Canada’s youngest serial killer

Image courtesy of Daily news

WARNING: This blog post involves the topic of child sexual assault and abuse. Reader discretion is advised. 

Some Background 

Canada has no shortage of the demented and twisted, serial killers especially. While the killers of the great white north may not be the most notable names (like Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, or Jack the Ripper), what they lack in notoriety, they make up in sheer terror. One such horror went about terrorizing the people of Toronto from 1956 through 1957, killing and molesting children.

His Upbringing 

David Michael Krueger, more commonly known by his birth name Peter Woodcock. Born in Peterborough, Ontario, on March 5th, 1939. Despite the monster that Woodcock grew into, he had a troubled upbringing. He was born to a 17-year-old factory worker, Waita Woodcock, who had put him up for adoption after a month. He went through foster homes like scientists go through coffee filters, with an inability to find connections with any of his foster parents. A two-year-old Woodcock had to be given medical treatment after at least one of his foster parents abused him. After some time, Woodcock had found a stable home, although things were still far from perfect.  

His foster parents were worried about their child’s mental state and regularly brought Woodcock to the Hospital for Sick Children. He was also sent to a private school, where the boy had little success in making friends, and remained isolated. There were signs of the unhinged violence brewing within him that were being shown. One such sign was when a social worker heard him mutter “I wish a bomb would fall on the Exhibition and kill all the children”. As a result, he was sent to a school for emotionally disturbed children. 

 At that school, Woodcock started to act on his sexual urges, and he was schooled with the perfect prey. He stated that at that school he had consensual intercourse with a 12-year-old girl when he was 13. He was discharged from school when he was 15. 

His Killings 

Woodcock started his killings at the age of 17. On Sept. 15, 1956, he found a seven-year-old Wayne Malette. After luring the boy away, he began to strangle him to death. Police discovered Malette’s body the next day. Their clothes were taken off and then put back on, alongside two bite marks on his body and no evidence of rape. Pennies were scattered around the body. 

His next murder was on Oct. 6, 1956, when he picked up a nine-year-old Garry Morris on his prized red and white Schwinn bicycle and drove him to Cherry Beach. He beat and strangled Morris to death. His corpse was discovered ten days later with a bite mark on their throat. Similarly to the murder of Malette, the clothing was taken off the victim and then put back on, and paper clips were spread around the body. The pattern was quite clear.

It would be a longer while until their next murder. On Jan. 19, 1957, Woodcock approached a four-year-old Carol Voyce and drove her under the Bloor Viaduct. He partially continued his pattern by strangling the victim and pulling off her clothes. She was sexually molested, and her death was caused by a tree branch being forcibly inserted into her vagina. Thankfully, this was the crime that would put a stop to his crimes. 

His Arrest, Trial, and Imprisonment 

Woodcock was arrested after witnesses described a teenager cycling away from the crime scene, and a composite sketch was made from those descriptions. It led to Woodcock’s arrest on Jan. 21, 1957.  After a four-day trial, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to the Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre. 

While imprisoned, he underwent numerous different treatments and psychiatric therapies, but none were efficient in curing his psychopathy. Woodcock was far from a model prisoner; he would often coerce and exploit fellow inmates into performing sexual acts. He was eventually transferred to the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital. 

One Last Kill and His Death 

Image courtesy of toronto star

During this time, Woodcock had coerced Bruce Hamill, an Ottawa killer, who was rehabilitated and now working as a security guard for the Ottawa courthouse to kill again. Their target? Denis Kerr. On July 13, 1991, Hamill signed out the now 52-year-old Woodcock and arranged to meet Kerr in the forest. Once Kerr had arrived, the two attacked him and beat him until death, then proceeded to mutilate the body and sodomize it. Once his fourth murder and final murder was done, he walked to a police station two miles away and turned himself in. 

He spent the rest of his life imprisoned. Then, on Woodcock’s 71st birthday, he died of natural causes.  

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Roch Graham is a 19-year-old student at Algonquin College, currently studying in its Professional Writing Program. Hailing from the small town of Embrun, Ontario, Roch strives to become the best writer he can be. While he may not look like it, he is a secret fan of horror and the disturbing world of true crime, and he is excited to tell you all about it... or get a little silly about it. Roch enjoys writing, playing video games, and reading in his free time.

Junji Ito’s enchanting, grotesque, and horrific art

IMage courtesy of Thefamouspeople

When it comes to the wide world of horror, there’s one figure that comes to mind and stands out above the rest. Junji Ito, a Japanese horror manga artist, renowned for his iconic and unforgettable works in pop culture. Born on July 1963, Ito delved into horror at the young age of four, where his sisters would read the creations of horror manga artists Kazuo Umezu and Shinichi Koga. He bought his first manga Orochi by Umezu and let his passion for the craft turn him into the horror icon he is now. 

Before becoming a manga artist, Ito had a career in dentistry, but he considered changing careers because the work was difficult, and other issues were affecting him. Around that time, the Kazuo Umezu Award was launched. Ito submitted and published his first work Tomie in Monthly Halloween, a shōjo magazine, in 1987. He subsequently won the Kazuo Umezu Award. 

Ito has since published numerous works, each more outlandish and horrifying than his last. Their most notable being House of the Marionettes, Greased, and Uzumaki. All of this has allowed him to grow into one of the most prominent manga artists of our time. 

Works and Style 

image courtesy of yokogao

What makes Ito’s manga so horrifying is how he strays from the cyclical norms of horror. His stories don’t focus on killers or monsters, but rather on the unknown and unexplained, with strange premises acting as the story’s foundation to build upon. One such example is The Hanging Balloons, one of Ito’s works where the story revolves around a surge of unexplained suicides, and reports of inflated heads corresponding to those who have died, with metal nooses swaying beneath them instead of string.  

However, the story isn’t all that pulls readers into his stories. That would be his graphical style. Ito is well known for his detailed line work and ink work to present shocking and unsettling imagery in otherwise blank panels. He masterfully blends shading and texture, bringing viscous details like blood, sweat, and gore to life.

His Inspiration 

When asked for his inspiration, Ito references influences such as Spielberg’s Jaws, H.P Lovecraft, and the Winchester Mystery House, as well as his hometown, which became an inspiration for one of his stories. Ito Stated that “There were a lot of narrow roads in between buildings, which looked like a maze. I would play hide-and-seek around there and around old hospital buildings that were scary, and I believe is reflected in my manga (Chik)."

Ito’s inspired works grew to such lengths that they too were able to bring inspiration to the world of horror, particularly in the horror game genre. Indie games like Ghost in the Pool and Nami are perfect examples of how much Ito has influenced the horror genre.

Adaptations of His Work 

image courtesy of polygon

Over the years, there have been many adaptations of Ito’s different works. From Netflix’s anthology series Junji Ito Maniac: Japanese Tales of the Macabre, with each episode adapting different stories from Ito’s collection to Adult Swim’s recently released 4-part adaptation of Uzumaki.

Ito has not only gotten his work adapted onto the screen, but he has also created adaptations of classic horror stories, one such example being his adaptation of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. He captures the romantic, gothic feeling of the original novel while combining elements of his unique blend of horror. 

My Favorite Works 

As someone who enjoyed the original novel by Mary Shelley, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard there was a manga adaptation. During this time, I didn’t know who Junji Ito was, so this was my first impression of him. When I learned more about the adaptation, I wanted to read it and learn more about the artist.

I found the art to be an almost perfect interpretation of Frankenstein’s monster, it was like looking at the original novel through a new visual lens. 

Back to Basics 

Ito has been making manga for over 35 years, and last April, he published a Tomie one-shot, further fleshing out the story that put him on the map. I’m happy to see that even after so long, he is still committed to his craft, and I can’t wait to see what other horrors he creates.

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Roch Graham is a 19-year-old student at Algonquin College, currently studying in its Professional Writing Program. Hailing from the small town of Embrun, Ontario, Roch strives to become the best writer he can be. While he may not look like it, he is a secret fan of horror and the disturbing world of true crime, and he is excited to tell you all about it... or get a little silly about it. Roch enjoys writing, playing video games, and reading in his free time.

How fictional horror becomes real-life horror, an overview of the Slenderman stabbing.

What is Slenderman?

image courtesy of nbc

The character of Slenderman is widely known as a staple of internet horror. An unnaturally tall, faceless white figure wearing a suit who stalks and abducts children. To most, it sounds like some sort of boogeyman kids would have concocted in their nightmares. Although, what happens when a fictional horror becomes a horror of reality?

Originating as a fictional horror character on the Something Awful forum in 2009, Slenderman quickly rose to prominence in the horror genre thanks to a short survival horror game, Slender: The Eight Pages. It was released on June 26, 2012, and since then the character has grown into a pop culture icon. What no one expected was this icon to motivate such a disturbing crime.

What happened? 

On May 31, 2014, 12-year-old Payton Leutner was playing a game of hide-and-seek in Davids Park with friends, Morgan Geyser and Anissa Weier. That is when the perpetrators, Geyser and Weier, restrained Leutner and stabbed her 19 times with a kitchen knife, in multiple parts of her body.

Following the attack, Geyser and Weier left Leutner in the heavily wooded area of the park and travelled five miles on foot. Leutner, against all odds, had crawled to a nearby road, where passing cyclists miraculously found her and called 911. She was rushed to the hospital, where she was operated on.

Police had apprehended Weier and Geyser 5 miles away from where they left Leutner, in possession of the knife that was used in the stabbing. When asked where they were going, they told officers that they were going to live with Slenderman at his mansion in the Nicolet National Forest, 200 miles away from where they were found. They were apprehended soon after. During the interrogation with the two girls, they told officers that they wanted to appease the fictional horror character. They stated that they had to kill someone to be worthy of living with him, and if they failed their families would be killed. Weier and Geyser were deemed not guilty by reason of insanity. Weier was sentenced to 25 years and Geyser 40 years to life to separate psychiatric institutions.

The Aftermath 

Image courtesy of bbc

Despite all that happened to her, Leutner was able to make a full recovery from her injuries, returning to school in September 2014. However, the events of that day continued to haunt her for years to come. In December 2017, Leutner held deep fears and insecurities, as well as scars from the attack and the surgeries that saved her life. Not helped by the fact that in September 2021, Judge Bohren granted Weier conditional release after finding no “clear and convincing evidence that the defendant poses a substantial risk of harm to others, herself, or serious property damage.”

On the flipside, Judge Bohren denied Geyser conditional release on April 2024, who remains under the care of the Winnebago Mental Health Institute.

The Impact of Slenderman 

The character of Slenderman has always been a prevalent figure in the world of internet horror, along with many such figures such as Jeff the Killer and The Rake. However, it is one of the only figures that was able to cross the threshold between the internet and reality to influence such inhuman acts.

What’s worse is this isn’t the only attack that was linked to the fictional character. A week after the first attack, a 13-year-old had allegedly stabbed her mother. The mother, who survived the attack, said that her daughter was fascinated by the fictional boogeyman. Additionally, a husband and wife killed five people in a Las Vegas shooting, two of which were cops, before both committing suicide. The husband often dressed up as Slenderman, according to a neighbour. While these cases aren’t as notable as the original incident, it’s still something to keep in mind.

In some ways, these attacks call to mind other real-life crimes motivated by controversial fictional characters, such as the Joker. Mentally struggling individuals become driven to commit horrible acts because of icons of horror and chaos.

The Slenderman stabbing is a cautionary tale about the darkness that these icons, fictional or not, can bring out in even the most innocent people.

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Roch Graham is a 19-year-old student at Algonquin College, currently studying in its Professional Writing Program. Hailing from the small town of Embrun, Ontario, Roch strives to become the best writer he can be. While he may not look like it, he is a secret fan of horror and the disturbing world of true crime, and he is excited to tell you all about it... or get a little silly about it. Roch enjoys writing, playing video games, and reading in his free time.

Introduction

Ever curious who the Zodiac killer was? What happened to Madeleine McCann? Or do you just need a movie recommendation? Here at In Morbid Detail, we dive into all things true crime and horror. Get into all of the gory details in film reviews, articles, or our opinions on the best things horror has to offer. Whether you’re a true crime buff or a horror fan, join us as we dissect movies and motives.