WEBVTT - The Santa Claus Serial Killer: Hank Idsinga Pt. 2 0:00:01.880 --> 0:00:04.880 The public has had a long held fascination with detectives. 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:06.840 Detective see aside of life. 0:00:06.840 --> 0:00:10.040 The average person is never exposed her I spent thirty 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:12.680 four years as a cop. For twenty five of those 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:15.200 years I was catching killers. That's what I did for 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:18.600 a living. I was a homicide detective. I'm no longer 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.759 just interviewing bad guys. Instead, I'm taking the public into 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:24.560 the world in which I operated. The guests I talk 0:00:24.640 --> 0:00:27.159 to each week have amazing stories from all sides of 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:29.840 the law. The interviews are raw and honest, just like 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.320 the people I talk to. Some of the content and 0:00:32.440 --> 0:00:35.400 language might be confronting. That's because no one who comes 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:38.800 into contact with crime is left unchanged. Join me now 0:00:38.920 --> 0:00:47.400 as I take you into this world. Hank is what 0:00:47.479 --> 0:00:51.000 I consider a true detective in every sense of the word, 0:00:51.120 --> 0:00:53.760 and we're not done with him yet. In part two 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.600 of my chat with Hank, we talked about theorist serial 0:00:56.680 --> 0:01:00.480 killer Bruce MacArthur, who was convicted of murdering eight men 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:05.240 in twenty nineteen. The investigation first landed on Hank's radar 0:01:05.600 --> 0:01:09.240 through allegations of cannibalism. You just can't make this stuff up. 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.880 We also talk about how you manage the chaos and 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:16.080 the weight of responsibility when a mass killing occurs on 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.160 your watch. I could talk to this bloke all day. 0:01:19.640 --> 0:01:22.560 I find it fascinating discussing homicide with a real live 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:28.560 homicide detective. Have a listen, Hank, Welcome back to I 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:30.080 Catch Killers Part two? 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:30.959 Still here? 0:01:31.880 --> 0:01:32.199 Okay. 0:01:33.319 --> 0:01:36.840 Sometimes I feel the name of the podcast, I Catch 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:40.800 Killers is a bit inappropriate when I'm interviewing, let's say, 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:42.880 people that might be on the other side of the law. 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:46.280 But it feels right eye catch Killers speaking to you. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.400 But I want to say, say up front, we talk 0:01:49.440 --> 0:01:51.880 about what we've done in our careers and all that, 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:55.480 but the acknowledgment and I know that you would feel 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:58.600 this way that it's such a team effort in homicide. 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:02.440 No homicide is solved one person. It's a team effort 0:02:02.480 --> 0:02:05.240 and there's a lot of assistance that goes into it. 0:02:05.640 --> 0:02:08.480 Quite often, people like yourself or myself. We might have 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.760 the profile because we've been leading the jobs, but there's 0:02:11.800 --> 0:02:13.800 people that are working just as hard or if not 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:16.360 harder and better behind the scenes. Do you want to 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.400 just tell us about the type of people that go 0:02:18.480 --> 0:02:21.320 into making up a good successful homicide investigation. 0:02:22.360 --> 0:02:25.120 Well, you know, when I started in homicide in two 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:29.680 thousand and five, it was literally two of us that 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.800 were assigned to each homicide case from the homicide squad 0:02:33.520 --> 0:02:36.200 and we would go into the division where it happened, 0:02:36.440 --> 0:02:39.200 and if we needed help, hopefully we could get a 0:02:39.200 --> 0:02:42.280 couple of officers from that division, so kind it to 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.040 us for a few weeks. But if you think about 0:02:45.080 --> 0:02:49.040 when a homicide happens, let's take a shooting, for example, 0:02:49.919 --> 0:02:53.959 on the streets of Toronto or somewhere in Australia. I mean, 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:57.079 the police are rarely the first one there. Usually it's 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.320 the ambulance attendance and the fire department, so they're involved. 0:03:01.400 --> 0:03:04.600 And then you've got the first responding uniform officers, and 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:09.959 then they're supervisors. Likely after that is the divisional investigators 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:12.760 and they're the ones who would call homicide, and then 0:03:12.840 --> 0:03:15.880 the homicide squad comes out. And you know, the last 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.079 portion of my time in homicide, we instead of operating 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:22.119 in teams of two, we operate in teams usually five 0:03:22.240 --> 0:03:26.519 or six responding officers. So you've got your major case manager, 0:03:26.639 --> 0:03:31.480 your primary investigator, your file manager, and then your investigative 0:03:31.520 --> 0:03:38.080 support officers. Forensic identification officers usually two to every homicide. 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.280 In some cases we had six or eight of them 0:03:40.280 --> 0:03:43.960 on each homicide. You know your emergency task force or 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.400 your SWAT teams that are responding center of forensic science. 0:03:48.720 --> 0:03:54.720 I mean, they're so many different roles to complete a 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.920 homicide investigation and put it all together, and ultimately everything 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:04.520 flows up to the case manager and either they or 0:04:04.640 --> 0:04:07.760 the primary investigator are usually the ones who see it 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:13.240 through the core process. So it's a lot of people involved. 0:04:13.560 --> 0:04:17.080 If you need support from different units. If it's a 0:04:17.200 --> 0:04:20.560 drug involved case, you need help from your drug squad, 0:04:20.680 --> 0:04:23.000 If it's a gang involved case, you need help from 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:27.120 your guns and gangs units. Dozens and dozens of officers 0:04:27.400 --> 0:04:32.160 usually at the very least involved somehow in any homicide investigation. 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:36.919 You also made a point in the Gain that resonated 0:04:36.960 --> 0:04:40.560 with me on putting it into Hank's life. Homicide hacks 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:44.880 about with the briefings. And this was taught to me 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.000 very early by some good mentals and great leaders, that 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.719 you quite often have a briefing when the homicides happened, 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.359 when you could step back and everyone sits around and 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:57.920 you've got the person running the investigation. You've got the 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.159 uniform officers, you've got everyone see in there for a briefing, 0:05:01.279 --> 0:05:03.880 just to so everyone can catch up with what's happened. 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:07.039 And the point was made to me very early in 0:05:07.080 --> 0:05:10.080 my career, and I tried to continue that through that 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.360 You listen to everyone in the room and it might 0:05:13.400 --> 0:05:16.159 be the most junior person sitting quietly in the corner 0:05:16.279 --> 0:05:19.200 that hasn't got much to say, and they'll just you know, 0:05:19.279 --> 0:05:21.840 you can see them tentatively put their hand up and 0:05:22.200 --> 0:05:24.640 make a suggestion, and that might be the breakthrough that 0:05:25.320 --> 0:05:28.160 the collective geniuses that were talking about it hadn't come 0:05:28.240 --> 0:05:32.600 up with. And the importance of not having that tunnel 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:36.240 vision and listening to other people's ideas, whether they be 0:05:36.400 --> 0:05:38.760 right or wrong, and then make your decision based on that. 0:05:39.320 --> 0:05:43.599 Yeah, absolutely, I was very dishooning. At one point in time, 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.440 one of the teams at a homicide and I wasn't 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:51.159 the boss yet at the time, but I walked into 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:54.040 the homicide squad at police headquarters and there are two 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:57.480 young officers sitting off by themselves where their team has 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.440 rmly set up, and I was like, whereas all your guys, 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.560 And they're like they're in the briefing room having a briefing. Yeah, 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.320 And I'm like, why aren't you guys in there while 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.520 the detective sergeant doesn't include us in the briefings. And 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:15.000 I thought that that should never happen. And some of 0:06:15.000 --> 0:06:18.240 the homicide cases that I was involved in, and even 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:22.320 some of the homicide cases that people give me credit for, no, 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:25.159 it was the youngest members on the teams who came 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.479 up with that little spark of an idea or had 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:32.839 that extra energy to go the extra mile. And it's funny. 0:06:32.880 --> 0:06:35.880 I was presenting to a book club last night and 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.240 one of the attendees of the book club was a doctor, 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.839 and they said, it's like you see on TV on 0:06:43.560 --> 0:06:45.960 you know, Gray's Anatomy, when they come around and do 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.880 the rounds, and you've got the senior doctor and everyone 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.000 in between, right down to the most junior one, and 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:58.400 everyone's input is valued and everybody gets listened to. And yeah, 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.040 sometimes you might hear a stupid idea, but you might 0:07:01.120 --> 0:07:03.719 also may hear a brilliant idea as well. And I 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:08.599 think really the structure of the police forces these days 0:07:08.839 --> 0:07:13.960 really don't promote that tape of approach to police work. 0:07:14.000 --> 0:07:17.200 And investigations in general, and I think that that's a 0:07:17.200 --> 0:07:19.840 lot of lost opportunity there, and that's where we fall 0:07:19.920 --> 0:07:21.440 down a lot sometimes as well. 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:25.320 Yeah, I picked up on the theme of people hiding 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:28.080 behind their rank, and you made the point with Gary 0:07:28.200 --> 0:07:32.280 that you were talking about the homicide the experienced homicide detective, 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.600 that he might have the rank, but he had the experience. 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:39.200 And I think sometimes we have people in the police services, 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:41.600 police forces that hide behind the rank because it's that 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.360 para military structure, and I think things can be lost. 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.080 The other point, and this was, you know, I was 0:07:49.160 --> 0:07:51.960 chuffed when I was a young detective and invited into 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.480 the briefing for a homicide and yeah, the boss has said, 0:07:55.520 --> 0:07:58.320 and Gary, what do you think? I know he choked. 0:07:58.640 --> 0:08:00.760 I didn't think I had a void see it. But 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:04.320 I made some points and what that did that motivated 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:06.840 me as well. And I think that's an important thing 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.680 that everyone because homicide investigation can be a hard slog 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.200 and it's a way to make everyone feel that they're 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:15.880 part of a team and let them have their input. 0:08:16.000 --> 0:08:18.640 There's a motivation factor that comes into it as well. 0:08:19.120 --> 0:08:23.680 Yeah. Absolutely, if they you know, the senior homicide guy 0:08:24.160 --> 0:08:26.200 is the one being looked up to in the room 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:28.760 and some of these some of the young officers don't 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:34.240 get yourself. They're an absolute awe of who they're surrounded by. Right, 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:39.040 good homicide senior, seasoned homicide investigator is going to be 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:43.600 legendary in any police department he works in. And you're 0:08:44.200 --> 0:08:47.240 probably the first time you meet some of these young officers, 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:50.080 they're going to be why aren't you saying anything? Right, Well, 0:08:50.160 --> 0:08:52.000 you know, why aren't you looking at me? Because they're 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:58.079 scared shitless. So few yep, because it's very very intimidating. 0:08:58.160 --> 0:09:01.000 I remember being in those shoes is at one point 0:09:01.040 --> 0:09:04.480 in time, right. And I also remember being in one 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:08.080 of the first office case briefings very early in my 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:11.040 homicide career in two thousand and five and discussing a 0:09:11.120 --> 0:09:14.400 case and probably one of the most senior, well respected 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.000 guys in the office came up to me afterwards he said, 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.080 that was a really good idea that you came up with, 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.040 and we're going to chase that down. And yeah, I'm 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:28.400 over the moon. Right. It's huge for those young investigators 0:09:28.920 --> 0:09:31.319 to feel valued and to feel that their voice is 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.800 being heard, and you know, but it also wasn't unusual 0:09:35.960 --> 0:09:39.760 to have one of them suggest something completely outlandish, but 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:42.120 then it becomes a learning point for them as well. Right, 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:44.640 we're not going to do that. Here's why we're not 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.960 going to do that. And I'm going to try and 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:49.840 make you understand why we're not going to do that, 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.400 and that they're going to appreciate that as well. But 0:09:52.520 --> 0:09:56.160 that paramilitary structure that I talk about, and I don't 0:09:56.200 --> 0:09:59.880 know how bad it is in Australia, but the major 0:10:00.040 --> 0:10:03.400 policing reviews in Canada over the last ten years, I've said, 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.600 get away from that. Get away from that. It's Stafles 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:11.120 free thought, it's Stafles free expression, and you're really doing 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:14.360 ato service to the younger officers as well as the 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:16.880 taxpayers who are getting the best bang for their bucke 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:21.079 in policing. If you're going to operate like that, sadly 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:22.320 we still do well. 0:10:22.920 --> 0:10:27.520 My thing with the police is that, yeah, we're public servants, 0:10:27.520 --> 0:10:30.400 and those public servants, it's pretty easy to defind what 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:32.559 our role is. We're there to serve the public, and 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:37.520 I see so many hard working, good police officers, not 0:10:37.600 --> 0:10:41.320 just detectives, uniform officers in any different section that really 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:44.000 joined for the right reason and doing for the right reason. 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.480 But then I also see the people that are driven 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:48.960 by what can I take from the organization? Then how 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:52.080 far can I get promoted and just focus solely on 0:10:52.120 --> 0:10:55.600 the promotion. You made a point in part one about Yeah, 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:57.920 if I didn't get promoted and just stayed in homicide 0:10:57.960 --> 0:10:59.920 for the rest of my career, I would have stayed happy. 0:11:00.640 --> 0:11:03.280 I was the same way. I think the best times 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.959 I had probably around the detective sergeant time in homicide. 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:11.520 We got rotated out because they bought a rotation policy 0:11:11.559 --> 0:11:14.719 in and I ended up getting because I had been 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:16.880 there the longest as a sergeant, I was going to 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.160 be the first one rotated out, and so that's when 0:11:19.200 --> 0:11:21.920 I went for promotion. But I would have happily retired 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.760 as a detective sergeant if I was left alone just 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.520 to do my work in homicide, because I found it 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.400 fascinating and they're the type they're the type of people 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.880 that you want in homicide, the ones that are just 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.200 fixated with I just this is what I want to do, Let. 0:11:37.080 --> 0:11:37.520 Me do it. 0:11:38.040 --> 0:11:43.440 The number one recurring anxiety dream I had when I 0:11:43.480 --> 0:11:46.960 was in homicide was I had always had this dream 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.120 that the boss came to me and said, your time's up. 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:53.679 Back to a uniform of your goal. No, no, I can't, right, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:56.840 it's I don't ever want to leave here. This is 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:59.120 what I wanted to do from day one. This is 0:11:59.200 --> 0:12:01.960 what I think I was meant to do. And you know, 0:12:02.280 --> 0:12:07.160 as you said, and I said earlier, homicide detective. Yeah, 0:12:07.320 --> 0:12:09.560 I'm right where I need to be. I don't if 0:12:09.640 --> 0:12:13.320 I never get promoted again, I'm happy. I'm fine. I'll 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:16.440 do my time and have a blast every single day 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:20.960 that I'm here working my butt off, right, So absolutely 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:25.720 best job going. You know, I think best occupation going 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:28.720 is policing, and the best job and policing is the 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.679 homicide work. So don't ever forcefully take it away from me. 0:12:32.720 --> 0:12:33.920 I'm not going to be a happy man. 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:34.440 Yeah. 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.640 Well, when I got moved around, I many to find 0:12:37.640 --> 0:12:40.520 homicides that I could investigate anyway, and in the end 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:43.920 they gave up and just put me back in homicide. 0:12:43.960 --> 0:12:46.440 So there's always a homicide if you look deep enough. 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.440 I was working as a crime manager and many to 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:51.000 find some homicides when I was meant to be doing 0:12:51.040 --> 0:12:53.679 sort of a semi uniform role. But they ended up 0:12:53.800 --> 0:12:58.760 leading homicide. So I understand the passion most definitely. Can 0:12:58.800 --> 0:13:03.160 we talk now about we touched on it briefly, Well, 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:06.120 the start of the investigation is my reading of it 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:11.239 from what I've read about it. But the Bruce MacArthur investigation, 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:14.319 if you could tell uson why I said we touched 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.840 on it briefly. I think there's some links there to 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:24.120 the cannibal informant about in the men that had disappeared, 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.079 and that was sort of the starting point. If you 0:13:26.120 --> 0:13:29.359 could just explain what the case was and how it culminated, 0:13:29.400 --> 0:13:31.960 because it's a fascinating, fascinating story. 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:37.600 Yeah, I mean, this case evolved over eight years up 0:13:37.640 --> 0:13:42.480 here in Toronto. So Bruce MacArthur was praying on. He 0:13:42.920 --> 0:13:46.400 was a gay man. He was married earlier in life 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:48.559 with kids, and then he came out of the closet 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:52.040 late in the life and moved into the gay village 0:13:52.080 --> 0:13:56.720 in Toronto and killed his first victim in twenty ten. 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.640 And his first victim was a follow Yam scan Ratnam, 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:04.000 who was originally from Sri Lanka and lived in the 0:14:04.080 --> 0:14:10.959 village and disappeared in September twenty ten, and he has 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.160 reported missing about two weeks after he was last seen 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:17.440 just by a friend who thought, I haven't seen Scanda 0:14:17.480 --> 0:14:20.600 for a while, I'm going to report him missing. So 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.200 the divisional investigators didn't have any luck figuring out what 0:14:24.360 --> 0:14:27.600 had happened to Scanda. But of course we get about 0:14:27.640 --> 0:14:32.400 five thousand missing persons reports every year, so the divisional 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.200 detectives did some great work, but at the end of 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.360 the day just didn't have any answers. And it wasn't 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:43.040 until two late twenty twelve, and by this time MacArthur 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.440 had killed two other men, so it, unbeknownst to us, 0:14:46.480 --> 0:14:49.760 his victim tally was at three when that tip came 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:54.920 in from Switzerland about a fellow on a cannibalism fetish 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:59.600 website on the Internet bragging about killing and eating a 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:04.480 brown skin mail from Toronto's Gay Village. So that's when 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:07.040 I first got involved, and I was sent to fifty 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:12.360 one Division to oversee the investigation to the point could 0:15:12.360 --> 0:15:16.760 we include or exclude this suspect that we developed from 0:15:16.800 --> 0:15:20.440 this confession as being responsible for at least one murder, 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:25.280 And by mid twenty thirteen we're able to exclude him 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.120 and determine no, this guy's full of it. He's never 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:31.720 killed anyone in his life. But at that point in time, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:35.640 we realized we've got three missing brown skinned men from 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:38.760 Toronto's gay village. We don't know what's happened to them, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:44.480 So I went back to homicide. The missing person's investigation 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.680 continued in the division and it wasn't until twenty and 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:54.600 seventeen where MacArthur killed his last victim, a fellow named 0:15:54.640 --> 0:15:57.880 Andrew Kinsman, at the end of June in twenty seventeen, 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:02.360 and he made some pretty serious mistakes. He had been 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:07.560 very very careful, especially since the twenty twelve twenty thirteen 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:11.640 portion of the investigation. He selected his victims a lot 0:16:11.720 --> 0:16:14.400 more carefully. A couple of them were never even reported 0:16:14.440 --> 0:16:18.840 as missing to police. But he killed his eighth victim. 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.520 Like I said, end of June of twenty seventeen, it 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:26.400 was obvious that mister Kinsman, his last victim, had met 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:34.520 with some sort of foul play, and we as homicide officers, 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.480 were again sent to fifty one Division to oversee what 0:16:38.680 --> 0:16:41.840 was still a missing person's investigation, but with some pretty 0:16:41.880 --> 0:16:49.400 strong undertones of foul play. So MacArthur himself was identified 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:54.920 because Kinsman went missing around three o'clock in the afternoon 0:16:55.920 --> 0:17:00.400 and he had written on his calendar three pm, Bruce. 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:06.840 So the divisional investigators picked up on that and they 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:09.560 pulled all the surveillance video from the neighborhood. And it 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:11.280 took about a month and a half of going through 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:15.600 that surveillance video till they found a red Dodge caravan. 0:17:15.880 --> 0:17:18.280 So we got a list of all the Dodge caravans 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:21.679 in the Greater Toronto area that fit the profile, and 0:17:21.720 --> 0:17:25.720 then we cross referenced it to that calendar entry. How 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.240 many of those Dodge caravans are registered to somebody named 0:17:29.280 --> 0:17:34.680 Bruce five, one of them being Bruce MacArthur. And one 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:38.160 of the investigators said, Bruce MacArthur, we interviewed him back 0:17:38.200 --> 0:17:41.240 in twenty thirteen in relation to the other missing men. 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:44.760 All right, let's take a good look at Bruce MacArthur. 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:51.520 So we ended up grabbing his van covertly, finding some 0:17:51.680 --> 0:17:55.360 blood and semen in the back of the van, matching 0:17:55.400 --> 0:18:01.840 it through DNA to Andrew Kinsman. And then December twenty seventeen, 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:06.679 we snuck into mister MacArthur's apartment and cloned his computer 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.320 and started going through all of that data. And it 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:13.240 wasn't until mid January of twenty and eighteen where we 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:17.800 started finding the images of his victims. He liked to 0:18:17.920 --> 0:18:20.320 kill his victims and then dress them up and take 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:23.600 photographs of them, so it took quite a while to 0:18:23.640 --> 0:18:24.760 find those photographs. 0:18:25.240 --> 0:18:29.439 At that stage, before you found the photos, were you 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:32.280 of the belief you looking at the serial killer there? 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.560 I know he had links to the previous investigation, so 0:18:35.680 --> 0:18:38.199 the thought must have crossed your mind. But did you 0:18:38.240 --> 0:18:41.240 have a sense of the magnitude of what you were 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:42.560 going to uncover at that stage? 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:48.920 Not yet, And even in twenty twelve, twenty and thirteen, 0:18:49.280 --> 0:18:53.800 they really were strictly missing persons investigations. We had that 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:59.800 cannibal evidence, but we excluded that, and of course everyone's 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:03.000 think King serial killer, but we had no evidence to 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.040 say there was a serial killer, right. We actually had 0:19:06.080 --> 0:19:11.480 other missing men from the gay village who we eventually found, 0:19:12.200 --> 0:19:18.240 right we you know. So it really wasn't until November 0:19:18.280 --> 0:19:21.400 of two thousand and seventeen where we said, okay, now 0:19:21.440 --> 0:19:23.960 we've got some blood that belongs to Kinsman in the 0:19:23.960 --> 0:19:27.200 back of MacArthur's van. So that's some evidence that Kinsman 0:19:27.240 --> 0:19:30.399 has met with foul play, and it's some evidence that 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.880 MacArthur was somehow involved. But is he dead. We don't 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.639 know that yet. Probably he's falling off the face of 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:41.080 the earth. And then it wasn't, like I said, until 0:19:41.160 --> 0:19:45.719 January till we started finding photographs. And the first photographs 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.119 what we found were actually of his seventh victim, a 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:55.280 fellow named selim Essen. And we decided then that Okay, 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:57.119 we've got to arrest this guy. We've got to get 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:01.400 him into custody. We don't have any bodies, We've got 0:20:01.440 --> 0:20:05.439 a pretty weak case, but the risk to the public 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:09.000 right now is too great. So fingers crossed that we 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:10.360 find the victims. 0:20:10.000 --> 0:20:14.520 Right those fight those you said that they would decise, 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.280 Was it obvious that they would decis and were they 0:20:17.440 --> 0:20:20.000 addressed up? What would the knights for the fights? 0:20:20.600 --> 0:20:25.000 Well, they sure looked like they were deceased. But you know, interestingly, 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:30.639 I did a presentation at a pathologist conference about a 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:33.719 year later, and I put the photographs up on the screen, 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.000 and I had about three hundred pathologists in the room, 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:39.199 and I said, who would get up in court and 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:43.320 testify that the people in these photographs are dead? Not 0:20:43.400 --> 0:20:48.600 a one? Right? They sure they look dead, but we 0:20:48.640 --> 0:20:52.359 can't prove that they're dead, right, So we ended up 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:57.880 arresting MacArthur with, like I said, a pretty weak circumstantial 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:01.720 case of two murders of Andrew Kinsman and Slim Essen, 0:21:01.760 --> 0:21:04.159 because we had found photos of both of them and 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:06.840 both of them were missing, and we had blood of 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:13.240 Kinsmen in the back of MacArthur's van. So it wasn't 0:21:13.359 --> 0:21:17.159 until a few days after he was arrested that we 0:21:17.480 --> 0:21:22.280 managed to start recovering the remains of victims. So we 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:25.040 seized a bunch of properties that he was associated to, 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:31.359 and one of the properties he was associated to, he 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:35.040 was a landscaper and it was an elderly couple who 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:37.920 owned this property, and so he would do their landscaping 0:21:38.119 --> 0:21:43.840 in exchange for storing his landscaping equipment in their garage. 0:21:44.359 --> 0:21:47.720 And they had a summerhouse, so they are never home 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:49.639 in the summer. They were only home in the winter. 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.720 And so what MacArthur was doing was killing these men. 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:56.840 He was dismembering them, and then he was storing the 0:21:56.840 --> 0:22:03.800 body parts in planters in this couple's backyard. So after 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:08.159 we arrested him, we seized the premise, the house, and 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.400 we put our canine units into the backyard and one 0:22:11.440 --> 0:22:15.159 of the canine units indicated on one of the planters, 0:22:16.040 --> 0:22:17.879 but we didn't know if they were indicating on the 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:21.280 planter or the ground beneath the planter. So we seized 0:22:21.280 --> 0:22:23.840 a few of the planters from the backyard and they 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:27.400 ended up being taken to the morgue and it took 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:29.679 a few days for them to actually file out so 0:22:29.720 --> 0:22:32.320 we could x ray them. And then we x rayed 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:34.200 them and you could see the outline of our rib 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:37.080 cage and one of the planters. So we went and 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:42.000 got the remaining planters from the backyard and we recovered 0:22:42.200 --> 0:22:46.159 seven of the eight victims from those planters, and it 0:22:46.240 --> 0:22:51.159 wasn't until the summer of twenty eighteen where we recovered 0:22:51.160 --> 0:22:55.000 the eighth victim. He was buried in a rubber garbage 0:22:55.040 --> 0:23:00.800 container in a ravine behind the house the day MacArthur 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:04.679 was arrested. So we found the photographs on a Wednesday. 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:10.000 Made the decision to arrest him. But we need to 0:23:10.040 --> 0:23:12.840 get search warrants put in place, and search teams all 0:23:12.880 --> 0:23:16.159 put it in place. So I said, MacArthur is to 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.560 be put on a twenty four hour surveillance. We're gonna 0:23:19.640 --> 0:23:21.760 get these search warrants so we're going to execute and 0:23:21.840 --> 0:23:25.600 arrest them on Saturday morning. The one caveat is he 0:23:25.760 --> 0:23:28.879 is not allowed to be behind a closed door with 0:23:28.960 --> 0:23:33.520 another man Murphy's law. Thursday morning, what does he do. 0:23:34.560 --> 0:23:36.760 Picks up a man that we've seen him pick up before, 0:23:37.600 --> 0:23:40.280 parks in a spot that he normally doesn't park in 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:43.239 his apartment building, goes up the back stairwell with his 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:47.480 other man, and goes into his apartment. So the surveillance 0:23:47.520 --> 0:23:51.000 team calls me. They call the primary investigator, a really 0:23:51.040 --> 0:23:55.440 good detective named Dave Dickinson. Here's what's going on, get 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:57.960 in there and arrest them, and sure enough that guy 0:23:58.000 --> 0:24:01.320 would have been victim number nine. Tied to MacArthur's bed, 0:24:01.440 --> 0:24:04.639 MacArthur had put a hood over his head and he 0:24:04.680 --> 0:24:08.639 had started a file on him on his computer. So 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:12.639 very little doubt in my mind that we saved life 0:24:12.640 --> 0:24:16.160 that day by going in there and getting MacArthur into custody. 0:24:17.040 --> 0:24:20.440 And at the end of it, there is no court proceeding. 0:24:20.480 --> 0:24:24.520 He pled guilty a year later to eight counts of 0:24:24.560 --> 0:24:28.440 first degree murder, sentenced to life in prison, no chance 0:24:28.480 --> 0:24:31.520 of parole for twenty five years, by which time I 0:24:31.560 --> 0:24:34.399 believe he'll be ninety two and he's not going to 0:24:34.400 --> 0:24:38.040 live that long and regards was I highly doubt you 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:43.160 would ever get parole anyway. So very lengthy, long investigation, 0:24:43.359 --> 0:24:46.920 probably the highest profile investigation I was ever involved in, 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:52.360 And my full time job in twenty eighteen was juggling 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:58.560 the media. Really, I had minimal involvement in the actual 0:24:58.600 --> 0:25:02.760 investigative process. My detective was the one who really drove that, 0:25:03.680 --> 0:25:06.359 came to me for advice and you know, where do 0:25:06.400 --> 0:25:10.880 we go from here? That sort of thing. But twenty eighteen, 0:25:11.320 --> 0:25:14.520 you know, every week we were identifying victims and laying 0:25:14.560 --> 0:25:18.960 more charges, and I was dealing with the media, and 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:22.000 that was a full time job through all of twenty 0:25:22.160 --> 0:25:25.560 eighteen until July when I was promoted to inspector in 0:25:25.640 --> 0:25:26.560 charge of homicide. 0:25:26.840 --> 0:25:29.639 I would imagine the media, you'd have to use the 0:25:29.680 --> 0:25:32.960 media for appeal for more information coming in, even though 0:25:33.000 --> 0:25:37.400 that you've clearly got him for strong cases against him, 0:25:37.720 --> 0:25:40.800 but identifying the other victims would have played the part 0:25:40.960 --> 0:25:44.160 appealing to appealing to the media. But I can imagine 0:25:44.160 --> 0:25:47.760 the media getting hold of that any Yeah, murder gets 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:50.080 the front page, but when you're talking a serial killer 0:25:50.520 --> 0:25:54.720 and that type of case, well, the insight you would 0:25:54.760 --> 0:25:58.439 have got from the victim or the potential victim that 0:25:58.560 --> 0:26:01.680 was saved due to the called to have him arrested. 0:26:02.240 --> 0:26:05.480 That's a handy thing to understand how we actually operated, 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:07.920 isn't it. That's really giving an insight in the mind 0:26:07.960 --> 0:26:10.560 of a psychopath that you've got a victim that's actually 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:11.919 lived to tell the story. 0:26:12.520 --> 0:26:16.600 We had a couple of victims. You know, that ninth victim. 0:26:16.800 --> 0:26:20.160 Nobody was happier than him when MacArthur pled guilty because 0:26:20.720 --> 0:26:25.280 he was a married man and a closeted homosexual. Yeah, 0:26:25.320 --> 0:26:29.560 and so he was never exposed to the public or 0:26:29.600 --> 0:26:34.200 to his family. There was another victim who didn't realize 0:26:34.280 --> 0:26:37.520 he was a victim. We were going through MacArthur's computer. 0:26:37.720 --> 0:26:42.600 We found photographs of an unconscious male and MacArthur liked 0:26:42.640 --> 0:26:45.600 to dress them up in a fur coat. So he 0:26:45.680 --> 0:26:47.719 had this fellow dressed up in a fur coat, and 0:26:47.760 --> 0:26:51.120 we ultimately identified him and he was still alive. So 0:26:51.160 --> 0:26:54.000 we went and talked with him and we said, you know, 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:57.240 tell us about the time when you're having sex with 0:26:57.359 --> 0:27:01.240 MacArthur and he choked you unconscious and took these photographs 0:27:01.320 --> 0:27:04.160 and he was like what are you talking about? Right, 0:27:04.440 --> 0:27:07.600 he never realized he had been choked unconscious and that 0:27:07.680 --> 0:27:11.720 these photographs had been taken of him. So for some reason, 0:27:11.800 --> 0:27:15.399 MacArthur just chose not to kill him, so he was 0:27:15.440 --> 0:27:19.439 still alive. But yeah, just dealing with a lot. And 0:27:19.480 --> 0:27:23.840 we had one other victim who managed to fight MacArthur 0:27:23.920 --> 0:27:28.480 off in the back of his van, so he was 0:27:28.720 --> 0:27:31.760 He would have been a great witnessing court as well. 0:27:32.040 --> 0:27:33.920 But like I said, it never came to that, and 0:27:34.320 --> 0:27:36.399 the case was just way too strong. As soon as 0:27:36.480 --> 0:27:41.640 we started finding those remains and identifying the victims, you know, Dave, 0:27:41.680 --> 0:27:44.439 Dick and Sin and I had a chat and we 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:47.280 both agreed, this is never going to trial and there's 0:27:47.320 --> 0:27:49.880 no way, Like the case is just way too strong. 0:27:50.080 --> 0:27:53.680 So and sure enough, that's that's how it ended up. Right. 0:27:54.480 --> 0:27:57.879 It's not that usual that a you get a serial 0:27:57.960 --> 0:28:01.280 killer before the courts and b he pleads guilty without 0:28:01.400 --> 0:28:04.520 having a full blown trial. Because as you say, it 0:28:04.560 --> 0:28:07.120 was psychopaths. They kind of like that attention. 0:28:07.640 --> 0:28:11.080 I was going to say, they enjoy the reliving the moment. 0:28:11.119 --> 0:28:12.560 That's the next little kick. 0:28:13.119 --> 0:28:17.800 Yeah, you know, we had a psychiatrist intimately involved in 0:28:17.840 --> 0:28:22.360 the investigation and making his determination, and he said, he's 0:28:22.400 --> 0:28:27.200 actually not a psychopath, he's a sexual sadist and that's 0:28:27.240 --> 0:28:33.040 what was motivating him. But definitely more your prototypical serial 0:28:33.119 --> 0:28:35.360 killer than Mark Moore was, for instance. 0:28:35.640 --> 0:28:39.840 Yeah, how was he killing the victims? Was it strangulation? 0:28:40.720 --> 0:28:45.320 It was strangulation, manual strangulation, and then I believe once 0:28:45.520 --> 0:28:49.400 they were unconscious from the manual strangulation, he would take 0:28:49.480 --> 0:28:52.200 a rope in an iron bar and winch it around 0:28:52.240 --> 0:28:57.560 their neck like a garat and suffocate them to death. 0:28:58.560 --> 0:29:02.520 Did he talk with all the participied in any interview? 0:29:03.360 --> 0:29:05.800 You know, the day he is arrested, we have two 0:29:05.920 --> 0:29:09.720 officers out of our sex crimes unit who are trained 0:29:09.760 --> 0:29:14.360 on the polygraph and they take every interviewing course imaginable. 0:29:15.040 --> 0:29:17.600 So we brought one of them in and he talked 0:29:17.640 --> 0:29:21.520 with MacArthur for about eight or ten hours. And MacArthur's 0:29:21.560 --> 0:29:24.320 biggest concern was he had a lunch date that day 0:29:24.320 --> 0:29:25.880 and would he be out in time to make his 0:29:26.000 --> 0:29:30.760 lunch date. And you know, no, you're being charged with 0:29:30.800 --> 0:29:34.000 two counts of murder today. I don't think you're going 0:29:34.040 --> 0:29:36.840 to be making your lunch date. And he was concerned 0:29:36.840 --> 0:29:38.760 because he was the one who's supposed to be driving, 0:29:39.280 --> 0:29:42.520 picking somebody up and going to this lunch date. But 0:29:42.600 --> 0:29:47.000 other than that, he gave us nothing whatsoever at the time. 0:29:47.600 --> 0:29:49.880 So once he was in prison, there's been some more 0:29:49.920 --> 0:29:54.720 conversations with him, but nothing really significant. Of course, our 0:29:54.760 --> 0:29:58.200 biggest concern for a long time was have we accounted 0:29:58.240 --> 0:30:01.120 for all of his victims? I think we can pretty 0:30:01.160 --> 0:30:04.720 safely say yeah, because he kept file folders on all 0:30:04.760 --> 0:30:07.880 his victims. He did talk to us enough after the 0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:12.080 fact to reassure us there were no other victims, and 0:30:13.560 --> 0:30:18.640 I think we certainly background investigated all of his movements 0:30:18.640 --> 0:30:21.520 through his life as closely as we could. You know, 0:30:21.600 --> 0:30:26.080 for instance, we knew through border security that he had 0:30:26.120 --> 0:30:30.040 been in England on vacation a particular point in time, 0:30:30.480 --> 0:30:33.080 so we called the authorities in England and said, we're looking. 0:30:33.240 --> 0:30:36.600 We know he was in this town on vacation. Do 0:30:36.640 --> 0:30:38.960 you have any outstanding missing persons or do you have 0:30:39.000 --> 0:30:43.040 any unsolved murders in your gay community at that point 0:30:43.080 --> 0:30:46.719 in time? No, thank you very much, right so, but 0:30:46.760 --> 0:30:50.800 we really we had quite a team that was assembled 0:30:50.840 --> 0:30:54.040 after he was arrested, and a ton of investigative work 0:30:54.200 --> 0:30:56.960 just backtracking his entire life, just to make sure we 0:30:56.960 --> 0:30:59.640 didn't miss anything. And of course the phones were ringing 0:30:59.640 --> 0:31:03.800 off the right people whose loved ones are missing and 0:31:03.880 --> 0:31:07.560 still outstanding, and they're calling and saying, is it possible 0:31:07.600 --> 0:31:11.400 he is involved in you know, my brother's disappearance or 0:31:11.440 --> 0:31:15.840 my son's disappearance, And every single one of them we 0:31:15.880 --> 0:31:18.200 looked at and we're able to say, no, it doesn't 0:31:18.240 --> 0:31:21.120 look like any of the timelines add up, and really 0:31:21.160 --> 0:31:24.840 not his thing. Right. So I had one lady who 0:31:24.880 --> 0:31:27.600 reached out to me after the fact, and she actually 0:31:27.720 --> 0:31:30.040 wrote a letter to MacArthur when he was in prison 0:31:30.920 --> 0:31:33.680 and her I believe it was her brother who is missing, 0:31:34.960 --> 0:31:37.000 and she said, did you have anything to do with 0:31:37.040 --> 0:31:41.440 my brother's disappearance? And sent him a photograph and he 0:31:41.840 --> 0:31:46.480 actually responded, he said, no, he's a handsome man, but 0:31:46.560 --> 0:31:49.320 he's not my type and I never met him before 0:31:49.320 --> 0:31:54.560 in my life, so it wasn't me who was responsible 0:31:54.560 --> 0:31:56.400 for that. So and she passed that on to me, 0:31:57.680 --> 0:32:01.000 but I was pretty surprised that he actually did respond 0:32:01.040 --> 0:32:01.280 to her. 0:32:01.360 --> 0:32:06.080 Yeah, an investigation of that profile, that nature of the 0:32:06.120 --> 0:32:09.960 horror of the investigation, did it, what impact did it have? 0:32:10.080 --> 0:32:14.320 On yourself, the team, or like those type of investigations 0:32:14.320 --> 0:32:16.520 can be life changing for people that work it. 0:32:17.080 --> 0:32:20.880 That one will I mean everybody involved. That's one of 0:32:20.960 --> 0:32:24.400 those investigations that you're going to be sitting around the 0:32:24.440 --> 0:32:28.720 retirement home in your agies still talking about. Right, It's 0:32:28.800 --> 0:32:32.920 never going to leave you. You remember such intimate details about 0:32:32.920 --> 0:32:35.719 the investigation even years later. I mean, here we are, 0:32:35.760 --> 0:32:39.000 almost ten years later, and I can rattle off all 0:32:39.040 --> 0:32:43.280 the victims' names, usually the dates that they disappeared, and 0:32:44.120 --> 0:32:50.840 certainly seeing you know, teams from across the entire police 0:32:50.880 --> 0:32:55.440 service coming together, the provincial police coming in and helping out, 0:32:56.640 --> 0:33:02.560 my cousins in Holland sending me newspaper clippings from the coverage. 0:33:02.760 --> 0:33:08.840 Right certainly made international headlines. And even in the aftermath 0:33:08.920 --> 0:33:12.880 of the book, Right, I had one podcast that wanted 0:33:12.920 --> 0:33:16.920 to interview me, or actually my publish reached out and 0:33:16.960 --> 0:33:18.760 said to them, do you want to interview hank It 0:33:18.800 --> 0:33:22.080 Singa about his book? And they're like, who's hank it Singer? Right? 0:33:22.160 --> 0:33:26.160 What's this book all about? And what cases has he done? Oh? Well, 0:33:26.160 --> 0:33:30.080 he did this case with the serial killer who dismembered 0:33:30.080 --> 0:33:33.000 the bodies and put them. Yeah, we want Hank it 0:33:33.080 --> 0:33:36.680 singa on our podcast, right. So, and that was down 0:33:36.720 --> 0:33:38.800 in the United States, so it certainly had a lot 0:33:38.800 --> 0:33:43.800 of notoriety to it and certainly I think affected absolutely 0:33:43.880 --> 0:33:49.000 everybody who's involved in it, and of course radically affected 0:33:49.040 --> 0:33:53.440 the entire community and the entire city. You know, I 0:33:53.480 --> 0:33:56.680 don't think anybody in that community in Toronto is ever 0:33:56.720 --> 0:34:00.720 going to forget about it either. Whereas if most people 0:34:00.760 --> 0:34:02.920 in front of you said to them, who's Mark Moore, 0:34:03.640 --> 0:34:06.320 they wouldn't know. Yeah, but if you say who's Bruce 0:34:06.400 --> 0:34:10.440 Bruce MacArthur, absolutely everybody would know. And the impact that 0:34:10.440 --> 0:34:11.640 he had on the community. 0:34:12.080 --> 0:34:15.960 No, it's an interesting case, and that's sort of once 0:34:16.000 --> 0:34:18.640 in a career the type case that you get to 0:34:18.680 --> 0:34:22.440 work on. We've got serial killers here in Australia, but 0:34:22.560 --> 0:34:25.440 they're few and far between, and I think with the 0:34:25.560 --> 0:34:30.520 changes of the way investigative structures and practices now, it's 0:34:30.560 --> 0:34:31.920 getting harder and harder for. 0:34:32.360 --> 0:34:33.680 Serial killers to operate. 0:34:33.960 --> 0:34:38.240 And yeah, the United States and notorious for their serial killers, 0:34:38.239 --> 0:34:42.440 but I've spoken to experts from that area and saying 0:34:42.480 --> 0:34:45.160 the appears to be a decline and a lot of 0:34:45.160 --> 0:34:47.800 it's put down to practices of police now in that 0:34:48.640 --> 0:34:51.840 we used to operate in silos. A couple of serial 0:34:51.960 --> 0:34:54.759 killers in Australia got a way of things because we're 0:34:54.800 --> 0:34:58.120 looking at individual cases, not looking at the connection between 0:34:58.560 --> 0:35:02.239 between the cases. But yeah, they're a different type of 0:35:02.280 --> 0:35:05.480 investigation for a homicide investigator too. When you're looking at 0:35:05.480 --> 0:35:08.719 the serial killer. Normally we're reactive, but you've got the 0:35:08.760 --> 0:35:11.360 added pressure of being proactive that you've got to prevent 0:35:11.440 --> 0:35:14.800 the person killing again too, So that adds the pressure 0:35:15.640 --> 0:35:19.480 as a homicide detective. Following on from that, you got 0:35:19.520 --> 0:35:23.360 a promotion and ended up heading up the Toronto Homicide Squad. 0:35:23.760 --> 0:35:26.319 How many people did you have under your command? How 0:35:26.320 --> 0:35:27.600 big was the squad at the time. 0:35:28.480 --> 0:35:32.440 Well, we had the investigative response teams, We also had 0:35:32.480 --> 0:35:36.120 a cold case units, We had a missing Persons unit 0:35:36.239 --> 0:35:39.640 that came online in twenty eighteen, and we also had 0:35:39.680 --> 0:35:43.040 our Major Case Management Unit to make sure the entire 0:35:44.040 --> 0:35:47.759 police service abided by government regulations when it came to 0:35:47.800 --> 0:35:53.520 how investigations are indexed and also investigated. So just a 0:35:53.560 --> 0:35:58.400 little bit over one hundred personnel within that umbrella. But 0:35:58.520 --> 0:36:02.600 the investigative squad we had six of them and each 0:36:02.600 --> 0:36:10.759 of those squads held onto seven officers, so forty two 0:36:11.360 --> 0:36:15.480 usually if we're fully staffed investigators ready to roll out 0:36:15.480 --> 0:36:16.359 on the homicides. 0:36:16.560 --> 0:36:20.080 Yeah, the structure seems very similar to New South Wales 0:36:20.160 --> 0:36:24.200 Police homicide. We'd have on average and just rough figures 0:36:24.239 --> 0:36:28.200 like one hundred murders a year within the state. But 0:36:28.239 --> 0:36:30.560 there'd be other jobs you called out to that you 0:36:30.640 --> 0:36:35.000 have to investigate police shootings and different things and suspicious deaths, 0:36:35.320 --> 0:36:37.560 and our teams would be set up with an inspector, 0:36:37.600 --> 0:36:42.560 two sergeants and then four constables. The ideal situation. You 0:36:42.880 --> 0:36:46.000 spoke about the pressures of working in a like a 0:36:46.040 --> 0:36:48.760 pair with a partner, and there's a lot of perception 0:36:48.880 --> 0:36:52.680 that that's, yeah, the best practice. It's great to have 0:36:52.719 --> 0:36:55.839 a partner because you can share the responsibility and if 0:36:55.840 --> 0:36:59.320 you get on with your partner, the day passes. Yeah, 0:36:59.360 --> 0:37:02.000 you have so much fun working with a partner. But 0:37:02.080 --> 0:37:06.160 in homicide, I think now, especially with all the forensic 0:37:06.239 --> 0:37:09.799 evidence that's available and I'm talking the phone records, all 0:37:09.840 --> 0:37:12.319 the data that you've got to assess, you need more 0:37:12.360 --> 0:37:16.360 than two people working a case. We try to send 0:37:16.400 --> 0:37:19.480 out in our homicide we'd send out a minimum of 0:37:19.560 --> 0:37:22.279 three a sergeant and two constables, so at least you've 0:37:22.280 --> 0:37:24.560 got three there. You might have someone at the crime 0:37:24.600 --> 0:37:27.360 scene managing that, you might have someone setting up the 0:37:27.400 --> 0:37:30.480 incident room and the other person handling the allocation of 0:37:30.520 --> 0:37:32.520 the tasks that break it up. 0:37:32.520 --> 0:37:32.879 That way. 0:37:33.880 --> 0:37:37.600 With homicide, I think, and I just want to run 0:37:37.640 --> 0:37:39.799 this past you. I think the most crucial time and 0:37:40.360 --> 0:37:42.960 it's a narrative that people say the first forty eight hours, 0:37:43.000 --> 0:37:45.400 but I think to set the homicide up in the 0:37:45.480 --> 0:37:48.799 right direction is crucial to a successful investigation. I came 0:37:48.840 --> 0:37:52.719 in a lot during reinvestigations where the initial investigation had 0:37:52.760 --> 0:37:56.879 been mucked up. But the crucial time is gathering all 0:37:56.880 --> 0:37:59.359 the evidence, going to the crime scene, making sure you're 0:37:59.360 --> 0:38:02.120 not missing, and then setting it up from there. Would 0:38:02.160 --> 0:38:04.240 you agree with that sort of approach. 0:38:04.840 --> 0:38:07.640 Yeah. The first forty eight hours is like drinking from 0:38:07.640 --> 0:38:10.279 a fire hose, right, and when you only had two 0:38:11.680 --> 0:38:15.160 responding officers, that was very, very tough to do, and 0:38:15.200 --> 0:38:17.239 you'd have to put so much of it on the 0:38:17.280 --> 0:38:19.640 back burner instead of being able to react to it 0:38:19.760 --> 0:38:23.040 right away. So as we evolved into the front end 0:38:23.080 --> 0:38:26.920 loading team concept, we got a lot more successful with 0:38:26.960 --> 0:38:32.000 our homicide investigations because that bit of information would come in, Okay, 0:38:32.080 --> 0:38:34.359 Officer so and so you go take care of that. 0:38:34.880 --> 0:38:38.200 Another bit would come in, Okay, you take care of that. Okay, 0:38:38.239 --> 0:38:40.960 this is more important. Come back, put that other thing 0:38:41.040 --> 0:38:44.000 on the back burner, Go take care of this. You 0:38:44.120 --> 0:38:48.040 need that personnel right at the outset, especially the first 0:38:48.080 --> 0:38:51.480 forty eight hours, because there's so much coming in, and 0:38:51.560 --> 0:38:53.440 there's so much that you have to react to and 0:38:53.520 --> 0:38:56.800 respond to, and you need the personnel to be able 0:38:56.840 --> 0:39:02.399 to do that. So it's certainly made homicide investigations sound 0:39:02.480 --> 0:39:06.360 much better, but you're right, the amount of information flowing 0:39:06.440 --> 0:39:10.840 those first two days is absolutely enormous, and you're the 0:39:10.880 --> 0:39:12.960 one at the top of that pyramid who has to 0:39:13.040 --> 0:39:16.880 keep up on absolutely everything. So it's a big, big task. 0:39:18.760 --> 0:39:22.160 It sounds like when you were there too, the missing 0:39:22.200 --> 0:39:26.120 persons unit got overhauled and more closely aligned with homicide 0:39:26.120 --> 0:39:30.280 and unsolved homicide. That's something that's occurred in our state 0:39:30.320 --> 0:39:32.920 too over the years, that there was sort of a 0:39:33.000 --> 0:39:36.719 disconnect between people that had disappeared and what we're doing 0:39:36.760 --> 0:39:40.439 at homicide. So we're sort of closer a line now. 0:39:40.560 --> 0:39:45.120 So these things don't happen when you were the boss 0:39:45.120 --> 0:39:49.040 of a homicide, you also had the Toronto Van of 0:39:49.160 --> 0:39:51.440 mass killing. If you could let the listener know about 0:39:51.640 --> 0:39:54.239 know about that, I'm sure they've heard about it, but 0:39:54.360 --> 0:39:56.840 just give the brief details and then the impact and 0:39:56.920 --> 0:39:59.640 how you responded to that, because that's a lot of 0:39:59.640 --> 0:40:00.479 pressure as well. 0:40:01.160 --> 0:40:04.279 Yeah, you know what. I actually was not the inspector 0:40:04.320 --> 0:40:07.520 in charge yet. I believe that happened in April of 0:40:07.560 --> 0:40:11.080 twenty and eighteen, and I became the boss in July 0:40:12.520 --> 0:40:15.239 of twenty eighteen. But I was in the office when 0:40:15.239 --> 0:40:19.640 it happened. And what happened is our main street in Toronto, 0:40:20.520 --> 0:40:24.320 Young Street, which cuts through the entire city north south. 0:40:25.440 --> 0:40:28.360 In the north part of the city, a fellow named 0:40:28.440 --> 0:40:34.040 Alex Manassian decided he was part of the in cell 0:40:34.200 --> 0:40:38.640 movement or the involuntarily celibate movement, so he obviously had 0:40:38.680 --> 0:40:42.000 some mental health issues, and he went and took a 0:40:42.120 --> 0:40:46.000 van one day and drove down the sidewalk of Young 0:40:46.040 --> 0:40:51.239 Street and struck and killed I believe fifteen people. I 0:40:51.320 --> 0:40:53.600 think it was fourteen. I might be off on the number, 0:40:53.960 --> 0:40:59.560 but eventually became fifteen. And then eventually his van, the 0:40:59.640 --> 0:41:03.920 van is driving broke down and he was taken down 0:41:04.120 --> 0:41:09.640 and arrested by responding uniform officer. So just an absolutely 0:41:09.680 --> 0:41:14.680 horrendous little chapter in Toronto's history. A mass murder as 0:41:14.719 --> 0:41:19.680 opposed to a serial killing. And you'll appreciate, as a 0:41:19.719 --> 0:41:23.040 homicide guy, a crime scene that stretched two and a 0:41:23.080 --> 0:41:29.520 half kilometers, right, And you can only have so much 0:41:29.640 --> 0:41:32.960 training and take so many courses. But when have you 0:41:33.040 --> 0:41:36.160 ever been instructed on how do we deal with this? 0:41:38.000 --> 0:41:42.520 You never have because A it used to never happen. 0:41:42.640 --> 0:41:46.080 Then yeah, b it has happened now in several parts 0:41:46.120 --> 0:41:51.000 of the world, but in midtown Toronto you would never 0:41:51.120 --> 0:41:55.279 expect that. So but you know, a great response by 0:41:55.719 --> 0:41:59.000 the team from homicide, led by a friend of mine, 0:41:59.120 --> 0:42:02.600 Graham Gibson, and they put the case together and they 0:42:02.640 --> 0:42:06.319 convicted them of all of those murders as well. But 0:42:06.760 --> 0:42:10.879 an awful lot of learning points. And still I'm sure 0:42:10.920 --> 0:42:14.280 you do the same thing. You walk down the street 0:42:14.560 --> 0:42:18.279 now on Young Street, and every single time you walk 0:42:18.360 --> 0:42:22.799 down that sidewalk you think about that, right, and all 0:42:22.840 --> 0:42:25.320 through the city. I drive my wife and my daughter 0:42:25.440 --> 0:42:28.480 crazy if we're driving through Toronto. I was like, this 0:42:28.560 --> 0:42:31.279 happened here, and this happened here, and this happened there. 0:42:32.640 --> 0:42:35.399 You know, the stories all stay with you, but that 0:42:35.440 --> 0:42:37.880 one is definitely etched into the minds I think of 0:42:37.920 --> 0:42:40.960 every Torontonian of the rest of their lives. 0:42:41.200 --> 0:42:46.280 Yeah, sadly they're becoming more frequent and across the globe actually, 0:42:46.320 --> 0:42:50.480 And yeah, we've had recently the Bondoi massacre, a mess 0:42:50.800 --> 0:42:55.239 mess killing and yeah, place you see situations like that, 0:42:55.360 --> 0:42:59.239 and then I always admire watching the police step up 0:42:59.480 --> 0:43:03.080 at something you can't trying for that magnitude. But there's 0:43:03.080 --> 0:43:05.640 a why the place just get it done. 0:43:05.920 --> 0:43:09.239 Yeah, Well, if you think, you know, just throwing it 0:43:09.280 --> 0:43:14.239 out on that case, the number of survivors plus the 0:43:14.360 --> 0:43:17.080 number of victims, and they're all being brought to different 0:43:17.120 --> 0:43:21.280 hospitals all across the Greater Toronto area, and you're trying 0:43:21.280 --> 0:43:23.719 to scramble detectives to go to every single one of 0:43:23.719 --> 0:43:26.480 those hospitals to deal with every single one of those victims, 0:43:26.520 --> 0:43:29.799 all of those victims' families. You're holding down a two 0:43:29.800 --> 0:43:33.200 and a half kilometer crime scene that has fifteen murder 0:43:33.280 --> 0:43:36.760 scenes within it, trying to get your forensic personnel there, 0:43:37.080 --> 0:43:41.640 and you can't get there because the entire city is 0:43:41.800 --> 0:43:46.360 gridlocked because the main street has been shut down because 0:43:46.360 --> 0:43:51.520 of this mass killing. So just an absolute logistical nightmare 0:43:51.640 --> 0:43:54.080 from minute one of there. But at the end of 0:43:54.120 --> 0:43:57.320 the day, we got the job done and put together 0:43:57.400 --> 0:44:00.560 a great investigation and like I said, convicted them of everything. 0:44:01.920 --> 0:44:05.319 When you see it start to work that way, it 0:44:05.320 --> 0:44:07.719 makes you proud to be a part of an organization 0:44:07.800 --> 0:44:10.680 when can pick it up and you see the individuals 0:44:10.680 --> 0:44:13.120 that step up. Some might fall by the wayside, others 0:44:13.160 --> 0:44:16.680 step up and really, yeah, carry carry the weight of 0:44:16.719 --> 0:44:18.920 it and point it in the in the right direction. 0:44:19.520 --> 0:44:23.239 Yep. Yeah. And one thing that that inedability that you 0:44:23.400 --> 0:44:28.960 develop working homicide for years. Every time that phone rings, 0:44:29.000 --> 0:44:34.040 it's a crisis, right, and it's a project and you're 0:44:34.800 --> 0:44:37.200 dealing with that on a daily basis. And you look 0:44:37.239 --> 0:44:40.560 at some of these promotional processes, especially in the senior 0:44:40.600 --> 0:44:43.880 officer ranks, and what they really try and get the 0:44:43.920 --> 0:44:47.640 candidates talk about is you know, one time they handled 0:44:47.640 --> 0:44:50.680 a major project. And that's when you can take your 0:44:50.719 --> 0:44:53.680 experience as a homicide guy and say, every time that 0:44:53.760 --> 0:44:55.800 phone rang, it was a major project. Which one do 0:44:55.840 --> 0:44:58.560 you want to tell me about? Yeah, And seeing a 0:44:58.600 --> 0:45:01.280 homicide guy at the top the pyramid when it comes 0:45:01.280 --> 0:45:05.040 to a mass murder like that makes you're extremely proud. 0:45:05.719 --> 0:45:08.240 And then you have the senior officer who's never worked 0:45:08.239 --> 0:45:11.120 homicide before putting a command pullst right in the middle 0:45:11.120 --> 0:45:14.640 of the crime scene. You know, obviously you've never worked 0:45:14.680 --> 0:45:17.520 homicide before. Not one homicide guy would ever do that, 0:45:18.800 --> 0:45:23.279 So get the heck out of there. So definitely a 0:45:23.440 --> 0:45:26.479 great place to work to develop that skill set where 0:45:26.520 --> 0:45:28.839 you know what to do and when to do it. 0:45:29.200 --> 0:45:32.200 Now, I hear you, and I agree with everything you're 0:45:32.200 --> 0:45:37.360 saying there, and I the aspect of homicide investigation, whatever 0:45:37.440 --> 0:45:40.360 decision you make is going to be scrutinized in some form. 0:45:40.520 --> 0:45:45.560 It's a public's expectation through the media, at the Supreme Court, 0:45:46.040 --> 0:45:49.239 or a coroner's inquest. And that's what when I was 0:45:49.320 --> 0:45:53.000 lecturing to homicide course, all detectives courses, I'd say, I 0:45:53.080 --> 0:45:56.160 understand that if you come to homicide, everything you do 0:45:56.280 --> 0:45:58.480 is going to be scrutinized. So you've got to be 0:45:59.160 --> 0:46:01.520 got to be able to justify what you've done. You're 0:46:01.520 --> 0:46:05.719 playing high stakes, and yeah, you've got to prepare for it. 0:46:06.760 --> 0:46:09.160 And we still see it to this day. You know, 0:46:09.239 --> 0:46:12.200 even though I'm removed three years from the Toronto Police Service, 0:46:12.239 --> 0:46:16.080 and you see again some of the senior officers and 0:46:16.120 --> 0:46:19.759 the command officers getting called out on the carpet for 0:46:19.880 --> 0:46:24.480 some of the decisions they've made, and you know, erroneous decisions, 0:46:24.520 --> 0:46:27.040 and the number of times I've sat back and said, man, 0:46:27.120 --> 0:46:29.280 you should have spent five years at homicide. You wouldn't 0:46:29.320 --> 0:46:32.120 have said that, or you wouldn't have done that. It's 0:46:32.160 --> 0:46:35.440 definitely a great training ground for being able to have 0:46:35.520 --> 0:46:38.640 the foresight to see what the repercussions are of every 0:46:38.680 --> 0:46:40.719 decision that you make, and so you better make the 0:46:40.800 --> 0:46:42.920 right ones at the right times. 0:46:43.719 --> 0:46:46.160 We're probably bossed, they'll put my hand up to the 0:46:46.200 --> 0:46:48.040 boss to a homicide. 0:46:48.160 --> 0:46:52.280 I think you're going to have to join that. Yeah. 0:46:52.400 --> 0:46:55.879 I think the promotion game in policing, and I've seen 0:46:55.880 --> 0:46:58.440 it in New South Wales police it's just people cloring 0:46:58.480 --> 0:47:01.160 over themselves to get promoted them. If they just settled 0:47:01.200 --> 0:47:05.480 down and did their job and let the experience build up, 0:47:06.000 --> 0:47:08.560 it would be a better place. And that's not criticizing 0:47:08.600 --> 0:47:12.120 every senior police officer. There's some great senior police officers, 0:47:12.120 --> 0:47:16.680 but the ones that haven't got the experience. They're the 0:47:16.680 --> 0:47:19.400 ones that concern me, and the ones that think a 0:47:20.440 --> 0:47:24.440 rank or a position naturally gives them experience. When I 0:47:24.480 --> 0:47:27.080 was at homicide, I had I think it was eight 0:47:27.200 --> 0:47:30.600 or nine different bosses at homicide, and there were some 0:47:30.640 --> 0:47:34.600 great bosses and there were some others that really were problematic. 0:47:34.680 --> 0:47:39.880 But that's about as kind as I can say. Let's 0:47:39.880 --> 0:47:42.960 talk about some of your homicide life hacks. We've covered 0:47:43.000 --> 0:47:45.080 quite a few of them, but I just I was 0:47:45.120 --> 0:47:48.000 pulling them out of the book. So day and age 0:47:48.080 --> 0:47:52.440 homicide are difficult to operate in pairs. All members can 0:47:52.520 --> 0:47:58.120 have input, rankers not provide experience. Homicide detective should go 0:47:58.200 --> 0:48:00.680 to the crime scene. We haven't touched on that so much, 0:48:00.719 --> 0:48:03.960 but I love that point too, because what the hell 0:48:04.000 --> 0:48:06.520 are you doing here? Why aren't you at the crime scene? 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:08.759 And I know that's the thoughts that were going through 0:48:08.800 --> 0:48:10.799 my mind when they'll get called out to a job 0:48:10.840 --> 0:48:13.719 and have people the detectives at the police station where 0:48:13.719 --> 0:48:15.759 they should have been at the crime scene. Talk us 0:48:15.800 --> 0:48:16.880 through your thoughts here. 0:48:17.560 --> 0:48:21.000 Yeah, you know what, especially in the city like Toronto, 0:48:21.840 --> 0:48:27.280 it absolutely blew me away. When I saw homicide detectives 0:48:27.520 --> 0:48:30.680 not go to their murder scenes. They would go to 0:48:30.719 --> 0:48:33.239 the local police station where the murder happened, and they 0:48:33.239 --> 0:48:36.400 would get briefed on everything, but never go to that scene. 0:48:36.719 --> 0:48:40.080 I would scratch my head. I'm like, where is your mind? 0:48:40.800 --> 0:48:44.000 Where are you even starting? If you want to see 0:48:44.000 --> 0:48:47.279 a good homicide detective, they're the guys who pull up 0:48:47.280 --> 0:48:50.760 in their cars outside the perimeter of the murder scene 0:48:50.800 --> 0:48:52.720 and they don't get out of their cars for twenty 0:48:53.080 --> 0:48:56.480 minutes thirty minutes because they're busy writing notes as to 0:48:56.560 --> 0:49:00.359 what they're taking in or what they're seeing. The number 0:49:00.400 --> 0:49:05.800 of times people have said to me, what are you doing? 0:49:06.120 --> 0:49:10.359 Because I'm usually standing in the middle of a crime scene, right, 0:49:10.400 --> 0:49:12.920 I've checked in in the perimeter, I've gone into the 0:49:12.960 --> 0:49:16.399 crime scene, and I'll usually just stand there for five 0:49:16.520 --> 0:49:19.920 or ten minutes, just kind of looking around and absorbing everything, 0:49:20.880 --> 0:49:27.520 and people would say, what are you doing? Quiet, I'm observing, right, 0:49:27.760 --> 0:49:30.680 I'm taking it all in. And I wouldn't know where 0:49:30.719 --> 0:49:32.800 to begin if I just went into the police station 0:49:32.880 --> 0:49:35.560 and relied on second hand information as to what's going 0:49:35.600 --> 0:49:38.319 on at that crime scene. And I talk about a 0:49:38.320 --> 0:49:42.560 friend of mine who's in the Ontario Provincial Police. Sometimes 0:49:42.600 --> 0:49:45.560 they take eight nine hours to get to their murder scenes. 0:49:45.600 --> 0:49:49.040 But he's still he goes to the scene first, right, 0:49:49.200 --> 0:49:51.760 And we've talked about it and we've kind of laughed 0:49:51.800 --> 0:49:55.879 about it that some people don't. And then if you're 0:49:56.600 --> 0:50:01.120 working in active murder and it's out in let's say, 0:50:01.200 --> 0:50:04.840 twenty three Division in the northwest part of Toronto Police 0:50:04.880 --> 0:50:09.120 headquarters is right downtown where the homicide squad is, if 0:50:09.160 --> 0:50:12.920 you're back at police headquarters within twenty four hours, again, 0:50:13.000 --> 0:50:16.200 I say, what are you doing right? Your murder's out 0:50:16.520 --> 0:50:19.480 half an hour that way in twenty three Division. No, yeah, 0:50:19.520 --> 0:50:22.680 but you know it's well in hand, and you know 0:50:22.680 --> 0:50:26.799 I'm just doing payperwork here. Yeah, but you've got officers 0:50:26.880 --> 0:50:34.000 working for you right now, probably canvassing processing it forensically. 0:50:35.160 --> 0:50:38.239 They're out there working, And what do you think they 0:50:38.280 --> 0:50:40.600 would say if they saw you were back here at 0:50:40.640 --> 0:50:44.560 your desk. What's motivating them to get the work done. 0:50:44.760 --> 0:50:51.279 So usually when I was the boss and a homicide 0:50:51.320 --> 0:50:53.640 team would go out to a division, I would say, 0:50:54.280 --> 0:50:57.279 I don't expect to see you again for a week. Yeah, right, 0:50:58.200 --> 0:51:01.399 as long as that investigation is active and it's out 0:51:01.400 --> 0:51:05.680 of that division. That's your home base until you get 0:51:05.719 --> 0:51:07.279 to the point where you don't need to be out 0:51:07.280 --> 0:51:10.799 there anymore. But if people are out there working on 0:51:10.840 --> 0:51:13.520 it for you, you better be out there as well, leading them. 0:51:13.680 --> 0:51:18.400 So that's I would have thought a no brainer. 0:51:18.480 --> 0:51:23.759 Homicide, Well, I know, I agree. I say there's a 0:51:23.800 --> 0:51:26.360 no brainer get to the crime scene. Obviously, the stuff 0:51:26.400 --> 0:51:28.840 that you pick up at the crime scene, going there visiting. 0:51:29.239 --> 0:51:32.920 But the other thing when you're in homicide, and I 0:51:33.760 --> 0:51:36.440 gain I learned this everything. You don't just wake up 0:51:36.480 --> 0:51:38.760 and become a homicide detective if you learn the trial 0:51:38.800 --> 0:51:44.279 and error and things. With Paul Jacob when we're working homicide, 0:51:44.360 --> 0:51:47.040 he just had this capacity to keep working and working, 0:51:47.080 --> 0:51:50.759 and yeah it was hard and I had that capacity too, 0:51:50.760 --> 0:51:52.239 but it was hard to keep up with him. But 0:51:52.480 --> 0:51:54.480 he always made the point of you know where the 0:51:54.480 --> 0:51:58.480 homicide detectives will be here longer than anyone else. 0:51:58.600 --> 0:51:59.400 The locals. 0:51:59.680 --> 0:52:02.319 Yeah, the locals will watch the homicide the techniques and think, 0:52:02.400 --> 0:52:04.720 these guys don't stop, They just keep working. 0:52:04.760 --> 0:52:05.920 So it motivates. 0:52:05.960 --> 0:52:09.880 So then I come across people in homicide at various 0:52:09.880 --> 0:52:12.400 stages of my career that oh yeah, we called in 0:52:12.480 --> 0:52:14.680 and saw the locals and they said they've got it 0:52:14.719 --> 0:52:17.239 all in hand, so it's fine. And then they're sitting 0:52:17.320 --> 0:52:20.680 back having a coffee at the homicide office. No, that's 0:52:20.120 --> 0:52:24.560 not the way it works. Another point that you're brought up, 0:52:24.600 --> 0:52:27.200 and I agree with this because I've had issues in 0:52:27.520 --> 0:52:31.839 my career that sometimes a high profile investigation soon your 0:52:31.840 --> 0:52:34.239 police will want to throw staff at me. But I'm 0:52:34.480 --> 0:52:37.640 a big believer. Give me a good quality team rather 0:52:37.680 --> 0:52:40.520 than a large, poor quality team. I don't need numbers, 0:52:40.560 --> 0:52:44.120 I need quality because in homicide, if you've got someone 0:52:44.200 --> 0:52:46.440 that's not doing the work at the standard that should be, 0:52:46.560 --> 0:52:49.319 that's going to cause more problems than what it's worth. 0:52:49.440 --> 0:52:53.759 I prefer quality, smaller team rather than the large team. 0:52:54.040 --> 0:52:56.080 What's your I know what your thoughts are because it's 0:52:56.120 --> 0:52:59.239 your hack. I'm trying to steal your hack, So talk 0:52:59.320 --> 0:52:59.879 us through that. 0:53:01.320 --> 0:53:04.759 Send people back. Sometimes it didn't happen that often, but 0:53:04.880 --> 0:53:07.680 it did happen. And we got to a point in 0:53:07.719 --> 0:53:10.920 time in homicide when I was the boss and we 0:53:10.960 --> 0:53:18.600 were very shorthanded, and people would want to leave because 0:53:19.200 --> 0:53:23.759 they were getting burnt out. And I always say, you know, 0:53:24.040 --> 0:53:27.200 there's a bit of a cardinal rule amongst senior officers. 0:53:27.239 --> 0:53:29.120 You don't give up a body unless you get a 0:53:29.120 --> 0:53:32.319 body in return, And we don't have anyone to send 0:53:32.320 --> 0:53:34.600 to you in return, so keep that person there. And 0:53:34.640 --> 0:53:36.279 I was like, no, they don't want to be here. 0:53:36.440 --> 0:53:39.759 I don't want them, right, and maybe they just need 0:53:39.800 --> 0:53:42.879 a break, or they actually don't want to be here. 0:53:43.000 --> 0:53:48.319 I'd rather run short with good people than have a 0:53:48.400 --> 0:53:50.719 full team of people who don't actually want to be 0:53:50.800 --> 0:53:53.800 here and do the job. So a lot of times 0:53:53.840 --> 0:53:56.920 as well, like you allude to, you would need to 0:53:57.320 --> 0:54:01.160 bring in people from different divisions around the city, and 0:54:01.239 --> 0:54:04.359 sometimes the bosses that those divisions would take it as 0:54:04.400 --> 0:54:09.120 an opportunity to give you their dead wood, right, get 0:54:09.200 --> 0:54:11.359 rid of a problem person. That's all right, We'll send 0:54:11.360 --> 0:54:13.919 them to a homicide for a few months or a year. 0:54:14.960 --> 0:54:18.160 Sometimes you can actually make that work if you could 0:54:18.200 --> 0:54:19.000 find the buttons. 0:54:19.000 --> 0:54:22.200 Suppose you just kind of steer them in the right direction. Yeah, 0:54:22.480 --> 0:54:23.399 I'll add that, yep. 0:54:24.120 --> 0:54:27.680 And sometimes they turn into all stars. Other times they 0:54:27.719 --> 0:54:29.719 said I don't want to be here. My boss sent 0:54:29.800 --> 0:54:33.680 me here. I don't know what I'm doing here. They 0:54:33.760 --> 0:54:36.799 think I'm a problem child. I've got no interest in 0:54:36.840 --> 0:54:40.720 doing the work, then I don't want you here right, Sorry, 0:54:40.760 --> 0:54:44.120 you're going to go back so again, going back to 0:54:44.160 --> 0:54:46.759 our earlier point of give me people who want to 0:54:46.800 --> 0:54:48.719 do the work and who want to be there will 0:54:48.719 --> 0:54:51.560 be much more effective and everyone. Yeah, we might have 0:54:51.600 --> 0:54:54.120 to work a little bit harder because we're shorthanded, but 0:54:54.360 --> 0:54:56.680 I'd rather be in that position and get the job 0:54:56.719 --> 0:54:59.640 done properly than have people who don't want to do 0:54:59.680 --> 0:55:01.640 the job abruptly and don't want to be there. 0:55:02.239 --> 0:55:05.640 Most definitely, I think it needs to I see problems 0:55:05.640 --> 0:55:09.120 if you have people working homicide because of the commitment 0:55:09.160 --> 0:55:11.319 you've got to make, the sacrifices you've got to make. 0:55:11.360 --> 0:55:12.800 They've got to want to be there, they've got to 0:55:12.840 --> 0:55:15.520 have a passion for it. And it's not a criticism 0:55:15.560 --> 0:55:18.040 of the people that don't. There's plenty of other jobs 0:55:18.040 --> 0:55:19.600 you can do in the police, and you could probably 0:55:19.640 --> 0:55:23.319 do them very well, but if you're working homicide. There 0:55:23.320 --> 0:55:27.960 comes a responsibility in working homicide and you can't I 0:55:28.080 --> 0:55:30.080 can't go there half hard. That You've got to fully 0:55:30.080 --> 0:55:34.440 commit because the consequences are too high. The last hacker 0:55:34.520 --> 0:55:37.080 fairly obvious one. Don't drive when you've been awake for 0:55:37.080 --> 0:55:38.200 forty eight hours. 0:55:40.840 --> 0:55:43.399 Yeah, and try not to you. I mean, I don't 0:55:43.400 --> 0:55:46.920 think there's a driver on this planet who hasn't had 0:55:46.960 --> 0:55:48.839 a bit of a nod once in a while as 0:55:48.840 --> 0:55:53.040 they're driving. But you know, I talked about that scenario 0:55:53.200 --> 0:55:57.800 when I was an Idowa where I was full blown 0:55:58.440 --> 0:56:01.680 sound asleep in the middle of the hi way. And 0:56:01.719 --> 0:56:03.960 then there's another time. I remember we had been up 0:56:03.960 --> 0:56:09.080 for probably close to fifty hours, and where I live 0:56:09.480 --> 0:56:13.600 is about maybe three quarters of a kilometer from the 0:56:13.640 --> 0:56:17.320 main road to where my house is, and driving along 0:56:17.360 --> 0:56:22.919 that main road, I knotted off, woke up, I'm almost home, 0:56:23.000 --> 0:56:26.359 got to make home, nodded, woke up three times in 0:56:26.400 --> 0:56:29.239 that three quarters of a kilometer, and you know, I 0:56:29.320 --> 0:56:32.920 thankfully made it home safe. And there's the one time 0:56:33.040 --> 0:56:36.680 when I had that incident in Ottawa and finally got 0:56:36.760 --> 0:56:39.360 home and the phone rang and they wanted me to 0:56:39.440 --> 0:56:41.880 go back to Ottawa, and I started putting my suit on, 0:56:42.080 --> 0:56:45.680 and had it not been for my wife basically grabbing 0:56:45.719 --> 0:56:49.800 me and saying, you're not going back to Ottawa, I 0:56:49.840 --> 0:56:52.200 would have gone back to Ottawa and I probably would 0:56:52.200 --> 0:56:55.560 have died in the process. But she wouldn't. She wouldn't 0:56:55.640 --> 0:56:55.960 let me go. 0:56:56.360 --> 0:56:58.920 You need people like that because you're not only mad. 0:56:59.000 --> 0:57:01.879 The skill's gone you. Your cognitive skills are gone as well. 0:57:01.920 --> 0:57:04.920 When you and the dangerous part is you think that 0:57:05.160 --> 0:57:06.120 you're functioning well. 0:57:07.040 --> 0:57:09.680 Yeah at all? 0:57:09.760 --> 0:57:11.080 Yeah, yeah, not at all. 0:57:11.640 --> 0:57:14.680 I also kept the pillow under my desk for some 0:57:14.760 --> 0:57:17.280 of those times where you're just not getting any sleep 0:57:17.320 --> 0:57:19.480 and just crawl under there, get the twenty minute power 0:57:19.480 --> 0:57:24.200 and happened away. You go think your career. You finished 0:57:24.240 --> 0:57:26.960 thirty four years in the police. You had a couple 0:57:27.000 --> 0:57:30.000 of issues at the end of things, and you've spoken 0:57:30.040 --> 0:57:32.640 about a few things here in your book. I've got 0:57:32.680 --> 0:57:34.920 the sense that there were certain aspects of the police 0:57:34.960 --> 0:57:37.920 that you think could have been improved. Not coming across 0:57:37.960 --> 0:57:40.440 as someone bitter, it sounds like you've enjoyed every day 0:57:40.720 --> 0:57:43.280 in the polace. What's your your thoughts on policing at 0:57:43.280 --> 0:57:44.480 the the end of your career. 0:57:45.120 --> 0:57:48.840 Oh, you know what, I don't regret a thing. Best 0:57:48.920 --> 0:57:52.200 job in the world. You know, got into the best 0:57:52.480 --> 0:57:57.400 office in the entire organization, did the work that I 0:57:57.440 --> 0:57:59.440 really think I was meant to do from a very 0:57:59.480 --> 0:58:02.920 young age, and definitely was lucky early in my career 0:58:03.000 --> 0:58:06.480 to identify that homicide was where I wanted to be 0:58:06.600 --> 0:58:08.400 and that was the work I wanted to do. And 0:58:08.440 --> 0:58:11.120 I think there's so many options, as you said earlier, 0:58:11.120 --> 0:58:14.880 in police work, it's nice to be able to identify 0:58:14.960 --> 0:58:18.919 that career goal early and get there and be able 0:58:18.960 --> 0:58:22.640 to enjoy it while you're there. So, you know, policing, 0:58:22.720 --> 0:58:27.680 I think, is having a real tough time evolving with society. 0:58:28.480 --> 0:58:33.960 And we talked about paramilitary structure and really stifling open 0:58:34.040 --> 0:58:38.400 thought and free thoughts, and people who don't necessarily do 0:58:38.560 --> 0:58:42.760 the job well, but they get promoted well end up 0:58:42.840 --> 0:58:46.880 running the organization. And there's a couple of anecdotes in 0:58:46.920 --> 0:58:49.440 the book as well where senior officers are trying to 0:58:49.440 --> 0:58:52.240 throw ideas of me for what to do next to 0:58:52.360 --> 0:58:58.200 my homicide investigation that were absolutely laughable. And I think, 0:58:58.280 --> 0:59:01.320 you know, I talk about the internal racism in the 0:59:01.440 --> 0:59:03.760 organization in the book and some of the issues I 0:59:03.800 --> 0:59:06.560 had with that, And my question at the end of 0:59:06.600 --> 0:59:10.600 it is what do we do to make sure that 0:59:11.120 --> 0:59:14.440 that doesn't happen to the next guy? Right? What is 0:59:14.520 --> 0:59:19.000 wrong with the structure and the culture of the police 0:59:19.040 --> 0:59:23.760 service that somebody who's that vile of a racist, and 0:59:23.920 --> 0:59:27.080 is that incompetent when it comes to actual police work, 0:59:27.360 --> 0:59:31.760 ends up being really near the top of the organization 0:59:32.120 --> 0:59:36.640 because of their personal relationships and because of their friendships 0:59:36.680 --> 0:59:39.360 with people who have that ability to promote them and 0:59:39.400 --> 0:59:42.720 pull them up. So I've kind of, you know, it 0:59:42.800 --> 0:59:46.400 made quite a splash here in Canada and in Toronto, 0:59:46.960 --> 0:59:48.680 some of the stuff that I put in the book, 0:59:49.440 --> 0:59:56.760 and thankfully the Police Services Board has stood up and said, yeah, 0:59:56.800 --> 0:59:58.400 we're going to look at this and we're going to 0:59:58.400 --> 1:00:01.600 figure out how we can do the better right, which 1:00:01.640 --> 1:00:05.400 has pissed off a lot of the command officers because 1:00:05.440 --> 1:00:08.600 of course they did their typical police thing, got very 1:00:08.600 --> 1:00:12.880 defensive about it, tried to try to turn it around 1:00:12.960 --> 1:00:16.000 on me, and I was like, listen, guys, this isn't 1:00:16.000 --> 1:00:19.760 a hit piece. This is my story, this is my memoir. 1:00:19.920 --> 1:00:23.560 Here's what I experienced firsthand. You want to do something 1:00:23.600 --> 1:00:27.120 about it, yes, I think you should go do something 1:00:27.160 --> 1:00:29.800 about it, but don't come back and criticize me now 1:00:29.880 --> 1:00:33.360 for saying the things that I said. So I think 1:00:33.680 --> 1:00:37.760 hopefully it helps give a bit of a voice and 1:00:37.840 --> 1:00:43.160 it helps things evolve. But the really interesting thing is 1:00:43.240 --> 1:00:47.120 the aftermath of it. The number of police offers sirs 1:00:47.160 --> 1:00:50.960 who have reached out and said thank you, thank you 1:00:51.040 --> 1:00:54.360 for saying that, thank you for saying that publicly, thank 1:00:54.400 --> 1:00:58.600 you for being our voice. Same things are happening to 1:00:58.640 --> 1:01:02.840 me in tron over across all of Canada and I'm 1:01:02.880 --> 1:01:06.560 sure in Australia, and they need to do something to 1:01:06.600 --> 1:01:09.880 make it better. So the number of female officers who 1:01:09.920 --> 1:01:13.120 have complained the number of black officers who have complained 1:01:13.160 --> 1:01:17.800 over the decades really interesting. The bulk of the messages 1:01:17.880 --> 1:01:20.440 of support and me too stories I got were from 1:01:20.520 --> 1:01:24.480 Asian officers. They're having a real tough time right now. 1:01:24.640 --> 1:01:30.000 So a lot of issues in policing and hopefully this 1:01:30.280 --> 1:01:35.240 spurs some activity and conversations to turn that very big 1:01:35.280 --> 1:01:37.560 boat around and for the better. 1:01:38.200 --> 1:01:41.960 Well well, full courage for raising the issues. And my 1:01:42.120 --> 1:01:44.760 take on and I read it in depth cover the cover, 1:01:45.000 --> 1:01:48.960 that it was balancing your views. You were saying what 1:01:49.320 --> 1:01:52.880 you thought and how improvements could be made. You're not 1:01:53.080 --> 1:01:56.280 someone that's retired, bitter and twisted that hate the place 1:01:56.320 --> 1:01:58.280 and the place should have done this place, should have 1:01:58.280 --> 1:02:00.960 done that. You're saying you love the organized It's just 1:02:01.080 --> 1:02:04.480 we could change and make things better. So good on 1:02:04.560 --> 1:02:06.680 you for standing up. I know it comes to the cost. 1:02:06.960 --> 1:02:10.560 I've spoken out about certain things in policing and it 1:02:10.640 --> 1:02:14.400 led to my career as I got charged and that 1:02:14.560 --> 1:02:18.640 was the end of my thirty four years. But I 1:02:18.680 --> 1:02:22.280 still stand by the positions that I took in policing 1:02:22.480 --> 1:02:27.080 and the organizations we should be striving to improve. It's 1:02:27.080 --> 1:02:31.040 a great job, it's something that's important. So someone like 1:02:31.120 --> 1:02:34.440 yourself that's held in such high high esteem within the 1:02:34.520 --> 1:02:37.600 community that you served, I think by having the courage 1:02:37.600 --> 1:02:42.320 to speak out is an important, important message and maybe 1:02:42.800 --> 1:02:44.640 just some of the stuff that you're talking about, there 1:02:44.720 --> 1:02:45.640 might be improvements. 1:02:45.680 --> 1:02:49.840 So yeah, I am optimistic. We'll see what they do. 1:02:50.720 --> 1:02:56.360 You know, hopefully they do something. But the very people 1:02:56.520 --> 1:02:59.520 who have the ability to do something about it are 1:02:59.560 --> 1:03:04.080 the one who have profited from the culture and the 1:03:04.160 --> 1:03:07.560 structure in the first place. So it's going to be tough. 1:03:09.880 --> 1:03:12.400 And like I said, there's no shortage of me Too 1:03:12.440 --> 1:03:15.720 stories out there. There's no shortage of books. You know. 1:03:15.800 --> 1:03:20.400 There was a high ranking officer in the jurisdiction just 1:03:20.520 --> 1:03:23.280 north of us who wrote a very similar book. He 1:03:23.400 --> 1:03:27.280 was black and brought up a lot of the racial 1:03:27.280 --> 1:03:30.480 issues that he dealt with. There's been tons of female 1:03:30.520 --> 1:03:36.480 officers who've written very similar books raising this for years, 1:03:37.000 --> 1:03:40.600 and every time you think something's going to change for 1:03:40.640 --> 1:03:43.760 the better, it never does. So we'll see if my 1:03:43.880 --> 1:03:47.400 voice is big enough that they will make some positive change. 1:03:47.600 --> 1:03:49.240 Okay, well let's say it does. 1:03:50.120 --> 1:03:53.480 I thank you, as I do with police officers coming 1:03:53.520 --> 1:03:56.320 on the podcast, thank you for the service you gave 1:03:56.360 --> 1:04:00.840 you community, because I do understand the sacrifice. Enjoyed chatting 1:04:00.840 --> 1:04:02.560 with you. I reckon we could sit and chat for 1:04:04.120 --> 1:04:07.000 days and days and days before we get tired and 1:04:07.000 --> 1:04:10.680 fall asleep about homicide. Clearly, you're a passionate homicide detective. 1:04:10.960 --> 1:04:15.320 I love that in you. I share the passion. Good 1:04:15.360 --> 1:04:19.360 luck with your book, High Road Confessions of a Homicide Cop. 1:04:20.240 --> 1:04:22.320 I've read it as an ex homicide cop, and I 1:04:22.440 --> 1:04:23.920 enjoyed it. I found it fascinating. 1:04:24.000 --> 1:04:27.439 So good luck with that and whatever endeavors you've got. 1:04:27.520 --> 1:04:29.680 And I'm sure you're spending a little bit of time 1:04:29.720 --> 1:04:33.080 with your family now that and apologizing to them for 1:04:33.160 --> 1:04:37.480 all the time that you spent away chasing your career. 1:04:38.120 --> 1:04:42.840 Yeah, semi retirement I like to call it. So It's 1:04:42.880 --> 1:04:45.240 been a busy couple of years since I retired, and 1:04:45.280 --> 1:04:49.520 the book certainly kept me busy for you know, in 1:04:49.560 --> 1:04:52.960 and around its release, and things are quieting down a 1:04:52.960 --> 1:04:58.120 little bit now, but hopefully by July will be back 1:04:58.160 --> 1:05:02.000 into vacation mode and just enjoy spending time with my 1:05:02.080 --> 1:05:05.360 wife and daughter and doing some biking and some travels. 1:05:05.440 --> 1:05:08.040 So until the next project. 1:05:08.240 --> 1:05:11.640 Okay, Well, well deserved and enjoyed having the chat. Thanks 1:05:11.640 --> 1:05:12.200 for coming on. 1:05:12.360 --> 1:05:14.440 You as well. Gary, It was a real pleasure. I 1:05:14.480 --> 1:05:15.600 really appreciate it. 1:05:15.680 --> 1:05:15.960 Jeez,