Story Hunter Podcasts

Ep. 1: Death of a Dream - The Dorothy Stratten Story She was a pretty teenager in pigtails, working at the local Dairy Queen in Vancouver when a small-time street hustler first spotted her. He knew a good thing when he saw it and she was his ticket to fame and riches. Within a few months she was posing naked for Playboy Magazine, and he was buying a wedding ring. She was an instant star loved by m...

Ep. 1: Hollywood Horror Story – The Murder of Iana Kasian It was a mother’s intuition that something was wrong. Olga Kasian’s daughter Iana had just given birth to a baby girl and now she was missing. But Olga knew where she was. She was in a West Hollywood apartment with her boyfriend, a wealthy Canadian producer who had gained mediocre success with a graphic novel that explored the mind of a ser...

Ep. 2: Deadly Secrets - Killer Confession A controversial undercover police technique called “Mr. Big” has resulted in a secretly recorded confession to murder. Sixty-eight-year-old Jean Ann James has admitted to the 1992 brutal slaying of her good friend Gladys Wakabayashi. It’s taken sixteen years to bring charges against their prime suspect and the Vancouver police are certain their undercover...

Ep. 1: Deadly Secrets - Killer Friendship In the summer of 1992 a shy, forty-one-year-old mother is brutally murdered in her home in one of Vancouver’s wealthiest suburbs. It turns out the woman had a secret, and that secret got her killed. It doesn’t take long for the police to narrow in on a prime suspect, but a lack of physical evidence at the crime scene prevents them from making an arrest. Th...

Chasing a Ghost: The Hunt for the 22- Calibre Killer For more information about this podcast, visit us at storyhunterpodcasts.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Chasing a Ghost: The Hunt for the 22-Calibre Killer In the spring of 1970, the rural communities of Gormley and Palgrave, Ontario were shaken by two violent crimes in just thirteen days. Two mothers at home with their children were raped and murdered by a stranger. The unknown assailant was quickly dubbed “The 22-calibre killer” by the media for his weapon of choice. But despite one of the largest...

A Mother’s Love - The Murder of Olga Duncan 1959 was going to be an exciting year for Olga Kupczyk. The thirty-year-old Canadian nurse has recently re located to Santa Barbara, California where she had met a handsome, successful lawyer. After a whirlwind romance the two were now married and expecting their first child. But just five months into their marriage there was a big problem. Olga’s new hu...

Ep. 1: Innocence Lost - The Murder of Emanuel Jaques What began as a hot and sunny day in late July, 1977 soon turned into a nightmare that would be forever seared into the minds and hearts of Torontonians. Twelve-year-old shoeshine boy Emanuel Jaques was shining shoes at Yonge and Dundas when he was abducted and murdered above a body rub parlor on the Yonge St strip. For years people had been cal...

Ep. 2: Enemy Within - The Murder Of Glen Davis In 1969, Mary Davis Nelles was kidnapped and betrayed by someone she once loved. For the wealthy Davis family, the betrayal was unforgivable, and it made the multi-millionaires even more reclusive. But sadly it would not be the last time a crime of greed would land the Davis family on the front pages of the country’s newspapers. When Mary’s first cous...

Ep. 1: Enemy Within - The Kidnapping Of Mary Davis Nelles They were one of Canada’s wealthiest families, but their millions couldn’t buy the privacy they desired. The Davis family shunned any notoriety or publicity but that didn’t stop those in their inner circle from violent acts of greed. In 1969 26-year-old newlywed Mary Davis Nelles is kidnapped in front of her husband. Her abductors demand $8...

Ep. 2: Motherisk Child welfare agencies across Canada spent millions of dollars on hair tests conducted by the Motherisk Lab based at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. In 2014, the Lab’s results were put under the spotlight during the criminal trial of April Broomfield, a single mother accused of feeding her son cocaine. Expert testimony at her trial cast doubt on Motherisk results,...

Ep. 1: Motherisk The Motherisk Lab based out of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, claimed to be able to determine through a simple hair test if a parent was abusing drugs or alcohol. Test results were used in thousands of child protection cases, often leading to families being ripped apart, and children put up for adoption. But the tests were flawed, and the people who ran the lab had no...

Ep. 3: Think Dirty - The Disgrace of Dr. Charles Smith Brenda Waudby was a young single mother living in Peterborough when her 22-month old daughter Jenna was murdered in her home in 1997.  Jenna suffered horrendous injuries involving burns, blows, and sexual assault. But rather than pursuing evidence that pointed towards the pre-teen boy who was babysitting Jenna at the time of her murd...

Ep. 2: Think Dirty - The Disgrace of Dr. Charles Smith In the summer of 1997 Lianne Gagnon was emerging from the haze of grief that had descended upon her and her family in the aftermath of her baby boy Nicholas’s sudden death. She was planning her wedding to her fiance Pete Thibeault when the investigation into Nicholas’s death was reopened, and she found herself accused of the horrifying crime o...

Ep. 1: Think Dirty - The Disgrace of Dr. Charles Smith. Charles Smith worked for decades as a forensic pathologist in Ontario. World-renowned, his testimony in hundreds of cases involving the sudden deaths of children put supposed killers behind bars. But one case against a young mother accused of murdering her eleven-month old son set in motion the unravelling of Charles Smith’s career, and helpe...

Murder in the Morgue: The Two Faces of Steven Toussaint When Shirley Iven’s husband didn’t come home from work one night in April, 1998, she knew something was wrong. Her husband Bob worked at the University of Toronto, in the medical department. In fact, he worked in the morgue preparing bodies for dissection formedical students. But now he hadn’t come home and she was worried. The following morn...

Fatal Attraction: The Murder of Jasmine Fiore Jasmine Fiore was a beautiful swim-suit model from Las Vegas and Ryan Jenkins was a Calgary real estate developer and wanna-be reality TV Star. When they met sparks flew and they were married within a few days. But the ink had barely dried on their marriage certificate before serious problems emerged. It turned out that Ryan had issues of control and j...

Ep. 1: Unforgotten - Jane Doe #59 The year was 1969 and the place was Los Angeles California. The decade known for sex, drugs and rock and roll was coming to a close and the City of Angeles was still reeling from the brutal and unsolved homicides of seven people in one weekend. Actress Sharon Tate and four others had been butchered in the Hollywood Hills on August 9 th and two more people were kil...

Ep. 4: Escape from Kingston Penitentiary - The Life and Death of Ty Conn At 31 years of age, Ty Conn has spent over half of his life behind prison walls. And he’s still facing 47 years in federal lock-up. But after two failed prison escapes and several audacious bank robberies, Ty realizes that if he has any chance at ever having a normal life he’s got to work hard and prove he can change. So, whe...

Ep. 3: Escape from Kingston Penitentiary - The Life and Death of Ty Conn Tyrone Conn has spent his life running away. He has escaped from almost every institution that has tried to contain him, including Collins Bay Penitentiary. After forty-four days on the run he has surrendered but he will pay a heavy price for his misdeeds. At twenty-seven he’s now facing a forty-seven year prison term. Ty has...

Ep. 2: Escape from Kingston Penitentiary - The Life and Death of Ty Conn Tyrone Conn never had a chance. Abandoned at a young age by his dysfunctional adopted family, he spent the rest of his childhood in institutions. He learned how to survive the hard way - by stealing and running away. And those two habits eventually landed him in federal prison by the time he was seventeen. Was it too late to...

Ep. 1: Escape from Kingston Penitentiary - The Life and Death of Ty Conn It was an escape that wasn’t supposed to happen! On May 6 th , 1999 an inmate scaled a thirty- two foot limestone wall at Kingston Penitentiary and became the first prisoner to breakout of the infamous penitentiary in 41 years. He ran and the public cheered him on because this wasn’t some violent criminal on the loose. He was...

Ep 3: Laurie Bembenek Story - Woman On The Run While Laurie remains in a Canadian prison, lawyers and politicians on both sides of the border continue to argue her case. New evidence and witness testimony presented by her Canadian legal team calls into question the very foundation of the Milwaukee prosecutors original case against her. But in order to potentially get a new trial, Laurie will have...

Ep 2: Laurie Bembenek Story - Woman On The Run Laurie Bembenek was convicted of killing her husband’s ex-wife based on what many people believed was highly suspicious and circumstantial evidence. So when she bolted from a Wisconsin prison after spending eight years incarcerated, it seemed like most of Milwaukee supported her escape. “Run Bambi run,” became her supporters rallying cry which soon tu...

Ep 1: Laurie Bembenek Story - Woman On The Run It was the summer of 1990 when a famous American fugitive was captured in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Suddenly every tabloid talk show was scrambling for the story and a media frenzy descended upon the small northern city. Since escaping from a Wisconsin prison three months earlier, the convicted killer had gained a great deal of support and sympathy from t...