Island Crime

On Halloween night in 2020, a mass shooting took place near the resort community of Qualicum Beach, Vancouver Island. Three people are found dead in a make-shift encampment deep in the woods. Beside them, four dead dogs and a burned-out trailer. Now, more than two years on, the case is at a standstill. Island Crime Season 5: Whiskey Creek explores the secrecy and fear surrounding the shootings. New episodes coming May 9.

Don't poke the bear. It's a warning I heard a number of times as I worked on the story of 'Whiskey Creek'. After almost three years of silence, reverberations from the series are being felt across the island. I'll open up about the aftermath of reporting on this story and the knock-on effects on the victims' families.

Island Crime is committed to keeping 'cold cases' in the public eye and leaving no stone unturned. In this episode, you'll hear an update to Island Crime Seasons 1-5.

It's Halloween Night 2020. Neighbours hear loud noises coming from the bush. They assume the sounds are fireworks marking late night festivities. The next afternoon a dirt biker stumbles across a scene straight out of a Hollywood drama. Burned out vehicles, three dead bodies, four dead dogs and, incredibly, a survivor. Thank you to CHEK News for use of audio from video archival footage.

Fresh out of jail and with nowhere to go, Shawn McGrath lands in a trailer in Whiskey Creek. That's when problems in the community begin. His encampment in the woods is a magnet for the young and vulnerable. How far will the community go to protect their own?

A Vancouver Island mother believes her son may have been held hostage at Whiskey Creek. In her eyes, he is an innocent victim in an act of vigilantism. But he has never been named publicly as one of the victims. What will his mom do in order to seek justice for her boy?

Today, the lone survivor of the Whiskey Creek massacre lives in fear that those responsible for the slaughter are still planning to finish him off. After the attack, he fled to the mainland, warned never to return. But now he wants to come home.

Two weeks before the Whiskey Creek shootings, a young woman’s body is found on a nearby highway. The 22-year-old knew the Whiskey Creek victims and spent time there. Is her death somehow connected?

John McGrath knows his boy, Shawn, was no angel. And now, years later, he's ready to share his theory about the Whiskey Creek murders for the first time.

When Shawn McGrath emerged from incarceration he wound up out in the woods. What could have helped him succeed outside of prison? And how can we prevent another Whiskey Creek from happening?