The Ottawa Citizen is tweeting information as it comes out in court.
(Scroll down to where it says “Live Blog.”)
Wow this just gets more and more disturbing. It certainly sounds like he would have continued until he got caught whenever that was.
Lurid details emerge in Williams case.
The Crown appears to be starting with the various break-ins and thefts of lingerie; nothing yet about the two murders. What’s been reported is already pretty startling.
The CBC, CTV, BBC, CNN, Globe and Mail, and Toronto Star all have plenty about this. Mercifully, I couldn’t find anything about it on Al Jazeera, China Central Television, the Yomiuri Shimbun, Pravda, or NHK World.
This is going to give cross-dressing a bad name.
Here we are, Canada, a country I like to think is fairly decent in the world. We’re good at things like telecommunications, cartoons, wood, wheat, peacekeepers, oil. But do you think people will remember that? No… it’ll be “Isn’t that where that guy who murdered those women and kept a catalogue of their clothes was from?” Gah. It’s enough to make one want to move to Cuba.
Just off the top of my head, In Texas alone we’ve got Charles Whitman, Tex Watson, Henry Lee Lucas, George Hennard, Kenneth McDuff, Nidal Hasan, Joe Ball, Carl Watts, Dean Corll, Charles Albright, Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, David Koresh, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Texarkana Moonlight Killer, the Servant Girl Annihilator and the Texas Seven. I can sympathize, but I wouldn’t worry that anyone is going to hold Russell Williams against Canada.
Well, in addition to Williams, we’ve also produced Marc Lepine, Kimveer Gill, Robert Pickton, James Roszko, the Boyd Gang, Clifford Olsen, Paul Bernardo, and the guy who beheaded his Greyhound bus seatmate.
In short, Williams isn’t the first truly evil criminal we’ve produced. Those who wish to remember those elements of our history will do so regardless. I think, however, that once this news story plays out, most people will turn their attention to other pieces of news, forgetting Williams–at least, until the next serial killer/sexual offender/etc. comes along.
Gah. I need a shower after reading that. :eek:
On the plus side, he was born in the UK.
Then again, so was I.
What makes the Williams case so very odd, even in that company, is that he was so very prominently a member of the establishment - the head of our largest military airbase. I can’t off the top of my head think of a similar case where a public authority figure turned out to be this sort of stalker, rapist and murderer.
That’s a very good point. Quite frankly, most of the guys on the list are losers. What makes this one so chilling is that he was able to live the double life so well, and climb so high to a position of responsibility.
For example, as I mentioned in the thread that RickJay started, Col. Williams got regular updates from the police on the murder of one of the deceased in this case, since she was posted to the Canadian Forces Base and he was the commanding officer. Has there ever been a case of a serial killer who quite literally, as part of his day job, was reading the police reports on the attempts to track him down??
ETA: Here’s a link to the news article: Accused Colonel Kept Tabs on Police Probe
Williams was obviously an "organized offender."One of the best.
How can someone so smart, be so stupid?
It’s been mentioned in the press that they caught him due to the distinct tire tracks his vehicle left. Apparently, what was so distinct, was the fact that one of the snow tires was on backwards. For those not in the know, snow tires are directional. They are marked with arrows indicating the direction of rotation for best traction. It’s difficult to believe that only one tire was on wrong. Typically people have winter rims and if one tire is on wrong, then at least two tires should be on wrong. But apparently in this case, one of his snow tires was installed incorrectly. The police set up a check point and must have just about shit themselves when they checked the tires on his SUV. Can you imagine the shock?
From what I’ve read, the cops were tempted at first to simply disbelieve the evidence they had so carefully gathered - because the perp was so unlikely. The Colonel? In charge of the base? WTF?
Fortunately, they resisted this lure and went with the evidence.
Incidently, seems to have been a classic bit of police-work, to connect the tire-tracks and to lay a trap for the perp. It can’t be easy to catch a guy with the sort of organizational smarts as the Colonel - though perhaps, having gotten away with so many break-ins, he was getting careless.
John Wayne Gacy was a big man in Chicago politics. Had serious connections.
Yes, but not that big.
He was a relatively minor political figure - for example, according to Wiki, “Gacy was awarded for his services by being appointed to serve upon the Norwood Park Township street lighting committee” and was appointed “director of the annual Polish Constitution Day Parade”. While this was embarrasing - particularly when he got photographed with the First Lady - it isn’t of the same order of magnitude as the man in charge of the country’s top airbase.
Nonetheless, he was a local “public authority figure” of sorts.
True - and one who used that authority in his hunt for victims.
It doesn’t have quite the same shock value though, finding that the director of the annual constitution day parade is a serial killer - as opposed to a guy allegedly being groomed for the top command of the country’s military.
Apparently the court was just shown a letter of condolences written by Williams to one his victim’s families in his capacity as base commander.
I wonder if he got off on that, playing the comforting commander while knowing that he’s the perpetrator of their grief.
From what I can see Williams doesn’t appear to be a suspect in criminal activities prior to 2007. So for most of his life he probably wasn’t really living a double life. And it seems to have started innocently enough, with a lingerie fetish. I wonder what made his “graduate” to sexual assault and murder. Here’s someone who really should have sought help earlier.
Now I can’t wait to see the documentary that’s certainly going to be made about this case.