Man at centre of castration allegations now the talk of quiet Saskatchewan town

KIM LUNMAN

FORT QU'APPELLE, SASK. — From Monday's Globe and Mail

Published Monday, Jun. 04, 2001 12:00AM EDT

Last updated Saturday, Mar. 21, 2009 10:15AM EDT

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nat ... le1031836/

Gary Gillingwater is accused of performing a botched castration on an Alberta man who, with a woman identified as his mother, checked into the Country Squire Inn on May 11 dressed as a woman. The alleged victim left in an ambulance later that same day and is said to have recovered.

Mr. Gillingwater, 57, said his life has been ruined since he was arrested and charged with aggravated assault and criminal negligence causing harm, in connection with what authorities describe as an "illegal medical procedure."

"This whole circus that's going on is a killer," Mr. Gillingwater said in an interview from the modest green and white bungalow he shares with his boyfriend of 15 years, Morgan Desjarlais, on the outskirts of Fort Qu'Appelle about 70 kilometres northeast of Regina.

"I'm a very private person," said Mr. Gillingwater, who is slight and bespectacled with thinning red hair. "It's the blatant lies that bother me most," he said while sipping coffee in his kitchen and chain-smoking. "I hate gossip."

While the pace of life in this town of 2,000 is slow, news travels fast.

Mr. Gillingwater refused to comment on media reports that he met the Alberta man through an Internet Web site called the Eunuch Archive using the name Top Dog and charged $100 for the procedure. "I can't say anything," he said.

The name of the alleged victim cannot be published because of a court order protecting his identity.

Mr. Gillingwater's next court appearance is June 28.

There's talk that Mr. Gillingwater, who grew up on a farm outside Hamilton, Ont., told people he was an army doctor. Others say he once worked as a veterinary assistant. All "lies," according to him.

"This guy definitely doesn't have any medical training," Constable Levesque said.

He pled guilty and got 100 hours of community service. Go Canada!

turbo2011 (imported) wrote: Sat Oct 15, 2016 1:13 pm http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/man-

pleads-guilty-to-botched-castration/article4150060/

Man pleads guilty to botched castration

STEPHEN LAROSE

FORT QU'APPELLE, SASK. — Special to The Globe and Mail

Published Friday, Jun. 29, 2001 12:00AM EDT

Gary Gillingwater said he was only trying to help. That's why he only charged $100.

Instead, the 57-year-old man's experiment with castration surgery ended with a guilty plea in Provincial Court yesterday. He pleaded guilty to one count of unlawfully causing bodily harm, and was sentenced to 100 hours of community service.

Mr. Gillingwater, of Fort Qu'Appelle, Sask., faced the charge after removing the testicles of a man in a surgical procedure at a Fort Qu'Appelle hotel on May 11. Mr. Gillingwater, who corresponded with the man through Internet messages, had no medical experience, apart from castrating cattle, horses and pigs on the family farm when he was a boy, he told the court.

In a presentencing hearing, Mr. Gillingwater's lawyer told Judge Ken Bellerose that the man seeking the operation was in a desperate psychological state. He turned to Mr. Gillingwater for the medical procedure because he felt he had no other option.

"Mr. Gillingwater is a bright, articulate man who was trying to help someone out," his lawyer, Pat Reis, told court.

The man on whom Mr. Gillingwater performed the surgery can't be named or otherwise identified because of a court order.

Crown prosecutor Lane Wiegers said the two met through a Florida-based Web site dedicated to the topic of human castration. The man asked on the site's bulletin board whether anyone in Western Canada could remove a person's testicles, and was directed to Mr. Gillingwater.

The Fort Qu'Appelle resident billed himself as "TopDog" and "CutterCanada" on the Web site and said he had been doing human castrations since 1975.

In fact, Mr. Gillingwater had never done the procedure.

He told court that, in addition to his farm experience, he studied how to surgically remove a man's testicles on the Internet.

"There's a lot of stuff out there," he said. "You'd be surprised."

On the night of May 11, Mr. Gillingwater removed the man's testicles in an hourlong operation, done without any anesthetic.

Mr. Gillingwater said the man's testicles appeared scarred and damaged. The man had made previous attempts to remove those parts of his body, Mr. Gillingwater told the court.

After the operation the man started to bleed profusely from his groin.

"If he hadn't been taken to hospital, the man would have bled to death after the surgery," Mr. Wiegers told the court.

When Fort Qu'Appelle RCMP seized Mr. Gillingwater's computer during the investigation, they found hundreds of e-mails from across North America and Europe addressed to Mr. Gillingwater's aliases, the Crown prosecutor added.

"Many of those people wanted such a person's services because it is a long process to undergo a complete sex change," Mr. Wiegers added.

However, Mr. Gillingwater e-mailed them back saying he was no longer doing the surgery, Mr. Reis told court.

Good grief, I did more hours than that in Boy Scouts...

I remember the case, because that town is only a few minutes away from where I grew up, and I was in the area at the time it happened. However, I don't know any more about it than what was published in the newspapers. There was some gossip of course, but the only ones who really knew the details would have been the people directly involved, and obviously they weren't saying anything.

I can think of a number of reasons why he received the sentence he did, but I would be speculating.

The real punishment is that in a small town of less than 2000 people with no end of gossip, it's a story no one will ever forget, and that will follow him around as long as he lives there.