Cold Case Files - Weepy Voiced Killer / The Mr. Big Sting

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

A prostitute who fights off a screwdriver-wielding man helps police track down a serial killer; and undercover agents acting as mobsters conduct an elaborate sting to solve a murder case that had gone cold for years. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This program contains subject matter that may be disturbing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. There are over 100,000 cold cases in America. Only 1% are ever solved. This is one of those rare stories. It's New Year's Eve, 1980. University of Wisconsin student Karen Potak joins her sisters in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Karen stays to celebrate at midnight, then drunk from champagne,

wanders alone into the streets of the city. A little after 3 a.m., St. Paul Police receive a call from what appears to be a man speaking in a high-pitched voice. Yes, please. This is an emergency police in a squad that Pierce Butler Road. Malmberg Manufacturing Company machine shop. Please, there's an ambulance too. There's a girl hurt there. Can you tell me what happened to him? There's hurry. She's laying on the ground in the back by the railroad tracks, by the adjo. What's the address?

I don't know. Officers respond to the call and find Karen Potak in a snowbank near some railroad tracks. She's naked and badly beaten. Her skull cracked wide open. Karen survives the attack but is mentally impaired with no memory of who tried to kill her. In the summer of 1981, the voice that reported Karen Potak's attack places a second call to St. Paul police. The anonymous caller has another crime. to report.

Just as the caller, just found somebody with an ice pick. I can't stop myself. I keep killing somebody with us. Hello. Are you there? Just as the caller promised, St. Paul Police find a body, a young woman face down near an unfinished freeway. Assistant Ramsey County Medical Examiner Michael McGee processes the scene. She'd been stabbed multiple times. A lot of puncture wounds in the front of her chest. McGee counts 61 puncture wounds, and just as the caller said, the weapon appears to be an ice pick. When you're undressing the body, you go through and see if there's any valuables, anything that will help you identify this girl in this case, and while we're doing that, we come across the bus locker key. The key leads police officers to the Greyhound Bus Depot in downtown St. Paul. Locker number 750 holds two bags bearing the name Kimberly Compton, an 18-year-old.

high school graduate from Peppin, Wisconsin. Sherry Swenson is Kim's aunt. She's like my sister. Her and I spent a lot of time together. I mean, we fought like sisters would fight, but all in all, she meant the world to me. And when they told me what had happened, I had totally lost it. Like so many other small town kids, Kim graduated from high school, packed her bags, and hopped on a bus to the big city, looking to start her life. Within just a few hours of arriving, in St. Paul, Kim somehow found her way into the company of a killer. At autopsy, the contents of her stomach tell the story of her final hours. The food is so well preserved in her stomach. You can almost see tooth marks on the food. Kim Compton's last meal consisted of beef and fries. Across the street

from the bus station is Mickey's diner. On the night Kim Compton got into town, their blue plate special was barbecue beef, a pickle, and fries. So what happened is she takes the bus into town, she gets off the bus, she puts her suitcase in a locker, she takes the key, she's hungry, she walks out the front door, first thing you see is Mickey's. She goes across the street and has something to eat, and I think she was in the midst of someone who was going to kill her, and she had to have absolutely no clue. She couldn't see it coming. Investigators have a good idea of how Kim Compton was tracked and murdered, and even have a phone call from the man they believe killed her. A few days after Compton's body was recovered, her

suspected killer calls police yet again. Don't talk, just listen. I'm sorry what I did to Compton. I couldn't help it. I don't know why I had this to ever. I am so upset about it. I keep getting drunk every day and I can't believe I just have a big dream. I can't think of being locked up. If I get locked up, I'd kill myself. I'd rather kill myself to get locked up. I'll be trying not to kill anybody else. Police released portions of this call to the media,

hoping someone in the area might recognize the voice. The response is overwhelming. Everyone in the Twin Cities believes they recognize the voice of the man now dubbed the weepy voiced killer. Six months later, however, investigators still have no idea who the man man might be, and the Compton murder is relegated to the cold vials. Meanwhile, Kim's family members are left with the voice of her suspected killer and thoughts of her last moments on earth.

When he said that he was stabbing her, I could actually feel it on myself like it was being done to myself. And it always went through my head for a long, long time. I could hear her hollering. On Sherry help me, on Sherry help me, and I could do nothing. On August 6th, 1980s. 14 months after the murder of Kimberly Compton, another woman is found stabbed to death, this time on the Minneapolis side of the river. Detective Don Brown takes the case. The perpetrator evidently tried to dispose of the body by throwing her down the embankment towards the river, but the underbrush was so thick that it held up the body. The victim is IDed as 40-year-old Barbara Simons. Two days later, the weepy-voiced killer

takes credit for her murder. By your emergency. Please don't talk to this lesson. I'm sorry. I killed. I killed. I stand there 40 times. Kimberly Compton was the first one.

Over safe. I don't know what you're bad of me. I'm sick. I'm going to kill myself, I think. Where are you? If somebody dies with a red shirt on, it's me, I kill both of me. Calm down. Expert analysis of the phone call indicates the voice is the same.

as the caller from the Compton case. Don't talk, just listen. With murders on each side of the river, Minneapolis and St. Paul joined forces and begin tracking the killer. Minneapolis Detective Don Brown is assigned to reconstruct Barbara Simon's movements on the night she died. The trail leads him to a bar called the hexagon and a potential eyewitness. One of the waitresses thought that she had met a man at the head hexagon bar and that she was with them, probably danced with them, but did see the two of them after a song. They were leaning up against the stage. She also said that she thought that the

victim was leaving with that person because she told the waitress, at one point in time, I hope this is a nice guy because she's going to give me a ride home. Detective Brown shepherds several of the bar staff back to St. Paul homicide, where they sift through the books filled with mugshots of local felons. There were approximately 169 photos that they went through, and these were photographs that St. Paul already had of suspects in their cases. We were able to eliminate everyone else as a suspect except Paul Stefani. Paul Stefani is a 37-year-old janitor with a history of psychiatric problems

and an aggravated assault conviction. The bar ID moves him to the top of the suspect list. Digging into Stefani's past, investigators begin to find more connections between their suspect and the unsolved crimes. Specifically in March of 1977, Stefani was fired from his job at the Malmberg Manufacturing Plant. Three years later, Karen Potak was attacked along a set of railroad tracks, just a few hundred yards from the Malmberg plant. He's the number one suspect at that point, definitely. Police surveillance begins on August 20th. It's not long after the detectives following him run into trouble.

Eventually what happened, he lost him. As detectives scramble to reestablish contact with Stefani, the suspect roams free through Minneapolis, and eventually to the city's Red Light District. On August 21st, 1982, at the corner of Hennypen and 6th. A prostitute named Denise Williams works the street. I was walking around, looking for somebody that was looking for me.

Paul Stefani pulls up and flashes some money. A deal is made, and Denise climbs into Stefani's car. We went to his apartment, and he was real quick, like two seconds. So I was like, dang, he's going to want to do something else again. He was like, no, it's cool. Stefani offers to drive Denise back to her corner in Minneapolis. But on the way back, it appears he's taking the scenic route. The road was like there was no streetlights.

It started getting dark now, okay? And he's like, this is a shortcut. I was like, oh, yeah, this one, excuse me, I was like, this man is up to something because this is not a shortcut. Denise's experience working on the street tells her something is wrong. that her date might want something more than sex. So I'm like, dang, I ain't got no weapon or nothing. So I'm like, well, if he tries to do anything to me,

I'm just going to hit him with this bottle and run. Denise Williams' instincts serve her well. With no other cars in sight, Stefani pulls onto a dead-end road, takes out a screwdriver, and stabs her in the stomach. That's when I just grabbed the bottle and I just hit him in the head. And he started bleeding all over me.

You know, I almost went in the shock because he let him drop some blood in my eye and it was like hot. And I opened my eye and I seen it. It was like red. But I was just fighting, you know. Hit him with the bottle, poke him with the bottle, poking with the bottle. At the same time, I'm grabbing for the door trying to get out the car, but he's on top of me just joking everywhere. Denise manages to open the car door and tumbles onto the pavement with Stefani on top of her still stabbing. Nearby, local resident Doug Panning is sleeping with the window open and awakens to Denise's scream.

There was this guy on top of this gal, and he was just whacking away, man. Just big, big swooping booms. And you could hear the screwdriver hitting the bones, the crack, you know, crunching. Rushing into the street, Panning confronts Stefani, who turns toward him with the screwdriver. It was a pretty scary sight because he was cut up pretty bad himself. And he had blood running all down his shirt. He's taking whacks at me. Stefani eventually gives up the fight,

jumps back into his car, and takes off. Denise has 15 puncture wounds from the screwdriver. She is transported to Henne Penn County Medical Center and rushed into surgery. Meanwhile, in St. Paul, emergency operators take yet another call. On the other end of the line, the weepy voiced killer. Only this time, he's asking for help.

1,5-05. Yes. Westminster, what's the problem? I'm all cut up. I got beat up. What's your apartment number? 208, I bleed. 208.

Where are you bleeding from? From the arm, my face, my head. Paramedics respond to 1,505 Westminster, Apartment 208. the residents of Paul Stefani. Not long after, police connect the dots between the lost surveillance, the attack on Denise Williams, and Stefani's injuries. They head over to the hospital and ask Denise if she would recognize a picture of her attacker. I picked him out.

When they came to the hospital, they showed me some mugshots. I picked him out. For his assault on Denise Williams, Paul Stefani is charged with attempted murder. Now, police hoped to take Stefani one step further. I tried to keep an even demeanor. I didn't want to let on that we knew that he was involved in the other crimes. And then at one point, I got up and opened up the file with the photographs of the victims. And he looked up and looked at me and said to me,

you're not going to pin those on me. Please don't talk just listen. Paul Stefani shuts down and denies any connection to the weepy-voiced killer. The case hinges on linking him to the 911 tapes and result in a sit-down with a serial killer. Killing last year was a seem to be the thing you were supposed to do. That was part of life. Welcome to Pluto Fo. If you know the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV.

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I'm the key in the world. And so much more. For showtimes, press nothing. They're free 24-7. That is so fetch. On Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never. In the summer of 1982, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota,

are stalked by a serial predator, known as the weepy-voiced killer. The suspect attacks one woman, Karen Potak, and kills two others, Kim Compton and Barbara Simons. After the two murders, the killer calls police, sobbing a confession. Two years after the first attack, cold case detectives get their first break. A prostitute named Denise Williams is attacked by a John and stabbed 15 times with a screwdriver. She does, however, manage to fight back, injuring her assailant. During the assault, she managed to pick up a pop bottle off the floor of his car and smashed it over his head. And then with the broken glass, smashed it into his face and cut the bridge of his nose.

A few hours later, a familiar voice calls 911, claiming to be injured and looking for an ambulance. The man on the tape is a 37-year-old janitor named Paul Stefani. identified by Williams as her attacker. He is convicted of attempted murder and charged with the murder of 38-year-old Barbara Simons. Critical to the case is linking Stefani's voice to that of the weepy-voiced killer. In the summer of 1985, technicians outfit a jury box with 12 sets of headphones. Prosecutor John Ryan knows the trial of Paul Stefani will hinge upon a 911 call shortly after Simon's murder. Did the caller say enough to implicate himself that only he could have been the one that caused these murders?

Is he the murder by the phone call itself? Yes, that's clear. What's not clear is whether the voice heard on the 911 tape is indeed Stefani's. This is an excerpt from an audio interview conducted with Paul Stefani shortly after his arrest. And this is the weepy-voiced killer. I don't know what's about to be. I'm sick. I'm going to kill myself, I'm thinking. The similarities in voice are compelling. Experts, however, cannot conclusively say the voice is the same. Then the defendant's sister listens to the tape.

The defendant's sister testified. She listened to the tapes in court in front of the jury, put her head down, cried. That's Paul. That's my brother. After six weeks of tapes and testimony, Stefani is convicted of murdering Barbara Simons. He didn't relish in getting away with murder. I really don't think he enjoyed it. Apparently, he was raised fairly in a strong religious family

and had enough guilt, not enough to stop him from doing it or to admit it, but he wanted to be stopped. For killing Simons, Stefani is sentenced to four. 40 years. Meanwhile, across the river in St. Paul, Ramsey County prosecutors see no need to pursue a trial in the other weepy voiced cases, the assault on Karen Potak and the murder of Kim Compton. The decision puts those cases on permanent hold and leaves family members with little chance of ever seeing their day in court. I think that what they did was took Kim's case and put it on the back burner and figured, well, nobody's going to do nothing about this.

anyhow, or their family ain't going to come around and do anything. And I just got to the point to where nothing was being done that I thought this is it. In 1997, 12 years after the weepy voice killer was sent to prison, Sergeant Investigator Bob Paskett works at his desk. It's 4.30 p.m. when the phone rings. At the other end, are officials from Oak Park Hyde's correctional facility, home to Paul Stefani, who has asked to speak to St. Paul Investigator. The long and short of it, he said that, well, Stefani had been diagnosed with cancer

and that Stefani wanted to talk to some St. Paul policeman and clear the slate. Okay, Paul. You have the rates for protection against self-incrimination? Paskett and his partner, Keith Mortensen, drive to the Oak Park Hides Correctional Facility for a sit-down with Stefani and perhaps a chance to finally close the books on Kim Compton and Karen Potack. Well, with Karen Potech, he says he's driving down an alley. He sees this girl behind the bar, I believe.

She doesn't have a jacket on. He stops, officers, you know, lets her get into the car to warm up is what he tells us. She got in my car and I gave him my jacket until I said. He'll be out in a minute. I had to clean some of the ice off the windshield. Stefani tells detectives he drove Karen Potech to a deserted parking lot behind Malmberg manufacturing, then beat her with the tire. iron.

Do you remember where you hit her with the tire iron? Yeah. I mean, did you hit her one time, two times? Oh, yeah. Nothing about 30 times. I mean, I'm going to go. Were you swinging it this way, or did you poke her with it? Or did you...

I don't think I poked, no. I remember just hitting her mania on the forehead by the cheek and jaw, the mouth, and the top of the head. I think it was only about ten times. Then I know you must really be hurting in that. hurt them in that, you know, a steel bar like that. Is he insane? No.

Is he different than most people that you see? Yes. And as he relive these incidents, he dropped back into the same voice and same person that he was 20-some years ago. I was even hurt. When I went back to Tara, there's going like this. I mean, that's what I made me want to go to the phone. I mean, where is he wanted to help or look?

I said, my mind started clearing up, but what are you doing? You had a chance to make another friend that could be yelling at myself. You like to make friends. Six months after the attack on Karen Potech, Stefani confesses he walked into a local diner where he met 18-year-old Kimberly Compton. This gal was sitting like one or two seats away from him, and she had just gotten in town, and he strikes up a conversation with her and learns that she had just gotten off the bus.

And then that's what she started telling me, where she was found in Wisconsin and all, and then says, hey, why don't you, I'm not even thinking about her thing right now. I said, hey, you know, why you're probably sure you're in the hometown? According to Stefani, Kimberly Compton agreed to go for a ride and see the sights of St. Paul at night.

I said, yeah, I want to show you something. There's really a nice view over here, and you see the nice group. I think I meant to somebody, would probably have something to tell your parents about them. So he uses the pretense of the view. They get out of the car, and he says, because he parks the car in the bushes.

As I walked out of the car, I carried my knife with me. I had never intention to hurt me. They lay down in the grass and I remember opening up a bra and then I'm just killing it. So, and he starts badly. Unfortunately, I think what we learned is that there's really no way to combat him. There was no way to protect his victims out there. I mean, he would find one. He would have kept on killing had he not been caught.

caught. I don't know exactly what turned him on, but the only way he were going to turn him off was put him behind bars. Killing was a thing you were supposed to do that was part of life. Driving the car was part of life, eating food was part of life. To me, it seemed like killing was part of life until I did it, and then I drove away, and then I looked like the one on Pierce put a row. What are you doing? And then I just couldn't turn myself in. That's why I kept getting on the home. Will you catch me and stop me? Or catch there or something like that or... Stefani's confessions closed the book on two unsolved cases, but the weepy-voiced killer is not done yet. In his mind, he wanders back through his crimes and recalls a fourth victim, a woman he claims to have drowned in the small town of Roseville, Minnesota. You say that you both got into the top, and your pies are going to find that.

Because, I mean, when I, I remember when I pushed her head under water, I could see her face. Did you push her in there? push your head down or did you push her chest area under the water or you held her shoulders down both hands then digging into the cold case files detectives find a report to match stephanie's story the unsolved drowning of kathy greening in 1982 and we found an address book belonging to kathy greening and any address book was the name paula s with a telephone number and we went back to Stefani's arrest record the night that he was booked, and it was the same telephone number that he had given the officers when he was arrested. On December 19, 1997, detectives hold a news conference announcing the confessions to three unsolved cases.

Word travels quickly to Pepp in Wisconsin, Kimberly Compton's hometown. I called everybody and said he has finally confessed to murdering him. And I got to actually say this. I truly forgive him because he was crazy. But the pain is always going to be in my heart. On June 12, 1998, Paul Stefani died of cancer in prison. Don't talk, just listen. But the fear created by the weepy-voiced killer survives.

I couldn't help it. It's hard to understand how people can be that evil. But it's like, yep, they can. The capacity for man to do horrible, evil things is just boundless. At the very tip of the province of Nova Scotia lies Cape Breton, a piece of land as beautiful as it is isolated, a place to escape for a while or to retire. We come back to retire and live a slower life. Living the country, we bought a host six acres land on the water and we figured this is going to be it. In 1988, Doug and Marie Dup settle in Cape Breton looking forward to their golden years.

In time, Marie becomes restless, and in 1992, she decides to take a job at a local convenience store called Big Ben. I asked her, I said, you could find a better job than this. She said, I'm going to give it a try. She said, I'm getting bored laying around the house. It's a wintertime, nothing to do. I'm going to give it a try. She gave it a try. Marie Dup is scheduled to work her first night shift on March 21st, 1992.

That night, Cape Breton is hit hard by the worst blizzard in anyone's memory. Doug pleads with Marie to stay home, but she heads out, determined to work her shift. Seven hours later, just before 4 a.m., a local man walks into Big Ben, seeking refuge from the snowstorm and a cup of hot coffee. Instead, he finds the cashier. on the floor, lying in a pool of blood. Sergeant Jim McLean responds to the call. I walked down to the back of the store, and I could see that this lady was brutally stabbed.

Her throat was slashed, the side of her face was slashed. Her right ear was severed right off. She had blood, it seemed to me, coming out of everywhere. I was horrified. The woman is still alive, but barely. Despite the doctor's efforts, Marie Dupe has lost two. much blood and dies within the hour. Back at the crime scene, the blizzard rages through the morning, covering any tracks the

killer might have made in or out of Big Ben. Inside the store, Detective Corporal Paul Doyle finds his work equally difficult. The scene was a mess. Of course, the snow was melting, and the water was running across the floor, and there was blood on the floor, and it was even washing in with the exhibits that were on the floor. Despite the chaos, crime scene technicians managed to collect critical pieces of evidence. There was a lunch counter area in the store. There was one ashtray there that contained one cigarette butt.

There was an ashtray on top of the poker machines. I think it had three or four cigarette butts in it. And several cigarette butts were picked up off the floor from various locations in the store. In 1992, DNA testing is not generally available in Canada. So the cigarettes in cans are bagged for future testing. Meanwhile, the search for a suspect begins very close to home. Around 10 a.m. on the morning of the attack, three members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police knock on the door of Doug Dup.

Three counties walking through snow right up to their middle, finally get to your house. They walk and they say, well, Doug, we got some bad news for you. And right off the lot bad, I says, my wife did. What else could be the bad news? The police are immediately suspicious. Doug is escorted to the police station and quickly becomes a focus of the investigation. Increasing investigator's suspicion is the Cape Breton rumor mill. Once people learn that the town's newest resident is a murder suspect,

police are flooded with false tips, stories of drug dealing and mafia ties. I think this was just ended up being a rumor that somehow got started and fed on itself. And as people heard this rumor, they felt it was their obligated. to pass it on and it was based on nothing. After several rounds of interviews and two polygraph tests, police determined that the murder of Marie Dupe has nothing to do with her husband Doug. Detectives have spent critical days running down a dead end. Now they must start fresh with a return to the scene of the crime.

By early April, the snow of Cape Breton is starting to melt, providing detectives with a potential lead, sticking out of a pile of dirty snow next to the convenience store, is the handle of a knife, its blade is stained with blood. The murder weapon is a sandwich knife from the lunch counter at Big Ben, and the blood is determined to be Marie Dupe's. Police focus on possible traffic in and out of the store, using cash register receipts to determine who did business with Dupe on the night she was killed.

We tracked each transaction that took place. From the time Mrs. Dupe got to work, We found out who made the purchase, and we went and we interviewed that person. One of the only purchases police can't track down is a pack of cigarettes bought at 3.16 a.m. Police believe this might be the missing piece of the puzzle, with the buyer potentially the killer. The last purchase on the cash register tape is a sub sandwich, punched in at 3.18 a.m. So we walked into the store and... The woman who bought the sandwich comes forward to...

tell police she saw a man that night loitering in the store, smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee. The guy that was just standing over there at the table, he was just like not moving, it was like a statue. And the only moment that you've seen that of him was like when he was having a puff of a cigarette or when he went to lift up his coffee cup. Other than that, he was like a statue. He didn't move.

And I had asked the lady, I said, does he bother you? And she said, well, yeah, he's creeping me a little bit. I said, well, maybe he should call the police because he seems a little, you know what I mean, spaced out, and it was just weird-looking. The woman helps police develop a sketch of the stranger, a young white man wearing a Blue Jays baseball cap and an unsettling look. He said, do you think that if you've seen this guy, you would recognize him? I said, yeah.

And he said, how do you figure that? I said, the eyes. The eyes would give him away. Because I've never seen eyes that deep and, as I would say, like dead. Over the next year, hundreds of suspects are interviewed. Thousands of leads are run down and ruled out. Eventually, the case goes cold, until detectives run across a small-time criminal with a secret.

You're a cop, man. You're a guy who's able to put me in you off for rest my life. I'm here, Gordon, for one of each. I'm here to get the truth. In Cape Breton, at the far eastern end of Nova Scotia, murder is rare, and a murder that goes unsolved is almost unheard of. Seven years have passed since someone stabbed convenience clerk Marie Dupe to death.

The unsolved crime weighs heavily on those charged with protecting the citizens of this quiet town. You put yourself under pressure. You want to clear this up. You also, you want your community to be safe. You don't want the community to be out there thinking that this is not a safe place. In 1992, a witness placed an unknown. young man inside the Big Ben convenience store shortly before the murder. According to that statement, the suspect was drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. Police at the time collected cigarette butts

found at the scene. Seven years later, they conduct DNA testing and develop an unknown genetic profile. In the summer of 2001, Canadian DNA Databanks matched the profile to a convicted felon named Ernest Gordon Strobridge. Earlier Scorn Strobridge was a young guy from Newfoundland. He came over to the Cape Breton area when he was 17 years old. He worked at a few different locations around Cape Breton. At the time of the murder, Stroberidge lived less than two miles from the Big Ben. He now lives in Ontario.

Doyle reaches out to Ontario Provincial Police Detective Inspector Glenn Beaumaster, who tells Doyle that even with the DNA, match, the investigation is going to need some help. Well, really, all the DNA did was put him in the crime scene. It's a pretty big stretch from putting someone in the crime scene to saying he committed the murder. Beaumaster believes Doyle will need a confession to make his case, but advises that the matter be handled delicately.

You have one kick at it here, and I think once you burn that bridge and he now knows he's a suspect. If he's not confessing, it's too late to try and do something after that. Beaumaster prefers an undercover operation, one designed to trick the suspect into talking about his crime. Cold case detectives call it the Mr. Big scenario. On the top floor of one of Toronto's best hotels is a 2,300 square foot suite, a palatial space that reeks of money, the kind of money that Gordy Strobridge has only dreamt of. On September 8, 2002, he walks into the suite for a meeting with a man he believes to be a Canadian crime boss. How are you doing?

The crime boss is actually Beaumaster's colleague, Ontario Provincial Police Detective Inspector Bob D.C. The scenario is quite simply the suspect coming forward to a job interview. For the past month, Strobridge has been the subject of an undercover sting, working with members of a supposed crime family, standing lookout while men unload bootleg liquor and delivering packages he thinks contain stolen diamonds. Now the time has come for Strobridge to step up in the ranks. You know why you're off here tonight. I wanted to meet and maybe it's possible that you can come into our whole family,

which I'm very much hoped. When he realizes that this is the kind of like, I would really like to have. And then I'll explain to him exactly the insurance policy of the crime family is that you need to offer us something of equal value because we certainly don't want to lose what we have. Once we kind of bear our souls to you, we're exposed. And there's got to be a trade-offs.

The trade-off is revealing any crime Strobridge committed, but it has to be substantial. Undercover operatives hope the lore leads Strobridge to Nova Scotia and Marie Dupe. They are not disappointed. In Nova Scotia, there was a thing called the Big Benz murder. Big Benz? Yeah.

Mercedes Benz? No. It was convenience store on Princess Street. And I didn't realize I done it until like the next day. I blacked out and then when I woke up next day, I was covered with his own blood. Look, okay, you kind of lost me at what point are we talking about? Well, there was a murder there. Yeah, and I done it.

That really took me it back, and I then had to think backwards from that point, because essentially we began with the climax. I remember seeing it as she was flashing around this knife. She was? Yeah. So I grabbed the knife and I stabbed her. I think he was like a little bitral. I think he was as nervous as I was. I believe that he was viewing this as the break of his life.

He was finally going to be secure in a crime family. And I think he was so anxious to start that procedure that he began the interview with confessing to the murder. That reason I told you was because understood, you know, it's part of, you It's part of the trust relationship. I appreciate that. The two men talk for more than an hour.

Strobridge says goodbye to Mr. Big, thinking he's about to join the family. Goody, you kind of had, I guess, a bit of a surprise this afternoon. Less than 24 hours after his promising job interview with Mr. Big, Gordy Strobridge finds himself in an entirely different type of interview with Cold Case Detective Paul Doyle. Do you remember being at the hotel last night? Yeah.

In Toronto. And do you remember talking to a guy by name of Bob Deasley? Do you remember telling him that you killed the lady at Big Benz on Prince Street, in it? I don't recall. You don't recall telling him that? It's on videotape. I think it was starting to sink in that he was in trouble.

And, you know, he was there because he was going to be charged. And what he told me was what he told the undercover operator. It doesn't mean that I don't regret it. It doesn't mean that I don't feel bad. And it doesn't mean that I'm not human. It doesn't mean that I don't feel bad for family. And it doesn't mean that... I know that you... I know that you're human.

And it's a pretty big burden for a young man yourself. I know that. Ten years after the murder of Marriott's a pretty big burden After the murder of Marie Dupe, Gordy Strobridge replays his past and prepares to face an uncertain future. On May 28, 2003, almost one year after his videotaped statements, Ernest Gordon Strobridge takes the only reasonable avenue left to him and pleads guilty to murder. Because Strobridge was a juvenile when he killed Marie Dupe, he receives a juvenile sentence, life with a possibility of parole in seven years. No, it's not enough. He did his first 12 years not being caught.

That was his parole. The guy should be doing life right now. For a man whose wife is murdered, the man who never got to say goodbye, no sentence is enough. No amount of time served is sufficient. Still, the conviction allows Doug Dupe to rest a bit easier and live with the memories of a retirement dream that never came to be. I'm glad it was before I went to my...

Grave myself, because it's nice to see it so. On March 13, 2013, Ernest Gordon Strobridge died in prison of natural causes. Pluto, foe. If you knew the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV. Where all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long. Catch Anchorman, the legend of Ron Burgundy. Fantastic. The Matrix Trilogy. Welcome to the real world.

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