Latest / History Dark / Lone Wolf (Full Documentary) 72 Hours_ True Crime _ Dark Crimes

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Lone Wolf (Full Documentary) 72 Hours_ True Crime _ Dark Crimes · History Dark

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: They say the past is another country. Life was different then.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: In rural Ontario, a man went to work in the morning,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: expecting his wife and child to be safe and sound
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: when he came home. Chaos was something that happened in
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: other people's lives, somewhere else. But on this early spring day,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: one family's life and a whole community's sense of safety
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: was shattered forever. In True Crime, Investigation and conviction may
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: take years. But every detective knows that the crucial clue
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: is always there, somewhere in the first 72 hours. Gormley, Ontario, 1970.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: local police respond to an emergency call. Retired police chief
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Don Hillock still remembers, even though it was over 30
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: years ago.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: When I arrived, I found the husband at home, very distraught,
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: very upset, and inside the house was his wife in
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: a pool of blood. It was a night table that
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: had quite a sharp corner on it, and the doctor
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: assumed that maybe she might have fallen against it and
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: split it back of her head open.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: The body of Kathleen Philcox is taken to the morgue
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: for autopsy to establish cause of death. Detective Hillock consoles
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: the husband, Lester, and asks him to describe what he
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: saw when he came home. It was strange, he says,
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: that the front door was locked. Like most people in
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: the area, He and his wife never locked the door.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: Then he noticed that the phone was off the hook
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: in the kitchen. Down the hall in the bedroom, he
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: made the terrible discovery. Detective Hillock is a cop in
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a small town where violent crime is extremely rare. He's
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: never seen anything like this before and yet, He's thinking
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: this may not have been an accident.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I had a feeling that it was foul play. That's
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: what I thought.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Next morning, the autopsy confirms the detective's suspicions. Kathleen Philcox
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: had been raped and shot to death. The pathologist recovers seven.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: 22 caliber bullets, two from her back, five from her head.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: For the detective, the fact that seven bullets had been
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: fired is significant. Most revolvers hold only six bullets.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: I don't think anybody under those circumstances would reload. So
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: right away it makes me think that it was a
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: nine-shot revolver.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: Hillock hopes his assumption will help them zero in on
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: a suspect. A nine-shot. 22 is a very unusual weapon.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Later the same day, Don Hillock returns to the Philcox house.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Investigators scour the bedroom for clues, dusting for fingerprints, collecting blood, fibers,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and hairs. Detective Hillock needs more information from Lester Philcox.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: He claims he left his wife at home at 8 a.m.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and was at school all day teaching. His story checks out.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Police need to broaden their investigations.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Right at the very beginning, we had to check out neighbors, friends,
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: associates of the family. It was difficult. We had to
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: prove where they were and alibi them.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Police question everyone in the community and ask men in
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the area for a blood sample. Their samples will be
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: compared to the attacker's blood type. In 1970, DNA testing
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: has not yet been invented. Labs use what is known
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: as the ABO blood typing system, a simple method which
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: can't positively identify the killer, just narrow down the potential suspects.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: The semen sample from the victim shows the attacker has
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: type A blood. Days into the investigation, Hillock and his
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: partner are still combing through the community. But many area
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: residents are so shaken up by the murder, they're not
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: making it easy.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: They wouldn't come to the door if you were in
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: plain clothes. What we did was talk to people through
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: an upstairs window most times. Your home was invaded and
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to be shot that many times in a rural area,
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: it just, well, it was just hardly believable. A lot
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: of people started going out and getting guns, learning how
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: to shoot guns. People were just scared.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: 13 days after Kathleen Philcox's murder, police still have no
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: serious suspects. Then, police get a call from a frightened
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: young boy. He's found his mother on the floor. She's
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: not breathing. And a strange man has just run out
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: of their house. A second murder. This time, the Ontario
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: Provincial Police take the case. OPP detective Don McNeil speaks
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: with eight-year-old Ben Rickman. Ben tells the detective what he remembers.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: He was in his room playing when his mother answered
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: the door.
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: His mother... came into the room and advised him that
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: there was a gentleman there that had a sick child
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: in the car required to use the phone. Later on,
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: he heard what he thought to be fireworks go off
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: in the house, and he went and he found his
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: mother lying on the floor.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Ben saw blood on the back of her shirt, but
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: didn't understand what had happened. That's when he heard someone
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: behind him. The man looked him straight in the eyes.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Elaine Rickman is pronounced dead at the scene and taken
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to the morgue. The autopsy reveals that she was killed
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: by three bullets, two in her head and one in
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: her back. Elaine Rickman had also been raped. Biologists determined
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: from the semen that the killer was a blood type A,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: and forensic analysis of the three bullets show that they
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: were fired from the same. 22 caliber gun that killed
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Kathleen Philcox. Police now have a clear link between the
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: two murders. Detective McNeil has to consider a disturbing hypothesis.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Some people were thinking, well, is this our first Ontario
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: serial killer?
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: If it is a serial killer, will police be able
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: to catch him before he strikes again? Two women have
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: been brutally raped and murdered. Ontario police fear they're dealing
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: with their first serial killer. Detective McNeil returns to the
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: Rickman house with the police artist. The victim's son, Ben,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: describes the man he saw. But the vicious attack has
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: had a chilling effect on Ben's father. Ben has looked
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: into the eyes of his mother's killer and his father
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: is afraid he's no longer safe at home. His father
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: sends Ben to stay with relatives. Meanwhile, the Ontario Provincial
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Police set up a task force and launched the biggest
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: manhunt the province has ever seen.
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: As a result of the bulletin that was published and
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: was printed in the newspapers, There was a minimum of 5,000
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: leads that came in that had to be checked out.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: While the task force follows up each lead, McNeil tries
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: to find a common link between the two murder victims.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: Both victims were nurses. Had they worked at the same hospital,
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: had they gone to training together, and we could not
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: find any common denominator where both women knew each other.
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Both husbands were schoolteachers, and the same thing again. There
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: was no known contact between either family.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Despite the uncanny similarities in the two families' lives, police
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: are unable to make any direct connection between them that
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: can help in their manhunt. weeks drag into months tips
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: from the public dry up and the investigation slows down
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: after a year the task force is disbanded but the
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: case stays open Three years after the murders, out of
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: the blue, there's a break in the case. McNeil gets
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: an anonymous call telling police to check out a man
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: named Scott Wilson. Apparently, Wilson confessed to a friend that
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: he was involved in something terrible around the time of
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the murders.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: A gentleman came to light who had been acting strangely
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: and as a result of acting strangely ended up in
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: a mental institution.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: With Scott Wilson away in an institution, police take a
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: trip out to his property, just down the road from
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: where one of the murders occurred. They find no one around,
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: but the door to the shed is open. Inside, they
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: find a child's coffin, clearly handmade. They also find a
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: collection of guns, including a 7.7 millimeter rifle. Not the.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: 22 caliber nine shot they're looking for, but evidence that
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the man has a taste for unusual guns. Detective McNeil
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: visits Wilson in the psychiatric hospital. He has a mental
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: disorder caused by years of excessive drinking. He's reported to
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: have always been an angry, violent drunk. When McNeil interviews Wilson,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: nothing he says is coherent. It's frustrating. but McNeil does
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: get Wilson to give a saliva sample for blood typing.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Police also take a hair sample, hoping to match it
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: to a hair found at the crime scene. The results
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: come back from the saliva. Wilson is blood type A,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: the same as the killer. Police also discover that he
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: was not at work on the days of either murder.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: And in the time he's been in the psychiatric hospital,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: there have been no other murders in the area. With
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: the evidence they've collected, police think they could win a conviction.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But there's a problem. Scott Wilson is unfit to stand trial.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: So even though the case officially remains open, police believe
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: they've found their killer and stopped further investigation. But in fact,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: it will take McNeil more than 20 years to close
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: this case. 20 years during which forensic technology is revolutionized
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: with the advent of DNA testing. 20 years during which
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Don McNeil rises through the ranks of the OPP. In 1995,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: he's put in charge of cold cases.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: At that particular time, one of the relatives had written
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: a letter and wanted to know what the status was
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: in regard to the investigations. And so I volunteered for
• 13:05
  Speaker 3: it because I knew a lot of the details of
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: the case.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: McNeil's prime suspect over 20 years ago, Scott Wilson, is
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: long dead from brain cancer. At that time, he couldn't
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: absolutely prove that Wilson was the killer. Now, with DNA testing,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: he thinks he can finally close the case. McNeil sends
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: the hair and saliva samples they took from Wilson to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the lab. biologists will try to compare Wilson's DNA to
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: the DNA obtained from the murderer's semen sample.
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: One of the issues whenever you're dealing with old cases
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: like these is how the evidence has been preserved, or
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: in fact, if it's been preserved.
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: In this case, the items were.
• 13:47
  Speaker 4: Preserved and were preserved properly, and that allowed us to
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: go back and do the DNA work in this case.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Two weeks later, McNeil gets a call.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: Kim Johnson from the Centre for Forensic Science phoned and
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: and burst our bubble by saying, not even close.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: McNeil's whole case goes into a tailspin. But sometimes Lady
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Luck is a detective's best friend. Just when he thinks
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: his case has gone dead cold, McNeil is handed a
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: gift that could throw the case wide open. 25 years
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: after two unsolved rape murders, Detective Don McNeil has an
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: intriguing new lead to pursue. A piece of evidence he
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: happens to notice in a case file of a convicted
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: armed robber named Ron West. Shortly after he was arrested,
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: West's house was sold. When the new owners were renovating,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: they discovered jewelry boxes hidden in a ceiling, along with
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: a gun registration for a nine-shot. 22 caliber handgun. But
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: records show the gun had been sold by West in 1972.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: McNeil considers why West would want to keep an expired
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: gun registration.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: I thought to myself that this could be considered maybe
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: a trophy because the jewelry boxes were a trophy of
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: the armed robberies that he had committed and pleaded guilty to.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: McNeil needs to find out more about Ron West. He's
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: currently serving an eight-year sentence for his violent armed robberies.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: At the time of the two murders in 1970, West
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: was a police constable in Toronto's 53 Division. McNeil also
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: discovers that Ron West would have been familiar with the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: area of the murders. He grew up there. McNeil officially
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: reopens the case and assigns a team to investigate this
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: new suspect. One of the key officers is Detective John Smith.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Since Mr.
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: West worked for the Metro Toronto Police Service in May
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: of 1970, we had to go back and interview every
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: single police officer that worked at 53 Division and Metro
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: Toronto Police at that time.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: Most of the former policemen Detective Smith interviews have little
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: memory of West, but one of them remembers West well.
• 16:13
  Speaker 6: He wasn't loud, he wasn't quiet. He enjoyed a good
• 16:17
  Speaker 6: joke and telling a good joke, and he was just
• 16:19
  Speaker 6: one of the guys in the platoon. that I sort
• 16:22
  Speaker 6: of struck up a friendship.
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: With.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Ron West and Keith Rogers frequently spent their days off together.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Rogers remembers a particular day in 1970, a few months
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: after the murders. They were at West's family farm taking
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: some informal target practice. That day stands out in Roger's
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: memory because West was using a nine-shot pistol.
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: I'd never seen this nine-shot. 22 revolver. I always thought
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: there was a six-shooter, so I was surprised to see that,
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: and I used that a fair bit to shoot at
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: these pop cans. To hear, you know, 30 years later
• 17:12
  Speaker 6: that he's now, you know, a suspect in a double
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: homicide is... It was a little.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Shock to me.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Because he and West were in the same platoon in 1970,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: they worked the same shifts and took the same days off. Luckily,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Roger still has his memo book from those days.
• 17:36
  Speaker 6: I had a memo book, the second memo book I'd
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: ever written, and I kept it. And when you worked
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: backwards from that memo book on the days of the
• 17:46
  Speaker 6: two of these murders, my memo book put him off duty.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: It's all beginning to add up for McNeil. The nine-shot gun,
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: the days off, West's association with the area, and his
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: record of violence. But McNeil still needs physical proof. He
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: goes to visit West in prison. If West agrees to
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: provide a sample of his DNA, it can be compared
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: to the killer's DNA at the lab. West is within
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: his rights to refuse, and he does. McNeil decides to
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: confront West with what the police know about the murders,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: hoping he'll confess. McNeil tells West they know he went
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: to the home of Kathleen Philcox on May 6, 1970,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: raped her at gunpoint, and then shot her seven times
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: in the back. McNeil says they also know that West
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: raped and shot the second victim, Elaine Rickman, 13 days later.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: West is an ex-cop. He knows if police had enough
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to charge him, they wouldn't be angling for his confession.
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: He says nothing. After all these years, McNeil feels he's
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: within striking distance of the killer, but he's still coming
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: up short. Then, another stroke of luck. Police in Ron
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: West's hometown send Detective McNeil a letter they received from
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: West's ex-wife.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: This letter had been mailed to her from the jail,
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: and she did not want to have anything to do
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: with him or the letter, and she turned it over
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: to the police.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: McNeil hopes it will contain some incriminating statements, but West
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: is too smart for that. Then McNeil realizes what he
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: may have in his hand.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: When someone licks a stamp or an envelope flap, generally
• 19:44
  Speaker 4: because it's sticky, they leave their cells and therefore DNA behind.
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: We can then extract the DNA and then compare it
• 19:53
  Speaker 4: to any other samples we have. In this case, the
• 19:58
  Speaker 4: DNA profile obtained from the stamp matched the DNA profile
• 20:02
  Speaker 4: we had from semen in both cases.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: With the evidence mounting against him, just five days before
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: his trial, West pleads guilty to both murder charges. It's
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: been 30 years since the double homicide investigation began. Finally,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: police and the families of the victims can close the
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: door on the horrific events of May 1970. In court,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: victim impact statements of the children of West's victims are
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: read to the sentencing judge. The full traumatic effects of
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: the murders on the children are revealed. Plagued by nightmares,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: destroyed relationships, and unable to trust anyone, the two boys
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: have spent a lifetime in fear. As Detective Smith transports
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Ron West back to the jail after his guilty plea,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: He asks a question that has troubled him.
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: I asked him why he did not shoot the son
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: in both homicides. His response to me was, who kills kids?
• 21:25
  Speaker 5: And my response to him was, who kills the mother
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: of an 8-year-old boy or an 18-month-old son and leaves
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: them motherless for the rest of their lives? To which
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: he had no response.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Ron West is sentenced to two life terms, one for
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: each murder. The stories on 72 Hours are true. The
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: detectives and forensic scientists are the ones who actually worked
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: on the case. The names of the victims are fictitious.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: The names of the convicted are real. Thank you.