HAMILTON’S DANGEROUS OFFENDERS
James Collier DESIGNATED 1985 AGE 52
He became Hamilton’s first DO after sexually assaulting four girls. His 30-year criminal record included convictions for three indecent assaults, committing an indecent act, rape and attempted rape.
Unnamed man DESIGNATED 1996 AGE 45
A bouncer with a 28-year criminal record and seven convictions for sexual assault. A publication ban was ordered on his name to protect the identity of his victims — including his wife and daughters.
Wayne Walker DESIGNATED 1997 AGE 40
Walker was raised in an abusive family and sent to live in a provincial facility at age 12. At 30 he was de-institutionalized by the province and moved to Hamilton.
He lured a six-year-old girl after Sunday service at Binkley United Church but was intercepted while walking her away.
He had three prior convictions for sexually assaulting children.
Terence Doyle DESIGNATED 1998 AGE 48
A Satan’s Choice member with a criminal record spanning 24 years, he had 22 convictions including weapons offences, assaults and attempted murder. He inflicted terror on three ex-wives including stabbing one in the chest as she called 911.
James Sipos DESIGNATED 1998 AGE 39
Convicted of assaulting or sexually assaulting nine women, six of them strangers.
In one incident, he sexually assaulted a teenager, tied her to a tree and talked about killing her and burning her body. In another, he forced a woman’s car off the road before punching, choking and raping her.
David Maracle DESIGNATED 1999 AGE 34
Convicted of the gunpoint kidnapping and rapes of a 14year-old Brantford girl, Maracle was declared a DO.
He successfully appealed his conviction and his DO designation and was granted a new trial. On the first day of jury selection, Maracle instead admitted his attack on the Brantford girl and pleaded guilty.
The Crown once again sought a DO designation. However, this time the judge decided against it, finding Maracle a long-term offender instead with 10 years probation after release.
Daryll Skedden DESIGNATED 2001 AGE 38
He raped a 16-year-old babysitter and had 37 other convictions for stalking and sexually assaulting women.
His crimes included: Dragging a woman into bushes, biting her and beating her as she screamed; assaulting his girlfriend; making obscene and threatening phone calls to a woman he picked out of the phone book; stalking a woman he didn’t know and leaving sexually explicit notes on her windshield. He assaulted one woman six days after completing a treatment program for sex offenders.
Skedden’s father was a convicted rapist who died in prison. His mother was a sex worker and alcoholic.
His stepfather and mother were convicted of attempted murder after the stepfather shot Skedden’s 13-year-old brother. The couple tried to remove the bullet with tweezers.
Bernard King DESIGNATED JULY 2005 AGE 51 Once, a woman awoke
in her own bed after a party to find King, naked, on top of her. He punched her in the mouth.
Another time, King followed a 17-year-old girl off a Toronto bus, threw her to the ground and kicked her so hard in the face she needed reconstructive surgery.
Another Toronto teen who rejected King’s advances was followed into a bathroom, punched in the face, burned with a cigarette and choked until she lost consciousness. King then defecated on her.
He also followed a woman into the subway, beat her into unconsciousness then sexually assaulted her.
In Hamilton, he attacked a woman getting into her car near Jackson Square. He punched her in the face and ordered her to “Get over and open your legs.”
King spent a total of 18 months out of custody between ages 16 and 51.
Michael Gardiner DESIGNATED 2006 AGE 29
He left the now closed federal half-way house on York Boulevard, walked across the street to Jackson Square and stabbed a shop manager 22 times. She survived.
Gardiner intended to rape her, but was turned off by all the blood.
Gardiner was first admitted to a mental hospital at age seven because of his desire to hurt other children.
He racked up 41 criminal convictions, including sexually assaulting a woman with a mental disability and threatening to kill a justice of the peace.
Gregory Finck DESIGNATED 2007 AGE 35
A child rapist who propositioned an 11-year-old Hamilton girl on her way home from school. The girl’s father and uncle chased Finck and held him for police.
Finck was in and out of prison most of his adult life. He sexually assaulted a three-year-old girl he abducted near her home in New Brunswick.
Gerald Dyke DESIGNATED 2011 AGE 40
He spent much of his adult life behind bars for domestic violence, having severely beaten each of his five girlfriends.
He broke one girlfriend’s nose and orbital bones, then forced her to perform oral sex on him.
He was living at a Hamilton half-way house when he beat the woman he lived with on weekends.
Michelle Erstikaitis DESIGNATED 2011 AGE 31
She asked to be declared a DO. As a teenager growing up in Hamilton, Erstikaitis was obsessed with serial killer Paul Bernardo. Her goals were to marry Bernardo, become a famous killer, become a DO (like Bernardo).
She left messages on the answering machine of Debbie Mahaffy, pretending to be her daughter Leslie, who was raped and killed by Bernardo.
She poured gas throughout her Hamilton apartment and lit it. First responders broke down the door to rescue her.
At 22, she was designated a long-term offender and supervised for six years after her release from prison.
While on that supervision, she slashed her boyfriend with scissors.
She was declared a DO (by a Toronto judge), but was soon released and placed on a 10-year supervision order.
This summer, Erstikaitis was convicted of slashing the throat of a guard at the U.S. Consular Office in Toronto.
Johnson Aziga DESIGNATED 2011 AGE 55
The first person in Canada convicted of murder for failing to disclose his HIV status to sexual partners.
He infected two women who died, infected five others and caused paralyzing psychological damage to four more partners.
John Greene DESIGNATED 2015 AGE 30
He beat, sexually assaulted and tried to kill a seven-year-old Hamilton girl he abducted from an apartment hallway.
Thinking he had choked the child to death, he was washing her body with bleach when his girlfriend arrived and called 911.
Greene had 65 criminal convictions, 30 involving violence.