Journey into Darkness by John Douglas, Mark Olshaker Page A

was the outpouring of public sympathy that the massive church was filled to overflowing. More than a thousand people had to listen to the service from outside. She was buried in the family plot in Pleasantview Cemetery alongside her grandparents. It soon became clear thatvirtually everyone associated with Kristen’s case, from the detectives to the crime scene technicians to the medical examiners, was affected by it in ways these seasoned professionals had seldom been before.
    Fear gripped the entire Golden Horseshoe area. The discovery of Kristen French’s body led directly to the formation of Operation Green Ribbon, which became one of the largest manhunts in the history of Canadian law enforcement. Named for the campaign of hope launched by her classmates, the multiagency task force was under the direction of veteran Niagara Police Inspector Vince Bevan. The cases became known throughout Canada simply as “the Schoolgirl Murders.”
    On May 21, Terri Anderson’s body was discovered floating in Port Dalhousie harbor on Lake Ontario. Evidence was inconclusive as to cause of death. Police eventually ruled her death accidental, relating to her drug ingestion.
    Speculation linking the Anderson, Mahaffy, DeVilliers, and French deaths was rife in the media, even though the police tried to underplay it. Inspector Bevan was a dedicated and serious-minded investigator with little time or patience for the press. This was indicative of the larger problem with publicity and the public that the task force was facing. The Halton force had a long history of going public with information in the hope that someone might come forward with useful tips. The Niagara department, on the other hand, seldom willingly released anything, which tended to encourage the media to launch their own independent investigations of important cases.
    My experience has shown me that the public is very often a critical partner with the police in bringing dangerous men to justice. So while it is often a good idea to withhold certain specific facts and pieces of information, my own bias is that you work with the media and let the public help you as much as possible.
    In addition to following up leads and following forensic clues, the Green Ribbon task force contacted the FBI, specifically Special Agent Chuck Wagner of the Buffalo, New York, Field Office. Buffalo is right over the border from the southern end of the Golden Horseshoe and the field office had always had a good, mutually beneficial relationship withlocal Canadian police agencies as well as the national RCMP—the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Chuck, the profile coordinator for the field office, in turn called Gregg McCrary at the Investigative Support Unit in Quantico.
    We’d organized the unit so that each agent would have primary responsibility for a particular geographic territory. Gregg, a former high school teacher and black belt in the Asian martial art of Shorinji Kempo, had been a field agent in New York before we brought him to Quantico.
    As soon as he took a look at the cases, Gregg was struck by the location where Kristen French’s body had been dumped, very near the grave of Leslie Mahaffy. Leslie had been taken from Burlington and dumped near St. Catharines. Kristen was abducted in St. Catharines and left near Burlington. He didn’t think that was coincidental. Either the crimes truly were related or the UNSUB wanted the police to believe they were. In any event, Kristen’s killer clearly was reacting to the Mahaffy murder.
    To Gregg, both murders had all the earmarks of stranger homicide. There was nothing to suggest that the killer or killers knew either girl personally, though both were probably surveilled and stalked beforehand. These were high-risk crimes for the perpetrator. Kristen was grabbed in broad daylight from a church parking lot in view of witnesses. Leslie was taken at her own house from under her parents’ bedroom window.
    When we see this type of crime, the first