Ontario Cold Cases - The Podcast

Twenty-Years On: A Barrie Tragedy: April Dobson's Unsolved Murder (Trailer) A quiet night in Barrie turned deadly on October 15, 2005, when April Dobson was fatally shot on a friend's porch. Witnesses described a clean-cut kid fleeing the scene on a mountain bike, but the killer's identity remained a mystery. Twenty years later, a son's determination to uncover the truth exposes a complex web of s...

The Unsolved Murders of Lori Pinkus and Toronto’s Sex Trade Workers Unraveled Secrets in the Shadows of Toronto In the dark streets of Toronto, a sinister pattern emerged from the mid-1980s to the late 1990s: five sex trade workers, including Lori Pinkus, brutally strangled and left in chilling scenes far from where they were last seen. Were these murders the work of a single predator stalking the...

THE GIRL IN THE BOILER ROOM: Andrea Atkinson and a Toronto Nightmare Toronto, October 1990. Six-year-old Andrea Atkinson vanished from the high-rise she called home. The sudden disappearance of an innocent child launched a frantic, city-wide search that consumed a community and broke a family. Ten agonizing days later, the worst was confirmed. Andrea’s tiny body was found hidden in the boiler room...

The Murder of Donna Oglive – A Cold Case Breakthrough A Cold Case Cracked. A Killer Caught. The Truth Unearthed. In the gritty streets of 1998 Toronto, 24-year-old Donna Oglive—a sharp, street-smart mother pregnant with her second child—was found strangled in a desolate parking lot, her body chillingly posed. Her murder joined a string of unsolved killings haunting the city’s sex trade workers, ea...

The Cannington Cover-Up: The Unsolved Shearer Family Murders In the dead of night, flames devoured a quiet farmhouse—and a family's secrets. August 4, 2007. Cannington, Ontario—a sleepy rural haven where neighbors wave from unlocked porches—awakens to inferno. Firefighters battle the blaze on Cameron Street, only to unearth a nightmare: beloved teacher Don Shearer and his 16-year-old son Andrew, b...

The Cannington Cover-Up: The Unsolved Shearer Family Murders In the dead of night, flames devoured a quiet farmhouse—and a family's secrets. August 4, 2007. Cannington sleeps—until flames awaken a nightmare. Teacher Don Shearer, 16-year-old Andrew: Bludgeoned. Their home? Set ablaze to bury the brutality. Survivor son Charles escapes the inferno, but not the questions. Who in this trusting town tu...

The Kansas City Alias: The Mystery of Room 1046 and Artemus Ogletree Part 2: Secrets from the Police File The body was identified. The killer was not. Welcome back to Ontario Cold Cases. I’m your host, Jay Nicoll, and in this highly anticipated Part 2, we peel back the layers on the infamous 1935 murder of Artemus Ogletree, found tortured and dying in Kansas City’s Room 1046. In Part 1, you learne...

The Kansas City Alias: The Mystery of Room 1046 and Artemus Ogletree The Hotel President, Kansas City, 1935. A "wide-open" city where secrets were deadly. A young man checks into Room 1046 under the name "Roland T. Owen." He has no luggage, asks for an interior room for maximum secrecy, and spends his time in the suffocating dark. For two days, hotel staff witness a parade of bizarre activity: hus...

The Kansas City Alias: The Mystery of Room 1046 and Artemus Ogletree (Trailer) In January 1935, a man named 'Roland T. Owen' checked into this Kansas City hotel... ...He asked for a room with maximum discretion, never unpacked, and only communicated with one person: "Don." Days later, he was found bound, stabbed, and brutally tortured. When asked who did this, he whispered: "Nobody." A hidden life...

The Fortune Teller’s Game When the tea leaves spell murder, who do you trust—fate, or the Fortunatos? A Mick & Mack Mystery Toronto’s Little Italy has a queen, and her throne is a lace-covered table in a bustling tea shop. Milly Fortunato is loud, loving, and terrifying when crossed—matriarch, fortune-teller, and underworld player who’s been running numbers longer than Manny “The Hat” Kaufmann...

The Fortune Teller’s Game (Trailer) 
Toronto, late 1940s. A tea shop, a silk shawl, and a matriarch named Milly Fortunato. She predicts a death before midnight — and it happens. Then another prophecy comes true. Mick & Mack dig behind the velvet curtain: teapots hiding betting slips, cookbooks hiding ledgers, rivals circling like wolves. And when Milly predicts her own death, the lights go out...

⚾ Vanished at Niagara Falls: The Strange Death of Big Ed Delahanty ⚾ He was one of baseball’s first true superstars — a powerhouse slugger whose elegant swing and towering presence made him a legend of the 19th century. But in the summer of 1903, Ed “Big Ed” Delahanty stepped off a train near Niagara Falls… and into one of the most enduring mysteries in sports history. Days later, his body was f...

The Tragic Case of Susan Siegel and a Potential Serial Killer A City Stalked by Shadows. A Killer Still at Large. In the gritty underbelly of 1980s Toronto, a predator hunted the vulnerable. Susan Siegel, a 20-year-old sex trade worker, vanished into the night of December 16, 1984, only to be found strangled and abandoned by desolate railroad tracks. Her murder, chillingly similar to four others,...

⚾ Vanished at Niagara Falls: The Strange Death of Big Ed Delahanty ⚾ He was one of baseball’s first great sluggers — a towering figure who hit for power and average, adored by fans and feared by pitchers. But in July of 1903, Ed “Big Ed” Delahanty stepped off a train near Niagara Falls… and vanished into the night. Days later, his body was found battered beneath Horseshoe Falls, stripped of his...

Unveiling the Mystery of Benita Tarantino’s Murder A City Stalked by Shadows. A Killer Still at Large. In the neon-lit streets of 1980s Toronto, a predator hunted the vulnerable, leaving a trail of unsolved murders that haunt the city to this day. Among them: 17-year-old Benita Tarantino, a troubled teen who vanished one night in 1985, just days after her engagement. Her body, found weeks later in...

Thornhill’s Dark Secret: Who Killed Tracy Kundinger? From Ontario Cold Cases - Canada’s True Crime Podcast , a chilling journey into the unsolved murder of 18-year-old Tracy Kundinger in 1970s Thornhill, Ontario. Strangled in a park just steps from home, her death points to a jealous ex, serial rapists, or a shadowy bus passenger. Secrets, alibis, and a family’s enduring grief haunt this case. Div...

Keswick Man Convicted in 2000 Belleville Sexual Assault After 25 Years A Predator’s Past Unearthed. A Survivor’s Justice Won. For 25 years, a brutal crime haunted Belleville. A woman, attacked in the shadows of a bustling festival, endured a nightmare at the hands of a predator in a hotel change room. Beaten, assaulted, and robbed of her peace, she lived trapped in fear—her assailant a ghost, unto...

Man Sentenced to 13 Years for Brutal Kidnapping and Torture in $1M Bitcoin Plot In the high-stakes world of cryptocurrency, a brutal crime is about to unfold. A woman with a secret, a fortune in Bitcoin, and a target on her back. When she's ambushed in broad daylight, her life becomes a living nightmare. Thrown into a van, she's subjected to a terrifying game of cat and mouse, held captive by a gr...

The Brutal Slaying of Harold and Florence Fagan A Cold Case That Still Grips Toronto A Deadly Silence on Dewbourne Avenue On a cold March morning in 1978, Toronto’s North York was shattered by a brutal double murder. Harold and Florence Fagan, a beloved couple in their sixties, were gunned down in their home—Harold shot in the chest and head, Florence executed with a single bullet to the head. The...

The Unsolved Tragedy of the Airst Family: A Chilling Triple Murder A Blood-Soaked Mystery That Haunts Toronto In the dead of a foggy September night in 1979, the Airst family—Ike, Celia, and their son Avrom—met a gruesome fate in their North York home. Bludgeoned to death with chilling precision, their blood-drenched bodies were discovered by their daughter, Simmie, in a scene that would scar Toro...

The Unsolved Murder of Lisa Anstey A Murder Unsolved. A City in Shadows. A Truth Waiting to Be Uncovered. In the gritty heart of Toronto’s underbelly, 21-year-old Lisa Anstey fought to survive. A First Nations mother of two, known as “Jemma” or “Terri,” she was a fierce spirit trapped in a world of addiction and danger, working the streets since age 11. On May 12, 1997, her life was brutally cut s...

A Mother’s Tragic End - The Unsolved Murder of Sophie Filion In the shadows of Ottawa’s streets, a mother’s desperate fight for her children ended in tragedy. Sophie Filion, a 23-year-old with wavy brown hair and a fierce love for her two young kids, was found strangled in December 1993, her body stuffed into garbage bags in a Westboro parking lot. Clad only in a slip, she had been left for days—a...

Unresolved: The Tragic Case of Melinda Sheppit  A single snakeskin stiletto lies abandoned in an Ottawa parking lot. Beside a dumpster, the lifeless body of 16-year-old Melinda Sheppit tells a story of heartbreak and horror. Strangled and left for dead on September 30, 1990, the beautiful high school student had been drawn into a dangerous world, working the streets for just three weeks. Over...

The Vanishing of Justin Pollari: A Trail Gone Cold In the quiet town of Hilton Beach, Ontario, a 14-year-old boy named Justin Pollari walked through his front door on December 7, 2001... and vanished into the night. Troubled by a broken home and carrying the weight of a fight he wouldn’t explain, Justin grabbed his skateboard, stuffed a backpack with clothes, and ran. A scrape on his lip. A six-in...

The Enduring Mystery of Richard "Peewee" Marlow A Child Vanished. A Mystery Endures. On a chilly July evening in 1944, nine-year-old Richard “Peewee” Marlow pedaled his sister’s bicycle into the twilight of south Etobicoke’s Beta Street—and vanished without a trace. At just 3’8” and 50 pounds, the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy with a scar on his temple was too small to disappear unnoticed. Yet, desp...