Uncover - S33 E5: Joan | Calls From a Killer

Episode Date: June 16, 2025

After months speaking to Clifford Olson, Arlene is still searching for answers. So she turns her attention to his mysterious wife: the woman who received the ‘cash for bodies’ payout.  She’s been attacked by the media and faces the scorn of the public - but Arlene knows there is more to Joan Olson than meets the eye. 

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The following episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Please take care when listening. I remember very clearly the moment I truly realized Clifford Olson had a wife. I was watching Olson's hearings as they were reported on TV. The first time I saw Joan, she was coming out of the courthouse, immediately swarmed by a scrum of reporters. She had short brown hair, thin, peaked eyebrows, and looked older than a woman just in her early 40s. Understandable, though, given the stress she must have been under. The sighting of Joan came right after the cash for bodies deal became public knowledge,

and she and the son she shared with Olsen were the ones getting the money. And so the journalists quizzed her on it, right there on the front lawn, and she responded by yelling into the crowd, I need to eat. Leave me alone. I need to eat. My honest impressions were, this woman is out of control. A few months later, in June 1982, she presented a gentler side, saying this about her husband in an interview with CBC. I love him, yeah.

You don't turn love off and on. You don't turn your love off of a little child or even your teenager, so they might do something really that you really hate. But you don't turn your love off of a little child or even your teenagers, they might do something really that you really hate, but you don't turn your love off of it. Even after what Clifford's done? Yeah. He hasn't hurt me really, in a sense. He hasn't taken any of my flesh and blood away.

So I think the public, and I'm including myself here, consigned Joan to the class of offenders' wives who weren't accomplices exactly, but certainly weren't smart or strong enough to put a stop to their partner's crimes sooner. That was enough to earn a lot of hate. Olsen was a child killer. The media didn't often help. A Toronto Star article, also from 1982, labeled Joan the silent wife. In it she's described as, quote, a tiny woman, not petite, just short, about five feet.

She wears her hair harshly curled and permed in a style 15 years out of date. But Jones soon slipped back into obscurity. Just a side note to Olsen's depravity. A couple years after Olsen's conviction, though, she was back in the news. Jones and two of Olsen's lawyers were being sued for the money. Joan and two of Olson's lawyers were being sued for the money. The families of some of the victims are in court because they want what's left of the Olson Trust Fund. Regardless of whether they feel sorry for a woman who appears to be another of Clifford Olson's victims, they want the court to prove the trust fund wasn't set up for her benefit, but for Olson's.

That it was just an elaborate scheme to hide the fact that Fred Olsen profited from his crimes. Joan was compelled to tell her side of the story under oath. When she talked of Olsen, she broke down and cried. She said, I hated him. Right from the night he held a knife to my throat, he threatened to take away my baby. Joan had to convince the court the vast majority of the money went to her and her son, Clifford Olson III, whose name was later changed. They weren't just being used as a money laundry.

She is accused of conspiring with the convicted killer and the lawyers to benefit from the trust fund. The families are alleging that Olsen illegally benefited from the trust fund because his debts were paid off. But it often seemed like what was being tested was her allegiance to Olsen. Her appearance in court today sparked a minor incident. When she came in, one of the parents of Olsen's victims called out at her, are you going to tell the truth today?

That prompted Mr. Justice William Treanor to caution against unseemly conduct in his court. The family's lawyer produced a transcript of a television interview Mrs. Olsen gave after her husband confessed to murdering 11 children. Her words then were much different than the nightmare life she described in court yesterday. In that interview, she said of Olsen, he's very kind, very thoughtful to me. He always made sure I had enough money to feed the baby. At this point, it was easy to see Joan as a bit of a slippery, mysterious figure.

Mrs. Olsen admitted that she knew her husband was a thief and that they lived on the proceeds of crime and welfare. But in an angry outburst, she said the RCMP knew that too, and there was nothing they could do to keep him in jail angry outburst, she said the RCMP knew that too and there was nothing they could do to keep him in jail. So what could she do? She claims surprised that Olsen could have ever been a murderer, despite saying she suffered violence throughout their short-lived relationship. But when the RCMP came to her home with a search warrant while investigating the murder

of Judy Cosma, Mrs. Olsen was shocked. My first reaction was Clifford Olsen was a drunk. He was an animal, but he was not a murderer. But she also argued dramatically that she was the one who coaxed the confessions out of her ex-husband. She went to visit Olsen here at the Cloverdale Lockup. She begged him to tell his lawyer anything he knew about the missing children. She quoted scriptures from the Bible they had. She said he must repent if he wanted to go to heaven. But Olson attacked her.

He choked her. I looked into his eyes, she said, and I knew then he was a killer. Joan remained defiant in the face of criticism that she should ever have taken the money. Then lawyer David Gibbons, who represents the families, took up the questioning. Referring to the $100,000 trust fund, Gibbons asked, You are living off the proceeds of his crimes, aren't you? Olsen, no. Gibbons, you continue to receive monthly payments.

Olsen, that's maintenance. I like to eat. I like to feed my son and clothe him." By the time Clifford Olsen and I started talking on the phone, it was a new decade, and my attention was trained on him, the enigma of his psychology, and whether he might slip up and tell me something new. Interviewing Joan wasn't my highest priority. Two things changed that. It dawned on me that Olsen was always going to try

to hide things and give me the runaround. Any answers he had about his upbringing, family, treatment of women, I wasn't going to find much truth in them. Speaking to Joan felt like the best way to find out who Olsen really was when he was at home with nobody watching. Secondly, he kept trying to get me to visit him in prison. The thing what I don't like concerning you is that here you're doing a book on me,

yet you have never come in to interview me. I think that you're scared to come in to interview me. Anybody that's doing a book on a serial killer should face the serial killer. Clearly, he was starting to think of me as more of a confidant. He was always trying to turn me into a girlfriend figure. But as horrifying as that was,

I battled with the pros and cons of going. So who better to advise me than Joan? The question was, was she going to remain the silent wife with me? This is Calls from a Killer from CBC's Uncover. I'm Arlene Bynum. This is Episode five, Joan. Actually, there was a third factor prompting me to interview Joan.

Peter got to her first. How come you never moved when they wanted you to? I didn't do anything. It's worse than that. Oh boy, the hassle. I also, they were also wondering around my son and my daughter. My parents. We were more than a year into our phone calls with Olson

and Peter'd flown west to Vancouver to talk to Olson's lawyer, Bob Shantz. Apparently, Shantz casually suggested calling Joan to get her to join them for dinner at a restaurant. As you can hear from this noisy tape, she agreed, although she didn't really say much. Peter did most of the talking, especially when it came to the deal and the falling. But it seems to me you got, there's two things, but what you accept for you is one thing, but I mean, I don't know how you can,

you've got to be thinking of your boy, you know? Yeah. You know, I think your boy, you look at it, I'm just not, I think it was the best investment they ever made. Oh, yeah. When he returned from his trip and told me he'd had this encounter, I was a bit perturbed, which Peter understood.

Even though we were on a joint project researching for a book, we were both journalists with a healthy sense of competition. But my bigger concern was that Peter felt we had all we needed from Joan, which honestly wasn't much. I felt there was more to her and her relationship with Olsen that was yet to come out. And as a woman, I might have a better go with her. So I arranged my own meeting with Joan and would end up spending three days with her.

When I turned up at Joan's home in residential Vancouver, the woman who opened the door wasn't the woman I'd seen yelling outside the courthouse. Her hair was still dark. She still wasn't particularly glamorous, but she was very meek and sweet and had this very nice laugh. I was struck. I offered to take her for lunch at a restaurant of her choice. She accepted and offered to drive. On the way there I noticed what looked like a patch missing from her car's faux leather upholstery and

I brought it up. She said, well this was Clifford's car and they cut parts of it out to test for blood. Although I have a tendency to interrupt, my daughter is always following me out for interrupting and I'm sure it's because of Clifford you know because if I didn't interrupt I wouldn't have a say. We got a table at the diner Jones suggested, and after a little small talk, I started asking about her relationship with Olsen, which all in only lasted a year. How did she meet him? When she began, it was like she was describing a real love story. But then the plot became troubling.

She's out with her girlfriends at a bar in Coquitlam, BC. Clifford comes over and says to her that he loves her laugh. And they get talking. The next thing she knows, she wakes up and she's in a hotel room next to him in bed. She doesn't remember how she got there. I don't know what went through my mind. I mean, I never done anything when it was in my whole life. I hope my mother would shoot me.

She told me that for years, she just assumed she'd gotten too drunk. That's what Olsen had told her and what she seemed to have believed. But then after his arrest, after hearing how he had drugged his victims, something clicked for her. In the moment though, Olsen was very charming, and that morning asked her out to dinner. I'll pick up someone. And my roommate asked me, well I said, well I slept with him anyhow so I might as well sleep with him and find out what I missed.

Yes! Didn't that sweet? In the early days of dating, Joan says she didn't know about Olsen's extensive criminal record. All she knew was that he worked in construction, was romantic, and always paying her compliments. Every time they'd go for dinner, he'd bring her a corsage. It's a strange gesture, and only made sense to her later. Olsen had been in prison most of his life.

He didn't know how to behave with a date. When Olsen finally confessed that he was out on parole, Joan said she had a hard time and was worried what her parents would think. But she carried on seeing him and moved in with him after only two months because he was the most considerate man she'd ever met. It's worth mentioning here that at the time Jo met Olson, she was an already divorced mother

of two grown children. She had married young and had had to leave her first husband because he was abusive. It was over property owned by that ex-husband, a boat, that Joan first experienced how violent Olson could be to her. They were at the boatyard. I didn't want him to touch the boat because I felt it didn't really belong to me, it belonged to my ex-husband. And he was sitting around with the motor and he got quite violent.

He was really, really mad and he started pounding me. And I was down on the ground, but I couldn't see his face. So I don't know, but now that I think about it, I just think that his voice had changed. But I'm about to... And then he was apologetic. After, he was very apologetic. Over the next couple of months, Joan would endure a number of assaults. Olsen would punch her in the nose when she tried to stop him from driving drunk.

He'd give her a black eye in the car on the way to church. And Joan said something to me that made me think she was looking for an out even then. Well, this time I know I've got a black eye because he was always trying to explain to people. Because I wouldn't wear anything to cover it up. I wanted people to see it. When someone asked me, I wasn't embarrassed to tell them where I got it from. And he didn't like that. He didn't want anyone to know that he had hit me. As for Olsen, he would always make like he was contrite afterward.

As for Olsen, he would always make like he was contrite afterward. Well, the next day, he was so apologetic. And he just warned me like he wouldn't believe. He did me like I was a queen and that he didn't know what had happened. He said he was drunk and I just wasn't him. And Joan believed him. She thought the only thing that changed the likelihood of encountering the other Clifford, as she put it, was whether or not he'd been drinking heavily.

But in January 1981, when Olsen was charged with the abduction and rape of 16-year-old Kim Werbecki, Joan says she glimpsed for the first time who he really might be. We went up to get Clifford out of jail because he was charged with that rape charge. And I remember seeing Clifford come out and I was, it was a different person then. We know now that on July 9th, 1981, Olsen picked up, raped, and murdered 14-year-old Judy Cosma. Jones says that day, Olsen was in a frenzy. He was suddenly adamant that they and their infant son

needed to drive to California for a holiday. In the early hours of the 10th, before they'd all packed into the car, Jones says Olson raped her. It was the first time she'd been subjected to that kind of violence from the man she'd only just married. He started talking and telling me that he didn't love me anymore, that he had just been using me. And he said he was going to rape me. I guess that's why I blocked it out. I was like, no. But he was very, very violent.

Did he force you to have that? Yeah. I was fighting and he seemed to really enjoy me fighting. He really enjoyed me fighting. You know? It's just, well as I said, it was a different person that was doing it. He was an enrage. He was just like an animal. I remember thinking, well, you know, I was hearing that. Why is he doing this? You can hear Jones ticking the tape here.

A girly chuckle, often punctuating stories of abuse and shame. She knew I'd probably be appalled, and felt that maybe she should be embarrassed. Joan had found herself trapped with a man whose real character was perhaps there to see all the while. And as she was about to tell me, the worst days were yet to come. At Desjardins Insurance, we know that when you own a nail salon, everything needs to be perfect from tip to toe.

That's why our agents go the extra mile to understand your business and provide tailored solutions for all its unique needs. You put your heart into your company, so we put our heart into making sure it's protected. Get insurance that's really big on care. Find an agent today at Desjardins.com slash business coverage. We're all looking for great places to visit in Canada.

One of my favorites is the Stratford Festival. The theater is truly of the highest caliber and there's so much selection. They have 11 large scale shows on stage and trust me, whatever is on when you're there will be exceptional. People always think Shakespeare when they think of Stratford, but it's so much more Broadway musicals, family shows, classic comedy and drama. Whether it's Robert LaPage's Macbeth or Donna Fior's Annie, you will be blown away. It's the perfect Canadian getaway.

To quote William Shatner, who got his start in Stratford, every Canadian should make the pilgrimage to Stratford. Start your next adventure at StratfordFestival.ca. They bungled the whole entire thing. I mean, to set up the trust fund for his wife and child. I mean, you can't make this stuff up. This is Judy Cosmas' sister, Bridget. I know that you spoke to Joan Olsen. Yes, I did.

I think the money probably all was spent. I don't think there was anything left for her. Not that I care. The Cosmas were one of the families who sued Joan and the two lawyers 40 years ago. And it's easy to detect that Bridget's feelings towards her were tarred by disgust at the cash for bodies deal. I tried to push back a little. She did get the money and clearly there was a price

to pay for her, whether she planned on it or not. That was something that she had to wear for the rest of her life. But before I interviewed Joan myself, my opinion of her probably wasn't very different to Bridget's today. In preparation, Peter and I had accessed tape of police questioning Joan just after Olsen was arrested.

It's not hard to hear her reticence as ignorance. Maybe even worse. Now, do you recall nights when he wasn't at home or nights when he was late in getting home before Christine Warrer, before the first incident in November. He slept at our place every night. Up till that one, first one happened. Do you know where he was that night? He was in jail, as far as I know. When asked about the pivotal Kim Warbecki attack.

Okay, January the 8th, the rest of the rape. Did you at that time have any idea that Clifford was a violent sexual attacker? No. Even though he raped a girl? I didn't think it was rape. The police also stopped just short of accusing Joan of being in on a fake burglary of her and Olson's apartment. The police officer who took the complaint told us that he thought that he didn't believe any of it because I don't blame him I wouldn't believe it either but But I did. He was considering bringing charges of mischief, we guess, to you because he said he felt the whole thing was a phony deal.

He said there were no signs of forced entry, and he said that you were very evasive and had a difficult time answering his questions. I was very upset. I was very upset. It's a frustrating listen. Joan rarely raises her voice above a whisper. She seemingly dodges easy questions and laughs off serious allegations against her husband. And only months later, when those allegations would end in criminal conviction, she would receive an eye-watering sum as so-called profit from those crimes. And she'd always keep her position that she deserved the money.

But as I sat in a family restaurant ten years on from when that interview was recorded, listening to Joan unburden herself, I started to understand. Joan genuinely believed, after all she'd been through, she was owed. Her stipend wasn't for maintenance. She'd been a passenger to evil in ways people could never understand. This was her compensation.

According to Joan, when Olsen was driving their little family down to California, Olsen was in an ugly mood. They'd gone miles out of the way in order to use a remote border crossing into the states, and as the journey progressed, Olsen kept demanding Joan wire $4,000 from her savings and hand it over. Joan initially refused. The first hotel they checked into was in Los Angeles, and Joan had to step out to get some painkillers for a headache. When she returned, Joan heard the baby screaming. When she went to comfort him, she noticed blood in the crib and then the source of the blood, a slice wound on the left side of her son's chest.

She started screaming herself, asking what had Olsen done? And Olsen, seated calmly watching TV, repeated the order, Wire for the money, Joan. Their son would be left with a permanent scar. Like I asked the doctor about it and he told me that that was, if he had moved in and pushed the knife it would have killed him right off. Of course they never, him, ever, ever. That the baby did it, but I don't know how the baby... I mean, what's the baby doing with the pipe?

When Olsen threatened their baby the next day, motioning to drown him in the hotel pool, Jong relented and withdrew the money he wanted. As she put it, the rest of the California road trip was less a vacation, more hostage-taking. There were some days they could pretend they were regular tourists, like visiting the theme park, Knott's Berry Farm. But most of the time, they were on the road, changing motels every couple of days. They ended up in a hotel outside San Francisco for a stretch.

Joan said there was a sex worker, hanging about outside, really young, blonde, with a roundish face. I found it eerie when Joan said, I looked a bit like her. One day during their stay, Joan sent Olsen out to the store for baby formula. He was only supposed to be gone for a couple of minutes. Instead, Olsen took hours. Joan told me that night, as she watched Olsen sleep beside her, she noticed he didn't have

his buck knife strapped to his side as usual. When they left the hotel the next day, she also noticed that the sex worker was no longer on the corner. It was around this time that Joan says she started keeping a calendar, a sort of journal, noting down all these incidents. I don't know if she felt then that Olsen was capable of the crimes he'd later confess to, but I think she had an instinct to keep a record because it was obvious that things

were going terribly in their relationship. He was an alcoholic and unfaithful. He had raped her. He had harmed their relationship. He was an alcoholic and unfaithful. He had raped her. He had harmed their son. It could only help her to recall everything. She jotted down the time she came home to find Olsen in bed with a teenage boy named Danny, who'd always been hanging around their house.

She noted the night she walked into the bathroom and saw Olsen scrubbing a hammer in the bathtub with a nail brush and a visit to Olsen's parents when she says she overheard them all in the kitchen. Olsen's parents extremely distressed at something he'd just revealed. Later, she saw him trying to destroy and dispose of kids' clothing, children's jean jackets that had been kept in

their garage. Were they his jean jackets? No, they were a snared jean jacket. Kids' jean jackets. Oh, so he had them from somewhere. Yeah. There was four jean jackets that I remember. He ended up throwing them in the dumpster. When I said goodbye to Joan at the restaurant, I couldn't wait to rush back to the hotel,

call Peter, and fill him in on all the new information and leads she'd given. call Peter and fill him in on all the new information and leads she'd given. But then Joan called me sooner. She said, I'm starting to remember things I'd blocked out all these years. And she just started to gush. About the nights Olsen stayed out late and how they lined up. About finding the passport of West German tourist Sigrid Arndt in their home, about how she thinks the day she overheard his parents sobbing was also the moment Olsen confronted his father for sexually abusing him, and his parents'

guilt motivated them to keep his secrets quiet. Throughout it all, Joan was very self-deprecating and repeated to me, you must think I'm kind of stupid. And then she'd give her a little laugh. It seems she knew very well she'd been perceived as the dumb, naive wife. How could she not have known? It was a question I'd heard so many times. No doubt she had too. Public perception of the wives and girlfriends of serial killers had shifted back and forth over time. In Canada, there was Lynn Ellingson, girlfriend to the pig farmer serial killer Robert Picton.

Lynn Ellingson testified at Picton's trial that she had driven around with him to pick up a sex worker. And Carla Hamoka, who assisted her husband in raping and killing three girls, including her own sister. No one had any sympathy for them. The cases were clear-cut. I mean, she should be in jail for life, for what she did, period. I think she's getting what she deserves. But then there were figures like Liz Kendall, who was American Ted Bundy's girlfriend for five years. Apparently none the wiser.

It's not a relevatory thought, but I truly believe that multiple things can be true at the same time. I think Joan was another of Olsen's victims and that she was just the kind of vulnerable woman he could control and manipulate. I also think that she had her suspicions, a calendar's worth, and didn't act on them earlier. It's not that the disappearances and murders weren't in the news and Joan couldn't have known. It's not that the disappearances and murders weren't in the news and Joan couldn't have known.

One of the more bizarre revelations to come of the civil suit was that days before Olsen's arrest, Joan says that Simon Partington, his youngest victim, came to her in a dream, asking for help. But as we know of many who were abused, Joan was truly terrified of Olsen and what he might do to her if he sensed a betrayal. That fear took decades to subside. Would you rather he be dead? It would be easier. Yeah, it would, wouldn't it?

Yeah. Because there's always that party you're wanting to know if he's going to be after you. I don't think he would. He's never said one thing. You weren't there when he would blame me. When our days together in Vancouver were coming to an end and Joan and I were on one of our last phone calls. I revisited the question of whether I should go see Olsen in Kingston Penitentiary.

There would be guards, I assured her, and he'd probably be handcuffed. She wasted no time and begged me, Don't go Arlene. You'd be everything to him and he's got nothing to lose. Don't go." I chose to heed this advice. A couple months later, when his cell was turned over after an incident, they found a small homemade shank under his mattress. My refusal to go see him would remain a sticking point for the rest of my conversations with Olson. He could get pretty petty about it. There's a lot of things that you don't know about murders, where, how, and when at all.

I tried to put a thing together so you could get in here to visit with a God's blessing in disguise that you even got your name on the visiting list and I don't even see you. Some reporter you are, some broadcaster, you know. I'm not gonna give interviews over phone. If I want to give interviews I could phone the universities which I got tons of letters to talk direct to criminologists and psychology students, classes of three and four hundred people so I can do that anytime. The other bone of contention was one of Joan's biggest claims. She had told me she suspected he was himself the victim of abuse, and I had an obligation to ask Olson directly.

When I did, he denied it. When I pressed, he became ugly, furious that he wasn't in control of the conversation, and Joan anymore. Now, you talked about your father and you said that your relationship with your father was really quite good. Yeah, in the sense that just, you know, to have a few drinks that I did know with him, but we never did go anywhere together. We used to come to a few boxing matches, but that was it, you know, but we never went to play baseball, soccer or anything like that. Not a father relationship that we went out hunting, fishing and all stuff like that, no.

Okay, well you told me that you had a loving family home, but Joan says that you hated your father. No, I didn't hate my father. My father was an alcoholic, but he could handle his drinking. You know, he drank what, 26 or a day damn near. Um, well, she talked a lot about how you hated your father, and that she said if you said it once to her, you said it a hundred times, Joan, I hate my father, you don't understand. No, I disagree with Joan on that. She's not going to get away with something like that.

No, definitely not. No, I love my father. Um, but... Don't speak bad of the dead. I love my father, I love my mother. I don't care what Joan thinks at all. She's got her opinion and that's it, so let's not harp on the same thing. Okay, well she harped on this, so I have to go over the whole part of it because she was quite sure that she said you were... Well, go ahead. She remembers very clearly that you didn't like him very much and you talked to her about it, but you would never get into it. Do you know why she would think that?

No, I don't. I haven't got a clue and I don't really care. Me and Jonah are finished. She's got her own life. Go ahead, next question. Okay, now she told me about a conversation that she overheard between you and your father and your father said to you, I have four children. I have grown children. Nobody would ever think I wasn't normal. No one would believe you. You said something to the effect of, well, I have a son now too. And Joan said that she got the distinct impression that maybe you were talking about sex.

Do you remember that? No, not at all. Nothing whatsoever. You can never pick a tail end of a conversation up and interpret it what you think about it. You know, that's the worst thing you can do. I know people that got killed for stuff like that. Okay. Did your father molest you at all, Clifford? Oh, not at all. Never. Never at all. No, neither did my mother. We never had any of that in our family at all. But you told me you had an uncle who molested you. He didn't molest me. He tried to lie up top to me. He didn't molest me. I didn't

say he tried to molest, that he molested me. No. Go ahead, next question. I'm interested in your father and I'm wondering, and I know that many times that people who turn out to have done what you have done and killed as many people as you have, have things in their family. Yeah, but I think that's a lot of bullshit too and I've done a lot of research on that too. I know what you're getting at. A person stands on his own merits of what he does in serial killers and I can only speak

for myself. I enjoyed the killing, the drinking was the thing that released me into doing what I was doing, but I knew what I was doing at all times. Had nothing to do with my family. My upbringing, I thought, was pretty good. And I went and took this upon myself. This stuff of falling back on because your parents molested you and your mother molested you, you become a serial killer. That's all bullshit and anybody that wants to believe that is bullshit theirself. That's my opinion. Go ahead. Next question. As the call dragged on, I wasn't going to let him lay blame on Joan so easily, as he had done for decades.

Two days. Clifford, since the first time I talked to you, you said Joan would never lie, and you said she has an excellent memory. Now that I'm... Clifford, can I finish? Now that I'm asking you some rather painful things. First of all they're not painful things. Well they seem painful because you're very angry with them. They're not painful. Let's not get into a philosophical debate here. You know, go ahead, get on with your questions. This is the question that I want to ask you.

Go ahead. Joan doesn't lie. Joan has a good memory but everything I have asked you here today Joan is either lying or has a bad memory. What do you think I'm going to think? Yeah, you can think what you want to think. You're writing the book and not me. You know, I'm just telling you my side of the fact. That said, okay continue. You know, Clifford, you talk about you and Joan and getting along so well. Since I've been talking to Joan, she told me that when you were in California, that she went out for something and came back and the baby had a slice wound in him. She told me... It could have been anything, you know...

She told me that your parents were crying and she told me you hated your father and every single one of them. She's lying. Do you believe it? Everyone? Pardon? Do you believe something like that? You've got to remember she's been through a dramatic thing. I mean, you know, here she's with a person that's a serial murder case.

But I have to remember that I'm talking to somebody, Clifford, who's killed a lot of people. Hearing this back after so many years, I came to a realization. At some point in this conversation, I knew I wasn't going to unlock the mystery of how Clifford Olson came to be. He was a, quote, severe psychopath. To paraphrase the saying, if he was breathing, he was lying. My mission changed course to exposing those lies. This was a pivotal moment. I think I was changed after that. I believe it was because I'd met and gotten to know Joan. She'd admit she never had the courage to confront him like this. But for a few years after his conviction, she had continued to

write to Olsen in prison. An act of godly forgiveness. When we spoke on the phone after my exchange with Olsen, she was elated. It was like she'd finally had an advocate in that relationship. Joan was far from the complicit woman, the silent wife that the public perceived her to be. And I'd learned more from her than from months talking to Olsen, including that Joan believed he killed a young woman on their trip to California, something he was never investigated for.

It seemed clear to me that there had to be more victims than the 11 murders that Olsen had been convicted of. I was determined to find as much evidence as I could and get him to confess to more. Okay, so you were involved in other murders. Yes. And that because of deals, we're not finding out about them. Right.

He was right on the very front page of the province paper and I went, oh my god, that's the guy that drove Fern and I. I instantly knew that that was who had killed her or made her disappear. The complete files of the murders and rapes of the following named persons in the province of British Columbia. Carmen Robinson from Victoria, BC. Marnie Jamieson from Gibson, BC. Gail Anne Weese from Canada, BC.

Verna Bergerky from BC. Helen Hopcraft from BC. That's coming up on Calls From A Killer. Calls From A Killer was written and produced by me, Nathaniel Frum, Arlene Beinen, and senior producers Ashley Mack and Andrew Friesen. Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly. Emily Cannell is our digital producer. Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is the senior manager

and Arif Noorani is the director of CBC podcasts. Tune in next week for an all new episode of Calls from a Killer from CBC's Uncover. Or you can binge the whole series by subscribing to our True Crime Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Just click on the link in the show description.