Military Officer Serial Killer Russell Williams -Police Interrogation and Confession SHOCKING
Military Officer Serial Killer Russell Williams -Police Interrogation and Confession SHOCKING
Bob McKeown deconstructs the interrogation and shocking confession of Russell Williams. From his initial denial to the full declaration of guilt, the fifth estate deciphers one of the most compelling and distressing confessions in Canadian criminal history with the help of people who know the art of interrogation better than anyone else.
Investigation and arrest
Jessica Lloyd, 27, had vanished on January 28, 2010. Investigators identified distinctive tire tracks left in snow near her home. One week after her disappearance, the Ontario Provincial Police conducted an extensive canvassing of all motorists using the highway near her home from 7 pm on February 4, 2010, to 6 am on the following day, looking for the unusual tire treads. Williams was driving his Pathfinder that day — rather than the BMW he usually drove — and an officer noticed the resemblance of his tire treads. These were subsequently matched to the treads near Lloyd's home.
On February 7, 2010, the CFB Trenton base commander was at his newly built home in Ottawa, where his wife lived full-time and he lived part-time, when he was called by the OPP in Ottawa and asked to come in for questioning. During the 10-hour interview he confessed to the numerous crimes of which he was later convicted. Early the next morning Williams led investigators to the woman's body in a secluded area on Cary Road, about 13 minutes away from where he lived. Williams was also charged in the death of Corporal Marie-France Comeau, a 37-year-old military flight attendant based at CFB Trenton, who had been found dead inside her home in late November 2009.
Along with the murder charges, Williams was charged with breaking and entering, forcible confinement, and the sexual assault of two other women in connection with two separate home invasions near Tweed, Ontario in September 2009. According to reports, the women had been bound in their homes and the attacker had taken photos of them.
Williams was arraigned and remanded into custody on Monday, February 8, 2010. The Canadian Forces announced that day that an interim commander would soon be appointed to replace him (Dave Cochrane took over 11 days later), and removed his biography from the Department of National Defence website the following day.
Hours after the announcement of Williams' arrest, police services across the country reopened unsolved homicide cases involving young women in areas where Williams, a career military man, had previously been stationed. According to news reports, police began looking at other unsolved cases based on a full statement that Williams gave to police.
A week after his arrest, investigators reported that, along with hidden keepsakes and other evidence they had found in his home, they had matched a print from one of the homicide scenes to his boot.
In addition to the four primary incidents, the investigation into Williams includes probes into 48 cases of theft of women's underwear dating back to 2006. In the searches of his Ottawa home, police discovered stolen lingerie that was neatly stored, catalogued, and concealed.
In April 2010, Williams was placed on suicide watch after he tried to kill himself by wedging a stuffed cardboard toilet paper roll down his throat.
Confession
On February 7, 2010, Williams was interrogated at Ottawa Police Service headquarters by Detective Sergeant Jim Smyth, a member of the Ontario Provincial Police's Behavioural Sciences Unit. The interview started at 3 p.m. and by 7:45 p.m. he was describing his crimes. The interrogation lasted approximately ten hours. Excerpts of the confession were shown in court at Williams' sentencing hearing on October 20, 2010.
In the confession, Williams gave details of his crimes, including the sexual assaults in Tweed and 82 break-ins and thefts. Some of them occurred in Ottawa homes within walking distance of his Orleans, Ontario home where he lived with his wife. Other break-ins and thefts occurred in Belleville, and in Tweed, where the couple had had a cottage since 2004.
He also told police where they could find evidence, including hidden keepsakes, inside the Ottawa home. The couple had moved to a new house two months before he was interrogated by police. He told Detective Sergeant Jim Smyth where police could find the thousands of images he took of Lloyd and Comeau and the two women he sexually assaulted. He then identified on a map where he dumped Lloyd’s body. A video of the interrogation was made available to the public and was posted online by several newspapers and on YouTube.
