Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2020

Uncover: The Cat Lady -- A Cold Case Turns Blue

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[Gate creaking]

HOWARD: That's the last we heard.

And then everything went blank.

ZANDER: The disappearance of Joan Lawrence in 1998 led police to a startling discovery. Three more people were also missing, presumed murdered.

SUSAN: How can, not just one, but that many people go missing, and we can't find nobody?

ZANDER: Police followed the money trail to the Laans, a close-knit, Christian family that ran a series of unregulated retirement homes.

JAY: And then their money is taken from them, and their bank accounts are signed over.

ZANDER: Three siblings eventually pled guilty and went to jail for fraud and theft. But what about the missing people? The Laans told conflicting stories about where they had gone.

ERIN: Joan was living in Bracebridge with a Scottish male named George. She is living somewhere between Minden and Bracebridge with a woman named Hazel, who has a lot of cats.

ZANDER: Then, according to detective Erin Burke, David seemed to slip up during an interview, referring to Joan in the past tense.

ERIN: One his way out of the interview room, David asked me if I was married, to which I replied no. He then stated, "Neither was Joan."

[Music]

ZANDER: I'm Zander Sherman. This is "Uncover: The Cat Lady Case".

[Music]

JAY: They make a big deal of it because it is something that comes out of the person that they suspect is involved in Joan's death.

ZANDER: Defense attorney Jay Herbert.

JAY: Whereas everything else seems to be denials and pointing fingers, the other way, Joan went here, Joan went there. This seems to be a suggestion that they know something.

I think what Erin Burke was thinking is, this is a slip. You know, he obviously knows she's dead, and this is a slip.

ZANDER: It could also be a kind of veiled threat. "Joan wasn't married. You're not married. Watch your back." But if Erin was right, and this was a kind of admission, why not arrest David? Jay says police just didn't have enough evidence.

JAY: I mean, the fact that they have to bold that?

[Chortles]

JAY: It suggests that there's a lot of...there's a lot less evidence than they need to really produce a strong case for a murder case. This is an entirely circumstantial case.

ZANDER: Jay says there were other problems with the investigation that might have come up in court or even prevented it from getting there.

JAY: I again turn to the many different ways that, because of Joan's lifestyle, that she could have died. You know, hitchhiking. Someone could have picked her up. Walking down Aspdin Road. Not in good health, could have fall, could have hurt herself, could be somewhere outside the road.

Maybe she upset someone else during a ride back. They didn't like the way she smelled. You just don't know.

It seems like she wouldn't have left her cats, so it could have been a tragic end, there could have been someone else. Random violence does happen so maybe something else happened.

ZANDER: One of those "other theories" comes from lumberjack Bob Earl. In a twist, he told me police suspected him.

[Wind whistling]

BOB: Basically, what the kids told me is that they think that I'm involved in it.

ZANDER: They think you're involved in it how?

[Coughing]

BOB: With the deaths.

That's what I'm taking it.

ZANDER: Bob isn't mentioned in the ITOs, and no one else has substantiated this story. But it raises the point that anyone can be made to look suspicious. I even found someone who said they wanted to shoot Joan's cats.

MURRAY: It was just a shack. And she lived there-- Because I was into hunting in those days and I seen a bunch of cats, like one cat, two cats. I was looking to shoot something.

Then I come a little farther, there's cats fucking everywhere. And there she is, sitting in the rocking chair.

[Chair creaking]

MURRAY: She knew. She could hear me a mile off, right?

So, I just kept going and look--

ZANDER: You were going to shoot one of her cats?

MURRAY: Yeah, I'm an asshole. Listen, you don't know who you're going to get when you interview people.

[Chair Creaking]

ZANDER: And that's kind of Jay's point.

Joan could've been murdered by a random stranger. But in the years I've been working on this story, I've never come across a single other person police suspected.

Just to go back a beat....

ZANDER: So, I ask Jay about the evidence we do have, which points to the Laans.

Yeah, Joan could have died of natural causes. Yes, someone who gave her a ride could have murdered her. But then why tell so many stories about her being in Hawaii and New York?

JAY: So those events are what you would call in a criminal trial, would post-offence conduct So you're the Crown, you would be trying to bring that post-offence conduct in, to say "These are the actions that they took post-death. And these are why a jury should look at to suggest guilt."

You are making the leap that the Laans know she's dead. You're making that leap. For all we know, she told them a number of these stories. You know, she told them, "I don't want to be here anymore. I'm getting out of here, I'm doing this, I'm doing that" to throw them off the scent that she was investigating them.

[Music]

ZANDER: Post-offence conduct can still be damaging in court.

In another case Jay worked on, and I wrote about, a guy's stories about his girlfriend's disappearance were used against him. There was other evidence, but in the end, I think it was the stories that convinced the jury.

Reading through the ITOs, Jay finds other mistakes that could have affected the case. One was on December 7th, 1998. Joan had been missing for about a month, but police hadn't yet searched the Laan's property.

But they stumbled onto it accidentally when a K9 officer who had been searching the nearby railroad track was drawn by his dog. Police say the dog had alerted to Joan's scent, which it traced back to the van Joan had been moved into, after she left the shed.

JAY: The fact that the dog hit to it before they had a warrant, you would assume that the police and the Crown would want to use that evidence to say, "We think that there's evidence that human remains were found in that vehicle because that's why a dog would hit on it."

And that's obviously very prejudicial evidence to an accused person, and you would try to exclude that at any possible avenue of attack. And the avenue of attack there would be, "You had no grounds to be on the property, and you got this evidence without warrant".

And by going onto the property, you breached the accused's Charter rights, and therefore the evidence should be excluded from trial.

ZANDER: So, a defense lawyer might have successfully thrown that evidence out. Meaning that a potential jury would never even know it happened.

Then on December 17th, the day the warrant was executed, police removed Uncle Ron for "questioning."

JAY: From the ITO, from Erin Burke's notes.

We don't see anything about him being given his opportunity to speak to a lawyer. There is no information that he was offered legal advice. So, he's just stuck. He's detained.

I think they were hoping for a confession.

ZANDER: Jay says if he were the Laans' defense lawyer, he would also move to strike anything Ron Allen said during the interview.

Then there are the witnesses and people who would be called to testify. It's a sad social commentary that the Laans' residents the people with the most to say would be deemed the least credible.

Even so-called "credible" witnesses who didn't suffer from drug use and mental health disorders would no doubt be scrutinized.

[Music]

ZANDER: Despite all the evidence police had, the Joan Lawrence investigation seems to have cooled by the end of 1999. In 2007, detective Dave Quigley explained to CTV that the OPP had ruled out the idea the missing seniors were still alive. Or had died of natural causes.

DAVE: We've checked death registrations. Funeral homes. Hospitals. Group homes. There's been a pile of work done into locating these folks. To this date, nothing has ever come up.

[Crickets chirping]

ZANDER: What he didn't say was everything else police had done. Executed search warrants. Conducted surveillance.

People have criticized the investigation, but to me it looks like police utilized almost every resource available to them.

Retired OPP sergeant Al Kronk grew up in Huntsville and went to school with the Laans. When police were looking for bodies, Al was working in the detachment and would chat with his colleagues about the case.

AL: Okay, the Laan kids lived-- If you can scroll over the-- this way a little bit...

ZANDER: On my computer, we're looking at a map.

AL: They would have been living somewhere right about here. Because they were living out here, they would have known all the like, all the area around through here. They were all over the place. We own a bunch of property back up in here.

ZANDER: You know that they were back in this area?

AL: Yeah.

ZANDER: Police believed that if the Laans had murdered the seniors, they would have dumped their bodies on a property they were familiar with. And this one Al is showing me on Aspdin Road is near the family property, where Joan went missing. It's also near Fern Glen Manor, where the three men disappeared.

AL: So, there's areas all over the place back there that-- you know, if they were looking for a place to hide a body, they could have been anywhere.

ZANDER: And that was the thing. Even though the area Al's talking about is right there pinnable on a map, it's not exactly easy to search. It would still take something more than speculation to justify the resources.

ZANDER: And was that the basis of the theory, just that it would have been known to them?

AL: It could have been.

ZANDER: Like some of the people I've talked to who worked on the case, Al said there are things that still bother him about it.

AL: It's just frustrating that you've got these four people that have simply disappeared. I just can't understand how, you know, how they could have got away with that for this long.

ZANDER: Police gave their case a codename that seemed to refer to the Laans. Here, I'm talking to the same OPP employee I spoke with earlier, who's asking not to be identified.

ZANDER: Did you know that the police code name for the case was "Project Sexton"?

VOICE 1: That is familiar to me, "Project Sexton," yeah.

ZANDER: Did you know what the word "sexton" means?

VOICE 1: No.

ZANDER: It's kind of interesting. It's-- it's an archaic word, but it says, "sexton is a person who looks after a church and churchyard, sometimes acting as a bell ringer and formerly as a grave digger."

VOICE 1: Oh yeah?

ZANDER: So, someone who looks after a church and also digs graves.

ZANDER: This person said that feelings within the OPP were similar to what Al Kronk described.

VOICE 1: It was frustrating because it did go on for years, and you know, there was always, you know, a lead here, a tip here, a tip here. But it's kind of like all these little pieces. And I remember even thinking to myself, you know, like, Jeez, how frustrating is this that they just don't have enough to be able to make the charge. So very, very frustrating, and I'm sure nobody was happy about it.

ZANDER: When the searches turned up nothing and the surveillance and eavesdropping led nowhere, police tried a new approach. Talking directly to the sons, David and Walter.

[Music]

ZANDER: Police documents state that at 10:41 PM on December 18th, 2000, two years into the investigation, detectives Erin Burke and Dave Dobson drove to one of the siblings' houses.

This is how Erin recalls the encounter.

[Knocking on door]

ZANDER: David and Walter came to the door.

ERIN: Detective Dobson advised that he wanted to speak to them about Joan Lawrence and other issues concerning more than just fraud.

ZANDER: Walter said it wasn't a good time. It was late at night and they were tired. But the cops persisted.

ERIN: Dobson informed them there are now three more missing persons.

John Semple, John Crofts, and Ralph Grant.

ZANDER: David again insisted that Detective Rob Matthews had "relocated" the missing seniors. Erin said that wasn't true.

ERIN: Detective Dobson requested David Laan to tell him where they are. David Laan replied that Joan had a rich friend who lived in New York.

When asked for an address, David Laan stated he didn't know.

I told David that police have followed up every piece of information given to them and still have not been able to find Joan.

David stated that Joan is afraid of the police, and that she left the property on her own.

ZANDER: According to Erin, David took a step toward Detective Dobson, pointing at him and screaming about police harassment. He was told to calm down.

ERIN: Dobson then stated that he was there to find out where John Crofts, John Semple and Ralph Grant are, and asked where they are, are they all together, or what?

David Laan replied, "You tell me, I don't know."

Dobson then stated that Walter Laan was the last person to see all three people.

ERIN: Dobson asked Walter Laan if he wrapped John Semple in a blanket and loaded him into a van.

ZANDER: These references to Walter being the last person to see all three men alive, and Walter loading John Semple into a van, come straight from police documents. But there's no more information about them, and it's hard to know if police were making them up or if it was based on something they'd uncovered.

Jay Herbert.

JAY: You'd have to think that they had some evidence of that. I mean, they know at the time that he had a van. Whether they had specific evidence of that, and it's just not in any of these documents is questionable. Or whether it's something that the police officer is just trying to spark a reaction from-- which he does. He gets a reaction. It's not the one he wants.

ZANDER: The reaction police may have wanted was a confession. Instead as Erin Burke describes it, Walter hesitated, then seemed to collect himself. Documents say he replied, "What kind of a question is that?"

ERIN: Dobson replied that it is a simple question and then repeated it. Dobson then stated, "You guys don't have any problem telling the truth, right?"

ZANDER: David said he didn't trust the cops. That they twist things. Cleverly, he was advised to give a video statement. That way, whatever he told police couldn't be changed later. That didn't work either.

At 10:53 PM, twelve minutes later, the interview was over, and police said goodnight.

ERIN: To which David Laan stated that the sleeps well at night, knowing he didn't

do anything wrong.

[Music]

ZANDER: In her notes, Erin recorded how much the Walter and David Laan had changed in the two years she'd known them.

Of David she wrote, quote, "Much thinner, rapid, uncontrolled breathing, speechless at times, aggressive behavior, offensive tactics such as yelling and being confrontational, lost his temper on two occasions during the conversation."

And talking about Walter, she described him as, quote, "speechless, could not give immediate answers, answered questions with a question, no denial made in regards to any questions asked, talked about irrelevant issues, not what was being asked of him."

[Music]

ZANDER: Six months after the interview, detective Erin Burke was transferred off the investigation. A few months later, she left the OPP to start a family.

After their release from jail in 2003, the Laan siblings split up.

Along with their uncle, Ron Allen, they sold their houses and retirement homes, and seemingly left the area.

The Laans, the people who once said the missing residents had just up and left, were now gone themselves.

VICTOR: My name is Victor Malarek. I'm with W5 CTV.

ZANDER: In 2007, CTV approached Paul's father-in-law, Evert Potgieter, in a parking lot in Alberta.

VICTOR: I've been looking for Paul Laan.

EVERT POTGIETER: Yeah, I prefer not to tell you.

VICTOR: You know, he is involved in stealing money from elderly people and three of those people have disappeared.

EVERT: He is not involved, he used to be involved.

VICTOR: Three senior citizens are missing who were in his retirement home, and that's what I'd like to talk to him about. What happened to those three men?

EVERT: If he is guilty, I hope and I pray that he will be found out and pay the price. Personally, I don't believe that he is guilty of murder, or hurting old people. But I do know he is guilty and was guilty of having embezzled money.

VICTOR: Where is he?

EVERT: I can't tell you.

ZANDER: Using a hidden camera, CTV sat down with Shirley, the Laans' mother. She was asked about her children and their four missing residents.

SHIRLEY: I don't know anything about that. As far as I know, the people just took off. They were elderly. They think, as far as they know, they just went off into the city or something, you know, with the homeless. I don't know why they keep bringing all this up, you know?

VOICE 2: What about Paul?

SHILEY: My son Paul, he's in Korea right now.

VOICE 2: What's he doing in Korea?

SHIRLEY: He is a missionary over there. He's teaching English.

ZANDER: When the interviewer asked about Shirley's involvement in the retirement homes, the conversation ended abruptly.

VOICE 2: Now Shirley, you worked in those homes.

SHIRLEY: No, I didn't work in-- I only worked in one. And listen, I don't have to answer these questions! just get the hell out of here!

VOICE 2: I'm sorry--

[Indistinct arguing, rustling]

[Music]

ZANDER: Paul and his wife, Laetitia, had moved to Seoul, South Korea. They got their Masters in Christian education in 2014 and started teaching at Sahmyook University, a private, Christian university in Seoul.

PAUL: What, you come to class five minutes before it's over?

ZANDER: This is a student video from YouTube. We found it while working on the documentary for The Fifth Estate. It took us days of searching in Korean.

PAUL: And you think I'm going to mark you as present?

ZANDER: That's Paul Laan, playing an angry university professor.

PAUL: You have a bad attitude! You're not ready for anything.

All you've done is disturb the class. Sit down!

ZANDER: In their spare time, Paul and Laetitia traveled.

LAETITIA: Wow, we sure came a nice long way there, guys.

ZANDER: Here, they're at the Great Wall of China.

LAETITIA: How far down. Oh, my good, you okay? Out of breath there? Say hi to me on the video.

PAUL: Hi.

LAETITIA: Hi Paul, show me--

[Paul coughing]

LAETITIA: Paul, look at me for a second sweetie, you're on video.

ZANDER: In 2017, I was contacted by a Korean news agency.

The team at The Fifth Estate had shared information with them, to help advance an investigation they were doing.

Using some of our research, they approached Sahmyook University about Paul's employment.

[TV reporters speaking Korean]

VOICE 1: I don't think so. Wrong number, sorry.

[Phone beeping]

[TV reporters speaking Korean]

[Music]

ZANDER: Paul lost his teaching job, and he and Laetitia moved back to Canada.

Earlier this year, I heard from members of a Seventh-day Adventist church in Toronto.

SAM: So, from what we understand, around that same time in May, he kind of befriended other church members. Specifically, the elderly.

ZANDER: Church members told me Paul had been asking for money.

This is Sam Tsang.

SAM: And there was one particular member of ours...

ZANDER: The man was Marshall Foo.

SAM: His last name spelt F-O-O.

Paul showed up at his residence and explained to him that in order for him to continue to do missionary work, it will require a substantial amount of financial involvement.

ZANDER: I couldn't get a hold of Marshall to corroborate this story with him.

But I was forwarded an email Paul wrote that appears to confirm parts of what Sam told me.

And other church members besides Sam tell a similar story.

Like Isaac Jang.

ISAAC: I don't know what conditions were attached to that, if it was intended to be a loan or if it was simply a monetary gift.

SAM: So initially...

ZANDER: Sam Tsang again.

SAM: Jason gave him an amount of dollars in cash. And then following the next week, Paul showed up at his residence again and asked for more money. And all together, Edmond gave Paul roughly around $10,000, cash.

And shortly afterwards, he just kind of disappeared.

ISAAC: He never came around again. And we haven't seen him since then.

[Music]

ZANDER: Paul's sister, Kathrine, was born on Halloween, 1963. Before the pension check scam, she had three prior convictions for possession, extortion, and theft.

Detective Erin Burke learned about Kathrine when she was investigating Joan's disappearance.

ERIN: Kathy Laan had a retirement home in Kearney and would bug Joan to go and live there, and she eventually did. Joan complained to Kathy that the rent was taking up her entire cheque, and she was then moved to the Laan property.

ZANDER: According to police documents, Kathrine often gave Joan rides, and she ran the retirement home Joan lived in. Eventually, Joan moved into the shed on Kathrine's brothers' property, where the $600 rent was apparently cheaper.

In 1998, Kathrine married a man named Ron Eisert in Oregon. But when news of the police investigation broke, Vision TV found Kathrine teaching at a private school in southern Ontario.

SADIA ZAMAN: Kathrine Laan is now using her married name, Kathrine Eisert.

She works at the school in the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Barrie, Ontario. She teaches children.

ZANDER: The school was shut down shortly after the documentary came out.

In 2017, the team at The Fifth Estate was hard at work trying to locate Kathrine.

After weeks of digging, producer Lisa Mayor discovered that Kathrine had had at least eight different addresses. And used nine variations of her name.

Lisa didn't find Kathrine, but after someone sent me a tip, I traced her back to a non-descript bungalow 900 meters from the Bracebridge OPP detachment. She'd been living in the same town as me.

[Music]

[Group singing]

ZANDER: Kathrine was now calling herself a Doctor of Naturopathy, "Dr. Katherine Smith."

And to go with her new title, she adopted a new spelling of her first name.

[Singing]

ZANDER: Here, she and a group of children are singing "Happy Birthday" at the church she attends.

CHILDREN: Happy birthday to you!

ZANDER: In 2018, I approached Kathrine in a parking lot with The Fifth Estate's Bob McKeown, who asked her...

BOB MCKEOWN: What happened to them?

What happened to Joan Lawrence and the others?

KATHRINE: Fake news, sir.

[Car door slamming]

ZANDER: Fake news.

Kathrine smiled and waved as she drove off.

[Engine revving]

[Music]

ZANDER: I got some interesting tips when I started working on this podcast. One was from Muriel Cook, who used to be married to a guy named Gary Smith.

ZANDER: Just to go back a minute, to when you were talking about happier times.

This is a photo that you gave me. It's of you and Gary at the Grand Ole Opry.

MURIEL: That was the last trip we took. That would be taken end of July, first part of August of 2013. We had our trailer down there.

ZANDER: Gary left Muriel for the woman next door. Someone almost 20 years younger. Then Muriel started getting these emails. They came from Gary's account, but didn't sound like Gary.

MURIEL: The next one I have here is called "New Year's Resolution".

It's dated January the 12th of 2017.

"This year, I decided that my resolution would be to get off my chest all the things that have bothered me for the past few years. If you're not honest with yourself, which would not surprise me, then that is on you. You have to live with yourself. I no longer have to live with you."

ZANDER: The email goes on.

MURIEL: "I had to laugh when you stated in court papers, I was supporting Kathy and I have paid her tuition. What a joke. She gave me the cash for her class and asked me to put it on my credit card. You had it all wrong. Kathy would never even consider an intimate relationship with me while I was still living with you. Unlike you, I am not spiteful and revengeful."

ZANDER: Does that sound like Gary?

MURIEL: No. Sounds like Kathy.

ZANDER: "Kathy" is Kathrine Laan. That's who Muriel thinks is behind these emails.

ZANDER: How did it make you feel, reading an email like that?

MURIEL: It made me feel worthless. It made me feel depressed. It made me feel like a, I don't know, a mushroom. To bury me under a rock and never let me come back out. It made me feel like I couldn't go out in public and hold my head up high.

ZANDER: Muriel told me, given Kathrine's previous record, that she's worried about her ex.

MURIEL: Gary fit right into the profile of what Kathy has been accused of doing she would find elderly men, mostly, that was collecting pensions.

He is 17 years older than she is. He is getting a pension. He is collecting OAS, CPP, and his union pension. I was a little fearful that she was going to do to him, what happened to those other seniors in Huntsville that she has been accused of.

ZANDER: There's something else I want to show Muriel. On my computer, I open a Gofundme page called "Prayers for Kathy." Muriel reads.

MURIEL: "My sister-in-law Kathrine has helped a lot of people through her ministry. She is being diagnosed with stage four cancer and needs your prayers and support as she battles this disease. She plans to go to a natural treatment center for therapies not covered by her health care provider. Thank you for your prayers. If 100 people gave $100, that would help tremendously."

Wow.

ZANDER: I wasn't sure the reaction I was expecting. Surprise, maybe. A perverse vindication. Instead, Muriel tells me she thought Kathy's campaign was "fake news."

MURIEL: She told me when she lived next door to me that she had ovarian cancer, stage four. And she read up, learned all the homeopathic stuff and cured herself. Which I didn't believe, 'cause ovarian cancer is a cancer that is a very bad, quick-growing cancer, and they don't have any cures for it.

So, I thought that was a lie right from square one.

ZANDER: So, this isn't even the first time that--

MURIEL: I've heard this nonsense? No.

ZANDER: Muriel may believe Kathrine's faking it, but other sources tell me otherwise. And on the Internet, I can see that Kathrine's own family is expressing their support and offering blessings.

I doubt I'll be able to get Muriel to change her mind, so I move on to other subjects.

ZANDER: I checked with the College of Naturopaths in Ontario. They said they had no record of anyone by her name.

MURIEL: And I went through, I don't know, how many thousands of names on that computer at one time. And her name has never shown up.

ZANDER: She's used a number of different names in the past. And I even ran all those other names by the College, and they said that was no one by any of those names.

MURIEL: No, no. I think everything she has said and done is a lie. And obviously Gary bit into it and believed her. And I think he's got himself into a situation and I don't think he knows how to get out of it.

[Music]

ZANDER: Then there's Walter.

Walter had prior convictions for break and enter and impersonating a police officer.

But Walter was eventually convicted of other crimes. Around New Years 2004, he went on a series of armed robberies. He had just gotten out of jail for the pension check scam when he violently invaded the homes of elderly people.

ROBERT: I said, "What do you want?" He wheeled around and shoved the rifle in my gut.

ZANDER: This is one of Walter's victims, Robert Fowler, talking to CTV in 2007.

ROBERT: He was going to kill me. I was certain he was. I had said my prayers and I grabbed the rifle by the barrel with two hands, and if I'd have been about three days younger, I would've had 'er.

He beat me here repeatedly. I don't know how many times.

ZANDER: Court documents state that Walter's other victims were all female.

VOICE 1: "After this was completed, he asked her where her bedroom was located. She advised the way and was again forced toward the master bedroom in the residence. Once inside the bedroom, Mrs. Hunter had her wrists and ankles bound by a similar black tape.

After the tape had bound her wrists and ankles, the accused indicated to her, quote, 'You have nice breasts.'"

After pleading guilty to the home invasions, Walter went to jail for 11 years.

He was released in 2013 and started working with his brother, David, in Toronto.

Within months Walter was caught entering through the window of someone's home. Someone in the house saw him, and he was arrested. At a post-suspension hearing, Walter claimed the incident was a misunderstanding. He'd entered the house to fix a leaking faucet, he said. The charges were dropped.

ZANDER: Walter's brother David, was convicted for break and enter.

This is retired OPP sergeant, Al Kronk, describing an incident of David allegedly breaking into a hospital.

AL: David broke into the hospital. And was trying to steal drugs to sell. His story was that he had been accepted to go to university in England. And, but apparently the church was going to help pay some of the costs. So, he needed to raise money to get to England.

ZANDER: David's charges in relation to the pension check scam were dropped.

But David was one of the murder suspects in "Project Sexton," and Erin wanted to know more about him.

VOICE 1: Erin is contacted by a man named John Morgan...

ZANDER: Then she heard from a guy named John Morgan.

JAY: It's interesting because John Morgan talks to the police twice. And it seems like he's sort of cold calling them. He's giving them information of which he received from a third party. He isn't directly involved, but he knows David Laan. He was involved with David Laan.

ZANDER: According to police documents, John claimed that he and David were both part of the far-right Nationalist Party of Canada, known for promoting white supremist and anti-immigrant views.

John said he'd gotten to know David when the group went canoeing in Algonquin Park. That sounded pretty weird, dubious even, but some of the information John gave apparently checked out. He knew the Laans were defrauding their residents before they were charged.

JAY: But...

ZANDER: Jay Herbert.

JAY: The stealing of money is something that the police verified later, and he does give some information that seems to be correct.

ZANDER: John said the Laans had kept cashing their residents' checks for two reasons.

One, they wanted the money. Two, they had to cover up the fact that these people were missing.

ERIN: The Laans were laundering money from the seniors. Paul Laan would pick up a senior and give them enough money for living expenses and the rest would go to the Laan Family Trust Fund.

ZANDER: But the thing about John was that he claimed not to be the source of his information. He had a "friend" who was telling him all this. The "friend" didn't like the cops, and John refused to put Erin in touch.

JAY: When John Morgan isn't willing to give up his source, and they can't go and get the list of members from this right-wing organization, I think it's a lead that hits a dead end.

ZANDER: In 2017, working with The Fifth Estate, we found David living in Toronto.

His house was on a leafy street lined with million-dollar homes, and he was driving a new Ford truck with the Maple Leafs logo, and the vanity plate, "Laan."

David had a wife, kids, and job at George Brown College. In his spare time, he and Walter ran a contracting business called Esto Gas Services.

A business directory website for Esto Gas Services informs prospective customers to "ask about our Seniors Discount."

In 2017, I was there when Bob Mckeown and The Fifth Estate approached David in a McDonald's parking lot.

BOB MCKEOWN: Mr. Laan, hi. I'm Bob Mckeown at The Fifth Estate at CBC News. We'd like to talk to you about Joan Lawrence and the others who disappeared. I think you know the Ontario Provincial Police have been investigating you over the years. They believe Joan Lawrence was the victim of a first-degree murder. And they believe you and your uncle, Ron Allen, are the suspects.

[Car door slams]

BOB MCKEOWN: David Laan had nothing to say about the four elderly people who went missing. No explanation. No denial.

[Engine revving]

BOB MCKEOWN: You never reported them missing!

[Music]

ZANDER: The Cat Lady Case was at a standstill. No murder charges had been laid. No new evidence had risen to the surface.

And the Laans had made it clear that they did not wish to speak to us.

Then in 2017, we asked an Ontario court judge to unseal Erin Burke's entire investigation.

The case was built by The Fifth Estate and The Walrus magazine, who I was writing for at the time.

The Crown didn't want us to have the documents. And Detective Rob Matthews swore evidence, saying that giving it up would compromise what he said was an ongoing investigation. But in the end, the judge ruled in our favor, saying the public had a right to hear what police had found.

Then I started hearing from people in the community. People who had stayed silent all the other times reporters had tried to get at this story. Including Joan's old neighbor, lumberjack Bob Earl.

BOB EARL: But when I looked in the binoculars, it was like two silhouettes. And then I couldn't see from over the other way, but it looked like another silhouette, okay?

It was very, very foggy like...just like, white. Just...but anyway, and then there was two shots.

ZANDER: Back in 1998, Bob says he heard gunshots then witnessed silhouettes burning something. Then, he says, they dumped a load on the property across the road from him. Now he's ready to go public.

[Music]

[Sighing]

BOB EARL: I guess what I'm saying is, I know it's going to bring the heat on me. And sometimes it's best just to look the other way, but then I'm the guy that's got to carry it. And that's what I've done. I've carried it for 20 years.

ZANDER: Despite his reservations, Bob says he'll show me exactly where he saw the truck going into the dump site.

ZANDER: Do you want to show me where they dumped?

BOB EARL: Yep.

[Seatbelts clicking, doors slamming]

ZANDER: But Bob isn't the only witness who's coming forward.

ZANDER: You followed this man into the woods?

REUBEN: Yeah, into here.

ZANDER: Reuben Payette says he came across a man in a clearing.

REUBEN: He was on his knees. And he was crying.

ZANDER: I'm just going to show you a photo here and ask you if any of these people stand out to you as being the man you saw in the woods that day?

REUBEN: That's him. That's the guy.

[Music]

ZANDER: Coming up, on Uncover.

SUSAN: Um, Susan Read with Georgian Bay search and rescue. I've got two certified dogs. One's a live find, certified through the OPP. Zappa is my human remains detection dog.

ZANDER: A cadaver dog team has accompanied us to this remote, wooded location.

SUSAN: Ready? Ready?

[Dog barking]

SUSAN: Find bones.

[Collar jingling]

[Music]

ZANDER: Uncover: The Cat Lady Case is hosted, written and reported by me, Zander Sherman.

The podcast is produced by Graham MacDonald and Mieke Anderson, who is also our audio producer.

Special thanks to The Fifth Estate's Lisa Mayor and Timothy Sawa for additional research and reporting.

Our executive producer is Arif Noorani.

And the senior producer of CBC Podcasts is Tanya Springer.

Original music for the series by Larch.

And the voice of Erin Burke is Lauren Donnelly.

Archival footage from Vision TV, CTV W5 and CBC's The Fifth Estate.

[Music]

TRANSCRIPT: UNCOVER: THE CAT LADY CASE - EP 4

Social Sharing