Bound by Silence: The Murder of Dr. Edith Wightman

Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History

Curiouscast

True Crime, Society & Culture, History, Documentary

4.8 • 2.3K Ratings

🗓️ 1 December 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Episode 395: On a cold December day in 1983, McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, was shaken by a deeply unsettling crime. Dr. Edith Wightman, a respected scholar, was discovered dead in her office: bound with tape, handcuffed, and suffocated with a cloth. The investigation took an even stranger turn when police arrested Michael Allen Crowley, a chemist from Welland, who had been seen on campus in disguise, dressed in women’s clothing and a wig. With no personal connection to the victim, and the bizarre methods used, the murder left students and faculty reeling, and raised questions still unanswered to this day. Sources:A Brief History Of McMaster UniversityHistory of McMasterWIGHTMAN, Edith Mary | RutgersDec 19, 1983, page 1 - The Hamilton Spectator at Newspapers.comDec 24, 1983, page 16 - The Hamilton Spectator at Newspapers.comEdith Wightman - Search - Newspapers.com™Michael Alan Crowley - Search - Newspapers.com™"72 Hours: True Crime" Murder on Campus (TV Episode 2005)Canadian News Briefs - UPI ArchivesEdith Wightman | Wikipedia1984_3Winterhttps://www.reddit.com/r/McMaster/comments/jl1ew5/trying_to_find_details_of_on_campus_death/Review: [Untitled] on JSTORWightman: Gallia Belgica (Book Review)Detectives say Robert Garrow now 'best suspect' in 1973 Komorowski murder | CBC NewsAdele Komorowski Homicide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Mike here. I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Dark Poutine early and ad-free on Amazon music, included with Prime.
0:17.8	Welcome back to Dark Poutine. I am Mike Brown here, drinking my coffee.
0:22.1	Why is there a watermelon there?
0:23.6	A watermelon?
0:24.7	There's not.
0:25.3	I watched Buckaroo Bonsai again this weekend.
0:27.7	It's one of my favorite lines.
0:29.6	Such a fun movie.
0:31.3	And for anybody who hasn't seen it, please do.
0:33.7	It's worth the price of admission, which is probably downloading it from somewhere.
0:38.5	Without Buckaroo Bonsai, there wouldn't be everything everywhere all at once.
0:43.1	That's true.
0:44.0	That is totally true.
0:45.4	I like that Buccoor Bonsai really is one of those movies that a lot of people haven't seen when they do will say,
0:55.6	what the heck is this?
0:56.8	What did I just watch?
0:57.6	Exactly.
0:59.9	Anyway, this isn't a movie podcast.
1:02.1	This is a true crime slash dark history.
1:05.4	I would love to do a movie podcast at some point, but not today.
1:06.1	Not today.
1:07.7	Let's do dark routine today.
	...

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