Peter Woodcock
Peter Woodcock | |
|---|---|
| File:Woodcockmugshot1.JPG Woodcock in 1957. | |
| Born | March 5, 1939 |
| Died | March 5, 2010 (aged 71) |
| Other names | David Michael Krueger |
| Details | |
| Victims | 4 |
Span of crimes | 1956–1991 |
| Country | Canada |
Date apprehended | 1957 |
David Michael Krueger (March 5, 1939 – March 5, 2010),[1] best known by his birth name, Peter Woodcock, was a Canadian serial killer and child rapist who gained notoriety for the murders of three young children in Toronto, Canada, in 1956 and 1957 when he himself was still a teenager. He was placed in a psychiatric facility and subsequently deemed to be psychopathic.[2] Expensive treatment programs for Woodcock proved ineffective when he murdered a fellow psychiatric patient in 1991; after his death in 2010, he was described in the Toronto Star as "the serial killer they couldn't cure".[1]
Life and crimes
Woodcock was born to a 17-year-old Peterborough factory worker who gave him up for adoption. He spent the first three years of his life in various foster homes; he was physically abused in at least one of those homes. He was later adopted by a wealthy family living near Yonge Street and Lawrence Avenue, who paid for a private school education, therapy, and bikes for Woodcock. After reaching puberty, he began to travel around Toronto on his bike sexually assaulting children in Parkdale and Cabbagetown. Ultimately, Woodcock would murder three young children in 1956 and 1957.[1]
Woodcock was apprehended for the murders in 1957, found not guilty by reason of insanity, and placed in Oak Ridge, an Ontario psychiatric facility located in Penetanguishene.[1][2] During his time in the facility he underwent cutting-edge LSD therapy which proved ineffective.[3] There, he legally changed his name.[1] Following the completion of a treatment program for Woodcock and other psychopathic individuals, he was deemed greatly improved, and sent to a medium-security hospital in Brockville, Ontario, in 1991. There, Woodcock claimed, he fell in love with fellow psychiatric patient Dennis Kerr, who rejected his sexual advances.[2] During the first hour of his first weekend pass (time outside the hospital) in 34 years, Woodcock stabbed Kerr to death. Woodcock was being supervised on the pass by Bruce Hamill, a former patient who had killed an elderly Ottawa woman in 1977. Hamill was an accomplice in the Brockville murder, and both men were subsequently returned to Oak Ridge.[1] Woodcock would later explain that the treatment program served only to make him more adept at manipulating others.[2] Woodcock died at Oak Ridge – where the majority of his 53 years in custody had been spent – of natural causes on March 5, 2010, his 71st birthday.[1][3]
Victims
- Wayne Mallette – seven-year-old boy lured into the deserted Toronto Exhibition grounds on September 15, 1956. Originally another teen, identified as "Ronald Mowatt", was charged with the child's murder. Mallette was suffocated.[3]
- Gary Morris – nine-year-old boy lured to Cherry Beach on October 6, 1956. Morris was beaten to death.[3]
- Carole Voyce – four-year-old girl murdered by Woodcock on January 19, 1957 in a ravine under the Prince Edward Viaduct. Voyce was mutilated in a "sex slaying".[3]
- Dennis Kerr – psychiatric inmate murdered on July 13, 1991 with a knife and hatchet by Peter Woodcock with the help of a former patient, Bruce Hamill.[3]
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g "The serial killer they couldn't cure dies behind bars". Toronto Star. March 9, 2010. Retrieved July 22, 2010.
- ^ a b c d "Mind of a Murderer: Mask of Sanity" (PDF). BBC. 2002.
(38 minutes in) In 1957, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was sent to a secure mental hospital. He has since been diagnosed as a psychopath.
- ^ a b c d e f "Psycho Peter Woodcock murdered three children in late 1950s, underwent cutting-edge LSD therapy at mental hospital and killed again in 1991 when given day of freedom".
Further reading
- Mark Bourrie (1 November 1997). By reason of insanity: the David Michael Krueger story. Dundurn Press Ltd. ISBN 978-0-88882-196-6.
- Mark Bourrie (1 January 2016). Canada's Youngest Serial Killer: Peter Woodcock. VP Publication-RJ Parker Publications Inc. ISBN 1523256990.
External links
- Peter Woodcock at the Crime Library