New author Ann Burke recently released her first novel, The Seventh Shot: On The Trail of Canada’s .22-Calibre Killer, based on the horrific double-murder that occurred in Ontario in 1970.
Burke has been a resident of Innisfil for eight years and, during that time, has researched and dug up archives on a 30-year-old cold case that finally came to an end in 2000.
The book details the murders of Doreen Moorby and Helen Ferguson, nurses who lived in a small town north of Toronto who were raped and murdered by a Toronto police officer named Ronald Glenn West, and nicknamed the .22-Calibre Killer.
The case, which had been stale for more than 30 years, finally came to rest after new DNA testing led to the arrest and conviction of West, who is serving an indeterminate sentence at a Canadian penitentiary.
“A lot of the research I did was around his youth,” says Burke. “This monster. Was it nature or nurture? What makes a person like this? It’s been quite an amazing journey”.
Burke and West both attended Grade 12 together at Dufferin District High School in Shelburne, Ont., in the mid-1960s before West continued into the Toronto Police Force.
Burke’s life work has been solely divided between social services and journalism. She was a counsellor for several years at a women and children’s shelter, and wrote for newspapers such as the Toronto Star, Sudbury Star, and The Walden Observer.
“This was on my bucket list," explains Burke, referencing her first and only book. “I didn’t mean to write a true crime at first… (but) there’s nothing stranger than the truth.”
Burke spent countless months interviewing many Toronto police officers (some of whom were retired), and many hours spent at the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) Museum where records were kept.
“The OPP Museum (in Orillia) were very helpful in digging up old records for me,” says Burke. “I interviewed all of the people who are in the book except one person: Ron… I believe that he strictly killed the women so they couldn’t identify him — he truly was a psychopath and had no empathy."
Burke adds: “I was never drawn necessarily to writing these types of books, but this was new, something I hadn’t covered before. Opportunity was a factor because I went to school with (West) and went to police for interviews. Everyone was very agreeable to be interviewed, and so it began.”
Anita Arvast, a Barrie author who endorsed Burke’s book, states: "With autobiographical components, Ann Burke carries us into a known and yet foreign world — a world of stalking, abuse and horrendous acts, but involving people we know and the very environments we pass through every day. The Seventh Shot brings exceptionally detailed research into a fast-paced true crime mystery that touched many parts of Ontario, but can easily be imagined in any combination of rural environments."
Burke says the project included going through mountains of information.
“It was quite a lot of work going through Ontario archives,” she says. “I love digging through old documents, going back and covering all the old papers kept from that era. There was a lot of weird rumours and incidents that went on back then – that was an integral part of this. It was very rewarding!”
Burke’s book can be purchased at Indigo, Chapters, Coles, and Walmart, or ordered online through Amazon.
