercard okay are you sure about that or pretty sure that's normally how we uh paid for meals all right i remember it was me or my wife that paid that one of us okay and you remember which restaurant it was again no okay all right and you see what i'm getting at right i mean that can be very helpful for us because we can track that issue right we can we can put somebody paying for a meal at a location i was meeting with uh you know 15 people or so that day so okay what time did the meeting end i would say between three and four okay and um are you sure that that's the same day you went out with your wife well i think so yeah because she was here and however when the police began to show him the evidence they had linking him to jessica lloyd the footprints on tire tracks well can i assume you're going to be discreet it's possible yeah because you know this would have a very significant impact on the base if they thought you thought i did this because it's tough to undo the rumor mill once it gets let me explain you want to get down here russell okay um what kind of tires do you have on your pathfinder i think um i think they're toyo do you know the brand name the make is toyo yeah i don't know the model okay see all right read this up here see if it rings a bell ever heard of uh does toyo open country hts that sounds like any sense okay the tires that you have on your truck right the reason i asked you about that is there is there any time i mean you recall uh where you were stopped um by the officers there yes okay did they explain to you what the significance of those house that was her house right so you remember that location yeah do you remember what the crossroad was or i don't think there was a crossroad it's sort of just the south end of 37. okay when you get stopped at that location has there been a time in the recent uh one or two weeks that uh your vehicle has uh left that role for any reason whatsoever have you driven into a field with your vehicle at all um for any reason you can think of no okay because i want you to rack your brain here this is important is there anything you can remember doing that uh you know what it caused you to to drive off the road at that section of roadway would it surprise you to know that when the csi officers were looking around her property that they identified a set of tire tracks to the north of her property looks as if the vehicle left the road and uh drove along the north tree line of jessica lloyd's property okay they took they examined those tire tracks they identified those tires as the same tires on your pathfinder really [Music] what happened the night of jessica lloyd's murder was this he had seen her exercising on a treadmill in her basement while out on one of his runs on the 28th of january well he returned breaking into her home at 1am on the 29th he blindfolded her with duct tape and bound her hands with rope for three hours he sexually assaulted her then he took her to his cottage in tweed where the torture would continue for another 21 hours including getting her to pose for photos finally after reassuring her that he would not kill her he clubbed jessica with his flashlight and strangled her he left her body in the garage and went to work he then would come back retrieve her body and dump it somewhere else after almost five hours russell began to break i told you when i came in here that i'm going to treat you with respect and i've asked you to do the same for me we talked about the whole idea of how we've uh approached you here okay uh the trying to be as discreet as possible okay but the problem is russell is every time i walk out of this room there's another issue that comes up okay and it's not issues that point away from you it's issues that point at you okay and i wanna i want you to see what i mean all right this is the footwear impression of the person who approached the rear of jessica lloyd's house on the evening of the 28th and 29th of january okay these are identical your vehicle drove up the side of jessica lloyd's house your boots walked to the back of jessica lloyd's house on the evening of the 28th and 29th of january okay you want discretion we need to have some honesty okay because this is this is getting under control really fast russell okay really really fast hmm this is getting beyond my control all right i came in here a few hours ago and i called you the way i called you today because i wanted to give you the benefit out but you and i both know you're at jessica lloyd's house and i need to know why i don't know it's um well you need to explain it because don't get me wrong i've met guys who actually kind of enjoyed the notoriety got off on it got off on having that label bernardo being one of them i don't see that in you if i saw that in you i wouldn't be back in your talking to you quite frankly but maybe i'm wrong maybe you got me fooled i don't know russell what are we gonna do call me russ please okay it's hard to believe this is not my only two immediate concerns from a perception perspective are what my wife must be going through right now yeah and the impact this is going to have on the canadian forces what do you want to talk about because it's uh pretty wide open now what do you want to know well do you want to work forwards or backwards doesn't matter why don't we start with jessica how does that start for you um i saw her in her house on her treadmill when the police searched the couple's ottawa home following his arrest they found a pillowcase in the garage and multiple computer boxes in the basement and russell knowing the jig was up led the police to jessica lloyd's body so where is she get a man is she close to where she lives i've got maps of that general area which town is she near why don't we start there [Music] he later wrote a note to his wife dearest mary elizabeth i love you sweet something i am so very sorry for having to hurt you like this i know you'll take good care of sweet rosie that's the cat i love you russ this was well news to mary elizabeth um you know who would later be accused actually of knowing exactly what russell was up to breaking and entering and killing people she would deny it obviously saying she had no idea she allegedly knew nothing about his activities and he was very careful to hide you know any any evidence he took any things he had he he had stolen he would keep even like pictures in folders and within folders within folders on the computer like hoping you know she wouldn't find out like it's your porn stash and he would also have a spreadsheet you know with the dates and locations of places he'd broken into he was very organized i'll give him that when the police searched the tweed cottage they even found recordings taped to the back of the piano russell appeared before the ontario court of justice on july 22nd 2010. russell williams was placed on suicide watch after he tried to kill himself by wedging a stuffed cardboard toilet paper roll down his trout which is what a way to go this didn't work and after his aborted suicide attempt and a short-lived hunger strike which he stopped when he just got hungry he remained in solitary confinement under 24 hour watch the details that were out already didn't prepare anyone for what was heard in court today as colonel russell williams pleaded guilty to two murders two sexual assaults and more than 80 break-ins and many were described in detail along with each count came graphic photo evidence and a clear pattern to williams escalating crimes on the 18th of october 2010 russell pled guilty to all charges before the ontario superior court of justice russell williams was sentenced to two life terms for the murder of marie franz como and jessica lloyd and another 120 years for other crimes he is now in solitary confinement at a maximum security prison in kingston ontario he'll be eligible for parole in 2035 at the age of 72. now russell is one strike short of being a serial killer something the fbi defines as like tree murders with a cooling off period in between although some other definitions say two or more so i guess it could be a serial killer depends on your definition why do you think these things happen huh can we spend much time thinking about that about why yeah but i don't know any answers and i'm pretty sure the answers don't matter russell doesn't fit any models that could account for what he did he was significantly older than most serial killers are at the time of his first kill he was successful and accomplished had no red flags growing up but within the space of two years he went from fetish burglar to murderer who would have killed again if he hadn't been caught apparently during one of his assaults russell reportedly told his victim that he was attacking her so that he could quote move on with his life what he meant by that only former colonel russell williams knows that whatever he was well he was a sexual sadist he knew everything he was doing he was smart he was able to control his urges avoid detection had self-control and worst of all a complete lack of empathy for his victims so i think it's only fair we share the same lack of empathy when he was stripped of his rank in all honors his uniform burned and his decorations destroyed with the conviction confirmed by the court the game forces are now able to take action including the proper release of wrestlemanias from the armed forces determination and callback his pay from the date of arrest the removal of his medals and all other measures available to us though we still get to 60 000 annual military pension not sure how much you still have for down prison in 2012 the canadian defense minister had to apologize after a booklet was distributed with guess whose mug was on it another thing is that some neighbors of russell's tweed cottage wanted it destroyed well after the horrific torture of jessica lloyd happened there but another neighbor ended up buying it weirdly enough something about the new owners the daughter of the family was his first victim he snuck into her bedroom when the family was out of town and stole six pairs of her underwear she was 12 years old at this time but the family who are buying near russell williams old torture chamber they say hey in this market a house is a house thank you so much for watching i really appreciate it i will see you as always real soon in the next video take care of yourselves mike out you

Channel: That Chapter

Views: 703,440

Rating: 4.9187984 out of 5

Keywords: that chapter, col. russell williams, col russell williams, russell williams, russell williams tweed, russell williams canada, russell williams photos

Id: -qY1qY22lvE

Length: 33min 54sec (2034 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Helltech]

Watch the video by jimcantswim, not that Mike's video is bad it's amazing, but it gives more great insight by another YouTuber I love.

[u/jacko3105]

When he said he went into the basement to hide and the women went in there looking for her cat, I was scared myself. That just creeped me out.

[u/everythingiswrong_]

First video of Mike's I'm not gonna watch because this guy fucking infuriates me so much, he's such a monster it makes me sick.

[u/BigShoots]

One of the creepiest cases I've ever heard of. That someone so fucked in the head could rise to such heights in the military is pretty scary.

And if you're interested in such things, there's longer versions of this interview on YouTube, it's pretty much a masterpiece of police interrogation that I believe is still studied today by students of the "craft" around the world.

[u/RimShackleton]

This is a really good overview of the case. The full police questioning video is beyond frustrating to watch. He just yups and yesses and nods his way through it smugly until they nail him to the board, and you can just see him trying to come up with an answer while he stares at the evidence while he "examines" it, like Mike's video shows.

[u/Macmama811]

I couldn't watch this one. I live 5 min from the Trenton Airbase, I've been swimming in Stocco Lake (where Williams lived) At the time this happened I had just started dating my then boyfriend (now husband) and drove by Jessica's house almost daily. I took care of Jessica's grandmother in the nursing home where I work. too close to home 😔