Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History

Episode 333: On the evening of July 18, 1977, five local teenagers were relaxing, drinking and listening to music near Ferry Island Park on the banks of the Fraser River just east of Chilliwack. It was a beautiful summer night.

At 9:40 p.m., a man appeared from the underbrush armed with a rifle and, without a word, began shooting. Four of the teens were killed: Brothers from Rosedale, Jan Christiaan “John” Den Hertog,16, and Evert “Ed” Den Hertog, 19, Egbert “Bert” Menger, 19, of Clearbrook and Rosedale resident Leola Corrinne Guliker, 16. The killer sped off in Evert Den Hertog’s truck, while the only survivor, fi...

Episode 332: In this episode of Dark Poutine, we delve into a troubling chapter of British Columbia’s history that reveals the deep-seated racism and fear that plagued our past. D’Arcy Island, a small and isolated landmass off the coast of Vancouver Island, became home to a leprosy colony from 1891 to 1924. But this wasn’t just any colony; it was a place where Chinese immigrants who had contracted the disease were forcibly sent to live out their days in harsh and inhumane conditions, far from society’s view.

Leprosy, now known as Hansen’s disease, has been misunderstood an...

Episode 331: On November 8, 2012, in a bloody crime scene, police discovered the body of 43-year-old Panagiota “Yota” Zerbinos in her daughter’s basement suite in the Fleetwood neighbourhood of Surrey, B.C. Yota had been brutally stabbed 24 times and left under a blanket; the murder weapon, a kitchen knife, was still in her chest. Two days later, Yota’s 28-year-old daughter, Gloria Crystle Zerbinos, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. She pleaded not guilty, citing her schizophrenia, drug abuse and other complex mental health issues, claiming she was not criminally responsible for her mother’s death. Gloria was held at Alouette C...

Episode 330: In this episode, we explore a horrific case that shocked both Hollywood and Canada - the brutal murder of Iana Kasian by her fiancé, graphic novelist and filmmaker Blake Leibel.

On May 26, 2016, the mutilated body of 30-year-old Iana Kasian was discovered in the West Hollywood apartment she shared with Leibel. What makes this case particularly chilling is not just the gruesome nature of the crime but the background of the perpetrator himself.

Blake Leibel, born into a wealthy Canadian family, had relocated to Los Angeles to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. As a gr...

Episode 329: On October 28, 2022, Paul Pelosi, husband of former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was brutally attacked in his San Francisco home. The perpetrator? A 42-year-old Canadian man named David DePape.

Born and raised in British Columbia, DePape's journey from a small-town Canadian to an alleged political extremist is a disturbing tale of online radicalization. As we'll explore in this episode, DePape became immersed in far-right conspiracy theories and extremist ideologies, particularly those aligned with QAnon and other conspiratorial narratives.

The attack on Paul Pelosi serves as a chilling reminder of how online misinformation and con...

Episode 328: On June 30, 2009, the serene waters of the Rideau Canal in Kingston, Ontario, revealed a dark and tragic secret. A submerged car discovered that day contained the bodies of three teenage sisters—Zainab (19), Sahar (17), and Geeti (13) Shafia—along with their father's first wife, Rona Muhammad Amir (52).

What initially appeared to be a tragic accident soon unravelled into a chilling tale of premeditated murder. The perpetrators, Mohammad Shafia, his second wife, Tooba Mohammad Yahya, and their son, Hamed, were arrested on July 23, 2009, and later convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.

Shockingly, the victims were Moh...

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...