Uncover - S4 "The Cat Lady Case" E3: Three More Missing

Episode Date: July 13, 2019

The Cat Lady Case, Episode 3 - Police learn that the missing woman, Joan Lawrence, is not the only one to disappear from the small community.

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He was trying to promote the property, but he was also trying to promote at the time that they had nothing to do with any disappearance of the Cod Lady. When Joan Lawrence went missing in 1998, police quickly focused on a local family who played softball and went to church. Very nice. Super nice. Nothing out of the ordinary. David, Walter, Paul, and Catherine Land ran a series of retirement homes. The siblings' uncle, Ron Allen, was also involved.

He had shot the cats. It was his gun, the original gun, and then he went and got another one. So was he the killer? In January 1999, three months after Jones' disappearance, Detective Aaron Burke was interviewing another one of the land's residents. 72-year-old Ralph Grant was known as Duke or Doogie. Almost immediately after the interview, he disappeared. It's like they're talking to Ralph Grant, one of the missing men. They're interviewing him about Joan's disappearance, and then he goes missing. He goes missing during the investigation,

and he's never been seen since. As Aaron Burke would learn, Ralph Grant and Joan Lawrence weren't the only ones who were missing. Where else in Ontario or Canada can four people go missing and it's all okay? I'm Xander Sherman. This is Uncover the Cat Lady Case. The Lans opened their first retirement home around 1994, called Cedar Pines Christian Retirement Lodge. It was an average house on the side of the road, valued at about $170,000. Someone happened to be walking by just as it was opening. This person later talked to Detective Aaron Burke and told her that one of the new owners

had told them they were starting a family business. He stated that it was going to be a retirement home and that they were looking for elderly people who had no family to care for them, and people who didn't have a lot of money. Soon after the opening of Cedar Pines, the Lans started another residence, Fern Glen Manor. Aaron learned more about it from someone who attended a community meeting. Catherine Lan told him that only one or two people would be moving into the house. Catherine Land told him that only one or two people would be moving into the house. These people would be recovering alcoholics, drug abusers, and mentally challenged people.

Catherine Land stated that she was doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. Cedar Pines was advertised as a, quote, happy retirement home with an in-house dietician, quote, first-class nutritious meals, and quote, plenty of fun and exciting daily activities provided for seniors. But like Fern Glen Manor, it was constantly on the verge of being shut down. She had all kinds of deficiencies as far as the fire department was concerned for people getting out. A whole bunch of infractions.

I didn't want to be involved. Didn't want any part of it. Contractor Jeff Vanderklute says Catherine Land asked him to do some work at Cedar Pines. But after seeing the conditions, he refused. As Jeff explained to Vision TV. The place was a disaster. It was quite a mess. I saw both elderly people and mentally challenged people playing cards in this tiny little smoke-filled room. There was a little fan going, but it wasn't even blowing to outside.

There wasn't even a finished room. There were stud walls. None of them were well-kept. They all looked dirty and old clothes. walls. None of them were well-kept. They all looked dirty and old clothes. It was just a horrible place to spend the last few years or how many years of your life. There's just no way I would allow my grandparent to be there, that's for sure. To find people for their homes, members of the Land family went to hospitals and homeless shelters in Toronto. I spoke to Kathy Mello of Seton House in regards to David Land's background. Mello advised that she had no idea what any of the Land brothers' backgrounds were,

just that they worked their way into seeing the seniors who lived at Seton House and Matt Talbot House. She advised that on one of the pamphlets that the Lans handed out to seniors, they refer to themselves as senior consultant and placement officers. The manager of Seton House was a man named Boris Rozalek. Boris confronted Paul Lan when Paul was caught handing out brochures.

As Boris told the Canadian investigative program, CTVW5. He was brought to my office and I gave him the specific directive that he is never to be in our building unannounced and this is an inappropriate way to go about looking for prospective clients. I recall him being verbally aggressive. I was left with the impression that, yeah,

I'm looking at these clients as sources of income. Some residents had been told the Lans retirement homes were 15 minutes from Toronto. Three hours later, they arrived at Fern Glen Manor where, according to police documents, telephones were locked in an office and they signed over powers of attorney. Police know this partly because of a pastor who went to the retirement home to witness some documents. When the pastor attended, he observed that the forms were already pre-signed by the residents, which he felt uncomfortable about. When the residents were eventually discovered by police,

Aaron noted that they seemed more like prisoners than seniors freely living out their golden years. They would have to ask permission from the lands to leave. Once Detective Matthews informed them that they were adults and did not have to stay there, they stated they wanted to leave and the sooner the better. They stated they wanted to leave, and the sooner the better. On January 28, 1999, detectives Rob Matthews and Aaron Berg attended Fern Glen Manor. They describe it as a two-story home with ten bedrooms and a fluctuating number of residents. One was Delanne's grandfather.

He kept mentioning his son, Ayn. He stated that his son, Ayn, was killed. This is where police met another resident, 72-year-old Ralph Grant, who had a graying mustache and wore a prosthetic jaw. Grant was born in Stuiak, Nova Scotia. His mother's maiden name was Grant, and his father's last name might have been Cooper. He stated he had two brothers and a sister, but did not know where they lived. But Ralph had another relative, who I've managed to track down. That's Ralph, but he had a nickname, Dookie. Dookie? Dookie. Howard Grant is a retired corrections officer. He's sitting in a recliner

in his St. Catherine's home, wearing a gray crew neck, jeans, and moccasins. His wife, Rhonda, makes us coffee while keeping an eye on the TV. Howard shows me a picture of Ralph, who, in his 30s, looked like a leading man of Golden Age Hollywood. Jet black hair, even features. Howard says Ralph had an unusually good memory and knew exactly where everything was at his manufacturing job. Despite these gifts, Ralph struggled with alcoholism and eventually became estranged from his family. Like when he was drinking, he would be a bit obnoxious, and my mother wouldn't stand for it. Howard tells me the last time he saw Ralph,

he was recovering from surgery for a cancer that had eaten away his jaw. Howard thought Ralph was safe and where he needed to be. Then the phone rang. I got Allison contacted by a Huntsville police officer and was told that he's been missing for quite a while, and he had stayed at this nursing home. Howard had no idea Ralph had been recruited from a homeless shelter and taken to the middle of nowhere.

Some people from Huntsville were traveling down to different, I guess, locations looking for people to go to Huntsville, to the nursing home up there. I don't know what happened, whether they gave them a better deal or what, I had no idea. But that's the last we heard, and then everything went blank. According to police documents, Ralph Grant came to Muskoka in 1996. But it wasn't until a year and a half later that he was discovered living at Fern Glen Manor by detectives Rob Matthews and Aaron Berg.

I reviewed Ontario Health Insurance Policy, OHIP, information regarding Ralph Grant. Information regarding Ralph Grant. Date of birth, 26 May, 1926. Address, Toronto. No OHIP activity from January through to August of 2000. Ralph had led a modest life, and Erin couldn't find any credit history, history of welfare, driver's license, or record of divorce. Even his nickname, Duke or Doogie, depended on who you asked. But what Aaron did find was that Ralph Grant had contributed to a Canada pension plan and also collected old-age

security, among other benefits. In 1988, Grant began receiving a disability pension. The interview with Ralph was conducted in January 1999. At the time, Fern Glen Manor had been sold to a new owner. It went up for sale the day after Aaron's investigation began. Less than a month later, police were told that all the remaining residents, Less than a month later, police were told that all the remaining residents, including presumably Ralph Grant, had been moved to the private residence of Ferngland's manager. I spoke to Al Marshall, who advised me that the only home being operated currently was at Melina Simic's home.

Melina Simic was 44 years old at the time. She's described as a cook and hairdresser for the residence. Aaron learned more about Melina and who was now living with her from her informant. But Ralph wasn't at Melina's as he should have been. Marshall stated that as far as he knew, Ralph Grant is now living in Toronto. It's not clear why Al thought Ralph was in Toronto. But Ralph wasn't there. Sometime between Aaron's interview with him and that call with Al Marshall on February 22nd. Ralph was gone. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news.

So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. First Joan, now Ralph. And then, just two and a half years into the investigation. I got a call from Constable Dobson in Huntsville saying, do you have a brother named John Croft? I said, yes. He says, well, he's missing. John Croft's age 71 and another John, 90-year-old John Semple. I said, oh, what has happened?

And he started to tell me the story. Barbara Anderson is John Croft's sister. He's a good brother. When I was younger, he looked out for me. He did cause some family problems because he was a manic-depressive. And my parents went through a lot of trouble with him. Barbara told me, just like she probably told Aaron, that their father was a machine operator

and their mother a waitress at the Royal York Hotel. John liked to fish and play hockey, and the family would go to a nearby park for picnics. John eventually worked as a shoe salesman at Eaton's. But there were serious mental health issues from a young age. There was another incident when I was older and I was at my mother's and he was in the kitchen. He was trying to cut himself with a knife finger. I said, what are you doing, John?

He says, I want to get the poison out of him. I said, don't do that. He told me to put the knife down. In later years, John became estranged from his family. Barbara told Aaron he would stay at Spencer House, a long-term care facility in Toronto's West End. In 1996, he attended his mother's funeral. The following spring, he called his sister to ask for the PIN number to his bank account.

And that's the last I heard of him. Back in Huntsville, Aaron struggled to learn more about John Croft. He had no records with the Ministry of Transportation. He had not recently sought medical attention. But strangely, there was an income tax return. It was dated April 2000, two and a half years after anyone had seen him. The same was true with John Semple. Like Crofts, he had gone missing in 1998, but was still somehow filing tax returns years later. As Erin found out, the Cat Lady had been filing a report about the theft of her income tax check, which is one

of the reasons Erin believed she'd been murdered. Now she was seeing missing tax returns for other land residents, Erin must have realized she had stumbled onto something even bigger. Using police resources, she tried to find out more about John Semple. I queried the Ministry of Transportation, Ontario. I contacted the Registrar General's office. I requested any more information concerning siblings, children, and or marriages. No records found whatsoever. John Semple was born in Derry, Ireland.

The only photo I've ever seen of him is a blurry black and white when he looks to be about 35. He's wearing a white button-down shirt and suspenders, is clean cut, and has a sweep of brown hair. He apparently worked in a brickyard and moved to Canada where he got married and had a son. Despite these significant life developments, databases turned up almost nothing. Aaron created an organizational chart of everyone who had been in the land's care, where they had lived, and whether they were dead or alive. John Crofts and John Semple vanished sometime between January and March 1998.

Then it was the Cat Lady who went missing that fall. Finally, Ralph Grant disappeared during the investigation in the new year of 1999. Joan was the only local to go missing. The men had all been recruited from Toronto. The financial part of the case kept growing, and after speaking to a Cedar Pines employee whose disability pension was being collected by Paul and Walter, police began investigating a series of frauds, thefts, and other financial abuse. I spoke to a former resident of Cedar Pines and Fern Glen Manor. He said that he had been in the doctor's hospital for ulcer surgery

and that a young couple, who he later identified as Catherine and Walter Lann, met with his mother. He first arrived at Cedar Pines on 17th of May, 1996. After living there for six months, they had him sign over power of attorney and his bank card was destroyed. That he never received his income tax check and was told that the Lans kept it because he owed them for back rent payments. His disability checks were directly deposited into the Cedar Pines account. As Aaron was told, Walter Lans' wife did everyone's income tax. Paul Lans had everyone sign over power of attorney and that the Lands are all crooks.

Police found at least seven residents had been defrauded of their Canada pension, old age security, and other benefits. Some were still alive. Some were still alive. Some had died of apparently natural causes. And others were missing, presumed murdered. In 2002, David, Walter, Walter's wife Karen, Paul, and Catherine were charged. They had allegedly stolen or defrauded $120,000.

The media called it a pension check scam. On this day after a court hearing, they were running from the camera. Word of the missing seniors had gotten out, and CBC's The Fifth Estate filmed Paul and Walter as they ran toward their vehicles. But information was hard to come by, and the CBC's footage was given to another investigative program. A couple of specials were made, but as various hosts acknowledged, there were problems getting people to talk. People we talked to were convinced the lands would come after them. Some would only talk to us in secret. Others cancelled interviews.

Police have a theory and are treating it as a case of homicide, but their investigation is stalled, stonewalled by a conspiracy of silence. Four seniors vanished. They were all weak, vulnerable, sick and alone, and according to the police, lightly murdered. And someone out there carries a secret that could lead to their remains and unlock the mystery of the missing seniors of Muskoka. In 2003, the fraud and theft charges against David were dropped. So were the charges against Walter's wife, Karen. But as the media reported, Walter, Paul, and Catherine all pled guilty. They were each sentenced to nine months. The sentences were conditional. Their curfews allowed them to attend church.

Jay? Yeah. Oh, hey. How you doing? Come on in. This is Jay Herbert, who was voted Muskoka's favorite attorney. We're meeting at his law office in Bracebridge. How's the investigation going so far? Jay didn't work on this case, but he's defended other local murder suspects.

Before our meeting, Jay read several hundred pages of Aaron Burke's investigation. They're specifically chosen. You can tell, right? They're people with no family, no connections. They're brought up to Muskoka, away from anything that they're normally used to or know,

brought onto Yearly Road, which is not really on the beaten path, and then their money is taken from them and their bank accounts are signed over. Jay says the land's pension check scam was the perfect crime. Elderly, marginalized people were taken from their environment, placed in an unfamiliar location, and systematically defrauded. One of the reasons police didn't catch on sooner is because retirement homes in Ontario weren't provincially regulated until 2010. And at the time, Muskoka had no local bylaws governing them either. That meant that people could be preyed upon by criminals, and no one would notice.

It's concerning that these people were taken from Toronto sort of halfway houses and then moved up to Muskoka and into these terrible conditions. These are what oversight bodies are supposed to be for. This is what happens when you have a lack of oversight. The fact that three of the missing men were also three of the land's fraud victims didn't escape people's attention. But the months kept passing and no murder charges were laid, which put even more pressure on the investigation. This is an exchange between a CTV reporter and OPP detective Dave Quigley. It's like they've vanished from the planet. That's right. What does that say to you?

It says to me that they're dead. We're treating this as a homicide investigation. Police thought David Land and Ron Allen had murdered Joan Lawrence. They seem to have considered a broader range of charges for the missing men. As another investigator told the Toronto Sun, it could be, quote, anything as high level as homicide or the other extreme. Someone dies, and you don't follow proper procedures. In Huntsville, no one could understand how four people could go missing in one year, and there be no charges, no answers, nothing. How can not just one, but that many people go missing, and we can't find nobody?

Yeah, weird. You don't expect stuff like that to happen here. You expect that in Toronto. You don't expect that in cottage country. What type of person would take advantage of the elderly people like that, including the cat lady? the elderly people like that, including the cat lady. I can't see them killing anybody, but I can certainly see them, you know, letting them starve to death or mistreating them enough or not getting them medical help if they need it and then just dispose of them afterwards.

People heard about the conditions of the land's retirement homes and the way they treated elderly people and drew their own conclusions about what had happened. The land's neighbors told me they had witnessed strange behavior and maybe come across evidence in the years following Joan's disappearance. I mean, it had to be substantial time. I couldn't tell you exactly, but I would say it was at least a year after things had calmed down, maybe even more than that.

Roz Barden tells me about a time Walter apparently didn't want her to see where he was going. I was walking with a neighbor and we were at the corner when a car came over the hill on Domtar. Pretty sure it had its turn signal on. It was going to slow down to turn. Kind of changed his mind and then changed his mind again and pulled over towards where we were. And I recognized the driver as being Walter. I did not let him let him I recognized him. I didn't go, oh, Walter, how are you? Just because of what had already happened. And he asked for directions to go to someplace off of Old Muskoka Road around the corner, which obviously he would know

really well. I mean, like all the years he's been living here. Susan Polikas remembers the day she found something in her yard across the lake from where Joan went missing. I decided to put a garden on the shoreline there, started to dig there, and first shovel load I, you know, dug in and overcame false teeth. Susan says a detective came to collect the teeth after she reported it to police, but there's no mention of any false teeth in the documents I have, and Susan never heard anything else about it. I've put it on my list of questions for when I follow up with the OPP.

Walter Lynn moved away not long after the investigation began. This is his neighbour, Chris Joyner. Actually, at the time I had this really old garage that was on the property when I first moved there and he had actually come over to me at one point in time and said, you know, I think we should restore it. And I said, okay, well, whatever you think, because Wally kind of was a bit of a handyman. He brought a bunch of scaffolding over, and it was pretty decent scaffolding,

and kind of had it there, and I think he was going to start to work on this building for us. And the next thing I could say, he was gone, and the scaffolding was still there. Other people, people in the community, saw that Joan and the three men were a type. What did you think might have happened? Well, serial killers are a thing, right? In BC, that guy with the pig farm, there's another pig farm, and he's getting rid of bodies for somebody.

Even less extraordinary theories still captured people's imaginations. Well, Tim, who was living across the lake now, who is gone, he'd been told that they were in the swamp out behind his place. We had been told a story that they'd been dumped in our side of the lake. Then there's stories that they were dumped on that side of the lake. The real reason I wanted to jowl here was in this kind of an entranceway they have to their house. At one point, my wife was over there.

Now, I never seen it, but again, in hindsight, this kind of seems weird. So there was a pretty big area of concrete that was poured. David had had a concrete truck had gone in there and my understanding although I can't verify this was that he was building some pens for he had quite a number of husky dogs in there so I'm assuming they were pouring the base for it so to me that makes a good place to hide some dead bodies underneath the concrete. And of course, having all those dogs, you want to get rid of some meat, feed it to a dog. By my count, David, Walter, and Paul told 13 stories about Joan's disappearance. That Joan was living in Bracebridge with a Scottish male named George.

She is living somewhere between Minden and Bracebridge with a woman named Hazel, who has a lot of cats, that she is in hiding, that she was living in Halliburton or Minden. Once, when a reporter reached Walter by phone, he said the police were targeting the lands, that his family's kindness and generosity was being repaid with a murder investigation. About Joan Lawrence, he said the case is, quote, really a dead issue. David said she was in Vancouver, Florida, maybe Hawaii. said she was in Vancouver, Florida, maybe Hawaii. And Paul said she was living somewhere else, but couldn't say where. In November 2000, two years after Joan went missing, Detective Aaron Burke drove to Melina Simic's house, where Ralph Grant was supposed to be living.

Melina was asked if she knew where Ralph Grant was living, to which she replied that she thought Detective Constable Matthews had relocated him. I advised her that Grant was not moved by the police and that they thought he was living with her, to which she said no. When I spoke to Erin for a print story about this case, she denied her colleague had anything to do with Ralph's relocation. Quote, they said that Rob had scared Joan off of the property. They said that Rob had taken Ralph Grant off the property.

Then they even said that Rob took all of them off the property. That never happened. And later, Detective Rob Matthews will tell me this allegation is outright false. There was one time David Lynn seemed to slip up on one of the stories he told. It was right after Joan went missing, and Aaron had requested an interview. Joan went missing, and Aaron had requested an interview. Doesn't Aaron page David and say, can we set up a time for you to come into the detachment? And then he just shows up? Yeah, and it's like 11.44, she says she paged him,

and 12.10, he shows up. Instead of arranging a time to meet, and maybe talking to a lawyer, David rushed into a meeting with Erin. Police documents state that David and Erin talked for two hours. During that time, David referred to Joan in the present tense. He had just seen her. Seen her where? Aaron asked. He has never been to where she is living now, therefore doesn't know exactly where it is. Advised that he was with her on Friday,

but was not able to advise exactly where and how they met. Apparently, David said Joan had left of her own accord and was now paranoid about the police investigation, afraid she was going to be arrested and taken away to an institution. So, David said, she had gone into hiding. She is keeping a low profile, wearing a scarf over her head and dark sunglasses. And then, according to documents, just as they were wrapping up, he stated that I was acting as though something has happened to Joan, like she had been murdered or something. I replied that maybe she has been. The interview lasted another few minutes. Then, David got up to leave, saying something that caught Erin off guard. On his way out of the interview room, David asked me if I was married, to which I replied no.

He then stated, And in the documents, this is in bold. Neither was Joan. Neither was Joan. Neither was Joan. Coming up on Uncover. And he gives a quick response and they use that to say, well, he must know she's dead because he used the past tense towards her. So there's areas all over the place back there.

If they were looking for a place to hide a body, they could have been anywhere. And I remember even thinking to myself, you know, like, geez, how frustrating is this that they just don't have enough to be able to make the charge? Uncover the Cat Lady Case is hosted, written, and reported by me, Xander Sherman. The podcast is produced by Graham MacDonald and Mika Anderson, who is also our audio producer. Thank you. And the voice of Aaron Burke is Lauren Donnelly. Archival footage from Vision TV, CTVW5, and CBC's the fifth estate. Thank you. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.