By Reason of Insanity

In the summer of 1993, people in Ontario were shocked by one of the most bizarre murders in the province’s history. A patient at the Brockville psychiatric hospital was brutally killed in a forest grove on the grounds of the institution. One of the killers, a nearly blind psychiatric patient, walked into a nearby police station and turned himself in. The other murderer lay near the body in a sleeping bag, drugged into unconsciousness.

Police found that the myopic suspect is one of the Canada’s most dangerous killers, David Michael Krueger. His accomplice was Bruce Hamill, a murderer who had been freed after years of treatment at Penatanguishene’s Oak Ridge Institution for the criminally insane. Brockville hospital authorities had let Hamill escort Krueger on his first day pass in thirty-five years.

How could this killing have happened?

The bizarre story of Krueger’s life unfolds in this tightly-written book. It explores how Krueger allowed his strange fantasies to run his own life and how he was able to dupe psychiatrists, lawyers, and fellow inmates of the country’s toughest institution into doing his bidding.

Mark Bourrie, a Parliamentary Press Gallery journalist specializing in legal issues, has written for Canada's largest newspapers and magazines including: the Toronto Star, the London Free Press, Reader's Digest, and Canadian Lawyer. He is also the author of three books: Chicago of the North, a history of Canadian Pacific passenger ships, Ninety Fathoms Down: Canadian Stories of the Great Lakes, and Canada's Parliament Buildings.