I.+Case+Summary



Clifford Robert Olson Jr., the first child of Clifford and Leona Olson, was born on January 1st, 1940 at St. Paul’s Hospital in Vancouver, British Columbia. His birth was announced in the newspapers since he was one of the celebrated New Year's babies. But being born at 10:10 p.m. his family missed out on the big New Year baby prizes and instead received the consolation prizes, a baby book and a dainty gift from Cunningham Drug Store.

From an early age, Olson earned a reputation as a show-off. A former teacher stated, "When I taught him he deliberately misbehaved to be the center of attention. Sometimes it was almost as if he wanted to be caught." He was a known bully and there were rumours that he tortured and killed animals. By the time he was ten he skipped classes, and at fifteen he failed his grade several times. When he was sixteen he dropped out of Cambie Junior High School.

 Olson had trouble with the law at very young age; he was jailed for the first time just after finishing Grade Eight. Quite frequently, as a teenager and young adult, he found himself in trouble with the law. Over the next twenty-four years, Olsen had eighty-three convictions, which were for: obstructing justice; possession of stolen property; possession of firearms; forgery; false pretences; fraud; parole violation; impaired driving; theft; breaking and entering; armed robbery; escape from lawful custody. By the time he was forty-one, he had spent only four years of his adult life as a free man. He escaped from prison seven times from 1957 to 1968. And when Olsen was granted parole in 1959 and 1972, it would be continually revoked due to his continual criminal conduct.

While in prison Olson was known for two things, one of which was being a homosexual rapist. In 1974, while being imprisoned at British Columbia Penitentiary Olson sexually attacked a seventeen year old fellow inmate. The second thing that he was known as was a snitch. Olson befriended Garry Marcoux, who was being held for brutally raping and murdering a young girl. He learned the grisly details of Marcoux’s crimes and then he “ratted” him out. He gave the police letters and drawings Marcoux had created when he was outlining the crime.

Olson met his future wife, Joan Hale, at the Cariboo Hotel Lougheed Village Pub. At first Joan did not know that Olson had recently been released from prison but when she found out, it did not bother her. She thought that Olson was charming and in three days Olson had moved in with her. Joan delivered their son, Clifford Olson III, and a month later on May 15th 1981, the two were married. By this time, Olson had committed a total of three murders, to our knowledge, and had fallen under police suspicion of child molestation. He never got charged due to the lack of evidence against him.

** Clifford Olson **** ’ **** s Known Victims: **



Christine Anne Weller, a twelve year old girl went missing on Monday, November 17th, 1980. At the time h er parents assumed that she was staying at a friend's house, as she had done several times before. It took her parents the better part of a week before they filed a missing person's report. Once the report was submitted Christine was treated a runaway until her bicycle was found by police behind an animal hospital on King George Highway. On December 25th, a man walking his dog just north of River Road, along the Fraser River in Richmond, found Christine ’s body at the back of a dump. Christine had multiple stab wounds in the chest and abdomen. She suffered 10 stab wounds to the chest and abdomen and two superficial slashes in the neck. She had a double perforation of the right ventricle of the heart, and four penetrating wounds in the liver. The police eventually identified her as Olson ’s first victim.



Olsen’s second victim was thirteen years old, Colleen Marie Diagnault. On Thursday April 16th, 1981, Colleen had called and told her grandmother that she would be home about 4 p.m. returning from a friend's house after spending the night. In order to get home to Old Yale Road in Surrey, Colleen would have had to take two buses, near the Surrey side of the Patullo Bridge that spanned the Fraser River. Three days later, Colleen was reported missing, but the Mounties treated her case as a runaway as well. It wasn't until September 17th, that the skeletal remains of Colleen were found in an isolated Surrey forest, not far from the American border. She was killed by repeated hammer blows to the head. Actual cause of death was two depressed fractures of the occipital region of the skull.



On Wednesday April 22nd, five days after Colleen Marie Diagnault went missing; a sixteen year old boy named Daryn Todd Johnsrude vanished. He had only been in Vancouver for two days before he went missing. Daryn was last seen buying cigarettes at a drug store in the Burquitlam Plaza, which was close to Olsen ’s home. On May 2nd, Daryn’s body was found lying at the bottom of a rocky embankment in Deroche. According to the coroner’s reports, the boy died from repeated hammer blows to the head. This caused a skull fracture with right subdural hemorrhaging. His body was found approximately seven miles from the north bank of the Fraser River. Due to the fact that Olson did not follow a particular target sex or age group, the Mounties did not link Daryn’s case to the girls that had been previously murdered.



On Tuesday May 19th, five days after Olson’s wedding, he claimed his fourth victim, sixteen year old Sandra Lynn Wolfsteiner. Sandra’s boyfriend’s mother watched her get picked up by a man in a car, which may have been one of Olson’s rental cars. It is likely that he offered her a job because reportedly she had told her friend she had a good job cleaning windows. Once Olson had persuaded Sandra to go to his cabin; he drove up to an area with dense bushes off of Chilliwack Lake Road. Here he murdered Sandra’s by repeated hammer blows to the head from behind. Until the police found Sandra’s body they considered her to be another runaway, according to the RCMP “it was felt she was simply a missing youth and there was no suspicion of foul play.” Few skeletal remains were found and cause of death was determined to be head injuries.



Ada Court, thirteen years old, spent her last night babysitting her brother’s two toddlers in the same family apartment complex where the Olson ’s lived. On Sunday June 21st, Ada planned to take the bus to meet her boyfriend, but instead she mysteriously vanished. Jim Parranto, a fifty-two year old resident of White Rock, believed he saw Olson disposing of Ada's body. A month or two later he reported what he saw to the White Rock RCMP. After Olson's arrest, dental records confirmed that a skull and upper jawbone found by searchers near Weaver Lake in the Agassiz area belonged to Ada Court. Records show that she was murdered by repeated hammer blows to the head. This is believed because skeletal remains with several depressed skull fractures were found.



The disappearance on Thursday July 2nd, of a nine years old Simon Partington from Surrey, was the turning point in The Case of the Missing Lower Mainland Children. Due to Simon’s age it was highly unlikely that he was a runaway and plausible that he had been abducted. Simon headed towards a friend’s house on his bike, but he never arrived. He had been given a couple bottles of beer by Olson and then was strangulated.



Olson’s seventh victim was sixteen years old Judy Kozma. Olson offered both Judy and eighteen years old, Randy Ludlow beer while he drove them to Richmond. Randy recalls that Olson was encouraging Judy to drink more but she refused but Olson was persistent. According to Randy, Olson then gave Judy pills, saying, “Here, take these, they’ll straighten you out. They keep you from getting drunk.” A while after, Randy was dropped off, and Judy was left in the car with Olson, this was the last time Judy was seen alive. Judy was killed by multiple stab wounds.



Raymond King Jr. was a fifteen year old and he was looking for his first year job. On Thursday July 23rd he made his routine trip to the Canada Manpower Youth Employment Centre, where he chained up his bike behind the building. At this point, Olson enticed Raymond with a job, as he had done to so many others. He took Raymond to a campground beside the Alpine Lake and punctured the boy’s head with rocks and then dumped the body off the hillside trail.



Olson’s ninth victim was a German student named Sigrun Arnd, who was visiting Canada. She disappeared on July 25th after being seen with Olson in a Coquitlam pub. Sigrun often spoke about how she would never get into a stranger’s car, not to mention that she would never hitchhike. However, in the diary left behind by Sigrun she stated how eager local people were to help. It may be due to her belief in that, that she lost her cautiousness and became another victim of Olson’s. She was murdered by repeated hammer blows to the head and then was thrown into a ditch with water to be buried. Her cause of death was massive head injuries and her body was found in Richmond, partially buried approximately 400 yards from where Simon Partington had been placed.



Terri Lyn Carson was fifteen years old and was also looking for a summer job just like many of Olson’s other victims. On July 27th, Olson offered her a job and a drink, which he had laced, to celebrate her finding employment. He then drove from the city into the east of Agassiz, by the north shore of the Fraser River. He drove into the forest, and here he strangulated Terri, burned her clothes and threw her purse and shoes into the Fraser River.



After having met with the police on July 30th, Olson was on his way to meet his lawyer, Bob Shatz. On his way to the meeting, he spotted his eleventh and last known victim, seventeen year old Louise Chartrand. It is believed that Louise was headed to buy cigarettes from a shop which was a short distance from the restaurant where she worked. She was then picked up by Olson and he drugged her like he had done with some of his previous victims and headed towards Whistler. Coworkers called her family when she did not arrive for her 8 p.m. shift. The next morning, one of Louise’s sisters phoned the RCMP to report her missing. Later, her decomposed body was found in a shallow grave, north of a ski resort, with evidence of massive skull fractures which is consistence with the hammer used in the other cases.

During his confession to police, Olson disclosed that while killing the children he sang the chours of the famous Beatles song "Maxwell Siver Hammer". Below is a link to the song:

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