- [Narrator] For many teenagers,
much of their lives are lived virtually online.
In fact, most talk to their friends almost entirely
through texts, Snapchat and online messaging.
To them, the online world is just as real as anything else,
but it also appears to be safer.
Online, teens can share their real thoughts
without the same fear of repercussion
and they can even voice their darkest secrets.
However, sometimes those secrets are so dark
that they can't stay online forever.
What's up EWU Crew?
Today we're going to discuss the case
of a young Canadian woman,
who tragically met her end in the most brutal way possible.
Police were baffled when a charred body
was discovered hidden inside of a hockey bag.
But with further investigation
and over 1.4 billion pages of data transcripts,
it was a clue in the popular game World of Warcraft
that eventually led to her killers.
Let's get into it.
Fred and Lucy Proctor started their new year off
with the best gift possible in 1992.
On January 1st, they welcomed a daughter into the world.
They named her Kimberly.
The family lived in Langford, a town on Vancouver Island,
just a short ferry ride from Seattle.
Kimberly grew up loving animals.
She raised several pets and it seemed
that she was more comfortable around her animals
than with the kids her own age.
Prone to being the victim of bullying in school,
Kimberly wasn't equipped to handle the anxiety she felt
in the classroom.
Crammed hallways and the constant pressure
from her peers led Kimberly to transition out of her school.
She ended up at Pacific Christian Secondary School
an alternative high school in Victoria, where they described
that their students are learning and grappling with life
and learning from a christian perspective.
Unfortunately for Kimberly, all alternative students
were lumped together in the classrooms, regardless
of the reasons they were sent there.
She was enrolled partly because of her anxiety.
And she ended up sitting alongside students
with a history of violent outbursts.
Kruse Wellwood, a fellow student was at the school
because of his own history of violence.
He had reportedly broken another student's nose
and on a different occasion, had hit another classmate
over the head with a chain.
Kruse's tendencies were a chip off the old block.
His father who had abandoned the family when
he was still a baby is serving a life sentence
for assaulting and strangling to death a 16 year old girl
when Kruse was only seven years old.
Kruse would later write,"I hated my father for what he did."
He stopped replying to his father's letters at the age of 12
while living with his grandparents.
A few years later Kruse, whose teachers described him
as quote "anti female" moved in with his mother
whom he constantly belittled
and had reportedly hit on two occasions.
Another student at the school Cameron Moffatt
had been friends with Kruse since the fifth grade.
The two would skip school to smoke pot
and began consuming alcohol at the age of only 10.
Later, their drug use would allegedly transition
to harder drugs such as LSD and ecstasy.
Cameron was a much worse student than Kruse passing
only five of his classes during his four years
in high school.
But his larger stature allowed him to display dominance
over Kruse by punching him.
Cameron's aggression in school, started in kindergarten.
He would hit and push kids.
And in middle school, he was suspended twice.
In his home life, he was said to physically hurt his sister
and even kicked the family dog, breaking its paw
on one occasion.
He was eventually expelled permanently for bringing
a box cutter to school and threatening his sister.
16 year old Cameron, 17 year old Kruse
and 18 year old, Kimberly all hung out in the same group
at their alternative high school
and would get together regularly to smoke pot.
Kimberly began dating another boy in the group
but was heartbroken when he suddenly broke off
their relationship.
She confided in Kruse and Cameron by messaging
them both online.
Both boys began to flirt with her.
Cameron wrote to her, "There aren't many beautiful things
I've seen but I must say you are one of them."
Although Kimberly played along with the flirtations,
she ultimately declined their advances.
Kruse sent messages to Kimberly saying
that she made him feel honest.
Telling her, "You're beautiful the way you are."
And," I can't lie to you."
Kimberly ended up going on one or two dates with Kruse
but ended things through a text message.
Following this, Kruse was said to torment her online
for the next month.
The longtime childhood friendship between Kruse
and Cameron had gradually developed
into something much darker and more violent.
The two would get together to watch aggressive adult videos
and would carry on conversations online, fantasizing
about assault.
They were high the majority of the time
and even began experimenting
with drinking blood and other bodily fluids.
The next known contact between Kruse and Kimberley happened
the same night she was messaging online with Cameron.
She switched between the two conversations
telling Kruse that she was surprised to hear from him.
Kruse wrote that he wanted to apologize
and asked Kimberly if she had plans the next day
because he wanted to hang with her.
He told her that he had to tell her something in person.
Kimberly replied saying that it was all so sudden
and she was shocked when she got his message.
She asked him to call her.
The two talked on the phone for about an hour
but unknown to Kimberly during the call Kruse merged it
so that Cameron could also listen in.
Kimberly, agreed to meet Kruse the following morning
at the Langford Bus Exchange.
During the conversation, the two boys messaged back
and forth relishing in their dark fantasies.
Kruse wrote to Cameron, "I'm going to rip her nose ring out
and burn it.
Burn her flesh."
Cameron recommended, "Why not keep her bound and alive?"
To which Kruse responded, "That's what I'm going to do
but I need to get her stoned first and possibly seduce her."
All the while Kruse continued to talk to Kimberly
on the phone as though nothing was wrong.
On the morning of March 18th, 2010, Kimberly
and her parents had a lot to celebrate.
The previous day, they found out
that she had earned enough credits to graduate
from high school.
And Kimberly was very excited about potentially beginning
to volunteer at an animal sanctuary.
When her mother kissed her goodbye
and told her she loved her
before leaving for work, she expected
that Kimberly would babysit later that afternoon.
And then return home to sew her graduation dress.
Kimberly slipped on her black hoodie adorning the number 13
before leaving the house.
Around 10:30 AM that morning, Kimberly met up with Kruse
and Cameron at the Langford Bus Exchange as she'd planned.
Cameron had entered the Canadian Tire Home improvement store
earlier that morning to purchase
about $17 worth of camping fuel.
The three of them talked for a bit
before heading to Kruse's house on Happy Valley Road.
The two boys had planned an attack on Kimberly
the night before.
Kruse told Cameron the code phrase
for when he was ready to initiate the attack.
He told Cameron that when he said,
"I think I'm going to make some KD."
That would be the signal.
K D is a Canadian abbreviation
for Kraft macaroni and cheese dinner.
It wasn't long after the three teenagers entered the house
that the two boys pounced on Kimberly.
They bound and gagged her, tying her up
from the wrists and ankles, shoving a sock into her mouth
and sealing it with duct tape.
For hours they took turns assaulting
and beating the helpless girl living out
the twisted fantasies they had discussed
with each other before stuffing her into a freezer.
Her official cause of death was asphyxiation, as she slowly
and painfully ran out of oxygen inside the freezer.
At one point during the torture, possibly
while Kimberly was still alive Kruse logged
into his computer and sent her one last message.
Presumably trying to give himself an alibi.
In the message, he asked her if she was done babysitting.
While on the computer, other friends messaged Kruse
after noticing that he was online.
After one of these friends complained
that Cruz wasn't responding
as he had continued his sinister activities.
He eventually wrote back," Sorry, the freezer
was jumping around."
The following day, Cameron and Kruse stuffed
Kimberly's lifeless body into a hockey bag.
Cameron, the stronger of the two was able to carry the bag
to the public bus stop where they along
with Kimberly's corpse
boarded the bus heading for a popular hiking trail.
Getting off the bus, near the Galloping Goose Trail,
they carried the body into the woods and under a bridge.
They covered the bag in the camping fuel that Cameron
had purchased the previous day before setting it on fire.
During their time under the bridge, Kruse sent a message
from his phone.
One that he would come to regret.
The boys then continued on as if nothing had happened.
Later that day, Cameron had brunch with his mother
and grandmother who ended up buying him
a video game afterward.
Kruse then spent the day at his house with a girl
he was dating.
All the while Kimberly's family was worried sick
and desperately searching for her.
At around 7:00 PM that evening,
a few hikers went under the bridge
of the Galloping Goose Trail, where they discovered
Kimberly's charred remains.
They notified authorities who immediately
began an investigation.
It only took three days for police to use dental records
to confirm the identity of the body as Kimberly Proctor.
Her family was utterly devastated.
At first investigators were bewildered.
Who could be responsible for doing such a horrific thing
to an 18 year old girl?
As friends and family set up a public memorial page
in Kimberly's honor on Facebook.
They kept close, watch scouring each post
and comments for clues.
"You'd be amazed at how many people don't have
a single privacy setting on there," said one
of the authorities on the case.
Kruse already worried that his text message sent
from the Galloping Goose Trail could be incriminating,
grew more cautious about leaving any online traces
that could lead the police to him.
Nonetheless, he couldn't fight back the desire
to share the gruesome acts that he had committed
with his online gamer girlfriend who lived
in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
He messaged her five days after murdering Kimberly.
Sharing with her that he wanted to tell her
something important and that he wanted the two to talk
in a chat room in World of Warcraft.
He chose the multi-player online role-playing game
as his medium because he thought the conversations
were less likely to be saved than a traditional messenger.
He confessed the crime to his online girlfriend
and even sent her links to news articles
to back up his story.
Unsurprisingly to him she responded, "I'll always be here,
no matter what you do."
Cameron also confirmed Kruse's story
to his gamer girlfriend through World of Warcraft.
When the girl asked Kruse if he felt sorry
for Kimberly's friends and family and quote,
" All whose lives you have ruined."
Kruse replied, "No, I don't feel bad for them."
For the next few weeks Kruse attended school intermittently
while fellow students mourned the loss of Kimberly.
He had outbursts in class when the subject of Kimberly came
up telling one student, "I'm glad she's dead.
I hated her"
Kruse and Cameron bragged to themselves
over online chat rooms that they were getting away
with the murder.
Feeling confident Cameron wrote to Kruse,
"Since we killed that, and it wasn't too hard,
we should do it again."
Eventually the two boys were brought in
and questioned by police.
Although they admitted to seeing Kimberly the morning
of her murder, they said she left early to go to school.
Investigators weren't convinced,
And it wasn't too long before they had enough evidence
to monitor both of them officially.
Kruse and Cameron had their homes bugged by investigators,
along with their cell phones
and even the gazebo at a park where they hung out.
They also traced their online searches
and retrieved old texts and online messages.
In the end, the evidence collected accumulated
to the equivalent of a staggering 1.4 billion pages of data
and transcripts between the two of them.
Kruse and Cameron were both arrested on June 18th, 2010.
Both boys were said to be extremely calm when taken
into custody.
Two days later, police began to interrogate Cameron.
But when they asked for specific details
Cameron toyed with police saying,
- I'm telling you the truth.
I'm just not telling you every single little
thing that happened down to the tiniest grain
and detail about (indistinct).
And trust me, there's a lot of really disgusting.
- [Narrator] He told them that they burned the body
knowing that the bones would be left behind.
But at least the evidence of the bruises
and horrors acted out upon Kimberly's flesh would be gone.
He also said, "There's gonna be a time
and place one day when this is going to be so easy to tell."
In a conversation recorded between the two teens
that took place in a Sheriff's van
on the way to their first court appearance, Kruse
could be heard telling Cameron about his interrogation.
He said, "They were really trying to stroke my ego
telling me how smart they think I am."
Cameron replied, "I just laughed at half the things
they said and just like sat there with a big ass grin
on my face."
Both Kruse and Cameron pleaded guilty
to first degree murder and indignity to human remains.
Even though both teens were minors at the time of the crime,
the prosecution sought adult sentences.
Almost a year after the murder,
a Canadian court sentenced Kruse and Cameron
to life in prison with no chance of parole for 10 years.
They were transferred to adult facilities
where a more comprehensive offender treatment program
is offered.
One of these treatments includes chemical castration
which is a drug treatment used in Canada
to reduce the likelihood of recidivism in assault crimes.
Even though the sentence imposed was the maximum penalty
for a juvenile under Canadian law,
Kimberly's parents were not satisfied
with the justice served.
They wanted to see the boys pay
for their crime with their lives.
However, the death penalty is not an option in Canada.
Kimberly's mother Lucy told reporters quote,
"When an animal is sick, you put them down.
They're not even animals.
I don't like to use that word
because Kim was a huge animal person.
Those two are monsters."
Kimberly's father Fred would tell reporters outside
the courtroom, "These animals aren't rehabilitatable.
They deserve to die a long, slow, horrific, painful death."
10 years later on May 15th, 2020 Kruse faced a hearing
to determine whether he was eligible for full parole
and escorted temporary absences.
Jo-Anne Landolt Kimberly's aunt said,
"He told the parole board he wanted the escorted day passes
because he wanted to go to church on Sundays
which is ridiculous because they have chaplains in prison."
She was listening in to the hearing virtually
due to COVID constraints.
She added, "It's ridiculous.
We could be going through this again and again and again.
And who knows when Cameron's going to start trying?
We're not going to see the end of this until they are dead
or they are released."
Kruse's parole was denied in the first 10 minutes
but he will automatically be eligible for parole
again in five years.
He can apply for escorted day passes any time.
Reports about the crime were careful not
to blame video games, specifically World of Warcraft.
However, the online chat room played a key role
in gathering the evidence needed to convict Kruse
and Cameron.
Recalling the tragedy Kimberly's mother said,
"It doesn't go away and thinking about what she went through
is beyond horrific."
Kimberly is gone forever, but Kruse and Cameron
may one day be released and integrated back into society.
What are your thoughts about the chance that
these killer boys could eventually be let out of prison?
Let us know in the comments below.
And if you found this video interesting,
more stories for you to explore will pop up next.