Canadian True Crime - 58 The Murder of Hanna Buxbaum

Episode Date: January 15, 2020

SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO: Millionaire nursing home operators Helmuth and Hanna Buxbaum were driving back from Toronto airport after picking up their nephew. Seeing a stranded motorist, they pulled over to see if they could help. But it wasn't a stranded motorist. Podcast recommendations: Brew Crime Sponsor codes :I appreciate all the support of my sponsors and collaborators - see a list with any applicable codes here :) Credits: Research: Haley GreyWriting, narration, music arrangement: Kristi LeeAudio editing, audio production: We Talk of DreamsDisclaimer voiced by the host of Beyond Bizarre True Crime Theme Song: We Talk of Dreams All other credits - including information sources - can be found on the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My name's John Weir. You don't know me, but you're gonna, because I know the people that have been watching you, learning about you. They know you've done well for yourself, that people like you and trust you. Trust you. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all that information that you've freely shared with the whole world. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all the information you have at it. Yeah, I'll be in touch. This podcast contains course language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised. This story takes place in 1984 in southwestern Ontario, around the city of London.

Helmut and Hannah Bucksbaum were a married couple in their 40s, and a great example of the Canadian immigrant success story. They were both born in wartime Europe in the late 1930s, moving to Canada to start a new life, having six kids, and eventually building up a nursing home business that would make them multi-millionaire entrepreneurs. They were also well known in the local community as philanthropists and considered pillars of their church. It was Thursday, July the 5th, 1984, and Helmut and Hannah were driving back from Toronto Pearson International Airport, where they'd just picked up their nephew. 14-year-old Roy Bucksbaum had flown in from British Columbia to work in the summer at one of the Bucksbaum's nursing homes. After picking up the teenager in their station wagon, the three of them drove the 200 kilometres back to Kamoka, Ontario, near the city of London.

Hannah and Helmut in the front of the car, and Roy sitting in the back. It was about 7.30pm at night, and they were travelling on Highway 402, getting closer to home. From the back of the car, Roy heard his uncle and aunt saying that they'd spotted a blue car pulled over on the side of the road. Helmut said he thought it might be their neighbour, so they decided to pull over to see if they could do anything to help the stranded motorists. But they were not stranded motorists. After Helmut pulled the car over, a masked gunman approached the car, then placed a 32 calibre gun about an inch from 14-year-old Roy's right eye and pushed his head down on the seat. Roy heard the man say, give me your money and your jewellery. Then he heard Hannah plead with the gunman, please I have children at home. The gunman told 48-year-old Hannah to shut up. He dragged her out of the car, leaned her over a guardrail and shot her in the head and arm, before letting her fall face down into the ditch.

The killer then grabbed Hannah's purse and got back in the car with the other stranded motorist. Roy saw it was a blue Chevrolet Nova, which had a covered licence plate. Stunned, Helmut and Roy got out of the car and Roy went and looked over the guardrail at his aunt in the ditch, not sure what to do. Helmut stayed right next to the car, saying, oh my god, they shot her. Helmut told Roy that they had to get help, and together they flagged down a passing truck to see if they could use the vehicle's CB radio. After all, this was 1984, before cell phones. Helmut ran up to the driver as he was getting out of the truck and told him his wife had been shot in the head, but the truck's radio wasn't working. While Helmut crossed the median strip to flag down another truck that hopefully had working radio, the first truck driver went into the ditch to check on Hannah.

He found that while she'd been badly wounded, she was still breathing. He applied pressure to her head wound. A few minutes later, another motorist happened upon the scene and stopped to see what the commotion was about. He went to get a first aid kit that he had in his car and got it out so that he could help Hannah. The man saw Helmut and Roy and thought they were just two bystanders. He had no idea that one of them was the injured woman's husband and that they'd both been in the car with her when the shooting happened. Taking charge, he told them both to go and get help in the nearby town of Strathroy and said that he would stay with Hannah. Helmut and Roy didn't ask any questions and took off. An ambulance arrived and Hannah was taken to a nearby hospital.

Was it a random shooting or was it something far more sinister? This is Christy and you're listening to Canadian True Crime, Episode 58. A local constable heard the news and headed down to the scene of the crime on Highway 402. It wasn't long before he met up with Helmut and Roy, who told him what had happened, including a description of the blue Chevy Nova and the two men in the car. The constable was surprised at how calm Helmut was. For a man who had just witnessed his wife being shot at the side of the road, he didn't seem upset at all. But often people don't react the way they're expected to in traumatic situations, so maybe it was that.

The constable waited with Helmut and Roy until the other officers arrived to pick them up for questioning. The pair were taken via cruiser to the station and the station wagon they'd been driving was towed there separately to be processed for evidence. Roy was taken in for an interview and Helmut called his pastor to come and meet him before heading to the hospital with a police officer to check on Hannah. Soon after their arrival, about an hour and 20 minutes after she was first shot, Hannah Bucksbaum was pronounced dead. She was 48 years old. When the doctors told Helmut about Hannah, he appeared to be sobbing,

but the doctors didn't observe any tears coming out of his eyes. He asked the doctor multiple times for a sedative, but was denied. About half an hour later, he sat down at the hospital to give his formal statement to police. Helmut said that after picking up Roy from the airport, they were driving back home on Highway 402 when they pulled over to help some people who were having car trouble. He said a man came up to Hannah's side of the car and grabbed her. Helmut recounted backing out of the car as the man grabbed his wife's hair. He thought he was going to be killed, so he ran to the middle of the road and waved for help.

Then he said he heard three shots, but he didn't see anything. At the end of the statement, the police had so many questions, but the main one was, why didn't Helmut try to help his wife? He didn't even go and check on her after the shooting. By then, the pastor had arrived and Helmut asked him to tell his six children that their mother had been murdered. But the pastor pushed back and said it would be best if they told them together. But before Helmut could go home, police said they wanted him to go back to the police station and go over the details again. They just weren't convinced by the statement he'd just given at the hospital.

Before they left, Helmut made sure to ask the doctor one last time for a sedative, and this time he was given one. The police asked him not to take it before his next interview, but he took it anyway. They arrived at the station just before 11pm, just as 14-year-old Roy was finishing up his interview. Roy's statement was similar to Helmut's, but from the back seat of the car, he wasn't able to see as much of the scene as Helmut did. But he did give details that further fuelled the suspicious feeling that had been building with the investigators working the case. He told the police that after Hannah had been shot and the gunman had driven off, he and Helmut got out of the car. Roy said that he went over to the guardrail to have a look at his aunt, but Helmut stayed next to the car before suggesting that they leave and get help. Roy confirmed that Helmut never went to actually check on his wife to see if she was still alive.

Police asked Helmut to take a gun residue test before they sat down to go over his account of the day again. The test would come back negative. He gave details a second time, and this statement didn't differ from the first one, so he was released. Helmut, Roy and Pastor Fawcett then headed to the Bucksbaum House to give the kids the terrible news that their mother had been murdered. After hearing the statements from Roy and Helmut, the police had no choice but to pursue the line of investigation that the murder was just exactly what it appeared to be. Helmut, Hannah and Roy simply pulled the car over to help a stranded vehicle, only to have one of the men in the vehicle rob and shoot Hannah. Police mounted a widespread search for the two men in the Chevy Nova and set up a tip line for people to call in to. Meanwhile, two days after Hannah's murder, another local OPP officer was eating lunch, having just gotten up to speed on the details of the strange highway shooting on the evening of July 5.

He suddenly remembered that he had been driving along Highway 402 that morning when he saw two cars parked on the side of the road, a station wagon and a blue car. The blue car had its hood up, so the officer had pulled over and offered assistance to the men. The men told him that everything was fine and he went on his way. He relayed this information to the officer in charge of Hannah's murder investigation, Inspector Peers, who was struck by the similarities in both incidents, right down to the approximate location on the highway and the blue car that the stranded motorists were driving. The only difference between the two incidents was that one happened in the morning and the other happened the same day but in the evening. Inspector Peers brought Helmut back into the station for questioning. Helmut admitted that he had in fact stopped for stranded motorists twice that day, but he didn't think it was relevant to tell police about the stop in the morning.

Helmut said he'd pulled up behind a blue car and said that the stranded motorist went up to the passenger side window and asked Hannah if she had an extra pair of pantyhose because his car's fan belt was broken. But she said she didn't have any to spare. Helmut told police he got out of his car and walked up to the hood of the other one. The police asked him if he had any car mechanical experience. His answer was no. In the meantime, Hannah honked the horn. She decided she may as well give the stranded motorist the pair of pantyhose she was wearing. Helmut recounted how the OPP officer pulled up and the three men assured him that the car was now fixed and then he and Hannah drove off in their station wagon en route to the airport as planned. After hearing this curious story, Inspector Peers asked Helmut if the blue car he stopped to help in the morning was the same blue car that he stopped to help in the evening. Helmut replied that he couldn't say.

Aside from the fact that Helmut never gave up the morning stranded motorist story until he was confronted with it, Inspector Peers had another concern about Helmut's story. He openly admitted that he knew nothing about cars. So why did he get out of the car to look under the hood of the car that had broken down? As Helmut was leaving the interview room, he passed by the OPP officer who stopped during the Morning Highway Good Samaritan Act. He recognized Helmut as the driver in that car. Inspector Peers then took Helmut back to the crime scene on Highway 402 to see if he could get any answers to his outstanding questions. Helmut was asked again to recount the events of the murder. Inspector Peers also asked why he didn't help save his wife or even check on her after she was shot.

He had a reason for everything. He was just trying to get help as quickly as possible. The police had no choice but to let him go again. In the days that followed, police received a tip that Helmut had just cashed in a gold bar. It intensified the mystery surrounding Hannah Bucksbaum's murder. Why would a wealthy widow be cashing out gold bars in the days after he witnessed his wife being brutally gunned down by the side of the highway? Multiple people called the tip line and said they saw two men on Highway 402 with their trunk open at around the same time frame that Hannah was murdered. None of the tip line callers stopped to help the men because they didn't appear to need help. The stranded motorists weren't waving anyone down.

Several other tips came in that indicated to police that all was not what it seemed. Someone claimed to have information on Hannah's murder. And another caller told police that Helmut had drug addiction issues and liked to visit with sex workers. And yet another called with a tip that someone had offered $20,000 to a local man called Robert Barrett to find a hit man to murder Hannah. I'm John Weir. You don't know me, but you're gonna, because I know the people that have been watching you, learning about you. They know you've done well for yourself, that people like you and trust you. Now imagine what they're going to do with all that information that you freely shared with the whole world. Now imagine what they're going to do with all the information you have at it.

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and when you're ready to launch, use offer code CTC to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com.ctc with offer code CTC, and get your passion project off the ground today. Helmut Buchsbaum was born in 1939 in Germany, the youngest of 10 children. A few months after his birth, the Buchsbaum's were uprooted because of the war and had a terrifying few years of moving between refugee camps as the father of the 10 kids went off to fight in the war. The family witnessed the worst of the worst. According to the book The Prodigal Husband by author Michael Harris, Helmut was a sensitive child who was coddled by his mother. When his father returned from the war and the family settled down, they became very active in the church.

A church trip to Switzerland with his mother was a revelation for Helmut, showing him how the other people lived. It was the first time that he'd eaten fresh fruit, chocolate and fancy cheese. That thought was never far from his mind. Helmut hated school, but knew that if he wanted to attain that same Swiss way of living one day, he would have to work hard and graduate. And graduate, he did. In 1957, he got a job in Austria. That same year, his parents immigrated to Canada where they tried to help one of their other sons establish a business. Unfortunately, it didn't pan out.

After losing their life savings in this business venture, they asked Helmut to move to Canada too and join them in the twin cities of Kitchener Waterloo in Ontario. Months later, Helmut arrived, quickly securing himself a job at a uranium mine. In his free time, he focused on learning English and saving his money. Because of his strong work ethic, he advanced at the mine and in only two years he was promoted to assistant plant engineer. At 22 years old, he bought a house for his entire family to live in. Helmut's mother thought it was time that someone looked after him, so she set him up with a local woman called Hannah Schmidt. Hannah was three years older than Helmut and was born in Poland to a highly religious Mennonite family. Hannah's family was also greatly affected by the war, uprooted, sent to camps and witnessing the worst of humanity.

And just like Helmut's family, Hannah's family immigrated to Canada after the war, first settling in the Niagara region. Hannah worked hard at a meat packing plant to contribute to the family income, quite a feat, since she hadn't attended school since grade four. But soon, the family had collectively saved enough money to buy an apartment in the city of Kitchener. There, Hannah's mother met Helmut's parents and they bonded over their shared experiences in wartime Europe, as well as their move to Canada and their strong religious beliefs. Soon, the parents were friends. Helmut's mother wanted to set her youngest son up with Hannah. They had a long conversation about their experiences growing up in Europe during the war. Soon, they became inseparable and Helmut proposed.

But Hannah thought things were moving too fast and when she brought this up, Helmut said that his mother really wanted them to marry. Hannah said she'd pray on it and get back to him in a month. Eventually, she said yes. He was convinced by this time that they were meant to be and even converted to the Mennonite religion for her, promising to wear plain clothing and not to smoke, do drugs, drink or watch movies. The more he studied the Mennonite religion, the more Helmut really liked scriptures about women listening to their husbands. He talked about this a lot in letters he wrote to Hannah. Quote,

Hannah's response was, I would like to be a wife who will obey their husband. Helmut and Hannah were married in 1961 and it wasn't long before they'd bought a house which they turned into three apartments, choosing to live on the main floor and renting out the top floor and the basement. They later bought a second house on the same street before buying a 28-acre farm about 80 minutes drive away in Kamoka, near the city of London. The couple would go on to have a total of six children. Hannah stayed home to look after them while Helmut worked hard to support the family. He took interest in the children's education and extracurricular activities,

but had an aversion to disciplining them, so this side of parenting was 100% up to Hannah. Helmut still had his eye on the Swiss lifestyle he'd always dreamed about and he knew that he needed more education, so he worked hard to get his Bachelor's of Science at Waterloo Lutheran University, now known as Wilfred Laurier. To build up his experience, he took an additional part-time job teaching adult education classes at night. Around this time, Helmut's brother Otto Jr. told him about a new business opportunity he'd been looking into. The Ontario government was giving special grants to people who would operate nursing homes specifically for long-term psychiatric patients. This suggested there was a strong demand and presented an untapped business opportunity. Otto Jr. suggested that they build a nursing home on the farm in Kamoka that Helmut and Hannah had purchased.

It sounded like a solid and low-risk business idea. The Bucks bombs were sold. Helmut and Hannah sold their rental properties in Kitchener, took out business loans and moved the family to the City of London to be closer to the piece of land. Helmut and his brother Otto Jr. did a lot of the construction themselves. The 32-bed hospital opened in December of 1967. With Helmut as the head administrator and Otto Jr. in charge of the day-to-day operations, it only took two weeks before it was fully occupied. Helmut offered his parents jobs at the home. When Helmut, Otto Jr. and Hannah could afford to, they expanded the home from 32 beds to 90 beds and named it Kamoka Nursing Homes Limited. The business venture was a roaring success, so they started looking for opportunities to expand in other locations in southwest Ontario.

18 months after the first facility opened, they partnered with another entrepreneur to open another one in Chatham. And the next year, a third was opened in Amherstburg, and Helmut and Hannah also built their dream home on the Kamoka farm. Then more facilities in Hamilton, then Watford, then Leamington, and then on Prince Edward Island. By the early 1980s, the Bucksbaum's nursing home empire consisted of nine facilities and one private hospital and was worth around $25 million. By this point, Helmut had bought out all of his previous business partners. Many of them, including his own brother Otto Jr., would later say that they saw the buyouts as ruthless takeovers. Otto would continue working for the company and was described by friends as the brains of the business. It had been his original idea after all.

But now, Helmut owned 58% of the company and Hannah owned 42%. The Bucksbaum spent years reinvesting all of their profits back into the business. Eventually, they were able to start taking advantage of the wealth they had built and started enjoying life a bit. They took vacations to Florida where they purchased a few hotels and a house in Boca Raton. According to friends, Hannah was the conscience or the heart of their business and they donated a lot of time and money to religious causes. By all appearances, things were going well for the Bucksbaum's. Except they weren't. Behind closed doors, their marriage was in turmoil.

Helmut was expecting Hannah to be more slavish as a wife than she turned out to be. He liked to have people over a lot and didn't like it when she brought up her frustrations with always having to entertain guests. The way he viewed it, Hannah was defying him, the head of the house. Then, the busier Hannah became with the kids, the church and the business, the less time she had to spend doting on Helmut. He didn't like this, so he hired two full-time housekeepers to help her with house duties. Both would become Hannah's friends. Sex was also an issue. Hannah was raised to believe that sex was only for the purpose of making babies and she had saved herself for marriage.

Helmut, on the other hand, did not share this belief and was much more experienced. After six years of marriage, Helmut started to find other women who would meet his sexual needs. His first infidelity was with a sex worker, just as Hannah was about to give birth to their third child. He felt guilty and told her. Hannah forgave him. After all, she was home with two kids and had one more on the way and he provided the only means to support the family. Also, she figured that since he admitted it to her, this would be his first and last time cheating. But it wasn't. In 1969, at age 33, Helmut began a sexual relationship with a helper at one of his nursing homes, who was 17 years old.

He got her pregnant. By now, Hannah was also pregnant with their fourth child. Helmut knew that since the girl he was having an affair with was not married, he would have to pay child support. So, he told Hannah she was a principled and practical person and agreed that they needed to do the right thing and support the mother. They even later tried to adopt the child. Helmut again promised Hannah that he wouldn't do it again, but he didn't stop. He wanted to have his pick of the girls and young women working in his nursing homes. Obviously, there were complaints about harassment and those who complained were asked to resign.

The situation got so bad that Helmut's church found out and the pastor had to talk with him. In 1975, Hannah found out that Helmut had a year and a half affair with a hitchhiker he'd picked up. And the reason why she found out about this affair is that she caught a sexually transmitted disease. She asked Helmut to see a sex therapy and marriage counsellor. According to the book The Protocol Husband by Michael Harris, the counsellors he saw found it frustrating to work with him, describing him as rigid and always trying to prove that his points of view were the right ones. In counselling, Helmut admitted to having five affairs during his marriage to Hannah. He said it wasn't all his fault.

His wife wasn't willing to perform the sexual acts that he asked for, so he had no choice. Helmut still did not stop. He kept suffering from sexually transmitted infections, including inflammation of the urethra and a strange growth on the tip of his penis. Hannah tried her best to keep him happy sexually, but it didn't work. He had more affairs, at one point even moving one of his nurses into an investment property that he'd purchased with Hannah. When she found out, he asked the woman to move out. But the church found out and suspended his membership. Despite this, Helmut continued to meet with sex workers.

By 1981, he was having group sex and had taken up using cocaine. His commitment to the Mennonite faith had long fallen by the wayside. Around the same time, Helmut was introduced to the idea of economic survivalism, a movement of people who actively prepare for catastrophic emergencies. Hannah was on board with this movement too, likely because they both experienced it as children in wartime Europe. Helmut read a book that told him to invest in gold and deposit money in Swiss banks. He spent $250,000 to build a fallout shelter on his land,

where he stored tobacco, alcohol and other goods that could be used for bartering in the event that cash became worthless. On April the 17th 1982, 42 year old Helmut had a terrible migraine. He suffered migraines occasionally, but this one was worse than ever before. At around 4pm that day, he decided he couldn't take it anymore and went to an osteopathic doctor. The doctor performed a neck rotation. Helmut heard a crack and then he felt a brief stab of pain. But the pain quickly went away and he left the doctor's office thinking that all was well.

Just a few hours later, he was pumping gas when he stumbled backward. His 14 year old son Philip happened to be there and was able to catch him and help him to the ground. It was clear to Philip that something wasn't right and an ambulance was called. Helmut had partial blindness in his left eye and a loss of feeling down the left side of his body. His speech was slurred and he passed out at the hospital. When he woke, his wife Hannah was there. She gave him the terrible news that he'd had a stroke

and the doctors said he'd be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. Four days later Helmut's condition worsened when he had two epileptic seizures within an hour of each other. Doctors found that the right carotid artery in his neck had been dissected shortly before his stroke and said it may have been caused by the osteopathic doctor rotating his neck improperly. While Helmut recovered in the hospital, he was given many tests to see what intellectual impairment he'd suffered. Doctors knew he'd suffered some memory loss.

In fact, he couldn't remember long stretches of his marriage to Hannah. Previously, his IQ had been tested at above average. But now that they tested him after the stroke, he scored a 93 on the low end of normal. And the results from the Wexler ordered intelligence skill test that he took showed that he'd lost a significant portion of his ability to think in a creative, abstract or logical way. He also had damage to his right frontal and parietal lobes,

which he was told could cause a dramatic change to his personality. He was advised not to go back to work for at least a year. Helmut felt like his life was over and this was God's warning to smarten up. Hannah was by his side for six hours a day spending a lot of time helping him with lost memories. He resolved not to have any further affairs and recommit himself to her. But things didn't quite go as he'd been told.

Just 10 days after suffering the stroke, Helmut was able to get up and walk out of the hospital. It was a miracle. And just a few days later, he was back at work. But things weren't quite right. Not long after Helmut was released from hospital, he was driving when he suddenly veered into the wrong side of the highway for no reason. Shocked, he was able to steer back before any damage was done.

But also around this time, he was observed to become obsessed with a fear of nuclear war. He tried to have sex with his wife, but was frustrated to find that he couldn't get an erection. His doctor explained that this was normal and should go away shortly. He tried having affairs and still couldn't get an erection. He was prescribed testosterone. It was clear that Helmut's health was not as improved as he thought it was.

One of his psychiatrists said that the stroke left him like a child who exercises poor judgement to satisfy his most base desires. Helmut's employees noticed a change in his behaviour as well. Before the stroke, he was a workaholic, spending most of his time at the office. But after the stroke, he was barely there and was described as unpredictable and nearly invisible. No one could ever find him.

And the women that he was having affairs with would call the office looking for him. Before the stroke, Helmut took pride in his hygiene and sense of style. But afterwards, he refused to bathe and would wear the same dirty clothes for days in a row. He forgot birthdays, forgot to pick up his kids, and forgot to meet friends for dinners. He would get confused in the middle of a conversation.

Strangely, he also started wanting to discipline his kids, something that he had never done or showed an interest in before. He once even hit one of the children for forgetting to get a haircut. And then, he started spending company money as though it was his own. And he also signed up as a regular of an escort service, giving his work phone number on the application. Over the next few months, he slept with at least 50 sex workers. He started hiring two at a time for threesomes.

One of the workers said that he liked underage girls around 15 or 16 years old. And other workers said that he asked for 12 and 13 year olds, well under the age of consent. Another friend later said that the reason why he liked young girls was because they were naive. He also started doing cocaine again and constantly talked about his unhappy marriage to Hannah.

He offered multiple sex workers thousands of dollars to leave the escort business and have his baby. One of them actually said yes, but it didn't work out. By August of 1983, just 16 months after his stroke, Helmut had exceeded the company credit line by $200,000. That month alone, he went through $60,000. Helmut had long since stopped going to church. He also stopped showing up at home.

And when he was there, he said inappropriate things, like he randomly told his teenage son Philip about how much he loved sex workers and told him all of the things that his mother refused to do in the bedroom. That fall, Helmut started going to a local gentleman's club called Cali's Bar, where he soon met up with a 24 year old called Robert Barrett, who was a drug dealer

and began arranging sex workers and cocaine for the man. Helmut's habit was snowballing to the point where he would meet Robert every few days now, giving him $750 each time for a quarter ounce of cocaine. But he didn't even notice that he was being ripped off. Robert started giving Helmut only half the drugs that he paid for, and the dealer kept the other half for himself.

According to the book The Protocol Husband by Michael Harris, the cocaine only served to further break down his inhibitions after the stroke. Helmut started throwing drug parties at a hotel across from Cali's Bar and eventually started injecting the cocaine. When Hannah asked about the needle marks, he told her they were from blood tests. He seemed to have no worries about the possible consequences of his actions. In January of 1984,

he became interested in a woman he'd met called Susan. He asked the 26-year-old to have an affair, promising to devote himself to her. Only there was one problem, he said, his wife, Hannah. Helmut told Susan that he couldn't divorce Hannah because she owned too much of the business, but there was one way to get out,

and that was to murder Hannah. Susan, thinking Helmut must have been joking, suggested that he poison his wife with herbs. She was surprised when he asked her to bring him some poisonous herbs that could be slipped into Hannah's food, even going so far as to suggest she take a job as Hannah's chef so she could poison her more easily herself. Susan didn't know what to do,

so she told a few friends about what Helmut had said. They told her to break it off. She said she would, but only after she'd saved enough money to fix her car. She went for breakfast with Helmut a few weeks later, and he asked her again to poison Hannah. She observed that he was completely sober, not on any drugs,

and this is when she realized that he was being serious about killing his wife. Susan broke it off. Around this time, Hannah saw a woman on Helmut's arm, and the realization finally hit her that he was addicted to drugs. A few days later, she found cocaine in his pants while doing laundry.

She confronted him, and he admitted that he had been shooting cocaine in the fallout shelter, although obviously he didn't tell her about his visits with sex workers and his drug parties. Hannah demanded to know his drug dealer's name. He told her the truth, giving up the full name of Robert Barrett.

Then she made him flush the coke down the toilet and promised to not do drugs anymore. He did, and she thought he meant it, but obviously he didn't stop. Two months later, she found more coke in his pockets. She asked him who sold it to him this time, and he gave her the name of his son's karate teacher. She went to confront the teacher,

and then told Helmut to end contact. She told people at the company not to put through any calls for Helmut coming from either the karate teacher or Robert Barrett, just in case. Then she made an appointment with the couple's therapist, but Helmut didn't show. Instead, he went the next day by himself.

He downplayed his cocaine use as a diet drug and told the therapist that he was the victim of their marital problems. His mother had set up the marriage with Hannah, and he never had the chance to pick someone more suitable. The therapist told him he had to make a change. He could choose to work on the marriage or get a divorce. But this had little effect on Helmut's mindset.

The next month, he started an affair with a sex worker called Dawn, even taking her with him on a trip to a nursing home convention. On the way to the conference, they injected cocaine together, and Helmut told her that he wanted to get rid of his wife and was going to pay someone to do it. Helmut asked Dawn if she knew anyone, and she said she didn't. By now, his family could see that he was spiraling out of control

and even staged multiple interventions. But Helmut continued to live the same way. Hannah was desperate to get him help. She started working with a doctor to get Helmut into Pine Rest Christian Hospital for rehabilitation. She scheduled an intake assessment, but when they arrived, they realized that Pine Rest was a psychiatric hospital

and not a rehabilitation centre. The doctors there decided to do his intake assessment anyway. Although the doctor didn't think a mental health facility was the best place for him, the suggestion was put to Helmut that he stay for treatment anyway, because he may have a manic depressive disorder. The doctor wanted him to stay for four to six weeks, and Hannah nodded in agreeance,

but Helmut was not okay with that long of a stay. He offered a shorter stay now, with a promise to come back in September for a longer stay. But he didn't ever show up for the second appointment. A few months later, in early 1984, Robert Barrett started working as a groundskeeper on the Kamoka property. Hannah was not happy with this decision,

since she knew Robert only as Helmut's old drug dealer. She didn't know that he never stopped dealing to her husband. Helmut told Hannah that the reason he gave Robert the job was that he was trying to help him turn his life around. The real reason was that Robert had gotten caught with some of Helmut's coke and was given a hefty fine. Helmut loaned him the money to pay the fine, telling Robert that he could work it off as a groundskeeper.

One day, Hannah confronted Robert and told him that she knew about his drug dealings. She said that if he didn't leave her husband alone, she'd call the police. He ignored her. That night, Helmut met Robert at a bar. According to Robert, Helmut made him an offer to arrange a contract killing,

and the mark would be his wife, Hannah. According to Robert, this wasn't the first time that Helmut had talked to him about hiring a hitman. He'd been saying it for months. Once, they were at a cocaine party in a motel when Helmut started talking negatively about Hannah and saying that he wished she wasn't around. They decided to put a few loose plans together,

but nothing ever came of it. And then, in May of 1984, a solid plan was put into action. Helmut offered to pay Robert $25,000 plus expenses and give him a job in his nursing home on Prince Edward Island, plus a $10,000 bonus if Hannah's body wasn't found for at least a year. In exchange, Robert agreed to set up the contract killing

and find a hitman, but said that he wanted to be out of town when the hit took place. Helmut gave a picture of Hannah to Robert to give to the chosen hitman, and the next day, Helmut withdrew over $6,000 from various banks, which he gave Robert to travel to Florida

to find a hitman and hide out while the murder occurred. Robert bought some cocaine, and four days later, he landed in Florida ready to arrange the hit. In the meantime, Helmut left for an overseas trip, knowing that everything would happen while he was gone, and when he came back, his wife, Hannah, would be dead. But when he arrived back a week later,

he was surprised to find her still alive. He listened to his voicemails and heard a message from Robert saying that he needed more money and more time in Florida to secure the contract. Four days later, on June 7th, 1984, Helmut flew to Florida with another $2,000 to give to Robert and to present a backup plan. The Bucks bombs were supposed to be headed to Europe

in 12 days, and Helmut wanted the hit done by then. Time was running out. When Helmut was back in Ontario, he called Robert daily for status checks. Robert reported back that he'd met a man at the Dodgy Motel he was staying at, who he thought might be the kind of person to talk to about a potential contract killing.

The man's name was Paul, and they became friendly over the next few days. Feeling comfortable, Robert asked Paul about the contract killing, giving him a picture of Hannah and pictures and a map of the Bucks bomb house. The two men worked out a plan. Paul would pick up a gun in Laval, Quebec,

then travel to London, Ontario. He would kidnap and murder Hannah Bucks bomb. Robert called Helmut to tell him that Paul had asked for $5,000 up front. So the next day, Helmut wired $1,500 through. Robert told Paul that they couldn't give him what he wanted straight away, but they had a better long-term deal.

Paul would get a small cash down payment of $500, and would be paid to fly to Canada. After Hannah was dead, Paul would get $10,000, and then when everything had calmed down, he would be given an additional $60,000. At this point, there were just three days left until the Bucks bombs left for their trip to Europe. Paul agreed to the terms,

and Helmut and Robert waited for the hit on Hannah to take place. Helmut in Ontario and Robert in Florida. But when the day of the trip came around, and Hannah was still alive, they both realized that they'd been scammed. They found out that Paul had flown to British Columbia on Helmut's dime instead. He had no intention of picking up a gun

and going to London, Ontario. So the next day, Robert Barrett flew back from Florida to Ontario. This was his fault, and he knew he had to find a new killer in London to present once the Bucks bombs were back from their trip to Europe. He decided to try again, asking around at Callie's Bar, quite the place this was shaping up to be. A 25-year-old man at the bar named Pat Allen

told Robert that he might be interested. They made a similar deal to the one that had been made with Paul, with a small upfront payment and more to come later. Robert was weary of being scammed again. Two weeks later, the Bucks bombs returned from Europe, and Robert called Helmut at the office to tell him that a deal had been sealed with a new contract killer. Hannah was in the office at the time

and found out that Helmut had been speaking with Robert on the phone. She was so upset, not only was her husband back on the drugs clearly, but it was immediately after they returned from their trip. Hannah was now even more concerned with making sure her husband got into a rehabilitation centre soon. Robert told Helmut that he needed more money to get things started. Helmut agreed to withdraw $5,000 from multiple banks

and give them to Robert along with a few more pictures of Hannah, which the new hitman Pat Allen had asked for. On July 4, 1984, Robert told Pat that things would be happening the next morning. Robert gave him $200 as a down payment, thus keeping more of Helmut's money for himself. Later, the two men met with Helmut to go over the plan. The next morning, he and Hannah were driving to Toronto Pearson Airport

to pick up Helmut's teenage nephew, Roy. Pat Allen hired a rental car, a blue Chevy Nova, and would drive to Highway 402 at around the same time that the Bucks Bombs would be driving past, 8.30am. Pat would find the perfect place to pull the rental car over, a deep ditch with weeds and a large covered drain. He would then put the hood of the car up for the Bucks Bombs car,

when he would act like he was a stranded motorist. The plan was that Helmut would see the car, pull over to help the stranded motorists, and then Pat Allen would kidnap Hannah. They were supposed to make it look like a kidnapping. They would take Hannah's jewellery and write a ransom note, but then kill her. And then they would drive across the US border to Michigan,

and they would mail the ransom note. After Helmut felt the plan was understood by all parties, he headed off back home to have dinner. And later on, after Hannah had gone to bed, Helmut went to his fallout shelter to shoot up cocaine. That night, Pat Allen was using drugs too. He arranged two guns and recruited two friends to help with the next morning's activities,

Gary Foshe and Terry Arms. The three men drank and did speed all night, also arranging for a few of their girlfriends to help them cover things up. Then they took their loaded guns and drove to the spot on Highway 402, where the ambush would take place. Pat pulled over and explained to the men what would happen,

and arranged a spot for them to meet afterwards. So they waited for Helmut to drive along. Pat Allen was the man standing on the side of the highway, pretending that his car was broken down. Terry Arms got out and hid in the ditch with a machine gun. And Gary Foshe waited in the car. He would be the one who would come out and stage the ambush. There they waited,

and when they saw the Baxbaum station wagon with Helmut and Hannah on the way to the airport to pick up Roy, they started waving. After Helmut had pulled his car over, Pat Allen walked up to the passenger side of the car and asked Hannah if she had any pantyhose. Helmut, likely wondering what the deal was with this odd exchange that was not part of the plan,

got out of the car and walked over to the Chevy Nova. As he pretended to look under the hood of the car, Pat Allen whispered that it was too late to pull off the plan because there were too many cars on the road. Helmut didn't agree. Quote, From the Baxbaum car, Hannah decided she may as well give the stranded motorist

the pair of pantyhose she was wearing, jumped on the horn to let Helmut know. Then an Ontario Provincial Police cruiser happened to pull up. As the cruiser approached, Pat Allen yelled out to the gunman Terry Arms who was still waiting in the ditch to tell him to hide. After speaking with the Good Samaritan and the stranded motorist, the OPP officer was satisfied that the problems were fixed and all was well,

but he got back in the cruiser and drove off. Pat Allen told Helmut that it was over. There was no way the plan would work now. Helmut agreed and promised to get back to him later. Pat then called up Robert Barrett to tell him he was backing out of the deal. He didn't want to do it, but Gary Foshe was in the room. He grabbed the phone off Pat

and told Robert that he would carry out the murder with Terry Arms. They put together a second plan. It was literally the same plan, but they would execute it later that evening when Helmut and Hannah were heading back from Toronto Airport. And this time there would be a teenager in the back of the car. After the second plan had been successfully executed, with Hannah Bucksbaum dying in the ditch,

Gary Foshe and Terry Arms fled the crime scene in their blue Chevy Nova rental car. They hid the car at the house of Gary's estranged wife, Robin, threatening her with violence if she didn't help them. They told her they had arranged for one of their girlfriends to come by and get it. Satisfied that Robin wouldn't tell anyone what she'd seen, the two men left.

They threw the gun in the river, where days later they would also throw Hannah's emptied purse, weighed down by bricks. And then to celebrate, they met up with Pat Allen for drinks. Meanwhile, after making Hannah's funeral arrangements, Helmut went to various banks, where records would show he withdrew a total of $13,000

and cashed in a gold bar. Then he headed to the airport for an agreed meet-up with Robert Barrett, who had just arrived with a friend called Janet, who had helped in the cover-up. The plan was for Helmut to pay them the money for the murder of his wife. He gave Robert the $13,000 cash and told him he'd get him the other $7,000 soon. Unbeknownst to them,

an OPP officer happened to witness this meet-up. The money was split among the men involved. Robert kept $3,000 for himself and then split up the rest between Gary Foshe, Terry Arms, Pat Allen, and a bit for the girlfriends who helped. Then he hosted a party in the hotel room on his dime with a wider group of people. After the party had died down, one of the men in attendance was picked up and arrested on an outstanding warrant.

On his ride to the police station, he told officers that Robert Barrett had bragged to him just hours before about being involved in the killing of Hannah Bucksbaum. Meanwhile, the police phone line received the tip that Robert Barrett had been offered $20,000 to find a hitman to kill Hannah. The caller went on to say that it might have actually been someone else who did it and offered up the name of Pat Allen. Police then started looking into Helmut Bucksbaum's phone calls.

They found out that he had made calls to Pat Allen as well as the female friends. Police set up surveillance at Helmut's house as well as one of the female friends called Debbie. They heard her telling someone that her friend Robert Barrett set up the contract, but it was someone else who pulled the trigger. Police then received a call from the woman called Susan who had been seeing Helmut years earlier. She reported to police that he had asked her to poison Hannah with herbs and, strangely, two maids happened to be present when he asked her. They would call in two.

One of the female friends who had been unknowingly wiretapped had had enough of the shenanigans. She decided to call police and tell them everything she knew, which was a lot. She told them about Florida, the various plans and deals, and gave details of the morning attempt that was abandoned. Police also located the blue Chevy Nova rental car and traced it back to Pat Allen. Hannah's funeral was held three days after her death. Helmut carried a gun with him telling everyone that he was worried that he was next. He'd also made a show of hiring security guards at his house.

Three days later, he cashed in more gold bars for a total of $16,000 and called a Christian Academy in Germany and talked to them about moving there and having his children attend the school. It appeared that he might be trying to flee. The police had been collecting a large bank of evidence, but at this point, most of it was circumstantial. The police needed to find a reason to bring him back into the station. That afternoon, Inspector Piers called Helmut and asked if he and Roy could come

and look over some new evidence. They wanted him to look at the rental car. Roy was taken into a room for another interview and Helmut confirmed that the car looked like the one he'd stopped for both times on July 5. He was asked to again go over the sequence of events that day, a request that visibly frustrated Helmut. He told them the same story he'd told before. He and his wife Hannah stopped for two men in a blue car in the morning,

then stopped again in the evening. In the evening, one of the men robbed Hannah and then killed her. He insisted that he didn't see it, but he heard three gunshots. But this was not consistent with the first trucker's story, the one with the CB radio that wasn't working. According to that statement, when Helmut ran up to the truck driver to ask for help, he said that Hannah had been shot in the head. How did he know if he didn't see it?

Helmut was asked about his phone calls to Robert Barrett in Florida the same day Hannah was murdered. Helmut said Robert was his coke dealer and it was just about coke. He asked him why he met Robert at the airport the next day, the detail that had been witnessed by the OPP officer. At this point, Helmut said he wanted his lawyer. According to the book The Protocol Husband by Michael Harris, Inspector Piers didn't want to let Helmut go,

so he told him that he was under arrest for first-degree murder. Helmut asked if they could keep it out of the press. Robert Barrett was then asked to go to the station for questioning. He would only admit to going to Florida to get cocaine for Helmut. When he was asked any other questions, he would just answer that he couldn't remember. At the end of their conversation, Inspector Piers arrested Robert Barrett for the murder of Hannah Bucksbaum. He would take a plea deal where he told the police everything

and is the reason why so many details of the murder came out and the police were able to legitimately lay the charge of first-degree murder on Helmut Bucksbaum. 24-year-old Robert Barrett later pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. That night, after hearing of the arrests of Robert Barrett and Helmut Bucksbaum, Gary Foshe, the man who shot Hannah, set up an emergency meeting for the others who had been involved. The entire conversation was caught on wiretap. The police picked them up one by one.

One of the female friends of Robert Barrett and Pat Allen, a woman called Anita, told the police a number of details. She'd heard them discussing details of the crime, what had happened with Hannah's purse, and seeing Robert with a lot of cash after meeting up with Helmut. She told them about going to pick up the rental car from where the men had stashed it at Gary's ex-wife's house. The police spoke with the ex-wife and she gave them details about being threatened by the men if she didn't help them by storing the rental car at her house.

She also told police that Gary admitted to being the one who shot Hannah Bucksbaum. The other female friend, Anita, also told police about a gun that Gary had stashed at Janet's house, the one who helped to cover it up. Janet was picked up, but she refused to tell police anything that she knew. They didn't find the gun at her apartment, so they let her go for now. Police then found out that Gary Foshe was planning to flee the country and they arrested him after he boarded his plane. Both he and Pat Allen were charged with first degree murder

and conspiracy to commit murder. While Gary Foshe maintained his innocence, Pat Allen would testify in exchange for a plea deal. Gary was later found guilty of second degree murder and sentenced to life with no chance of parole for 15 years. Pat Allen pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced to eight years. A week later, Janet was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder. She later pleaded guilty to being an accessory to murder and was sentenced to 15 months in prison. There was no evidence that she ever divulged anything other than her personal role in the cover-up.

Terry Arms was also arrested and took a plea deal to tell his side of the story. He would plead guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with eligibility for parole after 10 years. As for Helmut Buxbaum, his trial began at the end of 1985 in St. Catherine's, Ontario, close to two hours drive east of London, in an effort to avoid the widespread local interest in the case and ensure a fair trial. During the trial, Helmut sold his chain of nursing homes, reportedly for $22 million. The prosecution presented evidence that Helmut planned the murder

because Hannah was trying to halt his wild and frivolous lifestyle and send him to rehab. The jury heard evidence about the drugs and the sex workers. They heard evidence that shortly before Hannah's murder, Helmut had taken a $1 million insurance policy out on her life and he also had a bank account that was down by $2 million. He wanted to avoid having to go to rehab and decided to get rid of his nagging wife. Roy Buxbaum, then 15 years old, told the shocking story of what he witnessed from the back seat of the car. He would go on to sue his uncle for trauma that he suffered in the incident,

trauma that Helmut knowingly let happen when he agreed to the second attempt in the evening, knowing that Roy would be in the car. Testimony was also heard from a variety of people who interacted with Helmut, including law enforcement officers and bank tellers who processed his multiple cash withdrawals close to the day of the crime. A number of sex workers and drug dealers also testified. Hannah Buxbaum's brother-in-law provided testimony that was described as a chilling moment. On the way to Toronto Pearson International Airport, Hannah and Helmut stopped in at Hannah's sister's house for a family visit.

Hannah's sister's husband testified that he offered the couple to stay for lunch. Helmut said no, saying that he wanted to eat at a restaurant. Hannah added, quote, When my honey invites me, I go out with my honey for lunch. Just hours later, she would be dead. The men who took the plea deals, Robert Barrett, Terry Arms and Pat Allen, all testified for the prosecution. Particularly heartbreaking testimony came from Terry Arms.

He told the court that when Gary Foshe pressed a gun to Hannah's head and demanded money and jewellery, she glanced at her husband, Helmut, who told her to do what the man told her. Hannah said to him, No, honey, please, not this way. Perhaps she realised what was happening. Terry also testified that as Gary Foshe dragged Hannah out of the car and over to the guardrail, he watched Helmut climb out of the car and stand on his tiptoes to watch his wife being shot in the head. And he didn't flinch when the shots were fired. The defence tried to argue the case that, yes, Helmut liked drugs and sex workers,

but he wasn't involved in Hannah's murder. They argued that the money had been given to Robert Barrett to purchase cocaine and it was in fact Robert Barrett that wanted Hannah dead because she threatened to tell the police that he was selling drugs. According to the defence, Robert wanted access to Helmut's money and threatened him if he didn't help with the plot to kill Hannah. And Helmut's brain injury from the stroke played a part in his decision to not block Robert's plan. The sensational trial lasted for over two months

and the sordid revelations that came out made national headlines. The public was shocked that the successful entrepreneur, devoted family man and church-going community figure actually led a wild double life with drug addiction issues and a love of sex workers. And all this was topped off with an audacious plan to hire a hitman to kill his wife. The jury took 13 hours to deliberate before finding Helmut Baxbaum guilty of first-degree murder. He was asked if he had anything to say. His reply was, Yes, my lord, I am not guilty of this charge.

Helmut was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years on February the 13th, 1986. He would go on to unsuccessfully exhaust all his appeals. He didn't do well in prison at first, quickly establishing a reputation as a troublemaker who constantly complained about the living conditions. He also planned multiple escape attempts, but they didn't pan out. On one occasion he was caught. According to the website CanCrime.com, Helmut continued to maintain his innocence and a few years later he married a woman he met after he went to prison,

but the relationship didn't last long. He said that she was only after his money. He was also targeted by other inmates who were eyeing what they thought was his large fortune. In reality, he was bleeding money because of his court and legal costs. In the later years of Helmut's prison stay, he was reported to have softened up a bit in character, becoming an advocate for better treatment of elderly inmates. He continued to maintain his innocence and did not show any remorse, right up until his death from lung cancer in 2007.

He died in the Kingston Penitentiary Regional Hospital at 68 years of age. He was two years away from being eligible for parole. As you'll recall, Helmut and Hannah had six children aged 12 to 20 who were effectively orphaned when their father ordered a hit on their mother. They were lucky to have the church pastor and his family move into the Bucksbaum home to care for them. Later on, some of them would visit him in prison, but most of them eventually moved to the United States and changed their surnames to avoid any connection to the case.

In the decades after Helmut's trial, his six children went through years of complex legal proceedings as they battled with bankers, lawyers and trustees to settle the estate of their parents. In the end, the case was settled in 2012, 28 years after their father murdered their mother. By this time, the estate's worth had been reduced to the measly sum of $50,000, which was split among the six kids. 2014 marked the 30-year anniversary of the crime, and the London Free Press spoke with Philip Bucksbaum, the third-born son of Hannah and Helmut, who was 16 years old at the time.

He was now going under a new name. He said that the years of legal proceedings had affected the relationship between the six siblings. We've all suffered in our own private ways, which has made it difficult for us to stick together. He said that he had forgiven his father, who at that point had been dead for seven years. The chapter is closed. He's dead, he's gone, and that is the end of his story. There is nothing more to be written. Thanks for listening. If you'd like more Canadian true crime, you can get access to two bonus case episodes right now,

as well as access to my Chats With Christy episodes, where I give you the behind-the-scenes scoop on each case I cover, and more. Just look up Patreon.com slash Canadian true crime. And I keep forgetting to tell you that I also have t-shirts, coffee mugs, and stickers. Just go to my website CanadianTrueCrime.ca slash support to find out more about these and other ways you can become an insider of the show. Today's podcast recommendation is Brew Crime, a podcast out of British Columbia that pairs true crimes with craft beer.

Here's a promo. You can find our show on all your favorite podcast apps, and if you can't find it, contact us and we'll try and change that. We can be found at BrewCrime.com. Join us as we discuss the horrible crimes that surround us and try not to giggle. This episode of Canadian True Crime was researched by Hailey Gray. An audio production was by We Talk of Dreams, who also wrote the theme song. The host of the Beyond Bazaar True Crime podcast voiced the disclaimer,

I'll be back soon with another Canadian True Crime story, and it's one of my most requested historic stories yet. See you then. Imagine what they're gonna do with all the information you have at it. Yeah, I'll be in touch.