Authors: Kate Lines
Most crimes are intraracial in nature and there was no indication that the offender would be anything other than white.
Age is never an easy opinion to give because the behaviour a criminal exhibits tends to be based more on emotional and mental maturity rather than chronological age. Crimes of interpersonal violence are usually committed by someone in the same age range as the victims. In this case it was lowered to thirty-five to forty-five years of age because of the physical requirements of some parts of the crimes, such as placing the bodies in the trunk of a car. If he was outside that range, he would be older rather than younger given the maturity of the overall crime—meaning that it was well executed and there was very little physical evidence left behind. Also, there was nothing indicative of a second person being involved in this crime.
The scenes in Caledon and Toronto reflected an offender who had immediate control of his victims. He was patient with whatever ruse was used to get Nancy to come to the farmhouse. He was neat and left little evidence behind, seemingly cautious and a planner. He was definitely what is described as an organized offender.
The farm was remote and isolated but the Caledon area would be in this guy’s comfort zone. He was knowledgeable and comfortable enough to find and stay in the Blackburns’ home for some time, so he may have known them or known of them. They may or may not have known him. There would be some connection between them but one could only speculate what it might be.
With the bruising pattern on Ian’s right cheek consistent with the muzzle of a gun, a firearm was the way the offender controlled his victims.
Given the whole way this crime went down, along with our training and knowledge of FBI and other research into similar cases, Ron MacKay and I agreed that it seemed this offender would likely be asocial but functional and that other traits consistent with this personality would follow. He could be uncomfortable around people but would interact when necessary or in his best interest. He would be seen by others as quiet and reserved and likely seen by some as an eccentric. He probably had a poor self-image. His personal hygiene and the way he dressed would be average to below average. He seemed the type that would work with his hands but was likely unemployed at the time. He certainly didn’t appear to be commuting anywhere to work. He would have a criminal record, but likely only for minor offences like this break and enter.
This guy had the time to plan, develop and execute this crime and he didn’t appear to be accountable to anyone else. Therefore, he was likely single at the time, although he may have been married in the past. If he was married, his wife would have been considered by him to be inferior to him either mentally or physically. She was likely to be more of a mother figure than a wife.
He must have been very determined in his intentions, because he significantly raised his risk of being caught when he took Ian and Nancy to Toronto. He didn’t use his own car so perhaps he didn’t own one. If he did own one, it would just have been basic transportation, nothing flashy. It seemed more likely that he didn’t own a car and maybe didn’t even have a driver’s licence.
Ron MacKay and I agreed that sexual sadism seemed the strongest component in this crime. Roy Hazelwood had taught us both about sexually sadistic crimes and we were seeing that behaviour in the injuries to Nancy. We also had the knowledge of research conducted by the FBI and others into hundreds of these types of crimes and the men responsible for committing them. These attackers performed degrading acts on their victims that caused pain, suffering and humiliation. There would also have been psychological pain, not only for Nancy but also for Ian if he was present. What was so aberrant about it was that it was sexually arousing to the offender.
The first big break in the case came when searchers located a bag of garbage in a ditch about a hundred metres away from the farm. Inside was an empty can of beer, the same kind as cans found in the Blackburns’ farmhouse, as well as several sections out of a Toronto newspaper dated December 27, 1991. The same old newspaper had been found in the farmhouse missing the same sections. The pages of newspaper found in the bag were wrapped around human excrement similar to what was found in some of the break and enters. There were also numerous pages of meticulously neat military equipment lists similar to those seized in the other incidents. There was now a strong link between the farmhouse homicides, the break and enters and the kidnapping that all occurred in the area.
Ident had been able to lift fingerprints from some of the cottage break and enters, however, there was no match to any known criminal when police searched AFIS, Canada’s Automated Fingerprint Identification System operated by the RCMP. We still didn’t know who he was but we did know that the “House Hermit” was a strong suspect in the murders. The abduction victims’ descriptions of the personality traits exhibited by their kidnapper were also consistent with those provided in the unknown-offender profile in the Blackburn case. I was confident of two things: this was our guy and he was going to kill again if we didn’t catch him.
TO CATCH A KILLER
“There is … nothing accomplished by any detective, that is not the result of conscientious work, the exercise of human intelligence, an efficient system of organization and intercommunication, and good luck.”
—John Wilson Murray,
Memoirs of a Great Detective:
Incidents in the Life of John Wilson Murray
I’m crouched low to the ground, hiding. My back is tight against a tree. My pulse is pounding in my ears. My heart feels like it’s exploding out of my chest. My teeth are chattering. I can’t stop shaking. Why am I so cold? I’m sweating so much. I want to lean out and look back. I can’t hear him. I know he’s close. He is going to kill me. I’m going to be the victim this time. This is the fear they feel. I’m going to be sick. A twig snaps behind me. I bolt. It’s the last thing I remember.
AFTER I FINISHED VOMITING
, I washed my face, brushed my teeth and shut off the bathroom light. Trapper, our yellow Labrador retriever, was lying at the bottom of the bed when I came back into the bedroom.
As I got back into bed Bob rolled over and asked, “What was that all about?”
Trapper lifted his head as if waiting for an answer too. I’d obviously awakened the both of them.
“Just a bad dream.”
“Stop reading cases before you go to bed.”
I’d always had a poor memory and never liked to prepare for case consultations until the day before. I wanted the crime details fresh in my mind, but my workdays were now so busy that I had to bring the case materials home with me to be ready for the next day. Looking at reports and photographs had become my bedtime reading, but I took Bob’s advice and stopped. I stayed at the office after regular work hours until I felt prepared for the next day. That put an end to the nightmares.
One thing that I always tried to do when brought into difficult cases like the Blackburn murders was to listen to what the cops thought was impeding their progress and success. By the time I was brought in most of the traditional avenues of investigation were usually already exhausted. Being able to contribute a new behavioural perspective in brainstorming sessions was one of my favourite exercises to participate in. I would endorse strategies that were often higher risk but that could pay huge dividends if successful. Being in the opinion business, taking risks was part of my job and I didn’t shy away from being proactive, even if only to give luck the best possible chance to occur.
I encouraged the team to do a detailed media release including a photograph of the unique cryptic writings of this seeming military buff, along with his physical description. Up until this time, they’d held off releasing any evidentiary information. No investigator likes to make their highly confidential evidence public knowledge, but it was decided that the writings were so distinctive that someone might remember them and feel compelled to call police. I thought it was well worth the evidence hand-tipping risk. Their news release was delivered as front-page headline news in the Toronto area the following day. Despite the wide coverage, there was only one telephone call received on the tip line. But in the end that one tip was all we needed—it broke the case wide open.
Alison Shaw, originally from the town of Orangeville, contacted police after she read the media release in her Saturday morning newspaper. It included a photograph of the Blackburns and an illustration of the military notations. Having seen such writings before, she felt absolutely certain that the man police were looking for was David Snow. He was a friend of the family and a former business partner of her husband. He was thirty-seven years old and lived in Orangeville, only about twenty kilometres away from Caledon. Snow had even at times babysat their children. He was an antiques dealer and had an interest in old timber frame homes. Alison described him as strange, eccentric and a loner. He didn’t have a car so her husband gave him rides. Neither Alison nor her husband had had contact with Snow in some time.
About seven months earlier Alison and her husband had been going through a storage hut in Orangeville once rented by Snow. It had been abandoned by him months earlier and no storage fees had been paid since. They bought the contents in the hope of recouping some losses from the husband’s failed business partnership with him. They stumbled across a number of hard-core pornography magazines and videos, with themes of bondage, violence and pain and women as the victims. They also discovered a black notebook filled with distinctive military-type writings: lists of battleships, planes and a series of numbers beside them. They threw it all in the garbage.
It was extremely lucky that Alison had seen the newspaper that morning because she and her family were in the process of packing up and moving to Vancouver. She was leaving on the following Monday. If police had waited a couple more days to put out the release, Alison wouldn’t have seen it.
Positive identification was made when police discovered a minor criminal history for Snow. It was an Orangeville charge of fraud by false pretenses related to writing bad cheques. His photograph and fingerprints had been taken but not yet submitted to the national database because he had not been convicted. He’d failed to appear on his court date. This information was also consistent with the comment made to the couple Snow had kidnapped before the Blackburns were murdered. The original prints were then compared to those unknown prints found in the cottage of the abduction victims. They were a match.
The police executed a search warrant at Snow’s abandoned Orangeville home. They found sexually sadistic pornography everywhere and more military writings. The most important discovery was a briefcase containing photographs of the eight-sided barn on the Blackburns’ farm. There was now a confirmed connection between Snow and the Blackburns.
Alison’s husband advised police that a few years earlier he and his then business partner observed the octagonal barn on the Blackburns’ farm one day when they were driving on the side roads of Caledon. They went in the driveway to the farmhouse and met Ian and Nancy Blackburn, who had been sitting outside on the porch. The two men expressed their interest in dismantling the barn and reconstructing it elsewhere if they could find a buyer for it. They were allowed to have a closer look and even took photographs. The men left with an informal agreement that, if they found a buyer, they should come back and talk to Ian.
The OPP obtained a Canada-wide warrant for Snow’s arrest for the murders of Ian and Nancy Blackburn and a massive national manhunt for the armed and dangerous fugitive was launched. It wouldn’t be very long before crimes similar to Snow’s would resurface, albeit far beyond the jurisdiction of the OPP.
Over the summer, in the city of Vancouver, a young store clerk was brutally sexually assaulted but managed to escape, and then two young women—also working alone in small stores—were kidnapped. The abducted women were later found in a wooded area by RCMP officers, but the perpetrator had fled on foot. The women had been tied up, gagged and viciously sexually assaulted multiple times. One victim stated that she was forced to drive her attacker in her own car to the location in the woods where the first victim had already been held for eight days.
Police later found and searched her car. In it was a discarded train receipt for travel from Toronto to Vancouver on April 9, 1992, which was the day after the Blackburns went missing. It had been purchased in cash at the main train terminal, Union Station. Back in Toronto, Snow’s photograph was shown to a ticket agent at the station and she remembered him because he had been arrogant and rude to her. In checking through the records it was found that Snow bought the one-way ticket to Vancouver. Our same sense of urgency in finding Snow was now being experienced by Vancouver police.
A few days later in Vancouver, at about 3:00 a.m., a fifty-three-year-old restaurant manager was confronted at gunpoint by Snow, who emerged from nearby woods as she was closing up. Snow forced her back inside the restaurant, but the building security alarm was not disarmed, prompting the security company to telephone. Snow let her answer the call; when she hung up he demanded money and stole cash from her wallet. Snow asked her if she had a car, and although hers was in the restaurant parking lot, she told him she didn’t have one. He took her back outside behind the restaurant and struck her in the face and head when she attempted to fight him off. He bound her hands and ankles behind her back with nylons and gagged her. He then twisted wire around her neck and placed a plastic bag over her head. Just then police arrived—the employee’s unusual responses to the security company’s questions had caused them to raise the alarm. Snow fled but was captured a short time later. Snow’s victim was unconscious when she was discovered but she survived.
Of the twenty-five profile characteristics Ron and I had given to police, twenty-three of those matched Snow. Found guilty of multiple offences in British Columbia, he was declared a dangerous offender with an indefinite sentence given his determined public safety risk. Eventually he was returned to Ontario and entered pleas of guilty to break and enter, kidnapping, theft of money while in possession of a firearm and use of a firearm in the commission of an indictable offence. However, he pleaded not guilty to killing Ian and Nancy Blackburn. Six and a half years after their murders, a jury in Toronto found Snow guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. Snow was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for twenty-five years.