This is an awful story.
Yeah, I know, I god.
I like because we were Keanu gave us a story
earlier in the week, which was yesterday. It's been a long one and I was just kind of like just reading through the beginning parts of it about this couple in Toronto and they sound lovely and a normal couple that you'd be friends with, and the kids and the careers and everything, and okay, it ends in murder, and it's it's so interesting when you know what the details are, but when you dig in to the specific details of the details, how sad and dark it gets.
This is one of those things I got there.
There's an aspect of these stories when we do our true Crime Tuesday stories, there's an aspect of it that is the worst of humanity. I mean, there's a there's a darkness to some of these stories.
It's just it's it's scary because you look at these people and you hear about them, and they seem normal. And like we said, class, why do we murder? Love and money?
Usually?
Right, this one's got both of those things. But it's not just psychopaths that murder people ordinary. That's what it is. And I think that's what fascinates us about true crime as you've got ordinary people living ordinary lives, and sometimes they're the victim of a horrendous murder, and sometimes they're the perpetrator, and you're thinking, in both cases, how could this person carry this out? Or how could this person fall prey to this?
Well, and they point out in this and I think this is kind of your point, is that we like to say that anybody who kills is crazy, right, you have to be a certain level of crazy to take
another person's life. But there are studies that show that a lot of us, a lot of ninety one percent of men, eighty four percent of women, say that they've had a vivid fantasy of killing someone, and that many people have confessed that they would actually that they even played out specific scenarios in their heads, imagining themselves stabbing or shooting or strangler or whatever.
But here's where the difference is.
The cutoff is that the vast majority of us, if we ever have those thoughts, then think to ourselves, I could never do that.
That would be crazy. Not I mean I.
Say that, I probably say that every day I'm gonna kill somebody, or I'm gonna kill I'm gonna kill this person, and it changes from day to day, moment to moment, but I never actually think practically I'm gonna kill them. Is that what you're saying? That? What is it? Ninety eighty four percent?
What was that? Ninety one percent of men, eighty four percent of women said that they've actually.
Think about the manner in which they'd kill somebody.
Again, not that I think that's a step too far, it's just the they've had a vivid moment of fantasy of killing someone. But then the vast majority of us go, I could never do that. And that's where it ends for most people, is that I've never thought about how to kill somebody. I've never thought about like, am I going to strangle them or stab them?
Like? That's crazy? That's the next level, isn't it.
But you haven't thought about how to get away with it?
No?
I have not. Oh you haven't.
Uh No, maybe I took step two and then I decided that that would be crazy. Now this couple, in fact, Jacob, just so you know, we're not even gonna play the thing just because I don't want to. I don't want to make fun of this story, because it is there are some pretty dark elements to it.
So let's just get into who these people are. James Schwam born into a great family, grandparents, devout Christians. They ran a nice foundation, they were very into education, they ran hospice care, addiction recovery treatment. I'm just just a really great family. And he was a firefighter. He had been promoted by the early twenty tens to acting captain. He was an effective leader, they say. The people that worked with him, quick, decisive when responding to calls on
his watch. The workplace was jovial, supportive. He was the guy that would grow out his mustache for November. He was just that guy, you know. He was the firehouse guy, and he was great at what he did and he was good for the community.
Ashley, on the other hand, she grew up in Toronto. It's not that she didn't have money, it was just a different kind of family. She was an avid hiker, very athletic tennis player, piakers fan, a warm young woman with an electric smile. Her mom died of cancer when she was younger, when Ashley was younger, in two thousand and four. But they said Ashley was the glue that kind of held the family together. She had a reputation
for lending support, but without the sugar coating. So her three siblings, the cousins, and all these friends would come to her in the event that they had ever had a fight within the family. She was the one that would would smooth everything over. She would dole out wisdom. Friend said that Ashley was someone you could talk to about what was going on in your life. She would sing and dance around the house. She talked about buying
a farm. She wanted to start an animal sanctuary. She lit up the room when she walked in.
She was a good, good person.
And that laugh is kind of what originally caught Jamie's attention. He and Ashley were skiing together. They would grab drinks in the city of Toronto, and they started doing the thing that you do when you're young and you're serious, and you go, what would it be like to be married?
So they dream of having kids. They end up buying their first house together, a new building Collingwood. They got engaged. They had this beautiful wedding, Ashley saying that she felt like a princess was picturesque. She arrived in a horse drawn carriage to the wedding.
The whole bit.
The next several years went as they plant. James promoted full time to fire captain, She des homes. They got a dog, Rocco. They started a family versus a son and a daughter, moved into a bigger house that backed into a hiking trail, which they enjoyed. Everything that they had planned in those early dates that you spoke of.
Yeah, but it's not always sunshine and puppy dogs, because life can be a grind sometimes, and they found that out. The managing of the household expenses, the kids and their extracurriculars, the long commutes, the long hours firefighters are doing twenty four hours on maybe seventy two off, and that can take a toll as well. And every once in a while, kind of as a hobby, he would take a job at a small engine shop and kind of keep himself busy.
Well, Ashley kept herself busy. She took a new job at a company that constructs custom homes cottages Gichalaise, and she started hanging out with her boss and hooking up with her boss. Yeah, about six months after she started working there, they began an affair. And now, as you can imagine, with the custom home market on the road a lot. They're visiting projects, plenty of time for their
extra curriculars. For a few months, James and this guy's wife, Alexandra had no idea, but then they found out Alexandra files for divorce. James and Ashley think they're going to work things out. She finds a new job, thank god. They start going to couples counseling, individual therapy, but James. It's taking a toll on James, and then his temperament at work begins to show cracks. He starts treating people with condescension. He's drinking more than usual, He's distant, he's
self involved. But they're like, you know what, We're gonna give him some slack. The rigors of the job and everything. It's just a lot. Maybe he'll come around. He's just going through a phase. But then it gets worse. He tells his mom in twenty twenty two, around Christmas, he doesn't think he and Ashley are going to make it. She, at the same time, is telling her family that she's thinking about leaving James.
Well, that's roughly the time that James started hooking up with the original guy's wife. Remember when Ashley started an affair with her boss. The boss's wife filed for divorce. James kept her and con kept in contact with her and they wanted to start a little something. His marriage wasn't working. He said that he was going to make a decision. He's going to do what would make him happy.
James is weighing his options. He's thinking staying with Ashley, this is an untenable situation, but divorce. I don't want to untangle myself financially, custody of the kids, all of that stuff. So he started desperately thinking to find another way out.
Telling you a story of James Schwam, firefighter from a good family up in the Toronto area and the Blue Mountains in Ontario. His wife of several years, Ashley Milns, ends up having an affair with her boss. They decide to stick it out and actually try to get try to get things back on track, but after about a year or so, they decide that they're going to go their separate ways. She has confided to her family she's
thinking about leaving him. He ends up starting an affair with the boss's ex wife at the time and doesn't want to get a divorce. Told a friend that a divorce was unimaginable. Well, he set in motion a very strange plan. Among other things, he walked over to his mom's house at one point she lived nearby, and decided to take mom's car and park it at the elementary school.
That's weird.
Well, the morning of January twenty fifth, everything's normal, kids get ready for school, Ashley goes to work, She goes out, walks the dog.
Sorry, he goes to work. She goes out, walks the dog.
Several hours later, at nighttime, they're arguing and one of the kids wakes up.
Who's then?
He's then nine, sees mom and dad. Ashley asks him to go into her bedroom and fetch her phone so she could call the police. Ashley never got the chance to call nine one one. The son goes back to the bedroom, James grabs her and strangles her to death. At one point, one of the kids hears dad say what time is it, Alexa, And as he remembers it,
the speaker said three am. And sometime in the next two hours, James had dressed Ashley in hiking clothes, put her in her car, and taken her out to a trailhead.
Now imagine that just all the work, I mean horrific murder in this all happening in front of the children, and all of that aside, all of the the work and the orchestration that goes into this.
Yeah, the planning, even if you did it in a moment of passion and then to have the wherewithal to do all of this. He was sending text messages using her phone to him, Hey, I'm leaving Alcia soon. I'm gonna zip out. I think the kids are fine sleeping. Sorry about yelling at you. My hikes are important.
So even if you had premeditated all that and doing all that, actually doing it, you would think would paralyze you.
Yes.
He drives her car to a parking lot, cracks open the window, douses it with gasoline, ends up pushing it or driving it off.
Of a road, walks down the road.
Remember this is Toronto in January, so there's snow all over the place, leaving footprints. Throws a lighter inside the truck, burns the whole thing up. She's inside, crumpled in a ball in the footwell on the passenger side. When they find it, that's mysterious. They also find his initials on the light that was used to start the fire. He meanwhile, had gone back to the elementary school, picked up mom's car, grabbed the kids, Hey kids, everybody's having fun, good breakfast,
and then takes them to school. It was work that originally reported that she hadn't shown up, and he had gone to work as well, And that's kind of where they caught up with him.
Him calling her parents and faking tears, saying that the daughter had died in a plane, rid the fact a car wrect, the fact that he didn't think that the police could do the forensic investigation of his phone and everything, and realizing that he had a motive in all this, and it being relatively small town where everybody knew everyone's business, and everyone knew what was going on with Ashley, and with this marriage and everything, you thought that you'd hide it.
Yeah, I mean, just even if and the cell.
Phone tracking that exists these days, knowing where those text messages came from and the time of day they were sent and everything.
And everybody, the ubiquity of doorbell cameras. I mean, there were people that saw him literally walking away from the flaming vehicle early that morning, I mean, running out there in the wilderness when no one should have been out there. It would have been way too cold anyway, And friends who said there's no way that she would go hiking pre dawn, that's not what she did. She would always
wait until after the kids were at school. She would wait until a daytime because she knew that that was the safe way to do it.
What a mess all the way around. He, by the way, has been in custody now since February of twenty twenty three, attempted suicide multiple times.
Oh which, by the way, the attorneys that are representing him have said that that is proof that he's remorseful and shouldn't stay in prison for very long.
Well, lawyers will say anything, right God Lord.
In Canada, they don't have the death penalty, So the judge decided that he should be in prison, eligible four parole after twenty one years.
What an awful person.
Just get a divorce. Just get a divorce. You know what's cheaper divorce than living murder?
A divorce.
The kids, by the way, are living with her younger brother, apparently a young couple that had gotten married.
So now they have kids.
How old are the kids now?
They would only be like ten and seven. According to the Mask.
That's horrific. Well, see, Canadians aren't all good guys. That's the moral of the story.