The Killer Handyman
WILLIAM PATRICK FYFE
Volume VII
by CL Swinney
Crimes Canada
True Crimes That Shocked The Nation
www.CrimesCanada.com
ISBN-13: 978- 1517162412
ISBN-10: 1517162416
Copyright and Published (2015)
VP Publications an imprint of
RJ Parker Publishing, Inc.
Published in Canada
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Introduction
February 1955, and Toronto, Ontario, was experiencing the coldest month it would see the entire year. The brutal temperatures, averaging sixteen degrees Fahrenheit, kept residents inside their homes, huddled under blankets trying to remain warm. Many locals were still excited about the subway completion at the end of 1954, but they continued to grieve the loss of eighty-one citizens during Hurricane Hazel. Immigrants and newcomers from Atlantic Canada were moving to the area in record numbers, and the provincial government soon created the Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto. For the most part, times were relatively peaceful.
On the bitter cold morning of February 27, 1955, a male child was born to young parents in town. The baby’s biological father disappeared, never to be heard from again, while the mother struggled to keep food on the table for her and the newborn. Somewhere along the line, the child’s extended family intervened. About age three, the toddler wound up being raised by his aunt. Oddly, she too was reclusive. It’s unclear why the boy’s aunt raised him. Not much has ever been known about her.
When the child became a man, he frequently traveled, making it more difficult to obtain facts about various times in his life. Unfortunately, he chose the trodden path and committed petty crimes. Continuing unchecked, he became increasingly brazen and destructive… eventually committing rape and finally cold-blooded murder.
His name is William Patrick Fyfe, and he’s the focus of this Crimes Canada book.
***
The status and names of his parents eluded me, despite months of investigation. In addition, specifics about the aunt proved equally elusive. William’s childhood has remained a mystery to most people outside the circle of doctors who have tried to “cure” him (past and current), his aunt, and William himself. They are presumably the only ones who know what happened during his adolescence, what ultimately made him snap and become a serial killer. Speculation has shrouded what or why William Fyfe became “The Killer Handyman,” but those questions are still unanswered.
His case enthralled me from the beginning. Countless months of research provided noteworthy information about his early adult life. Additional details became known about him once he began preying on female victims. The Fyfe story, and the stories about his victims, are important for Canada and, sadly, the truly sick and demented world of serial killers. The following is what’s known about William Fyfe to date.
***
When William Fyfe was three (1958), he and his aunt moved to Montreal. The reason his mother turned over custody to the aunt has remained a mystery. As a law enforcement member, I’ve become familiar with cases where one or both parents either die or get arrested and therefore they cannot raise their child. Perhaps that was the case with William. His aunt became primary care provider until he reconnected with his mother well into adulthood, during his late thirties.
Many people have speculated that something terrible must have happened to him as a child while living with his aunt. Contradictory to that theory, though, “Billie’s” aunt managed to instill in him admirable traits. Without further verification, we don’t know if someone else in his life was responsible for that influence. For example, he remained in school, well into high school, and eventually became a successful handyman.
It’s generally accepted knowledge that a child who’s reared by a mother and father has a better chance of being properly socialized than one who isn’t. I’m not saying single parents aren’t amazing. For a period in my life, my mother raised me by herself, and I turned out decent. I possess a Bachelor’s degree in sociology and have spoken to prominent sociologists and psychologists regarding socialization and the modern family. They all agree that having a mother and father is ideal. It is certainly easier to provide guidance, team discipline, financial support, and many of the other highly regarded socialization skills required to build a strong foundation for a child. Studies prove that chances are more likely for someone raised in a two-parent home to become a successful and a contributing member of society.
Somewhere during his formidable years, William Fyfe’s wiring became crossed…to a point that his acts were no longer human, but more closely resembled that of a raging homicidal animal. Adding more peculiarity to this case, though, was the fact that William was actually capable of exhibiting “normal” behavior. However, within the blink of an eye, he would morph into a stone-cold, malicious killer and rapist.
Fyfe’s adult life took a turn for the worse beginning most notably in 1977, at the age of twenty-two. According to newspaper articles and court documents, Fyfe was convicted of several charges including abduction, libel, theft, breaking and entering, and pretending to solemnize a marriage.
At the core of William’s issues was a dependency on drugs. He would later seek counseling for his addiction, although it was never clear that he actually shook the habit but rather learned how to operate better under the influence. Some of his behavior could be explained and marginally understood if you considered he was under the influence most of the time. He managed to find and complete odd jobs in various provinces, mostly to make money to fuel his drug habit. If the jobs dried up, he’d resort to residential burglary. Tragically, he used that early experience to enhance his confidence and skills as he headed toward first-degree murder.
***
I’ve interviewed and arrested hundreds of drug users in my police career. The overwhelming majority of them commit property crimes to sell what they steal for cash, and usually those capers yield very small amounts, requiring multiple thefts to obtain enough cash to get high. Without counseling or family support,
their demons begin to haunt them and appear at the most inopportune times. In addition, the more they use, the more tolerant their body becomes to the drug, requiring larger doses of narcotics to get high. It’s a terrible cycle that rarely gets broken.
In the late 1970s, after Fyfe was released from jail for the above-noted cases, he became vagabond-like. He resided in St. Laurent, LaSalle, Verdun, and later Saint-Jerome in 1993. (1)
At some point, between 1993 and 1999, he reunited with his biological mother and lived at her home, described as a make-shift barn. It was a structure situated behind the main home on property that belonged to another family, in Barrie, Canada.
In 1999, when this case burst wide open, that location would play a significant role in the investigation. The location also provided much greater insight as to who William Fyfe truly was. Interestingly enough, although court orders and documents were needed to obtain search warrants for the property, William’s mother’s name was omitted. That, in itself, wasn’t odd because investigators have been known to do that. In this case, they obviously believed Fyfe’s mother had no involvement in William’s activities.
Unique in William Fyfe’s upbringing was the fact that his childhood was so closely guarded and few true facts were ever revealed. Normally, volumes of information would have been printed and stored about a serial killer. Law enforcement personnel would have thoroughly investigated the suspect (and subsequently convicted criminal) in an effort to understand his motives, thoughts, and modus operandi (MO). Much of the information could have been used to help identify future killers or ferret out copy-cats. In addition, citizens have traditionally been fascinated with the deviancy and disturbing lifestyles of serial killers as evidenced by novels and stories written about these monsters.
We shake our heads, wondering how in the world they could do such things. Researchers, psychologists, police investigators, and I have combed what little data there is about William Fyfe’s childhood looking for clues as to why he did what he did. More importantly, the question has always been, why did he become a monster?
Each of us was met with negative results. William Fyfe has also been interviewed numerous times as investigators attempted to shed light on his behavior, and again, they were unsuccessful at learning his motives. Only Fyfe himself will ever know what his childhood was like. Most serial killers have particularly disturbing childhoods and are typically physically and emotionally abused by one or both of their parents.
In this case, no one knows if that was William’s fate. I believe he would not have reconnected with his mother and lived with her later in life if she had abused him as a child. Since he preyed on elderly women, I believe he would have killed his mother long ago if she had been the source of his abuse.
We’ll later see that William, once apprehended, exhibited behaviors very inconsistent with other serial killers, adding further speculation about what happened inside his sick head. Unlike most serial killers, he did not seek publicity or notoriety based on his killing sprees and was quiet during his subsequent high-profile court case. In fact, he repeatedly tried to avoid any popularity associated with him, the murders he confessed to, or his well-known case. At one point, he fought for the right to be moved to a different prison to escape certain celebrity status he’d obtained in Montreal. He later won that fight, but only after he provided a statement regarding the brutal murders of five more women. A deal was struck with the prosecutor and the police department in which William was moved to the prison of his choice. That particular one had the exact same size cells as all the other prisons in Canada, but it had a psychiatric component that William’s defense attorney noted his client needed.
Several reports and documents I read while researching this case indicated that William was married at one time and possibly fathered a child. However, no further documentation, such as a marriage license or birth certificate was available to confirm this. Still, according to Commander Andre Bouchard, who was the primary investigator for the William Fyfe case, he believed William’s marriage might have lasted as long as four years. Very few details were available about his ex-wife or the possible child they had.
Upon finishing this story, you’ll probably continue to ask yourself…as I do…if he does have an ex-wife and child, are they still alive?
Although it’s heavily speculated that William exhibited odd tendencies and lived an abnormal lifestyle, no proof of that ever existed. In fact, the opposite appeared true. He basically lived “under the radar,” and people who knew him described him as generous.
It’s strange, at least to me, to hear a serial killer being described that way.
A few neighbors stated that William was full of community spirit, but also tended to preach to others about their weight gains or other socially unacceptable habits like drinking and smoking. I found this fascinating because William used drugs heavily and drank alcohol quite often. He smoked cigarettes regularly and was rumored to have many lovers. It seemed that William knew doing these things were bad for his health and mostly socially unacceptable and, therefore, wrong to do. But he continued smoking, drinking and using drugs, regardless. William certainly did not practice what he preached, but people generally seemed to get along with him.
What little is known about him seems more like most handymen I know, kind of rough around the edges, but basically harmless. That turns out not to be the case here.
***
William lived a rather simple life by most standards. He owned nothing really lavish. No prized possessions (that we know of). Fyfe was a capable painter, carpenter, builder of pools, and other basic construction occupations. Because of this, he naturally assumed the role of a handyman. People who used his services said he charged fair prices and did competent work. These stories indicated that William managed to function normally within society for long periods of time without a problem. Instead of helping solve the riddle of what made William tick, however, these facts only made the end result more unbelievable.
He primarily worked in Quebec, where he moved to seek treatment for his drug addiction. This point, at least in my opinion, demonstrated that William knew he had a problem and tried to do something to fix it. It showed that he was responsible and could make rational decisions. The program touched a spot in his heart because once he’d completed it, he remained associated with it and later became a counselor. He said he did so “because I enjoyed helping others like me.”(2) I prefer to believe he was talking about working with people who had drug addiction issues instead of people who shared similar serial killer ideations.
In reality, it doesn’t matter what made William Fyfe tick, what his childhood was like, or who raised him. Sure, we’d love to know every single detail about him to attempt to wrap our minds around how he became a ruthless killer, but he’s remained an anomaly due to the fact he flew under the radar for so long.
William began exhibiting socially unacceptable behavior in his twenties, resulting in numerous arrests and contacts with law enforcement. Shortly thereafter, and likely during his free time from incarceration, he developed a significant dependency on drugs and committed further crimes to fund his habit. It’s possible he was properly socialized but suffered some psychotic breakdown or had his heart broken and later snapped. We’ll later see that he maliciously stabbed his victims repeatedly and killed numerous women. He sexually violated most of his prey after they died at his hands. It was also possible that the euphoric rush he obtained while having sex with recently dead women was one reason he killed them.
Unless he has a change of heart and decides to open up about his life, we might never know much about him beyond what science, on-record statements, investigations, and his own admissions have already taught us.
The gaps in Fyfe’s life timeline were significant and became a focal point in 1999 for the Montreal Police (MP) and the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) as the residents of these Canadian communities, based on brutal slayings happening almost back-to-back, feared a serial killer might b
e on the loose.
Another serial killer, one of Canada’s most horrific named Robert Pickton, aka “The Pig Farmer Killer,” was also killing women at an alarming rate during the same time period. Those atrocities happened near Vancouver, Canada. While police were investigating Pickton, they made numerous pieces of his case public. Canadians, primarily women, were on high-alert. Many women in the region who lived alone, lived in tremendous fear for years. (3)
A significant backstory into William Fyfe’s world actually began in 1979, some twenty years before investigators caught a break and began looking at him as a person of interest in a murder that happened in 1999. Something that has continued to bother me since investigating this case was what did Mr. Fyfe do to pass the time in those twenty years?
I can’t imagine the entire time, based on what we know about him, that he was able to plug along in life without committing a single crime. My gut tells me he’s responsible for more murders…perhaps many more…and other crimes, but only time, and perhaps science, will confirm this or not.
Numerous unsolved murder cases, more than eighty-five, happened in the Montreal area during the time period of this case (1979-1999). Investigators had hoped they could connect some, or the majority, of the murders to William Fyfe in an effort to close “cold” cases. They were also hopeful to provide the families and friends of the victims some closure. Physical evidence, in a few instances, was obtained but has since been misplaced. Other files did not include physical evidence or leads. William did not confess to any of these unsolved cases, and no physical evidence connected him to them. In this situation, as with many homicides I’ve investigated, we needed to grasp and consider the past in order to understand what may have caused the present.
Canadian Serial Killer
William Patrick Fyfe
The Killer Handyman: The True Story of Serial Killer William Patrick Fyfe (Crimes Canada: True Crimes That Shocked the Nation Book 7) Page 1