A true-crime sensation from Hamilton, the story of Evelyn Dick continues to draw headlines that cling to her celebrity as a femme fatale — a cruel seductress who at 26, imitated the naivety of an 11-year-old child, yet had the cold callous heart of a murderer. But what if we were told an incomplete story?This is an archival exploration using today’s resources to look back at the case with a modern perspective of not only Evelyn Dick, but Hamilton as a booming and industrious post-war city in 1946. Straight from the pages of the Hamilton Spectator and the work of the city’s Police’s department, we now have the research tools to open up more of the story about those years — to invite fresh discussion into one of the most talked-about stories in Canadian criminal history.

With the information available today, we can better understand the circles that swirled around Evelyn and the morality beat in a post-war era Hamilton: a city with close proximity to multiple American borders.

Presenter Sarah Farr grew up in East Anglia, UK, and moved to Australia in her twenties. While living in Sydney, NSW, she worked for News Corp. in the advertising department. She became fascinated by the hustle and bustle of the newspaper world, took an in-house journalism course offered by her employer, and realized her love of storytelling.

After leaving Australia and moving to Hamilton in 2005, Sarah became avidly engaged in the city’s history — in particular, the story of Evelyn Dick. Not satisfied with the story told in previously published works, she set off on a mission to fill in the blanks and discover the lesser-known tales of Mrs. Evelyn Dick. You may be surprised by what she’s uncovered. Sarah runs the Facebook page The Evelyn Dick Files and is currently working on a book to be published in 2026 about our infamous femme fatale.