Lee Mellor - Rampage: Canadian Mass Murder and Spree Killing

• 1. Two Kinds of Rampage Murderers
  Marc Lpine ... The Polytechnique Gunman
  Peter John Peters ... Tattoo Man
• 2. The Problem with Boxes
  Swift Runner ... The Cree Cannibal
  Rosaire Bilodeau
  Robert Poulin ... St. Pius X School Shooter
  David Shearing ... The Wells Gray Gunman
• 3. The First Rampage Killers in Canadian History
  Thomas Easby
  Henry Sovereign
  Patrick Slavin
  Alexander Keith Jr. ... The Dynamite Fiend
• 4. Narcissists, Anti-Social Personalities, and Psychopaths
  Valery Fabrikant
  Robert Raymond Cook
  James Roszko
• 5. The Utilitarian
  Gregory McMaster
  Jesse Imeson
• 6. The Exterminator
  Marcello Palma ... The Victoria Day Shooter
  Stephen Marshall
• 7. The Signature Killer
  Dale Merle Nelson
  Jonathan Yeo ... Mr. Dirt
• 8. The Family Annihilator
  Leonard Hogue
• 9. The Disciple and the Ideological Killer
  Joel Egger ... Order of the Solar Temple
  Joseph Di Mambro and Luc Jouret ... Order of the Solar Temple
• 10. The Disgruntled Employee
  Pierre Lebrun ... The OC Transpo Shooter
• 11. The Disgruntled Citizen
  Denis Lortie
• 12. The Set and Run Killer
  Albert Guay
  Louis Chiasson
• 13. The Psychotic
  Victor Hoffman ... The Shell Lake Murderer

Robert J. Hoshowsky

Memory is a peculiar thing. While most of us cannot remember specific details about uneventful activities like our Monday-to-Friday drive to work or school or what we ate for lunch from one day to another, the opposite holds true in times of tragedy. Unable to recall the trivialities of everyday life, we know precisely where we were the moment our nightmares became reality. When a loved one dies, we readily remember the time of day, sights and smells, and who we were with when we received the news. Like new earth created in time when leaves fall and plants decay, these memories mercifully remain buried, until something happens to reanimate them in monstrous detail.

When I heard from fellow true crime author Lee Mellor about his latest project a book about spree killers and mass murderers I immediately thought of an old friend who had suffered loss on such a scale as to be unimaginable: a murder-suicide that saw five members of his family dead in just minutes. In the initial confusion and shock, the awful details did not make themselves known right away, but unfolded over several horrifying hours.

Back in late March of 1985, I was at the Glendon Campus of York University in Toronto. Unlike the formidable Keele Street campus, the Glendon Campus in the citys north end has an almost village-like feel to it, a mixture of noncommittal sixties-style beige structures alongside gorgeous historic buildings crafted from brick and stone, surrounded by old trees and footpaths. At the gym sign-in desk, I met someone I hadnt seen since grade school. We spoke for a few minutes, while in the background breaking news came over the radio about a shooting in the citys west end. I didnt pay a great deal more attention until after my workout, when I passed the desk and heard another news announcement, this time stating that more than one person had been shot and killed on Quebec Avenue. I know someone who lives on Quebec Avenue , I thought. Could it be Marko? The thought bothered me as I walked back to my parents home, where my mother immediately said, Did you hear about the murders in the west end? Doesnt your friend Marko live on Quebec Avenue? I started to feel something was terribly, irreparably wrong.

She was referring to Marko Bojcun, the editor of an English-language Ukrainian newspaper called New Perspectives . Just twenty at the time, I had been contributing to the paper for several years, writing articles and taking photos mainly of community and political events. Marko was not only a mentor to me when I started submitting pen-and-ink drawings to the publication while in my teens, but a gentle, highly intelligent, kind-hearted, and patient man who tolerated my youthful enthusiasm and utter lack of experience with sound advice and a ready smile. I immediately called the west-end apartment he shared with his wife. A gruff-sounding man answered the phone during the first ring. I asked to speak with Marko. The man on the other end identified himself as a Toronto Police detective, and asked who I was. A friend, I responded, feeling as though hands were around my throat, choking me. In the background, I heard male voices muttering, Oh, Jesus, and, Goddamn it! After a moment, I croaked, Can I speak to Marko? My request was followed by a very long pause, after which the detective softly replied, No not now, and hung up. It was at that moment I knew something tragic had happened, and ran to the living room to turn on the television.

We watched as station after station put together details from neighbours and police about what happened: a man who had come to Canada from the United States had shot and killed four relatives before turning the weapon on himself. That man was Markos brother-in-law, and the family members were the killers parents, an uncle, and his sister Markos wife, Marta.

Minute by minute, other facts emerged. Markos brother-in-law was Wolodymyr Danylewycz, a thirty-three-year-old from Cincinnati, Ohio. A disturbed soul, he came to Toronto for a visit with other family members, bringing along with him a hidden handgun. On that sunny Sunday, March 24, the family was gathered in the triplex apartment, when Danylewycz asked Marko to get ice cream from the local store. Soon after he left, a loud discussion erupted, and shots were fired around 3:00 p.m. Neighbours called police. Returning to the apartment, Marko found the door unlocked but chained, and he was able to see the carnage inside. Police cars arrived and closed off intersections. Members of the Toronto Emergency Task Force lobbed tear gas into the apartment. Faces covered by gas masks, they stormed inside to discover five bodies in different rooms, all dead. The final gunshot had come from the bathroom, when Danylewycz put the barrel of his gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.