Murder in Cottage Country - The Fifth Estate

I don't want to swim in the lake. It almost makes my hair stand on end, to be honest with you, just thinking that someone was dumped here. It's shallow, muddy and overgrown. You could make someone disappear pretty easily, right? We heard so many stories. Everyone has a story. Why are the elderly still missing? Someone somewhere knows something. That is the mystery of Muskoka, and everyone has their version of what happened. Announcer: In this edition of The Fifth Estate, Bob McKeown investigates the unexplained disappearance of four elderly people and what clues lie within police files kept secret for almost 20 years.

I think you know that the Ontario Provincial Police have been investigating you over the years. Bob: The Muskoka region, north of Toronto, is known for its natural beauty, often luxurious

country

homes, and outdoor fun in the sun. But enveloped by these lakes and forests, Muskoka has a darker side. A mystery that revolves around a local family and that resonates here to this day. This is that family, the Laans, spelled L-double-A-N. The brothers attended high school in Huntsville, Ontario and played sports there. And when the generations came together for this wedding, they seemed to be one big, happy family unit.

One of the Laan brothers, Paul, was getting married. According to a family blog, God had brought him and his future wife together. The Laans have always professed to be a God-fearing group and share their faith online with posts like this one. "We are too weak because we are sinners and we cannot fight the devil." "We need to pray to God to help us in our lives." But you see, that mention of sin and the devil would be ironic to four members of the Laan family. Outwardly though, Christianity seemed an important part of their lives. I first met Kathrine Laan in 1992.

Bob: Alice Peddie met Kathrine at Muskoka Christian School, where Alice was a teacher and Kathrine volunteered as school treasurer. They both had children who studied there. We had a lot of interaction at school, back and forth, and a lot of interaction because I would pick up Jimmy, drop off Maryka, pick up Maryka, so, um, I would say. We were friends. Bob: It's around the same time that some of the Laans, Kathrine, her brothers Paul, Walter and David and her uncle, Ron Allen, got involved in a new family business. They established three retirement centers in the woods outside Huntsville, including this one on the shores of Siding Lake, and their brochures advertised attractive, affordable rooms in a cozy, homelike atmosphere with on-site nurses and dieticians and activities like bowling and woodworking.

The Laans made their proposal to less fortunate older people, especially Christians, claiming that they were doing God's work. Did you know about the existence of the nursing home? Yes. Bob: What did you know about that? Yeah, she would go to Toronto and find people who didn't really have any connection to other people and she would tempt them and say, you know, I have a nice retirement home up north and it's a beautiful place. Bob: For elderly and sick people with little or no family support, the offer must have been like a dream come true. Invited to live in the idyllic Muskoka region with room, board and care at a price they could actually afford with their government checks.

Everything seemed perfect. But not by much. It is unreal that a family can have so many criminals. Bob: Geoff Vander Kloet is a contractor in Muskoka who first heard whispers about the Laans' past from longtime residents of the community. I knew an old man in the neighborhood who talked about them when they were kids, they played baseball and they were always... they always found a way to game the system. Bob: But cheating in the local amateur baseball league would turn out to be the least of his problems. Laan's older brother, David, had a criminal record for burglary and robbery.

The history of his younger brother, Walter Laan, began at age 18 with property crimes, burglary, fraud and even impersonating a police officer. And at 25, her sister Kathrine Laan had been in prison for drugs, theft and extortion, but by the mid-90s, a mother and churchgoer, all that seemed to be in her past. And it might have stayed that way if not for a twist of fate at the Muskoka Christian school, where contractor Geoff Vander Kloet, a member of the school's board of directors, became suspicious of how volunteer treasurer Kathrine Laan was handling the money. from school. She never had reports for anyone.

She was supposed to have financial reports, but she didn't show up to board meetings. Finally, at a meeting, I thought, "No one smells bad," probably six weeks later, I got a phone call to meet in Huntsville and we found out she was stealing from the school. Bob: In fact, Kathrine Laan would eventually be arrested, charged and convicted of stealing around $30,000 from the Muskoka Christian School. Teacher and friend, Alice Peddie. I think the first word that comes to mind was betrayal. I am a very trusting person and I felt betrayed professionally at school and betrayed as a friend.

She professed to be a Christian, and to do this when you profess to be a Christian is very un-Christian. Bob: But it would be those retirement homes that really got people in Muskoka talking. When Geoff Vander Kloet was able to see firsthand what was happening inside the Laans facilities. I was surprised by the condition of the place and the conditions in which they had to live. In the next room there was an old man lying in bed, he was just lying there moaning and complaining, it seemed very strange. He told me that this man would be in an open room moaning and complaining, and I thought, boy, if my grandfather were here, he would be going in the truck with me right now.

Bob: The Laans boasted of having a dietician on staff. But police would later report that residents could receive Kraft dinners three times a day. They say they discovered 11 elderly people crammed into a four-bedroom house, with mattresses on the floor. Ralph Grant, Doogie as his friends knew him, was one of them. he was fast and furious, for lack of words. He always seemed to be on the move. Bob: In his youth, Doogie was a man about town in the auto parts business. But his nephew Howard Grant says that when he was 60 he was already going through hard times.

Police told him that Doogie was one of those recruited by the Laan family while he was living in a homeless shelter in downtown Toronto. I think they took advantage of him. I think if someone promised you a nice quiet life for half the price, you know, it's like giving a child a lollipop, you know, it turned out to be a horror show. Bob: There would soon be more questions, especially about what the Laans were doing with their residents' money. And then the mystery of Muskoka would deepen when, one by one, the elders who lived with the Laans began to disappear.

Starting with the woman known locally as the cat lady. Bob: In the mid-1990s, several so-called Christian retirement homes began operating in the dense forests of the Muskoka region, near Huntsville, Ontario. With idyllic names like Fern Glen Manor and Cedar Pines. They were owned by members of a local family, the Laans, with a clientele of lonely elderly people who were promised affordable home care. If that seemed too good to be true, it was. That senior care business and the family behind it were about to attract the attention of a promising young detective with the Ontario Provincial Police.

In 1998, Erin Burke was assigned to what seemed like a routine missing persons case. At the time, she had no idea where all of this would lead. I was assigned to investigate a possible missing woman named Joan Lawrence. Bob: The OPP wouldn't let Erin Burke talk to us, so we dramatized the investigation into her. The words you hear are spoken by an actor, but they are taken directly from police documents detailing Detective Burke's investigation into the disappearance of Joan Lawrence. She is an elderly woman who was also known in the town of Huntsville as the cat lady.

Bob: Known as the cat lady because on any given day, Joan Lawrence could be seen walking the 13 kilometers from Laan's property to town to buy food for the dozens of cats she owned. Joan Lawrence lived here, not in her main residence, but right behind it, in a small garden shed. she has no insulation, no running water, little or no heating, even in the middle of winter, and a door that won't close. She is only 8 x 10, which she shared with 30 of her cats. Detective Burke learned that Joan Lawrence paid the Laans about $700 a month for this shack.

She had almost all the money to support herself. There was no other place, she was trapped. She had nowhere to go. That was it. Bob: Unlike most in Muskoka, Linda Charbonneau met the real Joan Lawrence. Every day she went to the grocery store where Linda worked for free coffee and friendship. That's how Linda knew why Joan was paying the Laans so much for that dilapidated shed. hers hers her cats meant so much to her that she endured living in those living conditions for the sake of supporting her beloved pets, her family. Bob: But Joan Lawrence wasn't always the cat lady of Muskoka.

It took some digging, but we were able to discover her past. Born in Ottawa in 1921, when she was 20, she worked as an advertising editor for a Toronto newspaper. No small feat for a woman of the 1940s. What's more, she was a published poet. The florist's window was cheerful with arranged flowers. Happy to have seen the great exterior, the little flowers smiled at me and died. Bob: "The Little White Rose" was published in the "Toronto Star" in 1941, although it seems to foreshadow the problems that awaited Joan, in her 70s. I don't want to say it like that, but she was someone at one point, she was someone.

And now she was just the cat lady. Bob: But according to police reports, in the fall of 1998, the cat lady disappeared. And when she was officially declared a missing person, OPP Detective Erin Burke took over the case. Our source informed us that she hadn't seen her for at least three weeks, which was very unusual. Bob: Burke says those closest to Joan Lawrence said she was last seen in early October. And according to Erin Burke, she also learned that when Lawrence disappeared, she had been complaining about the lack of her tax refund, a seemingly minor matter that would turn out to be anything but.

Her friend Linda Charbonneau says Joan was desperate to find the refund check she was hoping for. Almost $750, a fortune for the cat lady. Yes, she just asked me if I got my income tax back. Correct. And I went, yeah, I got it like a month ago or a long time ago. Did I say why? She says, “Well, I applied a while ago and never got my check,” and I said, “Oh, I guess you better look into that.” So she says, "I'm going to look into that." Bob: Linda says she understood that what Joan intended to do was confront her landlord about the missing tax check.

Since the Laans sometimes collected her mail, she suspected they might have had something to do with it. And did she know what she found? No, no... I don't think I remember seeing her after that. Bob: Literally, that was the last time you saw her. I think so, yes. Bob: What's more, Detective Burke reported that the missing tax refund check had already been cashed. Endorsed with a signature that was not that of Joan Lawrence. So who signed the check and where was the money? And where was Juana? Now that money was a possible motive, Burke believed her missing persons case had turned into a homicide investigation.

I don't think Lawrence has moved off the property. Her body could be buried on the property. Bob: The search for that Laan property began in the area around Joan Lawrence's shed. However, no remains were found. But if Burke's search of the land and forests produced no bodies, what about the murky waters of Muskoka? he wondered. Due to the fact that the Laan property is located on Siding Lake, it is possible that Lawrence's deceased body was located in this lake. Bob: But in the inky depths of Siding Lake, what began as a four-day search turned into two tedious weeks of combing the muddy, weedy bottom for Lawrence.

Once again, in the end the police found nothing. And then the years began to pass. There is still no body. There is no case yet. It's been two decades since Joan Lawrence disappeared from that Laan property outside Huntsville. Searches would continue intermittently and Erin Burke would ultimately be transferred out of Muskoka. She then left the OPP. The case has not yet been resolved. Today, almost 20 years later, the Ontario Provincial PoliceWhat about older brother David Laan and Laan's uncle Ron Allen, whom the OPP named as suspects in the first-degree

murder

of Joan Lawrence? Well, apparently Ron Allen has moved on from Muskoka.

He never responded to our requests for comment. But we located David Laan in Toronto, where he does plumbing and heating work with his brother. We caught up with them recently when he stopped for coffee on the way to work. Mr. Laan, hello, I'm Bob McKeown from The Fifth Estate on CBC News. We would like to talk to you about Joan Lawrence and the other missing people. I think he knows that the Ontario Provincial Police have been investigating him over the years. They believe Joan Lawrence was the victim of first-degree

murder

. And they believe that you and your uncle, Ron Allen, are the suspects.

Bob: When we asked, David Laan didn't say a word about what happened to the four elderly people who disappeared. No explanation, not even a denial. You never reported him missing. Mr. Laan respectfully declines our request for an interview. Bob: The Muskoka mystery began with the disappearance of the cat lady. To this day, those who knew her best insist that she would never have left of her own free will, as the Laans claim. Because she would never have abandoned her cats. Weeks later, when police searched Laan's property, there was a chilling scene. No sign of Joan Lawrence.

But what they found were the remains of several cats that had been shot. We can't know who pulled the trigger. to joan's houseAmiga Linda, is a final mystery in the story of the cat lady. I asked the police and they told me there was an ongoing investigation, they couldn't tell me what happened to the cats. Well, at least some of them, I don't know the exact number, were found with bullets. God. She would have died because of her cats but maybe that's what happened. Oh, she wouldn't leave her cats. Bob: 20 years, four people missing, no one held responsible.

Rural Ontario is still haunted by the mystery of Muskoka.