Tag Archives: RCMP

IS A SERIAL KILLER LOOSE ON THE HIGHWAY OF TEARS?

There’s a lonely road stretch in remote northwestern British Columbia, Canada having a huge number of unsolved missing and murdered women cases. It spans 450 miles between the small cities of Prince George in the province’s interior and Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast. Over the past 40 years, more than 40 women mysteriously disappeared or died from foul play in that area. Most of their circumstances remain unknown. The road’s geographically known as #16 or the Yellowhead Route but—for good reason—locals call it the Highway of Tears.

The Highway of Tears murders and the women’s suspicious disappearances began in 1969. They continue today with the last case of modus operandi (MO) similarities happening in December 2018. Although police officially remain cautious about confirming links, many in-the-know suspect there may be many more crimes with victims fitting the mold.

In 2005, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) formed a task force called E-Pana to look at the area’s unsolved missing and murdered women cases. The RCMP is Canada’s federal force having jurisdiction across the nation and in the region. The task force initially identified 18 cases but soon expanded their investigation to include similar files eastward along Route 16 to Hinton, Alberta as well as south along Highway 97 to Kamloops, BC and along Highway 5 from Merritt to Clearwater.

Two significant independent government inquiries or investigations into the Highway of Tears and related matters also happened. One was a British Columbia Provincial Symposium held in 2006. The other—a recent, national commission called the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Inquiry. It’s called that because many victims were of indigenous or First Nations ethnicity.

Despite the massive police and public effort, no one’s been caught for most of the crimes. As well, many of the victim’s bodies remain hidden and undiscovered. That leaves people wondering if there’s a serial killer loose on the Highway of Tears.

The Highway of Tears Victims

Without exception, every victim in the Highway of Tears (HOT) sphere is female. That includes confirmed murders as well as unsolved disappearances. Another harsh fact is many victims originated from aboriginal or First Nations backgrounds. It’s a reality that can’t be overlooked.

Project E-Pana (named so after the Inuit spirit that guides souls to the afterlife) used four criteria to qualify a murder or suspicious disappearance as a Highway of Tears or HOT case. These parameters were sound and valid, as many homicide and missing persons cases in the north have other circumstances that don’t suggest a commonality the HOT files have. Out of great precaution, HOT investigators are very careful about using the “SK-word”—Serial Killer. To be on the HOT list, the E-Pana victim profiles are:

  • Female
  • High-risk lifestyle
  • Known to hitchhike
  • Found or last seen near Highways 16, 97 & 5

Females who hitchhike and practice a high-risk lifestyle around this remote road network are easy prey. Many come from physical, sexual and substance abusive backgrounds. Many are sex workers and drug users as well as having alcoholic tendencies and serious mental/emotional disorders. And, many women victims are from indigenous communities with a host of social problems.

Police investigators feel most, if not all, Highway of Tears cases are stranger-to-stranger relationships. Police don’t like the serial killer term because of public ramifications, but it’s a classic serial killer pattern to pick up strangers and have their way. Most lone-operating killers leave little evidence behind at their crime scenes, take little with them, make sure there are no independent witnesses and they rarely confess. That combination makes these predators so hard to catch.

First Nations women are particularly vulnerable. Along the main Highway of Tears stretch from Prince Rupert to Prince George there are 23 different indigenous communities or reserves. Most of these little places have few facilities like medical services, educational outlets and recreational opportunities. As well, poverty is a gigantic problem in Canada’s First Peoples settlements. They simply can’t afford private transportation.

Combined with personal issues and the need to be mobile, many at-risk women are alone on side of the road with their thumb out. They’re perfect opportunities for men with deviant desire. Here is a list of who fell victim in the deadly web called the Highway of Tears and throughout the entire region.

  • Gloria Moody — 27, Murdered near Williams Lake, October 1969
  • Micheline Pare — 18, Murdered near Hudson’s Hope, July 1970
  • Helen Claire Frost — 15, Missing from Prince George, October 1970
  • Jean Virginia Sampare — 18, Missing from Hazelton, October 1971
  • Gayle Weys — 19, Murdered near Clearwater, October 1973
  • Pamela Darlington — 19, Murdered at Kamloops, November 1973
  • Coleen MacMillan — 16, Murdered near Lac La Hache, August 1974
  • Monica Ignas — 15, Murdered near Terrace, December 1974
  • Mary Jane Hill — 31, Murdered at Prince Rupert, March 1978
  • Monica Jack — 12, Murdered near Merritt, May 1978
  • Maureen Mosie — 33, Murdered near Salmon Arm, May 1981
  • Jean May Kovacs — 36, Murdered at Prince George, October 1981
  • Roswitha Fuchsbichler — 13, Murdered at Prince George, November 1981
  • Nina Marie Joseph — 15, Murdered at Prince George, August 1982
  • Shelley-Anne Bascu — 16, Missing from Hinton, May 1983
  • Alberta Gail Williams — 24, Murdered near Prince Rupert, August  1989
  • Cecilia Anne Nikal — 15, Missing from Smithers, October 1989
  • Delphine Anne Nikal — 15, Missing from Smithers, June 1990
  • Theresa Umphrey — 38, Murdered near Prince George, February 1993
  • Marnie Blanchard — 18, Murdered near Prince George, March 1993
  • Ramona Lisa Wilson — 16, Murdered near Smithers, June 1994
  • Roxanne Thiara — 15, Murdered near Burns Lake, November 1994
  • Alishia Leah Germaine — 15, Murdered at Prince George, November 1994
  • Lana Derrick — 19, Missing from Terrace, October 1995
  • Deena Braem — 16, Murdered near Quesnel, September 1999
  • Monica McKay — 18, Murdered at Prince Rupert, December 1999
  • Nicole Hoar — 24, Missing from Prince George, June 2002
  • Mary Madeline George — 25, Missing from Prince George, July 2005
  • Tamara Lynn Chipman — 22, Missing from Prince Rupert, September 2005
  • Aielah Saric Auger — 14, Murdered at Prince George, February 2006
  • Beverly Warbick — 20, Missing from Prince George, June 2007
  • Bonnie Marie Joseph — 32, Missing from Vanderhoof, September 2007
  • Jill Stacey Stuchenko — 35, Murdered near Prince George, October 2009
  • Emmalee Rose McLean — 16, Murdered at Prince Rupert, April 2010
  • Natasha Lynn Montgomery — 23, Murdered at Prince George, August 2010
  • Cynthia Frances Maas— 35, Murdered near Prince George, September 2010
  • Loren Dawn Leslie — 15, Murdered near Prince George, November 2010
  • Madison “Maddy” Scott — 20, Missing near Vanderhoof, May 2011
  • Immaculate “Mackie” Basil — 26, Missing near Fort St. James, June 2013
  • Anita Florence Thorne — 49, Missing from Prince George, November 2014
  • Roberta Marie Sims — 55, Missing from Prince George, May 2017
  • Frances Brown — 53, Missing near Smithers, October 2017
  • Chantelle Catherine Simpson — 34, Suspicious Death at Terrace, July 2018
  • Jessica Patrick — 18, Murdered near Smithers, September 2018
  • Cynthia Martin — 50, Missing near Hazelton, December 2018

The Case for a Highway of Tears Serial Killer

These 40+ known cases all have a similarity beyond the E-Pana parameters. That’s the peculiar pattern of how they met their fate. Investigators assume most victims did not know their assailant and unsuspectingly fell into a fatal trap. And that trap may have been set by a serial offender.

Before assuming that one or more serial killers have been on the loose in the E-Pana project and the entire cases associated to the general Highway of Tears area, it’s necessary to define what a serial killer is. According to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), a serial killer is an offender who commits “a series of two or more murders, committed as separate events, usually, but not always, by one offender acting alone.” Serial murder is defined as “the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender(s), in separate events.”

This is a fairly tight description for a multiple killer. It fits someone on a path or destiny rather than a mass-murderer who goes on one rampage and causes numerous deaths. Most people associate serial killers with notorious Americans like Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway or Albert DeSalvo. They were particularly nasty people. But, British Columbia had its share of these vicious villains. Noteworthy BC serial killers were Clifford Olson who killed 10 or more children and Robert “Willie” Pickton who did-in 49 women and fed them to his pigs.

Most serial killers operate alone and have a distinctive pattern or modus operandi. Experienced police investigators know to look for crime patterns and identify similarities. One of the main indicators is victim profiling. In almost all of the cases brought under the Highway of Tears investigation umbrella, the victim’s background and vulnerability stand out. Other indicators are the time frame and location.

In missing persons cases, investigators naturally start with where and when the victim was last seen. They also look for abandoned items such as a vehicle, their purse and contents or their phone. Where bodies are found, investigators look for the mechanism or means of death. Most of the Highway of Tears and related victims were strangled—the exact strangulation method being held back as it’s known only to the police and the perpetrator.

In the Highway of Tears periphery—and it is a periphery because what started as an investigation along the Prince George to Prince Rupert road quickly branched off to a much bigger area where a mobile serial killer could have easily traveled within a day. What’s really notable in this overall murder and missing persons combined investigation are the time periods. There are nine distinct activity calendar groups:

  • 1969-1974
  • 1978
  • 1981-1983
  • 1989-1990
  • 1993-1995
  • 1999-2002
  • 2005-2007
  • 2009-2014
  • 2017-2018

This date grouping shows a burst of start-stop, start-stop and start-stop. There could be many reasons for this such as the perpetrator being repeatedly incarcerated, moving out of the geographical area or, in the case of Gary Ridgway—the Green River Killer from Seattle—he nearly got caught and thought he’d give it a rest for a while. But, it seems more likely there are multiple offenders in the overall Highway of Tears file. In fact, police have already caught, convicted or identified five different HOT-profile men.

The Police Catch or Identify Serial Killers in the Highway of Tears Investigation

To be fair, not all the murdered or missing women in the previous list are true Highway of Tears victims from BC Highways 16, 97 & 5. As the investigation grew, it expanded to include a wide net of confirmed or suspected murders across the mid-section of semi-rural British Columbia. That was a natural progression. It’s a logical and competent way of investigating a broad range of offense dates and locations.

Long before the E-Pana probe in 2005, which started as a look at the cases on Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert, the RCMP knew there was a pattern emerging. In 1981, they held a multi-jurisdictional meeting called The Highway Murders Conference to look at commonalities of historic unsolved murders and missing persons cases. Over 40 detectives from across BC and Alberta met in Kamloops and presented their case facts. This was the original start to a massive investigation that’s still highly-active today.

In the years following the Highway Murder Conference, the RCMP and other law enforcement agencies solved some of the “HOT” killings and disappearances. They were able to profile offenders under the FBI’s serial killer definition. Here are the five serial killers known to have committed murders on the overall HOT list.

1. Cody Alan Legebokoff  — He was convicted of the 2009/2010 Jill Stuchenko, Natasha Montgomery, Loren Leslie and Cynthia Maas murders near Prince George. Legebokoff is serving life in prison.

2. Brian Peter Arp — He was convicted of the 1989 near-Prince George murders of Theresa Umphrey and Marnie Blanchard. Arp is also serving a life sentence.

3. Edward Dennis Issac — He was convicted of the 1981/1892 murders of Nina Joseph, Jean Kovacs and Roswitha Fuchsbichler in Prince George. Issac is still serving out his life sentence

4, Gary Wayne Hanlin — He was convicted of the 1978 Monica Jack murder at Merritt and faces new charges for killing another pre-teen girl. Hanlin got a life sentence, as well.

5. Bobby Jack Fowler — This known serial killer died in an Oregon prison in 1986. Post-death DNA analysis linked Fowler to causing the 1973/1974 Kamloops area murders of Coleen McMillan, Gail Weys and Pamela Darlington. Given the time frame pattern and location, Fowler may also have killed Monica Ignas in Terrace.

Known Highway of Tears Serial Killer Bobby Jack Fowler – MacMillan, Weys & Darlington murders

The Highway of Tears Public Investigations and Inquiries

Over the years, the mass of unsolved murders and missing women’s cases have been front and center in British Columbia and Canadian spectrums. Local, national and international interest spread, and took on a scope much larger than the cases committed along the original roadway called the Highway of Tears. Hundreds of thousands of hours and millions of dollar have been exhausted trying to rectify what went wrong and how future tragedies could be prevented.

In 2006, the British Columbia probe called the Highway of Tears Symposium released a report with an objective look at the entire factors causing victim vulnerability. They made rational and constructive recommendations that, if correctly implemented, could drastically reduce the potential for other women to end up on the HOT list. The symposium divided their solution into these four categories:

  • Victim Prevention
  • Emergency Planning and Team Readiness
  • Victim Family Counselling and Support
  • Community Development and Support

The Highway of Tears Symposium offered 33 separate recommendations on how to reduce victim risk and how to organize a holistic crime prevention program throughout the at-risk region. Most of the recommendations were solid, common-sense steps that could be practically implemented. One of the primary actions was to increase public transit along Highway 16 so the women wouldn’t need to hitchhike.

Other smart points in the action plan were making the police and public officials more responsible for spotting women placing themselves at risk and intervening on the side of the road. The report recommended a network of safe houses and a community watch program be integrated across the area. Many more recommendations addressed education and economic support for vulnerable women.

It’s been 13 years since the Highway of Tears Symposium did its necessary and valuable work. Sadly, very few of their well-thought-out suggestions ever materialized. An example is that it took 11 years before a simple and reliably-scheduled public transit bus service hit the Yellowhead Highway. Some of the risk prevention literature has been well written and promoted, though.

The Canadian Federal Government’s cross-country consortium called the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (IMMIWG) took public problem probing to a whole new level. What started as a Highway of Tears inquiry expanding the plight of First Nations women turned into a f-fest where three of the leading commissioners quit in frustration and disgust. It seemed everyone with a grievance to grind and an agenda to advance hijacked the focus and spun it around. By the time the $53.8 million off-track inquisition ended, the indigenous women core concern expanded to include every fringe interest lumped into a category called 2SLGBTQQIA. That’s an acronym for 2 Spirit, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex and Asexual.

On June 4, 2019, the Canadian Prime Minister championed the IMMIWG report release with this quote, “Earlier this morning, the national inquiry formally presented their report, in which they found that the tragic violence that Indigenous women and girls have experienced amounts to genocide”. The Prime Minister’s critics were quick to point out the United Nations definition of genocide:

“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

What started as a well-intentioned review of what happened to cause the Highway of Tears-related murders and suspicious disappearances totally missed the mark in the Canadian Federal Government’s sights. While the HOT Symposium operated with honorable intentions, the IMMIWG was a farce. It contributed little, if nothing, to the cause and likely did more harm than good. The IMMIWG failed to make positive recommendations for future harm prevention and investigation improvements. Ultimately, the IMMIWG blamed colonialism for oppressive behavior on margins of society. It seems the IMMIWG forgot many of the Highway of Tears victims were white heterosexual women born and raised in mainstream Canada.

Is a Serial Killer Loose on the Highway of Tears?

The answer is yes and no. There isn’t , and never has been, one lone serial killer continually at work on the Highway of Tears or in the surrounding geographical area. The right answer is there are many serial killers out there who’ve traveled those remote highways for years. Without a doubt, at least five separate serial killers contributed to some of the forty-year carnage. It’s highly-likely a large number of the yet-unsolved cases are the work of still-to-be-caught perpetrators. And, it’s also highly-likely some murders and abductions are one-offs.

Will all the Highway of Tears related murders eventually be solved? It’s highly-unlikely that’ll happen given the time gone by and the limited evidence available. However, there’s good reason to be optimistic some old and cold cases will be cleared. Back in the 70s, no one saw how powerful forensic DNA typing would be. We’re only now starting to tap the new familial database mines. Back in the 70s, no one saw how effective the Mister Big undercover sting would work on serial killers. And, back in the 70s, information sharing was nothing like what’s happening today.

So, no one knows what’s to come. Thanks to high-tech science combining with cool cop creative minds, we’re in for an interesting crime-solving drive down the Highway of Tears.

JOSEPH WAMBAUGH — INTERVIEWING CRIME WRITING’S MASTER OF CHARACTERS

Joseph Wambaugh is crime writing’s master of cop & crook characters. Unlike many crime writers, Joe Wambaugh policed in the Los Angeles trenches. He’s worked with guys like Roscoe Rules, a fictional yet true-to-life rogue in The Choir Boys whose behavior was delightfully over-the-top. Wambaugh also served with psychologically-wounded real-life officers like Karl Hettinger portrayed in The Onion Field as a PTSD victim sadly spirally down after his partner’s on-duty execution. And, after 50 years in the police and crime writing business, Joseph Wambaugh knows his characters and remains down-to-earth. I’m honored to share the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Quarterly magazine’s recent interview with crime writing’s master.

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In 1971, Little, Brown & Company published a novel with a catchy title, The New Centurions. It was the first book from a young writer who described his profession in a way never been done before. The author was a homicide detective with the Los Angeles Police Department and the book was an unorthodox look at policing—full of colorful characters tossed together in a zany, chaotic world of life and death. Joseph Wambaugh was describing policing in the City of Los Angeles, but it might as well have been any city. The New Centurions was a runaway bestseller.

Joe Wambaugh went on to write 15 more novels and 5 non-fiction books. He wrote TV scripts, contributed to movies and television shows, and became a household name in police and literary circles. Fame forced him to leave policing and propelled him onto the author’s circuit in countries around the world. He made appearances on countless TV shows, including The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

Wambaugh’s fame continues to this day. His books continue to sell, phrases he coined are commonly used in policing and—most of all—he left a profound mark on the police profession. Joseph Wambaugh understood cops. He also recognized the emotional toll of “the job” on police officers, long before Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was a diagnosed condition.

Joe Wambaugh also exposed the disparities in society through his examination of topics as diverse as dog shows and prostitution, describing the opulence and hypocrisy of some, as a counterpoint to the pathetic underbelly of society. Wambaugh described the job of a police officer in a gritty, realistic way that upset the prevailing view of policing as a mechanistic, black and white world of good and evil, typified by TV shows such as Dragnet and Adam-12.

No one underestimates the role Wambaugh had on policing and its perception by the public. Police officers came to understand the heroic qualities and tragic frailties of their peers and themselves. The public saw police as dedicated and brave, but imperfect human beings like themselves. Through Joseph Wambaugh’s works, policing became seen as a high-risk profession—physically and emotionally. Police Story and Hill Street Blues became the new TV paradigm of policing.

Today, Joe Wambaugh remains an astute observer of policing from the distance of his California home. He’s a husband, father and grandfather—a youthful 82 and sharp as a tack. The Quarterly had the pleasure of interviewing this most unassuming man. Here’s the conversation.

Joe, you grew up in East Pittsburgh and joined the Marine Corps at age 17. Why?

I had been living in southern California for three years before joining the USMC. I joined because after graduating from high school, I did not want to go to college, and was too young to get a decent job. Thanks to the military, I benefited from the GI bill and used it for college later on.

What inspired you to become a police officer?

I took college classes while in the military, then doubled up on classes when I left the Marine Corps at age 20, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts before my 23rd birthday. I had intended to become a teacher but saw an ad in The Los Angeles Times that the LAPD was paying $489 a month to recruits. It was very enticing, as I was bored with school and wanted some action.

At what point in your career did you decide to mix writing with policing?  Did someone influence you to write?

I had majored in English and every literature major who has ever lived is a closet writer. I read John Le Carré’s spy novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold. For me, it was the ultimate story of police undercover work. I decided to write that novel.

How did you break into the publishing world?

I sent short stories to all the cheapo magazines and received rejections. I sent one story to the same magazine twice because I was convinced they had not read it the first time. It came back to me with a note: “Dear Schmuck, it’s no better this time than last time.” In desperation, I tried a literary magazine, The Atlantic Monthly. They encouraged me to try a novel. That did it; The New Centurions was the result. I could never find the “Dear Schmuck” letter to send it back to him.

Tell me about the reaction to The New Centurions.

I knew my Chief of Police would not approve of the book. I violated Departmental policy by not submitting the manuscript for editorial approval. It became the main selection of the Book of the Month Club. I received a check for $50,000 in 1970. The Chief ’s public comment was that he was glad Sergeant Wambaugh is making a lot of money because he won’t have a job much longer. The press jumped all over it. Everyone was on my side. Everyone had to see what this young cop had done. The book remained on The New York Times best seller list for 32 weeks.

You‘ve been referred to as the father of the modern police novel. Comments?

It was my intention from the beginning, to tell the story of policing from a different and more realistic perspective – the gritty, cynical, slapstick and emotional side of policing. The public was ready for truth, in place of entertaining propaganda. Jack Webb, the creator and star of Dragnet, became involved in all the kerfuffle over the release of The New Centurions. He got a man to contact me to say that Webb would read the manuscript and if it deserved to be aired, he would protect me from being fired.

My homicide partner and I drove to Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills and dropped off the manuscript. Well, it took a couple of weeks. I finally got a call that the manuscript was there to be picked up. We drove back in our detective car. The manuscript was in a wrapper. I said to my partner that the manuscript was heavier than when I brought it here. Every place where Webb worried about the content, he placed a paper clip – 500 in total. Every page had multiple paper clips. I kept the paperclips and never met Webb.

The practice of letting off steam after a shift is seen in The Choirboys. But that book also described a darker side to the police profession, in which the emotional toll can be greater than the physical danger, occasionally leading to suicide and divorce. Comments?

If I had still been in the LAPD at the time that The Choirboys was published, it would surely have gotten me fired. I have always said that the physical dangers of policing were overstated by TV shows and movies, but police officers are constantly exposed to the worst of people and ordinary people at their worst. This produces premature cynics and makes it one of the most emotionally dangerous jobs in the world.

Your writing style is somewhat unconventional, described as a series of connected episodes involving colorful characters, more so than plot-driven. How did you develop this style?

The style reflects how I see life: episodic. That leads to character-driven stories, rather than plot-driven stories. I am no Agatha Christie.

What techniques did you use to document the many great stories which you fictionalized?

I took lots of secret notes as a cop and kept them in boxes and drawers in case I ever decided to try writing.

You also faced danger yourself.

I happened to be one of a dozen besieged cops at Manchester and Vermont Streets on Friday the 13th of August 1965 when Watts erupted in rioting and all the shooting started. I don’t know if one of the hundreds of rioters fired or if it was a cop, but a couple of bodies fell. And then all hell really broke loose for three days. We were ordered to 77th Street Station earlier that afternoon from all over Los Angeles and assigned to three-man cars with cops we’d never met before. We were given a box of ammunition and a shotgun and sent to unfamiliar streets, with the intent of stopping the riots.

It was not police work, but a crazy kind of urban combat in a state of anarchy. We mainly tried to protect each other while mobs looted. The windows were smashed from our car within minutes, and at some point, one of the cops I was teamed with fired a shotgun blast in the general direction of a muzzle flash and managed to hit a looter in the ankle with one pellet of double- aught buckshot. Taking that looter for medical treatment and then to jail got us off the street for nearly two hours and was a welcome relief, ut then it was back out to hell. Anyway, that wasn’t really police work.

Joe, tell me then about a police incident that had a lasting impact on you.

I was a patrol officer in south central L.A. We had a lot of shootings and action. I was training rookie named Fred Early. He was only out of the Academy for matter of weeks. We got a call of shots fired at a pool hall and arrived just ahead of another black and white. A guy stepped out of the pool hall with a shotgun. Pellets whiz past us and he heads back inside.

I didn’t pay attention to Fred Early. Everyone was yelling, and the radio was blaring. It turns out that Fred had run around the building and covered the back door. He was assertive and smart. The robber runs out the back door holding the shotgun at port arms. Fred fired one round. I arrived to find the suspect on his back with a grimace on his face and a hole between his eyes.

That, however, wasn’t the end of the story. Five years later, Fred Early was on his way home from work. Something happened. He reported a burglar breaking into a commercial business. He tried to arrest the suspect. A fight ensued, he was repeatedly beaten and kicked in the head by his assailant and shot in the leg with his own gun. The guy got away. Fred eventually died during one of his surgeries, having suffered irreversible brain damage.

You’re a New York Times bestselling author and the winner of many awards, including Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America. Did you anticipate your novels’ impact and it would become next to impossible for you to resume work as a homicide detective?

Nobody could have anticipated the instant success. I simply wanted to publish something. I never dreamed that I would be unable to complete my 20 years with the LAPD and get my pension, the security blanket all cops want. Many times, I regretted my success. Fourteen years was seventy per cent of what I agreed to serve. I thought about it a thousand times. I would love to just have completed it. Also, in those years, I was used to packing a gun and no longer had a right to carry a gun.

Do you have a favorite character in your novels?

I don’t really have a favorite character, but nonfiction books are like my step-children, novels are like my biological children.

Is Joe Wambaugh in the novels himself?

Pieces of me are probably in some of the fictional characters.

At some point, you decided to write non-fiction, beginning with The Onion Field, which was a huge hit. Why did you expand from the fiction genre?

I knew there was a great true story that had to be told, not so much about the murdered officer, Ian Campbell, but about the survivor, Karl Hettinger. I was working Wilshire Vice the night that Campbell and Hettinger were kidnapped in Hollywood Division, the next division north of us. Everyone was looking for them. I stayed close to the case. When I heard what happened to Hettinger within the Department, I knew it was wrong and that he would pay a terrible price. He surely did.

Your books spawned TV shows and movies and turned the existing genre of television shows, such as Dragnet and Adam-12, on their head, helping spawn a new paradigm, typified by Police Story and Hill Street Blues. Thoughts?

I’ll give you an example. I worked on Police Story which aired on NBC television. After some rookies have a year or so under their belt, their badge starts to feel heavy and they begin to swagger a bit. We created an episode about what we, at LAPD called the John Wayne Syndrome. For some reason, the producer submitted the script to John Wayne Productions. Their response— “absolutely not.”

The production company got cold feet and changed the term to the Wyatt Earp Syndrome. The badge heavy cop loses everything, including his wife. At the end of the episode he is seen sitting on the bed of his empty apartment. The tough guy suddenly breaks down weeping and the show ends with the sound of a radio call playing over his sobs.

Using a radio call has become a part of line of duty police funerals, where the fallen officer is called on the police radio and fails to respond. Did this tradition begin with your writing?

Not to my knowledge. However, not being too vain, the tradition of playing bagpipes at police funerals started after The Onion Field was published. The book introduced it by recounting Officer Ian Campbell’s funeral. His grandparents on both sides were from Scotland and Ian loved everything Scottish. There is a photo of him playing the bagpipes. They were played at his funeral, and this was repeated in the movie. It was heartbreaking.

Another non-fiction book, The Blooding, tells the story of the first successful use of DNA profiling, which occurred in England. How did you learn of this case and did you anticipate the huge impact that DNA would have on policing?

I read about the case and knew at once, if it could be true, that this would be the biggest event in crime detection since inked fingerprinting.

One of your most entertaining books must be The Black Marble, a story about dog shows and crime. But there appears to be a deeper meaning in this and other books, which appear to use satire to pan the excesses of modern American society.

That is probably true. As with most of my work, all the comedy is tempered by some intense and painful scenes involving PTSD in police work. I really liked the movie of Black Marble, but the mix of funny and harrowing stories, including the torture and death of a child and a cop going crazy, confused some viewers who either loved or hated it. Harry Dean Stanton was a great comedic villain in the movie.

Do you have a sense of the impact that your books had outside the United States?

My books are fading into distant memory. I’m not sure that there is a large society of avid book readers left, anywhere in the world. At the time, however, I met cops in Europe, Australia and New Zealand during book tours. I did become aware of their impact. It was very flattering.

Have you visited Canada and met Canadian police officers?

I did the book tour to large cities and met a few Canadian coppers. I also spent a month in Toronto prepping Echoes in the Darkness, a TV mini-series, where we made Toronto look like Philadelphia. We brought in palm trees and placed them on the shore of Lake Ontario, turning it into Miami! One day in April it was so hot that we were in t-shirts. The next morning, the snow was six inches deep! While in Toronto, we had to fly to New York to interview actors, but everyone had the same feeling—New York was foreign to us, Toronto was like home. Such a great city. I thought about it the other day when I read about a terrible shooting in Greektown. I used to go there all the time for dinner.

Would you recommend a policing career to young people today?

All my life I’ve seen it getting worse and worse. The police can do no right. They are criticized more and more. Criticism starts before the facts come out.

One important point in terms of police shootings. The critics are endless. So called bad or shaky shootings arise from fear not anger. Fear is the motivator in the case of bad shootings. Shootings arising from police rage are uncommon. This is a fundamental thing that has to be understood. I would not recommend policing as a career today.

How does Joe Wambaugh spend his time today?

Dee and I married when I was an 18-year-old Marine and we have two children and two grandchildren. I hate the idea of retirement. The worst part of old age is the loss of creative energy and being unable to write more books. Three of my four grandparents were Irish immigrants – the fourth being a German-American originally named Wambach – so mostly Irish DNA means that I tend to see the world and my life through a glass darkly. On the other hand, it is probably my Irish DNA that made me a writer in the first place. So, what do I have to bitch about? Semper cop!

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Joe Wambaugh took a chance almost 50 years ago to write about policing from the perspective of a street cop. He forever changed how the public perceives police officers, their role in society, the pitfalls of the profession and its strengths. It’s from such realistic—in your face—writing that we have a better understanding of the mysteries of what it means to be a police officer and the heavy toll it takes on officers and the larger police family. May we continue to learn from the wonderful tales told by Joseph Wambaugh and enjoying his captivating pages.

Acknowledgements

My DyingWords thanks to two retired RCMP members for contacting Joseph Wambaugh for a talk. Staff Sergeant (ret’d) Michael Duncan, who I worked with in the 1980s, is on the editorial board of The Quarterly It’s been the RCMP voice since 1933. Deputy Commissioner (ret’d) Peter German is a Quarterly contributor who spent time with Joe Wambaugh and put this piece together. It’s a unique insight into how Joseph Wambaugh’s police and writing career progressed. It’s also a fascinating insight into Wambaugh’s thoughts that captivating crime writing isn’t about how cops work on cases—it’s about how cases work on cops.

MISTER BIG UNDERCOVER STING CONVICTS ANOTHER COLD CASE KILLER

The “Mister Big” undercover sting is an exceptionally effective cold case homicide investigation technique where police set up a fictitious organized crime group and entice a suspect to confess to an unsolved crime they’ve committed. Since developed and perfected in the 1990s by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the fictional Mister Big ruse sent dozens of murderers to prison. That’s despite conventional police procedures failing to find admissible evidence… leaving the jaws of justice wide open to trick and do-in deviant criminals with this innovative and highly-incriminating trap.

This week, the RCMP convicted another cold case killer evading justice for 40 years. It was long overdue and fair game. The Mister Big undercover sting might be controversial to bleeding-heart civil rights activists and money-hungry defense lawyers, but the man playing the theatrical Mister Big in the undercover scheme brings immeasurable comfort and closure to the families of defenseless murder victims.

Garry Taylor Handlen is Mister Big’s latest justice-delayed example. A jury in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, just convicted this 71-year-old monster of kidnapping, raping and strangling 12-year-old Monica Jack in 1978. Canada doesn’t have the death penalty, but Garry Handlen will die in jail with a mandatory life sentence. Mister Big and his police investigative team made sure of it after Handlen confessed to murdering Monica Jack during an undercover operation.

Before going into what Mister Big’s undercover investigation procedure involves, Monica Jack deserves respect. This innocent young girl was riding her bike near Merritt, B.C., which is ranching country east of Vancouver. Handlen spotted her from his truck and camper. A serial sexual opportunist, Handlen stopped, wrestled Monica into his camper, kidnapped her and took her up a mountainside. Then he raped Monica, strangled her and dumped her lifeless body in the woods.

It was 17 years before Monica Jack’s skeletal remains were found and identified. However, Garry Handlen was on the police persons-of-interest list right away. A witness saw Handlen at a rest stop. They also saw Monica Jack being taken by a man—similar to Handlen’s description—to a distinctive truck and camper consistent with Handlen’s registered vehicle.

Garry Handlen was no stranger to police. He was a serial sexual offender—now a known serial killer— who was in and out of jail for serious sexual offenses. Handlen was on parole for rape when he accosted Monica Jack. He was also suspected in a string of violent offenses including sex murders.

Police at the time had a general description of Monica’s abductor and vehicle. But, they had no body and certainly no forensic evidence like today’s DNA technology or video surveillance. All they had was Handlen’s guilty mind and his intimate knowledge of what really happened when he murdered Monica Jack. That’s what eventually sunk Garry Handlen when he confessed to Mister Big during an elaborately choreographed undercover operation.

The Mister Big ruse sounds simple in principle. The police undercover team targets a viable suspect like Handlen to gain his confidence. This is a slow, methodical process where they make contact several times removed from the main undercover players. Steadily, they bring their target into the fold and make him reliant on a fictitious crime organization. To prove his worth, or be protected from prosecution, the target eventually confesses his crime to Mister Big—an all-powerful and superior crime boss who can make anything happen.

In reality, the Mister Big undercover operation is difficult and expensive. It takes months—sometimes years—of planning and putting into play layers upon layers of scenarios needed to get a target vulnerable to confessing. Sometimes, it never happens and the time spent of twenty to thirty undercover officers in supporting roles is wasted. That’s not including hundreds of thousands of dollars in public expense setting up the sting.

The RCMP has an impressive success record with the Mister Big sting. They won’t release exact figures, but inside sources indicate they’ve done over 200 Mister Big Sting operations. Some fizzled out because the target wouldn’t bite. Some even exonerated the suspect. But for criminals who’ve confessed to Mister Big, the police and prosecution have a 95 percent conviction rate. Garry Handlen’s going-down added to the success list.

So why have Canadian authorities used the Mister Big Sting so successfully to convict cold-case killers when other countries like the United States stay away from the ruse? It’s because of entrapment. As much as Canada is seen worldwide as this bleeding-heart bastion of civil liberties with a socialist soft-belly—Canada isn’t as much of a lawyer-run place like the States.

Maybe it’s because Canada is careful about following the U.S. lead in bad jurisprudence decisions and making those same mistakes. Canada learned that Miranda shouldn’t taint “the fruit of the poison tree” nor should DeLorean dictate rules of entrapment. Canada has this thing called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms which says that criminal evidence has a “Bringing the Administration of Justice into Disrepute” test. This is a two-headed coin where artificially dismissing truthful evidence under a Miranda application or Delorean entrapment procedure would not be in the public interest. In fact, not allowing truthful evidence gained through the Mister Big investigative approach would bring the administration of justice into disrepute, at least in the common person’s common-sense view.

Canadian courts look at each case on its own merit—within general admissibility guidelines. In Canada, there’s nothing wrong with police officers tricking viable suspects into incriminating themselves as long as the authorities don’t threaten them and make them do something they wouldn’t do within their own free will. In other words—let them talk, be themselves and naturally confess their crimes.

The main criteria for allowing confessions made in Mister Big stings into trial evidence is they’re corroborated in some way that proves the accused is truthful. That’s usually by the accused disclosing some piece of key-fact or hold-back information known only to the crime’s perpetrator and those closely involved in the investigation. This is the safeguard in preventing false confessions from convicting a wrongfully accused and innocent person.

RCMP Mister Big stings don’t just happen. They’re tightly controlled operations where highly skilled investigators collaborate with many support services. Mister Big undercover operations employ technical units like wiretapping, bugging and clandestine visual surveillance professionals. Stings use mobile eyes like airplanes and drones. They use prompts, staging, costumes and makeup worthy of Broadway theatre productions. And undercover operations depend on psychological services like the Behavioral Science Unit for profiling targets to find vulnerabilities. They also protect the physical and mental health of their operators.

Why don’t the United States and other first-world countries use the Canadian-led Mister Big technique? Actually, they do. Because the Mister Big investigation technique is legal in Canada—within limits—confessions gained on Canadian soil can be admissible in the U.S. and other courts. Other countries team with the RCMP to have undercover operations done inside Canadian territory.

The case of Atif Ratay and Sebastian Burns is a prime example of international investigation cooperation. Ratay and Burns brutally murdered Ratay’s family in Seattle, Washington, with baseball bats to collect insurance money. Then they fled across the border to their native Canada and eventually fell trapped in the RCMP’s Mister Big sting. After confessing, these two killers were extradited back to the United States where they sit doing life.

The RCMP exports its Mister Big sting expertise worldwide. Seasoned RCMP operatives and instructors from the Canadian Police College help many international police agencies develop versions of the Mister Big sting that work in their countries. It’s all about finding crime-fighting tools that identify the guilty—and, yes—sometimes exonerate the innocent.

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On a personal note from DyingWords, I worked with the RCMP members who pioneered the Mister Big undercover investigative technique. Their names remain anonymous, although one’s now passed on and the other recently retired. These dedicated police officers thought outside the restricted confines that stop imaginative breakthroughs in police sciences. Truly, they were ahead of their time.

I joined the RCMP in 1978 and just graduated from the Academy when Garry Taylor Handlen abducted, raped and murdered Monica Jack. Over the years, I helped investigate still-unsolved murders that Handlen may have committed. And I worked with talented undercover operators on Mister Big stings where we had success when other investigative avenues failed.

I’m not plugging a book sale here. My based-on-true-crime novel Under The Ground follows an actual Mister Big undercover sting where a cold-blooded killer might have got away with murder if Mister Big hadn’t intervened. Under The Ground is free for DyingWords followers.

If you’d like a digital copy of Under The Ground, just email me at garry.rodgers@shaw.ca and I’ll send you a Kobo/ePub, Kindle/mobi or PDF version.