Canadian True Crime - A Kingston Predator: Richard Charles Joyce [1]

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

A two-part series — When Kerri Kehoe was 11 years old she was abducted by child sexual predator. No one noticed she was missing and she decided to keep it that way. But Kerri remained haunted by what happened to her—and she would later learn that she wasn’t the only one.“I have learned that secrets keep you sick, and this secret has kept me sick for 21 years.” - Kerri Kehoe*Additional content warning: this series is about three separate but connected cases of historic child abduction and sexual assault—and it includes some graphic details that will be difficult and distressing to hear. Please see timestamps below to help you navigate the episode. This two-part series is closely connected to the previous episode titled The Nozzles Gas Bar Murder.Trigger Warnings - approximate timestamps:4:30 to 11:50     Abduction of Kerri— AD BREAK - Allow a few extra minutes — 20:40 to 23:45  Abduction of “Jane”30:00 to 35:45  Abduction of “Annie”Special thanks to Kerri Kehoe, “Catherine” (mother of survivor “Annie”), and Robert Rouleau.Look out for early, ad-free release on CTC premium feeds: available on Amazon Music (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast.Full list of resources, information sources, credits and music credits:See the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly through advertising. You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad-free and early on Amazon music included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon, and Supercast. The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening. Hi everyone. I hope you're well. The story we're telling today is closely connected to the previous episode titled The Nozzles Gas Bar Murder. You can listen to both stories together or either on its own. For this story, there's an additional content warning. It's about three separate but connected cases of historic child abduction and sexual assault in Kingston, Ontario.

They all survived, but it's very dark subject matter and out of necessity, it does include some graphic details that will likely be difficult and distressing to hear. See the show notes for additional information to help you never. this episode, including timestamps. A decision to cover cases like this is not one we take lightly. There has to be a very good reason, a public need. The focus of this podcast has always been to shine a light on the pitfalls of the criminal justice system. A key feature of the Canadian criminal justice system is that it prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment. But the problem is that not everyone can be rehabilitated.

Pedophilia or pedophilic disorder is not a sexual orientation. It's a parapheria or deviant sexual interest that has a high risk of causing harm to vulnerable people. Not all people with pedophilic disorder become child sex offenders. And not all child sex offenders actually meet the criteria to be diagnosed as pedophiles. It can also be a crime of opportunity and power. Certain treatments, medications and therapies can help a person manage and control the harmful behaviour and actions associated with pedophilia, if the motivation is there, of course. But it's important to note that to date, there is no scientific evidence that pedophilia is able to be cured.

This story is about a convicted murderer and child predator described as intelligent, calculated, manipulative and lacking empathy. The crimes he committed were declared by a seasoned judge to be the most brutal he'd ever heard of. While incarcerated, this man has been such a model prisoner that he was downgraded from maximum security to a minimum security facility on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. He insists he's been doing everything possible to manage his risk factors with the intention of being integrated back into the community, and his parole officer is in his corner. But the factual evidence tells a very different story.

When covering a case like this, there is a need to strike a careful balance between being factual and unnecessarily gratuitous. So I wanted to provide a few more details about this before we begin. One of the three abducted children is now a grown woman with children of her own. Her name is Kerry Kehoe, and she reached out to us last year as she was preparing a victim impact statement for this man's first parole hearing. We start this episode by launching straight into Kerry's story,

and some listeners will find it confronting to listen to what happened to her that day. But please know that Kerry, the person who lived through it, wants her story to be told factually. Because to comprehend the seriousness of this situation, the potential danger, you have to know the full story. There are of course two other survivors in this case, and while we are in contact with one of them, they're both under publication ban. You won't hear the same level of detail in their stories, and the focus shifts towards the consistencies between all three cases. Accordingly, when we use the phrase sexual assault, please be aware that it includes all forms of sexual assault, not just rape or penetration.

Please take care when listening. And with that, it's on with the show. It was the summer holidays of 1990. An 11-year-old Kerry Kehoe had been invited by her cousins to go swimming at the Kingston Memorial Center pool. She told them she'd walk over to meet them at the nearby mall and they would continue on to the pool together. Carrie hadn't had an easy childhood.

When she was three years old, there was a tragedy in her extended family, and later that year her father had been drinking at a quarry with family and friends, and drowned. For her mother, life after that was extremely difficult as a grieving widow with a household to run and young children to raise. Carrie and her siblings were left to their own devices a lot, especially during school holidays. She had just finished grade 6 that summer, and when she wasn't left alone with her cousins, she was with her best friend Emily, climbing trees and riding their bikes around the neighbourhood. So that particular day, her mother wasn't aware that she'd arranged to meet her cousins at the pool.

As Kerry walked towards the Kingston Centre Mall through the old Sears parking lot, she saw a metallic blue-colored hatchback vehicle parked in a parking space with a man walking towards the back of it. As she approached the vehicle to walk past, the man suddenly turned and she saw he had a knife in his hand. He used it to threaten her and force her to get in the driver's side and climb over to the front passenger seat. He tied her hands together with rope and buckled her in.

Kerry was absolutely terrified. As an 11-year-old, she really had little idea what could be happening here, but instinctively she knew it was very bad. As the stranger pulled the car out from the parking space, Kerry begged him for her life, crying, please don't kill me. He didn't answer. As he continued driving, he reached over several times and groped at her underdeveloped chest area. He then shoved the knife into her bound hands and told her he wanted to penetrate her with it. Not knowing what she was supposed to do, she suggestively moved the blunt end of the knife back and forth. The stranger drove out of town and when he pulled into the old drive-in theatre's concrete parking lot, Kerry felt a sudden sense of impending doom.

She again pleaded with him, please don't kill me. He parked the car and pulled down his pants, exposing his erect penis. Kerry had never seen a man's anatomy before. He ordered her to give him oral sex, but she was too young to know what that even was. He instructed her to attempt it, but she struggled to breathe. She was gagging and crying. The stranger was visibly angry and started the car again. Kerry apologized over and over.

He pulled out of the parking lot and drove to a remote wooded area nearby, ordering Kerry to get out of the car. He led her deep into the woods and told her to remove her clothes. She felt a profound sense of shyness, embarrassment and fear as she removed her bathing suit and shorts, leaving only her t-shirt and sneakers on. The stranger tied her to a tree. pulling the knot tight. He then turned and started walking back in the direction of where he'd parked the car. Kerry tried to make sense of the situation. She was terrified for him to return, but she was equally terrified to be left out there alone, tied to a tree almost naked. The only

sounds she heard was the rapid beating of her heart and the branches breaking under the stranger's footsteps. After a short while, she saw him emerge again, with the knife in his left hand, and his right hand holding a large garbage bag. Carrie was hit by a feeling of dread, as she realized the bag was big enough to put her body in. She begged for her life. The stranger placed the garbage bag on the ground, laid on top of it, and told her to get on top of him. He tried to get her into position, but she was just 11 years old. The body parts did not line up, so it was extremely awkward for her and because her hands were still tied together, she didn't have the ability to support her own body weight.

At that point, he told her to kiss him, and she noticed that he had been. bigger front teeth, kind of like buck teeth. The stranger then moved Kerry to position her to attempt oral sex again, with the same result as last time. She cried and struggled to breathe. As she tried to balance her body weight with twigs and branches digging into her little knees, something suddenly caught her attention and she looked up. The stranger had raised the knife in his left hand, and it was pointed at her back. Carrie thought she was about to be stabbed in the back, about to die. As she begged not to be killed, her hands positioned at his genitals were trembling uncontrollably,

and he suddenly ejaculated. She was unsure about what exactly had just happened, but believed she must have done something to anger the stranger, so she apologized profusely as she grabbed her short. and frantically wiped off his semen. The man did not move, and as time passed, Kerry slowly looked up from wiping and noticed a strange scar on the lower right side of his abdomen. She glanced up at him for the first time during this entire ordeal

and saw a look of euphoria written across his face. Here she was crying and extremely terrified, yet the stranger seemed to be smiling. She couldn't understand why. Holding the knife, he ordered her to get dressed and walk back to the car with him. Survival instincts kicked in and Kerry didn't take her eye off the knife as they walked out of the forest towards the daylight. She was terrified he was going to try and stab her as they walked.

When they reached the car, she pleaded with him multiple times. I promise I won't say anything. He instructed her to get back in the car and he drove back the way they'd come. When there were a few blocks away, he suddenly turned the corner into a side street without warning and told her to get out. Kerry ran all the way home to an empty house.

There was nothing to indicate anyone had even noticed she'd been gone for a few hours. So she decided to keep it that way. She would tell no one what happened and would tell herself over and over again to forget it, because even if she did speak out about it, no one would believe her anyway. She hoped that forgetting it would become second nature, and eventually she would forget it forever. Kerry decided to keep moving forward and focus on the future. She vowed to succeed and create a wonderful life for herself after this.

With that in mind, she left home at age 15, worked hard at several jobs to pay for her own education, and entered a profession she loved. She held charity events to raise money and was praised publicly in the Kingston Wig Standard. She got married and had children of her own, never telling a soul what happened to her, even her husband. It wasn't a conscious choice to keep it from him,

but more a continuation of what she'd been doing since the age of 11, autopilot. And by the time she was an adult, she'd pretty much managed to convince herself that it was just a bad movie that she watched, a nightmare that she had that no one would have believed anyway. But the brain has a funny way of bringing buried trauma back to the surface. Carrie had been trying so hard to succeed in all aspects of. her life that she started to become overwhelmed by the burden of it all. As she would describe it, sweet moments with her children playing and laughing were underpinned

by extreme fear and anxiety that something terrible might happen to them. Kerry knew she was smiling on the outside, but she felt increasingly paralyzed from fear on the inside. When she least expected it, she would suddenly have a memory of the strength, who abducted her, a flashback that transported her back to that horrific day. Her heart would race and she'd feel a rush of panic, almost as though she was reliving it all over again. The shame and embarrassment that weighed her down like an iron blanket just wouldn't let up. Carrie's symptoms all pointed to PTSD and she sensed she might be heading towards a full

breakdown, so she decided to start seeing a therapist to deal with her trauma and move forward. By this point, she was in her early 30s, and that therapist was the first person she told about what happened to her. Eventually, she also shared it with her close girlfriends and her loving husband. Carrie says he never judged her. He completely understood why she made the decision she made and continued to be by her side in love. Not long after that, in February of 2011, Kerry saw a headline on the front page of the Kingston Wig Standard newspaper. It read,

Killer admits to sex assault on child. The article starts, Richard Charles Joyce, already serving life with no parole eligibility for 25 years for his role in the brutal murder of Yvonne Rouleau almost 20. years ago, has admitted to being the sexual predator who attacked a nine-year-old girl 15 months before the murder. Something inside Carrie told her that this was the same man who kidnapped and sexually assaulted her 21 years beforehand.

Margaret Yvonne Rouleau was a 34-year-old wife, mother of three, and a highly regarded local business owner and community member. In May of 1991, she was a very-year-old wife. She was brutally murdered during a robbery in the gas bar kiosk she operated. Dubbed the Nozzles Gas Bar murder by the press, it turned out to be an inside job. Nine days later, Yvonne's 21-year-old employee, Terry Douglas Kennedy, was arrested, along with his 23-year-old friend Richard Charles Joyce. They were both charged with first-degree murder.

At trial, the evidence showed. showed that Terry Kennedy and Richard Joyce urgently needed money for a trip to Mexico and decided to rob the gas bar where Terry worked. They didn't attempt to disguise their identities as they ambushed Yvonne Rouleau in the kiosk early in the morning and threatened her at knife point to open the floor safe. As she was doing this, they tortured her with shallow knife jabs twisted into her neck and shoulders, and then cut her throat and left her to bleed to death. There were a total of 37 stab wounds. The forensic pathologist determined from the final cut that the assailant was likely holding the knife in their left hand, although that didn't mean they were necessarily

left-handed. There was no conclusive evidence presented about the hand preferences of Kennedy or Joyce, or who may or may not have been holding the knife. Both men were found guilty of the planned and deliberate murder of Yvonne Rouleau and given the maximum sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Although the case was solved and prosecuted, there was one aspect of it that left a lot more questions than answers. After the two men were first arrested and placed in,

strategic jail cells, they were overheard in several conversations speaking about the murder in general and plans to escape jail. But Richard Joyce alone was also heard making a number of other comments that suggested a sexual motive, more of a thrill killing than a robbery gone wrong, as the judge put it. He was heard talking about fantasies involving death, mutilation and torture, and the judge noted he appeared to derive sexual pleasure from remembering the details of Yvonne Rullo's murder. Here are some key comments overheard that were attributed to Joyce. You see her reaction when I give it to her? I never feel kind of pleasure like that before.

That was great. The hole was big enough to put my dick in. When I give it to her, that was the best part. There was nothing to suggest that Richard Joyce may have been a potential sex offender. He didn't even have a criminal record at the time he was arrested. It was a piece of the puzzle that just didn't seem to fit, given their stated motivation for the crime, was robbery. But that was 1991.

Twenty years had gone by. According to the article, Kerry Kehoe was now reading in February of 2011, her heart beating out of her chest, Richard Joyce had suddenly pleaded guilty to the abduction and sexual assault of a child that happened more than a year before the Nozzles Gas Bar murder. Kerry's own abduction and assault occurred in between these two crimes, so the timeline was certainly plausible. She desperately wanted to look away and fold up the newspaper, but she needed to know more about this child abduction. To assess whether Richard Joyce was the same boogeyman she'd had nightmares about for years, she needed to compare the details.

Fortunately for her, the Kingston Wig Standard went into excruciating detail over two pages. A quick note before we continue. In the story you're about to hear, the Survivor's Real Identity is still under publication ban, and she is the only victim in this case that we're not in contact. with. The following details about her story are from the same article that Kerry was reading in 2011. We'll call the survivor Jane. It was the evening of February 20, 1990, shortly after 6 p.m. Nine-year-old Jane and her mom planned to spend a quiet night together watching The Wizard of Oz movie, and she had permission to walk to the nearby corner store to buy some potato chips before it

started. But after 45 minutes passed and she hadn't returned, Jane's panicked mother reported her missing to Kingston Police. Over the next hour or so, police and neighbors frantically searched the neighborhood for any sign of her, but she seemed to have vanished into thin air. But about two hours after Jane first left the house, the little girl was suddenly spotted running up the street towards her home, clearly upset. She ran into her mother's arms. Although relieved, it was obvious to her mum that something terrible had happened to her. Jane said she made it to the store, but as she was walking home, she saw a man walking towards her. As she approached him, he suddenly dropped his keys on the ground and bent over to pick them up.

Jane tried to walk around him, but the man grabbed her and pushed her into a parked car, where she saw a knife tucked behind his seat. She said he drove them to a remote area, groping her private areas on the way. To Kerry Kehoe, reading this article 20 years later, it was all sounding awfully familiar. The stranger parked the car and began what would be described as a reign of terror on nine-year-old Jane. He told her to take her clothes off and threatened her as she didn't do as he said. Holding the blunt side of the knife to her throat, he brutally sexually assaulted her and beat her repeatedly with his snowbrush, leaving abrasions. He told her she had 30 seconds to get dressed

again and ordered her into the car. On the drive home, he threatened to kill her and her mother if she told anyone what happened. She promised. Just like Kerry, the stranger dropped Jane off in the same neighbourhood that he picked her up from. She was taken to hospital for examination and treatment, where a physical exam showed trauma to her anal and perennial area. A sexual assault kit was completed and DNA samples were retained, but there was nothing to compare them to. This was 1990, 10 years before the establishment of Canada's National DNA Data Bank.

Detective Paul Tohill, the lead investigator, would tell the Kingston Whig Standard that he was greatly affected by what happened to Jane, but despite his best efforts, there were no new leads and the case went cold. But he never forgot about Jane and continued to meet with her and her family every year for the next 20 years.

On the eve of his retirement in 2010, Detective Tohill requested Jane's sexual assault kit be resubmitted for testing. By this point, it had been a decade since the National DNA Databank was established, and it had been gradually populated with DNA samples from inmates serving prison sentences. One of those inmates was Richard Charles Joyce,

one of the two men responsible for the murder of Yvonne Rouleau at Nozzles Gaspar 20 years earlier. He was by this point, 43 years old. It was uncanny timing because Richard Joyce and his accomplice, Terry Kennedy, had been preparing for an upcoming hearing in relation to the murder of Yvonne Rouleau. They were both serving life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years, and all their appeals had been unsuccessful. They had one hope left under a now repealed section of the Canadian

Criminal Code. The faint hope clause gave prisoners serving life sentences the chance to apply for early parole after serving just 15 years of their sentence instead of 25. Terry Kennedy's hearing was held first in January of 2011, and he confessed that he was the one holding the knife when Yvonne Rouleau was stabbed. But he claimed her murder was not planned. He'd just got angry and snapped, and insisted he should have only been convicted of second-degree murder instead of first. He also continued to claim that the trial witnesses had lied.

The Crown prosecutor argued that the details Terry Kennedy gave about how the knife was used were extremely vague and not consistent with the forensic evidence. His version of events was described as implausible, and his confession overall just didn't seem genuine or believable. It appeared to be motivated by his opportunity to apply for early parole, where offenders are assessed on whether they've taken accountability for the crime, expressed remorse and reflected on their risk factors for public safety. The Faint Hope jury agreed.

They unanimously rejected Terry Kennedy's Faint Hope application and prevented him from applying again. He would have to wait until he had served 25 years to apply for regular parole. Richard Joyce's hearing was scheduled to start a few weeks after that in mid-February of 2011. It was already expected that the jury would view his application favourably. He was considered a model prisoner behind bars, who through good behaviour had cascaded his way down to minimum security.

As implausible as Terry Kennedy's confession may have seemed, there was heightened concern that it might further increase Richard Joyce's chances of getting early parole. During the first few weeks before the faint hope hearing was about to start, the Kingston police were notified that the National DNA Data Bank had returned a hit in relation to the abduction of Jane, a cold case. The perpetrator was one Richard Charles Joyce. After 20 years, the case was finally solved, thanks to Detective Tohill's advocacy in having that DNA resubmitted,

for testing. Richard Joyce was charged with 11 separate counts related to child abduction and sexual assault. He abandoned his faint hope application the following day and pleaded guilty to those new charges. At the sentencing hearing for the new charges, the judge characterized Joyce's abduction and sexual assault of nine-year-old Jane as one of the most brutal he'd ever heard of in 35 years of law. Joyce declined to say anything at the hearing, and he was given another sentence of 10 years in prison to be served concurrently. This was in 2011, before the Criminal Code was amended to

allow consecutive sentences. So because Joyce was already serving a life sentence for the murder of Yvonne Rouleau, there were no actual years added to his sentence. More importantly, he would still be eligible for parole after serving 25 years. By this point, that was just five years away. The only real value of his new sentence for the crimes committed against Jane was that it would affect his future parole prospects. After reading all of this, Kerry Kehoe was confident that Richard Charles Joyce was the man responsible for her abduction as well. But because sexual assault survivors are often unnecessarily scrutinized and not believed, a decision to go forward to the police is never an easy one, let alone for a survivor of a historic sexual assault.

As Kerry stewed about what she should do, she had no idea that she was not the only one in Kingston who read that news article and was comparing details. In 1989, the year before Jane and Kerry were abducted and sexually, she was a sexual assaulted by a stranger, another nine-year-old girl in Kingston was enjoying her summer vacation. We'll call her Annie. Just a few things to note before we continue. As with the survivor we've called Jane, Annie's identity is still under publication ban and her family hasn't ever spoken publicly about what happened to her or their experience afterwards until now. Carrie Kehoe connected us with Annie's mother who we'll call Catherine, and the story you're about to hear is told with her permission

and consent as Annie's guardian. Let's continue. Nine-year-old Annie was an outgoing, happy little girl who was born with Down syndrome. She attended school where she fully participated in an integrated classroom and was praised for her ability to spell. She was making great strides in being able to do things independently. That summer of 1989, Annie had been attending a day camp where she was learning to swim, and she just started a two-year training program where she was learning skills to live more independently day to day. As a part of this, she was working her way towards being able to get off the school bus and walk home on her own. It started small, with the bus dropping Annie off just before 1 p.m. where her sister was waiting for her.

The next day, her sister waited a little bit further from the bus stop in the direction of their home, and Annie walked that little bit further to meet her. This continued successfully to the point where it was finally time for Annie to walk by herself from the bus stop to her house. July 18 of 1989 was the day. and Annie's whole family was excited for her to achieve this milestone of independence. Annie's sister waited for her to arrive, but the minutes continued to tick by and there was no sign of her. When she told her mother Catherine, they went to all the neighbour's houses along the route Annie was supposed to walk to see if they'd seen her.

Several did confirm that they saw the little girl get off the bus, so that much. was known. But at some point between the bus stop and her home, she vanished. The Kingston police were called and a thorough search of the neighbourhood began. Catherine rode in the passenger side of one of the police cars, searching intently for any sign of her daughter. They drove and searched for two hours, but no one saw any sign of Annie. Her family were now completely beside themselves. But suddenly, someone yelled that they'd found Annie in a shop car park about 100 metres from where the bus dropped her off. Relieved, Catherine ran over and embraced her daughter in a big hug.

The little girl started crying and told her mum, The man took my panties. She pressed her legs together and said it hurts. Catherine asked her daughter some more questions, and Annie indicated she couldn't walk. straight home after school because, I can't, man kill me. She said, man drive me in blue car. Catherine was horrified. It appeared that her daughter was trying to tell her that she had been abducted by a man. Right before they left for the hospital, Catherine was surprised when a police

officer asked her if her daughter might have made this up, or if she might have had a disagreement with someone. Catherine couldn't believe this comment, and although the officer later apologized for it, she never forgot it. Annie was taken to hospital for examination. To help the nine-year-old communicate what had happened, she was given anatomically correct male and female dolls to act it out. The court document details that she very clearly indicated that she had been abducted by a man who had brutally sexually assaulted her and forced her to swallow some of his ejaculate. Annie clearly indicated that her arms had been held or bound, and she pointed to faint marks on her wrists. She put her own hands around her neck in a choking manner, as if to imitate what happened to her,

and gestured to the doctor to take a look at it. Again, completely unprompted, she mentioned, the man's blue car. By this point, Annie was extremely distressed and it became necessary for doctors to sedate her so they could finish completing the sexual assault kit.

Clothing items were retained for DNA. It was noted that her skirt had some dried matter on it that her mother confirmed was not there in the morning. Catherine says that after that she heard nothing more

from Kingston police. There was little to no evidence of an effort to investigate, and Catherine couldn't understand why. All she knew was that she had to do something to help her daughter. She decided to canvass the local area again, speaking to neighbours to see if anyone had since remembered anything that the police needed to know. One neighbour told her that their teenage son had reported seeing a blue car waiting in the same area where Annie indicated she'd been abducted at the same date and time.

Catherine took this information straight to the police station, reminding them that on two separate occasions in the hours after Annie's abduction, she had referred to a blue car completely unprompted. But Catherine says the officer she spoke to questioned Annie's knowledge of colours, implying that she might have got the colour of the car wrong. She was shocked and bitterly disappointed by this reaction. Before the abduction, Annie had been a star student as a young person with Down syndrome, progressing well and becoming more independent by the day.

But after she was abducted, she immediately started regressing on all the progress she'd made. She started showing signs of confusion and fear. and would check behind the doors for the mean man. She also became strangely reactive to knives. It should be noted that while Jane and Kerry both recalled seeing a knife, Annie never specifically mentioned one as part of her assault. But in the weeks afterwards, Catherine noticed that her daughter started to have a strong reaction

whenever there were knives set on the table. She would quickly gather them up and put them away. Catherine contacted the police about this as well, but they seemed apathetic and dismissive. Determined not to let them forget about her daughter, she continued to stop in at the police station several more times. But as more months went by, she started to suspect that the police hadn't taken Annie seriously, or perhaps just didn't believe it was true. Catherine couldn't help but wonder if things may have been different had Annie not had Down syndrome. It was not a comforting thought, but it strengthened her resolve to continue to advocate for her daughter.

In February of 1990, eight months after Annie's abduction, Catherine was flipping through the Kingston Wig Standard newspaper when she saw a headline about another nine-year-old girl who had been abducted by a man, sexually assaulted and returned to the same neighbourhood within hours. She immediately phoned the police and within 30 minutes a sergeant came to their house and assured her that Annie's case had been taken seriously. The sergeant also acknowledged that the circumstances of both cases looked almost identical. This other abduction was of course Jane.

Catherine was hopeful that this development would finally mean some progress on the investigation into Annie's case. But the days turned into weeks and she didn't hear from the sergeant who visited her or anyone from the Kingston police again. Getting justice for her daughter was one thing, but as a mother, her focus was being pulled towards a more pressing issue. Annie had continued to regress. When she began acting out at school, the school board documented it as a behavioural problem.

Her parents attended many meetings with teachers, trying to get them to understand that the nine-year-old had been through a horrific ordeal and needed more help, not punishment for bad behaviour. But they didn't find the meetings productive. No one seemed willing to believe that Annie's change in behaviour was a trauma response. Catherine believes the police could have helped out a great deal by providing information to the board and validation, but they were of no assistance. She wasn't able to secure any kind of additional help for Annie, and the situation worsened. It seemed that nobody was willing to believe that Annie had been through significant trauma, let alone help her or her family.

But her mother Catherine never gave up. Over the years, she would scour the newspapers, searching for any other crimes that had similar details, like the fact that Annie said the car was blue. A bit of a sidebar. As I was researching this case, I was struck by how differently the Kingston police seemed to react to Annie's abduction in 1989

compared to Jane's abduction eight months later in 1990. Annie's family never felt like the Kingston Western police investigators took her case seriously. Catherine is unaware of any dedicated detective assigned to investigate the case. In fact, there doesn't seem to have been much of an investigation at all. She says no one checked in with the family. But when Jane was abducted and assaulted eight months later in almost identical circumstances, her family was fortunate to have Detective Tohill on the case,

who by all accounts was responsive and diligent, checking in with the family often, and continued to be dedicated to Jane's case for 20 years until his retirement when he requested DNA from her case be sent for retesting. But Annie's family were effectively ghosted for 20 years. Catherine says they heard nothing more from the Kingston Police, even after 2011 when the resubmitted DNA from Jane's sexual sexual. assault kit returned a hit to Richard Charles Joyce. A court document of proceedings from later that same year states that after these results

were returned, quote, the striking similar facts to Annie's case led the investigators to believe that Mr Joyce was the offender in that matter as well. The thing is, Catherine says she did not hear about any of this from the Kingston police. No one contacted their family. She learned about the DNA results linking the cold case to Joyce the same way any other resident in Kingston did from the newspaper headline that read, Killer admits to sex assault on child.

After reading that article and seeing those striking similar facts, Catherine once again picked up the phone. She had to call Kingston police to advocate for her daughter, and remind them that Jane wasn't the only survivor. And again, she got nowhere. Catherine decided to keep calling throughout the day, hoping to speak to someone different until she felt she had been heard.

Finally, that evening, she was transferred to a detective who told her they'd just received a call from another potential victim. The same day that Catherine was calling Kingston police to remind them about Annie, Carrie Kehoe was also calling after reading the same article. Carrie had stued about whether to come forward for about a week and had decided that it was

time to give a police statement. The following is from the recording of the statement she gave to Detective Melanie Jeffries of the Kingston Police. We've already gone over the details of Kerry's abduction and assault, so we'll focus on her over. several reflections as she looked back in hindsight as a married 32-year-old woman with children of her own. The following clips have been edited slightly for clarity and brevity. So Carriena, we've got that sort of out of the way. You came in, you saw some details in the paper, I guess it was last week or the week before. Last Saturday?

Okay. Regarding an abduction that happened about 20 years ago, I guess, now, back in 19. 1990 and the details of that offense seemed very similar to something you went through around the same time. Yes. Okay. So what I'll do is I'll just let you Start from the beginning where we think is important. I was reading the paper on Saturday and The article in the paper was familiar to me. I saw the date of February 20th 1990 and when my situation happened, I'd never put a date to it or anything.

And I calculated back, and it would have been in the summer of 1990, that I've received a phone call for my cousin, and he wanted to go swimming at Memorial Center. And I said I would meet him at the Kingston Center mall. Carrie is extremely detailed in her explanation, exactly where she walked, where she crossed the street, the cars that she said, saw and the stranger who forced her into his. So his car was parked in like this, and I was, like, I was here, so his door was open, and there was another car beside him, and I had to climb over his driver's side into the passenger

side, and he tied my hands right away. Take your time. Tied my hands. like this front of me. She describes what she was feeling as he drove away. And I remember just constantly having this impending doom. Like I wasn't, I was going to die. And I hear myself saying, please don't kill me.

But I don't really hear anything coming from you. But just having this overall fear of fear of, the unknown or what am I going to do? They drove to a parking lot and then to a rural forest, where the stranger left her tied to a tree and came back with a garbage bag, and then he tried to get her into position, which he found extremely awkward because her hands were still tied together and she couldn't balance.

In hindsight, Carrie perceives this awkwardness as the stranger trying to put her in position for his next intended act. It's not caught my attention. I was like, I shut up, and he had a knife in his left hand. And I was sure I was going to die. I was sure he was planning on stabbing me in the back. He was like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Kerry believes that had he not ejaculated right at that moment, she would be dead. Again, because I have this feeling, you know, like, it was the scariest thing in my life. Like, I thought for years and years, I thought if I had to look up at me dead. If I hadn't looked up, he was going to stab me in the back. That's what he wanted, he wanted to kill me. That feeling continued as they walked back to the car, and Kerry didn't remember. remember how he got her back in the car or details about the drive back home until they came across a street near where he picked her up.

We came up to it and he turned and let me out. And I don't see him reaching over. I don't hear him saying anything to me. I just hear myself saying, I promise, I'll say anything. I promise, I promise. And I got out and I remember I could see myself standing on that corner. and I just remember, like, he drove off so fast, and I can see he's already, like, seven houses down the street, and I see this blue car, and I ran. Kerry's specific mention of a blue car is a very important detail. At the time Kerry was giving this statement,

she was only aware of Jane's story as reported in the paper, and there was no mention of a blue car. car. Kerry didn't yet know that there was a third survivor, Annie, who also reported that the car was blue. Later on, when Kerry and Catherine arranged to meet up, one of the first questions Catherine would ask was what colour the car was. It was validating for both of them. Back to Kerry's statement. After she saw that blue car driving away, she started running home as fast as she could. could. I ran that whole distance and I didn't stop and I just remember thinking somebody's going to see me running and they're going to ask me what I was doing there and then my cousins are going to wonder where I was. My mind's racing and I came in the back door and it felt dark in the house and nobody

was home and it was half relief and it was half. sadness. I went down in the basement, so I'd never go in the basement and I took off all my clothes and I remember seeing it was a white shirt and it had gray speckled design on it and I didn't know it at the time but it was like all of the semen had it was just it was all smeared all over my pants Santa, I threw up my running shoes, the baby's soup, the clothes, and I remember thinking my mom, my mom's going to wonder where those shoes are, because I remember them being white. I'm just going to have to know, like, my running shoes are missing. And I'm like, what am I going to have to say to her?

You know, it's like, what am I going to say? What am I going to say? And she never asked, and I never told anybody. Carrie said her cousin called her later, and she told her. she changed her mind about meeting at the pool. She remembers feeling how out of character it was for her to lie. I never told anybody, and it just would creep up over the years of my memory. I would quickly push it away. I would say it was a dream.

That was a horrible movie you watched. Like, just that's what I constantly said to myself over and over again. and part of that was feeling incredibly grateful. I don't even know how I processed that back then. But as an adult, I always said it could be a lot worse. Kerry spent almost two hours giving her statement, and Detective Melanie Jeffries praised her for providing such a high level of detail

that minimal follow-up questions were needed. Kerry would later credit this interaction with Detective Jeffreys as a pivotal moment that had the potential to be overwhelmingly negative, but was the opposite, effectively allowing her to re-root her life and recovery and put her pain to purpose. This would set the course in motion for Kerry to eventually apply to have her publication ban removed,

so she could speak publicly about her experiences, share her story with victims of crime and police agencies and empower others. Kerry provided her statement in February of 2011, and in June of that year, Richard Charles Joyce pleaded guilty to charges in relation to kidnapping, use of a weapon and sexual assault. At that same hearing, he also pleaded guilty to similar charges in relation to the abduction of end.

The day before the court proceedings, Kerry sat down with the Crown prosecutor to discuss Joyce being sentenced for his historic crimes in 1989 and 1990. A conversation unfolded about Joyce potentially being designated a dangerous offender, reserved for the most violent criminals and sexual predators. The Crown must apply for the designation before sentencing and is required to demonstrate that there's a high risk that the criminal will commit violent or sexual offences in the future. Joyce met the criteria for this designation, but the Crown did not apply for it. Kerry says that in that meeting, she was told, quote,

it would be a waste of resources. She was assured that Joyce would be leaving prison in a body bag. This meeting was the first time she met Annie's mother, Catherine. Annie was now a grown woman just like Kerry, but she'd never been the same since that horrendous day. Carrie couldn't help but notice Catherine's immense and heartbreaking obligation to advocate for a daughter who couldn't advocate for herself. As Carrie went into the sentencing hearing, she was greatly comforted by the thought that Joyce would never be released from prison. In her victim impact statement, Catherine spoke about how Annie was. was a happy, outgoing nine-year-old who happened to have Down syndrome.

She was doing very well for her age and becoming more independent each day. But this all changed after she was abducted by Richard Charles Joyce. Catherine recounted how her daughter started becoming fearful of the mean man and strangely reactive to knives. She refused to lie down and would go for days without sleeping. She also had trouble eating, and at school, her once glowing report cards were replaced by notes from teachers about negative changes in Annie's behaviour. She gradually regressed to a point where she required help with all aspects of daily living. Reading her victim impact statement, Catherine recounted how difficult it was for their family to find the right combination of medication and therapies to help Annie.

Eventually, it became obvious that she simply couldn't cope at school anymore, and her parents made the agonizing and heartbreaking decision to take her out of school altogether. They continued to care for her at home where she felt safe. Catherine's statement ends, quote, The incident of July 18th has robbed Annie of the opportunity to participate in the community. This has robbed her of the joy of belonging to the sports program that she used to love. It's ruined her chances to see a movie with her friends,

attend a social function, or simply hang out with her peers. It has taken her right to walk down the street without us, her parents or a caretaker. It has robbed her of the ability to fall asleep without the aid of heavy sedating medications. That afternoon in July has changed our family's way of life forever. Next, it was Kerry Kehoe's.

turn. She started off her victim impact statement, quote, A voice that has been paralyzed by a measurable fear, extreme embarrassment, shame, and an intense feeling of being damaged goods since the age of 11 years old. You cannot help but hear my voice as I speak right now, but it is your choice to listen to it. She described how Richard Joyce's perverse actions negatively impacted her mom. mind, body, and soul. How it catapulted her out of an innocent world where she felt safe, into a different world where she was crippled with uncontrollable memories filled with unspeakable darkness. Keri spoke about how she should be fully enjoying all the many

blessings of her young and growing family, but instead she feels her mind is imprisoned with anxiety and fear. Quote, I have also learned that secrets keep you sick, and this secret has kept me sick for 21 years. She told the court that psychotherapy slowly helped her unpack and processed the dark secret she'd been keeping, and she spoke of her husband's unconditional love and support, even before he knew the real cause of her anxiety. But Kerry remained haunted by what happened to her. She recalled going into fight or flight mode when a stranger simply compliments her children, how she's always assessing the potential danger, wondering if intentions are malicious, and how she still struggles when her children cry,

because she hears the echo of her own cry when she was terrified, alone, and begging the man she now knows as Richard Charles Joyce not to kill her. Carrie told the court that just two months before this hearing, she finally decided to take tell her own mother what had happened to her and was stunned by her reaction. Her mother questioned her more than once, asking if it could have been a bad dream she had when she was younger. Kerry described this as the day her greatest and darkest fear of not being believed became a reality. But she credited several members of Kingston Police with giving her the strength to move forward with the investigation. In particular, Detective Melanie Jeffries and victim services worker Sharon Ansel.

Kerry says she was strengthened by the extraordinary care and compassion she received from them both. Richard Charles Joyce had already received an additional 10-year sentence for his crimes against Jane. Several months after that, at the sentencing hearing for his crimes against Kerry and Annie, the judge pointed out that there were now a total of three serious sexual offences in addition to the murder of Yvonne Rouleau. Quote, Usually I am a person who has no difficulty speaking publicly, but I've got to be honest with you. I am at a real loss for words. It is difficult for me to express my outrage at your conduct and what you did to these three little girls.

You have ruined their lives. With that, Joyce was given another sentence of 12 years in prison. But again, this was a concurrent sentence that didn't add any extra time to his actual sentence. He would still be eligible for full parole after serving 25 years. And at that time, that date was just five years away in 2016. After the hearing, the Kingston Police praised all the survivors, Annie, Jane and Kerry, for their courage in coming forward. A spokesperson told the Kingston Wig Standard

the investigation could not have succeeded without their help and acknowledge their courage and bravery in their decision to come forward and report, whether it be at the time or 21 years later. Richard Charles Joyce had been in prison since his arrest shortly after the murder of Yvonne Rouleau in 1991. and he had no criminal record at the time he was sentenced to life in prison. He and Terry Kennedy stated that their motive was to rob Nozzles Gaspar, so the unnecessary violence seemed extremely out of place,

as were the shocking sexual comments Joyce was overheard saying afterwards. But not anymore. Twenty years had gone by, and Joyce had just admitted that by the time Yvonne Rouleau was murdered, he had already abducted and sexually assaulted those three little girls. Kerry Kehoe has spent a long time thinking about this, and there are several things that linger in her mind. Joyce abducted Annie first in 1989, then Jane in early 1990,

followed by Kerry that summer, and she's never forgotten the sight of Joyce raising his arm and aiming that knife at her back. Kerry has always felt that his ultimate goal that day was to stab her in the back and kill her, and the fact that Yvonne Rouleau was murdered less than a year later in 1991 is compelling evidence of a pattern of escalation. Kerry also remembers that at that moment during her assault, Joyce was holding the knife in his left hand. In the case of Yvonne Rouleau, the pathologist determined that her assailant was likely holding the knife in his left hand when he cut her throat, although that didn't mean that he was necessarily left-handed. There was also no evidence presented to confirm whether Joyce or Kennedy were right or left-handed. Of course, Terry Kennedy eventually offered a vaguely detailed confession that he was the one holding the knife.

but he never mentioned which hand he was holding the knife in, and his version of events weren't consistent with the injuries Yvonne received. Those 37 stab wounds determined to be evidence of torture. Kerry remained haunted by vivid memories, flashbacks of certain moments during her abduction. She never forgot the sight of that scar she saw on the stranger's lower right abdomen. It was not pink or fresh and not jagged, but more smooth and large enough for her to pay attention to. It was later confirmed to her to be an appendix scar, a detail that was never mentioned in the newspapers. She also has a vivid memory of the stranger's teeth, that his two front teeth were bigger, almost like buck teeth.

Photos of Joyce published in the Kingston Whig Standard show his teeth matched that description. For the next 11 years, Kerry continued to live her life and the knowledge that Richard Charles Joyce was safe behind bars and wouldn't be able to victimize any more children. She remained comforted by the words she had heard from the Crown Prosecutor, that it was a waste of resources to apply for a dangerous offender designation because he would be leaving prison in a body bag. Kerry would learn that what she understood to be true was not. In 2022, the victims and survivors were notified that Joyce had indicated he would be applying for full parole. The hearing that eventuated was the first time that they had ever heard Joyce speak at length. Not only was it deeply revealing, but new pieces of information also came to light that both shocked and angered them all. This story continues in the next episode, available to all right now.

By the time you listen to this, I will have travelled to Kingston for a pre-release event for this episode. We'll be posting photos, clippings and other information on the Facebook and Instagram accounts. Just look for Canadian true crime. Thanks for listening and special thanks to Kerry Kehoe, Catherine, the mother of survivor Annie, and Robert Rouleau. It hasn't been easy for them to revisit their tragedies in this way, and I commend them for their strength and courage. In putting together this episode, I reached out to Kingston Police to inquire if they have any information to share about why investigators did not link Annie's case with Jane's at the time. There hasn't been a response, but I also didn't expect one. It was a long time ago.

The information in this episode has been taken from court documents and media fire. sent to me by Kerry Kehoe, as well as news archives which included the reporting of Sue Yane Gassawa for the Kingston Wig Standard and Michelle Dory Forstell for the Kingstonist. Canadian True Crime donates monthly to those facing injustice. This month we have donated to the Children's Treatment Centre in Cornwall, Ontario. Learn more at children's treatment centre.ca.ca.