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Cancrime is crime, explained. How are murders solved? Why are crime maps useless? Find out what crime stats don't tell us. Twenty-year veteran crime writer Rob Tripp blogs about Canadian crime, criminals and the justice system plus, the document arch
Recent Posts Tagged With 'kingston mills'
Kingston canal murder prelim begins unexpectedly
For weeks now, everyone associated with the Kingston canal murder case, prosecutors, defence lawyers, court administrators, has been saying that the next major step in the process was set for Feb. 2 - the date on which the preliminary hearing was sch...
Accused canal killers make surprise court appearance
There was a significant and surprising development today in the Kingston canal mass murder case. Details will be posted here tomorrow and at the Kingston Whig-Standard site....
A glee club of federal convicts, in skirts
How has Canada's federal penal system changed in the past few decades? The photo above, taken in 1955 inside the notorious federal Prison for Women in Kingston, Ontario, speaks volumes about historic attitudes toward correctional reform. It's a photo...
Father threatens daughter \'in the name of honour\'
In a rare decision that will resonate in Kingston, an Ottawa judge labelled a man's threats to kill his daughter an 'honour crime.' Three Montrealers remain behind bars, facing charges of first-degree murder in Kingston. They are accused of murdering...
Worrying signs in Kingston canal murder case
It's very early in the process to be whispering Askov in the Kingston canal quadruple murder case, but there are some worrying signs.Askov was the name of one of four accused men in a landmark 1990 Supreme Court case in Canada. Extortion charges agai...
How they died: The story of the canal killings
It has been roughly two months since police in Kingston, Ontario, charged three Montrealers, Mohammed Shafia, his wife Tooba and their 18-year-old son Hamed with a shocking crime. The trio are accused of mass murder, the killing of three of the coupl...
New revelations in Kingston canal killings
It's been two months since police in Kingston, Ontario, charged a Montreal mother, father and son with killing four family members.We still don't know how three teenage sisters and a 50-year-old woman died. Or do we?In this space tomorrow, and at the...
Accused parents in canal killings denied access to kids
Accused canal killers Mohammed Shafia and his wife Tooba Mohammed Yahya have been stripped of their right to try to talk to their three other children, who are in the custody of child protection authorities in Montreal. Here's the explanation from to...
Canal killings expose crime stat frailties
Kingston has become one of the most dangerous places in Canada, if you believe – wrongly – that crime statistics tell you whether a city is safe (see previous post about the 'safety fallacy'). The deaths of four women, found in a submerged car in...
Police revisit scene of canal killings
Have police investigating the murder of four people found dead in a car in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, reconsidered some of their physical evidence? The photos above that I shot recently reveal that investigators may be taking a closer look at the ...
Police keep canal killing evidence under wraps
The Montreal mother and father accused of killing three of their children convinced a court today that they should be allowed to communicate with their three other children. Mohammed Shafia and Tooba Mohammed Yahya appeared in a Kingston courtroom, b...
First legal drama unfolding in canal killing case
Lawyers on both sides of the remarkably complex canal murder case already are reconnoitring a labyrithine legal landscape. Strategy is crucial in any murder, but in a case with three accused, four victims, complications of language, culture, internat...
A diabolical crime deserves the best defence
By the age of six or seven, I had learned, and had embraced, the notion that it's always better to win after a fair fight. During daylong road hockey tournaments, there was no greater thrill than beating a favoured team that sought victory through ru...
Police hunt canal killing leads online
Kingston Police are trolling facebook looking for leads in their ongoing investigation into the murder of four women who were found dead in a submerged car in Kingston, Ontario.Det. Steve Koopman, one of the department's more online savvy investigato...
A child sketches death at the canal
Paul Schliesmann photoStick figures, a car, water – a childish sketch that would not matter much, but for its apparent origins. The remarkable drawing above was done by an eight-year-old girl, one of four surviving children of Mohammed Shafia and h...
Canal victim wed, then planned another
One of the three teenage sisters found dead in a submerged car in Kingston June 30 was about to announce her engagement when she was killed. Zainab Shafia hastily wed a Pakistani boyfriend in Montreal several months ago but she was planning another w...
Kingston canal death scene by night - a video tour
The short video above gives you another idea of why police likely were very suspicious from the very start that the Kingston canal case was not an accident, as the Shafia family immediately suggested. I shot the video exactly two weeks after the car ...
Accused father in canal murders secretly transferred
Provincial jail authorities have secretly transferred one of the three accused in the Kingston canal mass murder case. Mohammed Shafia, 56, was shipped Wednesday from a detention centre in Napanee, just west of Kingston, to the Ottawa Carleton Detent...
Accused canal mass murderer assaulted in jail
Can three members of the Shafia family, accused of killing four other family members, survive in jail, awaiting trial? One of the three, 18-year-old Hamed Shafia (inset), was assaulted by fellow inmates at the Quinte Detention Centre in Napanee (jus...
Hidden answers in a mass murder probe?
Sometimes, there are clues to a complicated police investigation between the lines of what police have said. It's worth reading closely the three-page news release (above) investigators in Kingston, ...
'He's given her back to me in a box'
Wali Abdali was articulate, animated and direct, as he spoke to me yesterday from his home in Lyon, France, about the horror of his sister's death, about how his beautiful little sister is coming home to him 'in a box.' Though he spoke to me through ...
Abuse, vengeance, dark secrets alleged in Shafia home
from left, Mohammed Shafia, 56, wife Tooba, 39, son Hamed, 18, at the Kingston, Ontario courthouse on July 23 (photos by Ian MacAlpine and Michael Lea/The Whig-Standard)A portrait is emerging of a home of dark secrets - the Shafia home, where police ...
Mass murder in black and white
The document above is an inventory of mass murder.It's the charge sheet or 'information,' the document filed July 23, 2009, in a Kingston, Ontario court by police, setting out the criminal charges ag...
A shocking mass murder at Kingston Mills
Four women mysteriously found dead inside a submerged car in a canal in Kingston, Ontario, three weeks ago weren't victims of a freak accident - they were murdered, police believe. The stunning revelation came yesterday, with arrests in the case. Pol...
