In the fading light of a September afternoon in 2024, Daniel Bressers sat hunched over his desk, his fingers tapping idly against the keyboard. The room was cluttered with papers, manila folders stacked haphazardly around him, and the dim glow of his computer screen illuminated the dark circles under his eyes. He was tired, more tired than he had ever been. The past few weeks had been a blur of emails, phone calls, and unanswered questions. But tonight, he was trying something new. For the first time in years, he wasn’t writing to the police or lawyers—this time, he was writing to the media.
Daniel stared at the cursor blinking at the end of his sentence. His hands trembled as he typed, the words coming slower than they used to. He was 46 now, but the memories he was dredging up belonged to a terrified nine-year-old boy.
The Nightmare Begins (1987)
It was August 2, 1987, a day Daniel remembered as clearly as if it had just happened. He had set off for the local 7-Eleven with $5 in quarters jingling in his pocket, ready to treat a friend to a few rounds at the arcade. But the day, which had started with such innocent excitement, would take a dark turn the moment he crossed paths with Michael Canton.
Michael was older, with a sly grin that made Daniel uneasy. He handed Daniel a plastic cup with soda, and being thirsty on a warm day, Daniel drank it without thinking twice. Almost immediately, he felt strange—dizzy, his thoughts foggy. He remembered Michael’s voice, distant and muffled, saying, “We’re going to meet my friend Nick.”
Nick Cowle was a name that would haunt Daniel for decades. At just 14, Nick had a reputation. His family was tied to criminal activity in ways that Daniel, at nine, couldn’t fully comprehend, but he felt the danger in Nick’s presence. As the drug took hold, Daniel found himself being dragged along, barely able to protest as they led him to an empty house in Calgary. There, in a haze of confusion, the vandalism began.
Daniel remembered the sound of glass shattering, the smashing of photo frames and kitchen cabinets being ripped open. He had tried to leave, slipping through a back gate, but a neighbor had caught him and, unaware of Daniel’s terror, led him back to the group. The next hours were a blur, but one moment stood out: Nick threatening the neighbor in a low voice, and the neighbor’s panicked response—“How dare you threaten me and my son!”—before retreating inside.
When the police finally arrived, Daniel, shaking and confused, couldn’t fully explain what had happened. But when Nick and Michael turned to him, expecting him to take the blame, something inside Daniel broke free of the fear. “Nick did it,” he told the officers. His voice had trembled, but he had spoken the truth. It was enough to get Nick arrested, sent away to the Calgary Young Offenders Centre, but the damage to Daniel’s psyche had been done. He was no longer a child who believed in the safety of the world.
Living in Fear (1987-1990)
For the next three years, Daniel lived in constant fear. Nick was gone, but Daniel knew he’d be back. He could still hear the taunts of Nick’s friends at the playground months after the incident: “Nick’s gonna get you, just wait.” And wait he did. Every day felt like a countdown to something inevitable.
The fear wasn’t just in his head—he could feel it in the way people treated him. His teachers at school looked at him differently, his classmates whispered behind his back. He overheard his principal once calling him “the kid from that gang thing,” even though Daniel had done nothing wrong. The shadow of Nick’s actions followed him everywhere, branding him as someone to be feared, even though he was the one living in terror.
May 2, 1990: The Nightmare Returns
On May 2, 1990, when Daniel was 12, Nick came back. He wasn’t alone this time—he had people working for him, influencing the lives of others, manipulating them like chess pieces. That day, Daniel was in the lunchroom at his school when two girls approached him with an offer of “free juice.” He took it without a second thought—after all, who says no to free? But soon after drinking it, Daniel felt that familiar, sickening haze. He knew what was happening. The drug—probably belladonna, the same substance used in 1987—was taking control again.
Before he knew it, Daniel found himself outside the Pineridge Community Hall, being forced by Nick to vandalize the property. He remembered crying as he smashed a light fixture and pulled down a drainage pipe. “Why are you making me do this?” he had asked, his voice cracking through the sobs. But Nick’s answer was as chilling as it was cryptic: “Because of you and your dad.”
At the time, Daniel hadn’t understood the reference, but later, he would wonder if Nick had held a grudge from 1987, falsely believing that the man who had caught Daniel in the alleyway was his father.
When the police arrived, Daniel’s heart raced. He knew what was coming. His desperate pleas were ignored, just as they had been before. The other boys, under Nick’s command, lied and claimed Daniel was the ringleader. Officer David Kotowski dismissed Daniel’s story, focusing instead on the damage. By the end of the day, Daniel was in handcuffs, and Nick was nowhere to be found. The report was filed under LG90030974. Once again, Daniel was seen as the criminal, not the victim.
Years of Silence (2005-2008: The Jewelry Heist)
Between 2005 and 2008, Daniel had managed to keep his head down, working at EDS, a company located in Calgary’s BP Building. He was trying to move on, trying to live a normal life, but Nick’s shadow was never far. It started with strange encounters—cryptic messages from unfamiliar coworkers, odd questions, and veiled threats. One day, a man in a high-visibility jacket approached Daniel at work and said, “I wanted to check and see if they were right.” Daniel didn’t know what he meant, but the man’s next words sent a chill down his spine: “You won’t remember.”
Soon after, Daniel was drugged again. He wasn’t sure how it had happened—a drink left on his desk, perhaps, or a quick injection during an innocuous conversation. The next thing he knew, he was being led down the back stairs of the building, his limbs heavy, his mind clouded. He was taken to a van parked in a lot, where more drugs were administered.
Inside the darkened mall, the robbery began. Nick’s crew had cut the power, disabling the security alarms and plunging the jewelry store into eerie silence. Daniel remembered the sound of glass shattering as he smashed the display cases with a hammer, his hands shaking uncontrollably. The bag they had forced him to steal from the store days earlier was now filled with stolen jewelry. But despite his terror, Daniel managed a brief act of defiance—he threw the hammer at Nick, striking him hard enough to make him yelp in pain.
But the retaliation was swift, and Daniel’s moment of rebellion was forgotten in the chaos that followed. He tried to pull a fire alarm, but the power had been cut. The system was dead, just like his hope of escape.
By the time the police arrived, Daniel was still in shock. The interrogation lasted hours. At first, they didn’t believe him, treating him like a suspect. But over time, the evidence—the pulled fire alarm, the hammer, security footage showing him crying during the heist—corroborated his story. He wasn’t a willing participant. He was a victim.
Now, in 2024, Daniel was determined to tell his story to anyone who would listen. He had spent the better part of the year filing Freedom of Information and Privacy Act requests, seeking the full police records from the incidents of 1987 and 1990. He knew there were redacted sections that might hold the truth—the truth that he had been manipulated, drugged, and coerced by Nick and his associates for years.
But the documents were slow to come, and what did arrive wasn’t enough. Nick’s name appeared, but there was no mention of the drugs or the manipulation. The official narrative still painted Daniel as a troublemaker, a kid who had gotten mixed up with the wrong crowd. That’s why he was writing this email—to the media, to the world. He needed someone to believe him.
As he typed, Daniel thought about the police officer he had been in contact with—Constable Chad Rausch. Chad had been kind, had listened, but even he couldn’t change the official records. When Chad reviewed the case files, there was no mention of the drugs, no real recognition of the terror Daniel had lived through. And when Daniel had mentioned his suspicions that Nick had been following him for 30 years, Chad had delicately suggested that some of these feelings might stem from trauma or mental health concerns. He had even offered to connect Daniel with a clinician from the Police and Crisis Team (PACT). Daniel appreciated the gesture, but he didn’t need a therapist to tell him what he already knew—Nick’s reach was long, and the system had failed to protect him.
A New Threat (September 2024)
Just days ago, Daniel had heard a noise while sitting in his garage—a sharp crash that broke the stillness of the evening. When he investigated, he found the back window of his garage door smashed. He called the police, and once again, Constable Rausch came to the scene. They found a rusted bolt near the broken glass, but there were no suspects, no leads. Daniel’s mind raced with possibilities—was this a random act of vandalism, or was Nick still out there, reminding him that he could never escape?
Daniel hit “send” on the email and leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly. His story was out there now. Maybe the media would pick it up, maybe they wouldn’t. But either way, he had to keep fighting. The system had labeled him, had painted him as part of the problem, but he knew the truth. He wasn’t the criminal. He was the victim.
As the last light of the day faded from the sky, Daniel closed his eyes and let the darkness wash over him. The shadow of his past was still there, but maybe, just maybe, the world would finally listen.