Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History

Episode 327: Maple Batalia, a 19-year-old college student studying health sciences, was also a working model and actress and loved to paint. On the night of September 28, 2011, after a late-night study session at Simon Fraser University’s Surrey campus, she was shot and attacked with a knife in a parking lot as she left the campus library. The savage nature of the attack left her with multiple gunshot wounds and severe stab wounds to her head. Despite efforts to save her, Maple succumbed to her injuries at a Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminister. 

Suspicion immediately fell on Map...

Episode 326: Between 1869 and 1948, over 100,000 children from the United Kingdom were sent to Canada and other British commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa as part of the British Home Children migration scheme. This movement was initiated to alleviate the burden of poverty and overcrowded workhouses in Britain by providing these children with opportunities abroad. However, the reality for many of these children was harsh. 

In Canada, they were often placed with farm families where boys worked as labourers and girls as domestic servants. While some found caring homes, many others faced neglect, abuse, and e...

Episode 325: Edward H. Rulloff was a 19th-century Canadian-born serial killer renowned for his exceptional intellect and heinous crimes. Rulloff exhibited prodigious intellectual abilities from a young age. He was a polymath with expertise in various fields, including linguistics, where he made significant contributions, proposing theories on the origin of languages. Despite his scholarly achievements, Rulloff's life was marred by a series of crimes that began with the mysterious disappearance of his wife, Harriet Schutt Rulloff and their young daughter, Priscilla Charlotte Rulloff, in 1845, which many suspected to be his doing. His erudition earned him a reputation as one of the...

Episode 324: Sheree Fertuck, a 51-year-old businesswoman, mother of three, and grandmother from Saskatchewan, disappeared on December 7, 2015, after leaving her family’s lunch gathering at her mother’s farm in Kenaston to return to work at a nearby gravel pit. The next day, her abandoned gravel truck was found in the pit, with her personal belongings inside, raising immediate concerns about her unexplained disappearance. Despite extensive ground searches by her family, friends, and the police around the gravel pit and other locations, no trace of Sheree Fertuck has ever been found.

RCMP and Sheree’s family believed she was ab...

Episode 323: In April 2014, a tragic shooting occurred at a sawmill in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Kevin Douglas Addison, 47, a former employee, opened fire at the Western Forest Products mill, killing Michael Lunn, 61, and Fred McEachern, 53, and injuring two others, Earl Kelly and Tony Sudar. Addison was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder.

Addison's actions shook the tight-knit Nanaimo community and highlighted critical issues surrounding workplace violence and safety in industrial settings.

Sources:

History of Nanaimo

City History | Nanaimo Museum

Home | Western Forest Products<...

Episode 322: Nova Scotia's rugged coastline and treacherous waters have made it a graveyard for ships throughout history. The SS Atlantic, a White Star Line steamship, sank off Nova Scotia on April 1, 1873, in one of the worst maritime disasters before the Titanic. On its 19th voyage from Liverpool to New York with around 975 people on board, the ship ran short of coal and diverted to Halifax. Navigational errors caused it to strike rocks near Prospect, Nova Scotia. Rough seas hindered lifeboat launches, trapping many passengers below deck. Local fishermen and others aided in rescue efforts, but 562 people perished, marking it...

Episode 321: On August 10, 2018, the city of Fredericton, New Brunswick, was rocked by a horrific shooting that left four people dead. A man armed with a legally obtained assault-style rifle opened fire in a residential neighbourhood, killing two police officers and two civilians. Constables Robb Costello, 45, and Sara Burns, 43, were gunned down as they responded to reports of shots being fired. The civilian victims were 42-year-old Donnie Robichaud and his girlfriend, 32-year-old Bobbie Lee Wright.

The perpetrator, 48-year-old Matthew Vincent Raymond, was arrested at the scene after exchanging gunfire with other officers. He was charged with four counts of first...

Episode 320: In 1991, the city of Vancouver was rocked by the brutal murder of 29-year-old Mary-Lynn Kimberly Breeden. Friends and family called her Lynn. The charred remains of her body were discovered in a dumpster, with a single bullet wound to the skull. What followed was a complex investigation that would uncover a web of deceit, greed, and cold-blooded violence.

Through witness accounts, advances in forensic evidence, and detailed police work, detectives were able to piece together the chilling details of Breeden's final moments. Their investigation led them to a suspect named Christian Albert Cruz, a male stripper...

Episode 319: In the first two parts of our Shadows of Deception series, we delved into the abysmal depths of depravity exhibited by Dellen Millard and Mark Smich through the heinous murders of Tim Bosma and Laura Babcock.

With Millard and Smich already incarcerated for their previous atrocities, a new investigation was launched into the 2012 death of Dellen's father, Wayne Millard, a wealthy aviation businessman. Initially presumed to be a suicide, the circumstances surrounding his demise came under intense scrutiny after his son's sensational arrests for the Bosma and Babcock murders.

After their investigation, authorities arrested...

Episode 318: In the previous episode, we explored the shocking murder of Tim Bosma and the subsequent trial that brought two killers to justice. However, their trail of violence did not end there. In this second installment of our three-part series, we delve into the tragic case of Laura Babcock, 23, whose July 2012 disappearance from Toronto was eventually attributed to Dellen Millard and Mark Smich. We'll learn a bit about Laura’s life and examine the circumstances surrounding her vanishing and the painstaking yet unsuccessful search efforts to uncover her remains. You’ll hear disturbing details that emerged during the trial for her...