In the spring of 1999, a group of boys swimming in southern Ontario quarry found a corpse in a bag. It was a body with no name and no history. But police knew one thing for sure — this was murder.
Follow the case from the fatal gunshot to the forensic investigation to the interrogation in Homicide, a five-part true crime series by reporter Grant LaFleche.
This series was originally published in the St. Catharines Standard in 2006.
Niagara Falls bakes under the glare of the morning sun. It’s hot as hell and the air is thick.
Everything sticks.
It’s even worse inside that lousy house in that lousy part of town.
The bitter smell of gunpowder fills the room. It mixes with the stench from the tightly packed rows of marijuana plants.
It was an easy kill. A quick shot with a sawed-off .22. Close range to the back of the head.
Clean. No fuss.
None of that really matters, though. Not to the man with a hot rifle in his hand. He’s just killed a man for the first time and he has some hard lifting to do.
But he can’t do it alone. The body is heavy. Damn heavy. Fat. Dead weight.
He makes a quick phone call to a friend and runs down what they need:
U-Haul rental truck.
Plastic sheet.
Canvas bag.
Duct tape.
Clear packing tape.
Bricks.
Utility knife.
Bus tickets.
The killer knows where to go. The old quarry. Flooded for years. The water deep and dark. No one would find a body there.
He and his pal work deliberately. Cut away a section of blood-drenched carpet. Wipe up the blood that soaked through to the hardwood. It’s dark. Sticky. But they manage.
The body is stuffed into the canvas bag. An old U.S. military-issue bag. They add three long red bricks. The fancy kind with scalloped tops. Wrap the bag in a three-metre-by-eight-metre piece of black plastic sheeting. Seal it with the tape.
They pause for a moment in the panic and the heat. Crack a couple of cans of Busch and smoke some cigarettes to steady their nerves.
They drive the U-Haul over 50 kilometres of back roads, out of Niagara Falls to the old bridge over the Wainfleet quarry. Drag the body out the van. Shove it over the railing into the water.
Drive the truck to Dunnville for some diesel. Head up the QEW to St. Catharines and drop off the truck at a U-Haul office. Jump on a Greyhound bound for Niagara Falls. More than 300 kilometres.
The sun is going down when the killer throws his weapon into Lake Erie off the Port Maitland pier.
They work quickly. Too quickly. They miss things. They’re not being as careful as they need to be. Not nearly.
The man with blood on his soul isn’t thinking about that. He’s not a killer, bred or trained. This is new. He’s just a kid, really.
He doesn’t know how to stay frosty. How to slow down and think straight. He’s running on his gut. On adrenaline. On nerves made raw by fear.
All that matters is the Doctor is dead. He’ll rot forever in the bottom of that quarry.
The Doctor is dead. And that means freedom.
A freedom worth killing for.
The Kid had been thinking about this moment for weeks, trying to figure a way to get free.
He couldn’t just leave. He wanted to, but he couldn’t. The Doctor had made a promise. A promise that couldn’t be ignored.
Either the Kid did what the Doctor wanted, when he wanted and how he wanted, or his parents and brother back home in Dunnville would die.
If he went to the police, they would die.
If he ran, they would die.
He was a smart kid. All his teachers said so. Gifted, they called him. He was good with numbers. Good with computers.
But he couldn’t figure a way out of this. He begged and borrowed money from friends to keep the Doctor’s wallet full. He dropped out of school to keep the Doctor’s marijuana operation running.
The Kid lied to his parents. They thought he was still in Toronto. At college. They didn’t know he had become the front man for the Doctor’s business.
Not that he is making dollar one for himself. The Kid is poor as a pocket. Broke as a joke. Starts selling what little he owns so he can eat.
He was the Doctor’s “bitch, so to speak.” That’s what his friends said.
The more it rolled around in his head, the deeper into panic he sank. There’s no way out. No back door.
The Kid saw only one escape. The Doctor had to get the hard goodbye.
It was the only way.
He did some research. The Kid was always good with computers. Found out how to make a silencer on the Internet.
A couple of friends gave him the rifle. Supplied some bullets. It would be easy. Just point and squeeze the trigger.
Simple. Clean. No fuss.
But he’s not a killer. Not really. His only trouble with the law was a speeding ticket. He’s supposed to be studying computers. He shouldn’t even be here.
But he has to get free. Come hell or high water, he has to.
For two weeks he waits. Until May 28, 1999.
The Doctor rises early. The clock hasn’t hit 7, but the air is already sticky. In that lousy house, it’s a sauna. Worse than a sauna. Black plastic sheets cover the walls. The temperature is cranked up. The heat lamps are on. All the better for his crop.
The Doctor doesn’t bother getting dressed. It’s too hot for that. Hot as hell. He just wears his black-and-red striped Jockeys and a black T-shirt.
The clock hasn’t hit 7 and something is wrong. Already. Another problem with the Kid.
“I’m leaving, “ the Kid says. He stands there in the squalor of the lousy house, scared, gripping the handles of a bag. “I want to move home with my family.”
They’ve been through this before. More than once. The Doctor knows how to handle this. He isn’t letting his pony go. Not yet.
The Doctor’s told his family back in Buffalo he’s going to study across the pond. At Oxford. To be a lawyer, he says. All he needs is the money to get there.
And his pony is going to give it to him.
The Doctor goes back to the well.
- Article was updated
“If I don’t get to go to Oxford, it’s going to be your fault, “ he says. “You’re going to give me $5,000 now and more later. And if you don’t, I’m going to call a man in Buffalo who is going to kill your brother.”
That should do it. There is no shadow assassin in Buffalo, but the Kid doesn’t know that. The Kid believes the Doctor is a feared and known criminal connected to feared and known criminals. Threatening his family has always worked before. No reason to think it won’t work now.
The Doctor knows the Kid. If he scares him, and if he keeps him scared, he’d get the money.
The Kid is good and scared. He’s a cornered beast.
But for all the Doctor’s brains, for all his schooling, he can’t see it. He’s blind to it.
The Kid’s good and scared. Scared enough for murder.
“I’m leaving.”
The Doctor turns, steps over the piles of garbage, unwashed clothes and pot plants on the floor and picks up the phone.
He’s going to make the call now, he says. Unless that five grand makes an appearance.
The Kid reaches into the bag, but he doesn’t pull out cash.
“Put down the phone, “ the Kid says.
The Doctor stops. Turns his head and sees it.
The barrel of a rifle.
.22 calibre.
He half turns toward the Kid.
Fingers tighten around the trigger.
The Doctor moves back to the phone. His head jerks forward. Before he hits the carpet, he’s already dead. He probably didn’t hear the shot.
The killer doesn’t pause long to think about what he’s done. Panic takes over. He looks around the room and sees what needs doing.
Blood from the Doctor’s head is pouring onto the carpet. His body can’t just be left there. Not if the Kid wants to avoid the cops. Not if he is going to be free.
The Kid reaches for the phone.
