Toronto tunnel was just a place to ‘hang out,’ digger tells Sun
Posted Mar 5, 2015 08:43:49 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
When police revealed that they had found the men responsible for digging a mysterious tunnel near York University, the only motive they gave was “personal reasons.”
The Toronto Sun has got a first-hand account of what those reasons were.
Elton McDonald, 22, told the newspaper that he built the tunnel along with a couple of friends as a place to “just hang out” but he wasn’t hiding out from anybody or anything — its just that he has been working in construction for about five years.
McDonald said it was always his dream to build something like that — and he knew he could do it with the help of some friends (while admitting he was the main digger). He said took it about five months to dig, drain the well water and to make sure there was enough fresh air to breathe.
The tunnel has been there for about two years but he hadn’t been in the fort since December. He was hoping to put a TV in there and did some barbequing.
He says he really got scared and didn’t know what to do when it became public.
The cops finally called him after tracing the construction equipment they found to the company he worked for. He said they interrogated him for about an hour before being satisfied that he wasn’t up to anything sinister.
He said it never occurred to him that there was anything wrong with what he was doing and had no idea the Rexall Centre was close by or that it was a venue for Pan Am tennis this summer.
As for the poppy and rosary found pinned to the wall — he said it was for protection and good luck. His sister gave him the rosary for prayer and he found the poppy on Remembrance Day. He and pinned both to the tunnel wall for protection from the cave collapsing.
