Murderer: Christian Magee
Alias/Nickname: The Mad Slasher
Type: Serial Killer
MO: Was either acquainted with victims or picked them up hitchhiking
Characteristics: Sexual Assault, Stabbing, Strangulation, Mutilation
Time Span of Killings: 1974-1976
Number of Murder Victims: 3
Number of Sexual Assaults: 2+
Location: Strathroy and Mount Brydges, Ontario
Date of Birth: 1948
Hometown:
Diagnosis: Personality Disorder with classic sexual sadism including fantasies of torture, necrophilia, cannibalism, and dismemberment.
Outcome: Found not guilty by reason of insanity in 1977, and has been held at the maximum security Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre ever since.
Christain Magee grew up in an emotionally and physically abusive household.
The Victims
Judith Barksey
Judith Barksey, 19, was murdered on March 1, 1974.
She was attacked by Magee as she walked home after getting take-out from a local Strathroy Pizzeria. He threw her to the ground and cut her throat. As she lay bleeding, he undid her pants and fondled her genitals, and then stole any money she had on her.
The next day a man on his way to the mailbox found Judith’s body with her take-out: a pizza box, pop bottles, and a chocolate bar.
Rosalie Winters (survived)
In June of 1975, Rosalie Winters, 18, was walking to Alexandra Park when she was attacked by Magee.
He made known his intentions to sexually assault her and strangled her to subdue her. When Magee tried to rip her pants off, the zipper broke and could not remove them. Instead he strangled her into unconsciousness and groped her vagina before leaving her at the side of the road.
Patricia Jenner
Patricia Jenner, 19, was murdered on October 20, 1975 in her home in Mount Brydges.
She was a friend of Magee’s and had let him into her home when he knocked on the door. Police later reported that photographs were scattered around the crime scene leading them to believe Patricia’s killer was known to her, and that she was showing him pictures at the time of the attack.
While her baby daughter, Rachel, slept in her crib upstairs, Magee pushed Patricia to the floor and tore off her clothes. He then stopped without explanation. Then when Patricia began to redress herself, Magee strangled her with a black bootlace until she was unconscious then cut her throat with his jackknife.
Her husband Denys found her on the kitchen floor at 5 pm with their baby unharmed.
An elderly neighbour reported seeing a man with shoulder-length dark hair pull into Jenner’s driveway in light-coloured, late-model Oldsmobile.
Sylvia Holly Jennings (survived)
On November 3, 1974, Magee picked up Sylvia Holly Jennings as she hitchhiked outside of London.
He drove her to an isolate Mount Brydges road and demanded she take off her clothes. When she hesitated, he ripped them off. She fought back and Magee punched her to subdue her. He then brutally sexually assaulted her.
Afterwards, he choked her into unconsciousness, fractured her skull with a bottle and left her on the side of the road.
Susan Lynn Scholes
On June 15, 1976, 15-year-old Susan Scholes planned to hitchhike to her parent’s cottage in Hillsboro Beach. Her brother dropped her off in Forest to purchase batteries before she left and she was seen walking towards County Road 12 around 1:30 pm.
A forklift driver in the area saw Susan get into a ’75 pickup truck that he recognized as belonging to a Strathroy company that removed road kill. The company’s owner later told the OPP that Magee had been driving that truck on that day.
A farmer found Susan’s body the next day around 2:15 pm. She had been viciously sexually assaulted, strangled into unconsciousness, then stabbed in the throat and chest. She also had a 20 cm laceration above her vagina.
Sources
‘Mad Slasher’ wants to apologize, UPI, January 16, 2006
Ontario ruling raises ire of mental patients, The Globe and Mail, May 18, 2006
Mellor, Lee. Cold North Killers, Canadian Serial Murder, Dundurn, Toronto