You're listening to a frequency podcast network production. I'm sitting at Bigfoot burgers enjoying some Sasquatch fries. They are rich and spicy. Think Putin with a kick. Seriously great. A young guy in a plaid shirt and ball cap is at the counter trying to decide what kind of drink to have with his burger. He chooses a lucky logger. Most everyone on the island drinks lucky. When I was out at the Whiskey Creek murder site, I saw remnants of old boxes of lucky they are too.
The late Sean McGrath used to come to Bigfoot burgers as well. I'm told he was polite. Didn't cause trouble. But that's not how many people in Whiskey Creek felt about Sean McGrath. Sean McGrath, his girlfriend Shanda and two others, were brutally attacked out at Whiskey Creek. Three people were murdered. Their homes were burned to the ground. Four dogs were killed. And only one man survived the massacre. But I hear various versions of the same sentiment. They had it coming.
Of course, that idea is sometimes conveyed to me in much more colorful language. One business owner quite literally laughs in my face when I tell him I'm working on this case. He tells me I'm wasting my time. That McGrath was responsible for hurting a lot of people. The man says he personally was never afraid of Sean McGrath. His home is fenced in. There are cameras. There are dogs. And he has a gun he would be prepared to use. As we are talking, the man's dog starts barking at me.
Speaking directly to his dog, he tells him, no, don't bite her this time. But if she comes back, you can get her. I think he's joking. But maybe not. I won't be back. I'm Laura Palmer, and this is Whiskey Creek Island Crime Season 5. To understand what happened Halloween 2020, I want to get to know this place and learn as much as I can about the people involved and the events leading up to that night.
I'm meeting with people face to face, but I'm also engaged in deep social media surveillance and internet investigation. I'm gathering digital intelligence, searching for breadcrumbs that tell me something about how people feel about what happened in their community. There's scumbags who rip everybody off. They better hide. It's like lived by the sword, die by the sword. This guy was a very bad guy. There was a reason he got killed. Call it vigilanteism, call it hillbilly justice.
After spending time in Whiskey Creek, I've come to understand that this area has a long history of flouting norms and standards. And I start to wonder if Sean McGrath was feared and disliked by so many in this community. Is it possible someone decided to take the law into their own hands by killing them? It is. Of the anger about crime here on the island is at a boiling point online. Welcome to Crime Island. Our services are overwhelmed and the criminals know it. This is only going to get worse.
Lock down your lives. None of these folks are getting any consequences for stealing your hard earned belongings. It's anarchy. Unfortunately, we don't have a train station, but we have crabs. Pull your crab bait in at least 10 pounds of chicken wire and place offshore. In the popular TV western style drama Yellowstone, the train station is a remote location where the Dutton family dispose of bodies of people they've killed. Michelante justice is very much in the zeitgeist these days.
Less than a week after the whiskey creek murders, police are asking the public for help. Police are now actively seeking the public's help as they investigate the grizzly discovery of three bodies in a rural area west of Parkesville. Two individuals were believed to have been near the scene on Highway 19 in the early morning of November 1st. They may have flagged down a motorist driving a light colored sedan who provided them with a ride.
The driver who picked up these individuals is being asked to reach out to police. They unknowingly may have information crucial to this investigation. I've had a tip about who these two individuals are. I had wondered if perhaps they were the shooters, but a source tells me they were witnesses to the massacre, a man and a woman. The story that I've been told is that the woman was being held down by a gunman, but then free as she knew him and he couldn't bring himself to kill her.
I want to talk to them, but so far I've yet to track them down. According to local lore and at least one book, whiskey creek got its name when an elk hunting guide and his party camped in the area more than a hundred years ago. The group apparently drank too much one night, near a creek, they came to call whiskey creek. The region is famed for elk hunting to this day. It's home to one of only two herds of purestrain Roosevelt elk in the world.
These massive coastal elk are one of the most sought after North American big game species. They can weigh over a thousand pounds, the males have the largest antlers of all elk species. Roosevelt elk or rooses, as locals apparently call them, are named after American President Theodore Roosevelt. The bull's distinctive bugle call is a cross between a whistle and a roar. Some say it sounds like someone in trouble. The area itself is first labeled as whiskey creek on a BC lands map in 1913.
But I also spot the name earlier in a local paper in 1910. A writer describes a trip through whiskey creek this way. The view from parts of this road, exceed in grandeur and pictureseness, anything the writer has ever seen in his life. I agree with that assessment. It is a gorgeous part of the island. Today, whiskey creek is part of Ninoimos Regional District.
It's called Area F. In a recent community planning document, some of the defining values of this place include support for only a low level of regulation, protection of privacy and the rural quality of life. Understanding whiskey creek is an important part of this story. On the surface, it appears to be a kind of gang style hit, the sort of thing we've seen over on the lower mainland. But how and why could this have happened here on the island in this small community?
In season two of Island Crime, I explored the disappearances of vulnerable men on Vancouver Island. During my research, I learned that a growing number of unhoused people are now living in the island's forests. Priced out, pushed out, men who are unwanted in the island communities due to disability, addiction and in some cases criminality.
At the time of the whiskey creek murders, there were an estimated 16 encampments of unhoused people who called the misty, rugged old growth forests in this area home. I introduced you to a local dirt bike rider in episode one. He was one of the first on the scene at whiskey creek. When we sat down to talk, he described what he has seen out on the trails.
Matter of fact, one of my first rides, I've just gone down the highway, saw a trail that went into the bush without any sign and I took it and I didn't have to go very far and for a solo band and a couple people and a generator. And I've seen that on many roads, probably more often than not. I'll come across somebody. And that is common and then I've also come across abandoned sites like that where homemade type sheds and stuff are just left along with mattresses.
There's a group of people out in whiskey creek that bring the trailers in and they clean up some of that stuff and take it to the dump. And whiskey creek is probably the most common area I've seen people living off the grid if you want to call it living. Yeah. This is a middle-aged man, a pretty big guy, experienced off-road and he has a definite air of quiet confidence about him. But even he tells me he's encountered intimidating circumstances.
I was going down a trail in whiskey creek or that area that had two deep breaths made from a four-wheel vehicle but it was definitely within, it was marked as a trail on a public domain map. And I got to the end of it and I saw there were four small, they weren't wrought while there was but they had the same coloration, they were much smaller. They came out and if I hadn't slowed down I would have run them over and they were aggressive towards me.
But I'm geared up, I don't have anything to worry about if they do something they shouldn't I just can pick one up. I wasn't threatened by them, my spices to say. And I got a little bit further, I saw at least three or four campers, only one guy there though and he came out and practically threatened me. Said you better get off my land and I'm like I didn't know this is my shore land. Plus I couldn't turn around in the driveway that he had made for himself with the route.
I had to get to a flat spot to turn around. During my time on this story I've driven around on these back roads, alone in my little Honda. I have a phone but there isn't always reception out here. It's really beautiful. Mountains, forests, quiet trails. It gives me some time to reflect on my days in the Vancouver newsroom. I recall many morning meetings when almost every story came back to real estate.
Whether you're a teacher, a physician, a police officer, finding a place to stay on Vancouver Island is a tall order for most anyone. Housing prices have surged, so have rents. Vacancy rates are low. I think about how much harder it must be for people living with addiction or a criminal record to find a place to stay. By the time Sean McGrath pitches up in whiskey creek, he has a criminal record dating back two decades. He's facing a trafficking charge slated to go to trial in the spring.
His girlfriend Shanda was listed as a co-accused in that case. At the outset, I went to significant links to find someone, anyone who knew Sean well, who could describe who he was in life beyond what I can glean from police reports. I've got a line on Sean's father, John McGrath, and he's considering speaking to me about his son's troubled life. I've taken a good look at McGrath's criminal records. Here's what I found.
At 27, Sean McGrath begins his criminal career in BC by trying to burn something down. In his 30s, he gets caught for some thefts, serious ones, where he gets jail time. By 37, he's racked up some fraud charges and had a bad run-in with an officer. Significant enough to get another three months. Right around the same time, he has a bunch of weighty charges that look like a dope house or lab. He looks to be hanging around some serious players.
In the last 13 years, Sean McGrath is constantly before the courts and going to jail, breaching his bail, breaching his probation. He has some unusual charges, like inducing a youth to breach terms of their release. And it appears that, at least on one occasion, he's trying to evade police and is using his vehicle as a weapon. He's also not supposed to be driving and does at least one stint in the pen for a robbery with a weapon. The last 10 years see multiple drug charges.
A bunch of thefts, he did some big time on. And there is a publication ban on a 2018 charge. I don't know what that charge is. For more than half his life, Sean McGrath is entrenched in crime. His alias is crazy. A description he has tattooed across his back. Make no mistake. Sean McGrath is a victim at Whiskey Creek. And I don't want to be accused of victim blaming and laying out his criminal past. The point here is that the man would have made some enemies along the way.
Now imagine filling out a lease to rent a new place when that's your life story. There will be no comfortable accommodation for you. You wind up out in the wilderness. Where not only are there no supports, nothing to help keep your demons at bay, there is also a limited ability for authorities to keep an eye on you. Sean and Shanda are under court ordered bail conditions that include a nighttime curfew. When Sean gets released, he looks to his father, a man known as Papa John for help.
Sean McGrath just got out of prison. And then when he got back out to our community, all of a sudden I get a phone call from his dad, can he help up my kids? They got a trailer but nowhere to park it. When you say kids, who? Tina McGrath and Sean McGrath. They were at their dads and they had to move a trailer to go elsewhere but no spots in our community for trailers. So I said there was a spot up at Whiskey Creek.
Kelly Morris is the woman from episode one who got the call warning her to stay away from Whiskey Creek on Halloween night. Kelly mentions Sean's sister, Tina McGrath, who is also reportedly out at Whiskey Creek around the time of the murders. She is not one of the victims and although I have been unable to reach her for comment, it's my understanding that she is alive and surfaces from time to time to let her father know she's okay. So when you say you get a call from somebody named Papa John?
Yeah, which is her dad. How does this call happen and do you know who this is when you get the call? So tell me about that. Well I have a card that says certified recovery coach, peer support worker at 24 hours. I've got it all out in the community. His dad winded up getting my card because his dad used to be my drug dealer back in my days. Sean's father, John McGrath, is now an elderly man.
He's approaching 80. For much of his life, he worked as a minor but in his younger days, he was convicted of drug trafficking. His son turned out to be one of a horrific bad apple. Kelly here is stating her opinions on the character of the now deceased Sean McGrath. In my experience, people are usually reluctant to speak ill of the dead. But that's not true when it comes to Sean McGrath. Kelly has dreadful stories to tell about the man, the kind that would make you lose sleep at night.
That's the type of man Sean McGrath was. Okay, to look in his eyes, you see darkness. You do not see a person. The eye is as cold as ice. Still, despite Kelly's opinion of Sean, she strongly believes he didn't deserve to die the way he did. Nobody deserved what happened up there, period. Nobody, no matter what happened, there were other ways to deal with that. Here's how she describes the camp where Sean lives before the murders. It was horrific at times.
The camp itself itself was not maintained properly at all. It was like a cesspool of garbage, needles, usage, all kinds of stuff up there. It was a nice store. You see a lot of drugs, animals, it's a quiet spot. There were trailers, there were strike deals, there was dealers going in and out. There were homies going in and out because that's where the drugs were easier to get. And they could get high out there. Nobody would see them or notice what was going on out there.
I've been out to the site where Sean McGrath set up his home in the woods. When I first moved out to BC in my 20s, I used to do a lot of camping down old Forest Service Roads. I can see the attraction of this spot. It seems secluded, a cleared space amongst tall stands of trees. When McGrath and the others set up their site, you could drive in on a dirt road. And the highway isn't far. You could easily walk out in minutes.
Before too long, whiskey creek residents are beginning to have trouble with McGrath and campment. There are reports of run-ins, concern about drug use, mental health, complaints about garbage, illegal residences, and other illegal activities. I come across this comment from a man named Jeremy. The RCMP didn't help anybody when they called for help after Sean violently robbed you, or overdosed your daughter, or hit your kid on the side of the road and whiskey creek and took off.
People would be stupid to help them out. In the late summer, just months before the whiskey creek murders, a woman up on the east coast of Vancouver Island is growing concerned about her son Tyler. Tyler's lifestyle has been unpredictable for a while. Still, he's always stayed in touch with his family. But it's been weeks since they've heard from him. That is an email from Tyler's mom. That is how my journey into the story of whiskey creek begins.
I would say about two weeks have gone by and we hadn't heard from Tyler. So I had a discussion with my sister and we agreed that I should make a complaint to the police about a missing person because we've lost contact with him. So I phoned the RCMP and court meet to say that I'm finding a missing person complaint. And I give them the details.
I said it had been about two weeks and I explained the situation that he had been homeless, but we were having contact with him more than likely on a daily basis up till two weeks ago. Mid September, I'm thinking and I got a call back the next day to say that they had located him and that he was safe. I'm not including Tyler's last name nor his mother's name. The family to this day is fearful of repercussions. But I now know that Tyler was the third victim of the Halloween night murders.
So we are figuring, well, the RCMP have looked into it and he's safe. So that was fine. We kind of breathe a sigh of relief that somebody's found in. What Tyler's mother doesn't know and what she isn't told by the police who have checked in on Tyler is that her son is now living alongside Sean McGrab at an encampment out in the woods. And his living arrangement really is anything but safe. Probably about a week after that. I got a phone call. I got a phone call from my son. And he said, my mom.
I said, Tyler. Yeah, yeah. He said, mom, I got to be quick. I said, what's going on? He said, mom. I'm being held hostage. I said, what? I need a thousand dollars, mom. I'm being held hostage. I said, Tyler, what are you talking about? Like, you know, and he said, oh, they're starting to wake up. I got to go, mom. I got to go. I need to, I need a thousand dollars. I'm being held hostage. And he hung up. I'm going on. My God. Oh, my God. What's going on? So I go up to the RCMP's attachment.
And I had recorded his phone conversation, right? So I went up there and I said, look, I said, I don't know what's going on. And I explained that he had been a missing person that I had been told he was okay. But listen to this voice recording that I got from my son. He's saying he's being held hostage that he needs money. But I know he has addictions. I don't know if this is a ploy just for money for drugs, which I don't want to enable him in. But I need to know as a mother that my son is okay.
I need to know he's safe. Like, I don't know. This is not a mother who is blind to her son's addiction. She knows it's possible. He could be a slave only to his dependency on drugs. But she can't be sure. And there's something in her son's tone that tells her she needs to know he's not a captive. And I will cut the next morning to a voice recording that said, this is the RCMP. Yes, we've located Tyler and he's safe. That's all I got.
And Tyler surfaces one last time, this time at his auntie's house. My son comes to my sister's house on October the 13th. He comes and he comes to her door and says, oh my god, Tyler. What's going on? And he has a vehicle. It's not his. He's driving the vehicle. And he says, and he can I come in? Can I have a coffee? And she says, yes, of course. You know, come on in and could we wanting some information from him, right? Like what's going on? Because this is what I've been told from him.
You know, he needs money. He's being held hostage. And now he shows up at my sister's house and he's got this car in her driveway and she he has a coffee. She just says, Auntie, it's okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. Don't worry about me. And she said, Tyler, we don't want you to go back. Like just stay here. We don't know what's going on. But it doesn't sound good. And he said, Auntie, you do not understand. I have to go back. She said, Tyler, don't. And she's crying. And she said, Auntie, don't cry.
Don't cry. But I have to. I have to. You don't understand what's going on. I have to go back. And that was the last time that anybody seen him. What was two weeks before the murders? Telly Morris believes it's possible Tyler was telling his mom the truth. She tells me about another man, someone who was not a victim of the Halloween murders, but who alleges he was held against his will at the encampment. He was serr being held against as well.
Beating down so bad that he can't see light at the end of the tunnel, the kid just, he gave up. He gave up no help. There was no help. Just a clarification here, Kelly refers to one of the young men as a kid. Kelly explains to me that now that she's 60, she looks back on those young men as kids in her eyes. I got one guy out of his camp that ran through the bush and he got into somebody else's house that was open and ran through the door. He was psychosis from Crystal Math.
So of course, we're very broken to or open the door and walked in to people panic and called the police. So I went up to the jail there and got him out. The third victim in the Halloween murders is Shanda Ackinson, also known as Shanda Wilson. She is Sean's girlfriend and the co-accused on Sean's upcoming drug trafficking charge. I'm told she was indigenous and a mom. Here's what Kelly alleges she observed about Shanda. She was sucked into an addiction and a victim of herself abuse.
Shanda Ackinson is only ever described as Sean's girlfriend in news stories. I make contact with a few of her family members. None of them will speak to me on the record except to say that Shanda's death has been horrible for her family and that more than two years on, they have not had a funeral. Sean McGraft, Tyler and Shanda are all dead. That leaves the remaining victim, our survivor, who I'm still trying to track down. By now I'm fairly certain that the murders were planned.
There's the tip that came to Kelly and the timing of it all, Halloween, a night when loud noises could easily be dismissed. I also now know of one other individual who alleges they had word of the hit before it went down. He is currently serving time in a federal penitentiary. Tyler's mom wrestles with regret that she didn't understand what her son was trying to tell her.
I didn't know what he meant by that until I started putting some pieces together myself until I found out who these people were and then I started putting the pieces together and then we could understand a little bit about what Tyler was trying to tell us without telling us. By the end of my conversation with Kelly, she suggests her own theory for why Sean was targeted.
I think what happened in this case was that he ripped the wrong people off and hurt the wrong person and repercussions became a dad. If you have information about the Whiskey Creek murders, please call the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime Units Tip and Information Line at 250-380-6211. I'm Laura Palmer and this is Whiskey Creek, Island Crime, Season 5. My wristwatch is broken. My shoes are untied. Time is a ticking. So is the time. But I am not worried. Things are what they are.
Rainer comes shine or a shooting star. I've been to the south, I've been to the north, East and the West, the middle of course. I may have been a stray, but I've never been lost. Never been beat by the road I've crossed. I guess I've been lucky to some degree. For someone who ate all the food from the tree. The star's been aligned and my goose hanging high. I'll be okay in the sweet by and by. I was born at morning on the first day of June, 1900 and something and two.
The mom was a sweetheart, a father was too, a left me a watch and an old pair of shoes. I guess I've been lucky to some degree. For someone who ate all the food from the tree. The star's been aligned and my goose hanging high. I'll be okay in the sweet by and by. I'll be okay in the sweet by and by.