Sadist’s confession

Staff reporters

Sunday, March 26, 1999

Unsolved cases under review after kidnap and torture plans exposed.

Police are reviewing all unsolved sexual-assault and missing-persons files in light of a man’s confession to his psychiatrist of detailed plans to kidnap and kill prostitutes.

The confessions had remained a secret between the man, his lawyer, and the psychiatrist until last week, when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled the man had no right to client-solicitor privilege because of the danger he posted to prostitutes.

The man, known only as Mr. Jones, was free on bail from September 1996 to December 1997.

At least five downtown eastside prostitutes disappeared in 1997 and a total of 21 have vanished since 1995, says Jamie Lee Hamilton, director of Grandma’s House Society, a support centre for prostitutes.

Constable Anne Drennan said police weren’t aware that the man was released in September 1996 after pleading guilty to aggravated assault of a prostitute.

Nor was the department aware of the continuing court battle over revealing the man’s confessions, she said.

"We are in the dark about this entire matter and in fact have been provided with no information other than that which has been in the media," she said.

Drennan said the Crown is reviewing the original charge against Jones and police are considering alerting the public by release the name.

"We will be meeting with Crown as early as Monday," she said, adding that the original investigator in the case will probably be called in to help review the files.

Hamilton and others are calling for the police to release the man’s name and circulate his photo in the downtown area.

"It’s not acceptable to be protecting his privacy," Hamilton said.

"The attorney-general is going to have to step in. This is very, very serious. This person is potentially a serial killer."

Women may come forward with information if police circulate a photograph, said Deb Mearns, co-ordinator of the Downtown Eastside Neighborhood Safety Office.

Les Mackoff, Jones’s lawyer, said Jones is in custody.

In an affidavit, the psychiatrist, known only as Dr. Smith, says Jones told him his early life was a "horrior show."

Jones said he learned that the German Immigrants who he grew up believing were his parents were his grandparents. His "sister" was his mother.

He described sadistic fantasies, which started early in puberty because of his exposure to hard-core pornography left in the motel his "parents" owned.

Jones, who cleaned the rooms when he was 12 and 13, kept the smut – depicting bestiality, bondage, domination and rape.

He told the doctor of hiring Hastings Street prostitutes for sadistic sexual acts.

"Causing them pain was a requirement of his sexual gratification," Smith said.

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