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365 day returns. day

1:02

returns. Hi

1:04

everyone. I'm, well, it's obvious, I'm John Verhoeven

1:07

and I was a cop back in the

1:09

80s in Sydney. And I'm Paul Verhoeven, John's

1:11

son. I'm an author and I wrote two

1:13

books about dad's time as a cop. The

1:15

first five seasons of loose units spanned my

1:17

time in general duties, forensics,

1:20

my time as a firefighter and

1:22

even my stint running a funeral

1:24

home. This season we're visiting the

1:27

locations of Australia's most notorious, baffling,

1:29

horrific crimes and looking at what

1:31

happened there. From Snowtown to the

1:33

family, from the Morehouse murders to

1:35

haunted highways. This season

1:37

of loose units is your go-to guide to

1:40

the worst crimes in Australian true

1:42

crime history. Welcome to loose units,

1:45

the shadow files. Hello

1:48

and welcome to loose units, the shadow files. Something

1:51

that's thrown around a lot in the

1:54

world of true crime is the term Jekyll and

1:56

Hyde. Now, obviously Jekyll and Hyde story about a

1:58

guy who most of the time, as

2:00

a normal person. And then occasionally

2:02

at the flip of a switch turns into

2:04

an absolute monster. It's an incredible story, but

2:06

it is just that. It is a fictional

2:08

story, but it's also an allegory for the

2:11

sort of evil that is harbored within people.

2:14

And we've come to grown accustomed to

2:16

the metaphor, but in the

2:18

case of this story, I think it

2:20

really does actually apply because in 2010,

2:22

Colonel Russell Williams was stripped of his

2:24

command in the Canadian

2:27

forces. And the reason this

2:29

story fascinates me, dad, is because you

2:31

said to me that you never really

2:33

know someone. Do you think

2:35

that's actually true? It's interesting when people go

2:37

to a funeral sometimes, and

2:39

they're sitting there listening to stories

2:43

told by friends and family.

2:45

Sometimes there's genuine shock and

2:48

disbelief in relation to some of

2:50

the stories. And people sit there flabbergasted and think, hang

2:52

on a sec, did I really know this

2:54

person? And I'm speaking in

2:57

a nice sort of beautiful

2:59

way. And God knows,

3:02

I have seen my fair

3:04

share of funerals. And

3:07

for those that don't know, I ran

3:10

a funeral home with

3:12

Christine, your mum, whilst I

3:15

was a firefighter because

3:18

of the shift system. And you'd be,

3:20

I have heard thousands of

3:23

eulogies. And

3:27

one likes to think that

3:29

one knew a person. But

3:33

then all of a sudden, and

3:35

bearing in mind, this is an

3:38

extreme story. The

3:42

circumstances surrounding this supposedly

3:45

model citizen, whatever the fuck that

3:47

means. Now I'm not gonna

3:50

say the fuck word because I'm preparing myself

3:52

mentally to be on your show on the

3:54

ABC in a

3:56

matter of hours. So I'm,

3:59

I'm not gonna say that. I'm just preparing myself Paul,

4:01

so I promised myself that I would not

4:03

say fuck during this podcast. You know what's

4:05

funny dad is by the time this episode

4:07

drops you will have just finished being on

4:09

air. Okay cool. Yeah so you'll be able

4:11

to leave the

4:13

studio and on your way back

4:15

home in your Ute listen to the podcast. Which

4:18

you're on right now. I love technology Paul.

4:20

Really you could effectively just barrel the microphone

4:22

and congratulate yourself for a job well done.

4:25

Well done John. Thank

4:28

you. That's weird okay. But

4:30

Paul, Paul this particular person

4:33

who was born in England. Yes that's

4:35

right. His parents moved to Canada. Yeah.

4:40

In the mid, so

4:43

the latter part of the mid part of the.

4:45

What? Well it's during the 1960s. Just

4:49

say that. Okay so

4:51

during the 60s which

4:54

is pre-70s. The latter

4:56

part of the mid part of the middle

4:58

quadrant left side kind of

5:00

in the middle bit of the 60s

5:03

okay. Yes and he was he was

5:05

clearly very

5:07

very smart. His

5:11

father was. Nuclear

5:14

scientist right? Correct. And

5:19

what happened was they had a fairly

5:21

tight circle of friends in

5:24

Canada when they first moved. And

5:26

in a sort of a bit of a not

5:29

unique story. But

5:32

it must have been weird for the kids because there

5:35

were sort of two couples and

5:39

David's or

5:41

should we call him Russell Williams. His mother

5:46

ended up having an affair with

5:49

the other couple's husband. And

5:53

so there was divorce.

5:57

Clearly there was trauma. David

6:00

and his younger brother who might I

6:02

say went on to become a doctor. I'm

6:06

only saying that because they

6:09

were highly educated but there

6:11

was trauma, initial trauma in

6:13

so far as any normal person would be

6:15

upset if one's mother in a social situation

6:18

and that's not to blame the mother but

6:20

ends up marrying their friends,

6:22

dad. Lots

6:25

of people's moms end up leaving or lots of

6:27

dads. Lots of people have stuff

6:29

happen, very few turn into this. But I

6:32

see your point. Yeah, but one

6:35

of the stepfather went on to

6:41

run the very famous observatory

6:45

in Hawaii. So

6:47

it's an interesting family, the mother, they

6:51

were all very professional, very good, very

6:53

bright and David and

6:55

his brother went to the best boarding

6:57

schools in Canada and

6:59

by all accounts, he

7:02

was an exemplary student and

7:04

there were no factors

7:09

that could indicate that

7:12

one day this person would

7:17

basically become a monster.

7:20

And very importantly,

7:22

and I'm just gonna sort of put this

7:25

into the mix very early on, David

7:30

Russell Williams does

7:32

not under

7:34

the normal sort of

7:36

classification come under the

7:38

realms or under the category of

7:41

serial killer but he

7:43

is an exception to the rule and this

7:46

is very interesting. That is that if

7:49

he hadn't have been caught, they

7:52

know. And

7:54

that's a lot of emphasis on what I've just

7:56

said. They know that he

7:59

would have gone. on to kill more.

8:02

And that's really interesting Paul because the number

8:04

of people you have to kill to be

8:07

classified a serial killer is

8:09

three. Just keep

8:11

that in mind. Okay. But

8:13

very unusual circumstances. So

8:15

at university, interestingly,

8:18

there was a particular prank that

8:20

he liked to play on his

8:22

fellow colleagues. It's a

8:24

little bit of an eerie. I know

8:27

at the time people might have thought it was a little bit

8:29

funny, but when you look back and

8:32

realize that one of his favorite pranks was

8:35

to somehow or other and

8:38

very methodically dismantle all types of

8:40

lock and door mechanisms

8:44

secrete himself within colleagues,

8:47

fellow students, cupboards.

8:50

Sometimes he would

8:52

wait three to four hours

8:55

alone in the dark before

8:58

his friends had come into their rooms and

9:00

he'd pounce out and surprise them. That

9:05

for me, in hindsight,

9:08

is a clear red flag. Would

9:11

you not agree? Yeah, it's a massive

9:13

red flag. That's, that's super creepy. People who

9:16

wait in the dark quietly. God,

9:18

that's unwholesome. I mean, he was at university. What

9:21

was he studying at uni? He was, well, he

9:23

did a number of degrees. He

9:26

did a bachelor. He got his BA,

9:28

he got his masters. He was

9:30

actually admitted into the Royal Canadian

9:32

Mounted Police. Right. Okay. But he

9:35

turned that down. And

9:37

he also, whilst he was at

9:39

school at the private school and

9:41

through university was a very keen

9:45

pilot and

9:48

ultimately, and his friends

9:50

say, because he

9:52

was in a relationship with a Japanese

9:54

girl at university, the relationship went for three

9:56

years and he

9:59

was so, obsessed with this girl and

10:01

she broke it up. He

10:05

felt that she felt

10:07

that he didn't sort of come up to that very sort

10:09

of high bar that she had and

10:12

what he did he became

10:14

obsessed with flying and

10:16

he actually watched the

10:18

movie with Tom Crews,

10:20

Top Gun, yeah, hundreds

10:22

of times and his friends felt that

10:24

he was starting to model his whole

10:26

life on

10:28

the Top Gun character.

10:31

The reason being that

10:33

what he felt was that if he became a

10:36

brilliant pilot within

10:38

the Air Force she

10:40

would take him back. Okay

10:42

so he's got some hang-ups. I mean he

10:45

joined the military as well obviously part of that fantasy he

10:47

joined the military in 1987 and ended up

10:52

hopping around different military bases around Canada. Yes.

10:54

I've not been to Canada so I don't

10:56

know what kind of a place it is.

10:59

I recognize a few of the names, Nova

11:01

Scotia, Shearwater, Manitoba. I

11:03

think the final place he was posted was Ottawa. Yes,

11:07

but he was regarded as an elite pilot and

11:11

one of the I

11:13

guess interesting sort

11:16

of fun facts about this story and there aren't

11:18

many of those where I

11:20

preface with the word fun but he actually

11:22

was whilst the Queen

11:25

Elizabeth II was ever

11:27

in Canada he

11:30

was her personal pilot. Okay.

11:32

And that's the level

11:35

and I was thinking earlier on before we

11:37

came on Airpool I was

11:39

thinking I

11:41

wonder how the Queen would have felt if

11:43

she had have known what this

11:45

person was

11:49

doing at the time because

11:52

this is one of these situations where everything

11:55

escalates. So

11:57

he had a he

12:00

was predisposed, which one could say is a

12:02

bit of a cop-out in terms of the

12:04

blame game, but he had,

12:06

let's say, a strong desire

12:09

to break

12:11

into ladies

12:14

and young girls, obviously young girls

12:16

who live with their families. He would

12:19

break into girls' houses,

12:23

girls as young as nine years of

12:25

age, 10, 11, 12, 13,

12:30

some prepubescent. He would ... I'm

12:35

not going to pull any punches in this podcast. Well,

12:37

just, I mean, pull some punches. Pull a

12:39

few punches, but I need the listeners to

12:41

really get a handle on this. Just

12:43

before you hang on, so this started in 2008? Yes.

12:46

And this is one of the baffling aspects of

12:48

this particular case. Psychiatrists,

12:51

psychologists, criminologists have

12:54

pored over this particular

12:56

person. There have been

12:58

numerous, very, very lengthy

13:02

papers written about this particular person. And

13:04

I've read some of them, and some of

13:06

them are hundreds of pages. They

13:09

are fascinating, sort

13:11

of figuring out, or trying to figure out, getting

13:14

into this guy's mind, because

13:18

there are 10 key elements in deciding

13:20

whether or not you are a psychopath. He

13:24

ticks between

13:27

five and six boxes. He's

13:30

not a radical

13:32

psychopath. He

13:37

escalated very, very quickly.

13:40

Now, we know all this because

13:44

of the evidence that we're going to talk

13:46

about later, in terms

13:48

of record of interview. I

13:50

mean, how he was caught is an extraordinary story.

13:52

Well, I was going to say, so I said

13:54

he kicked off in 2008, right? Breaks

13:57

into people's houses. 80 houses. Yeah,

14:01

in one of the houses it says here that he took 186 pieces of clothing in

14:03

one go. So

14:06

he's, and he's taking photos of

14:08

himself as well. Not only photos, Paul. He

14:11

also, okay, so just to sort of

14:14

tell you and the listeners a little bit about numbers. He

14:17

amassed more than 3000 pieces

14:20

of female underwear. That's

14:26

a lot of underwear. You could probably

14:30

open a shop. I

14:33

don't know what sort of shop it would be, but

14:36

that's a lot of underwear. But what

14:39

he would do, he would fixate.

14:41

So he had to have a target, which

14:43

we know serial killers and

14:46

sexual predators do. Because in their minds

14:49

they need a reference point

14:51

for their terms

14:54

of arousal. So they see

14:56

someone, they find out where they live.

14:58

Now he would have been, bearing

15:01

in mind that during this he was

15:03

married, he'd been married for 19 years

15:05

to a professional woman.

15:07

They had two houses in

15:10

different locations. So what he

15:12

would do, he would under the guise of, you

15:15

know, sort of he'd say to himself, I'm going

15:17

to our holiday retreat and

15:19

he'd go down there. But then he'd scope the

15:23

houses. He'd

15:25

obviously be on the prowl at night

15:27

time. We know this

15:29

because sometimes he would

15:32

see, for example, a

15:34

young girl in her bedroom.

15:37

The young girl would, and

15:39

the family would, you know, she'd go to school.

15:42

He'd break into the house. He knew exactly what

15:44

room she was in. He'd go to her drawers.

15:47

He would take out her underwear. He

15:49

would often lie

15:53

on the bed. He would masturbate

15:56

over the clothing, but he was

15:58

also sometimes... get teddy

16:01

bears and dolls and use

16:04

those within roleplay of fantasy

16:07

But he would also set up cameras

16:11

and video He

16:14

was a hardcore

16:18

cross-dresser During

16:21

and that was the way he would

16:23

derive sexual gratification

16:26

Sometimes he would be looking through

16:28

a window. He would see a woman Getting

16:33

undressed He would then

16:36

Get ready for this listeners Take

16:39

his clothes off outside

16:41

the house He would

16:43

then break in what

16:45

very very skillfully. He

16:47

would then walk naked

16:51

presumably with an erection to

16:54

The door that would

16:57

lead into the bathroom.

17:00

He would then Open

17:03

the door whilst the woman is

17:06

In a showering situation now I can

17:08

hypothesize here listeners and say that on

17:10

the balance of probability She was having

17:12

a hot shower It

17:15

wouldn't have worked probably if it was a cold shower Like

17:18

I have why is that Paul? I

17:23

Would have Steam oh,

17:26

right. Okay. Yeah, there'd be no steam if

17:28

he was having a cold shower. Yeah. Okay,

17:30

which is an inane fact, really

17:33

so whilst the

17:36

lady is Having

17:38

a shower. He is relieving himself

17:41

the tension that the sexual tension would have been

17:45

unbelievable because There's

17:47

the incredible thrill Being

17:50

caught Leaving it to that

17:52

very very last moment where she turns the

17:55

shower off. He knows he's got he

17:57

then has to backtrack But he must

17:59

have also whether or not there were other people

18:01

in the house. Imagine you're

18:04

standing there naked with an erection, masturbating

18:06

over someone's wife and the husband walks in.

18:09

I mean, it's a combination, a

18:12

conflagration of sort

18:14

of moments in time that

18:16

bring together this massive climax. And

18:19

he did this again and again and again over a

18:21

two year period. When did someone

18:24

find all this? Cause he's obviously accruing photos

18:26

and footage and all kinds of stuff.

18:30

When does the penny drop?

18:32

Cause I know that his wife actually

18:34

found out that there were photos on

18:36

his computer, right? And he was keeping

18:38

mementos from these things in their house,

18:40

right? Correct. In both their houses.

18:42

Right. And at work. Yeah.

18:46

He was meticulously keeping

18:49

the panties and the bras. He

18:52

was keeping incredible

18:54

amounts of video

18:56

footage, photographs.

18:59

I have seen an array

19:02

of photographs that were presented in court

19:04

of him dressed in ladies'

19:06

underwear. And

19:11

then one

19:13

night he goes to,

19:16

now he's committed a few more offenses that

19:22

we don't know about initially, but

19:25

there were four offenses committed. The

19:27

first two offenses were

19:30

where he broke into ladies' houses.

19:34

One was a woman with her baby in the room.

19:38

He jumped on her back. He

19:41

bound and gagged her. And

19:44

then he did not have

19:46

sexual intercourse with her. What he

19:48

did, he set up a camera. Hang on

19:51

just quickly before this happens. So

19:53

the photos on his computer get

19:55

found and his wife finds out. They

19:58

find all the stuff in his house. Helps

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36:00

above he doesn't judge although internally

36:02

when Russell starts to

36:05

talk about the crimes they're

36:07

gut wrenching they

36:09

make you feel sad

36:11

sick and depressed but

36:13

the detective can't let

36:16

his personal feelings or

36:18

emotions show because

36:20

otherwise the guy might clam up and

36:23

eventually he because what

36:25

they're really trying to do Paul

36:28

is that they're trying to

36:30

find the victim's body because he

36:32

had taken her away and and

36:34

and basically hidden her and if he goes

36:36

quiet the family doesn't get any closure at

36:39

all that's right so

36:41

ultimately and

36:44

this is a long interrogation he

36:46

asks for a map because

36:50

he can't really describe with

36:52

words where the person is and he draws

36:55

where the girl is and

36:58

ultimately they find her

37:00

they find which

37:03

in terms of the

37:05

hardened police officers that worked

37:08

on this case it was one

37:11

of the most distressing cases and you

37:14

know they would have had to have gone through

37:16

from an evidentiary perspective they would have had to

37:18

have gone through every single photograph every single video

37:20

someone had to watch everything it became

37:25

big news in Canada and

37:30

there are a few aspects to this story

37:33

one of the things I'm about to tell you is

37:35

a precedent that was set by

37:40

the by the you know

37:42

the Canadian Air Force and

37:44

that is that because he was highly decorated

37:47

he had a like a scroll you

37:49

know which had all these achievements yeah he

37:52

had a motor vehicle he had uniform

37:55

so he had everything get ready for this for

37:58

the first time ever They

38:02

incinerated his uniform. Wow.

38:05

They then cut up and crushed

38:07

all of his medals. Then they set fire

38:11

to his, the

38:14

honour scroll. This had never

38:16

been done before. They were

38:18

so appalled and distressed

38:20

because he brought shame on

38:23

the Royal Canadian Air Force, unprecedented

38:25

move, and they

38:28

believed there was a form of exorcism

38:31

is the word they used. His

38:35

personal car, the SUV we

38:37

mentioned before, that was

38:39

taken to a crushing

38:42

yard where it was crushed

38:45

and then cut up into tiny pieces. That

38:48

may have been something to do with his

38:50

wife's wishes, I'm not sure. Again,

38:54

I'm in the embarrassment of in

38:57

court having video and

39:00

photographs of you lying on

39:03

children's beds masturbating with holding teddy

39:05

bears. I mean it's pretty fucked

39:08

up. But then when

39:10

he's in custody he gets a

39:12

toilet roll, he

39:14

rams the toilet roll with

39:18

toilet paper. So you

39:20

can imagine he's created a solid,

39:22

I guess a rod.

39:26

He then rams it down his throat. Pushes

39:30

it right down. That

39:33

is how desperate

39:35

he was to take his own

39:37

life. They caught

39:40

him just in time. They

39:42

retrieved the, I guess

39:45

you'd call it a bullet or

39:48

this rod which was

39:50

ingenious when you

39:55

think about it. One of the reasons

39:57

that when I was in the police force we who

44:01

committed these crimes back in 2010 and

44:04

is now in solitary confinement. Horrifying story,

44:06

a very, very interesting one though. So thank

44:08

you so much for listening to this

44:10

episode of Loose Units, The Shadow Files.

44:13

Dad and I will be back at the end

44:15

of the week with more Loose Units. Also, you can

44:17

catch Dad, or you probably already

44:19

will have, on ABC

44:21

Overnight with me this

44:24

morning, if my timeline makes sense.

44:26

Yeah, I think it's actually, it's

44:28

Wednesday morning, I'm on, isn't it? You're

44:31

on Wednesday morning, yes. So it just comes out

44:33

Tuesday morning. Wednesday morning, yes,

44:35

sorry, yes, okay. So you know what,

44:37

you're right, I'm underslept tomorrow. You

44:39

can tune in here, Dad, at 5 a.m.

44:42

on ABC Overnight's tomorrow with me and also

44:44

next week, same time, 5 a.m. Overnight's national

44:46

radio, it's gonna be great. Thanks

44:48

for listening to Loose Units. I'm Paul, that's John, and

44:50

we'll see you later. Cheerio. Never

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