March 31, 2025 • 45 mins
This is a story about a landmark case in Canada from just a few years ago. A teenager attacked two women in a massage parlor in Toronto in 2020. He killed one and seriously injured the other. When he told investigators why he did it, they settled on trying him for murder…and terrorism. Journalist Lana Hall tells me about her piece in Maclean’s magazine called: The Incel Terrorist.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The paramedic that's tending to him says, you know what happened,
and Seart turns to him and says, I wanted to
kill everyone in the building.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:49):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stories. This is a story about
a landmark case in Canada from just a few years ago.
(01:09):
A teenager attacked two women in a massage parlor in
Toronto in twenty twenty two. He killed one and seriously
injured the other. When he told investigators why he did it,
they settled on trying him for murder and terrorism. Journalist
Lana Hall tells me about her piece in Maclean's magazine
called the in Cell Terrorist. I had not heard of
(01:34):
the in cell community until I started the show, which
is about four years old at this point, and then
all of a sudden, I felt like we covered at
least two or three of these cases, and I just
had to do a lot more digging on it. Tell me,
is this sort of a new phenomenon and new? I mean,
is this a last decade type of thing.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I guess maybe the term is newish. It's maybe something
that's you know, come to popularity within the last five years.
I don't think the sentiment behind the in cell community
is that new. I think it just has a name
now and it's sort of found it. It's collective, you know,
thanks to the Internet and all these kind of digital
methods of communication.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Something interesting I learned in the research of this article
was that the term was actually point here in Toronto
by a local university student. She was having some trouble
finding a date or some kind of a meaningful sexual relationship,
and kind of as a joke, she set up this
forum that was called Atlanti's Involuntary Celibacy Project or something
(02:36):
like that, and it was kind of a joke, kind
of a way to connect with the people and chat
about the pitfalls of the dating scene. And at the
time it was really a support network for people, I think.
And eventually she found love. She abandoned the forum and somehow,
you know, the horse was already out of the gate,
so to speak, and it took on this darker, misogynistic
(02:58):
undertone after a while. By the time she discovered that
it was too late and it wasn't really something she
wanted to be associated with anymore.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Tell me what the typical profile is of someone who
feels like they belong in this community, who would go
on all of these boards and you know, kind of
espouse whatever the belief is and then talk about the belief.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I don't know really what the profile is in terms
of demographics, other than it does tend to mostly be
younger men. They have this belief that they are unable
to find a relationship, whether that's you know, a romantic
relationship or something sexual. There's this pervasive belief that it's
because women are more sexually selective. And over time, as
(03:40):
women have gained more financial independence, they get to be
shoesier about their male partners. And so this means that
men that are sort of at the bottom of the
food chain, what in the in cell community they often
refer to as beta males, that those guys are perpetually
getting the short end of the stick, that they you know,
they're not getting the kind of female attention they need.
(04:04):
This is sort of a state that's been bestowed upon
them at birth. There's no way for them to move
up the social ladder and to accomplish these things. And
they really believe that women hold the blame for that,
and that women should be punished for that, in some
cases very violently. And so there's a lot of this
kind of discourse online talking about, you know, how they
(04:24):
feel inferior, how women are the root of this problem,
and that something needs to be done about it, and
sometimes that something is really catastrophic.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
When you started digging into this case, specifically for your article,
your long form article, what drew you into the case
of this spa in Toronto in twenty twenty that became
this just awful scene of blood and mayhem.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, I think it probably came to my attention the
way it did for most people in Toronto, and that
was just through the daily news cycle. It did hit
the newspapers and the online outline, and so it came
up in my news feed. And when I heard that
it happened in a massage parlor, I was like, Oh,
oh my god, I wonder what happened. And then when
I looked closer at the pictures, I realized I know
(05:11):
that spa in particular. And so by this point, I've
been working as a full time journalist for a number
of years. But the reason the image caught my attention
was because before I was a journalist, I also worked
in Toronto's underground massage parlor economy. In particular, I worked
at a SPA that was probably like a ten minute
walk from Crown Spa, which is the location where this
(05:34):
crime took place. So then I was kind of following
it from these two channels, right, I did have this
strong personal connection. I really wanted to know what was
going on. And then when I heard about, ultimately what
kind of charges were going to be laid in this case,
which were pretty unprecedented, I was really surprised and I
wanted to know more about that.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So take me to this time period twenty twenty Toronto.
You know, this is not something I've talked about before.
This sort of the I don't know what's the best phrase.
Is it a spa that also kind of offers erotic massages?
Is that the right thing to say.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
There's a lot of really interchangeable terms. I think it's
fair to call it like an erotic massage parlor. Sometimes
people call them spas, but in a very casual way,
and that's sort of a distinct, Like it's distinct from
a place where you might go to get your nails done,
or you might go to get like, you know, some
kind of a facial treatment or something like that. In Toronto,
there are these these businesses. They're called erotic massage parlors.
(06:34):
Sometimes they're called body or parlors. The way the licensing
works in Toronto is that there's a cap on the
number of them, so I think they only give out
like twenty five licenses or something. So there's a set
number of them, and because of the way Zodian regulations
work in the city, they're all sort of end up
in some of these industrial neighborhoods to the north and
the east of the core of the city. So there's
(06:56):
this particular neighborhood kind of in the northwest corner of Toronto.
It's a little bit cut off from the rest of
the city by a major highway, and there's just a
sprinkling of kind of random industrial building. There's like an
auto body shop, there's a tile shop. You know, there's
probably like a Tim Horton somewhere, which is a very
Canadian centric coffee chain, and there's a couple of these
(07:17):
massage parlors that are scattered around as well. They're very nondescript.
They typically don't have you know, visible signage or lighting
or anything like that. They're just kind of tucked it
in a very discreete fashion. That's kind of the setting
for this crime that happened on the morning of February
twenty fourth, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Are these kind of parlors where you would have people
investigating trafficking or now I'm trying to figure out the
difference between what we would call that kind of parlor
here in the United States and what you all might
call it in Canada.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I don't know that there's an equivalent for this in
the States. I know that because sometimes I would ask
clients do you have these places in the States, And
often they would say know, or they'd say, we do
have them, but they're not as well regulated in Toronto.
You are if you have a license to be a
licensed body rubber. It's the same way you would get
a license to be like a taxi driver or a
(08:12):
food truck operator or an exotic dancer. If you have
that license, you are licensed to give people what is
called an erotic massage, which is just a massage that's
a little bit more sensual and physical. There aren't supposed
to be sexual services being offered at these places.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But it is.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
You know, it is a little bit of a fine line,
as I'm sure you can imagine, even just by the title.
These are often jobs that are paid in cash, so
they tend to attract people that are kind of in
a bit of a transitional phase of life, and they
do operate a little bit underground because because there is
that fine line between erotic massage and sexual acts, they
(08:53):
do get a lot of attention from the bylaw officers,
from the cops who are often coming around and you know,
making sure nothing unto ward why their definition is happening.
I do think it's possible that you know, at some
of these places you might find some young women who
have been trafficked. You might find some young women who
are in this business for not the greatest reason. Maybe
(09:16):
they're you know, feeding a drug habit or kind of
living at the poverty line or something like that. But overwhelmingly,
I think a lot of people who work at these
places they're just women trying to make a better living. Right.
They could be students, they could be single parents, they
could be you know, burgeoning entrepreneurs. They could be people
that are saving up for a trip, or saving up
for a car, or trying to pay down some credit
(09:38):
card debt or something. So you really do find all
kinds of women and some men, I suppose, working in
these spaces.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Were you in a transitional point if you feel comfortable
talking about it kind of? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So I had been a journalism student for about maybe
a year and a bit. Prior to that, I had
dropped out of journalism school temporarily. At the time, I
had a part time retail job. And this is like
twenty ten, So I think we're still kind of coming
out of the recession a little bit, you know, maybe
haven't fully recovered from that yet, and it's hard to
find full time hours in a retail or you know,
(10:12):
a customer service kind of setting. So I was really
struggling with that, and also I think on some level
that sounded kind of boring to me anyway. So I
remember just flipping through the back pages of what used
to be our alternative newsweekly, which used to have advertisements
for like escort services and strippers and massage parlors, and
I was just like, I wonder what it would be
(10:32):
like to work at one of these places. I think
on some level, like I thought it might be a
good story, not in the sense that I wanted to
write about it, but just you know, I'm a journalist.
That's that's how my brain works. I'm in the business
at finding good story, to be it in a professional
setting or or I guess.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Personally life's experiences exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So I just said to myself, you know, I'm going
to send an email to this one advertisement. We'll see
what happens if, you know, if I have second thoughts,
I don't have to follow through. And they invited me
in for an interview like the next day or something,
and then I was like, Okay, well, why don't you
just go for an interview and then if that sounds
uncomfortable to you, then you don't have to show it
for your first day. And then I go to the interview,
(11:14):
and then I'm like, Okay, well, if that feels uncomfortable,
like you know, go to your first day. If that
feels uncomfortable, you don't have to keep going. So I
was I was sort of just easing myself into this idea,
I guess generally. But you know what, it was a
great way. I mean, at first it was a great
way to make money. I liked the people. Generally. I
was intrigued enough, I guess, to keep going. And then,
(11:36):
you know, for a whole host of reasons, all of
a sudden, you know, it's like I'm three years in
and I'm like, oh, okay, I guess this is my
life now.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Now it's come full circle for you. So with this
particular story, which I think is so well written, let's
start with the victims, because I think that's the most
important thing. Set the scene for me for Crown Spaw
in general. You've already kind of talked about where these
spaws are located in Toronto, but tell me about the
people inside. And this was a spa that I know
(12:05):
was regulated. Everything was on the up and up, and
this had a good reputation. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
It's a Monday morning, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty. It's
kind of a standard morning I think at Crown Spa.
You know, at least one client has come in for
an appointment. Jc the manager, who's a young woman, I
believe in her early thirties. She normally works a front
desk in addition to her other duties, you know, handling
(12:30):
the phones and reading clients and placing ads and things
like that. She is about to go to a dentist
appointment and there was supposed to be a receptionist that
was going to come in that morning and fill in
for her, and that receptionist hasn't shown up. So Jace
is on her phone. She's frantically scrolling through the phone
trying to get you know, somebody who she thinks knows
(12:50):
the business well enough to cover for her just for
a few hours. And she settles on a friend of hers,
twenty four year old Ashley or Zaga, who I guess Jason,
he knows you know, through the business, knows and trusts
enough to have her cover that shift for her. She says,
you know, can you come in on short notice, just
for a few hours, and as she says, yes, absolutely,
(13:11):
she takes the bus all the way from the other
side of the city basically on short notice, gets to
the SPA. It's around lunchtime, maybe, settles in at the
friend desk, and Jac heads upstairs to get ready for
her appointment.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Have there been issues there not that come from the
SPA's fault, But have they been targeted by anybody before?
Is there controversy at all with this spa?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I haven't heard of any controversy regarding this spa. I
don't think there's been anything, you know, happening there that's
beyond just the normal realm of like wild West behavior,
and it sometimes happens in these unregulated labor economies. But
I haven't heard of them being targeted or of anything.
Certainly nothing of this magnitude happening there previously.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Okay, go ahead and set the scene for me about
what happens. We've said it's February twenty fourth, twenty twenty Monday.
So we've got JC, the manager with a client upstairs.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah? So there's three there's three levels to this building.
There's a basement where there are some treatment rooms. There's
the main floor where there is the front desk and
some other rooms, and then there's the apartment upstairs, which
is where Jac lives.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And we have Ashley Arzaga who is at the front
desk at this.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Point exactly, so Jac's upstairs. She's getting ready for her
appointment as she's at the front desk settling in. Meanwhile,
a seventeen year old boy named Ogazon Sert who lives
about a fifteen minute walk away in a home with
his father and his stepmother, is getting ready for his
day in his basement bedroom and he puts on a
(14:49):
trench coat, some sunglasses, and he grabs a couple items
to put in his pockets. One of those is a
stone that sharpens knives, one of them is his identification,
and the last item is a seventeen inch sword, so
like a short sword or kind of a large egger
type weapon. He puts that in his pocket and he
(15:10):
writes a note and the note says, long Live the
in Cell Rebellion. He tucks that into his pocket before
he leaves out the front door. He walks down the street.
He walks to the parlor, opens the front door where
Ashley is sitting at the front desk, and he begins
to stab her with what will later be determined to
(15:30):
be like forty two separate stab wounds. Jac's upstairs at
this time. She hears some kind of a scuffle downstairs.
She goes to check it out and stumbles into what
I can only imagine is an absolutely horrific scene. She's
lying on the floor in a pool of blood, probably
dead by this point, and there's this guy in a
trench coat with a machete who then whips around and
(15:53):
starts attacking JC, who just minutes ago was consumed by
whether she was going to get to her dentist appointment
on time. And he's coming at her with the sword.
He's screaming for Fanity's at her, telling her to die,
calling her a bitch. They fall to the ground and
they're struggling for a while. Jace had a her brother
in law had been at the apartment with the intention
(16:15):
of driving her to the dentist appointment, so he's around
and she's screaming for him, and he comes down the
stairs and is trying to open the door to the foyer,
which is where JC and Sert are struggling on the floor.
And he's pushing on the door, trying to open it,
but their bodies are blocking it, and so jac says,
this spot goes through her head, which is like, I've
(16:38):
got to move, I've got to move both of us
just a couple inches so he can open the door
and get in to help us. And somehow, in the
middle of all this struggling, she manages to do that.
She manages to wrest the sword from his grasp and
stab him in the back.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And this poor guy is trying to get in. I mean,
you know, poor j C and Ashley, of course, but
this guy is trying to get in to say her
his family member, and he cannot get in because they're
blocking the door.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, it sounds like just a really chaotic scene. I
feel that must have been really hard for him to
hear these things but not understand fully what was going
on on the other side of that door. So fortunately,
you know, she was able to open it just a
little bit. And then you know, shortly after that, Sert
stumbles out of the door into the parking lot. He's
been stabbed. She's bleeding from several different wounds, and she
(17:28):
runs next door to see if the adjoining store will
call mine one one for her, And yeah, it just
sounds like a really terrifying few minutes. It's hard to
imagine that this entire scene took place over just those
few minutes because it sounds like so much happened.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So it's twenty twenty when this happens, I would expect,
like CCTV. Is that a security camera, kind of a
normal thing that would have happened at one of these
spaws in Canada.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So there is CCTV in the inside of the building.
So this whole attack was caught on camera. Wow. Yeah,
I did not that. I didn't attend any of the
preliminary hearings and that was when it was showed. And
I believe that some of the media who was attending
they did get to see that footage. I don't know
if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It
sounds like it would be something really awful to bear
(18:13):
witness too. But ultimately the footage was really what would
sunk the case because all of it was caught on camera.
You know, you can see this attack unfolding the way
that jac said. You can see the attack on Ashley,
and you can see like the brutality behind it, so
that was, you know, really kind of a life saver
I think in terms of getting that first degree murder conviction.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
In the United States, if that footage had existed in
this kind of attack, I feel like it would have
gotten leaked somehow and just made its way all. I mean,
that is sort of the perfect thing for potentially some
members of the intell community to pass around everywhere and
then people of course be horrified. In general. Did that
end up happening in Toronto or no?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Not, to my knowledge, I have not. I think that
they're probably guarding that pretty tightly. I mean, I think
generally in Canada, our criminal justice system is protected a
little more, I guess, right, Like you guys allow cameras
in the courtroom, so there's lots of like real time
footage of these cases happening. We don't allow that in Canada.
(19:15):
Journalists are allowed to be in the courtroom, but they
are not allowed to videotape any of that footage. So
it may just be a bit of a difference in culture.
But you know, thank god, I don't believe that footage
has been released, and I hope it stays that way.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Good. Well, there are quite a few judges who won't
allow cameras in their courtroom here, which is good, and
I think some states that it's just a law you
can't have cameras. But still I could see some places
where it's helpful and then certainly a lot of places
where it's hurtful. Okay, So if I set the scene,
it's Cert in the parking lot at this point, and
(19:50):
we've got JC next door trying to get the police.
Does he leave? What happens with him in this park?
Does he have a car? I forgot how you told
me he got there?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Oh? Cert, No, he walked. He walked on foot. What
I've been able to determine from Jac's testimony is that
he was a little bit stunned by this entire thing.
She said that when she stabbed him, he let out
this huge, melodramatic gas that she thought was like, very
much over the top. I think at some point he
also seemed to have injured his fingers. I don't know
(20:20):
if that was something that she did to him, or
if he did that himself or in the struggle, but
she said he was sitting in the parking lot staring
at his fingers. To be honest, I think It's very
possible that he himself was also shocked at what was unfolding,
like maybe he even had a weird out of body experience,
and then he was there. He was waiting in the
(20:40):
parking lot. JC had at some point run back in.
She's still in manager mode. Clearly she had run back
into the spot to lock the door. There was also
another attendant who had been in the spot in the
basement with a client, so she ran in to get her.
She said, leave out the back door, Call nine one.
I think that JC ultimately ended up running across the streets.
(21:01):
She didn't want to be close to Sert right. She
didn't know if he was going to get up and
do something else, so she ran across the street and
she was, I think, just kind of waiting there for
the police and the ambulance to show up.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So what happens when they do show up, I mean,
he's still there.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
He's still there. Jac gets taken immediately, I think, to
trauma hospital to treat her wounds. The paramedics are tending
to search as well. He's been stabbed, but I don't
think his injuries were quite as severe as Jacy's. Obviously,
the paramedic that's tending to him, says you know what happened,
and Sart turns to him and says, I wanted to
(21:37):
kill everyone in the building. I'm happy I just got one.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Wow. Did they find out why he targeted that particular spa. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
The general consensus from what he told police was that
he just lived in the neighborhood and he a few
months prior it had occurred to him that there was
a spa there. He doesn't seem to have a very
clear understanding of what went on in the spa, like
he refers to them as being prostitutes. So my guess
is that he was just out walking and he just
perhaps stumbled up across it. Later, they found some Google
(22:08):
searches on his computer that you know, we're searching for
things like Toronto massage parlor, Canada massage parlor, So maybe
he was looking generally for a massage parlor and that
was just the closest one that came up on his
search results.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Did you say that Ashley was stabbed? Did you say
forty one times forty two? Wow? I mean that seems
much more angry than someone who is just trying to
eliminate so called prostitutes. Is that what seems like to
you when you were reading that description.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I think so. Yeah, it sounded like what they would
refer to in some circles as overkill.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I mean, that's an unthinkable amount of stab wounds and
like no part of her body was was really left
untouched in that sense. I can't imagine what the scene
was like. I think it just speaks to the level
of rage and anger that starts exhibited.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Before or we find out more about cert Tell me
about what will become the media coverage here. Is this
the first big introduction to the in cell community, to
Toronto or to Canada.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
No, actually it's not, And that's what's a little bit surprising.
Back in twenty eighteen, we had another really high profile
murder in which a man in his early twenties drove
a rented van onto the sidewalk outside of subway station
in Toronto and he ended up killing I think eleven people,
most of them are women. But it was a fairly
(23:33):
like indiscriminate act. He was kind of just plowing into
the sidewalk essentially, but he also professed some you know,
allegiance quote unquote to the in cell community. He left
some kind of a message on social media shortly before
the act happened, stating that it was a crime that
was motivated by the in cell community. And that was
(23:54):
a really big shock when that happened. That made headlines,
you know, not just here in Canada but everywhere. I
think for some people that was their first introduction to
in cell behavior and this in cell ideology. But it
was interesting because in that case, the prosecutor's office did
not which is like the equivalent of the district attorney's
office in the US. They didn't attempt to charge him
(24:17):
with terrorism. The judge in that case determined that he
was motivated by notoriety, like personal notoriety more than ideology, which,
as we'll get to you later, is a key component
of a terrorism offense in Canada. So they didn't opt
to charge him that way. I mean, he did get
he did get convicted of like eleven counts of first
(24:37):
degree murder, but terrorism was never on the table for
whatever reason for that case.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
So JC is hospitalized, but does she fully recover. I
assume from all of her injuries.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
She does have some nerve damage. On that one hand.
I saw her at the hearings and she looked healthy.
She's clearly very smart, articulate, you know, resilient person. I
think she's reallyocused on moving on from this the best
way that she can.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Did Ashley's family attend or was it just too painful?
Of sure, she wasn't even meant to be there. That's
so awful.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Some of Affitt's family did attend. I believe at least
one of her sisters, maybe two of her sisters attended,
or just on the last day on the sentencing, they were,
you know, very emotional. It was obviously really hard for
them to be there and to look you know, her
culler in the space. I can only imagine what that
must have been like for them. And they also provided
(25:31):
victim impact statements which were read out by the prosecutors
at the sentencing as well.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well. Take me into Sert's mind as much as you can.
He is under arrest. He makes this bold statement about
wanting to kill everybody, but he was happy that he
just got one. He's taken down. Is there anything else
that's illuminated about this seventeen year old's life or how
he got into this ideology to begin with?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, I mean, as soon as he said that you know,
that triggered the police to look into this more closely.
So they went into his basement bedroom and they went
through his belongings and they found some pretty concerning things
and also painted a pretty concerning picture of just his
life generally. So this is a seventeen year old boy.
His parents divorced when he was young. At the time,
(26:18):
he was living with his father and stepmother, but he
wasn't going to school. He dropped out of school in
like the ninth or the tenth grade. He didn't appear
to be working, didn't really appear to have much in
terms of structure, you know, whether socially or academically. They
didn't have friends. It really didn't seem like he had
much going on at all other than just spending his
(26:40):
days in the basement being on the internet. I know
that sounds like kind of a cliche for some of these,
you know, like maladjusted young people, but that is really
what the police found when they did a little bit
deeper into his story. So then they seized his laptop
and they found that he was active on a number
of gaming platforms. He was really active on some in
(27:03):
cell forums and in cell YouTube channels, and it just
seems like he'd been spiraling deeper and deeper into this
ever since, you know, he left school.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Ultimately, do you think that one of the common threads
that we find in the in cell community is a
feeling of sort of the type of purpose that we
as a society assigned to having a purpose in life,
that they lack that career ambition or relate really deep
relationship ambition or you know, autruism or something like that.
(27:33):
Is that sort of a thread that you see throughout this.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I want to believe it's that easy. Although to be honest,
I think that anybody could be an in cell.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I actually don't think it really discriminates him that way.
I suspect there are lots of high performing people who
have jobs and families and hobbies and maybe friends who
perhaps like do secretly subscribe to some of these ideas
about you know, the roles that men and women are
supposed to be playing in society. But in terms of
like the desperation behind Sertz act, I do think that
(28:04):
there was something to that, you know, I think if
he had had some of those alternate ambitions or alternate
activities in his life to give it meaning perhaps those
would have anchored him in reality a little more.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So when the Crown prosecutor charges him, and you know,
we are going down this road of a trial, there's
some controversy about that that you had sort of alluded
to tell me the directions that they could have potentially gone.
But what direction they went to.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I mean, after the police have collected all this evidence,
they opted to charge him not with first degree murder
and attempted murderer, but also with an act of terrorism.
And they claimed that, you know, his allegiance or his
dedication to the in cell community constituted something called ideological terrorism.
(28:54):
But there was just one problem with that, which is
that that had never been done before in Canada certainly,
you know, likely anywhere in the world. Nobody had ever
tried to land a terrorsm conviction based on a crime
that was known to be affiliated with the in cell movement.
This is totally unprecedented. I still don't have a clear
(29:14):
understanding of why they decided to choose that case to
pursue that. Why now when we you know, we've had
other examples in the past of perhaps higher profile in
cell related violence that could have also resulted in those charges.
I don't know why they chose this particular case for that,
but it certainly it surprised me on multiple levels when
I heard.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
That what is the difference in Canada between first degree
murder and a terrorism act?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, that is a really good question, and that is
something that came up in some sources that I talked to.
I talked to some lawyers who weren't affiliated with this
case just to get their their idea about what this
kind of a conviction might mean, and what a lot
of people said was that they weren't actually sure if
there was a point to adding a terrorism conviction on
(30:01):
top of the first degree murder conviction, because in Canada
we don't have the death penalty, So if you are
convicted of first degree murder, generally what's going to be
on the table is life in prison with no chance
of parole for twenty five years. There are other things
you could add to that, like labeling someone a dangerous
offender and things that might, you know, sort of impact
the seriousness of that sentence. But if you're already facing
(30:25):
that for a first degree in murder charge, you know
you can't you can't like increase that sentence. You can't
in the States, we sometimes see this happen and what
it means is the difference between life and prison and
the death penalty. But we don't even have that option
in Canada. So some lawyers were like, what is the
point of this. He's already getting like the worst punishment
Canada can dole out to its offenders. What would be
(30:46):
the point of adding this.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I mean, I wonder if it's setting a precedent, because
what if JC and Ashley had both survived, then you're
looking at two counts of attempted murder and he could
have I don't know what it is in Canada, but
he could have been out in years or something. If
you lay in that terrorist offense on top of that,
maybe that would get him to life for a longer side,
I just wonder if this is more of like a
(31:09):
setting a precedent type of thing.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I think that's possible, and that is something that some
people did bring up, like it would be more useful,
ironically in a case where someone was convicted of like
baslaughter or second devieworder, because then perhaps it could tip
them into that more serious category.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Now, what do we get out of search once he's
in police custoding we know about his background, no structure,
seemingly lack of purpose he falls into this community. Does
he talk more about his thought process behind this? Did
his parents have any suspicions about this?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
We know a lot about his parents and involvement. I
think that they had to be subpoened at one point
in an early hearing. I was not privy to that hearing,
but they never attended any of the hearings that I
was at. His defense lawyer told me that they had
basically washed their hands of him, So, you know, we
really don't know what was going on there. I find
(32:03):
it hard to wrap my head around the idea that
they had no concerns with him not going to school
and not working. So I'm really not quite sure what
the dynamic was there, But I think it's probably safe
to say it wasn't, you know, healthy and supportive in
the way that it should have been. What we heard
from Sert as he talked a little more to the
police officers is that he'd been planning the attack for months.
(32:24):
He felt a kinship with the man I was talking
about who had driven the van into several people in Toronto.
He felt a kinship with Elliott Roger who it's the
perpetrator of a pretty high profile in cell related mass
murder in the States. You know that he really felt
a kinship with these people who you know, also felt
(32:45):
like they were wronged by women, and he wanted to
take some action against it. He was also asked if
there was a reason that he chose that massage parlor
or is there's a reason he chose, you know, women
working in them as parlor business, And he talked a
little bit about how in the in cell community there's
like this particular hatred for sex workers or women who
(33:09):
work in sort of sex work adjacent field like strip
clubs and massage parlors, because they are seen as like
profiting from this thing that men supposedly are supposed to
get for free. So they're kind of upsetting the natural
order of things by saying that, you know, like, hey,
this is a service that I can provide the way
that a hairstylist might provide a service, and that you know,
(33:32):
it's upsetting things even more because now men have to
either earn that or they have to pay for it,
and that, according to the in cell ideology, goes against
sort of the natural order of things.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
So it's entitlement essentially.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, I was going to use that word. Yes, it
is very much about male entitlement. I would say the
entire in cell ideology is based upon the idea of
mail entitlement.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah. I mean this is sort of weird. But when
you were talking about that of hatred towards sex workers
and all of that, I was thinking to Jack the Ripper,
I mean, that is essentially what the notes, if we
believe everything is the claim is, is this hatred for
sex workers and so this community I'm sure has gone
back very very far. Okay, how does the trial go along?
(34:16):
Does he take the stand, does he stay quiet? What happens?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I didn't really start following this case as a magazine
feature until we were almost right at the sentencing part,
so I didn't go to the early preliminary hearings. I
think it's possible he might have testified at those, but
very very minimally. You know, he's a quiet kind of guy.
I think he's really overwhelmed by the formality of the
court proceedings, so he just kind of, you know, sat
(34:41):
in the witness box and kept to himself. Really, the
defense's argument was just that he was a confused kit
who didn't have any guidance, and he was left alone
in the basement, and so the only source of support
and guidance that he had was the Internet, and you know,
there's this like predatory in cell community that was just
waiting there, waiting to pounce on him and kind of
(35:05):
convert him into their ideology. That it was almost like
a perfect storm kind of thing. So really their argument
was that he did not have the sophistication and maturity
to commit this act the way that you know, like
an organized terrorist group would have. There was also some
evidence brought forward that he'd been diagnosed with depression and
(35:26):
anxiety and possibly something along the autism spectrum. They didn't
use that really as a defense in terms of his
motivation for the murder with Search, but they did talk
a little bit about how sometimes the rigid categorical thinking
that we see sometimes in people on the autism spectrum
makes them more susceptible to some of these conspiracy theorists,
(35:49):
some of these agains really like rigid black or white
ideologies that you know sometimes we find working on the Internet.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Okay, so ultimately we have JC testifying and it sounds
like she was just as brave and scrappy on the
stand as she was when she was stabbing him or
nicking him in the back. Is that right? She did
really well on the stand testifying against him.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah. I thought she did well on the stand. She's
strong and feisty, and I thought she even introduced some
like very misplaced moments of humor on the stand. But
I think that just like speaks to her personality, like,
you know, she's just she's kind of a spitfire.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Did this shine a light at all on the SPA community,
I mean, I'm hoping in a positive light, not a
negative light. I hope this isn't a you know, you
were asking for it because you are under this sort
of cloud of sex work or whatever it is that
could be frowned upon.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Well it didn't, And for that I was actually pretty surprised.
I mean I was surprised to begin with that they
were going to be pursuing a charge like this for
a crime that even did happen in a massage parlor,
just because I feel like, you know, those crimes do
tend to get swept under the rug a lot. But
as I was watching the trial unfold, I was really
(37:05):
impressed with how everybody handled it. I mean, I still
think there's this idea that if you weren't or spend
time in some of these underground communities, especially if you're
a woman, that violence and chaos of this nature is
at best expected and at worst deserved. People are like, oh, well,
if you don't want to be subject to this, we'll
be a good girl. And to be honest, I do
(37:25):
kind of think if jac and Ashley had been working
in like a dental clinic or something, maybe the public
outcry about this would have been much larger. But to
see how the prosecution laid out their argument and to
see how Justice Oktar handled this with so much care
and sensitivity, and then he ultimately said, nobody is deserving
up its violence. Nothing you could have done would warrant
(37:48):
violence like this. That was really meaningful to me as
a journalist, as a woman, and as someone who has
been part of the massage parlor community.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Absolutely one thing we neglected to miss, if you think
that this is important, is what st had etched on
this sword.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Of his, on the sword slash dagger that he brought
with him to the spot. He had etched in an
acronym thhot, which is sometimes used to refer to women
that are like perceived to be promiscuous to sex trade
workers a Sandsford that hoe over there, and it's typically
(38:26):
used as a derogatory term. So clearly just another indication
of his intents that this is premeditated and that he
has some kind of a specific hatred for women who
are you know, are capitalizing on their bodies and their
sexuality in this way.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
What ultimately is he convicted of and is serving now?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Okay, so he pled guilty to murder and attempted murder.
The terrorism conviction also stuck. So his senace is life
in prison, but he will be eligible for parole in
ten years. I mean, it doesn't mean he'll get it,
but like that is on the table potentially.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
And why was that not taken off if he had
all three of those charges go through, Why is he
not just serving life with no possibility of parole?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Do you know? I don't know the answer to that.
My guess is that it might have something to do
with his age. I don't his age. I really don't know,
Like you know, the judge had some pretty strong words
to impart about him. He said something like this person
will need the entire mt of the correctional facility to rehabilitate,
(39:31):
so you know, lots of I don't know, programming that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
In Canadian prisons. Will there be an effort to rehabilitate him,
you know, is there is there, especially if he's going
to be up for parole. Is there going to be
mental health help or whatever it is that he needs?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Do you think those things are generally available? But I
think what it hinges on is that the inmates need
to consent to that, and so far, you know, certain
has seemed pretty reluctant to engage in any of those things.
Another unusual detail about this case was that his defense
lawyers were trying to get him a lighter sentence under
(40:11):
the Youth Criminal Justice Act because he was technically youth
when this happened. And the reason for that was because
he could then complete sort of this intense rehabilitation program
in a provincial facility. But that would have required him
to be in a shared cell in a provincial facility.
That's just how they're configured, and he didn't want to
(40:31):
do that. He actually cried on the here's the jail
was not in story. He cried on the stand because
he was scared of going to jail. He was scared
of being in that environment. He thought he'd be targeted.
So anyway, he's clearly very nervous about his options there.
So he refused to consent to that rehabilitation program that
(40:54):
his defense lawyers were trying to get him because he
didn't want to go into a provincial facility and share
a self. He wanted to stay in federal custody, in
which he would have gotten his own cell. So, you know,
it doesn't sound like he's too interested in any kind
of programming. He's young. I guess time will tell, but
that was kind of where we left it back at
(41:14):
the sentencing.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Have you gotten a sense for what the reaction has
been within the in cell community about this crime, because
I know it was high profile internationally.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
I haven't, to be honest, I really like stayed off
the in cell forums. I mean, I certainly could have
used that approach to investigate this piece, but I didn't
really want to go down that rabbit hole. I feel
like I've already read enough about the in cell community.
I didn't actually want to go into the forums or
hear anything specific about how this case was affecting them
(41:46):
so I really don't know. I don't know if it
ended up being a high profile case within that community
or not.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Do you get the sense that the in cell community
is growing.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
It's hard to say whether it's growing or whether because
it just has a name now it's easier to point
to people, point to institutions and be like, oh, that
persons an in cell. It's hard to say. I mean,
it is possible because you know, societal norms are changing
and there are some people that are very resistant to that,
and it is possible that it's encouraging more people to,
(42:16):
you know, push back against some of those things.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
What do you think you learned from doing this story.
I know that you do a lot of magazine pieces.
I know that you are encountering lots of stories about
good things and bad things. What did you take away
from this?
Speaker 2 (42:29):
I have a little bit mixed feelings about this, to
be honest. I was really heartened to see how they
treated this case. You know that this is sort of
ground zero for testing how our terrorism laws work on
these kinds of in cell related crimes. And the fact
that this all started in a massage parlor and instead
of sweeping that crime under the rug, they wanted to
(42:50):
pull it front and center. Who knows if cases like
this will you know, work the same way going forward,
but at least now there's a precedent for it. Right now,
there's case laws, so anyone who wants to make a
similar argument can say, Look, this has already been done.
It's already been established that this is terrorism, and we
need to treat it as such. So that's a big
deal to me. But I mean generally, I will say
(43:11):
I feel like the case got a little bit, at
least in sort of the media, a little bit less
of a profile than I would have liked to see.
I talked to a lot of lawyers, some who were
involved in the case and some who weren't, and many
of them, you know, they would express some surprise that
the terrorism charges were being put forward in this case.
And I wasn't sure what to make of that. And
(43:33):
there was a part of me whether this is you know,
because of my personal tie to the story, or whether
this is accurate, I don't know, but there was a
part of me that wondered, again, if it was just
like that attitude, like this kind of stuff just happens
in these circles, and it's not worthy of the kind
of notoriety, the kind of prosecution that you would get
if you were just a random person, a random innocent
(43:55):
person going about your day to day life. I always
say that I feel like this whole cases just about
answering this question, which is like who gets to be
considered a victim of terror?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked and American Sherlock, and Don't Forget. There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi.
(44:42):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed
by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer, artwork by
Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff and
Danielle Kramer. Listen to Wicked Words on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcas Casts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow
(45:02):
Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold more Wicked and on
Facebook at Wicked words pod
This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
The paramedic that's tending to him says, you know what happened,
and Seart turns to him and says, I wanted to
kill everyone in the building.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor
in Austin, Texas. I'm also the co host of the
podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right, and throughout my career,
research for my many audio and book projects has taken
me around the world. On Wicked Words, I sit down
with the people I've met along the way, amazing writers, journalists, filmmakers,
(00:49):
and podcasters who have investigated and reported on notorious true
crime cases. This is about the choices writers make, both
good and bad, and it's a deep dive into the
unpublished details behind their stories. This is a story about
a landmark case in Canada from just a few years ago.
(01:09):
A teenager attacked two women in a massage parlor in
Toronto in twenty twenty two. He killed one and seriously
injured the other. When he told investigators why he did it,
they settled on trying him for murder and terrorism. Journalist
Lana Hall tells me about her piece in Maclean's magazine
called the in Cell Terrorist. I had not heard of
(01:34):
the in cell community until I started the show, which
is about four years old at this point, and then
all of a sudden, I felt like we covered at
least two or three of these cases, and I just
had to do a lot more digging on it. Tell me,
is this sort of a new phenomenon and new? I mean,
is this a last decade type of thing.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
I guess maybe the term is newish. It's maybe something
that's you know, come to popularity within the last five years.
I don't think the sentiment behind the in cell community
is that new. I think it just has a name
now and it's sort of found it. It's collective, you know,
thanks to the Internet and all these kind of digital
methods of communication.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
Now.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Something interesting I learned in the research of this article
was that the term was actually point here in Toronto
by a local university student. She was having some trouble
finding a date or some kind of a meaningful sexual relationship,
and kind of as a joke, she set up this
forum that was called Atlanti's Involuntary Celibacy Project or something
(02:36):
like that, and it was kind of a joke, kind
of a way to connect with the people and chat
about the pitfalls of the dating scene. And at the
time it was really a support network for people, I think.
And eventually she found love. She abandoned the forum and somehow,
you know, the horse was already out of the gate,
so to speak, and it took on this darker, misogynistic
(02:58):
undertone after a while. By the time she discovered that
it was too late and it wasn't really something she
wanted to be associated with anymore.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Tell me what the typical profile is of someone who
feels like they belong in this community, who would go
on all of these boards and you know, kind of
espouse whatever the belief is and then talk about the belief.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I don't know really what the profile is in terms
of demographics, other than it does tend to mostly be
younger men. They have this belief that they are unable
to find a relationship, whether that's you know, a romantic
relationship or something sexual. There's this pervasive belief that it's
because women are more sexually selective. And over time, as
(03:40):
women have gained more financial independence, they get to be
shoesier about their male partners. And so this means that
men that are sort of at the bottom of the
food chain, what in the in cell community they often
refer to as beta males, that those guys are perpetually
getting the short end of the stick, that they you know,
they're not getting the kind of female attention they need.
(04:04):
This is sort of a state that's been bestowed upon
them at birth. There's no way for them to move
up the social ladder and to accomplish these things. And
they really believe that women hold the blame for that,
and that women should be punished for that, in some
cases very violently. And so there's a lot of this
kind of discourse online talking about, you know, how they
(04:24):
feel inferior, how women are the root of this problem,
and that something needs to be done about it, and
sometimes that something is really catastrophic.
Speaker 1 (04:34):
When you started digging into this case, specifically for your article,
your long form article, what drew you into the case
of this spa in Toronto in twenty twenty that became
this just awful scene of blood and mayhem.
Speaker 2 (04:49):
Well, I think it probably came to my attention the
way it did for most people in Toronto, and that
was just through the daily news cycle. It did hit
the newspapers and the online outline, and so it came
up in my news feed. And when I heard that
it happened in a massage parlor, I was like, Oh,
oh my god, I wonder what happened. And then when
I looked closer at the pictures, I realized I know
(05:11):
that spa in particular. And so by this point, I've
been working as a full time journalist for a number
of years. But the reason the image caught my attention
was because before I was a journalist, I also worked
in Toronto's underground massage parlor economy. In particular, I worked
at a SPA that was probably like a ten minute
walk from Crown Spa, which is the location where this
(05:34):
crime took place. So then I was kind of following
it from these two channels, right, I did have this
strong personal connection. I really wanted to know what was
going on. And then when I heard about, ultimately what
kind of charges were going to be laid in this case,
which were pretty unprecedented, I was really surprised and I
wanted to know more about that.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So take me to this time period twenty twenty Toronto.
You know, this is not something I've talked about before.
This sort of the I don't know what's the best phrase.
Is it a spa that also kind of offers erotic massages?
Is that the right thing to say.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
There's a lot of really interchangeable terms. I think it's
fair to call it like an erotic massage parlor. Sometimes
people call them spas, but in a very casual way,
and that's sort of a distinct, Like it's distinct from
a place where you might go to get your nails done,
or you might go to get like, you know, some
kind of a facial treatment or something like that. In Toronto,
there are these these businesses. They're called erotic massage parlors.
(06:34):
Sometimes they're called body or parlors. The way the licensing
works in Toronto is that there's a cap on the
number of them, so I think they only give out
like twenty five licenses or something. So there's a set
number of them, and because of the way Zodian regulations
work in the city, they're all sort of end up
in some of these industrial neighborhoods to the north and
the east of the core of the city. So there's
(06:56):
this particular neighborhood kind of in the northwest corner of Toronto.
It's a little bit cut off from the rest of
the city by a major highway, and there's just a
sprinkling of kind of random industrial building. There's like an
auto body shop, there's a tile shop. You know, there's
probably like a Tim Horton somewhere, which is a very
Canadian centric coffee chain, and there's a couple of these
(07:17):
massage parlors that are scattered around as well. They're very nondescript.
They typically don't have you know, visible signage or lighting
or anything like that. They're just kind of tucked it
in a very discreete fashion. That's kind of the setting
for this crime that happened on the morning of February
twenty fourth, twenty twenty.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Are these kind of parlors where you would have people
investigating trafficking or now I'm trying to figure out the
difference between what we would call that kind of parlor
here in the United States and what you all might
call it in Canada.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I don't know that there's an equivalent for this in
the States. I know that because sometimes I would ask
clients do you have these places in the States, And
often they would say know, or they'd say, we do
have them, but they're not as well regulated in Toronto.
You are if you have a license to be a
licensed body rubber. It's the same way you would get
a license to be like a taxi driver or a
(08:12):
food truck operator or an exotic dancer. If you have
that license, you are licensed to give people what is
called an erotic massage, which is just a massage that's
a little bit more sensual and physical. There aren't supposed
to be sexual services being offered at these places.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
But it is.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
You know, it is a little bit of a fine line,
as I'm sure you can imagine, even just by the title.
These are often jobs that are paid in cash, so
they tend to attract people that are kind of in
a bit of a transitional phase of life, and they
do operate a little bit underground because because there is
that fine line between erotic massage and sexual acts, they
(08:53):
do get a lot of attention from the bylaw officers,
from the cops who are often coming around and you know,
making sure nothing unto ward why their definition is happening.
I do think it's possible that you know, at some
of these places you might find some young women who
have been trafficked. You might find some young women who
are in this business for not the greatest reason. Maybe
(09:16):
they're you know, feeding a drug habit or kind of
living at the poverty line or something like that. But overwhelmingly,
I think a lot of people who work at these
places they're just women trying to make a better living. Right.
They could be students, they could be single parents, they
could be you know, burgeoning entrepreneurs. They could be people
that are saving up for a trip, or saving up
for a car, or trying to pay down some credit
(09:38):
card debt or something. So you really do find all
kinds of women and some men, I suppose, working in
these spaces.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Were you in a transitional point if you feel comfortable
talking about it kind of? Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
So I had been a journalism student for about maybe
a year and a bit. Prior to that, I had
dropped out of journalism school temporarily. At the time, I
had a part time retail job. And this is like
twenty ten, So I think we're still kind of coming
out of the recession a little bit, you know, maybe
haven't fully recovered from that yet, and it's hard to
find full time hours in a retail or you know,
(10:12):
a customer service kind of setting. So I was really
struggling with that, and also I think on some level
that sounded kind of boring to me anyway. So I
remember just flipping through the back pages of what used
to be our alternative newsweekly, which used to have advertisements
for like escort services and strippers and massage parlors, and
I was just like, I wonder what it would be
(10:32):
like to work at one of these places. I think
on some level, like I thought it might be a
good story, not in the sense that I wanted to
write about it, but just you know, I'm a journalist.
That's that's how my brain works. I'm in the business
at finding good story, to be it in a professional
setting or or I guess.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
Personally life's experiences exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
So I just said to myself, you know, I'm going
to send an email to this one advertisement. We'll see
what happens if, you know, if I have second thoughts,
I don't have to follow through. And they invited me
in for an interview like the next day or something,
and then I was like, Okay, well, why don't you
just go for an interview and then if that sounds
uncomfortable to you, then you don't have to show it
for your first day. And then I go to the interview,
(11:14):
and then I'm like, Okay, well, if that feels uncomfortable,
like you know, go to your first day. If that
feels uncomfortable, you don't have to keep going. So I
was I was sort of just easing myself into this idea,
I guess generally. But you know what, it was a
great way. I mean, at first it was a great
way to make money. I liked the people. Generally. I
was intrigued enough, I guess, to keep going. And then,
(11:36):
you know, for a whole host of reasons, all of
a sudden, you know, it's like I'm three years in
and I'm like, oh, okay, I guess this is my
life now.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Now it's come full circle for you. So with this
particular story, which I think is so well written, let's
start with the victims, because I think that's the most
important thing. Set the scene for me for Crown Spaw
in general. You've already kind of talked about where these
spaws are located in Toronto, but tell me about the
people inside. And this was a spa that I know
(12:05):
was regulated. Everything was on the up and up, and
this had a good reputation. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
It's a Monday morning, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty. It's
kind of a standard morning I think at Crown Spa.
You know, at least one client has come in for
an appointment. Jc the manager, who's a young woman, I
believe in her early thirties. She normally works a front
desk in addition to her other duties, you know, handling
(12:30):
the phones and reading clients and placing ads and things
like that. She is about to go to a dentist
appointment and there was supposed to be a receptionist that
was going to come in that morning and fill in
for her, and that receptionist hasn't shown up. So Jace
is on her phone. She's frantically scrolling through the phone
trying to get you know, somebody who she thinks knows
(12:50):
the business well enough to cover for her just for
a few hours. And she settles on a friend of hers,
twenty four year old Ashley or Zaga, who I guess Jason,
he knows you know, through the business, knows and trusts
enough to have her cover that shift for her. She says,
you know, can you come in on short notice, just
for a few hours, and as she says, yes, absolutely,
(13:11):
she takes the bus all the way from the other
side of the city basically on short notice, gets to
the SPA. It's around lunchtime, maybe, settles in at the
friend desk, and Jac heads upstairs to get ready for
her appointment.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Have there been issues there not that come from the
SPA's fault, But have they been targeted by anybody before?
Is there controversy at all with this spa?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
I haven't heard of any controversy regarding this spa. I
don't think there's been anything, you know, happening there that's
beyond just the normal realm of like wild West behavior,
and it sometimes happens in these unregulated labor economies. But
I haven't heard of them being targeted or of anything.
Certainly nothing of this magnitude happening there previously.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Okay, go ahead and set the scene for me about
what happens. We've said it's February twenty fourth, twenty twenty Monday.
So we've got JC, the manager with a client upstairs.
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah? So there's three there's three levels to this building.
There's a basement where there are some treatment rooms. There's
the main floor where there is the front desk and
some other rooms, and then there's the apartment upstairs, which
is where Jac lives.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
And we have Ashley Arzaga who is at the front
desk at this.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Point exactly, so Jac's upstairs. She's getting ready for her
appointment as she's at the front desk settling in. Meanwhile,
a seventeen year old boy named Ogazon Sert who lives
about a fifteen minute walk away in a home with
his father and his stepmother, is getting ready for his
day in his basement bedroom and he puts on a
(14:49):
trench coat, some sunglasses, and he grabs a couple items
to put in his pockets. One of those is a
stone that sharpens knives, one of them is his identification,
and the last item is a seventeen inch sword, so
like a short sword or kind of a large egger
type weapon. He puts that in his pocket and he
(15:10):
writes a note and the note says, long Live the
in Cell Rebellion. He tucks that into his pocket before
he leaves out the front door. He walks down the street.
He walks to the parlor, opens the front door where
Ashley is sitting at the front desk, and he begins
to stab her with what will later be determined to
(15:30):
be like forty two separate stab wounds. Jac's upstairs at
this time. She hears some kind of a scuffle downstairs.
She goes to check it out and stumbles into what
I can only imagine is an absolutely horrific scene. She's
lying on the floor in a pool of blood, probably
dead by this point, and there's this guy in a
trench coat with a machete who then whips around and
(15:53):
starts attacking JC, who just minutes ago was consumed by
whether she was going to get to her dentist appointment
on time. And he's coming at her with the sword.
He's screaming for Fanity's at her, telling her to die,
calling her a bitch. They fall to the ground and
they're struggling for a while. Jace had a her brother
in law had been at the apartment with the intention
(16:15):
of driving her to the dentist appointment, so he's around
and she's screaming for him, and he comes down the
stairs and is trying to open the door to the foyer,
which is where JC and Sert are struggling on the floor.
And he's pushing on the door, trying to open it,
but their bodies are blocking it, and so jac says,
this spot goes through her head, which is like, I've
(16:38):
got to move, I've got to move both of us
just a couple inches so he can open the door
and get in to help us. And somehow, in the
middle of all this struggling, she manages to do that.
She manages to wrest the sword from his grasp and
stab him in the back.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And this poor guy is trying to get in. I mean,
you know, poor j C and Ashley, of course, but
this guy is trying to get in to say her
his family member, and he cannot get in because they're
blocking the door.
Speaker 2 (17:03):
Yeah, it sounds like just a really chaotic scene. I
feel that must have been really hard for him to
hear these things but not understand fully what was going
on on the other side of that door. So fortunately,
you know, she was able to open it just a
little bit. And then you know, shortly after that, Sert
stumbles out of the door into the parking lot. He's
been stabbed. She's bleeding from several different wounds, and she
(17:28):
runs next door to see if the adjoining store will
call mine one one for her, And yeah, it just
sounds like a really terrifying few minutes. It's hard to
imagine that this entire scene took place over just those
few minutes because it sounds like so much happened.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
So it's twenty twenty when this happens, I would expect,
like CCTV. Is that a security camera, kind of a
normal thing that would have happened at one of these
spaws in Canada.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
So there is CCTV in the inside of the building.
So this whole attack was caught on camera. Wow. Yeah,
I did not that. I didn't attend any of the
preliminary hearings and that was when it was showed. And
I believe that some of the media who was attending
they did get to see that footage. I don't know
if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It
sounds like it would be something really awful to bear
(18:13):
witness too. But ultimately the footage was really what would
sunk the case because all of it was caught on camera.
You know, you can see this attack unfolding the way
that jac said. You can see the attack on Ashley,
and you can see like the brutality behind it, so
that was, you know, really kind of a life saver
I think in terms of getting that first degree murder conviction.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
In the United States, if that footage had existed in
this kind of attack, I feel like it would have
gotten leaked somehow and just made its way all. I mean,
that is sort of the perfect thing for potentially some
members of the intell community to pass around everywhere and
then people of course be horrified. In general. Did that
end up happening in Toronto or no?
Speaker 2 (18:54):
Not, to my knowledge, I have not. I think that
they're probably guarding that pretty tightly. I mean, I think
generally in Canada, our criminal justice system is protected a
little more, I guess, right, Like you guys allow cameras
in the courtroom, so there's lots of like real time
footage of these cases happening. We don't allow that in Canada.
(19:15):
Journalists are allowed to be in the courtroom, but they
are not allowed to videotape any of that footage. So
it may just be a bit of a difference in culture.
But you know, thank god, I don't believe that footage
has been released, and I hope it stays that way.
Speaker 1 (19:30):
Good. Well, there are quite a few judges who won't
allow cameras in their courtroom here, which is good, and
I think some states that it's just a law you
can't have cameras. But still I could see some places
where it's helpful and then certainly a lot of places
where it's hurtful. Okay, So if I set the scene,
it's Cert in the parking lot at this point, and
(19:50):
we've got JC next door trying to get the police.
Does he leave? What happens with him in this park?
Does he have a car? I forgot how you told
me he got there?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
Oh? Cert, No, he walked. He walked on foot. What
I've been able to determine from Jac's testimony is that
he was a little bit stunned by this entire thing.
She said that when she stabbed him, he let out
this huge, melodramatic gas that she thought was like, very
much over the top. I think at some point he
also seemed to have injured his fingers. I don't know
(20:20):
if that was something that she did to him, or
if he did that himself or in the struggle, but
she said he was sitting in the parking lot staring
at his fingers. To be honest, I think It's very
possible that he himself was also shocked at what was unfolding,
like maybe he even had a weird out of body experience,
and then he was there. He was waiting in the
(20:40):
parking lot. JC had at some point run back in.
She's still in manager mode. Clearly she had run back
into the spot to lock the door. There was also
another attendant who had been in the spot in the
basement with a client, so she ran in to get her.
She said, leave out the back door, Call nine one.
I think that JC ultimately ended up running across the streets.
(21:01):
She didn't want to be close to Sert right. She
didn't know if he was going to get up and
do something else, so she ran across the street and
she was, I think, just kind of waiting there for
the police and the ambulance to show up.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
So what happens when they do show up, I mean,
he's still there.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
He's still there. Jac gets taken immediately, I think, to
trauma hospital to treat her wounds. The paramedics are tending
to search as well. He's been stabbed, but I don't
think his injuries were quite as severe as Jacy's. Obviously,
the paramedic that's tending to him, says you know what happened,
and Sart turns to him and says, I wanted to
(21:37):
kill everyone in the building. I'm happy I just got one.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Wow. Did they find out why he targeted that particular spa. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
The general consensus from what he told police was that
he just lived in the neighborhood and he a few
months prior it had occurred to him that there was
a spa there. He doesn't seem to have a very
clear understanding of what went on in the spa, like
he refers to them as being prostitutes. So my guess
is that he was just out walking and he just
perhaps stumbled up across it. Later, they found some Google
(22:08):
searches on his computer that you know, we're searching for
things like Toronto massage parlor, Canada massage parlor, So maybe
he was looking generally for a massage parlor and that
was just the closest one that came up on his
search results.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Did you say that Ashley was stabbed? Did you say
forty one times forty two? Wow? I mean that seems
much more angry than someone who is just trying to
eliminate so called prostitutes. Is that what seems like to
you when you were reading that description.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
I think so. Yeah, it sounded like what they would
refer to in some circles as overkill.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
I mean, that's an unthinkable amount of stab wounds and
like no part of her body was was really left
untouched in that sense. I can't imagine what the scene
was like. I think it just speaks to the level
of rage and anger that starts exhibited.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Before or we find out more about cert Tell me
about what will become the media coverage here. Is this
the first big introduction to the in cell community, to
Toronto or to Canada.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
No, actually it's not, And that's what's a little bit surprising.
Back in twenty eighteen, we had another really high profile
murder in which a man in his early twenties drove
a rented van onto the sidewalk outside of subway station
in Toronto and he ended up killing I think eleven people,
most of them are women. But it was a fairly
(23:33):
like indiscriminate act. He was kind of just plowing into
the sidewalk essentially, but he also professed some you know,
allegiance quote unquote to the in cell community. He left
some kind of a message on social media shortly before
the act happened, stating that it was a crime that
was motivated by the in cell community. And that was
(23:54):
a really big shock when that happened. That made headlines,
you know, not just here in Canada but everywhere. I
think for some people that was their first introduction to
in cell behavior and this in cell ideology. But it
was interesting because in that case, the prosecutor's office did
not which is like the equivalent of the district attorney's
office in the US. They didn't attempt to charge him
(24:17):
with terrorism. The judge in that case determined that he
was motivated by notoriety, like personal notoriety more than ideology, which,
as we'll get to you later, is a key component
of a terrorism offense in Canada. So they didn't opt
to charge him that way. I mean, he did get
he did get convicted of like eleven counts of first
(24:37):
degree murder, but terrorism was never on the table for
whatever reason for that case.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
So JC is hospitalized, but does she fully recover. I
assume from all of her injuries.
Speaker 2 (24:48):
She does have some nerve damage. On that one hand.
I saw her at the hearings and she looked healthy.
She's clearly very smart, articulate, you know, resilient person. I
think she's reallyocused on moving on from this the best
way that she can.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Did Ashley's family attend or was it just too painful?
Of sure, she wasn't even meant to be there. That's
so awful.
Speaker 2 (25:10):
Some of Affitt's family did attend. I believe at least
one of her sisters, maybe two of her sisters attended,
or just on the last day on the sentencing, they were,
you know, very emotional. It was obviously really hard for
them to be there and to look you know, her
culler in the space. I can only imagine what that
must have been like for them. And they also provided
(25:31):
victim impact statements which were read out by the prosecutors
at the sentencing as well.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Well. Take me into Sert's mind as much as you can.
He is under arrest. He makes this bold statement about
wanting to kill everybody, but he was happy that he
just got one. He's taken down. Is there anything else
that's illuminated about this seventeen year old's life or how
he got into this ideology to begin with?
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah, I mean, as soon as he said that you know,
that triggered the police to look into this more closely.
So they went into his basement bedroom and they went
through his belongings and they found some pretty concerning things
and also painted a pretty concerning picture of just his
life generally. So this is a seventeen year old boy.
His parents divorced when he was young. At the time,
(26:18):
he was living with his father and stepmother, but he
wasn't going to school. He dropped out of school in
like the ninth or the tenth grade. He didn't appear
to be working, didn't really appear to have much in
terms of structure, you know, whether socially or academically. They
didn't have friends. It really didn't seem like he had
much going on at all other than just spending his
(26:40):
days in the basement being on the internet. I know
that sounds like kind of a cliche for some of these,
you know, like maladjusted young people, but that is really
what the police found when they did a little bit
deeper into his story. So then they seized his laptop
and they found that he was active on a number
of gaming platforms. He was really active on some in
(27:03):
cell forums and in cell YouTube channels, and it just
seems like he'd been spiraling deeper and deeper into this
ever since, you know, he left school.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Ultimately, do you think that one of the common threads
that we find in the in cell community is a
feeling of sort of the type of purpose that we
as a society assigned to having a purpose in life,
that they lack that career ambition or relate really deep
relationship ambition or you know, autruism or something like that.
(27:33):
Is that sort of a thread that you see throughout this.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
I want to believe it's that easy. Although to be honest,
I think that anybody could be an in cell.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
I don't.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
I actually don't think it really discriminates him that way.
I suspect there are lots of high performing people who
have jobs and families and hobbies and maybe friends who
perhaps like do secretly subscribe to some of these ideas
about you know, the roles that men and women are
supposed to be playing in society. But in terms of
like the desperation behind Sertz act, I do think that
(28:04):
there was something to that, you know, I think if
he had had some of those alternate ambitions or alternate
activities in his life to give it meaning perhaps those
would have anchored him in reality a little more.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
So when the Crown prosecutor charges him, and you know,
we are going down this road of a trial, there's
some controversy about that that you had sort of alluded
to tell me the directions that they could have potentially gone.
But what direction they went to.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
I mean, after the police have collected all this evidence,
they opted to charge him not with first degree murder
and attempted murderer, but also with an act of terrorism.
And they claimed that, you know, his allegiance or his
dedication to the in cell community constituted something called ideological terrorism.
(28:54):
But there was just one problem with that, which is
that that had never been done before in Canada certainly,
you know, likely anywhere in the world. Nobody had ever
tried to land a terrorsm conviction based on a crime
that was known to be affiliated with the in cell movement.
This is totally unprecedented. I still don't have a clear
(29:14):
understanding of why they decided to choose that case to
pursue that. Why now when we you know, we've had
other examples in the past of perhaps higher profile in
cell related violence that could have also resulted in those charges.
I don't know why they chose this particular case for that,
but it certainly it surprised me on multiple levels when
I heard.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
That what is the difference in Canada between first degree
murder and a terrorism act?
Speaker 2 (29:41):
Well, that is a really good question, and that is
something that came up in some sources that I talked to.
I talked to some lawyers who weren't affiliated with this
case just to get their their idea about what this
kind of a conviction might mean, and what a lot
of people said was that they weren't actually sure if
there was a point to adding a terrorism conviction on
(30:01):
top of the first degree murder conviction, because in Canada
we don't have the death penalty, So if you are
convicted of first degree murder, generally what's going to be
on the table is life in prison with no chance
of parole for twenty five years. There are other things
you could add to that, like labeling someone a dangerous
offender and things that might, you know, sort of impact
the seriousness of that sentence. But if you're already facing
(30:25):
that for a first degree in murder charge, you know
you can't you can't like increase that sentence. You can't
in the States, we sometimes see this happen and what
it means is the difference between life and prison and
the death penalty. But we don't even have that option
in Canada. So some lawyers were like, what is the
point of this. He's already getting like the worst punishment
Canada can dole out to its offenders. What would be
(30:46):
the point of adding this.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
I mean, I wonder if it's setting a precedent, because
what if JC and Ashley had both survived, then you're
looking at two counts of attempted murder and he could
have I don't know what it is in Canada, but
he could have been out in years or something. If
you lay in that terrorist offense on top of that,
maybe that would get him to life for a longer side,
I just wonder if this is more of like a
(31:09):
setting a precedent type of thing.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I think that's possible, and that is something that some
people did bring up, like it would be more useful,
ironically in a case where someone was convicted of like
baslaughter or second devieworder, because then perhaps it could tip
them into that more serious category.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
Now, what do we get out of search once he's
in police custoding we know about his background, no structure,
seemingly lack of purpose he falls into this community. Does
he talk more about his thought process behind this? Did
his parents have any suspicions about this?
Speaker 2 (31:43):
We know a lot about his parents and involvement. I
think that they had to be subpoened at one point
in an early hearing. I was not privy to that hearing,
but they never attended any of the hearings that I
was at. His defense lawyer told me that they had
basically washed their hands of him, So, you know, we
really don't know what was going on there. I find
(32:03):
it hard to wrap my head around the idea that
they had no concerns with him not going to school
and not working. So I'm really not quite sure what
the dynamic was there, But I think it's probably safe
to say it wasn't, you know, healthy and supportive in
the way that it should have been. What we heard
from Sert as he talked a little more to the
police officers is that he'd been planning the attack for months.
(32:24):
He felt a kinship with the man I was talking
about who had driven the van into several people in Toronto.
He felt a kinship with Elliott Roger who it's the
perpetrator of a pretty high profile in cell related mass
murder in the States. You know that he really felt
a kinship with these people who you know, also felt
(32:45):
like they were wronged by women, and he wanted to
take some action against it. He was also asked if
there was a reason that he chose that massage parlor
or is there's a reason he chose, you know, women
working in them as parlor business, And he talked a
little bit about how in the in cell community there's
like this particular hatred for sex workers or women who
(33:09):
work in sort of sex work adjacent field like strip
clubs and massage parlors, because they are seen as like
profiting from this thing that men supposedly are supposed to
get for free. So they're kind of upsetting the natural
order of things by saying that, you know, like, hey,
this is a service that I can provide the way
that a hairstylist might provide a service, and that you know,
(33:32):
it's upsetting things even more because now men have to
either earn that or they have to pay for it,
and that, according to the in cell ideology, goes against
sort of the natural order of things.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
So it's entitlement essentially.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, I was going to use that word. Yes, it
is very much about male entitlement. I would say the
entire in cell ideology is based upon the idea of
mail entitlement.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Yeah. I mean this is sort of weird. But when
you were talking about that of hatred towards sex workers
and all of that, I was thinking to Jack the Ripper,
I mean, that is essentially what the notes, if we
believe everything is the claim is, is this hatred for
sex workers and so this community I'm sure has gone
back very very far. Okay, how does the trial go along?
(34:16):
Does he take the stand, does he stay quiet? What happens?
Speaker 2 (34:20):
I didn't really start following this case as a magazine
feature until we were almost right at the sentencing part,
so I didn't go to the early preliminary hearings. I
think it's possible he might have testified at those, but
very very minimally. You know, he's a quiet kind of guy.
I think he's really overwhelmed by the formality of the
court proceedings, so he just kind of, you know, sat
(34:41):
in the witness box and kept to himself. Really, the
defense's argument was just that he was a confused kit
who didn't have any guidance, and he was left alone
in the basement, and so the only source of support
and guidance that he had was the Internet, and you know,
there's this like predatory in cell community that was just
waiting there, waiting to pounce on him and kind of
(35:05):
convert him into their ideology. That it was almost like
a perfect storm kind of thing. So really their argument
was that he did not have the sophistication and maturity
to commit this act the way that you know, like
an organized terrorist group would have. There was also some
evidence brought forward that he'd been diagnosed with depression and
(35:26):
anxiety and possibly something along the autism spectrum. They didn't
use that really as a defense in terms of his
motivation for the murder with Search, but they did talk
a little bit about how sometimes the rigid categorical thinking
that we see sometimes in people on the autism spectrum
makes them more susceptible to some of these conspiracy theorists,
(35:49):
some of these agains really like rigid black or white
ideologies that you know sometimes we find working on the Internet.
Speaker 1 (35:56):
Okay, so ultimately we have JC testifying and it sounds
like she was just as brave and scrappy on the
stand as she was when she was stabbing him or
nicking him in the back. Is that right? She did
really well on the stand testifying against him.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Yeah. I thought she did well on the stand. She's
strong and feisty, and I thought she even introduced some
like very misplaced moments of humor on the stand. But
I think that just like speaks to her personality, like,
you know, she's just she's kind of a spitfire.
Speaker 1 (36:27):
Did this shine a light at all on the SPA community,
I mean, I'm hoping in a positive light, not a
negative light. I hope this isn't a you know, you
were asking for it because you are under this sort
of cloud of sex work or whatever it is that
could be frowned upon.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Well it didn't, And for that I was actually pretty surprised.
I mean I was surprised to begin with that they
were going to be pursuing a charge like this for
a crime that even did happen in a massage parlor,
just because I feel like, you know, those crimes do
tend to get swept under the rug a lot. But
as I was watching the trial unfold, I was really
(37:05):
impressed with how everybody handled it. I mean, I still
think there's this idea that if you weren't or spend
time in some of these underground communities, especially if you're
a woman, that violence and chaos of this nature is
at best expected and at worst deserved. People are like, oh, well,
if you don't want to be subject to this, we'll
be a good girl. And to be honest, I do
(37:25):
kind of think if jac and Ashley had been working
in like a dental clinic or something, maybe the public
outcry about this would have been much larger. But to
see how the prosecution laid out their argument and to
see how Justice Oktar handled this with so much care
and sensitivity, and then he ultimately said, nobody is deserving
up its violence. Nothing you could have done would warrant
(37:48):
violence like this. That was really meaningful to me as
a journalist, as a woman, and as someone who has
been part of the massage parlor community.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
Absolutely one thing we neglected to miss, if you think
that this is important, is what st had etched on
this sword.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Of his, on the sword slash dagger that he brought
with him to the spot. He had etched in an
acronym thhot, which is sometimes used to refer to women
that are like perceived to be promiscuous to sex trade
workers a Sandsford that hoe over there, and it's typically
(38:26):
used as a derogatory term. So clearly just another indication
of his intents that this is premeditated and that he
has some kind of a specific hatred for women who
are you know, are capitalizing on their bodies and their
sexuality in this way.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
What ultimately is he convicted of and is serving now?
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Okay, so he pled guilty to murder and attempted murder.
The terrorism conviction also stuck. So his senace is life
in prison, but he will be eligible for parole in
ten years. I mean, it doesn't mean he'll get it,
but like that is on the table potentially.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
And why was that not taken off if he had
all three of those charges go through, Why is he
not just serving life with no possibility of parole?
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Do you know? I don't know the answer to that.
My guess is that it might have something to do
with his age. I don't his age. I really don't know,
Like you know, the judge had some pretty strong words
to impart about him. He said something like this person
will need the entire mt of the correctional facility to rehabilitate,
(39:31):
so you know, lots of I don't know, programming that
kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
In Canadian prisons. Will there be an effort to rehabilitate him,
you know, is there is there, especially if he's going
to be up for parole. Is there going to be
mental health help or whatever it is that he needs?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Do you think those things are generally available? But I
think what it hinges on is that the inmates need
to consent to that, and so far, you know, certain
has seemed pretty reluctant to engage in any of those things.
Another unusual detail about this case was that his defense
lawyers were trying to get him a lighter sentence under
(40:11):
the Youth Criminal Justice Act because he was technically youth
when this happened. And the reason for that was because
he could then complete sort of this intense rehabilitation program
in a provincial facility. But that would have required him
to be in a shared cell in a provincial facility.
That's just how they're configured, and he didn't want to
(40:31):
do that. He actually cried on the here's the jail
was not in story. He cried on the stand because
he was scared of going to jail. He was scared
of being in that environment. He thought he'd be targeted.
So anyway, he's clearly very nervous about his options there.
So he refused to consent to that rehabilitation program that
(40:54):
his defense lawyers were trying to get him because he
didn't want to go into a provincial facility and share
a self. He wanted to stay in federal custody, in
which he would have gotten his own cell. So, you know,
it doesn't sound like he's too interested in any kind
of programming. He's young. I guess time will tell, but
that was kind of where we left it back at
(41:14):
the sentencing.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Have you gotten a sense for what the reaction has
been within the in cell community about this crime, because
I know it was high profile internationally.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
I haven't, to be honest, I really like stayed off
the in cell forums. I mean, I certainly could have
used that approach to investigate this piece, but I didn't
really want to go down that rabbit hole. I feel
like I've already read enough about the in cell community.
I didn't actually want to go into the forums or
hear anything specific about how this case was affecting them
(41:46):
so I really don't know. I don't know if it
ended up being a high profile case within that community
or not.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
Do you get the sense that the in cell community
is growing.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
It's hard to say whether it's growing or whether because
it just has a name now it's easier to point
to people, point to institutions and be like, oh, that
persons an in cell. It's hard to say. I mean,
it is possible because you know, societal norms are changing
and there are some people that are very resistant to that,
and it is possible that it's encouraging more people to,
(42:16):
you know, push back against some of those things.
Speaker 1 (42:19):
What do you think you learned from doing this story.
I know that you do a lot of magazine pieces.
I know that you are encountering lots of stories about
good things and bad things. What did you take away
from this?
Speaker 2 (42:29):
I have a little bit mixed feelings about this, to
be honest. I was really heartened to see how they
treated this case. You know that this is sort of
ground zero for testing how our terrorism laws work on
these kinds of in cell related crimes. And the fact
that this all started in a massage parlor and instead
of sweeping that crime under the rug, they wanted to
(42:50):
pull it front and center. Who knows if cases like
this will you know, work the same way going forward,
but at least now there's a precedent for it. Right now,
there's case laws, so anyone who wants to make a
similar argument can say, Look, this has already been done.
It's already been established that this is terrorism, and we
need to treat it as such. So that's a big
deal to me. But I mean generally, I will say
(43:11):
I feel like the case got a little bit, at
least in sort of the media, a little bit less
of a profile than I would have liked to see.
I talked to a lot of lawyers, some who were
involved in the case and some who weren't, and many
of them, you know, they would express some surprise that
the terrorism charges were being put forward in this case.
And I wasn't sure what to make of that. And
(43:33):
there was a part of me whether this is you know,
because of my personal tie to the story, or whether
this is accurate, I don't know, but there was a
part of me that wondered, again, if it was just
like that attitude, like this kind of stuff just happens
in these circles, and it's not worthy of the kind
of notoriety, the kind of prosecution that you would get
if you were just a random person, a random innocent
(43:55):
person going about your day to day life. I always
say that I feel like this whole cases just about
answering this question, which is like who gets to be
considered a victim of terror?
Speaker 1 (44:17):
If you love historical true crime stories, check out the
audio versions of my books The Ghost Club, All That
Is Wicked and American Sherlock, and Don't Forget. There are
twelve seasons of my historical true crime podcast, Tenfold More
Wicked right here in this podcast feed, scroll back and
give them a listen if you haven't already. This has
been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alexis Amrosi.
(44:42):
Our associate producer is Christina Chamberlain. This episode was mixed
by John Bradley. Curtis Heath is our composer, artwork by
Nick Toga. Executive produced by Georgia Hardstark, Karen Kilgariff and
Danielle Kramer. Listen to Wicked Words on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcas Casts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Follow
(45:02):
Wicked Words on Instagram at tenfold more Wicked and on
Facebook at Wicked words pod
Host
Kate Winkler Dawson
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