Canadian True Crime - Matthew Charles Lamb: The Oak Ridge Experiment [2]

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

[Part 2 of 2] The shocking conclusion to the story of 18-year-old Matthew Charles Lamb, the infamous Oak Ridge Experiment at Penetanguishene and one heartbroken author’s quest for truth.The intention of this episode is to take a look back at a shocking crime in the context of a very different era of Canadian history.Recommended resources:Watching the Devil Dance: How a Spree killer Slipped through the Cracks of the Criminal Justice System 2020, Will ToffanF-Ward: Oak Ridge Mental Hospital documentary,1971, Director Heinz AvigdorPsychiatric treatment or torture? The Oak Ridge Experiment, documentary 2021, The Fifth EstateThis month, Canadian True Crime has donated to the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime, who offer support, research and education to survivors, victims and their families.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. This is part two of a two-part series. Where we left off, it was 1967 and 19-year-old Matthew Charles Lamb had been found not guilty by reason of insanity. He'd taken to a Windsor Street with a shotgun, leaving several young people with life-changing injuries and two dead, Edith Chakowski and Andrew Woolick, both around 20 years old. As with many spree killings, Matthew Lamb's motives were baffling, and his targets were unlucky people in the wrong place

at the wrong time, gunned down for no apparent reason at all. When he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, he was sent to the notorious Oak Ridge facility for the criminally insane in Penitanguishing, Ontario, located about a four and a half hour drive northeast of Windsor. At the time of Lamb's arrival, there were reportedly 300 other so-called criminally insensitive. inmates at the maximum security facility, many of them under the controversial care practices of Dr. Elliot Barker. At the time, the doctor was Oak Ridge Hospital's Director of Social Therapy. He was also one of the psychiatrists who testified for the defense at trial that Matthew Charles Lamb was criminally insane. At Oak Ridge, the core principal underscoring Dr. Elliot

Barker's approach to treatment was that beneath every psychopath was a sane person who suffered from a failure to communicate. In essence, his theory was that psychopathy is the result of neglect or abuse in childhood, and he was going to prove it could be cured. A mental health condition where a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong, ignores the rights and feelings of others, and lacks empathy, remorse and regret. Psychopathy is considered to be a severe form of antisocial personality disorder, and while there are treatments that can help a person manage the disorder and reduce the symptoms, there is no known cure. But back in 1967, Dr. Elliot Barker believed that if his patients just put in the hard work of uncovering their true selves, they could be

free of the shackles of their mental illness or whatever affliction caused them to act out criminally. They could reenter society no longer a danger. In other words, he believed people could be cured of their psychopathic traits. This journey was helped along with copious amounts of psychedelic drugs. It was the 60s and 70s, after all, out with old-fashioned methods like electroshock therapy and tranquil. and in with group therapy and hallucinogenic drugs. With this in mind, in 1968, Dr. Barker created what he termed the social therapy unit, which saw patients placed in intense group therapy sessions, often under the influence of LSD. But in his version, they were not only the patients, but also each other's therapists,

instructed to confront each other and take responsibility for their own treatment. The area of Oakridge where this all took place was called F Ward, and a remarkable documentary was produced about it in 1971 called F Ward, Oakridge Mental Hospital, directed by Heinz Avigdor. The documentary followed the journeys of several inmates found not guilty by reason of insanity, who were undergoing Dr. Elliot Barker's unusual therapies. One of those inmates was Matthew Charles Lamb. He seemed to thrive under Dr. Barker's care

and was reportedly a model patient. Here he is in the F Ward documentary talking about his crimes. The following clips have been edited for brevity. Oh, really, I don't feel any guilt about people I kill. I don't know. They mean nothing to me. It's like reading about somebody in a newspaper. I can't even remember what they look like or anything.

I regret doing it, actually committing the crime. Because it was such a waste. I mean, here's two innocent people that I'd never met. Never bothered me. Never caused me any problem. Or good people, as far as I know. And I just shot them from, you know, because of my own anger, resentment.

because of feelings I had for myself, you know, took it out on them. That's the only thing I really regret. I wish I hadn't have done it. I actually do, because it was such a waste. I mean, if these people would have given me a real, real hard time, I have to honestly say that. I think, you know, I would have felt quite justified and knocked them off, but they didn't bother me.

The frustrating thing is there doesn't seem to be anything you can do to make up for. Really? What can you do? You know? You can't compensate them. They're dead, that's it. During his time at Oak Ridge Mental Hospital in the social therapy unit, Matthew Charles Lamb led several groups. Keep in mind, he was only 19 years old when he arrived,

and he was soon put in charge of counselling other convicted killers, sometimes even prescribing drugs for them. Dr. Barker would later tell the global... and mail that Matthew was very helpful to the other patients and they really looked up to him. He is a part of the documentary where he leads one group in the social therapy unit and is heard weighing in on another inmate's issues. I think Ray Hunt's doomed. I don't think he's going to make it.

I've told him that too. I don't think Ray has a chance unless something, you know, drastic happens to him or maybe for him. The camera pans to Ray Hunt, who is sitting next to Matthew, listening with a sly, amused smile on his face. Personally, I like Ray Hunt. I think he's a pretty neat guy. I think this is going to be his last trip to this buck house.

I think, well, how many times you tried to kill yourself? Four, three? Ray Hunt mumbles quietly that he lost count. I think really feels pretty miserable. It's too bad. I think he's one of the most tribut. trustworthy people on the ward, really. I think the last thing you do is screw you around.

In the same filmed meeting, another inmate remarks on Matthew's apparent way with words. I think mostly of the way you talk, just letting it flow from you, as if you owned all the words in the world, you're your personal property, and you just kind of make them dance for you. One of the most controversial modality,

at Oak Ridge was something called the Total Encounter Capsule, a specially constructed soundproof padded room with no windows measuring about 8 feet by 10 feet. It was designed to help a small group of voluntary patients focus intensely on their personal issues without the usual distractions or risks. Each total encounter capsule was continuously lit and ventilated and had basic essentials, a sink and a toilet inside,

and liquid food dispensers rigged to the outside. When the patients got hungry, they sucked food through straws that protruded through the walls. Up to seven patients could stay in the tiny capsule for at least several days at a time, completely cut off from the outside world as trained staff monitored them through a one-way mirror or closed-circuit TV. In a 2012 book called The Psychopath Test, a Journey Through the Madness Industry,

author John Ronson wrote about his time spent studying Dr. Barker's controversial methods at Oakridge Mental Hospital. He also describes exactly how these total encounter capsules worked. Quote, Dr. Elliot Barker successfully sought permission from the Canadian government to obtain a large batch of LSD from a government-sanctioned lab. He hand-picked a group of psychopaths and led them into what he named the Total Encounter Captual, a small room painted bright green and asked them to remove their clothes. This was truly to be a radical milestone, the world's first ever marathon nude psychotherapy session for criminal psychopaths.

The theory was that being physical. physically uncovered, might help these troubled patients to open up emotionally. These naked LSD-fueled sessions lasted for up to 11 days, according to author John Ronson. Quote, The psychopaths spent every waking moment journeying to their darkest corners in an attempt to get better. There were no distractions, no television, no clothes, no clocks, no calendars, only a perpetual discussion, at least 100 hours every week of their feelings. The patients were encouraged to go to their raurest emotional places

by screaming and clawing at the walls and confessing fantasies of forbidden sexual longing for one another, even if they were in a state of arousal while doing so. At the end of every inmates' program, they're assessed by a group that includes doctors, hospital administrators, and fellow inmates. He is Matthew Lamb again, giving his opinion on whether an inmate named Dave should be released from Oak Ridge into a rehabilitation program. I think Dave's still pretty sick, really. I think, like, I've seen a lot of change in him.

But the picture that you presented from 1960 hasn't altered that much, I don't think. You know, there's still the suspicion, tenseness and the other things that you were talking about. You know, sort of, he doesn't come out and threaten people. You know, I'm going to punch your head in. He sort of smiles at him, you know, that funny little threatening smile now. I think he still has a lot of the same feelings. The fact that Dave's release to rehab was denied is proof of just how influential Matthew Charles Lamb was at Oak Ridge.

Dr. Elliot Barker claimed that by all accounts, Matthew had made a remarkable transformation, apparently so profound that doctors brought him on their lecture circuit, trotting him out as proof that Oak Ridge's non-traditional methods could cure even the most psychopathic of killers. But there were also unsubstantiated rumours that Matthew was having an affair with a so-called top official at Oak Ridge. Another inmate named Steve Smith had been sent to Oak Ridge as a teenager for stealing a car,

and recalled being shackled to Matthew Lamb on a number of occasions. In a book about his time there called The Psychopath Machine, Smith wrote that he referred to Matthew as Dr. Barker's golden boy, because they clearly had an unusually close relationship. Steve Smith wrote that he left the institution completely shattered and a full-blown addict to boot. It took him a long time to recover from his time at Oak Ridge. Meanwhile, Matthew Lamb was being prepped for his own release. He thrived there and was

deemed to be cured. Today, we know the brain of a psychopath is markedly different from the average person's brain, and though cognitive therapies are somewhat effective in giving them coping skills, curing psychopaths is impossible. And yet, Matthew Lamb only spent seven years at Oak Ridge before being released in 1973. This was unprecedented at the time, but it was on full recommendation by Dr. Barker himself. Will Toffin's book details that just before Matthew Charles Lamb's release from Oak Ridge, Dr. Barker unexpectedly resigned as director of social therapy there. The 1960s had been a decade of experiments in mental health care, marked by radical approaches and unethical. regulated trials to push boundaries and understanding mental illness. But time started to change in the

early 1970s. Concerns were being raised by the public and the media about ethical malpractice, patient abuse and questionable results. When Dr. Barker announced his resignation, he told his superior at the time he'd been growing increasingly uncomfortable with the winds of change that he saw approaching. The government was looking to tighten up the policy and procedures at Oak Ridge and other hospitals like it, aiming to shift towards more ethical and standardised care practices. For Dr. Barker, this would mean a clamping down on the freedom he had to conduct his experiments. He advised his successor, Dr. Gary Meyer, to be on guard for the changes likely to come. Dr. Elliot Barker purchased a farm and decided to retire.

higher there. In yet another strange example of how this story is often stranger than fiction, Dr. Barker invited Matthew to come and live with him and his family on the farm. He told the Windsor Star that Matthew Charles Lamb had, quote, better mental health clearance than you or I. In his last year, he was one of the most respected therapists in the hospital among other patients. end quote. Matthew had no education or knowledge to speak of in mental health. So the fact that his own doctor had referred to him as a respected therapist in the hospital is really quite something. So Matthew went from spree killer found not guilty by reason of insanity to leading the social therapy units at Oak Ridge to becoming his doctor's farm handyman.

He reportedly mended the fences on the farm and fed and cared for both the animals and Dr Barker's child. While there, Matthew hatched his next move, a career change of sorts, one for which he was unusually suited. And this story would take yet another bizarre turn. After Matthew Charles Lamb had been found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent seven years as a guinea pig of the infamous Oak Ridge experiment, he was released straight to Dr. Elliott Barker's family farm. But after just a few months at the farm, Matthew decided it was time to embark on a new career.

He had a dream of becoming a mercenary fighter. He didn't care who or what he would be fighting for. He would go with whichever army or group would have him, and seemingly with the full support of Dr. Barker. First, Matthew tried to join the Israeli army. He bought war bonds and reportedly hitchhiked to the front lines of the Yom Kippur War, a 19-day conflict also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. There are conflicting stories about whether he ever did get to join the Israeli Defence Force,

with some saying he was roundly rejected. But his former inmate at Oak Ridge, Steve Suss. is certain Matthew Charles Lamb fought for Israel. After that, he embarked on a tour of Africa, stopping in in Zimbabwe, back then known as the British colony of Rhodesia. The country was in the throes of an ongoing civil conflict known as the Rhodesian Bush War, which involved African nationalists fighting for liberation from the white minority colonial government. When Matthew Lamb got there, the war had been going on for almost 10 years. He was one of about 800 to 2,000 fighters quickly accepted into the all-white Rhodesian Light Infantry and sent straight to the front lines

to help keep the minority white settlers in power. It was a losing battle that would ultimately lead to the end of Rhodesia and the emergence of Zimbabwe as an independent nation. But Matthew Charles Lamb and other foreign soldiers were commonly known as mercenaries, guns for hire in a controversial war. Their motives for going there in the first place were varied. Some came for the money, others came for the racism, some were seeking the thrill of the kill, and being a mercenary was certainly a sanctioned way to kill people. Dr. Elliot Barker would tell the Windsor star that Matthew Lamb wanted the respect and responsibility of a battlefield command. Quote, he wanted to be where the action was and to do the best job he could as a soldier. He liked the

discipline, honor and a spree decor. He had a lot of feelings about duty and responsibility. End quote. By all accounts, Matthew was good at his job, good at killing people. He was a highly regarded and popular member of his unit. He also reportedly kept them completely in the dark about his past. Then, in another stranger than fiction turn in this already bizarre story, Matthew Charles Lamb was furloughed in May 1975. Now 27 years old, he flew back to Canada and made two stops. First, to say hello to Dr. Barker, and to let him know that serving in the Rhodesian army had given him a lot of self-respect. He finally had a goal and a purpose in his life. Then Matthew Lamb headed to Windsor. In either a strange coincidence or an act of sadistic

trolling on his part, he was reportedly spotted by Edith Chakosky's own brother Kenneth at his grandmother's funeral procession. Kenneth Chakosky claimed he looked out the car window and there was Matthew Charles Lamb, his sister's killer, standing on the street, dressed like a soldier. Kenneth would tell the Windsor star, quote, he had on a uniform and looked a little different, but I never forgot his face. After a brief visit to Windsor, Matthew returned to Rhodesia and was transferred to an elite unit for training as a paratrooper, but he missed the action of the front lines and was transferred back to his old unit. Seven months later, on Sunday, November 7th of 1976, Matthew Charles Lamb was killed during a skirmish, reportedly shot in the chest by friendly

fire. He was 28 years old. On the Facebook page for Rhodesian History remembered, there's a photo of Matthew with a caption that reads, Lance Corporal Matt Lamb was a Canadian who joined the Rhodesian Army Special Air Service. He was a very professional soldier who didn't smoke and was quite physically fit. He was very popular with all his fellow soldiers. Matt was tragically killed in Operation Thrashor, lest we forget. In the Windsor Stars' coverage of Matthew Lamb's death, his defense lawyer Saul Nozenchuk described him as, quote,

a sensitive withdrawn kid. But Brian Clements, Nozenchuk's co-counsel remembered him differently. He said, quote, When you looked into his eyes, there was nothing behind them. It was like talking to the bionic man. When Matthew Charles Lamb passed away in 1976, it had been three years since his mentor, Dr. Barker, had retired as Director of Social Therapy at Oak Ridge Mental Facility for the criminally insane,

but the experimental treatments there were still going strong. In fact, the infamous Oak Ridge Experiment Experiment had just entered a new, more extreme phase. Mental health care up until the mid-1960s had been virtually non-existent. The focus had been on locking patients up and some out of the asylum to make sure they couldn't bother anyone. There'd been very little thought put into how to actually treat them. At Oak Ridge, Dr. Elliott Barker had of course been ahead of his time, considered a star in psychiatric circles. His experimental programs and treatments had received widespread praise, from government officials to fellow psychiatrists to the press, who were given wide access to the facility with their cameras to document the so-called groundbreaking treatments

for the criminally insane. But no one knew for sure that the treatments were working. The real test would begin after the patients were released. Dr. Barker had actually started to have his own doubts even before he retired. He would describe his patients with symptoms of psychopathy as being skilled at, quote, making you think that their world revolves around you, and you find one day that you mean nothing to them emotionally. Dr. Barker would realize that he no longer believed that he could cure psychopathy.

In fact, he was a bit jaded about it all. He would say that the main lesson he learned was, quote, you have to be burned by psychopaths a few times and survive it before you can like them and enjoy them and not be hurt by them. But the Oak Ridge experiment continued. Dr. Barker had warned his successor, Dr. Gary Meyer, to be cautious moving forward because changes were coming down the pipeline in the field of mental health care.

But Dr. Meyer did not do that. He actually ramped things up, introducing more bizarre therapies and dramatically increasing the U.S. of psychedelic drugs, hallucinogens and amphetamines. One notable event is when Dr. Meyer organized a mass LSD session at Oak Ridge, where the entire ward was given the hallucinogenic drug at the same time. Trying to keep over two dozen tripping patients secure and safe

created immense challenges for the staff and led to a rebellion. Then, in 1976, the experiments were expanded with the opening of a forensic unit for women at St Thomas Psychiatric Hospital in Ontario. This was one of the hospitals that Matthew Charles Lamb had been sent to for one of his many psychiatric assessments in the lead-up to his trial. But now, the male patients from Oak Ridge, who were deemed to be cured of psychopathy, were sent to St. Thomas to be therapist teachers to the women. Many of these men had been convicted of violent sexual assault, and giving them significant power over vulnerable women, led to widespread cases of physical and sexual abuse.

According to a 2021 article by Lynn Burgess for the CBC, at least one female inmate became pregnant as a result of this controversial program. It's not difficult to imagine how outcomes like these resulted from such extreme and experimental treatments. But with Matthew Charles Lamb, he seemed to thrive both when he was in the program and afterwards,

if you consider his second career as a mercenary killer to be evidence of the program's success. A study conducted on Oak Ridge patients 10 years after they were released found that 59% of them had gone on to commit violent offenses again, according to Will Toffin's book. Even more striking is that for the subset of patients deemed to be psychopaths or had shown psychopathic traits, the recidivism rate was a lot of. over 80%. In other words, 80% of patients at the Oak Ridge experiment who were deemed to be

psychopathic went on to violently re-offend. And psychopaths who participated in Dr. Barker's program at Oak Ridge actually committed more violent crimes than those who didn't, according to Will Toffin's book. Those are some damning results. Dr. Barker had anticipated that his comfort confrontational treatments would make the inmates more empathetic and self-reflective. But all it did was teach them the skills to appear more empathetic, so they could better manipulate others. It just made them better at faking it. In 1983, the government forced Oak Ridge to end their experiments.

But what didn't end was the lasting damage caused to the many patients used as guinea pigs. In 2001, 28 former patients began proceedings against Dr. Elliot Barker and others at Oak Ridge for the treatment they received at the hospital's social therapy unit, describing it as degrading and inhumane experiments without their informed consent. The proceedings began as a proposed class action lawsuit, largely organized and led by one former patient who brought, other former patients together and worked tirelessly to expose the fact that these experimental programs were not backed by any legitimate medical research. It turned into a long and painful legal

battle, taking place over a period of more than 20 years. At trial, there was extensive witness testimony about how these programs were designed to break the patient's spirits through psychological and physical torture. Former patients testified about being subjected to treatments and programs that were both unethical and medically meritless, including experiences in the total encounter capsule. Among the more disturbing details was the testimony of a former patient who was just 15 years old when he was sent to Oak Ridge and shackled naked to other patients, including one who was a convicted child sex offender and murderer. The court heard these treatments cause the patient

lasting harm, prevented him from reintegrating into society for decades, and extended his paranoia, anxiety and mental anguish for the rest of his life. In 2020, the Ontario Superior Court found psychiatrist Dr. Elliot Thompson Barker and his successor, Dr. Gary J. Meyer, liable for using pain as an instrument in a treatment program and committing assault and battery that cause long-term harm to mental health patients. In delivering the landmark decision, Justice Edward M. Morgan described their experimental treatments as flagrant and outrageous. The province of Ontario was also found to have failed in its duty

to provide care and humane treatment to the involuntary forensic patients. The former patients were awarded more than $9 million in compensation. The psychiatrists appealed and then tried to have the case heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, who dismissed it in 2003. Finally, the former patients would receive compensation for all they'd been through. But according to reporting by Marg Brundman, by that point, only 19 of them were still alive. Oak Ridge was finally closed in 2014 and the original brick building was torn down. The only relic that remains of the old compound are the iron gates out front.

And as for the chilling crimes committed by Matthew Charles Lamb in the summer of 1966, they may have faded into distant memory for many Windsor residents, but not for author Will Toffen. His book, Watching the Devil Dance, is much more than just a true crime book. For him, it's deeply personal. It's the result of a decades-long journey to uncover the truth behind a tragedy that's haunted him since childhood. See, Will Toffen lived in the house right next door to victim Edith Chakosky at the time, and he was greatly affected by her murder. In part one, we mentioned that 18-year-old Edith had been visiting with her older brother Kenneth

and his pregnant wife Charmaine that evening, just hours before all hell broke loose. When Edith left to catch the bus home at about 10pm, Kenneth and Charmaine joined her for the walk, even though she'd insisted she was okay to walk by herself. She'd grown up on that street and had lived there most of her life. until a year or so earlier when her parents split up. After that, she moved in with her mother and younger brother into a duplex in Windsor that happened to be right next to the house where 12-year-old Will Toffin lived with his family. She was six or seven years older than him, but he still remembered the day she moved in.

Edith Chakosky was not only Will Toffin's neighbor, but she was his first childhood crush. And about a year or so later, Edith was dead, a victim of Matthew Charles Lamb's deadly rampage. Will Toffin was utterly devastated. It wasn't just the loss of his crush, it was a pivotal moment in his adolescence. Back in the 1960s, the concept of spree killers was pretty much unheard of. Serial, spree, and mass murders were rare, and there was little understanding of the motives behind such violent acts and little precedent or framework to make sense of it. The tools for profiling, intervention and prevention were only on the cusp of development, leaving law enforcement unprepared to handle these events and communities unable to comprehend them. The tragic events of the

summer of 1966, influenced Will Toffin's decision to join law enforcement, and he went on to have a successful career with the RCMP. But he could never shake the memory of Edith Chakosky's murder. He needed to better understand what really happened and why. He always told himself that one day he would get to the bottom of the story. Will Toffin spent years combing through archival records, talking with survivors and interviewing eyewitnesses to piece together the events of that night and the aftermath. He re-examined the facts using what we know today about modern criminal profiling techniques and forensic psychiatry. And then he wrote a book about it, watching The Devil Dance. Next, we'll hear from Will Toffen about how the death of Edith Chakosky affected him.

He'll share some of his theories. about what caused Matthew Charles Lamb to crack that night and who his intended targets might have been. We'll also discuss the Oak Ridge experiment, including Lamb's rumoured affair with a top official at Oak Ridge. In the spring of 1965, the year before Matthew Charles Lamb's shooting spree, Edith Chakosky moved with her mother and little brother into the duplex next to where a young Will Toffin lived with his family. Will was 12 and Edith was close to 18, and he recalled developing a mad schoolboy crush on her from his bedroom window.

I was lucky enough to get author Will Toffin on the phone from Windsor. What was it about Edith that caught your attention? Oh, one was my age, but two. I just thought she was really pretty and really cute. And she always waved at me and she said hello to me. into a 12-year-old boy from an older girl, that's a big thing. So, yeah, I just really took to her. And, of course, the following year, when she was killed in the summer of 66,

it was pretty rough. I took it pretty hard. Just over a year after Edith moved in, Will overheard his father talking about a horrific shooting spree that happened the night before. When he heard that Edith was the gunman's first victim and that she was dead, Will's world was shattered. When these killings occurred, given my age of 12 years old,

you know, every little boy, the world is your oyster, and it's a very safe place. And I think it was the first time I really came to realize that the world was not necessarily the friendly, happy place I thought it was. It was a growing up maturing moment from me. And I know for a fact, it had a big impact on my decision to pursue federal police work. He went on to have a successful career with the RCMP and even worked as a bodyguard for Prime Minister's Pierre Trudeau and Brian Mulroney.

But he could never shake the memory of Edith Chakosky's murder. The result was his 2020 book, Watching the Devil Dance, how a spree killer slipped through the cracks of the criminal justice system. In Will's extensive research for the book, he uncovered details about a chilling moment. involving a couple of neighborhood kids just before Matthew Charles Lamb started shooting that night. As you'll recall from Part 1, he had just been released from Kingston Penitentiary about two weeks beforehand, and one of his uncles had agreed to let him live at his house with his family, as long as he got a job. That Saturday evening, Matthew was babysitting his young cousins, so his uncle and aunt could go on a date night.

After he put the kids to bed, he drank a few beers and then fell asleep just before 9pm. About an hour later, Matthew suddenly woke up and grabbed his uncle's shotgun. It was a very hot night that night and another family two houses down had company over. This family had two young boys who were neighbourhood friends with Matthew's young cousins. They'd also met Matthew and had seen his young cousins. cousins call him Uncle Matt. That night, this family was out in the garden with their guests, making some noise two houses down from where Matthew Charles Lamb had fallen asleep. The boys were still up. One of these boys would later tell Will Toffin that his family

always believed they were the reason why Matthew woke up that night. I asked Will to describe what happened next? Yeah, the night of the homicides, Matthew Lamb, had gone to bed around 9 p.m. He had drank a few beers. It was very hot. He fell asleep and he woke up, about an hour later, grabbed a gun, filled his pockets with shotgun shells, and he walked out into the night and two houses down where Matthew Lamb was residing at the time.

There was a family that had two young boys. So they're making a lot of noise and they were convinced that they were the best of the reason Matthew Lam, when he came out of his home, why he turned right instead of going left to a much more busier intersection where there would be more victims, he started walking towards a boy. It was very dark. And when he approached the two boys, the youngest one, six years old, told me, he's a man now, but when he was a boy, he approached Matthew Lambs, said, hi, Uncle Matt, and Matthew Lan had the gun in his hand. And he didn't respond. He just went What the boy said was almost like an animalistic growl and just stared him down and gave it a growl.

So whether Lamb recognized him or because the boy showed no fear and because of his age, nobody knows why Matthew Lamb moved on, decided to walk around the boy. And the boy left to go tell his parents that he saw Matt Lamb with a gun. And then a minute later, they could hear the shots. Matthew Land had moved on a little further and he approached a garage where there was a couple of celebrating. their 25th wedding anniversary, lots of music and lights, and that drew Matthew Lamb's attention, and that he walked around the boy

and went on towards a gathering of people. Why do you think he didn't shoot that little boy? I think Matthew Lamb was in full control of his faculty, and when I say that, I mean, he was conscious of what he was doing. He knew exactly what he was doing. And he later admitted to this, that he was fully cognizant of what he was doing. So he was able to discriminate as to what he didn't want to do.

So he decided against shooting. the little boy, walked on, and his attention was drawn to this party, this anniversary party. And he was actually standing off the sidewalk, and he had a gun raised in a manner that he was actually, he was just deciding how he's going to approach this. But I believe that this party and all these people were his actual preferred victims, and the people that were shot just happened to be these six young people walking together. They sort of like came out of the dark at once. They were walking briskly down the sidewalk, and they just happened to come upon Lamb,

and they caught him by surprise. And he had to improvise, so he turned, he changed, he changed his plans, and immediately attacked these six people. So what do you think really set Matthew Charles Lamb off that particular night in the first place? Well, there's a couple theories about that. The investigating officer in the case, his name is Inspector Jim Muir, he was of the opinion that obviously Lamb had some issues. prior to the crime itself.

But he'd been going to an extremely bad heat wave at that time. It was about 98 degrees. And winter's a very hot place in the summertime, especially in the days prior to air conditioning, home air conditioners. Everyone used to sleep outside on their porches. So a lot of people would be antagonized by that unceasing humidity. But he had also just been released from the prison, 17 days prior to going on this shooting spree.

He had been serving 14 months of a two-year-season. sentence for opening fire for a similar type of event, only he didn't kill anyone, where he laid an ambush, he broke into a store and then laid an ambush for police coming to investigate the incident. So Lamb had a lifelong history of anti-social behavior. So whether it was because of the heat that day, the tendencies he already had or both. The crime committed by Matthew Charles Lamb has resulted in him being referred to as Canada's first spree-Q. By definition, that means someone who commits two or more murders in a short period of time, often in multiple locations, with no cooling off period between them.

The overwhelming majority of spree killers are young men. But spree killers weren't really a thing back in the 60s, and Will explains in his book that he researched extensively to see if there were any other examples of other spree killers prior to Lamb. He couldn't find any. We really had no history of these types of killers, you know, these urban subcommando types. They didn't really manifest themselves until it really became an issue. And I think we're just, we're so shocked, so considered a bizarre, someone just went off their walker.

And I think that's how it was handled. And I think because the media didn't have a lot of cases prior to 1966 to compare it to, there wasn't a lot to write about. other than the actual facts of that homicide itself. And, you know, in those days, it was a local issue. It's a local story. But the national media, the big papers, never covered these crimes. They left it to the local media to cover these crimes. They were not usually appropriated by the bigger newspapers

and made into a story like they are today. I asked Will what he thought about Matthew Charles Lamb's shooting spree in the context of what we know about that and similar categories of crime today. Matthew Lamb fits very well into the subcategory of mass murder called the Urban Sub-Commando. These tend to be primarily young men, but not always younger, but certainly under the age of 50.

They tend to have a long history of fascination with firearms. They tend to be fairly confident shots. And they also have a lot of anger issues, A lot of undresolved anger issues and mental instability, not necessarily mental illness could be, but, and they tend to suffer from depression. And I think all these factors came together in Matthew Charles. Because in the first couple chapters of the book, I go into his background, and he was showing antisocial behavior from a very young age. You know, he had a very dysfunctional childhood, but nothing really out of the ordinary of any working class family, really. I mean, there's children who have far more difficult childhoods than he did, but they want to be productive citizens.

But again, as far as Matthew Lambeard's, I think he sits that urban sub-commander type very, very well. I mean, he had a fascination with firearms from a young age. He loved shooting guns. He had a lot of anger issues. He was hostile towards all authority, especially police officers, which is not uncommon in psychopathic extreme offenders, especially young males. Speaking of psychopathy, which today falls under the extreme end of antisocial personality disorder, Dr. Elliot Barker's non-traditional treatments at Oak Ridge were of course designed to cure the disorder. Will, what do you make of the fact that the old F-Wr documentary shows Matthew Charles Lamb

as less like an involuntary inmate patient and more like some kind of teacher's pet or school hall monitor? Matthew Lamb was considered the golden boy of Oak Bridge. He made a real name for himself. He stood out. Everyone I've spoken to, whether they didn't like him or disliked him. They all agreed that he was an interesting personality. He was very influential. He could really talk to you.

You could talk your socks off if you gave me the opportunity. And like to say, like a lot of these psychopaths, they're very good profilers themselves. And they're very good students of human behavior and social interaction. And they learn a lot from that and they use that, you know, basically to prove their own agenda. From the footage in the F-Wod documentary of the social therapy group led by Matthew Charles Lamb, the other inmates appear to greatly admire him and respect his opinion. They hang on every word that he says. I wanted to know Will Toffin's perspective about whether Lamb could have been authentically connecting with them,

or was he perhaps playing games to bide his time? I think Lamb, when he was at Oak Ridge, he took a real liking to the program. Like, he really made an effort to indulge himself into the program. Whether he was really looking to improve himself or whether he was just looking to make his time at Oak Ridge easier and hopefully by himself a pass out of that facility, which he eventually did. Whatever his motive was there, I'm not sure. But one thing is he did take a liking to the program. He did work hard.

and Dr. Barker came to really trust Matthew Lamb. As did a lot of the patients at Oak Ridge. So he was able to instill a lot of confidence in himself from people he interacted with. So he was an impressive individual. I mean, he was what you would call a high-functioning psychopath. And there's no doubt he was a psychopath. Dr. Elliot Barker seemed so desperate to prove that his experiment worked

and that he was able to cure psychopathy, that he invited Matthew Lamb to live with his family afterwards. Was the decision to risk the safety of his own family like that driven by his ego or perhaps something else? I asked Will Toffen. I think you've got your, you put your finger right on it. That's what I believe. I believe that it was ego.

He really wanted his hypothesis to be correct. You know, that psychopaths could be, you know, could be triggered, could be cured, could be trustworthy, worthwhile citizens. He did believe that at that time, and again, he refuted that belief years later. But you're right. He did go above and beyond as far as Matthew Lamb goes. I mean, he even had him live in his home for a year and babysit his daughter while he would be out of town. So, I mean, he had a great deal of confidence in Atlanta.

He was taking a real chance. We'll never know. But, I mean, he did go into a field that had always fascinated him. He always wanted to be involved with guns. He wanted being his whole, his youth was filled with these psychologists. just talking about these fantasy. He had a really rich fantasy life, which is not unusual for psychopathic offenders.

That rich fantasy life, but he had a rich fantasy life about shooting and guns and battle. And, you know, it's very un immature. I'm also like a young boy. That's how most boys think when they're 10 years old. They all want to be Billy the kid, you know. But Lamb maintained that throughout his existence, and he went off and he excelled as a mercenary, no doubt about it.

Do you think that maybe with the full support of documents, Dr. Barker, he simply learned to direct his propensity for violence in a new direction? Partly, I think, like, he lived with Dr. Barker for about a year, and Parker said he never knew Lamb was going to become a mercenary. But I find that hard to believe. Because Lamb was his, I mean, he lived with a man, for God's sakes. And Lamb looked at Dr. Elliot Barker as sort of a father figure. Lenn never had a father. And I really think he connected with this individual. There was also a lot of rumors. Somehow we got back to the Windsor Police Department and the detector squad

about lamb being a real golden boy at Oak Ridge and having an affair with a male official at Oak Ridge. But whether that is true, whether it was with Barker, I don't know. But, I mean, it's certainly certainly possible. I'm kind of reminded of the character of Dexter from the well-known fictional TV show of the same name. If you haven't seen the show, Dexter had a traumatic childhood and was adopted by a man named Harry, who quickly realized the boy's sociopathic

tendencies, specifically his uncontrollable urge to kill. Rather than suppress it, Harry taught the young Dexter a code to direct his violent impulses towards something he deemed more acceptable, killing only dangerous criminals who have repeatedly slipped through the cracks of the justice system. While Dexter is of course fictional, I wonder if a similar dynamic may have occurred between Dr. Elliot Barker and Matthew Charles Lamb. After his release from seven years at Oak Ridge, Matthew of course, lived on the farm with Dr. Barker and his family for a few months, and perhaps this is when Barker finally realized once and for all that his therapeutic methods had failed, that for all Matthew's apparent

progress at Oak Ridge, he still harboured violent urges. And perhaps this is why Dr. Barker gave Matthew his blessing to become a mercenary killer, a sanctioned outlet for his violence, similar to the way Harry guided the fictional TV character Dexter toward vigilante justice. Back to author Will Toffen. His childhood trauma resulting from Matthew Charles Lamb's shooting spree and the loss of Edith Chakosky, stayed with him and influenced his decision to join law enforcement. He told me about a series of cases early in his career that sparked an idea to write his investigative book. One of my memories is when I was 19 years old, I just graduated from the Archimpy Academy, and I was stationed in northern British Columbia near the Pacific Coast, and we were going through a range of murders.

It's called the Highway of Tears, housing in northern British Columbia. Up to about 505-0 young women are missing or the body that have been found over about a 35-year period. But anyway, I was working out of terrorist British Columbia, and I attended a scene where we found the remains of a murder victim, a homicide victim. It was a young girl, a 14-year-old girl,

who disappeared a few months earlier by the name of Monica Ignis. And when we came upon the crime scene, there wasn't much left of her, you know, because of the elements and the animals. But it was obvious that she had been strangled with her own clothing. And when I looked at her, I still remember the first thing I thought of was I was Yves Chikoski, my next-door neighbor who was killed, although she was killed, murdered under different circumstances, it just never left me. And I always felt because of such a fantastic story and I've never been properly told,

I told myself that if I ever had the opportunity, I was going to look into it and write about it. and that's how his story came to be. Will Toffin is now retired from the RCMP, but says his time with the organization gave him the inspiration for the title of his book. The Devil Dance is a term he heard often, describing criminals thought to be manipulating their behavior to convince psychiatrists they're too mentally ill

to be held responsible for their actions. I asked Will to tell me more about this devil dance. You know, a lot of these small towns that you're stationed these small towns in Canada, I'm sure it's the same all over the world, but there's always like a couple of guys in town that commit like 40 to 50% of the crimes are like the local psychopath, just incorrigible. And when we bring them in for questioning a particular crime, whether it was a homicide or a break and entering, they would play with us.

They're very good profilers, these career criminals, especially the ones that are deemed psychopaths, There's no emotional consequences to their behavior. So they can adult in all kinds of extreme offenses and brush it off. We've been in for questioning. They would consistently lie and lie and just lie upon power, lie. And we called it the devil dance. We'd be watching the devil dance.

It was like a game they would play. Psychologists refer to that particular type of attitude in these types of offenders as doping delight. duping delight. Basically, they lie just to see if they can get away with it. And they'll just keep lying and lying until they can find their story and narrative that they're happy with. And no matter how much facts you throw at them, they will manipulate and try and whistle their way out of it

or they'll have some bizarre, but they will not complain. And it doesn't bother them. And so we would call that the devil dance. And Matthew Lamb, he would later on admit that he had been lying to a lot of psychologists, And a lot of them caught it. They all agreed that he knew exactly what he was doing.

But where they differed, in their opinion, was the degree to which he was responsible in the sense that was he really aware, was he fully cognizant of what he was doing, and could he really understand the emotional impact of his behavior? And obviously, being a psychopathic vendor, no, he wouldn't. In his book, watching The Devil Dance, Will Toffen argues that Lamb was very bright with a high IQ and was able to get a, the system, using his knowledge of psychiatry to manipulate the court system into determining he was not of sound mind, with the goal, of course, to avoid a prison sentence. I asked Will Toffen about one key incident that seems to point to this. He had been a model prisoner after his arrest, but three weeks prior to the trial, in the county

jail, he just went berserk. He broke apparently up to 100 windows. He set mattresses on fire. He basically terrorized the cell block. And I believe that knowing that he was going to plead insanity, it was a big factor, too, in his trial. Like, his lawyer certainly appreciated the fact that this incident where he just lost control and went crazy in the jail cell would certainly help his insanity defense.

So as far as, was it a reprise of the devil dance? I think it was. But even if it wasn't, he just maybe the president, were just getting to him and he just couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't keep up the act, you know, the facade of being calm, cool, collected, and cooperative and he just lost it being an 18-year-old boy. But I don't know the belief that he did it on purpose. He had an agenda and it served him well.

Thanks for listening. If you want to delve into the details of the story of Matthew Charles Lamb, Will Toffin's 2020 book Watching the Devil Dance, how a spree killer slipped through the cracks of the criminal justice system is an excellent read. Well, one thing I appreciated about your book is that it was very victim-focused. It didn't sensationalize the crime or make Matthew Charles Lamb into some kind of, you know, anti-hero. How did you walk that line when you approached the writing of the book?

Well, you know, I'll be honest, people mention that. I'm very proud of that fact that that came through in the book. I just tried to tell the truth. And I tried to be fair at both the offender as much as I could. But, you know, he did kill my first girlfriend, my first love of my life. So that was always at the front of my mind. I always had to keep that in mind.

So when I was doing the research and writing about Lamb, I kept telling myself, you know, be fair here, not to let any personal bias imprint itself upon the actual writing. And hopefully it did not. It's an excellent book. And thanks to Will Toffen for joining us, and to writer Lisa Gabriel for researching and writing this series and connecting me with Will. You can find links to his book, Watching the Devil Dance,

and all the resources we use to write this series in the show notes, and at Canadian True Crime.ca. There's also a link to watch the fascinating 1971 documentary F Ward, Oak Ridge Mental Hospital. It was eye-opening to say the least. As always, we'll be posting news clippings and photos mentioned in this episode on the Canadian True Crime Facebook and Instagram pages. The podcast donates monthly to those facing injustice. This month, we have donated to the Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime,

who offer support, research and education to survivors, victims and their families. Learn more at crcvcvc.ca.ca.ca.a. This case was researched and researched and written by Lisa Gabriel. Audio editing was by Eric Crosby, who also voiced the disclaimer. Our senior producer is Lindsay Eldridge and Carol Weinberg is our script consultant. Narration, additional research and sound design was by me and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back soon with another Canadian true crime episode. See you then.