The Sydney River McDonalds Shooting

Episode 203: On May 7, 1992, after the McDonald’s restaurant on Kings Road near Keltic Drive in Sydney River, Nova Scotia, closed for the night and the overnight crew was coming in and the evening crew was leaving. Three young men, armed with a shovel handle, knives and a .22 calibre pistol robbed the establishment. They beat, stabbed and shot 4 of the restaurant workers, killing three, Jimmy Fagan, 27, Donna Warren, 22, and Neil Burroughs Jr., 29, and critically wounding 20-year-old, Arlene MacNeil, who was permanently disabled both physically and mentally, requiring round the clock care until her death in 2018. The crime’s brutality brought unwelcome international media attention to the small town, especially when the truth came out. To almost everyone’s surprise, days after the murders, it quickly became evident that the brutal crime had been committed by three, fairly well-liked young men from the area. They’d robbed the place for its cash, making off with a tiny fraction of what they had assumed would be in the restaurant’s safe.

Sources:

Sydney River McDonald’s murders – Wikipedia

R. v. Muise, 1992 CanLII 4046 (NS SC), < https://canlii.ca/t/1qlf2 >

R. v. MacNeil, 1993 CanLII 4442 (NS SC), < https://canlii.ca/t/1pqsc >

R. v. MacNeil, 1993 CanLII 4449 (NS SC), < https://canlii.ca/t/1pqsl >

R. v. Wood, 1993 CanLII 4535 (NS SC), < https://canlii.ca/t/1ql92 >

R. v. Muise (No. 1), 1993 CanLII 4555 (NS SC), < https://canlii.ca/t/1ql9r >

R. v. Muise, 1994 NSCA 198 (CanLII), < https://canlii.ca/t/1mqpp >

R. v. Wood, 1994 NSCA 239 (CanLII), < https://canlii.ca/t/1mqcn >

R. v. MacNeil, 1995 NSCA 10 (CanLII), < https://canlii.ca/t/1mqdv >

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