1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,800
The Crimeopedia podcast is a completely independent show that explores content of a potentially violent and disturbing nature.
2
00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:09,800
Please use your listening discretion.
3
00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:22,300
Receiving an acceptance letter to university, graduate school, medical school, or to study abroad is comparable to Willy Wonka's golden ticket.
4
00:00:22,300 --> 00:00:26,720
It's an assured pathway to achieving the goal that you had set out for yourself.
5
00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:31,720
It usually comes after years of hard work and dedication, as well as some discipline.
6
00:00:31,720 --> 00:00:34,480
For Adele Komorowski, it was the same.
7
00:00:34,480 --> 00:00:40,920
She had received an acceptance letter to start a Masters of Arts degree at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,
8
00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:45,560
and was thrilled to undertake the opportunity of pursuing higher education.
9
00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:52,440
But 50 years ago today, on May 15th of 1973, her brother, Peter Komorowski,
10
00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:57,840
received a knock at his family's front door around 4am. On the other side were Hamilton police,
11
00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:07,400
informing him that his ambitious, firecracker of a sister had been murdered in the very place that she found her passion and hope for the future, at school.
12
00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:13,520
With the 50th anniversary of Adele Komorowski's death, I thought it was only appropriate to revisit a case that frankly,
13
00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:18,480
not many of us know about, but marks a dark era in McMaster University's history,
14
00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:26,360
as Adele was the first person to be murdered on their campus, and it was a murder that technically, to this day, remains unsolved.
15
00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:28,360
With that, let's jump right in.
16
00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:48,080
Adele Komorowski was born in Germany, but certainly didn't stay there.
17
00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:54,200
Her family would move to Australia and finally settle in Canada by the time Adele was only 4 years old.
18
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:58,440
The Komorowski family found themselves in the Cooksville area of Mississauga,
19
00:01:58,440 --> 00:02:05,320
and despite living there essentially her entire life, Adele's family never let her forget about her European heritage.
20
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:11,120
Her father, Michael, who, more recently relative to the timeline of this case, passed away in 2010,
21
00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:18,840
made sure to teach Adele English but also exposed her to his Russian speech and ensured she engaged with her mother while speaking German.
22
00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:23,080
Adele's grandparents, who also lived in their Mississauga home, spoke Polish,
23
00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:29,960
and it was no surprise that being raised in a melting pot of language and culture, Adele easily picked up all of these languages.
24
00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:36,920
Adele would grow up to be quote-unquote dynamic, as I saw many articles describe her.
25
00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:42,600
To me, she was a powerhouse of a young woman and was very well liked amongst the people she knew.
26
00:02:42,600 --> 00:02:46,440
Adele would grow up to be tall with stunning dark hair and dark eyes,
27
00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:50,680
and she was well known to be unafraid of whatever challenges lie ahead of her.
28
00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:55,560
She was strong, but her tough exterior didn't deter her from exposing a soft side,
29
00:02:55,560 --> 00:03:00,120
and really only shined through when her younger brother, Peter, was born in 1956,
30
00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:04,120
as she felt it necessary to take on a protective role over him.
31
00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:09,240
This was especially true when their parents' marriage would eventually start to fall apart.
32
00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:13,080
Adele got her determined and fortified nature presumably from her dad,
33
00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:16,360
who, in addition to making sure she was well-versed in language,
34
00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:21,880
also made sure to instill in the children from a very young age that it was critical that they work hard
35
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:24,760
to make sure they had a better life than he did.
36
00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:27,480
And Adele took that very seriously.
37
00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:32,600
Unsurprisingly, Adele Komorowski enrolled in McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,
38
00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:35,640
in their languages program, studying German.
39
00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:41,000
And in 1972, she began working towards her master's degree in German language and literature
40
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,960
in a small department of only about 10 graduate students.
41
00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:49,240
Especially while she was at McMaster, her peers and colleagues remarked about how
42
00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:53,960
Adele had a presence that many were drawn to, given her unique nature of being both outgoing
43
00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:56,280
but reserved, mysterious and enthralling.
44
00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:00,360
Aside from being popular and making friends easily,
45
00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:02,840
Adele was also quite successful in her academics.
46
00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:07,560
She won a scholarship to study abroad in Germany for a year during her education
47
00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:09,560
and was thrilled about this opportunity.
48
00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:13,720
However, at this time, she was living with her boyfriend, Walter Kubrin,
49
00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:17,960
who was somewhat understandably worried that the distance would ruin their relationship.
50
00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:21,080
Adele was quite an independent woman, after all.
51
00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:26,680
Walter and Adele met while working at the same summer job, I'm not sure where,
52
00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:29,320
but she had eventually convinced him to go back to school
53
00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:34,040
and the two lived along Main Street West together, only a short distance from McMaster's campus.
54
00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:41,080
Walter Kubrin was also born in Germany, but his parents were Ukrainian, and similarly to Adele,
55
00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:44,280
they wanted their son to work hard for a better life than they had,
56
00:04:44,280 --> 00:04:47,800
as they were forced to work in munitions factories after seeking refuge.
57
00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:52,760
So after Walter settled in as a student and found some stability with Adele,
58
00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:56,440
he was worried that Adele leaving would presumably be too much of a change
59
00:04:56,440 --> 00:04:58,280
and that she might find someone else.
60
00:04:58,280 --> 00:04:59,960
And unfortunately, she did.
61
00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:04,280
When Adele returned to Canada after her year abroad,
62
00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:07,080
she was engaged to a German naval lieutenant.
63
00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:11,960
This is a good time for me to interject into the story and tell you that finding sources on this
64
00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,200
case has been incredibly difficult given its age and apparent lack of notoriety.
65
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:20,200
This highlights why it's important to report on lesser known cases,
66
00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:23,640
but the point I want to make is that I don't even know her fiance's name,
67
00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:24,920
I couldn't find it anywhere.
68
00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,040
In fact, there are many details in this case that are blank for me,
69
00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:32,440
which contributes to the mystery of what happened to Adele, but let's continue.
70
00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:37,080
At the university, in Adele's office in the Arts II building,
71
00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:41,160
presumably renamed to something else as there are no buildings currently named such,
72
00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:46,120
she had a photo of her fiance on her desk and didn't shy away from discussing her upcoming wedding
73
00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:47,880
in July of 1973.
74
00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:52,200
A wedding that was planned seemingly without a second thought of Walter Kubrin,
75
00:05:52,200 --> 00:05:58,120
at least from my reading. But unfortunately, Adele would never make it to the altar.
76
00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:05,880
With her 27th birthday on the horizon, on May 15th of 1973,
77
00:06:05,880 --> 00:06:10,280
Adele Komoronski met with a girlfriend for coffee, likely at least partially
78
00:06:10,280 --> 00:06:12,600
preoccupied with upcoming wedding plans.
79
00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:17,320
While she was there, at a coffee shop I'm not sure the name of,
80
00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:22,120
a classmate of hers named Alfred Petzold reportedly stopped at the table to say hi.
81
00:06:23,320 --> 00:06:28,760
Adele was likely unnerved by his presence, as it's reported that he and Adele briefly dated,
82
00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:33,160
despite their age difference of just over 10 years given he was 38 at the time,
83
00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,920
but worse was that the couple would argue quite a bit during their short stint together.
84
00:06:38,280 --> 00:06:42,120
Alfred was reportedly chauvinistic, quote-unquote high and mighty,
85
00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:45,560
and he was disdainful of the rising hippie culture of the 70s.
86
00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:50,280
Alfred had a formal manner about him. One report I read by the Hamilton Spectator said that he
87
00:06:50,280 --> 00:06:54,920
insisted on wearing a suit jacket and tie everywhere he went, and even back in the 70s,
88
00:06:54,920 --> 00:07:00,760
this was super outdated attire for casual errands, and he was one of the only people in the school who did it.
89
00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:05,320
It's clear from my reading that Alfred thought very high of himself,
90
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:09,000
and I'm sure Adele was just frustrated and annoyed to see him that day.
91
00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:14,200
Alfred Petzold also emigrated from Germany, but he moved around quite a bit,
92
00:07:14,200 --> 00:07:19,720
and even spent some time in the Canadian Navy before finding himself in Hamilton, Ontario at McMaster University,
93
00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:24,440
and then suddenly he's at a table with Adele Komorowski and her friend, uninvited.
94
00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:32,520
According to some reports I read, the conversation they had that day was him telling Adele that he had a job interview to teach high school in Guelph,
95
00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:35,480
which is only about 45 minutes now from Hamilton.
96
00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:41,000
It's unclear if the job interview he was talking about was scheduled for later that day or the next,
97
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:47,240
but regardless, from my reading it seems that the conversation was brief and Adele was thankful for that.
98
00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:53,640
However, it's important not to forget about Alfred, because he'll become a critical player in this story before long.
99
00:07:56,120 --> 00:08:01,000
Later in the afternoon on May 15th, after what was already a long day working at the university,
100
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:03,880
Adele was speaking with another classmate, Mike Hamann.
101
00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:08,360
Mike stayed in the Brandon Hall residence, near the north end of the campus,
102
00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:12,120
where there were trails into a botanical gardens area called Coot's Paradise.
103
00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:18,440
Mike knew that Adele was shaping up to have not only a long afternoon, but a long evening working,
104
00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:23,160
and so he offered his room to her if she was going to keep up the pace of work she was already at for the night.
105
00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:31,160
Adele had taken Mike up on this offer before, so presumably she was thankful for his graciousness and went about her day,
106
00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:38,840
knowing she'd have a place close by to crash at the end of the night, only about a seven minute walk from her office.
107
00:08:38,840 --> 00:08:45,560
Anticipating only a short walk home, that night she stayed in her office on campus and worked until approximately 11 p.m.
108
00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:52,840
Around that time, she picked up her bag and umbrella as it had been raining, and left the building, headed for Brandon Hall.
109
00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:57,400
It was a walk that shouldn't have taken Adele very long,
110
00:08:57,400 --> 00:09:01,400
but our story jumps to approximately an hour later, around midnight,
111
00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:06,840
when two Hamilton police detectives found themselves standing over Adele Komoronski's dead body,
112
00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:14,760
lying face up on a slope just off of a trail near Brandon Hall, only about 90 meters, or 300 feet, away from the front entrance.
113
00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:23,240
Hamilton police received a call after campus police made the discovery almost a full half hour before they did,
114
00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:27,400
so by that time, although Hamilton police knew they were looking at a homicide,
115
00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:30,440
they never got a good look at the scene as they were already playing catch-up.
116
00:09:31,560 --> 00:09:37,320
However, there were certain details that they could make out, and this is what they found when they discovered Adele's dead body.
117
00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:43,560
They could tell that Adele had been dragged along the trail, likely because there were streaks on the ground
118
00:09:43,560 --> 00:09:48,120
that were made more obvious by the mud given it was raining, but that's just a guess on my part.
119
00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:52,840
They had noted that Adele also had a hemp rope wrapped around her neck three times,
120
00:09:52,840 --> 00:09:55,960
and also around her wrists, which were pinned behind her head.
121
00:09:56,600 --> 00:10:02,360
In one CBC article I read by Wayne McPhail, the knots on the ropes were described as carefully knotted.
122
00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:07,960
Adele also had a yellow J-cloth stuffed into her mouth, which if you don't know,
123
00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:11,480
a J-cloth is a generic type of multi-purpose cleaning cloth.
124
00:10:12,600 --> 00:10:16,040
Adele's top was missing, and her pants were positioned below her hips.
125
00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:23,320
In addition, police also found a woman's bra nearby, but determined it was not her size and therefore unlikely belonging to her.
126
00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:31,640
Interestingly, it was found later, upon post-mortem examination, that Adele had not actually been sexually assaulted,
127
00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:35,800
so it's possible that her clothes could have ended up the way they did, from being dragged,
128
00:10:35,800 --> 00:10:40,760
or possibly even from positioning by the killer attempting to throw off police,
129
00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:43,240
despite the initial thoughts being sexual assault.
130
00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:48,680
Police quickly determined that whoever did this to Adele, given her proximity to the entrance of Brandon Hall
131
00:10:48,680 --> 00:10:53,880
and likely the short duration of her venture outside in general, they must have acted quickly.
132
00:10:54,680 --> 00:10:58,680
So, just as quickly, especially since they were already behind,
133
00:10:58,680 --> 00:11:05,160
approximately 40 Hamilton police officers with canine units began canvassing the area for clues and talking to witnesses.
134
00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:12,040
Although from my reading, it didn't seem like much came from searching the area beyond what was on the scene,
135
00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:17,080
or from searching the area beyond what I already discussed, there were some pretty interesting witness statements made.
136
00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:23,320
One witness who lived on the 6th floor of Brandon Hall had told police that she had heard a young woman's voice yell,
137
00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:25,880
leave me alone, around 11.15pm.
138
00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:32,120
When the witness went over to her window to see what had happened, she saw a man, at least over 6 feet tall,
139
00:11:32,120 --> 00:11:33,880
speaking with a woman by the building.
140
00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:40,120
Then, the witness said she saw the man leading the woman out of view and toward the wooded area where Adele was found.
141
00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:43,960
Meanwhile, the woman was yelling, please let me go, please don't hurt me.
142
00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:52,600
Despite being damning, the witness reported yelling out her window, leave her alone, and really nothing else as far as my reading goes.
143
00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:59,160
I don't even know if she was the one to call campus police, but I'd like to assume so after seeing what she saw.
144
00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:05,400
Police were pretty confident that the woman the witness saw was Adele, and the man she saw was her killer.
145
00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:11,400
Around 3am this morning, Mike Haman, the friend who offered his residence room up to Adele that evening,
146
00:12:11,400 --> 00:12:13,400
was brought in to identify Adele's body.
147
00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:21,400
Shortly after, police would undertake the very large task of identifying everyone who knew Adele and interviewing them.
148
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:26,040
One friend who was interviewed two days later, although the details are fuzzy,
149
00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:30,440
reportedly said they saw Adele arguing with a man shortly before her murder, saying,
150
00:12:30,440 --> 00:12:35,720
No I won't, and although the rest of the argument and this interview is a mystery to me,
151
00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:43,400
it seems that many news outlets have taken this argument to be with Adele and a potential male suitor who was interested in her, but she wasn't.
152
00:12:44,360 --> 00:12:52,040
Further, some have speculated that the person arguing with Adele was Alfred Petzold, but personally I'm unsure, but we'll come back to Alfred soon.
153
00:12:52,040 --> 00:13:01,320
Hamilton police had an initial list of suspects that included the usual ones, such as her fiance, who was eliminated quickly as he was in Germany at the time of her death.
154
00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:09,640
Her father, Michael Komoronski, was also on the suspect list, but he was ruled out after questioning for a quote-unquote lacking opportunity.
155
00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:16,520
There was also an unnamed undergraduate student on the list, and he's unnamed at least as far as my reading goes.
156
00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:22,760
This student was reportedly in love with Adele while she was either teaching or acting as a teaching assistant for a class.
157
00:13:23,560 --> 00:13:33,800
This student had quote-unquote psychological issues and was not quote-unquote sexually normal, according to the Hamilton Spectator, but eventually it was determined that he also lacked opportunity.
158
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:46,360
Police also suspected a professor, Robert Van Dusen, who was a 44-year-old single man with a meek demeanor and was a very
159
00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:51,320
quiet and shy man, and was reportedly infatuated with Adele, to the point where everyone knew about it.
160
00:13:52,680 --> 00:14:06,280
He was quiet and shy, and he was nicknamed Whispering Bob by other students, which seems counterintuitive for someone who served in the US Army and was involved in counterintelligence operations between 1951 and 1954.
161
00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:17,160
Although he would eventually be ruled out, as we'll discuss later, it was his infatuation with Adele and unassuming demeanor that I think tipped a few people off into thinking he was suspicious.
162
00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:26,120
Unfortunately, however, like most of the suspects on this list by now, Robert Van Dusen died in 2007 and was buried in New York City.
163
00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:37,960
There was also Alfred Petzold, who roughly fit the physical description of the suspect, and he had claimed to be at home at the time of Adele's murder, but nobody could corroborate this for him.
164
00:14:37,960 --> 00:14:47,960
And although this does ring suspicious, initially police wanted to hone in on Walter Kubrin, Adele's ex-boyfriend, while also simultaneously diving into Alfred.
165
00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:57,960
Walter Kubrin also roughly fit the physical description of Adele's attacker according to the witness statement of the girl on the sixth floor of Brandon Hall.
166
00:14:57,960 --> 00:15:05,960
And keep in mind, he was Adele's serious, live-in boyfriend before she left to Germany and got engaged to someone else.
167
00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:15,960
She had let his worst fears about their relationship become realized, so it makes sense that he would hold anger against Adele and thus would be a suspect in the murder.
168
00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:23,960
Upon finding out that police were interested in speaking with him, Walter willingly turned himself in to Hamilton Police and volunteered for an interview.
169
00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:34,960
Whether or not he held resentment against Adele, he was visibly shaken by the ordeal, even more so when detectives felt that he wasn't cooperating because he didn't have the kinds of information they needed.
170
00:15:34,960 --> 00:15:46,960
It's reported that they pulled the classic hot and cold, good cop bad cop move in the interview, turning it into an interrogation, and even threatening to show pictures of Adele in the morgue to Walter if he didn't confess.
171
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:54,960
Evidently, he didn't end up confessing and they did end up showing him pictures of Adele, but he was adamant about his lack of involvement.
172
00:15:54,960 --> 00:15:59,960
According to him, he didn't do it and he didn't know who did either.
173
00:15:59,960 --> 00:16:04,960
Alfred Petzold, on the other hand, was also told that police wanted to speak with him.
174
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:10,960
The wording I saw reported was that he knew police would quote unquote come for him, and they did.
175
00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:18,960
Hamilton Police were granted a search of Alfred's home on Emerson Street, also close to the university, but I'm not sure on what grounds.
176
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:27,960
I do know that upon searching, they had asked him to hand over the clothes he was wearing on the night of the murder, and that Alfred offered to take a polygraph test.
177
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:34,960
However, when the time came to administer the test, Alfred Petzold had lawyered up, and his counsel advised him not to take it.
178
00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:45,960
With the advent of Alfred no longer cooperating, police elected to interview some of his inner circle and former associates, including his former supervisor with the Canadian military.
179
00:16:45,960 --> 00:16:58,960
This supervisor reported to police that although Alfred Petzold was a quote unquote solid guy, he had a bit of a superiority complex, a character trait that was certainly not lost on Adele either.
180
00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:10,960
Within days of Adele's murder, days that the Hamilton Spectator rightfully reports as precious ones passing by, Clive Paul with the Hamilton Police became the lead detective on the case.
181
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:18,960
He was initially interested in pursuing the Professor Angle, Robert Van Dusen, and he believed that Robert was their strongest suspect.
182
00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:28,960
It was reported through the grapevine that Robert's infatuation had led him to stalking Adele to whatever extent, and she had once rejected him despite seeing him a few times socially.
183
00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:36,960
This back and forth between Adele and Robert fueled more rumors in the grapevine that she was leading him on, which was possible motive.
184
00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:49,960
Further, a few reports stated that Adele had been driving his car around, using it casually, which seems like an incomplete statement from my reading, but if it's true, offers some merit to him being let on.
185
00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:59,960
When Hamilton Police searched his apartment, they found a piece of rope and a duffel bag with a US Army emblem on it, but it turned out to be quite different from the one used on Adele.
186
00:17:59,960 --> 00:18:14,960
Robert Van Dusen would eventually be subject to a full interrogation by Detective Jim Willis with the Hamilton Police, but when it was over, Detective Willis didn't seem to think he was a good suspect anymore, but some people refused to scratch him off the list.
187
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:25,960
I'm not entirely sure what the grounds were for him being ruled out of the investigation, but I am equally unsure as to why so many people believe he is such a strong suspect.
188
00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:35,960
As you'll come to learn, there were many potential suitors who were interested in Adele, and if we took them all as suspicious, the suspect list would be very, very long.
189
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:43,960
I'm sure there are other reasons that people suspect Robert Van Dusen, but he has passed away now, and there's nothing else we can gather from investigating him.
190
00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:49,960
From my own reading, there's not much else to go on that already exists.
191
00:18:49,960 --> 00:19:01,960
Nearing the end of that summer, on August 14th, Detective Clive Paul received some information from police across the border in New York State that a new suspect may fit the bill of Adele's murder.
192
00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:12,960
New York State police had recently apprehended a serial rapist and spree killer by the name of Robert Garrow, who was being held in custody in Hamilton County, New York.
193
00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:26,960
During his 18-day killing spree throughout the year of 1973, he had killed 16-year-old Alicia Huck, 23-year-old Daniel Porter, 20-year-old Susan Petz, and 18-year-old Filip Domolotski.
194
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:39,960
Robert Garrow was caught after escapees of his capture contacted police which started a 12-day-long manhunt, ending with Robert Garrow being cornered in a small wooded area and shot in the arm, foot, and back.
195
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:45,960
Garrow would eventually be tried and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for his crimes.
196
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:54,960
In his early life, Garrow had a tough childhood in New York being raised by poor French-Canadian parents who were farmers for most of his life.
197
00:19:54,960 --> 00:20:01,960
The detail of him being originally Canadian, and this crime occurring across the border in Canada, was one not lost on police.
198
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:13,960
Garrow's parents were often heavy-handed with their discipline, even using bricks on some occasions, and there were few incidences where police were called to break up particularly violent fights between him and his father.
199
00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:20,960
On one occasion, Robert would end up going to work at a prison farm at age 15 after a brutal fight with his dad.
200
00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:26,960
Throughout his life, Robert would report an extensive history of paraphilias and sexual dysfunction.
201
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:34,960
One report I read even stated he eventually confessed to acts of bestiality with the farm animals he was raised around.
202
00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:43,960
Robert's degeneracy continued into his adulthood, as he struggled to hold down a job since when he was employed, he was often caught stealing and breaking the law.
203
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:51,960
He even spent time in the United States Air Force, but was quickly court-martialed after being caught stealing money from a senior officer.
204
00:20:51,960 --> 00:21:04,960
Eventually, Robert would spend most of his time in and out of jail, as his spree of sexual violence began, initially starting with an arrest in 1961 for sexual violence that came with a seven-year prison sentence.
205
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:18,960
The more Hamilton police began to learn about Garrow, the more they were intrigued, especially when they learned that, at the time of Adele's death, he was living in Syracuse, New York, which is only about four hours away from Hamilton where the murder happened.
206
00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:33,960
According to the New York State Police, Robert's modus operandi was to quote-unquote, accost his victim, taking them into wooded and secluded areas to sexually abuse them, sometimes while tied up, sometimes while not.
207
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:40,960
Some of Robert's victims were released, such as the ones that would spark the manhunt for him eventually, but others were not.
208
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:51,960
The New York State Police informed Clive Paul of the Hamilton police that they found a map in Garrow's Volkswagen with notes made beside cities in the general Southern Ontario and New York region.
209
00:21:51,960 --> 00:22:02,960
The city of Hamilton, Ontario where McMaster University was and so was Adele, was on the map in full view, and beside it, there was a question mark made in pencil.
210
00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:16,960
Interestingly, and a detail I haven't mentioned yet, was that one of the witness statements on the night of Adele's murder made to police was that someone saw a Volkswagen speeding away with its lights off about an hour after what would have been Adele's murder.
211
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:27,960
Further, New York State Police noted that during interviews, Robert Garrow implied that he had crossed the border from New York into Ontario before, but never explicitly said so.
212
00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:37,960
He would even go on to deny that the map found in his Volkswagen was even his, and he even argued that police planted it, which made him seem even more suspicious.
213
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:50,960
Even further, it would eventually come out that the rope used to tie Adele by the neck and wrists had traces of cow and horse hair in it, which, to police, pointed directly at Robert Garrow given his background in farming.
214
00:22:50,960 --> 00:23:05,960
Police even began to speculate that the bra found at the scene of Adele's murder, the one that was determined not to belong to her, could have actually been a trophy from another crime committed by Robert Garrow that was accidentally left behind during the chaos of the attack on Adele.
215
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:24,960
Unfortunately, however, although New York State Police had no issue letting Hamilton Police come in to interview Garrow, and they were certainly interested in doing so given all the parallels between the evidence in Adele's case and his other crimes, his lawyer shut it down quickly and Hamilton Police never got the chance.
216
00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:36,960
With the Robert Garrow lead stunted, Detectives Clive Paul and Jim Willis flew out to Halifax in the province of Nova Scotia to take a second look at Walter Kubrin.
217
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:46,960
If you recall, Walter Kubrin is Adele's ex-boyfriend, and since her murder, he had married someone else and moved out to the east coast of Canada to attend graduate studies.
218
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:57,960
Detectives wanted to reinvestigate him because they thought that his previous experience as a sailor and consequently an expert knot-tire could implicate him in the crime somehow.
219
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:06,960
In addition, some believed that he left Ontario to escape police, so they wanted to make sure that he knew if he was guilty, they would come get him.
220
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:22,960
When the detectives arrived in Halifax, they were surprised by the dramatic change in Walter Kubrin's appearance. He had grown a full beard by this point, which was another odd thing to note as some people thought it could have been intentional to avoid detection.
221
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:31,960
However, after interrogating Walter Kubrin for an additional four hours, the detectives no longer thought it was possible for him to have committed the crime.
222
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:40,960
They thought that Walter had a total lack of opportunity, and they also found out that his move to Halifax wasn't suspicious or indicative of evasion at all.
223
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:50,960
He had applied to study there an entire month before Adele's murder, likely just trying to move on with his life after she got engaged to someone else.
224
00:24:50,960 --> 00:25:07,960
At this point, the professor, Robert Van Dusen, was abust, the investigation into Robert Garrow was stunted, Walter Kubrin lacked opportunity, and Alfred Petzold, the arrogant older classmate of Adele's, had permanently relocated to Germany a year after her murder.
225
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:20,960
Taking a second look into Walter Kubrin had undoubtedly been the last lead that Hamilton police had to go off regarding the murder of Adele Komoronski, and consequently, the trail went absolutely cold.
226
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:29,960
By the 1990s, Hamilton police were forced to withdraw the reward money offered for information in the case, and they felt as if they had exhausted all leads.
227
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:46,960
The story of Adele Komoronski continued to haunt the original detectives as the years passed on, knowing that the case was solvable by all means, there was physical evidence, witnesses, and plenty of people with motive, but for one reason or another, none of it could be pursued any further.
228
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:57,960
Eventually, both of Adele's parents died with her mother falling into severe alcoholism and her notoriously rigid father being overcome with emotion every time he spoke about Adele.
229
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:09,960
As the years passed by, he was constantly contacting police for updates that they simply didn't have, and they both died without ever knowing what happened to their daughter.
230
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:19,960
Some hope was renewed in 2012, when Adele's younger brother Peter Komoronski was contacted by a journalist in New York named Jim Tracy.
231
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:32,960
Jim had been doing research to write about Robert Garrow, and based upon his research, he thought Garrow could have been responsible for Adele's murder, similar to the thinking of the original detectives back in the 70s.
232
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:39,960
Like them, Jim easily drew parallels between Garrow's other crimes and the circumstances of Adele's murder.
233
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:55,960
However, when he approached Peter, he had no idea who Robert Garrow was and had never heard of him before. He had no idea that Robert Garrow had been investigated in connection with his sister's murder, and that police were unable to scratch him off the suspect list.
234
00:26:55,960 --> 00:27:11,960
When news about Robert Garrow and Jim Tracy's work had finally broke, quotes from Clive Paul were reported by Wayne McVeil for the CBC, and they substantiated that at least up until 2013, police did in fact believe Garrow could have been a viable suspect.
235
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:23,960
According to Clive Paul in these articles, he even went as far to say that the case was solved for all intents and purposes, quote unquote, it's the best suspect we've seen, the circumstances fit perfectly.
236
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:35,960
Hamilton police decided to revisit this angle and see if using new technology and a fresh set of eyes, they could either disregard or substantiate the Robert Garrow theory some more.
237
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:45,960
New Staff Sergeant Dave Olinuk with the Hamilton police ended up revisiting the scene on McMaster's campus in the woods to canvas it out and see if he could find anything new.
238
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:55,960
He also sought some old boxes of evidence out of storage for reexamination. He wanted to have another comprehensive look at everything the Hamilton police had collected over the years.
239
00:27:55,960 --> 00:28:03,960
He would go on to reorganize everything they had, re-examining forensic evidence and completing a full report.
240
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:20,960
Unfortunately, going back over the evidence already tested didn't really yield anything new. The rope tied around Adele by this point had been handled by so many people even without gloves back in the 70s and had been subjected to various types of testing protocols that compromised its integrity.
241
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:27,960
At this point, there was little that could be recovered from it, and little that could be done to re-examine any results from the past.
242
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:34,960
For example, the rope had been tested back in 2002, but even then, there were insufficient DNA quantities.
243
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:46,960
For all intents and purposes, the physical evidence was useless, if not already limited.
244
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:55,960
Regardless of the struggles he faced when trying to re-examine old evidence, Sergeant Olinuk's full report concluded in a hypothesis about what he thought happened.
245
00:28:55,960 --> 00:29:05,960
Firstly, he speculated that the scene of the crime was staged to resemble a sexual assault, possibly to add an element of randomness and confuse the investigators.
246
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:15,960
This made people think that the person who attacked Adele was more than likely someone who knew her, because only someone who knew her would want police to think that it was someone who didn't.
247
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:26,960
This theory aligns with the lack of actual sexual assault evidence found on Adele, and according to him, her clothes were positioned in a manner suggestive of it on purpose.
248
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:36,960
To Sergeant Olinuk, this is one of the many reasons why Garrow was quote-unquote highly unlikely to be the killer, but there were several other reasons.
249
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:46,960
Firstly, Robert Garrow was a spree killer and a serial rapist who admitted to all of his crimes once apprehended, but what, not this one?
250
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:56,960
Secondly, if a serial offender's motive is at least partially sexual in nature, you would think there would be more evidence of at least an attempt on sexual assault.
251
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:04,960
Thirdly, the eyewitness descriptions of the man Adele had encountered the night she was murdered did not align with the physical description of Robert Garrow.
252
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:14,960
The man seen with Adele that night by the witness was tall and domineering. Robert Garrow was under 6 feet, he was bald, and often to compensate for his baldness he wore a hat.
253
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:21,960
The attacker seen was not wearing a hat and he wasn't bald either, and he was very much over 6 feet.
254
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:27,960
Further, Garrow's violent crimes often involved the use of a knife, which was not the case for Adele.
255
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:44,960
And although a Volkswagen had been seen speeding away from the scene, and Garrow had a Volkswagen, so did a lot of people back in the 1970s, and it didn't help that the one scene was reportedly a darkish green color according to a witness. Robert Garrow's was orange.
256
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:53,960
Regarding the map in his car with the question mark written beside Hamilton, Ontario, Staff Sergeant Alenuck seems to think it was simply a point of confusion.
257
00:30:53,960 --> 00:31:09,960
According to him, he didn't get the impression that Garrow was very...smart, and given he had previously been in trial in Hamilton County, New York, it could have been a coincidence or a case of confusion that the wrong Hamilton was indicated on the map.
258
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:16,960
It's possible that Robert Garrow couldn't tell the difference between Hamilton, New York and Hamilton, Ontario.
259
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:25,960
Lastly, and most damning in my opinion, was that Robert Garrow was scheduled to work at his job in a Syracuse bakery on the night of Adele's murder.
260
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:36,960
If he had worked the night shift, he would have had no opportunity to murder Adele. If he had worked the day shift, he would have had to drive 4 hours to Hamilton and happen to spot her.
261
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:48,960
It makes more sense that the attack was targeted, and whoever murdered Adele knew where she was, and either knew where she was headed, or had been watching her the entire time.
262
00:31:48,960 --> 00:32:01,960
The unfortunate part of Garrow as a suspect was that, similar to how police could never interview him to investigate due to being blocked by his attorney, they could never properly rule him out as a suspect because he had died.
263
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:14,960
After his original arrest in 1973 where he was shot three times, he did recover but claimed to be suffering from paralysis, resulting in him requesting countless transfers to special holding units.
264
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:23,960
In particular, he was interested in a minimum security unit in the Fishgill Correctional Facility, which itself was only a medium security facility.
265
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:34,960
Upon successfully being transferred there in 1978, he took advantage of the low security and managed to coerce a family member to smuggle in a.32 caliber weapon and escape.
266
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:44,960
Robert Garrow scaled a fence, evidently not suffering from paralysis after all, and was eventually found and killed by another officer.
267
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:57,960
Sergeant Alenna concluded that given this, Garrow could never be completely eliminated from the investigation now that he was dead, but still, it was highly unlikely that he was the one who murdered Adele.
268
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:06,960
While researching this case and Garrow's involvement, I stumbled upon a reddit thread and some interesting comments from a user named Tappier Trouble.
269
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:16,960
The user said this, quote, There are a couple things that make me wonder about Garrow as a suspect. It seems odd to me that he would suddenly go and start exploring the Hamilton area.
270
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:22,960
I might be wrong on this, but based on what I read about him earlier, he didn't seem to sort of just go off at random.
271
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:32,960
Even if his family might have been Canadian originally, he'd more likely have connections to the eastern side of Lake Ontario, not the west. More French Canadians there.
272
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:41,960
Further, the reddit user said this, quote, I grew up in Hamilton and went to McMaster. It was a running joke about it being a bit difficult to get into the campus.
273
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:49,960
At least back then, the school didn't have a big broad avenue leading to it from the main highway like some other universities.
274
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:54,960
Friends who had jobs delivering pizzas to the area where Adele was living would complain about this.
275
00:33:54,960 --> 00:34:03,960
If someone living in New York who wasn't used to the area had wanted to go there, it would have taken some planning and effort. End quote.
276
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:16,960
Honestly, I couldn't have said it better myself, and given this and the conclusions from Staff Sergeant Alenuck's report, personally, I'm comfortable rejecting Robert Garrow's involvement.
277
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:33,960
Another suspect emerged in more recent years. Someone who was originally from Germany, matched the description of the murderer given by the witness, was historically a misogynist, had dated Adele, and had a confrontation with her reportedly a few days before her murder.
278
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:50,960
This suspect, according to Sergeant Alenuck's account, reportedly told a friend that he had walked the trails around McMaster on the night of Adele's murder, which could have possibly been a preemptive attempt to get in front of any witness statements of people who had seen him in the area the night of Adele's murder.
279
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:55,960
Further, he had even told another friend that someone had stolen rope from his apartment.
280
00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:08,960
In a conversation with a professor in his department about Adele, this suspect kept referring to her as quote unquote that girl, despite knowing her well, which was noted as oddly detached given their history.
281
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:22,960
A year after Adele's murder, this suspect left Germany and never returned to Ontario, a move oddly reminiscent of Walter Kubrin's move to the East Coast, but one that had no justification.
282
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:29,960
According to Staff Sergeant Alenuck, quote, Adele was an independent woman who had no problem confronting the men in her life.
283
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:38,960
She was known to be assertive and this, in 1973, could easily have been seen to trigger a disproportionate response from a jealous male.
284
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:53,960
Without revealing who his ideal suspect was, Staff Sergeant Alenuck asked Hamilton Police Detective Andrew Coughlin to independently review the case documents just as he had, and ultimately, Detective Coughlin pointed to the same suspect.
285
00:35:53,960 --> 00:36:06,960
Sergeant Alenuck said that his determination was speculative, as this long after the murder and with the suspect in a different country, that's really all it could be, but he decided to present his findings to Adele's brother Peter anyways.
286
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:16,960
At this point, Peter had married and had two children of his own. He had relocated to California before returning to Toronto and had been employed as an engineer.
287
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:23,960
He had moved on with his life, but could never fill the place in his heart where Adele, his sister, was supposed to be.
288
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:33,960
Peter and his wife Colleen sat down with both Alenuck and Coughlin reviewing the report and unanimously concluded that their most likely suspect was Alfred Petzold.
289
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:39,960
Peter said that he felt relieved after reviewing everything himself and that this theory made sense.
290
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:46,960
He had certainly hoped it wasn't Walter Coughlin given the two of them had developed a friendship, even going go-karting and camping together.
291
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:58,960
But even though all three were certain that the detectives were right, there was nothing anyone could do about it as Alfred, like many of the other suspects, had died at the age of 70 while living in Germany.
292
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:11,960
Even further, if his DNA was found on any of the materials found at the scene that day, it could never be matched to anything as they never had a chance to even get DNA from him, so there was nothing on file.
293
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:23,960
Even worse was that Alfred Petzold had no family to test, there were no records of him ever marrying or having children, and he has no known relatives, so they could never even make an indirect DNA match.
294
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:35,960
In addition, the clothes they collected from his apartment back in 1973 during that initial search that he was reportedly wearing on the night Adele was murdered had either been returned or destroyed at this point.
295
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:51,960
However, regardless of all of that, the theory still made sense. With his history with Adele, he would have had motive, he certainly had opportunity, he had a shaky alibi, he was a known womanizer, and he had fled shortly after her death.
296
00:37:51,960 --> 00:38:01,960
Petzold slipped from the focus of police in pursuit of Walter Kubrin and Robert Garrow, and by the time they had circled back he was long gone, but they were confident that it was him.
297
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:12,960
Given this determination, again although it can only ever be speculative, Hamilton police considered the case of Adele Komorowski effectively closed, although not formally.
298
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:20,960
Unfortunately, it looks like that's the best we're going to get, as Alfred Petzold, if he is the guilty party, will never face justice.
299
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:30,960
We will never have the opportunity to know what he knows about the murder of Adele, and conversely he will never have the opportunity to defend himself on trial.
300
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:42,960
Regardless, Adele's family was comfortable with the determination made, and although she'll never be forgotten to them, some closure is better than none and they can certainly move on.
301
00:38:42,960 --> 00:39:00,960
There is a short film about this case directed by Joe DiBendetto titled Adele. Unfortunately, it's the only real recent media that's come out about the tragic murder of Adele, which again is why it's so important to report on lesser known cases, but I'll have it linked on my website if you'd like to give it a watch.
302
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:10,960
It's certainly interesting and helps to illustrate what kind of person she was, and what she was up against with the men in her life.
303
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:21,960
If there's any message to offer you after listening to the tragic case of Adele Komorowski, it's the same one that I've echoed in the last few episodes I've published.
304
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:23,960
Leave women alone.
305
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:39,960
All of the detectives in the Hamilton Police Department agreed that Adele's confidence, persistence, achievement, bashfulness, determination, unrelenting beauty, and total lack of fear of any obstacles in her way was what did her in.
306
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,960
In other words, it was total misogyny.
307
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:51,960
A handful of men could not stand to see a woman be so successful but also beautiful and not interested in them.
308
00:39:51,960 --> 00:40:03,960
Like many women that I've talked about on this podcast, this story seems to play out over and over again. And honestly, it's just getting old. It's been old. It got old a long time ago.
309
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:16,960
Parents, teach your young boys to be better. You never know which one of them is going to end up doing what Alfred Petzold allegedly did to Adele Komorowski.
310
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:23,960
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Crimeopedia Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed making it for you.
311
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:32,960
And I hope you enjoyed hearing about a lesser-known case. It's one that's somewhat local to me, but even I hadn't heard about it until relatively recently.
312
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:42,960
I like these ones a lot because they present a unique challenge. Finding sources and information about them is very difficult, let alone substantiating the sources that are already limited.
313
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:51,960
But talking about lesser-known cases is exactly why I started this show. Of course, the notorious ones are interesting to everybody and I'm guilty of that myself.
314
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:58,960
But it's the people, the real people, who are victims that don't get talked about ever. That's who I'm really passionate about.
315
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:07,960
So, if you have any other cases that are similar to this one that you think need some more attention, please do let me know. You can let me know on my website at crimeopediapod.ca.
316
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:14,960
There I've got a case suggestion forum that you can fill out or you can message me on Instagram at crimeopediapod.
317
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:22,960
As well, if you'd like to view any of the source material I did use for this episode, you can find it on my website at crimeopediapod.ca as well.
318
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:28,960
Thank you so much everyone. Stay safe, leave women alone, and I will talk to you again soon.
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,800
The Crimeopedia podcast is a completely independent show that explores content of a potentially violent and disturbing nature.
2
00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:09,800
Please use your listening discretion.
3
00:00:12,480 --> 00:00:22,300
Receiving an acceptance letter to university, graduate school, medical school, or to study abroad is comparable to Willy Wonka's golden ticket.
4
00:00:22,300 --> 00:00:26,720
It's an assured pathway to achieving the goal that you had set out for yourself.
5
00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:31,720
It usually comes after years of hard work and dedication, as well as some discipline.
6
00:00:31,720 --> 00:00:34,480
For Adele Komorowski, it was the same.
7
00:00:34,480 --> 00:00:40,920
She had received an acceptance letter to start a Masters of Arts degree at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,
8
00:00:40,920 --> 00:00:45,560
and was thrilled to undertake the opportunity of pursuing higher education.
9
00:00:45,560 --> 00:00:52,440
But 50 years ago today, on May 15th of 1973, her brother, Peter Komorowski,
10
00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:57,840
received a knock at his family's front door around 4am. On the other side were Hamilton police,
11
00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:07,400
informing him that his ambitious, firecracker of a sister had been murdered in the very place that she found her passion and hope for the future, at school.
12
00:01:07,400 --> 00:01:13,520
With the 50th anniversary of Adele Komorowski's death, I thought it was only appropriate to revisit a case that frankly,
13
00:01:13,520 --> 00:01:18,480
not many of us know about, but marks a dark era in McMaster University's history,
14
00:01:18,480 --> 00:01:26,360
as Adele was the first person to be murdered on their campus, and it was a murder that technically, to this day, remains unsolved.
15
00:01:26,360 --> 00:01:28,360
With that, let's jump right in.
16
00:01:43,760 --> 00:01:48,080
Adele Komorowski was born in Germany, but certainly didn't stay there.
17
00:01:48,080 --> 00:01:54,200
Her family would move to Australia and finally settle in Canada by the time Adele was only 4 years old.
18
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:58,440
The Komorowski family found themselves in the Cooksville area of Mississauga,
19
00:01:58,440 --> 00:02:05,320
and despite living there essentially her entire life, Adele's family never let her forget about her European heritage.
20
00:02:05,320 --> 00:02:11,120
Her father, Michael, who, more recently relative to the timeline of this case, passed away in 2010,
21
00:02:11,120 --> 00:02:18,840
made sure to teach Adele English but also exposed her to his Russian speech and ensured she engaged with her mother while speaking German.
22
00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:23,080
Adele's grandparents, who also lived in their Mississauga home, spoke Polish,
23
00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:29,960
and it was no surprise that being raised in a melting pot of language and culture, Adele easily picked up all of these languages.
24
00:02:31,560 --> 00:02:36,920
Adele would grow up to be quote-unquote dynamic, as I saw many articles describe her.
25
00:02:36,920 --> 00:02:42,600
To me, she was a powerhouse of a young woman and was very well liked amongst the people she knew.
26
00:02:42,600 --> 00:02:46,440
Adele would grow up to be tall with stunning dark hair and dark eyes,
27
00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:50,680
and she was well known to be unafraid of whatever challenges lie ahead of her.
28
00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:55,560
She was strong, but her tough exterior didn't deter her from exposing a soft side,
29
00:02:55,560 --> 00:03:00,120
and really only shined through when her younger brother, Peter, was born in 1956,
30
00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:04,120
as she felt it necessary to take on a protective role over him.
31
00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:09,240
This was especially true when their parents' marriage would eventually start to fall apart.
32
00:03:09,240 --> 00:03:13,080
Adele got her determined and fortified nature presumably from her dad,
33
00:03:13,080 --> 00:03:16,360
who, in addition to making sure she was well-versed in language,
34
00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:21,880
also made sure to instill in the children from a very young age that it was critical that they work hard
35
00:03:21,880 --> 00:03:24,760
to make sure they had a better life than he did.
36
00:03:24,760 --> 00:03:27,480
And Adele took that very seriously.
37
00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:32,600
Unsurprisingly, Adele Komorowski enrolled in McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario,
38
00:03:32,600 --> 00:03:35,640
in their languages program, studying German.
39
00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:41,000
And in 1972, she began working towards her master's degree in German language and literature
40
00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:43,960
in a small department of only about 10 graduate students.
41
00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:49,240
Especially while she was at McMaster, her peers and colleagues remarked about how
42
00:03:49,240 --> 00:03:53,960
Adele had a presence that many were drawn to, given her unique nature of being both outgoing
43
00:03:53,960 --> 00:03:56,280
but reserved, mysterious and enthralling.
44
00:03:57,720 --> 00:04:00,360
Aside from being popular and making friends easily,
45
00:04:00,360 --> 00:04:02,840
Adele was also quite successful in her academics.
46
00:04:03,480 --> 00:04:07,560
She won a scholarship to study abroad in Germany for a year during her education
47
00:04:07,560 --> 00:04:09,560
and was thrilled about this opportunity.
48
00:04:10,200 --> 00:04:13,720
However, at this time, she was living with her boyfriend, Walter Kubrin,
49
00:04:13,720 --> 00:04:17,960
who was somewhat understandably worried that the distance would ruin their relationship.
50
00:04:18,680 --> 00:04:21,080
Adele was quite an independent woman, after all.
51
00:04:22,200 --> 00:04:26,680
Walter and Adele met while working at the same summer job, I'm not sure where,
52
00:04:26,680 --> 00:04:29,320
but she had eventually convinced him to go back to school
53
00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:34,040
and the two lived along Main Street West together, only a short distance from McMaster's campus.
54
00:04:35,560 --> 00:04:41,080
Walter Kubrin was also born in Germany, but his parents were Ukrainian, and similarly to Adele,
55
00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:44,280
they wanted their son to work hard for a better life than they had,
56
00:04:44,280 --> 00:04:47,800
as they were forced to work in munitions factories after seeking refuge.
57
00:04:48,760 --> 00:04:52,760
So after Walter settled in as a student and found some stability with Adele,
58
00:04:52,760 --> 00:04:56,440
he was worried that Adele leaving would presumably be too much of a change
59
00:04:56,440 --> 00:04:58,280
and that she might find someone else.
60
00:04:58,280 --> 00:04:59,960
And unfortunately, she did.
61
00:05:01,640 --> 00:05:04,280
When Adele returned to Canada after her year abroad,
62
00:05:04,280 --> 00:05:07,080
she was engaged to a German naval lieutenant.
63
00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:11,960
This is a good time for me to interject into the story and tell you that finding sources on this
64
00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:16,200
case has been incredibly difficult given its age and apparent lack of notoriety.
65
00:05:17,080 --> 00:05:20,200
This highlights why it's important to report on lesser known cases,
66
00:05:20,200 --> 00:05:23,640
but the point I want to make is that I don't even know her fiance's name,
67
00:05:23,640 --> 00:05:24,920
I couldn't find it anywhere.
68
00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,040
In fact, there are many details in this case that are blank for me,
69
00:05:28,040 --> 00:05:32,440
which contributes to the mystery of what happened to Adele, but let's continue.
70
00:05:33,720 --> 00:05:37,080
At the university, in Adele's office in the Arts II building,
71
00:05:37,080 --> 00:05:41,160
presumably renamed to something else as there are no buildings currently named such,
72
00:05:41,160 --> 00:05:46,120
she had a photo of her fiance on her desk and didn't shy away from discussing her upcoming wedding
73
00:05:46,120 --> 00:05:47,880
in July of 1973.
74
00:05:48,600 --> 00:05:52,200
A wedding that was planned seemingly without a second thought of Walter Kubrin,
75
00:05:52,200 --> 00:05:58,120
at least from my reading. But unfortunately, Adele would never make it to the altar.
76
00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:05,880
With her 27th birthday on the horizon, on May 15th of 1973,
77
00:06:05,880 --> 00:06:10,280
Adele Komoronski met with a girlfriend for coffee, likely at least partially
78
00:06:10,280 --> 00:06:12,600
preoccupied with upcoming wedding plans.
79
00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:17,320
While she was there, at a coffee shop I'm not sure the name of,
80
00:06:17,320 --> 00:06:22,120
a classmate of hers named Alfred Petzold reportedly stopped at the table to say hi.
81
00:06:23,320 --> 00:06:28,760
Adele was likely unnerved by his presence, as it's reported that he and Adele briefly dated,
82
00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:33,160
despite their age difference of just over 10 years given he was 38 at the time,
83
00:06:33,160 --> 00:06:36,920
but worse was that the couple would argue quite a bit during their short stint together.
84
00:06:38,280 --> 00:06:42,120
Alfred was reportedly chauvinistic, quote-unquote high and mighty,
85
00:06:42,120 --> 00:06:45,560
and he was disdainful of the rising hippie culture of the 70s.
86
00:06:45,560 --> 00:06:50,280
Alfred had a formal manner about him. One report I read by the Hamilton Spectator said that he
87
00:06:50,280 --> 00:06:54,920
insisted on wearing a suit jacket and tie everywhere he went, and even back in the 70s,
88
00:06:54,920 --> 00:07:00,760
this was super outdated attire for casual errands, and he was one of the only people in the school who did it.
89
00:07:02,040 --> 00:07:05,320
It's clear from my reading that Alfred thought very high of himself,
90
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:09,000
and I'm sure Adele was just frustrated and annoyed to see him that day.
91
00:07:10,200 --> 00:07:14,200
Alfred Petzold also emigrated from Germany, but he moved around quite a bit,
92
00:07:14,200 --> 00:07:19,720
and even spent some time in the Canadian Navy before finding himself in Hamilton, Ontario at McMaster University,
93
00:07:19,720 --> 00:07:24,440
and then suddenly he's at a table with Adele Komorowski and her friend, uninvited.
94
00:07:25,720 --> 00:07:32,520
According to some reports I read, the conversation they had that day was him telling Adele that he had a job interview to teach high school in Guelph,
95
00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:35,480
which is only about 45 minutes now from Hamilton.
96
00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:41,000
It's unclear if the job interview he was talking about was scheduled for later that day or the next,
97
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:47,240
but regardless, from my reading it seems that the conversation was brief and Adele was thankful for that.
98
00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:53,640
However, it's important not to forget about Alfred, because he'll become a critical player in this story before long.
99
00:07:56,120 --> 00:08:01,000
Later in the afternoon on May 15th, after what was already a long day working at the university,
100
00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:03,880
Adele was speaking with another classmate, Mike Hamann.
101
00:08:04,840 --> 00:08:08,360
Mike stayed in the Brandon Hall residence, near the north end of the campus,
102
00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:12,120
where there were trails into a botanical gardens area called Coot's Paradise.
103
00:08:13,480 --> 00:08:18,440
Mike knew that Adele was shaping up to have not only a long afternoon, but a long evening working,
104
00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:23,160
and so he offered his room to her if she was going to keep up the pace of work she was already at for the night.
105
00:08:24,360 --> 00:08:31,160
Adele had taken Mike up on this offer before, so presumably she was thankful for his graciousness and went about her day,
106
00:08:31,160 --> 00:08:38,840
knowing she'd have a place close by to crash at the end of the night, only about a seven minute walk from her office.
107
00:08:38,840 --> 00:08:45,560
Anticipating only a short walk home, that night she stayed in her office on campus and worked until approximately 11 p.m.
108
00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:52,840
Around that time, she picked up her bag and umbrella as it had been raining, and left the building, headed for Brandon Hall.
109
00:08:54,440 --> 00:08:57,400
It was a walk that shouldn't have taken Adele very long,
110
00:08:57,400 --> 00:09:01,400
but our story jumps to approximately an hour later, around midnight,
111
00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:06,840
when two Hamilton police detectives found themselves standing over Adele Komoronski's dead body,
112
00:09:06,840 --> 00:09:14,760
lying face up on a slope just off of a trail near Brandon Hall, only about 90 meters, or 300 feet, away from the front entrance.
113
00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:23,240
Hamilton police received a call after campus police made the discovery almost a full half hour before they did,
114
00:09:23,240 --> 00:09:27,400
so by that time, although Hamilton police knew they were looking at a homicide,
115
00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:30,440
they never got a good look at the scene as they were already playing catch-up.
116
00:09:31,560 --> 00:09:37,320
However, there were certain details that they could make out, and this is what they found when they discovered Adele's dead body.
117
00:09:38,680 --> 00:09:43,560
They could tell that Adele had been dragged along the trail, likely because there were streaks on the ground
118
00:09:43,560 --> 00:09:48,120
that were made more obvious by the mud given it was raining, but that's just a guess on my part.
119
00:09:48,120 --> 00:09:52,840
They had noted that Adele also had a hemp rope wrapped around her neck three times,
120
00:09:52,840 --> 00:09:55,960
and also around her wrists, which were pinned behind her head.
121
00:09:56,600 --> 00:10:02,360
In one CBC article I read by Wayne McPhail, the knots on the ropes were described as carefully knotted.
122
00:10:03,720 --> 00:10:07,960
Adele also had a yellow J-cloth stuffed into her mouth, which if you don't know,
123
00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:11,480
a J-cloth is a generic type of multi-purpose cleaning cloth.
124
00:10:12,600 --> 00:10:16,040
Adele's top was missing, and her pants were positioned below her hips.
125
00:10:16,040 --> 00:10:23,320
In addition, police also found a woman's bra nearby, but determined it was not her size and therefore unlikely belonging to her.
126
00:10:24,520 --> 00:10:31,640
Interestingly, it was found later, upon post-mortem examination, that Adele had not actually been sexually assaulted,
127
00:10:31,640 --> 00:10:35,800
so it's possible that her clothes could have ended up the way they did, from being dragged,
128
00:10:35,800 --> 00:10:40,760
or possibly even from positioning by the killer attempting to throw off police,
129
00:10:40,760 --> 00:10:43,240
despite the initial thoughts being sexual assault.
130
00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:48,680
Police quickly determined that whoever did this to Adele, given her proximity to the entrance of Brandon Hall
131
00:10:48,680 --> 00:10:53,880
and likely the short duration of her venture outside in general, they must have acted quickly.
132
00:10:54,680 --> 00:10:58,680
So, just as quickly, especially since they were already behind,
133
00:10:58,680 --> 00:11:05,160
approximately 40 Hamilton police officers with canine units began canvassing the area for clues and talking to witnesses.
134
00:11:07,160 --> 00:11:12,040
Although from my reading, it didn't seem like much came from searching the area beyond what was on the scene,
135
00:11:12,040 --> 00:11:17,080
or from searching the area beyond what I already discussed, there were some pretty interesting witness statements made.
136
00:11:17,960 --> 00:11:23,320
One witness who lived on the 6th floor of Brandon Hall had told police that she had heard a young woman's voice yell,
137
00:11:23,320 --> 00:11:25,880
leave me alone, around 11.15pm.
138
00:11:26,840 --> 00:11:32,120
When the witness went over to her window to see what had happened, she saw a man, at least over 6 feet tall,
139
00:11:32,120 --> 00:11:33,880
speaking with a woman by the building.
140
00:11:34,760 --> 00:11:40,120
Then, the witness said she saw the man leading the woman out of view and toward the wooded area where Adele was found.
141
00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:43,960
Meanwhile, the woman was yelling, please let me go, please don't hurt me.
142
00:11:45,320 --> 00:11:52,600
Despite being damning, the witness reported yelling out her window, leave her alone, and really nothing else as far as my reading goes.
143
00:11:53,480 --> 00:11:59,160
I don't even know if she was the one to call campus police, but I'd like to assume so after seeing what she saw.
144
00:12:00,200 --> 00:12:05,400
Police were pretty confident that the woman the witness saw was Adele, and the man she saw was her killer.
145
00:12:05,400 --> 00:12:11,400
Around 3am this morning, Mike Haman, the friend who offered his residence room up to Adele that evening,
146
00:12:11,400 --> 00:12:13,400
was brought in to identify Adele's body.
147
00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:21,400
Shortly after, police would undertake the very large task of identifying everyone who knew Adele and interviewing them.
148
00:12:22,360 --> 00:12:26,040
One friend who was interviewed two days later, although the details are fuzzy,
149
00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:30,440
reportedly said they saw Adele arguing with a man shortly before her murder, saying,
150
00:12:30,440 --> 00:12:35,720
No I won't, and although the rest of the argument and this interview is a mystery to me,
151
00:12:35,720 --> 00:12:43,400
it seems that many news outlets have taken this argument to be with Adele and a potential male suitor who was interested in her, but she wasn't.
152
00:12:44,360 --> 00:12:52,040
Further, some have speculated that the person arguing with Adele was Alfred Petzold, but personally I'm unsure, but we'll come back to Alfred soon.
153
00:12:52,040 --> 00:13:01,320
Hamilton police had an initial list of suspects that included the usual ones, such as her fiance, who was eliminated quickly as he was in Germany at the time of her death.
154
00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:09,640
Her father, Michael Komoronski, was also on the suspect list, but he was ruled out after questioning for a quote-unquote lacking opportunity.
155
00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:16,520
There was also an unnamed undergraduate student on the list, and he's unnamed at least as far as my reading goes.
156
00:13:16,520 --> 00:13:22,760
This student was reportedly in love with Adele while she was either teaching or acting as a teaching assistant for a class.
157
00:13:23,560 --> 00:13:33,800
This student had quote-unquote psychological issues and was not quote-unquote sexually normal, according to the Hamilton Spectator, but eventually it was determined that he also lacked opportunity.
158
00:13:35,240 --> 00:13:46,360
Police also suspected a professor, Robert Van Dusen, who was a 44-year-old single man with a meek demeanor and was a very
159
00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:51,320
quiet and shy man, and was reportedly infatuated with Adele, to the point where everyone knew about it.
160
00:13:52,680 --> 00:14:06,280
He was quiet and shy, and he was nicknamed Whispering Bob by other students, which seems counterintuitive for someone who served in the US Army and was involved in counterintelligence operations between 1951 and 1954.
161
00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:17,160
Although he would eventually be ruled out, as we'll discuss later, it was his infatuation with Adele and unassuming demeanor that I think tipped a few people off into thinking he was suspicious.
162
00:14:17,160 --> 00:14:26,120
Unfortunately, however, like most of the suspects on this list by now, Robert Van Dusen died in 2007 and was buried in New York City.
163
00:14:26,120 --> 00:14:37,960
There was also Alfred Petzold, who roughly fit the physical description of the suspect, and he had claimed to be at home at the time of Adele's murder, but nobody could corroborate this for him.
164
00:14:37,960 --> 00:14:47,960
And although this does ring suspicious, initially police wanted to hone in on Walter Kubrin, Adele's ex-boyfriend, while also simultaneously diving into Alfred.
165
00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:57,960
Walter Kubrin also roughly fit the physical description of Adele's attacker according to the witness statement of the girl on the sixth floor of Brandon Hall.
166
00:14:57,960 --> 00:15:05,960
And keep in mind, he was Adele's serious, live-in boyfriend before she left to Germany and got engaged to someone else.
167
00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:15,960
She had let his worst fears about their relationship become realized, so it makes sense that he would hold anger against Adele and thus would be a suspect in the murder.
168
00:15:15,960 --> 00:15:23,960
Upon finding out that police were interested in speaking with him, Walter willingly turned himself in to Hamilton Police and volunteered for an interview.
169
00:15:23,960 --> 00:15:34,960
Whether or not he held resentment against Adele, he was visibly shaken by the ordeal, even more so when detectives felt that he wasn't cooperating because he didn't have the kinds of information they needed.
170
00:15:34,960 --> 00:15:46,960
It's reported that they pulled the classic hot and cold, good cop bad cop move in the interview, turning it into an interrogation, and even threatening to show pictures of Adele in the morgue to Walter if he didn't confess.
171
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:54,960
Evidently, he didn't end up confessing and they did end up showing him pictures of Adele, but he was adamant about his lack of involvement.
172
00:15:54,960 --> 00:15:59,960
According to him, he didn't do it and he didn't know who did either.
173
00:15:59,960 --> 00:16:04,960
Alfred Petzold, on the other hand, was also told that police wanted to speak with him.
174
00:16:04,960 --> 00:16:10,960
The wording I saw reported was that he knew police would quote unquote come for him, and they did.
175
00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:18,960
Hamilton Police were granted a search of Alfred's home on Emerson Street, also close to the university, but I'm not sure on what grounds.
176
00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:27,960
I do know that upon searching, they had asked him to hand over the clothes he was wearing on the night of the murder, and that Alfred offered to take a polygraph test.
177
00:16:27,960 --> 00:16:34,960
However, when the time came to administer the test, Alfred Petzold had lawyered up, and his counsel advised him not to take it.
178
00:16:34,960 --> 00:16:45,960
With the advent of Alfred no longer cooperating, police elected to interview some of his inner circle and former associates, including his former supervisor with the Canadian military.
179
00:16:45,960 --> 00:16:58,960
This supervisor reported to police that although Alfred Petzold was a quote unquote solid guy, he had a bit of a superiority complex, a character trait that was certainly not lost on Adele either.
180
00:16:58,960 --> 00:17:10,960
Within days of Adele's murder, days that the Hamilton Spectator rightfully reports as precious ones passing by, Clive Paul with the Hamilton Police became the lead detective on the case.
181
00:17:10,960 --> 00:17:18,960
He was initially interested in pursuing the Professor Angle, Robert Van Dusen, and he believed that Robert was their strongest suspect.
182
00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:28,960
It was reported through the grapevine that Robert's infatuation had led him to stalking Adele to whatever extent, and she had once rejected him despite seeing him a few times socially.
183
00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:36,960
This back and forth between Adele and Robert fueled more rumors in the grapevine that she was leading him on, which was possible motive.
184
00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:49,960
Further, a few reports stated that Adele had been driving his car around, using it casually, which seems like an incomplete statement from my reading, but if it's true, offers some merit to him being let on.
185
00:17:49,960 --> 00:17:59,960
When Hamilton Police searched his apartment, they found a piece of rope and a duffel bag with a US Army emblem on it, but it turned out to be quite different from the one used on Adele.
186
00:17:59,960 --> 00:18:14,960
Robert Van Dusen would eventually be subject to a full interrogation by Detective Jim Willis with the Hamilton Police, but when it was over, Detective Willis didn't seem to think he was a good suspect anymore, but some people refused to scratch him off the list.
187
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:25,960
I'm not entirely sure what the grounds were for him being ruled out of the investigation, but I am equally unsure as to why so many people believe he is such a strong suspect.
188
00:18:25,960 --> 00:18:35,960
As you'll come to learn, there were many potential suitors who were interested in Adele, and if we took them all as suspicious, the suspect list would be very, very long.
189
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:43,960
I'm sure there are other reasons that people suspect Robert Van Dusen, but he has passed away now, and there's nothing else we can gather from investigating him.
190
00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:49,960
From my own reading, there's not much else to go on that already exists.
191
00:18:49,960 --> 00:19:01,960
Nearing the end of that summer, on August 14th, Detective Clive Paul received some information from police across the border in New York State that a new suspect may fit the bill of Adele's murder.
192
00:19:01,960 --> 00:19:12,960
New York State police had recently apprehended a serial rapist and spree killer by the name of Robert Garrow, who was being held in custody in Hamilton County, New York.
193
00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:26,960
During his 18-day killing spree throughout the year of 1973, he had killed 16-year-old Alicia Huck, 23-year-old Daniel Porter, 20-year-old Susan Petz, and 18-year-old Filip Domolotski.
194
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:39,960
Robert Garrow was caught after escapees of his capture contacted police which started a 12-day-long manhunt, ending with Robert Garrow being cornered in a small wooded area and shot in the arm, foot, and back.
195
00:19:39,960 --> 00:19:45,960
Garrow would eventually be tried and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for his crimes.
196
00:19:45,960 --> 00:19:54,960
In his early life, Garrow had a tough childhood in New York being raised by poor French-Canadian parents who were farmers for most of his life.
197
00:19:54,960 --> 00:20:01,960
The detail of him being originally Canadian, and this crime occurring across the border in Canada, was one not lost on police.
198
00:20:01,960 --> 00:20:13,960
Garrow's parents were often heavy-handed with their discipline, even using bricks on some occasions, and there were few incidences where police were called to break up particularly violent fights between him and his father.
199
00:20:13,960 --> 00:20:20,960
On one occasion, Robert would end up going to work at a prison farm at age 15 after a brutal fight with his dad.
200
00:20:20,960 --> 00:20:26,960
Throughout his life, Robert would report an extensive history of paraphilias and sexual dysfunction.
201
00:20:26,960 --> 00:20:34,960
One report I read even stated he eventually confessed to acts of bestiality with the farm animals he was raised around.
202
00:20:34,960 --> 00:20:43,960
Robert's degeneracy continued into his adulthood, as he struggled to hold down a job since when he was employed, he was often caught stealing and breaking the law.
203
00:20:43,960 --> 00:20:51,960
He even spent time in the United States Air Force, but was quickly court-martialed after being caught stealing money from a senior officer.
204
00:20:51,960 --> 00:21:04,960
Eventually, Robert would spend most of his time in and out of jail, as his spree of sexual violence began, initially starting with an arrest in 1961 for sexual violence that came with a seven-year prison sentence.
205
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:18,960
The more Hamilton police began to learn about Garrow, the more they were intrigued, especially when they learned that, at the time of Adele's death, he was living in Syracuse, New York, which is only about four hours away from Hamilton where the murder happened.
206
00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:33,960
According to the New York State Police, Robert's modus operandi was to quote-unquote, accost his victim, taking them into wooded and secluded areas to sexually abuse them, sometimes while tied up, sometimes while not.
207
00:21:33,960 --> 00:21:40,960
Some of Robert's victims were released, such as the ones that would spark the manhunt for him eventually, but others were not.
208
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:51,960
The New York State Police informed Clive Paul of the Hamilton police that they found a map in Garrow's Volkswagen with notes made beside cities in the general Southern Ontario and New York region.
209
00:21:51,960 --> 00:22:02,960
The city of Hamilton, Ontario where McMaster University was and so was Adele, was on the map in full view, and beside it, there was a question mark made in pencil.
210
00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:16,960
Interestingly, and a detail I haven't mentioned yet, was that one of the witness statements on the night of Adele's murder made to police was that someone saw a Volkswagen speeding away with its lights off about an hour after what would have been Adele's murder.
211
00:22:16,960 --> 00:22:27,960
Further, New York State Police noted that during interviews, Robert Garrow implied that he had crossed the border from New York into Ontario before, but never explicitly said so.
212
00:22:27,960 --> 00:22:37,960
He would even go on to deny that the map found in his Volkswagen was even his, and he even argued that police planted it, which made him seem even more suspicious.
213
00:22:37,960 --> 00:22:50,960
Even further, it would eventually come out that the rope used to tie Adele by the neck and wrists had traces of cow and horse hair in it, which, to police, pointed directly at Robert Garrow given his background in farming.
214
00:22:50,960 --> 00:23:05,960
Police even began to speculate that the bra found at the scene of Adele's murder, the one that was determined not to belong to her, could have actually been a trophy from another crime committed by Robert Garrow that was accidentally left behind during the chaos of the attack on Adele.
215
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:24,960
Unfortunately, however, although New York State Police had no issue letting Hamilton Police come in to interview Garrow, and they were certainly interested in doing so given all the parallels between the evidence in Adele's case and his other crimes, his lawyer shut it down quickly and Hamilton Police never got the chance.
216
00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:36,960
With the Robert Garrow lead stunted, Detectives Clive Paul and Jim Willis flew out to Halifax in the province of Nova Scotia to take a second look at Walter Kubrin.
217
00:23:36,960 --> 00:23:46,960
If you recall, Walter Kubrin is Adele's ex-boyfriend, and since her murder, he had married someone else and moved out to the east coast of Canada to attend graduate studies.
218
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:57,960
Detectives wanted to reinvestigate him because they thought that his previous experience as a sailor and consequently an expert knot-tire could implicate him in the crime somehow.
219
00:23:57,960 --> 00:24:06,960
In addition, some believed that he left Ontario to escape police, so they wanted to make sure that he knew if he was guilty, they would come get him.
220
00:24:06,960 --> 00:24:22,960
When the detectives arrived in Halifax, they were surprised by the dramatic change in Walter Kubrin's appearance. He had grown a full beard by this point, which was another odd thing to note as some people thought it could have been intentional to avoid detection.
221
00:24:22,960 --> 00:24:31,960
However, after interrogating Walter Kubrin for an additional four hours, the detectives no longer thought it was possible for him to have committed the crime.
222
00:24:31,960 --> 00:24:40,960
They thought that Walter had a total lack of opportunity, and they also found out that his move to Halifax wasn't suspicious or indicative of evasion at all.
223
00:24:40,960 --> 00:24:50,960
He had applied to study there an entire month before Adele's murder, likely just trying to move on with his life after she got engaged to someone else.
224
00:24:50,960 --> 00:25:07,960
At this point, the professor, Robert Van Dusen, was abust, the investigation into Robert Garrow was stunted, Walter Kubrin lacked opportunity, and Alfred Petzold, the arrogant older classmate of Adele's, had permanently relocated to Germany a year after her murder.
225
00:25:07,960 --> 00:25:20,960
Taking a second look into Walter Kubrin had undoubtedly been the last lead that Hamilton police had to go off regarding the murder of Adele Komoronski, and consequently, the trail went absolutely cold.
226
00:25:20,960 --> 00:25:29,960
By the 1990s, Hamilton police were forced to withdraw the reward money offered for information in the case, and they felt as if they had exhausted all leads.
227
00:25:29,960 --> 00:25:46,960
The story of Adele Komoronski continued to haunt the original detectives as the years passed on, knowing that the case was solvable by all means, there was physical evidence, witnesses, and plenty of people with motive, but for one reason or another, none of it could be pursued any further.
228
00:25:46,960 --> 00:25:57,960
Eventually, both of Adele's parents died with her mother falling into severe alcoholism and her notoriously rigid father being overcome with emotion every time he spoke about Adele.
229
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:09,960
As the years passed by, he was constantly contacting police for updates that they simply didn't have, and they both died without ever knowing what happened to their daughter.
230
00:26:09,960 --> 00:26:19,960
Some hope was renewed in 2012, when Adele's younger brother Peter Komoronski was contacted by a journalist in New York named Jim Tracy.
231
00:26:19,960 --> 00:26:32,960
Jim had been doing research to write about Robert Garrow, and based upon his research, he thought Garrow could have been responsible for Adele's murder, similar to the thinking of the original detectives back in the 70s.
232
00:26:32,960 --> 00:26:39,960
Like them, Jim easily drew parallels between Garrow's other crimes and the circumstances of Adele's murder.
233
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:55,960
However, when he approached Peter, he had no idea who Robert Garrow was and had never heard of him before. He had no idea that Robert Garrow had been investigated in connection with his sister's murder, and that police were unable to scratch him off the suspect list.
234
00:26:55,960 --> 00:27:11,960
When news about Robert Garrow and Jim Tracy's work had finally broke, quotes from Clive Paul were reported by Wayne McVeil for the CBC, and they substantiated that at least up until 2013, police did in fact believe Garrow could have been a viable suspect.
235
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:23,960
According to Clive Paul in these articles, he even went as far to say that the case was solved for all intents and purposes, quote unquote, it's the best suspect we've seen, the circumstances fit perfectly.
236
00:27:23,960 --> 00:27:35,960
Hamilton police decided to revisit this angle and see if using new technology and a fresh set of eyes, they could either disregard or substantiate the Robert Garrow theory some more.
237
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:45,960
New Staff Sergeant Dave Olinuk with the Hamilton police ended up revisiting the scene on McMaster's campus in the woods to canvas it out and see if he could find anything new.
238
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:55,960
He also sought some old boxes of evidence out of storage for reexamination. He wanted to have another comprehensive look at everything the Hamilton police had collected over the years.
239
00:27:55,960 --> 00:28:03,960
He would go on to reorganize everything they had, re-examining forensic evidence and completing a full report.
240
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:20,960
Unfortunately, going back over the evidence already tested didn't really yield anything new. The rope tied around Adele by this point had been handled by so many people even without gloves back in the 70s and had been subjected to various types of testing protocols that compromised its integrity.
241
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:27,960
At this point, there was little that could be recovered from it, and little that could be done to re-examine any results from the past.
242
00:28:27,960 --> 00:28:34,960
For example, the rope had been tested back in 2002, but even then, there were insufficient DNA quantities.
243
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:46,960
For all intents and purposes, the physical evidence was useless, if not already limited.
244
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:55,960
Regardless of the struggles he faced when trying to re-examine old evidence, Sergeant Olinuk's full report concluded in a hypothesis about what he thought happened.
245
00:28:55,960 --> 00:29:05,960
Firstly, he speculated that the scene of the crime was staged to resemble a sexual assault, possibly to add an element of randomness and confuse the investigators.
246
00:29:05,960 --> 00:29:15,960
This made people think that the person who attacked Adele was more than likely someone who knew her, because only someone who knew her would want police to think that it was someone who didn't.
247
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:26,960
This theory aligns with the lack of actual sexual assault evidence found on Adele, and according to him, her clothes were positioned in a manner suggestive of it on purpose.
248
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:36,960
To Sergeant Olinuk, this is one of the many reasons why Garrow was quote-unquote highly unlikely to be the killer, but there were several other reasons.
249
00:29:36,960 --> 00:29:46,960
Firstly, Robert Garrow was a spree killer and a serial rapist who admitted to all of his crimes once apprehended, but what, not this one?
250
00:29:46,960 --> 00:29:56,960
Secondly, if a serial offender's motive is at least partially sexual in nature, you would think there would be more evidence of at least an attempt on sexual assault.
251
00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:04,960
Thirdly, the eyewitness descriptions of the man Adele had encountered the night she was murdered did not align with the physical description of Robert Garrow.
252
00:30:04,960 --> 00:30:14,960
The man seen with Adele that night by the witness was tall and domineering. Robert Garrow was under 6 feet, he was bald, and often to compensate for his baldness he wore a hat.
253
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:21,960
The attacker seen was not wearing a hat and he wasn't bald either, and he was very much over 6 feet.
254
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:27,960
Further, Garrow's violent crimes often involved the use of a knife, which was not the case for Adele.
255
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:44,960
And although a Volkswagen had been seen speeding away from the scene, and Garrow had a Volkswagen, so did a lot of people back in the 1970s, and it didn't help that the one scene was reportedly a darkish green color according to a witness. Robert Garrow's was orange.
256
00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:53,960
Regarding the map in his car with the question mark written beside Hamilton, Ontario, Staff Sergeant Alenuck seems to think it was simply a point of confusion.
257
00:30:53,960 --> 00:31:09,960
According to him, he didn't get the impression that Garrow was very...smart, and given he had previously been in trial in Hamilton County, New York, it could have been a coincidence or a case of confusion that the wrong Hamilton was indicated on the map.
258
00:31:09,960 --> 00:31:16,960
It's possible that Robert Garrow couldn't tell the difference between Hamilton, New York and Hamilton, Ontario.
259
00:31:16,960 --> 00:31:25,960
Lastly, and most damning in my opinion, was that Robert Garrow was scheduled to work at his job in a Syracuse bakery on the night of Adele's murder.
260
00:31:25,960 --> 00:31:36,960
If he had worked the night shift, he would have had no opportunity to murder Adele. If he had worked the day shift, he would have had to drive 4 hours to Hamilton and happen to spot her.
261
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:48,960
It makes more sense that the attack was targeted, and whoever murdered Adele knew where she was, and either knew where she was headed, or had been watching her the entire time.
262
00:31:48,960 --> 00:32:01,960
The unfortunate part of Garrow as a suspect was that, similar to how police could never interview him to investigate due to being blocked by his attorney, they could never properly rule him out as a suspect because he had died.
263
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:14,960
After his original arrest in 1973 where he was shot three times, he did recover but claimed to be suffering from paralysis, resulting in him requesting countless transfers to special holding units.
264
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:23,960
In particular, he was interested in a minimum security unit in the Fishgill Correctional Facility, which itself was only a medium security facility.
265
00:32:23,960 --> 00:32:34,960
Upon successfully being transferred there in 1978, he took advantage of the low security and managed to coerce a family member to smuggle in a.32 caliber weapon and escape.
266
00:32:34,960 --> 00:32:44,960
Robert Garrow scaled a fence, evidently not suffering from paralysis after all, and was eventually found and killed by another officer.
267
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:57,960
Sergeant Alenna concluded that given this, Garrow could never be completely eliminated from the investigation now that he was dead, but still, it was highly unlikely that he was the one who murdered Adele.
268
00:32:57,960 --> 00:33:06,960
While researching this case and Garrow's involvement, I stumbled upon a reddit thread and some interesting comments from a user named Tappier Trouble.
269
00:33:06,960 --> 00:33:16,960
The user said this, quote, There are a couple things that make me wonder about Garrow as a suspect. It seems odd to me that he would suddenly go and start exploring the Hamilton area.
270
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:22,960
I might be wrong on this, but based on what I read about him earlier, he didn't seem to sort of just go off at random.
271
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:32,960
Even if his family might have been Canadian originally, he'd more likely have connections to the eastern side of Lake Ontario, not the west. More French Canadians there.
272
00:33:32,960 --> 00:33:41,960
Further, the reddit user said this, quote, I grew up in Hamilton and went to McMaster. It was a running joke about it being a bit difficult to get into the campus.
273
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:49,960
At least back then, the school didn't have a big broad avenue leading to it from the main highway like some other universities.
274
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:54,960
Friends who had jobs delivering pizzas to the area where Adele was living would complain about this.
275
00:33:54,960 --> 00:34:03,960
If someone living in New York who wasn't used to the area had wanted to go there, it would have taken some planning and effort. End quote.
276
00:34:03,960 --> 00:34:16,960
Honestly, I couldn't have said it better myself, and given this and the conclusions from Staff Sergeant Alenuck's report, personally, I'm comfortable rejecting Robert Garrow's involvement.
277
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:33,960
Another suspect emerged in more recent years. Someone who was originally from Germany, matched the description of the murderer given by the witness, was historically a misogynist, had dated Adele, and had a confrontation with her reportedly a few days before her murder.
278
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:50,960
This suspect, according to Sergeant Alenuck's account, reportedly told a friend that he had walked the trails around McMaster on the night of Adele's murder, which could have possibly been a preemptive attempt to get in front of any witness statements of people who had seen him in the area the night of Adele's murder.
279
00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:55,960
Further, he had even told another friend that someone had stolen rope from his apartment.
280
00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:08,960
In a conversation with a professor in his department about Adele, this suspect kept referring to her as quote unquote that girl, despite knowing her well, which was noted as oddly detached given their history.
281
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:22,960
A year after Adele's murder, this suspect left Germany and never returned to Ontario, a move oddly reminiscent of Walter Kubrin's move to the East Coast, but one that had no justification.
282
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:29,960
According to Staff Sergeant Alenuck, quote, Adele was an independent woman who had no problem confronting the men in her life.
283
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:38,960
She was known to be assertive and this, in 1973, could easily have been seen to trigger a disproportionate response from a jealous male.
284
00:35:38,960 --> 00:35:53,960
Without revealing who his ideal suspect was, Staff Sergeant Alenuck asked Hamilton Police Detective Andrew Coughlin to independently review the case documents just as he had, and ultimately, Detective Coughlin pointed to the same suspect.
285
00:35:53,960 --> 00:36:06,960
Sergeant Alenuck said that his determination was speculative, as this long after the murder and with the suspect in a different country, that's really all it could be, but he decided to present his findings to Adele's brother Peter anyways.
286
00:36:06,960 --> 00:36:16,960
At this point, Peter had married and had two children of his own. He had relocated to California before returning to Toronto and had been employed as an engineer.
287
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:23,960
He had moved on with his life, but could never fill the place in his heart where Adele, his sister, was supposed to be.
288
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:33,960
Peter and his wife Colleen sat down with both Alenuck and Coughlin reviewing the report and unanimously concluded that their most likely suspect was Alfred Petzold.
289
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:39,960
Peter said that he felt relieved after reviewing everything himself and that this theory made sense.
290
00:36:39,960 --> 00:36:46,960
He had certainly hoped it wasn't Walter Coughlin given the two of them had developed a friendship, even going go-karting and camping together.
291
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:58,960
But even though all three were certain that the detectives were right, there was nothing anyone could do about it as Alfred, like many of the other suspects, had died at the age of 70 while living in Germany.
292
00:36:58,960 --> 00:37:11,960
Even further, if his DNA was found on any of the materials found at the scene that day, it could never be matched to anything as they never had a chance to even get DNA from him, so there was nothing on file.
293
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:23,960
Even worse was that Alfred Petzold had no family to test, there were no records of him ever marrying or having children, and he has no known relatives, so they could never even make an indirect DNA match.
294
00:37:23,960 --> 00:37:35,960
In addition, the clothes they collected from his apartment back in 1973 during that initial search that he was reportedly wearing on the night Adele was murdered had either been returned or destroyed at this point.
295
00:37:35,960 --> 00:37:51,960
However, regardless of all of that, the theory still made sense. With his history with Adele, he would have had motive, he certainly had opportunity, he had a shaky alibi, he was a known womanizer, and he had fled shortly after her death.
296
00:37:51,960 --> 00:38:01,960
Petzold slipped from the focus of police in pursuit of Walter Kubrin and Robert Garrow, and by the time they had circled back he was long gone, but they were confident that it was him.
297
00:38:01,960 --> 00:38:12,960
Given this determination, again although it can only ever be speculative, Hamilton police considered the case of Adele Komorowski effectively closed, although not formally.
298
00:38:12,960 --> 00:38:20,960
Unfortunately, it looks like that's the best we're going to get, as Alfred Petzold, if he is the guilty party, will never face justice.
299
00:38:20,960 --> 00:38:30,960
We will never have the opportunity to know what he knows about the murder of Adele, and conversely he will never have the opportunity to defend himself on trial.
300
00:38:30,960 --> 00:38:42,960
Regardless, Adele's family was comfortable with the determination made, and although she'll never be forgotten to them, some closure is better than none and they can certainly move on.
301
00:38:42,960 --> 00:39:00,960
There is a short film about this case directed by Joe DiBendetto titled Adele. Unfortunately, it's the only real recent media that's come out about the tragic murder of Adele, which again is why it's so important to report on lesser known cases, but I'll have it linked on my website if you'd like to give it a watch.
302
00:39:00,960 --> 00:39:10,960
It's certainly interesting and helps to illustrate what kind of person she was, and what she was up against with the men in her life.
303
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:21,960
If there's any message to offer you after listening to the tragic case of Adele Komorowski, it's the same one that I've echoed in the last few episodes I've published.
304
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:23,960
Leave women alone.
305
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:39,960
All of the detectives in the Hamilton Police Department agreed that Adele's confidence, persistence, achievement, bashfulness, determination, unrelenting beauty, and total lack of fear of any obstacles in her way was what did her in.
306
00:39:39,960 --> 00:39:43,960
In other words, it was total misogyny.
307
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:51,960
A handful of men could not stand to see a woman be so successful but also beautiful and not interested in them.
308
00:39:51,960 --> 00:40:03,960
Like many women that I've talked about on this podcast, this story seems to play out over and over again. And honestly, it's just getting old. It's been old. It got old a long time ago.
309
00:40:03,960 --> 00:40:16,960
Parents, teach your young boys to be better. You never know which one of them is going to end up doing what Alfred Petzold allegedly did to Adele Komorowski.
310
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:23,960
Thank you for listening to another episode of the Crimeopedia Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed making it for you.
311
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:32,960
And I hope you enjoyed hearing about a lesser-known case. It's one that's somewhat local to me, but even I hadn't heard about it until relatively recently.
312
00:40:32,960 --> 00:40:42,960
I like these ones a lot because they present a unique challenge. Finding sources and information about them is very difficult, let alone substantiating the sources that are already limited.
313
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:51,960
But talking about lesser-known cases is exactly why I started this show. Of course, the notorious ones are interesting to everybody and I'm guilty of that myself.
314
00:40:51,960 --> 00:40:58,960
But it's the people, the real people, who are victims that don't get talked about ever. That's who I'm really passionate about.
315
00:40:58,960 --> 00:41:07,960
So, if you have any other cases that are similar to this one that you think need some more attention, please do let me know. You can let me know on my website at crimeopediapod.ca.
316
00:41:07,960 --> 00:41:14,960
There I've got a case suggestion forum that you can fill out or you can message me on Instagram at crimeopediapod.
317
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:22,960
As well, if you'd like to view any of the source material I did use for this episode, you can find it on my website at crimeopediapod.ca as well.
318
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:28,960
Thank you so much everyone. Stay safe, leave women alone, and I will talk to you again soon.
