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Now let's dive into the story. Part 1. The Doctor's House.
In the mid-1800s, the village of Arendale was a small community west of Toronto that had grown up on either side of Dundas Street West, near the Credit River. Dr. Beaumont Dixie was the local doctor, and he lived with his wife and six children in a house at 1437 Dundas Crescent, in a leafy lane off the main road and on a crest of land overlooking the Credit River and Valley.
In time, Dr. Dixie added an addition to the property, which he used as his dispensary. Beloved by generations of patients, today, Dr. Dixie's name echoes through the area, now called Mississauga, with its Dixie Road, Dixie Neighborhood, and Dixie Mall.
After his death, his daughter lived on in the house until she died in 1951. Then, in the early 1970s, the property became the home of Peter and Christine Demeter and their daughter, Andrea. But less than a year after they moved in, a vicious murder would tear apart the family and haunt the property for decades to come. Part 2: Every Man's Dream
Peter Demeter emigrated to Canada in 1956 at the age of 23. He was born into a wealthy Hungarian family, but by the end of the Second World War, the family's money was gone. Having grown up in post-war Europe, Peter knew what poverty looked like and he wanted none of it. He arrived in Canada with just $8 and the determination to be rich once again. And he would be.
Peter became president of Eden Gardens, and through this home building company, he would regain the wealth and stature his family had lost. On a visit to Vienna in 1967, he met 27-year-old model Christine Ferrari. He brought her back to Toronto, and in 1969, they married at City Hall. Shortly afterwards, their daughter Andrea was born.
Three years later, Peter purchased Dr. Dixie's old house at 1437 Dundas Crescent for $100,000. At the time, the average house price in Toronto was $40,000. Now considered a mansion, the Dixie house had been renovated and even had a swimming pool. The Demeter family appeared to have it all, especially Peter.
Christine was a fashion model and actress who was fluent in four languages. A friend commented that Christine was one of those extremely intelligent, kind, beautiful women that you just don't meet every day. Then added, she was every man's dream. But Peter was dreaming about something else entirely. Part 3: The Murder July 18th, 1973 was a warm night.
Peter and Christine had visitors staying at their house. A doctor from Connecticut and their three teenagers. After dinner, Peter took the guests on a shopping trip because he wanted to buy a locket for Christine. Instead of driving to Sherway Gardens, the newly opened luxury mall just 20 minutes away, Peter chose to drive for nearly an hour to Yorkdale Mall in the north end of Toronto.
He took Christine's Mercedes and would be gone for three hours. At home, Christine and her daughter Andrea watched television. Outside, the sky darkened. At 9:30, Peter and the guests finally returned. He got out of the car and manually opened the garage door. Something wasn't right. Inside the garage, the driver's side door of Peter's Cadillac was open, and there was a body lying on the ground.
Christine lay in a pool of blood with her skull caved in. In the house, Andrea was still watching television, unaware that her mother lay dead just a few feet away. One of Peter's houseguests was a medical doctor and she raced to Christine's side, then ordered Peter to call for help. He picked up the receiver and dialed 911. Peter Demeter would say six words to the operator: "My wife is at an accident.
Part 4: The Investigation In local newspapers, the discovery of Christine's body warranted nothing more than a narrow, four-inch column. But three days later, as the press learned more about the stylish and wealthy couple, the murder hit front pages across the country. Peter was shown walking his dog, Beelzebub, past the garage where Christine had been slain just days earlier. He was said to be in shock.
But later, people would recall how his mood was unpredictable. He would be calm as if nothing had happened, then angry and belligerent. In the days following the murder, investigators sifted through possible motives. Was it a break-in gone horribly wrong? Burglaries had been reported in the area, but there was no sign of forced entry. Did Christine surprise someone trying to steal the Cadillac? Yet the car had not been taken. Was it the work of a sex offender?
Perhaps she ran into the garage to escape, but the coroner found no signs of sexual assault. Christine was the vice president of sales for Eden Gardens, her husband's company. Did she have an enemy in the business world who wanted her dead? Peter had his own theory.
He thought his wife might have been climbing to get the garden hose and had fallen. But the seven blows to her head by a metal object like a hammer or tire iron suggested otherwise. Two days after the murder, the Mississauga Police Commission offered a reward of $3,000 for information in the case. Three days later, Christine was buried. That same day, Peter added $10,000 to the reward money. The police added another $2,000.
Now, $15,000 was on offer for any information leading to the arrest of the person or persons responsible for Christine Demeter's murder. While the police searched for clues, Peter lived alone in the house. His three-year-old daughter Andrea was taken to stay with his brother, Steven, and his family. By now, four weeks had passed since Christine's dead body had been found. Would the police ever find the murderer behind this horrific attack?
Then, on August 17th, 1973, they made an arrest. Mississauga Police Chief William Teggert arrived at 1437 Dundas Crescent, and even though he was not present at the scene of the crime, Peter Demeter was charged with murder and the death of his wife. For the next 10 months, Peter's legal team wrangled with lawyers for the Crown as the case moved towards its grand jury trial.
These months must have been stressful for Peter. As it turns out, he would not suffer them alone. Part 5: The Mistress Peter had more than one Austrian model in his life. Two years before he met Christine, he fell in love with another model named Marina Hunt. But she wasn't interested in him. At least not then.
Heartbroken and stung by this rejection, he met Christine and married her, but he never stopped thinking about Marina. He even wrote letters to her while married to Christine. Peter wrote, "I love you more than anything I've seen on this earth. I could provide you with security, emotional as well as financial." He added, "Remember, being in love with you is not a crime.
Marina would travel to Canada. As he awaited his murder trial, the two lived together in the house on Dundas Crescent. Fourteen months after Christine's brutal murder, the trial was finally underway, and Peter's love letters to Marina were read aloud. The jury learned about their affair, and that five weeks before the murder, Peter and Marina had taken a secret four-day trip to Montreal, Quebec City, Ottawa, and Toronto.
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Part 6. The Money Peter had taken out a life insurance policy on Christine worth $1 million.
Was it for love and money that Peter hired someone to murder his wife while he was away on a three-hour shopping trip, establishing an alibi? A pathologist would estimate that Christine died between 6:55 and 9:55. Peter was out shopping from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. Police investigators testified that although the keys to Peter's Cadillac were on the seat, the battery had been drained.
Also, the automatic garage door opener had been removed. The door had to be opened manually. Someone had made it very difficult for Christine to escape her attacker. A jury of nine men and three women studied crime scene photos of Christine lying in a pool of blood. The last clothes she wore were held up in a plastic bag, a brown velvet backless gown soaked in blood, and silver slippers stained in blood.
The prosecution detailed the severity of the seven blows to her head. She had been hit with enough force that bone particles and brain matter were found in the coagulated blood pooled around her dead body. A pathologist described the fractures like breaking glass with a hammer. He also added that Christine Demeter was alive for a few moments after the attack.
A young constable took the stand and described his drive to a Mississauga police station with Peter on the night of the murder. He recalled that Peter was strangely talkative and had confided in the officer that his marriage had soured. He had even revealed that his wife was insured for a large sum of money. Strangely, Peter also asked the officer if he thought he'd killed his wife. But Peter wasn't the only one who was thinking about murder and money.
17-year-old Vivica Esso was one of the teenagers who had been staying with the Demeters on the night of the crime. Under oath, she revealed that Christine knew about Peter's affair with Marina and about their romantic getaway to Montreal. She told Vivica she wanted a divorce. While Christine was insured for $1 million, so was Peter. To Vivica, she joked that "it would be nice to knock off Peter and get his money."
A building contractor acquainted with the couple testified that two years before her death, Christine had offered him $3,000 to arrange for Peter's murder. Incredibly, on another occasion, Peter had asked the same contractor if he knew anyone who could cause an accident. Part 7. The Duck and the Tractor
Crown prosecutors believed that Peter had ordered the hit on his wife and that Hungarian, Imre Olejniuk, also known as "The Duck", was the hitman. One night in the spring of 1973, Imre reportedly received $10,000 wrapped in building plans as payment to murder Christine. Although he was the prime suspect in her murder, there was a problem. The Duck had flown to Hungary.
the defense brought ex-boxer Joseph DiNardo to the stand. At 220 pounds, Joseph was also known as "The Tractor" and was serving a seven and a half year prison term for theft, arson, and passing counterfeit money.
DiNardo swore that his associate, Laszlo Epper, confessed to murdering Christine. He said that one night in mid-July 1973, Laszlo had come to his apartment and his clothes and shoes were covered in blood, but Laszlo could not answer to these allegations. He was killed in a police shootout before the trial even started. The only people who could provide answers in the mysterious case appeared to be either dead or gone.
but there was one more witness for the prosecution. Part 8: Secret Recordings After Christine's murder, Peter's former friend, Chaba Selagi, told the police Peter had asked him not once, but several times to help him kill his wife. On each occasion, Chaba had declined. He revealed that Peter had been obsessed with murdering Christine, and in creative ways. He had considered having her killed at one of the Eden Garden construction sites,
or knocking her unconscious and placing her body on a road to be hit by a car. He mused about electrocuting her in the family pool or using gasoline to blow up the garage while she was in it. Peter even asked Chaba to stage a break-in at 1437 Dundas Crescent and to kill Christine, but to just wound him to make it look real.
Csaba agreed to be wired, and for five months, from the day of Christine's funeral to a meeting at his Toronto pizzeria, conversations in Hungarian between Peter and Csaba were recorded and shared with the jury. In one, Peter described the bloody murder scene in comical tones, as in a very bad Western, wild Western films, where the ketchup is all over the place. In another, Csaba asked him if he knew who the killer was,
Peter replied, "That person does not know me." Which he then added, "We have no contact either. I couldn't pick that person out of two, even if my life depended on it." Chaba may have felt tremendous guilt. Two days before Christine's brutal murder, he was aware that Peter had found someone else to carry out the deed. In court, Chaba admitted that he didn't warn Christine. Part 9: The Verdict
After 51 days, the longest trial in Canadian history was coming to an end. On December 5th, 1974, the jury announced their verdict. Peter was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Christine Demeter. His lover, Marina, was in court when the verdict was read out. Peter nodded to her and smiled. Less than two weeks later, she flew back to Austria with Peter's dog, Beelzebub.
In January 1975, Peter put his house on the market. Listed at $205,000, it featured a 20 by 40 foot swimming pool, five bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a stone fireplace. While it was on the market, Peter moved into a new house, the Kingston Maximum Security Penitentiary.
Meanwhile, his lawyers found 35 grounds for appeal and set to work on a process that would take 12 months. Meanwhile, Imre Olejniuk, the man the police believed carried out the killing, was living in Hungary. The Crown requested his extradition, but the Hungarian government refused. As for Marina, she was happily back in Vienna and had moved on with her life.
Even though Peter wrote her every week from prison, she wrote back only occasionally, admitting that she found it depressing. Also, she had a new boyfriend. Six months after putting his house on the market, Peter received three offers, but turned them down. He wanted the asking price. Then he changed his mind and took the house off the market. He planned to sell it after his appeal verdict.
In September 1975, news came from Hungary that Imre had died of a brain hemorrhage shortly after Hungarian police had interrogated him. Three months later, Peter got the news that his appeal had been denied. His lawyers turned to the Supreme Court of Canada as a last resort. While in prison, Peter told a reporter that he was angry with his insurance company. He had not yet been paid his $1 million. Christine was dead and he wanted his money.
He also wanted car magazines. And he was worried about his house, which was no longer for sale and had no one to care for it. In May of 1977, Peter Demeter lost his Supreme Court appeal. His case was finally over, but he wasn't over. Not yet. After the brutal murder of his wife, had he acquired a taste for murder? Part 10: Diabolical In 1983,
Peter had served 10 years of his sentence and was living in a halfway house enjoying day parole. While waiting for full parole to be granted, he met a woman named Lisa Ross. The two fell in love and became engaged. At the time, Peter's brother, Stephen Demeter, was still caring for his daughter, Andrea. Stephen also had control over Peter's finances. This infuriated Peter.
with Lisa and a former inmate named Tony Preston. Peter plotted to kidnap and kill Stephen Demeter's son, Stuart. Later that same year, and determined to get his insurance money, Peter paid Tony $8,000 to burn down his home on Dundas Crescent.
Tony would be caught and would agree to be a Crown witness. In the end, Peter was convicted of conspiracy to kidnap and murder and was given two concurrent life sentences. The judge in the case called Peter "a very dangerous man, very intelligent, but diabolical." Even though Peter was again behind bars, he was not done plotting revenge on people in his life. In 1985, he turned his attention to his lawyer
Toby Bellman. When Peter didn't pay his legal fees, Toby had frozen some of Peter's stock assets. Again, this infuriated Peter. With a fellow inmate, he crafted a plan. He would arrange for the kidnapping and murder of Toby's daughter. He would seek a ransom of $400,000. If Toby didn't pay, Peter would have his daughter murdered. Luckily, Peter's co-conspirator went to the police and the plot was never enacted.
Part 11: Murder House After being uninhabited for over a decade and damaged by fire, 1437 Dundas Crescent was in poor condition. In the mid-1980s, the Mississauga Heritage Register tried to save the house for its historical relevance to the community. After all, the beloved Dr. Dixie had lived there, but the plans fell through and the house was demolished.
In time, a new owner bought the property, built a new house, and even had the street address changed. But the land held the memory of murder. After living in the new house for a few years, the owners put it on the market. There was great interest in the house, until prospective buyers learned that the house was built on the Demeter property. Today, the house has new owners, and the stain of murder is forgotten, or at least ignored.
and Peter Demeter, who is in his early 90s, is still behind bars. Part 12: Past and Present The day after Christine's murder, her daughter's babysitter, Rose, was interviewed in a local paper. She and her two younger sisters had been swimming in the Demeter's pool mere hours before the murder. Rose talked about Christine and how she was an athlete who swam 80 pool lengths every day.
She also recalled Christine's attitude to life in North America. Rose said, "She told me she liked it better in Europe because the people were so much friendlier." As July 18th, 1973 wore on, Peter took his houseguests to the Yorkdale Mall, nearly an hour's drive away, while Christine and three-year-old Andrea watched TV. When Peter and his houseguests returned and his wife's dead body was discovered, he called 911.
Within hours, the police had bugged the Demeter phone line. Later, he would tell the police he received a call in which someone had warned, "Be next." Phone records would prove this was a lie. Part 13: The Girl in the Picture Now in her 50s, Andrea survived a difficult life in the shadow of her infamous father.
Living with her uncle and aunt since she was three, she believed they were her parents. Until she was nine and a classmate showed her a picture of her real mother and told her how she was murdered, Andrea would be traumatized by the truth of her past and by her father's actions. She recalled being pulled from school and taken to a hotel when the family heard about Peter's plan to kidnap and kill Stuart.
As a child, she was taken to visit Peter in prison, and the sound of clanging gates gave her nightmares. Andrea would experience drug and alcohol abuse, and was, in her words, a very lost human being. While working at a gym, she received a parcel from her father.
He had heard she was an alcoholic and had sent her a list of wines to try, along with a box full of articles about her mother's murder. Andrea would ultimately turn to AA and rehab to find a path forward for herself and away from her father. Today, she helps people suffering from PTSD. Instead of her father, Andrea would rather focus on the person missing from the story, her beautiful mother.
She cherishes a rare photo of them together. Christine holds baby Andrea in the swimming pool. Both are laughing, both are happy. And as for her father, she just wants to know when he's dead.