Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History

Episode 434: On the morning of February 25th, 2005, Crystal Taman, a forty-year-old dental assistant, wife, and mother of three, left her home in East St. Paul, Manitoba on her way to work. She never arrived. Stopped at a red light on Highway 59 at the Perimeter Highway, her car was struck at highway speed by a blue Dodge Dakota truck driven by an off-duty Winnipeg Police Service constable named Derek Harvey-Zenk, who had spent the night drinking with fellow officers at a north-end bar and a colleague's home. Crystal died on impact. Harvey-Zenk refused to provide a breath sample and was charged with impaired driving causing death, dangerous driving causing death, criminal negligence causing death, and refusal to provide a breath sample. More than two years later, all charges except dangerous driving causing death were stayed in a plea deal, and Harvey-Zenk was sentenced to two years less a day — served at home, with no conditions. The outcome sparked a public inquiry.

Sources:TAMAN CRYSTAL - Obituaries - Winnipeg Free Press PassagesTaman Inquiry | WikipediaCrystal Ann Sveinson Taman (1964-2005) - Find a...http://www.tamaninquiry.ca/May 2012: No memory of fatal crash: Harvey-Zenk | Winnipeg Free PressReview clears police force after controversial case | Global NewsHarvey-Zenk appeared tired, not drunk, at party before crash, inquiry hears | CBC NewsProvince of Manitoba | Archived News Releases | Taman Report PublishedFormer cop finally takes the stand | Global NewsMajor changes to how police officers will be investigated | CTV NewsPolice told cousin Harvey Zenk was drunk | Global NewsJun 2012: Ex-officer from Taman inquiry sues RCMP, police | Winnipeg Free PressBringing the Thin Blue Line into Line: Bill 16, the Police Services Act, 2011 CanLIIDocs 256Disgraced cop’s lawyer slams Taman inquiry | Global News
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Episode 433: On August 16, 1995, Avis Ottey came home to her townhouse in Scarborough, Ontario, expecting to find her daughters packing for the future. Instead, she found nineteen-year-old Marsha Ottey and sixteen-year-old Tamara "Tami" Ottey murdered in the basement.

Marsha was just two days away from leaving for Arkansas State University on an athletic scholarship she had worked years to earn. She had also confided something chilling to her mother while packing her bags: "If anything should happen to me, it's Rohan."

What followed was a seven-month investigation that stretched beyond the murders of the Ottey sisters. Two unsolved sexual assaults, a seemingly unrelated killing at a Toronto subway station, that of TTC employee Dimitrija Trajceski, DNA evidence, and the largest manhunt in Toronto Police history ultimately exposed the truth behind a crime driven by obsession, control, and extraordinary violence.

Sources:https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/1999/1999canlii14909/1999canlii14909.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2003/2003canlii15438/2003canlii15438.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2003/2003canlii32900/2003canlii32900.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2003/2003canlii52177/2003canlii52177.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/on/onca/doc/2011/2011onca311/2011onca311.htmlhttps://www.canlii.org/en/ca/scc-l/doc/2012/2012canlii5501/2012canlii5501.htmlGuilty verdict in 1995 slaying of Toronto sisters | CBC NewsWalk in memory of Agincourt Collegiate’s Ottey sistersIf anything happens to me: The murder of the Ottey sisters | Global NewsCrime Beat: If Anything Happens To Me - The Ottey Sisters | S1 E8Murder suspect appears in Canada court - UPI ArchivesMANDEL: Killer of Ottey sisters granted 60-day unescorted passRosie DiManno: Killer of the Ottey sisters, now out on parole, still has a life ahead of him, unlike his victimsMANDEL: Killer of Ottey sisters granted full parole despite riskISN CEO Revisits One of His “Most Challenging Cases” In Global TV's ‘Crime Beat’ Episode88 Valley Stream Drive, Toronto, ON, CA
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Episode 432: In February 1884, a Scottish storekeeper named James Bell was shot dead in his cabin along Telegraph Road in Washington Territory, just south of the Canadian border. Within days, a fifteen-year-old Semá:th boy named Louie Sam was arrested on suspicion of murder and placed in lawful Canadian custody on Sumas Prairie. He never made it to trial. On the night of February 27, a mob of seventy armed and disguised men crossed the international boundary from Washington Territory into British Columbia, took Sam from his cell, and hanged him from a roadside tree 169 paces north of the border. No one else was ever charged for Louie Sam’s lynching, and the investigation into Bell’s death seems to have stopped with Sam’s death.

Sources:

Deadly Neighbours — Chad Reimer (Caitlin Press, 2022)

The Lynching of Louie Sam — Keith Thor Carlson, BC Studies No. 109, Spring 1996

The Lynching of Louie Sam — John Vaillant, The Walrus, December 2008

Lynching Information — Tuskegee University Archives

An American Mob Crosses the Canadian Border and Lynches Louie Sam — HistoryLink.org

Our Territory — Sumas First Nation

Sq'éwlets: A Stó:lō–Coast Salish Community in the Fraser River Valley

Daily Colonist (Victoria, BC), February–March 1884 — britishcolonist.ca

BC Historical Newspapers — British Columbian (New Westminster) 1884, UBC Open Collections

Whatcom Reveille, February–March 1884 — Jeffcott Collection, Western Washington University Archives

Mesachie and Louie Sam — Chilliwack Progress, October 8, 1958 — Newspapers.com

Washington State Expresses Regret Over 1884 Lynching of Canadian Teen — CBC News, 2006

Plain Injustice — Literary Review of Canada, 2022

Louie Sam — Wikipedia

PDF of The Lynching of Louie Sam by Keith Thor Carlson

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Episode 431: In the fall of 2011, the first of three indigenous women disappeared from a stretch of Winnipeg's West End that those who worked there called the Street of Tears. Their families searched, put up posters, and made phone calls that went nowhere. The man believed responsible had been known to police for decades. His criminal record ran to 109 convictions. He was already on their radar when the final woman disappeared. This is the story of Tanya Nepinak, Carolyn Sinclair, and Lorna Blacksmith.

Sources:

Shawn Lamb coverage index — CBC News

Tanya Jane Nepinak — CBC News

Shawn Lamb sentenced to 20 years for two slayings — CBC News

Police paid killer Shawn Lamb $1,500 for information — CBC News

Winnipegger speaks about life on streets, alleged assault by convicted killer Shawn Lamb — CBC News

Shawn Lamb gets statutory release — CBC News

Convicted killer Shawn Lamb must stay at halfway house — CBC News

Shawn Lamb pleads guilty to killing 2 women — Global News

Landfill search progressing for Ashlee Shingoose; Tanya Nepinak family hopeful — Global News

Parole Board grants Indigenous Winnipeg killer Shawn Lamb statutory release — APTN News

Statement on Brady Road Landfill Search for Ashlee Shingoose and Planning for Tanya Nepinak — Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs

NFSC Calls for Justice and Accountability Following Statutory Release of Shawn Lamb — National Family and Survivors Circle

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Episode 430: On the morning of May 28, 1998, police were called to a home on Encino Avenue in Encino, California. Inside the master bedroom, they found Phil Hartman — one of the most versatile performers in the history of North American television — shot three times at close range while he slept. His wife, Brynn, had pulled the trigger sometime around 2:30 in the morning, then driven to a friend's house and confessed. By the time police arrived, she was back in the bedroom. She never came out.

Phil Hartman was 49 years old and born in Brantford, Ontario. He had just wrapped his fourth season of NewsRadio. He had a film opening in July. Behind the public face of a thriving career was a marriage under years of sustained pressure — addiction, relapse, escalating volatility, and a final argument that ended in the worst possible way. The motive was listed as unknown. It remains unknown.

Sources:

Los Angeles County Coroner Case Report, Investigator's Report, Autopsy Report & Toxicology — Case No. 98-03785

Hartman's Death: The Police Version — Time, June 3, 1998

Reaction & Sanctions — NPR, May 28, 1998

Disturbing Details Found In Phil Hartman's Autopsy Report — Grunge, 2024

The Last Days of Phil Hartman — ABC News / 20/20, 2019

Phil Hartman — People Magazine, 1998

Jon Lovitz Blames Andy Dick for Hartman's Death — CBS News, 2007

Phil Hartman Wrongful Death Lawsuit / Zoloft — Salon, 1999

Birgen Hartman on her father's Simpsons legacy — The Hollywood Reporter, 2022

Brantford to honour Phil Hartman with mural — CBC News, 2024

Phil Hartman — Canada's Walk of Fame

Phil Hartman — Brantford Walk of Fame

You Might Remember Me: The Life and Times of Phil Hartman — Mike Thomas

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