The killer: The warning signs were there
In 1983 Derrick Lawlor killed a man in Newfoundland. And was pardoned. In a 1997 interview with Peel police he outlined his attempts to kill at least three other men, and was convicted for plotting to kill his brother. And was pardoned. And then in 2014
WARNING: THIS STORY REPORTS GRAPHIC DETAILS THAT MAY DISTURB SOME READERS
KITCHENER — When Derrick Lawlor fatally strangled a gay man in Kitchener in 2014, no one should have been surprised.
He strangled a gay man to death in Newfoundland in 1983, and in 1997 picked up a gay panhandler in Toronto, drugged him, drove him to a secluded area and planned to strangle him, Lawlor calmly admits in a videotaped interview with Peel Regional Police.
In the Dec. 31, 1997, interview, which The Record recently obtained, Lawlor also admits driving to Ottawa with a plan to kill his brother, who he blames for his homosexuality, according to a court transcript.
He also talks about bringing a knife to the home of a Salvation Army official who he alleges came onto him sexually.
“If you haven’t killed somebody, you’re sure as heck on the verge of doing it,” a police detective tells him in the interview. “And that sure should scare you and sure scares us.”
In the weeks leading up to the 2014 murder of Mark McCreadie on the edge of Victoria Park, Lawlor told a friend that if he had only a few months to live, he would spend his remaining days killing sexual offenders, his Kitchener trial was told.
Lawlor once referred to gay men as “sick,” even though he is openly gay.
Five weeks before the Kitchener murder, he checked himself into Grand River Hospital and told a social worker and doctor he had thoughts of harming promiscuous gay men and had been driving around with a knife. Lawlor was released because he didn’t have a plan to kill a specific person.
The mental health system “failed him,” counsellor Randy Scott, who became friends with Lawlor, said in an interview. “Had he gotten the right clinical help, this murder might have been prevented.”
Scott was a Crown witness at Lawlor’s Kitchener murder trial.
The trial was told Lawlor planned to kill another man before murdering McCreadie but relented when the man complimented him on his listening skills.
In the 1997 interview with Peel police, Lawlor talks about his murderous thoughts.
“I guess what I want to try and relay the most is that I don’t have any control when that happens to me,” says Lawlor, who lived in Mississauga at the time. “It’s something that doesn’t stop on its own.”
The panhandler
Lawlor tells Peel police he was moments away from killing a man just days before the interview. He drove to the gay community in downtown Toronto and “cruised the bars looking for somebody who might be interested in picking me up. But nothing really came of that.”
Lawlor, now 56, struck up a conversation with a gay panhandler, who he called Mike, and gave him beer and five sleeping pills.
“I told him they were uppers and would keep him awake,” he tells Peel police in the interview.
Lawlor told Mike he would drive to the Beaches in Toronto but instead headed west to a “secluded area in the bush” near Milton.
“Some oral sex went on willingly but it was part of the plan,” Lawlor says in the Peel interview. “I wasn’t looking for sex. I was setting it up so that he would be more vulnerable, I guess.
“He lay back, I turned the heat up high in the car and within a couple minute he was asleep. That’s when I tied him up. I tied him up to the seat. I tied him up pretty good.”
Lawlor takes a sip from his water bottle and continues the interview.
“It was in my head that this guy was using me for sex. I was gonna strangle him, dump him out on the side, but he came to his senses, he woke up. And he said, ‘You’re too rough.’ And he went to move and he couldn’t. Then he realized he was bound.” Lawlor had brought a knife. “There was a fading moment where I was just going to stick it in his neck,” Lawlor says. “And then I thought, no, better not do that.”
Lawlor says the man said: “Holy f---, what are you doing to me? Are you going to kill me or something?’ That’s exactly what he said to me. I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Get this off me and get me out of here.’ ”
Lawlor says he agreed to drive him back to Toronto but instead headed west, hoping Mike would fall asleep again. But when Mike realized they weren’t driving to Toronto, the man grabbed the wheel and pulled the car over. Lawlor relented, drove him back to Toronto and apologized.
He was not charged with the crimes against the panhandler.
Before picking up the panhandler, Lawlor brought a knife while looking for a male Salvation Army official he alleges came onto him sexually.
“I found his address. I went to his home and I stalked his home for a little while to make sure it was the right address,” he says in the interview with Peel police.
Lawlor says he saw the man inside the house.
“I was about to approach his house and some neighbours came out so I just turned and kept walking.”
Lawlor says he thought about trying to find him at a Salvation Army church.
“Maybe he would invite me out again and that would be my opportunity,” he says.
The gas can
During the interview with Peel police, Lawlor is sitting in a police interview room in Mississauga. On the table rests a red gas can, a lighter, two coils of rope and duct tape. He brought those items — and a knife — to Ottawa for his plan to kill his brother on Dec. 26, 1997.
Lawlor was speaking to the officers while under arrest after walking into a Mississauga hospital with a backpack containing some of those items. He told police where to find the gas can.
Lawlor blames his brother for his homosexuality, according to a court transcript.
“My intentions were to track him down and either A: Burn his house down or B: Take him out into a wooded area and tie him up and burn him,” Lawlor, showing no emotion, tells Peel police.
A detective asks him if he had any other plans.
“I was gonna cut his penis off,” Lawlor says.
“And what were you gonna do with that?” the officer asks.
“Put it in his mouth,” Lawlor says.
Lawlor says he arranged to meet his brother and his wife at an Ottawa coffee shop.
He says he wondered, “How the hell am I going to manipulate this to get him alone.”
He says he later told his brother: “I think I’m going to forget about my plan to hurt you. I think I should erase you from the equation because of family, that the family wouldn’t understand or wouldn’t be able to deal with it.”
He left the coffee shop but later his anger boiled up.
“I phoned his house and I said, ‘I think you’re a very sick individual and you are now back in the equation.’ ”
The triggers
A Peel detective asks him why he planned to kill his brother.
“I don’t know. Just things come into my head … a plan of action. Sometimes I watch movies. Movies trigger me big time. I go to a movie theatre, I walk out of there angry as hell. There’s a whole bunch of triggers for me. I really can’t say if there is any one par-