A special report
By Mata Press Service

Everything about Selva Kumar Subbiah was fake.

His plain brown eyes were gilded with emerald green contact lenses to shine like the two diamond rings on his fingers.

Going by the names Richard Wild and Ryan Hunter, among other European sounding aliases, he had a phony British accent.

And he claimed to be a Hollywood talent scout, with a client list that included Michael Jackson and Bette Midler. Other times he posed as a professional dancer, a lawyer and a diplomat.

This carefully constructed façade by Subbiah, who came to Canada from Malaysia in 1980, was the web that lured hundreds of women and teenaged girls to him.

By the time police caught up with the green-eyed monster in Toronto on Aug. 7, 1991, he had drugged, sexually assaulted and photographed an estimated 1,000 victims earning him the dubious distinction of being Canada’s most prolific serial rapist.

He had about 400 of their names in a black book that documented a vile reign on the streets of Toronto with his victims being rated on a scale of 0 to 10.

This month, after spending 24 years, 9 months and one day in prison, Subbiah, 56, will be released from Warkworth Institution, a medium security facility located in Campbellford, Ontario, to be put on a plane and returned to where he came from.

The pending release on January 29, 2017 has sparked consternation among his victims in Canada, prompted dire warnings about his risk to reoffend and triggered a flurry of checks by Malaysian authorities who are trying to determine what to do with Subbiah after he lands at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport.

At one of his parole hearings, Subbiah provided a “structured release plan” upon his return to Malaysia.

In the plan, he claimed to have “strong support” in Malaysia, that his supporters “are familiar with his criminal history” and that they can assist him in a “financially stable well supervised plan to reintegrate into society”.

Subbiah insisted he represents “zero risk” to his homeland.

Susan Chapelle was elected as a city councilor in Squamish, on Canada’s picturesque west coast in 2011.

An educator, researcher, people advocate and mother of two girls, the city councillor recently went public with her own story of sexual assault at the hands of Subbiah to get better resources for abuse victims in her community.

Chapelle was 26 and Subbiah, 32, when they met in 1991.

She had gone to his house to buy a potbelly pig. It was early in the afternoon and he offered her a glass of wine.

Nine hours later Chapelle awoke confused. Her clothes were on backwards and she felt sore. Subbiah told Chapelle she’d passed out, before he drove her back to her little bungalow in the Beaches area of Toronto, The Squamish Chief reported.

In an interview with The Squamish Chief, Chapelle explained her thought process that awful night.

“I knew something really bad had happened,” she said.

“When I got home I felt really crappy about having gone to his house in the first place, that I had a glass of wine with him.”

A week later the potbelly pig and a flower arrived on Chapelle’s doorstep.

But even that wasn’t enough to prompt Chapelle to go to the police. She chalked it all up as a bad experience and a result of her own stupidity.

After police found her name in the black book, Chapelle’s testimony in 1992 helped put Subbiah behind bars for 25 years, The Squamish Chief reported.

According to the paper, her boyfriend split up with her through the trying time and she lost her job as a stage technician when police came to her work to investigate.

Chappele said the images of the 91 pictures police showed her of naked women passed out and draped on beds and couches will stick with her forever and that she still wonders what the outcome would have been if she had reported the crime.

Chapelle’s testimony in 1992 helped put Subbiah behind bars.

But the world only came to know of her story last October 30 when she tweeted about her horrific experience.

Until then she hadn’t told anyone and is now sometimes haunted about how many women could have been spared, if she had reported the crime.

Testimony at his court hearings showed that for Subbiah, using women had become a way of life since he came to Canada to study at George Brown College.

He used a Portuguese girlfriend, who testified to recruiting about 20 women for him. She said she was mostly confined at his house and told to work the streets to help him pay for their lodgings.

Other girlfriends, included a drugstore employee, who was forced to steal date rape chemicals.

The drugs would be used to lace Subbiah’s favourite cocktails - a Blue Lagoon or Blue Hawaiian, or a B-52.

Another victim, whose identity is protected by court order, described in her testimony Subbiah’s typical modus operandi.

She was approached near Toronto’s High Park by a woman claiming to be working for Subbiah’s Talent Productions. The woman said she was looking for extras for a Bette Midler movie to be filmed at High Park.

The victim, who had studied tap dancing and ballet, gave the woman her name and number and one week later got a call from a man calling himself Richard Wild.

She and her friend were eventually lured to Subbiah’s house where they were drugged and sexually assaulted.

The green-eyed monster also displayed uncontrollable rage.

In one case the court heard how Subbiah tied the hands of a woman behind her back and to the car seats before sexually assaulting her in his Jeep.

Another time he pinned a would-be model by sitting on her legs and forced her to ”fake an orgasm, take her top off, and cover her breasts with her arms.”

Court testimony heard that his wife was thrown down stairs and that he discharged a starter pistol into her back, causing burns and psychological trauma. He also threatened to use wild animals on her.

But none reported the attacks until police started hearing about the cases third-hand.

Others, like his wife, who was used on recruiting missions, continued to be attracted by his maniacal magnetism and exploits.

She was last seen waving and blowing kisses at him through the window of the courthouse holding cell, when Subbiah was led off in handcuffs to begin his prison term.

On Dec 21, 1992, Ontario Court Judge Joe Bovard sentenced Subbiah to 25 years in prison.

He was originally charged with 60 counts of sexual assault and drug charges, including several of ”administering (a) stupefying and overpowering drug.

After firing his lawyer during a preliminary hearing, Subbiah changed his not-guilty plea and admitted to nine counts of sexual assault, six counts of administering a noxious substance, two of administering a substance affecting the central nervous system, one count of procuring a person to become a prostitute, and one of failing to comply with his bail conditions.

Of the 25 victims, the prosecution had lined up to testify, 17 had taken the stand when Subbiah decided to change his plea. Police at that time believed there were several hundred more victims in the Toronto area.

“Women need to be protected from Mr. Subbiah,” said Judge Bovard.

Crown Attorney Caroline Kerr submitted to the court that Subbiah ”regards women no better than caged animals to be kept at his house.”

Lead investigator, Detective Terry Wark described Subbiah as “one of the most cunning criminals he's ever encountered.”

For most of the last quarter of a century, Subbiah has been an inmate at the maximum security Kingston Penitentiary, home to some of Canada’s most dangerous criminals including serial killers Clifford Olsen and Paul Bernardo, before it was shut down and turned into a museum.

During the course of his time in Kingston Penitentiary, Subbiah worked as a dome cleaner.

The dome, or rotunda, is the central part of Kingston Penitentiary, and the various ranges extend like spokes of a wheel from the central dome.

Subbiah worked afternoons and evenings in the dome, clearing garbage, washing the floors and stripping and cleaning the floors from time to time.

When not working, Subbiah continued to prey on women, from behind those foreboding walls.

Jail guards reported that Subbiah was consistently trying to establish relationships with women via phone calls and through classified ads by continuing to pose as a modelling agent and talent scout.

One prison report said he used voice mail, phony mailing addresses and a girlfriend on the outside to set up three-way calls so the women didn't know he was in prison.

Police said Subbiah scouted newspapers and TV programs for pretty women, found their numbers in the phone book and called them using aliases such as Richard Wilder, King R., Su Wild and Richard Suw.

They said they knew of at least 25 women - from Ontario, British Columbia and even California - who Subbiah had lured into long-term correspondence by using a false identity.

One of them was a 48-year-old Toronto telemarketing agent who had placed a personal ad in March 1996.

In an interview with the Toronto Star she said; “I hadn't dated for many years since my divorce and thought it would be a way to meet a nice man.

“I said I was looking for someone upbeat, down-to-earth, compassionate and a good conversationalist.”

By the time Subbiah called, she had received more than 100 replies but one stood out.

“It was an amazing, interesting message with a wonderful British accent to die for,” the woman was quoted as saying. “He had verve in his voice. He sounded so alive.”

A parole report into his activities in prison said Subbiah “had continued to harass and manipulate women from prison with the goal of obtaining nude pictures, or to have telephone sex.”

When not prowling for victims while in prison, Subbiah was running another enterprise from his cell – a jailhouse black market.

During a search, he was found in possession of sharpened cutlery, knives, pills, excessive unauthorized canteen items, vitamins and a debt list.

On May 14, 2009, Subbiah was attacked by two inmates who managed to block open a door so that it could not be locked.  

These inmates, a Mr. McPhail and a Mr. Martin, stabbed Subbiah six times. 

Correctional officers responded to the assault within one minute.

Subbiah sustained six superficial stab wounds during the attack, along with cuts, scrapes and bruises to his head, neck and body.  He was initially treated at Kingston Penitentiary, then transferred to Kingston General Hospital, but was released back to the penitentiary the same day.

A few weeks later he sued the Correction Service of Canada arguing that prison staff was negligent and failed to take reasonable care to protect his safety.

The case was dismissed in November 2013.

As Subbiah’s pending release nears, his victims, those in the court system and law enforcement agencies, who have been involved in his file, have unequivocal condemnation for the man.

At his last parole hearing in June 2016, where he sat mostly in silence, Subbiah was told that therapy behind bars for him was mostly futile.

“The CMT (case management team) believes that you are likely to commit an offence causing death or serious harm to another person prior to the expiration of your (parole) and therefore, is recommending that your detention order be confirmed,” the parole report said.

“File information indicates that you continue to struggle in the areas of victim empathy, remorse and your inability to take full responsibility for your personal choices which results in your lack of mitigation in risk.”

While Canada Border Services declined to directly say when, if or how Subbiah will be deported, they pointed to the law that allows for the removal of serious criminals from Canada without an appeal.

“He is now Malaysia’s problem, unless something happens between now and the end of the month,” said a veteran Toronto cop, who has been following the saga of the green-eyed monster for the last three decades.

A Vancouver-based author, who has dealt with sexual assault victims, said there is a very high likelihood that Subbiah has committed crimes against women in Malaysia before coming to Canada.

“They should look into his past to prevent him from striking again in the future,” she said. – with files from Infomart.