True Crime

Forty crimes. Forty crimes of betrayal, greed, and desperation.

Forty crimes that shed light on our shared past, and our lives today. Award-winning writer Paul Willcocks takes a sharp, fresh look at legendary crimes and criminals and the way they reflect our history.

Murderers and scam artists. Masterminds and bunglers. The infamous and the forgotten. Dead Ends looks at them all.

Leo Mantha, the last man hanged in B.C. Wong Foon Sing, the Chinese houseboy kidnapped and tortured by police. Pickton and the Pattison kidnappers. Olson and the McLean Boys.

Our crimes define us. Dead Ends shows us how.

In 2011, the lives of 48 Edmontonians came to a sudden, violent end, leading to the city of Edmonton gaining the dubious moniker of the year: “Murder Capital of Canada.” It wasn’t the first time the city of champions had snagged the title nobody wants to claim.



In Deadmonton, former Edmonton Sun reporter Pamela Roth takes a look at some of Edmonton’s most notorious murders, both solved and unsolved. Told first-hand by the victims’ families, these stories serve as a disturbing reminder of the horror that humans are capable of inflicting upon each other, and highlight the immense sadness and pain left in the wake of these crimes. But Deadmonton also gives a glimpse into the lives of detectives working tirelessly to bring closure to the families and justice to the victims’ names.

“The body would have been nearly impossible to identify. There was so little of it left, for one thing.”

Thus begins the sordid tale of the “Scissors Grinder,” one of 40 heart-pounding true crime stories that will have you looking over your shoulder. Or keeping your bedside light on at night.

With this and other blood-curdling accounts veteran crime writer Barb Pacholik offers up another installment in her best-selling series of true crime books set in Saskatchewan. This time she pursues cadaver dogs, unearths charred remains, explores the horrifying “killing room,” and delves into cold cases—those unsolved crimes, some whose perpetrators still lurk out there.

Reconstructed from court transcripts, these all-too-true stories expose the greed, desperation, and inhumanity living just down the street and around the corner.

Warning! What you are about to read is true … and not for the faint of heart, as the crime stories collected here detail the most disturbing chapters of Alberta history.

Chronicled in these pages are many of the province’s most notorious killers and outlaws from the past century: train robbers, a homicidal hired hand, prisoners of war, cannibals, kidnappers, and more.

Witness the moment when Peter Pocklington has a .357 magnum held to his head. Be there when Wiebo Ludwig “terrorizes” northwestern Alberta… when a Lethbridge city councillor fabricates a story of being stalked, drugged, abducted and sexually assaulted… when four RCMP officers are gunned down at Mayerthorpe.

From back alleys to bedrooms to the gallows, these accounts cover everything from Alberta’s largest mass execution to recent headline-making cases. Shocking, appalling… and true.