Peter Woodcock

Early life and psychological profile

Peter Woodcock was born on March 5, 1939, in Peterborough, Ontario, to a 17-year-old mother, Waita Woodcock, who gave him up for adoption after breastfeeding him for about a month. As an infant, he was placed in numerous foster homes, where records indicated he had feeding problems, cried constantly, and showed an inability to bond. By his first birthday, he exhibited severe emotional trauma, becoming terrified of anyone approaching him and making incoherent animal-like noises. At age two, he required medical treatment for a neck injury resulting from physical abuse by a foster parent. At age three, he was placed with Frank and Susan Maynard, an upper-middle-class couple in Toronto who intended to provide a permanent home. Susan Maynard became strongly attached to the deeply maladjusted child, who continued to scream when approached. By age five, Woodcock remained socially isolated and became a target for neighbourhood bullies, a pattern that persisted throughout his childhood. The Maynards, concerned for his fragile state, regularly brought him to the Hospital for Sick Children for extensive treatment. Despite being sent to private schools, he failed to make friends and was described at age 11 by a Children's Aid Society report as a worried, nervous child who wandered compulsively, had little self-control, and expressed excessive affection for his foster mother while resenting other children. Early signs of violent fantasies emerged, such as when he muttered a wish for a bomb to kill all children at the Canadian National Exhibition. He was later sent to a school for emotionally disturbed children in Kingston, Ontario, where he began acting on sexual urges with other children. After returning to Toronto, he attended several high schools, where he was consistently shunned and bullied by peers, though teachers remembered him as a bright student who excelled in subjects like science and history.

The 1956 to 1957 child murders

In his late teens, Woodcock's prized possession was a red and white Schwinn bicycle, which he used to act on a compulsive need to wander Toronto. He developed an elaborate fantasy about leading an invisible gang of 500 boys called the Winchester Heights Gang. Unbeknownst to his foster parents, he used these wanderings to sexually assault children, which escalated to murder. His crimes followed a disturbing pattern of luring, strangulation, and post-mortem rituals. The timeline of his known child murders is as follows:

• September 15, 1956: Woodcock, aged 17, met 7-year-old Wayne Mallette on the grounds of Exhibition Place. He lured the boy out of sight, strangled him to death, and defecated next to the body. The body was found the next morning with clothing removed and re-dressed, face pushed into dirt, and two bite marks. Pennies were scattered nearby.
• October 6, 1956: Woodcock picked up 9-year-old Gary Morris in Cabbagetown and took him to Cherry Beach. There, he strangled and beat the boy to death, with the coroner citing a ruptured liver as the cause. The body was found with a bite mark on the throat and ritualistically placed paper clips nearby.
• January 19, 1957: Woodcock offered 4-year-old Carole Voyce a ride on his bicycle, took her under the Bloor Viaduct, and murdered her. She was found choked into unconsciousness, sexually molested, and killed by a tree branch forcibly inserted into her vagina. Her clothing had been pulled off.

Witnesses saw a teenager cycling away from the Voyce crime scene, leading to a composite sketch published on the front page of the Toronto Star. This sketch resulted in Woodcock's arrest on January 21, 1957, after which he confessed to all three murders. He was tried only for the murder of Carole Voyce. On April 11, 1957, after a four-day trial, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to the Oak Ridge division of the Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre.

The wrongful conviction of Ron Moffatt

The investigation into Wayne Mallette's murder led to one of Canada's notable wrongful convictions. Toronto police, seeking a teenage boy on a bicycle, arrested 14-year-old Ron Moffatt on September 21, 1956. Moffatt had run away from home and had previously worked at Exhibition Place, drawing police interest. He was interrogated for hours in a small room by two detectives using a good-cop, bad-cop routine, was handcuffed to a desk, and his parents were not notified. Under this pressure, Moffatt confessed to the murder, later stating he would have said anything to end the ordeal. Despite multiple witnesses placing him at a movie theatre miles from the crime scene at the time of the murder, and the fact he could not ride a bicycle due to balance problems, he was convicted of juvenile delinquency in juvenile court and sent to a detention centre. He spent nearly eight months in custody, fearing execution upon turning 18. After Woodcock's arrest and confession in January 1957, Woodcock was called as a defence witness for Moffatt. The murder charge against Moffatt was stayed in 1957, and he was released. Journalist Nate Hendley later detailed Moffatt's experience in the 2018 book The Boy on the Bicycle, and Moffatt gave interviews in 2018 discussing the psychological impact of his wrongful conviction.

Institutionalization and psychiatric treatments

Following his insanity verdict, Peter Woodcock was incarcerated at the maximum-security Oak Ridge facility in Penetanguishene, where he was diagnosed as a psychopath. Over the decades, he was subjected to various experimental and often harsh psychiatric treatments aimed at breaking his personality. These treatments reflected the evolving and sometimes controversial practices of the era within forensic psychiatry. The key therapies administered to him included:

• LSD therapy: Part of popular experimental treatments in the 1960s.
• Personality-breaking drugs: Including scopolamine, sodium amytal, methedrine, and dexamyl.
• Dyads therapy: A confrontational technique developed by Harvard psychologist and former CIA expert Henry A. Murray, where inmates challenged each other's belief systems in sessions inmates called 'The Hundred-Day Hate-In'.

Woodcock did not respond positively to these interventions and was not a compliant patient. He engaged in coercive sexual acts and exploited less intelligent or less sane inmates, convincing them he had contact with an imaginary outside gang called The Brotherhood that required initiation through oral sex and gifts. In the later years of his confinement, he was transferred to less restrictive institutions, including the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital. There, staff indulged his interest in trains by taking him to the Smiths Falls Railway Museum and even to see the film The Silence of the Lambs. During this period, he legally changed his name to David Michael Krueger and reconnected with Bruce Hamill, a former Oak Ridge patient who had been released and was working as an Ottawa courthouse security guard. Krueger convinced Hamill an alien brotherhood would solve his problems if he helped kill another Brockville inmate, Dennis Kerr.

The 1991 murder of Dennis Kerr

On July 13, 1991, David Michael Krueger, formerly Peter Woodcock, was granted his first publicly escorted day pass after 34 years in psychiatric custody. Bruce Hamill, his former fellow patient, signed him out from the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital. Hamill had earlier purchased a plumber's wrench, a hatchet, knives, and a sleeping bag from a hardware store. Within the first hour of his unsupervised release, Krueger arranged to meet 52-year-old fellow patient Dennis Kerr in a wooded area on the hospital grounds. When Kerr arrived, Krueger struck him in the head with the pipe wrench, beating him into unconsciousness. Krueger and Hamill then retrieved the hidden hatchet and knife, hacking and stabbing Kerr to death. They mutilated his body, nearly severed his head, and sodomized the corpse. After the murder, Krueger walked approximately two miles to a police station and turned himself in. For this crime, Krueger was transferred back to the maximum-security Oak Ridge division. He never provided a rational explanation for the killing, stating in a 1993 interview that his morality was 'whatever the system allows.'

Later years, death, and case significance

After the 1991 murder, David Michael Krueger remained at Oak Ridge for the rest of his life. His case became the subject of a biography, Mark Bourrie's By Reason of Insanity, and several documentary films, including an episode of the TV mini-series Mind of a Murderer in 2001. He died of natural causes on March 5, 2010, his 71st birthday. The Peter Woodcock case is significant in Canadian criminal and legal history for its wrongful conviction of Ron Moffatt and the insanity verdict. It also highlights the limitations of experimental psychiatric treatments for psychopathy. The case continues to be analyzed in criminological research regarding media framing and the cultural construction of serial killers. He was described in the Toronto Star as 'the serial killer they couldn't cure.'

Questions about Peter Woodcock

Why was Peter Woodcock not convicted?

Peter Woodcock was found not guilty by reason of insanity on April 11, 1957, specifically for the murder of Carole Voyce. A four-day trial concluded that he was legally insane at the time he committed his crimes. Consequently, he was not sentenced to prison but was instead committed indefinitely to a psychiatric facility. He was sent to the Oak Ridge division of the maximum security Penetanguishene Mental Health Centre in Ontario for treatment and confinement.

Who was wrongfully convicted for one of Woodcock's murders?

Fourteen-year-old Ron Moffatt was wrongfully convicted for the murder of Wayne Mallette in 1956. He confessed after intense police interrogation without a parent or lawyer present. He spent nearly eight months in custody before being exonerated following Woodcock's confession. Journalist Nate Hendley documented Moffatt's ordeal in the 2018 book The Boy on the Bicycle .

What happened during Woodcock's first unsupervised release in 1991?

On July 13, 1991, David Michael Krueger was signed out on his first publicly escorted day pass by Bruce Hamill. Within the first hour of this unsupervised release, Krueger lured fellow psychiatric patient Dennis Kerr to a wooded area near the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital. There, Krueger and Hamill attacked Kerr with a pipe wrench, a hatchet, and knives, killing him and mutilating his body. After the murder, Krueger walked to a police station about two miles away and turned himself in.

What psychiatric treatments did Peter Woodcock undergo?

While imprisoned, Peter Woodcock underwent various experimental psychiatric treatments for his diagnosed psychopathy. These treatments included LSD therapy, which was popular in the 1960s, and the administration of other drugs like scopolamine, sodium amytal, methedrine, and dexamyl. He also participated in 'dyads,' a confrontational therapy developed by Harvard psychologist Henry A. Murray. These personality breaking treatments ultimately proved ineffective, as evidenced by his murder of a fellow patient in 1991.

How many people did Peter Woodcock kill?

Peter Woodcock killed four people. He murdered three children in Toronto in the late 1950s: 7-year-old Wayne Mallette in September 1956, 9-year-old Gary Morris in October 1956, and 4-year-old Carole Voyce in January 1957. Decades later, on July 13, 1991, he murdered a fellow psychiatric patient named Dennis Kerr. This fourth murder occurred on his first day of unsupervised release from the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital.

Sources and further reading

• Peter Woodcock (Wikipedia)
• Peter Woodcock: Canada's Youngest Serial Killer (canadiantruecrime.ca)
• Peter Woodcock: Psychopathy Un…, Historical True Crime (podcasts.apple.com)
• Peter Woodcock | Serial Killer Bio (serialkillercalendar.com)

Checked by the Nosy Mag desk. Last updated 2026-10-28.