Nate Hendley

I quite enjoyed this true crime Canadian story. A fourteen year old boy gets accused of killing a young boy in Toronto in the 1950s. This tells the story of how that happened, why he 'confessed', and how the true killer (a sexual serial killer) was eventually caught. Lots of background information fleshes out this story, from life in 1950s Toronto, police methods, and what happened after a killer is caught. Research into why someone might confess to a crime they didn't commit was included. It makes me understand why our Young Offenders Act in Canada is still important and a case like this would have contributed to its coming into being. Treating teenagers as if they were adults really doesn't serve them well. The Boy on the Bicycle was well written and researched.… (more)

While true crime is a genre I don’t usually gravitate to, I was interested in reading this book given the location (Toronto, Ontario) the time period (the 1950s) and the young age of the accused (a mere 14 years old at the time the crime was committed). This case has a lot of unusual aspects to it and Hendley raises a lot of the same questions I was thinking about as I read along. What makes this case exceptional is that murders were very rare in 1950s Toronto – Hendley mentions annual murder rates in single digits – and sexual predators were virtually unheard of, and definitely not ones as young as Moffatt or child predator Peter Woodcock (3 years older than Moffatt), who would eventually confess to the killing of Wayne Mallette.

For me, this book does a great job pointing out the deficiencies in the investigation, the questionable tactics used by police (which lead Moffatt to confess to a crime he did not commit), and a startling insight into the medical institutions of the time period as Moffatt was shuffled through different rehabilitation facilities. Hendley does a great job explaining things like the morals and values of Torontonians of the era and the Canadian legal system in general.

Overall, a book I can definitely recommend for readers interested in true crime stories of this nature.… (more)

This is the story of Canada's youngest serial killer Peter Woodcock alias David Krueger who brought an innocent young boy for many months into prison and different rehabilitation facilities.

Ron Moffatt just wanted to escape the wrath of his parents for playing truant. So he hid out. The Toronto police, searching for a young boy his age and his description, found him and forced him into a confession. Even without being able riding a bike he was stamped as the 'Bicycle murder'.

The book tells a shocking story about a young psychopath and the uncapability both of the police als well as of medical institutions to cope with such cases in the late 1950s. And it asks even more to question confessions of (young) offenders as the only evidence in court.… (more)