The plumber, Shawn Farn, knelt beside the toilet in the basement apartment on 19 McMillan Drive, pulling his metal snake out of the drain for what felt like the hundredth time. The whole bathroom smelled wrong—not like a plumbing issue, but something deeper, something rotting. The homeowner, a man named Adam Strong, hovered behind him, watching every move. “That’s disgusting,” Adam said, peering over Shawn’s shoulder.
“What is it? ”
Shawn didn’t answer. He had already pulled out what looked like stringy flesh, hair, and small fragments of bone. He had found more of the same substance in the upstairs apartment’s pipes.
He had been on the job long enough to know this wasn’t normal. He sealed the material in a bag, stepped outside, and called his boss. “I don’t know what it is,” Shawn said, his voice shaking. “But we’ve pulled back about ten or fifteen pounds of stuff.
It looks like meat. Flesh-type stuff. I don’t know what it is. ”
His boss agreed.
This was something the police needed to hear. When the officers arrived, Constable Kevin Park looked at the substance and hesitated. “I’d never seen anything like this before,” he later said. “So I wasn’t sure.
”
They knocked on Adam’s door and asked what he had flushed down the toilet that had clogged the pipes so badly. Adam didn’t flinch. With the casualness of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he said, “Okay, you got me. The gig’s up.
It’s a body. If you want to recover the rest of her, it’s in my freezer. ”
Sergeant Andrew Groves opened the freezer. Inside, he found human remains in a garbage bag.
Alongside them sat a dead raccoon and a crude bomb made from plastic pipes and match heads. Adam Strong was handcuffed and taken to the police station. Officers had to wait for the bomb squad to clear the apartment before they could search it properly. What they found turned the house into what the media would call a house of horrors.
To understand how they got here, you have to go back a decade. In 2008, a nineteen-year-old girl named Candace Fitzpatrick vanished. Born in 1989, Candace had grown up in a turbulent home. She fell into drugs and had run-ins with local law enforcement.
When her family tried to report her missing, they were told they couldn’t—her lifestyle, her addiction, her self-destructive behavior disqualified her from the resources she desperately needed. Her father, Bill, refused to give up. He walked the streets of Oshawa, Ontario, searching for her. He traveled to neighboring cities.
He used social media to spread the word about his missing daughter. Days turned into weeks, months, and years. There was no sign of her. Adam Strong had lived in Oshawa for years.
Born in Cornwall, Ontario, in 1972, he had kept to himself. He worked as a gas station operator and was known as a recluse. He rented out the basement apartment of his house on 19 McMillan Drive for a decade. His neighbors had no issues with him.
He was just the quiet guy down the street. His kitchen was a mess of dirty dishes and rotten food. Behind his couch, he kept a folded autopsy table. He owned a collection of BDSM gear, magazines, weapons, and adult toys.
In the BDSM community, he was someone people actively avoided. He wasn’t interested in mutual pleasure—he found his pleasure in violence and desecration of corpses. How Candace met Adam is unknown. What happened in his apartment that night is also unknown.
But at some point, Adam killed her. He dismembered her and hid her remains. He kept a ring from her finger as a memento. Nine years later, a girl named Rory Hashe vanished.
Rory was born in June 1999. She was described by friends and family as wise and fierce. When she was thirteen, she was named cadet of the year in her cadet program. But like Candace, she struggled.
Her home life was troubled, and she fell into substance use and self-destructive behavior. She ran away and came home on her own multiple times, sometimes disappearing for months. For a short time, things were looking up. Rory confided in her aunt Michelle that she thought she might be pregnant.
Michelle took her to a dollar store to buy a pregnancy test. It came back positive. Rory wanted to keep the baby. She was young, but she believed she could be a good mother if she put her mind to it.
Then, in mid-August, disaster struck. Rory and her mother Shannan’s house caught fire. Their beloved dog died, and Shannan was hospitalized. The stress was too much for Rory.
She relapsed into drugs. At eighteen, she was expecting a child, lost her part-time job, and was struggling to survive. On August 29th, 2017, one of Rory’s friends and that friend’s mother took her to the hospital after she suffered what seemed like a mental break. They left her alone in the waiting room.
Fifteen minutes later, Rory walked out—without being admitted. Somehow, she crossed paths with Adam Strong. She was vulnerable. He was predatory.
She had turned to sex work to make ends meet. Whether their encounter was consensual or not, only Adam and Rory know—and Rory is no longer alive to tell. What investigators do know is that Adam bound Rory in his bedroom. After taking what he wanted, he beat her with something authorities suspect was a hammer until she lay still.
Then he dismembered her. He took his boat out into Lake Ontario and threw her torso into the water. Other parts of her body were flushed down his toilet. He kept a freezer in his bedroom and stored the rest of her remains there, planning to flush more parts over time.
He kept one of Rory’s rings. He kept one of Candace’s rings. He wore them on a necklace, along with a third ring. The origin of that third ring remains a mystery.
Investigators believe he had at least one other victim. On September 11th, 2017, a fisherman found a torso floating in Lake Ontario. It took time to identify the remains—there were no fingerprints, no face. A DNA test confirmed what the investigators feared: it was Rory Hashe.
The case shifted from missing person to homicide. But the trail went cold. Rory might have become one of those unsolved cases, another name on a growing list of cold files. Then the new tenants moved into the upstairs apartment at 19 McMillan Drive.
Not long after, they noticed a disgusting odor coming from the basement. Adam explained he was having plumbing problems. The smell persisted. Then the pipes clogged.
Adam told the residents he was fixing it himself, sending text updates. Time passed with no improvement. One of his last texts read, “What a nightmare this is. ”
The residents called a plumber themselves.
That’s how Shawn Farn ended up in Adam’s basement. After Adam’s arrest, the investigation yielded more than they expected. DNA samples from the basement matched Candace’s. They found Rory’s blood on an air mattress, on the walls, on the ceiling.
They opened a bag next to Adam’s bed and found Rory’s sneakers, covered in her dried blood. An autopsy found fractures and bruises around Rory’s skull, but experts couldn’t agree whether those injuries happened before or after death. Since some of her remains were missing and others had thawed in his freezer, the typical tests couldn’t be completely accurate. They did the best they could.
Adam was surprisingly talkative during interrogation. He admitted to dismembering both women but insisted he had only done that—not killed them. He explained how he had weighted down Rory’s torso to keep it at the bottom of the lake. He was surprised it had been found at all.
He said flushing remains down the toilet was an effective way to dispose of a body. When asked about Candace, he vaguely mentioned video from a roller rink. Detective Paul Mitten said he had no knowledge of such evidence. Adam thought he could negotiate a better deal for his prison accommodations.
“For whatever years I’ve got left, I’d like to be comfortable and not worry about somebody stabbing me in the neck,” he said. “You can understand that, right? ”
The detective said it wasn’t up to him to make that deal. Adam seemed confused.
“Don’t the families want to know what happened? It doesn’t matter as long as I’m convicted. ”
Then he made a strange comment. “God damn it, procrastination, eh?
I’m a real bad procrastinator, and that’s really a detriment to myself. ”
He explained that he had known he needed to remove the evidence. He had had a month with nobody upstairs. “Yeah, maybe not tomorrow,” he had told himself.
When the detective brought up Candace’s DNA found on a knife in his house, Adam just sighed. “That’s that procrastination issue right there. All I had to do is boil it. ”
Shannan, Rory’s mother, watched from the gallery.
“How do you feel hearing that they found DNA of this other missing teen in his basement? ” a reporter asked her. “I felt right from the get-go that this was a seasoned person who has done this before,” she said. Her voice was tired, but determined.
“My daughter was tough. She was very tough. She would not have been easy for anybody to handle. I knew he knew what he was doing.
I’m mom. I don’t have to play around with fancy words. He’s the last place my daughter’s remains were found in. In my opinion, he’s responsible, hands down.
But the system works a different way. ”
When the news broke, the community of Oshawa reacted with horror. The house at 19 McMillan Drive was dubbed the house of horrors. The new upstairs tenants moved out.
The landlord reopened the upstairs apartment, but the basement was boarded up. Rory’s godmother, Chrissy, started a petition on change. org to have the house demolished. “This property does and will continue to carry stigma associated with the events that occurred there,” she wrote.
“When people pass by it, it will act as a visual reminder of the horrific acts that occurred there. ”
The petition gained over 7,000 signatures. The family organized a protest outside the property. Thirty people attended, carrying signs calling for the house to be torn down.
The family had contacted the city multiple times, requesting they purchase the property and demolish it. Their calls were dismissed or ignored. Mayor John Henry was approached for comment by the CBC. “We don’t have a tool to go buy the property other than going to the homeowner and buying it directly,” he said.
“But then we would have to demolish all properties where sad things happen. ”
The trial began. The prosecutor, Brian Gueritton, said in his opening statement: “Both girls were vulnerable, essentially homeless with no fixed address. Both girls suffered from drug issues and sometimes worked in the sex trade to help fund their drug habit.
”
Adam admitted he had dismembered the two women, but he pleaded not guilty to murder. His attitude in court was described as cavalier, carefree, and unbothered. In one early appearance, while the judge and attorneys discussed future hearings, Adam said, “My schedule’s open. ” The judge told him it wasn’t funny.
Adam looked around the courtroom and said, “It was here. Everybody’s laughing. ”
At another hearing, after appearing via video call, one of his attorneys said he would call Adam later that day in jail. Adam said, while the prosecution and judge were still listening, “I was up all night.
I’m tired. I want to go to bed. ”
On August 28th, 2019, Adam failed to appear for his video hearing with no excuse. Judge Jocelyn Spire hinted she would order him to appear in person.
In the courtroom audience sat Bill and Shannan—the parents of the two girls Adam had killed. They watched his blatant disregard for everything he had done. It was the final straw for Bill. He stood up in court, yelling to speak with the prosecutor.
When the judge tried to cut him off, he told her to shut up. He demanded Adam be forced to appear in person. “Bring him in person, you idiots! ” he shouted, then left the courtroom.
Shannan was allowed to speak to Judge Spire about how the length of the court process frustrated the victims’ families. Judge Spire said, “I understand the gentleman is under a great deal of stress. ” Shannan responded: “That gentleman waited ten years to find his daughter. ”
The evidence against Adam was technically circumstantial.
The crown relied heavily on DNA evidence. Even an expert witness for the prosecution admitted under cross-examination that there was nothing definitive. The forensic pathologist had written in his report that the lack of usual indicators “raises the possibility the head injuries occurred during the post-mortem period. ”
Defense attorney Tom Balka pressed: “Surely you cannot rule out a drug overdose in this case and in these circumstances?
”
The pathologist replied, “I cannot exclude the possibility of drug toxicity causing death. ”
The defense argued that what happened to Rory remained a mystery unproven by the crown. They argued that something happened to Candace that was not Adam’s fault. “He did not cause her death,” they insisted.
“He did not kill her. ”
But the prosecution’s closing statement was clear. Attorney Ginuan Kim said: “Mr. Strong assaulted Ms.
Hashe. He caused her to die. ” And, “Mr. Strong similarly killed Ms.
Fitzpatrick and dismembered her body. ”
The forensic evidence painted a dark picture. Detective Constable Desiree Hammed testified about the lengths they went to collect evidence. “We wanted to do a thorough search,” she said.
Crime scene photographs were shown to the jury, but sealed from the gallery. Adam interrupted the testimony to ask that no one see them. The judge warned him he would be removed if he interrupted again. When a forensic witness described how Rory’s torso had been maimed and disemboweled, someone in the gallery stood up, looked at Adam, and shouted, “You animal!
” The judge gently told the onlooker to maintain decorum, but added: “I can’t imagine what it must be like for the family members to sit there while we’re going through this. ”
On March 16th, 2021, Judge Joseph Duca delivered his verdict. Adam Strong was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Rory Hashe, and manslaughter in the death of Candace Fitzpatrick due to lack of evidence. “I am satisfied it was Mr.
Strong who caused Rory Hashe’s death,” the judge said. “I am satisfied Miss Hashe died of blunt force trauma applied to the head. Regardless of how the act started, I find it became non-consensual as soon as Mr. Strong started beating Miss Hashe.
I do not know why Mr. Strong decided to kill Miss Hashe during this encounter. Perhaps the violence simply formed part of the sex Mr. Strong wanted to engage in.
”
The courtroom audience applauded. Adam, for the first time, looked shaken. His nonchalant demeanor had vanished, replaced by the sudden, stark realization that his life was over. Shannan, watching him, remarked: “He looks a little rattled right now.
”
Rory’s godmother, Chrissy, said: “I’m relieved we have the first-degree verdict on Rory, but it comes with some sadness too. I’m very sad for the Fitzpatrick family today. The whole trajectory of our lives has been changed by a chance encounter with a monster. This man blended into our community.
He was a block away from the police station and he committed these heinous acts. ”
The sentencing was delayed from April to May due to a backlog of cases from the pandemic. There were thirteen victim impact statements. Bill Fitzpatrick, Candace’s father, said: “Nothing in the world compares to losing your child.
After all the years of searching, this was not the outcome I expected. He took so much from us. I was shattered by the news. Candace will never get to know her nephews and nieces.
Candace will never get the chance to be a mom. ”
Shannan was sick towards the end of the trial and was barred from entering the courthouse for sentencing. Her request for a delay was denied. She stood outside, holding a laptop, trying to attend virtually, but couldn’t due to connection issues.
Her victim impact statement was read aloud on her behalf. “When I learned she was dead, when I knew this was a nightmare I was never going to wake from,” it read, “I will never see Rory fall in love, graduate school, be married, have children. Everything has been taken from me. This monster took my angel and mutilated her.
He planned on her being a missing person forever. ”
Chrissy told the press: “It does not change the fact our girls are not coming home, but today we let them rest. Today, this monster is off our street and is no longer a part of our lives. ”
Bill said: “Even if for some reason the judge found him not guilty, I know he did it.
Everybody in that courtroom knows he did it. I had to be there every day to represent her. I want her to be proud of me. I want to see justice for Candace and Rory.
I didn’t know Rory, but they’re together now. They’re our girls. ”
Judge Duca sentenced Adam Strong to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years. In his judgment, he said: “The chances that Mr.
Strong would have twice found himself in need of a chest freezer to store the dismembered body parts of young women who met their deaths innocently is so infinitesimally small that it suggests the opposite conclusion. ”
Six months into his sentence, Adam finally confessed to where he had hidden Candace’s remains. He accompanied investigators to a space between Serado Drive and Britannia Avenue East and pointed to the general area. They searched, found the remains of a young woman, and confirmed they belonged to Candace.
Detective Sergeant Doris Kerier said in a press statement: “This discovery and the details obtained through our interview will not change the outcome of these tragic events or the trauma endured by the victims’ families and friends. Our goal in this recovery was to be able to provide some closure to Candace’s family and all that were affected by this crime. ”
Shannan said: “Today, Candace comes home. It felt like November 9th, 2017 all over again.
It’s just a rush of emotions, and it’s a miracle she’s home. ”
Adam’s confession did not lessen his sentence. He remains incarcerated.
And the third ring on his necklace remains an enigma.
