Lindsay Buziak

by Chilling Crimes August 03, 2020

“I’m not just doing this for her. I’m doing this for all the other missing and murdered women and girls whose cases have gone unsolved.”

-Jeff Buziak

It was the 2nd of February 2008. A Saturday. Twenty four year old Lindsay Buziak had work that day. Lindsay was a ReMax Camosun Realtor in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. It was the perfect job for Lindsay as she was outgoing and friendly. 

On the 31st of January 2008, Lindsay received a call from a woman asking if Lindsay would show her a property. The woman said that she wanted to buy a house with her husband and gave Lindsay some specific details about what they wanted. She had a budget of $1,000,000 and wanted to purchase a property fast. Lindsay was in line to earn some great commission on that kind of budget. If the couple bought the house it would be her biggest sale to date. She agreed to take on the woman as a client and found the perfect house to show her. The showing was arranged for the 2nd of February at 5.30 pm.

Lindsay Buziak

Lindsay told her father about her new client. Her father, Jeff Buziak, was also a realtor in Calgary. According to Jeff, Lindsay thought there was something a little off about the call. The call she had received was made to her personal cell phone. Normally work calls are via the office or her work phone. But the woman who made the call said that one of Lindsay's other clients gave her Lindsay's cell phone number. Lindsay called that client but they were out of town. Either way, Lindsay was still going. It was a great opportunity and Lindsay was keen to get ahead and start selling expensive properties. 

Work notes Lindsay made re the call

That day, the 2nd of February, Lindsay and her boyfriend, Jason Zailo, met for a late lunch. Lindsay and Jason were in a relationship for around a year and lived together in a property owned by Jason's mother Shirley Zailo. They initially lived at Jason’s mother’s vacation home at Shawnigan Lake near Victoria but moved to another property she owned in central Victoria so that they would be closer to work. They seemed happy together but according to Jeff, Lindsay had some reservations about the relationship. She found Jason was too possessive and controlling at times. That was not the sort of man Lindsay wanted. She was a free spirit and extremely ambitious and determined. That being said, she did tell Jason about her new client and the appointment. She referred to the caller and the caller's husband as "The Mexicans." Jason told her he would meet her at the house later as he needed her to sign some papers for a property sale he was involved in himself so he would be there if there was any trouble or any problems. 

Jason and Lindsay

Jason and Lindsay had their late lunch at 4.30pm that afternoon and afterwards, they both went their separate ways. 

Jason picked up a friend, Cohen Oatman, for a scrub hockey game. They stopped off at an auto business and surveillance footage picked them up arriving and leaving. Jason then headed towards De Sousa Place.

De Sousa Place is the street where the house Lindsay was showing is located. It is a small cul de sac containing just four houses. De Sousa Court is named after developer Joe De Sousa, a friend and business associate of Shirley Zailo, Jason's mother. The house itself, was at the outer end of the cul de sac on the intersection of De Sousa Place and Torquay Drive. The side of the property and the fence of the back garden run parallel to Torquay Drive.

The house

The house seemed perfect for what Lindsay's client was looking for. It had been on the market for a year but it was brand new and vacant so they would be able to move in immediately. It had three bedrooms and three bathrooms and a $965,000 asking price.

Lindsay arrived just before 5.30pm and pulled her car into the driveway. She took out her paperwork to take a quick look at the house details and entered the home at 5.29pm. The time was recorded as Lindsay had to open a lockbox which was connected to a computer system. 

Two people in the cul de sac saw a man and woman walk towards the house. Lindsay introduced herself and the three of them went into the house. Jason sent a text message to Lindsay to let her know he would be there in 10-15 minutes. She replied and told him they were there. He sent another text message at 5.38pm and told her he was a couple of minutes away. That text message was never read. 

When Jason got there, around 5.45pm, he parked outside and then a few minutes later moved around to Torquay Drive. There was no sign of Lindsay. When he first got there, he saw a man and woman open the front door but they went back inside. 

Jason and Cohen sat in the car for a while but they started to get a little worried. Lindsay had still not responded to Jason's text message. They went up to the house. The front door was locked. Jason called the police. It was 6.05pm. Cohen went around to the back door. It was open. He entered the house and opened the front door for Jason. Jason ran straight upstairs and into the master bedroom. He found Lindsay on the floor. She had been stabbed multiple times. She was dead. Jason called police a second time. It was 6.11pm when he found Lindsay's body. Nobody else was in the home at the time. 

When police arrived at the scene, it became apparent that whoever killed Lindsay went to the house that day with the sole purpose of killing her. She had not been sexually abused and all of her belongings were still there. Nothing was missing. 

Police believed that Lindsay was stabbed between 5.38pm and 5.41pm. Jason and Cohen were brought into custody as they were found at the crime scene when police arrived but they were later released when police checked out their alibi. Police saw the surveillance footage of them at the auto business. 

Video footage below shows Jason describing what happened when he entered the house. He told NBC:

"It brought back all the memories again. One day you're living with somebody, and the next day, she's gone."

 

Lindsay had been stabbed over forty times. There were multiple stab wounds to her head and chest. Police believed that she was stabbed when she turned around to show the couple the en suite bathroom in the master bedroom. They believed she was attacked from behind as there was nothing to indicate that she knew what was about to happen. There were no defensive wounds on her body whatsoever. There was a call placed from her blackberry to an acquaintance but it was a muffled sound. Police believed it was placed accidentally during the attack. 

Police tried to trace the couple that Lindsay had shown the house to. The two people that saw Lindsay meet the man and woman outside the house described the woman's dress and what she looked like. She had blonde hair and was wearing a colorful dress. They described the man as being a caucasian man and he was over 6 ft with dark hair. 

Police traced the call that Lindsay received from her new client. It was made from a cellphone purchased in Vancouver three months before the murder and was paid for with cash and the name the phone was registered in was:

 “Paulo Rodriquez”

It was used only to contact Lindsay. It had not been used for anything else. Even though the phone was bought in November 2007, it was only activated late January 2008 in Vancouver. The phone traveled to the Island 24 hours prior to Lindsay’s murder. Vancouver is from where the first calls to Lindsay were made, confirmed by hits on cell towers in the city. Police said at least half a dozen calls were made to Lindsay and after her murder the cell phone was never used again.

Lindsay's murder had been planned with great precision. In just a matter of minutes she was stabbed multiple times and very little evidence was left behind. Police began looking into Lindsay's background. 

Her relationship with Jason had been a good one but she told Jeff that she was considering ending the relationship. Police knew that Jason wasn't at the house at the time Lindsay was murdered but they looked into whether he was involved in her murder. Jason agreed to take a lie detector test and he passed it. 

Lindsay (on the left) and Jason

Jeff told police that Lindsay visited him in Calgary on the 14th of December 2007 and told him that she saw something bad. He believed she was referring to something that had happened in Victoria. But police discovered that when she was in Calgary she was in contact with an old friend. Her friend was a relative of Erickson Lopez Delalcazar. Police do not know why she made contact with him via phone and via Facebook during that trip. 

But, just a few days before Lindsay's murder, Erickson was charged in the largest cocaine trafficking case in Alberta. Shortly after Lindsay had returned to Victoria from Calgary , the cocaine trafficking ring that Erickson was involved in got busted. A lot of people lost a lot of money. The drugs were worth millions of dollars. Police had to consider whether Lindsay's murder was connected. Did somebody believe she gave information to the police and as such, did someone from that drug gang want her dead? 

 

Lindsay Buziak

Police also looked into her past relationships. Before she dated Jason, she was in a long term relationship with Matt MacDuff but police did not consider him a suspect in her killing. However, when she dated him, their phones were tapped because of his association with Jasmohan Sing Bains. Jasmohan was involved in the trafficking and sale of illegal narcotics in British Columbia and Alberta and police uncovered information that led to the BC Legislature Raids in 2003 via the phone tapping. 

But there was nothing to suggest that Lindsay was involved in drugs herself, knew anything about any drug deals or informed police of any sort of activity involving drugs. So police had no idea why Lindsay was murdered or who was involved. 

Police have said that the case is not a cold case and is still an open investigation. They believe Lindsay may have been targeted by a man and a woman posing as potential buyers and it was based on mistaken information they had about Lindsay. 

But Jeff is frustrated at how long it is taking to find out what happened to his daughter. He went on the Dr Phil show to highlight the case. 

In 2010, police held a press conference to state that the Zailo family were not involved in Lindsay's murder. They did this because there was a lot of public speculation that they knew something about what happened to Lindsay. 

Jeff said that as a result of Lindsay's murder, he has had years of counseling. But he will not stop trying to get justice for his daughter and other women.

 Jeff believes that someone Lindsay knew well killed her because she may have seen/known too much. 

Lindsay's murder remains unsolved. 

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