HUNTER: Suspected serial killer Snow heading to trial for cold case murder

Published Nov 04, 2026  •  Last updated 10 minutes ago  •  3 minute read

Killer David Snow. Photo by Postmedia files

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Suspected serial killer David Alexander Snow has carved a bloody path through the Canadian criminal landscape.

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The uber-creep has pride of place in the pantheon of our homicidal superstars. And now, the 71-year-old is getting one final star turn.

The nebbish-looking former antiques dealer — deemed a dangerous offender — is slated to go on trial in January for the 1991 first-degree murder of Angelien Josephine Quesnelle of Apsley.

Snow eyed as suspect from the start

The Quesnelle probe had been ice cold for more than three decades, although Snow had been in the frame as far back as 1997.

Cops believe Quesnelle, 40, was murdered sometime between Oct. 7 and Nov. 15, 1991. She had last been seen in Peterborough after visiting her lawyer’s office and was reported missing on October 9 that year. Cops found her vehicle near a quarry east of Coe Hill in Hastings County on November 10, along with some of her belongings.

Ian Blackburn. is a murder victim. The accused is David Snow. Copy Photo

Five days later, a hunter found her badly decomposed body.

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But as in hundreds of other cold cases, time and technology have apparently caught up to Snow. OPP investigators used DNA technology to zero in on the convicted killer and announced they had charged him with first-degree murder in June 2025.

“Angelien Quesnelle was murdered in 1991 and, for 34 years, her family has lived without answers. OPP investigators have never stopped searching for her killer, relentless in their pursuit of the truth. This arrest represents an important step toward providing Angelien’s family and the community of Apsley with the long-awaited answers they deserve,” OPP Det. Insp. Shawn Glassford told reporters in 2025.

Snow known as ‘House Hermit’

Cops did not have to go far to find Snow — AKA the “House Hermit” or “Cottage Killer.”

The sadistic killer is serving a life sentence for the heinous first-degree murders of Toronto realtor Ian Blackburn, 55, and wife Nancy, 49, in April 1992. He was living in their Caledon property, took them hostage and stole their firearms.

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Snow put the hog-tied, strangled Nancy Blackburn into the trunk of her car and forced her husband at gunpoint to drive to the couple’s north Toronto home. He asphyxiated Ian and left both bodies in the trunk in their driveway.

Suspected serial killer David Alexander Snow in 1992. (POSTMEDIA)

The killer then boarded a train for Vancouver, where he used his victims’ guns to terrorize women in the Pacific Coast city. Snow kept one woman as a sex slave for eight days in one of the area’s forests. She was one of his three West Coast victims.

She said in 1992: “He didn’t see me as a human being. He would do what he pleased with me.”

Dangerous offender status

Eventually, Snow was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in 1997 and sentenced to life in prison. Following his British Columbia rampage, he was deemed a dangerous offender.

According to the Peterborough Examiner, the trial is expected to last three weeks. The paper said Snow waived his right to a preliminary hearing in September.

And there is one more unsolved homicide hanging over Snow’s greasy head: The brutal 1991 murder of 47-year-old Etobicoke businesswoman Caroline Case. Cops like Snow for her slaying as well. In fact, they like him a lot.

Murder victim Nancy Blackburn n.a.

Like Quesnelle, Case seemed to vanish into thin air. She had last been seen outside her Bloor St. W. store, The Jewelled Elephant. The following day, cops found her white Mercedes-Benz station wagon in a rural area of Caledon crashed into a ditch.

The car’s interior looked like a slaughterhouse.

Snow’s sickening modus operandi was all over the Case investigation.

Have we seen the last of this homicidal maniac? Probably not.

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