The Vanishing of the Butterfly Girl | The Case of Holly Jones | UNSEEN

I'm Harvey Ghien and this is Killer Stories. Every Monday, I'm cutting the lights. I'm telling you a bedtime story. Except, these stories are all real. We're talking brazen heist, devastating cons, serial murders, and cases that defy tidy categories. So join me for new episodes of Killer Stories with Harvey Ghien every Monday. On May 12, 2003, 11-year-old Holly Jones vanishes while walking home in West Toronto. Three weeks later, another child is attacked by a stranger than another the week after, and a fourth the next day. Anxiety is high in the West End community where Holly Jones was abducted, because there is still no suspect after three similar attacks, and law enforcement just revealed that there are more than 200 known sex offenders living in the area. Meanwhile, police discover a black double bag on the shore of Lake Ontario. Inside, they find a blood-stained green carpeting and unknown human remains. Down there on the shore of Ward's Island, you can see investigators putting more covering over the human remains found this morning. So far, police say they don't know if this grizzly discovery is related to the disappearance of Holly Jones. With no suspect, a dead body, and no leads, investigators resort to drastic measures, interviewing the over 2,000 men residing in Holly's neighborhood and collecting their DNA. But the massive sweep leads nowhere until they get a tip about a man living across the street from Holly. When they show up to question him, investigators see his floors covered in the same kind of green carpeting they had found in the bag. Even more alarming, along his walls are the power tools required to dismember a body. Convince they have their man. They bring him to the station. Daddy, we know where you were on the 12th. You were spotted, and Holly was passing by. You don't remember any of that? Danny refuses to answer. Police are convinced he's hiding something. But the problem is, Danny is innocent, meaning Holly's kidnapper is still out there. With four attacks in a month, it's only a matter of time before someone else disappears. But no one could have imagined that the only person who could stop the killer from taking another child would be his first victim. Holly herself. In the early 1990s, Maria Jones and her husband George buy a home in Parkdale, a quiet family neighborhood near Toronto's waterfront. Together they raise Maria's three children before welcoming their first daughter together, Holly. By 2003, Holly is 11 years old. She loves animals and the spice girls has plenty of friends and is beginning to seek more independence. Over the past year, Maria has allowed her to walk two and from school alone, a 20 minute walk, almost in a street line. Holly has made it countless times without incident. Then, on May 12, 2003, a Monday like any other, Holly returns from school with her friend Claudia. The two spend the afternoon playing mate belief. When it comes time for Claudia to go home, Holly tells her mom she promised to walk her there. But Maria refuses. She has never allowed Holly outside alone after school hours. But the 11-year-old insists. She has made the same walk many times before. And Claudia lives halfway to school on the same route. She argues she'll be gone for no more than 10 minutes. And eventually, her mother relents. For the first time, she allows her young daughter to leave the house alone outside of her usual walk to school. But 10 minutes pass. And Holly does not return. Then 20. After half an hour, Maria cannot explain why, but she has a terrible feeling. At 8 p.m., she calls the police. Squat cars are immediately dispatched across Parkdale. Officers begin scouring the neighborhood, searching the streets and questioning anyone who might have seen Holly. By 9 p.m., the 11-year-old is declared missing. And Ontario's first ever Amber Alert is set in motion. There are two basic reasons children are abducted. And you hope that it's the first one, which was some kind of a family involvement. From history, you have to better chance of getting the child back successfully. On the other hand, if you get a stranger on stranger child deduction, we have minutes to hours to get them back alive. Before we continue with Holly's story, we'd like to thank today's sponsor, Quince. Our sponsors help us continue bringing powerful survival stories to light. Just like every story, the clothes we wear can hold meaning. The right pieces can elevate your style and give you the confidence to put your best foot forward and tell your story. That's where Quince comes in. Quince creates elevated essentials you'll want to reach for every day. What's more is that their high quality pieces go beyond clothing, offering everything from hotel quality bedding and bath essentials to kitchenware and thoughtfully designed furniture. 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Behind them, any enormous surge is already underway. Throughout the night and into the early morning, hundreds of officers read across the neighborhood. They check every car, home, and shed a long Perth and sterling. Anywhere a missing 11-year-old might be hiding or trapped. By 9am, the investigation is taken over by Toronto Police Detective Sergeant Dave Perry. As he surveys the area surrounding Holly's way home, one of Perth's many back alleys immediately strikes him as particularly ominous. She came from her friend's place just a couple of blocks north of where we are now. And Al Coleman, I stood right here and looked down this lane way and thought what an absolutely perfect place to grab a child. But before he can investigate any further, colleagues up on Lake Ontario inform him that they had made a grim discovery on the shore of Ward's Island, a black, duffel bag, dripping with blood. Down there on the shore of Ward's Island, just south of downtown, you can see investigators putting more covering over the black bag found this morning. Police say the Marine Unit found the bag floating in Lake Ontario near the island and that it might contain discarded human remains. I had conflicting information. It's a child. It's an adult. It's a man. It's a woman. Around mid-afternoon, I got a call that searchers had found another bag floating in Tron Harbor. I had a picture of Holly. I still have that picture today. Dr. Gilmore put on some very long shoulder length rubber gloves and reached into the bag. And he told us that he felt body parts. And I was standing beside him with a picture. And so I identified 100% that that was Holly Jones. [MUSIC PLAYING] Perry immediately sends an unmarked card to pick up Maria and George. Once at the station, before the detective even has the chance to say anything, George looks into his eyes, immediately understands, and collapses to the floor. Maria doesn't follow. Instead, she screams and anger. Why is Perry standing here with them when Holly is still missing? Why isn't he out there on the streets looking for her? Perry can't find the words. He eventually manages to whisper. He's sorry. The words hit Maria like a ton of bricks. Maria screamed, yelled, jumped up, and was angry. Like, what did you just tell me? What did you just say? And all I kept thinking immediately was was she raped. And I grabbed the detective. He wouldn't answer me. And I grabbed him and shook him. And I said, you-- I was screaming. You have to tell me why she raped. He nodded his head and said, yes. It was horrible. Just 24 hours after she disappeared, homicide detectives made this grim announcement. The search for Holly Jones is now a search for her killer. Perry is devastated. All their efforts were in vain. According to the corner, Holly was probably already dead by the time Maria called the police. And as if this isn't enough, a wave of attempted child abductions suddenly hits the neighborhood. First on June 2nd, then on June 9th, then again the next day. Three attempted abductions, all within days of each other. We had non-stop 911 calls about a suspicious person trying to abduct a child. I don't think I've ever sensed that kind of fear in the city of Toronto before that time. Before the end of his shift, Perry receives the autopsy report and reads it through. In his long career in law enforcement, he has encountered all kinds of murders and sorted crimes, but never anything like this. It was a tough night. And for the first time, I'm afraid to close my eyes. And I woke up screaming with nightmares. But all that did was piss me off. No matter what it takes or how long it takes, you will get answers from Maria and George, along with justice for their little girl. His first move after Holly's funeral, a little over a week following the murder, is to launch a DNA dragnet, an exceptional measure, rarely used by law enforcement because of its intrusive nature. Detectives from Toronto's police department are building up DNA databases of residents in their communities, raising new privacy concerns. We had some pushback on randomly asking people for consent DNA. Civil rights lawyers were commenting about it. All I can tell you is it really makes no difference to us. They're all possible suspects and it's all a matter of a process of elimination. Holly's route took her half a mile up Perth Street from her home, and police estimate that around 2,000 people live along that stretch. Perry orders every single male resident in the area to be DNA tested. The truth is, police don't have any DNA to compare these samples against, but anyone who refuses automatically makes the suspect list. Perry also requests access to the local sex offender list. Canada has no national registry, and the few local systems that exist carry no DNA information. From yet, when Perry finally sees the numbers, he's stunned. Within a one mile radius of Holly's home, live 283 registered sex offenders. Anxiety is high in the West End community where Holly Jones was abducted, because there is still no suspect in her slaying, and people now are aware that there are more than 200 known sex offenders living in the area of Bloor West and Dundas Street. Police plan to speak with every resident in the neighborhood, this man voluntarily gave a DNA sample. Yeah, well, they did ask me if I would be willing to do the swab and explain my rights and such, you know, that I don't have to do this, and they didn't threaten in any way if I didn't do it, so I had no problem in doing it. The reaction that we got from 99% of the people in that neighborhood was, you know, overwhelming support, and so they were willing to do anything to help the police solve the case. As the investigation unfolds, three men stand out, the first is a registered sex offender who refuses to provide his DNA and appears to be in the middle of some deep cleaning when police arrive, suspiciously, his entire apartment reeks of bleach. Bleach man stood out because he had a prior conviction for similar offense, a molestation of a girl Holly's age. He lived two miles away from where Holly lived, but the detective smelt like an overpowering smell of bleach. It was a crime scene, it was being cleaned up. So they asked for a consent sample of his DNA and he refused and slammed the door. The second is a wood shop owner police learn about through a tip. He owns and operates industrial grade sauce and other machinery that could have been used to get rid of the body, and importantly, the shop is covered in green carpeting. This matters because, in the bags, alongside Holly's remains, police recovered weighted dumbbells, a mop, cleaning supplies, and green polypropylene fibers, the kind used for cheap green carpeting. This person of interest was called a workshop man. And of course, with the dismemberment part of this horrible case, they had all those tools and saws and everything that, you know, was yet another red flag. We knew that he knew Holly, he'd have an opportunity to see her coming and going from her house. And that's one red flag too many for Perry. He decides to bring workshop man, also known as Danny, in for an interview. During the interview, he displayed extreme anxiety. He had very abnormal responses to what we would qualify as very normal questions. When he left, we just thought how bizarre his behavior was. Though he still has questions about the first two suspects, Perry also starts looking into the third man. He isn't a registered sex offender, but he too refused to provide his DNA, so the detective pays him a visit. Inside the apartment, he notices a pile of children's toys and plushies in a corner, and asks whether the man has any nieces or nephews. He coldly answers no, before claiming that he just likes toys. Perry then intends to ask him where he keeps his cleaning products, but before he can finish his sentence, the man cuts him off. "His verbatim response was, I don't use a mop. He used the word that was in our evidence bag." The week prior, after the autopsy, the corner had sent clippings of Holly's fingernails for analysis. She was so young and small that he doubted she could have put up much of a fight against an adult attacker, but the possibility alone was worth pursuing. Two weeks later, while Perry and his task force are knee deep in the dragnet procedures, the results finally come back, unknown male DNA in spades. Under each and every one of Holly's fingernails, the little girl not only fought back, but seemingly made sure to mark the man who took her before it was too late. Now that they have a genetic profile to test against, Perry immediately places his three suspects under surveillance. If they won't provide their DNA willingly, police will have to obtain it without their knowledge. The first one, known as Bleach Man, is quickly cleared through a sample recovered from a discarded can of soda. The second, Danny The Workshop Man, is a different story. The surveillance team informs Perry that, following his interview, their second suspect has started carrying a heavy black bag, similar to the one they found in Lake Ontario. But before they can do anything, Danny drops the bag off at a seemingly random property and leaves town. Perry doesn't waste a minute and goes to retrieve it. "Our worst fear is that it may contain Holly's legs. We truly did not know what was going to be in that bag." Perry finds the bag in a garage in the hands of an unknown individual who doesn't seem at all happy to see him. Holly's remains were not complete in the first bag, the prospect of getting her parents closure by returning all of their little girl and finding the culprit all at once sounds almost too good to be true. "7 pounds of marijuana in the bag. So all that suspicious behavior was all about a marijuana grow-up. It had nothing to do with our actual homicide." Frustrated by the fact that they have just wasted more time on another false lead, Perry's focus shifts back to Toyman. His name is Michael Breer, a software developer described by his ex-wife and colleagues as quiet and soft-spoken. Yet, for two weeks, police have followed him without recovering a single discarded item to sample. Either it's a strange coincidence, or he's aware they're on to him. "We had no evidence to even determine that he was a suspect in the case we just had all this very strange behavior and lots of red flags." One of these red flags is a discrepancy Perry discovers in the case files. During his visit to Breer's apartment, he notes the beige bath mats in the bathroom, but when he reviews the reports of his colleagues' first visit, he sees they recorded the mats as being green, just like the polypropylene fibers the coroner found in the bag containing Holly's remains. That's enough for Perry to bring Breer back in for an interview. The suspect doesn't know it yet, but he's about to fall right into the detective's trap. "So when we focused in on the changes that he made in the bathroom, he said that he had green shower curtains and that he had changed those. So I asked him, 'Is it, did you change anything else?' Well, yes, I changed the little mats, and I said, 'So what color was the previous bath mat that you had and you went black?' Breer is lying straight to their faces, but seeing the arrogant look in his eyes, Perry decides to let him go. Perry doesn't need any evidence, he knows Breer killed Holly. Not only that, he can sense he's about to make a big mistake. As soon as he left, he went into a variety store and he bought himself a can of Pepsi, and he threw the can of Pepsi in a way. So that was the first time after many, many days of surveillance where he left potentially a discarded sample of his DNA in a public place. 40 days after Holly's horrific murder, Dave Perry receives one final call from the lab. After weeks of unanswered questions, false leads, and pain-staking surveillance, the results are finally in. The DNA is a match. Michael Breer is their man. Dave and I came right to this very location early in the morning and we were going to make the arrest before he got into the subway. I put my hand out, I said, "Hi, Michael, Detective Serge Nalcomal went to shake his hand because I didn't want him to run and that was the signal for Dave and I to grab both the arms." I told him he's under arrest for the first-degree murder of Holly Jones. During the 40 days, the investigation has taken a serious toll on Perry's mental health, now, seeing the man responsible for so much suffering, to Holly, her family, and to an extent to Perry himself, finally taken into custody, brings a sense of relief unlike anything he has ever felt before. Nothing can undo what happened, but Perry has kept his promise. He has found the man responsible. This case has left a scar in my soul, I would say, that we'll probably never leave. I remember looking at the sun coming up in this beautiful June day and I had Michael Breer in the back seat under arrest for first-degree murder and I wanted to say to him, "I have a look at the window because this is the last time you're going to see the sunrise like this." Once in custody, Breer breaks down almost immediately after the detective asks him what his mother would think of what he'd done, what would she say to Holly's mom, "And I sort of said, 'What would your mother be telling you to do right now? Wouldn't your mother be telling you to help these officers to give Holly Jones some and mother some peace. to help us recover her legs. And at that point, he looked up. He looked up at the heavens. And I knew I had him. And he finally sat up and he turned towards me and he said, you'll never find her legs. I put them in the garbage. Inside the Don Jail, in what's called super protective custody, it's expected that tonight will be accused child killer Michael Breyer's last night as an innocent man. In court tomorrow, he's expected to plead guilty to the first degree murder of 10-year-old Holly Jones. Before the trial, Breyer confesses that he indeed kidnapped Holly and the alley behind his apartment and that the 11-year-old fought back, leaving a large scar on his arm. With the confession, DNA evidence, and the incriminating injury Holly left behind to top it all off, the case against Breyer is overwhelming. They cannot prove he was also behind the other abduction attempts that occurred over the course of the investigation, but once he was in custody, these had stopped too. In the end, he pleads guilty to all charges. Breyer stood in the court today and tearfully said that he was ashamed of himself and that he deserved to be locked up for life. And that's exactly the sentence he receives. During the trial, the prosecution stated that graphic content involving children had been found on Breyer's computer. Learning that this may have played a role in what drove him to take Holly, Maria begins pushing for stronger laws against online sex criminals, as well as the creation of a national sex offender registry, measures she hopes could prevent another case like Holly's. The Jones family now plans to become activists for tougher child pornography laws and for a national sex offender registry. If I can get back by saving a child's life, that is a good reward for me. Thanks to Maria, George, and many other parent-turned-activists, the Canada finally institutes its own national sex offender registry, which comes into effect just after the Jones's first Christmas, without Holly. 24 years later, as of 2026, the country has finally granted the public access to its high-risk child sex offender database. It has now live as of Thursday, giving the public the chance to look at information from across the country about people, found guilty of sexual offenses involving children. Holly was young, she loved butterflies. So after she left, butterflies became a stronger symbol for us. Holly's last steps are retraced every year by dozens of kids and parents clutching colorful butterflies. Butterflies now hold a special meaning for Holly's family, a reminder that will forever stay with Maria and George, as well as Holly's three surviving siblings, Natasha, Shawna, and Jamie. We would release butterflies once a year. It helped me deal with my pain a bit. I need my daughter, Holly. I love you. Miss you. For Maria, Holly's legacy will never be measured only by her death. More than 20 years later, the pain of losing her remains, but so does everything that came before it. 11 years of memories, laughter, and love that no one can ever take away. This was the very last mother's day present we got. Happy Mother's Day, love Holly. And it says, "I love you so, so much." Rose is a red, violets are blue, but most of all, I love you.