The final week of January 1990 was a stormy one around the world. Torrential rain and 100-mile-an-hour winds battered Europe, while across the Atlantic, Canada faced sub-zero temperatures and relentless blizzards. But the weather wasn’t Canada’s only problem.
Amid the snow and ice, police were in the middle of the biggest manhunt the country had seen in 15 years, searching for a 28-year-old janitor named Peter John Peters, who unleashed a whirlwind of violence, robbery, and murder across Ontario. I’m your host, Prash, and welcome to Prash’s Murder Map. [music] [music] [music] It was 3:30 a.
m. on Monday, 22nd of January, when 63-year-old Albert Phillips woke up. He started early for his job as a cleaner at a Toronto parking garage, where he had worked for many years.
He was used to moving quietly through the house, careful not to wake his wife and 13-year-old daughter. Albert regularly donated to charity, and after breakfast, he wrote a check for a homeless charity and left it on the kitchen counter for his wife to post after she dropped their daughter at school. Albert arrived at the garage at around 4:40 a.
m. and parked in his usual spot. It was deserted at that hour and dimly lit in the cold winter morning.
As far as Albert knew, the place was empty. But there was someone else there, watching and waiting in the shadows. Albert locked his car and walked towards the office door.
As he entered his code, he was struck repeatedly on the head. He lost consciousness and collapsed to the floor. Mrs.
Phillips was surprised when she woke to find it was already 7:30 a. m. as her husband normally phoned her at 7:00.
Concerned, she called the parking garage office, but there was no answer as no one else had arrived at work yet. Growing more uneasy, she tried another number and eventually reached an employee who agreed to go and check on Albert. When the man went down to the garage office, he found Albert Phillips lying in a pool of blood.
His head, face, and body were covered in wounds. The employee immediately called the police and ambulance, and paramedics arrived within minutes. Albert had suffered serious skull fractures and was barely breathing.
He was rushed to St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto while police officers contacted his wife to tell her what had happened. The family struggled to understand why anyone would want to hurt the kind, generous 63-year-old in such a sudden and unprovoked act of violence.
Forensics expert Detective Constable Brian Lai examined the crime scene, recovering a blood-stained metal pipe and Albert’s wallet, which had been emptied of its contents. Under a wall-mounted radiator, Lai also found Albert’s false teeth. Several other vehicles in the garage had been broken into and Albert’s station wagon was missing, [music] giving investigators a potential lead.
If they could locate the car, they might also find the person responsible. At 1:15 p. m.
, more than 60 miles southeast in the city of St. Catharines in southern Ontario, 28-year-old newlywed Sandy Bellows was parking downtown near Credit Union. She worked for the Bell Canada phone company and was running an ordinary lunchtime errand.
Sandy noticed a mid-1980s station wagon parked nearby, which, unknown to her, was the vehicle stolen from Albert Phillips just hours earlier. The man sitting inside the car was lean with long, straggly blond hair. He smiled at her and she smiled back.
St. Catharines was a relatively quiet city with a reputation for being safe, and Sandy was used to friendly exchanges with strangers, so she thought nothing of it. She went into the bank and returned a few minutes later.
As soon as she sat down in the car, the man rushed over, flung the door open, and shoved her across into the passenger seat. He pressed a screwdriver to her throat and told her he would đđŸđđ her if she didn’t cooperate. He drove off, still pressing the screwdriver against her neck with one hand.
He told Sandy his name was John and insisted he was a nice guy. When she begged to be let go, he told her she could only leave if she helped him avoid the police by pretending they were a married couple. Sandy sat in silent terror for an hour until the man turned off the road and pulled into a remote forested area west of the town of Paris.
With little warning, the man suddenly changed. Sandy would later say he became like an animal. He struck her repeatedly in the face and forced her into the backseat, made her remove her clothes, and sexually assaulted her.
Nearby, a retired Ontario Provincial Police Officer named Alan Pike was doing some logging work with his tractor. He was surprised to see a station wagon parked in the woods as he hadn’t expected anyone else to be there. So, he curiously approached the vehicle.
The attacker heard the sound of the tractor engine and warned Sandy, “There’s a man coming. Don’t do anything stupid. ” He stepped out of the car and adjusted his clothes, and in that moment, Sandy took her chance.
She jumped from the vehicle and ran. Alan Pike watched in disbelief as the naked woman sprinted through the snow chased by a tall, slight man with long blond hair. The man caught up with Sandy and struck her so hard that she fell to the ground.
He began punching and kicking her and raised his hand, still holding the screwdriver, and stabbed her six times. Alan Pike drove straight towards them in his tractor. As the attacker lifted his arm again, Pike leapt down, gripping his logging axe.
In more than 35 years as a police officer, he had never taken a life, but later he would say he was prepared to do so at that moment. When the attacker saw Alan Pike approaching, he broke off the assault and jumped into Sandy’s car, speeding away without looking back. Pike chased after him and swung his axe, smashing the passenger side window with a single blow.
He managed to haul himself halfway inside the moving car. As the vehicle accelerated, Pike lost his grip and fell back onto the road, watching as it disappeared around the bend. He would later record that the driver, who’d been in a violent frenzy just moments earlier, had looked terrified at the prospect of being caught.
Pike picked himself up and ran back to Sandy, who was semi-conscious, freezing cold, and badly injured. He lifted her onto his tractor and drove her to his son’s nearby home, where he called the emergency services. Though shaken by what he had just witnessed, Pike later said that his police training took over, keeping his mind clear at the critical moment.
His actions that day undoubtedly saved Sandy’s life. Meanwhile, the fugitive sped along a labyrinth of back roads, trying to stay out of sight. In his effort to avoid busy roads, he drove onto a narrow track and became stuck in the snow.
He abandoned the vehicle and walked through woodland until he reached an isolated farmhouse belonging to 67-year-old Jenny Whiting. Inside, he threatened her with a butcher’s knife from her own kitchen, but did not harm her, simply stealing her car and driving off. A short time later, he robbed the Bank of Montreal at knife-point, escaping with $2,000, but leaving the Clarks unharmed before continuing southwest towards the town of Brantford.
By now, police had obtained a detailed description from Sandy Bellows, and they knew they were looking for a 28-to-30-year-old man, at least 5’9″, and weighing around 130 lb, with shoulder-length blond hair and green eyes. He had several distinctive tattoos, including a cobra on his right arm, a dragon on his left, the name Joss on his right wrist, and Joanne on the left. Officers knew he posed a significant danger to the public and issued a province-wide alert advising residents to bolt their doors and windows.
Albert Phillips’ station wagon was found outside the credit union linking Sandy’s attacker to the assault on the elderly cleaner that morning. Albert had undergone emergency surgery earlier in the day but died that evening, one year short of his planned retirement. Officers from neighboring forces were brought in to support the investigation and forensic experts examined both stolen cars at a police garage searching for clues as the clock ticked.
Every minute, the fugitive was getting further away. He could strike again at any moment and the extreme violence he had shown towards Albert Phillips and Sandy Bellows made it clear he wouldn’t hesitate to rape, attack, or đđŸđđ. A partial fingerprint was recovered from the driver’s side door handle of the station wagon, but it wasn’t enough to trigger a match in the national database.
On Wednesday, 24th of January, a missing person report gave detectives a new lead. 25-year-old Charlene Britton, a computer programmer at Avco Financial Services, had been missing since the previous Saturday. Charlene was described as shy and kind and enjoyed reading, crochet, and volleyball.
A few weeks earlier, on Christmas Eve, she had met a man on the train. She had told friends and family about him saying that his name was John and he had long blonde hair and tattoos. Their dinner date hadn’t gone well, but she had mentioned she might consider seeing him again.
When a friend read the news and heard the description of the man on the run, she connected the dots and called the police. Another tip came in from parole officer Delores Bryant who recognized the suspect as a former client. A 28-year-old ex-convict named Peter John Peters.
Peter John Peters grew up in Sarnia and Calgary in an abusive household and later worked as a janitor but soon ran into trouble with the law. His criminal record included the charges of forcible confinement, rape, and assault with a deadly weapon. After serving time in jail, he was released on parole in March 1987.
Parole officer Delores Bryant helped him get a job in London, Ontario where he became known as the tattoo man, often striding shirtless through busy streets, proudly [snorts] displaying his body art. His tattoos included the winged horse Pegasus on his back and a pair of talons on his chest. Detectives soon discovered that Peters had escaped from prison twice.
He once scaled a fence to break out of Workworth, a medium-security facility, and later escaped from the maximum-security Millhaven prison by reportedly taking two wardens hostage with a sharp object. Now they had a name, detectives moved in on Peters’ basement apartment. Inside, they found a wooden door secured with a padlock.
After breaking it down, they made a grim discovery. Missing woman Sharleen Britton. Her head was covered with a plastic bag and there was a stab wound in her back.
The room was filled from floor to ceiling with Manila folders containing extreme pornographic magazines and pictures. The medical examiner determined that Sharleen had been dead since Saturday night, the day she disappeared. The fingerprint recovered from Albert Phillips’ station wagon had been too incomplete to run through the database.
But now, with Peters identified as a suspect, investigators were able to manually compare the partial print with his fingerprint records. It was a match. One of the largest manhunts in Canadian history was underway.
Fear gripped these across Ontario, and people of all ages avoided leaving their homes. Peters’ name and picture were printed on the front pages of newspapers, and local police offered safety tips for the public, though they knew these measures would be of little help if the killer was determined to strike again. Detectives staked out several houses in the area in case Peters tried to contact friends.
In Wallaceburg, police surrounded an apartment block for 3 hours while armed officers and tracker dogs searched hallways, stairs, and empty units. A call came in from a 15-year-old store clerk at a 7-Eleven in Chatham, reporting that a man matching Peters’ description had entered the store late on Wednesday night. He bought a baseball cap and a pair of scissors, and offered to drive her home.
She refused, but when her shift ended, the man followed her and tried to convince her to get into a white two-door Oldsmobile. She screamed and ran up the driveway of a house, and the man drove off. Brenda Murphy, who worked at the nearby Tim Horton Donuts store, remembered seeing the same man that day.
He had bought coffee and chocolate milk, but by this time, he had cut his hair and shaved. Those distinctive tattoos and fierce facial expression made him impossible to miss. After failing to pick up the 15-year-old 7-Eleven employee, Peters went to a strip club called Sherry’s, bought a drink at the bar, and asked about his ex-girlfriend Jodie, a 20-year-old dancer.
Not realizing he was the man police were hunting, someone told him she was over at the River Port Club, just 200 m away. Peters had been barred from that club 2 years earlier for pestering the women who worked there and breaking into a changing room, so he abandoned his plan. He wasn’t seen again until the next day, Thursday, 25th of January at noon.
Around 300 mi from where he’d last been seen, Peters got off a bus in the city of Sault Ste. Marie and approached a woman brushing snow off her car. “Get in the car or I’ll đđŸđđ you,” he said.
She fought back and managed to get away. Peters jumped into her car and drove off. When the woman called the police, they immediately recognized the description as that of the man on the run.
By now, thick snow was falling with more on the way, and the car skidded on the icy road. Peters was forced to dump it on a slope and continued on foot. A few yards away, he battered down the door of a farmhouse and threatened the residents with a knife.
He tied them up with electrical cable and used their phone to make obscene calls to women he knew, including a hospital nurse who’d been writing to him in jail. Afterwards, he cut the phone cable and left, leaving the residents traumatized but alive. In a house close by, 19-year-old Bob Johnson was watching TV when Peters kicked the door open and burst inside.
He held a knife to Bob’s throat, demanding to know if he had any guns. He took Bob’s shotgun and glanced out of the window, noticing that a tow truck had stopped next to the car he had abandoned on the icy slope, just visible from Bob’s home. Peters crouched near the window, aiming the shotgun at the vehicle recovery workers.
Bob tried to reason with him, offering to help him find another car once the tow truck left. Peters suspected a trick, so he kept the shotgun trained on Bob’s back and forced him to walk down the road ahead of him and stop outside a neighbor’s house. A car was parked outside, belonging to local church pastor Ron Hubbard, who had dropped by to visit an elderly man.
At around 2:00 p. m. , Bob stumbled into the house, closely followed by Peters.
He urged his Starwood neighbor, “Just do as he says. ” Peters, paranoid that the pastor might be a police officer in disguise, demanded to see identification. Once satisfied that Hubbard really was a man of the cloth, Peters destroyed the telephone, took the pastor’s car keys, and left.
Once Bob was sure Peters had gone, he hurried to a neighbor’s house to call the police. Peters struggled to drive along the snowy side roads and was soon forced to flee on foot again, leaving a trail of terror as he burst into each house he passed, threatening the homeowners and stealing their money. He held one woman at gunpoint and ordered her to clear the snow off her Ford Tempo, then drove away in it, swerving up and down the wintry roads of northern Ontario.
Police were closing in, some hovering in helicopters and a thousand officers patrolled the ground with dogs. All roads out of the city were blocked in an attempt to contain him in Sault Ste. Marie.
At 4:00 p. m. , two constables spotted the stolen car heading towards a main highway and followed it until they reached a roadblock.
When Peters saw them, he slammed on the brakes and skidded to a halt. He had driven straight into their trap. Multiple officers leveled their guns, fingers poised on the triggers.
Peters glanced at the passenger seat where he had placed the stolen shotgun. Weighing up the odds, he realized he was outnumbered and outgunned. With no other choice, he reluctantly stepped out of the car, his hands raised.
He was wrestled to the snowy ground, handcuffed, and taken into custody. During his interrogation, Peters admitted to idolizing cult leader Charles Manson and outlaw Jesse James. He also revealed he had recently been in a relationship with parole officer Delores Bryant, the same woman who had tipped off the police about his identity.
They had split up 2 months ago, and in his anger, he had tried to seduce Charlene Britton after meeting her on the train at Christmas. On Saturday, 20th of January, Charlene visited his apartment and told him she didn’t want a relationship. They argued, and Peters said that if he couldn’t have her, then nobody would.
He stabbed her to death, concealed her body inside the locked room, then went on the run. He had no clear motive for killing Albert Phillips beyond needing a car, a theft that could have been easily achieved without violence, suggesting that 63-year-old Phillips tragically became the outlet for Peters’ aggression. Peter John Peters faced 36 charges, including two for first-degree murder.
The list was so long that multiple court appearances were needed, and Peters pled guilty to every crime. Sandy Bellows, who survived his assault, read a victim impact statement aloud in court. She later reflected that she was also speaking for Albert Phillips and Charlene Britton, who could no longer tell their own stories.
As she courageously described how close she had come to death, Peters showed his contempt by doodling in a notepad. By the time she finished, the only dry eyes in the courtroom were his, while even the judge struggled to hide emotion. When Sandy asked Peters why he had done it, he replied simply, “I don’t know.
” Peters was sentenced to three life terms with no chance of parole for 17 years. While in prison, he wrote a letter to Sandy Bellows. Part of it read, “I’m so very sorry for what has happened to you.
It is unforgivable, and truly wish I could undo what I put you through, but reality tells me I cannot. I’ll pay deeply for my wrong, unjust, and evil doings, and that is only fair and right. But now you must get on with your life the best you can, and hopefully after today, you can do just that.
All I can say is I’ve done a terrible thing that I’ll surely burn in hell for, and perhaps that too is only just. ” Sandy later said that despite previously being outgoing and happy, she now lived in fear, and had adopted a Doberman and upgraded her home security. Allan Pike, the retired officer who who rescued her, received a citation from the Ontario Provincial Police in recognition of his bravery and quick thinking.
Peters kept a low profile in maximum security prison until he requested a transfer to a facility in British Columbia. There, he began a relationship with a member of staff and later changed his name to John Cody in homage to the American frontiersman and showman William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill. Eventually, he was placed in the Ferndale Institute where he enjoyed a golf course, scenic surroundings, and supervised day passes.
A hearing with the National Parole Board was scheduled in 2007, but Peters canceled it only to escape altogether by simply walking out of the minimum security complex. When Sandy Bellows heard the news, she barricaded herself and her children inside her home. Forced to relive the terror of the day he had nearly killed her.
The police failed to track him down, but Peters turned himself in after 2 days. On 4th of December, 2013, 23 years after his deadly rampage, Peters applied for day parole and to live in a halfway house. Sandy Bellows, now a victim’s rights advocate, attended the hearing alongside Darlene Britton, Charlene’s sister.
“I truly believe if he gets day parole, he will re-offend. ” said Darlene. “He’ll be living in a halfway house, wandering around in public, and nobody will know.
” Both women vowed to do everything in their power to keep him behind bars. Peters’ application was denied as the parole board was convinced that he remained capable of assault and murder. Today, more than 35 years after the murders, Peters is now in his mid-60s.
After years of rehabilitation, counseling, and supervised releases, he was eventually granted day parole. He now lives in a community residential facility on Vancouver Island, where he works for a construction company and must return to the facility each night under parole conditions that also ban him from entering Ontario or Alberta, owning a mobile phone or computer, and contacting his victims’ families. But for the families of Albert Phillips and Charlene Britton, and for his surviving victims, no parole decision, rehabilitation program, or the passage of time can ever restore what was taken from them.
You’ve been listening to Prussia’s Murder Map. As an independent podcaster, I really appreciate your support. Please follow and rate the show wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you’re on YouTube, remember to subscribe and hit the notification bell so you never miss an episode. I’ll be back soon with another true crime case.
