475 - My Favorite Firework

On today’s episode, Karen covers the serial homicides in and around Toronto’s Gay Village and Georgia tells the story of con artist Margaret Lydia Burton. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
That's Georgia Hartstar, that's Karen Kilgarriff, and we're doing it again.
We're podcasting again.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Yeah, can you believe it? I see you right here.
You were in their dream last night. No, not me. Yeah,
oh you had an extra dog. Is there an extra dog.

Speaker 2 (00:34):
In your life? No? Maybe you're seeing the future? What
color size, sweet.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Medium sized black dog? I can't remember the name. But
you were like watching it for now, like fostering. M
So I think you should do it.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Here's the thing. I don't like fostering, of course, because
how do you have a dog in your house that
you're treating like your own dog and then you're just
like kay bye, good buck.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
I know, but it's for the it's for the greater good.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Not my greater good. And I'm my greater good is
the only one I care about.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, we know.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah. Yeah, it's been a real burden. I didn't get
to tell you the story of when we were heading
home from Chicago and for the first well for the
almost the whole flight, so it was a four hour flight.
So for three and a half hours, I was convinced
I was sitting next to Steve O and it was

(01:28):
so exciting.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
You couldn't actually look, so you just convinced yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, So when I walked on, it was a dude
in the aisle seat with this hat pulled all the
way down, real flat build, skater boy hat, and it
was like that. So I was like, okay, famous person, whatever.
So I just slide past him and sit down. And
then of course we have to wait and wait because
there was all these crazy delays for weather. Yeah, and

(01:54):
so by the time we've taken off and I'm waiting
for that seat belt sign to go off, I have
to peece o.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
And so I was just like he clear. He was
like turned away and it was like all crunched in.
So I was like, I absolutely have to give the signal.
I'm not trying to talk to you or make small talk. Literally,
I'm not going to wait for that sign.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
To go off. I'm going to get up and go
out of my way. I've got a piss. I've been there,
I'm like.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
And I planned accordingly. I didn't choose to wait like
I was forced to wait, thank god. And I'm sorry
to say, but it just looked like a crazy old
lady came wandering up the aisle and she had the
kind of like long gray haired. I was like, oh
my god, she's going to do it first. Yes, and
she did.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Good for her.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
She did it first.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
She broke the seal for it.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
She broke the seal for all the people who had
to pee. So then she walked back and the second
she passed, I think our seats our aisle was the
last one. The second she passed, I just turned gave
full energy of like move it. And then he kind
of looked, but I wasn't trying to look in his
face because I wanted to make sure he knew I
am not trying to talk to you. And I just

(02:59):
jump up and slid past him and went to the bathroom.
And as I went in, I just looked at this
at the flight attendant, and I was like.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
It's an emergency and went in.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
And as I walk in and lock the door, they
were like, attentional passengers, stay in your store.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Just for you. It's totally just for you, they announced.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Shame to me. So then at the very end of
the flight, he stood up, opened up the overhead, looked
at me and said, do you have anything up here?
You want me to get down, And I was like, no,
because you're not STEVEO, so you can truly go to
hell forever.

Speaker 1 (03:27):
The whole time it was so exciting. It was it's weird.
I think we're all going to agree that it's weird
that you got so excited about Steo. Like I wouldn't
have pictured that as like a Karen gets excited about
celeb Really.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah, well, maybe you weren't listening all the times I
told you, but it was huge. What no, just kidding,
but I used to watch Wild Boys. Wild Boys came
on on my TV when I lived in a studio apartment.
It was broke and literally got like three channels. Somehow
I was able to watch that show. What it was

(04:02):
Steve O and Chris Pontius, I believe is how you
pronounce his last name. And they would go all around
the world and like dresses bananas and go sit near
silver backrillas, like pranks around the world.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
And pranks to themselves too.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Oh yeah, like lots of bungee jumping off of bridges
that like they're both having nervous breakdowns, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (04:23):
But like show, yes, that's amazing, And I didn't know
that congratulations.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
It is kind of funny when you sit I do
that all the time on planes thinking I recognize people
were flying out of lax. Yeah, of course, like look
around a little bit. But also when people get Heidi
like that, Yeah, why would you be doing this?

Speaker 1 (04:41):
He how is it? He probably a big xit That's
why I hide.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
He looked like a regular guy when he stood.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Up, like, come on, I mean, let's get skater.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
They're like Karen, that was George Clooney, Like, oh, I
thought it was Steve.

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I don't give a shit. I love the idea of you, like,
get out of my way, George Clooney. Steve's right there.
I gotta talk to him, get a photo.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Here's the thing. I feel like I know Steve O
better than I know George Clark. So it is that
thing of like you feel like it's the boy from
high school that got famous.

Speaker 1 (05:08):
Yeah, not just a celebrity, not the famous guy, right,
that makes sense. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Also, I tricked my dad into watching the most recent
jackass Thank you is a Jackass for the most recent,
and I thought he would make me turn it off
because of all the filth. Yeah, and we watched it
for so long before they literally showed men's genitals and
he went, all.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
Right, I turn this off. That's that's his heart out.
It's like four genital shots.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
He's like, I can't miss I would have normally been
so mad about yeah, but I think they won him
over too. Wow.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
Wow, yeah genital shots with your dad. No. I couldn't
believe it.

Speaker 2 (05:45):
I was just like, all of a sudden, it's smashed cut,
so like, here's how we're gonna up this prank. And
then I was just like, what a watch.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
That's I have turned movies off with my dad Because
of that. You both go oh no, and like both
of us turn away from the TV.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah, no, thanks, thanks dad, No thanks. I was your
flight home.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
It was uneventful, and I was so happy to be
home that Friday afternoon home thing where you're just like
I just want to sleep for the entire weekend.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
Yeah, and I did. Yeah that was great, And you
get to your justified Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Should we do highlights for our network?

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Hey, you guys, we have a podcast network. It's called
Exactly Right Media. Please follow it everywhere if you want
and can and should if you would, please, And here
are some highlights this week.

Speaker 2 (06:29):
On our weird news show Bananas, comedian Abby Gavinden joins
curtain Scottie and they cover important news of the world
like a reckless driver who was fined for not stopping
at a crosswalk for his own children, and of course,
Walgreen's shocking revelation that locking up every item in their
stores is bad for business. Who knew?

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Shocking?

Speaker 2 (06:49):
Right?

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Shocking? And then on That's Messed Up, Kara and Lisa
cover the SVU episode Exile season twenty, episode six that
covers the strange disappearance of Hannah Up and chat with
actress Amy spring Fortier, who plays two different characters on
the same episode, Wow, She's Got Rain Yes.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
And then over on our brand new true crime podcast
The Knife, They've got a new episode out today, Hannah
and Patia are sharing Tony Nova's story. Tony was newly
married and just a month into her pregnancy when her
husband became physically abusive. Today, she's bravely telling her story
in hopes of helping others find safety in similar situation.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Amazing The Knife is doing the work, They're doing it,
and Barry Bones has a big week first. The new
episode drops on Wednesday, as Kate and Paul head to
Delaware in eighteen ninety two to investigate the brutal murder
of a seventeen year old woman. Then, on Friday, four
pm Pacific joined Kate and Paul for the premiere of
their very first video episode. It's at YouTube dot com

(07:46):
slash exactly right Media. They'll be in the comments, live answering,
listening to your questions. You get to see their beautiful
faces talking about awesome stuff. Please go and check that out.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yes, Kate and Paul on video, can't miss.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
What more do you want?

Speaker 2 (08:00):
And finally, we have a personal question for you listener.
Have you checked out our merch lately? There's something for everyone,
but especially there's stuff now for our Day one listeners.
Look very small, but here it is the Day one
listener pin.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
It's a little blue ribbon pin it.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yes, you've been telling everyone you're you've been here since
the beginning, so now you can brag about it in
pin form.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
Yeah. And also we're not going to check your work.
If you are a Day thirty seven listener or Day
two hundred listener, you can still wear this beautiful pin.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
I feel like we are. Yeah, we've had to listen
to this shit the whole time.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
Well, we'll wear it, all right, you're first.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Let's do the thing that is the thing we're supposed
to do.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Let's do it. Let's do the thing they've been fast
forwarding to for the past two minutes.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
All right, this is a story that got suggested to
me and I said, I'm positive I've covered that before.
And then Maren looked it all up and was like,
you've talked about it before, you have not covered it.
And the reason I thought I covered it is because
I listened to and then recommended and talked about a
lot a podcast by the CBC called The Village. It's

(09:12):
a limited series podcast that is such an incredible deep dive.
Journalist Justin Ling did it and it is such a
good podcast. It's heavily sighted in this So that's why
it was so familiar to me. But now I'm going
to tell it to you myself, okay. So it starts
in January of twenty eighteen in Toronto, Canada, in and

(09:32):
around the city's LGBTQ plus district. You know, that area
is known as the Church and Wellesley neighborhood, also known
as Toronto's Gay Village. Over the past ten years, eight
men with connections to the queer community have simply vanished
from the city, and for all those years, their loved
ones have been waiting for answers. Now, in the morning

(09:53):
of January eighteenth, twenty eighteen, just before ten thirty am,
a team of officers storms a Toronto apart and arrests
the homeowner. He's been the target of their investigation in
these disappearances for weeks, and he's been under twenty four
hour surveillance. Soon the investigator's suspicions about this man will
be confirmed. He is, in fact a serial killer who

(10:14):
has been hiding in plain sight all this time. Today,
I'm going to tell you the story of Toronto's Gay
Village murders.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Wow, yeah, we've never covered this, right. I think a
lot of it was playing out over the past few
years and we've been like probably waiting to see the
results of it too before we covered it.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Right. The trial I think is twenty nineteen and goes
into twenty twenty. It's recent in terms of our COVID
brains of like, yes, we wouldn't have talked about it then.
And then I think, listening to this podcast, the village
is just like, oh, I know this story. Then it
becomes like, well, I know the story the way I
would if I had told it, and that's when the
lies begin. The rest of our sources are in our

(10:55):
show notes if you want to go read those. So
I'm going to start in the nineteen seventies, before the
Gay Village exists. Back then, Toronto's queer scene was centered
around what they called Gay Strip, which is a cluster
of dive bars on the same street. This is just
after Canada decriminalizes sex between consenting adults of the same sex.

(11:17):
That happened in nineteen sixty nine. Now the Gay Strip
is the hub for the city's queer community. Unsurprisingly, local
bigots come out in full force against the Gay Strip
and its patrons. They hurl slurs, eggs, and rocks at them,
and sometimes it escalates into physical beatings, but the police
do not intervene. In fact, Toronto police refuse to meet

(11:40):
with members of the queer community to discuss safety. As
York University historian doctor Tom Hooper tells CBC's The Fifth
Estate Quote, when a gay person is a victim of
a crime, they expect the police to pay attention. That
was not happening in the nineteen seventies, But on the
flip side, when it came to lesser crimes like, for example, jaywalking,
the police were hyper sensitive to the gay community, so

(12:02):
the police paid close attention to enforcing the law, but
not to protecting the community from threats end quote. So then,
between nineteen seventy five and nineteen seventy eight, a span
of just three years, the bodies of fourteen men are
found strangled, stabbed to death, or both, and only about
half of those cases are solved.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
Jesus, how long is that between when three years?

Speaker 2 (12:25):
So seventy five to seventy eight. It's clearly a pressing
matter of public safety, but the police seemed a very
little interest in solving those remaining homicide cases. And on
top of that lack of urgency, there's also an issue
with finding witnesses who can help push the investigations forward, because,
of course, it's a time when anti gay discrimination is rampant,

(12:46):
so many people don't feel like they can safely speak
up because that would mean outing themselves, not to mention,
coming forward would require working with a police force that
has been at best indifferent and at worst overtly hostile.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
Towards the gate community. Yeah, you'd like get on their
radar then, right, and that's a dangerous place to be.

Speaker 2 (13:04):
Yeah, it's like just a problem of any marginalized group
of people where it's like all the people that the
police work fine for, which is basically rich white people.
Go well, then go tell the police.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Yeah, why didn't speak up? Right? Why didn't you? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yes. So then in nineteen eighty one, tensions between Toronto's
queer community and the police hid an all time high
during what are now the infamous Bathhouse Raids, when more
than one hundred and fifty police officers sweep four of
the city's bathhouses, sometimes using crowbars to violently open private
rooms and lockers, and arrest employees and nearly three hundred patrons,

(13:42):
who they then charge with gross indecency or minor drug offenses.
So the backlash to the bathhouse raids is swift. Over
three thousand people take to the streets protesting police brutality
and discrimination, and those protests are sometimes talked about like
the Canadian counterpart to stonewall in America in New York City.

(14:04):
The fallout in Toronto is that many people in their
queer community remain deeply skeptical of law enforcement. So now
we're going to jump ahead thirty years. It's twenty ten
and nobody has heard from forty year old Scanda Navaratnum
for days. Skanda has first moved to Canada in the

(14:24):
nineties as a refugee from Sri Lanka. His loved ones
describe him as a charismatic, fun and excellent friend who,
wherever he goes, is always making more friends. People are
drawn to his infectious personality, but him not being heard
from for days is extremely out of character, so people
are worried. Lately, Scanda has been very excited about his

(14:45):
new husky puppy, who he brings everywhere, so when his
friends find the puppy at home in Skanda's apartment was
no food or water, they know something is terribly wrong.
So that's when Scanda's reported missing. That same year, a
man in his early forties named Bezir Fasy is also
reported missing. He's a native of Afghanistan. He's a beloved

(15:09):
father who works hard for his family, and Bessier comes
from a culturally conservative background. He was not out to
his family. Shortly before vanishing, he called his wife at
the end of his work day told her he had
plans with coworkers, but then he actually drove to a
bar in the village called the Black Eagle. So when
Besier's car is found abandoned on a residential street about

(15:30):
ten minutes away from the village a few days later,
the police and his family are baffled. All of this
is forty five minutes away from Besier's home, so they
don't know why it would be there. Two years later,
in twenty twelve, the same story plays out again when
fifty eight year old Majid Khayan, who goes by the
name Hahmid, disappears. Hamid is also from Afghanistan and he

(15:54):
hasn't come out to his family either. He's living in
an apartment near church in Wellesley and he has many
dear friends in the area. They will all later comment
on his deep love for Bollywood films and their music,
which is just like, I don't know why that got
me when I was reading this research of the most lively, enlivening,

(16:15):
like positive fun at the end of a Bollywood movie
when they do the dance number and everyone does it.
It's like that idea that this was his favorite thing
is like you can kind of imagine that type of personality.
So it doesn't take long for members of Toronto's queer
community to connect the dots here. These three missing person
cases all involved men who fall in the same general

(16:36):
age range, have emigrated to Canada from socially conservative Asian
nations and have spent time in the Gay Village. An
advocate and member of Toronto's queer community, Mita Hans tells
journalists justin Lane quote, everybody who saw the missing posters
brought up the words serial killer. This is not chance,

(16:56):
This is not a lover's quarrel gone awry. This is
a pattern. This is a definitive pattern. And Mita Hans
is a big part of the Village podcast. She's in
it the whole time. She's amazing. So of course, the
initial police response to these three disappearances is, in a word, baffling,

(17:17):
not all bad. For example, a close friend of Hamid's
named Kyle Andrews goes to the police and he's relieved
to discover the detective that is handling the case seems
both non judgmental and interested in the information he's giving,
so Kyle shares as much as he possibly can. He
mentions that Hamid has been dating a guy named Bruce,

(17:38):
but he doesn't know the man all that well. Kyle
is surprised when the detective follows up about Bruce. Then
Kyle gets the sense the police are, for whatever reason,
interested in knowing more about him specifically. But here's where
the baffling part comes in. Kyle eventually learns that Bruce,
whose full name is Bruce MacArthur, actually has connections to

(17:59):
Bossconda and Bessier, which means he knows all three of
the missing men. The police learn this when they search
all of the missing men's dating profiles and find Bruce's
dating profile in connection with theirs. And Bruce's profile is
pretty unremarkable. He's a landscaper in his early sixties. He

(18:20):
looks so much like Santa Claus that he actually works
as Santa Claus at a local mall during the holiday season. Meanwhile,
he writes on his own profile quote, I can be
a bit shy until I get to know you, but
am a romantic at heart. Police interview this Bruce MacArthur
as part of the investigation, but for whatever reason, they

(18:41):
treat him more like a witness than a suspect. In general,
police are rejecting the idea that a serial killer could
be behind these disappearances. In fact, they release a statement
saying that they've quote not found any evidence to say
that any of the missing men mentioned above knew each other.
The only information between all three that is similar is

(19:01):
that they all like to attend similar bars, especially the
Black Eagle. So the police investigation loses momentum. The cases stall.
Detectives seem to accept the explanation that Hamid, Pasir, and
Skanda all decided to leave Toronto on their own. Of course,
that explanation doesn't make sense to the people who know
these men, including their friends in the queer community, who've

(19:24):
experienced the police's disinterest, discrimination and hostility. Mita Hans says,
quote Initially, I think the tones were very civil, asking
for help, asking for acknowledgment, asking for a spotlight to
be shown on this, because obviously there's something going on.
But when that didn't happen, I think the tone became
more urgent, more animated, and finally the tone became very angry.

(19:46):
Why are you not listening? If we see this is happening,
if everybody we know sees this is happening, how can
you not see this end quote. So now it's twenty fifteen.
Skanda and Basier have been missing for five years, and
Hamid has been missing for three. And then in August
of twenty fifteen, fifty year old Saruche Mahmoudi disappears. He's

(20:09):
come to Canada from Iran and he's reported missing by
his wife, who's worried sick. The two have a loving
relationship and she speaks publicly about his beautiful smile and
his good heart. Like Basir, Hamid and Skanda, Sirush comes
from a socially conservative culture. His family members, including his wife,
don't know that he spends time in the Church and

(20:31):
Wellesley neighborhood, and because of that, investigators don't initially connect
him with these other missing men. And then thirty seven
year old Krishna Kumar Khanagaratnum disappears around the same time.
He is also not connected to the other missing person
cases because he has no clear ties to Toronto's Gay Village,

(20:52):
and police have investigated he still has none to this day.
Krishna has been in Canada since twenty ten. Arrived is
a refugee from Sri Lanka after a dangerous one hundred
day journey on a boat from his war torn native country,
but because his refugee claim is denied when he gets
to Canada. When he falls out of contact, his family

(21:15):
thinks he's laying low to avoid being deported, and he
ends up having to live on the street like he's
really in a bad position when his refugee claim is denied. Then,
in twenty sixteen, a forty seven year old man named
Dean Lissiwick disappears. He's never reported missing to the police.
Dean is white, he was born in Canada. He's a

(21:37):
familiar face in the Church and Wellesley neighborhood. Justin Ling
reports the quote, everyone remembers him as an incredibly nice
guy who had fallen on hard times. Dean is often
seen panhandling in the area and sometimes he engages in
sex work. He's last been seen in a nearby homeless shelter. Then,
in twenty seventeen, forty four year old Salim Essen goes missing.

(22:00):
Selene has moved to Canada from Turkey in twenty thirteen.
Things haven't always been easy for him. He's previously struggled
with addiction, but his friends say that life for him
lately had been good and they he'd turning things around.
So when friends suddenly stop hearing from Seleem, he is
reported missing to police, and he's last seen at his

(22:21):
own home near the Gay Village. His brothers will later
release a statement about him, saying, quote, he was very friendly,
kind hearted, open, independent minded and curious, passionate about learning
new things, gardening, exploring new places and meeting new people.
His tender and kind humanity came before everything else. So

(22:41):
then in July of the same year, after the end
of all the Pride celebrations, a forty nine year old
man named Andrew Kinsman vanishes. Andrew, who's like Dean White
and born in Canada, is very active in Toronto's queer community.
He's described by loved ones as quote an extraordinary, quirky
and caring individual. So unlike the last three disappearances, Andrew

(23:05):
and Salim's cases are soon linked to the twenty ten
and twenty twelve disappearances in the Gay Village, and this
reignites the queer community's suspicion that there is a serial
killer targeting the area, and finally the police start listening.
They launch a task force known as Project Prism aimed
at solving these active cases. But by this point, Toronto's

(23:27):
queer community has been trying to ring the alarm belt
for so long about these missing men, they have real
reason to worry that the police are going to let
these cases go cold again. As prominent Church and Wellesley
community member an advocate Nikki Ward puts it, quote, the
anger was palpable. But then summer turns to fall, turns
to winter, the media moves on. Some missing posters stay

(23:50):
up and you still see their faces around the city.
But the feeling sets into the community that these cases
would go unsolved, just like the others. But then fortunately
there's a break in the case. As investigators are looking
into Andrew Kinsman's case, they find a handwritten name in
Andrew's calendar, and that name is Bruce. That's how they

(24:12):
learned that Andrew also knew Bruce MacArthur, the sixty six
year old Santa claus landscaper who was treated like a
witness back in twenty twelve. So finally, five years after
they first connect him to the three other missing men,
investigators finally take a look at Bruce MacArthur. They discreetly
put him under twenty four hour surveillance, and when they do,

(24:33):
detectives follow him to a Toronto property belonging to one
of his landscaping clients. And that property is not far
from where Bezier's car was abandoned back in twenty twelve.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
I just realized how sinister landscaping is in.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
This Yeah, oh, my god, really bad. So now it's
September of twenty seventeen. Bruce MacArthur is under surveillance and
investigators watch as he sells the van he owns to
an auto parts shop. They go in basically right after
seize the vehicle without Bruce knowing, and when the forensic
team gets in there, they find traces of blood inside,

(25:10):
and when the DNA testing comes back, it confirms that
the blood belongs to both Selene Essem and Andrew Kinsman
my god. So now investigators are able to get a
warrant to search Bruce's house and they do secretly without
him knowing. And when they do that, they find a
hard drive. And when they open the hard drive, there's

(25:31):
a bunch of different folders and eight of those folders
are titled with the names of the missing men. Holy shit,
And inside those folders are photos of the missing men,
some of them clearly taken after they had been murdered.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Can you imagine being the forensic investigator seeing those names
and they're being like, I know what's going to happen
when they open these.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
And there's a ninth folder of a name of a
person they don't recognize. Holy shit, no one's been reported missing.
They cross check it, and now they realize there's a
victim out there. So in January twenty eighteen, the police
raide Bruce MacArthur's apartment just in the nick of time.

(26:14):
Inside the apartment, they find a man tied to Bruce's bed. No, luckily,
he is physically unharmed. At that point, the police have
probably just saved his life because when they interview him
they learn this is the man whose name is the
title of that ninth folder.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Oh my god, it's like a fucking movie.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
It's a horrible movie. And so police arrests Bruce MacArthur
for the murders of Salem ESM and Andrew Kinsman. So
Bruce MacArthur, just to get a little background on him
for context, he's born in a small farming village in
nineteen fifty one. He comes from a quote good family

(26:53):
his high school yearbook notes that his ambition is to
quote be successful, Okay, go for it. After graduating, Bruce
gets married, has two children with his wife, and becomes
very involved in his church. In the seventies, he gets
a job at a department store in downtown Toronto, and
that department store is just steps away from what then

(27:14):
was known as the Gay Strip, and that's exactly around
the same time those unsolved murders start taking place. Eventually,
Bruce gets a different job, and that job is as
a traveling salesman.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Oh No.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Later he starts doing landscaping work, and in doing landscaping work,
he builds up an impressive clientele. He seems to have
a charmed life. He's a family man. He donates to charity,
he stays active in his church, puts on a Santa
suit at the local mall at Christmas time. People like him,
so eventually Bruce divorces his wife and begins to live

(27:49):
as an openly gay man. But then a darker picture
begins to surface. Bruce's son will later claim that he
was abusive. Men who encounter Bruce in Toronto's gay community
describe him as being very controlling and aggressive and then
in two thousand and one, Bruce is arrested after beating
a man he's presumably about to have sex with with

(28:10):
a metal pipe until he is unconscious. Bruce turns himself
in the next day and because of that is able
to avoid jail time, but he's banned from the gay
village for the length of his probation, and then he
has to take anger management classes. Once probation ends, Bruce
starts hanging out in the area again, and even worse,

(28:32):
I would say, becomes active on gay dating sites nikes.
So after Bruce MacArthur's arrest in twenty eighteen, police search
for and find the dismembered remains of the eight missing men.
Their bodies have been hidden on the various Toronto properties
that Bruce is a landscaper for.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
Imagine being one of those people who live with the property.
So just like you're reading the newspaper in the morning
and then like you look at your backyard and you're
just like, oh fuck.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
For years and years here, missing people have been hidden
on a lot of them were the body parts were
put in these really large stone planters.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
Oh my god, oh my god. Yeah, it's like because
also like the smell would be you could explain away
the smell really easily manure or whatever, like, you know
it's going to smell for a few days.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
Right, But that is just so creepy. Yeah, so creepy,
so creepy. So the case against Bruce MacArthur is overwhelming.
Investigators collect more than eighteen thousand pieces of evidence, including
clippings of the victim's hair that Bruce was keeping, presumably
as trophies. He ultimately pleads guilty to eight counts of

(29:47):
first degree murder. Then in February of twenty nineteen, he
is sentenced to life in prison with no chance of
parole for twenty five years, which is the way they
do it in Canada. He will almost certainly spend the
rest of his life behind bars. But even with this sentencing,
there are many people who worry this story is not
over because the idea that Bruce MacArthur started killing when

(30:08):
he was in his sixties is hard to believe.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Right, Well, he didn't, right, the set nineteen seventies ones
are from him.

Speaker 2 (30:14):
We don't know that, Okay, it sound proven. It's just
circumstantial that he was basically around the corner when all
that started. But that's just it is. If they keep
on going like he was a traveling salesman, that's horrifying.
And so is there somebody that's actually going to sit
down now that he's in jail. Will someone sit down
and actually map out where he was and if they

(30:36):
were missing people and totally maybe some podcaster of the
future that reminds me of true crime bullshit, Oh my god,
where he's just like mapping the Israel Keys disappearances.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
Or Payne Lindsay, get on that.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Right, So far, there's no confirmed links the composite sketches
of the potential suspect from the seventies. You know, you
could say, doesn't look like him, but he looks like
Santa Claus now, right, So what did he look like
in the seventies? Actually have a picture that would the
positive sketch one of the composite sketches itself is very scary.

Speaker 1 (31:09):
You also don't know if the composite sketch is of
the actual perpetrator or just someone saw at the same
time in the same place, right, doesn't like, you didn't
see him getting murdered by this perpetrator. You saw this
random person around there at the same time. So it
doesn't necessarily mean that's what the killer looked like. Yeah,

(31:30):
you know, totally like Unibomer. It's the same thing, like
that creepy sketch with the hoodie in the glasses. That's
not him, that's someone else completely.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
That's the base player of a yacht rock band. Clearly,
so police have never shared or found any physical evidence
connecting him to those cases. But there's another reason why
for many people the case doesn't feel fully resolved, and
that's because of how the police handled it for so long.
The lives of the victims matter just as much as

(31:58):
any other person in any other neighbor Toronto. And again,
those victims' names are Skanda Navaratnam, Basser Fazi, Majid Khayan,
Sarushma Moodi, Karreshna Kumar, Kana Garatnam, Dean Lizawick, sealim Essen,
and Andrew Kinsman. And we'll finish the story with another

(32:21):
quote from activist Nikki Ward, who said, quote, Bruce MacArthur
picked people he thought he could get away with killing
because they were immigrants, people of color, maybe closeted, maybe homeless.
That's the common thread tying these men together. And to
learn that he was someone walking among us. A wolf
in sheep's clothing was sadly not surprising. I take exception

(32:43):
to the phrase he was one of our own, because
he most definitely was not. And that's the story of
Toronto's gay village murders.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Wow, I'm so glad you cover that.

Speaker 2 (32:55):
I could have sworn I did.

Speaker 1 (32:56):
Did you do it when we were in Toronto? I
don't think so. Great job, thank you, that was amazing.
I do think that we should be able to do
stories that we did live that never got aired on
the podcast, now you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (33:10):
I know, but I think there's only like three.

Speaker 1 (33:12):
That we didn't ever air.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah. Remember remember remember back in the days, like pre
COVID days, when we get down to it, we'd be like, no,
that one's really bad. This audio is bad. Yeah, we'd
be like, we don't care, we don't. We just want
to put something up there.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Do you even post the how's the audio from fucking
how's the des Moines audio? Not great? Put it up?
Put it up?

Speaker 2 (33:29):
We don't care.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
I can't do it this week. This week, my brain
is fucking broken. We're like getting into COVID, put up
a fucking live episode and then we just have a
week off and it would just be lovely and beautiful.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
It was just like in that second apartment. Things got
real fucking intense in the loft. In the loft, it
was like for me, it felt like it was all
going up like this, but nothing else was coming back down. Yeah,
it was like me working multiple jobs and trying to
do it. It was all very intense.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Are not good in that period, we just be like Stephen,
fix it for Stephen, Steven, love him, great job. Thank
You're going to go in a totally different direction as
we are, wont to do good, good good. I think
you're gonna like this one. Okay, I'm going to tell
you about what some people called a grifter, but some

(34:21):
people called an international adventurer. Okay, good spin on it
from the nineteen fifties who caused an uproar in Atlanta
society and sent shockwaves throughout the pedigree cocker spaniel community.
Your favorite. I should have heard about this already. Well, Okay,
this is the story of someone we're going to call
for now, Janet, Janet jenn It. The main sources for

(34:46):
the story are a book called Confident Women, Swindler's grifters
and shape shifters of the Feminine Persuasion. Yes, read that
by Tory Telfer and reporting from the Tulsa World, your
favorite paper.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
It's a good one.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
The rest of the sources can be found in the
show notes.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Definitely reading that book for sure, Yeah you should.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
All right, So here we are. It's nineteen fifty four.
We're in Decatur, Georgia. It's an Atlanta suburb that borders
the city limits, so it's kind of small towny still.
And then a glamorous, somewhat mysterious, middle aged woman has
just moved into town with her fifteen year old niece.
The woman introduces herself to the neighbors as Janet Gray
and says that the teen is Candace Victoria Lane, her niece,

(35:26):
who goes by Candy. So her name is Candy Lane.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Which is our purpose. Yeah, okay, he's her middle name, Cain,
because what are we doing?

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Janet says she's from Washington, d c. And the circumstances
that have brought her to Atlanta are absolutely tragic. She's
just lost her husband, but the details are kind of vague.
Janet lost a child at birth, she said, and then
two weeks after her husband's said in death, her last
remaining child was hit by a school bus and killed.
That's her horror story. Don't get upset. Okay, it's not true.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Great, it doesn't feel very true.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
It's not. But she comes with this sob story. Sure
why she's here? And hey, why I have a lot
of fucking money too. Oh So Janet and Candy settle
right into the new neighborhood. While actually Janet settles in.
Candy starts at a local, prestigious high school, but she
has trouble making friends, and she's frequently out of school
due to poor health. She's just not getting into the

(36:21):
high school spirit and not being accepted Candy Lane. Yeah. Also,
everyone thinks it's weird that Candy, who is fifteen years old,
looks way older than that. She's called quote built like
Marilyn Monroe. Oh, like the word buxhom is thrown around
a lot. So they're like, this isn't a fifteen year
old girl. Okay, right, something's fishy. But so nineteen fifties

(36:42):
people believe what you tell them.

Speaker 2 (36:43):
They just are reading the one newspaper, right And.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
Yeah, yeah, it's like simpler time.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
You haven't heard about all the crazy people in the
world the way we get to these.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Days, right exactly, and that's why you listen to this podcast.
So meanwhile, it she appears to be thriving. She buys
a big house in an upscale neighborhood, hires contractors to
put in a big pool in the backyard, as well
as a big kennel, because it turns out that one
of Janet's big passions, like yours, is cocker stocker spaniels

(37:15):
always right, yeah, have you ever met one? I've never
met a cocker spaniel little thing?

Speaker 2 (37:18):
Are they the ones that are kind of brown and
long ear sloppy ears?

Speaker 1 (37:22):
Yeah, like blondish with like like curly or like wavy
kind of yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:26):
I feel like that was a standard dog that around here.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
Who's holding it like a show dog?

Speaker 2 (37:30):
Yep?

Speaker 1 (37:31):
This is tail up, head up.

Speaker 2 (37:33):
Yeah, yeah, I think I've met a couple. But my
aunt Jean next door, they had Springer Spanish. Oh okay,
Nellie was their dog, and I think she was She
may have been a breed dog in some way, because
that's what like farm people do that sometimes, or they're like, yeah,
when they have puppies, we sell.

Speaker 1 (37:50):
Them right totally. Yeah, I don't know the personality. I'm
assuming that they're I don't know why hatty. That's just
like my take on looking at them. But cocker spaniel, Yeah,
who knows. Maybe it's because they're show dogs, and I'm
just like.

Speaker 2 (38:02):
They're like princess, yeah, PRINCESSI yeah, yeah, that feels right.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
And so in a very short time while she's living Indicator,
she acquires between thirty and fifty of them, some of
which have won big prizes at dog shows. Okay, so
these are like she's like a show dog lady collector collector.
Thirty to fifty dogs, no, thank you, and her neighbors
hated her and you know it just up with the dog.

(38:26):
One starts barking, Oh my god, yeah, like no, you
can't do.

Speaker 2 (38:32):
That, sorry, And just a regular neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
I think it was a well to do neighborhood where
there's probably lots of like land, I would hope. So, yeah,
they like built the pool in the backyard. They built,
but it wasn't like you know, country side. It was
like a neighborhood, a well to do neighborhood. Thirty dogs,
thirty to fifty dogs, fifty dogs. Put fifty dogs in
this room right now. Yeah, you can't, can tell you.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
I start screaming, please don't.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
It's too many. I mean I love dogs, but like
ten ty.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
To fifty of anything well imagined, like thirty to fifty
the Snickers bars. I'd be like, this is crazy.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
I do cats. I would do cats. I would do cats.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
You're getting there.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
I'd take they take them. There's so much more like manageable,
and they don't bark.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
You're like, can I get a slightly smaller home for
these cats? I really want to feel all of those.

Speaker 1 (39:16):
Okay. So one of her dogs is named Capital Gain
and it actually wins its division at a dog show
in South Carolina nineteen fifty six, and she also acquires
a famous Cocker Spaniel named Rise and Shine. I guess
they're like racehorses where they have weirdness names. Yeah, yeah,
who won the Westminster Dog Show. Holy, it was still
a thing back then. Yep.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
It still is a thing in our family.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah. You put it on immediately.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Isn't it like Thanksgiving Day? I feel like there's a
holiday we watch its puppy bowls.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
You're thinking of the Super Bowl on Thanksgiving? Right?

Speaker 2 (39:50):
Yep? Every year?

Speaker 1 (39:51):
So Janet quickly ingratiates herself into Atlanta society. She is
very glamorous. She's like older lady, but that just means,
you know, like bigger jewelry. No, just like the age
thing is like an old lady is in her fifties,
then like it's not, but she acts like an older lady.
But she is very like refined. She has a closet
full of beautiful dresses and furs and hats, and her

(40:15):
home is immaculately furnished. It's like gorgeous.

Speaker 2 (40:18):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (40:18):
She's known around town as a very generous tipper, which
we love. We got served by a murderino. What We
got served by a murderino at this restaurant called La
Supreme when we were Vincent and I were in Detroit
last week. I think her name is Marie, and she
was so wonderful and like gave us, like you know,
after dinner drinks and dessert and was just so nice.
And then I was like, Vince, what if we don't

(40:39):
tip her? Wouldn't that be funny? I was totally kidding,
but like obviously, but like, how what a great way
to ruin everything? Just that not tip?

Speaker 2 (40:48):
She's just being super cool and then you're just the
tip is a weird Bible quote. Yeah, just like buy Marie.

Speaker 1 (40:54):
Funny with that. I mean not at all. We obviously
never yeah, but no, just kind of like what if.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Wait, that reminds me of walking down Michigan Avenue. No,
I think we're on Whacker or something. But when we
passed Meghan, who saw you first as we were walking
and said, hi, Chicago in Chicago.

Speaker 1 (41:11):
Listening to our podcast. As she walked by.

Speaker 2 (41:12):
Us listening to the podcast and then walked in, I
was like ten steps behind it, and I turned on her.

Speaker 1 (41:18):
She looked at me. She's like, oh my god. And
then I pointed back to you, and that one's here too.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
She's like and by the time she got up to me,
it kind of looked like she was crying, but it
was so cold that it could have just been that.
But she just pulled on an ear pod out and
was just like, I'm listening to you now, and I'm like,
must be so weird.

Speaker 1 (41:35):
What a trip.

Speaker 2 (41:36):
Sorry to fuck with you, Megan.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
It's the Matrix, and she's also one of the best
customers at the local dressmaker. Obviously, she's highly recognizable around
town because she drives a bright pink Lincoln.

Speaker 2 (41:47):
There's like a scammer thing where they're basically like all
eyes on me, And then I think the the like
logic of the people around was like it couldn't be them,
they wouldn't draw as much attention themselves.

Speaker 1 (41:59):
Right, and like everyone else loves her and is around
her all the time. Yeah, it's like a chameleon kind
of thing. No one knows exactly the source of her wealth,
but everyone assumes that her dad husband had a lot
of money. People also vaguely allude to her coming from
a family of money, and so they think that she's
the daughter of a high ranking military officer. I'm sure
she's like planted little seeds here and there. So it's

(42:20):
kind of a surprise when Janet gets a job as
a bookkeeper at a local doctor's office, indicatur because why
would she need a job if she's rich, But people
assume that she likes to keep herself busy. She works
there about three and a half years, and life seems
to continue on normally. This all comes to a grinding
halt at the end of July nineteen fifty seven, when
Janet's bosses from the doctor's clinic where she works. Give

(42:43):
her a recall. They said they'd hired an auditor to
go over the books because something seemed fishy, and the
otditor had found that about one hundred thousand dollars appeared
to be unaccounted for in today's money what they called
ring ring ring nowadays. And they're like, hey, we got audited.
Here's how much is missing. Like what would a lot
of fucking money be?

Speaker 2 (43:04):
Well, it's the fifties, huh, So that's like I was
just gonna say, one hundred years ago, like a million
and a half a million.

Speaker 1 (43:14):
Good job, fuck, But imagine being like, hey, we're a
mill short on the till. Yeah, and you're the person
who's in charge.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
Of all of it, and you're the one with a
big pencil.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
Yeah, can you come in? They're like can you come
in and like explain this? And she's like absolutely, Like
I'll be in on Monday, Like don't even worry about it,
and I'm sure it's not a big deal, you know,
And they're like okay, good because they like love her
and trust her. And also the one hundred thousand dollars
number goes up like later, so that's just like kind

(43:44):
of a starting warning point. Yeah, but as soon as
she hangs up the phone, she springs into action. She
rents three moving vans and hires a hand newman to
come help her move out. Two vans are filled with
furniture and clothing and one is filled with about forty
cocker Spanha. No, yeah, into the truck, guys, up the

(44:04):
little ramp.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
Was there any cushions in there or anything for you?

Speaker 1 (44:08):
And she finds homes for a few other dogs, and
also the number of cocker spaniels is sometimes changes as well. Yeah.
The next morning, she and her quote niece get into
the pink Lincoln with three moving vans following behind, and
they skid adle out of town. But they do.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
Now, can I just say this, maybe we've all learned
this up until this point or since that time. If
you're gonna call and say, hey, we've noticed some questions
in the books, do you mind coming in on Monday?
You're calling from the car outside their house, right, so
that you can see if that's what they're about to do.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
Right, and then that's how you know, yeah, totally.

Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
So they didn't have car phones back then, did they.

Speaker 2 (44:48):
They had their hands, they could have very easily.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
They had a banana they could hold up as a phone,
didn't they? All Right, here's the truth. Janet's real name
is Margaret Lydia Burton, although her maiden name is McGlashan
like hey. Margaret is born in nineteen oh six in
tai Jin, China, born to British well to do parents.
Margaret's father dies when she's about eleven, and the family

(45:12):
moves first to England and then to Canada. By the
time she's twenty eight, Margaret is living in Panama and
manages a rug importing company sure, which has ties to
part of China where she grew up. So then she
marries an American named Jasper Burton and in the nineteen
thirties they have a baby girl named Sheila. Sheila, it
turns out, is the real identity of her niece, Candy Cane.

(45:35):
It's his daughter not in high school, who is twenty
years old. So they were not wrong.

Speaker 2 (45:42):
Okay, we will we hear more about that later kind
of why we'll talk about it.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Okay, we'll hear her eze. Okay, we're really good at that.
So it's not clear why Sheila had to pretend to
be younger and a niece maybe like she was vain
and didn't want to seem like an elderly mother with
a twenty I don't know, it's just there's no reasoning
that I can understand from them, Okay, But it's thought
that maybe Margaret wanted to protect her daughter from being
culpable for any embezzlement. So that's the positive one. The

(46:11):
negative could be whatever, you know what I mean. Yeah,
So the first known case of that kind of embezzlement
crops up in nineteen thirty nine, and by that point,
the rug company has transferred Margaret to Honolulu. Margaret and
Jasper separate when Sheila is about two years old and
he stays behind in Panama. Margaret's boss is realized she's
been stealing money from the company, but before her case
goes to court, Margaret and her baby daughter's good at all.

(46:35):
There's a theme to Los Angeles for her mother and
brother live. They are the laped arrests her for the
Honolulu embezzlement case, but the governor of California for some reason,
declines to extradite her to Hawaii. So shortly after this
and I wrote Warnington Nittarino's Margaret collects investments from Los
Angeles knitting enthusiasts, saying that she's planning to open up

(46:55):
a yarn shop. Oh, that's her scheme. Instead, she makes
off with close to ten dollars, which is one hundred
and thirteen thousand in today's money. And it's at this
point that Margaret starts using aliases for herself and her daughter.
By the time she's caught, she has about twenty two
different identities. Yeah, a lot. It's easy to do back then. Yeah.

(47:17):
Margaret and Sheila eventually end up in San Antonio, and
it's here that Margaret gets a job at a dog
kennel and discovers her passion for Cocker spaniel.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
I mean, can you imagine the first day she walked
into that kennel and sudden she's like, I gotta get
fifty of these.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Yesterday I did fifty chihuaas she had fallen in love
with jihaha's and said, there's so many dogs.

Speaker 2 (47:35):
I wouldn't want fifty of I do fifty juaa's.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
Yeah, I do fifty jooa.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
I do fifty terriers like Frank and bless them. I
like that kind of dog.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Maybe it's because cookies at jiuha, I mean like definitely.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
Yeah, our dogs have done a good job representing themselves
and their breeds to us.

Speaker 1 (47:51):
Hey what they've been doctrinated us into.

Speaker 2 (47:54):
Yeah, I'm over true believer, but there's some dogs where
I'm just like never.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
Yeah. So she starts using some of her ill gotten
money to buy show dogs. They cost thousands of dollars.
There's also reports that she steals some dogs from other owners. Yeah,
you knowin there's not a lot of information about how
many dogs were stolen and how she would have done
this because their show dogs, so they're kind of shuffled
around a bit, like no one knows who the actual owner,

(48:20):
who the breeder, who the trainer is. So then, throughout
the forties and early fifties, Margaret and Sheila bounce around
all over town, New Orleans, Denver, Saint Louis, Norfolk, Virginia.
In each place, Margaret gets a new job, often as
a bookkeeper in a doctor's office. And when patients come
in and back then they paid with mostly cash, right,
lots of cash like flowing. She's like, yeah, Margaret pockets

(48:45):
a lot of it. And when she gets caught or
close to being caught, she and Sheila skid at all. Good.

Speaker 2 (48:52):
Yeah, what a way to live. Yeah, as my dad
said to me once, there's some people that can't keep
their hands up the till. And at the time, I
had been stealing twenty dollars a week from the job
I was at so I could buy beer. Oh no,
I'd only done it twice. Yeah, And then I was like,
oh no, and I never did it again because I

(49:15):
was I justified it. I was like, they're paying me
minimumly and then I was like dude. And then the
second time, Oh, it was because the person I also
worked at the student union at sax State and our
boss who was always like kind of in everyone's business,
and dah dah dah, and what have you been doing it?
Can we see? Will you do the count again on

(49:37):
your thing? Ye? And they had embezzled like five hundred
thousand dollars.

Speaker 1 (49:42):
Holy shit, shut up. Yeah, so that had just happened.

Speaker 2 (49:46):
How do you do that same thing where I think
it's just like just a little bit here and a
little bit there, and you work there for twenty years
and no one suspects you.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
All the jobs I've had that they've had to work
the till, which is a lot of them, like the
count out at the end of the night. If I
were under by five sense, yes, I would be devastated. Yeah,
like that because I was so good, Like I was like,
there's no fucking way I did that. But there was
always some amount of money you were under, yes, or randomly.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
You were also in trouble, Like when I worked at
the Gap, you were in trouble if you were over
and if you're totally like you couldn't win. Now, that
just reminds me of though you keeping perfect track of
our merch money in the beginning, where you would just
be like, here's there. It is, just so you know.

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Are she glad I'm not an embezzler?

Speaker 2 (50:26):
I really am. I would it would have been very
difficult on top of everything else.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Where do you think that pod loft money came from?

Speaker 2 (50:33):
God damn it. Where'd you get all these frames for
these pictures?

Speaker 1 (50:37):
Okay? So that brings us back to nineteen fifty seven
when Janet that's the fake name, who's about fifty one
at this point, fails to show up at her doctor's
office and Decatur and her coworkers call the police. They
quickly loop in the FBI because they're assuming she's crossing
state lines. She's driving a fucking pink car and has
two moving vans following her, one of which is full

(50:58):
of Cocker spaniels. So one of the agents says it'll
be like quote finding an elephant in a haystack, you know, yeah,
like not the smoothest Peter. In actuality, Margaret proved not
so easy to find. It turns out that the FBI's
best clue is the trail of cocker spaniels. Okay, so
a moving van full of cocker spaniels is like reported

(51:21):
as a very funny, comical thing, but in actuality, it's
clearly not safe or humane, as you said. Yeah, there's
no fucking pillows, and two of the fortyish dogs actually
don't survive the journey, which is so sad to be
so hot, so hot, and probably no water.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Now it's horrible.

Speaker 1 (51:37):
Now it's awful. Most of the other dogs are dropped
off with a trainer in North Carolina, but Margaret keeps
three of the dogs herself. She's in love with them,
and the.

Speaker 2 (51:46):
FBI she's in love with them except for the one
she killed.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
She's in love with these three. I guess Maraisenshine, Capital
Gain and Piccolo.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
Peete my favorite firework.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Yeah, and the FBI finds the moving vans and the
pink Lincoln abandon in South Carolina as the news of
Margaret's flight from Atlanta spreads. She's actually seen by many
as a lovable anti hero, and it's kind of a
feminist thing too, where they're like, she got over on
these like smart doctors who think they know everything, and
people are rooting for her to get out of the
country and evade capture. They're like, you know. But one

(52:20):
group that's not impressed at all is the Southeastern chapter
of the American Spaniel Club because they liked her so
much and she was a prominent member that they had
been in the process of naming her as the regional leader.
So she was an actress. She was good at fooling people.
True sociopath exactly one number says quote it was like
picking up the paper and reading that President Eisenhower was

(52:42):
a spy for the communists end quote, which is like, hey,
welcome to today.

Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeh hi, how are you it.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
Guess what nineteen fifty seven, I've got some news for you.
The FBI underestimates Margaret completely. She manages to evade capture
for about a month, getting us to the end of
August nineteen fifty seven. She and Sheila wind up in Tulsa.
They rent a house. Margaret assumes a new identity, going
by a Madge Burton. Madge mag name back pretty great,

(53:10):
a baby named Madge smoking. Oh baby, she loves her.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
Let her have another one before she goes to sleep.

Speaker 1 (53:19):
Just let her she'll go right down. And just give
her two more cigarettes, and give her a cosmo and
a cigarette and she'll go right down. So she goes
to a doctor's office and gets a job there. Yes,
they don't ask for any references because Madge tells them
her husband's a doctor or she worked in his office
for years and years and he left her for another woman,

(53:39):
So she doesn't have references. But she's got a lot
of experience, and they're like, great, get over here. And
she actually does seem to have a lot of experience
because she has done that, so they believe her.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
She's stolen at all the great doctor's office right around
the Midwest.

Speaker 1 (53:51):
Then, after Madge had been at the clinic for a
week or two, a story about Margaret Burton, her real
identity runs in the Tulsa world and the attention of
the office manager who hired her partly because of obviously
working in a doctor's office, but also Margaret had a
lot of freckles and so she matched that up. And
the article describes her daughter, Sheila as quote Buxom, and

(54:14):
the office manager had seen this daughter and was like, bingo,
it's Jessica Rabbit. You know, the.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Fifteen year old.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Yeah, the twenty year old, the fifteen twenty year old exactly.
So the office manager is a rat and calls the FBI.
I'm kidding. And when they knock on the door of
the house rented in Tulsa, they are greeted by the daughter, Sheila,
and three cocker spaniels, which is like change up the dogs,
or like giving it.

Speaker 2 (54:38):
Away, or at least put them away for a bit,
or like put a disguise on them all raccoon disguise,
three raccoons. What are you guys doing?

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Well, there's no cocker spaniels here. I guess we got
to get out of here. This can't be at the
same place. Margaret and Sheila are both promptly arrested and
extradited back to Georgia, where they're slapped with state charges
of forgery and larceny. It turns out that the federal
charges don't stick like she gets lucky, and so the
three dogs are all brought to a local kennel, but

(55:07):
they're technically impounded, like with all of Margaret's other property,
Like can you imagine going to that fucking sale? Oh
my god? Like not up next on the block, the
American Spaniel Club raises what is basically today about seventeen
thousand dollars to buy back the vest and show dog
rise and shine and you.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
Come here, come here out like n.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
That's the all, mommy. So all this comes out in
the press, and Sheila's birth father, her dad, Jasper Burton,
who hasn't seen her since she left Panama as a toddler,
comes out of the woodwork. It turns out he'd been
living in nearby Athens, Georgia. He's thrilled to find his
daughter again, and the charges against Sheila are dropped completely.

(55:52):
It does seem like she had nothing to do with
her mother's schemes that again started when she was a baby.
And you've got to imagine and the mind fuck she
grew up with NonStop, NonStop mind fuck.

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Everything is either for money or cocker spaniel.

Speaker 1 (56:08):
And we got to get the fuck out of here.
Now we have to leave. You're not this person, You're
that person that probably went on her entire life.

Speaker 2 (56:14):
I wonder if the high school thing is, like, you
can go to high school in Decatur when we get there.
If you go to high school the next place, it'll
be great.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
You're gonna go.

Speaker 2 (56:20):
Yeah, listen, you'll be a cheerleader this year. And she
just keeps on doing it.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
I mean it's kind of a what's it called, not
Rosemary's Baby, but mommy dearis Yes, where it's just a
little like I mean, yeah, there's got to be some
kind of like trauma bond with her mother there right right.

Speaker 2 (56:35):
And also I think only child. I'm only saying this
because I've observed my sister and my niece where it's
like it's closer than average because there's just one of
each totally, and so their team.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
We have each other. Literally, you can't make friends because
you can't tell them anything truthful.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Yeah, everything about your mother's life is this insane lie
that you're trying to fit into totally. Yeah, because also
if you were thinking about, if you're the age of
high school, but you're moving to these new towns, what
are you supposed to hang around the pool hall or
something like? What are you doing totally to socialize? You
wouldn't be able to.

Speaker 1 (57:09):
I'm sure your mom tracks everything that you do. Yeah. Right.
When reporters ask her questions, they say that she's shy, reserved,
and says that she's just scared that she's never going
to see her mom again. So Margaret faces charges all
over the country and her Georgia trial begins in December
of nineteen fifty seven, ends in a mistrial because a

(57:30):
juror hears his pastor at a sermon talking shit essentially
on Margaret isn't and so it's shit. The juror is
not supposed to know, and so it's a mistrial.

Speaker 2 (57:42):
Wow. Great, that's actually the ultimate getting out of it. Yeah,
it's not his faults. Yeah, it was church.

Speaker 1 (57:49):
It's my fucking you know how pastors have big mouths,
and she's.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
Trying to be a good Christian man.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
Gossip gossip, these fucking pastors every Sunday, every Sunday, just
talking about cases. The second trial, Margaret says that actually
the doctors at the clinic she worked for were trying
to evade taxes and she caught them, and so they
tried to accuse her of embezzling. It's not her fault, No,
she's a victim. She also faints a lot during the trial.

(58:14):
Oh as you do one of these, you know, you
just women just faint all the time, like sitting down
in the witness box. Yeah, she slide out of the
chair like it, like comedy style, just slide underneath. Hey,
I'm fainting. And people are skeptical of it even then.
And in the end, she's found guilty of two counts
of larceny and two counts of forgery and serves two

(58:36):
years in prison when she gets out. Some of the
other states have dropped their charges, but several others offt
to ask the federal government to deport her rather than
her going to trial, since she's actually a British citizen originally,
so like, we won't charge her and try her if
you get her out of here before she's deported. Though.
She's charged in Los Angeles for the knitting shop scheme,

(58:58):
pleads guilty and serves about nine months in the county jail,
and then she La, Her daughter winds up moving to
LA to live with Margaret's brother. Back in LA he's
a movie producer. His name is Ian McGlashan, and Ali
looked it up on IMDb and the only credit to
his name is a nineteen sixty four movie called Three
Nuts in Search of a Bolt. Your favorite, your favorite

(59:19):
late night movie.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Oh my god, those nuts, Yeah, are nuts.

Speaker 1 (59:23):
It's Bengooley. It's a s Bengoolie classic. It seems like
the daughter lives a quiet life, Like there's no information
about her online. There's like a photo on her like
find a grave, looks like a grandma. She's smiling. That's
kind of all you've got.

Speaker 2 (59:37):
It's just a tiny picture on the bottom. It's no
dogs allowed.

Speaker 1 (59:40):
She fus from that day on, she fucking hates.

Speaker 2 (59:42):
Dof never been around a dog since.

Speaker 1 (59:45):
It seems like she lives a quiet life. She gets
married and has one child, and she dies in twenty fifteen. Wow,
he's an older lady. Margaret, meanwhile, is deported back to
England in nineteen sixty though some point and no one
seems to know when she schemes her way back to
the US and dies in Los Angeles in nineteen ninety two.
So I bet she was back with her daughter.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
I bet she was.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
And who knows what kind of caper she got into
that she didn't get caught.

Speaker 2 (01:00:10):
For, right, because now she's a whole new person.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
I bet she was the one at the grocery store
who's like, I'll give you a twenty and actually give
me back the change for that, and she does like
the change thing. Oh no, give me five five fives
for that, and I'll give you back your twenty.

Speaker 2 (01:00:22):
She could be the old lady when I was so broken,
I found a twenty dollars bill. Oh, I put it
in my pocket of my corduroy pants. And then I
was in the super cheap sunglasses store on Hollywood Boulevard
because I was going down to like the Walgreens or whatever. Yeah,
And I was standing there like, oh, I can buy
a pair of sunglasses for like five bucks. Ye, and
this old lady came and was standing to the side

(01:00:44):
of me, and I wasn't looking, and finally I looked,
and she's standing there smiling and she's like hi, and
I was like hi, and then she walked away. My
twenty bucks is gone.

Speaker 1 (01:00:53):
Shut the fuck I thought she was gonna say it
was her, that's my twenty No, she straight up robbed you.

Speaker 2 (01:00:59):
She robbed me and then made me look her in
the eye with a big smile, And I bet you
it was fucking Janet.

Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
I bet you anything. She was Los Angeles. It was
Oh my, how amazing would that be? So here's her photo?
Oh my god, that's her. So yeah, she dies in
Los Angeles in nineteen eighty two at the age of
eighty five. Could have been yep, And that is the
story of the serial embezzler or the international adventurer Margaret

(01:01:26):
Lydia Burton.

Speaker 2 (01:01:28):
Wow, that was great, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
There's only a few photos of her too, and like
no information about after she went back. There's a photos
for getting Yeah, she's getting out of this car. She
kind of looks like a little old lady, even though
she's got like no wrinkles. She's like the little old
lady shampoosette, glamorous dress and she's got the railroad case
with her makeup in and she's getting out of the
car at the courthouse like it's a fucking premiere of

(01:01:51):
a movie and she's the star. Yeah, and she's like
just eating it up and it's just kind of like, God,
I bet she was fun.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
I bet you was fun, and I bet you. That's
why the press or like, that's why the public was
able to get this kind of counter like anti hero
thing going for because it's like, well, you're showing up
in an outfit. You seem to have a great attitude.
Americans don't need much more.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
No, Yeah, you're getting it over on the man. Yeah.
I kind of love that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Yeah, so fuck it fun, be a stealer.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
Be a stealer. Wow, great, thank you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
I did it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
Do you want to do some fucking rays?

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (01:02:29):
Should we be doing fucking raise too? You and I sure? Oh,
we don't have one next week. I'm letta start next week.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Mind Steve over every week, I'm gonna give the stout.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Okay, let's do some fucking arrays at the end of
the show. We do just things you're fucking happy about.
Hashtag us on Instagram or on YouTube page. On this episode.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
Yeah, mine's from email, my first one. You want me
to read it?

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Do it? That works?

Speaker 2 (01:02:54):
The subject line is Karen's yogurt fucking hooray, and it says, Hi, everyone,
I'm an early listener and your podcast has given me
so much over the years, laughter, comfort, mental health support.
But Karen talking about her little morning yogurt has saved
my coffee routine. Do you remember this? I just learned
on TikTok, of course, that to save the cortisol zip

(01:03:16):
of drinking coffee on an empty stomach in the morning,
I just drink a little drinkable yoga first and let
my body process that, then drink the coffee.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
Like that's right. I also he eat a couple of walnuts,
just like two walnuts.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Oh, for the same reason, Dad, I can't eat on
this guy get a cold sor oh no, okay, don't
do this separate It says, save my morning coffee routine
and my esophagus, And for that I am forever grateful.
So fucking hooray for midlife hacks and a terraine of
black coffee to keep us going through the terrible Kate,
I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:49):
I love hacks, yeah so much.

Speaker 2 (01:03:51):
It's a good hack.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
To realize that I was just piling on like because
I think I'm trying to get started in the livening,
and it's like you're literally signaling more cortoses obviously.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
Yeah, it's a monster Okay. Mine is from YouTube from
our YouTube page, YouTube dot com slash exactly the right media.
And this is from a Kelsey because remember we were
saying that we have to tell.

Speaker 2 (01:04:13):
Kelsey, I had a couple of those in there.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
I'm a Kelsey and I have a fucking array today. First,
my older sister shout out Celia got me listening to
you from the start, and I've been hooked ever since. Today,
my fucking hoorray is my mom receiving life saving surgery
for an aortic aneurysm. She had a complicated health history
and I like to think her doctors were nerds who
wanted to get to the bottom of it because they
ended up coincidentally finding the aneurysm on an unrelated scan.

(01:04:40):
Oh and today she got it removed and is going
to be fine. Yah. God, it's so scary. Her first
words to my stepfather when she woke up or do
my girls know? I'm okay. She truly is the best.
When you were shouting out Kelsey's at the end of
the episode, I was like, I have to share this
SSDGM at seven ks forty five.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Kelse, Kelsey, I'm so glad your mom's Okay, it's amazing,
very very scary.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
Get your check ups everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:05:05):
Yeah, okay. This is from Instagram. It was a social
media comment on episode four seventy three, and it is
from Deb Miller Landau, the author of the book A
Devil Went Down to Georgia, which is based on recent
story I did about the murder of Leada McClinton. Oh
my god, it says my hashtag, fucking horay is that
this little murderino's dream came true several months ago I

(01:05:29):
emailed MFM and today on episode four seventy three, Karen
told the story of Leada McClinton based on my book
A Devil Went Down to Georgia. Thank you for honoring Lida.
Enough with rich white guys getting away with murder and
all the other horrible shit, right, Yes, yes, Deb Miller Lando.
Huge shout out to Maren for loving the book and
getting the story on the show. Fucking hooray to you all.

Speaker 1 (01:05:51):
I love that. I know it's not great.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Yes, congratulations Deb Miller Landau, what a great book.

Speaker 1 (01:05:56):
Good job. Okay. My last one is also a YouTube comment.
It was commented on episode four seventy three on YouTube.
Fucking hooray. April Fool's Day marked five years sober from alcohol.
For me, it did not seem possible and it wasn't easy,
but the blessings have been abundant. I left the medical
field in twenty twenty two and I'm now supervising a
group of badass police record clerks. Thanks for all you do.

(01:06:18):
SSDGM Ashley at Ashley William dash D five m.

Speaker 2 (01:06:22):
Congratulations ash Yeah, five years that's a long time.

Speaker 1 (01:06:27):
I can't that's a big deal. It's a big deal.
That's amazing. Yeah, good job. Send us your fucking HORIZI guys. Yeah,
we'll do ours next week too.

Speaker 2 (01:06:33):
Yeah, we'll start doing some too. Yeah, we'll have a
little more gratitude in our lives. That's a good idea.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
Let's do it. Yeah, thank you guys for listening. We
appreciate you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
And stay sexy.

Speaker 1 (01:06:44):
I don't get murdered. Goodbye, Elvis. Do you want a cookie?

Speaker 2 (01:06:57):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 1 (01:06:58):
Our senior producers are all Handra Keck and Molly Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Our editor is Aristotle Oscevedo.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
This episode was mixed by Leona Scuolacci.

Speaker 2 (01:07:05):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:07:11):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 2 (01:07:19):
And now you can watch us on Exactly Wright's YouTube page.
While you're there, please like and subscribe. Good byebye,