Canadian True Crime

Canadian True Crime is a Canadian case show hosted by Kristi Lee, and several of its stories are told across numbered parts. The register is grave and unhurried. Scene-setting runs long and clausal, while moments of violence land in short, flat sentences. The Colin Thatcher and the murder of JoAnn Wilson series is a good measure of the approach. It reaches back well before the crime, to the Thatcher family in Moose Jaw and a father who rose from local alderman to Member of Parliament, first elected with the CCF. It gives JoAnn Wilson a life of her own, including her move into interior design and her marriage to Tony Wilson in early January of 1981. By the time of the trial, the Crown's case includes a revolver and special ammunition bought in the United States, along with a Barbie doll shower box said to have hidden them on the way into Canada. Testimony from Lynn Mendel and Richard Dick Culver sits alongside a recorded conversation with Gary Anderson. Thatcher's own testimony amounts to denial after denial, and the show registers it with a single dry line. Context does real work here. One passage sets out how a cycle of abuse operates, including gaslighting, victim blaming and a deceptive period of calm, to explain why Lynn Mendel stayed. Another weighs what she risked by testifying against what a political peer risked. The story does not stop at the verdict: it follows Thatcher's parole in 2006 and a provincial government rushing to bar profit from a book he had written. The Twisted Story of Sergeant John Wilson moves back to the First World War. It traces a Mountie, his pregnant wife Mary, known as Polly, and Jessie Patterson through a trail of letters, forged letters and police memos held at Library and Archives Canada. Because the story begins in Scotland, Scottish voice actors read passages from the letters. Period texture runs throughout: the Spanish flu, a prairie hailstorm, Saskatoon's rapid growth and its cost to Indigenous people forced onto reserves. The closing of the John Wilson finale notes a monthly donation, that month to Women's Shelters Canada. Credits name Carol Weinberg for script consulting and Eric Crosby as the voice of the disclaimer. Beyond these series, recent titles include The Mushroom Murders, Kevin O'Leary's Boat Collision, The Murder of Rhoderie Estrada and Collision Course: The Darcy Allan Sheppard Case. A spoken warning about disturbing content and coarse language appears at the top of the Thatcher finale.