True Crime All The Time - Russell Williams

Episode Date: January 7, 2019

At the time of his arrest in 2010, Russell Williams was a Colonel in the Canadian Forces. He had risen through the ranks to command the country's largest Air Force base in Trenton. He had been married to his wife Mary for almost 20 years. On the surface, it looked like he had a great life. But Williams harbored a secret fetish that he couldn't control.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss Russell Williams who committed 82 home break-ins from 2007 to 2010. He couldn't contain his fetish for wearing women's undergarments to his own home. He was extremely successful at breaking into homes and modeling the bathing suits, lingerie, and underwear of the women and girls that lived there. This success fueled his need to commit more crimes and he went from break-ins to sexual assault, then eventually to murder.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise and donation informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 112 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? Man, I'm good. I'm doing all right. That's good. How about you, man? How are you doing? One, one, two. I'm doing great, man. I had a good New Year's, even though the family was sick. All four of us got stripped throat. Yeah. Still worked out okay. Should wipe everything down before I got here? Nah. Sanitized. Chlorox, please. We're all on. Anastewing. We're all on. Anastews. We're all on. And, anti-exempt. We're all on. So, like Gibby come on. You're on your own. Touching stuff. Yeah. Okay. Just don't touch nothing. You shouldn't be touching anything anyway.

Well, I know you're right. Don't touch anything in my house when I come over. Don't look at me. Yeah. And don't touch any of my stuff. Go right to the studio, man. All right, Gibbs. Let's jump in, man.

We are jam-packed on this episode. All right. So let's start with our new Patreon support. We had Shalen Overway. Over there. Zandali Guzman. Guzman. Gules Munn.

Steph Hitchens. Hey, Steph. Tammy. Just Tammy. That's a good movie, too. Is it? I don't know. Which one's Tammy?

Melissa McCarthy. No, I know. It's kind of funny. Which one is it? Is that the one where she steals the identity of Jason Bateman? No, that's the one where she's with Susan Sarandon. I don't know if I've seen that one. She works at the chicken place.

She goes back and robs it. I mean, I haven't seen that one. It's funny. I mean, who robs a chicken place? That's a KFC or something like that. It cracks me up. Yeah. No, I haven't seen that one.

All right. It's good. Becca Williams. Hey, Becca. Fox and Tundra. The fox and tundra. That's cold, man. Joel Perez.

Hey, Joe. Lonnie Pierce. Lonnie. Cessaly Pederson. Ina, Cecily Pederson, yes. Hella Beck Nilsson. It's a hella Beck Nelson. I don't know if I got that right.

Swedish. That's what I'm going with. We're in that general area. Yeah. Could be Hellie. It could be. Nina. That's her friend, Nina.

Cherise La Boy Toy. One's the Shiris La Boa da Toila. Toila. Donald Roberts. Hey, don't. Rebecca Marchetti. Machete. Marchetti.

Marchetti. Yogurt and Petunia. Hey, you know, yogurt and Batuna? No. Do you say Petunna? I say whatever. You say whatever. You don't even know what you say.

Probably a really cool shop somewhere. You know, they got the petunias and the yogurt and little yoga, sweat yoga going back. Oh, yeah, because all three of those go to. together very well. Yeah, yeah. Get your flowers, get your yogurt. Yeah.

And then sweat out, doing some yoga. Yeah. And if it's in Denver, you go back to the other room and get your, what's that fancy oil called? CBD. CBD. Get your CBD oil and, you know. I had Cricket Loy jumped out at our highest level.

That's a cool name, cricket. Then we had Ronnie Loy. I don't know if there's a relationship there or not. But we got two Loys. We got two Loys. Tony and Kara McKay. Hey, Tony and Kara. Quinn Molano.

Samantha Anderson. Hey Samantha. And Desiree Hurst. Hey, Desiree. And then if we go back into the Vault Gibbs. Let's go back. This week we selected Danny Jock. Hey, Danny.

Danny's been a long time supporter of the show. Good guy. Yep, good guy. We really appreciate that. Kind of a famous artist in his own way. Yeah. Yeah. And we had a lot of PayPal support too.

Alana Bush. Alana. Big on social media. Yeah. Gave us a really size. Donation on PayPal. Thank you. Ali Pecca Marburg.

I'm pretty sure that's coming from outside of the U.S. You think? Pretty sure. Maybe not. Paul Krause. Hey, Paul. Geraldine Collis. Oh, thanks, Geraldine.

And Nathan Kittredge. Hey, Nathan. Appreciate that. So, again, first show of 2019 Gibbs. The amount of support that we've received over 2018 was amazing. It was. Really went a long way. towards helping you and I put out the number of shows that we did.

And we're looking for a great 2019. Yeah, I think it's going to be a great year. I really do. Yeah, a great year for the podcast. I do too. I really do. So right now, there is a new episode out on true crime all the time unsolved. Yeah.

We're talking about the disappearance of Trudy Appleby. Sad case. Sad case. 11 year old happened back in 1996 in Illinois. which is right by the other Illinois. This has the hallmarks of a lot of the unsolved that we do, right? We're going to talk about Trudy. Yeah.

We're going to talk about what happened in the specifics of the case. I think what makes this one a little different is police come out years later and say, hey, this is who we believe did it. They actually name the person that they believe committed this crime against Trudy. But we'll get into that and we'll go through, you know, who that person is and why the police can't put them away. All right. Gibbs, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? You know, I am. I'm excited. Yeah, me too, because this is one that I've been wanting to do for a long time, probably since we started the podcast.

If I had to say it's most likely one of the very first cases that I wrote down, we're talking about Colonel Russell Williams. So we're up in Canada. Williams was a colonel in the Canadian forces, but he ran one of the busiest air bases in Canada. I mean, this was, this guy was very high up. He was a commander. Well, yeah, with his rank, yeah.

I mean, that's, it's pretty very important. But this is also a guy that had two different lives. So, you know, in one, he's this very stern, taciturn base commander, right? who rose up through the ranks over the years. And we're going to talk about all that when we get into background. Everyone that knew him said that he was a standout military officer. Which would make sense for him to get to the rank and to his responsibilities. Yeah.

Yeah. To be given the honor of commanding this huge air base in Canada. But then he had this other life. You know, he was a man who enjoyed dressing up in women's and, and girls, lingerie and underwear and things like that, something gives, I know that you know a lot about. Well, because I experience it from you, you know, things that you tell me. So I am expecting you to bring a lot of real world experience to this episode.

You know, I'll do my best. You got to give us those little nuggets. I'll try to pull it out of you. I'll try to get you to open up a little bit. But in all seriousness, if Russell Williams would have kept this fetish to himself, right? Wearing things that, let's say, he purchased at a store and he liked to wear him walking around his house in the comfort of his own home.

No problem with that. What you do in your own house, as long as it doesn't hurt or involve anybody else, you know, do what you want to do, do your, get your freak on. Yeah. You know, if you want to tuck back and walk around like Buffalo Bill, sing to yourself in a mirror wearing clothing from the opposite sex, that's, that's up to you. Or a skin suit. Yeah, I think that's going to be a little harder to pull off without hurting anyone else.

But this is not what he's going to do, right? He has this fetish and it escalates. Right. Into breaking into houses, violating the privacy and sanctity of the people in those houses. And then eventually to sexual assault and murder. And we'll hear a little bit from Russell Williams and the Seventh. episode because he did some interviews with police after he was caught. So we'll get to hear a little bit from him. But let's start with background. Russell Williams was born March 7th,

1963 in Bromsgrove, England to David and Christine Noney Williams. So we start out in England. We know we're going to end up in Canada. And that's because the family moved to Chalk River, Ontario, when Russell's dad was hired at a nuclear research facility that was located in Chalk River, Russell had a brother Harvey that was born two years after he was. But I have to say up front, Gibbs, the childhood of Russell Williams was really kind of uneventful. When you compare it to other cases that we've done. Right. We're not going to be talking about traumatic experiences, right? One after the other and head injuries and a lot of those things that we get into on episodes

of true crime all the time. It's just not there. No. It's what makes it more intriguing. It's kind of hard to figure out. Yeah. Right. What makes somebody finally tick like that?

And finally do what this guy does. And we'll talk about it more as we go along. So the family moves to Ontario and they meet another family there. named the Savkhas. And the children play with each other. The parents were great friends. They spent a lot of time together. Now, this is a pretty small town.

And it was flooded with scientists working at this nuclear facility. And to me, what was interesting from the research was a lot of talk about, you know, a real divide in this small town between the haves and the have-nots. So there was a lot of people that had money. Yeah. People that had advanced degrees that were, you know, nuclear scientists or whatever you want to call them. And then the guy that cleaned up after him. And then you had regular Joe's that lived in the same town.

Yeah. The Williams and the Savkas were definitely in the Havs group, right? They had money. Their fathers both worked at the nuclear plant. But the marriage between Russell's parents, David and Christine, it fizzled. They divorced when Russell was six years old. But like we said, other than that, there really wasn't much out there to suggest that this guy would later in life become a murderer.

But that's not to say that his childhood was completely normal. I mean, there were some things that went on that were a little unorthodox, just not to the level that we normally see. So there was the divorce. But Gibbs, a lot of it. have gone through that. Yeah. My parents are divorced.

My wife's parents are divorced. Yeah. I mean, divorce is not going to make you a killer. No. No. I mean, compared to the things that we talk about

in some of these killers' backgrounds, divorce is pretty commonplace and has been for a long time. You know, a long time. I mean, it's, I don't even know what it's something like. You're trying to do like the percentage or two out of five.

I don't know. It's pretty high. It is high. I don't know what it is. I think it's greater than 50% or people get divorced now. I think it's greater or close to right at it. So if that was true, we'd have a lot of killers. We'd have a lot more serial or killers or serial killers.

But there is something that made this divorce strange. For one thing, his mother very quickly after the divorce married Jerry Safka, the father of the family that they had been best friends with. So there is a story out there that alleges Russell's dad David was having an affair with Mrs. Safka and that the official cause of the divorce was adultery. And that'll do it. I mean, that's one thing that will end a marriage pretty quickly. It's hard to recover from that.

I mean, couples can try to work through it, but it's always stuck in their back of their mind. Yeah, the trust factor alone, I think. Yeah. So I don't know, Gibbs. I don't know if she said, you know what, I'll show you. You cheated on me. I'll marry your best friend.

Yeah, my turn. I don't know. I don't know what. Or was she already in love with this Jerry Savka? I really don't know the full details. Could have been. You know, who knows? People get together, spend a lot of time with each other before they know it.

They have interests. Developed feeling. Yeah. But that's what she did. She married Jerry Savka. And this is when she started using her middle name. instead of her first. So, you know, where before she was Christine Williams, now she's known as Nani or Noni. I'm not sure how you pronounce it. Yeah. Sovka. Probably Noni. We'll go with Noni.

But on top of that, Russell also adopted his stepfather's last name and became Russ Safka. So it's all somewhat strange, a little bit different. Yeah. Nothing that you would say would point to the fact that this guy later and life is going to do what he does. So let's talk about Jerry Sofka a little bit. He's this hot shot nuclear engineer who was in very high demand. By the late 70s, he had moved the family to South Korea. Okay. So that includes Russ, his brother, his mom.

They all moved. They're all there. But Russell's time in South Korea was not a good one. He was teased at school for being an. outsider, which obviously he was. So I think he was only there for maybe a year or so. He and his brother when his mom and stepdad made the decision to send both of them back to Canada. And they enrolled them in a prestigious boarding school. You went to boarding school. I did not. I had boards up on the windows. Yeah. If that's what you want to call boarding school,

boarding school. I was definitely a product of the public school system. As were you. Oh, of course. Which is very easy to tell. No, thank you. Thank you for that. No wonder I rank so high. I'm just messing with you. Yeah.

But he did well there. He graduated and then he went on to the University of Toronto at Scarborough. Toronto. That's a big city. Or was it? They call them cities or is that Providence or don't they have like different? You just say Providence? It's provinces.

I said Providences. No, you said Providence. That's a different city. Providence. Rhode Island. Yeah. Yeah, you're somewhat confused geographically again, I think. That's my public school bringing up coming out.

Bringing up coming out. You like that? All right. Toronto is a big city. It is. I've been there. Maple Leafs, right? Yeah. Toronto Maple Leafs.

Yeah. But Scarborough. Does that sound familiar, Gibbs? A little bit. A little bit, right? This is where the path of Russell Williams or Safka's, he's, known at this point, maybe intersects with another famous Canadian criminal that we've talked about, Paul Bernardo, known as the Scarborough rapist. So apparently, the Scarborough campus of the

University of Toronto was experiencing a number of sexual assaults, right, on campus. Right. And we know that Bernardo raped a large number of women in the Scarborough area during this time period. And some of them on campus. These are things that he would later, you know, later come out and say, sure. But you also have Russell, Safka, or Williams. He changed his name back pretty early in his college days to Williams, but he's in Scarborough at the same time. And given what he's going to admit to, maybe he is responsible for, for some of the assaults that he could have been back then. Yeah. You know, I mean, I don't think it's out of the. realm of possibility at all. Now, what I will say is I don't think they've ever conclusively linked him

to any of those assaults. I don't think he's ever admitted to any of those assaults where Paul Bernardo definitely has. So Russell Williams is in college and he's living with a group of guys there. And later on, they're all going to have their stories, right, about Russell Williams. And most of them said that this guy just came in, took charge from the start. I mean, I guess he started assigning chores saying who was going to do what on what days. Natural born leader, man. Yeah. I mean, he really, he was a very organized guy. There's no doubt about that. He was on his roommates all the time about, you know, being neat, clean, those type of things. And because of all that, they started calling him drill sergeant as a nickname.

But it all centered around the fact that, you know, he was trying to dictate to them what they should do and when they should do it. I mean, if you have that, if you have that personality and you can do that, you can make decisions and just move forward, that's, that's a strong trait to have. It is. And it can serve you well in certain things. Yes. Now, if you're rooming with a guy like me, you're going out the window. Well, you're going to have, yeah, that's where you're going to butt hedge. Oh, yeah. Right.

You and I are going to tell me what I'm going to do. No, you and I are not going to get along. I don't do well with being told what to do in a drill sergeant-like fashion. It's one of the reasons why I never thought I would do well in the military. Not to say I couldn't do it, but I feel like I would be miserable. No, you like to be the one that gives me. the direction, not take it. I do. So I like to give you direction. Yeah, yeah, you try. You try. It's a good trait to have if you can be decisive. So a couple of things. You talked about a good

trait. It's going to serve him well later on as he joins the military and rises up through the ranks, which we'll talk about. But it also plays into his crimes. Very organized. Yeah. Very neat. Very tidy. Does things. certain way every time. And we'll get into that as well. Apparently Gibbs, he didn't like to party. You know, the other kids, his roommates, they were out drinking and partying. Williams didn't do that. You know, he stayed in his room. He studied hard. But what is very strange came out during his college years was that he had this side, but he also had this other side where he was this big time prankster. Oh, yeah. Love to pull pranks on people, jump out at them from closets. He would

saran wrap the toilet bowl. I've had my car saran wrapped. Have you? Yeah, at work one time. We had somebody that was reporting to me and, uh, well, but that was for like your birthday or something, wasn't it? I don't know. She just went out at lunchtime and bought saran wrapped and wrapped my car up so tight. And then when I left at the end of the day, I was like, well, that in the world. What am I going to do. But I found this like this dichotomy of again, almost having two different lives. Yeah. Here's the serious studier. Everything has to be neat and orderly. And then on the other spectrum, he's pulling like childish pranks against his roommates. Do you do any pranks when you were at college that you can talk about legally? Oh man. Yeah, I'm sure we did a bunch of them.

We would lock, we'd lock guys out of the room. Yeah. Like when, after they'd showered, somebody'd ripped the towel off, locked a door. They were down the hall. They couldn't get back in. Yeah. Yeah. Stuff like that. Wander up the hall, back and forth, naked.

Yeah. Made it worse because, you know, co-ed. Oh, that's right. Yeah, well, you went that was co-ed. I think, yeah, one of the years I was there, I think it was a co-ed floor. Yeah. So, you know. Hey, depending on what you look like, maybe you were okay with that.

Just strutting your stuff up and down the hall, you know? Here I am. Well, you know I was when I was. Well, you're Frank the tank. drunk. Yeah. Not sober. Now, another thing that happened during college is Russell Williams took up flying. And he also entered into, I think, what was his real first relationship with a woman. But that relationship ended his senior year. And friends of his came out and they said, you know, he was devastated when this relationship ended. Apparently, he didn't date for quite a number of years.

Did a number on them. After it ended. It happened. It affected him that bad. Yeah, I can see that. So he graduated from college in 1986. This was a year before Paul Bernardo. It's so odd. That they were at the same university, same time. Imagine these two guys knowing what they did and are later going to do at the same college, at the same time. And I talked about the large number of reported cases of sexual assault during this time.

I guess Gibbs, it got so bad that. women wouldn't walk anywhere after Dark alone. I don't blame them. So Williams gets out of college. And he kind of has a year where he's just working, hanging out, living by himself. But then the next year in 1987, this is when he joins the military. And he really did rise up very quickly through the ranks. And you mentioned it Gibbs.

I think he had the temperament. He had some of the traits that they feel. find very appealing in the military. He became a decorated pilot, did a tour in the Middle East, even had the privilege of transporting some very important people. I mean, we're talking about prime ministers, Queen Elizabeth the second of a really? Yeah. So he he was given some very prestigious duties, which tells you what they thought of him. Sure. I mean, it goes to his character that they entrusted him with that level of service. In 1991, he married Mary Harriman.

And this is a woman that would go on to be a pretty big deal in her own right. She later would hold a prestigious job as the associate director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. That's pretty big. Yeah. So it's kind of a power couple, right? If you think about it later in life, she's got this great job. he becomes ultimately the commander of this great big Air Force base.

Right. Now, they never had any children. They lived in a nice house on Wilkie Drive in an Ottawa suburb called Orleans. Now, later they would trade up to a very nice townhouse in another suburb called Westboro Village. So moving into the better neighborhood. Yeah. Now, that's not going to happen until right before he's caught. But it was in 2004 that they bought this little getaway college, right?

Like a weekend getaway place. Yeah. It was on Cozy Cove Lane in the village of Tweed, Ontario. Cozy Cove. It wasn't too far from the base in Trenton. Yeah. Where Russell Williams would later become commander. So you look at this couple, right?

Russell and his wife, Mary, on the outside looking in, they seem to have this perfect life. And I think maybe for a little while they did. For Mary, maybe she thought it was perfect the whole time up until she learned the truth. I don't know. But as we talked about, Russell Williams definitely had this fetish for women's lingerie and underwear. And unlike most people that have a fetish, he's not going to keep it contained. And as in the case of most of the predators that we talk about, things are just going to escalate. He's going to continue to escalate until he gets to murder. All right, Gibbs, let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsor, Candid. It's the new year. So if you have a problem with your teeth that you've always wanted to get fixed, Candid is there for you. You don't

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Sure, we do. With killers and their backgrounds, that's because Williams didn't have any. We talked about the sexual assaults at college, but again, there's no confirmation that he was involved in any of those. Authorities believe that his criminal behavior began sometime in 2007 when he started breaking into houses near his cottage on Cozy Cove Lane and Tweed. The guy's 44 years old. So if that's really true, right? He's never done anything before this time, which may or may not be true, but I just

don't get it. Why at the age of 44, you all of a sudden make the decision that you're going to start committing crimes. I'm 45 years old. Yeah. I'm not going to wake up tomorrow. and all of a sudden say, you know what?

Today is the day? I think I need to start breaking into people's houses. I just, I can't imagine myself ever having that thought. I mean, I don't know. You just don't know what stress factors were maybe could have been in his life

or who knows what drove him to that. Or he's always done it and just was never caught, you know? And I think there could be something to that, right? He could have done a lot of things earlier on and we may just never know about them. I mean, we know people snap. But I don't think he snapped.

I wouldn't call this a snap situation. I think that'll bear itself out as we start to talk about his crimes. So the first house that Russell Williams chose to break into, if this is his first offense, as they, as the authorities believe it is, he chose his next door neighbor's house next to his cottage on cozy Cove Lane. And what got me Gibbs, this is a family that he knew very well. He went ice fishing with the dad. He ate dinner over there. He knew the children. Well, if you just wanted to break into a home, that would be an easy target because like you just said, he knew them. So he knew their schedule. And so the risk would be fairly low. Yeah, you're right. He knew the layout of the house.

obviously he knew when they were home and when they were not. He could tell that from probably looking out the window. So he breaks into this house while the family's away. He went into the 12-year-old daughter's bedroom, played around with her underwear, did some unsavory things while he was in there. But he stole some of her underwear and took it with him. This is going to be a signature of Williams in later break-ins. but this is it. This is the start of him bringing his fetish to life, if you want to think about it that way.

Yeah, taking it outside of his personal bedroom. Right. Now it's real. The bad thing is in doing this, he's going to victimize a lot of people along the way. Well, like you said, it's different now. You know, it's not like ordering the stuff and having it sent to your home with him going to the store. I mean, you know, I mean, you get your Victoria's Secret stuff coming here, but it's not the same. Now he's going. into other people's personal space and taking their things. Yeah. It's a violation for sure. Absolutely.

But between 2007 and 2009, he committed over 60 break-ins near his houses in Ontario and Ottawa. And I think Gibbs, this is a good time to talk about the geography, the distance, where these homes are located. from what I can tell they're about two and a half to three hours away from each other. Okay. And it did talk about in the research that Mary stayed full time at the house in Ottawa. Now, she would visit, right, the cabin or the cottage, whatever you, it's a lakefront house is really what it is.

It's actually kind of nice. But she didn't live there full time. She lived full time at their house in Ottawa. Right. But since the lakehouse and tweed was closer to the base, Russell often stayed there during the week. Oh, there you go. So he would stay at the cottage. He would work at the base.

And then he would go home to Mary in Ottawa on the weekends. Okay. So he had the freedom to do his thing at his, you know, leisure at his house. Sure. And these other things. break-ins and such without having to have to explain to her. Right. We talked about it.

They didn't have any kids. Mary's not there during the week. He had a lot of time to himself and a lot of opportunity to plan, stalk, and commit his crimes. And apparently Gibbs, he was very good at breaking into houses. You know, he would find unlocked doors, pick locks, cut through window screens. but again, these were all houses in his neighborhood, you know, houses of people in many cases that he knew.

Well, and I think that makes it an easy target, right? I mean, if he knows the people, if he knows their schedule, and it sounds like he was very observant anyway in his life, so he's paying attention to things. If he's organized like we know he is, I'm sure that he would probably even case these homes to make sure he had a detailed schedule and then he would go in. This is not a guy that's just going to do things on a whim, right? It's why I made a big deal about

his time in college and what people thought of him, things they observed. He is extremely meticulous. And it's probably the reason why he got away with as many break-ins as he did. It's been said, Gibbs, that many of the people that lived in these houses where he broke in, they never even knew Williams had been inside their house. It was. It was, wouldn't be until after he was caught that police found thousands of pictures, that the full scope of what he did in these houses was known. And he hit some of these houses, like we said, many of them in his own neighborhoods, multiple times. I think there were some houses he was in as many as eight, nine, ten different times. Now, obviously, Gibbs, we can't talk about every single

break in. We can't go through everyone in detail, but I don't think we have to. because they were all somewhat similar. So Russell Williams would break into a house and he would search for lingerie, bathing suits, underwear. Ultimately, he would put these items on and he would model them, I guess is the only word I can think of. Okay.

But as we've talked about, as you said, he was a meticulous person, even in the way that he took his photographs. He did everything in a certain order. So apparently he would gather up as many items as he could find. He would lay them all out either on a bed or on the floor. He would take a photograph of all of them.

Okay. Then he would separate them and he would take individual photographs. He would take photographs of himself wearing the items. And he had this habit of taking photographs of himself, wearing the clothes from behind looking over his shoulder. And these are the, these are the ones you can see out online. All right.

Almost like you would see a fashion model do. You know, that kind of over the shoulder look back at the camera. You just did it. I did it. Yeah. Even though nobody can see you do it. It was funny.

You could probably hear it as my voice faded away from the microphone. Yeah. Yeah. So he set up his camera. He took pictures of everything that he did. But it's the. details of what he did in some of the younger girls' rooms that are really disturbing. That was disturbing. He would masturbate in their rooms, wearing their clothing on their beds, taking pictures of himself, using articles of their clothing while he masturbated.

Disturbing. Sometimes he would have their stuffed animals in the pictures. Think about that violation. of your kid's room, but you don't know about it. No, you won't find out about it for a long time. No, and then you're going to be pretty ticked off. Yeah, especially the ones that knew him at a better level, just that whole trust factor, you know, just crush you.

Now, after he was done doing all this, as he was leaving, right, he would put everything back. This is the reason why a lot of times people never knew that someone had broken into their house, but what he would do is he took souvenirs. He took underwear. He took garments and different things. I honestly believe Gibbs from the research that Russell Williams was a pedophile, even though to my knowledge, he never physically harmed any children. Right. But he definitely tended to gravitate towards the bedrooms of, of the younger girls. I'm not sure why, you know, why, yeah, you had to, because why wouldn't he just go towards the wife's, you know, the mom's bedroom and grab her lingerie or her underwear.

I mean, clearly there was a infatuation with the younger. Yeah, with underage girls. Yeah. That's why I call him a pedophile. Yeah. I mean, it's gross that he would go in and pleasure himself to, you know, 12-year-old's underwear. I think as young as nine is what I read.

Yeah, that's terrible. But my assumption is that, so he's staking out. his houses. I think he used the fact that a family had a young girl in it as part of his criteria. During one of the break-ins, he ejaculated on a 15-year-old girl's dresser. Then he took photographs of himself holding some type of brush, a hairbrush, a makeup brush against his penis. Okay. So we talk about this coming out years later in court, imagine that. That's, yeah. Imagine finding that out that you then went on to use that brush because

hell, you didn't know anybody had been in your room. It's like coming home from vacation and seeing what the maid did with a toothbrush. Yeah, I don't think there's any doubt, right? Russell Williams harmed a lot of young girls and their parents emotionally. It's just disgusting. When they found out about it years later. And it was something probably that they would have. have to deal with for years and years. But Williams is getting away with all these break-ins,

right? We talked about it. No one really even knows that he's doing this, but he started to get more daring. And this is what we talk about all the time, escalation. He started leaving things behind at these houses instead of just taking souvenirs, apparently on a 12-year-old's computer, he typed out the word mercy. Okay. So thanking, you know, basically saying, thanks for this experience that I've just had in your room. Now, at other houses, he wrote some more ominous type messages, daring people, I guess, to call the cops or saying, don't, don't you dare call the cops, things like that. Imagine coming home to find something like that.

Very scary. Very scary. But it's during this escalation, right, that people start to realize that someone had been in their house. It's not too hard to figure out that if somebody leaves a message or types a message on your computer, it wasn't you, wasn't anybody in the house. Yeah, somebody's been in there. And they started to call the police. So now these break-ins are getting reported. At one house, police found semen on a woman's photograph. At other houses, they found items that he had used in his masturbation ritual. Right. So he wasn't putting everything away now. He was leaving it out so that people would know somebody was here. He's getting braver. Yeah, he's getting braver.

He's getting riskier. And it's around 2009 that he began peeping into houses. So on one occasion, he watched a woman undress through the window. He saw her get into the shower. And then he broke into her house and stole some of her underwear. So a little, you can see the transformation a little bit. Right. Right.

Before, I'm going to go in, nobody's home. Now I'm peeping on people that are home and I'm breaking into the house while this woman's into the shower. My assumption Gibbs is that the old thing wasn't doing it for him anymore, right? Isn't that what we often talk about? Yeah, the excitement levels no longer there. Now they want to take it and you'll push it a little bit, push the boundaries a little bit. Yeah, he has to in order to get the same thrill.

to get the same level. And I think this house that we just talked about, it's one that he would later say that he hit nine different times. Nine times he was in this woman's house. I think if you're that woman, you're like, what in the world, you know? How did I not realize this? Well, and it's a point to talk about the fact that he went back to certain houses many different times. So it was said that after he got caught, they found over 80 parades. And it's a point to talk about the fact that he went back to certain houses many different times. So it was said that after he got caught, they found over 80 pairs of underwear in his possession that all came from the same underaged girl. Yeah. 80 pairs. That's, one, feel bad for the girl. She's probably like, where's, what's on my underwear, the mom, her parents are probably like, what are you doing

with your, how many times we got to keep buying you more underwear? Right. So over, let's say a two-year period, if he's in there eight, nine, ten times, he's taking, what, eight, ten pairs at a time? Yeah, that's a lot. And they're having to replace that. I mean, sir, I mean, imagine if your kid came to you and said, hey, I need to buy, I need more underwear. I don't know where it's at. You'd be like, what do you mean you don't know where your underwear is at?

Well, and knowing how expensive it is, I wouldn't be a happy camper. No. And I have to give a few stats about these break-ins, right? we said there were 82 in total. These occurred in 42 different homes. So obviously some of the homes he only hit once. Some he hit many times. Of the 82, 61 were either not known about by the residents or were not reported.

So out of the 82, only 21 were reported to police. Which is alarming. But again, that just tells you how good he was what he did. Yeah. I think he was good at putting everything away and making it in the beginning, making it look like he didn't, he wasn't in there. Yeah. Like he said, he's so organized. So I'm sure mentally he had a checklist in his head of what he had to do.

And like we said, clearly he knew the neighborhood. He probably cased it in exactly the perfect time to go into these homes. But even this new escalation would not be enough, right? That's the thing. It's never enough with these guys. They always have to take it to the next level to get the same thrill, the same excitement, whatever you want to call it. And I think in the timeline of events, it's important to note that July of 2009 is when he gets

this big promotion and is made commander of this big Air Force base in Trenton. Because it's just a few months later in September of 2009, William, sexually assaulted two women in the span of two weeks. So he's taking a big step up. That's a big jump. You know, from breaking in and doing some nasty things to now breaking in and actually sexually assaulting physically the women that live there. So both of these women were asleep when Williams entered their homes.

He bound them. He blindfolded them. he sexually assaulted them, but he also made them pose for lewd photographs. But this guy, it's always about the photographs. And like I said, they're going to find thousands. Yeah. On his computer later on. You know, I guess he stayed in, in these women's houses for hours, two, three hours,

you know, committing these acts against them. The whole time assuring them, he wouldn't hurt them if they cooperated. And it was said that one of these women had an infant in the next room. And the other woman that he sexually assaulted, he had broken into her house numerous times before. And maybe she didn't know about it. Just didn't know. Wasn't aware of it, for sure. But he can't stop.

Gibbs is my thinking at this point. He's too far gone, right? He's escalated to. Oh, it's an addiction too. Sexual assault. Yeah. He's going to escalate again. in just a couple of months, November, and this is when he committed his first murder.

So it's on the night of November 23rd, 2009. We're in the town of Brighton. This is just a little bit west of Trenton where the Air Force base is located. Williams broke into the home of 37-year-old corporal Marie-France Como. She was actually stationed at the air base where Russell Williams was the commander. And as the story goes, he broke in. He's hiding in her basement. And I guess she had a cat.

And as animals do, they figure out somebody's in the house. And this cat comes down in the basement and just won't leave him alone, right? He's looking at him trying to figure out what he's doing. Well, eventually, Marie discovers him in the basement. They have a fight. And he ends up hitting her on the head several times with the fight. flashlight. He wrapped up her face with duct tape and for hours. He repeatedly raped her. He viciously beat her. Now, he took photographs. But this time he added the element of recording it on video.

Oh, wow. Taking it to another level. Another level. Something he can watch later for his trophy, I guess. But then he's going to take the ultimate step. And he takes a piece of duct tape and he puts it over her nose. He's, he, he, because he already had her mouth

duct tape. So she's breathing through her nose. Now her nose is covered and he just sat there and

watched her die. He left her body in the bedroom, cleaned up the scene and then he went to work at the base.

Just another day. Just another day. I don't think this guy had a lot of emotions. I do believe he was a psychopath

in that. way. Right. You know, when you watch him in the interviews and things like that, there's just really no emotion. Everything is very matter of fact, something that we see in a lot of other killers as well. Yeah. His next victim was 27 year old Jessica Lloyd. So he broke into her house in Belleville, Ontario, which was pretty close to where his cottage was in Tweed. This is about 1 a.m. on the 29th of January. So 2010, Jessica Lloyd was asleep. He blindfolded her. He tied her hands behind her back. And again, he sexually assaulted her, made her pose for, you know, nasty, lewd photographs for about three hours. And again, he's, he's going to tell the story later on, but he said, you know,

he got her to do this by saying, hey, if you cooperate with me, I won't hurt you. It's his thing. That's what he says now. But this one went a little different from the first murder because he actually took Jessica Lloyd from her house, put her in his 2001 Nissan Pathfinder and drove her back to his cottage. And the nightmare for this woman continued all that day, all the way into the night until Russell Williams cracked her skull with a flashlight and strangled her with a piece of rope. But again, captured it all on video, had tons of photographs. I don't know if this is 100% true, but he may have taken as many as a thousand photographs in just this one incident. Or just this one? Yeah, they found thousands and thousands.

Wow. But I think I read somewhere where with Jessica Lloyd, because he was with her for pretty much an entire day. Yeah. he may have taken a thousand photographs just in that one incident. That's crazy. I could be wrong about that, but I thought I read that one. Even if it was hundreds. It's still, yeah.

Yeah, it's so. Either way, it's still so far out there. Yeah. So Williams put Lloyd's body in his garage. And it wouldn't be until about three days later that he came back, retrieved Lloyd's body, and dumped her out in the woods. But by this time, Gibbs, they're investigating both the murder of Marie Franz Como, who they found. Right.

They found her body. They're investigating that as a murder. And they're also investigating the disappearance of Jessica Lloyd because her family was worried and called the police. One of the things that they found at her house was a set of tire tracks. So they began stopping people that were using the highway near her house and looking at their tires. And it just so happened that along comes Russell Williams, police officer stops him, looks at his tires and says, wow, this looks very similar to what we're looking for. But he's not arrested, right?

He's allowed to go. but the police are very interested in him now. And they start to tail him. They start to follow his movements. And it's on February 7th that they call him down to the station for what ended up being about a 10-hour interview. And the interview started out pretty cordial. Russell Williams didn't seem to be too worried about anything.

And in fact, he wasn't under arrest. You know, he was asked to come down. he did, he was free to leave at any point. He was also free to get an attorney at any point. Right. He didn't choose to do either. He sat there and he talked to investigators for 10 hours. But I will say this, the detective that was in the room with him for most of it,

at least the part that I watched, he did a masterful job of breaking Russell Williams down over time. Right? He started out very nice and did his thing. Hey, I'm trying to help you out. But then he hit him with the information about the tire tracks. Would it surprise you to know that when the CSI officers were looking around her property, that they identified a set of tire tracks to the north of her property. Looks as if the vehicle left the road and drove along the north tree line of Jessica Lloyd.

its property, okay? Okay. They took, they examined those tire tracks, and they have contacts in the tire business, obviously, tire tracks are a major source of evidence for us. Sure. Shortly after this investigation started, they identified those tires as the same tires on your pathfinder. Really?

Yeah. Do you have any recollection at all of being off that road? That was none of that. So there you get a chance to hear Russell Williams. And the one thing I do want to say, if you watch this interview, he's very measured as you would expect somebody like Russell Williams to be. He takes a long time between talking. He'll sit for minutes, thinking. I'm going to say, but that's what somebody like that does.

And you've got to be calculated because you've got to think what's, he's a smart guy. he knows there's a reason behind every question in being thrown his way, right? It's like those personality tests you take. You know, they ask you the same question 20 different ways because they're trying to see if you respond differently. So he's doing that. He's thinking, what are they really asking here? And what am I going to say?

And how do I remember what I say? So I don't get tripped up later. Well, and I think he, like a lot of these guys are, he thinks he's smarter than what he really is. he thinks he can beat this detective. Yeah. And he's not going to. Like I said, he could have said, I don't want to answer any questions. He could have left at any point.

He could have reached out and secured an attorney who, you know Gibbs would have told him, don't say a word. But he didn't do any of those things. Was it because he thought he could outsmart this guy? Maybe. You know, that's what he's thinking in his head. He's thinking, I'm a colonel. I run a base of hundreds or thousands of people.

The biggest Air Force base in Canada. Yeah. So what are you going to tell me that I don't, you know? So the detective talks about the trier tracks. And then he hits him with some information about some footprint impressions. The problem is, Russell, is every time I walk out of this room, there's another issue that comes up. Okay. And it's not issues that point away from you.

It's issues that point at you. Okay, and I want you to see what I mean, all right? This is the footwear impression of the person who approached the rear of Jessica Lloyd's house on the evening of the 28th and 29th of January. Okay, this is a photocopy of the boot that you took off your foot. Yeah. Just a little while ago, okay? Now, I'm not an expert in footwear impressions, so I rely on the,

experts. Footwear impressions are very much like like fingerprint comparisons. Okay. You take a look at this print. And again, this is one print. This person walked through. There's several different prints to compare. So we're going to get features off a one print to compare, features off another print to compare. Yeah. These are identical. All right. So maybe he's not feeling as confident in the face of this evidence. And then the detective starts to press him. You can, you can hear the difference between the first one and the second one. He's getting a little more aggressive. Now he starts to press him even more. Your vehicle drove up the side of Jessica Lloyd's house. Your boots walked to the back of Jessica Lloyd's house on the evening of the 28th and 29th of January. Right now there's a

search warrant being executed at your residence in office. So your wife now knows what's going on. searchable being executed at the day of your residence in Tweed and your vehicles were seized. You and I both know they're going to find evidence that links you to these situations. You and I both know that the unknown offender mailed on Marie-France-Como's body is going to be matched to you quite possibly before the evening's over. A little more direct? a little more accusatory. Trying to bring it home.

But one of the important things I think that the detective does there is he talks about your wife is now going to know what's going on. And I think this was huge in the interrogation. Oh, it takes him out of his, you know, he's confident sitting there right now. And I think that shatters that confidence. Because I do believe that Russell Williams truly loves. loved his wife. And the fact that she was going to find out what he had done, the fact that it's a couple things. And he's going to talk about it in this next clip. But again, the detective does just an

amazing job talking with Russell Williams, continually pushing him forward until he finally decides to talk. Because if you hear the uncut version, there are. two, three, four, five minute stretches where the detective asks a question. And Russell just doesn't say anything. He's just in his mind calculating. He's trying to spend it. So you talk about perception. My only two immediate concerns from a perception perspective are what my wife must be

gone through right now. Yeah. And the impact this is going to have on the Canadian forces. Where do we go? I'm struggling with how upset my life is. right now. I'm concerned that they're tearing apart my wife's brand new house. So am I.

But if nobody tells them what's there and what's not, they don't have any choice. Computers will be brought to Microsoft in California. They'll be picked apart. You can't erase things from computers. Do we talk? I want to minimize the impact on my wife. So do I. So that do we do that?

We start by telling the truth. Okay. So where is she? Get him out. And there you go. And that's it. I mean, they played the wife and very well. Yeah, you can tell.

There was two things he was worried about. He was worried about his wife. And he was worried about the Canadian forces. He said it. You know, he's thinking in his mind, this is going to come out. No matter what I do it. point. Yeah. And my wife's going to be ruined. What is she going to think of me? Yeah. And this is going to devastate the Canadian forces. Yeah, it's going to have a very large impact. So, I mean, the two things that

he loved the most was his wife and his career. So it makes sense that those were the pressing points for him. Well, besides women's under. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, outside of. Yeah. Yeah. Because he did have, what appears to be a pretty deep infatuation with women's and girls underwear. But it's the end of that clip, right? What do we do now? And you, you hear him say, okay. And as soon as he says that, I think the detective knows he's ready. Yeah.

So he pounces and starts saying, okay, where's she at? He's talking about Jessica Lloyd. And all Russell Williams says is, do you have a map? Now, obviously, there's a lot more to that conversation and, and we're not going to play at all. But to me, I thought that was the important part. It's really what opened up the floodgates. That was the part where Russell Williams made the decision that I'm caught. I'm going to fess up to what I did.

And that's what happens. You know, he begins telling the detective all kinds of things. You know, the details of the two murders, one against, Marie, France, Como, and the other against Jessica Lloyd, he tells them

where he kept all the pictures. Apparently, he had a bunch of hard drives. He just didn't keep them on the computer, right?

At least he was smart enough not to do that. But he was storing them on these external hard drives and he even went as far as making

a bunch of folders and hiding them deep, deep, buried underneath, multiple layers of folders. Now, that's not going to stop law enforcement from finding. No, you get a forensic.

Sure. I mean, even if, like he said, even if he had erased them, they would have found a way to get to him. But he also told him where he buried Jessica's body and, you know, the details of all his crimes. He was done for her. It was over at that point. Yeah, he knew. And at a certain point in the long interrogation, the detective does bring up the fact that there are a lot of unsolved break-ins in, you know, Ontario, in Ottawa.

And if I remember correctly, Russell Williams says, yeah, I've been, I've been meaning to talk about that. And he does. He goes into, you know, what he did. So, I mean, now everything's being disclosed. And now we're learning more about this very quiet but very disturbed individual. And Russell Williams, to me, is fascinating for this reason. You know, this is not a guy whose life was spiraling out of control, right? He wasn't someone that had been shafted and was getting back at a group of people. It wasn't

any of those things. If you look at his life on paper, it's great. Let's what I'm saying. He's got a great wife. He's got a, I mean, a dream job for most people in the military. Sure. I think it was his dream job. She's got a great job. They got a nice house. They have a lake house. He just allowed this, which probably started off as just a, oh, just a, I'll just say it. The guy liked probably to masturbate while he was wearing women's clothing, clothing, underwear, lingerie, you name it. The part I don't know is prior to 2007, right, which is when he is supposed to have started committing his crimes. How long. was he doing it in the safety and comfort of his own home where like I said totally fine nothing

illegal about it how long did he do that before he made the conscious decision that this is not enough for me anymore right I need to go out break into houses and actually physically get my hands on other people's real people clothes. That part I don't know. So obviously he's arrested and he's in jail. This is still 2010. He's a waiting trial. Russell Williams tried to suffocate himself. He took some tinfoil. He took some cardboard and he tried to shove it all into his throat to suffocate himself. He even used mustard Gibbs to write a suicide note on the wall. of his jail cell. And he used some of this tinful and cardboard to try to jam the lock of his cell.

Well, none of it worked, right? Didn't keep the authorities out. They got in and they were able to get to him while he was still breathing. In early October of that year, Williams announced through his attorney that he would plead guilty to all 88 charges against him. 88 charges. 88. Wow. And that's exactly what he did, you know, just a number of days later. And I guess it took 36 minutes to read off all the charges levied against Russell Williams. That's how many there were. 36 minutes of just reading off charges. Right. Wow. So he pleaded guilty. Later that month, he was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years for the two murders. But he also got 10 years each. for the two charges of sexual assault and two charges of forcible confinement.

But that wasn't it. He got a one year sentence for each of the remaining 82 charges. So one year each for the 82 break-ins. But you think about that sentencing, right? He didn't go through a full-blown trial, but even at a sentencing hearing, right? They have to provide evidence. And a lot of the evidence provided was the pictures that he took. So you had a lot of family members having to sit there and view just hundreds.

And I don't know how many pictures they used as evidence, but there were pictures of this guy's penis sticking out of so many different pairs of underwear. And how many families in that audience realized which ones were theirs, right? which by the picture, which of the houses were theirs, had to be very tough. Oh. Not as tough as what a full-blown trial would have been, per se, but still very, very tough to deal with.

Now, on top of that, his sentences also included that he be prohibited from possessing any weapons. He had to register as a sex offender. He was forced to submit samples to the DNA data bank. But then there was one more thing that really caught me off guard. Russell was ordered to pay what was called a $100 victim surcharge for each of his charges. Right. So he had 88 total charges. He had to pay $100 for each of them. That equates to $8,800. I didn't understand what this meant, Gibbs. So I had to dig into it a little bit. And apparently in Canada,

this was created in 1989 to help fund programs for victims of, of crime. So the money doesn't go directly to the victim or victims. It goes into this special fund and then it's used for all kinds of things. But at first I thought, you know, wow, the court is going to send a check for $100, $200, whatever it is to these victims and say, here you go. Here's $100. That's, that's what I thought it was. Luckily, that's not how it works. Because that's disturbing. It was. It was. To me, I was thinking of it as, oh my gosh, how could they do that? Yeah. But luckily, that's, that's not how it works. Williams did address the court for about five minutes.

And he said, Your Honor, I stand before you indescribably ashamed. I know the crimes I have committed have traumatized many people. The family and friends of Marie France Como and Jessica Geloid in particular have suffered and continue to suffer profound, desperate pain and sorrow as a result of what I've done. Numerous victims of the break and inners I have committed have been very seriously distressed as a result of my having so invaded their most intimate privacy. My family, Your Honor, has been irreparably damaged. The understandable hatred that was expressed yesterday and that has been powerful.

throughout the week has me recognized that most will find it impossible to accept, but the fact is, I deeply regret what I have done and the harm I know I have caused to many. I committed despicable crimes, Your Honor, and in the process betrayed my family, my friends and colleagues and the Canadian force. So I guess the question there for me, Gibbs, is sincere, not sincere. It's kind of hard to tell, I guess with not without being there. Right. Just reading the words. But I will say, at least he said something.

There's so many killers that say, that choose to say nothing or that have disparaging remarks about their victims or the victim's families. Whether it's sincere or not, it sounds like he does have some remorse. I think he's a smart guy. So I think he knows what he's doing. but I also think when the reality hit, he probably realized the severity of how he affected everybody in this whole scheme of things.

I just, I always wonder, is it a real sense of, I feel bad for what I did, or I feel bad I got caught. And my wife got dragged into this, the Canadian forces got dragged into this. I just don't know how much of it is feeling bad for this was my life and now it's gone.

Versus the victims that I harmed. Yeah. No, I think you're right. And I think initially it's, man, I feel bad. I got caught. Yeah. Man. I think for a lot of people, that's all they care about.

Yeah. But I do think over time there's some that actually have a somewhat of a heart left. And then they do have reasoning skills and they're like, you know what? What was I thinking? What was I doing? How terrible was that? I'm so sorry. Right.

I mean, if he is a true psychopath, then these are probably just words as they relate to being sorry for what he did to victims, right? Because a true psychopath wouldn't really feel that, I don't believe. Might feel bad that they're locked up and they can't do what they wanted to. But what's interesting is when Williams gets to prison, he ends up going to the same prison as Paul Bernardo. So again, they're strangely connected. in that way.

But the most fascinating part about his time in prison is that he started collecting his pension from the Canadian government, right? So after he was arrested, after he was convicted, the Canadian forces didn't want anything to do with him. They discharred, you know, dishonorably discharged him. I even saw somewhere where they burned his uniform. Really? Yeah.

Like they, obviously, he brought a lot of. of shame. Oh, he certainly did on that organization. But he gets to prison and he gets to collect his pension, which was about $60,000 a year. I mean, do you know how many cup of soups you can buy in prison? Man, yeah, man, you can be buying your cigarettes. You could be the big man on campus. Yeah, big man on campus. You'd be everybody's friend. Hey, you would be. I got you some soup. I mean, most inmates are struggling to get their families to send $100, $200 so that they can, I don't know how it works in Canada, but I assume it works in a similar fashion, so they can fill up their account so that when they go to the canteen or whatever you call it, they can buy ramen noodles

and. Yeah, he's buying them, whatever they, he's probably like, hey, got, uh, you get $5,000 a month. Twinkies for everybody. That's pretty good. But that's, that kind of fascinated me, right? Why does he still get this pension? He's disgraced the government. And then you had one of his surviving victims, one of the women that he assaulted. Her name was Lori Massacott. I didn't, I didn't say the names of the, the two victims up front. But the reason why I'm saying her name now is because she went after him in court. She disclosed her name to file a lawsuit. against Russell Williams and his wife, Mary. But it was during this lawsuit that the court came out and said, hey, that pension is untouchable.

There's nothing you can do. He's going to get that pension. That's the way that the law in Canada is written. Yeah. There's just nothing you can do about it. So he's getting all this money. I'm not even sure Gibbs that he paid the $8,800 victim surcharge he was supposed to. There was an article that came out that was a year.

or two after his conviction that said he still hadn't paid it. Still haven't paid it. So I don't know if he's paid it now, but at least a couple of years after 2010, he hadn't paid it. But you think about, you know, all these revelations that came out, sent shockwaves through the Canadian military. I think you had a lot of people asking themselves, how could someone so depraved that could do some of these horrible things?

be promoted to what is really a very high rank, you know, a colonel commanding the largest air base in Canada. How could so many people have missed what Russell Williams was really like? How could they have not known that this guy was a psychopath? But Gibbs, isn't that what psychopaths do, right? They mask their true nature to the rest of the world. Well, yeah, I mean, I think he was good enough that he could have fooled anybody. to get into the role that he wanted. So he would have played the part.

Something towards the end, he got really relaxed. He did. And we talked about this with all of them. They get so comfortable. And, you know, they start doing things away from home, but then they come back, and now they're really comfortable doing things. So he did things in his own personal world space,

but then he started going to the neighbors. And then he kept on going back again and again to the same places, is taking photos, taking videos. And what was weird to me was it was almost after he got this big promotion. Yeah. That he became very daring and started really escalating what he was doing. He had more power now, you know, and with great power comes great responsibility. So anyway, no, I just think that, you know, yeah, he had a little power trip going on.

I mean, he was running that large Air Force base. Yeah, I think Russell Williams was highly intelligent, skilled it blending in, right? This is kind of what psychopaths do. And, you know, when you talk about the military and any screening psychological tests, I think he would have known exactly what to say on that type of test. And he would have come out looking like a normal individual. All right, Gibbs. So as we wrap up this episode, I want to talk a little bit about his family and where they are now. There's some evidence that his dad, David, is now in the United States. I think he might be in the New York area somewhere.

His mother eventually split up with Jerry Safka. But they were married quite a long time, maybe 30 years. She's a physiotherapist at a Toronto hospital. His brother Harvey is a medical doctor. So smart family. Yeah, smart family. They went on to do some, some really good things. Mary divorced Russell after he was convicted. And she worked pretty hard to try to seal her private information. Kind of hard to blame her for that.

Yeah, I would have done the same. And you have to think about her, right? Imagine thinking you've got this great life. You've been married almost 20 years. Great home, lakehouse. Then all of a sudden you find out your husband is, this psychopath that, you know, over the years has broken in, done despicable things in people's homes, then began sexually assaulting women and then murdered two women.

But the other thing that came out about Mary is not long after Russell confessed to his crimes, the two of them made a real estate deal. And Mary transferred full ownership of the Cozy Cove Lane Cottage. that they had purchased for around $17,000 to Russell. And she paid him $62,000 for his share of the new townhome that they bought that was said to be worth about $700,000. Wow. So this happened pretty quickly after all this came out. And it definitely happened before any of the lawsuits were filed.

And there were a number of lawsuits. And we're talking about multi-million dollar lawsuits filed against both Russell and Mary. And when they started to roll in these lawsuits, they all named Mary as well. And they named her citing this real estate transaction, claiming that it was a way to shield assets from future litigation. So she's vigorously denied any wrongdoing. And again, you have to feel for her like we talked about. if she didn't do anything wrong and is now caught up in what her husband Russell did. I know some of the lawsuits were settled in 2014, but it's the lawsuit brought by Lori Massacott.

I think it was like for $7 million that really dragged on. That one wasn't settled until I believe 2016, but the details are sealed. So I really don't know how it affects Russell and Mary. and whether or not Williams is still able to get all the cup of soups that he that he had the luxury to have for a little bit? Yeah, that he had before. And then let's talk about the house, the cottage, Cozy Cove Lane Cottage. This is really where he launched most of his break-ins.

After all of this stuff came out, there was a lot of people that wanted it to be torn down, which you can imagine. Sure. But it wasn't. And in 2013, he sold it. I don't know exactly how he sold it, but from prison, he sold it to his next door neighbors. The same neighbors Gibbs that were his first victims. Right.

That he went into repeatedly and victimized their house, took pictures with their daughter's, you know, underwear, just did horrible things. They bought it. And when they were asked why they bought it, they gave a number of reasons. You know, they wanted to fix it up. But I think the big one they gave is that they wanted to help settle some of these lawsuits, right? Because the money wasn't going to go to Russell Williams. Whatever money was generated from selling this house was going to go to help settle some of these lawsuits.

So they were able to take care, help that out. They were able probably to get a good deal on the property. I'm sure. Yeah. You know, and then... And I guess... Yeah, and I guess it was a house that they always... They loved the house.

It was apparently, you know, it was a great lot, a waterfront lot. But anyway, I guess I just found it interesting that the people that bought his house also were his very first victims. But that's it, Gibbs. That is the case of Russell Williams. All right, Gibbs, we've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, let's hear him.

Hi, Mike. Hi Givie. This is Lottie from Denmark or Lutter if you want to get all technical about it. I just wanted to call and say thank you for my mug. It arrived today and I cannot wait to bring it to work tomorrow. I also want to say that I'm looking forward to 2019 and to all the new episodes that are coming out because this is the first break you've had where I have been caught up on my episode. So it's been a long two weeks. I do have a request though. Please remember to take care of yourselves and take care of of each other because there's a lot of us out here who want you to be around for a very long time. So stay safe and keep your own time ticking. Bye.

So that's our good friend Lottie. Yeah. Yes, she is. And she got her mug all the way over in Denmark. Yeah. For being a Patreon supporter. Posted it out there on Twitter. You know, I will say Gibbs.

It takes a long time for the mail to deliver a package. Yeah. From Dayton, Ohio to Denmark. to Denmark, New Zealand, Australia. I'm shocked at how long it takes in 2018-2019. Yeah, well, I think it shocks me how long it takes it just to deliver within the state sometimes. I mean, I sent a letter, a couple letters down to Texas,

and it took almost five days. I thought, this is 2018, 2019. How long could it possibly take to get those there? You know, you'd think a couple days, you know, But it's just, I can't even imagine over to Denmark what it took. So we appreciate Lottie for sure. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Elizabeth, first time caller.

I have to say I just called and apparently dialed the wrong number because the voicemail came up in Spanish and it was really confused. But luckily, I turned the phone off in time. But I just want to say that I'm from Dallas, originally from Detroit area. So up there around you all, close anyway. but I have been listening for a couple months now, and I went through all of the true homes all the time, and I am at episode 69 of unsolved, so almost caught up. But I got to say I'm Team Fergie all the way, because let's be real, we know that

Fergie does most of the work. Sorry, Gibby. I will admit that you are essential, and I love you as well, but I am Team Furkey. But I just wanted to say I wish I appreciate you all, and stay safe, keep your own time sticking. He does do a lot of the work. lot of it. We don't hear that very much, but I appreciate it. You know. If they only knew. If they only knew. So actually, Gibbs, what she heard on that voicemail was you trying out your Spanish. Yes. So we've set, KS. Yeah, we've set the voicemail, you know, every 15, 20 times. I forget how I said it.

It comes up with you in, in Spanish. And there you go. That was set up. There was Zeta Stone's paying off, man. It pays for itself. Yeah. Who's working harder now? Hey, it's Paul Bean. I'm Paulton County. I was just flipping through Reddit,

and I saw that the Menendez brothers are on a basketball card for Mark Jackson from the Knicks. Apparently, it's just before getting caught. Anyways, it was during the time when they were spending all their appearance money. But, yeah, I thought that was cool. Good up, dudes. Bye. So it's actually really interesting. I haven't confirmed that yet, but I'm going to assume it's true.

I think I've seen that out on the web, some pictures of that. Have you? They were blowing a lot of money, so I'm sure they had really good seats. Hi, Mike and Gibby. My name's Alyssa. I'm calling from South Dakota, and yes, people do live here. I just got them listening to the Pedro Lopez podcast, and I'm calling on regards of the murder memorabilia. And a few years back, our house got robbed.

And the people who robbed us stole a bunch of my dad's guns. And then later that night, they used the guns to kill another person who had robbed us. And my dad had just recently gotten a gun back. And to this day, he'll show people the blood that's been used, or not used, but the blood that's been on the gun from the murder. So, yep, just one let you guys know that. And I love your podcast. Thank you. There's a conversation piece.

That is a conversation piece. And, wow, what bad luck. You know, first to get robbed and then, two. have the people that rob you take your gun and shoot somebody else. I just, ooh, but I guess eventually you get that back, right,

when they no longer need it for evidence. Yeah, but do you want it back, you know? Well, heck, yeah, you want it back. I even I would want that back.

Well, that's true. You would. All right, Gibbs. That's it for voicemails. Mailbag, we had Andrea Petty sent us in some Harley chips. That was cool.

She sent three for me and three for you. I know. I got me three. sitting right here. And she specifically said this is Gibby's starter pack for when he eventually gets his Harley. And they got my favorite color. You know, I like burgundy. There's a lot of burgundy on them. So she actually sent the blue ones for you. Yeah. But I switched them. Because I know. Or you like the blue because of the Kentucky color. Well, I like blue and I know you like that color. I do. But thank you, Andrew. All right. That's it for us. And that's it for

another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.