Nobody suspected murder when in November 1973, Alice Ralston, age 43, was found dead in bed in her Guelph apartment. Hardening of the arteries was the apparent cause of death. There was absolutely nothing to connect her sudden passing to that of 20-year-old Mary Hicks of London, who had died a month earlier, seemingly from a reaction to a prescription drug.

The same cause would be officially recorded in the death of Eleanor Hartwick, 27, of London in March 1974. The following August, Doris Brown, 49, of Guelph was found dead, believed to be a victim of pulmonary edema.

Foul play wasn’t suspected in any of these deaths, even though a pathologist found minor abrasions on Brown’s body and blood in her throat. Police were not notified.

Meanwhile, both Guelph and London were plagued by a series of assaults on women in their apartments. Some of the victims were raped and choked into unconsciousness. Other women awoke in their beds in the dead of night and saw a strange man looking down at them. He would slip away like a phantom, leaving them terrified and wondering how the intruder got past their locked doors.

On December 31, 1974, Jim Britton stopped at the apartment on Drew St. in Guelph of his fiancée, 23-year-old Diane Beitz. He and Diane had planned to attend a New Year’s Eve party that evening. Jim found overturned furniture and Diane naked and dead in her bed under a pile of blankets. Her hands were tied behind her back with pantyhose and a bra was knotted around her neck.

Police investigators found one of Diane’s slippers outside her apartment door. She had evidently answered a knock at the door and was immediately seized by the assailant. The post-mortem revealed that she’d been raped. Her cat was the only witness to the crime.

The building’s superintendent told detectives that very late the night before the murder, he’d seen a brown Buick idling on the street. An exhaust stain in the snow showed that the car had been there for a long time. Police also learned that a few days before the murder, flowers had been delivered to Diane’s apartment. Britton hadn’t sent them.

Guelph police questioned hundreds of people, but came up with no further clues. The killer’s trail was cold. It would remain so for over two years.

Then in April 1977, Luella Jeanne George, 23, was found dead in her bed in her top-floor London apartment. She’d been raped and strangled. A police search of the neighbourhood turned up some of her jewelry and underwear in a garbage pail.

London and Guelph police now believed they were dealing with a serial killer. Newspapers called the unknown rapist/murderer “The Bedroom Strangler.” He struck again a few months later.