Arlene Bynon
speaker
115 appearances
4 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Arlene Bynon’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
There are parts of Olson's story he wouldn't tell us on these early calls. Okay, we have to give up the studio now.
But soon, Olson was calling us weekly.
It started to feel, well, not normal, but certainly routine. Sometimes he would call me just to tell me about what he was watching.
Or to pretend he was a radio DJ.
He would call me at work. Or at home. He called me on Christmas. He knew no boundaries.
It was like we were lying in wait, waiting for Olson to tell us what we really wanted to know. For the first year, Peter and I made requests to see Olson in prison, but were turned down. But we felt we needed to see him in person. So we found another way in.
We told prison officials we were writing a book about Olson, and if we couldn't talk to him, could we just get a tour of where he was being held It worked. On February 19th, 1991, Peter and I drove the three hours from Toronto to visit Olson in prison. As we approached, I looked up at the imposing walls of Kingston Penitentiary. Inside were some of the most violent men in the country.
I was nervous. Peter could tell that I was worried and told me I was right to be unnerved, a young woman entering a maximum security men's prison. But this was my choice. I knew I needed to see him at least once, inside the prison walls he was calling me from. And then, almost immediately, as Peter and I stepped into the foyer of the penitentiary, There was Olsen.
He had guards on either side of him, hands cuffed, being walked back to his cell after a haircut. He looked up and saw me. We locked eyes. He had no idea we were coming. Olsen stopped and stared at us as he was taken back to his cell. And then he turned and winked at me. Peter and I continued our interview with the warden without skipping a beat. We couldn't let on that Olsen knew us.
Before we left, I asked, could I just walk down the middle of the cell block where he was being held? The warden agreed. Peter stayed behind and I started walking. I could feel eyes on me, watching me as I passed. And then, I got to Olsen's cell.
Peter and I weren't allowed to record inside the prison, but we started as soon as we began driving away.
It was the only time I ever saw Olson in person. and I could easily imagine him being a killer. I'd never forgotten him looking at me from his cell, hands high up on the bars. His face was in darkness, but backlit from the light coming in from the tiny window to the rear. He was calm until he wasn't. As I walked away, he started calling my name. Arlene. Arlene. Arlene.
A nearby prisoner yelled, it's Clifford's girlfriend. The angry warden pulled me away as the men yelled from their cells, trying to get us out of the area as fast as possible. As catcalls echoed off the thick concrete walls, it was chaos. It's been more than three decades since that moment, and it still horrifies me.
In the years that followed, I would report what I could from what Olson told me, until eventually I wasn't able to listen to him any longer.
Peter would continue speaking to him long after I stopped, over a decade more. And he would write books and articles about his relationship with Olson. Somehow I never could, but still I kept everything. The dozens, maybe hundreds of letters Olson sent me. The interrogation transcripts and psychiatric reports. The horrific journals where Olson detailed his crimes.
And the tapes, the recordings of our hundreds of calls. It all lived in boxes that I carried with me from house to house wherever I moved. I think I always knew someday I'd return to this story. After Peter's death, I thought I would have to do it alone. Until a message in 2019 came. Nat, I still remember when I got that message from you.
And I don't think you had any idea at what time you were messaging me. You didn't know I'd yanked up the boxes. And I had, and there was this message from Peter's grandson. It was a moment.
And for me, for you to send me the message, it was just so full circle on the story, you know. And as you know, I was very clear with you. This thing has been twisting and turning inside me for such a long time. And this whole return to the partnership I had with your granddad, I was about your age and he was about my age.
And he's not here anymore, and here we are, and both of us picking up this story again. I feel the ghost of Peter in this.
I do, and that's one of the things that sticks out at me. But I also remember when everyone knew the name Clifford Woolso. And when you said it, you could see their face twist. It was a name that was completely connected with evil in this country. But yet now when I look at it, it is incredible that that cash-for-bodies deal happened. and that we forgot about it.
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