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Dark Poutine / Curiouscast

True crime, legends, folklore, dark history and other creepy topics from the perspective of real Canadians.

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Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History

Episode 425: In May 1934, five identical girls were born in a farmhouse outside Corbeil, Ontario. They were the first quintuplets known to survive infancy anywhere in the world. Within weeks, the Province of Ontario had taken them from their parents. What followed was nine years inside a government-run compound called Quintland, where millions of tourists paid to watch the Dionne sisters play through one-way glass, twice a day, while their faces sold soap, cereal, and corn syrup across North America. The girls went home in 1943. The horror of what happened next took decades to come to light.

Sources:

 
The Canadian Encyclopedia — Dionne Quintuplets | (Canadian Encyclopedia)

 
Dionne Quintuplets: The Miracle Babies | (Canadian Encyclopedia)

 
Dionne quintuplets | (Wikipedia)

 
Dionne quintuplets | Deaths, Parents, Names, & Facts | (Britannica)

 
The Birth of the Dionne Quintuplets | (Government of Canada)

 
The Dionne Quintuplets National Historic Event | (Parks Canada)

 
Dionne Quintuplets (1934—) | (Encyclopedia.com)

 
Dionne Quintuplets (b. 1934) | (Encyclopedia.com)

 
The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets by Sarah Miller (Scholastic Focus, 2017) | (Book)

 
We Were Five: The Dionne Quintuplets' Story from Birth through Girlhood to Womanhood by James Brough with Annette, Cécile, Marie, and Yvonne Dionne (1965) | (Book)

 
Family Secrets: The Dionne Quintuplets' Own Story by Jean-Yves Soucy with Annette, Cécile, and Yvonne Dionne (1997) | (Book)

 
The Dionne Years: A Thirties Melodrama by Pierre Berton (1977) | (Book)

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Lives On Display: The Dionne Quintuplets

Episode 424: Between 1928 and 1972, the Alberta government authorized the forced sterilization of nearly 3,000 Albertans deemed "unfit" to reproduce. They were told they were having their appendix removed. Many were children. Most had no idea what was being done to them. The targets were the poor, the mentally ill, Indigenous people, immigrants — anyone who didn't fit the province's vision of a productive society. This wasn't a fringe movement. It was backed by doctors, politicians, newspapers, and some of the most celebrated figures in Canadian history.

Sources:

 The Canadian Encyclopedia — Eugenics

 History of Rights Canada — Eugenics

 Prairie History Journal, University of Alberta

 Gladue / University of Saskatchewan — Eugenics Resource

 Eugenics Archive Canada — Timeline

 Eugenics Archive Canada — Our Stories

 City Museum Edmonton — Leilani Muir and Eugenics in Alberta

 National Post — When Canada Lost Its Mind Over Eugenics

 CBC News — Leilani Muir, Advocate for Alberta's Sterilization Victims, Dies

 CBC News — Cash Settlement for Sterilized Women (BC)

 Alberta Law Review — Mikkel Dack

 Toronto Sun — The Controversial Beliefs of Canada's Famous Five

 Wired — CRISPR Babies and Human Genome Editing

 Scientific American — The Dark Side of CRISPR

 NFB — The Sterilization of Leilani Muir

 
The Guardian — What Is Pronatalism?

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Unnatural Selection — The Alberta Eugenics Act

Episode 423: Francis Mawson Rattenbury designed the BC Parliament Buildings, the Empress Hotel, and the building that now houses the Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as many others. He was the most celebrated architect in the province for thirty years. In 1935, he was beaten to death in his armchair in a rented house in Bournemouth, England, by his wife Alma’s teenage lover, a chauffeur named George Percy Stoner. Both Alma Rattenbury and Stoner confessed. The trial at the Old Bailey gripped the English-speaking world. What happened after the trial was even more shocking than the murder.

Sources:Sean O'Connor, The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury (Simon & Schuster, 2019)Anthony A. Barrett & Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, Francis Rattenbury and British Columbia: Architecture and Challenge in the Imperial Age (UBC Press, 1983)Terry Reksten, Rattenbury (Sono Nis Press, 1978; revised 1998)Francis Mawson Rattenbury — Dictionary of Canadian BiographyFrancis Rattenbury — Biographical Dictionary of Architects in CanadaFrancis Rattenbury — WikipediaAlma Rattenbury — WikipediaNewspapers.com | Search: Francis Rattenbury
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The Murder of Francis Rattenbury: The Man Who Built B.C.

Episode 422: On St. Patrick's Day, 1960, five Italian immigrant construction workers — Pasquale Allegrezza, Giovanni Carriglio, Giovanni Fusillo, and brothers Alessandro and Guido Mantella — died beneath the Don River in Toronto's Hogg's Hollow neighbourhood. They were trapped in a tunnel less than two metres wide with no fire extinguishers, no hard hats, and no way out. The fire was preventable. The violations were known. A foreman had been fired for raising them. No one was ever charged. This is the story of five men whose names were nearly forgotten — and the laws that exist today because they died.

Sources:The history of the Hoggs Hollow neighbourhood in TorontoThe Hoggs Hollow Disaster | definingmomentscanada.caThe Hogg’s Hollow Disaster | Canadian Labour CongressHogg's Hollow Disaster National Historic EventHoggs Hollow | cobtrades.comRemembering the Hoggs Hollow disaster | spacing.caDisaster at Hogg’s Hollow | jamiebradburnwriting.wordpress.comThe Hogg’s Hollow Disaster | unionsong.comBreaking Ground The Hogg's Hollow Memorial 40 th Anniversary Project | costi.orgHogg's Hollow Tragedy (1960) | Toronto Workers' History ProjectBASTA! NO MORE FEAR! Remembering the Hoggs Hollow Disaster of 1960The Hogg’s Hollow Disaster of 1960 | dresden1957.comHoggs Hollow Disaster | wikipediahttps://www.newspapers.com/image/1001301968/?match=1&terms=%22Hogg%27s%20Hollow%22%20tunnelhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/950111466/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/1324439704/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/1227727450/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/1226718453/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/941541607/?match=1&clipping_id=newhttps://www.newspapers.com/image/941541580/?match=1&terms=%22Hogg%27s%20Hollow%22%20tunnel
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The Hogg’s Hollow Tunnel Disaster

Episode 421: On July 28, 1996, a fisherman hauling nets off the coast of Devon, England pulled up a body. The dead man had no wallet, no identification — nothing but a Rolex watch still ticking on his wrist. When British police traced the watch, it gave them a name: Ronald Joseph Platt, 51, of Essex.

When they went looking for him, they found him — apparently alive.

The trail led back across the Atlantic to Ayr, a small town in southwestern Ontario, where roughly seventy people had spent years trusting the wrong man with everything they had. By the time anyone understood what he'd done, he was already gone, and Ronald Platt was dead in the English Channel.

Sources:Walker, Re, 1998 CanLII 14906 (ON SC)A Hand in the Water: The Many Lies of Albert Walker — Bill Schiller (HarperCollins, 1998)Nothing Sacred: The Many Lives and Betrayals of Albert Walker — Alan Cairns (McClelland-Bantam, 1998)Walker's Trail of Pain — Maclean's (July 6, 1998)Walker Money Hunt — Maclean's (July 20, 1998)Walker Faces Daughter at First Day of Trial — CBC News (June 1998)Mysterious Mr. Walker Sentenced for Fraud — The Globe and Mail (July 2007)Fugitive Financier Sentenced to Four Years for Fraud — CBC News (July 2007)Rolex Killer Denied Day Parole from B.C. Prison — Vancouver Sun (February 2024)Albert Johnson Walker — WikipediaThe Rolex Murder — therolexmurder.com (Elaine Boyes's site)The Rolex Killer - True CrimeExplore topics about albert-johnson-walker | Crime and Investigation UK

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Ripoffs and a Rolex: The Murder of Ronald Joseph Platt

Episode 420: On the night of March 1st, 1895, in the paymaster's office of the Montreal Cotton Company in Valleyfield, Quebec, a twenty-year-old Irish immigrant named Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis shot three men — killing two of them and leaving the third for dead in the darkness of the mill floor. What followed was the longest murder trial in Canadian history, a psychiatric battle that divided the country's leading medical minds, and a political crisis that reached the cabinet of Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell and the desk of the Governor General himself. The victims were John Loy, twenty-four years old, and night watchman Maxime Leboeuf, who left behind a widow and five children. The survivor was Hugh Wilson, who carried the consequences for the rest of his life.

Sources:Valentine Shortis Case | thecanadianencyclopedia.caThe Queen vs. F.V.C. Shortis (microform)| Internet ArchiveThe Case of Valentine Shortis — University of Toronto Press / Amazon.caValentine Shortis Case — The Canadian EncyclopediaThe Canadian Trial of the Century: The Story of 'Cracked Shortis' — History IrelandThe Case of Valentine Shortis — Yesterday and Today — PubMedForensic Psychiatry in Canada — Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the LawMontreal Gazette Trial Coverage, October 25, 1895 — Newspapers.comProfile: Author-Professor Martin Friedland — Bill Gladstone GenealogyMontreal Cotton Company — History of the Mill at Valleyfield — MUSO Virtual MuseumManitoba Schools Question — Dictionary of Canadian BiographyMontreal Cotton Company Mills — Library and Archives CanadaSir Donald Macmaster, Crown Prosecutor — WikipediaJ.N. Greenshields, Lead Defence Counsel — Americana AristocracyHenri St. Pierre, Defence Counsel — 76th New York State Volunteers
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Every Dog Has Its Day : The Case of Valentine Shortis

Episode 419: On the night of October 1, 2017, a gunman opened fire on more than 22,000 concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on the Las Vegas Strip. In eleven minutes, 58 people were killed and hundreds more wounded — the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in American history. Among the dead were four Canadians: Jordan McIldoon, 23, of Maple Ridge, British Columbia; Jessica Klymchuk, 34, a mother of four and beloved school librarian and bus driver from Valleyview, Alberta; Calla Medig, 28, of Jasper, Alberta, days away from a promotion she had earned; and Tara Roe Smith, 34, of Okotoks, Alberta, who became separated from her husband in the chaos — her family spending the next day searching. At least six more Canadians were wounded. Hundreds of others came home carrying something that doesn't show up in any injury count.

Sources:LVMPD Criminal Investigative Report — October 1, 2017LVMPD Final Force Investigation Team Report (Internet Archive)FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit — Key Findings, Las Vegas Review Panel (2019)CSIS Public Report 2025 — Nihilistic Violent ExtremismWhat is Nihilistic Violent Extremism? — Global NewsJordan McIldoon — CBC NewsJessica Klymchuk — CBC NewsCalla Medig — CBC NewsTara Roe Smith — CBC News
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The 2017 Las Vegas Shooting: Canadian Connections

On June 2nd, 1983, Air Canada Flight 797 departed Dallas, Texas, bound for Montreal, Quebec, with a stop in Toronto. Forty-one passengers and five crew were on board. Shortly before 7 pm Eastern time, a fire broke out inside the rear lavatory wall and burned, hidden and undetected, for nearly fifteen minutes before anyone smelled smoke.

The crew declared an emergency and landed safely at Greater Cincinnati International Airport in Covington, Kentucky. The airplane touched down intact. Sixty to ninety seconds after the cabin doors opened, a flashfire rolled through the interior. Twenty-three passengers did not get out.Among the dead was Stan Rogers, folk musician, husband, father, born in Hamilton, Ontario. He was thirty-three years old, returning home after performing at the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas.

The investigation that followed reshaped aviation safety standards worldwide.

Sources:Air Canada Flight 797Aviation Safety Network | Transcript of Air Canada Flight 797 - 02 JUN 1983Stan Rogers | SpotifyFogarty's Cove MusicStan Rogers Folk FestivalStan Rogers intros & sings "Barrett's Privateers" in One Warm Line documentary
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Air Canada Flight 797: The Death of Stan Rogers

Episode 417: In the early hours of November 23, 2013, 18-year-old Lukas Strasser-Hird was violently beaten behind the Vinyl nightclub in Calgary, in an alley off 10th Avenue Southwest. He was rushed to the hospital, but the injuries were too severe, and he died later that morning from multiple stab wounds and massive blood loss. Walk with us through the events that led from a night out at the club to one of Calgary’s most closely watched murder cases, and examine how the chaos in that alley would ripple through the city, the courtroom, and the lives left behind.

Sources:

Lukas Strasser-Hird | Global News, Videos & ArticlesR.I.P Austin Lukas Strasser-Hird | FacebookR v Cabrera, 2019 ABCA 184 (CanLII)R v Cabrera, 2021 ABCA 291 (CanLII)R v Gervais, 2019 ABQB 344 (CanLII)R. v. Shlah, 2019 SCC 56 (CanLII), [2019] 4 SCR 136FM010_Appellant_Franz-Emir-Cabrera SCC File No.: 38677Lukas Strasser-Hird - Obituary | Calgary HeraldThe final homecoming of Lukas Strasser-Hird - National | Global News1st-degree murder conviction upheld for Calgary man in swarming death - CalgaryNathan Gervais sentenced to life with no parole for 25 years in Lukas Strasser-Hird swarming death - Calgary
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Murder Behind Vinyl: The Tragic Death of Lukas Strasser-Hird

Episode 416: Matthew Baillie Begbie (1819–1894) served as the first judge of mainland British Columbia during the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, arriving in 1858 as the colony struggled to impose order across a fast-growing and often violent region. Known to many as the “Hanging Judge,” Begbie presided over cases from Yale to Barkerville, travelling long distances to hold court in mining towns and settlements. His legacy remains contested: some describe him as a firm and capable judge working within the limits of colonial law, while others point to cases like the 1864 trials and executions of six Tsilhqot’in men following the Chilcotin War as evidence of a system that failed Indigenous people. Here, we examine Begbie’s life, his rulings, and the lasting impact of his role in shaping justice in British Columbia.

Sources:

Heritage - Tŝilhqot’in National GovernmentPrime Minister delivers a statement of exoneration for six Tsilhqot’in ChiefsChilcotin Hangings of 1864: Canada’s Colonial InjusticeB.C. redresses wrongful hangings of Tsilhqot'in war chiefsEssays in the History of Canadian Law, Volume VI: British Columbia and the Yukon - Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal HistoryBEGBIE, Sir MATTHEW BAILLIE – Dictionary of Canadian BiographyParks Canada - Begbie, Sir Matthew Baillie National Historic PersonJudge Begbie Hangs Chiefs - British Columbia - An Untold HistorySir Matthew Baillie Begbie | GraveMemoirs and Documents Relating to Judge Begbiehttps://www.lillooet.ca/sir-matthew-baillie-begbieJustin Trudeau exonerates Tsilhqot’in chiefs hanged in 1864 ‘Chilcotin War’
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The Murder of Francis Rattenbury: The Man Who Built B.C.

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