← Canadian True Crime
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- [00:00]
Kristy Lee
Hi there, it's Kristy Lee. I hope you're staying safe and warm these holidays. And sorry about the nasal voice. Tis the season. Today I'm sharing an episode of a podcast I think you'll really love. It's called Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. Each week, award winning investigative journalist Kathleen Goldheart takes a deep dive into a true crime case with the storyteller who knows it best. And for this year end wrap up episode, that person is Me. I was thrilled to record with Kathleen at CBC Studios. I've followed her work for years and have recommended several of her investigative series to you before including the no Good, Terribly Kind Wonderful Lives and Tragic Deaths of Barry and Honey Sherman. In Crime Story, Kathleen explores complex cases with a sharp interviewing style that quickly gets to the core of each story. A recent episode features her in conversation with an ABC journalist unpacking the infamous mushroom murders case that gripped off Australia. I also enjoyed her conversation with Amanda Knox. In this episode of Crime Story, I sat down with Kathleen to talk about what goes into making Canadian True Crime. Some behind the scenes details about some cases I've covered, and at the end, our favourite true crime documentaries and podcasts of the year. If you enjoy this conversation, subscribe to Crime Story. There's a link in the show notes.
- [01:28]
When I started, I was ripe for criticism from other journalists and established broadcasters because you know, they were like, who is this kind of person inserting themselves into true crime? What are they? What are they doing?
- [01:47]
Kathleen Goldhar
On the website for Christy Lee's podcast, she writes that she prefers to avoid the spotlight and maybe when her show started nine years ago, that might have been possible, but today, Canadian True Crime is a juggernaut of a success story. With more than 70 million downloads and hundreds of episodes, Canadian True Crime has a lock on the top of the podcast charts. Christy Lee joined me in studio to talk about her work, her success, and the stories that have stuck with her. Kathleen, I'm Kathleen Goldhar and this is Crime Story. Christy, welcome to the podcast.
- [02:30]
Kristy Lee
Thank you so much, Kathleen. I'm so excited to be here. I'm such a huge fan of you and all your work and this show and it's just amazing to be here.
- [02:39]
Kathleen Goldhar
Thank you. And we are too, and jealous of your success for sure. I mean, it's really amazing. One of the things that I find amazing is that you're sticking to Canadian stories and it's so popular. But why did you decide to stick to Canadian stories?
- [02:54]
Kristy Lee
So I guess I started the podcast as a personal passion project. You know, I Just decided I wanted to teach myself how to do a podcast. And at the time, I was listening to a lot of true crime podcasts. I was a, you know, a big kind of consumer of true crime content, and I. I knew what direction I wanted to go in. And there was also. I saw a lot of comments on the Internet saying, you know, there's a lot of true crime podcasts out there. You know, more and more are coming, but hardly anyone is doing a focus on Canadian true crime stories. You know, back in. In the day, I was obsessed with serial killers the same way a lot of other people who find their way to true crime are. And the Paul Bernardo, Carla Homolka story, like, really hit me back in the late 90s, early 2000s, and it stayed with me. So I just decided to do that story as my first kind of case and went from there.
- [03:53]
Kathleen Goldhar
That's so interesting about the Paul Bernardo thing. I never actually clicked to that, but, I mean, I was around, you know, we're of a certain age, and I remember it being. And actually friends of ours worked at the Toronto Star at the time, and I knew some of the people who were covering it. And I remember waiting for the newspaper to show up so I could read the story the next day. And I never even put the two together. But that was sort of your first. Now you look back and you're like, oh, that's what we do now is like this, like everyday covering it, bringing everything big. They really pulled apart the story, they gave you all the details, they brought you to the court. Like, it's so interesting. I hadn't really thought about that case, but for me, too, that was really informative for the work that I ended up doing.
- [04:35]
Kristy Lee
Yeah, I bet. Yeah, it was very interesting. And especially, you know, with that case, how Canadian news was getting a different story to what American news was. So I. I've read that it was a pretty crazy time because the Canadians were trying to get their hands on the American news and for the publication ban.
- [04:52]
Kathleen Goldhar
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, so interesting. You also say on your website that you go beyond the headlines and you don't just ask what happened, you ask why. It's kind of a little bit of what we do too, here at Crime Story. But there is a difference between the two of us, right? I'm a journalist, I came through journalism school. All the sort of more traditional lines of, you lean into the advocacy, you lean into having an opinion, you do that kind of stuff. Not that I think as journalists, more traditional journalists, we've moved away from the idea that we can't have a sense of humanity, which I'm very grateful that we have because I've always questioned that idea. But I'm just curious about your tact and where you came from. So what is sort of behind the work that you do? You said you did it for your own interest, but it must have been. It is more to you than just being somebody who's curious about serial killers, right?
- [05:46]
Kristy Lee
Well, I mean, my interest in serial killers was long done by the time I started the podcast. I'm really interested in. In, I guess, the. The human condition and the darker side of humanity and what people are capable of. It was. It's always been an interest to me, the psychology behind, I guess, criminality and victimhood. Like, you know, they talk about victim psychology and that type of thing. I don't know. I just find it really interesting, just the dark side of what humans are capable of and why. And as a woman, what we could possibly look out for, what red flags there are. You know, back when I was growing up, I didn't know what gaslighting was or coercive control or anything like that. So I was vulnerable. And, you know, people could take advantage. And I think the things that I've learned over my lifetime are things that I would want my children to learn. And so as I'm delving into a case, if I come across a certain issue, there might be societal context or historical, socioeconomic, elder abuse, indigenous issues. I like to learn about these things so I can pass them on to the audience and so they can learn. And I hear from listeners that they. They appreciate that, you know, it's not just listening to a crime story. It's. They come away with something new. And it's not just because I've dug up a new fact or I've, you know, got a new interview or whatever. It's because I've done some research and I've looked into the facts and the science and the. The inquiry reports and. And, you know, all the supporting documentation. So, yeah, it's a learning experience.
- [07:35]
Kathleen Goldhar
You do so much work into these episodes. Yeah. Can we talk a little bit about, just, like, your process?
- [07:43]
Kristy Lee
It's. It's painstaking. And I think a lot of that is because I am an indie and I'm an amateur. And I didn't start off with journalism as my background. And so I think when I started, I was ripe for criticism from other journalists and established broadcasters because, you know, they were like, who is this kind of person inserting themselves into true crime what are they. What are they doing? And so I took all that criticism on board, and it really pushed me to think, well, what am I doing this for? What is my overall goal and purpose? It can't just be my passion project anymore, because people are actually listening, and I have to really think about the responsibility that I have to the audience. And so I just kind of decided I have to provide that bit of analysis. Connecting of doc dots. Sometimes there's. When you go over a case that's, you know, 30 years old, you know, things now that people didn't know back then. So when you're going through the court documents and the news archives, you can see things that, you know, might not have been seen back then. And then I can kind of explore that as part of the story.
- [09:00]
Kathleen Goldhar
Give me an example of where that. Where that you were able to do that with.
- [09:05]
Kristy Lee
So I've. I've done a big series on the opioid crisis in Canada, and my goal with that was to explore it from a criminal kind of perspective, you know, because drug use is considered a crime. And so I really wanted to delve into. Well, it's not just a crime. People are getting into drugs and using drugs because. Because of other factors, you know, dissatisfaction with their life. Oftentimes it's the direct result of government policy that pushes people into poverty, and so they seek an escape through drugs. And so I. I kind of wanted to explore the human side of. Of the crime of drug use or, you know, drug possession and explain that these people aren't criminals that need to be locked up. They're hurting people who need help.
- [10:04]
Kathleen Goldhar
That's what I love about doing this show and the work that I do. And especially that I love about podcasting, especially serialized stories, is this idea that you can get past the headlines and sort of think about everybody's journey to that place, victims and perpetrators. And so often, I mean, of course, there is the small percentage of people who are just bad, but so many more of them are people who are hurting and who didn't, never had a chance. And I think that's. To me, the idea of true crime that always sits with me is like, yeah, we're speaking about something sensational. But when you really look at who people are, we wouldn't be here if there was more kindness and more help and just a little bit more of a safety net or something to protect people.
- [10:46]
Kristy Lee
Yeah, yeah. And like, over the last couple of years, you know, our society now, the communities have become so, so much more divided than they ever were. So I think now more than we need kindness and empathy and understanding and compassion when talking about some of these stories, which are, you know, people's worst days of their lives. You know, people like the public deserves to understand, like, the real story behind these things. It's not just, you know, a bad guy and a good guy type thing. You know, there's always nuance and context that needs to be explored.
- [11:23]
Kathleen Goldhar
Yeah. And I know in your podcast you don't go out and do interviews in your own sort of investigating, but you end up often speaking with either victims or the families of victims. That's become. And is that something that sort of evolved over time with you? Tell me how that kind of came to be.
- [11:41]
Kristy Lee
Yeah, well, originally I wasn't reaching out to anyone. Cause I thought, who am I? Like, no one wants to hear from, you know, this mom in Burlington podcasting from her basement, you know, but after a while, I'm starting to think, well, more and more people listening, so maybe I should. But as it turned out, I covered the Victoria Stafford case about, you know, the little girl from Woodstock who was abducted and, and murdered. And after I covered that story, one thing I really wanted to get into was how people criticized the parents by. Because of how they appeared on the press conferences. You know, Victoria's mother was quite cold and unreserved. And people would say, why aren't you crying? Why don't you seem more upset, like you must have had something to do with it. And, you know, she was saying, you know, I cry behind the scenes, you know. And as it turns out, she didn't have anything to do with it. And so I really wanted to explore with that that these are heartbroken parents and people aren't always going to react the way that you think they're going to react. And we shouldn't rush to judgment because they have a reaction that we don't think is appropriate for the situation. So after that, I guess Rodney Stafford listened to the series and.
- [13:05]
Kathleen Goldhar
Who's Rodney Stafford?
- [13:06]
Kristy Lee
Oh, sorry, Victoria Stafford's father.
- [13:08]
Kathleen Goldhar
Oh, okay.
- [13:09]
Kristy Lee
And so he reached out to me and then I started realising, you know, some of these victims, families of victims and survivors, they. They do want to talk about the cases. And so I started being more open to it. But because I'm not a journalist, I didn't want to have to ask them for another interview just so that I could say, I've got fresh tape, or his new quotes of them saying the same thing that they've already said many times. So in many cases, I offered them the opportunity to participate in the way that they would want to. So some of them have chosen to read a statement, others have chosen to send me a statement to read. One father of a victim sent me a poem that that victim wrote when he was a teenager. And I read that out. And then, you know, when I was covering the Jacob Hogard sexual assault trial, the first trial, and while I was releasing the episodes, one of the survivors behind the case reached out to me from behind the publication ban, and I offered her the opportunity to read her victim impact statement and record it. And I think she found it to be a really empowering kind of move. I don't know, it's just a. A different approach depending on the case, depending on where they are and they're kind of grieving process, how they're feeling about speaking out. I just change my approach depending on what case and what I'm doing.
- [14:38]
Kathleen Goldhar
So, yeah, you called yourself an amateur a little while ago, but you're not an amateur. You're really developed an expertise in this stuff. Well, I mean, even the fact that you've done the stuff you have with victims, I think it's really. And I think journalists could learn from you, let alone. And I know you've learned from them, but I think that there's really something to that, to the way that you have those conversations with the families and the victims and giving them the space to have that conversation the way they want to, which is sort of something that you bump up in the traditional journalism world because we have all these restrictions. Right, right. How do you take care of yourself, though? Because you must be getting a lot of trauma dumping, in a way. Yeah.
- [15:19]
Kristy Lee
You know, I started having therapy during the pandemic.
- [15:25]
Kathleen Goldhar
Therapy. Great. And I, you know, medicine therapy.
- [15:30]
Kristy Lee
Yeah. What else can you do? And, you know, it's hard to figure out, like, where I begin in the podcast or where I end in the podcast begins. It's all kind of melted together in one big snowball that keeps growing. But I. I don't find the cases where I'm working with victims and survivors. Those are always the ones where I have the hardest time because I'm not a journalist, and I do toe that line with advocacy. So I'm not just trying to tell their story. I'm trying to tell it in a way that they would like. So there's a lot of editing, and I have to get into their head and really understand what. What it is that they want to get across, because oftentimes they can't. They're not in a position to be able to communicate that. And so, again, it's kind of that empathy piece. You know, sometimes they don't. They want to talk about other things around the case, and they don't want to talk about the. The actual graphic details. So I take care of that for them and then leave them to be able to discuss what they want to.
- [16:49]
Kathleen Goldhar
Are there times when there's a clash between you needing to tell the story as it is and what they want? Because there will be differences there, right? Yes.
- [17:02]
Kristy Lee
And it's very, very hard. And I never want to re. Traumatize them or upset them or say something that might be taken the wrong way. I had a pretty difficult situation last year. I was covering. I was contacted by a woman who was abducted by a pedophile in Kingston in around 1990. She was 11 years old, and she was one of three little girls who were. Who was abducted. And later on the, you know, he was on. He was not caught at the time, but later on, the case was solved through DNA because he went on to murder a woman. So that case kind of solved the three little girl abductions. And at the time, the woman who contacted me, her name's Kerry Kehoe, she's an amazing victim advocate and just an incredible person. She contacted me to cover the story because the man who abducted her, Richard Charles Joyce, was asking for parole, and she really wanted to make the public aware that there is no cure for pedophilia. A person who is. Has been diagnosed with pedophilic disorder can take therapies and, you know, programs to help them manage the symptoms, but they really have to be wanting to do that and have a desire to change.
- [18:30]
Kathleen Goldhar
Yeah.
- [18:30]
Kristy Lee
And so her. Her kind of goal was to make the public aware that this isn't just. This guy has done his time and he says he's changed. Like, he actually has to demonstrate that he's changed. And that's the message she wanted to put across. But I couldn't tell her story without. Tell the story of the other two little girls that she was abducted, like that the guy abducted as well, and also the woman who was murdered, because the DNA from that case solved the abductions. And so after I chatted with Kerry and eventually, you know, she introduced me to one of the other little girls who was abducted. And she has down syndrome. And after she was abducted and sexually assaulted by this pedophile, she unfortunately, you know, regressed. And so that case dealing with adult survivors of childhood abduction and sexual assault by a pedophile was really, really difficult for me. To deal with, especially cause, you know, the other little girl had down syndrome. And so I was dealing with her parents who have been trying to protect her for all of these years, but still had a message that they wanted to put. And so I really had to tread carefully because these people who have had crimes committed against them several decades ago have had a lot of time to think about it and they have certain perspectives and sometimes you can't mention things that they want you to mention because it just would not go over well. And you don't want to say no to. To them because they really want you to mention that thing. So in the end, I just kind of deferred to truth and transparency and so I did that. And Kerry and I, the survivor, had a really good conversation. She explained where she was coming from and I did. And we ended up coming to a kind of a common ground where we were both comfortable with it and then we moved on. And so that's kind of how I get through everything. Yeah, I have made mistakes, but, you know, apologize, move on.
- [20:45]
Kathleen Goldhar
Honesty and kindness again.
- [20:46]
Kristy Lee
Yeah, right. Yeah.
- [20:52]
Kathleen Goldhar
What about the other side of this, the justice system? So a lot of what you look at and you talk about is the punishment of this too. So not only are you dealing with the victims, but you're dealing with whatever justice decides justice is. Can you tell me about what you feel like is working, what isn't working, where you see the problems. Like, what have you kind of come to realize about the way that we.
- [21:12]
Kristy Lee
Punish.
- [21:14]
Kathleen Goldhar
Perpetrators in this country?
- [21:16]
Kristy Lee
So I have really nuanced views, like everything about policing and the prison system. And I am on the page of prison abolition and realising that the prison system is not always the best way to deal with offenders. And unfortunately, it's the only system that we have. But oftentimes people get. People say, well, you can't just abolish the prison system because people would be, you know, these dangerous criminals would be out walking amongst us. What are you going to do about it? And I think again, what people fail to realize is that a lot of crime is caused by where we are in society and is the direct result of government policy. And obviously, you know, there's bad people, like you said before, but maybe if we invested more money into helping them and to be more successful, instead of punishing them when they've done the wrong thing, you know, help them up front instead of, like coming in behind and punishing them. So that's kind of one of the views that I've developed as a result of doing this. The other thing is how, how cases proceed through, through the criminal system and how what often happens behind the scenes is not so clear cut as what it might appear to be when it's reported, reported by the media. And a lot of times that involves me going through court documents and comparing to other evidence. And one of those cases is the Hockey Canada trial recently. So I decided to go through the entire judge's written decision to see exactly how it was that she arrived at the not guilty verdict. Because I saw some language coming out in the headlines that was taken directly from that written decision and I felt like it was overly harsh and disparaging towards the victim. Complainant. Oftentimes if you're just following a case through the media, you might miss some of these things because, you know, a judge's 90 page decision is difficult for journalists to report on. You know, it takes a lot of time to go through and compare it to evidence and stuff. And at the end of the day, judges and juries are just humans. And sure a judge's opinion is the final version, but there are always things that we can learn from it.
- [24:06]
Kathleen Goldhar
People always ask me because I do this show and the other work that I do, do I still listen to true crime? And I listen all the time. Like this job feels like I get paid to do what I love. Do you still listen? Are you still a big fan of it, of the industry?
- [24:20]
Kristy Lee
Oh yeah, I am for sure. I would say, like not. I'm not as frenetic about consuming the content as I once was and I don't tend to listen exclusively to true crime podcasts the way I used to. I tend to pick and choose now what I'm listening to based on, you know, what's, what's being talked about.
- [24:44]
Kathleen Goldhar
Let's talk about it. What's some of the ones that you've enjoyed in the last little while? Yeah.
- [24:51]
Kristy Lee
I recently watched this case, this documentary about the Christine Jessup story and it really, really touched me. I had followed the case loosely. It's one of Canada's most well known wrongful conviction cases.
- [25:08]
Kathleen Goldhar
Let's remind people just in case.
- [25:10]
Kristy Lee
Yeah, so Christine Jessup was a nine year old girl who was, who disappeared from her home in Queensville, which is about an hour north of Toronto. And this was in 1984. Three months later her remains were found in the Durham region about, you know, not close to where her home was. And at the time she had this weird neighbor who acted oddly and his name was Guy Paul Moran. And the police kind of zeroed in on Him. And as like they had tunnel vision, you know, they apparently they kept like two notebooks, one with evidence that, that they thought proved he was guilty and then other evidence that went completely against him. And so they chucked that one out and kept the one notebook. And so this guy, Paul Moran, the poor guy ended up being found not guilty. And then he was tried again, found guilty, and then exonerated through DNA. But the case remained unsolved ever since. And in 2020, genetic genealogy, which is the same technology that was used to catch the Golden State Killer, a Toronto police officer decided to apply that technology to the Christine Jessup case and see if they could use genetic genealogy to track down a relative of the person, you know, the DNA that was found with the remains. So they ended up doing that and they identified the perpetrator, Calvin Hoover, and he'd passed away by suicide in 2015. So the family got a form of closure, but they never really understood why, obviously. But this documentary. So throughout the years, the case kind of went from Christine over to Guill Paul Moran, right? There's two victims, the one who died and the one who was wrongfully convicted of the murder. And this is the story that her family wants people to know. So I think that that's really important because the story has been told so many over the years and it all comes back to that victim, you know, Christine Jessup, the little nine year old girl with the pixie face.
- [27:30]
Kathleen Goldhar
That's a big one. It's funny. Wrongfully convicted stories. My favorite podcast. One of my favorite is the Bone Valley podcast that Gilbert King did about Leo Schofield.
- [27:40]
Kristy Lee
I haven't listened to that, but I hear about it.
- [27:43]
Kathleen Goldhar
It's incredible. It's incredible in all the ways the story is important, the writing, the interviews, the way they set it up. I mean, also I love listening and listening to the craft of it, just because you can learn so much, but it's the same idea. So Leo Schofield was arrested for killing his wife, and he didn't long and the short of it, but you know, he was in jail for such a long time and he always sort of couldn't really mourn her properly because of course, everyone thought he killed her. And so the idea of the victim and the family and all that just gets so much more messed up when you even get the wrong person. So that's a podcast you should listen to if you get the chance. Yeah, I will. And there's a second season that's equally as wonderful. And I've been so lucky that I got to interview Gilbert King twice for it. So, yeah, he's a lovely man.
- [28:32]
Kristy Lee
Okay, I need to get on the Bone Valley thing.
- [28:36]
Kathleen Goldhar
What else. What else are you listening to?
- [28:39]
Kristy Lee
So I want to talk about Sea of Lies because I loved that podcast so much, and it's about a case that I have covered before on my show, and it's a kind of a twisty tourney case that crosses boundaries between Canada and England. And it's. It's basically the Canadian is a financier who. He's a scammer. He's all kinds of awful things. He impersonated. He's a murderer. And so it is a very. It's one of those cases that, as it unfolded, it was. It had so many twists and turns and, like, big reveals. And when I saw that Sea of Lies was going to be released, my interest was immediately piqued because I knew it was completely solved, like, years ago, maybe decades ago. And there haven't been any new developments since then, apart from, like a parole hearing. So I'm thinking to myself, what. What is going to be in this podcast? And I was really interested because Sam Mullins is a very, you know, well respected podcaster. And I thought he's, you know, he's. He's confident, he knows what he's doing, he has a team. And I thought, let's see what, what somebody of that caliber would do with the same story that. That I did. And, and what he ended up getting on these. This tape was these incredible characters, you know, very quirky British humor. I really, really admired the way he was able to toe the line between, like, an entertaining story and something that was also really sensitive when it needed to be, and respectful to the victims and, and their families. And, you know, there's other victims in this case, secondary victims. I. I just thought it was really, really excellent. And I. I hope. I hope it will win a lot of awards.
- [30:44]
Kathleen Goldhar
I think it's already started to win awards, right? I think it won a signal award. Are you thinking, is there a podcast you'd like to do more serialized, like, with your own investigations?
- [30:54]
Kristy Lee
I can't even really. I mean, when I take on cases that end up being like that, I just kind of disrupt my own publication schedule to do a full series. Yeah, which is what I did with this Hockey Canada. Like, you know, I spent two months on it, took over my summer. It's kind of. It sent my. It's derailed my next season. And these are the things that I have to do. You know, it's A. If I. If it's a passion project, then I have to follow my passion. And because I guess I'm the boss, I can say these things. And although there's a whole bunch of listeners that aren't interested in the Hockey Canada trial or sexual assault cases, so I feel like I've alienated all those people. So now I have to try and, you know, it's a constant give and take where that comes from. But to do something like what Sam Mullins did, I would need, like, a team. And I just. I generally work autonomously. And I would also need to take a sabbatical because I release episodes most of the year round. So it's really hard. It's like, how do you jump off a moving train?
- [32:02]
Kathleen Goldhar
Yeah. Well, congratulations. I mean, it's really a success story and I'm just really impressed and I'm glad we finally got to meet in person.
- [32:11]
Kristy Lee
Thank you so much, Kathleen. It's been lovely chatting with you. I think we could probably talk for a few more minutes.
- [32:16]
Kathleen Goldhar
I think we could. Yeah. No, it's awesome.
- [32:18]
Kristy Lee
Yeah.
- [32:19]
Kathleen Goldhar
Great. And keep up the good work.
- [32:20]
Kristy Lee
Thank you. You too. Okay.
- [32:28]
Kathleen Goldhar
You've been listening to Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. You can hear the show ad free by subscribing to CBC True Crime on Apple Podcasts. Be sure to follow us there on Apple or on Spotify. You can also find us on YouTube. Just search and subscribe to CBC True Crime. The show is hosted by me, Kathleen Goldhar. Our producers are Nikki Manfredi and Hadil Abdelnabi. Sound design and video production by Julian Uzieli, Reza Daya and Evan Agar. Our digital producer is Emily KINNELL and our YouTube producer is John Lee. Our senior producer is Kate Evans. Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Tanya Springer is the senior manager of CBC Podcasts and Arif Narani is the director.
- [33:16]
Kristy Lee
That was an episode of Crime Story from CBC Podcasts. You can listen to more episodes wherever you get your podcasts and there's a link in the show notes. Don't forget to check out that Mushroom murders case. It's wild. I hope you have a wonderful new year and I'll see you on January 19th for a very special series. Thanks again.