Canadian True Crime - Major case updates: what happened next [1]

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

The verdict is rarely the end of the story. In the two years since our last Major Case Updates episodes, some of the cases we’ve covered have reached a resolution, others have had significant developments or taken unexpected turns... and some are still far from over.You don't need to remember the original episodes. Each update starts with a quick but immersive recap of the case, then picks up the story from where we left off.Cases covered in this episode with approximate timestamps:Please give or take a few minutes to allow for ads.3:00 Lush and Whiteway Fatal Car Crash (final conviction)10:00 Harrison Family Murders (final conviction)25:00 The Murder of Reena Virk (Kelly Ellard update)39:00 The Rallo Family Murders (Jon Rallo update)43:00 The Murder of Laura Letts (Peter Beckett update)48:00 Legacy Christian Academy (new convictions and charges)1:09:00 The Mushroom Murders (update and feedback)Part 2 will be available soon.Listen ad-free and early on CTC premium feeds available on Amazon Music (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts, and Patreon.Full list of resources, information sources, credits and music credits: www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes/219 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to Canadian True Crime, a completely independent project funded mainly through advertising. To listen, add free and early, subscribe to our premium feed on Amazon Music Included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, and Patreon. This podcast often has disturbing content and course language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening. Hi everyone, and thanks for listening. We'll be back with a new case-based episode in September, but today it's time for the long-awaited major case updates. For each case, I'll give you a high-level recap of the details, almost like a mini episode, so you don't need to remember the original episode

or even have listened to it before we get to what's happened since. There's been some major developments, an end to the criminal justice process and the lush and whiteway fatal car crash in Newfoundland, and the murders of three members of the Harrison family in, Ontario. We'll also close the book on the cases of family annihilator John Rullo, as well as Peter Beckett, the New Zealand man tried twice for the drowning death of his Canadian wife, Laura Letts. The saga of Kelly Allard, one of the killers of 14-year-old Reina Verk, took a sharp

turn in the last year or so. We'll also report on more convictions connected to the historic abuse allegations at Legacy Christian Academy in Saskatchewan. In this two-part series, we'll also go through a summary of the Hockey Canada trial and the conclusions that I reached, which you might like if you didn't listen to our series from last summer and want to know, or you just need a reminder. I'll also go through what the five players from the Hockey Canada trial have been doing since the not-guilty verdicts last year, and how the public just learned of another text exchange. between two players and why it was redacted from the court record. I also want to share a little bit about the mental toll that covering this trial took on me

and has affected everything since. It's something I didn't have a full realization about until recently, but it feeds into why our episode releases have been a bit more inconsistent than usual. I know some of you have been wondering about that, and why it's also been two years since we last did major case updates. We'll circle back to Kevin O'Leary's proposed Utah data center and how he unexpectedly backed down and apologized. I'll also respond to some feedback from the Mushroom Murders case from Australia,

which was, of course, a different format to what we usually do. So all that and more is coming up, and you can find the full list of cases and approximate timestamps in the show notes. Whether you're listening to the ad-supported or the ad-free version of this episode, episode, thank you for being here and for your ratings, reviews, feedback and positive messages. I really appreciate it. And with that, it's on with the show. We finally have a conclusion in the Lush and Whiteway fatal car crash in Newfoundland. Here's what happened. At about 4 a.m. one morning in 2019, John and Sandra Lush were driving their daughter Suzanne to the airport, along with her boyfriend at the time

Josh Whiteway and their pet cat. The couple were catching a flight back to Calgary after a week home in Newfoundland visiting their families. On the way to the airport, there was torrential rain. Not only was the road slippery on the Trans-Canada Highway near Gander, but visibility was quite poor. All was quiet inside the car. From the back seat, Suzanne Lush noticed a pair of headlights in the distance on the other side of the road. As the vehicle came closer, she noticed it was veering off course over the centre line directly in their own path. Within seconds, there was an earth-shattering bang as the pickup truck collided with their car head on at high speed. Suzanne's parents, John and Sandra Lush, took the brunt of the impact and were killed immediately.

The car burst into flames, and Suzanne and her boyfriend Josh Whiteway were rushed to hospital with serious injuries. They would learn that their cat was killed as well. Back at the crash, first responders found only one person in the pickup truck, 20-year-old Nicholasville nerve. From the passenger seat, he told police that the driver of the truck had run off. They didn't believe him. His speech was slurred. He was the owner of the pickup truck, and he was wearing an admissions bracelet from a music festival he'd just left. Nicholasville Nerve was taken to hospital with minor injuries. In the ambulance and at the hospital, he was questioned by an RCMP officer. During this time, he admitted he had been drinking and consented to giving

a blood sample. That sample would show he was nearly twice the legal limit to drive, even though it had been almost two hours since the crash when he gave that sample. The black box in his pickup truck showed that it was speeding just five seconds before the airbag deployed, doing 123 kilometers in a 100 zone. Villeneuve's DNA would be found on that airbag, concrete proof that he was the driver. He was charged with eight counts related to impaired driving causing death and bodily injury, as well as dangerous driving. Josh Whiteway and Suzanne Lush faced a long recovery and multiple surgeries.

Josh was left paralyzed from the waist down, and they both encountered ongoing health issues. The case seemed cut and dry as they headed to trial, but everything came undone. Nicholas Villeneuve's defense lawyer argued that the RCMP officer questioned him in the ambulance without properly informing him of his charter rights. The police have to tell a detained person why they've been detained and why they're being investigated. They have the right to silence and the right to speak to a lawyer.

The issue was whether Villeneuve actually was detained or not at the time. The trial judge decided that he was. Any evidence related to that was now inadmissible, including the blood alcohol test result and his admission that he'd been drinking. Without this evidence, the Crown decided there was no reasonable chance of conviction and stayed the charges.

After this, Nicholas Villeneuve moved to Northern Ontario, secured a job and aircraft maintenance, got married and said, started a family. But back in Newfoundland, there was a wave of protests about the injustice, which motivated the Crown to appeal the acquittal, and it was successful. The appeals court determined that Nicholas Villeneuve was not detained by police in the ambulance or at the hospital, therefore there was no violation of his charter rights. Nicholasville Nerve's defense team tried to take it to the Supreme Court of Canada, who dismissed the application,

The trial was back on. So here's the update. In November of 2024, Nicholas Villeneuve reached a plea deal with the Crown. He pleaded guilty to two counts of impaired driving causing death and another two counts of impaired driving causing bodily harm. The court heard that Villeneuve had a history of cocaine use and had received eight speeding tickets,

presumably in the time before the fatal crash. He's reported no drug use since and has no criminal record. Before sentencing, 26-year-old Villeneuve told the court that every day he thinks of the devastation he's caused and the sorrow he feels for the families involved. He said if he could change what happened, he would, and he's taken steps in his life to ensure it will never happen again. At the sentencing hearing, the court heard nine victim impact statements from members of the lush and Whiteway families, describing the lasting physical and emotional damage caused by the crash. Josh Whiteway spoke about the serious injuries he suffered, the chronic pain that followed, and the depression and loss of identity that came with it.

He said he still remembers the smell of burning plastic, rubber and rubber. flesh from that night, but had made a conscious decision not to let the trauma define him. Suzanne Lush was also seriously injured in the crash, but her statement focused heavily on the loss of her parents, describing them as the most important people in her life and the ones she relied on for guidance. She wrote that losing her parents had taken away her safety net, leaving her with a crushing sense of isolation and abandonment on top of lasting physical and emotional injuries. Nicholas Villeneuve was sentenced to six years in prison, followed by a seven-year driving ban for killing John and Sandra Lush and seriously injuring Suzanne Lush and Josh Whiteway.

It was actually four six-year sentences, but to be served concurrently at the same time. We wish Josh Whiteway and Suzanne Lush all the best. Next, a final criminal justice update in the Harrison family murders. This case has been described as haunting and chilling, involving the systematic destruction of an entire family over several years one by one, and had it not been for repeated failures of law enforcement to recognize the pattern, two of those lives might not have been locked. The series of events began in 2005 in Mississauga, Ontario.

Caleb Harrison had just separated from his wife Melissa Merritt after an altercation that also saw him pleading guilty to domestic assault. The couple would share 50-50 custody of their two children. Shortly after that, Caleb was driving drunk in Milton and crashed into a taxi head on. The driver, Michael Raymond, died and four injured passengers were taken to hospital. Caleb was charged with impaired driving causing death and bodily harm, and he moved into his parents' middle-class home as he waited for the trial. The custody agreement with the two children became increasingly bitter and tense, and Caleb's parents became wrapped up in it. During this time, Melissa Merritt began a new relationship with a nightclub bouncer named Christopher Fetore.

They got engaged and Melissa began giving birth to what would be a total of four more children in quick succession. In 2009, Caleb Harrison was found guilty of impaired driving causing death and bodily injury in relation to that fatal car crash. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison and his parents, Bill and Bridget Harrison requested his share of the custody agreement until he's released from prison. The judge awarded it to them,

deciding this was in the best interests of the two children. Melissa Merritt was already resentful about the custody agreement. She angrily ranted about this decision to her neighbor, telling him, if the kids can't be with their father because he's in prison, they should be with their mother.

The neighbour happened to know Caleb's father Bill Harrison from work and told him about the conversation, adding the detail that Melissa seemed to be packing boxes as though she was preparing to move house. Shortly after that, just six weeks since Caleb had begun his prison sentence, his mother Bridget Harrison, arrived home to find her husband, Bill, unresponsive, in the powder room. The door was locked and she had to break into it. The 65-year-old father was dead. The autopsy would determine it was basically from natural causes, acute cardiac arrhythmia, which either caused Bill to fall or happened after a fall.

His body was cremated. That very same day, as Bridget Harrison suddenly found herself a grieving widow with her only son in prison, Melissa Merritt took off with the two children and left the province of Ontario, along with her common law husband Christopher Fetore and their younger children. Seven months later, the police caught up with them in Nova Scotia, and they returned to Ontario where Melissa faced a trial for abduction. A judge awarded temporary sole custody to the two eldest children's grandmother, Bridget Harrison, Melissa Merritt was released on bail under strict conditions. All contact with her two eldest children must be arranged and supervised. At around this time, Caleb was released from prison early on good behavior. In April of 2010, almost a year after Bill Harrison's death, Bridget answered a knock on the front door to find Christopher Fetore standing there, a heavy, physically imposing,

man of six foot four, Bridget Harrison was home alone at the time and called the police. Melissa Merritt, who was waiting in the car outside, was arrested for violating her bail conditions and spent a few days in jail. She was due to be back in court in a few weeks' time for her abduction trial, where Caleb's mother Bridget would be testifying. About a week after Melissa was released on bail, one of her Her two eldest children arrived home to the Harrison House to find his grandmother, Bridget, dead on the floor. She was lying in an unnatural position at the bottom of the stairs, just a few feet away from

the powder room where her husband Bill died a year earlier. The autopsy suggested the 63-year-old might have been strangled, but Bridget also suffered broken ribs and vertebrae in the back of her neck, that didn't fit with strangulation. Her death was a little suspicious given her husband's death in the house a year earlier and some similarities in their injuries. Suggestions of exhuming Bill Harrison's body

for a second autopsy were cut short because he was cremated. Bridget Harrison's death was classified as undetermined with a note that it most likely resulted from a fall down the stairs. Their son Caleb suggested to the police that the timing of his mother's death was suspicious, and they should find out where his ex-wife Melissa and her new partner Christopher were. The police asked them both for their alibis, but didn't properly corroborate them,

and there was little further investigation done. Melissa Merritt pleaded guilty to abducting her two children, and Caleb was now awarded sole custody of them. By this point, he had reportedly turned his life around and was a devoted father. Caleb allowed the kids to spend every other weekend with their mother, something he didn't have to do, but Melissa Merritt wanted even more access. The dispute heated up again. Shortly before a change to the custody agreement took force that would see Melissa Merritt with even less access to her children, Caleb Harrison failed to show up for work.

His body was discovered in his bed upstairs in the same family home where his parents died several years earlier. The 40-year-old had significant bruising and abrasions on his neck, chin and chest, along with swollen knuckles. There was evidence of neck compression, which indicated Caleb had been strangled and he suffered a number of injuries to his head and chest inflicted by something like a baseball bat.

Caleb Harrison's death was classified a homicide. It's only at this point that investigators looked back and suspected both of his parents might have been murdered as well. A later inquiry would find that the police suffered from cognitive bias that blinded them to evidence of foul play. With Caleb and his parents now gone, Melissa Merritt didn't have to share custody of her children with anyone, so she and Christopher Fetore took them back to Nova Scotia with their other four children. They weren't aware that the police followed them there to continue their investigation,

gathering additional evidence like a wiretap recording of them speaking about taking the rap for something, and an old laptop the couple owned that had years of incriminating search history. Melissa Merritt and Christopher Fittore were arrested and both were charged with the murders of Caleb Harrison and his mother Bridget. There was strong forensic evidence linking Fetore to Caleb's murder specifically, and Fetore actually confessed to police that he did strangle Caleb as well as his mother Bridget. Feturi was also charged with murdering Caleb's father, Bill Harrison. As the trial approached in 2018, he tried to plead guilty to manslaughter, but the Crown wouldn't allow it.

The Crown's theory was that Fetore carried out the murders, but Melissa Merritt was the mastermind. Both were equally guilty of murder. Melissa's defence argued that the case was based on circumstantial evidence. and there was no evidence of her planning or participation. Fetore tried to recant his confession, but the jury didn't buy it. He was found guilty of the first-degree murders of Caleb Harrison and his 63-year-old mother, Bridget. Fetore was found not guilty of murdering Bill Harrison. That one had not been investigated as a homicide, so there was next to no evidence. As for Melissa Merritt, the jury found her guilty of murdering her ex-husband Caleb Harrison, but they couldn't

reach a verdict about whether she participated in his mother Bridget's murder. That charge resulted in a mistrial. Both Merritt and Fetore were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years. Both appealed their guilty verdicts. Fetore's appeal was dismissed. But when it Came to Melissa Merritt, the situation was nowhere near finished. The appeals court overturned her conviction for murdering Caleb, finding that the judge had made two errors when instructing the jury. There was a retrial. This time, the jury was told up front that Christopher Fetore

murdered Bridget Harrison and her son Caleb, but they needed to decide whether Caleb's ex-wife Melissa Merritt participated in the planning or execution of the murders. The jury found Melissa not guilty of murdering her former mother-in-law Bridget Harrison, but now they couldn't reach a verdict about her participation in Caleb's murder. A third trial was ordered, and Melissa was granted bail to go and live with her mother under strict conditions. The Toronto son reported that she got married again during this time to a woman who was a former jail guard. So here's the update. In March of 2025, just before the third trial to decide Melissa's participation in Caleb Harrison's murder,

the then-four-year-old mother of six suddenly pleaded guilty to manslaughter, as reported by the Toronto stars Amy Dempsey. In an agreed statement of facts, Melissa admitted that she did play a role in her ex-husband's murder. She said that after the deaths of his parents when the custody dispute heated up again, Christopher Fatorre told her he was going to confront Caleb Harrison and threatened to hurt him if he didn't give her more access to the children. Melissa admitted that she expressed gratitude to Fetore and encouraged the confrontation, aware that it could get violent. But she insisted she didn't know her common law partner Fetore

was going to kill her ex-husband. This trial was just about Caleb Harrison. Melissa made no admissions about the death of his mother, Bridget Harrison, which he'd previously been found guilty of. Several victim impact statements were read in court, describing Caleb as a devoted father who loved his children, and those children were robbed of their father's love. Melissa Merritt was sentenced to the equivalent of 15 years in prison minus credit for the time she'd already served. The end result was just one more day in prison.

She was also ordered to have no contact with any member of the extended. Harrison family for 20 years. The judge acknowledged the sentence was likely not what their loved ones were hoping for and offered condolences. Ironically, Melissa Merritt's need to win custody of her two eldest children at all costs resulted in her being separated from all six of her children while she spent about a decade in prison. Her four youngest children have to live with the fact that both,

Both of their parents are killers. Her two eldest children have to live with the fact that their mother murdered their father. Whatever those adults were fighting over in the beginning, it was the poor children who were left with the consequences. We'll be back with more case updates after these messages from our sponsors. Thank you so much for listening. The senseless murder of 14-year-old Rina Verk in Victoria, BC, is a case close to the heart of many Canadians.

Rina Verk was the eldest of three children to parents, Manjit and Suman Verk, who were originally from India. In her teenage years, Rina started becoming deeply self-conscious about her appearance. She was one of relatively few South Asian students at her school, a visible minority. When the other girls picked at her insecurities, Rina started acting out at home.

She increasingly started skipping school. This resulted in conflict with her parents that only escalated the more restrictions they tried to impose. On Friday, November 14th of 1997, 14-year-old Rina was invited to meet some girls at a Walmart parking lot. The group grew to about 30 teenagers, drinking, smoking cigarettes and weed, and getting increasingly,

rowdy. The police showed up and the teenagers scattered in different directions. Rina ended up at a convenience store where she called her parents to let them know she was coming home for the night and she'll be there in about 20 minutes. When she hung up, a group of girls suggested she go for a walk to the nearby Craigflower Bridge for a cigarette. Rina was thrilled, but she had no idea that those girls she was so desperate to fit in with had been planning something for days. Under the bridge, roughly 20 teenagers were gathered. Several formed a semicircle around Rina and accused her of flirting with someone's boyfriend, stealing a girl's phone book and calling boys from it.

One of the girls pressed a lit cigarette into Rina's forehead. The group attacked her. Seven girls and one boy, punching and kicking. rena as she cried and begged them to leave her alone. Eventually, another teenager stepped in and said enough, and the group began to disperse. Rina was left by herself under the bridge, battered and bleeding, lying in the mud. After several minutes, she got up and started climbing the stairs to the bridge, which led in the direction of her parents' house. She didn't know that two teenagers had stayed behind and were watching her,

15-year-old Kelly Allard, and 16-year-old Warren Glowatsky. Neither of them knew Rina Verk personally before that night. When they saw the 14-year-old walking to the bridge, bloody and beaten, her eyes swollen and her nose bleeding, they were worried that she would tell someone about the assault. When they caught up to her, Rina told them to leave her alone. Instead, they grabbed her hands and dragged her to the other side of the bridge

and down onto a grassy area. Then they attacked her again. Rina fell to the ground, losing consciousness when her head struck a tree. Callie and Warren dragged her toward the river. Warren looked on while Callie held Rina's head under the water with her foot for several minutes until she drowned. They left her there. By midnight, Rina's parents were frantic that she hadn't returned home.

They call the police who aren't that interested. Rina has broken curfew before and they tell them to keep waiting. So the Verk spent the weekend calling every number they can find in Rina's address book, trying to work out where she went after the party. She was still missing on Monday when the student. returned to school, and by that point, multiple rumors were swirling. Callie Ellard had told others that she killed Rina, boasting that while she was holding Rina's head underwater with her foot, she lit a cigarette and smoked it.

The rumors did reach the police, but it took a few more days before a teenager came forward with firsthand information that the assault was planned, that others had been invited to come under the bridge and participate. That teenager also provided names of the teenagers involved in the first attack, as well as Kelly Allard and Warren Glouatsky, the two who stayed behind. Eight days after Rina Verk disappeared, a helicopter searching the Gorge Waterway spotted her body about 200 metres beyond the Craigflower Bridge. The autopsy would find that while the official cause of Rina's death was drowning, she likely wouldn't have survived the second beating by Kelly and Warren.

Six girls involved in the first attack were convicted of assault-causing bodily harm, their identities under publication ban. Kelly Allard and Warren Glouadsky were both charged with second-degree murder as adults, but their journeys after this diverged in completely different paths. At Warren Glowatski's trial, he admitted taking part in the assault on Rina and helping drag her to the water, but said he didn't know Callie Allard intended to kill her. He was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, with no parole eligibility for seven years.

His appeal was dismissed. While in prison, Warren took rehabilitation programs, discovered his Métis-Hearrow. and participated in restorative justice with Rina's parents. He apologized to them in person and developed an ongoing relationship with them. Although his first parole application was denied in 2004, the Verks supported his gradual release, saying they believed the young man who had murdered their daughter had taken responsibility and had changed.

Warren was granted full parole in 2000. 10 after serving 13 years. He told the parole board that Rina's father had encouraged him to do something good with his life so that some meaning could come from Rina's death. There's been no further news of Warren Glouatsky since then. By contrast, Kelly Allard's case has become a roller coaster, a long and unusually protracted legal battle. To summarize, she was first convicted.

of second-degree murder in 2000. She appealed and a new trial was ordered. That trial ended in a mistrial when the jury was deadlocked 11 to 1. A third trial followed in 2005, seven years after Rina's murder. Kelly was once again found guilty and sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for seven years. But that wasn't the end. In 2008, the B-C-quered.

Court of Appeal overturned her conviction and ordered a fourth trial, finding errors in the judge's instructions to the jury. The Crown appealed to the Supreme Court, and in 2009, almost 12 years after Rena was killed, the country's highest court reinstated Kelly's murder conviction. There would be no fourth trial. Kelly would stay in prison. But unlike Warren Glawatsky, she remained openly defiant, denying the central facts of the case and showing little remorse or accountability. This, in conjunction with her attitude and behavior, resulted in her remaining in prison much longer than Warren. When Callie Allard was first eligible to apply for parole, she repeatedly waived her right. It's likely that she knew there wasn't much of a chance of

success because her years in prison had been turbulent and she had disciplinary issues that included involvement in violence and abusing crystal meth while incarcerated. 19 years after Rina's murder, Callie Allard tried to apply for day parole again. This time, she admitted she was responsible for Rina's death, but only in a general sense, she denied holding Rina's head underwater. That was also the year she became pregnant while in prison. Kelly had begun a relationship with a male inmate through prison correspondence and when he was released on parole,

she was allowed a private family visit with him, where she became pregnant with his child. His parole was revoked. After the birth of her child, Kelly had been moved to a special mother-child unit inside the prison. When applying for day parole, she told the board that becoming a mother had changed her perspective and forced her to think more seriously about the consequences of her actions, but she continued to deny that she drowned Rina Verk.

That said, Callie's progress was on the up and up. She was given escorted absences from prison and had those privileges extended in 2020. She had another family visit with the same, partner. She became pregnant again. Now she was in prison with two young children and the parole board granted her day parole an overnight leave, citing her positive behavior and high potential for reintegration into society. The board also noted the irony of her saying she took purpose in motherhood after she had taken the life of another mother's child. The Kelly's years of progress halted in May of 2022. The parole board suddenly suspended her day parole, noting that she'd been

abusing drugs and alcohol and was still willing to engage in extreme violence. She also failed to report indications of domestic violence with the father of her two young children, as it was reported. Now, she was assessed as having a moderate to high moderate risk of re-offending. Things started improving again, and the board resumed her day parole, noting her behaviour had improved and she remained focused on her two children. The board strongly suggested that Kelly look for a job, something that she seemed reluctant to do. In 2024, the miniseries Under the Bridge was released based on the 2005 book of the same name by Rebecca Godfrey, telling the story of Reneverk's tragic murder. Kelly Allard complained to the parole board that the series was disrespectful

to Rina and her family and could potentially re-victimized them. The parole board perceived this as remorse and victim empathy. Later that year, the parole board found Kelly's risk remained manageable in the community and noted that her behavior was stable again and she'd shown increased accountability, but she was still struggling with the realities of life outside prison, including limited finances and a lack of child care options. So here's the update. Another turn. In January of 2025, Kelly Allard was arrested for allegedly breaching her parole conditions. The nature of the breach wasn't disclosed publicly, but over the following months, more information came out. Staff at the residential facility Kelly was serving day parole at,

reported she refused to follow rules. She struggled with emotional regulation and was non-compliant, defiant, argumentative, and mocked and shouted at them. Her urine test came back positive for methamphetamine, and she took medication that had not been prescribed to her. Her day parole was revoked. Kelly launched an appeal, arguing the decision

was unfair and relied on incomplete or incorrect information. She denied using drugs and described considerable stress in her life, including being a single parent, dealing with a violent former partner, it seems they broke up, and safety concerns after the miniseries had been released. Callie's appeal was unsuccessful. In February of 2006, the appeal division concluded that the decision to revoke her day parole was a fair one. And that's where we are today, almost back at square one. It's been almost 29 years since Rina Verk was murdered. Kelly Allard is now 43 years old and goes by the name

Kelly Marie Sim after legally changing her name years ago. Her two children are now about nine and six years old. There is a final, final update in the case of the Rallo Félli's family murders, which happened in August of 1976. Mother Sandra Relo and her two young children, Jason and Stephanie, disappeared from their home in Hamilton, Ontario. Husband and father, 33-year-old John Rello, claimed he woke up to an empty house and a typed note from his wife that indicated she had taken the kids and left him for another man.

Investigators discovered a mountain of evidence within their. family home, which was in a state of disarray. Blood on the floor and carpeting and on a mattress. Other pieces of carpet had been ripped up and replaced. John Relo, who worked as a supervisor for the city of Hamilton, had weird explanations for everything, didn't behave as expected and seemed to be sneaking around. Shortly after that, the body of five-year-old Stephanie Relo was found in a Niagara region waterway, about 40 minutes drive from their home. Just over a week later, the badly beaten body of her mother, 29-year-old Sandra Rello, was recovered from the same area in the Welland Canal,

with an anchor to weigh her down. Six-year-old Jason Rello had yet to be located. John Rello claimed that the man his wife had been having an affair with killed her and his children. But the police and the court rejected that story because of lack of evidence, and it turned out that John was the one having the affair. It's unclear if Sandra Relo knew about the affair specifically, but the couple were going through a rough patch and discussed separation in the year before the murders. At trial, the Crown presented evidence to prove their theory

that John and Sandra Relo got into an argument in their own. bedroom and John punched her hard in the face before giving her a brutal beating that likely left her unconscious. The noise of this violence likely woke up their children. A great deal of bleeding had probably occurred in the bedroom and the kids may have witnessed the final part of their father's assault on their mother. The forensic evidence suggested John grabbed a blind cord to strangle his wife, then used a pillow to suffocate their two young children. He then took their bodies to the basement, stripped everyone naked and put their clothes in the washing machine. Using a typewriter they had in the basement, he typed up the note that he told

everyone was from Sandra. He stuffed her body into a sleeping bag and tied it with rope, using anchors he purchased from Canadian tire. Another anchor was a little bit of a sleeping bag. Another anchor was placed with Stephanie's body, which was put in a garbage bag inside a blue duffel bag, also from Canadian Tire. Jason's body had still not been recovered, but the crown asserted that it was highly likely that the six-year-old had met the same fate as his sister. John Relo drove their bodies to the Niagara region waterways and dumped them in separate locations. After being found guilty, Rallo spent decades in prison well past his parole eligibility period, insisting he was innocent, and insisting he knew nothing about where his young son's remains might be. The person who would know, according to Rallow, was the wealthy lawyer his wife Sandra had been having an affair with.

There has never been any evidence of the lawyer or the affair. Eventually, the parole board granted John Relo day parole, finding that although he had not taken any accountability for murdering his family, he was not a threat to public safety. In 2021, he was granted full parole. The family's loved ones had always hoped that one day John Relo would confess and reveal where Little Jason's body was dumped. But in 2025, John Relo died, aged 82. The remains of 6-year-old Jason Relo have never been recovered.

A final update in the case of Laura Letts, a Canadian elementary school teacher who met a New Zealand man named Peter Beckett while travelling in that country in the mid-90s. They reconnected years later. Peter moved to Canada and the pair married in 2000. Peter Beckett was a quirky, larger-than-life character, and Laura was more of an introvert, but at first they seemed to be a good match. Over time, though, Peter was described as increasingly overbearing and domineering. Laura became deeply unhappy in the marriage, reported physical abuse to police,

and the couple briefly separated, then reconciled. In August of 2010, Laura and Peter were camping on Upper Arrow Lake in British Columbia, when Laura fell overboard and drowned. Peter told the police that she couldn't swim, and when she first fell into the water, he stopped to reel in his fishing rod before trying to rescue her. But then he had a problem. He was a very large-framed man of six-foot-eight,

and he said he was too buoyant to reach her underwater, so he had to go back to shore to get a rock that would weigh him down. He pulled Laura from the lake and she was pronounced dead. Laura Letts's death was initially ruled in accidental drowning, but within days her family and friends began raising concerns. Police heard that Peter had previously told Laura that she would die by drowning and he'd given a number of different versions of what happened on the lake. In some, it was an accident.

In others, he claimed Laura's death was a suicide, that she effectively drowned herself. The case then became extremely protracted. Peter's first murder trial in 2016 was filled with crazy headline-making stunts, like his performance of the Haka, the ceremonial dance of the indebted, indigenous people of New Zealand, the Māori, in the courtroom. The Crown argued that he was motivated by money. He stood to benefit from Laura's life insurance, her teacher's pension, and accidental death coverage that had been arranged shortly before she died.

Also, he seemed intently focused on her will and what he believed he might inherit. The Crown's theory was that he deliberately caused Laura to enter the water and then allowed her to drown. The problem was the case was entirely circumstantial. Despite Peter Beckett's weird behaviour and strange comments, there was no physical evidence proving his wife was murdered and that he was involved. The trial ended with a hung jury and a mistrial. At his second trial, the jury found Peter guilty of first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years. But in 2020, the BC Court of Appeal overturned that conviction, essentially on a technicality relating to how Peter's inconsistent statements had been

presented by the Crown. The Crown decided not to proceed with a third trial, and 64-year-old Peter Beckett was released after spending nine years in prison. He was now entitled to the life insurance payout, as well as Laura's teacher's pension, which he started to receive. After that, he surfaced in Guatemala, where he purchased a catamaran and operated boat tours, according to reporting by Tim Petrick for Castanek Camloops, the main source of information on this case. By this point, Peter Beckett was said to have been in poor health, suffering from a leg infection and kidney problems. In February of 2025, Tim Patrick reported that Peter Beckett had died in Guatemala. He was 68 years old. Next, an update about the Mushroom Murders case. There's also

some new convictions for abuse of former students at the Legacy Christian Academy School in Saskatoon, now known as Vela Academy. The Legacy Christian Academy scandal is now a series of criminal convictions. In 2002, former students of a connected Christian school and evangelical church in Saskatoon went public with allegations that people in a position of authority had abused them when they were students. Their allegations stretched back to 1982 and included violent paddlings, solitary confinement, and sexual misconduct. The former students launched a $25 million lawsuit

naming more than 20 defendants, including school and church leadership, and notably Saskatchewan's Ministry of Education itself, alleging the department failed in its duty to protect students and ensure they received a proper education. The school and church was originally called Christian Center Academy and Saskatoon Christian Central. into church. By the time the allegations surfaced, it had rebranded to Legacy Christian Academy

and Mile 2 Church. At first, they denied all the allegations, but after an investigation, Saskatoon Police laid a series of charges, including sexual assault and assault with a weapon. It should be noted that the church and school rebranded yet again and are now known as Vela Academy and Encounter Church. In our case updates two years ago, we reported that the former school athletics director, Aaron Benewives, had pleaded guilty to sexual assault and sexual exploitation of a minor while in a position of trust or authority. Benowice admitted he began pursuing a 13-year-old student when he was around 30. He was also married at the time. The judge sentenced him to two years in prison, describing his actions as exploiting the girl for his own sexual gratification,

even though he knew it was wrong. Aaron Benewise has likely been released from prison by now. There were three other men charged in relation to assault who were awaiting trial. They each vehemently denied the charges, and today we'll report on the outcomes, including more charges, another guilty plea, a guilty verdict, and the promise of a guilty plea that hasn't quite panned out. We'll start with John Oliver Boken, the former principal and director of the Christian School. He was charged with multiple historical counts of assault with a weapon, which were separated into two trials. The first trial, which was Judge Alone, was held in 2025, and 11 former students testified that Oliver Boken bent them over chairs or desks and struck them with a thick wooden paddle

as a form of what school authorities called scriptural discipline. The punishments, which left the students with bruises and welts, were imposed for things like watching certain movies, dressing in ways that school leadership considered ungodly, not completing daily devotions, and not crying appropriately while they were being paddled. The allegations spanned 2003 to 2007, after corporal punishment had been banned in Canadian schools. One former student testified that the abuse left him with a lifetime of burdens and suicidal thoughts. Another said the abuse bled into every part of her life and she spent 18 years in therapy. John Oliver Boken testified that he was aware of paddling going on at the school,

but he denied ever doing it himself. The judge did not find his testimony credible and found the 64-year-old guilty. John Oliver Boken was sentenced to 18 months community service with a curfew and other conditions. Outside court, former student and de facto leader of the class action lawsuit, Caitlin Erickson, told the media that because of the power imbalance

when they were children at that school, they were never given the opportunity to speak. And even though their victim impact statements were redacted in places by the courts, which is unfortunately common, the former students found it empowering that Oliver Boken was forced to listen to them in that moment. Shortly after that, in December of 2025, just before the second trial was due to begin, John Oliver Boken suddenly pleaded guilty to the five remaining assault charges. He admitted that he did assault several students with a wooden paddle in 2003, but said he was only following school policy.

These charges relate to a single incident involving the girls' volleyball team, and while the details were made public and included in our original series covering the Legacy Christian Academy scandal, those details are currently under publication ban. I'll explain why in a minute. John Oliver Boken received a five-month conditional sentence for each assault to be served concurrently. In other words, after he finishes his 18-month community service from the first trial, he only has to serve another five months again in the community. Outside court, Oliver Boken told the media that he pleaded guilty because the incidents happened,

describing the situation as sad and unfortunate. He pointed to the fact that he apologised and expressed his regret in court. Former students said they didn't believe it was heartfelt or honest. And Oliver Bokin was also full of excuses. Despite being the former school director and principal, He said he was only taking direction from Keith Johnson, the founder of the affiliated church and school, and lead pastor when much of the abuse took place. Keith Johnson is the one that wrote that notorious guidebook that advocates for paddling or corporal punishment as scriptural discipline.

He was accused of running the church school like a cult. When the former students originally launched their lawsuit, Keith Johnson fled the country, leaving his son Brian to deal with the music as head pastor of the church at the time, sounds like late-stage cult leader behavior to me. To date, the authorities have still not been able to locate Keith Johnson, but they believe he's living in Texas. John Oliver Boken, for his part, denied that the church and school operated like a cult, arguing that there were no law. locks on the doors stopping anyone from leaving. After everything that's happened, he still shows a very limited understanding of coercive control. Colts do not need to physically trap people. Fear, shame, indoctrination, social isolation and the threat of punishment or rejection can be

powerful forms of control in themselves. Earlier this year, John Oliver Bokin announced he was launching an appeal of his conviction from the first trial, arguing that the judge dissected his testimony more than that of the Crown witnesses, which wasn't fair, and resulted in his guilty verdict. He also plans to argue that some of his convictions were for incidents that occurred before corporal punishment was illegal in Canada. Another former principal of the Christian school, Duff Freezen, had been charged with 11 counts of assault stemming from similar allegations of using a wooden paddle to discipline students. The charges were again split into two trials for the same reasons as John Oliver Boken. A separate trial is needed

to deal with the volleyball incident. 68-year-old Duff Freezin's first trial was in May of 2025 to deal with four counts of assault with a weapon. A jury found him guilty on one charge. and acquitted him of the other three. He was sentenced to six months' community service. His lawyer indicated an appeal would be launched. Duff Friesen still faces a second trial to deal with his other seven assault charges. That trial was originally scheduled for September of 2025, but after Friesen's lawyer requested additional records,

the judge felt little choice but to delay it. The other man still awaiting trial is Ken Schultz, a former director and vice-principal of the school and elder at the church. And since our last update, he's also now facing two separate trials. When I first researched this case and went through the news archives, I found multiple mentions of Ken Schultz in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix newspaper in the late 80s and 90s. In one letter to the editor, he complained about the increasing gay rights, calling it the ultimate immorality. In response to public criticism of the running of the church school, then known as Christian Center Academy,

which became Legacy Christian Academy, then Valor Academy, Schultz essentially argued that the public does not have a right to criticize how private schools are run, given they received no government funding. He also confirmed that he personally used a paddle up to 10 times a day to physically punish students. No, that is not a typo. And again, he said the public had no right to complain about what went on in a private independent school. It should be noted that years later, the Saskatchewan government did begin funding independent schools and gradually increase that funding over the years, which is, led to accusations of siphoning money away from public schools.

Between 2020 and 2024, the Saskatchewan government increased funding to qualified independent schools by 79% compared to only a 13% increase for public schools. And remember, independent schools also charged tuition on top of receiving that government funding. When the former students launched their lawsuit, it put a spotlight on this public funding, which included concerns about lack of government oversight and transparency, the quality of education materials, and so-called teachers who were not actually qualified to teach. Back to Ken Schultz, who wasn't a qualified teacher himself, and was also quoted in the newspaper saying that he worked in a men's clothing store before he accepted the role of school principal.

Just a little bit of context there. In 2003, Ken Schultz was charged with historical sexual assault and assault with a weapon. That's the paddle. The former student who reported to police told the Star Phoenix that she attended the school between 88 and 92, and alleges Schultz sexually and physically assaulted her. her in his office, in his capacity as a church elder, and in his home when he was babysitting. She estimates she was only four to six years old at the time. She said she was empowered to come forward because of the lawsuit that had been launched

and hoped that if there were other victims, they would feel empowered as well. Ken Schultz vehemently denied those allegations. At first, he pleaded not guilty and chosen. a jury trial. Then he switched to a judge alone trial and indicated he would be pleading guilty. Then Schultz's lawyer announced plea negotiations had broken down. Shultz changed lawyers, a new hearing was scheduled, then cancelled after he was hospitalized. And in the meantime, Saskatoon Police laid a second round of charges on Ken Schultz in 2024, including sexual assault, invitation to touching, and assault with a weapon. Again, he denied the allegations.

So now he's facing two trials. As yet, those allegations have not been proven in court. In the update two years ago, we also reported that Saskatoon police were investigating a new complaint about another alleged assault at the Christian school, but this one was much more recent. It only happened in May of 2004. The parents of a seven-year-old child with autism alleged that after school, he was crying and complaining of a sore head. His mother felt a goose egg on his head and asked him what happened. He said his gym teacher hit him twice over the head with a track baton.

The mother said she saw a genuine look of fear in his eyes and knew he wasn't lying. The seven-year-old was extremely upset and begged not to go back to school there. They pulled both of their children out of the Legacy Christian Academy or Vela Academy immediately and reported the incident to the school principal who tried to downplay it at first. Then she told the parents that the gym teacher had claimed there was no aggression involved and that the child had only been tapped. The parents reported to police, And in September of 24, Saskatoon Police charged 44-year-old gym teacher Tara McEwen with assault with a weapon.

At the time, the victim's mother told CTV news that she herself was born into the church, and she also attended the adjoining school, then named Christian Centre Academy, from kindergarten through to grade 12. and she also said she was sexually assaulted there from the age of seven, but she was too terrified to tell anyone, and Spanking was part of the school culture, but everyone just pretended it didn't happen. As for why she chose to send her own children to that very same school,

the mother cited the church and school's multiple rebrands as evidence the situation had changed since she was a student. Beware of the rebrand. As for 44-year-old Tara McEwen, she didn't have to face a trial. She opted to take what's known as an alternative measures program, a pathway that can allow an accused person to avoid a trial and potential criminal record. The program is generally reserved for less serious criminal cases where the accused has accepted responsibility and agreed to take specific programming.

In this case, Tara McEwen reportedly completed a restorative justice program that included an apology to the family, community service, counselling and a donation. As a result, her criminal charge was dismissed. The other big piece of news is that in June of 2025, the former students' $25 million class action lawsuit hit a major roadblock. A Saskatchewan judge stayed the case, saying there had been an abuse of process. Apparently, the plaintiffs, or the former students who launched the lawsuit, had reached settlement agreements with three of the people they named in the lawsuit. The problem was they didn't immediately disclose this information to all the other defendants. The former students' legal team argued there was no deliberate concealment,

and no money had changed hands. The three defendants had actually settled by agreeing to cooperate with the plaintiffs and provide information and documents. The law did not make it clear that this kind of agreement had to be disclosed immediately, the former student's legal team argued, especially when the case was still in its early stages

when no defense had even been filed. But the judge disagreed. The settlement's. amounted to those defendants switching sides to help the plaintiffs, and the judge found that the failure to disclose them immediately was an abuse of process. The entire lawsuit was stayed. The former students are now appealing that decision. According to documents released by Shafton Law, the firm that represents them, they argue that the law was unclear about that disclosure, and even if the settlements should have been disclosed earlier,

the court has the ability to exercise discretion in more nuanced cases like this one. Instead, they argued, the judge implemented a rigid rule to shut down the entire case and deny them their day in court. The lawyers described this as an extreme and wholly inappropriate remedy. That was January of 2006 and as yet, There is no decision about the appeal. So, here's where we stand as of recording, with all the allegations from the school once called

Christian Centre Academy, legacy Christian Academy, and now known as Valor Academy, and its parent organization once known as Saskatoon Christian Center Church, or Mile 2 Church, and now Encounter Church. It's getting exhausting. Ken Schultz, former director and vice-principal of the school and elder of the church has his first trial scheduled for December of 26 and his second in March of 27. Former principal Duff Friesen faces a second trial scheduled for September

26 to deal with the charges arising from the volleyball incident. And former school director and principal John Oliver Boken is still waiting to see if his appeal of his conviction will be heard or dismissed. As I mentioned in the original series covering the Legacy Christian Academy scandal, I also attended an almost identical school in New Zealand, right down to using the same debunked curriculum that Keith Johnson introduced to Canada. It's called Accelerated Christian Education. I was never aware of anything criminal happening in my school, but corporal punishment certainly was legal in New Zealand at the time, and many of the incidents the former students of Legacy Christian Academy described

were familiar to me. I suppose I'm grateful that I only had to attend that school from grades 1 to 7. I stand in solidarity with the former students and wish them well. Their courage in coming forward was only the beginning. Years later, they continue to show extraordinary perseverance and seeking accountability and change. The next time I update you about this case will be after all the various court processes and appeals are decided.

If you want to follow it in the meantime, visit legacyofabuse.com or search social media with the hashtag legacy of abuse. The Mushroom Murders In July of 2003, 48-year-old mother of two Erin Patterson invited several members of her estranged husband's family to lunch at her home near Melbourne in the state of Victoria and Australia. She served individual beef wellingtons containing deadly death-cap mushrooms.

Erin Patterson's estranged husband's parents, Don and Gail Patterson, passed away, along with his aunt, Heather Wilkinson. Heather's husband Ian Wilkinson survived after weeks in hospital, but he's never made a full recovery. Death cap mushrooms really do a number on the body. Erin Patterson's movements and behaviour before and after the lunch were scrutinised, and she told inconsistent stories about how the toxic mushrooms might have been obtained. She insisted that their inclusion in the Beef Wellington's was a terrible accident. She loved her in-laws and had no reason to hurt them.

At trial, the Crown argued that Erin deliberately gathered and prepared the death caps, suggesting that the motive arose from growing tension with her estranged husband Simon Patterson, particularly over money. She also seemed frustrated that her in-laws declined to get involved. The case drew enormous attention in Australia and around the world, for a few reasons. There was no single smoking gun. It was a mysterious case that often seemed unfathomable, and there were so many absurd elements to it. From a fake health scare announcement and lunch served on different colored dinner plates, to Erin's white pants, a food dehydrator

recovered from the dump, and a remote factory reset of her cell phone after the police had seized it. The trial went for 11 weeks. Erin Patterson was found guilty of three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder. She was sentenced to life in prison with a 33-year non-parole period, one of the longest sentences ever given to a woman in Australia. This two-part series was something a bit different for Canadian true crime. I've always been pretty resolute about sticking to cases that either happened in Canada or involved Canadians.

This is the first time I've actually covered a case that had no connection to Canada and in a more conversational format. Most of the feedback was really great. Listeners enjoyed hearing about the case that captivated Australia and I heard that you enjoyed my co-host Michelle Lorry from Australian True Crime. I was thrilled to receive an email from the Vice President of the Micological Society of Toronto. That's people with an interest in wild mushrooms and other fungi. Apparently, many of their members were already following the case closely from Canada,

and they confirmed that the mushroom information in our series was accurate, so that's good. Part of their work is debunking myths, like the myths that poisonous mushrooms will taste bad. That's just not true. Death cap mushrooms has been described as tasting quite pleasant by people who survived eating them. So taste is absolutely not a reliable way to judge whether a wild mushroom is safe to eat. You learn something every day, thanks again to the Mycological Society of Toronto. While a lot of people really enjoyed our mushroom murders series, the format wasn't for everyone. We received a small amount of negative feedback, so I wanted to talk about that briefly.

Some listeners didn't like my co-host's comment that Erin Patterson look like a little garden gnome. It was interpreted as being mean-spirited and body-shaming. I think the complaint was based around the notion that I should have censored the comment or something. So I wanted to explain why I chose to leave it in. I can't see why someone might interpret a garden gnome comment as being about weight or someone's appearance. But it was more about the way Erin Patterson carries herself in general, since she's being captured on video a few times. She's a mysterious figure.

That's another reason why people are intrigued about this case. She's compact and stature, short and stocky, and she usually dresses an oversized baggy clothes. She kind of shuffles along with her head down, and she's also a key figure in a murder case that centers around someone allegedly foraging for deadly mushrooms. Garden gnome, garden mushrooms. That's what my co-host's comment was about, but I apologize to those who might have been upset by it. We also heard from a couple of listeners who felt there was too much laughter in those two episodes, given it was about three people who died. From my end, it was not ever intended to be a comedic episode and I don't think it turned out that way either. It just so happens that my co-host,

Michelle Laurie, is a well-known Australian comedian, so she is naturally funny in conversation. But her podcast, Australian True Crime, is actually quite serious in tone and certainly not comedic. And the humour came from some of those absurd details of the case. That's the reason it became so high profile. There was certainly no laughing at the victims, their deaths or their families. And I do recognize that humour is subjective, especially when it comes to dark humor or gallows humor in true crime. It's a debate that has been going on for years. Some people appreciate moments of levity when dealing with an otherwise very dark story, while others prefer a completely serious tone. That's what I usually prefer as well.

So now to the update, and it's a new one, just a few days before I recorded this. An appeal related to Erin Patterson was heard. She's appealing her convictions on several grounds, arguing that problems with the way the trial was conducted added up to a miscarriage of justice. That includes concerns about the jury, some of the evidence admitted at trial, and the way the prosecution presented its case. prosecution says that none of those issues caused a miscarriage of justice and that the guilty verdicts should stand. At the same time, the Crown prosecution also appealed Patterson's prison sentence,

arguing that it is still too lenient for three murders and one attempted murder. The Crown wants her to have either no possibility of parole at all or a much longer non-parole period. It's Quite the stark contrast to how things work here in Canada. In previous years, the Supreme Court of Canada has found that a life sentence with no realistic possibility of parole is degrading in nature, incompatible with human dignity, and amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. That's Canada. But in Australia, with the Mushroom murders case, the appeals court is making its decision and will be back at a later date. I'll let you know what they say. That's where we'll leave it for part one of major case updates 2026.

Thanks for listening. It wasn't actually supposed to be a two-part series, but while we were in production, the Hockey Canada case had a few significant updates. So that's coming along in part two. Hopefully you won't have to wait very long. I'll also be sharing some details about the mental toll that covering that case took on me.

and how it's affected everything since. There's the latest on Kevin O'Leary and we'll finish with a batch of different parole updates from various offenders and cases we've covered. Please see the show notes for the list of resources and links for further information on anything we've mentioned in these episodes. You can also find this info at our website,

canadian truecrime.ca. As always, thank you so much for your kind ratings, reviews, messages and support. Audio editing was by Crosby Audio, and Eric Crosby voiced the disclaimer. Our senior producer is Lindsay Eldridge, and research was by Carol Weinberg. Additional research, narration and sound design was by me,

and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back soon with Part 2. See you then.