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Hello and welcome to Best Of Maclean’s.

An Act of Evil

A year and a half ago, a family was out for an evening stroll on a suburban sidewalk in London, Ontario, when a 20-year-old man driving a pickup truck jumped the sidewalk and ran them down. Like many Canadians, I was horrified when I heard about the incident. The story is heart-wrenching and unfathomable. The police allege that the killings were intentional—that the driver, Nathaniel Veltman, outfitted the truck with a device to optimize its murderous impact and that the attack was motivated by anti-Muslim hatred.

The event left four people dead, including both parents. Their high-achieving teenage daughter also died, along with the family’s beloved grandmother. A three-generation catastrophe in a single act. A nine-year-old boy, who suffered serious injuries, was the sole survivor. He is now an orphan.

Who would do such a thing? What was going on in Veltman’s mind at the time? He faces a trial in the fall of next year. If he is convicted of the crimes laid out against him, Veltman will earn a place in a hideous pantheon of young, emotionally troubled, male Canadian killers that includes the 27-year-old man who assassinated six people at a mosque in Quebec City in 2017 and the 25-year-old man who used his van as a weapon in a murderous rampage down Toronto’s Yonge Street in 2018.

Over the last few years, media organizations, following the advice of experts, have strategically minimized the coverage of such killers, particularly in the immediate aftermath of a violent incident. In the U.S., there’s a mass shooting on average every week, and some criminologists believe that when killings are publicized they inspire imitators and glory-seekers.

That approach might be wise, but it also leaves the public in the dark. If we don’t look squarely at a dangerous phenomenon brewing in our midst, how are we expected to fight it? You can’t treat cancer if you can’t diagnose it.

Stephen Maher, an award-winning writer and reporter and a contributing editor at Maclean’s, has become a reluctant expert on the dark side of the human soul. You might remember his superb reporting on the Portapique shooter for Maclean’s a couple of years ago. Last spring, he spent five weeks in London, trying to understand Nathaniel Veltman.

“It took a long time to get people to talk,” he told me about reporting his piece. “You’re asking people to wrestle with something that’s very painful.” Stephen pulled it off. He unearthed amazing, chilling material. His story is a smart, sweeping account of a young man’s life and the destruction he caused. I hope you find it as powerful and as eye-opening as I do. To read the full feature, click here.

Sincerely,

Sarah Fulford
Editor, Maclean's

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