Top 10 Creepiest Canadian Mysteries that Were Finally SOLVED
The Toronto Homicides
10 Creepiest American Mysteries that Were Finally Solved
Between 2010 and 2017, eight men with ties to Church and Wellesley - Toronto’s LGBTQIA+ village - were killed by an unknown assailant. Fear spread across the queer community, with many believing a serial killer was to blame. Ultimately, those fears were confirmed. The resulting investigation was the most extensive ever undertaken by the Toronto Police Service; it spawned two special task forces, and involved a number of entities, including the TPS, Ontario Provincial Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Eventually, police connected several victims to landscaper Bruce McArthur; a man with a violent past who spent time in Church and Wellesley and knew how to exploit an already vulnerable community. It took over five years, but McArthur was finally apprehended in 2018 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The Disappearance of Terror & Erebus
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This one’s a different sort of mystery from the others on the list, but nonetheless harrowing. It was 1845, and British Royal Navy officer John Franklin was tasked with exploring the Northwest Passage in modern-day Nunavut. He and his crew left the UK aboard two ships - HMS Terror and HMS Erebus. But after three long years of silence, a rescue party was sent to find the missing expedition. It was presumed that the ships were lost and everybody had died. Throughout the subsequent century, we’ve since learned that the ships got stuck in pack ice. Modern studies that began in the 1980s also uncovered that everyone died of a variety of issues, including a lack of nutritious food, hypothermia, and disease. What’s more, some crew members highly likely engaged in cannibalism as a last resort. Meanwhile the sunken Erebus was found by Parks Canada in 2014, and Terror was spotted two years later.
Nadine Machiskinic
Back in January of 2015, the body of Nadine Machiskinic was found laying at the bottom of a laundry chute inside Regina’s Delta Hotel. Machiskinic was still alive and rushed to the hospital, but she unfortunately died of her extensive injuries. However, a number of mysteries surrounded the death. For example, some wondered how she fit inside such a small opening, and others questioned the involvement of two men who can be seen with Machiskinic on security footage. It was eventually ruled that the death was accidental, and Machiskinic was found with a number of drugs in her system. While the RCMP criticized the investigative work of the Regina Police Service, the case was nevertheless closed with this otherwise simple answer.
Arrested 40 Years Later
Back in 1983, Toronto women Susan Tice and Erin Gilmour were assaulted and killed by an unknown assailant. While they lived in close proximity, the victims did not know each other and their deaths occurred months apart, with Tice’s in August and Gilmour’s in December. The cases quickly went cold, although a breakthrough came in 2000 when it was discovered that the same perp had killed both victims. However, it wasn’t until 2019 that a suspect was finally named thanks to the work of “investigative genetic genealogy.” Using DNA and an extensive family tree, investigators were able to nail Moosonee man Joseph Sutherland as the killer. He was arrested in 2022, nearly forty years after the murders occurred.
Adrienne McColl
A large majority of murders are committed by people close to the deceased. According to the Bureau of Justice, 76% of female victims are killed by someone they know. That included Adrienne McColl. McColl’s body was found in a ditch on February 17, 2002, with evidence showing that she had been violently killed. Unfortunately, the trail quickly went cold and it remained as such for many years. But thanks to technological advancements, police later identified McColl’s then-boyfriend, Stephane Parent, as the killer. Parent was arrested exactly sixteen years after McColl’s body was found, on February 17, 2018. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2022.
The Windsor Hum
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Annoying and persistent humming has been reported all around the world. New Mexico’s Taos Hum is a famous one, and Canada saw its own version with the Windsor Hum. Residents of the city complained of an irritating droning noise, with some even reporting a low-frequency vibration that shook their houses. Unfortunately, no one knew where it was coming from. That said, most people suspected Zug Island, a beautifully-named industrial area of Detroit. Sure enough, they were correct. U.S. Steel operated on the island, and they shut down the blast furnaces in April of 2020. Once that happened, the Hum suddenly stopped and no complaints have been made since.
The Babes in the Wood
Top 20 Creepiest Mysteries That Were Finally Solved
It was January 14, 1953 when two bodies were found in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. The corpses were laid in a pre-arranged manner and found with a hatchet, leading investigators to conclude that they were murdered. Unfortunately, that was all we knew for a long, long time. It was initially believed that one of the victims was female, but a DNA test done in 1998 proved that both were male. Not only that - they were brothers. However, we wouldn’t get an official ID until 2022. Using genetic genealogy, the brothers were found to be Derek and David D’Alton, who were respectively born in 1940 and 1941. Their killer remains unknown, but getting an ID 70 years after the fact is certainly worth celebrating.
The Nation River Lady
Top 10 Creepiest Mysteries That Were Finally Solved
For many years, Jewell Langford was known simply as The Nation River Lady. Her remains were dumped from a bridge in Casselman, Ontario and deposited into the Nation River, where they were found in May of 1975. Langford was a tourist from Tennessee, and she was declared missing after failing to return home. Her status remained unchanged for four decades, until a major break in the case occurred in 2019. It was then that investigators exhumed her remains and gave them a new round of DNA tests. Once again using forensic genealogy, they were able to officially link them to Langford, making this the first Canadian case in which remains were identified using the advanced method.
The Real Killer of Christine Jessop
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Queensville, Ontario’s Christine Jessop was kidnapped and killed back in 1984. The 9-year-old went missing in October, and her remains were found over thirty miles away in December. Her neighbor, Guy Paul Morin, was initially suspected and eventually convicted of her death in 1992. Morin remained in prison for over two years until DNA evidence officially exonerated him in January of 1995. Morin’s release prompted the publication of the Kaufman Report, which resulted in a major overhaul of Canadian policing methods. Luckily, the real killer was identified in 2020, once again using genetic genealogy. He was 28-year-old Calvin Hoover, a family friend of the Jessops who initially helped “search” for the missing girl. Unfortunately, justice could not be served, as Hoover died in 2015.
Sharron Prior
Hailing from Montreal, Sharron Prior left her home to meet some friends for pizza. She never returned. Three days later, her body was found in the woods. This case occurred back in 1975, and it remained unsolved for nearly fifty years. A man’s shirt was used to bound Prior, and from this investigators took a DNA sample. Using the modern magic of genetic genealogy, investigators traced this DNA to a man named Franklin Romine. Unfortunately, Romine had long been dead, having passed away in 1982. His remains were exhumed in 2023 and matched with the DNA found at the crime scene. After 48 years, the killer of Sharron Prior was finally identified.
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