In the autumn of 1969, Marielle Archambault, a vibrant 20-year-old woman, was working as a jewelry clerk in Montreal, Quebec. Her life was full of promise, and recently, a new romance had her coworkers noting she seemed happy and utterly entranced. The source of her joy was a handsome and charming man she knew only as "Bill." On the evening of Sunday, November 23, Marielle left her job, stepping out into the city with the man who had captured her attention.
It was the last time her colleagues would see her alive.
The next morning, when the typically punctual Marielle did not arrive for her shift, her employer grew concerned. He went to her apartment to check on her, hoping she was simply ill. Instead, he made a devastating discovery. Inside her living room, Marielle Archambault lay dead. She had been brutally raped and strangled. The scene told a story of a violent struggle and a life cut tragically short. In the disarray of the apartment, investigators found a small, crumpled photograph of the smiling man her coworkers identified as "Bill," a chilling token left behind by her killer.
Marielle’s murder sent a wave of fear through Montreal. She was the second young woman to be killed in such a brutal manner in just a matter of weeks. On October 3, Shirley Audette, also 20, had been found raped and strangled. The police noted a terrifyingly unique and sadistic signature in both crimes: the killer had left savage bite marks on his victims' breasts. Despite having a photograph of their suspect, detectives could not connect the face to a name, and the man known as "Bill" vanished. The investigation stalled, and the city remained on edge.
Two months later, in January 1970, the killer struck again, murdering 24-year-old Jean Wray in her apartment. The pattern was the same: strangulation, sexual assault, and the horrifying bite marks. The man known as "Bill" had also been in her life. After this third murder, the trail went cold in Montreal, and the reign of terror seemed to have ended as abruptly as it began. The killer, it seemed, had disappeared completely, leaving behind a legacy of fear and three unsolved homicides.
The break in the case came more than a year later and over 2,000 miles away in Calgary, Alberta. On May 18, 1971, a high school teacher named Elizabeth Anne Porteous was found murdered in her apartment. She had been raped, strangled, and bitten. Friends of Porteous told police she had been dating a man named "Bill" who drove a distinctive blue Mercedes. Police located the car and soon arrested its owner, a man named Wayne Clifford Boden. Boden, who had moved from Montreal the previous year, admitted to seeing Porteous but denied any involvement in her death.
The key to unlocking the case rested on the bite marks left on Elizabeth Porteous's body. In a landmark case for forensic science in North America, an orthodontist made a cast of Wayne Boden’s teeth and was able to demonstrate 29 points of similarity to the marks on the victim. This pioneering use of forensic odontology led to Boden's conviction for the murder of Elizabeth Porteous, for which he received a life sentence. His sadistic signature had finally led to his downfall.
Following his conviction in Calgary, Boden was returned to Montreal to face justice for his earlier crimes. Confronted with the evidence, he confessed to the murders of Shirley Audette, Jean Wray, and Marielle Archambault. For these three killings, he received three additional life sentences. The man who became known as "The Vampire Rapist" was convicted on four counts of non-capital murder and would spend the rest of his life in prison. Wayne Clifford Boden died of cancer in custody on March 27, 2006, closing the final chapter on the life of the man who had murdered Marielle Archambault and three other women.
