5 minute read
Lee Mellor and the dark art of true crime
By Adam Gray
There is a man lurking among us, skulking in the shadows, feverishly studying violent crime, relentlessly hammering away at his keyboard, editing audio interviews like a man possessed. His name is Lee Mellor, aka Dr. Mellor, a creative machine, a master of a dark art, one of the most respected figures in Canadian true crime. He is the author of seven books, and the host and creator of the edgy cult hit podcast Murder Was The Case (which has 192 episodes and counting). He’s also been a professional singer/ songwriter, is a criminologist with a PhD a degree in history from Concordia in homicide and sex crime, and still 30s, he is just getting started.
Mellor’s journey has been a complex one. Nomadic by nature, he was born in the northwest of England and relocated with his parents to Canada in 1988, where he grew up in Bowmanville, Ont. After studying film and earning a degree in history from Concordia University, he was struck by a mysterious illness that caused him to suffer chronic pain. Mellor had to regroup and learn to deal with his condition; he moved back in with his parents who were now living in a beautiful property on Little Lake in Brighton, Ont. Although this was a dark time in his life, it was also a turning point.
“I coped by vociferously reading true crime paperbacks and social science textbooks, while plotting a novel about a fictional RCMP profiler who would investigate aberrant homicides all over Canada,” says Mellor. “In preparation for the story, I researched the untold and quasi-secret history of a serial murder in Canada. At that time the national narrative was that we'd only had Clifford Olson, Bernardo & Homolka, and Robert Pickton. I was certain that I would uncover a dozen other cases or so. To my shock, I found more than 60! At this point, my focus shifted from the novel to writing the first authoritative and comprehensive book on the history and phenomenon of Canadian serial killing: Cold North Killers.”
He continues: “This is where it gets creepy. In January 2010, I learned about the suspicious disappearance of Jessica Lloyd in Belleville where my mom worked. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my mind leapt to ‘It's a serial killer!’ but then a more sensible internal voice followed with ‘Of course not, jackass, people go missing all the time. It's just because you're reading about serial killers 24/7.’ Well, low and behold, not only did it turn out to be the work of a serial killer, but the now disgraced commander of CFB Trenton, Russell Williams, who, unbeknownst to me, had murdered Marie France Comeau right in Brighton in November 2009.”
Cold North Killers was published in 2012. Considering how events had transpired, Mellors says he wrote about the other 59 cases from a third-person perspective, but penned the Williams case from his “viewpoint with a more personal flavour.”
Cold North Killers was a huge success and can still be found on bookshelves of all major bookstores across Canada. Mellor followed up with a companion piece Rampage: Canadian Mass Murder and Spree Killing, and while working on his PhD published two academic textbooks on the subject of aberrant violence. His last three books have all been for Dorling-Kindersley—a Penguin imprint based in the UK. They include The Crime Book (2017), a stellar coffee table tome covering an eclectic array of misdeeds from around the world and throughout history; Behind the Horror (2020) which looks at the true stories that inspired some of the most chilling horror and thriller films; and the selfexplanatory Conspiracies Uncovered, which dropped earlier this year.
When asked about his writing process Mellor says, “Grind. That 'sit down at a tidy desk with a cup of coffee and gaze serenely out of a window' you see in movies is the antithesis of what it's like for me. That sounds like a luxury for rich people who don't have to worry about meeting tight deadlines. Now, imagine a portly Viking in boxer shorts sitting in bed surrounded by scraps of paper with bizarre scribblings, burnt roach ends, and a half dozen empty tea-stained mugs, typing relentlessly on his laptop— sometimes for 18 hours straight—until he can't go any longer. He might fall asleep in the morning, afternoon, or night. Structure does not map neatly onto his inspiration, so he dispenses with it. The ends justify the means, and the means are chaotic. Sheer force of will. I am that portly Viking.”
Publishing seven books in eight years, while completing a PhD requires an enormous amount of focus and motivation. I ask him how he does it. “I don't allow myself an alternative. If I don't write, I can't put food in my belly or keep a roof over my head,” says Mellor. “When the alternative to writing is excruciating physical discomfort, you focus on putting words on a page for the same reason a lion focuses on stalking gazelle. The motivation is survival. Refuse to be anything but a lion.”
Mellor’s podcast Murder Was The Case is not for the faint of heart. It’s true crime for advanced users: “The show is targeted at people who are intellectually curious, difficult to offend, and can take a joke,” he says. “It seems to be most popular with listeners from Gen X and the Oregon Trail generation.”
Mellor’s dark sense of humor, combined with his encyclopedic knowledge and top-notch guests make for some very compelling listening. The show varies between academic criminology and relaxed ‘dive bar’ interviews with the top minds of true crime, during which they swill whiskey and delve deep into the underworld of violent crime and its offenders.
Dr. Mellor is currently living in the UK and working on his first novel.
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