# 3 Serial Killers You've Never Heard Of Fully Explained

An episode of [Lazy Chill True Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1815534472), 17 Dec 2025, 24 min.

Audio: https://traffic.megaphone.fm/APO2680141626.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:00] What's up everyone, it's Jimmy here kindly asking you to hit
[0:03] the like and subscribe buttons and Ding the notification bell
[0:06] and turn on all notifications. Also, don't forget to leave a
[0:10] quick comment saying where you're listening from or what
[0:13] you're up to while you watch. For decades, the slaying of
[0:19] three women in Toronto and its surrounding region haunted
[0:22] investigators and families with no answers or arrests.
[0:27] The cases of 25 year old Christine Prince, 23 year old
[0:31] Claire Sampson, and 41 year old Graceland Greenwich were all
[0:36] unsolved cold cases. They were separate tragedies
[0:40] with seemingly nothing linking them beyond their brutality.
[0:44] Yet in late 2025, cops announced A shocking breakthrough.
[0:49] The killer in all three cases was the same man, a previously
[0:54] unknown serial predator named Kenneth Smith.
[0:58] Astonishingly, Smith had died years earlier in 2019, meaning
[1:03] the long sought culprit was identified only after his death.
[1:07] This revelation brought both relief and frustration.
[1:11] Relief that the mystery was finally solved, but frustration
[1:15] that the perpetrator would never face justice in a courtroom.
[1:21] The cold case trail began in the early 1980s Christine Prince, a
[1:25] 25 year old woman from Wales working as a nanny in Toronto,
[1:29] vanished after a late night outing in June 1982.
[1:33] She was last seen boarding A streetcar along Saint Clair Ave.
[1:37] West just after 1:00 AM on June 21st, 1982.
[1:43] The next morning, her body was discovered in the Rouge River
[1:46] near the Toronto Zoo. Christine had been subjected to
[1:50] a vile assault, after which she was struck on the head and then
[1:54] drowned. Despite an intensive
[1:57] investigation at the time, no suspect was identified and the
[2:01] case eventually went cold. Just over a year later, in
[2:05] September 1983, another young woman met a horrific fate.
[2:11] Claire Sampson, 23, was last seen on the night of August
[2:15] 31st, 1983, near the downtown core.
[2:20] Witnesses recalled seeing her in front of the Essex Hotel on
[2:23] Jarvis St. getting into a car with an unidentified man.
[2:29] To put it in context, if you're not from the city, this is the
[2:32] area of town that's produced a fast food restaurant known by
[2:36] locals as the Hooker Harvey's. The following day, Claire's body
[2:42] was found dumped on a rural property off a side Rd. in Oro
[2:45] Medante Township, about 50 miles north of Toronto.
[2:50] Notably, that case was handled by the Ontario Provincial
[2:54] Police, meaning that an entirely different set of investigators
[2:58] were working the case. Claire had been shot twice,
[3:02] succumbing from her wounds. Like Christine's case, Claire's
[3:05] slaying remained unsolved and police had no immediate evidence
[3:09] tying it to any other crime. Many years passed before the 3rd
[3:14] victim lost her life under similar mysterious
[3:17] circumstances. Grace Greenwich, originally from
[3:21] Barbados, was 41 years old in the summer of 1997, living in
[3:27] the Jane and Finch area of Toronto and working as a nursing
[3:30] assistant. When Grace failed to show up for
[3:34] her shift on July 29th, 1997, a concerned Co worker went to her
[3:39] apartment on Driftwood Ave. and found her dead.
[3:43] She had been brutally attacked and died of blunt force trauma.
[3:47] Once again, detectives collected evidence but couldn't find the
[3:51] perp. At first, investigators saw no
[3:55] reason to connect these three attacks.
[3:58] The victims didn't know each other, and their backgrounds and
[4:01] ages differed markedly. The crime against Grace also
[4:05] happened nearly a decade and 1/2 after the other two crimes.
[4:10] The methods of killing were also different.
[4:13] One woman was assaulted and drowned, another was shot, and
[4:17] the third was beaten to death. With no obvious pattern and
[4:22] crime scenes in different jurisdictions, the cases were
[4:25] handled independently. However, one common clue lay in
[4:29] storage all along genetic evidence from the unknown
[4:33] attacker. For each victim, forensic teams
[4:38] had recovered samples believed to be the perpetrator's DNA.
[4:42] In 2016, decades after the slayings of Christine Prince and
[4:47] Claire Sampson, cold case detectives had crime scene DNA
[4:51] from those two cases reanalyzed. This led to a stunning
[4:55] discovery. The DNA profile from Christine's
[4:59] killer matched the profile from Claire's killer.
[5:03] For the first time, authorities realized they were dealing with
[5:06] a serial predator. A joint task force was formed to
[5:10] dig deeper into these linked cases, and in 2017, further
[5:16] testing linked that very same DNA to the killing of Graceland
[5:19] Greenwich. As well.
[5:21] All three crimes spanning from 1982 to 1997 were definitively
[5:27] tied to one person. Unfortunately, that DNA profile
[5:32] still didn't match any known individual and criminal
[5:34] databases. The killer remained
[5:37] unidentified, known only as a genetic fingerprint.
[5:42] With conventional investigative leads exhausted, Toronto police
[5:46] and the Ontario Provincial Police turned to genetic
[5:48] genealogy to finally unmask the mystery man.
[5:53] In 2022, the team enlisted A specialized forensic lab to
[5:57] analyze the offender's DNA and search for relatives in public
[6:02] genealogy databases. The hope was that if distant
[6:06] cousins or other relatives of the unknown killer had uploaded
[6:10] their own genetic profiles online and those could provide
[6:13] clues to his family tree, the gamble paid off.
[6:18] By late 2025, genetic genealogists identified a
[6:22] network of individuals related to the suspects DNA.
[6:27] Working backward from those relatives, investigators zeroed
[6:30] in on a single name that fit the age and profile of the cold case
[6:35] killer, Kenneth Earl Smith. To confirm their suspicions, the
[6:41] Center of Forensic Sciences performed a direct DNA
[6:44] comparison between crime scene evidence and a sample from
[6:48] Smith. No word on how that was done,
[6:51] given that he was already deceased, but they were somehow
[6:54] able to get their mitts on his biological material.
[6:58] On December 3rd, 2025, the test results came back conclusive and
[7:04] the DNA was a perfect match, identifying Kenneth Smith as the
[7:08] perpetrator in all three slayings.
[7:12] Far from a notorious criminal, Smith lived a largely
[7:15] unremarkable life that kept him off the public radar for the
[7:18] most part. He was born in South Porcupine,
[7:22] Ontario, and as a younger man he resided in Toronto during the
[7:26] 1980s and 1990's, the period when he committed these crimes.
[7:31] Years later, in 2013, he moved to Windsor, ON.
[7:37] Smith died there of natural causes in 2019 at age 72, never
[7:42] having faced charges. Although he was never caught for
[7:46] his most serious crimes during his lifetime, Smith was very
[7:50] much known to police. He had a history of violence,
[7:54] with records showing he was convicted and incarcerated for
[7:57] disturbing assaults on women on multiple occasions.
[8:00] In fact, he served prison time both before the early 1980s
[8:04] attacks and again before the late 1990s slaying, indicating a
[8:09] pattern of criminal behavior punctuated by periods behind
[8:12] bars. Investigators now believe Smith
[8:15] chose his victims opportunistically, with no clear
[8:19] pattern or connection between them.
[8:22] They believe he may have intentionally chose women who
[8:24] were entirely different from one another and employed different
[8:28] methods to kill them. According to investigators, this
[8:32] may have been done because he knew that serial predators
[8:35] generally develop a profile of victims and a method by which
[8:39] they like to commit their sick acts.
[8:43] With Kenneth Smith exposed as a serial killer, police have
[8:47] widened their investigation to see if he could be linked to any
[8:50] other unsolved crimes. Investigators say it's possible
[8:54] that additional victims of Smith exist who have not yet been
[8:58] identified. They're urging anyone with
[9:00] information about Smith's activities or other cold cases
[9:04] from that era to come forward. From my perspective, it's almost
[9:10] impossible to believe Kenneth Smith stopped at 3 victims.
[9:14] What we know about his crimes doesn't suggest restraint,
[9:18] escalation, control, or a single triggering event.
[9:23] It suggests opportunity, compulsion, and confidence.
[9:28] These attacks span 15 years, multiple jurisdictions, and
[9:33] radically different methods. That alone tells me he wasn't a
[9:37] man experimenting or learning, but rather someone who had
[9:40] actively figured out how not to be caught for his worst
[9:44] offenses. His modus operandi was, in
[9:47] essence, doing something different every time he went on
[9:50] the hunt for a victim. Given that he was originally
[9:53] from Northern Ontario, and given how many unsolved disappearances
[9:58] there are in that neck of the woods, the authorities need to
[10:01] look heavily into crimes in that region.
[10:07] In 1982, Fisherman discovered the stabbed body of 20 year old
[10:11] Susan Becker in a Colorado mountain ravine.
[10:14] The man responsible was nowhere to be found, at least not by
[10:18] investigators at the time. In reality, the perp was a
[10:22] recently paroled convict who had already killed before and would
[10:26] kill again. This is the chilling story of
[10:30] John Agrou, a predator who evaded justice for decades.
[10:36] John William Mcgrew was born in 1947 and by age 18 he was
[10:41] already a killer. On July 21st, 1966, Aggrew lured
[10:48] his 15 year old sister-in-law, Suzanne Marino, to a forest
[10:52] preserve in Joliet, IL. When she resisted his romantic
[10:56] advances, he snapped and stabbed her approximately a dozen times,
[11:01] brutally ending her life. That same day, Egg Rue
[11:06] shockingly confessed to his wife about the slaying, even driving
[11:09] her to the wooded crime scene to point out Marino's discarded
[11:13] purse and shoes as proof of his guilt.
[11:17] Urged by his wife to surrender, Egg Rue instead went to a church
[11:21] and confessed to a priest, who immediately alerted the
[11:24] authorities. He was arrested two days later
[11:28] and readily admitted he killed Susan because she had spurned
[11:31] him with his confession and strong evidence.
[11:35] Egreu was swiftly convicted and given a 20 to 50 year prison
[11:39] sentence. The convict began serving his
[11:44] time in Illinois, but his criminal saga was nowhere near
[11:47] over. In late 1975, he was approved
[11:52] for a hospital visit in Chicago to donate a kidney to his sick
[11:56] sister, an event that presented an unexpected opportunity.
[12:01] On May 11th, 1976, during his recuperation after the surgery,
[12:07] he slipped out of a bathroom window, fled the hospital, and
[12:10] stole a car to make his escape. He drove across state lines
[12:15] using fake identities and switching stolen vehicles to
[12:19] evade capture. His taste of freedom lasted
[12:22] about a week. In mid-May 1976, police in
[12:27] Central City, NE spotted John Agrou with a stolen car and
[12:32] arrested him without incident. He was promptly extradited back
[12:36] to Illinois to finish his prison term, bringing his daring escape
[12:41] to an end. In January 1982, after serving
[12:46] roughly 15 years, this future serial predator was somehow
[12:50] paroled and moved to Colorado to live with relatives.
[12:54] He initially stayed in Boulder and later settled in Longmont.
[12:59] That summer he crossed paths with 20 year old Susan Becker
[13:02] near Boulder. Becker was a local young woman
[13:05] who loved the outdoors. She often went sunbathing in
[13:09] Boulder Canyon and was last seen by a friend on June 20th, 1982.
[13:14] Heading into the mountains in late June, A Grew ambushed
[13:19] Becker, stabbing her thirteen times in the chest and neck
[13:23] before dumping her body in the wilderness of Boulder Canyon.
[13:27] Fisherman discovered Becker's remains on July 1st, 1982.
[13:32] A Grew was interviewed as a possible suspect, but
[13:35] investigators had no hard evidence linking him to the
[13:38] crime at the time. About a week after Becker's body
[13:42] was found, A Grew struck again. This time his victim was his 94
[13:47] year old neighbor, Orma Smith. Smith was a friendly widowed
[13:52] librarian who likely saw Agrue as a helpful new neighbor and
[13:55] trusted him. In early July 1982, Agrue
[14:01] invaded Orma Smith's apartment and brutally stabbed the
[14:04] defenseless woman to death. He then transported her body to
[14:08] a remote area in the Rocky Mountain foothills and left her
[14:12] in a Creek bed. On July 9th, 1982, Smith's body
[14:18] was discovered in a stream and a Grew was immediately suspected
[14:22] in Smith's killing. Once again though, they didn't
[14:25] have enough evidence to make an arrest and a Grew, despite
[14:29] committing 2 slayings in two weeks, remained a free man.
[14:35] On July 15th, 1982, a Gru attempted 1/3 violent crime on
[14:40] this spree, an abduction that would finally lead to his
[14:43] capture. He accosted a 26 year old woman
[14:47] at knifepoint in a University of Colorado parking lot, trying to
[14:51] force her into her car. The woman fought back and
[14:55] managed to flag down a passing university employee for help,
[14:59] causing a Gru's plot to unravel. Police arrived and arrested A
[15:03] Grew on the spot. In 1983, he was convicted of the
[15:08] attempted kidnapping and received a prison sentence in
[15:10] Colorado. His Illinois parole was revoked
[15:14] as well, so A Grew was sent back to Illinois to serve out the
[15:17] remainder of his original sentence for the slaying.
[15:20] Disturbingly, he only remained incarcerated until 1989, after
[15:26] which he was released and settled quietly in Joliet, IL.
[15:30] During his later years of freedom, a grew stayed off the
[15:34] official radar, and he wasn't linked to any new violent
[15:37] crimes. However, those who knew him
[15:41] noted his disturbing behavior, and he even bragged to his niece
[15:44] that he had once slain an elderly woman in Colorado.
[15:49] John Agrou died on June 29th, 2009, at age 61 from an apparent
[15:56] accidental overdose of prescription medication at his
[15:59] home in Joliet. However, startling evidence came
[16:03] to light immediately afterward. While cleaning out his home,
[16:07] relatives found multiple women's purses and pieces of jewelry.
[16:12] They also found newspaper clippings about the 1982
[16:15] slayings of Smith and Becker and the attempted abduction.
[16:19] These grim trophies strongly suggested a Gru's connection to
[16:23] the unsolved crimes and prompted investigators to take a fresh
[16:27] look. In 2010, detectives finally got
[16:32] the proof they needed, and they were able to test a Gru's DNA
[16:36] with genetic material found at the two 1982 crime scenes.
[16:42] This evidence proved beyond a shadow of a cat's ass that John
[16:46] A Gru was the one who committed these horrific acts.
[16:51] Federal and state authorities began reviewing other unsolved
[16:54] killings in Illinois and Colorado from the years Agrou
[16:57] was free investigating whether he could be linked to any
[17:01] further victims. However, as of 2025, no
[17:05] additional crimes have been definitively connected to him
[17:09] beyond the three victims already known.
[17:16] Hey everyone, just a reminder that there's also a YouTube
[17:18] membership and a Patreon, and you can support my work for as
[17:22] little as a dollar a month. You wake up in the dead of
[17:29] night, vulnerable and alone in a remote location, only to be
[17:33] confronted by the one figure you're trained to trust, a
[17:36] police officer. That symbol of safety, however,
[17:41] was twisted into the key that unlocked an isolated motorhome
[17:44] for a ruthless predator. The initial victims were Gourd
[17:50] and Jackie McAllister, a couple from Lindsay, ON, enjoying their
[17:55] retirement travels in their motorhome.
[17:58] They chose a secluded picnic area near Blind River in
[18:01] northern Ontario for a peaceful overnight stop.
[18:06] Sleep came easily until 12:55 on June 28th, 1991, when a heavy
[18:12] pounding shook their vehicle. The man outside identified
[18:16] himself as a police officer and insisted the couple needed to
[18:20] move their recreational vehicle. This pretense of law
[18:24] enforcement, a simple psychological tactic,
[18:27] successfully coaxed Jackie into opening the door, circumventing
[18:31] the need for forced entry. The assailant immediately barged
[18:35] inside, destroying the illusion of safety.
[18:38] He was armed with two powerful weapons, a high caliber rifle
[18:42] and a 20 gauge shotgun, and he swiftly demanded money and
[18:46] valuables. Jackie reached for her purse in
[18:50] compliance with his demands, likely thinking this was going
[18:54] to be a horrific robbery but nothing more.
[18:58] But then the true nightmare began to unfold as the gunman
[19:01] opened fire. Tragically, Jackie perished
[19:04] almost instantly. Gord McAllister was also shot,
[19:08] but in the chaos he managed an extraordinary survival maneuver.
[19:13] He rolled out of the motorhome and hid underneath it, praying
[19:17] the attacker hadn't noticed his escape and would continue
[19:20] running after the initial assault.
[19:23] This decision saved his life and allowed him to bear witness to
[19:26] both what happened to his wife and what would happen next.
[19:32] While Gord lay hidden beneath his vehicle, a motorist drove
[19:36] into the isolated rest stop, likely just trying to get some
[19:40] shut eye. This individual was 29 year old
[19:43] Brian Major, a family man who left behind a wife and a young
[19:47] son. Major's unfortunate timing
[19:50] placed him squarely in the predator's path.
[19:53] The gunman instantly diverted his attention from the
[19:55] Mcallister's vehicle, seeing Major as a new threat who had to
[19:59] be eliminated. The killer quickly shot Major
[20:02] dead before fleeing the area on foot.
[20:06] Once the assailant disappeared, Gord McAllister, despite his
[20:10] wounds, crawled out and rushed to the driver's seat of the
[20:14] motorhome. He drove immediately to the
[20:17] highway to flag down a passing trucker for help.
[20:20] Sadly, when emergency services arrived, both Jackie McAllister
[20:25] and Brian Major were pronounced dead at the scene.
[20:29] The sheer randomness and brutality of the incident
[20:31] terrified the small communities of Northern Ontario, who quickly
[20:36] understood that a highly dangerous individual was now at
[20:39] large. The Ontario Provincial Police
[20:43] initiated an immediate and massive manhunt.
[20:47] The sole survivor, Gord McAllister, provided crucial
[20:51] information to investigators, working with them to develop a
[20:54] detailed composite sketch of the gunman.
[20:58] And seriously, this is perhaps the most bizarre and lifelike
[21:01] composite I've ever seen, so you're going to want to have a
[21:04] quick look if you're just listening.
[21:07] My understanding is that this composite was actually put
[21:10] together by a primitive computer program based upon gourd,
[21:14] choosing a variety of features from actual people.
[21:18] A key lead materialized quickly. An eyewitness reported seeing a
[21:23] blue van speeding out of the rest stop area around 1:00 that
[21:26] morning, moments after the attack.
[21:29] The van was headed due E traveling towards Sudbury, a
[21:33] small city in the vast rural expanse of northern Ontario.
[21:38] Given this valuable clue, the cops focused substantial
[21:42] resources on the van. The authorities investigated
[21:46] almost 4000 blue vans in northern Ontario and across
[21:50] parts of the United States. However, despite this exhaustive
[21:54] search effort, the blue van and its driver vanished into the
[21:58] vast, desolate northern landscape.
[22:01] The failure to match the composite sketch or locate the
[22:04] specific vehicle meant the trail went cold almost immediately in
[22:09] 1991. While the active investigation
[22:14] stalled in 1991, the case never truly closed.
[22:19] For years, the Blind River Killer has remained A terrifying
[22:23] enigma. A breakthrough in Canadian cold
[22:26] case investigations came only years later, providing a
[22:30] possible, deeply unsettling answer to the identity of the
[22:33] man who terrorized the rest stop.
[22:36] Investigative focus eventually centered on Ronald Glenn, WA
[22:40] former Toronto police officer. West had been serving time for
[22:45] unrelated robberies in 1995 when authorities linked him through
[22:50] preserved DNA evidence to two killings in 1970.
[22:55] Notably, in both these cases the attacker used the same sort of
[22:58] high caliber rifle used at Blind River.
[23:03] The circumstantial evidence tying West to the 1991 rest stop
[23:07] attacks was compelling despite his never being formally charged
[23:12] in connection with those specific deaths.
[23:15] W had lived in the Blind River area at the time of the 1991
[23:19] attacks, and he somewhat fit the description used in the sketch.
[23:24] Notably, he had a history of impersonating an officer to gain
[23:28] control over victims, and he reportedly owned a blue vehicle
[23:32] matching the crucial lead. Although W later pled guilty to
[23:36] the 1970s slayings, the deaths of Jackie McAllister and Brian
[23:40] Major have remained officially unsolved.
[23:46] At present, W is still alive, and he's in his 80s.
[23:50] Fortunately, if he's the one who committed this horrific act,
[23:53] he's locked up for life unless he drops a deathbed confession.
[23:58] At this point, it looks like the Blind River case may forever
[24:01] remain an unsolved mystery.

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