FILE 526 / 7 September 2024 / 75 MIN / express

Deadly, Disturbed & Lazy

Oshawa, OntarioListen

The town

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We're going to uh Oshawa, Ontario, Canada, OSHAWA. about 0:03:14

History, in brief

Town note

Nicknamed Canada's Motor City, the Detroit of Canada, because the GM plants are there.

about 0:04:44

1836

In 1836 Edward Skey relocated his general store to the site; it became a popular meeting place because it had a makeshift post office inside.

about 0:04:57

1842

In 1842, as postmaster, Skey applied for official post office status but was told the name Skey's Corners would not work.

about 0:05:12

Town note

The name Oshawa, said to translate to 'where we must leave our canoes', was adopted as the post office name immediately.

about 0:05:49
All 7 history facts

Town note

Nicknamed Canada's Motor City, the Detroit of Canada, because the GM plants are there.

about 0:04:44

1836

In 1836 Edward Skey relocated his general store to the site; it became a popular meeting place because it had a makeshift post office inside.

about 0:04:57

1842

In 1842, as postmaster, Skey applied for official post office status but was told the name Skey's Corners would not work.

about 0:05:12

Town note

The name Oshawa, said to translate to 'where we must leave our canoes', was adopted as the post office name immediately.

about 0:05:49

1846

In 1846 there were about a thousand people, mainly farmland, with a couple of churches, a post office, a fulling mill, a brewery, a couple of distilleries and a machine shop.

about 0:06:21

Town note

The GM factories have been where the main jobs have been since there were cars.

about 0:06:39

The figures, as told

Money

Median home value$102,843
Median household incomeabout $100,700 Canadian
All figures and comparisons, as told in 2024

Population

"185,611"

No direction stated.

As told in 2024 about 0:04:20

Median household income

"about $100,700 Canadian"

Comparison: "about $36,000 American". No direction stated.

As told in 2024 about 0:04:28

Median home cost

"$102,843"

Comparison: "Canadian dollars". No direction stated.

As told in 2024 about 0:04:39

The reviews

No rated reviews

“The only downside is dealing with people who buy into 'the dirty schwa'; urban sprawl north of the city is running into problems with Toronto gangs moving in, but don't believe the hype: it is a nice place with bike paths and plenty of parks, and the biggest problem is a jackass setting off fireworks at 2 a.m. on a Wednesday.”
about 0:07:04

“A reply calling North Oshawa garbage: the park is nice but people do not care about the area, garbage is everywhere, there is noise from neighbours and 'gangsters' tearing up the street, and there were three or four shootings in the Windfield area; Oshawa is not good and its only pro is amenities.”
about 0:08:11

In Ontario

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The story

On 11 September 2017 a fisherman and his grandson spotted something floating in Oshawa harbour on Lake Ontario: a severely decomposed human torso with no arms, legs or head. DNA comparison with missing-person records identified the remains as Rory Hachey, an 18-year-old from Oshawa last seen in the city on 27 August 2017.

Rory was born in 1999. She ran away for weeks at a time, used drugs, sometimes worked in the sex trade for drug money and went to a youth centre called The Refuge to try to get clean. Six months before she vanished she seemed to be doing better, with a steady boyfriend, an apartment and a job. Her aunt Michelle had taken her to a dollar store for a pregnancy test, and the family believed she was about three months pregnant. In August 2017 a fire at her mother's house injured her mother and killed her dog. On 27 August a friend and the friend's mother took Rory to hospital; security footage showed them leaving her in the waiting room, and she walked out alone about fifteen minutes later. Because she had disappeared before, her family did not report her missing for almost a month.

On 29 December 2017 the new upstairs tenants at McMillan Drive, a rented two-family house in Oshawa, complained of a terrible smell and a sewer backing up. Snaking the drains, the plumber pulled back ten to fifteen pounds of flesh, meat and bone fragments, including what looked like decomposed human fingers. He bagged it and called 911. He said, 'Okay, you got me, the gig's up, it's a body,' then, 'If you want to recover the rest of her, it's in my freezer.' In a chest freezer in his bedroom police found the rest of Rory, including her head, with the other half of the neck tattoo reading 'alive'. The house also held adult magazines, sex toys, BDSM restraints including a pulley over his bed, and a homemade bomb that had to be destroyed by the explosives unit.

A hunting knife, a Wyoming knife for gutting and skinning animals, carried blood belonging not to Rory but to Candice Fitzpatrick, a 19-year-old who had disappeared from downtown Oshawa at Christmas 2008. Her blood was in the freezer too. Candice was another street kid who drifted among homeless teenagers, used drugs and ran away repeatedly; her family did not report her missing for almost two years. A hammer with Rory's DNA was recovered, and a pathologist found skull fractures and extensive injuries to her face and head, though no single cause of death could be established. The theory was that she was beaten with the hammer and strangled, possibly during a sexual assault or while restrained.

In the first he was unnervingly cheerful, admiring Rory's photograph and claiming he met her by the creek, bought her dinner and brought her home, and that she always left under her own power. He admitted dismembering her around Christmas Eve after the upstairs tenants left, said he defrosted the body first, complained she took up a lot of space in his freezer, called himself a bad procrastinator and said all he would have had to do was boil the knife, because DNA does not survive cooking.

In 2022 police returned to the house after suspicious clothing was found. Rory's family campaigned for the house to be bought and demolished, but the city said it had no power to force the owner to sell.

The case

Murders of Rory Hachey and Candice Fitzpatrick

Victims

Rory Hachey (18). High school senior and meth user who was about three months pregnant; last seen in downtown Oshawa on August 27, 2017.
Candice Fitzpatrick (19). Street kid who hung around downtown Oshawa with groups of homeless teenagers; disappeared during the Christmas season in 2008.

Accused and outcomes

As told in the episode, on 7 September 2024.

Accused

Outcome

Other people

Michelle. Rory's aunt by marriage, Harley Davidson Gwindon's wife, who took her to buy a pregnancy test
Shannon Dion. Rory's mother
Bill Fitzpatrick. Candice's father, who shouted at the judge during a court appearance
Detective Mitten. Detective who conducted the second interrogation

The timeline

  1. 1972 is born; he is from Cornwall, Ontario. (Cornwall)about 0:26:44
  2. 1999 Rory Hachey is born.about 0:15:04
  3. early 2007 moves into the downstairs apartment at McMillan Drive. (McMillan Drive)about 0:27:15
  4. Christmas season 2008 Candice Fitzpatrick, 19, disappears from downtown Oshawa. (downtown Oshawa)about 0:40:06

Last meals

Places and phrases

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Places in the story

Public places are marked on the map.

Heard in this episode