He married, but, jobless, he took to entering apartments through balconies, rummaging through drawers, shoeboxes and closets for money or jewellery. It was in the closets, he said, that he noticed an absence of men's clothing, and noted where women lived alone.
When Mr. Callow spiralled into feelings of inadequacy and anger - sparked in part by alcohol and shame that his wife, a nurse, was the breadwinner - he would drink, he said, and cast about for a way to feel powerful and in control. That's when he would remember where the women lived.
"The emotions stewed. They built like a pressure cooker. And I was ready to blow," he said.
He said he agreed with a 1997 court judgment that said Toronto Police were negligent in failing to warn citizens in the area about him. If the public had been warned, he would have attempted earlier to flee to Vancouver with his then-girlfriend and his ex-wife, he said.
"I was ready to take off as soon as I saw the posters that Jane Doe put up," he said. "It would have been for my own good to try and get away and hopefully not be caught."
But police caught him before he could run back to North Vancouver, where, he said, authorities were less likely to find him. His girlfriend and ex-wife had no idea he was the balcony rapist until he was arrested, Mr. Callow said.
