Thunder Bay filmmaker tracks infamous imposter
Ronald Ivan MacDonald posed as a psychology professor at Lakehead University, and other schools in the 60s
A Thunder Bay, Ontario filmmaker hopes to unravel some of the mystery surrounding an infamous repeat imposter, who pulled off his longest charade at Lakehead University in the 60s.
But MacDonald wasn't a professor at all. He was a fraud - a then 29-year-old Hamilton native with a grade twelve education, and a history of assuming false identities. He was using the name and credentials of another man: David George MacDonald.
The story is one that fascinates Ron Harpelle, the filmmaker who's now turning his lens on MacDonald's masquerade.
"For me it's this whole idea that you could live among people and they wouldn't suspect you for three years," said Harpelle.
How do you fool people for three years?... His life is a complete lie- Ron Harpelle, filmmaker
"How do you fool people for three years? And it's a complete lie. His life is a complete lie."
It wasn't the first time MacDonald had pretended to be someone he wasn't.
Before arriving at Lakehead, with a stolen name and credentials, he had worked for two years at McGill as a technician before someone started looking into his credentials, said Harpelle.
He later resurfaced at a school in California, and then at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, before finally arriving at Lakehead.
Fraudster made friends in "high places"
"MacDonald was a well-liked, well-respected man," in Thunder Bay, said Harpelle.
Even after he was caught, people were willing to stand by him. A number of highly respected people in the community served as character witnesses for him in court, said Harpelle, where he was fined five hundred dollars, and sentenced to one day in jail for his deception.
"For three years [he] had sort of climbed the social ladder here in Thunder Bay," said Harpelle. "[He] had lots of friends in ... high places."
Harpelle said MacDonald was also popular with his students, and apparently, he wasn't a bad teacher, despite his lack of real qualifications.
After he was discovered, Lakehead University had to decide what to do about the credits students had already earned under his tutelage.
"They decided that whoever had taken a course with him had received an adequate education, and they weren't going to strip anyone of the credits they had received," said Harpelle.
Mysteries remain to be solved
Harpelle is now trying to fill in the many blanks that remain in MacDonald's story.
He knows that after leaving Lakehead, MacDonald spent some time in Kamloops.
Then he was caught again, working under a false identity at a psychology clinic in London, and sentenced to two years of jail at Kingston Penitentiary.
MacDonald was released from jail in 1970, and that's where the trail vanishes.
"The way I see it he probably worked in the shops at Kingston and perfected his craft of forgery," said Harpelle. "Because he walked out the doors and disappeared."
Harpelle is asking anyone with stories or information about Ronald Ivan MacDonald to get in touch at harpelle@lakeheadu.ca.