- 2 days ago
Forty-seven-year-old Caroline Case was closing up her Toronto gift shop for the night, heading home just like any other evening. But when her car was found abandoned outside the city, with traces of blood and no signs of Caroline
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00:03This program is rated 14-plus and contains scenes of violence and mature subject matter.
00:08Viewer discretion is advised.
00:13This is the spot where Carolyn Case's Mercedes station wagon was found.
00:17There was a small amount of blood in the car and a large quantity of mud.
00:23If you don't have something in the first 48 hours in a homicide investigation,
00:27then you know you're in it for a long haul.
00:29When I arrived at the scene, there was an old Oldsmobile sitting in the driveway
00:34and the officers informed me that there were two bodies in the trunk.
00:3754-year-old Ian Blackburn and his 49-year-old wife Nancy were found murdered.
00:43We were wondering how did they both end up in the trunk of a car in their driveway with a
00:49car up north.
00:50There was all this investigation going on, but at the same time we were dealing with a person
00:55who was breaking into cottages that was named to be cottage hermit or house hermit.
01:00So he started to feel that the person responsible for the death could be the person who's doing these break
01:08-and-enters.
01:08Possibly could be armed.
01:10He could be suicidal and extremely dangerous.
01:16Welcome to Crime Beat, I'm Anthony Robart.
01:19The quiet community of Caledon, Ontario sits just northwest of Toronto.
01:24A place known for its rolling countryside, peaceful surroundings and cottage retreats.
01:30But in the early 1990s, that peaceful reputation would be shattered.
01:35Police began receiving a series of troubling calls that hinted something sinister was unfolding.
01:42Here now is Jamie Dahl with Trail of Terror, Cottage Killer.
01:53On October 2, 1991, Carolyn Case, who had a store on Bloor Street in Toronto, went missing.
02:03She was at her store at 6 o'clock that night, was talking to her sister on the phone,
02:08and said she had to cut it short because a customer came in.
02:12The 47-year-old businesswoman was last seen at the exclusive gift shop she owns and operates on Bloor Street
02:18West.
02:216 o'clock was closing time.
02:246.10, 6.15, she hadn't arrived home, which was her norm.
02:28And her daughters tried to be in touch with her.
02:31Several phone calls, and she finally answered and said that everything was okay.
02:36The mother of three spoke to one of her daughters on the night she disappeared.
02:40Case said she'd be home in five minutes, but she hasn't been heard from since.
02:44The daughter commented that she felt afterwards, that she thought about it, that something just wasn't quite right.
02:53They had gone to the store, and her car was parked there.
02:56The lights were on in the basement, but she didn't open the door.
02:59Eventually, they got into the store later on at 9 o'clock at night when they got keys.
03:03Noted there was $247 missing from the till, from the cash receipts, and she was nowhere to be found.
03:11Nowhere to be found, and no clues as to where she might be.
03:16Carolyn Case was wearing a white blouse with a white embroidered pattern on the front.
03:20She was wearing a bright pink fuchsia-colored skirt.
03:24It was straight, it had no pleats.
03:26She was wearing low-heel black shoes.
03:30She was carrying a black nylon purse that was approximately a foot by 10 inches by about 3 inches in
03:37thickness with a shoulder strap.
03:40Did you find any evidence there, or signs of a struggle?
03:43No, there was no evidence or any sign of a struggle, other than the fact that the money was missing.
03:47There was nothing that seemed to be out of the door.
03:50The door was locked, the alarm was on, and both she and the car was missing.
03:57Nobody at the time knew anything about where she was or what happened.
04:01It was publicized all over the place.
04:03People were looking for her.
04:07Homicide detectives are appealing to the public for help in tracing cases' movements.
04:12Between 7 and 9 p.m., her car was parked in its usual spot behind the Bloor Street shop.
04:18It could have been someone who parked their car in the lot opposite the back of the store,
04:23or a commuter coming out of the nearby Royal York subway station.
04:27As you can see, in the area of the parking lot here, there's a number of cars,
04:32and there was lots of activity that particular night on Wednesday.
04:35Also, the Royal York subway station is close by,
04:37and we feel that someone from the public must have seen something.
04:46We're approaching here now where Carolyn Case's Mercedes was found.
04:53Missing person report was put into the Toronto Police Service,
04:57and then at 7 o'clock the following morning, which is the 3rd of October,
05:02Carolyn Case's white Mercedes station wagon was found in the ditch in Caledon Township,
05:09which is north and a little bit west of Toronto.
05:12And it would be quite obvious with the car laying in the ditch on its side,
05:17facing the wrong way, that something was wrong.
05:22It's rural, but it's a fairly populated area.
05:30This is the spot where Carolyn Case's Mercedes station wagon was found.
05:34There was no snow. It was in the fall.
05:37All the foliage had been out.
05:39Caroline Case's blood-stained Mercedes-Benz station wagon was found rolled over in a ditch in Caledon.
05:46The OPP, when they found the vehicle on the side road, did a complete search,
05:50but they were searching for a live body because nobody knew about what happened to Caroline.
05:55And they searched all over, using the road as a centre point.
05:59The predominant thought at the time was she might have gotten a car accident
06:04and got out and struggled to find her way anywhere.
06:11A subsequent search found a man's belt about three feet from the car,
06:17between that and the fence, and also her gold necklace was found there
06:21that was later identified to belong to Carolyn Case.
06:24There was a small amount of blood in the car and a large quantity of mud.
06:29When the car was found, there was traces of blood that was found in the back part of the station
06:35wagon.
06:35Down the road, it was determined that that was Carolyn Case's blood.
06:39I mean, it was obvious by looking at it that we had a crime scene.
06:43Police say tests on the blood are not definitive, but do say the blood is not consistent with a car
06:48accident.
06:49It's more consistent with the blood being transferred from someone's clothing
06:54to various locations inside the vehicle as someone is attempting to exit the vehicle through the rear window.
07:01There is absolutely no reason for that vehicle or for her to be in that area.
07:05There's no ties to the Caledon area whatsoever.
07:09Investigators are appealing to anyone who may have spotted a person, male or female,
07:13walking along rural roads or through fields in the Brampton-Caledon area on the night of Case's disappearance.
07:19They're also asking rural residents to search their properties for signs of the missing woman.
07:25The OPP took over the investigation in that area.
07:28There was a massive search, including helicopter.
07:34Police dogs, divers went into ponds.
07:42Oh, you can see how the guy would get here and just go right in it.
07:46And a search through the wooded area.
07:49Time is running out for the massive police search along countryside roads
07:53for any clues as to Carolyn Case's mysterious disappearance.
07:59As the days went on, then hope dwindled to the fact that it was anything other than a homicide,
08:05that she'd be alive after that.
08:06The search was also broadened to include a nearby gravel pit.
08:11But the police have hinted strongly they may soon have to scale down their search operation,
08:16which has numbered 100 officers.
08:20And there were several days and a lot of resources spent at the time.
08:24And nothing.
08:25And absolutely nothing.
08:27And investigators in Toronto weren't having much luck either.
08:32They combed every nook and cranny in the Humber River area.
08:36They were looking for a piece of clothing, a purse, anything that might shed some light on the mysterious disappearance
08:43of Carolyn Case.
08:44This particular area is being searched because of the close proximity to the store at 3000 Bloor Street West.
08:49No clues were found.
08:51It's not known what the next move will be in the search for Carolyn Case.
08:54Some investigators feel the answer to this mystery still lies somewhere in the Caledon countryside.
09:03And then the mystery continues.
09:08Did you have any suspects?
09:09Not at that time, no.
09:11She operated the store, the Jeweled Elephant on Bloor Street, and she had imported artifacts from other countries,
09:19brought them in and sold them in the store.
09:21Her husband traveled with his line of work.
09:24He was an economics specialist.
09:28The police normally look at friends and family first.
09:32I'm told they were a happy family.
09:35They traveled well.
09:36She had three daughters, two at university, one at home.
09:39And there was no indication of any issues at the store or with the family or any reasons for this
09:45to happen.
09:46There is nothing that was brought up that would cause an investigation to go towards family, business, or anything to
09:55do with her past clients.
09:57These past few weeks have been a period of great pain and anxiety for us all.
10:02And we ate for an answer to this terrible mystery so that we can get on with our lives.
10:07It's the first time they've spoken publicly since Caroline Case went missing.
10:11Her husband, Alan, her sister, Rosemary, from Calgary, her brother, David, from Edmonton, and Case's oldest daughter, Allison.
10:20If she is alive, we would like to have her back.
10:25Or, if she isn't, we would like to bring a final closure with a proper Christian funeral.
10:31Her family believes she's either being held hostage or, more likely, has been murdered.
10:36But they say they have no idea why.
10:39Was there any other DNA in the car that was not hers?
10:43No, there was not.
10:44DNA was actually just coming in to investigative aids, as far as that goes.
10:50There was blood seriology.
10:51There was fingerprints.
10:52The car was gone through an intense fingerprint process and no fingerprints were found in the car.
10:59I mean, it was a high-profile case in the City of Toronto at the time.
11:03But if there's nothing coming in, then it becomes fairly dormant fairly quickly.
11:07But if you don't have something in the first 48 hours in a homicide investigation, then you know you're in
11:12it for a long haul.
11:14Residents in this quiet Scarborough neighborhood are gripped with fear, wondering when and where the suspect will strike next.
11:22Well, it's worrisome because, at that time, we had other missing and found murdered in and around the Toronto area.
11:30A funeral for yet another woman slain.
11:34Carolyn Warwick was a promising young doctor when she was beaten to death last February.
11:38Add to the growing list Elizabeth Bain, missing since June 1990, and Nina Devillier.
11:44Her body was found shot last month.
11:46They're just a few recent and blatant examples of violence against women,
11:50and the reason why many of us now automatically assume the worst when a woman goes missing, like Carolyn Case.
11:57When Carolyn Case went missing, all of that was on people's minds.
12:02That's a scary experience.
12:04It's certainly unnerving that something like that could happen.
12:07Following months of no leads, in January of 1992, a grisly discovery had local residents dreading the worst.
12:20An OPP chopper scoured the shoreline by air, while divers braved the frigid waters of Lake Ontario off the Hamilton
12:28Beach Strip.
12:29They were looking for more body parts after a human leg was found floating in the water on Saturday.
12:35It is believed to be a leg part of a middle-aged woman.
12:56Welcome back to CrimeEat.
12:58The grim discovery of a human leg along the shores of Lake Ontario led many to speculate it belonged to
13:05Caroline Case,
13:06who was reported missing months earlier, but investigators would soon have to turn their attention to another gruesome discovery.
13:16We now return to Jamie Dahl and Trail of Terror Cottage Killer.
13:23Presently, it's inconclusive. It's still in the hands of the pathologists in Hamilton,
13:28and we have no information to lead us to believe that it is a body part of Caroline Case.
13:34Right now, investigators say it's anyone's guess as to who the leg might belong to.
13:39It could be days, possibly weeks, before forensic tests provide any clues.
13:44There's been a strong onshore wind here for the past week,
13:48so the body part could have come from as far away as New York State.
13:51It's just too early to tell.
13:53Tomorrow, divers are expected to concentrate their efforts on the Burlington Ship Canal.
13:58It was a red herring, and detectives were no closer to solving Caroline's murder.
14:04And in April, investigators were pulled into another investigation.
14:09I was paged at about 10.30 in the evening about a case,
14:14and it was told to me over the phone that it was possibly a murder-suicide.
14:18The mystery began on Monday night.
14:2154-year-old Ian Blackburn and his 49-year-old wife Nancy were found murdered in the trunk of Nancy's
14:27car.
14:27The light blue Chevrolet Celebrity was parked in the driveway of their North Toronto home.
14:35When I arrived at the scene, there was an old Oldsmobile sitting in the driveway.
14:40The trunk was down, and the officers came and informed me that there were two bodies in the trunk,
14:44and we went and opened it.
14:52And I looked at them, and there was a male and a female.
14:56A nephew made the gruesome discovery after the Blackburns failed to show up at a party Sunday night in Caledon.
15:02Police believe the couple had been missing since Tuesday, April 7.
15:07At the scene, I met Jamie Osborne.
15:10These people in the trunk were his aunt and uncle.
15:12It would have been terrible, the discovery, both his uncle and aunt in the trunk of a car.
15:17She had no clothes on.
15:19The female was naked, the male was clothed, and they were crunched up,
15:23and it readily appeared this was not a murder-suicide.
15:27Ian and Nancy Blackburn was a couple that lived in Toronto,
15:30and Ian was a business realtor who owned a business.
15:34Nancy was a registered nurse, and she was a health nurse who worked for the City of Toronto,
15:38and both of them lived on St. Leonard's Avenue in Toronto.
15:42They had no children.
15:44They didn't have debt issues.
15:45They were living a relaxed lifestyle.
15:50They owned property in the Caledon area, and they used it as a summer cottage.
15:56He and Nancy maintained 50 acres, and his sister Susan Osborne also had 50 acres of the severed land next
16:03door.
16:04They were very tight with their family, with their properties adjoining in Caledon,
16:09both hobby farms.
16:10From everybody we talked to, they were lovely people.
16:13So the Osborne's in the spring would have what they call the sugaring-off party,
16:18where they would tap a few trees and boil a bit of maple syrup and have a bit of a
16:24bonfire in the party.
16:25So on the 7th of April, Ian left his place of residence and said that he was going up to
16:32the cottage
16:33because they planned to go up for this sugaring-off on the weekend.
16:36And he left, and that was the last time that Ian was seen alive.
16:41And where was Nancy at that point?
16:43Nancy was working that day.
16:45She came home around 7 o'clock, and then that's the last that anybody was aware of that Nancy had
16:51been seen alive.
16:54The thought is that she would have driven to the cottage that night.
16:57So they're both at the cottage.
16:58When did they go missing?
16:59Well, that was on the 7th, and then they were to go to the sugaring-off that weekend,
17:06and the Osborne were surprised that the Blackburns didn't show up for it because Ian's car was parked at the
17:12cottage.
17:13On the 13th, they checked the cottage and went in, and of course they weren't there.
17:20They found Ian's car still at the cottage, but not Nancy's.
17:26They went down to the house in St. Leonard's.
17:28They found that mail and newspapers had been delivered for several days and had not been picked up.
17:34Their cat was inside and hadn't been fed, and Nancy's car was parked in the driveway.
17:39They looked around inside, and Nancy's purse was there.
17:43They didn't find anything at all, so they reported them as missing persons.
17:48And then shortly after, the brother-in-law, Orwell Osborne, asked his son Jamie to go back and check again
17:56and then check the car.
17:57And that's when the Toronto Police initiated their investigation in Toronto on the 13th.
18:05So we were wondering, how did they both end up in the trunk of a car in their driveway with
18:11a car up north?
18:13With one car up north and nobody at the place.
18:16So we rather quickly matched up with the OPP Detective Inspector Jim Hutchinson and myself
18:21and created a multi-jurisdictional investigation task force.
18:27I got a call in the middle of the night about 3 o'clock in the morning
18:30and headed to Caledon to meet up with investigators on the morning of April the 14th.
18:39So we arrived here, and there was a cabin out here at the front
18:43and a Cadillac car parked there.
18:47And there was actually a beer can on top of the hood of the car, which was very strange.
18:51And then realized that there was another shed attached,
18:56and at the far back of the property, we could see a octagonal barn.
19:00And there certainly was a lot of money in this area.
19:06We did a crime scene search of the cabin where we were and of the car.
19:11There was no apparent place of entry or forced entry,
19:14though there was a possibility there looked like there could have been pry marks on one window.
19:19The cottage hadn't been open for the spring.
19:21There was some beer in the tub.
19:24There was newspapers there from December of 1991 at the fireplace.
19:29The cottage was very neat.
19:31What stood out to us was everything was quite normal.
19:36There was one additional detail that investigators in Caledon couldn't help but notice.
19:42It's not far from where Caroline Case's blood-stained Mercedes Benz was found last October.
19:48The body of the Etobicoke businesswoman has not been found.
19:52The coincidence is not lost on this Caledon resident.
19:56It's pretty scary.
19:57It's getting pretty close to home.
20:00You know, we've got three small kids, and it's kind of scary.
20:05As we started investigating, the Caroline Case matter came up rather quickly.
20:23At the Toronto home, we did a thorough investigation.
20:27There was nobody there.
20:28The Blackburns were last seen on Tuesday, April 7th,
20:32but their movements after that remain a mystery.
20:34Police are appealing to the public for help.
20:37The car in Toronto where the bodies were found,
20:40there was a bloody Kleenex found on the front seat.
20:42There was like a blood smear and a dab on it sort of thing.
20:46It wasn't really enough, we thought, to make any real significance,
20:50like a real major injury, but we seized it.
20:54It was catalogued.
20:55It was put into the Centre of Forensic Science
20:57and was analyzed at a later date.
21:00We are trying to establish where the scene of this crime occurred.
21:05He didn't tell me anything I knew about the driveway,
21:07whether the gate was open or closed.
21:09He and Blackburn's Burgundy Cadillac was found in the driveway yesterday,
21:13raising the possibility the couple may have been killed at the farmhouse.
21:18Search went through the cottage.
21:19We did find the specks of blood on the stairs upstairs.
21:22An autopsy revealed 49-year-old Nancy Blackburn was strangled,
21:27but police won't comment on whether there were any signs of sexual assault.
21:31We're not disclosing any information about how she was found
21:34or any of the particulars of her death.
21:37Police still don't know how Ian Blackburn died.
21:40An autopsy will be completed tomorrow.
21:43What did police think happened to Ian and Nancy Blackburn?
21:47Somebody was waiting in the house for Ian.
21:49When he went up, he drove up to check his cottage
21:51and was confronted by an individual in his house
21:54and taken under control, probably right at the very start.
21:58We did phone records, and this is landline records,
22:02looking for calls to Nancy and calls to the cottage up north.
22:06So we were looking at contact between them.
22:10We became aware that there was a very short phone call
22:14that was made from the cottage to the house shortly after 7,
22:19and there had been two previous phone calls to the house about noon,
22:24very short hang-up calls that were made from the cottage to the house.
22:30When the car was finally searched several days afterwards,
22:35in the back seat there was a bag with a full meal in there.
22:39Certainly it is believed that Ian asked her to drive up to the cottage.
22:44She brought a meal up there to bring for the two of them.
22:48So those phone calls that were made,
22:50do you think he was making those under duress?
22:52Yes, he was making those under duress.
22:54It was the belief that Ian had come upon an individual in the house
22:58and that he had tricked Ian into having Nancy drive up to the cottage.
23:04We were just trying to figure out,
23:06OK, Ian must have asked Nancy to come up there.
23:09And if she got there,
23:10then the perpetrator could have taken the two of them from there
23:15in her car back down to Toronto.
23:18That's what we thought might have happened.
23:21We believe they were killed that evening of the 7th, yes.
23:24Both of them.
23:25That's correct.
23:26A picture was starting to emerge
23:28of what likely unfolded that fateful night.
23:33And our OPP profiler indicated that Nancy was the main individual
23:39in mind for this individual at the time.
23:42She was the main target.
23:44There was no signs of sexual assault,
23:46but there were signs of the fact that she had been tied up and hung.
23:50Her shoulders were quite ripped at the top
23:53where she had either held up or tied up into her arms,
23:57tied behind and bound to her feet with bruising on her hips
24:00where she had been picked up and carried around.
24:03She had lupus and it was a concern that she was getting older
24:06and she was rather frail.
24:09There was blood found in the cottage up there that was Nancy Blackburn's.
24:14And I believe at that time, Nancy was murdered up at the cottage.
24:20Both died of asphyxiation, but it was quite obviously that
24:23Ian was the one that drove the car back to Toronto
24:26with the suspect inside and with Nancy in the trunk of the car.
24:29He didn't know she was in the trunk?
24:31That's the belief, is that he probably didn't know
24:33that she was in the trunk of the car at the time.
24:36That is one theory.
24:37There's been many theories as to when they were killed,
24:40who was killed first, who was killed second.
24:42We couldn't prove time of death for the two of them was too different.
24:47If one was killed in Caledon and he drove to Toronto,
24:50it's probably about an hour and a half drive tops.
24:52And then one killed in Toronto and found a day or two days later,
24:56I'd be putting a very heavy load on a pathologist
24:59to try and see the exact time of death for each person.
25:06The results of the autopsy were manual strangulation
25:09and ligature strangulation, which showed ropes or bindings of some sort.
25:14For both Nancy and Ian, there were strange marks on them
25:19and marks around their wrist and in Ian, marks just above his leg.
25:24And there were tie marks where somebody had tied a rope around them.
25:28You could tell he was controlled during that drive down
25:31and, as we believe, asphyxiated with a plastic bag over his head.
25:36It would be late at night that that had occurred.
25:39The house on St. Leonard's had a fair substantial amount of property,
25:42so I see no reason that any of the neighbours would have thought anything.
25:45It was a horrific way to die.
25:47I mean, to be at your own cottage, mind your own business
25:49and have someone invade your home, kill your wife and then kill you.
25:53So I can't think of a more terrifying experience.
25:58They were substantially well-off people.
26:02We're looking at all possible motives,
26:04including anybody trying to gain monetary possessions,
26:13monetary money from them or anything else at this time.
26:17Number one, we have a realtor who has his partner who is going to inherit a fair amount
26:22if there's a death of his partner.
26:24We have another family with nephews and nieces that, you know,
26:28we're going to inherit a fair amount of money.
26:31And during our investigation in Toronto, we came up with nobody that was out there
26:36that was a likely person who was going to gain anything from Ian and Nancy's death.
26:43So we had forensics come and photograph into a search of the cottage where the blood was found.
26:50I enlisted the use of the emergency response team from the OPP who were trained in grid searching.
26:56And they did a complete search of the ditches and the areas, open areas,
27:01in the complete block around this concession block looking for evidence.
27:06There was some tea bags, but also in the ditch there was a washcloth.
27:11There was a beer can that was similar to the beer cans that were in the Blackburn cottage.
27:15And interestingly enough, in the ditch there was also some feces wrapped in newspaper.
27:22And the sections of the newspaper were the same day and the same Toronto Star newspaper
27:28were in the Blackburn cottages.
27:30And there was also these writings were in the garbage dump outside the Blackburn cottage along the ditch.
27:37And this wasn't the first time the detective had come across this kind of writing.
27:42So there was all this investigation going on,
27:45but at the same time we were dealing with a person who was breaking into cottages
27:49that was named to be Cottage Hermit or House Hermit.
27:53And at any point at that time, did you think about the break-ins that you had been previously investigating?
27:59Oh, of course.
28:00This person, unknown where he was, was a prime suspect.
28:15The break-ins in Caledon were in empty cottages or empty homes.
28:20It wasn't violence there.
28:24The cottage break-ins had started being reported earlier that year.
28:28Tea, food, magazines, trinkets, et cetera, et cetera, foodstuffs that was taken.
28:35Seemingly innocuous at the start, but the perpetrator appeared to be gaining confidence.
28:42So in March of 92, Sam and Rose Appleton came up to check on their cottage.
28:48And all these cottages during the wintertime are winterized.
28:52And people really don't come up to them in the winter.
28:54And then they come in the spring to see how things are.
28:56And Mr. Appleton had come up to check his cottage and meanwhile go and pay his taxes at the tiny
29:02township office.
29:03And when he opened the door here, went in and everything seemed like normal.
29:08And then when he got into the bedroom, all the heat was on.
29:10And he was taken into control by an individual with a revolver.
29:16They were in their late 70s at that time.
29:19And he asked the Appletons to drive him to Toronto.
29:26When the suspect demanded he be taken to their primary residence,
29:30despite being held at gunpoint, Sam Appleton refused.
29:35Mr. Appleton said to him, you know, you're not going to defile my house.
29:38I'm dying from cancer now and you can kill me right now, but you're not going to do that.
29:43And that probably saved the life of both he and his wife.
29:47Because certainly if this person had taken them to their house,
29:51then we have no idea what would have happened after that.
29:55This individual jumped out of the car at Young and Dundas in Toronto.
29:59And the Appletons then reported this to the police.
30:02Mr. Appleton advised that during the drive, he had his hand tied up and his leg tied up.
30:08And the suspect was controlling his movement so he couldn't get out of the car and run.
30:13Well, when we heard that, that linked us to exactly what was the condition for Ian.
30:19Ian Blackburn having a leg tied and an arm tied.
30:23And we thought it's way too much of a coincidence to have this happen.
30:28And the OPP crime unit up in the Midland area went to the cottage and conducted an investigation there.
30:34In that bedroom, they found where the person had been living.
30:37Lots of items that had been stolen from other cottages around from other break-and-enders that hadn't been reported.
30:43They also found numerous orange juice jugs with urine in it and then newspapers that had been used to deposit
30:51and wrap the feces of the individual that had been in there.
30:55Also, we had found sheets of writing.
31:00The writings are lists of military planes from First World War, other destroyers and tanks and military stuff, and it's
31:10all listed in a row.
31:11My father was in the military. I grew up in the military.
31:14So when I saw these writings, I immediately knew it was military equipment.
31:18And it was lists and lists of these different names.
31:22And I'm talking hundreds and hundreds of pages all over the place.
31:26We really didn't know if it meant anything other than the fact somebody seemed to be interested in military history
31:32and was bored and was making lists.
31:36Were there any clues in those writings?
31:38No, there was really no clues, but there was lots of fingerprints.
31:42Those fingerprints were put into the database system and there was no connection to those fingerprints to anybody that had
31:49been convicted of any crime in Ontario or prints that had been entered into the system.
31:55Mr. Appleton, even though he was told not to look at him, he did get a bit of a look
32:00at the person.
32:01A composite drawing was made, and that was distributed around the area of this person who had abducted the couple
32:08and had been living in the cottage.
32:10None of the things we take for granted today were present back then.
32:14Like, none of these cottages had surveillance cameras.
32:16Today, everybody would have pictures of him.
32:18We did get tips through this investigation all the time of individuals who had maybe come into a variety store.
32:26Somebody thought that it looked like an individual or somebody that they had seen hitchhiking, as far as that goes.
32:32But none of them went anywhere whatsoever.
32:36Down in the Caledon area, close to where Carolyn Case's car was found, we have reports of a couple break
32:42-ins.
32:42There was military drawings there, too, also.
32:46And then on the 29th of March, two couples went to Green Lake to check a cottage again that was
32:53owned by people in Toronto to make sure that it was okay.
32:56Again, no sign of forced entry.
32:58They go into the cottage, and they were accosted by a male with a revolver.
33:02The women, they saw what was happening and screamed and ran down the road.
33:06So this individual then gathered up a few things in a tote bag and told the men not to go
33:13anywhere for a few minutes, and then he disappeared.
33:16Again, the OPP was called in for this investigation.
33:19The helicopter came out and did a search.
33:22And at that point, did you say, oh, this sounds like the Appleton case?
33:26Yeah, it's easy to say that.
33:29Again, there was a composite drawn, and the composite wasn't quite the same as the composite from the Appleton case.
33:36The two sketches were similar, but you would not say that's the same person.
33:41We thought it was the same person, but it could have been two different individuals.
33:44They had a bit of a better look at the individual at the time, and another composite was done that
33:49was a similar description of an individual with his hair and with glasses, etc., etc.
33:56That drawing was taken around, and people said it faintly looked like somebody, but they couldn't recognize him.
34:02They didn't know.
34:03At what point did you connect the Caledon break-ins with the Appleton case?
34:07It was further on into April when I became aware of the homicide of Ian and Nancy Blackburn.
34:16So we also did a complete ground search here at the Blackburn farm.
34:20There had been a break and enter just down around the corner from here at the Nielsen residence, where five
34:27guns had been stolen and about $500 worth of currency.
34:30We found in the ditch an ammo case that came from the Nielsen cottage and some documentation that was out
34:37of the Nielsen cottage.
34:39So we started to feel that the person responsible for the death could be the person who's doing all this
34:46writing and doing these break and enters.
34:48It seemed to be a natural jump, even though we didn't know who that was.
34:53With the exception of Caroline Case, who was still missing, all the evidence was starting to point towards the same
35:00suspect.
35:02We kept it close to our chest for a while, but we decided to release it to the public.
35:06So on May 27th, we held a press conference in Toronto and released the military writings to the media, hoping
35:14that somebody would recognize them and would call us.
35:17The Metropolitan Toronto Police and Cherry Provincial Police Joint Investigative Team are attempting to locate a male who was believed
35:24to have been in the area of the Blackburn-Caledon cottage in early April of 1992.
35:30The man police are looking for is described as white, 5'10", thin-billed, about 35 years old, with a
35:37thin, long, narrow face.
35:38He has close-set, dark, piercing eyes and medium-dark brown curly hair with some white in it.
35:44He has no beard or mustache, but several days' stubble.
35:48We were getting calls where a person would come home and say that they felt that a door was ajar
35:54and it wasn't the way they had left it.
35:56So we were getting calls of people thinking that this person was skulking around the area.
36:02We were looking for any information that people can tell us on a person that they would believe would be
36:07the author of that type of writing,
36:10or any information that people would have in respect to the history of that type of writing.
36:16Anyone who can help is asked to call this hotline number.
36:19The search was on for the house hermit, and we waited for the phone to ring to see if anybody
36:23would identify the writing.
36:25And we got one call.
36:37Welcome back.
36:38A series of break-ins, an armed kidnapping, and a double homicide.
36:43The suspect, dubbed the house hermit, has managed to elude police at every turn.
36:49But that is all about to change.
36:52Investigators get a call that will lead them directly to the suspect's home.
36:56The question now, can they catch him before he strikes again?
37:02We now return to Jamie Dahl and Trail of Terror Cottage Killer.
37:09Who is Alison Shaw?
37:11Alison Shaw was the only person who called in, who saw the writing, and she recognized his distinct way of
37:18printing.
37:18And that's what she called in for.
37:20In each of the break-ins, pages of handwritten notes about World War II bombers and battleships were found in
37:26and around the cottages.
37:28She saw the writings, and immediately she recognized them as being a person who she had spent time working in
37:35the store with.
37:35She had worked in Orangeville with an individual who had an antique store in the train station, and who her
37:43husband had been a business partner in a company called Phoenix Construction.
37:47And they went around in Ontario, and they would take down old log homes, sell them, and put them back
37:53together again in Ontario.
37:55So this individual had worked with her husband for two or three years.
38:00That was a fortunate break in this investigation.
38:02The drawings were of military equipment, and he would write out lists of that, and she saw that.
38:08She was very creeped out by it.
38:10And Alison Shaw thought he was antisocial and creepy when he had horrible teeth and really bad body odor.
38:16And her husband defended him and said, he's just, he's not a typical urban guy.
38:21Alison Shaw felt that there was something very sinister about him, and her instincts were right.
38:26So she is the first person to say his name.
38:29She was the only person.
38:31His name was David Snow.
38:39And once we found out his name, we found out that he was charged with fraud.
38:44The individual had been charged in early 1991 with fraud regarding bad checks that he had written on an antique
38:52purchase.
38:54And when we contacted the Orangeville Police Service, we found out that their norm was not to submit fingerprints to
39:00the central data system until a conviction had been made.
39:03So they had his fingerprints, but they hadn't submitted them.
39:07This was an issue that we had with the Orangeville Police Department at that time.
39:14And we attended Orangeville Police Department.
39:17Then an IDENTO officer took those fingerprints.
39:20And then the numerous fingerprints that had been collected at the Appleton Cottage were compared.
39:26And very quickly, it was, we had to match.
39:29And then his prints started to match everything that we had already on file from our crime scenes.
39:36While nothing became of the fraud charge, this individual was about to be facing much more serious charges.
39:44So once we knew that the house hermit was David Snow, we found his residence location here in Orangeville, where
39:52he had been living, that his mother left the house to him.
39:54So it was at the end of May, first part of June, by the time he got the search warrant
39:59together and came here.
40:01As far as the police were aware, he was last seen in the Caledon area in late March.
40:07He was a hoarder of trinkets and stuff.
40:10There was also great quantities of bondage, pornography in the house.
40:14We did find an album, a picture album, and there's pictures of him and Dara Shaw and the Blackburns, which
40:19was taken in 1990 when he dropped around at the Blackburn residence because he was interested in the octagonal barn
40:26that was on the property.
40:29So Snow knew the Blackburns?
40:31Snow had met the Blackburns, yes.
40:33So he would have met them that one time.
40:35As we were doing the search, we led up into the attic to search the attic, and we found that
40:40up there, there was a light, a frying pan, electricity, even a mattress, and quite a bit of bondage.
40:47So it looked like David would disappear for days at a time, so he would hide in the attic when
40:51people were looking for him.
40:52I interviewed his brother.
40:54His brother advised he never drove, didn't want to drive, didn't like driving.
40:59This is somebody just walking through and then sometimes gets people to drive him.
41:04He forced them to drive the car so that he could get around.
41:08He had gotten away with all of these crimes, but they had no way of tracking him.
41:13By early June, a wanted poster was put out and warrants were issued.
41:19The warrants came out for the abduction of the Appletons and for first degree murder in the case of Ian
41:26and Nancy Blackburn.
41:28Initially, we put out that they wanted as a person of interest in the Blackburn investigation,
41:32but then we upgraded that and laid the charges in the Blackburns, too.
41:37He would also face a series of robbery charges, including armed robbery.
41:42It was a Canada-wide warrant for David Alexander Snow.
41:47This is the man police are looking for, 37-year-old David Alexander Snow.
41:54Possibly could be armed.
41:56He could be suicidal and extremely dangerous.
42:00We got a photo from his brother.
42:02We were getting sightings all over the place.
42:05We're searching physically every area we know him to have been in, but we have no contact.
42:12Police believe the suspect has taken refuge in empty cottages in Orangeville, Caledon, Peterborough, Havelock, and Hanover,
42:20sometimes surprising the owners when they turned up.
42:23He's described as having strong body odor, rotting teeth with bad breath.
42:29He is further described as a quiet loner who lacks self-confidence and suffers from mood swings.
42:36This is David Alexander Snow's last known address in Orangeville.
42:42No one answered the door today, and the house seems to be deserted.
42:46But as far as I know, Dave was a nice, he was a likable guy, and as far as I
42:50know, he was an honest man.
42:52Klaas Stortoboom sold Snow some antiques.
42:55I feel he's the kind of guy that wouldn't hurt a fly.
42:57A lot of people here seem to know David Alexander Snow, but few know much about him.
43:03Police say anyone who comes in contact with him should show extreme caution.
43:09The only plan, really, that we could have was to keep this in the public.
43:14Keep the press releases out and make sure that the people had a description of David Snow
43:20and that everybody would be watching for him.
43:24There was no thought that he had left the province.
43:28We were very anxious.
43:29This is the individual, but we don't have him, and hopefully nothing else happens down the road.
43:37Would police be able to catch David Snow before he attacks someone else?
43:43He stunk, like there was nothing, like nothing you've ever smelled, but I had to talk to him.
43:5121-year-old Lenore Denise Rattray was working alone when she mysteriously disappeared, and police fear the worst.
43:57The investigators just had that gut feeling that something is wrong here.
44:02I said to the police, look in the woods.
44:04My ankles were always bound, my wrists were always bound.
44:07He took all my clothes off.
44:08He had told me he had been in prison.
44:10He told me he'd killed a man.
44:12Get back in the car, you guys.
44:14We raced down to Indian River Road, turned the camera on, and got this shot of this woman from the
44:22movie land.
44:22We're still trying to figure out what's going on.
44:25We had no idea the scope of it.
44:27We don't have a whole lot on him.
44:29He's a very dangerous fellow.
44:31This is very bizarre.
44:34A duffel bag was located with three handguns in it.
44:38They were associated to a break-in in Caledon, Ontario.
44:42The Ontario suspect is wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for the murders of Ian and Nancy Blackburn.
44:47Their bodies were found in the trunk of their car in the driveway of their home.
44:51That's coming up on part two of Trail of Terror.
44:57I'm Anthony Robart.
44:59Thank you for joining us tonight on Crime Beat.
45:03Want more episodes of Crime Beat?
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45:13And for past episodes of Crime Beat, go to the Global TV app, visit globaltv.com, or check out our
45:21Crime Beat YouTube page.
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