John Daly
Appearances
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
I don't know whether they were just trying to keep the public calm, what the police were really thinking or doing. Maybe they were afraid of panic.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
But the initial response when the children went missing was, you know, there's nothing to indicate foul play. We have a missing child. There's nothing to indicate that there was a kidnapping. There's nothing to indicate that this is related to any of the previous cases, either disappearances or murders. And that seemed to be the ongoing pitch from the cops again and again.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
But it started to build up. And if I may, I'll tell you one instance that really kind of sent a chill through my spine. I remember getting a sign to the disappearance of Simon Partington.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
When we get down to the point where you've got a missing nine-year-old kid who's six blocks from his home and disappears when he's at the corner store getting an ice cream or a candy bar, you've got a big problem. I was like a blowtorch on my butt, to be blunt.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
It was kind of like, you get out there and you hunt this stuff down, you stay on these cops and you find out what they know and what they're doing, etc. And it got really, really intense after that.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
She was afraid to do an interview. She didn't want to be questioned. She just wanted to make a statement. We said, fine. And she wouldn't make a statement with us present. So we set up the camera in a chair in the backyard, left the thing running, and we went for coffee so she could come out, sit down in the chair, and make her pitch.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
And, you know, we came back, I guess it was 35, 40 minutes later, and, you know, she was gone. We had a truck and we had playback in it. We went into the truck and she had left basically a three-minute crying appeal to the kidnappers to get young Simon, nine-year-old Simon, back.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
It was heart-wrenching, absolutely heart-wrenching, and I think that really sent a chill through the spines of all British Columbians.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
That was, I think, a turning point where the police realized that the media were going to turn up the heat on them and that they better, you know, throw everything they've got at this.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
And we shot these cops going in there carrying these books, their case books, under their arms. And that, I think, was the beginning of a massive task force. We didn't know it, but the RCMP started, you know, a list of potential suspects and surfaced Clifford Robert Olson.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
I'm in the newsroom. And the assignment editor says to me, they've caught this child killer. It was pandemonium, but it was big. All hell broke loose.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
British Columbia and certainly all of the lower mainland was sort of an idyllic spot. I mean, even though Vancouver was a big city, it was still like a little town.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
I mean, kids would wander all over, go hiking and go into the back lots, go play in the park, get on their bikes. They'd go exploring, hunt for caterpillars, just go play ball. Five, ten blocks away, it was nothing. I mean, kids were all over the place and running around and enjoying themselves and basically fearless. It was happy times. People left their doors unlocked.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
I mean, they told me that repeatedly. But then that all changed. It was shocking that kids were disappearing. It was all across the lower mainland, you know, Coquitlam, Richmond, Burnaby, New Westminster, all over. And this just hadn't happened before. And of course it was children. So it was really, really terrifying.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
And the whole, all of British Columbia was basically seized with this fear and dread. And parents had to figure out whether or not to take their kids to school, keep them in after school. Kids wanted to go hang out at the mall. They wanted to go to the playground. And parents were basically fearful of this, and rightly so. It started with a girl from Surrey disappearing.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
And nobody really knew what happened. It was kind of confusing. And, of course, you know, the standard police response was, maybe she ran away, something must have happened. Nothing to indicate foul play. We don't know if there's any kind of a crime involved here, you know, but we'll do what we can.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
It wasn't until the following year that another girl, a 13-year-old, disappeared.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
And they didn't find her body for a long time. So it took a while for anybody to start wondering whether or not these things were connected. But it was pretty scary. Just those two were enough to get people worried. It was very surprising that there wasn't more of a frenetic reaction and more reaction from the police when these kids would disappear.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
We're not talking about 17, 18 year olds where, you know, you might suspect, well, maybe they've connected with some friends or, you know, had a fight at the house or something like that. I mean, these are pretty young kids who ought to be home at night. There's something seriously wrong here. And yet, it didn't really seem to light a fire under authorities.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
And, you know, looking back on it, you sort of see that clearly society and the authorities were, I guess, complacent, if you want to be kind.
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
I guess I was a bit naive. I think I believed the police. And they said, there's nothing to indicate foul play. There's nothing to indicate that these cases are in any way connected. Then I started to wonder, well, you know, how many people would go out and kill kids?
Sea of Lies from Uncover
S33 E2: Something Monstrous | Calls From a Killer
And that, I guess, was probably in the spring of 81 where I started to raise the questions as to whether or not these cases were all connected and, you know, how this was being handled. You know, do we have three child killers out there acting simultaneously in the Lower Mainland? Or is there one really bad guy out there doing this?