Kids Who Kill: A Smalltown Tragedy
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This is the sound of your ride home with dad after he caught you vaping. Awkward, isn't it? Most vapes contain seriously addictive levels of nicotine. And disappointment. Know the real cost of vapes. Brought to you by the FDA. On a quiet night in a small Ontario town, two children are briefly left alone.

Less than half an hour later, they seemingly vanish into thin air. Their mysterious disappearance and the events that followed would stoke fear in their community, shock a nation, add to a tidal wave of anger over a popular game, and leave a family devastated by the needless and horrific end of their two innocent children. Part 1: Missing The town of Orangeville is located 40 miles northwest of Toronto.

In its heyday, it was a thriving manufacturing, agricultural, and forestry hub. Carloads of grain and lumber were shipped by rail from the community situated at the headwaters of the Credit and Grand Rivers. A town with ambition, its original city planner based the street design on Manhattan's grid, giving Orangeville a layout unlike any other Ontario town, and a main street named Broadway.

By 1984, the town was largely a bedroom community, with many of its citizens commuting to the city for work. A quiet, safe community, nestled among forests and farm fields. It was a good place to bring up children. Two of those children were 11-year-old Daniel and 9-year-old Monique Babineau. They lived south of Broadway on a quiet, suburban street.

On the night of November 4th, 1984, they asked their parents if they could stay home and babysit the house. Instead of attending their older brother's hockey game, November 4th was a Sunday night, and it was raining outside. Their parents, Marcel and Jeannie, agreed, and at 5pm, set off for the hockey game. The Babineau family included a fourth child, seven-year-old Jean-Paul.

While his parents and older brother were at the hockey arena, he was being cared for by a neighbor. At 8:15, Marcel, Jeanne, and their eldest son arrived home. But strangely, the house was empty. Where were Daniel and Monique? They called around the neighbors, but no one had seen their two children. With growing panic, they telephoned the police.

Their panic turned to dread when their youngest child, Jean-Paul, revealed that he had returned to the house about 20 minutes after his parents left and that the house was empty. Whatever happened to Daniel and Monique had happened in those 20 minutes after their parents left and before Jean-Paul returned to the house.

By now, it was 8:40 PM, pitch black outside and slick with rain as police and groups of parents searched neighborhood streets and backyards for the two missing children. Then, at just before 10 PM, some five hours after Marcel and Jeannie had last seen their two children, a priest and a police officer arrived at the Babineau house. Daniel and Monique had been found, and both had been murdered.

A neighbor who took part in the search said, "You don't think it can happen here?" Part 2: The Investigation Daniel and Monique attended St. Peter Catholic Elementary School. Their dead bodies were found in the schoolyard behind a portable classroom, and just three-quarters of a mile from their home. Daniel was wearing his winter coat, and Monique's coat lay beside her. They were found together and with no signs of sexual assault. The school principal said,

"We are all in shock. It's the kind of thing you hear happen. But not until it happens in your own backyard." He was unable to finish his sentence. There was also no motive. The police went door to door looking for answers. They searched streets and shortcuts for clues. Area children were known to cut across fields on their walk to school. Did the bear take one of these paths? Is that where they met their killer?

Meanwhile, the schoolyard crime scene was blocked off by yellow police tape, and the school itself was closed. At another elementary school, parents personally delivered and picked up their children. Others kept their kids at home, as grief and sadness turned to fear and anger. Orangeville was a safe place. Since 1886, there had never been a homicide reported in the town. A young mother said,

It better be a hundred years until there's another. So, who killed these two innocent children? One mom said her biggest fear was that the killer is a local and that they could strike again. And then the police made a statement. They revealed the cause of death. The Babineau children had died of asphyxiation. But the police refused to add further details, saying, "We can't help the killer develop his alibi.

In the sky, a police helicopter hovered over the schoolyard, taking aerial photos. Four days after the tragic discovery, the bodies of Daniel and Monique were laid to rest. The town ground to a halt for what would be the largest funeral in its history. A procession of 150 vehicles stretching over a mile long drove slowly towards the church.

and at the front was a hearse carrying two white caskets, followed by a convertible laden with flowers. Some 700 people packed into the church, 500 sitting in pews and 200 more standing. It would be the largest crowd inside the church in its 20-year history. After the service, mourners gathered in the cemetery under a cold, gray sky,

while plain-clothed officers mixed with the crowd, still looking for clues. After days of investigating, the police would admit that they had no leads and could find no one who saw the children on the night they were murdered. Running out of options, the police chief considered calling a psychic. Jeannie Babineau would tell the police that the clothes Monique was wearing when her body was found were not the clothes she was wearing when her parents left for the hockey game.

They were older clothes. Was Monique dressing up for someone? As the days passed, fear and paranoia gripped the small town. The police chief warned his officers to keep details of the case confidential. Yet, speculation in the community was running at fever pitch. Who killed the Babineau children? Was he or she a neighbor? A friend? Would they strike again? Three Orangeville locals made telephone calls to parents and threatened their children.

One officer said, "This kind of thing brings these people out of the woodwork." Then a rumor spread that a certain male citizen of Orangeville was the killer. It got so bad, the man and his wife were afraid to leave their house and walk down the street. Finally, the police chief went on television to reassure that this man was not a suspect. And the police chief knew this because later that day, he arrested the real killer. Part three.

Young Offender. On November 12th, 1984, one week after the murders, a juvenile was charged with two counts of first-degree murder. The police chief told reporters that he could not provide any further information about the accused because they were protected by the Young Offenders Act. The act came into law just seven months before the murders, and at the time, it covered youths aged 12 to 15.

The following year, it would be amended to cover youths up to age 17. Children under 12 years old cannot be charged with offenses. To protect their identity, the juvenile accused of killing Daniel and Monique Babineau would be put into custody in an empty courtroom. Meanwhile, the Orangeville child murders were front-page news across the country, and the media was hungry for more information.

Through their lawyers, they petitioned the judge for courtroom access, at the very least. After considering legal arguments, the judge made his decision. The trial would be public, though the identity of the accused would remain protected. The judge said the defense had failed to show how a public trial would be unfair for the accused. The judge also agreed to reveal two facts about the youth. The accused was a boy and he was 13 years old.

and after being put into custody, he was sent for a psychiatric examination. 1984 ended, and a new year began. The accused boy turned 14. Then, on February 2nd, 1985, the first-degree murder trial began. Stunningly, the first order of business was the judge's dismissal. He disqualified himself and stepped down.

after revealing that he had inadvertently read a school assessment of the accused, and because of this knowledge, could no longer fairly preside over the trial. A new judge was appointed, and the trial was rescheduled to begin three weeks later. The accused would plead not guilty by reason of insanity, but again, the trial was postponed.

This time, because the Crown had to examine the boy's psychiatric assessments and because other new evidence had arrived. Part 4: The Night of the Murders In court, the police revealed that they became suspicious of the boy when they'd gone door-to-door looking for anyone who had seen Daniel and Monique on the night they were murdered. The boy had provided inconsistent information.

He was also very curious about the case, and would pass by the police station on his way to and from school, and look through windows. The accused was an altar boy at the funeral, and before the dead children were buried, he asked their mother if he could put holy metals in the coffins. Jeannie recalled feeling that the boy wanted to tell her something. What he may have kept secret at the time of the funeral would finally be revealed.

A week after the murders, he became so haunted by his actions that with his father and priest present, he went to the police and told them what happened on that night in November. His confession was read in court by a police constable. On November 4th, 1984, the boy had been in his room carving a wooden sword, but his swords kept breaking. When the third one broke, he called Daniel's house.

Two years older than Daniel, the boy asked him to meet him at the school because he needed help with a class project. About 20 minutes before Daniel arrived, the boy said he felt the idea to kill start flying around through my head. But when Monique showed up, the boy had to alter his plans and kill her too. The boy took Daniel to the girl's changing room and when Daniel wasn't looking, he pulled a piece of rope out of his pocket, slipped it around his neck and strangled him.

When he fell to the floor, the boy went back to the gym and took Monique into a washroom. "I grabbed her around the throat with my arm." When Monique appeared to be dead, he went back to check on Daniel. But he found him on his feet with his eyes closed and yelling. The boy tightened the rope and finished the job. During the confession, the constable asked why the Babineau children were killed. The boy said, "I can't answer. It's just there. There's no reason.

Or was there? Part 5: Dungeon Master Psychiatrist Clive Chamberlain interviewed the boy for eight hours and determined that he needed to control other people because he was not able to control himself. The doctor said the accused showed "a cool control with a strong flavor of omnipotence and arrogance." The boy told the doctor that he would often take long bike rides and walks because he felt like he would explode.

Chamberlain described how, on the day of the murders, the boy was obsessed with a desire to kill. The need to kill rose inside him like a compulsion. The boy admitted that he considered killing his younger brother, but was unable to come up with a method. So, he phoned Daniel. Another psychiatrist who interviewed the boy would diagnose him with borderline schizophrenia. And then the boy admitted that he was obsessed with the game Dungeons and Dragons.

and that he particularly loved carrying out the dungeon master's role. According to Chamberlain, this showed his need to control others. Part 6: Satanic Panic By the 1980s, Dungeons & Dragons was being played by 4 million people a week in the US, and was a top seller at Christmas. At the same time, it was the center of Satanic Panic, or the fear of anything to do with the occult, spells, or devil worship.

A fantasy role-playing game, there is neither board nor pieces to move around, just multi-sided dice and lots of imagination. Each player takes a role then enters a medieval world full of monsters and other obstacles, all created and controlled by the Dungeon Master. Games can go on for hours, weeks, or even months. The accused had been playing the Dungeon Master role for five months at the time of the killings. Yes, the game was popular.

but was it also causing its players to kill? The spokesman for the game said, "Allegations that the game makes kids go off the deep end are totally ridiculous." But not everyone was as dismissive. When the Dungeons & Dragons connections came out at the boys' trial, local school boards banned the game from being played on school grounds.

Psychiatrists worried that when a child takes on the role of a character that uses violence, murder, or theft, they may be more likely to show those behaviors in their normal lives. And those negative behaviors are reinforced when they win the game. And the psychiatrist's worries seemed to add up in dead bodies. James Dallas Egbert III was a child genius who entered Michigan State University at the age of 14.

He played the game with other students and professors in the tunnels beneath the campus. But when the dungeon master banished him from the tunnels because he was too young, he ran away and killed himself. And then there was the case of 16-year-old Michael Dempsey, a Washington State teenager whose parents refused to allow him to play the game. He would shoot himself with his dad's service revolver, and his parents would find him in his bedroom next to a mixture of burning garlic and sulfur.

A recipe the game suggested to attract demons. Michael's father recalled how his son snapped and became demonic. He said, "I didn't know the boy sitting next to me." On the same night that Daniel and Monique were murdered, two brothers in Colorado were found dead under a railway trestle. 12-year-old Steven Irwin shot his brother Daniel, then himself.

Their legs were entwined together so that in death, they could go into the third dimension and battle evil gods. One of the psychiatrists leading the charge against Dungeons & Dragons was Dr. Thomas Radecki. He led a group called BAD, or Bothered Against Dungeons & Dragons. Radecki would testify at the Orangeville trial and would add the murders of Daniel and Monique to BAD's list of deaths he believed were caused by the game.

Radecki was also vocal about the dangers of violence on television and in rock videos. He chaired the 3,000-member National Coalition on Television Violence. A regular on talk shows, the doctor built his career criticizing violence in popular culture and claimed that Dungeons & Dragons alone was responsible for 20 murders and suicides in the US. Part 7: The Aftermath

Back in Orangeville, Ontario, the trial of the accused youngster came to an end. The boy was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was ordered to be held in strict custody at a youth center until he could be committed to a mental institution. The boy would only be released when the Lieutenant Governor of the province of Ontario deemed him stable to safely participate in society.

Dr. Thomas Radecki, meanwhile, would no longer lead a battle against violence in the entertainment industry. Instead, he would focus on his own legal battles.

20 years after the Satanic Panic, Radecki was running four clinics in the Pittsburgh area that prosecutors said were "an illegal empire." With more than 1,000 patients, Radecki was prescribing anti-addiction drugs to get people off heroin and other addictions. Except his patients would then become hooked on the anti-addiction drugs. Prosecutors claimed an addiction bomb went off in Clarion County.

and that they're still dealing with the effect of the actions of Dr. Radecki to this day. Over $5 million worth of prescription drugs were found in the doctor's house, which he claimed was an income-sharing commune. Radecki would invite female patients to live with him, prescribing drugs in exchange for sexual relations and more. On June 1st, 2016, Radecki was sentenced to 11 to 22 years in jail.

Today, Daniel and Monique's father still lives in Orangeville and is an active member of the community and the creator of Project Angel, an initiative to remember loved ones. The project restored a wooden station of an angel in the cemetery where the two children are buried. He said, "I never had a chance to say goodbye to them.

I feel them every day, and it's an inspiration." He added, "After 40 years, either you deal with it or you don't." Marcel Babineau recalled that November night, "We looked around the house for them, checked with the neighbors, nobody had seen them." Shock was his first emotion. Meanwhile, just three-quarters of a mile away, at the school all three children attended, a boy first strangled Daniel, then went after his sister.

He had nearly choked Monique to death when she said something to him. In his confession, the boy said, "Before I killed her, I don't know where she got the wind, but she said, 'I'll pray for you.'"