10 Most Evil Canadians in History

Years after getting married to his wife Rita, Joseph-Albert Guay met a younger lady with whom he struck a romantic relationship. Determined to spend the rest of his life with his newfound lover, Guay devised a plot to get his wife out of the picture. To achieve this plan, he sought the help of two accomplices - his friend, Marguerite Pitre and her brother, Généreux Ruest, who was a clockmaker. In 1949, Guay persuaded Ruest to build an explosive device, which he then checked into an airplane Rita was going to board. The device detonated during the flight, killing all twenty-three people on board, including Rita. Guay’s heinous plan may have succeeded, but he was also put to death after being convicted of the crime.

Russell Williams

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For twenty-three years, Russell Williams was a decorated pilot and officer of the Canadian Armed Forces, rising to the rank of Colonel. Williams was the commander of Canada’s largest military airbase when he was arrested in February 2010 for the murder of Jessica Lloyd. He had been connected to the crime through the tire tracks found outside Lloyd’s home after her disappearance. During police interrogation, Williams confessed, not only to Lloyd’s murder, but to multiple assaults, and also breaking into women’s homes to steal their underwear. He would then take photographs of himself wearing these garments. At his trial, Williams faced various charges including murder, assault, and eighty-two counts of breaking and entering. He is currently serving a life sentence.

Elizabeth Wettlaufer

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It’s quite horrific that sometimes, it’s the ones who are supposed to care for us that end up harming us. That certainly was the case with Elizabeth Wettlaufer, who worked as a nurse in multiple healthcare facilities around Ontario. During this period, Wettlaufer murdered eight elderly patients of hers, and attempted to kill six others. She committed these crimes by injecting her victims with the diabetes medication Insulin, which, when administered in high doses, can lead to coma and death. Wettlaufer also struggled with addiction and while at a rehab facility in 2016, she confessed to her despicable actions, chalking them up to “surges” beyond her control. In 2017, she was convicted and handed eight consecutive life sentences.

In 2010, multiple videos began appearing online which portrayed acts of animal cruelty being carried out by an unidentified man. The clips caught the attention of a group of online sleuths who were able to identify the man as Luka Magnotta. Soon after, another video by Magnotta surfaced. Only this time, he was no longer inflicting harm on an animal, but a human being. The victim in the recording was an international student from China named Jun Lin. Magnotta had lured Lin over to his apartment, where he murdered him and then mutilated his body on camera. Magnotta fled the country afterwards, but was eventually arrested in Berlin. The investigation of the case became the subject of a highly controversial Netflix documentary.

Dubbed the “Beast of British Columbia,” Clifford Olson was a serial killer who reigned terror on young people in the area in the early ‘80s. Olson claimed eleven lives in less than one year. He was finally arrested on August 12th 1981, after a failed abduction. What makes this case even more outrageous is the controversial plea deal Olson reached with the authorities. In exchange for confessing to all eleven murders and leading police to the locations of the victims’ remains, Olson’s wife and child received a hundred thousand Canadian dollars. He was eventually sentenced to life in prison before dying of cancer in 2011.

Paul Bernardo & Karla Homolka

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The crimes of killer couple Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka are arguably some of the most horrifying in the history of Canada. Even before meeting Homolka in October 1987, Bernardo had committed multiple assaults, mostly in the town of Scarborough, Ontario. After the couple began dating, Homolka became an accomplice to Bernardo’s sadistic crimes, aiding him in the assault and murders of at least three young girls, one of whom was her own sister, Tammy. Upon their arrests, Homolka turned on Bernardo, claiming to have been forced into participating under the threat of violence. Bernardo was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, while Homolka was found guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

Marc Lépine

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To date, the École Polytechnique massacre remains one of the deadliest mass shootings in Canadian history. The ugly episode, which was perpetrated by twenty-five-year-old Marc Lépine, occurred on December 6th 1989 and left fourteen women dead, and an additional fourteen other people injured. Fueled by his frustrations with feminism, Lépine walked into the École Polytechnique de Montréal and specifically targeted women in the institution. At the end of the ordeal, he took his own life. The massacre acted as a catalyst for stricter gun control laws in Canada, and its anniversary is now observed as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women.

Gilbert Paul Jordan

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Known in the media as the Boozing Barber, Gilbert Paul Jordan was a Canadian serial killer who found an unconventional way to kill his victims. Instead of conventional weapons, Jordan’s was alcohol. Quite the drunk himself, Jordan would pick up women from bars in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, and ply them with drinks. Once they had blacked out, he would then force feed them with more alcohol until they overdosed and died. He mostly targeted Indigenous women in the area, and is believed to have killed at least eight women throughout his spree. Unbelievably, Jordan was only found guilty of manslaughter in one case and served just six years in prison.

Before the 9/11 attacks, the deadliest act of terrorism in the aviation industry involved Air India Flight 182. On June 23rd 1985, the plane left Montreal for London, but exploded mid-air, leading to the deaths of all 329 passengers and crew. A second explosive device was aimed at another flight, but it detonated earlier than expected and killed two baggage handlers. The diabolical event was masterminded by the leader of the Babbar Khalsa separatist group, Talwinder Singh Parmar. Parmar persuaded a member of the group Inderjit Singh Reyat, who was a mechanic and electrician, to build the incendiaries used. Of all the people involved, Reyat was the only one convicted. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.

Robert Pickton

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Possibly one of the most prolific serial killers in Canadian history, Robert Pickton was a pig farmer whose large farm became the site of his despicable crimes. In 2007, Pickton was convicted of the second-degree murders of six women, although he confessed to an undercover agent that his actual victim count was forty-nine. It’s believed that Pickton’s murderous spree began in the mid ‘80s when he inherited his family’s farm. Together with his brother, he hosted raves that were sometimes attended by up to 2,000 people, some of whom became his eventual victims. After killing them, Pickton reportedly fed the corpses to his pigs. He was sentenced to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for twenty-five years.