In a nearly three-hour-long interview between Det. Rob Thomas and the man accused of driving a rental van on a busy Toronto sidewalk we got insight on the driver's frustrations with women and his inability to attract a partner.

"I would say that sometimes I am a bit upset that they choose to date obnoxious men instead of gentlemen," he said in the interview.

He then speaks about 4Chan — an online anonymous image board — where he engaged in conversations with others about his anger with women and being a part of the involuntary celibate ("incel") community, an underground online community that lives primarily on the dark web.

Experts have been studying the proliferation of the incel community for several years.

Mike Halpin, an associate professor at Dalhousie University, said the term was coined in 1997, when a Canadian woman who only went by her first name, Alanna, began a support group online for people struggling to form relationships.

"It was more about the kind of frustrations and complications with wanting a romantic partner, not being able to have one. Over time, the community became more and more populated by men and also more and more by people who were upset and angry about being alone," he said. The incel community then started popping up on places like 4chan and Reddit, he explained.

Halpin has been studying the incel community for several years and this episode of What happened to... Erica Vella speaks with Mike Haplin about the complex subculture of the incel community; she also finds out if the community has grown and learns more about other incel-inspired attacks. She also speaks with experts about incidents of gender-based violence that continue to increase across North America. 

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On Apr. 23 2018, a man drove a white rental van down busy sidewalks in Toronto, killing 11 people and injuring 16 others.

The driver was arrested without injury on the day of the attack and was brought in for questioning by Toronto Police.

The almost three-hour investigative interview between the driver and Det. Rob Thomas was released publicly in September 2019. At the time, the driver of the white rental van was facing ten counts of first-degree murder and 15 counts of attempted murder.

During the interview, the suspect begins to speak about4Chan – an online anonymous image board – where he engaged in conversations with others about his frustrations with women and being a part of the Involuntary Celibate (Incels) community, an underground online community that lives primarily on the dark web.

The interview was a crucial piece in the trial of the driver that began in November 2020.

During the trial, the driver had admitted to planning and carrying out the attack, but argued he should be found not criminally responsible for his actions because of his autism spectrum disorder.

The Crown had argued that the driver is a mass killer who knew right from wrong, and happens to have autism. But the defence argued that because of autism, the driver never developed empathy, and that lack of empathy left him incapable of rational choice.

On this episode of Global News’ What happened to…?, Erica Vella revisits the Toronto Van Attack and speaks with Watkins who explains details and tactics used in the investigative interview with the driver. She also learns more about the trial and continues her conversation with survivor, Cathy Riddell.

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Cathy Riddell has lived in Toronto's Yonge and Finch neighbourhood for over six decades; it's an area where she says she’s surrounded by familiar faces, shops and restaurants.

On a warm Monday in April 2018, Riddell was eager to be outside and run errands in the sunshine.

However, her day was interrupted when a white rental van wreaked havoc in the neighbourhood she called home.

On April 23, 2018, a white rental van mounted the sidewalk at the southwest corner of the intersection of Yonge and Finch streets and travelled south for several blocks

Riddell was one of the victims who was struck by the van while walking on Yonge Street.

At 1:27 p.m., the first call was made to 911. The attack would last approximately seven minutes as witnesses watched in horror while innocent bystanders got struck by the white van.

After driving 2.2 km, the van stopped at Poyntz Avenue because a beverage splattered across the windshield, making it difficult for the driver to see. The driver got out of the van.

The tragedy left the Toronto community heartbroken and grieving for the victims who lost their lives that day.

Riddell remembered very little about what happened that day.

On this episode of Global News’ What happened to…?, Erica Vella revisits the Toronto Van Attack to speak to a victim who was heavily impacted by the attack. She also speaks with Insp. Graham Gibson about his experience as a detective on the scene, and with reporter Catherine Mcdonald, who begins to unravel the motives behind the driver’s attack.

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The man who killed six men and injured over a dozen others after storming a Quebec City mosque will be eligible for parole after 25 years after a Supreme Court struck down a Criminal Code provision on consecutive sentencing for multiple murderers.

The unanimous high court decision happened May 27 and declared unconstitutional a 2011 provision that would allow a judge, in the event of multiple murders, to impose a life sentence and parole ineligibility periods of 25 years to be served consecutively for each murder.

The killer pleaded guilty to six charges of first-degree murder in the January 2017 attack that took place at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Quebec City.

Aymen Derbali was at the mosque the night of the shooting and was critically injured.

He said he was disappointed in the Supreme Court ruling.

"When I read the decision of the Supreme Court, I felt a deep deception as a victim of this tragedy," he said, adding he was surprised by the decision.

"I was expecting this decision to be sincere because I followed the public consultation."

On this episode of What happened to..? Erica Vella speaks with Derbali about the decision and finds out how the Supreme Court ruling will impact other cases involving multiple murders in Canada.

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In June 2014, cases of Ebola were reported in Guinea and the disease began to rapidly spread across the border to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

More than 28,000 people became ill with the disease and over 11,000 died.

The 2014 outbreak was the first Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

According to the World Health Organization, it first appeared in two simultaneous outbreaks in 1976 in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The outbreak in DRC happened in a village near the Ebola River and that’s where the illness gets its name.

The early symptoms of an Ebola infection include fever, headache, muscle aches and sore throat, according to the World Health Organization. It can be difficult to distinguish between Ebola and the symptoms of malaria, typhoid fever or cholera. Only in later stages do people with Ebola begin bleeding both internally and externally, often through the nose and ears.

Dr. Brantly is originally from U.S. but he had arrived in Monrovia, Liberia in October 2013 and he was working at the ELWA hospital at the time of the Ebola outbreak. He had been treating patients with Ebola for several weeks and on July 23, 2014, he woke up feeling ill.

He would eventually be given the officially diagnosis; he was ill with Ebola and the U.S. doctor was transported to Emory University Hospital in Atlanta.

On this episode, Erica Vella speaks Dr. Brantly who shares his experience and she speaks with other with health-care workers who were on the front lines, battling Ebola. She finds out where it came from, why it spread so quickly and how the 2014 outbreak impacted communities in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone.

— with Files from the Associated Press.

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On this special episode journalist Erica Vella shares an excerpt of the series on the Brentwood Five massacre first covered by Nancy Hixt.

Nancy is a Global News colleague and a senior crime reporter based in Calgary and she covered this case in an episode of her award-winning podcast Crime Beat.

In the excerpt of the episode shared with you today you’ll hear from Timothy McLean’s mother, Carol De Delley….who is fighting to change the law in Canada-- so killers deemed to be not criminally responsible or NCR--would have to continue their treatment and monitoring...indefinitely…

https://omny.fm/shows/crime-beat/the-brentwood-five-massacre-part-3 

The families of the Brentwood five...are concerned--the same thing that happened to Timothy McLean’s killer...will happen to the man who killed their five children.

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From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, companies made the move to create products that were colourless or transparent as it was often equated with purity.

It was called the clear craze and it was first inspired by Ivory soap's "99.44/100% Pure" campaign.

Crystal Pepsi was launched in 1992 with a big splash at Super Bowl 27 in a commercial with Van Halen’s hit song Right Now in the background, but the product was taken off the shelves about two years after its launch. In the 30 years since Crystal Pepsi launched, the product has been brought back for limited periods.

On this episode of What happened to…? Erica Vella revisits the elusive drink from the 1990s, Crystal Pepsi. She learns why the pop flopped and asks if there is a chance the cola could ever return to store shelves.

--

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In May 2016, tens of thousands of people in Fort McMurray were forced to flee their homes, as a fire burned through surrounding forests and entered the city.

Damian Asher, a veteran firefighter and the captain of the Fort McMurray fire department, said the department had been monitoring the wildfire's movement.

READ MORE: Short-term exposure to Fort McMurray wildfire smoke affected lungs of RCMP officers: study

"We've had lots of forest fires in our area in the past and we work with lots of forest fires in that area. As far as moving into our city, with a forest fire, you never know what's going to happen," he said.

"Forestry crews Alberta Forestry were on it. They were putting in their measures to keep the fire at bay and keep the fire located in the area where it was," he recalled.

"We were prepared for it for where it was; we had discussions of testing all of our skills, making sure our equipment worked, all that sort of stuff," he said.

Then the fire made its move.

"The wind direction made a 180-degree shift in wind direction and pushed the fire into the city."

The fires in May forced the evacuation of almost 90,000 residents from the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo and destroyed about 2,400 homes and other buildings.

READ MORE: Fires and floods: How Fort McMurray is addressing risk of disaster 5 years after massive wildfire

Asher was one of the firefighters working to battle the blaze. For days, he and several crews tried to suppress the flames.

"The fire moved in really fast and it just came in like a big wave. It was super dry that year, so it was just a big wave of fire that come up out of the trees.

"And as it come down out of the trees, it threw a lot of debris into the residential zones. A lot of burned embers were landing in houses, backyards on decks and stuff like that," he said.

"We had lots of fires in multiple areas, not just at the face of where the fire was."

READ MORE: 5 years after ‘The Beast’ ignited, investigation into Fort McMurray wildfire ‘remains open and active’

The Insurance Bureau of Canada said insured damage caused by the wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alta., totalled $3.58 billion, making it the most expensive disaster for insurers in the country’s history at the time.

On this episode of What happened to …? Erica Vella revisits speaks with residents in the city of Fort McMurray and people on the frontlines who attempted to stop the fire. She finds out how the city has recovered and what has been done to prevent fires like this from happening in the future.

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Journalist, Erica Vella is on a journey to find and speak with the people at the heart of stories that have captured the entire world’s attention, … and today she shares major developments in two stories that we’ve covered so far.

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On Dec. 9 2012, video of a baby monkey running around in a faux-shearling coat at a North York IKEA garnered international attention when Darwin escaped a locked crate and vehicle before making a dash toward the furniture store.

“(I thought) this is absolutely ridiculous that there would be a monkey wearing clothes, walking around in Canada in the middle of winter. It just doesn't make any sense whatsoever and just really, you start to think about how did he get to that position, how did he get to be a pet in the first place?” said Dania Leipa, executive director of Story Book Farm Primate Sanctuary.

Leipa was volunteering with the primate sanctuary at the time when she learned about the incident.

Within a day or two of Darwin being transferred by Toronto Animal Services to the sanctuary, Darwin's former owner, a real estate and corporate lawyer named Yasmin Nakhuda, threatened legal proceedings because ultimately, she wanted what she said was her monkey returned to her on a permanent basis.

On this episode of What happened to…?, Erica learns about the legal battle for Darwin and finds out where the monkey is now. She also speaks with experts about the illegal exotic animal trade to see how much of an issue it is in North America.

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