Pod Insights Canadian True Crime Bruce Lorenz [1] About this episode A two-part series — On a dark icy evening at a suburban Toronto subway station, a parking lot attendant came across an odd sight: protruding out of the driver’s side window of a tan Mustang, was a pair of legs. They belonged to a 36-year-old lawyer. And he was dead. The investigation that ensued uncovered a deadly tale of sex, lies, betrayal and corruption, that would be called Canada’s version of “Double Indemnity”.
The intention of this series is to take a look back at a shocking crime sensationalized through headlines and reveal the inner workings of the criminal justice system.
If you happen to know anyone related to this case, please respect their privacy.
Special thanks to Barbara Cooper, and Erik Krosby for voiceover, and Terry O’Reilly of CBC Podcasts’ Under the Influence with Terry O’Reilly https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-70-under-the-influence (in Part 2).
Podcast recommendation:
We Regret To Inform You: The Rejection Podcast https://apostrophepodcasts.ca/rejection/ from Apostrophe Podcast Network. Subscribe onApple Podcasts https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/we-regret-to-inform-you-the-rejection-podcast/id1503835352,Amazon Music https://music.amazon.ca/podcasts/d9285bb2-2506-48aa-83d7-014da9d254d3/we-regret-to-inform-you-the-rejection-podcast,Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/2nfkyNZJ46fgMOWqlGtmKb?si=rLrMQzkQTE-QilnZfTg0eA or wherever you get your podcasts.
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1:02 Speaker 02 Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production funded mainly through advertising. You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad-free and early on Amazon Music, included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon, and Supercast. The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone. Please take care when listening.
1:22 Speaker 03 Hi, everyone, and welcome back to Canadian True Crime. This is part one of a two-part series. It's a deadly tale of sex, lies, betrayal, and corruption. A case considered so sensational that onlookers lined up around the block to score a seat at the 10-week trial in Toronto. The non-stop courtroom drama did not disappoint. Neither did the unexpected twist.
1:50 Speaker 03 This episode has been pieced together from the news archives of The Toronto Star, which covered this case extensively. We've also relied on the incredible behind-the-scenes insights of famed Canadian criminal defence lawyer Edward Greenspan in several publications, including his 1987 book Greenspan: The Case for the Defence. Part Two will be released in a week, and for everyone listening on our premium feeds on Amazon Music, included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast, it's available right now. So with that, it's on with the show.
2:34 Speaker 03 On Monday, March 20th of 1978, a parking lot attendant at a suburban Toronto subway station set out on his early evening rounds. Warden Station is located in the city's east end, near the Scarborough suburbs, and is a drop-off point for commuters working downtown. Just after 6:30pm on that dark, icy evening, the station's parking lot attendant came across an odd sight. Protruding out of the driver's side window of a tan Mustang was a pair of legs belonging to a tall man. One leg was bent, the other straight up in the air.
3:18 Speaker 03 The parking lot attendant assumed the man was fixing something under his dashboard, and carried on with his rounds.
3:27 Speaker 03 He wasn't the only one. Several other drivers in the parking lot saw the same odd sight: that pair of men's legs protruding out of the driver's side window. Some of them said they also saw a second man standing on the other side of the car, who seemed to be helping the man into the front seat. It was dark outside, so visibility wasn't great, but they speculated it was probably just a drunk driver sleeping it off.
3:59 Speaker 03 When the parking lot attendant came back around to the scene, he was spooked by the fact that the pair of legs hadn't moved in an hour. He alerted his supervisor who took a closer look. The man wasn't sleeping, he was dead. They called the police. Officers arrived at the Mustang in question and saw the body reclining in the driver's seat, face up, with a pair of long legs hanging out the window. Here's how they described it: "The head was resting on the console between the bucket seats, and one hand was clutching a bloodstained wad of tissue paper.
4:41 Speaker 03 There were many bloodstains on the interior of the car. The door on the driver's side was partly open and the key was in the ignition. A briefcase and a newspaper were lying on the back seat. The victim wore a gold watch, his wallet containing $200, as well as a cheque and some credit cards still in his pocket. There was no weapon to be seen anywhere in or around the car."
5:13 Speaker 03 There was a lot of blood, a pool of it where the man's head was. The console of the car between the bucket seats was filled and overflowing with blood. There was also blood on the outside of the car and drops on the pavement. It was an icy night, and the police came to the conclusion that this man had likely stepped on some ice in the parking lot and fell to the ground where he sustained a grave head wound. He then tried to make his way into the front seat of his car, but he succumbed to his injuries.
5:51 Speaker 03 The victim was a 36-year-old real estate lawyer named Bruce Lorenz. Police drove to the Scarborough address listed in his wallet. There, they met his wife, 33-year-old Laura Lee Lorenz, and broke the news that her husband had died of a tragic accident. They handed her all his belongings: the wallet and his watch, glasses, briefcase and pen. A friend visiting Laura Lee at the time said she seemed shocked. She sat down at a table and muttered, "I don't believe it." Deciding it was an accident was not the last mistake police would make in this case.
6:36 Speaker 03 It wouldn't even be the worst one.
6:46 Speaker 03 After the police delivered the bad news to Laura Lee Lorenz, a morgue attendant examining her husband's body discovered something both the police and the coroner had missed. As the attendant felt underneath the blood-encrusted head, he discovered a small hole behind the victim's ear. Bruce Lorenz had not stumbled and died. He'd been shot in the head with what looked like a 22-caliber bullet. The police made their way back to Laura Lee's house to correct their mistake and retrieve her husband's personal belongings, because now, they were looking at a murder investigation.
7:30 Speaker 03 What they didn't know was that Laura Lee had already picked up the phone, twice. First, she called her husband's brother Brian, who also happened to be a police officer with the nearby city of Woodloo. He would tell Toronto investigators that Laura Lee told him that Bruce had been shot dead. It was an odd statement for Laura Lee to make, since the police hadn't yet returned to let her know that Bruce had in fact been shot dead. They'd only told her that her husband's death was an accident. The second person Laura Lee Lorenz spoke to on the phone that night was a man named Gordon Allen.
8:15 Speaker 03 Investigators would soon learn that Gordon had once been Laura Lee's boyfriend. In fact, a few years earlier, she left her husband Bruce for him. Laura Lee and Gordon lived together for almost two years, but the relationship soured and she decided to reconcile with her husband. And now, he was dead. A sordid tale was beginning to emerge, as well as a possible motive for the murder of Bruce Lorenz. But as the investigation proceeded, everyone would make a series of bad decisions, including Laura Lee Lorenz, Gordon Allen, and the police.
9:01 Speaker 03 The story of Laura Lee Lorenz and Gordon Allen starts three years earlier, in 1975, in a dark bar along Toronto's airport strip. It was a seedy, glittery stretch of road on the western outskirts of the city, a mix of motels, nightclubs, and strip bars. The area attracted a transient crowd, mostly pilots, flight attendants, and businessmen in town during brief layovers. Gordon Allen was in the last category. He was an insurance agent who worked for his father's insurance agency in the town of Orillia, almost two hours' drive north of Toronto.
9:46 Speaker 03 A confirmed bachelor in his early 30s at the time, Gordon often travelled back and forth from Toronto and Montreal, and he frequented those airport bars. One night, an attractive blonde nurse caught his eye. Her name was Laura Lee Lorenz, and she was 30 years old at the time. Almost immediately, they began a torrid affair. Gordon knew that Laura Lee had been married to a Toronto lawyer for almost 10 years at the time. They had two young sons, and owned a house in the city of Mississauga in the Greater Toronto Area. He also knew her marriage was an unhappy one.
10:30 Speaker 03 Laura Lee spilled her heart out to Gordon, telling him that her husband Bruce had a volatile temper, that he was disappointed that they couldn't have children of their own. He had a hard time accepting his adopted sons, especially their second son, who they only recently adopted and was still a baby. It appeared that Bruce Lorenz was so distracted by his work and disconnected from his sons, that he had little to no idea he was losing his family. Laura Lee was able to accompany Gordon on business trips to Montreal and even introduced him to her sons, who she said loved spending time with him.
11:15 Speaker 03 Gordon also introduced Laura Lee to some of his own family members. By the following summer, Laura Lee's marriage to Bruce Lorenz was officially over and he moved out of their home. Then Gordon Allen moved in. Even though Laura Lee never filed for divorce from Bruce, she changed her last name to Allen and the boys began to call Gordon Dad. By most accounts, Bruce Lorenz took the separation hard but was pragmatic about it and got on with his life. He and Laura Lee sold their Mississauga home but stayed in close contact with an amicable relationship.
12:00 Speaker 03 She took her share of the money from the sale and invested it in a franchise for a furniture refurbishing company, naming herself as director and her boyfriend Gordon Allen as president. Bruce agreed to help the new couple out with the legal work for their company. Laura Lee and Gordon purchased a new house in Toronto and for a while, everything seemed okay. The new couple had made it through the volatility of their affair, the end of Laura Lee's marriage to Bruce Lorenz, the sale of her house, starting up a business and forging a new blended life with the children.
12:44 Speaker 03 Bruce Lorenz's life meanwhile, wasn't as rosy. He spent time in a rooming house and eventually bought a house for himself in Scarborough, close to the Warden subway station in the east end of Toronto. The same station where he would be found dead just a few years later.
13:06 Speaker 03 Bruce Lorenz had put his hand in the ring for a much coveted partnership at his law firm. When he was denied the promotion, he blamed it on his separation from Laura Lee. The firm wanted family men as partners, and he had lost his wife to another man. Around this time, Laura Lee and Gordon's new business started failing. The honeymoon was over, and real life was coming for them. The stress of it caused them to argue, a lot. Then their franchise's parent company went bankrupt, leaving them with a hefty $22,000 debt, and a lot of legal issues.
13:51 Speaker 03 Bruce Lorenz was called in to help the woman who was still technically his wife, and her new boyfriend, to sort through the mess. Before long, he and Laura Lee were speaking daily about various business and legal issues. They were getting along well compared to her relationship with Gordon, which was now strained. When the couple eventually had to file for bankruptcy themselves, they were arguing constantly, mostly over money. They had to start from scratch. Gordon would say that Laura Lee, as a lawyer's wife, had grown accustomed to living a certain lifestyle, and having to be on a budget bothered her.
14:38 Speaker 03 Then, almost two years after they first moved in together, Gordon returned home to find Laura Lee packing her bags. She told him she and the kids were moving back in with her mother, until she could get back on her feet. Within a few months, Laura Lee Lorenz had in fact reunited with her husband Bruce, and the family was now living together at his Scarborough home. Gordon Allen would later say he believed it was a business decision, that Laura Lee didn't love her husband Bruce anymore, but reunited with him so that he would make partner at his firm. It was for financial security, he said.
15:22 Speaker 03 But Bruce Lorenz's parents told a different story. So did his coworkers. As far as they knew, this was a happy time for the reunited couple. The Gordon Allen era was over, and Bruce and Laura Lee were keen on repairing their marriage and raising their two young sons together. But as the months ticked by, Laura Lee claimed that her husband began to sour on her.
15:51 Speaker 03 As she would later tell the court, "Bruce was just not happy with me as a person, as a woman especially. As a lawyer's wife, he seemed to think I could do better than I was doing. It came to a point where I was being compared to a lot of women that Bruce had gone out with when we were separated."
16:12 Speaker 03 By September of 1977, Laura Lee felt their marriage had begun to deteriorate, again. So she reached out to her old boyfriend Gordon Allen for comfort and reassurance, again.
16:32 Speaker 03 They began to talk three or four times a week. Laura Lee claimed it was because they were still dealing with the aftermath of their failed business and bankruptcy, and her husband knew about their contact because he was also helping them out with legal issues. But it was more than that. She was also reportedly spending weekends with Gordon in Arilia, sometimes even bringing their sons. When she had to have a routine surgery, he visited her in hospital several times.
17:07 Speaker 03 Although Laura Lee's reunion with Bruce wasn't going very well, they had booked a two-week family vacation in Florida that was coming up fast. Bruce approached his bosses at the law firm about the partnership again, and was told he'd get an answer when he got back from vacation. This was early March of 1978. In just a few weeks, Bruce Lorenz would be dead.
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18:59 Speaker 03 The Lorenz family returned to Toronto from their two-week vacation in Florida on a Sunday night. The next morning was Monday, March 20th of 1978, a day that would be scrutinized for years to come. Bruce Lorenz parked his 1976 Mustang at Warden Station and caught the subway downtown to work, anxious to hear his law firm's decision about becoming a partner.
19:30 Speaker 03 But it was bad news again. Having the appearance of an intact family did not help his cause, and his bid was rejected for a second time. Crushed, he phoned Laura Lee at home and gave her the bad news. She would say she suggested he get a drink with friends after work to blow off steam. She then called a close friend of her own to come over for dinner that night.
19:59 Speaker 03 Bruce Lorenz left work shortly after five thirty PM and headed to the Osgood Station downtown to catch the subway home. Apparently, he decided not to get that drink. A coworker from his firm walked to the train station with him and told police that as they entered the train station, Bruce saw a man he knew on a payphone there and called out hello. The coworker said she'd never seen the man on the payphone before, so it didn't mean anything to her. But she recalled he had freckles, reddish-coloured hair, and wore a light-coloured coat.
20:40 Speaker 03 She walked away slowly as she overheard the man commenting on Bruce's Florida tan. She then watched them get on the subway car travelling north.
20:52 Speaker 03 Bruce Lorenz would typically switch over to the intersecting subway line, which took him east to the Scarborough suburbs, specifically Warden Station, where he parked his car. Bruce would have arrived at Warden Station somewhere between six oh five and six fifteen PM that evening. At around six forty PM, other drivers in that parking lot saw that odd scene on the front seat of the Mustang. One man lying across the driver's seat, and the other outside the car on the passenger side, who seemed to be leaning into the car. To them, it didn't seem sinister.
21:34 Speaker 03 It looked like the man was helping his sick or drunk friend into the vehicle. As for the man's appearance, it was dark outside, so they could only describe him as having light-coloured hair and wearing a trench coat or overcoat that was light or tan in colour.
21:54 Speaker 03 It was shortly after that that the parking lot attendant spotted the two legs belonging to Bruce Lorenz protruding from the driver's side window. The police wondered, could this man with the light coloured hair in the parking lot be the same man with reddish hair seen with Bruce Lorenz about forty-five minutes earlier as he caught the subway home after work? And further, could this man have been Gordon Allen, Laura Lee's ex-boyfriend? The police certainly thought so.
22:34 Speaker 03 The first thing they did was surreptitiously take photos of Gordon Allen to show Bruce Lorenz's coworker and asked her if he looked like the man she saw on the subway platform talking to Bruce. A positive identification would have been grounds enough for an arrest, but because the photos were only black and white, his hair looked dark brown. The coworker was uncertain if it was the same man. Police also wired up Gordon Allen's roommate, hoping that he'd be able to get Gordon to admit to the murder. He didn't. Then they placed a wiretap on Laura Lee's phone and accessed her phone records from
23:19 Speaker 03 the last few months as well as Gordon Allen's. For a couple who had broken up, there had been an astonishing amount of contact between them. They spoke almost daily, even while Laura Lee was in Florida with Bruce and the kids right before he was murdered. After wiretapping her phone, one of the first calls police intercepted between Laura Lee and Gordon concerned Bruce's funeral. The two could be heard agreeing that Gordon should not attend for the sake of appearances. In another call recorded a few days after the funeral, Gordon checks in on Laura Lee
24:01 Speaker 03 after a visit by two police officers newly assigned to this case. We've used actors to dramatise the wiretaps, edited for length.
24:11 Speaker 04 How are you? Fine. Guess what? What? I love you. Yeah. Uh. Getting a lot of heat? Pardon? Are you getting a lot of heat? Oh, yeah. Pretty severe? No. No? Are you sure? Yeah. Is anyone concerned why I haven't gotten touch? I can't say very much. You know. Your parents? Yeah.
24:38 Speaker 03 Three weeks later, police recorded another call that began with a warning from Laura Lee.
24:45 Speaker 04 Well, just be careful. Pardon? You know, don't lay anything on too thick, you know? I can't hear what you're saying. Well, it's the best I can do right now. How about I call you Wednesday morning, okay? Yeah, okay, sure. Okay, and I won't say anything, you know, thick, apt to upset. Pardon? I won't say anything that's apt to upset.
25:13 Speaker 03 The officers assigned to lead the investigation were Staff Sergeant Gerald Stevenson and Sergeant Robert McLean. They had honed in on Gordon Allen as their only suspect almost from the beginning. They weren't certain if Laura Lee Lorenz played a role in her husband's murder, but they kept a close eye on her too. The two investigators tried a few different tactics to break them or get them to turn on each other. At one point, they told Laura Lee that she was a suspect, but not Gordon. Then they told Gordon that he was the suspect. The couple did not bite. In other taped calls with various people,
25:56 Speaker 03 Laura Lee was often heard insisting that Gordon Allen wouldn't hurt a fly. She maintained that their affair was a thing of the past and that Gordon wasn't jealous of her husband Bruce, quite the opposite. Laura Lee told everyone that Gordon had fully accepted that it was over between them and knew that she was in love with her husband. And Gordon always maintained his innocence too. He told police he was in Orillia the whole time, almost two hours' drive north of Toronto, and therefore nowhere near the murder scene.
26:35 Speaker 03 But investigators Stevenson and McLean were not buying it. In all, they had records of more than a hundred and thirty calls between Gordon Allen and Laura Lee Lorenz in the months leading up to Bruce's murder and in the days after. Then there were the calls on the actual day of the murder. Laura Lee called Gordon that morning, and later that night at around nine thirty, she received a call from him. Some of the evidence they had was beyond circumstantial. During one of the searches of Gordon Allen's home, they found a curious, remote-controlled
27:14 Speaker 03 device often used to power electrical cars or trains, or detonate bombs from a distance. Investigators were still looking for the actual murder weapon, the gun that fired that twenty-two caliber bullet into Bruce Lorenz's head. The autopsy had determined that the bullet ripped through the centre of his brain, causing almost instantaneous unconsciousness and death within thirty to ninety seconds. The police learned some very interesting information from Bruce Lorenz's brother. Apparently, Bruce had been loaned a twenty-two caliber firearm from his father, which was
27:58 Speaker 03 missing, but they never found any weapons during any of the searches of Gordon Allen's home. Perhaps the most important item they did find there was a credit card receipt for a gas purchase dated the same day that Bruce Lorenz was murdered. While Gordon Allen claimed that he was north in Arilia all that day, almost two hours drive from Toronto, the receipt, which had been signed by him, indicated that he filled his car with gas at a gas station in Downsview, a northwest Toronto neighbourhood. It appeared that Gordon Allen was definitely not in Arilia all day.
28:42 Speaker 03 The only detail that wasn't on the receipt was the time of the transaction because nothing was electronic back then. The gas station had to go through the sequence of receipts from that day to identify and track down customers who purchased gas before and after Gordon.
29:02 Speaker 03 This placed Gordon Allen at the Downsview Gas Station in North Toronto in the rough window between 5:45pm and 7:10pm. Bruce Lorenz was murdered at around 6:40pm at Warden Station, more than 20 kilometres south-east from Downsview, and even further away from Aurelia. With a vague 90-minute window of time, it was difficult for police to confidently place Gordon Allen at the crime scene. But at the very least, it proved he had lied about his whereabouts that day. And perhaps, that was more telling than anything.
29:46 Speaker 03 As for evidence against Laura Lee Lorenz, it was all circumstantial. Remember that call she made to her brother-in-law telling him Bruce had been shot dead before the police even knew it? That was problematic, but still circumstantial. Bruce Lorenz's secretary at his law firm told investigators that the day after the murder, while the office was still reeling from the news, Laura Lee called her. After crying together for a few minutes, Laura Lee asked if her newly deceased husband had signed the new will he'd had drawn up during their Florida vacation.
30:27 Speaker 03 The secretary said the will was still sitting unsigned in his inbox, and described Laura Lee's reaction as sounding shocked. Quote, "He hadn't signed it yet?"
30:40 Speaker 03 It was a strange comment for her to make less than 24 hours after his murder, especially since that will made Laura Lee the major beneficiary of her husband's estate.
30:58 Speaker 03 Then, there was the sheer volume of calls between two people who swore their relationship was over. Other witnesses told police a different story, of a couple still in love, who spent weekends together. If these two were lying about the true nature of their relationship, what else were they hiding? The investigators had something up their sleeve, one last thing they could try to get a reaction. They served Gordon Allen with an affidavit that had been signed by Laura Lee Lorenz, where she claimed Gordon was still in love with her, in fact, that he was obsessed with her.
31:41 Speaker 03 The affidavit indicated Laura Lee had tried to convince Gordon to leave her alone, because she was in love with her husband again, and that he responded by making death threats against her and the children if she mentioned anything about his feelings for her to the police. Gordon Allen read the affidavit, then looked out the window of the police cruiser. He allegedly muttered something like, "I didn't think she'd turn on me." Sergeant Stevenson told Gordon, quote, "In my opinion, the woman you loved and still do, she put you up to it."
32:21 Speaker 03 According to the investigator, Gordon indicated that he understood the point, but all he would say in response was, quote, "This is really heavy and some of it is not true. I never made any threats to her life, that's not true. Obsession and threats, that's heavy. I think I'd better get some counsel before I say anything." Gordon was correct in his assessment. Laura Lee had never said those things, let alone signed an affidavit. The whole thing was entirely made up, another stunt that would later backfire on the police in spectacular fashion.
33:03 Speaker 03 After that, the police decided they had enough to arrest Gordon Allen and Laura Lee Lorenz, and both were charged with the first-degree murder of Bruce Lorenz.
33:18 Speaker 03 The news of the arrests made the front page of The Toronto Star, and the story included a close-up shot of Laura Lee Lorenz's face. Her blonde hair is wrapped up in a stylish headscarf, and she's laughing in the photo. For the duration of the upcoming trial, photos of Laura Lee Lorenz would appear regularly in the papers, complete with detailed descriptions of her outfit of the day. On one occasion, she was in a flattering A-line dress and high heels, her blonde bangs flipped Farrah Fawcett style. Other times, she's encased in a full-length fur coat, usually on the arm of her defence lawyer, Clayton Powell.
34:04 Speaker 03 At the time, he was gearing up to defend Keith Richards on charges of possessing heroin, stemming from a year earlier when the Rolling Stones toured Toronto. But Clayton Powell had already established a reputation for himself for successfully prosecuting the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Harold Ballard. Six years earlier, in 1972, Ballard had been found guilty of fraud, theft and tax evasion after he used funds from Maple Leaf Gardens Limited to fund renovations for his home and cottage, as well as other personal purchases. So Laura Lee Lorenz was represented by Clayton Powell.
34:49 Speaker 03 Gordon Allen had hired his own legendary defence lawyer, Edward Greenspan. You've heard his name on this podcast before. A few years after the Bruce Lorenz murder, he would successfully defend Antonio Scopelidi, the Italian immigrant who shot and killed two teenagers robbing his convenience store in Orillia. The landmark case would end up before the Supreme Court of Canada, forming a new precedent known as Scopelidi evidence, which later came into play with the Darcy Allen Shepherd case. And after Scopelidi, Edward Greenspan defended Helmut Buxbaum,
35:31 Speaker 03 the high-profile millionaire nursing home operator in South West Ontario who hired a hitman to kill his wife.
35:41 Speaker 03 The murder of Bruce Lorenz happened several years before those cases in 1978, and at the time Edward Greenspan had just defended wealthy real estate magnate Peter Demeter in a high-profile trial where he was convicted of arranging the murder of his wife. And now, the 35-year-old lawyer was going to defend Gordon Allen, charged with the first-degree murder of his girlfriend's husband. Edward Greenspan and Clayton Powell were working together to represent their respective clients, Gordon Allen and Laura Lee Lorenz. They got the couple out of jail on $100,000 bonds,
36:25 Speaker 03 on the condition that they not have any contact with each other in the months before the trial. Then, the lawyers began to assemble a joint defence. For Edward Greenspan, top of mind was establishing an alibi for Gordon Allen to combat the gas receipt. It was the most damning bit of evidence the Crown had against him because it placed him in Toronto during the approximate timeframe of the murder and proved that he had lied to the police about being in Arilia the whole day. Gordon admitted the lie to his lawyer, but said he had a good explanation for it. He actually had a date with a Toronto woman that same night.
37:11 Speaker 03 Gordon portrayed himself as an active bachelor and explained that in the days before Bruce Lorenz's murder, he met a woman at a dance in Arilia. He took her number and they made plans for a tentative coffee date in Toronto the following Monday night, which happened to be the exact same evening that Bruce Lorenz was killed, and around the same time. Gordon said late that afternoon he drove down to Toronto from Arilia, stopping at the gas station in Downsview, just off the 401 highway in the north-west of Toronto. After he put gas in his car, creating that gas receipt,
37:55 Speaker 03 he called his date from a payphone at the hotel next to the gas station to confirm, and to get her address to pick her up. He said he made the call shortly before 6pm. His date had forgotten about their tentative plans and couldn't make it, so Gordon shrugged it off, drove back north to Arilia, and went to a local bar there. Lawyer Edward Greenspan would contact this woman and hopefully get her to testify. That would go a long way to corroborate Gordon's story and his alibi, although it didn't really explain his choice to lie to the police about his whereabouts.
38:37 Speaker 03 Gordon said he lied because he was scared that the police were railroading him. He pointed out that they had proved it by presenting him with that fake affidavit with Laura Lee's forged signature. Although the fake affidavit was inadmissible in court, it hung over the entire proceedings. In the meantime, Edward Greenspan learned that Gordon had lied about something else. During his bail hearing, he portrayed himself as a highly educated man, who presumably could be trusted out on bail. He specifically claimed to have an undergraduate degree and an MBA, when in reality he had neither.
39:22 Speaker 03 Gordon Allen had already been proven a liar and his trial hadn't even begun yet. He was arrested again and remanded in jail, this time charged with perjury and attempting to pervert justice.
39:37 Speaker 03 At a bail hearing, his lawyer Edward Greenspan argued that even former US President Jimmy Carter had once exaggerated his own professional credentials. Carter had called himself a nuclear physicist, when in fact he had only studied nuclear engineering, a big difference, and he was still the President of the United States. Gordon Allen was eventually released on bail again. But something was still bothering Edward Greenspan. In his later book Greenspan: The Case for the Defense, he would write, quote, "Even while we were congratulating ourselves, I felt depressed and anxious, and I couldn't put my finger on it.
40:23 Speaker 03 There was something going on, something I should have been able to anticipate, but I couldn't and didn't. In retrospect, as I look back on those final days before the trial, it seems to me that even while thinking that the prosecution must be desperate, I didn't realize how desperate it was. I did not understand it, even when the day came. And with it, a totally unexpected turn of events."
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42:43 Speaker 03 The morning of February 12th, 1979, two days before the trial was scheduled to begin, Gordon Allen arrived at the courthouse with his lawyer, Edward Greenspan. They were on time for the pre-trial hearing. They were also the only ones there. No one from the co-defense showed up, not Laura Lee or her lawyer Clayton Powell. The Crown Prosecutor wasn't even there, nor was anyone from the police investigation team.
43:19 Speaker 03 Later that afternoon, Laura Lee's lawyer Clayton Powell finally arrived with the Crown Prosecutor. They entered the courtroom and walked right up to the bench with a single request: that the judge delay the trial for one day. Then they left with no further explanation.
43:41 Speaker 03 Edward Greenspan would write that he was panicked. It was clear that some kind of deal was in the works between Laura Lee's lawyer and the Crown, and his client Gordon Allen was likely being left out of it. The deal was confirmed the following morning. Laura Lee's defence lawyer Powell, together with Crown prosecutor Michael Lynch, announced a plea deal. There would be no joint defence with Gordon Allen. Laura Lee Lorenz had made a deal with the Crown prosecutor. She was prepared to plead guilty to the much, much lesser charge of accessory to murder after the fact.
44:25 Speaker 03 The trial would still be going ahead as planned, but now it would just be Gordon Allen on trial for first degree murder, and Laura Lee was now going to be testifying for the prosecution. And her testimony was going to be that Gordon Allen actually phoned her the night of the murder to confess to it. This was brand-new information that she did not tell the police or anyone else up until now. A bombshell would be an understatement. In a later lecture Greenspan gave about this case the same year his book was published,
45:05 Speaker 03 he recounted the shock when he read Laura Lee's statement, her guilty plea. Quote, "She claimed that on the evening of Bruce Lorenz's death, she received a phone call at home from Gordon Allen, who said, 'Guess what? I just shot your husband. Oh my god, all that blood.'" Laura Lee screamed in response to these words, according to her statement, and was put in a state of shock, a shock so great that all her mind could do to deal with those words was to shove the thought deep into her subconscious mind. She claimed that from the instant she heard Gordon say this, she blanked it out.
45:48 Speaker 03 According to Laura Lee, it was only before the commencement of her trial that a recollection of those words was revived, end quote.
45:59 Speaker 03 Edward Greenspan went on to say that his team was so stunned by this development that it took them a while to wrap their heads around the implications for the defence they had planned for Gordon Allen. Was it even possible for Laura Lee to be so shocked by an incriminating phone call that the memory was immediately buried, only for it to later shake loose from her subconscious at a suspiciously convenient time? Edward Greenspan explains this phenomenon in his book. Quote, "How did the phone call emerge from her subconscious? Well, her lawyer Clayton Powell was to testify later that he could see that something
46:43 Speaker 03 was troubling his client as he was preparing her to stand trial for first degree murder. She had been having nightmares about the day of her husband's death, but they always stopped at a certain point and then she could remember nothing." Since Laura Lee couldn't tell her lawyer what was causing the turmoil in her psyche, Clayton Powell arranged for her to be administered a sodium amitriplin or truth serum the morning of February 10th. Clay Powell realised that Laura Lee's renewed ability to communicate with her subconscious might be of assistance in her legal difficulties. End of excerpt.
47:30 Speaker 03 Because the trial was scheduled to begin on Wednesday, February 14th, Greenspan described Laura Lee's agreement as "a sweetheart deal, an unexpected Valentine's Day gift for her ex-lover." He added, quote, "Laura Lee was no longer a co-accused, but a witness for the prosecution. I could have cheerfully punched her lawyer Clay Powell in the nose."
48:00 Speaker 03 Before we get to Gordon Allen's first degree murder trial, a little history lesson about sodium amitol. This was the drug administered to Laura Lee Lorenz, which she said caused her to remember Gordon Allen's confession. She claimed shock had buried this memory in her subconscious, and the drug had loosened it. Sodium amitol was invented in the 1920s to be used primarily as a sedative. But it was so effective, the drug became a popular tool for psychologists and psychiatrists. It seemed to relax patients who normally had a hard time talking about anything deep or traumatic.
48:43 Speaker 03 But it was during World War II when the substance earned its nickname "truth serum". It seemed to help soldiers returning from war who were suffering from PTSD, or shell shock as it was known at the time. Sodium amitol allowed them to recall a traumatic event, and then process and move on from it. Soon, this truth serum drug became a fixture in criminal investigations. Imagine a substance that could elicit confessions from criminals. During the Cold War, movies like The Manchurian Candidate gave the drug a powerful mystique.
49:25 Speaker 03 The film imagined a world where captured soldiers were brainwashed using a truth serum-type drug, turning them into political assassins. Their killer identity remained dormant in their subconscious until deployed by a special code word or symbol. But by the 1960s and 70s, experts began to question truth serum's reliability. New studies popped up that seemed to prove the drug wasn't unleashing the truth at all. It just made people more susceptible to suggestion. But at the time the Bruce Lorenz case was making its way through the court system,
50:08 Speaker 03 the drug sodium amitol still had credibility in Ontario courts. Laura Lee's recovered memory story reset the entire trial.
50:20 Speaker 03 Now that she had turned on her former partner Gordon Allen, she pleaded guilty to the much lesser charge of accessory to murder after the fact, and her charge of first degree murder was dropped. The Crown was asserting that although Laura Lee might not have helped to plan and execute the murder, she was active in helping the person believed to be the real murderer, Gordon Allen, try to get away with it. This whole turn of events upended everything, and it brought on a migraine headache that Edward Greenspan said stayed with him throughout the epic 10-week trial.
51:01 Speaker 03 At first glance, this is the kind of plea deal that could doom an ordinary defence. Former lovers both claiming innocence, one now turning on the other. But Edward Greenspan was no ordinary defence lawyer. When the reality of the new situation had sunk in, he concocted a new strategy to defend Gordon Allen on the fly. In Greenspan, the Case for the Defence, he wrote: "I thought, what if the jurors didn't believe her testimony? What if the jurors retained a reasonable doubt, not only about the extent of Laura Lee's own involvement, but about her entire story?
51:45 Speaker 03 What if they concluded she might have invented it simply to save her own skin? She was at risk of going to prison for life, and she wanted to get out of it."
51:58 Speaker 03 Then Greenspan made a couple of brilliant moves. First, he cited a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision that held a person could not be guilty of accessory to a crime if the principal hadn't yet been found guilty. He argued that no one had been convicted of murder, not yet. So to what crime was Laura Lee Lorenz an accessory after the fact? None.
52:27 Speaker 03 The judge agreed. Laura Lee's guilty plea would only stand if Gordon Allen were tried and convicted of first degree murder.
52:37 Speaker 03 But Edward Greenspan realised something else that was profoundly important. Now that Laura Lee was no longer co-accused of murder, her case was entirely different from Gordon Allen's. Greenspan could argue that the evidence against her that had nothing to do with Gordon Allen could be tossed. And some of it was evidence that was potentially the most damning. Like that phone call, the one Laura Lee allegedly made to her brother-in-law where she told him Bruce had been shot dead before the police even knew it. If she and Gordon were still being tried together for first-degree murder,
53:20 Speaker 03 this would have been admissible as evidence. But whatever Bruce's brother claimed Laura Lee said to him during that phone call had nothing to do with Gordon Allen. He wasn't even mentioned. Therefore, this evidence was now inadmissible. It had also been alleged that Bruce's brother mentioned that their father had loaned Bruce a 22-caliber gun, and that gun was missing. This was relevant because Bruce had a 22-caliber bullet lodged in his head, and no firearm had ever been recovered as the murder weapon. Perhaps the gun that Bruce's father loaned him had also been used to murder him.
54:04 Speaker 03 But again, this had nothing to do with Gordon Allen. This evidence was also now inadmissible. So too was the phone call Bruce Lorenza's secretary alleged Laura Lee made to the law office the day after the murder, where she asked if Bruce had signed the will and sounded distressed when she learned he hadn't. This was also inadmissible in Gordon Allen's trial.
54:33 Speaker 03 Initially, Edward Greenspan had been blindsided by Laura Lee's new deal and what it meant for his client Gordon Allen. But in just a day or two, he had used the situation to his advantage and succeeded in having the best bits of evidence thrown out.
54:55 Speaker 03 A seat at the trial for Gordon Allen was a coveted spot. Attendees lined up for hours, the line stretching down the hall and outside the courthouse, with many having followed the story for almost a year. The drama was pitched so high, an article in the Toronto Star described the proceedings as a cross between a Charles Dickens novel and The Edge of Night, a popular TV soap at the time. It also detailed the amateur citizen detectives who attended the trial.
55:31 Speaker 03 For the regulars who haunt the city's downtown courtrooms, it is the best show in town. Housewives, students, the retired and unemployed, they find the courtroom the ultimate in live theatre. At the front of the crowd, a woman who could pass for Dickens, Madame Lafarge, comes to life, leaning against the wall, knitting and talking, talking and knitting. "Yes, I love murder trials," she confesses, "reaps too." Court workers call the old man standing next to her "the referee." He shows up every day for murder trials, wearing a torn, black-and-white NHL referee sweater, and he likes to stand outside the courtroom and make pronouncements on who is
56:16 Speaker 03 guilty and why. Up and down the line, everyone is playing Columbo. Did the lover kill the husband? Did the wife help? Yes, no, why?
56:29 Speaker 03 Years later, they all launched their own true crime podcasts. I kid, of course, but it certainly shows the lengths that true crime fanatics have always gone to get their stories. They wanted to see all the sensational characters they'd read about in the newspaper on the witness stand.
56:50 Speaker 03 Laura Lee Lorenz would be testifying for The Crown about receiving that 6.30 phone call from Gordon Allen and how she became an accessory to murder after the fact by not telling anyone about it for so long. She would face a grilling by Gordon Allen's lawyer, Edward Greenspan. And Gordon would also be testifying in his own defence that he had nothing to do with the murder of Bruce Lorenz. He'd be explaining why he told so many lies to the police and others. At the centre of it all was that gas receipt that proved Gordon wasn't in a rillia all day like he said.
57:32 Speaker 03 He eventually admitted he did drive down to Toronto later that afternoon to meet a woman for a date that ended up not happening. Did Edward Greenspan manage to locate that woman? And if so, would she corroborate his story? That's where we'll leave it for part one. Thanks for listening. If you happen to know anyone related to this case, please respect their privacy. Part two will be released to all in a week, and if you're subscribed to our premium feed on Amazon Music included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast, it's available
58:17 Speaker 03 right now. Special thanks to our audio editor, Eric Crosby, who provided the voice of Gordon Allen. Laura Lee Lorenz was voiced by Barbara Cooper. In part two, we have a Canadian celebrity playing Edward Greenspan in the courtroom. For the full list of resources we relied on to put together this series and anything else you want to know about the podcast, visit canadiantruecrime.ca and follow us on the Canadian True Crime Facebook and Instagram pages to see photos and clippings. This series was researched and written by Lisa Gabriel. Our senior producer is Lindsay Eldridge, and Carol Weinberg is our script consultant.
59:01 Speaker 03 Additional research and writing, narration and sound design was by me, audio editing was by Eric Crosby, and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back soon with part two. See you then.
59:21 Speaker 06 Stephen King's manuscript for Carrie was rejected by 30 publishers before selling a million copies in its first year. Lisa Kudrow was told she wasn't gorgeous enough for television before becoming the highest-paid actress on TV. And Canadian hockey great Hailee Wickenheiser was told hockey was for boys before winning seven world championships and four Olympic gold medals. Chances are, every person you admire has been wounded by rejection. On We Regret to Inform You, the Rejection Podcast, we walk you through the incredible journeys of actors, authors, artists, athletes, and even astronauts.
1:00:04 Speaker 06 We extract the insights and separate shame from rejection, one story at a time. We Regret to Inform You, the Rejection Podcast. Find us wherever you like to listen.
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Previous Introducing: Someone Knows Something Next Bruce Lorenz [2] Page updated November 6, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated