The Gaspé Murders

Kristi Lee (0:00)

You're listening to Canadian True Crime ad free and early. Thanks for your support. This podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening. Hi there. I hope you're well. Just quickly before we get into the episode, I wanted to remind you about Separation Anxiety, The Alberta Referendum, the independent investigative podcast Canadian True Crime is proudly supporting. It's really good. Curious, quirky and surprisingly endearing. In episode 2, released this week, award-winning Alberta journalist Danielle Parody and Tim Queringuesa take you inside an Edmonton town hall where a separatist organizer faces a hostile crowd. They dig into the numbers behind some of the separatist movement's biggest promises. Does the math check out? Would Albertans actually be better off if the province separated from Canada? And why does one university professor describe Premier Danielle Smith as Schrödinger's premier?

Canadian True Crime is proud to support this independent local journalism exploring an issue with implications for the entire country. With three episodes still to come, now is a great time to subscribe to Separation Anxiety, The Alberta Referendum, wherever you get your podcasts. There's more info and links to subscribe in the show notes. And with that, it's on with this episode.

It's early July and two families in the US state of Pennsylvania are waiting for news of their loved ones from the remote wilderness in Quebec. Nearly a month has passed since 45-year-old pipe fitter Eugene Lindsay left on a hunting trip with his 17-year-old son Richard, who just graduated from high school. The trip was something of a graduation present, and the father and son had been joined by their 19-year-old family friend, Fred Clare. The Lindsay and Clare families both live near Hollidaysburg, a small community of a few thousand people about two hours drive east of Pittsburgh. They knew that their three hunters had driven about 1600 kilometres north-east across the US-Canada border and up to the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec, a long finger of land that juts out where the St Lawrence River opens out toward the Atlantic Ocean, just north of New Brunswick. The Gaspé Peninsula is a stunning coastal region known for its dramatic mountains that meet the sea, an isolated region of thick forests, mountains and rough logging roads, the very definition of the wilderness, the perfect place for hunting. The journey would have taken roughly two full days on Eugene's Green Pickup Truck, and they did not plan to stop. The truck had a rudimentary bed in the back of it so that one person could sleep while the others took turns driving. Their families in Pennsylvania knew at least that they had successfully made it to the village of Gaspé. They had received a postcard from 17-year-old Richard, mailed from the village. He said they planned to head into the forest following the St. John River. They would have a 10-day adventure hunting black bear and then they would drive the two days back to Pennsylvania. That was early June of 1953

When the trio didn't return home on time, their families weren't especially concerned at first. Eugene is an experienced hunter and he's been known to extend his trips before. Communication from the wilderness is limited and it wasn't the first time they'd been to the area. Eugene knew there was good basic shelter there, a series of four old camps with wooden cabins once used by lumberjacks. There were any number of reasons why the hunters might be delayed. Their families wait and hope they'll hear from them soon. But the days and weeks pass with no word.

By July 5th, it's been a month since they left on a 10-day hunting trip and their families can no longer ignore the possibility that something has gone wrong. They contact police in the village of Gaspé and report them missing. Police send out search parties to see if they can find the American hunters. The Gaspé Peninsula is a large area of land roughly the size of Vancouver Island, but it has a relatively small population, only about 115,000 residents, and they mostly live near the coast because the rugged interior has limited farmland. The searchers have a pretty good idea where the missing hunters might be, because they had told their families that they planned to travel the St. John River, a waterway that flows east into Gaspé Bay. As a search team travels a logging road in the general area, they spot a green pickup truck parked ahead. There are no signs of any occupants or anyone around. It looks like it's been abandoned. The location is not far from one of the old camps with wooden cabins once used by lumberjacks. Maybe they're there. They're not. Another search team near a different campsite, Camp 21, comes across something extremely grim. A body or the decomposing remains of one in very bad shape. The head is completely missing. There's bear tracks all over the area. Animal scavengers have gnawed on the remaining bones. A rifle is discovered near the body. It's got matted bits of human hair on it, shreds of skin and blood. Not far from that, there's other objects strewn about the site. A sleeping bag, food, jackets and a camp stove. The police have no way to tell who the body belongs to, but they operate on the assumption that it must belong to one of the missing hunters from Pennsylvania, likely the older man, not one of the teenagers. As the search continues, the local coroner, Dr. Ryu, is tasked with identifying the body and figuring out what happened. Local residents are told to come forward if they encountered the American hunters or knew anyone else that did.