Have you ever walked past a house and felt a chill, knowing something sinister happened behind those walls? I'm Jacquie McCarnan, and I'm stepping away from the usual market trends to unravel the complex web where true crime collides with property values. We're starting with the haunting tale of Jessica Lloyd, whose vibrant life was tragically cut short by Russell Williams, a decorated military officer with a disturbing secret life. As we explore this case, we'll uncover how such heinous acts can leave an indelible mark not only on the victim's loved ones but also on the bricks and mortar of their communities.
The aftermath of crime extends beyond the headlines; it seeps into the soil of our neighbourhoods, affecting perceptions and property prices alike. I delve into the harrowing ripple effects of Williams' crimes, examining the lawsuits, the division of assets, and the challenge of selling stigmatised homes like the ones connected to Paul Bernardo and Willie Picton. Yet, amidst the turmoil, some spots like a particular home in Tweed, Ontario, remain untouched witnesses to their grim history. Tune in for an emotional narrative that bridges the gap between the sanctity of our homes and the shadows cast by events that transform them forever. Join me for a conversation that promises to be as enlightening as it is heartfelt.
Have you ever walked past a house and felt a chill, knowing something sinister happened behind those walls? I'm Jacquie McCarnan, and I'm stepping away from the usual market trends to unravel the complex web where true crime collides with property values. We're starting with the haunting tale of Jessica Lloyd, whose vibrant life was tragically cut short by Russell Williams, a decorated military officer with a disturbing secret life. As we explore this case, we'll uncover how such heinous acts can leave an indelible mark not only on the victim's loved ones but also on the bricks and mortar of their communities.
The aftermath of crime extends beyond the headlines; it seeps into the soil of our neighbourhoods, affecting perceptions and property prices alike. I delve into the harrowing ripple effects of Williams' crimes, examining the lawsuits, the division of assets, and the challenge of selling stigmatised homes like the ones connected to Paul Bernardo and Willie Picton. Yet, amidst the turmoil, some spots like a particular home in Tweed, Ontario, remain untouched witnesses to their grim history. Tune in for an emotional narrative that bridges the gap between the sanctity of our homes and the shadows cast by events that transform them forever. Join me for a conversation that promises to be as enlightening as it is heartfelt.
Hey everybody, welcome back to Keeping it Real, the Vancouver and area residential real estate podcast that aims to cut through all the malarkey you hear about real estate in the Lower Mainland. My name is Jackie McCarnan and I am your host for Keeping it Real. I am a Vancouver and area residential realtor. I'm also a mom Mother's Day was yesterday and I am also a philanthropist and have a non-profit here on the North Shore called North Van Cares. As with every episode of Keeping it Real, I like to toss in this little disclaimer to keep my managing broker happy. Anything you hear on the podcast is my research coupled with my experience and my opinion. If you have different opinions, I would love to hear them and you can either send me an email or text me or put a note in the comment section. So far on Keeping it Real, I have kept the subject matter to things that I think will help you with your real estate pursuits or just help you understand the real estate markets better or help you understand government intervention better. But today I'm going to mix it up. I'm not sure about you, but I am a pretty big true crime podcast listener. I am in my car a lot and I kind of go between interesting business podcasty things and health podcast things and then also, I mean, I think, if I'm being honest, true crime is probably higher up than those other two subjects. But I do really enjoy a good true crime episode and because I enjoy it so much, I thought it might be interesting for me to present one to you.
Speaker 1:
So on today's episode, I am going to bring you a true crime story that takes place in Canada and talk about what happens to the house after a crime has taken place. You're going to hear paper shuffling probably throughout this podcast, because I had to make a lot of notes. I absolutely did not want to get anything wrong, because there are victims in this case and I want to add a little bit of a trigger warning here. A trigger warning here if you are not interested in hearing. I've tried to keep the details not too detailed, not too gross, but if you are somebody who does not like to hear about true crime, then this is not the episode for you. There are some details that would be triggering to some people and I just want to make sure that you guys are safe and not too scared. So, without further ado, let's more than one victim in this case I am going to be focusing on the main, one of the main victims, because she was killed in a house and I wanted to relate this back to real estate in some sort of way. So, and also, I would like to say that most of the things you hear about this case focus really heavily on the guy that did it all, and he's a jerk, and I don't want to focus too much on him. I would prefer to give you an idea of the young woman that was the victim.
Speaker 1:
So Jessica Lloyd was born in Ottawa at Grace Hospital on May 18th 1982 to Roxanne and Warren, and she had a big brother, andy. She grew up in the uplands base in Ottawa because her dad was in the military and when she was eight, her parents her family moved to Plainville, ontario. At the time of Jessica's murder she was employed at the Hastings and Prince Edward County School District as a transportation coordinator. When I look at video from her friends, they talk a lot about how friendly and thoughtful and considerate and fun-loving and happy and super, super funny. Jessica was loving and happy and super, super funny. Jessica was, uh, she really loved her family and friends and you will hear a little bit more about that as we go on.
Speaker 1:
Even though I don't really want to focus on him, I do definitely need to talk about the baddie here. His name is, uh, russell Williams, and at the time he was Colonel Russell Williams. He was right at the top of his game, um, as a member of the Canadian armed forces. Uh, his career was quite exceptional by any standard. He was born in England in 1963 and his parents immigrated to Canada and shortly after that his parents divorced and his mom got with the husband of their best friends, which is kind of weird, but anyway. Then he moved with his mom and stepdad to Toronto and he went to Upper Canada College, and for anybody who grew up in Ontario, you know that Upper Canada College is kind of a bougie boy school. You know that Upper Canada College is kind of a bougie boys' school. When he was in his last two years there, his stepdad got a job in Europe, or in Korea, I think. So he ended up doing his last two years as a boarder and he became prefect of his boarding house, which is a position of authority. They take care of all the other kids. He went on to get a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1986 at the University of Toronto and by all accounts he was a fun-loving private school bro. I'm sure you guys probably had wore two Ralph Lauren polo shirts with the collars up, two different colored shirts, you know. Anyway, he joined the Air Force in 1987, and he moved up through the ranks pretty quickly and was promoted to wing commander at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, which is in Trenton, ontario, and he was considered a model military officer over his 23 year career. He even flew many dignitaries, including flying the Queen and the Prince of Edinburgh, around on their 2005 visit to Canada. So he was like a pretty, you know, notorious sort of guy and at that time, notorious for the right reasons, not the wrong reasons.
Speaker 1:
Russell Williams lived with his wife, mary Elizabeth Herringman, in a townhouse in Ottawa and they had a cottage on Lake Stotko in Tweed, ontario, and that's where the main part of this story takes place. Right around the same time Russell was being promoted to wing commander, he was also starting to engage in some really weird behavior. He started breaking into homes and stealing women and girls mostly girls underwear, trying them on and photographing himself in the lingerie which is weird. Himself in the lingerie, which is weird. Apparently, at one time he took over 180 articles of clothing from one house. He documented everything on his computer that he shared with his wife, mary Liz, as she was known to her friends, and a few times the sheer amount of items got so big that he had to burn them in his yard at 62 Cozy Cove Lane in Tweed. So there's a lot of speculation about whether Mary Elizabeth knew what he was doing. I really hope not. I mean, I can see how she wouldn't, because they had the house in Ottawa or townhouse in Ottawa and then they had the cottage in Tweed and he was at the cottage most of the time. They were basically living apart, because her job was in Ottawa and his was in Trenton, which was closer. I mean, I don't know. Who knows. There's no way to know now. This is ages ago, but I hope she didn't know.
Speaker 1:
Just two months after his big promotion to wing commander, he committed his first assault by breaking into a woman's home, blindfolding her and assaulting her and taking pictures while her baby slept close by, which is super friggin creepy. By November of 2009, things really escalated. He stalked a co-worker who was also in the Air Force. Her name was Marie France Como. He broke into her home, pulled his usual disgusting, gross behavior by trying on her underwear and photographing himself in it. But this time he went back to her home and, uh, so he he was in there and photographing himself in her underwear when she wasn't home. And then he went back to the house, he hid himself in the closet and when she came home, he um, he raped her and suffocated her and she she lived in a condo and, weirdly, on that very same day, he participated in a United Way fundraiser at work, where he was handcuffed and I'm making air quotes jailed. And this guy's so awful, so disgusting, that he actually even sent her father, who was also in the military, a condolence card after she was discovered by her boyfriend. Like who does that? Three months later, he really cemented his career as a serial rapist and killer. That was when Jessica Lloyd disappeared.
Speaker 1:
Jessica lived in Belleville, ontario, which is about 40 minutes from Russell Williams' Cozy Cove Cottage, and on January 28, 2010, jessica was running on the treadmill in her home. I guess somehow William spotted her on the treadmill and there's nothing written about whether he specifically targeted her before that. Maybe he was driving by and he saw her on her treadmill. We don't really know how it came about that he saw her on the treadmill. But the next day he returned to her home and hid in her backyard until she fell asleep. After he was sure she was asleep fell asleep After he was sure she was asleep he entered the home, he tied her up, he forced her to model lingerie while he photographed her and then he sexually assaulted her many, many times over the course of many, many hours.
Speaker 1:
When she was super weak. He hustled her out of the house and he drove her the 40 minutes to his cozy Cove Lane cottage. There once there, he let her sleep for a bit and then, when she woke up, she had a seizure. But he continued to assault her. In all the accounts it says that he gave her some fruit um, I guess to revive her a little bit. And he taped everything. He videotaped everything. He photographed lots of things.
Speaker 1:
And in the tape and this is where we go back to Jessica really being very, very close to her family In the tape she can be heard saying, quote if I die, make sure my mom knows I love her, and that is absolutely heartbreaking. Like I can't even imagine what her mom must have thought when she heard that. Um, like I don't even know what to say about that after hours of um the abuse. He got her dressed and he walked. This is how sick this dude is. Okay, he got her dressed and he walked. This is how sick this dude is. Okay, he got her dressed and he walked her out of the house down the driveway. She must have thought, oh my god, maybe he's gonna let me go. And just as they got toward the end of the driveway, he hit her in the head with one of those big police flashlights and then he strangled her to death.
Speaker 1:
He took her back into the house and he waited till the next morning and then he put her in his truck, his Nissan Pathfinder, and he drove her out to the woods and he buried her in a shallow grave. And this is where he made his crucial mistake. I mean, I guess we can assume that our russell williams got off on the you know the assault and the uh murder, but he didn't really um think much about the aftermath and how that would all play out. So he, I guess, he drove her out to the woods and, you know, he buried her in a shallow grave. But he used the same truck which had distinctive tire pattern. He had used that truck and parked it on her property when he was about to abduct her or when he was putting her in the truck, whatever, whenever, anyway, the truck tires it's January in Ontario, so the truck tire print was visible in both the property Jessica's property and at the scene where he buried her, and that was his undoing.
Speaker 1:
Pretty quickly the police found him and he was arrested and after 10 hours he confessed everything, eventually pleading guilty to over 90 crimes. He was sentenced to two counts of life without the possibility of parole for 25 years for the murders of Jessica Lloyd and Marie Franz Como. He also got convicted of a ton of other things and including sexual assaults and breaking and entering, and he just had, like you know, charge after charge after charge and essentially he's, theoretically he's never going to get out of jail. There is a chance that he could apply for parole after 25 years, but I doubt that they're going to let this sick I'm trying not to swear Sick dude, I guess out of out of Port Cartier, which is a maximum security prison in Ontario. Incidentally, william Pickton is also in that prison and he is also a baddie, bad, bad, bad man, and maybe I will do a podcast about him at some point.
Speaker 1:
But after his arrest, his wife was sued by two of the assault victims one who's not named and so I think because of that, they decided that they would split their assets up so that her assets were protected, or even I think maybe they even did that beforehand, that her assets were protected, or even I think maybe they even did that beforehand. But so she got the townhouse in Ottawa and he got the cottage which is super weird and gross that he could even retain ownership of, of property. But here we are both, um, uh, harriman and Williams were sued for millions of dollars and, and I guess, uh, since they each retained ownership of their properties, they had to sell them and he had to sell his. And, in a super weird plot twist, in my opinion, the neighbors who, uh, ron and Monique Moreau, their next door neighbors, who they hung out with all the time Like they, the four of them used to play cards and their 12 year old daughter even interviewed Williams for a school project one time Turned out, actually, that he had broken into their house and tried on the daughter's underwear and took pictures of him in those, which is super freaking gross, oh my God. Anyway, those neighbors, ron and Monique, ended up purchasing the house they did it. The cottage, they did it three years later.
Speaker 1:
It sat empty for three years and, as you can imagine, on the level of stigmatized properties, this has got to be the highest stigma that can come with a property. This would probably be a good time to explain what exactly a stigmatized property is and it's. I mean, it's not funny, but the definition is kind of funny. So if there has been a death on the property that makes it stigmatized, if it was used for illegal activity, like a grow-up or whatever, it's stigmatized. And then, or if it has been reported to be haunted, it could also be considered stigmatized, which, okay, sure, maybe we'll do a podcast on haunted stigmatized properties in Canada at some point.
Speaker 1:
Anyway, so neighbors Ron and Monique purchased the cottage in 2013. Like I said, it sat empty for three years. They bought it for $165,000. Williams and Harriman had purchased it for about, I think, $6,000 more than that. So they definitely got it at a really good price, and I guess that might be part of the moral of this story here is, if you are not concerned about what's going on in the property you're looking at. You might be interested in a stigmatized property because they're cheaper. Personally, probably not what I'm going to do. I don't think I want to live in a property that has been a you know, a meth lab, because I wonder who would be coming to the door. Anyway, the proceeds of the sale went to Williams, as far as I can tell through my research, but both he and his wife had to pay undisclosed settlement amounts to the victim, so I'm sure that that got eaten up there.
Speaker 1:
Uh, as for williams, after his conviction this this part, I actually like the governor general of canada stripped him of all of his medals and his commission and rank, and then they sent his uniform back to the uh, royal Canadian air force and it was burned in a ceremony Like they burned it, and then they completely scrapped and and um who crushed his Nissan Pathfinder. So yeah, the military doesn't play. They don't like murders in their midst. And I have something else to say about that, but I think it would be politically incorrect so I'm not going to say it. Here's something weird, though I thought he gets to keep his $60,000 a year pension from the Air Force. A year pension from the Air Force because, in order for them to not give it to him. It has to be an act of parliament. So I'm wondering if maybe that might be part of the settlement, that the victim gets that $60,000 a year or the victims split that $60,000 a year. I don't know. The records are closed. The the um records are closed. The court court records are closed on that, so there's no way to find that out really unless you know a way to find that out. And then I'm interested.
Speaker 1:
This case was a really big thing back in 2010 when it happened and I think um it's I mean, it's still a really big thing. It doesn't happen very often in Canada. We don't have a say white guys but you know what I mean Like those rich white kids that had, you know, lots of money more than they needed, access to whatever they wanted and probably got away with. I mean, he didn't get away with murder, but got away with all kinds of shenanigans growing up, so why would he think there would be any consequences to his behavior as an adult? I don't know, but I'm happy to say that he is. He's put away for quite some time. Incidentally interesting note he was two or three years behind Paul Bernardo at the University of Toronto. And for those of you who don't know who Paul Bernardo and Carla Homolkin are, uh, definitely look that up. As far as Canadian true crime goes, I mean we have so little, uh so so few incidents of uh serial killers that we all know all their names. Like, I've mentioned them all pretty much in this podcast because there's so few of them, which I'm very happy about.
Speaker 1:
By the way, normally at this point in the podcast I would do a shout out to a local North Van business, but I wanted to actually, since you know to stay on theme, I wanted to do a shout out to a Canadian podcast called the Real Crime Podcast, and the first two letters of real are capitalized for real estate and it's a true crime podcast from the point of view of an active realtor. Home isn't always what it seems to be. Home isn't always what it seems to be. Join Christina Van Der Water and Kristen Varney as they explore real estate related murders, haunted houses, cursed properties and anything else their really freaky hearts can dig up. I thought that was quite clever and fun and you can find their podcast on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1:
And, sticking with the theme, I wanted to tell you about my favorite true crime podcast. It's Kendall Ray. You can find her anywhere. You get your podcast. She focuses a lot on missing children and missing and murdered women. I really like the way that Kendall does her podcast. It reels you right in. You get to know the victims, which is why I wanted to introduce Jessica Lloyd first, before we talked about the other guy, that you take a listen to Kendall Ray. Sadly, she never seems to run out of material for her podcast. That's going to be it for me today. I know this is an entirely different kind of vibe for today's podcast, but I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:
I enjoyed researching it. I'm sad for the victims and their families and I wish this sort of thing did not happen. But it's good for all of us to understand that when these things happen there are consequences and particularly there are some consequences that we wouldn't even think of, like real estate, for example. Like real estate, for example, and in the cases of paul bernardo and willie picton, their properties were torn down and rebuilt on top of them cemented over. I think pictons is a bunch of condos and townhouses. So I mean it's unusual for the home where bloody crime took place in Canada to remain standing. And as far as I know, 62 Cozy Lane Cozy Cove Lane in Tweed, ontario, is still there. You can get Keeping it Real on Spotify or at northvanhomesalescom, slash podcasts or pretty much anywhere you get your podcasts. See you next week.