True Crime Campfire - The Gray Man: The Crimes of Russell Williams Pt 1

Episode Date: May 29, 2026

In the military, a “gray man” refers to a service member who neither outperforms or underperforms his or her comrades. Someone who seamlessly fits into the group and gets the job done and doesn’t get unwanted attention while doing it. In that line of work, that can be a talent. In today’s story, we’re talking about a man who made a career out of being unnoticed, whose entire personality could be described as “gray,” and yet, had a violent and hateful nature resting just under the surface. When all was said and done, two women would be dead and countless others would never feel safe in their homes again. Join us live at Wet Hot Bad Magic Summer Camp in Equinunk, PA, September 10-13th! Visit ⁠badmagicproductions.com⁠ for more info and to buy tickets. Tickets are on sale now for CrimeWave 2.0! Visit crimewaveatsea.com/CAMPFIRE to get your discount code for $100 off your cabin and a private meet-and-greet with us! The cruise is Feb. 8-12, 2027. Visit quince.com/campfire for free shipping and 365 day returns on summer essentials for your closet and your home. Sources: Appleby, Timothy. A New Kind of Monster: The Secret Life and Shocking True Crimes of an Officer . . . and a Murderer (Function). Kindle Edition. The Fifth Estate, Above Suspicion  https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna39556963 Follow us, campers!Patreon (join to get all episodes ad-free, at least a day early, an extra episode a month, and a free sticker!): https://patreon.com/TrueCrimeCampfirehttps://www.truecrimecampfirepod.com/Facebook: True Crime CampfireInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/truecrimecampfire/?hl=enEmail: [e-mail]! https://true-crime-campfire.myspreadshop.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We're your camp counselors. I'm Katie. And I'm Whitney. And we're here to tell you a true story that is way stranger than fiction. We're roasting murderers and marshmallows around the true crime campfire. In the military, a gray man refers to a service member who neither outperforms or underperforms his or her comrades. Someone who seamlessly fits into the group and gets the job done and doesn't get unwanted attention. while doing it. In that line of work, that can be a talent. In today's story, we're talking about a man who made a career out of being unnoticed, whose entire personality could be described as gray, and yet had a violent and hateful nature resting just under the surface. When all was said and done,

two women would be dead, and countless others would never feel safe in their homes again. This is part one of The Gray Man, the Cray Man. crimes of Russell Williams. So, campers, for this one, we're in the little town of Tweed, Ontario. Kind of town where everybody knows each other. We've said it before. It's the kind of place where no one locks their doors. Lock your doors, for the love of God, please. The population tops out at around 6,000 residents and the only things to do in town are the

once-a-year Elvis Festival and gossip. In 2009, one particular piece of gossip was taking Tweed by storm. The gossips of the town had descended upon Reg Cote's barber shop to fill each other in. They could get their haircut for $16 bucks and find out what was going on. Apparently, Tweed had a prowler that was targeting women. One man in particular at the barbershop wasn't engaging with the gossip, but the barber didn't expect him to. The man was Russell Williams. He was a commander at the Trenton Air Base 45 minutes down the road,

and he'd been coming to get his haircut at this barbershop for a few years now. Why he'd chosen to get his hair cut today of all days, Reg wasn't sure, but Russell patiently waited his turn and didn't say a word. He looked a little uncomfortable that day, maybe, but whatever. Reg couldn't spend all day worrying about Russell. He had hair to cut. He had people to talk to, and people were scared. Especially because the Ontario Provincial Police sent over some undercover officers and posted them around town. Undercover officers don't exactly fit in in a town where unfamiliar faces, stick out like a sore thumb. The Ontario provincial police had also released a press release titled Public Safety Concern. It read, The OPP, Central Hastings Detachment are investigating two break-ins

that occurred, in which a male suspect entered the home while the residents were sleeping. On September 17 and again on September 30, 2009, both in the early hours of the morning, an unknown male entered Tweed residences. During both separate incidents, the site The suspect struck the female victim, tied her to a chair, and took photos of her. The suspect then fled the scene. The OPP want to remind everyone to ensure all doors and windows are secured and to practice personal safety. Please report any suspicious activity to the police immediately by calling 911. OPP officers are following up leaves to identify the suspect.

If anyone has information about these incidents, they are asked to call the Central Hastings OPP. The September 17th attack was perpetrated against a woman known only as Jane Doe. She was in her early 20s and had given birth to an infant baby just a few weeks prior to the attack. Her husband worked as a truck driver and was away the night of the attack. This detail told the police that the attacker most likely had been watching her for a while to establish that she'd be alone. Gosh, this creepy. The intruder entered through an unlocked door, woke the woman up, hit her hard, and blindfolded her. He tied her to a chair and cut off her clothes before taking photos of her for hours, and she never saw his face.

Her baby, thank God, was left unharmed. The police who took this initial report didn't believe Jane Doe. Why? Well, the assailant didn't leave behind any DNA, fingerprints, or signs at all of a break-in. And according to one source, the young woman had a reputation for being erratic. So I guess that means we just ignore home invasions. Can you imagine that poor moment? Rumor around town was that she was suffering from postpartum depression, and this was a cry for help.

Cool, guys, sweet. There would be no follow-up on her report. Less than two weeks later, Lori Massacott was dozing in front of the TV of her lakeside cottage on Cozy Cove Lane, a hop-skipping a jump away from the house where Jane Doe was attacked. In fact, the houses were attached by a walking path. Lori woke up being hit in the head and face with her blanket pulled over her face. The man eventually wrapped his hands around her neck and threatened her. He told her to not fight and to not try and see his face.

Investigators would later find that the intruder had entered her house from an unlocked window at the back of her house. Y'all lock shit up. I'm telling you, please. He told her that he was one of many intruders and that his job was to control her while his accomplices were robbing her. elaborate little tail. He reached under the blanket and blindfolded her with a strip of her pillowcase that he'd cut up. He used another strip to tie her hands behind her back. Then he stood her up and demanded, Are you looking at me? She shrank away. Oh, no, God no. He responded somewhat menacingly, you don't want to see me. The guy cut off her clothes with disturbing precision. She said he didn't even get close to cutting her.

He then started tying her up with some sort of strange harness, later discovered to be, again, made up of pillowcase material. It's noteworthy, I think, to point out that the intruder had clearly planned out both of these attacks, like watching these women for days. But there was a certain impulsiveness to both of them. He had no tools, nothing with him aside from his camera. He was patient enough to wait for days watching waiting. but he didn't bring any kind of kit or equipment with him.

The guy only used what he had at his disposal in the moment. I think that definitely speaks to his mentality. Yeah, it's arrogant for one thing, just confident. Like, I know I can control this situation. When I get in there, I'll figure it out. Yeah, it's disturbing. For sure, for sure. And that he didn't want to bring any, like, evidence with him.

Right. Like, he didn't want to be caught with anything. Right, absolutely. Lori told her attacker that her head hurt from his beating. And she asked him, I suspect in an effort to humanize herself if she could have some aspirin. He led her to the bathroom, fed her to aspirin, and took her back to the couch. And he kind of like stroked and patted her head where she was bruised from his abuse and said, sorry for that as he sat her back on the couch.

Jeez, Louise. And like just all of this is happening with Canadian accents, by the way, which I think is just also creepy. Sorry for that. Sorry for that. As with Jane Doe, he took photos of Lori for hours, demanding different, like, humiliating poses. She asked him frightened if he was going to kill her, and he told her, there's no need for that.

He just wanted his photos, he told her. After about three hours, he told Lori that he had to leave by 4.30. And once he left, Lori managed to struggle free of her bindings and call 911. Interestingly, Lurie had a neighbor who often left his house at precisely 445. She wouldn't make that connection until much later. Once investigators arrived, they seemed puzzled by how considerate the assailant was. Did they consider the fact that he was Canadian?

I actually do feel like that's something Canadian police forget to consider in most investigations. This is not the first time that police are puzzled in Canada. that like he seemed awfully polite. Like they should take that into account in their investigations. Like he is Canadian. Right. But also this is an interesting thing if you've read about behavioral science at all, that there are different categories of rapist.

Okay. And one of them is called a power reassurance rapist. And these guys, that little detail about him beating the crap out of this poor woman and then apologizing. That fits really well with a power reassurance rapist. And, you know, it's a rabbit hole we could go down for 20 minutes. But just look that up, I think that really does fit with his behavior. Mm-hmm.

The police also neglected to connect a rash of burglaries around the area. Whoever it was was mostly stealing women's underwear, bras, lingerie, and swimwear, and had been for two years prior to the assaults. There were 82 of these break-ins, and disturbingly, some of them were repeat targets. One residence was broken into nine times. Oh, my God. Now, in fairness, no one knew about these burglaries. Only one had been reported, and the police were never notified of any missing underwear.

Based on the press release, the police seemed to start to take the creeper seriously after the second assault. The placement of undercover police officers was, in my opinion, an effort to scare the creeper into mining his peas and cues. investigators got to work canvassing the area around Cozy Cove Lane after Lori's attack. It didn't take them long to run into Larry Jones. If you've ever lived in a small town, you know someone like Larry. He is one of those guys that just is kind of into everything. Like, quote, he's a one-time head of Stokoe Lake Great Papers Association, a Legion member, trail warden for the snowmobile club

with authority dispense fines to scofflaws, occasional manager of the sports arena, local handyman. He was also kind of hated by everyone, at least. According to Timothy Appleby's book, A New Kind of Monster, which we used as a source for this one.

According to the book, he once pissed off a neighbor so badly that he got shot in the hand, which seems like a hell of a way to spin being a victim of a violent crime. Like, that's how the book phrased it. Like he was, he pissed off the neighbor so bad he was shot in the hand, which is like, no, he, he was shot. Like, what do you mean?

Okay, but like, have we met him though? Like, right. Right. And in the book, his reputation around Tweed was that he was overbearing and abrasive. So, like, again, if you've ever lived in a small town, which I have, like, you know someone like Larry, okay? Like, okay. When police initially canvassed the neighborhood on September 30th, they knocked on Larry's neighbor's door. Like any good HOA member, Larry popped his head outside to see what the hullabaloo was about and was asked who lived in the house.

He told them, Russ Williams. The cops thought it was a coincidence, as there was a Russ Williams who was a commander over at CFB Trenton, don't you know? And Larry was like, yeah, no, that's the guy. and I swear to God, the cop said, Oh, really? You're not kidding? Well, then, I guess we don't have to look at him. Because, you know, people in positions of power have never done anything bad, ever. Of course not. How absurd.

Investigators started by asking Jane Doe and Lori Massacott if they could recognize anything about their attacker. Lori initially said no, but after ruminating on it for a while, she thought maybe she recognized his voice. Larry Jones had done some tile work for her a few years earlier and afterwards it stopped by her house, uninvited, a few times. He'd never done anything inappropriate, but the more she thought about it,

she thought maybe his voice was the voice of the man that held her captive. A few weeks after his initial contact with police, Larry Jones was brought in for questioning and a warrant was served on his property. They told him they were searching for, quote, purple, La Senza, brassiers, and thong underwear with the logo of a poodle, two baby blankets, pornographic photos and videos, a pair of white shoes, zip ties.

They asked him embarrassing questions. Was he molested as a child? What are your sexual interests? Also, they asked this banger of a question, which I think would make any lawyer flip a table, if you were the person who broke into Lori Massacott's house on September 30th and tied her up and sexually assaulted her, if you were, would you be guilty? What? I don't know, Detective. If I had whiskers, would I be a cat? What are you talking about, man? That is the weirdest question I have ever heard. And also, right out of the coerced confession playbook shit like that. Like, just don't stop it. It's a terrible, ridiculous question. And Jones just kept saying, I wasn't there. Unfortunately, for Larry, a search of his house found the most damning evidence of all. Six copies.

of Penthouse Magazine from the 70s and a few from the 80s. Really disgusting stuff. Try not to blow chunks, campers. We'll get through this together. Penthouse. The cops saw a glimpse of a nipple and they were just like, case closed.

Unfortunately for them, Jones was like 60 years old and Laurie described the creeper as being younger than her. Jones also passed a polygraph and submitted DNA evidence that exonerated him. So they let Larry go, and unfortunately it took months or years for people to forget what he was accused of. People who Larry considered friends completely abandoned him. He was totally isolated.

And of course, we can't blame Lori. Eyewitnesses, or in this case, ear witnesses are notoriously fallible, and Lori was traumatized and had been encouraged to call the tip in by one of Larry's relatives that didn't like him. She made amends with Larry after the true attacker was arrested. Basically, the cops went in half-cocked and nearly ruined a man's life. And I don't think we can discount that they felt pressure because they were completely wrong about that first attack on Jane Doe. Just rode her off. So they were, I'm sure, embarrassed and wanted to close us up as quick as possible.

One person actually took Larry's side and it was his neighbor, Russ Williams. Somebody asked him about it and he said, Larry Jones would never do anything like that. Which I find particularly interesting. It is. They slip these little things out sometimes. It's like, I think I've mentioned this story before, when Bundy was friends with the true crime writer, Anne Rule, and they were driving somewhere together once.

And Anne Rule was talking about how scared she was for her daughter because of the serial killer running around. And Bundy was like, oh, you know, he'll never touch Leslie. It's fine. They'll do this stuff. It like slips out. It's really interesting. From the parents behind law and order comes a mystery

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Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the shadow dark every Thursday night. at 8 p.m. Eastern on YouTube.com slash the glass cannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark. There was another incident in Belleville, a town halfway between Tweed and Trenton, shortly after Larry Jones was questioned. A music teacher who taught on the airbase had her home broken into. Her husband was away and she was rushing around her room to get ready for a party at a friend's house. And as she went to her closet, she noticed, that her bedside drawers were open, and she saw that some of her sex toys were missing.

We watched The Fifth Estate, which is like a Canadian true crime show, as one of our sources for this case. And the way the narrator dances around calling in, like sex toys, it's hilarious. He goes, some personal items were missing. Some sex toys, dildos, as she calls them. Some devices. Phyllis shape. no, that's somehow worse. She calls them dildos, okay?

It's not my fault. And she's like, she's this, she's obviously Quebecois. She's like the most delightful French Canadian woman. She's, she's wearing like this giant, like, Virgin Mary necklace. But like she is, she's not embarrassed at all about this story. She is, she finds it delightful and hilarious.

Nor should she be, obviously. No, she's, she is, honestly, I love this woman. She's hilarious. But she's like, my dad. Delos were fucking missing. What do you mean? She's like, can we just get to it, please? Yeah. And for some reason, she thought that somebody in her family was like pranking her, playing a joke somehow.

She called her husband, who is the most Canadian man in existence, and he said, we were having some laughs and thought, what kind of Yahoo would come in and do that? Bless him. When the teacher's friend came to pick her up, they had to decide whether or not to call the cops. The couple decided, eh, not to make a report. They assumed the cops wouldn't take it seriously, and I really can't blame them with how the rest of the investigation was going. Track record is not great, boys.

Then her husband told her to stay with friends until he got home, you know, just in case, and she and her friend triple-checked that all the doors and windows were locked before leaving for the night. The next day, the couple returned home together, and the music teacher went to her office to photocopy some things for work. Her husband was downstairs when he heard a scream from upstairs. He ran up there to find his wife, and she was staring just mouth open at her computer screen,

which was open to like the word processor program, and the screen said, go ahead and call the police. I want to show the judge your really big dildos. Dear sweet Jesus Monroe, can you freaking, I would never get over this. I would have to sleep with the lights on forever. just I cannot imagine. And she's like, I can't imagine how she can be so chill afterwards. Like this woman is a badass because I would just be a mess.

So she ran to her bedroom and found that her underwear drawers had been opened and emptied. And she really started to freak out in earnest. It was clear from the note on the computer that whoever left it had been in the house with her the night before. Like heard her talking to her husband. It's so awful. Investigators later found that someone was hiding in the linen closet and waited for her for hours. But when she never got back, the man left her the note and just slipped out the house through the kitchen door, which had been locked from the inside. Thank God she stayed with that friend.

Ooh. Unfortunately, Canadian police in 2009 still hadn't figured out how to like pick up the phone. So Belleville Police weren't aware of the sexual assault in Tweed and made almost no effort to connect the music teacher's burglary to the two similar attacks. And she knew about them. So, because she was like, well, what about the sexual assaults and tweet? And they were like, what sexual assaults and tweet? Guys, come on. This kind of negligence is deadly. This gets people killed. Like, you got to do better. And, and so she was like going around telling people. She was like, the guy was in my fucking house. She's, she's honestly very cool. We love her. But she, uh,

So nothing came of this, by the way. Like, nothing happened. Oh, my dear God. Awful. And there's some question as to whether he actually waited in her house for her, but I think it's pretty obvious that he heard them talking about calling the police. Yeah, there's no way he didn't. Like, yeah, he heard her talking to her husband.

I think, you know, he waited for her because there was time between her seeing the missing sex toys and seeing the missing underwear. Like, it's just, it's just clear to me that. No, I think from the note, it's really obvious. And that's one of the reasons why I think of this guy is Canada's BTK, because it's really similar M.O. BTK loved to, like, lurk around in people's houses. Just loved waiting.

Just loved waiting. Ugh. The investigation was certainly not off to a great start. And it's clear that the police had no idea what kind of criminal they were dealing with. I don't know what it is. I don't know why I keep picking Canada's worst investigations. I promise. have no beef with Canada's cops.

It does keep popping up, though, doesn't it? Like, yeah. But I promise it does end on a good note. This does end up being one of Canada's best resolutions. So they do redeem themselves. But we're going to put a pin in that for a moment and change gears. There's only so much incompetence, Whitney and I can take before we both blow a gasket. Let us learn about the Air Force commander that can apparently do no wrong.

Russell Williams grew up mostly middle class in Deep River Ottawa. I didn't know this. He was apparently born in the UK. I learned researching this case. But his family moved to Ottawa. His father, David, was a fairly intelligent metallurgist who worked for Chalk River Laboratories, which is a Canadian nuclear research lab, which was involved in, like, the Manhattan Project and shit. So, like, very storied nuclear research lab.

Everyone who knew Russell as a child thought he was pretty smart. He was a quiet kid, but he was like a rule follower, like even to a fault when his brother, Harvey, took like a, took a leak in the schoolyard. Russell tattled on him without a second thought, but like tattled on him in like a really hilarious way. He told the, he told the teacher like, Harvey spent a penny in the garden, which is like a very old fashioned way of saying like he took a piss. which I had never even heard of. I know. His father was a loud authoritarian figure

who would insult his wife in front of others. In fact, his mom was apparently like the hottie. And his dad would go out of his way to put her down. And as far as their marriage went, she was expected to dote on him

and he could do no wrong. His mother, Christine, would go to the local yacht and tennis club, leaving Russell to entertain himself on the waterfront. And neither. parent really paid much attention to the children. In 1969, when Russell was around five or six, Christine filed for divorce, citing adultery on her husband's part as the given reason. Her husband

was having an affair with a co-worker's wife. After the divorce was finalized, she got custody of both kids. Less than four months later, she was remarried. To the husband of the coworker that David cheated on her with. I feel like it's efficient, you know, like you might. That's one way to do it. You just do a little switcheruny. Honestly, yeah. I mean, there was some rumors that I didn't even want to get into that, like, there was, like, some swinging happening. Oh, huh.

It was right around the time when that would be the case. Yeah. Golden age of swinger parties. But then why would she say that there was adultery? I don't know. To get custody. I mean. You know, maybe.

But he was the breadwinner, so he could have fought it. Maybe he just didn't care. But anyway, Christine and her new husband, a guy named Jerry Sovka, would stay together for another 30 years before separating. For some reason, the second separation really, really, really upset Russell, who never spoke to his mom again afterwards. His father, for the record, married two more times. But Russell stayed close with him. I, you know, I don't know what the difference could be. Well, one is a filthy slut and one is his dad, who is blameless and holy and can do whatever he wants, obviously. Okay, got it. Cool. Thank you for clarifying. Sure. Friends of Russell's from college said that they knew that his parents were divorced and that it upset him, but that he didn't talk about his childhood much. Usually with sexual predators like Williams, there's evidence from their childhood, like tortured animals or child abuse. But with Williams, there's just not.

People that knew Russell as a teen said he was polite, if maybe a little, like, repressed. Later during his confession, Williams said that his obsession with sex and violence didn't start until his 20s or 30s. Interesting. He had an almost robotic level of discipline. Once he set his mind to something, he would dedicate himself to it almost single-mindedly until he achieved it. He was a very talented jazz trumpeter until he decided he didn't want to do it anymore. He liked running and he'd continue running all his life and he was a freak about food and health. The discipline is really interesting to me because one of the things we know about psychopaths is that they tend to have trouble with impulse control, right? But then we also know that some of these guys do really well in prisons. Like they need that structure. So I'm not sure what the deal is with that, but I find it really, really fascinating. Williams, obviously, was one of the ones who thrived on routine. But then you have to wonder if it fueled his rage underneath, you know, to have to be so perfect and regimented all the time. Like, I have to have to be so perfect and regimented all the time. Like, I have to have.

ADHD and one of the paradoxes about ADHD is that you do so much better when you're stuck in a very rigid routine, but everything in your being wants to rebel against it. So you're fighting with yourself all the time. And I wonder if there was an element of that going on with him and with some of the others who were the same way. So anyway, as he aged, Russell's peers felt he was condescending and detached. Unlike his classmates, he didn't seem interested in women at all. He told his friends that he was afraid of being snared by a gold digger. Yeah, this is actually a really, like, subtle red flag, in my opinion. Because the way it was phrased was like, oh, this was just like a funny thing he said. Now, now I immediately think any guy announcing that he's watching out for a gold digger is probably guzzling some red pill nonsense, but this is like in the 70s. So he was already assuming that every woman had some ulterior motive. also my guy you have to have gold to get a gold digger you're 17 shut up that's what I always think too

like where's your big old pot of gold like so many of these guys who say that it's like honey I'm good I can take care of myself it's just so funny how the script doesn't change with these dudes isn't it they've just been the same for decades also I would call that a big ass red flag like I don't think there's anything subtle about it once you start talking about Gold diggers, I'm out the door. Oh, for sure. Once he got to college at the University of Toronto, the stranger part of his personality started to emerge,

the prankster. Sometimes the old cling film on the toilet seat prank, or painting cracks on the bathroom mirror, or perhaps he would just hide in his roommate's closet for hours, waiting until they got home, all relaxed, and then jump out and scare him. I would freaking, mm. I used to have a friend who would do this,

and I wanted to murder him every time. It was just so awful. His housemates all took part in the pranks, though, and they all found them highly amusing. It's just that last one that's terrifying in hindsight. It's also during this time that Russell found a lerve. He met a Japanese exchange student named Misa, who, by all accounts, didn't care if he lived or died.

Now, I don't know if that's fair. They dated for almost two years, but no one saw them hug or kiss publicly, But, you know, knowing how Japanese people tend to view PDA, it's possible she just didn't want to mug down with him in public, which is completely reasonable. According to one of his college buddies, Jeff, she ran him like a whipped horse.

It was always her way or the highway, and he was always trying to acquiesce. What she wanted to do or not want to do, she always wanted to hit the books harder and didn't have a lot of time left over for Russ, so there was always an argument about finding time to do things together. Another friend made a sex joke about her right in front of her and it upset her. Okay, I don't know, guys. It seems like you might be assholes.

Like, she's not from Canada. She's on a student visa, presumably, and she probably has to maintain her grades to stay in school. So she's got to study. And maybe she doesn't want you joking about sex in front of her. Leave her alone. Like, your friend is a murderer rapist. Jesus. I know. To talk about all that in hindsight, like knowing what he did, like, dudes, really? Oh, we. Also, you know, he was in love with her, so if he's being run all over the place, maybe think about he's exactly where he wants me. Maybe he wants to do that. After Misa broke up with him, Russell couldn't seem to take no for an answer. Surprise, surprise. He kept lurking around places where he knew she would be. He sent her a bouquet of flowers, and she sent him back. She finally asked Jeff, who she literally hated if he could ask Russell to leave her alone. Once Russell got the message that it was really over, he was inconsolable. Jeff thought that he would never date again, which seems awfully dramatic to me. I guess we've all been through a breakup like that, but he wouldn't. He wouldn't date again, not until he met his wife years later.

Decades later, investigators would wonder if this failed relationship was the trigger that turned Russell Williams down his dark path. Mesa, though, couldn't help him. She said, whatever my experience was, I don't think it will be of any use. And by the way, can we stop blaming women for this shit? Every time they did it with the Golden State Killer, they did it with Bundy, some filthy woman broke his heart. And he, you know, no, no, no, no, no. He was going to do it anyway.

Good gravy. And literally, whatever he did, it was on him. She, yeah, she broke up with him, which seems reasonable. Like, she moved back to Japan. Like, that's literally what he did. I mean, come on, man. Like, it seems like his asshole friends were assholes. Yeah.

She didn't like them. And they didn't like her for the record. That's literally, like, this book is crazy because it was like, no one in the house liked her. And everyone thought she was a huge bitch. And for the record, all she did was want to study and not want to talk about her sex life. That was literally all that happened. She's like, oh, good. But anyway, hey, Whitney, can we talk about it yet?

Oh, the insane conspiracy theory? Uh-huh, uh-huh. Lord. Yeah, so the University of Toronto was apparently a hotbed for murderous sexual predators in the 80s. Right, and by hotbed, we mean there were two. Which obviously is too, too many. Specifically, this was going on in the economics program, which Russell was pursuing, at the time. At the same time, when Paul Bernardo was a year behind him. And for those that don't know,

Paul Bernardo is one half of the Barbie and Ken killers, who, along with his wife, Carla Homolka, perpetrated three murders and over a dozen rapes. We've discussed them on the show in little snippets before. I'm sure we'll get around covering them at some point. Just absolute gutter trash, both of them. So anyway, some of Paul's attacks were perpetrated while he was at university, and some people think that maybe Paul and Russell were like buddies and collabed. Now obviously that is your shit. There's no evidence that they ever even met. And Williams is not the type, in my opinion anyway, to collaborate on his crimes. I think he's one of the ones that has deep, deep shame, which again, is not the same thing as feeling guilty. But like Ted Bundy, I think he did not want anybody to

know about this dirty little part of him. And I can't imagine him confiding in anybody about it, especially at that point in his life. Oh, definitely not. There was a murder that happened at around the time that he was at school and there was some hope that it would become solved when his crimes came to light, but it was not. It did not end up being linked to him. It's one of those things that online sleuths made the connection because it is a really, oh, yeah, a crazy coincidence. It is, absolutely. That they were in the same program at the same time, at the same school. Yeah. It was just a coincidence. You know, Canada isn't that big. I'm sure Canadians are going to love me saying that. I'm making a joke. But, no, it was the 80s. You couldn't swing a,

you couldn't swing a stuffed cat without hitting a serial killer. Yeah. Sometimes there's just two creeps in the vicinity of each other. Sometimes there's just two creeps. That we're going to make a, we're going to make, that's going to be our next shirt design. Sometimes there's just two creeps. When When Russell graduated in 1986, he was kind of lost. He wasn't really sure what he wanted to do with his life. And then a very special man came into his life. Tom Cruise. Specifically, Tom Cruise and Top Gun.

Highway to the Danger Zone. Honestly, I won't lie. There was a time that Tom Cruise and Top Gun did come into my life. Actually, it was Val Kilmer and Top Gun came into my life. And I was in high school. and I wore aviators for like six months solid. And I will say that it changed my life. Absolutely.

Aviators and bomber jackets were everything when I was in like middle school. Oh my God. I was so excited when I got one of each for Christmas one year. Oh, so excited. I think, I think honestly, everyone goes through a Top Gun phase and I think that's fine. But this guy was, this guy was obsessed with Top Gun. So much so that he demanded that his friend's uncle teach him to fly. And he enlisted in the Canadian.

Air Force. Oh, please, not that music. That music gives me nightmares from my childhood. Could we get something a little bit lighter? Some lighter music here. Are you a fan of true crime TV shows? And what about Unsolved Mysteries? The show that jumped started all of our love of True Crime. I'm Ellen Marsh. And I'm Joey Taranto. And we host, I Think Not, a True Crime comedy podcast covering some of the wildest stories from your favorite true crime campy TV shows all the way to Unsolved Mysteries. Baby, you will laugh, you will cry. You'll think about true crime in a whole new way,

and you'll also ask yourself, who gave these people mics? New episodes of I Think Not are released every Wednesday with bonus episodes out every Thursday on Patreon. And every Monday you can listen to our True Crime Rundown, where we go over the top true crime headlines of the week. So come and join us wherever you listen to your podcast. Hi, listeners. We want to tell you about a podcast we love.

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Listen to Rebel Girls wherever you get your podcasts. And find us on YouTube.com slash Rebel Girls. And whatever you do, stay Rebel. Apparently in the mid-80s, the Canadian Armed Forces kind of sucked. Like they were really disorganized. No one was really like taking the lead. But for a guy who was organized in a way that could only be described, as anal. This was great news. William's made it through boot camp and was sent to flight school,

where he showed an aptitude for pretty much every plane he was put in the pilot seat of. He was able to fly an airbus, apparently a very complex and hard-to-fly machine, in just a few days. Most pilots take at least a year. In three years, Williams earned his wings, which is average. After that, he became an instructor. Co-workers at this time found him serious, but kind. He was helpful with rookies, always taking time to go over their errors. One of his colleagues said, and this is so creepy, he was intense, no question. I recall talking to him when it seemed like he was looking at the back of your head through your eyes, but he was also cool.

I've been a pilot for 38 years, and a big part of my life has been screening pilots. And one of the things we look for in a pilot is the ability to rain calm and cool under pressure. And he struck me as having that ability. And in a sense, it turns out maybe he had it too. strong. Yeah. But describes him to what he. He can see the back of your head through your eyes and he's too cool. Yeah. And you have to, you have to remember too that this would be right around the time according to him that he started having those fantasies. And with guys like this, those fantasies start to absolutely dominate their inner life. So while he's at work, while he's talking to you,

looking through you, while he's flying those planes, all that is going on in his sense. Yeah. In 1991, Russell Williams married a woman named Mary Elizabeth Harriman. It wasn't exactly a whirlwind epic romance. I can't really find anything about their courtship except that it happened. They lived together briefly prior to their marriage. That's exactly how their courtship is described. Like his friends literally were just made aware that he was getting married. There's nothing. And I think part of it is his wife, doesn't, now ex-wife, doesn't really talk about it, and he never talked about it with his friends. The most we know is his wife has a degree in nutrition, and she worked as the director of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. Some of their friends described it as a marriage convenience, while others described them as very close. So who knows?

Yeah. As time wore on, Russell just kept winning. His career was unstoppable. And I think in the military, that's just kind of, like, as long as you don't fuck up and you just, you keep doing your job, you just, you do keep winning. Eventually, it would culminate in him commanding an entire base. In 2005, Queen Elizabeth visited Canada, which apparently is a big deal for Canada, because this was the 100th anniversary of Saskatchewan and Alberta joining the Confederation or something. Sorry. I become aggressively American when it comes to England. I don't know why. I become a patriot for like during the Olympics and then when it comes to this for some reason. Anyway, you're in line with the Scots on that. My husband and his entire family are exactly the same way. Although, you know, it's not American. It's Scottish. But yeah. No, it's Scottish. We're, we're, we're. You know what?

Yeah. Yes. I support the Scots. Anyway, the Queen and Prince Philip were supposed to be collected by a military member from the host country from London and returned in kind. Guess who was selected to pick them up? No, really. No really, guess. Yeah.

So there are photos of Russell Williams and Queen Lizzie paling around Canada. And I cannot imagine. how humiliating it was for Canada to find out who they sent to go pick up the friggin queen after all his crimes came to light. Anyway, as far as anyone can tell, because Russell Williams kept pristine logs of his crimes, his first break-in was one sweltering weekend in September of 2007. The family who owned the home knew Russell. They had Russell and his wife over for dinner several times.

Russell entered their 12-year-old daughter's room, set up a camera, removed his clothing, and masturbated on her clothing. He would return to her room at least one other weekend, maybe another, and took photos of himself wearing the girl's underwear. Oh, wow. He stole six pieces of her underwear when he left. This would establish William's M.O. for the next two years. He would break into homes while the residents were away,

then photograph himself wearing or pleasuring himself with his victim's underwear, and then he would leave, taking his victim's underwear with him. He would also often photograph framed pictures of his targets, probably to remember for later. His preferred victims varied in age from their late teens to early 30s, but he clearly had no qualms about younger victims. A later search of his hard drive would turn up child sexual abuse material. In the 82 burglaries that he would commit in the next two years, 13 of his victims would be teenagers. This was not an accident. Russell Williams did very little without planning.

He used his passion for jogging as a way to scout out his targets. He'd run by the same house again and again, tracking patterns and seeing who was at the house when. He knew who his targets were. His second break-in, the targets were two twin-11-year-olds, and he'd nearly been caught. The family was out at a barbecue at a neighbor's house, but the parents had come home to check on something and run into a tall, hoodie-clad man in their home. He'd run off into the woods, and they chased him, but he got away. The couple only reported the break-in when they heard about another burglary a couple days later. That's bonkers to me.

Like, wow. Anyway. Yeah. So the second one ended up being unrelated. Strangely, the mother of the twin girls was Larry Jones's adult daughter. Yeah, the guy that a couple years later would end up being a suspect. That's so strange. As the years went on, Russell started escalating.

In order to feel the same thrill he felt at the beginning. beginning, he needed to increase the risk. He expanded his hunting grounds. That's why he started looking for victims in Belleville, like the music teacher. In Orleans, where Russell had a second home, he started hunting as well. He started doing bizarre things. He left a trail of leaves like breadcrumbs. He took a photograph of a woman off of a wall and jacked off onto it. Ew. He broke into the house of a 15-year-old girl that lived on his street and stole 22 of her belongings and took 70 pictures of himself. He left footprints in the snow outside the back deck and visibly damaged several locks on the house trying to get in. That same week, he broke into another 15-year-old girl's house and stole

photographs of her along with other personal items. Investigators found dried semen in her underwear drawer and documented it. The pace of his burglaries was increasing and he was daring himself. to take bigger and bigger risks. We mentioned earlier that there was one house that he burglarized nine times. This next incident happened on his sixth. It happened on July 10, 2009 at around 1.30 in the morning. The woman who lived there had just topped into the shower. Russell got naked in the woods and walked through the house naked and stole one of her black thongs.

He wrote a note about it later. It said, on naked walk from back 40 after having watched the woman's name for 30 minutes or so and confident that she was home alone I entered her house naked just after she got into the shower approximately 140 very tempting to take her panties slash bra from bathroom decided it would be entirely obvious that someone was in the house while she was in the shower took panties from panty drawer instead Jesus Murphy. This guy is a living nightmare. Like, there is no horror movie on earth scarier to me than this.

You're in the shower, and he's in the bathroom with you, naked, stand in there. There's nothing scarier. He's a nightmare. And two months after this, he would commit his first and second assaults on Jane Doe and Lorry Massacott, which I think was the final escalation for him. In his assault on Jane Doe, he took nine photographs, cautiously avoiding getting any of himself. But with Lori, he took 29. Some, including photos of his penis and of himself, quote, wrapped in one of Massacott's undergarments, so only his eyes are visible.

After the assaults, Russell briefly tried to return to his tried and true method of getting his rocks off, just regular old burglary. But it wasn't doing it for him anymore. Russell Williams would have you believe that he did not know Corporal Marie France Como. Technically, yes, she was under his command at the base, but so were 4,000 other soldiers. This is a lie to make what he did seem less horrific. They, at the very least, had interacted several times. One of Marie France's friends recalled, We had a squadron mess dinner just after I got back from Afghanistan about four months prior to her murder.

She was sitting right across from me, and he was sitting about five seats up at the head table. We later conjectured that would have been the first time he saw her, because he would have seen her. He would have been aware of her. She definitely would have stood out. Everyone who met Mari Friends said she was just a stupendous, outgoing person who you couldn't help but notice. Russell's old roommate, Jeff, even said he remembered Russell mentioning her because he was learning French and she was helping him. On November 16th, Williams drove to Brighton to 37-year-old Marie-Franc's home. He knew she was away on a mission because he had access to her schedule.

He slipped in through a basement window and took photos of himself wearing some of her underwear, took shots of her military uniform, and left about an hour and a half later. Unfortunately, this wouldn't be his last time in Marie-Frances home. The next time he was there, he'd commit his first murder. So we're going to leave it there for part one campers. This is a big story and we want to do it justice. Now, before we go, don't forget about our two live shows coming up. First, we've got summer camp, September 10th through 13th. This is an amazing four-day festival in Equinoct, Pennsylvania. It's at a real summer camp. And you stay in nice cabins. It's glamping, not camping, you know, great food. hosted by Dan and Lindsay

comments of time suck and scared to death, both fantastic podcasts. And we will be performing live alongside them and the podcast astonishing legends in addition to a roster of awesome stand-up comedians and local bands. So go to bad magic productions.com for more info and to buy tickets. Then we've got our true crime crews coming up, Crime Wave 2.0, February 8th through 12th, 2027. If you want to come to the Bahamas, you know, in the middle of winter, with us and some of the biggest true crime and paranormal podcasts in the world, like last podcast on the left, case file, no sleep, true crime garage, here's what you got to do. Tickets are on sale now, and they're going fast. So if you want to go, make sure you get over to crimewaveatc.com slash campfire and book

your cabin ASAP. You'll get $100 off, plus a private meet and greet with us, always fun. And the great thing is you can pay all at once or you can set up a payment plan and pay it off over time. So get on it, y'all. That's crimewaveatc.com. Campfire. So that was a horrifying one, right campers? You know we'll have part two for you next week. But for now, lock your doors, light your lights, and stay safe until we get together again around the True Crime Campfire. And as always, we want to send a grateful shout out to a few of our lovely Patreon supporters. Thank you so much to Kelly, Cody, Amanda, Sarah, Kathleen, and Betsy. We appreciate y'all to the moon and back. And if you're not yet a patron, you're missing out.

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virtual events with Katie and me, and we're always looking for new stuff to do for you. So if you can, come join us at patreon.com slash true crime campfire. Life moves too fast. scrolling, swiping, headlines, sound bites. Nobody's really seen.

Even the people everyone thinks they know. I'm Evelyn. I'm a television producer and director, and I've spent decades behind the camera creating shows with people everyone knows. On the podcast, Repin, I sit down with actors, creators, and change makers

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Every conversation is jammed packed with inspiration and practical lessons. Repen is about courage. It's about grit. It's about being human first. Listen to Repen wherever you get your podcasts. Reality TV is messy. Pop culture is louder than ever. And the internet.

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