Rampage (32 page)

Things finally came to a head on May 29, when Jonathan telephoned explaining that he was dropping by the apartment to speak with her. Janet told him that if he did she would call the police.

“If you do, I’ll break through your window and kill you!” he threatened.

That night, Janet awoke to a sound outside her apartment door.

“Who is it?” she cried.

“It’s me,” Jonathan Yeo’s voice answered.

“I’m going to phone the police.”

“Yeah, you always say that,” he said, hammering his fists against the door.

By the time the police cruiser arrived five minutes later, Jonathan was gone. The responding officer ran his name through the computer, but as somebody had neglected to take fingerprints for the 1979 offence, no criminal record showed up. Brushing the potential rape off as a domestic dispute, the officer told Janet she had forty-eight hours to lay charges. To his credit, he kept the police cruiser parked outside her home for the remainder of the night.

Not long after, Janet married, and when Jonathan discovered she had a man in her life she never heard from him again. Instead he focused his depraved attentions on his mother-in-law. At 5:30 p.m. on March 27, 1987, Sheila’s mother, Nancy, arrived home to discover the lights were not working in her Hamilton apartment. When she left to check the power in the rest of the building, Jonathan emerged suddenly from a nearby fire door, dishevelled and stinking of booze. Though Nancy was surprised to see her son-in-law, the two had a wonderful relationship and she had no qualms about inviting him inside. He explained that earlier in the day he had entered her apartment and turned off her lights at the fuse panel. When Nancy asked him why he would do such a thing, he claimed to have hurt somebody in a bar brawl and had gone to hide in her apartment. The story made little sense. Nancy noticed that he was carrying around a bottle of rye. The next thing she knew, he was strangling her. Confused by his sudden aggression, Nancy rasped through her constricted larynx that he was hurting her and would do the same to Sheila and the children unless he stopped. This seemed to make Jonathan snap out of his trance, and he released her immediately. Turning away, he burst into tears, sobbing that he didn’t want to hurt her. Then, without warning, he ran full speed into a glass balcony door, shattering it and cutting himself badly. As he retreated to the bathroom to clean his wounds, Nancy alerted the police that her son-in-law was suicidal, and Jonathan was taken to nearby St. Joseph’s Hospital for a psychiatric examination. She decided not to mention the attack, as she did not believe he intended to murder her. Had the hospital psychiatrists been made aware of his attempts to strangle her, their subsequent diagnosis of Jonathan might have led to some kind of positive intervention.

Jonathan agreed to seek psychiatric help at St. Catharines General Hospital, and during his therapy sessions he revealed that he was driven to an overwhelming rage by minor annoyances such as something dropping on the floor or a change in the topic of a conversation. As disturbing as this was, his doctors found no evidence of psychosis, meaning he could not be committed to an institution or cured with medication. Instead this wholly irresponsible man was given total control over his own participation in a lengthy treatment program. Unsurprisingly, this approach failed, with Jonathan dismissing the matter as a result of drinking.

On August 14, 1987, Jonathan attacked Sheila’s best friend Lindsey at her lakeside home in Grimsby, Ontario. After struggling with her knife-wielding assailant, Lindsey managed to flee the house. Twenty minutes later she returned with the police to find Jonathan sitting in the middle of the living-room floor playing with her children’s toys. She screamed and ran out, allowing him a chance to escape. The police caught up to him splashing around frantically in the nearby lake.

“I need help,” he surrendered. “My mind has gone. I’m all rambling. I put a knife to my friend.”

As he had before, Jonathan was taken to St. Catharines General Hospital to be assessed. The police deemed him a danger to others and himself, and concluded that he needed immediate psychiatric intervention. Unfortunately, the fact that their patient hadn’t been charged led hospital staff to treat his case as a minor domestic dispute. Two days after the attack, Sheila Yeo phoned Lindsey threatening to inform the police that she was a drug dealer if she pressed charges. Faced with Sheila’s threats and confident that Jonathan was safely detained at a mental hospital, Lindsey chose not to follow through. Two weeks later she ran into the Yeos at a David Bowie concert, and her illusions of safety were shattered. Didn’t anybody care that this man had conned his way into her house and held a knife to her throat?

The next woman to fall prey to Jonathan Yeo’s misogynist impulses was Sheila’s twenty-three-year-old cousin Yvonne. At 7:00 a.m. on August 30, 1990, he knocked on the door of her apartment and explained that he had come to install some fans that Yvonne and her mother had purchased. Unaware of Jonathan’s history of aggression, she let him in. He was carrying a large army-style bag that she assumed contained tools. Jonathan produced a length of rope and began eagerly showing her the various knots he could tie while Yvonne feigned interest. At one point he tricked her into letting him bind her hands together. It was a terrible mistake. Instead of honouring her requests to untie her, he began to laugh sinisterly, and dragged her helpless into the bedroom. Throwing her on top of the mattress, he bound her arms and legs to the bed posts, tore off her clothes, and raped her.

It was some time before Yvonne worked up the strength to tell anyone about what had occurred. Rather than confiding in her excitable mother, she chose her Aunt Nancy, Jonathan’s mother-in-law, who took her immediately to the Sexual Assault Centre. There she learned she had twenty-four hours to decide whether or not to press charges. If she did agree to, she would be subject to an internal examination and would likely have to testify against Jonathan at his trial — her privacy violated again by prying defence attorneys. Even if Jonathan was convicted, there was still a chance he would walk free. Faced with an insensitive and inefficient justice system, Yvonne ultimately chose not to press charges, and the family resolved to seek professional help. By now they had repeated the story so many times that the words were meaningless.

The final warning came on the night of April 7, 1991. Alison Prescott,
*
a thirty-year-old social worker, was walking up the Wentworth Street stairway near her home when she came across a man jogging on the steps. Alison had just moved into a low-rent basement apartment, and had temporarily put garbage bags over the windows until she could afford curtains. Minutes after she entered her apartment, she answered an unexpected knock on the door. Behind the thin chain stood the man from the steps. Flashing a bloody arm at her, he spun a harrowing tale of being attacked by a gang of youths who were still looking for him. Suspicious, but not wanting the man to get hurt, Alison decided to let him inside. She showed him to the phone and helped him clean his wound. He told her that he was a widower and a worker at Dofasco who lived on a pig farm outside the city. A counsellor by trade, Alison sensed that the man calling himself Chris Johnson needed somebody to talk to, and poured him a glass of wine. After chatting for an hour or more, she declared that it was her bedtime and offered to phone for a taxi. He refused politely, and left. But several minutes later, as Alison was clearing the glasses from the table, there came another knock on her door. She opened it to see Chris Johnson and, assuming he had changed his mind about the cab, turned to dial the telephone. When she looked back she was shocked to see him standing in the doorway, aiming a rifle at her head.

“Go to the bathroom,” he ordered menacingly. There was no trace of the meek widower left in his tone.

“I don’t understand, Chris. What are you doing?”

“Go to the bathroom,” he repeated, motioning with the rifle. “I don’t want anybody to see what I’m going to do to you.” Fixed in the rifle’s sights, she had little choice but to comply. Jonathan followed her into the bathroom where, placing the firearm on the floor, he told her he was upset and needed a hug. Feeling a strange mixture of confusion and relief, she accommodated him. Over the next hour, Alison employed her skills as a social worker in a sustained attempt to prevent him from going any further. It was as if his mind contained two personalities: the moral Jonathan who apologized and tried to assure her he would never hurt her, and the cold-hearted, authoritarian aggressor who seemed completely detached from reality. At one point, the moral Jonathan even poured cold water onto his genitals in an attempt to prevent himself from becoming erect. Unfortunately, when the bad Jonathan noticed the garbage bags taped over the bedroom windows, he led Alison into the room and proceeded to sexually assault her over several hours. Whenever rape seemed imminent, the good Jonathan suddenly intervened, tearing himself away from her with mumbling apologies. This happened so many times that, even though he was clearly attempting to minimize her pain, Alison was placed in a state of perpetual psychological torture.

Finally, he admitted to her that he was faced with a conundrum: if he left her alive she could charge him with forcible confinement. Alison was now involved in a negotiation for her life, one that she came very close to losing. At one point, Jonathan even aimed the rifle at her and told her he was going to kill her. In the end, Alison won the battle of wits, convincing him to leave. Ninety minutes later she called the police. Constable Kenneth Wilson arrived at the apartment around 7:40 a.m. and proceeded to re-victimize her, calling into question her composed manner and the time it took for her to call. Despite the officer’s insensitivity, Alison forged ahead with the charges, and in mid-May Jonathan was arrested for sexual assault. At a pre-trial hearing, he was released on $3,000 bail, prohibited from drinking or using drugs, and slapped with a 10:00 p.m. curfew.

So Many Horrors

The case would never make it to trial. On Friday, August 9, 1991, Jonathan left the house without kissing his children goodbye and went to the doctor to demand more antidepressant medication. That afternoon he appeared in court, where the judge remanded his trial to a later date. Not long after, Sheila Yeo unlocked the medicine cupboard to find Jonathan’s cache of pills missing. She immediately became concerned — her husband should have been home by now. Had he decided to end his life? Frightened, she contacted the police, who told her he was probably “out celebrating with his buddies.” But Jonathan Yeo didn’t have any friends — never had, never would. He only had his hatred and a gun.

In fact, at that moment he was sitting in his Toyota hatchback at the Niagara Falls border, telling a U.S. customs officer of his plans to drive to Key West. Something about Jonathan’s agitated manner prompted the officer to search his vehicle. Inside he uncovered an ancient-looking .22 -calibre rifle and two packets of ammunition. Though Canadian law required a licence for possession of the firearm, the officer reasoned from the antiquated state of the rifle that it may have predated the licensing act. Jonathan responded to his concerns by offering to leave the rifle at the border. Yet the more questions the officer asked, the more suspicious he became. Not only had Jonathan been convicted for growing marijuana, but he was also out on bail, facing charges of sexual assault with a weapon, unlawful confinement, and uttering death threats. Upon searching Jonathan’s person, he discovered a hand-written letter that appeared to be a suicide note.

What the hell am I, not human anyway. Just a cheap imitation, a phony, nothing but a piece of shit. I don’t deserve to be alive in this world, in fact not any world. I have helped sire four beautiful children that I cannot believe could be mine. I don’t feel I deserve to be their father. My life is nothing but a dream, reality is not real because it is too cruel to be true. What kind of life is this, nothing but horror. Living is not worth it, neither is death. So what the hell are we here for. It must be to see how much shit we can take. I take so much, but can’t get rid of it, there’s so many horrors to live through. I believe we are all flies on a piece of shit, only good enough to break down more decay. Shit is a higher level of life than I am. I am the ground that shit lies on, only to be broken down by the flies that we are. I am the great ceptic [
sic
] tank of life.

Mr. Dirt

(Jonathan Yeo)
[52]

After he read the note, it was clear to the officer that Jonathan was not only attempting to break bail, but was suicidal. This was not the kind of man they wanted roaming around the United States. Immigration Officer Hugh O’Hear telephoned the Grimsby police. They seemed unconcerned; after all, there had been no stipulation made against Jonathan owning a firearm and he hadn’t missed curfew — yet. Still, O’Hear knew that this was a dangerous man, and contacted Canadian customs official Alexander Welsh, informing him of the rifle and suicide note. As Welsh listened, he became deeply concerned about the safety of the eleven other customs workers on duty that night. He waited until Jonathan’s car started back, and approached it cautiously, asking him for proof of citizenship. Believing they had no reason to seize the weapon, at 7:30 p.m. the customs officers sent Mr. Dirt on his way. Instead of defusing this human bomb, Alexander Welsh merely tossed it into the night and waited for the sound of an explosion.

Nina and Karen

Even at nineteen years of age, it was clear to everyone who knew her that Nina de Villiers was a driven woman. Born in Capetown, her liberal-leaning family had fled the civil upheaval of 1970s South Africa to a country where they believed they would be safe from random acts of violence. This early exposure to social injustice led the gifted student to undertake a variety of causes, from organizing a blood drive for the Red Cross to fundraising for African schools.