00:00:00
Just a mystery, absolute mystery. It was usually dark when he arrived. The women were alone, and he never knocked.
00:00:21
That's when I realized somebody had been in the house. She started to cry. I said, no, everything is gone.
00:00:27
He'd slip in, steal out. She tried to tell him, let me live. He didn't listen. His crimes were chilling. His crimes were bizarre.
00:00:38
It's a little creepy to hear something like that. Very creepy. It might just be a scream.
00:00:44
But the most shocking thing of all, it wasn't what he did. I felt so scared for her, for me, for all the women.
00:00:50
But who he was. I just about fell off my chair. We were in that much danger and didn't even know it.
00:00:59
It was January 2009. Brenda Constantine and her husband Brian Rogers and their three teenagers, two boys and a girl,
00:01:13
spent the New Year's holiday the way they always had. A trip out of town and then back to their home in Orleans,
00:01:19
a middle-class suburb in Canada's capital city, Ottawa. Orleans is the kind of place where the houses are snug to the street and each other.
00:01:28
It's a very family-oriented community, lots of young families still moving into Orleans, lots of kids.
00:01:35
But as you say, in a town which is very safe, Orleans seemed particularly safe. Yeah, there was never a lot of crime.
00:01:43
That January, when Brian and Brenda got their brood home on a Friday evening, the family house in Orleans seemed exactly as they'd left it.
00:01:52
Though Brian did notice something odd. her digital clock in her room on the way side of the bed was blinking.
00:01:59
I thought that was kind of unusual, but didn't think much of it. Sure. And then you went ahead and just continued?
00:02:05
Carried down her lives. And never dreamed, why would they, that their digital clock was blinking out a warning.
00:02:13
Two days passed, during which time their 15-year-old daughter lived out of the clothes in her suitcase,
00:02:17
as teenagers sometimes do. Then came Sunday. She was taking a shower. She went into her room and she went to her drawer
00:02:25
and that's when she discovered all of her underwear had been taken from the drawer.
00:02:31
So she told her parents. She's a teenager and, you know, clothes are everywhere.
00:02:36
I said, well, did you check your laundry basket? Did you check your suitcase? Did you check the floor?
00:02:41
She said, no, Mom, everything is gone. She was sort of freaked out? Yeah. Her parents said what parents say.
00:02:47
And I said, go up and look again. And so she started to cry. I said, no, everything is gone, everything.
00:02:52
But she did check again and found more things were missing. She's running out and she's crying, very upset.
00:02:58
And then we realized there's something weird going on here. But what was going on?
00:03:04
I went upstairs and looked and saw sure enough, everybody was seated missing, right?
00:03:08
And I called the police and reported it. Then their next surprise, because although Brenda and Brian were worried enough to call the police,
00:03:17
they weren't sure of the reception they'd get. We thought, yeah, they're going to laugh at us.
00:03:22
I thought it was a joke. I thought there must have been kids playing a joke. But the police did not think so.
00:03:28
They were at the house in a matter of minutes, and they were all business. They spent five hours combing through the place,
00:03:34
then came back the next day to take apart the family computer. Did they find anything?
00:03:39
No, they didn't find anything. Not in the computer, but in their daughter's bedroom, disturbing discoveries.
00:03:46
Along with 50 pairs of missing underwear, a number of their daughter's bathing suits, dresses, tank tops had also vanished.
00:03:52
They discovered the intruder had rifled through the family photo albums and removed pictures,
00:03:57
but only those that showed their daughter. And those were like pictures, vacation pictures down in Punta Cana.
00:04:05
So they were all beach pictures, bathing suit pictures. And then, says Brian, it got ugly.
00:04:11
That's when they said they found some DNA evidence on my daughter's dresser. That was the one that, really weird.
00:04:18
Investigators said the sample was consistent with dried semen. They found it on the top of the daughter's dresser, where the underwear had been stolen.
00:04:25
All of that, along with the fact that no one else in the house reported anything missing,
00:04:30
led investigators to issue the kind of warning no parent ever wants to hear. They told us that we have to be very careful, we have to watch her daughter.
00:04:40
They said she was targeted. It wasn't a random breakage. Targeted? Not random? That was when the fear crawled in and infected their once comfortable lives.
00:04:52
Everything from this moment different. You take your safety for granted almost, and then all of a sudden, nothing you can do is really good enough.
00:05:00
After that, their daughter was never alone. Brian and Brenda put in a new alarm system and kept asking,
00:05:06
Who was it? Who would do this? They tried to come to terms, too, with the other troubling news they learned from police,
00:05:15
that theirs was by no means the only break-in of its kind in Orleans. So they knew there was a pattern.
00:05:22
It's a little creepy to hear something like that. Very creepy. In fact, almost a dozen such break-ins had been reported in Orleans in the past year.
00:05:32
The police had issued a warning to residents in late 2008, though Brian and Brenda didn't know about it.
00:05:38
Now, officers told the couple of their biggest concern, that the intruder, whoever he was, would escalate from stealing lingerie to more dangerous behavior.
00:05:49
They were very concerned at the time about the escalation. And rightly so because in a matter of months that exactly what was going to happen It was almost like he had a gun on my head that moment A woman living alone discovers she not
00:06:09
I was like, how hard? In about three steps, I was up where she was, and she was standing with her hands like this.
00:06:25
After their teenage daughter was targeted during a burglary in January 2009, Brenda Constantine and Brian Rogers followed police advice
00:06:39
and made sure she was never alone. She had a very restricted lifestyle after that.
00:06:46
Their daughter coped in her own way. We have a spare room, and she stayed in there.
00:06:50
She slept with the light on. She still does. Brenda and Brian, eager to warn others about the threat, called a neighborhood meeting.
00:07:03
But odd as it sounds, they say the police asked them to cancel it. Their objective is to keep this man doing it because he's obviously very intelligent and knows exactly what he's doing.
00:07:12
And they thought they had to catch him in the act. Wait, wait a minute. Using the neighborhood as bait?
00:07:17
Exactly. The police were doing what they could without success. By November 2009, almost a year after the break-in at Brenda and Brian's home,
00:07:28
the intruder was still out there. More than a dozen break-ins had been reported,
00:07:33
many involving stolen underwear, shockingly high for this snug, safe neighborhood.
00:07:39
Brenda and Brian, now on nervous alert, could not stop wondering who... Who? Who could...
00:07:45
Who did it? A woman named Ann Marson Cook and her friend Howard Gray began asking that same question.
00:07:53
Anne lived in a lovely old farmhouse, 150 miles away from Brenda and Brian. Howard lived on the same busy highway, not far from the small city of Belleville.
00:08:05
November 17, 2009. Late that afternoon, Anne hurried home to change into party clothes.
00:08:11
It was her birthday. She was heading to Howard's place to celebrate. So I was really rushing. I was looking forward to go.
00:08:19
Anne lived alone much of the time in this old place, and that suited her fine. She's a music teacher and artist.
00:08:26
She wanted time and space to herself. I like to have space. My art grows with space.
00:08:35
But did you feel insecure ever before? I mean, did you lock your doors and windows?
00:08:42
Ann's friend Howard Gray grew up down the road. Fifteen years ago, we didn't even take the keys
00:08:48
of the ignition of the cars. that's what I grew up on that's safe well you knew everybody
00:08:55
back on that November day when Anne got up to her bedroom on the second floor she looked in the mirror thinking about what to wear
00:09:02
it was then she noticed something strange in the mirror's reflection a bedside table with a drawer open
00:09:10
so I looked at it and I thought hmm, like I didn't open this she looked at the other bedside table
00:09:16
the drawer was open and all my sex stories and, I mean, some stuff was gone. And that's when I realized somebody had been in the house.
00:09:26
Had to be a prank. Had to be Howard. He had a set of keys to her place because he often did handyman jobs there.
00:09:33
She hopped in her car, drove the 200 yards to his house. And she came right in and said, are you playing a practical joke on me?
00:09:41
No, so then she proceeded to tell me and jumped right in the car and followed right over behind her.
00:09:46
The two of them traipsed upstairs to Anne's bedroom, discussed at length whether to report the missing sex toys to the Belleville police.
00:09:55
My words were, if we phoned the police, it would be nothing but gales of laughter.
00:10:00
My first reaction was to phone the police, because somebody had to do it in the house.
00:10:04
But then he said, think about it. And so really, it was embarrassment. No, no, no.
00:10:10
It was no embarrassment. We were just thinking reality of what will happen if you phone.
00:10:14
They were also trying to decide if maybe they should be laughing too. Maybe it really was a joke.
00:10:21
But if so, who could have been behind it? I was thinking, somebody that knows me.
00:10:26
They'll come up in the morning, you know, maybe in the mailbox with a ha-ha-ha or something like that.
00:10:30
There's a reason they recall that conversation in minute detail, a terrifying reason.
00:10:35
But on this evening, they did not know that yet. As they prepared to return to Howard's house for the birthday party he was throwing her.
00:10:42
And it was simply an excess of caution when he told her, bring her pajamas. I said to her, obviously someone's been in the house.
00:10:50
You're not staying alone tonight. And this was important. Before they left, they locked Ann's house up tight, just in case.
00:10:59
All we did was just went around all the windows and doors and made sure everything, and she went in front of me,
00:11:04
and I went behind her, and I double-checked everyone. That night, they partied with friends,
00:11:09
drank Howard's homemade strawberry wine, made light of the bizarre theft. Perhaps the new day would reveal the prankster.
00:11:18
Then, 7.45 next morning, they were back at the farmhouse. Anne ran upstairs to her home office to do some photocopy.
00:11:26
Howard waited below. Then he heard Anne's terrified scream. I was like, Howard! You know, my work boots were still on,
00:11:34
but in about three steps I was up where she was, and she was standing with her hands like this.
00:11:41
standing and staring at the old desk computer she hadn't fired up for months. And the screen was glowing in the dim morning light,
00:11:48
a message that shook Anne Morrison Cook to the core. I took it so personally. I knew someone was out there for me and that was very very scary Was that same someone praying on other women
00:12:05
Is crimes growing ever more depraved? It had to be one person. There can't be that many evil persons around.
00:12:25
On the morning after her birthday party, Anne Marson Cook made a terrifying discovery.
00:12:30
I was really, really scared. It was November 2009. Anne and her friend Howard were standing in an upstairs hallway of her old farmhouse near Belleville, Ontario.
00:12:43
They were staring at her computer screen. It was spooky. It was the first time in my life that the hair stood up on the back of my neck.
00:12:53
because it was a message directed... Personal. Yeah. And now they knew. The break-in the previous day, the theft of those sex toys,
00:13:05
was not a joke, not even a bad one. All that time last evening, they'd stood deciding,
00:13:10
a long discussion, should they call the police or not? They'd figured the cops would just laugh,
00:13:15
so they decided not to call. But after Ann spent that night at Howard's, they returned home first thing in the morning.
00:13:22
A message filled with typos greeted her on her computer screen. Go ahead and call the police, it said.
00:13:30
I want to show the judge your really big dildos. Eventually, Ann would wonder about those typos.
00:13:38
But just now, quite suddenly, she froze. It's almost like he had a gun on my head that moment.
00:13:46
This time, they called 911. And as they waited for the police to arrive, Ann and Howard came to a deeply disturbing conclusion.
00:13:54
Whoever wrote the message, maybe some half-literate crazy, judging from the typos,
00:14:00
must have been hiding in the house the evening before when they debated whether to report the theft.
00:14:05
He was listening to us. The police can't prove that he was there. But we know. We have no evidence that he was there.
00:14:12
They've been talking just outside Ann's bedroom. Down the hall, in a closet, they said, they found evidence to support their chilling theory that the intruder had been hiding there.
00:14:25
It was all upside down. So he had to be listening to tell a message like that. Go ahead, phone the police.
00:14:32
And then a second dreadful discovery. They searched the house to see if anything else had been stolen.
00:14:38
And in her bedroom, Ann discovered all her underwear had disappeared. And that, that was sickening.
00:14:47
Anne loved lingerie, owned more than a hundred sets, all gone. Well, she was a basket case, she really was. I got her right downstairs.
00:14:56
Only to make a third gut-wrenching discovery. I said, Anne, we locked that door last night.
00:15:01
And she goes, yes. And I said, well, that door's open. She goes, no, it's not. But it was.
00:15:08
and then the two of us looked at one another and we started talking about the possibility that
00:15:15
whoever was here let themselves out they had to the rest of that day passed in a blur a police
00:15:23
officer from the nearby city of belleville got to the house and got to work they took it seriously
00:15:28
he did because i took him right upstairs and as soon as he walked in to the office and looked what
00:15:33
was on the computer screen he pulled up his mic and he just said get forensics out here right now
00:15:37
That same day, amid the upset, Ann and Howard had a question for the Belleville police.
00:15:43
It was about a couple of disturbing incidents that had happened up the road in a speck of a place called Tweed two months before.
00:15:51
Incidents more serious than what happened to her. Incidents also directed against women alone, at night.
00:15:59
Although Tweed was only 20 minutes away, it was not policed by the Belleville cops.
00:16:04
We asked all of them, did they know anything about those? Because I said, it has to be connected.
00:16:09
You told the police this? Oh, yes. Yeah, and of course, how do you know about it?
00:16:13
You know, we don't know anything about it. They didn't know about it? Well, they didn't seem to or they didn't want to let on to.
00:16:18
But Anne was convinced. The incidents were linked. They had to be. It had to be one person.
00:16:24
There can't be that many evil persons around. She says she begged the detective handling her case.
00:16:30
Investigate a connection. I said, please look into the Tweed case. I said, it has to be connected.
00:16:37
But then life took over as life will, and Anne let the matter drop. I pestered her about phoning.
00:16:44
But I was thinking, you know, they know their job. They will phone me. But nothing happened for them?
00:16:50
No. My son was getting married, and, you know, like there was a lot of things to do.
00:16:55
Life was busy at the time. But Anne was right about what happened up the road in tiny Tweed.
00:17:00
a terrible threshold had been crossed. And then the second one, oh God, everything just went haywire then.
00:17:11
Police close in on the suspect. He says, so you're going to tell us why you did this?
00:17:17
But do they have the right man? Tweed is one of those little Canadian places that takes its ice fishing seriously in winter.
00:17:39
Snowmobile, too. It's up the road from Ann Mars in Cook's Place and about 150 miles from Brenda and Brian's Orleans.
00:17:49
And in Tweed, Larry Jones, a former government surveyor, the picture of grandfatherly respectability was about to be caught up in a monstrous crime story Larry has lived in Tweed all his life the last four decades on a lakeside lane called Cozy Cove
00:18:07
Cozy Cove is probably one of the most ideal places to live. You've got the whole lake as your backyard.
00:18:13
It was a safe place, also, enviably so. We never had a problem here with anything, never.
00:18:20
Though, there was one disturbing incident back in 2007, Larry confessed. That's when his daughter, who lived nearby, surprised an intruder in her home.
00:18:33
Chris opens up the door, and here's this guy running out the door and runs off into the woods.
00:18:38
And my daughter right behind him. But the intruder got away. And that was that. Or so Larry and his family thought.
00:18:47
Then came September 2009 and the events that troubled Ann Marson Cook. The first call came in at 3.15 a.m., September 17th.
00:18:58
A terrified young mother described how she'd been awakened by an intruder, blindfolded, tied up, stripped, and forced to pose for degrading pictures.
00:19:07
After a couple of hours, the man left. And there are issues that would cause the police some concern.
00:19:15
Craig Ackley is a former FBI investigator and profiler. Dateline NBC asked him to evaluate these cases.
00:19:21
You have an individual taking pictures. What does that say? It suggests that it's an individual who is playing out of fantasy.
00:19:31
That is fantasy-driven behavior. It also says it's probably somebody who would do it again.
00:19:38
And so, apparently, he did. Thirteen days later, another terrified call to the police in the early morning hours.
00:19:47
Once again, a woman alone had been blindfolded, tied up, stripped, photographed, and then the intruder left.
00:19:55
He clearly has engaged in sort of reconnaissance behavior of knowing the victim is alone,
00:20:03
that he would have the opportunity to spend two to three hours with her without fear of somebody coming in.
00:20:11
He's done some research. He has done some research, which shows planning. What happened would have been shocking anywhere, but it was doubly so here in Tiny Little Tweed.
00:20:22
Two sex assaults on two women alone at night, within days of each other, within blocks of each other.
00:20:29
Not rape, but terrifying and weird. Two attacks that seem to bear the same signature.
00:20:39
So, two attacks and maybe just one attacker. The Ontario Provincial Police, the OPP, responded to both assaults.
00:20:49
And after the second sexual assault, the OPP began canvassing the neighbors. I was standing there and they came over to me and wanted to know if you've seen anything or heard anything or know anything's going on.
00:20:58
Larry says he had nothing to tell them. By now, the news of the two assaults was all over, Tweed and beyond.
00:21:06
I remember saying to my guys, look, we have to get more on this. Chris Millett was then the city editor of the Intelligencer
00:21:14
the newspaper in the nearby city of Belleville and we were given nothing we were told the investigation is ongoing
00:21:20
no further information would be released around Cozy Cove Lane the women were terrified
00:21:25
everybody was just scared to death of what was going on after the first one was assaulted
00:21:30
and then the second one oh god everything just went haywire then everyone thought it had to be someone local
00:21:37
but who? It was just a real mystery who this could be, and nobody could find out who it was.
00:21:45
Nobody, that is, until the day Larry Jones came home from a partridge hunt to find his house crawling with cops.
00:21:53
I said, what's going on? Somebody breaking into my house? No, sir, it's way more serious than that.
00:21:58
And way more serious it was, as Larry Jones was about to learn. First, he was escorted into a cruiser by one of the officers.
00:22:07
He says, well, we think you've had something to do with two sexual assaults down the road.
00:22:11
It was a shocker. Larry Jones, a 65-year-old grandfather and 44-year resident of Tweed's idyllic Cozy Cove Lane,
00:22:20
was now a suspect in the double assaults. He says, so, would you like to tell us why you did this?
00:22:27
But all Larry Jones wanted to know was this. Why him, the guy who loved to hunt and fish?
00:22:33
how did he end up in the back of a cop car about to face an interrogation about the worst crimes
00:22:38
to hit his neighborhood in living memory whatever lay ahead wouldn't be pretty I couldn't not even believe that
00:22:46
that they would even think that a crime wave moves from depraved to deadly that's when I found out she was murdered
00:23:03
In the fall of 2009, a pair of brazen sex attacks shattered the peace in a tiny place in Canada called Tweed.
00:23:21
Four weeks after the second assault, Larry Jones, a longtime Tweed resident, was picked up by the police for questioning in connection with both attacks.
00:23:30
He says the police interrogated him for three and a half hours. How'd you break in?
00:23:34
You break in the door? Do you have keys? Or how'd you get in there? Why were the cops so sure they had their man?
00:23:40
Because the second victim, Larry's neighbor, had called to say she thought his voice matched
00:23:46
that of her intruder. He said, well, have you ever been in those houses? I said, well, the first house, I don't know where you're
00:23:51
talking about. My second house? I said, yes, I was in the house about three years ago.
00:23:54
Larry says he was so shocked by the questions, it was all he could do to answer them.
00:24:00
I could not even believe that, that they would even think that. Because if there was one thing Larry Jones knew without a doubt in the world,
00:24:08
it was that he was innocent. He'd never sexually assaulted either woman. Me, of all people, who's lived here for 44 years,
00:24:16
and after living here for 44 years on this road, I'm going to start raping and pillaging our single women on the road?
00:24:22
It's just ridiculous. Larry gave the police DNA samples and fingerprints, and he promised to return to the station for a lie detector test,
00:24:31
which he did in due course and which he says he aced. But that didn't mean Larry Jones got his old life back or his reputation.
00:24:41
I've always done everything honestly and truthfully and then all you've done all your life is gone out the window.
00:24:48
It's just not right. Larry Jones would eventually be cleared and meanwhile police investigating that series of break-ins
00:24:55
in Brenda and Brian's neighborhood in the Ottawa suburb, 150 miles away, seemed no closer to nailing their intruder.
00:25:03
Ann Marzen Cook was trying to put her home invasion and that taunting computer message behind her,
00:25:09
and still no investigators were able to connect any of these crimes. But then why should they? So far apart.
00:25:19
And when something truly awful happened in a nearby town, Again, nobody, nobody was able to think of any reason why there should be a link.
00:25:32
Marie-France Como was by all accounts vibrant and vivacious, a dedicated consumer of great meals, new countries, the odd pretty dress.
00:25:44
Alain Plant was captivated the moment he saw her. First thing that caught me is her smile, obviously, because she has a beautiful smile.
00:25:52
Sadly for him, she already had a boyfriend, so he waited. A year later, in the spring of 2004, she approached him.
00:26:01
And he, well, he was done waiting. We started dating and it went pretty well. It didn't take so long for me to move with her.
00:26:11
He took his two sons with him. So she essentially became a mother or... Stepmother, yes.
00:26:18
Stepmother to your children. She did her job pretty well. What did you like about living with Marie France?
00:26:25
Basically, she was in love with life in general, yes. Both Alain and Marie France were French-Canadian.
00:26:32
Both came from military families. Early on, she chose to make the military her life, too,
00:26:37
becoming what's called a traffic tech. It's the people who actually load stuff on the aircraft
00:26:44
and have to balance the weight of the aircraft. She served in Germany and Dubai and Afghanistan.
00:26:52
Then in 2008, after more than a decade in the military, Corporal Marie-France Comeau became a flight attendant with the 437 Squadron
00:27:01
at the sprawling Canadian Forces Base in Trenton. The base is just down the road from Belleville and not far from Tweed.
00:27:09
And soon, Corporal Comeau was chosen to work the flights for Canada's top leaders.
00:27:14
She was happy. Oh, yeah. She loved their job. But it was also that year, after four and a half years together,
00:27:24
Elain Plant and Marie-France Como split up. He moved away. She stayed close to the base, living in a town called Brighton.
00:27:33
They were apart, Elain says, but still in close contact. He remembers a conversation they had in late November 2009.
00:27:41
She just got back from India, Japan, Singapore, and she was telling me all those new countries she discovered and all the new meals she could taste.
00:27:54
And it was fun. It was their last conversation. Three days later, November 25, 2009, Corporal Marie-France Como's body was discovered in her home, lying on her bed.
00:28:07
I was told on the 26th. told only that she was dead, nothing more. And with a heavy heart and a hundred questions,
00:28:16
Alain Plant went to Brighton to find out for himself what happened to the woman he still loved.
00:28:23
Horror awaited. That's when I found out she was murdered in her house. What is it like to hear that?
00:28:30
I was in shock, but how to describe that? There were no words in any language, Alain would learn.
00:28:38
Como's murder had been brutal, a sexual homicide. Former FBI investigator Craig Ackley examined this case at Dateline's request.
00:28:47
He had no role in the investigation. What was clear was that somebody had raped her and somebody had killed her.
00:28:56
And somebody had spent time in the home. Which, again, in the dismal business of investigating this sort of thing, suggests it's an organized criminal as opposed to a disorganized criminal.
00:29:08
Sure. It suggests somebody who spent some time planning the offense, understanding he had time to go into the house and spend whatever time he needed with the victim, which suggests reconnaissance activity.
00:29:22
At the base, CFB Trenton, Corporal Como's grieving colleagues held a memorial service.
00:29:29
Even the base commander, Colonel Russell Williams, got involved, sent a letter of condolence to her father.
00:29:35
But who could have done this? Investigators were stumped. Although they looked at anybody close to Marie, anybody including Alain Plant.
00:29:45
There's one time one policeman came to me and asked me for my DNA. That when I freaked out and I had to explain to them that I wasn even there I was four and a half hours from there Elin cooperated with investigators and he was cleared And when the forensics people were finished in the house and the police handed over the keys
00:30:08
it was Elin, as Marie's executor, who had it cleaned and emptied. So I saw the crime scene.
00:30:15
What was that like? You see blood on the wall, you see blood on the floor. or it's like CSI, but it's not CSI.
00:30:25
He had to step outside for a cigarette to steady himself. And then he went back in,
00:30:30
resolved to take care of Marie-France Como's last business on earth, and to laugh, in his broken-hearted way,
00:30:38
about the easygoing woman whose life he'd once shared. We got rid of all her civilian clothes.
00:30:46
In every coat, every pants, she had money. just change a dollar bill. So it made me laugh because that was Marie.
00:30:55
Right there was Marie. Anne Marcin Cook and Howard Gray live just 45 minutes drive from Como's house.
00:31:03
They heard about the murder on the news. They never connected it to Anne's break-in
00:31:08
or the tweet attacks for that matter. No, absolutely none. It was, you know, she was military.
00:31:15
But that was before they knew what they know now. before another awful crime shook their community.
00:31:22
Only then would all these crimes be connected. Only then would the perpetrator be unmasked
00:31:28
in a story that would rock a nation. A young woman disappears without a trace. It's just a mystery, an absolute mystery.
00:31:49
It was Friday, January 29, 2010. Jessica Lloyd was late for work that morning, and no one knew why.
00:32:03
The sunny, steady young woman who worked as a school bus coordinator had never pulled a no-show before.
00:32:09
Her supervisor called her mom to tell her. Her mom called her son Andy, Jessica's brother.
00:32:15
Just flat out came out and said, Jess is missing. What on earth was going on? There was no way their Jess, as they called her, would have taken off without alerting them.
00:32:25
She wouldn't do that to her work, and she wouldn't do that to me, and she wouldn't do that to my mom.
00:32:30
Andy rushed to join his mom and the friends and relatives gathering at Jess's house.
00:32:34
It's a small, tidy house by a field just outside Belleville. It faces a highway that runs right past Ann Marson Cook's home and on into Tweed.
00:32:45
Jess's car was parked outside. Inside the house, her bed was made, and her personal stuff was still there.
00:32:53
A 27-year-old woman wouldn't leave behind her Blackberry, her purse, her makeup, her wallet, her car, her car key, her house keys.
00:33:02
They called everyone they could think of, learned she'd watch TV at a friend's house the night before,
00:33:07
and when she'd left, she'd gone straight home, texting the friend at 10.36 p.m. to say she was home and going to bed.
00:33:15
That was the last anyone heard from Jess Lloyd. The young woman who loved to yuck it up playing the video game Guitar Hero.
00:33:23
The Jess Lloyd who had a ton of friends, but no current boyfriend. The sister who loved to crack wise with her older brother.
00:33:31
You know, I'd call her a name and she'd have a better one right there waiting. But where was she now?
00:33:37
It was just a mystery, an absolute mystery, and nobody could come up with any answers.
00:33:42
They didn't wait long to call the police. She was reported to us missing at noon on the Friday.
00:33:47
Corey McMullen was then chief of the Belleville Police Service. And with the information that the family provided us, that we realized that it had the potential to be a very serious case.
00:33:59
When the police arrived, along with the forensics people, Andy Lloyd says he and his cousins went outside with police permission to scout the grounds around the house.
00:34:08
No idea that what he was about to discover would not just break the case, but send a shockwave right across the country.
00:34:16
The first thing, says Andy, the footprints. There was a couple of different ones in the backyard.
00:34:23
He called into the cops working in the house. I just said there's footprints in the backyard. Might better go look at them.
00:34:28
And instantly they told us we'll stay away from them. So Andy and his cousins headed over to the field by Jess's house,
00:34:35
took a walk around, and that's when they found them, the tire tracks. Tire tracks where they shouldn't be.
00:34:43
We saw them come right off the road, so then instantly we thought there's been a strange vehicle next door.
00:34:50
Andy says they went straight to the cops with this, too. And then the investigating officers were handed another clue from one of their own,
00:34:57
because the night before about 9 30 p.m while Jess Lloyd was at that friend's house
00:35:01
an observant member of the Belleville police force just happened to notice an SUV parked in the field by her house.
00:35:09
There was an officer who was on regular patrol and thought there was something suspicious.
00:35:14
Just driving along Highway 37 there. Just driving along, yep. The truck was sitting in somebody's backyard?
00:35:18
It was in the field and the officer stopped and knocked on the door and checked the house and nobody was home.
00:35:25
and took detailed notes of the vehicle and carried on. But the officer's notes were not quite as complete as they might have been.
00:35:37
She left out some rather significant details. The SUV's make and its license number.
00:35:45
Though it may not have seemed so important at the time. After all, nobody was home.
00:35:49
There was no evidence of any crime. So imagine how it was when the officer learned that Jessica Lloyd was missing Obviously it upsetting It going to be upsetting to anyone but this officer went above and beyond and we very proud of her At what point after Jessica Lloyd went missing
00:36:07
did she say, hey, I saw that SUV? As soon as she became aware that Jessica was missing
00:36:14
from that residence, she immediately came forward with the information. That weekend, Andy Lloyd was running on coffee and cigarettes
00:36:20
and urgent hope, out searching every day. It was overwhelming how many people, just volunteers who showed up.
00:36:27
And there was police officers everywhere. But no Jessica. Not a word, not a call, not a hint of her whereabouts.
00:36:35
Chris Millett then with the local newspaper, the Intelligencer. I remember what I was thinking at the time. I don't think this is going to end well.
00:36:42
He couldn't know it then. No one could. But the mystery of Jess Lloyd's disappearance would be solved in a matter of days.
00:36:49
Her case and the other unsolved crimes, the Marie-France Como murder, the sex assaults in Tweed, the break-in at Ann Mars and Cook's place,
00:36:57
and before that, at Brenda and Brian's Orleans home, finally pulled into one horrific vortex.
00:37:04
And the outcome would stun not just the small city of Belleville and the communities around it, but a nation, coast to coast.
00:37:14
I was blown away. I just couldn't take it all in at first. Jessica Lloyd, 27 years old, resident of the small Canadian city of Belleville,
00:37:38
vanished in late January 2010. Her family made phone calls increasingly frantic,
00:37:43
went out searching, put up posters, and waited. Andy Lloyd is Jessica's older brother.
00:37:49
Everybody was on edge, just waiting for good news to come through. It never came.
00:37:57
Her face posted across the country. The 27-year-old Belleville woman went missing on the night.
00:38:02
The story was all over the local news. Chris Millett worked for the Belleville newspaper, The Intelligencer, for three decades.
00:38:09
He covered just about everything during those years. I think for a span of several days, we had page one stories almost every day.
00:38:19
It never occurred to anyone at the paper, said Millett, to link Jess Lloyd's disappearance to other unsolved crimes in the region.
00:38:27
The two sex assaults at Tuy, or the murder of a military woman, Corporal Marie-France Como, a short drive away in a place called Brighton.
00:38:36
We were thinking, okay, we're in a run of a bit of bad luck right here in this community right now.
00:38:42
The Lloyd family didn't make the connection either, though Andy says his sister was well aware of the sex assaults in nearby Tweed.
00:38:49
She even had a name for the man responsible. His nickname around my sister and her friends was the Tweed Creeper.
00:38:57
That's what they had called him. You don't lock your doors, the Tweed Creeper will get you.
00:39:01
The Belleville cops and other police forces declined to discuss details of the investigation into Jessica Lloyd's disappearance.
00:39:08
but Corrie McMullen, then Chief of the Belleville Police Service, said this much.
00:39:14
Her officers were scrutinizing links to other unsolved crimes in the region early on.
00:39:19
Because we had Jessica reported missing to us and because it was unusual circumstances,
00:39:24
we were dedicating as many resources as we could and that includes looking at what's happening in your neighboring jurisdictions.
00:39:32
What was happening? And we were aware that there had been two serious crimes out in Tweed
00:39:37
against women and that there was another situation in Brighton where a woman was murdered.
00:39:44
And that's not that far away? No, no, it's not too far away. It was enough that at the beginning it's let's make some contact and have some conversations
00:39:53
and see if there's any potential connections. But first there was work to be done, starting with those clues Andy says he discovered outside Jessica's house.
00:40:03
There were three sets of footprints, one going toward the house, the other two, one smaller than the other, heading out of the house across the field.
00:40:13
Investigators quickly realized the smaller set was a likely match for Jess Lloyd's boots.
00:40:19
And those tire tracks preserved in the field, the ones going off-road into the field?
00:40:24
They soon nailed the tire type. They were Toyos. Because it had reports an SUV had been parked in that field the night Jess Lloyd vanished,
00:40:32
they could also narrow down the make of the vehicle. From the wheelbase, I figured out there was only three possible makes that this could have been.
00:40:41
Only three makes. A Toyota 4Runner, a Jeep Cherokee, or a Nissan Pathfinder. But which one?
00:40:50
Could they track it down? On Thursday, February 4th, a week after Jess Lloyd went missing,
00:40:56
the police set up a roadblock on the busy highway in front of her home, stopping cars.
00:41:01
One officer chatting up the driver, another surreptitiously checking tire treads.
00:41:08
Afterwards, the police called Andy. They'd made some discovery. They just said we found something that possibly could be very, very crucial.
00:41:17
And that's all that we knew. Soon after, teams of officers went door knocking on the highway in front of the Lloyd place.
00:41:25
And Marston Cook lived five miles down that very road. Her friend Howard Gray had a place nearby.
00:41:30
And that's how she and Howard found themselves once again telling a couple of cops the story of Ann's November break-in.
00:41:38
When they came in to the door, then I said, okay, I don't know, you know, anything,
00:41:43
but have I got a story for you guys that's got to be connected to this. Howard told the officers about Ann's break-in, the underwear taken, sex toys stolen.
00:41:54
He told them too that he and Anne strongly believed her break was linked to those sex assaults almost five months before in Tweed They got it They got it Yes they did
00:42:05
Now, Anne was convinced her case was linked to Jessica's disappearance. It had to be related.
00:42:11
I mean, I felt so scared for her, for me, for all the women. Sunday, February 7th, Jess Lloyd had been missing for 10 days.
00:42:23
That night, Andy Lloyd, who was at his mother's place, got the news he had been dreading.
00:42:29
Yeah, they just said she's gone. Yeah, she's no longer with us. The worst news possible.
00:42:35
After running on empty for days, after trying to stay strong for his shattered family,
00:42:40
Andy absorbed the blow was the family's stoic public face. At least, he said, they knew.
00:42:47
I'm kind of glad that it didn't take forever and ever. The police didn't tell the Lloyds all they knew, just that they had an unnamed suspect in custody.
00:42:58
It wasn't until Andy and his cousin turned on the radio the next day that they learned the identity of the suspect.
00:43:06
Unbelievable. They said his name, and I thought, oh no, and then they explained his position and who he was.
00:43:12
I said, oh. It was simply incomprehensible. This sort of news would explode like a bomb.
00:43:19
Everybody hit the ground running saying, boys, this is the biggest story we're ever going to have.
00:43:28
A suspect. But could it possibly be the right man? And I pulled it off the wall. I said, are you kidding me?
00:43:35
I said, did you meet the queen? They said, yeah, yeah, I met the queen. It was winter dark when the break came.
00:43:56
That police roadblock on the highway out front of Jess Lloyd's house. Investigators were hoping to find a set of tire tracks
00:44:03
to match those found in the field by Jess's house after she disappeared. It was a long shot, of course.
00:44:10
And then, 6.57 p.m., a Nissan Pathfinder, Toyo Tires, was pulled over for questioning.
00:44:17
The officer approached the vehicle, asked to see the driver's license. Had to have been a coincidence.
00:44:24
The driver was Canadian Forces Colonel Russell Williams, heading home after a day at the nearby Trenton Air Base.
00:44:30
In fact, Williams was base commander. Trenton, the largest air base in Canada. The man in the driver's seat was a celebrated, decorated military bigwig.
00:44:40
Reputation impeccable. So, they asked him a question or two and let him go on his way.
00:44:46
But also, they put a tail on him, just in case. But this guy couldn't be the suspect. Not possible.
00:44:55
Lucy Critch could have told them that. Critch is a retired sergeant who once worked for Colonel Williams.
00:45:01
I've never seen Colonel Williams ever conduct himself unprofessionally or inappropriately. Never.
00:45:09
And those cops could have had absolute assurance of the colonel's character from the man who knew him about as well as anybody.
00:45:16
There's three friends in my life that have been close friends and have gotten into my inner circle and come to know my family and that.
00:45:26
And Russ was one of them. As close as they get. Yeah, as close as they get. Jeff Farquhar met Russell Williams when he was 19.
00:45:33
It was the first day of college, Toronto. They were assigned to the same residence,
00:45:37
where Jeff discovered he was living with a controlling neat freak. I started calling him a couple of names like drill sergeant
00:45:45
and, you know, Mother Goose, that kind of thing. Didn't last. Before long, they were buddies, close buddies,
00:45:52
who shared an offbeat sense of humor. Jump out of closets, you know, scaring the bejeebers out of each other.
00:45:59
Russ, he was called then, was the athlete, a dedicated jogger. He kept his room remarkably clean, folded his laundry just so.
00:46:08
Rarely talked about family, rarely visited them either. His parents were divorced.
00:46:13
And for a college kid, he was extraordinarily self-disciplined. Obsessive, really.
00:46:20
If I got him to come out for beer and chicken wings, it was exactly two beers. I'd never seen him have more.
00:46:26
Never seen him intoxicated. And as soon as we got home, I'd take out the change out of his wallet
00:46:32
and he'd look and see how much he spent. When Russ was dumped by his first big love, said Jeff,
00:46:38
he worried when his friend sought solace in endless screenings of the movie Top Gun.
00:46:43
I was concerned when he kept going to this Top Gun movie because it was all about getting the girl back.
00:46:48
Getting the girl and flying the plane. So maybe it shouldn't have come as a surprise when after college with an economics and political science degree in hand,
00:46:59
Russ confided he wanted to join the Air Force. I was dumbfounded. I said, why the hell did you do all this?
00:47:08
He did a pretty lofty degree, but he said, no, I really want to fly. And he did.
00:47:15
Joined the Canadian forces in 1987, earned his wings in 1990. And up he went. Captain in 91, Major in 99, Lieutenant Colonel in 2004.
00:47:27
I would describe him as a great boss. Lucy Critch started working for Williams in 2004.
00:47:33
He was squadron commander then. She, the squadron's loadmaster. I never, ever saw Colonel Williams upset.
00:47:41
He was just very low-keyed, very even, and he was easily approachable. And not half bad as a pilot.
00:47:50
We didn't bump and jump when we landed. He knew his job, and he knew it well. By then, Williams was flying Canada's top leaders.
00:48:00
In 2005, he ferried the Queen of England around during her visit to Canada. His buddy Jeff was hugely impressed when he saw a few autographed pictures in William's office.
00:48:11
And I pulled it off the wall. I said, are you kidding me? And I said, did you meet the Queen?
00:48:16
And he said, yeah, yeah, I met the Queen. So here I am feeling like a goof because I'm making a big deal of it.
00:48:22
And he's thinking, that's just, that's my job. Just the sort of modesty that becomes a standout officer with an impeccable record and a big future.
00:48:33
By 2007, Williams was working for the commanding officer of the country's Air Force.
00:48:38
Lieutenant General Angus Watt, now retired. He worked hard, he did his job well, he provided good advice, and he produced good staff work whenever I needed it.
00:48:48
We wish you the very best for your lives together. But he had a life, too. When Jeff got married, Russ Williams was the emcee.
00:48:59
When Russ himself got married in 1991, a small affair in an art gallery, Jeff was there to emcee for him.
00:49:08
Jeff liked his wife, Mary Elizabeth Harriman, Mary Liz to friends. She was a classy lady, so very classy and intelligent, and fun to be with too.
00:49:19
So I thought it was a good match. And over the years, Jeff says, she clearly learned to laugh about her husband's obsessive behavior.
00:49:27
Jeff remembers going to their house one night for dinner. Russ was taking her jackets at the front door.
00:49:33
And I opened the closet door, and in there were all these jackets, Mary Liz's and Russ's.
00:49:39
And I swear to you, they were all lined up with about an inch of each other. And it was a thing of beauty.
00:49:45
I thought I was in a men's shop or something. I just threw my jacket at him. I said, for God's sakes, you do it.
00:49:51
And Mary Liz laughed and she said, I told you, Jeff, you just let him do it. Russ and Mary Liz gardened and golfed together.
00:49:59
They didn't have kids, a cat instead, and a home in Orleans. She worked long hours as a senior official at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
00:50:09
In 2004, after 13 years of marriage, Russ and Mary Liz bought a second home by a lake in Tweed.
00:50:17
Jeff was invited up immediately before the deal even closed. As he remembers it, Russ was taking photos that day, as he did during almost every visit.
00:50:26
Boom, out came the camera. And he set it up on a tripod, and we had some self-portraits, I guess you'd call them, self-photos done.
00:50:35
Photography had been William's passion for decades. He loved to shoot landscapes and birds, and then stored the lot meticulously.
00:50:45
He showed the setup to Jeff. I really felt I was in a well-organized photo lab or somebody's personal museum of photos.
00:50:55
By 2009, as far as Jeff could tell, though Russ and his wife were increasingly living separate lives during the week,
00:51:01
he and Tweed, she at their other home, they seemed happy. Two professionals who went their different ways but got together.
00:51:09
Yeah, certainly both had careers pulling at them in different directions, but I think they made it work.
00:51:13
Then came the night when Colonel Williams was pulled over in that roadblock. That night, for the first time, investigators began scrutinizing the decorated colonel.
00:51:25
Could he be their suspect, the man responsible for the disappearance of Jessica Lloyd?
00:51:30
And what about the other crimes nearby? The murder of that military woman, Marie France Como, the two sex assaults in Tweed.
00:51:39
Could this man be responsible for those crimes? Could this respected military leader be that monster?
00:51:48
Soon, the loved friend, the respected boss, the military man with the glittering resume
00:51:53
would reveal his true self in a remarkable and disturbing encounter, cop and colonel, that would reverberate across the entire country.
00:52:08
The colonel gets a chance to clear his name. Can he? What would you be willing to give me today to help me move past you in this investigation?
00:52:20
What do you need? It was a week after Jessica Lloyd's disappearance from her home in the Canadian city of Belleville.
00:52:40
February 4, 2010, when investigators at that highway roadblock identified a suspect.
00:52:48
But when they saw his uniform, mind-blowing. The man whose tire treads turned up beside Jessica's house was Colonel Russell Williams,
00:52:59
commander of the country's largest Air Force base. They kept an eye on him for a few days, did their homework,
00:53:05
and then they invited Colonel Williams to the police station for an interview. Would he agree to come?
00:53:12
He did. As you can see, everything in this room is videotaped and audio taped. Check.
00:53:21
Have you ever been interviewed by the police in a room like this before? I have never been interviewed like this.
00:53:25
Oh, no? Williams sounds comfortable. His interrogator is Jim Smith, then a detective sergeant of the Ontario Provincial Police.
00:53:34
The detective tells the colonel about the continuing search for Jessica Lloyd. He is gracious.
00:53:39
Welcome. Well, again, Russell, I appreciate you coming in an investigation like this.
00:53:43
I mean, I'm sure you can appreciate some big news. Notice it's just Russell, not Colonel Williams.
00:53:51
And that's why we're here on a Sunday afternoon. So again I appreciate it Ex Craig Ackley has watched the tape of the interrogation He is impressed The first thing he does the detective he gives Russell Williams the respect that Russell Williams believes he deserves
00:54:09
but he also places himself at the same level as somebody that Russell Williams can respect.
00:54:16
He's not subservient. Then the detective goes to work, tells Williams the police are talking to him about two murders and two sexual assaults.
00:54:25
It's a matter of proximity, they tell him. The murder of Jess Lloyd because the colonel drove past her house on his way to work most days.
00:54:32
The murder of Corporal Marie Franz Como because she was Williams' subordinate. And the two sexual assaults because both happened a short walk from the colonel's second home in Tweed,
00:54:42
a place he used during the week. Whether Williams knows it or not, the detective is following a playbook that has been tweaked and tweaked again.
00:54:50
Because essentially there was a connection between you and all four of those cases.
00:54:59
Would you agree? Geographically? Yes, I would say there was a connection. Now, the details.
00:55:09
Where was Williams the day Jessica Lloyd was reported missing? Friday on the day I was at home most of the day I had a stomach flu.
00:55:18
Okay. In Ottawa or Tweed? Tweed. And now to the murder of the corporal under William's command.
00:55:24
The day that Marie Franz Coleman. Do you remember how you found out? I do. I was sent an email.
00:55:34
Well, as soon as the ops staff and the base learned, they told me. Okay. I can't remember what day of the week we're talking about, but...
00:55:43
Yeah. No, I mean, obviously when your people get killed, it gets your attention.
00:55:49
Absolutely. I'm very much more about that coming in. And how did you know Marie Franz Comer?
00:55:55
I'd only met her once. She was on a crew I was on just after I got to the base. Next, the detective asks Williams again politely, respectfully, for his DNA.
00:56:08
What would you be willing to give me today to help me move past you in this investigation?
00:56:16
What do you need? Well, would you be willing to supply things like fingerprints, blood samples, things like that?
00:56:24
Yeah. Footwear impressions? Yeah. Okay. Williams now sounds a little apprehensive.
00:56:31
Can I assume you're going to be discreet? It's possible, yeah. Because this would have a very significant impact on the base if they thought you thought I did this.
00:56:44
The news is tightening. The detective offers Williams an out. Would there be some innocent explanation, he asks,
00:56:52
to connect him to those victimized women? Is there any contact that you may have had with any of those four women
00:56:59
that you may not want your wife to be aware of? Anything like that that we should know about to try and explain why,
00:57:09
if your DNA is found, it would help us understand why it may be there. Absolutely not.
00:57:15
Not in the homes of the sex assault victims, and not in the homes of the murder victims.
00:57:21
Have you ever visited Marie Franz Como at her residence? No. Okay. All right. So you're quite positive there would be no reason why your DNA would be in any of those three locations?
00:57:32
Okay. Did you know Jessica Lloyd, even in passing, for any reason? No, I didn't hear her name until it was on the news.
00:57:41
Okay. Now a big reveal from the detective. It's time to bring in the tire treads.
00:57:48
Williams has no idea the cops had them. What kind of tires do you have on your Pathfinder?
00:57:55
I think they're Toyo. I don't know the model. I'll read this off to you, see if it rings a bell.
00:58:10
Ever heard of... Does Toyo Open Country HTS make any sense? Now Williams knows they've got something on him.
00:58:20
Russell Williams is a very intelligent man. He pauses before each and every response.
00:58:28
He thinks things through. The detective allows him to do this. Next, the detective gets an important denial from Williams.
00:58:37
His Pathfinder with its Toyota tires, has it ever been in that field? Your Pathfinder's wheelbase width is very, very close to the width of the tires that were left in that field.
00:58:52
Do you have any recollection at all of being off that road? I was not off the road, no.
00:58:59
What he's doing is he's building. Each fact that he presents builds on the fact before.
00:59:05
and he allows Russell Williams to process each and every fact. And with each fact that is set before him,
00:59:14
Russell Williams inches toward the abyss. He just doesn't know it yet. But this detective does.
00:59:26
You and I both know that the unknown offender on Marie Transcomo's body is going to be matched to you
00:59:32
quite possibly before the evening's over. In an interview room now, the high-flying base commander
00:59:52
and one careful soft detective of the Ontario Provincial Police And a lot of tension We talked about the whole idea of how we approached you here okay
01:00:07
Trying to be as just as possible. The minutes tick past four hours, head for five.
01:00:14
Colonel Russell Williams doesn't know it yet, but he's going down tonight. Have you spent much time thinking about that?
01:00:19
As he sits in this bare room, officers are in his home in tiny tweeds searching for evidence.
01:00:25
They're in the swank, newly renovated townhouse in Ottawa that he and his wife have just moved into,
01:00:30
a point that will soon make a difference. Now, Detective Sergeant Jim Smith lets Williams know that Mr. Nice Guy is done.
01:00:40
The tone changes. The problem is, Russell, is every time I walk out of this room, there's another issue that comes up, okay?
01:00:47
And it's not issues that point away from you. It's issues that point at you, okay?
01:00:51
The detective has already let Williams know the tire treads on his SUV match tire treads found in a field by Jessica Lloyd's house.
01:00:59
He shows Williams the boot prints found behind the house. It's obvious they match the prints of Williams' boots,
01:01:06
the very boots he is wearing in this interview room. Your vehicle drove up the side of Jessica Lloyd's house.
01:01:14
Your boots walked to the back of Jessica Lloyd's house. on the evening of the 28th and 29th of January.
01:01:23
You want discretion. We need to have some honesty, because this is getting under control really fast, Russell.
01:01:33
Really, really fast. This is getting beyond my control. I came in here a few hours ago,
01:01:46
and I called you the way I called you today because I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt.
01:01:51
But you and I both know you were at Jessica Lloyd's house and I need to know why.
01:01:58
Williams is busted but not yet ready to admit it. So Smith ratchets up the pressure.
01:02:07
You and I both know that the unknown offender on Marie Frantz-Como's body is going to be matched to you
01:02:13
quite possibly before the evening's over. He gives Williams time to think. Your opportunity to take some control here
01:02:21
and to have some explanation that anybody is going to believe is quickly expiring.
01:02:32
And then he turns up the heat again. Russell, listen to me for a second, okay? When that evidence comes in, when that DNA match,
01:02:42
when that phone rings and somebody knocks on this door, Your credibility is gone.
01:02:50
Okay? Because this is how credibility works, all right? And I know you're an intelligent person, and you probably don't need to hear this explanation,
01:02:56
but I also know your mind's racing right now, okay? Because I've sat across a lot of people in your position over the years.
01:03:02
The detective plays to the colonel's self-image. Imagine how people are going to view you, okay?
01:03:09
If the truth comes out after the clear evidence is presented to you, when you finally go, okay, I'm screwed now?
01:03:19
He gets to the point, building a constant theme of sort of doing the right thing.
01:03:26
How do you want to be viewed here? Craig Ackley, the former FBI investigator and behavior analyst.
01:03:31
I'm doing everything I can for you. How do you want to be viewed? How do you want to be viewed as the driving force of this man's life?
01:03:38
It's hard to believe this is happening. Why is that? Why is it hard to believe? Long silences now.
01:03:58
Williams is cornered. It's just hard to believe. And then this. My only two immediate concerns from a perception perspective are
01:04:09
what my wife must be going through right now. Yeah. And the impact this is going to have on the Canadian forces.
01:04:18
And one more thing. Russ, what are you looking for? I'm concerned that they're tearing apart my wife's brand new house.
01:04:26
So am I. But if nobody tells them what's there and what's not, they don't have any choice.
01:04:36
The confession is coming. is right around the corner. I want to minimize the impact on my wife.
01:04:47
So do I. So how do we do that? Well, we start by telling the truth. Okay. Okay. So where is she?
01:05:05
Here it comes. Three little words. Got a map. Got a map. A map so he could show detectives where he dumped Jessica Lloyd's bound body.
01:05:19
Four hours and 40 minutes after they sat down, Williams has cracked. Thanks to the skill of one patient, persistent detective.
01:05:28
He allowed Russell Williams to arrive at the decision himself. He allowed Russell Williams to feel as if he had some control, even though he didn't.
01:05:39
But Williams was only getting started. He would talk for almost six more hours that night alone, spilling his guts, telling everything,
01:05:49
directing the police to find troves of evidence in his homes bags and bags of women underwear tapes hidden in a piano in the tweed place thousands of photographs he taken evidence of his crimes stored on memory sticks in the Ottawa home
01:06:07
I'll tell you where the memory stick cards are. Where are they? Some in the camera bag, which they would have found in my office.
01:06:15
And late that very night, Williams led investigators to the bound body of Jessica Lloyd.
01:06:22
He dumped it on a rural road near Tweed. The formalities, then, Colonel Russell Williams, 46 years old, commander of Canada's most important
01:06:32
Air Force Base, one of the military's best and brightest, would be charged with two murders
01:06:37
and two sex assaults. And later, more charges, 82 lingerie break-ins and attempted break-ins in Tweed, in the Belleville
01:06:47
area, and in Orleans, the Ottawa suburb where Brenda and Brian lived. Williams and his wife had lived there too
01:06:55
just around the corner but how did he do it? how did he live this incredible double life?
01:07:03
it wasn't hard for investigators to figure it out because the evidence was all there
01:07:08
stored in the colonel's own computer bizarre and ugly and unbelievable on the job with the killer
01:07:19
he's smiling, he's laughing, he's completely at ease he didn't feel anxious over what he did. Did the mask ever slip?
01:07:39
Murder charges against a high-profile military officer have sent shockwaves. It was stunning news. The commander of Canada's largest air force base, a standout officer,
01:07:49
pilot to a prime minister and a queen. A rapist and killer? Two murders, two sex assaults.
01:07:58
And he'd actually videotaped himself raping and killing. The name, Colonel Russell Williams, ricocheted across the nation.
01:08:07
A wave of disbelief followed. I just cannot connect Colonel Williams with Russell Williams, the deviant.
01:08:18
After all, this was the man who supervised Canada's supply missions to Afghanistan
01:08:22
and the nation's disaster relief flights to Haiti after its earthquake. His friend Jeff Farquhar heard the news and threw up.
01:08:32
Could it be? Can't be. Could it be possible? Russ, murder? What? And it just didn't make any sense at all.
01:08:40
But it was true. The friend he thought he knew had carefully, obsessively recorded his depraved double life on thousands of photographs.
01:08:50
A highly regarded officer by day, a lingerie thief, and worse, far worse, by night.
01:08:58
You look at this individual and say, how could he lead this double life? Craig Ackley, former FBI agent.
01:09:05
Russell Williams is somebody who, everything he did was compartmentalized, was categorized.
01:09:13
Not just in his behavior, but in his thoughts. Williams' double life began at September 2007.
01:09:20
The lingerie raids, the first one in an idyllic cozy cove lane in Tweed. Larry Jones' home turf.
01:09:28
And soon, Larry Jones' daughter's home nearby was broken into. She surprised the intruder. He ran.
01:09:34
Not far. Because Russell Williams' second home was right there on Cozy Cove 2, right next door to Larry Jones.
01:09:43
Russell! Once Williams was arrested, police called Larry's daughter, gave her the news.
01:09:50
The whole family was astounded. No clue that there could be him. That's how we trusted this guy next door.
01:10:00
Typically, Williams told police he would break in through an unlocked door or window.
01:10:05
He'd head to the bedrooms, try on female underwear, photograph himself wearing it.
01:10:10
He'd steal keepsakes, which he'd photograph later at home in meticulously ordered displays.
01:10:17
In essence, Russell Williams was creating his own pornography collection in which he was the star.
01:10:25
That collection was buried in Williams' computer In a complex file folder system
01:10:31
The lurid photos, time and date stamped Every offense logged, every location noted
01:10:37
It was all there, to be relived again and again As he's doing this, the fantasies become stronger
01:10:46
And stronger, and the acting out has to escalate He'd worked the area near his Tweed home for eight months with impunity
01:10:55
Virtually all his break-ins had gone undetected. Then Williams turned to his other neighborhood,
01:11:00
in Orleans, where he lived with his hard-working wife. In the spring of 2008, he committed the first of two dozen break-ins.
01:11:08
And again, some homeowners never knew they'd been burgled. But remember Brenda Constantine and Brian Rogers?
01:11:16
They knew. Williams broke into their house in January 2009, left his semen in their daughter's bedroom.
01:11:23
This is now into an arena of showing you, I've been in your home. I can come in here any time that I want.
01:11:32
It's just completely shocking and horrible, and you don't even want to think about it.
01:11:40
Then came July 2009. Colonel Russell Williams took over the top job at Canada's biggest Air Force base,
01:11:47
in charge of some 3,000 people, cleared by all manner of security checks. by then he'd broken into more than 40 different homes in Orleans and Tweed some multiple times occasionally
01:12:00
He'd enter a home stark naked. His secret behaviors were about to escalate to rape and murder.
01:12:08
In September, Williams flew a supply mission to a remote Canadian Forces base in the Arctic with a local official.
01:12:15
He returned to his Tweed home on September 16. That night, he committed his first sexual assault.
01:12:22
Very impressive. The next day, he presided over a publicity stunt. A strongman hauling a huge plane across the tarmac, attempting to break a Guinness world record.
01:12:33
The Belleville Bulls have decided to dedicate the upcoming season to the men and women of eight-wing Trenton.
01:12:40
Days later, he cheerfully fielded reporters' questions at a local hockey arena. Yes, I think I'll have the opportunity to drop the puck at the beginning.
01:12:48
A week later, the second sexual assault, a neighbor three doors down. on october 29th the same day police hauled larry jones away for questioning about those sex assaults
01:12:59
williams was photographed at a book signing at the base and two weeks after that he broke into
01:13:06
ann marston cook's farmhouse left that taunting message on the computer urging her to call the
01:13:11
cops i would imagine for russell williams it was an ultimate feeling of power probably quite
01:13:19
exhilarating for him. I think that night I was a target. And his crimes escalated. And he went
01:13:25
from her house. Next was the murder. One week later, the murder of Corporal Marie Franz Como.
01:13:33
She was Williams' subordinate. He had access to her personnel file, her address, her schedule.
01:13:39
The day Marie Franz Como's body was discovered, Williams was taking part in a light-hearted
01:13:44
United Way fundraiser called Jalen Bale, charged with being too young to be a wing commander at 46.
01:13:51
He took part in a mock arrest. He's smiling, he's laughing, he's completely at ease.
01:13:58
He didn't feel anxious over what he did. As base commander, William sent sincere condolences to
01:14:04
Como's grieving family. And then he welcomed Santa to the base. January 2010, disaster relief
01:14:13
operation, sending aid to Haiti after its earthquake, Williams oversaw the effort,
01:14:18
hosted Canada's defense minister on a tour of the Haitian-bound supplies, won praise for his
01:14:24
handling of the whole thing. And days later, broke into Jessica Lloyd's house, took her back to his
01:14:31
place in Tweed. That's where he murdered her, after hours of torture, and then left for work,
01:14:37
left her body in his garage. While her body was lying in his garage, he drives to the Air Force Base,
01:14:46
gets into an airplane, and flies into California. I mean, how is that even possible?
01:14:51
There a complete lack of anxiety in that sense because once that tension is reduced from acting out he fine So what was to be done with such a man
01:15:05
Canadians would find out soon enough. But would they ever find out the answer to this question?
01:15:15
Have you spent much time thinking about that? About what? Yeah. Could there possibly be an answer?
01:15:36
When disgraced Canadian military man Russell Williams went to court in the fall of 2010 for what was called a sentencing hearing, it was headline news across Canada.
01:15:45
Colonel Russell Williams made his second court appearance. He was brought to court each day, handcuffed, head bowed.
01:15:53
There was never any doubt about the outcome of this hearing. Williams had decided to plead guilty to all 88 charges against him.
01:16:02
There was never any doubt either about the sentence in a country with no death penalty.
01:16:08
Williams would be locked up for years and years to come. Chris Nicholas, then Detective Inspector of the Ontario Provincial Police,
01:16:15
led the investigation and went to court each day. The nation's getting a good dose of reality
01:16:22
of just how evil people can be. But there were those who had already had their dose of reality.
01:16:30
It's still hard to get around that fact that we were in that much danger and didn't even know it.
01:16:36
Evil had touched them. It's about being dirtied, you know, just dirtied all over.
01:16:44
had changed their lives forever. She tried to tell him, I'm a good person, let me live.
01:16:56
He didn't listen. During the four-day hearing, the evidence was on display day after day.
01:17:02
Those pictures, that blank stare, the last pleading words of his victims. And on screens nationwide,
01:17:12
that confession tape on which the killer recites his evil acts as if they were to trip to the
01:17:16
grocery store like what he did to jessica lloyd even as she begged him if i die tell my mother i
01:17:24
love her well so i raped her in in her house and then i took her to the car and took her to tweet
01:17:33
and spent the day in Tweed. And then I hit her as we were walking. She thought we were leaving.
01:17:46
Hit her on the back of the head. The murder of Marie-France Como. Same matter same tone I subdued her Tied her up Went upstairs And um
01:18:01
strangled her. Later in the morning. Well, more suffocated her. Some tape. left her there
01:18:21
the details were horrific how she fought back how viciously he beat her before he raped her
01:18:28
and the final obscenity videotaped her death what in heaven's name was he thinking
01:18:34
the detective tried to understand let me ask you this did you like or dislike these women
01:18:40
I didn't know any of them. Okay. I had met Maddie Franz that one time in her airplane.
01:18:54
Okay. Let's talk about Jessica, because she was there with you for the whole day, right?
01:18:59
What kind of feelings were you experiencing while you were with her that day? Oh, she was a very nice girl.
01:19:07
Do you know why you killed her? Well, I think I killed her because I knew that her story would be recognized.
01:19:16
Because she knew I was taking pictures. So because of the two stories in Tweed, it's been quite obvious.
01:19:31
so if you didn't take pictures what would you have done with her i don't know williams was given two life sentences to be served concurrently
01:19:48
no chance of parole for 25 years at least and so they carted him off to prison and finally the
01:19:57
Canadian public could let it go. The Russell Williams horror story had finally come to an end.
01:20:04
But not for everyone. Jeff Farquhar wanted answers. He was convinced something happened
01:20:13
to push his old friend over the edge. Perhaps it was something to do with the medications
01:20:17
Williams was taking. Perhaps it was stress. Jeff didn't contact his old buddy immediately after the
01:20:23
story broke, but he did consider visiting him in jail. Russ is still a friend of mine, and I hate
01:20:30
the crimes, but I don't hate Russ. The Canadian forces took care of some business after Williams
01:20:36
was sentenced. His commission was rescinded, a very big deal, and his uniform was burned.
01:20:43
The former commanding officer of the Air Force Angus Watt says Williams deserved it We take our honor very seriously in the military and he betrayed that honor so profoundly that I just don see much room for most military people to forgive that betrayal
01:21:01
As for Ann Marson Cook, she believes she was given a second chance. She and Howard married in 2013, but she can't leave her past behind.
01:21:12
I feel that if it comes out, it might just be a scream, a scream that goes on forever.
01:21:22
In the Ottawa suburb of Orleans, there's a new weariness, or so it seems. So many break-ins here.
01:21:30
For Brenda Constantine and Brian Rogers, what matters now is telling their story
01:21:34
so that no teenage girl is targeted as theirs was. No child should have to go through that.
01:21:42
Hearing the story is one thing, but having experienced and lived it, that's another thing.
01:21:46
And then hearing that he committed murder, he murdered two victims after that. Like, how horrible could that be?
01:21:53
Andy Lloyd has his good days and bad. He still struggles with an evil he can't fathom.
01:21:59
And the question, why? I mean, she was my only sister, so I'll never have any nieces or nephews from my Lloyd side.
01:22:05
You know, I just, I won't. Alain Plant thinks of his Marie France every day. Russell Williams stole from him, too,
01:22:13
a wonderful woman and a hope he had. I always had the hope in the back of my head.
01:22:23
I was always hoping that she would come back one day to me. Not now, not ever. The colonel, of course, claimed another victim during his murderous run,
01:22:33
his wife. Mary Elizabeth Harriman has yet to speak publicly. It has been widely reported in Canada she had no idea of her husband's double life.
01:22:44
She filed for divorce after he pleaded guilty. As for the former colonel, he was sent first to Canada's stately Kingston Penitentiary,
01:22:55
later to a prison in Quebec, locked away for years to come. So there will be time for Russell Williams, the man who ran the big important base,
01:23:06
to contemplate the question the detective asked him in that airless room. Why do you think these things happen?
01:23:14
I don't know. Have you spent much time thinking about that? About what? Yeah. Yeah.
01:23:22
But I don't know the answers. And I'm pretty sure the answers don't matter. They may not, to him.
01:23:30
but for those who lost a sister a daughter, a lover a friend for those he violated
01:23:39
for those whose piece he stole the question will echo until the end of time