Tracking a monster
Times Colonist Special Investigative Report
By Mattie Bidault
On February 14th 2016, a day when rose petals and romance should be in the air, the smell of blood and a grisly murder of a local resident found on the streets of the crown emerald city of Victoria left little to love. The city held its breath when it heard thirty-three-year-old Aimee Wallace, a woman with a Master’s Degree in Marine Biology working as a professor at UVIC, lay mutilated at the base of the Johnson Street Bridge. Two days later, Suzanne Bertram, a small bookstore owner from the tourist district, lay on the cold cobblestones of Helmcken Alley. The words serial killer sprang from the mouths of many while the Victoria City Police Department investigated the crimes.
Both women’s throats had been cut and they’d been disemboweled. The residents of this fair city reeled with nightmares that a monster walked the streets of our popular tourist destination, loved for its flavors of old England, historical homes and botanical gardens.
March 1st came with disastrous headlines. Mona Williams, a twenty-four-year-old model with a degree in media relations, lay on the steps of Craigdarroch Castle. Her wounds reflected the two women murdered before her. There could be no doubt, Victoria hid an evil reminiscent of the murders that began in Whitechapel 1888.
What is this monster’s motivation? The question asked in every coffee bar and local pub where residents felt safer in groups. The only difference in each case were the women. They weren’t working in a sexual trade, but professionals who flourished in their community.
On March 16th he struck again. Elizabeth Stevens, a thirty-year-old X-ray technician at Royal Jubilee Hospital, had been found at the base of a spiralling cedar tree at the Mount Douglas viewing area. The Ripper had left the downtown core this time, branching out but remaining within a popular area for outdoor enthusiasts. What made him leave the downtown core? More questions. More police officers added to the task force assigned to find the Victoria Ripper. But no answers.
The face of Victoria changed. The pall could be felt by its residents. Women didn’t venture out alone at night. A quick jaunt to the corner store for milk, which Elizabeth had been doing when she disappeared, became a hard lesson for all. No man with a long black coat and top hat roamed the streets. This monster had to fit in. Go unseen. Steal his victims under the shield of darkness. Does he track his prey or is he an opportunist?
April 1st, the killer’s pattern obvious to all, twenty-five-year-old Sheila Stokes, a real estate agent with a growing clientele, lay in front of the legislature building as a horrific reminder of bloodshed against the Cenotaph. She’d made a date prior to her murder, but never arrived. In fact, all the women disappeared four days before their bodies were found. The thought that this monster keeps them for reasons the police will not divulge can only rise to horrifying ends in the imaginations of us all.
April 16th arrived and vigilance heightened. The silence unbearable. He’d stopped killing.
Today is October 16th, and the Ripper has been silent for months. Is he gone? Did he get his fill of torture? Where has he gone? Why the reprieve from the bloody trail he left behind? No evidence to be found. The echo of fear resonates in the lowest tourism figures of this century and the last. Restaurants and the nightlife in a city once vibrant and exciting, sit empty of an audience. When will the trust return? How long does the Ripper have to be gone before the wounds on this city heal?
Mattie Bidault stopped typing and sat back in her chair to read her article. Since April, she had kept the women alive in her reports. Their killer had to be found.
She pushed her black-rimmed glasses up her nose. Although she’d come from a long line of police officers, including her two brothers, she had opted for journalism, but solving a crime ran in her blood. The Ripper had gone somewhere, but apprehension remained. His mutilated victims lay at the foot of headstones without justice. Mattie couldn’t let go of the story, because something told her he’d be back.
The nightmare wasn’t over.
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