Podcast probes terror case fiasco
Filmmaker thought he'd find `comedy of errors,' but encountered something much darker
PRESSURE COOKER
When: Sept. 6
Where: CBC Listen/ podcast platforms
Dan Pierce was looking for a story for a feature film when he recalled the story of John Nuttall and Amanda Korody. In 2016, a B.C. Supreme Court judge stayed the proceedings in the terrorism trial of the Surrey couple on the grounds that the RCMP investigation was “a travesty of justice.”
“I remember a headline in Vice saying, `B.C. Terror Trial
Reveals Gong Show RCMP Investigation,'” said Pierce, a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker.
“And then reading about the absurd lengths that the police went to manufacture this crime. The idea that this couple was so unable or unwilling to do the work themselves and spent so much time smoking weed and playing video games that the police had to do more and more of the planning seemed like an interesting and humorous tension, ripe for a comedy of errors.”
In 2015, a jury convicted Nuttall, then 44, and Korody, 35, of terrorism-related offences for plotting to plant pressure cooker bombs on the grounds of the provincial legislature in Victoria with the aim of murdering tourists during Canada Day festivities in 2013.
After the B.C. Supreme Court judge stayed the proceedings, B.C.'s Appeal Court upheld the ruling.
Pierce realized that the couple was free to tell their story and reached out to their lawyers. Pre-COVID, he met with Nuttall once a month for the better part of a year. As he pieced their story together, he began to think not in terms of a feature film but a podcast, thanks to a suggestion by friend and local journalist Sarah Berman, who reported on the trial.
The five-part series, Pressure Cooker, features audio recorded by Pierce as well as undercover surveillance tapes. Due to the lengths the RCMP went in their investigation — “putting the couple up in hotels, taking them on trips, buying their cigarettes, buying their groceries, and taking more and more of an active role in planning and carrying out all the logistics of the crime,” in the filmmaker's words — he thought he had the makings of a dark comedy on his hands. This changed during the process of getting to know Nuttall and Korody and delving into the case.
“The deeper we got into it, the darker and more serious we realized that the story was,” Pierce said. “It has this fascinating juxtaposition of moments that come out of nowhere that make you laugh butting up against other moments that are really serious and unnerving. And there's this really interesting sense of dramatic irony in the sense that we know something that both sides don't know. We know that John and Amanda are swept up in this undercover operation and they have no idea. And we also know that the police are taking them seriously, but we also know that they are putting on a show for the officers. We're able to see on both sides of the curtain.”
The RCMP and CSIS, who put the couple on the former's radar, declined to comment for the podcast. But retired Crown prosecutor Peter Eccles, who argued against the couple in the original trial, agreed to an interview.
“One of the things he told us is that he would go to his grave disagreeing with the Court of Appeal's decision,” Pierce said.
“He is a very fiery voice in the podcast, saying that the couple was dangerous and that the police just did what he had to do.”
Pierce is still interested in adapting the story into a feature film. He figures he'll scrap the screenplay he wrote before the podcast and start fresh.
“We learned so much more about the whys, like why they ended up at the centre of this and why they were susceptible to this and why they became the people who they are.”