S33 E1: The Olson Tapes | Calls From a Killer

Sea of Lies from Uncover

CBC

True Crime

4.6 • 10K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Arlene Bynon answers a collect call. On the other end of the line is Clifford Olson: a man convicted of killing eleven children and teenagers in the 1980s. The oldest of them, eighteen. The youngest of them, nine. During years of secret phone calls from his prison cell, he tells this young journalist things he hasn’t told anyone else.

Decades later, Nathaniel Frum dusts off a box of old tapes inherited from his late grandfather. When he hears Arlene’s voice, he knows he needs to find her.

And they both know that this forgotten story needs to be told.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Other People's Problems was the first podcast to take you inside real-life therapy sessions.
0:05.8	I'm Dr. Hilary McBride, and again, we're doing something new.
0:09.4	The ketamine really broke down a lot of my barriers.
0:14.1	This work has this sort of immediate transformational effect.
0:19.7	Therapy using psychedelics is the new frontier in mental health.
0:23.5	Come along for the trip.
0:25.2	Other people's problems, season five.
0:27.5	Available now.
0:31.1	This is a CBC podcast.
0:34.4	The following episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence.
0:39.1	Please take care when listening.
0:47.0	Whenever I stayed at my grandparents' house as a kid, there was a rule.
0:51.6	Always pick up the phone.
0:53.8	Because you never knew who could be calling for my
0:55.8	grandpa Pete. A Soviet spy, a cabinet minister, a serial killer. Growing up, I'd learn what my
1:05.3	grandpa did for a living through the stories he'd share at the holidays or summers at the lake.
1:10.5	It wasn't that he was
1:11.5	bragging. Pete was actually really humble. He just had stories no one else could tell. And he never
1:17.4	told the same one twice, because he never needed to. There was the time he stood just feet away
1:24.0	from Lee Harvey Oswald as Jack Ruby pulled the trigger. The time a bullet went through
1:28.7	his sleeve in Algiers as fighting between the Algerians and French raged. The time he met the
1:33.8	Beatles in Hong Kong. He didn't even think to mention that one until a couple years before he died.
	...

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