Russell Maurice Johnson was tried in January 1978 for the murders of three women in Guelph and London, Ontario, and was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He has never been convicted of a crime in these cases. After his arrest he told police he had also caused the deaths of four other women in the two cities, deaths that had been put down to natural or medical causes, and he admitted a series of sexual assaults. Those admissions were never tried in court. He was committed to a maximum-security institution and, according to a Globe and Mail column by a relative of one of the women, he has been a patient at the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in Penetanguishene, Ontario, since 1978.
The press of the 1970s called the unknown attacker "The Bedroom Strangler," GuelphToday recalls. In London he has also been called the "Balcony Killer," the name used by the Western University criminologist Michael Arntfield in a CTV News London report on his book about the city's killings.
GuelphToday says he was 30 at the time of his arrest, that he was from Guelph and had attended St. Joseph Elementary School there, and that he was a big, athletic man who had once worked as a bouncer. The Globe and Mail column describes him as an auto worker from St. Thomas, Ontario. Before the killings came to light he had been a patient at a psychiatric hospital in London, where, GuelphToday says, he was diagnosed as a compulsive sexual deviant.
GuelphToday dates the start of his offending to 1969. He got into the apartments of women on the second floor or higher, by climbing or through doors and windows left unlocked. Some women woke to find a dark figure standing over them before he slipped away; others found that things in their rooms had been moved. Once he buzzed a woman's apartment and said he was a police officer; she called the police to check, and he was gone before officers arrived. The Globe and Mail column says he picked homes where he knew a woman was alone, and that on one occasion he climbed 13 storeys of an apartment building.
On December 30, 1974, Diane Beitz of Guelph, 26, became engaged to the man she had been seeing for more than a year. He gave her a diamond ring, and they planned to marry in May. She worked at Cable 8 Television in Guelph and was on her Christmas break. Early the next morning her fiancé left her apartment for his job in Mississauga. She planned to spend the day doing laundry.
She was found dead that night. She had been strangled. Police found no sign of forced entry and no sign of a struggle, and nothing had been taken. Neighbors had heard nothing. The Guelph police chief, Robert McCarron, thought she might have known her attacker, possibly a former boyfriend. Detectives questioned more than 200 people and a reward of $5,000 was offered, but the case stayed open for three years, GuelphToday says. After his arrest Johnson told police that he had chosen her because a former girlfriend of his had lived in her building.
Investigators in 1974 did not know that other women in London and Guelph had already died. According to GuelphToday, four deaths that Johnson later admitted had been put down to other causes:
Mary Hicks, 20, of London, found dead in October 1973. Her death was thought to be a reaction to a prescription drug.
Alice Ralston, 42, of Guelph, who died about a month later. Her death was attributed to hardening of the arteries.
Eleanor Hartwick, 27, of London, who died in March 1974. Her death was believed to be a reaction to medication.
Doris Brown, 43, of Guelph, who died in August 1974. Her death was thought to be pulmonary edema.
None of these deaths had been reported to police as crimes. Johnson named all four women after his arrest, and investigators were taken by surprise, GuelphToday says. They were never the subject of a trial, so they rest on his admissions alone.
Doris Brown was known in her family as Dodie. Her nephew, the Toronto writer, musician and translator John Duncan Maxwell, was 13 when she died. In his Globe and Mail column he remembers her humor, warmth and liveliness; she was his favorite among his mother's brothers and sisters. For a time after her death he dreamed of her dressed in glamorous 1940s clothes, smiling at him. The column calls her the fourth known victim.
In April 1977 Louella George, 23, was killed in London. Her death led police to conclude that one man was attacking women in Guelph and London, and the press began to call him "The Bedroom Strangler," GuelphToday says.
About three months later Donna Veldboom, 22, was found dead in London. She had been strangled and stabbed.
Within two weeks of Donna Veldboom's death, police arrested Johnson, who lived in the same building. GuelphToday says he confessed to the deaths of Veldboom, George and Beitz and to a number of unsolved rapes, and then named Hicks, Ralston, Hartwick and Brown.
Three women whom he had attacked and left for dead survived. After his arrest they identified him as the man who had attacked them, GuelphToday says.
A retired London police officer, Don Andrews, who worked on the Johnson case, told CTV News London that at the time he did not see the London cases of that period as closely linked, and that the Ontario Provincial Police never shared information with his team.
In January 1978 Johnson was tried for the murders of Diane Beitz, Louella George and Donna Veldboom. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a maximum-security institution, GuelphToday says. The Globe and Mail column says that in 1978 he confessed to seven killings and 11 sexual assaults; GuelphToday gives the number of sexual assaults he confessed to as 17. Only the three killings named at trial came before a court, and the verdict on those was not guilty by reason of insanity, which is not a conviction.
The verdict belongs to a legal regime that no longer exists. CBC News, in a report on how other Canadian serial killing cases compare with the defense raised by Jeremy Skibicki in Winnipeg, notes that men such as Johnson were found not guilty by reason of insanity in an earlier era, and that the system was replaced after a 1991 Supreme Court of Canada decision. Today the comparable finding is not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder. The Toronto lawyer quoted in that report said that people with a similar profile today would likely not be found not criminally responsible, in part because they are often diagnosed with psychopathy or severe antisocial personality disorder. CBC News describes Johnson as having killed seven women and sexually assaulted several others in southwestern Ontario in the 1970s.
The forensic psychiatrist John Bradford told CBC News that he had evaluated Johnson, and that Johnson had been assessed originally in a different era and had no major mental illness.
Johnson has been held since 1978 at the hospital in Penetanguishene now called the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care, the Globe and Mail column says. Each year he uses his right to a hearing before the Ontario Review Board and asks for more lenient conditions, such as escorted visits in the community or a move to a less secure hospital. Each request has been denied.
Families of the women attend to oppose him. In his column, John Duncan Maxwell describes his first hearing, held on a Friday the 13th in April, after years of staying away. A review board staff member estimated that Johnson had had "north of 30" hearings since 1978; one of Maxwell's cousins had been to about 10. That hearing ran about six hours, with lawyers, psychiatrists and 18 family members present, and included a request for more visiting privileges. Maxwell saw Johnson only from across the room: a big man, ordinary in appearance. The families, he writes, attend because they believe he is still dangerous. He noted that fewer people come each year and that those who still do are older, and he wondered who would go when the family no longer could.
Killings: the courts found only that Johnson was not guilty by reason of insanity of three murders. The other four deaths are his admissions, never tried. Reports that say he "killed seven women" (CBC News) or "confessed to seven" killings (the Globe and Mail column) are reporting his admissions, not a verdict.
Sexual assaults: the number he confessed to is given as 11 (Globe and Mail column) and 17 (GuelphToday).
Hometown: GuelphToday places him in Guelph; the Globe and Mail column calls him an auto worker from St. Thomas.
Diagnosis: GuelphToday reports a diagnosis of compulsive sexual deviance at a London psychiatric hospital before his arrest; the psychiatrist John Bradford told CBC News that Johnson had no major mental illness.
1969: start of Johnson's offending, as dated by GuelphToday.
October 1973: Mary Hicks, 20, found dead in London; death first put down to a drug reaction.
About a month later: Alice Ralston, 42, dies in Guelph; death first put down to hardening of the arteries.
March 1974: Eleanor Hartwick, 27, dies in London; death first put down to a medication reaction.
August 1974: Doris Brown, 43, dies in Guelph; death first put down to pulmonary edema.
December 30, 1974: Diane Beitz becomes engaged.
December 31, 1974: Diane Beitz, 26, found strangled in Guelph. Reward of $5,000 offered; more than 200 people questioned.
April 1977: Louella George, 23, killed in London.
About three months later: Donna Veldboom, 22, found dead in London.
Within two weeks: Johnson, a tenant in her building, arrested; he admits the three killings and names four more women.
January 1978: tried for the murders of Beitz, George and Veldboom; found not guilty by reason of insanity; committed to a maximum-security institution.
1978 onward: held at Penetanguishene (now Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care), with yearly review board hearings; requests for more lenient conditions denied.