The day before she was killed, 23-year-old Diane Beitz of Guelph, Ontario, became engaged to be married. Her fiancé, James Britton, had given her a diamond ring on December 30, 1974, and the couple planned a wedding for the following May. The next morning, New Year's Eve, Britton left Diane’s basement apartment on Drew Street at 6:15 a.m. to go to his job in Mississauga. Diane, a female employee at Cable 8 Television, was on Christmas vacation and planned to do laundry that day.
When Britton returned that evening, he found clothes soaking in the sink and a horrifying scene in the bedroom.
Diane was dead on her bed, still in the nightgown she had been wearing that morning. Her arms were bound behind her back with a pair of pantyhose, and a brassiere had been knotted tightly around her neck. An autopsy would later determine the time of death was around 2:00 p.m. and that she had been violently strangled and sexually assaulted after she was killed. Guelph police found no signs of a struggle or forced entry, and nothing had been stolen from the apartment. Despite questioning over 200 people and offering a $5,000 reward, the case went cold for three years.
The investigation into Diane’s murder was eventually linked to a series of sexual assaults and killings in Guelph and London, Ontario. Police didn't realize at first that a serial killer was at work, as several of the earlier deaths had been wrongly attributed to natural causes or accidental drug reactions. The killer, who stalked women in apartments, often scaling balconies to gain entry through unlocked doors, became known as "The Bedroom Strangler" and "The Balcony Killer." He would sometimes watch his victims sleep before attacking them.
In July 1977, police arrested Russell Maurice Johnson, a 30-year-old auto factory worker and former bouncer from Guelph, for the murder of another young woman in London. During questioning, Johnson, who had previously been diagnosed as a compulsive sexual deviant, confessed to the murders of Diane Beitz, Louella George, and Donna Veldboom. To the investigators' surprise, he also admitted to killing at least four other women whose deaths had not been considered homicides: Mary Hicks, Alice Ralston, Eleanor Hartwick, and Doris Brown. He had targeted Diane's building because a former girlfriend had once lived there.
At his trial in January 1978, Johnson claimed he had an "uncontrollable urge" to rape and kill. He was tried for three of the murders, including Diane's, and was found not guilty by reason of insanity. The court determined he was unable to grasp the severity of his crimes. Johnson was ordered to be confined indefinitely to a maximum-security mental health facility, the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in Penetanguishene. In custody, he confessed to a total of seven murders and at least 17 sexual assaults committed between 1973 and 1977.
Russell Maurice Johnson remains confined. He has been chemically castrated to reduce his testosterone levels. For decades, Diane Beitz's surviving family members have made the difficult journey to attend his annual Ontario Review Board hearings, advocating to ensure he is never released. Her cousin, Kara Beitz, described the hearings as a "pilgrimage of sadness" that brings back the horrible experience of her family's loss. They, along with the families of Johnson's other victims, continue to live with the damage he caused, fighting to honor the memory of the loved ones he took from them.
