Ripoffs and a Rolex: The Murder of Ronald Joseph Platt

Unnatural Selection — The Alberta Eugenics Act

Episode 424: Between 1928 and 1972, the Alberta government authorized the forced sterilization of nearly 3,000 Albertans deemed "unfit" to reproduce. They were told they were having their appendix removed. Many were children. Most had no idea what was being done to them. The targets were the poor, the mentally ill, Indigenous people, immigrants — anyone who didn't fit the province's vision of a productive society. This wasn't a fringe movement. It was backed by doctors, politicians, newspapers, and some of the most celebrated figures in Canadian history. Sources: * The Canadian Encyclopedia — Eugenics [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/eugenics] * History of Rights Canada — Eugenics [https://historyofrights.ca/encyclopaedia/main-events/eugenics/] * Prairie History Journal, University of Alberta [https://journals.library.ualberta.ca/pi/index.php/pi/article/view/18879/14667] * Gladue / University of Saskatchewan — Eugenics Resource [https://gladue.usask.ca/sites/gladue1.usask.ca/files/gladue/resource541-2c6e0413.pdf] * Eugenics Archive Canada — Timeline [https://www.eugenicsarchive.ca/timeline?id=5172e8a0eed5c6000000001e] * Eugenics Archive Canada — Our Stories [https://www.eugenicsarchive.ca/our-stories] * City Museum Edmonton — Leilani Muir and Eugenics in Alberta [https://citymuseumedmonton.ca/2023/03/14/leilani-muir-and-eugenics-in-alberta/] * National Post — When Canada Lost Its Mind Over Eugenics [https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/when-canada-lost-its-mind-over-eugenics] * CBC News — Leilani Muir, Advocate for Alberta's Sterilization Victims, Dies [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/leilani-muir-advocate-for-alberta-s-sterilization-victims-dies-1.3492829] * CBC News — Cash Settlement for Sterilized Women (BC) [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cash-settlement-for-sterilized-women-1.565802] * Alberta Law Review — Mikkel Dack [https://albertalawreview.com/index.php/ALR/article/view/145/145] * Toronto Sun — The Controversial Beliefs of Canada's Famous Five [https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-the-controversial-beliefs-of-canadas-famous-five-suffragettes] * Wired — CRISPR Babies and Human Genome Editing [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/crispr-babies-human-genome-editing] * Scientific American — The Dark Side of CRISPR [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dark-side-of-crispr/] * NFB — The Sterilization of Leilani Muir [https://www.nfb.ca/film/sterilization_of_leilani_muir/] * The Guardian — What Is Pronatalism? [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/11/what-is-pronatalism-right-wing-republican] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The Murder of Francis Rattenbury: The Man Who Built B.C.

Episode 423: Francis Mawson Rattenbury designed the BC Parliament Buildings, the Empress Hotel, and the building that now houses the Vancouver Art Gallery, as well as many others. He was the most celebrated architect in the province for thirty years. In 1935, he was beaten to death in his armchair in a rented house in Bournemouth, England, by his wife Alma’s teenage lover, a chauffeur named George Percy Stoner. Both Alma Rattenbury and Stoner confessed. The trial at the Old Bailey gripped the English-speaking world. What happened after the trial was even more shocking than the murder. Sources: Sean O'Connor, The Fatal Passion of Alma Rattenbury (Simon & Schuster, 2019) [https://www.amazon.com/Alma-Rattenbury/dp/1471132714] Anthony A. Barrett & Rhodri Windsor Liscombe, Francis Rattenbury and British Columbia: Architecture and Challenge in the Imperial Age (UBC Press, 1983) [https://www.ubcpress.ca/francis-rattenbury-and-british-columbia] Terry Reksten, Rattenbury (Sono Nis Press, 1978; revised 1998) [https://sononis.com/product/rattenbury/] Francis Mawson Rattenbury — Dictionary of Canadian Biography [https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/rattenbury_francis_mawson_16E.html] Francis Rattenbury — Biographical Dictionary of Architects in Canada [http://dictionaryofarchitectsincanada.org/node/1409] Francis Rattenbury — Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Rattenbury] Alma Rattenbury — Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alma_Rattenbury] Newspapers.com | Search: Francis Rattenbury [https://www.newspapers.com/search/results/?keyword=%22francis+rattenbury%22] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The Hogg’s Hollow Tunnel Disaster

Episode 422: On St. Patrick's Day, 1960, five Italian immigrant construction workers — Pasquale Allegrezza, Giovanni Carriglio, Giovanni Fusillo, and brothers Alessandro and Guido Mantella — died beneath the Don River in Toronto's Hogg's Hollow neighbourhood. They were trapped in a tunnel less than two metres wide with no fire extinguishers, no hard hats, and no way out. The fire was preventable. The violations were known. A foreman had been fired for raising them. No one was ever charged. This is the story of five men whose names were nearly forgotten — and the laws that exist today because they died. Sources: The history of the Hoggs Hollow neighbourhood in Toronto [https://www.blogto.com/city/2021/03/history-hoggs-hollow-neighbourhood-toronto/] The Hoggs Hollow Disaster | definingmomentscanada.ca [https://definingmomentscanada.ca/all-for-9/historical-articles/the-hoggs-hollow-disaster/] The Hogg’s Hollow Disaster | Canadian Labour Congress [https://canadianlabour.ca/the-hoggs-hollow-disaster-killed-five-workers-galvanized-a-community-and-changed-workplace-health-and-safety-laws-for-the-better/] Hogg's Hollow Disaster National Historic Event [https://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/dfhd/page_nhs_eng.aspx?id=13076] Hoggs Hollow | cobtrades.com [https://www.cobtrades.com/hoggs-hollow] Remembering the Hoggs Hollow disaster | spacing.ca [https://spacing.ca/toronto/2023/03/17/remembering-the-hoggs-hollow-disaster/] Disaster at Hogg’s Hollow | jamiebradburnwriting.wordpress.com [https://jamiebradburnwriting.wordpress.com/2022/03/17/disaster-at-hoggs-hollow/] The Hogg’s Hollow Disaster | unionsong.com [https://unionsong.com/u480.html] Breaking Ground The Hogg's Hollow Memorial 40 th Anniversary Project | costi.org [https://www.costi.org/supportingcommunity/breakingground.php] Hogg's Hollow Tragedy (1960) | Toronto Workers' History Project [https://twhp.ca/hoggs-hollow-tragedy-1960/] BASTA! NO MORE FEAR! Remembering the Hoggs Hollow Disaster of 1960 [https://mayworks.ca/project/basta-no-more-fear-remembering-the-hoggs-hollow-disaster-of-1960/] The Hogg’s Hollow Disaster of 1960 | dresden1957.com [https://dresden1957.com/the-hoggs-hollow-disaster-of-1960] Hoggs Hollow Disaster | wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoggs_Hollow_Disaster] https://www.newspapers.com/image/1001301968/?match=1&terms=%22Hogg%27s%20Hollow%22%20tunnel [https://www.newspapers.com/image/1001301968/?match=1&terms=%22Hogg%27s%20Hollow%22%20tunnel] https://www.newspapers.com/image/950111466/?match=1&clipping_id=new [https://www.newspapers.com/image/950111466/?match=1&clipping_id=new] https://www.newspapers.com/image/1324439704/?match=1&clipping_id=new [https://www.newspapers.com/image/1324439704/?match=1&clipping_id=new] https://www.newspapers.com/image/1227727450/?match=1&clipping_id=new [https://www.newspapers.com/image/1227727450/?match=1&clipping_id=new] https://www.newspapers.com/image/1226718453/?match=1&clipping_id=new [https://www.newspapers.com/image/1226718453/?match=1&clipping_id=new] https://www.newspapers.com/image/941541607/?match=1&clipping_id=new [https://www.newspapers.com/image/941541607/?match=1&clipping_id=new] https://www.newspapers.com/image/941541580/?match=1&terms=%22Hogg%27s%20Hollow%22%20tunnel [https://www.newspapers.com/image/941541580/?match=1&terms=%22Hogg%27s%20Hollow%22%20tunnel] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Ripoffs and a Rolex: The Murder of Ronald Joseph Platt

Episode 421: On July 28, 1996, a fisherman hauling nets off the coast of Devon, England pulled up a body. The dead man had no wallet, no identification — nothing but a Rolex watch still ticking on his wrist. When British police traced the watch, it gave them a name: Ronald Joseph Platt, 51, of Essex. When they went looking for him, they found him — apparently alive. The trail led back across the Atlantic to Ayr, a small town in southwestern Ontario, where roughly seventy people had spent years trusting the wrong man with everything they had. By the time anyone understood what he'd done, he was already gone, and Ronald Platt was dead in the English Channel. Sources: Walker, Re, 1998 CanLII 14906 (ON SC) [https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/1998/1998canlii14906/1998canlii14906.html] A Hand in the Water: The Many Lies of Albert Walker — Bill Schiller (HarperCollins, 1998) [https://www.amazon.ca/hand-water-many-Albert-Walker/dp/0002557517] Nothing Sacred: The Many Lives and Betrayals of Albert Walker — Alan Cairns (McClelland-Bantam, 1998) [https://www.amazon.com/Nothing-Sacred-Multiple-Betrayals-Walker/dp/0770427669] Walker's Trail of Pain — Maclean's (July 6, 1998) [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/walkers-trail-of-pain] Walker Money Hunt — Maclean's (July 20, 1998) [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/walker-money-hunt] Walker Faces Daughter at First Day of Trial — CBC News (June 1998) [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/walker-faces-daughter-at-first-day-of-trial-1.166438] Mysterious Mr. Walker Sentenced for Fraud — The Globe and Mail (July 2007) [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/mysterious-mr-walker-sentenced-for-fraud/article20399709/] Fugitive Financier Sentenced to Four Years for Fraud — CBC News (July 2007) [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/fugitive-financier-turned-killer-sentenced-to-4-years-for-fraud-1.680783] Rolex Killer Denied Day Parole from B.C. Prison — Vancouver Sun (February 2024) [https://vancouversun.com/news/crime/bc-rolex-killer-albert-walker-denied-day-parole] Albert Johnson Walker — Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Johnson_Walker] The Rolex Murder — therolexmurder.com (Elaine Boyes's site) [https://therolexmurder.com/] The Rolex Killer - True Crime [https://www.watchesofespionage.com/blogs/woe-dispatch/rolex-killer-murder-mystery] Explore topics about albert-johnson-walker | Crime and Investigation UK [https://www.crimeandinvestigation.co.uk/taxonomy/term/306] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Every Dog Has Its Day : The Case of Valentine Shortis

Episode 420: On the night of March 1st, 1895, in the paymaster's office of the Montreal Cotton Company in Valleyfield, Quebec, a twenty-year-old Irish immigrant named Francis Valentine Cuthbert Shortis shot three men — killing two of them and leaving the third for dead in the darkness of the mill floor. What followed was the longest murder trial in Canadian history, a psychiatric battle that divided the country's leading medical minds, and a political crisis that reached the cabinet of Prime Minister Mackenzie Bowell and the desk of the Governor General himself. The victims were John Loy, twenty-four years old, and night watchman Maxime Leboeuf, who left behind a widow and five children. The survivor was Hugh Wilson, who carried the consequences for the rest of his life. Sources: Valentine Shortis Case | thecanadianencyclopedia.ca [https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/valentine-shortis-case] The Queen vs. F.V.C. Shortis (microform)| Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/cihm_64168/mode/2up] The Case of Valentine Shortis — University of Toronto Press / Amazon.ca [https://www.amazon.ca/Case-Valentine-Shortis-Politics-Canada/dp/080206728X] Valentine Shortis Case — The Canadian Encyclopedia [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/valentine-shortis-case] The Canadian Trial of the Century: The Story of 'Cracked Shortis' — History Ireland [https://historyireland.com/the-canadian-trial-of-the-century-the-story-of-cracked-shortis-1875-1941/] The Case of Valentine Shortis — Yesterday and Today — PubMed [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2059933/] Forensic Psychiatry in Canada — Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law [https://jaapl.org/content/38/2/158] Montreal Gazette Trial Coverage, October 25, 1895 — Newspapers.com [https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/419804803/] Profile: Author-Professor Martin Friedland — Bill Gladstone Genealogy [http://www.billgladstone.ca/profile-author-professor-martin-friedland/] Montreal Cotton Company — History of the Mill at Valleyfield — MUSO Virtual Museum [https://lemuso.com/mvc/la_montreal_cotton_introduction-the_montreal_cotton_introduction-eng.html] Manitoba Schools Question — Dictionary of Canadian Biography [https://www.biographi.ca/en/topics/topic-match-list.php?id=1606] Montreal Cotton Company Mills — Library and Archives Canada [https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/canadian-illustrated-news-1869-1883/Pages/item.aspx?IdNumber=3400] Sir Donald Macmaster, Crown Prosecutor — Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Macmaster] J.N. Greenshields, Lead Defence Counsel — Americana Aristocracy [https://americanaristocracy.com/people/james-naismith-greenshields] Henri St. Pierre, Defence Counsel — 76th New York State Volunteers [https://www.76nysv.us/76stpierre.html] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]