Major case updates: what happened next [2]

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Hi there, and welcome to part two of our major case updates from the last two years. We'll start today with a concise recap of the Hockey Canada case for those who might have missed it. There's new information and player updates since the trial, and I'll share a personal update about how covering that case took a mental toll and what that meant for the production of the podcast after that. Then we've got a quick behind-the-scenes update about Jacob Hogard, Paul Bernardo's latest sob story and some other parole updates, and then we'll return to Kevin O'Leary and his unexpected backflip. You can find the full list of cases we're covering today and the approximate timestamps in the show notes.

So let's get into it. The Hockey Canada case and what's happened since the trial. It's now been more than a year since Justice Maria Carasia released her decision and Canadian True Crime released our series breaking down the case and the outcome of the trial. Our five-part series ended up being much heavier and more detailed than I originally intended. So I'm going to go over a high-level summary of the case and why I reached the conclusions I did before I get to what's happened since the trial. This is for those that might not have listened to the whole series because it was so long and detailed.

Many people assumed that my conclusion was going to be that the hockey players should have been found guilty of sexual assault, but that wasn't the case. I understood why Justice Carasia found those hockey players not guilty. What I didn't understand was the clear double standard in how the judge assessed their evidence and credibility compared to EM. There were things in the decision that just didn't add up to me, so I started comparing it line by line with the evidence from the trial, trying to work out how some of those conclusions had been reached. The closer I looked, the more inconsistencies and patterns I found, and that sent me much further down the rabbit hole than I ever intended to go. So I ended up spending the entire summer last year critiquing a judge's 90-page written decision from one of the most high-profile trials the country has seen. It was intimidating, and I needed to show exactly how I reached each of my conclusions, step by step, from the evidence. I'm obviously not a lawyer, but I know I've built trust with my audience, you, and I take that responsibility seriously.

I've always tried to be careful about the facts, the legal language and the limits of my own expertise. But the Hockey Canada case took that to a whole new level. It was the most mentally taxing work I've ever done, having to triple check everything from multiple angles. It took a toll that affected everything I've done since, which I'll come back to. The series was long and it was detailed because it had to be. I had to show how I arrived at my conclusions, my workings, if you will.

And in the year since the judge issued the not guilty verdicts, I felt validated to see legal experts independently raise many of the same concerns I did. It's also worth noting that I haven't needed to make any factual corrections or edits to the podcast series either. And the reason I say this is because of the nature of this case and the sheer vitriol that comes whenever anyone dares to speak about it in this way. So I want to stress that I've put the work in and brought the receipts. I've written the entire series up as a comprehensive case study document that shows all my workings. So if you want to have a look at anything I'm referencing you can find that document linked in the show notes and on our website.

We all know it centered around one night in June of 2018, when junior hockey player Michael McLeod met the woman known as EM at a bar in London, Ontario, where he was celebrating with some of his teammates after winning the Junior World Championship. McLeod and EM, both 20 years old, went back to his hotel room, where they had consensual sex. What happened after that became the focus of criminal charges for sexual assault and then a trial. After having that consensual sex, Michael McLeod sent a message to his team group chat. inviting them to the hotel room for a three-way. Carter Hart was at another bar, and despite not knowing who McLeod was offering the three-way with, he replied a few minutes later, I'm in. McLeod also sent a direct message to one of his teammates offering him a blowjob on EM's behalf. There was absolutely no evidence that EM knew about McLeod's efforts to shop her around to his teammates, let alone that she consented to it.

Shortly after that, players started entering the hotel room in small groups. One young woman confronted with up to 10 elite hockey players celebrating a world championship win with testosterone surging and adrenaline high. EM testified that the players made sexual suggestions at her and instructed her to get on the floor. One of the players put a white sheet down and they stood over her. EM testified she was intoxicated and found herself complying with their suggestions out of intimidation and fear. She felt like she was on autopilot, performing sex acts on multiple players while others watched, effectively giving them what they told her they wanted in the hope they would let her leave safely. It's a documented trauma response known as fawning, appeasing, or complying.

EM testified that as she was performing oral sex, she felt someone spitting on her back, and multiple people took turns slapping her as hard as they could. She told them to stop. She cried at several points during the incident, and recalled moments where she tried to get up, put her clothes on, and leave, and each time, one of those players would come over and convince her to stay. To be clear, there are no inconsistencies between her testimony about this and any of the statements she gave to police or Hockey Canada. With such an immense power imbalance, the onus should have been on the hockey players to make sure that EM had given enthusiastic consent consistent with Canadian law. Even if we only believed the players' version of events, their idea of consent was clearly the product of rape myths and stereotypes. She wasn't physically fighting back or saying stop, and she wasn't trying to run away. At some points, she was naked and seemed to be egging them on. EM acknowledged that, at times, she may have given the appearance of consent.

She didn't quite understand why she was doing that, which is typical for those facing similar situations. If the players cared at all about EM's well-being, they would have seen the multiple red flags that she wasn't consenting. They laughed at EM and treated the entire thing like entertainment for the team. When they saw she was frustrated, they ignored her and called her crazy. When they saw her crying, Michael McLeod whipped out his phone and hit record, instructing EM to say she consented, likely because he suspected he might need some kind of proof later. But a video doesn't prove consent under Canadian law.

At one point, Carter Hart texted yet another teammate to come to the room, without checking in with EM if she actually wanted that. The evidence shows the hockey players spent about two hours taking what they could get from EM and showing no concern for her well-being whatsoever. She'd already asked to leave multiple times, but finally when they decided they were done, they told her to leave the room without so much as calling her a taxi. Then they went into damage control. Michael McLeod texted EM the next day and repeatedly pressured her not to go to the police, hinting at consequences if she did. She expressed vulnerability and hurt, but McLeod was all business. The messages clearly show he bossed her around and gaslit her, perhaps indicative of how he treated her the night before. Michael McLeod was clearly not used to being told no.

When the players learned that Hockey Canada was investigating the incident as a possible code of conduct violation, they entered a group chat to make sure everyone was on the same page about what they should say happened in the hotel room. The group chat logs show them agreeing to say that the only reason they went to the room was because Michael McLeod told them he'd ordered food. And when they got there ready to eat, they found EM begging everyone to have sex with her. This was a clear attempt to be deceptive about the real reason, which is that Michael McLeod invited the entire team for a three-way. The investigators with the London police have been described as having tunnel vision. They believed the hockey players' version of events. Michael McLeod voluntarily gave them those consent videos he recorded. The investigators later acknowledged they were wrong in believing those videos proved consent. They also acknowledged that they basically did a half-arsed investigation because they believed the players did nothing wrong.

After a few years had passed, the police reopened the investigation to do it properly this time, which included a search warrant for the players' phones. There, they found the evidence of the group chat text message showing McLeod inviting his team for a three-way. The players could no longer claim they only came for the food. So Michael McLeod changed his story. Now, he said that EM told him to invite his teammates, despite there being no evidence for this except from McLeod himself.

So, at trial, that was the defense's case in a nutshell, that it was all EM's idea and she was the aggressor throughout. Carter Hart was the only one of the accused players who testified, and he said EM was begging them for sex and actually getting angry when they were reluctant. This one woman apparently kept provoking these 10 elite hockey players until a couple of them effectively shrugged and decided, why not? Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Alex Formenton, Dylan Dubay, and Callan Foote were all found not guilty of sexual assault. McLeod was also found not guilty of being a party to the offense.

It wasn't so much the judge's not guilty verdicts that troubled me, it was how she got there. The written decision is more than 90 pages, and there's virtually no analysis of whether the hockey players themselves took reasonable steps to make sure EM's consent was clear, ongoing, and specific to what was happening. The overwhelming focus was instead on EM's credibility. When the hockey players gave inconsistent evidence, there was often room for an explanation. The judge noted they'd been drinking, too much time had passed, there were memory gaps, and in one case, a concussion.

But when EM's memory contained gaps or inconsistencies, the judge used those as evidence that she was unreliable. I found instances where evidence suggesting deception by the players was minimized or explained away by the judge, while EM's words and behavior were picked apart in extraordinary detail. And there was a credible explanation for EM's inconsistencies and memory gaps, backed by decades of established science into how trauma affects both behavior and memory. Some people facing a traumatizing situation react by fighting or running. Others find themselves freezing up or complying with demands trying to appease to survive it. Others find themselves with extraordinary strength. When the brain's defense circuitry takes over, everything is focused on surviving the threatening situation, so memories aren't stored in the usual way. They might seem fragmented or patchy. These are normal human responses to frightening or life-threatening situations, and we recognize them after things like car crashes and natural disasters. But when the trauma is sexual assault, it's a different story.

Those same responses suddenly become evidence that a person is not reliable or credible. Their behavior is judged against old rapements about how a real victim would behave, that she should fight back, clearly say no, leave immediately, report to police right away, and remember everything perfectly. If that hasn't happened, it's reasonable to assume that she just regretted it afterwards and lied to save face. Now, the Supreme Court of Canada has repeatedly warned against that kind of reasoning. Justice Carasia did acknowledge the Supreme Court's stance, but then she rejected the trauma science that might have explained EM's memory and behavior.

So, what's the end result of that? The very danger the Supreme Court has warned about. Assumptions about how a real victim would have reacted. And in the case of the Hockey Canada trial, the end result was striking. The judge gave the accused players plenty of room to explain their inconsistencies, while EM's inconsistencies were scrutinized in detail as evidence for the judge's conclusion that she was neither credible nor reliable.

Justice Carasia's decision didn't just explain why she found the Crown failed to prove sexual assault beyond a reasonable doubt. At times, the way it was written seemed to have the goal of clearing the players of any wrongdoing whatsoever, almost rehabilitating their reputations in the process, making them seemingly blameless. As many legal experts have found, there was a legitimate pathway for the judge to conclude two things at the same time. One, that E.M. was not consenting to the sexual activity, and two, that the hockey players had an honest but mistaken belief that she was consenting. This would have left room for the judge to find the men not guilty, but also examine their actions and what steps they took, if any, to establish consent under Canadian law, which requires it to be clear, specific, and present at the time of each act.

This written decision presented the judge with a valuable opportunity to make a difference in society by examining the real problem, how the men misread EM's behavior and missed multiple signs that consent was not present. Instead, the line that dominated the headlines was, I do not find the evidence of EM to be either credible or reliable. A judge's words became ammunition for people who already wanted to dismiss EM entirely. Now, they were justified in continuing to slut-shame her and reduce what happened to nothing more than a consensual gangbang. In my opinion, that's where the damage goes far beyond this particular case. Not only did it reinforce the rape myths about how a real victim might behave, but it also eroded public trust in the criminal justice system and its ability to reflect the realities of sexual assault, a crime that's already vastly underreported. This Hockey Canada decision risks making survivors even less willing to come forward. And at the same time, it sends young men the opposite message. If a woman isn't actively resisting,

then you're free to ignore every other sign that she is not consenting. That is not what a healthy society should be teaching its citizens about consent. So that's essentially where we left off with the Hockey Canada trial last summer. Now to the major developments that have happened since the trial. Last week, an independent Hockey Canada appeal board determined that the five players at the centre of the trial did breach the organisation's code of conduct, according to a new report by TSN's Rick Westhead. There was a nugget of new information in this report, a short text exchange that was not in the trial materials between Michael McLeod and teammate Maxime Comtois.

The messages appear to be part of that group chat, showing the players getting their stories straight. It's related to the so-called consent videos. Michael McLeod asks, What should I say if they ask why I took the videos though? Maxime Comtois tells him that the police are not involved, so quote, Just erase them, all the bad video. In response, McLeod tells him, No, no, this video is her saying she consented. Comtois tells him, Keep the consent one.

The reason this exchange is significant is because it shows players discussing the possible deletion of a bad video while keeping one they believed was proof that EM consented. And the reason it wasn't included as part of the trial was because police couldn't prove that a bad video existed, perhaps because it was erased as Maxime Comtois suggested. There has been internet speculation that surely if bad video existed and was deleted, the police still would have recovered it later from McLeod's phone. And that's where the London police's botched investigation comes in. McLeod had already voluntarily provided the two consent videos he recorded, which led police to decide that EM consented and the players did nothing wrong. And that's why they didn't investigate it properly at first. It wasn't until the investigation was reopened several years later that a warrant was obtained to search the players' phones. Text messages, including group texts, can survive on multiple phones and account backups. But we're talking about a video recorded on one phone and then perhaps permanently deleted.

Even if Michael McLeod was still using the same phone when the police produced the search warrant three years later, the chances of recovering the deleted video at that point are low. So those are the new facts that have just been publicly reported. After the break, we'll go through what the players have been up to since, their attempts to get back into professional hockey and the public reaction, followed by a personal update from me, and then a whole bunch of other updates after that. Back in a moment. Imagine searching for your missing fiancé only to realize his captor is hunting you too. Audible presents this year's best new audio thriller, Bram Stoker's Dracula, a brand new full-cast adaptation you can listen to from October 1st. Staying true to the classic masterpiece, Bram Stoker's Dracula stars Fallout's Ella Purnell as Mina Harker, who's in Transylvania looking for her fiancé, but finds herself locked in a psychological battle with Dracula himself, performed by Wicked's Jonathan Bailey. As Mina hunts for clues in her fiancé's letters, diary entries, and chilling testimony, she uncovers an ancient terror.

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Let's get into where each of the five accused players from the Hockey Canada trial are at now. In the months after the not guilty verdicts were delivered, the NHL lifted the restrictions on them playing. The organization announced that what happened in that hotel room was deeply troubling and unacceptable, and the players' conduct had fallen woefully short of the standards expected by the league. All five players were barred from signing NHL contracts until the following month, October 25, and they weren't able to play an NHL game for another two months until December 1. After that, the NHL was holding the door wide open. But their former teams weren't exactly lining up. The Ottawa Senators confirmed that Alex Formentin would not be coming back. The Calgary Flames said the same about Dylan Dubé. After reports emerged that the Carolina Hurricanes were interested in Michael McLeod and possibly Carter Hart,

there was immediate backlash from fans. They canceled their season tickets and started petitions arguing that not guilty does not mean innocent, and that the broader questions about the hockey player's behavior in that hotel room were never resolved at the trial and they never took any accountability. Carolina backed off after that backlash. So when the Vegas Golden Knights expressed interest in signing Carter Hart as a goalie, they knew what they were up against. Vegas fans launched their own petitions and backlash, but it made no difference. Carter Hart returned to play for the team as soon as he was eligible in December. His return was controversial from the start. While Vegas Golden Knights fans largely decided to welcome him, on the road, he faced boos, signs, and chants from opposing crowds. His media appearances were protected.

and when he was permitted to answer questions, his comments about the trial had clearly been rehearsed. Hart stated he'd learned a lot and grown a lot. He was looking for a fresh start and hoped to show people his true character by getting involved in the community and helping younger athletes. But when pressed for more information about that and an update, he wasn't able to elaborate, so he just repeated the same talking points. The Vegas Golden Knights ended up in the Stanley Cup final and the backlash followed Carter Hart there. During games in North Carolina, Hurricanes fans repeatedly chanted no means no. When Hart was asked about it afterwards, he dismissed the chants as just noise. The Vegas Golden Knights lost the Stanley Cup. Footage of Carter Hart crying on the ice went viral. I suppose we'll see how the team goes next year.

Michael McLeod has been very lucky to be able to fade away to relative obscurity in North America anyway. Before the trial, he'd been playing with a professional team in the Russian Hockey League. After the not-guilty verdicts, McLeod signed a three-year contract with that same team. If there was any backlash or protests about it, I can't find any news about that. Dylan Dubé, who featured prominently in the evidence around the slap incident in the hotel room, returned through the NHL, playing for the minor league affiliate team of the St. Louis Blues. Dubé reportedly had a fairly strong season, and last month, St. Louis signed him to a one-year NHL contract worth $850,000. That prompted another wave of backlash, with reports of Blues fans cancelling season tickets in protest.

Cal Foote, the player who performed the splits over EM's head, with or without pants on, also returned to playing with an AHL minor hockey league team. Last month, a professional club in Sweden announced it had signed Callen Foote for a year. Two days later, the club reversed course, announcing the backlash from fans and other stakeholders had become impossible to ignore. Callen Foote's contract was terminated. Alex Formenton returned to the professional club in Switzerland he'd been playing for when he was charged. Like Michael McLeod in Russia, I haven't found reporting of anything approaching backlash. Certainly not what Callan Foote encountered in Sweden. Whether that reflects different hockey cultures, different fan bases, or simply differences in what gets reported internationally, I can't say. But it is interesting.

So that's where we're at before last week's announcement that the five players did violate the code of conduct. They already had suspensions from Hockey Canada, and the organization announced how long those suspensions would continue now, with a different date for each accused player. That seems to reflect Hockey Canada's assessment of their level of responsibility in the hotel room incident. Here's how they were ranked. Alex Volmenton was restated immediately. Effectively, time served. Callan Foote will remain suspended from Hockey Canada until November of this year, 2026.

Carter Hart is suspended until November of next year, 2027. Dylan Dubé is suspended until November of 2028. And Michael McLeod received by far the longest sanction, remaining suspended until November of 2030. These suspensions are really only a token gesture. The players can't represent Canada internationally while they're suspended, but they can still play in the NHL or Europe. It's a small measure of accountability in a case that delivered very little of it.

I mentioned earlier that spending last summer examining the Hockey Canada case took a real mental toll on me. And because we sometimes get questions about why Canadian True Crime doesn't publish as frequently or consistently as some other podcasts, I wanted to explain a little about that. I don't think it's particularly useful to compare the output of different podcasts. You never really know what's happening behind the scenes, how a show is structured, what resources are available, or even what the creator is trying to achieve. So all I can really tell you is how Canadian True Crime works and the choices I've made along the way.

It's been almost 10 years since I started this podcast. And for much of that time, I felt this pressure to produce more episodes on a more predictable schedule. And I get it. If you like listening to something, you want more of it. And it's also nice to know when the next episode is coming. Because I am a people pleaser, I spent years trying to figure out how to give listeners that while also maintaining the standard that I wanted. I hired an audio editor, changed workflows, and eventually hired researchers and writers. But I kept running into the same problem, me.

I'm a creative. I like doing the thing. I don't particularly enjoy managing a team of people doing the thing for me. There was never a business plan when I started Canadian True Crime. I was a suburban mom with a full-time job and two young children, looking for a creative outlet at a time when, like many women, I felt like I'd lost a bit of myself. I came to it with no audience, no social media following, no podcasting experience, and no grand ambition. I just wanted to teach myself how to create something.

As the podcast grew, I kept trying to give listeners what they asked for. Better narration, better storytelling, better sound, more episodes, more consistency. But when I started trying to outsource more of the writing, I realized I wasn't enjoying it nearly as much. The part that I actually love is digging into these cases myself. I'm curious and I like the details. I like understanding how things connect, learning about the justice system and the history behind a case, figuring out what the story can tell us beyond the crime itself.

And sure, I could make Canadian True Crime much easier to produce by stripping some of that away and doing more straightforward retellings. I could get rid of the music and just have the narration. But I don't want to. And I don't want to rush victims and families because an episode is supposed to come out on a particular Thursday. For years, though, I did keep trying to do both. Maintain the depth I wanted and keep up with the schedule. And usually, when a deadline approached, the difference was made up by me working ridiculous hours and allowing the rest of my life to become chaotic. And that was exhausting and unfulfilling.

So a couple of years ago, I stopped promising a strict release schedule and switched to two episodes most months when they were ready. And that helped enormously. But I still carried the guilt. I felt like it still wasn't enough to satisfy the listeners. And that meant that I couldn't really let myself stop. So every summer, instead of taking an actual break for mental health, I just found another complicated subject to investigate. The opioid crisis. The legacy Christian Academy scandal. Darcy Allen Shepard.

and last year, Hockey Canada. At that time, I already knew that I was hovering around burnout, but I thought that I could keep pushing through it like I always had done. Hockey Canada was where that stopped working. That's where I learned that burnout isn't just feeling tired. I was physically exhausted. I was getting sick more often, sleeping badly, feeling irritable and dissatisfied, and writing became harder. I knew exactly what I wanted to say in my head.

But putting that into the perfect, concise combination of words that were robust enough that it couldn't be misunderstood or deliberately twisted really felt like I was spinning my wheels for hours. So the writing part took longer, episodes took even longer to produce, and that case itself affected me in a way that I wasn't expecting. By now, I'm fairly desensitized to the details of crime. Usually, it's working directly with victims and survivors that affects me emotionally, and then, eventually, I can move on to the next case. But what I didn't realize was that in the background, it all builds in an insidious way to the point where covering the Hockey Canada trial ended up pushing me into a really dark mental space, along with my symptoms of burnout. It was what I saw in the evidence, the written decision, that sense of injustice, the appearance of backroom dealing that no longer seems like an anomaly but a feature of the criminal justice system.

And then there's the hostility surrounding the case, largely from hockey fans and men's right advocates. It was watching them become so aggressively certain of what they wanted to believe about someone they idolized that facts almost became irrelevant. Seeing people, mostly men but some women, calling EM a lying slut or a gold-digging putt bunny in the comments of our social media posts, as though Carter Hart is going to see their comments and DM them to hang out or something. And anyone who dares to argue with them becomes the next target. The comments are full of men calling us cunts and dense bitches. The ugly insults themselves are one thing, but what really gets to me is that they have the audacity to post things like that and then have it be pretty normalized at this point. It all kind of settled as a feeling of genuine despair about people and humanity itself, and that really affected me.

So this year I have deliberately tried not to overextend myself. Recovery from burnout is a slow process I've learned and it takes time. So I'm trying to take it easier, say no to things and work at a pace that I can actually sustain. And I am feeling better. But I've also learned that the moment I do feel better and immediately return to the old chaos, I end up right back where I started.

They wrote, I know that this is your podcast and you can do with it as you like, but it seems that frustrating your listeners is not a big concern for you and that's fine, but it will result in a reduction of followers if it hasn't already, which means fewer supporters and less money. At the risk of being disappointed once again, is there a new timeline for your next episode?

I think that that message was designed to motivate me and it did. I immediately put down my bonbons, turned off the TV, rolled off the couch and went right back to work. Seriously though, there's an assumption some listeners have that they have a claim to my time and that I should avoid causing them any frustration by making sure the episodes are released frequently and consistently. And that is something that I have to start pushing back on because those are benchmarks that only tell you how often something comes out. They don't tell you whether it's any good and that's the thing that I care about.

I think that pressure is part of what goes wrong in true crime, particularly when it comes to independent creators. The more successful a show becomes, the more incentive there is to keep feeding the machine. More episodes means more downloads, more advertising, more growth, till the point where something has to give. And that's when corners are cut. The research becomes superficial, which leads to plagiarism scandals, defamation and hostile lawsuits, and victims that feel exploited.

This is difficult, time-consuming work if you're trying to do it responsibly, and it's taken much longer than it should have, but I've realized that setting boundaries and setting my own benchmarks for success is healthy, actually, because that means I can keep doing it in a meaningful way. What I care about is whether the episode is as good as I can make it. Is it accurate? Does it add something of value? Have I treated the people at the center of the story with respect while also being fair? And am I proud to put my name on it? So here's what I'll say.

If I'm expected to work in a way that negatively impacts the quality of the podcast or my own life, family and health, then I'll choose fewer followers and less money every single time. I know that I won't be making this podcast forever. I just don't have the stamina for it. But if I'm going to continue it for now, I need to make it in a way that still feels meaningful. Otherwise, it's just not worth it for me.

So here's what I can promise. I'm going to keep doing the best work I can, taking the time I think each story needs at a pace that allows me to keep making this podcast without burning myself out again. I hope that you can understand and appreciate where I'm coming from. And honestly, the fact that people care enough about this podcast to want more of it is really a lovely problem to have, anger aside. So thank you for sticking with me. Whether you've been here for 10 years or you only found the podcast recently, I really do appreciate that you choose to spend your time listening.

In the early 1990s, Canadian fugitive and serial fraudster Albert Johnson Walker fled to the UK while facing dozens of fraud charges in Ontario. This is the one who arrived with his teenage daughter, and to avoid detection, the pair lived under assumed identities and pretended to be husband and wife. While there, Albert Johnson Walker befriended a man named Ronald Platt and then stole Platt's identity. Platt moved to Canada for a few years, but then he returned. He clearly posed a threat.

So in 1996, Albert Johnson Walker killed the man whose identity he'd stolen on a boat and dumped his body in the English Channel. It was Ronald Platt's Rolex watch that ultimately identified him and led to Albert Johnson Walker earning the nickname the Rolex Killer. Walker was convicted of murder in the UK in 1998 and later transferred to Canada to serve the remainder of his life sentence. This case was the subject of Sea of Lies, the award-winning podcast by CBC Podcasts. When it was first announced, I was really interested because Canadian True Crime covered the case quite a few years back, and I know it's been long solved and the criminal justice process has been done and dusted. It turned out that producers tracked down and interviewed many people from the case, Ronald Platt's family members, the original police investigators, landlords, co-workers, and others who came into contact with Albert Johnson Walker.

Sea of Lies was deliberately entertaining. It won multiple podcast awards and the host, Sam Mullins, was praised for his deadpan wit and storytelling style. One review in The New Yorker described it as almost an amusing level of barely restrained, this story will blow your mind. It also caught the attention of one of Albert Johnson Walker's younger daughters, who he left behind in Ontario when he fled. Her name is Heather Jane, and she wrote an essay titled My Life as a True Crime Spectacle, which was published earlier this year in Toronto Life magazine. Heather writes that her father was not a fascinating criminal character in a sensational crime. He was an abusive, unpredictable father whose actions destabilized virtually every part of her childhood and continued affecting her well into adulthood.

She was only eight years old when her father disappeared from Canada with her teenage sister and all the money he stole. This left the rest of the family in poverty and uncertainty. Heather writes that they spent years wondering whether her sister was alive, and because the police all but gave up on finding her, her mother had to beg news outlets to raise awareness. But after Albert Johnson Walker was arrested in connection with the murder of Ronald Platt, and there was a sensational murder story to report, she says the press became relentless, descending on their family home for weeks. Heather writes that while she's rebuilt her life, it's impossible to escape her past because books, TV programs, plays, and podcasts continuously bring Albert Johnson Walker back into her life. Obviously, Canadian True Crime is one of those podcasts.

Heather writes that she typically ignores them all, but she got a Google alert telling her about CBC podcast Sea of Lies. CBC podcasts are known for their investigative journalism, and she decided to listen in case there was new information that, as Walker's daughter, she should probably know. The new thing Sea of Lies brought to the story was its approach. There was no new information, but it framed the case as a colorful, character-driven crime saga with bizarre twists and turns and unexpected humor. And at the center of it all was Albert Johnson Walker, portrayed as an audacious, larger-than-life con man.

But for Walker's daughter, Heather Jane, it was something different. At one point, she wrote that she heard her own name mentioned on the podcast in reference to Walker's children, and she found herself in a three-day tailspin of re-traumatization. She writes that there is another set of victims in the case that are often forgotten, Walker's own family members. And she wonders how a team of journalists worked hundreds of hours on this award-winning podcast series without thinking to reach out to them or even give them a heads up that they would be named as Walker's children in it. And that's why Heather decided to speak up about the line that distinguishes what she calls ethical journalism and the ugly side of true crime. She describes ethical journalism as the pursuit of justice where the police and courts have failed and informing people of the many flaws in our criminal justice system. She writes that a well-handled story can galvanize people into righting wrongs and fighting for justice. But quote, A lot of true crime content is just cheap bid for clicks that re-traumatizes people who are already reeling. Victims feel torn.

They're grateful for media attention if it helps solve their case or gives them a voice, but they also grieve the loss of privacy. She writes that there are still versions of her family's story that need to be told and that still need justice. There's the police failure to investigate or push forward the search for Sheena, despite her mother's repeated pleas. There's also the failure to locate the millions of dollars her father stole from investors. Heather wrote that if someone made a podcast like that, she'd gladly listen.

I've included a link to Heather Jane's Toronto Life essay in the show notes. It's well worth a read. And things like this are always on my mind when I'm telling true crime stories. I've also learned over the years that victims and survivors are not a monolith. There is no single right or correct way to approach someone or not approach them. Because at the end of the day, these are traumatized people and we don't know where they are in their healing or what else is happening at that time. And sometimes people are also difficult to find without digging through personal social media accounts in a way that can start to feel intrusive.

So even with experience, there are still judgment calls to make in true crime, and mistakes are always possible. I've certainly made them at times. So that's why I think it's important to never lose sight of the fact that, however bizarre, entertaining, or unbelievable a case might seem from the outside, it's still somebody's real life. The crazy twists are somebody else's trauma. The colorful characters are somebody's parents, siblings, or children. Although, I've never won a podcast award for Canadian true crime. Take that as you will.

So, the update. Now in his 80s, Albert Johnson Walker has continued to seek day parole, and in the past two years, he's been denied two more times. The parole board noted that although Walker has participated in programming and maintained good institutional behavior, he still minimizes and misrepresents his crimes, including the frauds in Ontario that preceded the murder of Ronald Platt. The parole board found that Albert Johnson Walker continues to engage in manipulation and impression management. He struggles with insight and shows some of the same deceptive thinking that allowed him to assume Ronald Platt's identity decades ago.

One detail raised particular concern with the parole board, a support letter from a prison chaplain which referred to Walker by one of his old aliases. This was a red flag given his long history of identity fraud. The board concluded that Albert Johnson Walker remains an undue risk to the community, especially vulnerable individuals who could be targeted by his pattern of deception. A short update on the Jacob Hogard case. Jessica Baker is now successfully registered as a victim in the case and she's already receiving offender updates. She's working on writing a victim impact statement for the next parole hearing. We'll keep you posted. I also wanted to share an email I got from a woman. It has the subject line, Jacob Hogard, Hedley, I love you. She writes that she misses him and quote, a person's sex life and way of life is not to be judged. As a matter of fact, I think she should be judged for not knowing who he was and what he liked in the bedroom before she got there.

Because half the world knew or would have expected him to be a sex maniac. And some of us would love it too. I'm here and always for you, Hedley XX. Another contribution to my rapidly expanding faith in humanity problem. After the break, Paul Bernardo's latest attempt to be released on parole comes with a new excuse for his offending that he's only decided to tell now that both of his parents are dead. Will it make a difference? No. There's also parole updates in the murder of Kimberly Proctor and others. Then we'll circle back to Kevin O'Leary's proposed Utah data center and his dramatic shift from attacking his critics to apologizing to them when he realized it could threaten the thing he values most.

Support comes from WISE, the smart checking account for home and abroad. Got a Canadian salary, property in the U.S., sending money abroad? You're juggling multiple accounts, currencies, and a headache. Manage it all the smart way with WISE. Save up to 65% on exchange fees and give your everyday money a boost with interest. Plus, switch your direct deposit to WISE for the monthly chance to double your paycheck. Be smart. Get WISE. Canada residents only, excluding Quebec. Up to 60 winners. Odds depend on entries. Offer ends September 14, 2027. Learn more at WISE.com. Paul Bernardo and the murder of Leslie Mahaffey and Kristen French.

We all know Bernardo as serving a life sentence for multiple crimes that shocked the country in the late 80s and early 90s. He sexually assaulted at least 18 women in the Scarborough, Ontario area. Then, he met Carla Homolka. They drugged and sexually assaulted Carla's 15-year-old sister, Tammy Homolka, who died during the incident. The couple then kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and murdered 14-year-old Leslie Mahaffey, followed by 15-year-old Kristen French. When Paul Bernardo was convicted, he was given the rare designation of dangerous offender, meaning it's unlikely he will ever be released from prison.

but that has not stopped him from trying at every possible opportunity, insisting that he's a changed man. The last time we checked in on Paul Bernardo, he'd already been denied parole twice, in 2018 and again in 2021. The parole board found he'd made very little progress, completed little additional treatment, had poor insight into his offending, and still posed a serious risk to the public. His next hearing was in November of 2024. The families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey were told the hearing would be virtual and they would not be allowed to attend in person to deliver their victim impact statements face-to-face. The parole board had cited safety and security concerns, but the decision caused immediate public and political outrage, with the family stating through their lawyer Tim Danson that the decision to not allow them to attend was deeply hurtful. The parole board reversed course and said it would accommodate them. At that hearing, there was a significant change in the story Bernardo had told about himself, according to reporting by Catherine Tunney for CBC News.

For decades, he'd tried to shift some of the responsibility onto Carla Homolka, portraying her as an equal and willing participant in their crimes. But in written submissions for this parole hearing, he changed course. He now admitted that he had victimized Homolka and that she would not have committed the offenses if it hadn't been for him. He acknowledged that he had ruined her life. At the same time, Bernardo introduced a much more detailed explanation for his own offending, this time centered on his childhood and his parents.

the timing is important because his parents passed away in 2022 and this was the first parole hearing since their deaths he told the board that his upbringing had been far worse than he previously understood describing himself as having been quote punished degraded tortured humiliated ridiculed crushed rejected abandoned and discarded he also said his father had sexually abused one of his siblings and for the first time bernardo told the parole board that his mother had been sexually assaulted by numerous men when she was young He indicated that he knew this before his criminal behavior started, but he didn't want to disclose it publicly while she was still alive. Bernardo told the board that when he first learned about his mother's sexual abuse, he was filled with hatred toward the men who would hurt her and toward the world more generally. His explanation was that he later acted out what had happened to his mother on his own victims. In other words, he was now presenting at least part of his sexual violence as some kind of distorted revenge for what had been done to his mother, and he used the language of trauma and psychology.

The parole board was not persuaded. It described that revenge theory as incoherent. And Bernardo himself acknowledged the sexual sadist part didn't quite fit in that explanation anyway, the fact that he experienced feelings of happiness, power, and arousal from hurting other people. The parole board also noted that much of Bernardo's time in prison had been in isolation, but at some point he had reconciled with his parents, and for years they were among his only visitors. The timing was striking. It was only after both of them had passed away and he was fronting the parole board that this much darker account of his childhood emerged. Is he to be believed that he was waiting until they passed away so he didn't shame his mother, or was he just waiting until they passed away so they couldn't refute what he was saying?

The board was still left with the same fundamental problem. More than three decades after the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey and the many sexual assaults in Scarborough that came before them, Bernardo still appeared to have serious problems with insight into why he offended and the risk he continues to pose. Leslie Mahaffey's mother and brother gave victim impact statements at that hearing. Leslie's brother Ryan spoke about how Bernardo's crimes didn't just take his older sister but shaped the rest of his life. He was only seven when she was murdered, and he said that the trauma affected his childhood, his memories, his relationship with his parents, and later, his ability to connect with others. Now a father himself, he said Bernardo's actions still intrude on his everyday life, from raising his own children to ordinary household tasks, and he wonders about the day his children learn about what happened to their aunt. He also pointed out that more than three decades later, Bernardo has still never truly accepted responsibility or apologized. He urged the board to remember that Paul Bernardo's life sentence is not over.

Leslie Mahaffey's mother, Debbie Mahaffey, argued that Bernardo's dangerous offender designation should remain central to every parole decision. He was not just sentenced to life for murder. He was also found to be a sexually sadistic psychopath who posed an ongoing danger to the public. She pointed to the fact that there has been no compelling evidence that this has fundamentally changed. Leslie Mahaffey's mom also criticized the parole process itself, especially the lack of transparency for victims' families.

She said they're expected to participate in repeated hearings, but they denied access to many of the psychological assessments and treatment records the board relies on. Her message was simple. Parole is not a right, nothing meaningful has changed, and Bernardo should remain in prison for the rest of his life. Bernardo was denied parole for a third time. His clinical assessments remain deeply concerning, and the board was not satisfied that his risk could be safely managed in the community. So, despite his new attempt to explain his crimes, and his new acknowledgement of the role he played in Carla Homoka's offending, Paul Bernardo remains behind bars.

In March of 2010, the brutal murder of 18-year-old Kimberly Proctor devastated the community of Langford, near Victoria on Vancouver Island. After Kimberly was reported missing, her burned body was discovered under a bridge on the Galloping Goose Trail. Investigators soon learned that two of her classmates, 16-year-old Cruz Wellwood and 17-year-old Cameron Moffat, had lured her to Cruz's home, where they sexually assaulted, tortured, and killed her before disposing of her remains. Both teens pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. In 2011, They were sentenced as adults to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years. Cameron Moffat and Cruz Wellwood are now 31 years old, and in the past two years, they've both been before the parole board asking for day and full parole.

Neither is being released anytime soon. The parole board noted that while Cameron Moffat has completed programming and counseling, his psychological assessments continue to flag him as a high risk of violent re-offending, particularly toward intimate partners. He's been described as impulsive, with poor decision-making and deviant sexual tendencies. The board also noted his previous diagnosis of sexual sadism, limited insight into his crime, and his preference for affiliating with weird individuals. While Cameron Moffat's parole was denied, He was given an escorted temporary absence to tour a minimum security facility, where he is apparently working towards a transfer.

As for Cruz Wellwood, the parole board noted ongoing emotional outbursts, self-harm and aggressive behavior, although less frequent than before. But more disturbing was what prison officials discovered in his cell, a hundred drawings that depicted sexualized torture of women, pregnant women, and children. Cruz Wellwood insisted these drawings were a fantasy and a healthy outlet. In last year, the parole board learned that Wellwood had been secretly corresponding for about a year with a girl who told him she was only 17. Again, he is now 31.

The board found that he concealed this from his case management team, knowing they would put an end to the relationship. The board concluded he remains at high risk for general violent and sexual re-offending. Kimberly's family continue to oppose any form of release. They lament having to travel to parole hearings to unpack their trauma, grief, and ongoing anger to keep the two men who murdered Kimberly in prison. The murder of Lyle and Marie McCann Travis Vader was about 38 when he was arrested for the murder of Lyle and Marie McCann, an elderly couple in their late 70s who set off on a road trip in Alberta in 2010. A few days later, their burned-out RV was found at a campground, but there was no sign of the elderly couple, nor the SUV they towed behind the RV.

About a week later, police found that SUV abandoned. Someone told police that a man named Travis Vader had been seen driving it. Vader was a man of no fixed abode with known drug problems. The Crown's theory was that Vader was desperate, he was starving, and he was in the throes of a drug addiction when he came across Lyle and Marie McCann. After a protracted court process, Vader was eventually found guilty of manslaughter, but he's always insisted he did not kill Lyle and Marie McCann.

Their bodies were never recovered, and the family always hoped that Vader would confess what he did with them. In 2024, after eight years in prison, Travis Vader was eligible for a parole hearing, where he claimed he'd progressed and maintained sobriety, but he continued to deny that he killed the McCanns. The parole board denied him parole. Son Brett McCann said his family was relieved, adding that his memories of his parents are still interrupted by thoughts of Vader killing one while the other watched, he said. He is still urging Canada to adopt the no body, no parole laws like those in Australia. That means if a convicted offender does not confess to where the remains could be found, they will not get any parole.

The murder of Yvonne Rouleau A few years ago, we covered a series of interconnected cases in Kingston, Ontario. It was the brutal robbery and murder of mother Yvonne Rouleau at the Nozzles Gas Bar where she worked in 1991, which shocked Kingston residents. It turned out that her own employee, Terry Kennedy, who was a pallbearer at her funeral, was also the one who committed the murder, along with his friend Richard Charles Joyce. The pair were found guilty and jailed. Years later, DNA evidence revealed that Richard Charles Joyce alone also had a significant criminal history before the murder of Yvonne Rouleau. Joyce had abducted and sexually assaulted three young girls in the late 80s and early 90s. You might remember survivor Kerry Kehoe, she was one of them. Joyce is still in prison and has been denied parole.

Terry Kennedy was granted day parole in July of 2025, but his release was temporarily suspended after staff at his halfway house noticed unusual behavior and white powder on his clothing. He initially denied using drugs, but later admitted to using crystal methamphetamine, according to reporting by Michelle Dorrie Forrestal for the Kingston Whig Standard. When Terry Kennedy returned to the community residence, he was placed under tighter restrictions, given additional substance abuse programming, and banned from possessing or using illicit drugs. There were also concerns about some of his behavior towards staff and his failure to follow facility rules. A year later, in July of 2026, the parole board found that despite this, Kennedy had otherwise continued to make gradual progress. He remained in counseling, took part in programming, maintained employment within his physical limitations, and there were no further signs of drug use after his return. So in July of 2026, the board extended his day parole for another six months, finding that his risk could still be managed in the community under strict supervision and conditions.

So we've all heard Kevin O'Leary's pitch. He's the blunt truth teller, the visionary businessman who says what other people are too afraid to say. He's built an entire brand around the idea that brutal honesty is the greatest gift he could give you. And if you have any problems with that, you're the problem. But in our series, when we looked closely at his actual business record, a much messier picture emerged. There were aggressive sales tactics, hostile takeovers, questionable accounting practices, and troubled ventures that Kevin O'Leary often managed to exit before things fell apart.

And when they did, he had the habit of distancing himself from the wreckage that he caused and then blaming other people for it. So when I decided to start looking into the fatal boat collision on Lake Joseph, I assumed that I was going to discover that Kevin O'Leary had actually been driving the boat and somehow shifted the blame onto his wife to protect his reputation. That's a theory I see posted in the comments whenever a new article about Kevin O'Leary comes out. So I thought there must be some evidence for it that I would see once I started digging in. But I found no evidence that Kevin was driving the boat.

and if there was deception in the hours after the crash, the evidence pointed towards his wife, Linda O'Leary. But the whole thing raised a much more interesting question. Why were so many people willing to assume the worst of him? Well, that's because he spent decades teaching them to. Kevin O'Leary deliberately cultivated the image of a ruthless shark who puts profit before feelings, who says things like money doesn't care, and who will do whatever it takes to win. So when his family became involved in a terrible tragedy, people looked at the character he'd created and assumed that he was behaving exactly as advertised. Kevin O'Leary effectively became a prisoner of the Mr. Wonderful brand.

He'd spent years making ruthlessness part of his appeal and then discovered that when he genuinely needed people to give him the benefit of the doubt, they just weren't willing. And then he plays the victim. Kevin O'Leary has repeatedly talked about the damage the collision and its aftermath caused his family, including humiliation, emotional distress, and lost income. He has blamed media coverage, unsupported allegations, and other people for much of that fallout. What I found most frustrating was that he seems incapable of self-reflection. He doesn't appear to seriously consider whether the public suspicion might have had something to do with the persona he spent decades creating himself. And that was really where we left Kevin O'Leary. He may not have been driving the boat that night but he had spent years driving the narrative about who Kevin O'Leary was. And that's why, to date, whenever there's a news story about him, the comments are flooded with people saying he drove the boat and threw his wife under the bus.

Where we left off, Kevin O'Leary was facing intense backlash in Utah in the United States in response to his plans to build a gigantic data center campus. After some local political strategist groups posted online about the project, Kevin O'Leary claimed that this opposition was outsiders being bust in. He then went on Fox News multiple times and named a few of the people in charge of those groups before repeatedly accusing them of being foreign agents for China or the Chinese government. At one point, he called it an irrefutable fact, not just his opinion. You might remember this from our series. We found two cells inside of Utah. They're just spreading falsehoods. Gabby Finlayson. Gabby, what are you doing? Well, hi, hello. It's me, Gabby Finlayson. What am I doing? You know, it's not every day you get called out by first and last name on Fox News by a Canadian billionaire trying to ruin my state, but here we are. Kevin, are you okay? So these are proxies for the Chinese government's argument, and if they're not, because I want them to be able to defend their name to Gabby, come out, come out, wherever you are. Okay, Kevin, go ahead. Mr. Wonderful's Nancy Drew little detective agency. Have at it, brother. For the record, we are not Chinese foreign operatives. Bye, Kevin. Put your dogs away and keep my name out of your fucking mouth.

So after he did that, their lawyers demanded a retraction, and O'Leary had to post to Twitter that he had no evidence for his claims that they were Chinese or foreign operatives. Then, the people he accused launched a lawsuit, suing both Kevin O'Leary and Fox News, arguing that the baseless accusations had caused them serious reputational harm. O'Leary and Fox both say they will fight the lawsuit, and Fox has pointed to the on-air corrections it later issued. Now, about that data center, just a few weeks ago at the time of recording, Kevin O'Leary changed his tune quite a bit. It seems that he's getting so desperate that he's willing to back down and admit that he was wrong. In an interview with MS Now, he admitted that he and his team had really screwed this up in terms of the messaging for the data center by failing to properly explain the project to local residents. He actually apologized to people in Utah's Box Elder County who felt offended or treated unfairly.

and promised much greater transparency around the data center's impact on water, power, noise, heat, jobs, and tax revenue. He also said the project would be scaled back from its original enormous footprint. But he's not backed away from building in Utah and now says his goal is to earn the community's trust and become a major contributor to the local economy. If anyone was inclined to believe him before all of this, I'm not sure anyone will be now, but we'll see how it goes. We'll be sure to keep you updated.

That's where we'll leave it for this year's major case updates. We've only included the major updates and a few other small ones, but we'll continue next year. Thanks for listening. Please see the show notes for the list of resources and links for further information on anything we've mentioned in these episodes. You can also find this info at our website, canadiantruecrime.ca. As always, thank you so much for your kind ratings, reviews, messages, and support.

Audio editing was by Crosby Audio and Eric Crosby voiced the disclaimer. Our senior producer is Lindsay Eldridge and research was by Carol Weinberg. Additional research, narration, and sound design was by me and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back soon with part two. See you then.

Imagine searching for your missing fiancé only to realize his captor is hunting you too. Audible presents this year's best new audio thriller, Bram Stoker's Dracula, a brand new full-cast adaptation you can listen to from October 1st. Staying true to the classic masterpiece, Bram Stoker's Dracula stars Fallout's Ella Pernell as Mina Harker, who's in Transylvania looking for her fiancé but finds herself locked in a psychological battle with Dracula himself, performed by Wicked's Jonathan Bailey. As Mina hunts for clues in her fiancé's letters, diary entries and chilling testimony, she uncovers an ancient terror. closing in on her. She teams up with Van Helsing, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, in a race against time where her mind might be the only weapon sharp enough to take Dracula down. An Audible original also starring Amy Lou Wood, Lewis Partridge, and David Johnson, Bram Stoker's Dracula puts you right there with Mina as the danger closes in. With a haunting original score from Ilan Ashkeri and Spatial Dolby Atmos sound design, feel the thrill of the hunt and listen to the darkness. Go to audible.ca slash listen to Dracula for Bram Stoker's Dracula, a full cast original adaption on Audible.

Support comes from WISE, the smart checking account for home and abroad. Got a Canadian salary, property in the U.S., sending money abroad? You're juggling multiple accounts, currencies, and a headache. Manage it all the smart way with WISE. Save up to 65% on exchange fees and give your everyday money a boost with interest. Plus, switch your direct deposit to WISE for the monthly chance to double your paycheck. Be smart. Get WISE. Canada residents only, excluding Quebec. Up to 60 winners. Odds depend on entries. Offer ends September 14, 2027. Learn more at WISE.com.