Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Underwear Murders - The Colonel Russell Williams Story

Episode Date: September 17, 2025

Russell Williams was a high-ranking Canadian Air Force officer—Colonel Williams—who led a double life of trust and terror. Revered as commander of CFB Trenton and a decorated pilot who flew dignitaries, Williams’s façade hid decades of escalating violence: beginning with sneaking into homes to steal women’s underwear.

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Now the guy's name is Russell and Russell's around 44 when this story starts, living in Canada, and Russell, he's this big shot colonel in the Canadian Air Force, you know, a pilot. He flies very important people like the Prime Minister. Once he even flew the Queen of England, here's actually footage of him literally with the Queen. Here's the thing about Russell though. He's a weird guy. In fact, he really, really loves women's youth. underwear and his crazy ass will do anything to get it. Like one day in 2007 he breaks into his neighbor's house while they aren't home and he goes into their daughter's room and he steals a bunch of her underwear.

Not only that, he then spends hours there trying them on, modeling them, taking pictures of himself while wearing them, and doing other disgusting things that I won't get into because, you know, you get the point. And I guess bro is like, well this is a lot of fun. I'm gonna do this all the time. And he becomes obsessed with doing this. So he starts staking out homes, women who live in his area, women who he finds attractive, and he'll wait till no one is home, and he'll break into their house. Then he raids their dressers, and he'll try on underwear, and he'll try on lingerie that they have, and he'll take pictures of himself wearing it.

And I'm not trying to traumatize you here, but here's a picture he took of himself wearing a green lingerie thing that he got from a house he broke into. And not only does he try this stuff on, but before leaving these women's houses, he'll steal all their bras and stuff and he'll take them home with him. And when he gets home, he adds them to his collection, which pretty quickly gets massive.

Like this dude has boxes and boxes of women's undergarments. Here's a photo of a bunch of them. Here's a picture of some more of them. I told you, he's a weird guy. And this creep is so meticulous that he keeps all these. photos he takes of himself on portable hard drives and he also keeps very detailed logs of every single break-in he's done for some reason. And years go by. And he's still breaking into houses and

doing the whole underwear thing. And at this point, he's burglarized around 80 homes all around the area. Meanwhile, while all this is happening, he's still in the military. He's still a colonel, a pilot, he's still flying important people around. And he's a well-respected guy. So like no one suspects that he's out here acting like some kind of underwear bandit. In fact, in 2009, he gets promoted to base commander at the largest Air Force base in Canada. So he's like kind of a big deal in this world. But here's the thing that I've learned from telling hundreds of these stories. Creepy guys who thrill seek like this, it never ends up being enough for them.

Like give it long enough and they always end up wanting a bigger, creepier thrill. And that's exactly what happens here. Around this time, boom, it hits Russell. Breaking into homes and raiding underwear drawers just isn't doing it for him anymore. And he decides to take it much further. And one night, he puts on a mask and he breaks into a random woman's house while she's sleeping. Then he essays her and he takes photos of her and he steals her underwear and he flees. A couple of weeks later, he does the same thing.

He puts on a mask, he breaks into a woman's home while she's asleep on the couch, then he assays her and he takes photos of her and he flees. And he later saves the photos onto his hard drive with the others. Now that's all pretty dark, but here's where it gets even darker. A few months later, after his last assault, he goes on a flight assignment for work. And while on the assignment, he meets this woman, who will just call flight attendant, because she works as a flight attendant at the same military base as him. And so they're working and they chat a little bit, you know, like work colleagues do. And he finds out that she lives alone. And because he's base commander, he has access to her schedule. So he looks into her schedule and he sees dates that she'll be away from home working. So one night, while she's away on a work trip, Russell goes right back into creep mode and he breaks into her house. And there he does his usual. thing, he takes her underwear and he tries it on and then he takes pictures of himself and whatnot,

then he steals a bunch of it and he leaves. Later, flight attendant returns home from her trip and she notices that someone went through her drawers. And of course she doesn't automatically assume it's the low-key psychopaths she works with. In fact, she suspects it was her ex-boyfriend for some reason. But a few days after that break in, Russell decides to break into her house again. But while she's home. And so he breaks in. through the window to her basement, and he hides there in the basement behind her furnace. And about 30 minutes later, flight attendant is ready to go to bed, and she comes into the basement to look for her cat. And her cat is there in the room, and it's fixated on something

behind the furnace. And so flight attendant gets a little closer to the furnace to see what the hell her cat is staring at, and suddenly, boom, she sees a masked man hiding there. It's Russell, and he's got this flashlight, and so pow, he hits her with it, and pow, he hits her with it a few more times. Then he assays her, and he unalives her, and he records it all on video. And as messed up as that is, he doesn't stop there. A few months later, Russell's driving around the neighborhood, and through a window in one of the houses, he sees this woman running on a treadmill. And he decides that this woman is going to be his next victim.

And so one night he drives back to her house and he parks his car and he waits there for her to finally go to bed. Once it looks like she's off to bed, he breaks in and he attacks her and he assays her and he unalives her and he takes pictures of the whole thing. That very same day, he goes to work like nothing happened. Like he didn't just commit a horrible crime and he flies the next day and he spends the rest of the weekend chilling with his wife because of course he's married. Now, these women getting murdered in this area, this sparks a huge investigation. And during this investigation, police find a unique set of tire treadmarks in the field behind the second victim's house. And so they decide to set up a roadblock on a nearby highway and stop every car on the way to see if they can find one that matches those tire tracks. And surely enough, Russell just finished up work and he's headed home on that highway.

And I guess he uses it a lot for his commute. And police, they pull him over. And an officer is asking him a bunch of standard questions. And Russell, he's sort of flexing that he's commanding officer in the Air Force or whatever. And another officer notices his tires match the exact ones they're looking for. But the officer doesn't say anything in the moment. So they're like, okay, have a nice day, Russell. And Russell leaves.

And for three days, they place him under surveillance. And eventually, they bring him in a moment. for questioning and he walks into the place and he's all confident like, I got nothing to worry about. And you could see footage of him here in the interrogation room and yeah, he looks all cocky. Have you ever been interviewed by the police in a room like this before? I have never been interviewed like this. Oh no? Okay. And the police, they press him pretty hard for about 10 hours and they confront him with all this

forensic evidence that they have against him and ultimately he confesses to everything. It probably doesn't help that he has all these hard drives and meticulous notes of every crime he committed, but whatever. And so, bam, they arrest him. And I don't have a mugshot, but here's a picture of him and some lingerie he stole. And ultimately, Russell pleads guilty, and he gets sentenced to life in prison.