S33 E4: Cash for Bodies | Calls From a Killer

Summary

Uncover: Calls From a Killer – Episode S33 E4: Cash for Bodies

Introduction

In the gripping fourth episode of CBC's Uncover series, titled Cash for Bodies, listeners delve deep into one of Canada's most harrowing true crime cases involving Clifford Olson, a serial killer responsible for the brutal murders of at least eleven children in the 1980s. Hosted by seasoned journalist Arlene Bynon and featuring insights from her grandson Nathaniel Frum, the episode uncovers the controversial and unprecedented "Cash for Bodies" deal struck between Olson and Canadian law enforcement.

The "Cash for Bodies" Deal

At the heart of the episode is the shocking revelation that Clifford Olson was offered $100,000 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to disclose the locations of his victims' bodies. This arrangement was facilitated in secrecy, away from the knowledge of prison guards, and was kept hidden from the general public and media until after Olson's trial and conviction.

Arlene Bynon explains the uniqueness of the deal:

"Olson received $100,000 to lead the RCMP to the bodies of his victims. And he was only too pleased to be the model of cooperation." [01:00]

John Daly, a former reporter with BCTV News Network, highlights the magnitude of the payment at the time:

"Back then, $100,000 was like a million bucks." [01:59]

Adjusted for inflation, this sum would be approximately $300,000 today, underscoring the substantial nature of the deal.

Impact on Families and Public Outrage

The episode poignantly portrays the devastating impact of Olson's crimes on the families of the victims. Bridget Kosma, sister of one of Olson's victims, Judy Kosma, shares her anguish:

"They pay a killer money. The families were kept in the dark. The families were mourning." [11:19]

Bridget further expresses the long-lasting trauma inflicted by the deal:

"The only thing we know is that she was stabbed 19 times. 19 times. I can't even cut up a chicken anymore. [...] This part of history, their mistakes. You just want to forget about it. We'll never forget." [12:48]

Sharon Rosenfeld, mother of a victim, Darren Rosenfeld, also reflects on the emotional toll, emphasizing the pain and anger that still lingers decades later.

Perspectives from Law Enforcement and the Justice System

Law enforcement officials and prosecutors involved in the case offer their perspectives on the controversial deal. Robert Kaplan, then Solicitor General of Canada, defends the decision:

"The RCMP's word is their bond. Without that assurance and understanding in Canada, the RCMP would be a lot less effective than it is." [20:10]

Crown prosecutor John Hall, who led the case against Olson, provides insight into the rationale behind accepting the deal despite its unprecedented nature:

"The quieting down of the situation, the knowledge that the parents then had about the awful things that had happened that sort of gave them a bit of closure at the time on what had happened." [24:31]

Hall maintains that the deal was a necessary measure to provide answers to the grieving families and secure convictions against Olson.

Changing Views Over Time

Over the years, perspectives on the "Cash for Bodies" deal have evolved among the victims' families and the public. Initially met with outrage and disbelief, some families have softened their stance, acknowledging the desperate need for closure. Bridget Kosma recounts her shifting viewpoint:

"My initial reaction was, that's horrible. And how can they do that? However, my position changed later on because my thinking turned to, well, if they didn't pay him, then we'd never know where our children were." [27:01]

Similarly, Sharon Rosenfeld has reflected on the complexities of the situation, recognizing the difficult choices faced by law enforcement.

Legacy and Ongoing Controversy

The deal remains a contentious topic, raising important questions about the ethics of negotiating with criminals and the impact on public trust in law enforcement. John Daly voices concerns about the precedent set by the deal:

"There's a risk in it from the other side that, to my mind, is even greater than that of the parents, harm and suffering. [...] There’s a real danger that he or others like him will conceive that this is a way to make murder profitable at the expense of Canadians." [05:19]

Despite the passage of over four decades, the controversy surrounding the "Cash for Bodies" deal continues to resonate, highlighting the delicate balance between justice, ethics, and the urgent need for answers in the wake of heinous crimes.

Conclusion

Cash for Bodies offers a profound exploration of the Clifford Olson case, shedding light on the unprecedented measures taken by Canadian authorities to bring closure to devastated families. Through firsthand accounts, expert insights, and emotional testimonies, the episode underscores the enduring impact of Olson's crimes and the ethical dilemmas faced by those tasked with ensuring justice. This detailed narrative not only chronicles a dark chapter in Canadian history but also invites listeners to reflect on the complexities of law enforcement strategies in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Arlene Bynon: "Olson received $100,000 to lead the RCMP to the bodies of his victims." [01:00]

• John Daly: "Back then, $100,000 was like a million bucks." [01:59]

• Bridget Kosma: "They pay a killer money. The families were kept in the dark." [11:19]

• Robert Kaplan: "The RCMP's word is their bond." [20:10]

• John Hall: "The quieting down of the situation [...] gave them a bit of closure." [24:31]

• Bridget Kosma: "I can't even cut up a chicken anymore. [...] We'll never forget." [12:48]

• John Daly: "There's a real danger that he or others like him will conceive that this is a way to make murder profitable." [05:19]

This episode serves as a haunting reminder of the lengths to which authorities will go to seek justice, the profound suffering endured by victims' families, and the enduring ethical questions that arise from such unprecedented deals.

Transcript

[Kathleen Goldhar]

Hey there. I'm Kathleen Goldhar and I have a confession to make. I am a true crime fanatic. I devour books and films and most of all, true crime podcasts. But sometimes I just want to know more. I want to go deeper. And that's where my podcast Crime Story comes in. Every week I go behind the scenes with the creators of the best in true crime. I chat with the host of Scamanda, Teacher's Pet, Bone Valley. The list goes on. For the insider scoop, find Crime Story in your podcast app.

[Nathaniel Frum]

This is a CBC podcast. The following episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Please take care when listening.

[John Daly]

See, we closed the deal here. We closed the deal at about 12 o' clock, all right? And then the next day we left at 9 o' clock when the money was delivered. Then we went directly from there, out looking for body. You get what I'm getting at?

[Arlene Bynon]

In my decades working as a journalist, I've covered a lot of violent crimes, but I've never heard of a deal like this being struck with a suspected murderer before or since. Olson received $100,000 to lead the RCMP to the bodies of his victims. And he was only too pleased to be the model of cooperation.

[Ian Mulgrew]

And he walked around in a bunny suit and, like a white painter's suit, taking the cops to where he had murdered these children and buried them or covered them up or left them. And they had the videotape of him taking him to the crime scene and they had all the evidence.

[Arlene Bynon]

Olson was so proud of the deal being struck that from custody, he called his wife Joan, telling her, honey, you're going to be rich. Here's John Daly, a former reporter with the BCTV News Network.

[Ian Mulgrew]

We gotta remember this sounds like, you know, pocket change now, $10,000 when we've got billion dollar cost overruns and all kinds of things. But back then, $100,000 was like a million bucks.

[Arlene Bynon]

Now, easy, in today's dollars, it's closer to 300,000. Still a small fortune. John had prior knowledge of the deal before it was struck. Others in the media, like Ian Mulgrew, had the truth leaked to them from an unsavory source.

[Alan Williams]

Olson himself then began to call a couple of other reporters that he had been talking to pretty well bragging about it. And as a result, a good number of reporters began to realize that some sort of deal had been struck. They began to try and track down that story, as I did. And basically we all ran into this brick wall. And it turned out that the brick wall was partly because publishers and media executives had agreed with the RCMP not to report any of the information until after a trial and conviction. We knew it had happened, but the Attorney General of the province, Alan Williams, and the media executives essentially, you know, collaborated to ensure that none of us were allowed to write the story and tell the public until after the trial ended.

[Nathaniel Frum]

That meant Ian, John and their colleagues in news had to sit on the story for six months while Olson was arrested and charged with murder in August 1981. His trial didn't start until January 1982. It ended up being a short one. He initially pled innocence, but about three days later, before any of his case had been heard, he reversed his plea. Olson instead pled guilty to 11 counts of first degree murder. He was sentenced to 11 concurrent life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.

[John Daly]

In passing sentence, Mr. Justice Harry McKay told Olson, quote, I do not have the words to adequately describe the enormity of your crime or the anguish and heartbreak you have brought to so many people. There is no punishment a civilized country could impose that would come close to being adequate.

[Nathaniel Frum]

The fact that the cash for bodies deal was just as newsworthy as the sentence should tell you something.

[John Daly]

The Clifford Olsen story isn't over yet. Yesterday he pleaded guilty to murdering 11.

[Arlene Bynon]

Young people in British Columbia.

[John Daly]

And then the prosecution announced an unusual trade. The location of the missing bodies in return for $100,000 for Mrs. Olson. Today, the news that crime does pay was a concern all across the country. There are so many creeps, including lawyers, who will use this to the advantage of future offenders, that it's questionable method of tracking them down. Well, this is the first time that I'm aware of in Canadian history where an accused, as opposed to an informant.

[Robert Kaplan]

Has been paid monies.

[Arlene Bynon]

I think it's politically insane, and I.

[Robert Kaplan]

Personally do not approve of it.

[John Daly]

You can't debase the coinage of justice this way and expect the system to maintain the respect of ordinary Canadians. The there's a risk in it from the other side that, to my mind, is even greater than that of the parents, harm and suffering. An itinerant parolee like Olson is never going to amass $100,000 in a lifetime. There's a real danger that he or others like him will conceive that this is a way to make murder profitable at the expense of Canadians. And it's very dangerous.

[Alan Williams]

This was a horrific, completely unbelievable revelation that a government had entered into an agreement with a serial killer and paid him to return the bodies of his victims and the parents of the children, of course, were outraged.

[Arlene Bynon]

What kind of an explosion did it make? Do you remember.

[Alan Williams]

What kind of explosion was Hiroshima or Nagasaki?

[Arlene Bynon]

This is calls from a killer from CBC's Uncover. I'm Arlene Bynon.

[Nathaniel Frum]

And I'm Nathaniel Frum. This is episode four Cash for Bodies.

[Kathleen Goldhar]

We were called by news media. We were asked by a reporter if it was true. They had heard this rumor and we hadn't heard anything. We were all, what?

[John Hall]

What?

[Arlene Bynon]

This is Sharon Rosenfeld, whose 16 year old son Darren was killed by Olson. In the months following his disappearance, she and the families of other victims had.

[Kathleen Goldhar]

Banded together and so we quickly called a meeting and all of us got together and of course we were all just devastated. Like, how could this be? What are you talking about, money? We had no idea what was going on. Thus started the phone calls to the rcmp, to the Attorney General's office to ask, is it true.

[Arlene Bynon]

The deal was not only approved by the Attorney General of British Columbia, Alan Williams, but also by the Solicitor General of Canada, a man named General Robert Kaplan. While the position no longer exists, what this means is that the upper levels of Canadian government knew about the payment and gave the go ahead. And in the weeks following the deal making headlines, a lot of the public debate pivoted not just on the policing, but the politics driving the compromise. These are some of the callers into CBC's Cross Country Check up Canada's longest running national phone in radio show.

[John Daly]

I would think it would be a dangerous precedent giving incentives to other criminal behavior. And on the part of the rcmp, I think it illustrates a lack of expertise I would expect for my tax dollar a little more, a little more work other than just saying, well, you know, here's some money. Well, if you wanted to stop murders, if that was your priority, you wouldn't sit back and say, ah, yes, there was a period of four days when we didn't have enough manpower to follow him around and during that period he committed three murders. I don't believe them when they say our priority was to stop murders. If you want to stop murders, you put 10 men on that guy and you sit on him. I'm against some police informers because Olson himself has been paid evidently many times in the past as a police informer. And I believe that that's why they didn't objectively look at him earlier in this case. Cross country checkup.

[Ian Mulgrew]

Where are you calling from?

[John Daly]

Vancouver.

[Ian Mulgrew]

Should police pay criminal suspects for information?

[John Daly]

Well, I'll answer your question, but first I want to compliment the police and The RCMP in this area, they did a fantastic job. People are overlooking the fact that the families were in distress in this area. The ones who have their children that were lost and have not been found for many weeks and months were in terrible distress. And it wasn't one family, it was a whole lot of families. And other families were in constant fear that their children would be taken away, kidnapped or something would happen to them. So the pressure was tremendous. Now how do you solve a crime and get it over with?

[Arlene Bynon]

There was also this call from someone who claimed he knew Olson while both inmates in the Saskatchewan Penitentiary.

[John Daly]

Well, Olson obviously came up with a plan because he's a deviant person. Like he's had to fend for himself all the time by himself, for himself. And there's no way around it. So he obviously came up with that plan. From my experience with police, they wouldn't do that. They wouldn't say, we're going to pay you $10,000 to tell us where the bodies are. I don't think they'd do that. I think that Olson came up with that and it got to the politicians and the politicians are devious enough to do that because they want it over with.

[Arlene Bynon]

And then Terri Carson got on the line. Her 15 year old daughter, Terri Lynn was murdered by Olson in the previous July.

[Ian Mulgrew]

Hello, Mrs. Carson?

[John Daly]

Hello.

[Ian Mulgrew]

Do you think money should be paid in this instance or should have been paid?

[John Daly]

Well, in this case, yes, because, okay, otherwise we would have been sitting home wondering if our child was alive or dead. This way we know, you know, and the child, like my daughter, was cremated and at least she had a service, you know.

[Ian Mulgrew]

Do you think the police should make a general practice of this kind of thing?

[John Daly]

Well, if it ever comes about to have a mass murderer again, I think they should, yeah.

[Arlene Bynon]

11 confirmed victims means there were 11 grieving families who, it should come as no surprise, have differing opinions on the deal and how it affected their lives.

[Bridget Kosma]

And then of course you discovered that they would give this monster $10,000 basically cash for bodies.

[Arlene Bynon]

Bridget Kosma, Judy Kosma's sister And the families didn't matter.

[Bridget Kosma]

The families were kept in the dark. The families were mourning. I mean, it was so bad. But yet they pay a killer money.

[Arlene Bynon]

Tell me about how the reaction was around you where, where you were so close to where it all happened.

[Bridget Kosma]

They were completely outraged. I mean, he paid debts off. It's sickening. Meanwhile, these families, including mine, were just trying to put our lives back together, trying to find strength to carry on the financial burden on loved ones. To pay for funerals. The list just goes on. And then on the other token, a murderer enjoying the fruit of his labor of killing 11 children, slaughtering them, brutally murdering them. I still have rage and anger. I just try to control it.

[Arlene Bynon]

The longer Bridget and I talk, the more I could see she doesn't really draw a line between the conduct of authorities and the pain inflicted by Olsen.

[Bridget Kosma]

I can't even go out at night. I have a fear to go out at night. Like the rcmp. And what they did caused us so much damage when this all happened, pretty much a close family that we were. It tore us apart. Everybody didn't know, couldn't comfort each other. Sadly, my mother was not a mother anymore. She was grieving. And my dad, he just submerged himself in working. And the rest of us, as a close sibling family, everybody kind of went their separate ways. I ended up moving to Nova Scotia. We just saw separated. They had killed my family. They didn't just kill Judy. They killed the entire family. I didn't even know till three years ago that my other brother, Peter, was suffering so much with this. He had so much anger. I didn't even know that he ended up in prison. I think once or twice. There was so much anger in them that he was on depression medication till the day he passed away. Look at me talking to you. I'm 64, and it's still pain.

[Arlene Bynon]

So sorry, Bridget. Fairly tough. And you're very brave.

[Bridget Kosma]

The only thing we know is that she was stabbed 19 times. 19 times. Can you imagine? 19 times. I can't even cut up a chicken anymore. When I look at knives, they give me fear. And they're. Now they're just all forgotten. Like, they just want to race my sister. Just want to race them all. Like this never happened. This part of history, their mistakes. You just want to forget about it. We'll never forget.

[Arlene Bynon]

You know, Bridget, there's people hearing this story for the first time. What do you want them to know?

[Bridget Kosma]

My sister's life mattered. She was a beautiful person. That her life was cut short. I blame the RCMP for all this.

[Arlene Bynon]

Did you know Canadian news is still banned on Instagram and Facebook?

[Ian Mulgrew]

And this August will mark two years since that ban began.

[Arlene Bynon]

So if you can't trust the algorithm to keep you updated, trust World Report instead.

[Ian Mulgrew]

I'm John Northcott.

[Arlene Bynon]

I'm Marcia Young. And we want to unblock you from the news that matters Most.

[Ian Mulgrew]

Give us 10 minutes every morning, and we'll give you the biggest stories happening in Canada and around the world.

[Arlene Bynon]

You can Find and follow World Report wherever you get your podcasts. What did this do to Canada? In your mind, how big was it and how much does it leave behind after all these years?

[Ian Mulgrew]

Well, it was a monstrously large, shocking, horrible, painful story. And I think really what it did was it crashed the glass for Canadians thinking that somehow we were in a bubble, we were protected from this kind of American violence, and that we had our own homegrown serial killer child murderer right here under our noses. And, you know, it went on for nearly a year. And it was unimaginably horrible, the things that he did to these children. And I think it took away our innocence. It really shocked Canadians and made them realize that we better sort of wrap our heads around that. We better come up with policing and a criminal justice system that can respond to these things.

[Nathaniel Frum]

If my grandfather Pete had a more positive view of the rcmp and Bridget Cosmos is the complete opposite. John Daly's is somewhere in between.

[Ian Mulgrew]

There were a number of other detectives who really sort of threw everything they had at these crimes. But overall, the system itself is lumbering along under paramilitary bureaucracy with a lot of old thinking at the top. And you just start to look at it in a much more critical way, saying, you know, well, they can't keep us safe. The bad guys are out there. It's kind of like a slow moving battleship or aircraft carrier. It's hard for it to turn around and it does the usual stuff moderately well, but it doesn't do the exceptional things very well.

[Nathaniel Frum]

My grandfather wasn't the only legendary journalist in my family. On October 16, my grandmother on my dad's side was Barbara Frum, one of Canada's most respected broadcasters. People still talk about her skill as an interviewer today, even though she passed away more than 30 years ago. And in January 1982, she interviewed Solicitor General Kaplan on the CBC show the Journal.

[Arlene Bynon]

Did anyone ever make a case to you that they could not get a conviction or even a confession from Olson unless a payment was made? Was that case ever put to you?

[Robert Kaplan]

No. The first I heard of the case was after this deal had been made and I was informed about it. I was surprised about it because it is an unprecedented arrangement.

[Arlene Bynon]

What is your view?

[Robert Kaplan]

What I. What I wanted, I wanted to be sure right away that it was legal. And I was given assurances that a legal opinion had been obtained about it. I wanted to be sure that it wouldn't prejudice the trial so that there could still be a possibility of conviction. And I was satisfied about that.

[Arlene Bynon]

Mr. Kaplan, once Olson led Police to those graves. Once they knew who they had, why was payment made? Why wasn't it stopped then? Do you think it should have been stopped then?

[Robert Kaplan]

Well, here you come to a very firm tradition of the rcmp, and that is that their word is their bond. And when criminals or informers come to the RCMP and make a deal with the rcmp, that that deal will be respected by the rcmp. And without that assurance and understanding in Canada, the RCMP would be a lot less effective than it is.

[Arlene Bynon]

The cash for bodies deal wasn't just shocking to the Canadian public and the families of the victims. Inside the justice system, there were questions about it too.

[John Hall]

I can recall that I wasn't wildly enthused about paying him any money because I thought, eventually, I'll get this guy. He never stops talking.

[Arlene Bynon]

John hall was the Crown prosecutor in the Olson case. Hand selected by the B.C. attorney General's office, he was the man in charge of making sure Olson was convicted. When John was handed the case, there was little direct evidence linking Olson to the murders. The notebook found in his possession with victim Judy Cosma's name written on the COVID was the best lead the RCMP had. But John believed he was up to the job of convicting Olson.

[John Hall]

That's why they hire guys like me. And I thought, you know, ultimately that he would confess to somebody about other people that were missing.

[Arlene Bynon]

As confident as John was that Olson would talk that he could have convicted him without the deal, law enforcement was feeling pressure to close the case and catch the murderer who had been terrorizing the lower mainland. So it was decided the deal Olson had proposed was their best chance.

[John Hall]

That sort of quieted things down and was a comfort to the parents, who, of course, were in a state of absolute upset because their children had gone missing. And by paying this money, it was found that he had, in fact, killed them.

[Arlene Bynon]

As the Crown prosecutor, John was ultimately the one to bring the case against Olson and present the deal to court, where he knew that reporters like Ian Mulgrew and John Daly would be waiting.

[John Hall]

At one time, there was some suggestion that it would be announced in a sort of confidential way to the press that this done. And I said, there's no way that's going to be done. The press knows that if they disclose this, but I will charge them with contempt and that'll be the end of that.

[Arlene Bynon]

Why? Why did you want to silence the reporters at the time?

[John Hall]

Well, you see, the problem would have been that if they reported this, it would have caused difficulties with prosecuting Olson, would have Been potentially biased the jury and so on. And so that sort of thing you just could not possibly put out in the public domain. I mean reporting it would have been very bad.

[Arlene Bynon]

Very few of the people responsible for this Cash for bodies deal are still around today and picking this story back up. More than 40 years after the deal was signed and the money delivered, the controversy still feels hot to the touch. After all this time, would the people behind the deal still stand by it? John, who is now retired and in his mid-80s, does. Have you thought about this during your career? Because I can't think. And we've tried to find another case like it in Canada or even in other places in the world where a suspect was paid to give that kind of information and that amount of money.

[John Hall]

Well, have I thought about it? I suppose I've thought about it. I haven't thought about it at any great length but I look back on as a necessary thing that was done for public policy reasons. I think that the quieting down of the situation, the knowledge that the parents then had about the awful things that had happened that sort of was a gave them a bit of closure at the time on what had happened. I don't think I ever had any doubts that it was the right thing to do.

[Arlene Bynon]

When you say quietening down, was that part of this decision? The police were under a lot of pressure. There were children. Well, was that part of it?

[John Hall]

Well, the minister was under pressure but it was. When I say quieted down, it was a way of getting information that would let the parents of the missing children know what had happened so that they weren't left in a state of, you know, alarm, confusion, sadness, whatever it is. They then had at least information about the dreadful thing that had happened to these victims.

[Arlene Bynon]

Why do you think it's not been used again to offer a suspect money to give answers?

[John Hall]

Well, I think it's very bad thing to do to start thinking that we would offer money to people who commit murders, to confess to murders. That's not the way that the world should operate. But remember that the Olson case was a bit of an on off because of the high level of uncertainty and alarm in most other cases. It would not be appropriate to pay the money to get information. And you just have to treat the Olson case as a rather unique circumstance.

[Arlene Bynon]

As the decades have passed, some of the victims families have softened their harsh criticism of the RCMP's investigation and the cash for bodies deal. Like trudy Court, whose 13 year old sister Ada was killed by Olson in June 1981.

[Bridget Kosma]

My initial reaction was, that's horrible. And how can they do that? However, my position changed later on because my thinking turned to, well, if they didn't pay him, then we'd never know where our children were. We'd never get them back.

[Arlene Bynon]

Sharon Rosenfeld has also reflected on and perhaps revised her stance.

[Kathleen Goldhar]

None of us at the time really quite understood that there had been, I believe, two or three children that had not been. Their bodies had not been found. And of course, once the arrest was made, part of the deal was for Clifford Olson to point out the locations of each of the bodies of the children that he was being charged with. I said, fortunately or unfortunately, my little guy had been found. We had him, we knew where he was, but other people had not had their children's bodies. So I felt sorry for them. I'm not happy over the hundred thousand dollar payment. However, I'm still willing to give police respect today.

[Arlene Bynon]

But you can still sense there are lingering memories of treatment so offensive that at the time it must have really felt like the authorities were at emotional war with the families, Families who really just wanted answers. Some of those incidents are indelible.

[Kathleen Goldhar]

We just thought that the government or RCMP was paying him just to talk and we just thought that was disgusting. But it really became a big deal to the point where the Attorney general, their office called and said that they would meet with the families. So the attorney General was at the meeting, the deputy Attorney General was at the meeting, and the upcoming Crown Prosecutor John hall, who was going to prosecute Clifford Olson. And in John Hall, I'll never ever forget. I still am incensed with it. John hall looks at all around the room and he said, I don't understand why all of you people are so upset. I mean, 11 children could have just as easily been killed in a school bus accident. I mean, if they're dead, they're dead. The room went crazy. Ziggy Wolfsteiner, who had just had heart surgery, and he got up, he was bent in half, holding his heart, Raking was lunging at them. Gary was hanging onto raking, and Mrs. Cosma was just beside herself. Mrs. Court was just crying. I mean, the room went crazy.

[Arlene Bynon]

I asked former Crown prosecutor John hall about this incident. Do you remember a gathering where the families were there and you said, if they're dead, they're dead. And perhaps their children could have died in a bus crash. Do you remember that?

[John Hall]

Meaning, I don't think I ever said that or would ever said that. It doesn't sound very sensible.

[Arlene Bynon]

Sharon Rosenfeld, who is the mother of one of the murdered boys. She said she remembers that meeting very carefully, and she said, you know, the families reacted quite demonstrably. They were upset.

[John Hall]

I recall going to a meeting, and whether anybody said something like that to them at that time, I don't know, but I have no recollection. All I recall is that the families were, of course, justifiably very upset, and. And it was a difficult meeting for Alan Williams and the Deputy Attorney General. I tried to be as helpful to the families and let them know what I was doing as I could. But in the end of the day, I don't know that there's any real solace that one can answer or give to parents who suffered such awful losses as they suffered. The best thing that I could do was to simply convict this villain and put him out of circulation. And that's what we did.

[Nathaniel Frum]

The thing I've never understood is if Olson felt the RCMP had nothing on him, or at least so little that he had leveraged to negotiate the deal, why did he agree to the cash for bodies deal? Was it to simply say he got one on the police? Was he just greedy, eager to go back to prison where he lived comfortably? Or was it, as he says, really to provide for his wife and child?

[John Daly]

I says, look, if you put $100,000 together, we'll work something out. And I says, and that money goes to Joan and my boy in the trust fund. And I put that whole thing together myself.

[Arlene Bynon]

At the time of Olson's conviction, Joan Olson, as she was then called, wasn't much more than a two dimensional concept. A naive, probably foolish woman who didn't know her own husband was a monster, but who was with her son, reaping the rewards of his killing rampage as the beneficiary of the trust $100,000 was put into. And for that, in the eyes of those who detested the deal, Joan was also a villain. But was this truly her story, 10 years after her husband's case was closed? I'd find out. Clifford, since the first time I talked to you, you said Joan would never lie, and you said she has an excellent memory. Now that I'm. Clifford, can I finish now that I'm asking you some rather painful things.

[John Daly]

First of all, they're not painful things.

[Arlene Bynon]

Well, they seem painful because you're very angry with them.

[John Daly]

So let's not get into philosophical debate here. You know, go ahead, get on with your questions.

[Arlene Bynon]

This is the question that I want to ask you.

[John Daly]

Go ahead.

[Arlene Bynon]

Joan doesn't lie. Joan has a good memory. But everything I have asked you here today, Joan, is either lying or has a bad memory. What do you think?

[Nathaniel Frum]

I'm going to think that's next time on Calls From a Cross Killer. Calls From a Killer was written and produced by me, Nathaniel Frum, Arlene Bynon, and senior producers Ashley Mack and Andrew Friesen. Mixing and sound design by Evan Kelly. Emily Connell is our digital producer. Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak, Tanya Springer is the senior manager and Arif Noorani is the Director of CBC Podcasts. Tune in next week for an all new episode of Calls From a killer from CBC's uncover. Or you can binge the whole series by subscribing to our True Crime Premium channel on Apple Podcasts. Just click on the link in the show description.

[Bridget Kosma]

Foreign.

[Nathaniel Frum]

For more CBC Podcasts, go to CBC CA Podcasts.