April 28, 2025 • 27 mins
Lacy was approached by a stranger who seemed to have good intentions at first. What started as an innocent offer, soon turned into a tense encounter that Lacy would never forget.
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Tags: Clifford Olson, Beast of British Columbia, Beast of BC, Serial Killer, Canada
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:04):
Hey guys, it's Chris here and I know it's been a long time since
I've released an episode. And if you want to hear more of
an explanation on why I've been Mia, go ahead and check out the
update I released last week. Now that I'm back, let's go
ahead and start by giving a shout out to our newest Patreon
member. Huge thank you to JM, I really
(00:28):
appreciate your support by joining the Patreon and if you
guys are a fan of the podcast, Patreon is a great place to
support the show and also gain access to all the episodes
completely ad free for just $1.00 a month.
You can check out our higher tiers for more exclusive content
(00:49):
made special for the unnerved community.
Try it out and you can cancel atany time.
Go ahead and visit patreon.com/unnerve Podcast or
click the link in the show notes.
Your support goes a long way andI really appreciate you guys
sticking in there and thank you so much for your support.
(01:15):
My heart started to beat fast. He would say, Get in the car
right now. This is really unusual.
This is something out of the ordinary, and that's when we
realized who it was. He haunted both boys and girls.
From HP Studio this. Is unnerved.
(01:53):
Welcome back to the Unnerved podcast.
It's where normal people share their abnormal stories.
And if you enjoy true stories ofthe strange and terrifying, then
you're in the right place. I'm your host, Chris Fricke.
(02:14):
As a young kid, I was fairly trusting of most adults.
Approaching or being approached by a stranger came naturally.
I was innocent and oblivious of the dark intentions of random
strangers, and it was never a concern of mine.
But for a parent, fear of strangers intentions can be an
(02:38):
unfortunate reality to bear. A stranger approaching their
child, luring them with a kind smile, a friendly voice, or
maybe even a tempting offer. It's a parent's worst nightmare
in a world where trust can be dangerous.
We've all heard cases that serveas a stark reminder that
(03:03):
sometimes danger lurks in the most unexpected places.
In today's story, Laci was approached by a stranger that
seemed to have good intentions at first.
What started as an innocent offer soon turned into a tense
(03:24):
encounter that Laci would never forget.
This is her story. Well, my name is Laci, and I
grew up in British Columbia, which is the westernmost
province in Canada. It's a really beautiful place.
(03:46):
It's right on the Pacific Ocean.I lived in the suburbs of
Vancouver. This small town that we lived
in, it was, you know, clean and wholesome, and people had, like,
blueberry farms there. And a lot of people kept horses
on their property. And nothing very exciting ever
(04:09):
happened. This incident occurred in the
early 1980s, and I'm not sure ifwhat I experienced happened in
1980 or 81 because it was so long ago, but let's let's just
say that I was 12 years old at the time.
(04:35):
The news had been playing stories well, reports about
children that had been going missing, and there had been a
couple children found in varioustowns in the suburbs around
Vancouver that had been killed. After maybe three of them, I
(04:57):
think that the media started talking about a serial killer on
the loose. You know how you think, oh Gee,
that's really scary, but that's never going to happen to
anybody. I know it's never going to
happen to me. I think that a lot of us tend to
hold ourselves separate from news events and things like
(05:23):
that. The particular town that I lived
in was semi rural and the streetthat I grew up on was a dead end
St. and there were maybe at the time, gosh, 15 houses on it.
The street itself was about, I don't know, maybe a mile long, a
(05:47):
mile and a half long. I lived closer to the open end
and quite far from the dead end.And at the very end, the dead
end, there was a family that hadan acreage and they raised
chickens and we used to buy eggsfrom them.
(06:08):
One day my mom sent me down to buy eggs and she must have been
planning some kind of baking project or something because she
wanted me to get three dozen eggs.
So she gives me 3 empty egg cartoons and I walk down to the
neighbors and I select my three dozen eggs and put them in the
(06:32):
little cartoons and I'm cradlingthem in my arms as I started
walking down the street back towards my house.
It was about halfway to my housewhen I saw a taxi driving very
(06:54):
slowly up my street towards me. I remember thinking, oh, he's
driving so slowly, he must be looking for an address.
Somebody's probably waiting for the taxi to come and pick them
up. It was really really rare to see
a taxi on my street because it was semi rural and there were
(07:16):
really so few homes on the street.
So I, I watched as he drove by and I noticed that he was the
only one in the vehicle. And he went by me very slowly.
(07:37):
And then about 50 yards past me,he turned his taxi around and he
drove slowly back towards me until he was even with me.
So I'm still walking and he's still driving, but very slowly.
(08:00):
And remember that my arms are full of three dozen eggs.
He just keeps driving slowly so that he's driving at the same
pace that I'm walking. And, you know, my heart started
to beat sort of fast because I knew that this is really
unusual. This is something out of the
ordinary. He reached across to the
(08:25):
passenger side door of his taxi and he pushed it open and he
said. Hey, why don't you get in the
car? I'll take you Uptown.
Uptown was what we countrified kids called the downtown area of
the little town that we lived in.
(08:45):
And that's where there were things like arcades and, you
know, other entertainments that a kid of my age would be very
attracted to. And I think he was probably
counting on that, that I would say, oh, great, a free ride
Uptown, you know, let's go. But a my parents had always told
me to not get in a car with anybody I don't know.
(09:08):
And BI had three dozen eggs in my arms.
So it was just, it was just so ridiculous on more than one
level. I just said no.
And I kept walking. He kept driving beside me and
still with his passenger side door wide open.
(09:29):
And he was so close that with the passenger door open, there
was, you know, maybe, maybe a foot between the edge of the
door and where I was, was very close.
And I said no. And then he started escalating,
you know, with a really firm, loud voice.
And I just kept saying no. He would say, get in the car
(09:53):
right now. And he just got more angry and
more loud and more belligerent, and I just kept saying no, no,
he was raising his voice and I was raising my voice to match
him. No, no, just louder With every
(10:14):
time he tried to get me in the car.
After this exchange, I guess he realized that I wasn't going to
comply with his orders. And so he slammed the passenger
door shut and he just took off speeding down the road.
(10:39):
And then at the end of the road,he just, you know, turned to go
onto one of the more main roads.Some of my friends have asked,
you know, why didn't you just run home?
Well, first of all, didn't want to disappoint my mother.
(11:00):
I wanted to come home with threedozen intact eggs.
That was very important. And secondly, I thought, hey, I
don't want this guy to know where I live.
So if I run home and he sees which driveway I run up, yeah, I
don't want that. And so those are the two main
reasons why I never ran. Looking back on it, he may have
(11:26):
been using the tactic where an adult or an authority figure is
telling a kid to do something and the kids going to go, oh,
geez, this guy is yelling at me.It must be really important.
He's an authority figure. I guess I'll just get in the car
like he's telling me to that That didn't work on me.
(11:47):
I was very lucky in that he never got out of the car, so he
never put any hands on me or anything like that.
And honestly, I don't know what I would have done if he had put
hands on me. And it scares me a little bit to
think about it. So I try not to very much.
(12:14):
So I just continued walking homeand I go into the house and I
deliver these eggs to my mother.And I said, hey, you know,
something kind of weird happened.
And I told her. And this part of it's a little
bit fuzzy for me. I remember telling her what
happened, but I and if she was alarmed, she didn't show it to
(12:40):
me. I presented it to her as kind of
like, hey, this is kind of weird, you know, blah, blah,
blah, and then didn't think it would ever come up or I would
ever think about it again. So I don't know what my mom did,
if anything, after I told her what happened.
I don't know if she called the police to report the incident.
(13:03):
As I mentioned, my memory is kind of fuzzy on that part.
So what happened next was, and it wasn't that night but it was
certainly within the week, we were watching the Evening News
as a family and they were reporting on these children who
(13:25):
had disappeared and some of the bodies that had been found.
As 14 year old Judy Kosmo was buried, many people in the
Vancouver area were wondering ifthere would be more funerals
like this. Kozma Ray King and Darren John
Stroud were murdered during a 3 1/2 month period.
Two of the nude bodies were found near this lake.
During that same time, five other youngsters have
(13:46):
disappeared. Police and relatives have staged
a massive search with no success.
Posters have been printed and distributed by parents and
friends. Most, like Darlene Court,
believe the missing youngsters were abducted.
Her sister disappeared 7 weeks ago.
My mother is in bad shape, my father's in bad shape.
I'm trying to stand up for them all.
(14:07):
I'm doing the best I can. I haven't broke down yet.
I hope everything turns out all right.
Police from many areas are continuing their door to door
search. Parents of the missing children
are demanding more help and the search is expected to be
expanded today. This is a composite drawing of a
man police believe may be a suspect, but the head of the
investigation is cautious about pinning everything on one
(14:29):
person. They put a picture up on the
screen of the man who was their main person of interest in these
children disappearing. I looked at the picture and I
said, hey, that's the guy that was in the taxi that time.
(14:50):
And that's when we realized who it was.
And then shortly after he was identified as a person of
interest, he was arrested. So it wasn't that long after
after the incident with me. Police expect Clifford Robert
Olson to be charged next week with at least five of nine known
(15:14):
murders in the Vancouver area. 2youngsters are still missing and
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police believe they are dead so
far. Olson is charged with first
degree murder in the death of 14year old Judy Kosma.
Yesterday, searchers found the body of 17 year old Louise Marie
Chartrand. The dead and missing youngsters
range in age from 9 to 17 years.The 9 bodies were found nude and
(15:35):
had either been bludgeoned or stabbed to death.
The search is continuing this weekend in the Vancouver suburbs
where the children's bodies havebeen found.
So far, the search today has turned up nothing new, but at a
news conference, police indicated they believe they have
the man responsible. We do.
Have a suspect in relation. To these murders and charges
could be laid after Mr. Hall hasreviewed the material we.
(15:57):
Have and that will be up to Mr. Hall.
One suspect in all the cases, Yes.
Hall is Crown prosecutor John Hall, who is preparing charges
against suspect Olson in what police call the worst case of
mass murder in British Columbia history.
(16:30):
This killer, his name was Clifford Robert Olson.
He was very proud of what he haddone, the lives that he had
taken and he gave himself a nickname, the Beast of British
Columbia. I do know that he worked for the
taxi company. The other kids who were
(16:53):
abducted. I don't know if he stuffed them
into his taxi or if he had another kind of vehicle.
I don't know. But I can tell you that this
dead end St. that I lived on, ifyou went to the end and then
made a turn and drove about a mile, there was the taxi company
(17:14):
right there. A lot of this is speculation on
my part, but I just have this feeling that he went to work one
day and he, you know, picked up his taxi and he was starting to
drive it up town and he passed by this quiet road and thought,
well, what the heck, I'll just take a drop down there and see
if, you know, there's anyone to grab.
(17:37):
So another weird thing about Clifford Robert Olson that makes
him different than most serial killers is that he haunted both
boys and girls. So most serial killers will
choose boys or girls, but he haunted both.
(17:57):
And another thing that was different about him was that he
used a different method of operation for, you know, each of
the kids or or most of them, so that it made it difficult to pin
him down. And the authorities actually
came under a lot of They were criticized for not arresting him
(18:23):
sooner because he had been a person of interest.
But because the crimes seemed sodifferent from each other, it
took them a while. So they arrested him, brought
him into custody. And this part is really
controversial because not all the bodies have been found by
(18:45):
that time. And he made this really weird
deal with the with the authorities that they would have
to pay him $10,000 for everybodythat he took them to and
everybody that was identified. And so we taxpayers ended up
(19:06):
paying $100,000 to this guy, $10,000 per body.
And this was taxpayers money. Some spokesperson for the
provincial government, don't remember who was in a press
conference. And this person was coming under
a lot of fire for, you know, what are you doing?
(19:28):
You're paying this serial killer, this child murderer.
And I remember the official saying, we think it's really
important that the families of these children get as much
closure as they possibly can. And for that we needed to know
where all the bodies were and weneeded to needed to know it
(19:52):
expeditiously. And so that was that was what
they did. And so if I recall correctly,
that $100,000 went into a trust for Olson's wife and they had a
baby son at the time too. It's just sickening how proud.
(20:13):
And he was so excited about being infamous and all of that,
and I just find that so disgusting.
Olson was sentenced to, I think,11 consecutive life sentences,
so one for each child that he killed.
Yeah. Canada doesn't have the death
(20:35):
penalty. And so, yeah, so he was in jail
for all that time. And there were a couple of times
over the years that he came up for parole.
But it's so ridiculous because sure, he could be eligible for
parole, but that certainly doesn't mean that he'll be
granted parole. And of course, he never was
(20:57):
because the authorities knew that they just could never let
this guy out, didn't ever show any remorse, didn't ever say
sorry to any of the families, that it was just nothing.
And they knew that he was not safe to be out of jail.
Clifford Olson was sentenced to 11 life sentences, one for each
(21:20):
of the 11 children and teenagershe was convicted of murdering.
He spent the rest of his life inprison from August 1981 until
his death in 2011. He served nearly 30 years behind
bars before dying of cancer. The serial killer died in a
(21:42):
Montreal hospital today. He confessed to killing eleven
children in BC 30 years ago. Just last week, it had been
reported Olson had cancer and was not expected to live much
longer. He was known as the Beast of BC.
Olson was 71 years old. I remember hearing the news of
his death, and I was like, oh, and like, I felt like I could
(22:06):
breathe a little bit easier, even though I knew all these
years that he was in jail and he, you know, couldn't hurt any
more children in there. Still, the back of your mind or
the back of my mind, it was always plain, you know, what if,
what if, what if something happens and he comes back and he
finds me to finish the job this time?
Or it was a big psychological hit, certainly.
(22:28):
But there was a little bit of relief, certainly, when he
finally died. Thankfully, not only did Laci
not want to disappoint her mother, but she followed her
parents instructions about the danger of strangers.
Clifford Olson significantly changed the way society views
(22:52):
strangers in relation to child safety.
His crimes highlighted the terrifying reality that
predators can be charismatic andmanipulative, using trust and
deception to lure children. His case, along with others, led
(23:13):
to increased public awareness about stranger danger, prompting
parents, schools and law enforcement to emphasize child
safety education. The heinous crimes of Clifford
Olson changed the way that we live.
In the late 1970's, the Lower Mainland was an idyllic place to
(23:34):
raise a family. And then children started to
disappear and everything changed.
As Kirk Williams tells us, you don't have to go far to find
someone with a clear and chilling memory of that time.
The May. Queen as Debbie Clifton.
Life was simpler in the days before children started
disappearing. Kids often went to school and
came home without their parents.Clifford Olson changed that.
(23:57):
Clifford Olson took away Vancouver's innocence in a huge
way. Corrine was suddenly driven to
school by her parents. After Clifford Olson, when kids
were bodies were being found, there were kids were being
kidnapped and it it just changedthe neighborhood radically.
There was a palpable fear in theneighborhood.
(24:17):
They found one of the boys in inthe bushes just down the street
where we live. It's affected the way Julie
Rogers parents her kids today. She takes no chances.
I don't want to scare them but Ijust tell them don't talk to
strangers and make sure you don't go with anybody.
Or if you're lost, look for a mummy with a kid.
Robin's columnist, John Ferry co-authored a book on Olsen.
(24:39):
He says Olsen not only changed the way we think about safety,
he exposed major flaws in the way big cases were investigated.
Olsen, you know, mocked. The justice system and.
Exploited it and. Showed its weaknesses and
showed. The the poor coordination.
Between the police forces that. Allowed Olson to continue
killing and avoid capture. Coordination among police forces
(25:00):
in the Lower Mainland is better now, but not perfect.
But police are assisted by a public that is aware on the
lookout for odd behavior. And the odds are?
Lower because people are wiser. And because there are.
Mechanisms in place, including, you know, child.
Education mechanisms in. Place that prevent this from
happening. And even though stranger child
(25:20):
abductions are extremely rare, parents remain vigilant because
life in the post Olsen world is forever changed.
So how do these criminals gain achild's trust?
According to experts, predators often use tactics like offering
(25:43):
gifts, pretending to be an authority figure or creating
false emergencies. Some even use other children as
bait. Education is power.
If we teach our children to never go with strangers or
accept rides from anyone they don't know, even if they claim
(26:06):
to be sent by a family member, use a secret password system for
emergencies, and always encourage open conversations
about safety. The world isn't always as safe
as we'd like it to be, but knowledge and vigilance can make
a difference. Thank you so much for listening
(26:41):
to Unnerved. If you enjoyed this episode,
please share it with your friends and leave a review
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(27:07):
And if you guys are interested in merch, we now have that.
Go ahead and check out the link in the description.
Until next time, take care.
Hey guys, it's Chris here and I know it's been a long time since
I've released an episode. And if you want to hear more of
an explanation on why I've been Mia, go ahead and check out the
update I released last week. Now that I'm back, let's go
ahead and start by giving a shout out to our newest Patreon
member. Huge thank you to JM, I really
(00:28):
appreciate your support by joining the Patreon and if you
guys are a fan of the podcast, Patreon is a great place to
support the show and also gain access to all the episodes
completely ad free for just $1.00 a month.
You can check out our higher tiers for more exclusive content
(00:49):
made special for the unnerved community.
Try it out and you can cancel atany time.
Go ahead and visit patreon.com/unnerve Podcast or
click the link in the show notes.
Your support goes a long way andI really appreciate you guys
sticking in there and thank you so much for your support.
(01:15):
My heart started to beat fast. He would say, Get in the car
right now. This is really unusual.
This is something out of the ordinary, and that's when we
realized who it was. He haunted both boys and girls.
From HP Studio this. Is unnerved.
(01:53):
Welcome back to the Unnerved podcast.
It's where normal people share their abnormal stories.
And if you enjoy true stories ofthe strange and terrifying, then
you're in the right place. I'm your host, Chris Fricke.
(02:14):
As a young kid, I was fairly trusting of most adults.
Approaching or being approached by a stranger came naturally.
I was innocent and oblivious of the dark intentions of random
strangers, and it was never a concern of mine.
But for a parent, fear of strangers intentions can be an
(02:38):
unfortunate reality to bear. A stranger approaching their
child, luring them with a kind smile, a friendly voice, or
maybe even a tempting offer. It's a parent's worst nightmare
in a world where trust can be dangerous.
We've all heard cases that serveas a stark reminder that
(03:03):
sometimes danger lurks in the most unexpected places.
In today's story, Laci was approached by a stranger that
seemed to have good intentions at first.
What started as an innocent offer soon turned into a tense
(03:24):
encounter that Laci would never forget.
This is her story. Well, my name is Laci, and I
grew up in British Columbia, which is the westernmost
province in Canada. It's a really beautiful place.
(03:46):
It's right on the Pacific Ocean.I lived in the suburbs of
Vancouver. This small town that we lived
in, it was, you know, clean and wholesome, and people had, like,
blueberry farms there. And a lot of people kept horses
on their property. And nothing very exciting ever
(04:09):
happened. This incident occurred in the
early 1980s, and I'm not sure ifwhat I experienced happened in
1980 or 81 because it was so long ago, but let's let's just
say that I was 12 years old at the time.
(04:35):
The news had been playing stories well, reports about
children that had been going missing, and there had been a
couple children found in varioustowns in the suburbs around
Vancouver that had been killed. After maybe three of them, I
(04:57):
think that the media started talking about a serial killer on
the loose. You know how you think, oh Gee,
that's really scary, but that's never going to happen to
anybody. I know it's never going to
happen to me. I think that a lot of us tend to
hold ourselves separate from news events and things like
(05:23):
that. The particular town that I lived
in was semi rural and the streetthat I grew up on was a dead end
St. and there were maybe at the time, gosh, 15 houses on it.
The street itself was about, I don't know, maybe a mile long, a
(05:47):
mile and a half long. I lived closer to the open end
and quite far from the dead end.And at the very end, the dead
end, there was a family that hadan acreage and they raised
chickens and we used to buy eggsfrom them.
(06:08):
One day my mom sent me down to buy eggs and she must have been
planning some kind of baking project or something because she
wanted me to get three dozen eggs.
So she gives me 3 empty egg cartoons and I walk down to the
neighbors and I select my three dozen eggs and put them in the
(06:32):
little cartoons and I'm cradlingthem in my arms as I started
walking down the street back towards my house.
It was about halfway to my housewhen I saw a taxi driving very
(06:54):
slowly up my street towards me. I remember thinking, oh, he's
driving so slowly, he must be looking for an address.
Somebody's probably waiting for the taxi to come and pick them
up. It was really really rare to see
a taxi on my street because it was semi rural and there were
(07:16):
really so few homes on the street.
So I, I watched as he drove by and I noticed that he was the
only one in the vehicle. And he went by me very slowly.
(07:37):
And then about 50 yards past me,he turned his taxi around and he
drove slowly back towards me until he was even with me.
So I'm still walking and he's still driving, but very slowly.
(08:00):
And remember that my arms are full of three dozen eggs.
He just keeps driving slowly so that he's driving at the same
pace that I'm walking. And, you know, my heart started
to beat sort of fast because I knew that this is really
unusual. This is something out of the
ordinary. He reached across to the
(08:25):
passenger side door of his taxi and he pushed it open and he
said. Hey, why don't you get in the
car? I'll take you Uptown.
Uptown was what we countrified kids called the downtown area of
the little town that we lived in.
(08:45):
And that's where there were things like arcades and, you
know, other entertainments that a kid of my age would be very
attracted to. And I think he was probably
counting on that, that I would say, oh, great, a free ride
Uptown, you know, let's go. But a my parents had always told
me to not get in a car with anybody I don't know.
(09:08):
And BI had three dozen eggs in my arms.
So it was just, it was just so ridiculous on more than one
level. I just said no.
And I kept walking. He kept driving beside me and
still with his passenger side door wide open.
(09:29):
And he was so close that with the passenger door open, there
was, you know, maybe, maybe a foot between the edge of the
door and where I was, was very close.
And I said no. And then he started escalating,
you know, with a really firm, loud voice.
And I just kept saying no. He would say, get in the car
(09:53):
right now. And he just got more angry and
more loud and more belligerent, and I just kept saying no, no,
he was raising his voice and I was raising my voice to match
him. No, no, just louder With every
(10:14):
time he tried to get me in the car.
After this exchange, I guess he realized that I wasn't going to
comply with his orders. And so he slammed the passenger
door shut and he just took off speeding down the road.
(10:39):
And then at the end of the road,he just, you know, turned to go
onto one of the more main roads.Some of my friends have asked,
you know, why didn't you just run home?
Well, first of all, didn't want to disappoint my mother.
(11:00):
I wanted to come home with threedozen intact eggs.
That was very important. And secondly, I thought, hey, I
don't want this guy to know where I live.
So if I run home and he sees which driveway I run up, yeah, I
don't want that. And so those are the two main
reasons why I never ran. Looking back on it, he may have
(11:26):
been using the tactic where an adult or an authority figure is
telling a kid to do something and the kids going to go, oh,
geez, this guy is yelling at me.It must be really important.
He's an authority figure. I guess I'll just get in the car
like he's telling me to that That didn't work on me.
(11:47):
I was very lucky in that he never got out of the car, so he
never put any hands on me or anything like that.
And honestly, I don't know what I would have done if he had put
hands on me. And it scares me a little bit to
think about it. So I try not to very much.
(12:14):
So I just continued walking homeand I go into the house and I
deliver these eggs to my mother.And I said, hey, you know,
something kind of weird happened.
And I told her. And this part of it's a little
bit fuzzy for me. I remember telling her what
happened, but I and if she was alarmed, she didn't show it to
(12:40):
me. I presented it to her as kind of
like, hey, this is kind of weird, you know, blah, blah,
blah, and then didn't think it would ever come up or I would
ever think about it again. So I don't know what my mom did,
if anything, after I told her what happened.
I don't know if she called the police to report the incident.
(13:03):
As I mentioned, my memory is kind of fuzzy on that part.
So what happened next was, and it wasn't that night but it was
certainly within the week, we were watching the Evening News
as a family and they were reporting on these children who
(13:25):
had disappeared and some of the bodies that had been found.
As 14 year old Judy Kosmo was buried, many people in the
Vancouver area were wondering ifthere would be more funerals
like this. Kozma Ray King and Darren John
Stroud were murdered during a 3 1/2 month period.
Two of the nude bodies were found near this lake.
During that same time, five other youngsters have
(13:46):
disappeared. Police and relatives have staged
a massive search with no success.
Posters have been printed and distributed by parents and
friends. Most, like Darlene Court,
believe the missing youngsters were abducted.
Her sister disappeared 7 weeks ago.
My mother is in bad shape, my father's in bad shape.
I'm trying to stand up for them all.
(14:07):
I'm doing the best I can. I haven't broke down yet.
I hope everything turns out all right.
Police from many areas are continuing their door to door
search. Parents of the missing children
are demanding more help and the search is expected to be
expanded today. This is a composite drawing of a
man police believe may be a suspect, but the head of the
investigation is cautious about pinning everything on one
(14:29):
person. They put a picture up on the
screen of the man who was their main person of interest in these
children disappearing. I looked at the picture and I
said, hey, that's the guy that was in the taxi that time.
(14:50):
And that's when we realized who it was.
And then shortly after he was identified as a person of
interest, he was arrested. So it wasn't that long after
after the incident with me. Police expect Clifford Robert
Olson to be charged next week with at least five of nine known
(15:14):
murders in the Vancouver area. 2youngsters are still missing and
the Royal Canadian Mounted Police believe they are dead so
far. Olson is charged with first
degree murder in the death of 14year old Judy Kosma.
Yesterday, searchers found the body of 17 year old Louise Marie
Chartrand. The dead and missing youngsters
range in age from 9 to 17 years.The 9 bodies were found nude and
(15:35):
had either been bludgeoned or stabbed to death.
The search is continuing this weekend in the Vancouver suburbs
where the children's bodies havebeen found.
So far, the search today has turned up nothing new, but at a
news conference, police indicated they believe they have
the man responsible. We do.
Have a suspect in relation. To these murders and charges
could be laid after Mr. Hall hasreviewed the material we.
(15:57):
Have and that will be up to Mr. Hall.
One suspect in all the cases, Yes.
Hall is Crown prosecutor John Hall, who is preparing charges
against suspect Olson in what police call the worst case of
mass murder in British Columbia history.
(16:30):
This killer, his name was Clifford Robert Olson.
He was very proud of what he haddone, the lives that he had
taken and he gave himself a nickname, the Beast of British
Columbia. I do know that he worked for the
taxi company. The other kids who were
(16:53):
abducted. I don't know if he stuffed them
into his taxi or if he had another kind of vehicle.
I don't know. But I can tell you that this
dead end St. that I lived on, ifyou went to the end and then
made a turn and drove about a mile, there was the taxi company
(17:14):
right there. A lot of this is speculation on
my part, but I just have this feeling that he went to work one
day and he, you know, picked up his taxi and he was starting to
drive it up town and he passed by this quiet road and thought,
well, what the heck, I'll just take a drop down there and see
if, you know, there's anyone to grab.
(17:37):
So another weird thing about Clifford Robert Olson that makes
him different than most serial killers is that he haunted both
boys and girls. So most serial killers will
choose boys or girls, but he haunted both.
(17:57):
And another thing that was different about him was that he
used a different method of operation for, you know, each of
the kids or or most of them, so that it made it difficult to pin
him down. And the authorities actually
came under a lot of They were criticized for not arresting him
(18:23):
sooner because he had been a person of interest.
But because the crimes seemed sodifferent from each other, it
took them a while. So they arrested him, brought
him into custody. And this part is really
controversial because not all the bodies have been found by
(18:45):
that time. And he made this really weird
deal with the with the authorities that they would have
to pay him $10,000 for everybodythat he took them to and
everybody that was identified. And so we taxpayers ended up
(19:06):
paying $100,000 to this guy, $10,000 per body.
And this was taxpayers money. Some spokesperson for the
provincial government, don't remember who was in a press
conference. And this person was coming under
a lot of fire for, you know, what are you doing?
(19:28):
You're paying this serial killer, this child murderer.
And I remember the official saying, we think it's really
important that the families of these children get as much
closure as they possibly can. And for that we needed to know
where all the bodies were and weneeded to needed to know it
(19:52):
expeditiously. And so that was that was what
they did. And so if I recall correctly,
that $100,000 went into a trust for Olson's wife and they had a
baby son at the time too. It's just sickening how proud.
(20:13):
And he was so excited about being infamous and all of that,
and I just find that so disgusting.
Olson was sentenced to, I think,11 consecutive life sentences,
so one for each child that he killed.
Yeah. Canada doesn't have the death
(20:35):
penalty. And so, yeah, so he was in jail
for all that time. And there were a couple of times
over the years that he came up for parole.
But it's so ridiculous because sure, he could be eligible for
parole, but that certainly doesn't mean that he'll be
granted parole. And of course, he never was
(20:57):
because the authorities knew that they just could never let
this guy out, didn't ever show any remorse, didn't ever say
sorry to any of the families, that it was just nothing.
And they knew that he was not safe to be out of jail.
Clifford Olson was sentenced to 11 life sentences, one for each
(21:20):
of the 11 children and teenagershe was convicted of murdering.
He spent the rest of his life inprison from August 1981 until
his death in 2011. He served nearly 30 years behind
bars before dying of cancer. The serial killer died in a
(21:42):
Montreal hospital today. He confessed to killing eleven
children in BC 30 years ago. Just last week, it had been
reported Olson had cancer and was not expected to live much
longer. He was known as the Beast of BC.
Olson was 71 years old. I remember hearing the news of
his death, and I was like, oh, and like, I felt like I could
(22:06):
breathe a little bit easier, even though I knew all these
years that he was in jail and he, you know, couldn't hurt any
more children in there. Still, the back of your mind or
the back of my mind, it was always plain, you know, what if,
what if, what if something happens and he comes back and he
finds me to finish the job this time?
Or it was a big psychological hit, certainly.
(22:28):
But there was a little bit of relief, certainly, when he
finally died. Thankfully, not only did Laci
not want to disappoint her mother, but she followed her
parents instructions about the danger of strangers.
Clifford Olson significantly changed the way society views
(22:52):
strangers in relation to child safety.
His crimes highlighted the terrifying reality that
predators can be charismatic andmanipulative, using trust and
deception to lure children. His case, along with others, led
(23:13):
to increased public awareness about stranger danger, prompting
parents, schools and law enforcement to emphasize child
safety education. The heinous crimes of Clifford
Olson changed the way that we live.
In the late 1970's, the Lower Mainland was an idyllic place to
(23:34):
raise a family. And then children started to
disappear and everything changed.
As Kirk Williams tells us, you don't have to go far to find
someone with a clear and chilling memory of that time.
The May. Queen as Debbie Clifton.
Life was simpler in the days before children started
disappearing. Kids often went to school and
came home without their parents.Clifford Olson changed that.
(23:57):
Clifford Olson took away Vancouver's innocence in a huge
way. Corrine was suddenly driven to
school by her parents. After Clifford Olson, when kids
were bodies were being found, there were kids were being
kidnapped and it it just changedthe neighborhood radically.
There was a palpable fear in theneighborhood.
(24:17):
They found one of the boys in inthe bushes just down the street
where we live. It's affected the way Julie
Rogers parents her kids today. She takes no chances.
I don't want to scare them but Ijust tell them don't talk to
strangers and make sure you don't go with anybody.
Or if you're lost, look for a mummy with a kid.
Robin's columnist, John Ferry co-authored a book on Olsen.
(24:39):
He says Olsen not only changed the way we think about safety,
he exposed major flaws in the way big cases were investigated.
Olsen, you know, mocked. The justice system and.
Exploited it and. Showed its weaknesses and
showed. The the poor coordination.
Between the police forces that. Allowed Olson to continue
killing and avoid capture. Coordination among police forces
(25:00):
in the Lower Mainland is better now, but not perfect.
But police are assisted by a public that is aware on the
lookout for odd behavior. And the odds are?
Lower because people are wiser. And because there are.
Mechanisms in place, including, you know, child.
Education mechanisms in. Place that prevent this from
happening. And even though stranger child
(25:20):
abductions are extremely rare, parents remain vigilant because
life in the post Olsen world is forever changed.
So how do these criminals gain achild's trust?
According to experts, predators often use tactics like offering
(25:43):
gifts, pretending to be an authority figure or creating
false emergencies. Some even use other children as
bait. Education is power.
If we teach our children to never go with strangers or
accept rides from anyone they don't know, even if they claim
(26:06):
to be sent by a family member, use a secret password system for
emergencies, and always encourage open conversations
about safety. The world isn't always as safe
as we'd like it to be, but knowledge and vigilance can make
a difference. Thank you so much for listening
(26:41):
to Unnerved. If you enjoyed this episode,
please share it with your friends and leave a review
wherever you get your podcast. If you guys want to see photos
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Unnerved Podcast. And for AD free episodes and
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(27:07):
And if you guys are interested in merch, we now have that.
Go ahead and check out the link in the description.
Until next time, take care.
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