The Grisly Murder That Launched a Podcast Star

Dan Zupansky was an amateur journalist when he started corresponding with Canada’s infamous “Shall We Dance” killer. Today, his fans call him the godfather of true crime.

Edited by Michael Stahl

Dan Zupansky was underwhelmed when he met Sidney Teerhuis in jail. Teerhuis was overweight, had a face scarred by acne, and spoke with a high, hectoring voice. He was in prison for committing a vicious murder and dismemberment, but to Zupansky he looked like Drew Carey wearing a jumpsuit. 

The two were meeting in the visitor’s room of the Winnipeg Remand Centre on March 9, 2004 in Canada’s midwestern province of Manitoba. They exchanged greetings and quietly sat face-to-face on hard plastic benches on either side of a Plexiglas wall. Zupansky, then 44 and a handsome man with short hair brushed back with a comb, was wondering about the psychological makeup of the person sitting across from him. Eight months earlier, at the age of 33, Teerhuis had stabbed another man 68 times, dismembered the body, and disposed of the organs so thoroughly that they were never found. Teerhuis was in prison awaiting trial for the crime, and he likewise wondered about his visitor – wh…