Crime Stories

Does murder in Alice Munro country say something larger on troubled times?

Jan 22nd, 2019 | By | Category: Crime Stories

A man’s gruesome rape and kidnapping of his ex-girlfriend, just after his murder of her parents, should make a gripping old-school crime drama in any context. At the same time, I have been told that I haven’t personally contributed a crime story to this site for more than a decade (“Depression economics and crime : […]



Has Donald Trump pushed us into a new age of political mendacity, like Orwell’s time between the two world wars?

Jun 20th, 2018 | By | Category: Crime Stories

[UPDATED JUNE 21 (& happy summer solstice) & JUNE 22]. Something Donald Trump tweeted this past Monday morning illustrates one of the many things wrong with his view of the real world I live in. In Mr. Trump’s own words : “The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the […]



Murder on the Bruce Peninsula revisited .. again .. and again .. and again

Jun 4th, 2009 | By | Category: Crime Stories

UPDATED NOVEMBER 4, 2009, JANUARY 9, 2011, and JANUARY 13, 2011. In Ontario today, as in so many other places no doubt, the rule of law often seems to move at what can only strike we ordinary citizens and taxpayers as an astoundingly glacial pace. It was more than 16 months ago now that  the 57-year-old Dr. […]



The Tingleys are trash and should be locked up for a long time????

Feb 1st, 2009 | By | Category: Crime Stories

So says a lady from Saint John, New Brunswick, who calls herself “upset mom.” And she goes on: “could someone tell me how a family can sell drugs and guns, steal cars … do anything they want for so long? … you can say they are good people and dont break the law but WHY […]



Depression economics and crime : Marine murders in California, Toronto youth violence

Nov 15th, 2008 | By | Category: Crime Stories

The day after the inspirational election of Barack Obama, four US Marines (“including one known as Psycho,’”) were charged “with the execution-style slayings” of a young mixed-race couple “in Winchester, in Riverside County southeast of Los Angeles” (aka “an exurb of San Diego”). Like others, no doubt, I was having trouble understanding the grisly murders […]



A Canadian journey west : how Ricky brought Anguish from Ontario to Alberta

May 2nd, 2008 | By | Category: Crime Stories

We know for certain that 44-year-old Richard James Anguish’s life came to a sudden end on the afternoon of Thursday, April 24, 2008, when his grey Pontiac G6 crashed into an oncoming semi-trailer on the Trans Canada Highway just east of Calgary, Alberta. A few hours later police also discovered the body of his 45-year-old […]



You don`t know what`s going on in these big houses .. in Vancouver it could be gang wars

Nov 8th, 2007 | By | Category: Crime Stories

On Saturday, November 3 Hong Chao (Raymond) Huang was gunned down outside his mansion in Vancouver’s upscale Shaughnessy neighbourhood. Just three days before, on Halloween, Hiep Quang Do, had been killed at a restaurant on Victoria Drive. Then early on the morning of Tuesday, November 6, Ali Abhari and Ronal Shakeel Raj, out driving in […]



Murder on the streets of Toronto the good .. Harper’s crime agenda and the case of Bly Markis

May 3rd, 2007 | By | Category: Crime Stories

Years ago now I was walking up Yonge Street in Toronto with a few friends one night, after some serious discourse in a bar. On a street corner a few blocks south of the subway at Bloor we were very surprised to come across a strikingly beautiful and even well-dressed young woman, squatting on the […]



Menendez-Crocker edge-city murders .. what’s a girl like you doing in a place like this?

Feb 19th, 2007 | By | Category: Crime Stories

Sometimes you hear about a murder in the media, and you think that could be someone I know. Other times it sounds more like a paperback you read on a rainy vacation, when nothing else was around. The February 12, 2007 double-slaying of Paula Menendez, 34, and Julie Crocker, 33, at a quiet family home […]



Biker massacre in Southwestern Ontario .. danger also lurks on country roads

Apr 13th, 2006 | By | Category: Crime Stories

It is being called “the worst mass murder in Ontario history” even by the media in the US and Australia. When it first hit the news the Ontario Provincial Police stressed that the eight victims were from the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). But as the plot thickens the story may be more notable for its country roots. One of […]