A family man and military man transforms into an underwear fetishist and horrific murderer. Did jogging and photography lead to his descent?
REVEALING REVEILLE
In 2007, at age 44, Colonel David Russell Williams was a respected member of the Canadian Armed Forces. He was a decorated pilot who had served 20 years in the Canadian military. By 2009, he would be the commander of Canada’s largest air base, in Trenton, Ontario. He and his wife had been married for 16 years, and owned a home in a suburb of Ottawa and a cottage in Tweed. Williams helped out at charity events and posed at press events.
STRANGE HOBBY
Williams’s interests in golf, fishing, jogging, and photography, however, seemed to help feed a deeply hidden perversion. During runs near his home, Williams began scoping out the neighbors—and specifically the female residents. He closely observed when the houses with young women were empty, and one day, he picked up his camera and started a new hobby: breaking into the neighbors’ homes and photographing himself wearing girls’ underwear.
He would then leave with several pairs of underwear, which he neatly stored in his own home. He reportedly broke into at least 48 homes along the way, including one house on nine separate occasions. Williams gradually built a large collection of women’s underwear, as well as a library of thousands of photos of himself wearing the underwear.
REVEALING ENCOUNTER
His perverse behavior gradually escalated. On one occasion, he hid in a woman’s backyard to observe her getting into the shower. He then took off all his clothes, left them outside, and broke into the woman’s home completely naked. In September 2009, his behavior became more violent. He broke into a woman’s home near his cottage in Tweed. He knocked her out with a flashlight. He sexually assaulted her and took photos of her and of himself with her underwear draped over his face.
Born in Ontario, Albert Huntsman was the first to fast-freeze fish fillets in 1929.
Just hours after the violent assault, Williams went to a professional conference, accepted a donation for a wounded veterans’ group, and dropped the puck for the season opener of a junior hockey team.
KILLER OBSESSION
Two weeks later, he committed a similar horrible attack. But by November 2009 his violent behavior became more extreme. He broke into the house of a female corporal who worked at his base. She found him hiding behind the furnace in the basement. Williams murdered her, and three hours later he drove to a meeting. When the female corporal’s body was found, Williams sent a letter of condolence to her father.
Then on January 29, 2010, he struck again. Williams kidnapped a young woman on a highway not far from Tweed and killed her. He dumped her body in the woods, and the next day he piloted a troop flight to California. Because the victim was not found right away, she was treated as a missing person. At the victim’s home, an officer had noticed a suspicious SUV parked in a nearby field on the day of her disappearance. The police photographed the tire tracks left behind.
TRACKED DOWN
On February 4, police set up roadblocks in the area, checking cars with the hope of finding a clue to the woman’s whereabouts. Officers also had a copy of the tire print left behind near the victim’s house. When Russell Williams pulled through a checkpoint in his SUV, one diligent officer noticed that his tires matched the photo of the tire print. On February 7, Ottawa police called Williams in for questioning. Inspector Jim Smyth treated Williams with great respect and slowly revealed the evidence the police had against him. Over the course of 10 hours, Williams confessed. He couldn’t explain why he committed the crimes, but it was clear that he wanted to make things as easy as possible for his wife. After he signed a confession, he wrote his wife a note of apology and asked her to take good care of their cat. Williams was given two life sentences for murder, plus 120 years for the other crimes.
Canadian stuntman Karel Soucek developed a shock-absorbent barrel He died following a demonstration in 1985.