Peter Woodcock

David Michael Krueger (March 5, 1939 – March 5, 2010), best known by his birth name Peter Woodcock, was a Canadian serial killer, child rapist and diagnosed psychopath. He gained notoriety for the murders of three young children in Toronto in the late 1950s, as well as for a murder in 1991 on his first day of unsupervised release from the psychiatric institution in which he had been incarcerated for his earlier crimes.

An adopted child, Krueger lived in numerous foster homes as an infant and showed signs of severe emotional trauma when he found a permanent foster home at the age of 3. Unable to adjust to social situations, he was bullied by his peers. Krueger would often wander from his home by foot, bicycle or train to parts of Toronto, where he would molest dozens of children and ultimately murder three. Found not guilty by reason of insanity, he was sent to a psychiatric facility. Psychiatrists placed him in experimental treatment programs for psychopathy, but those treatments proved ineffective when he murdered a fellow psychiatric patient in 1991; after his death in 2010, he was described in the Toronto Star as "the serial killer they couldn't cure."

Early life Peter Woodcock was born in Peterborough, Ontario, to a 17-year-old factory worker, Waita Woodcock, who gave him up for adoption after breastfeeding him for a month. Adoption agency records report that the newborn showed feeding problems and cried constantly. As an infant, he stayed in various foster homes, unable to bond with any of his foster parents. After his first birthday, he became terrified of anybody approaching him, and his speech was incoherent—described as strange whining animal noises. He was also physically abused by at least one of his early foster parents, with a 2-year-old Woodcock having to be given medical treatment for an injured neck after receiving a beating. By the age of 11, he was described as an "angry little boy"; a Children's Aid Society report on him from that time read:

Slight in build, neat in appearance, eyes bright, and wide open, worried facial expression, sometimes screwing up of eyes, walks briskly and erect, moves rapidly, darts ahead, interested and questioning constantly in conversation ... He attributes his wandering to feeling so nervous that he just has to get away. In some ways, Peter has little capacity for self-control. He appears to act out almost everything he thinks and demonstrates excessive affection for his foster mother. Although he verbalizes his resentment for other children, he has never been known to physically attack another child ... Peter apparently has no friends. He plays occasionally with younger children, managing the play. When with children his own age, he is boastful and expresses determinedly ideas which are unacceptable and misunderstood. Woodcock was sent to a school for emotionally disturbed children in Kingston, Ontario, and began acting on his strong sexual urges with other children—with Woodcock stating that here he had consensual intercourse with a 12-year-old girl when he was 13.

Early crimes Peter Woodcock's prized possession was a red and white Schwinn bicycle on which he satisfied his continuing compulsion to wander. He rode the bike to the far reaches of the city—and evolved a fantasy in which he led a gang of 500 invisible boys on bikes called the 'Winchester Heights Gang'. Nate Hendley published in 2018 an account of Moffatt's experience, The Boy on the Bicycle.

Murder of Gary Morris On October 6, 1956, Woodcock was riding his bike around Cabbagetown when he picked up 9-year-old Gary Morris. He then drove the boy to Cherry Beach, where he strangled and beat him to death—with a coroner later determining that Morris had died from a ruptured liver.

Murder of Carole Voyce On January 19, 1957, Woodcock was again riding his bike when he approached 4-year-old Carole Voyce and offered her a ride. He then drove her under the Bloor Viaduct and murdered her. Woodcock was tried only for the murder of Carole Voyce. He underwent various forms of psychiatric therapy, including LSD treatments when they were popular in the 1960s. He was also given other personality-breaking drugs: scopolamine, sodium amytal, methedrine and dexamyl. He was subjected to "dyads"—a personality-breaking therapy in which inmates challenged each other's belief systems—which inmates referred to as "The Hundred-Day Hate-In". When Dennis Kerr arrived, Krueger struck him in the head with the pipe wrench and continued to beat him into unconsciousness. Krueger and Hamill then seized the hatchet and knife they had hidden in the bushes while waiting for Kerr's arrival and hacked and stabbed Kerr, mutilating his body, nearly severing his head, and sodomized the corpse. Krueger then left the scene, walked to a police station about two miles away, and turned himself in.

Death For the murder of Dennis Kerr, Krueger was transferred back to the Oak Ridge division of the Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre, where he had spent the majority of his 34 preceding years in custody. In the years after Kerr's murder, he was the focus of a biography and several documentary films and sometimes tried to explain why he killed, but he never came up with rational reasons. He said in a 1993 interview: "I'm accused of having no morality, which is a fair assessment, because my morality is whatever the system allows." On March 5, 2010, his 71st birthday, Krueger died of natural causes.