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You very much for your support and

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enjoy the conclusion of our special to

1:43

part anniversary episode. Hello

2:20

everyone Welcome to our latest episode of

2:22

The Trail. Wet, Cold. I'm your

2:24

host Robin Order. And today we're

2:27

going to be presenting the second half

2:29

of our two part series about the

2:31

nineteen fifty nine murder of Lead Harper

2:33

and the controversial conviction of Stephen Trust

2:35

Got. We. Release part one last

2:38

week and it goes without saying that if

2:40

you haven't heard that episode yet, I highly

2:42

recommend you go back and listen to it

2:44

since it contains most of the key information

2:46

about this case. But. As a

2:48

refresher. The. Murder of twelve year old

2:50

Lane Harper is one of the most infamous

2:53

cases in the history of our podcast home

2:55

country Canada. As the individual who was charged

2:57

and convicted of the crime. Was. A

3:00

fourteen year old friend and classmate of

3:02

Linseed Stephen. Trust God. Linen.

3:04

Stephen Both live with their families at a

3:06

Royal Canadian Air Force base and Clinton, Ontario

3:09

and on the evening of June and I

3:11

thank you Fifty Nine. Even claimed

3:13

that he picked up late at their school

3:15

and gave her a ride on his bicycle.

3:17

The highway eight just over one kilometer away.

3:20

Shortly. After you dropped her off, Stevens

3:22

said that he saw in climate to

3:24

a passing car driven by an unknown

3:26

individual, but he never returned home that night

3:28

and her body was found in Woodlot

3:30

called losses Bush two days later. She.

3:33

Had likely been sexually assaulted and was

3:35

strangled to death with Rome blouse. But.

3:37

The Please Do Not believe Stephen Story and

3:40

suspected that he took linen to the Bush

3:42

Nord for rape and murder her. Even.

3:44

Though the evidence against Stephen was very

3:47

circumstantial, he was charged with first degree

3:49

murder, convicted at trial, and sentenced to

3:51

death by hanging. Obviously.

3:54

The idea of executing a fourteen year old

3:56

boy was met with a public backlash. So.

3:59

The government. Canada community sense to

4:01

life imprisonment And after serving ten

4:03

years behind bars, Steven was paroled

4:05

in Nineteen Sixty nine. He.

4:08

Then went on to start a new life

4:10

under a new name. He got married and

4:12

had children are by the late Ninety nineties.

4:14

Steven decided that he wanted to put his

4:16

story back into the spotlight and prove his

4:18

innocence. Indeed, It would

4:20

turn out that a lot of potentially exculpatory

4:22

evidence was withheld from Steve It's defense team

4:25

at his original trial and Nineteen Fifty Nine,

4:27

and are also issues with some of the

4:29

evidence which the crown and use against him.

4:32

When. Our last episode ended Stevens tasered

4:34

been referred to the Court of Appeal

4:36

for Ontario. Attitude of two thousand and

4:38

six. It was brought before I judge

4:41

panel who would hear testimony from seventy

4:43

witnesses and review two hundred and fifty

4:45

new pieces of evidence over one three

4:47

week period. This would

4:50

lead to some shocking new revelations, which

4:52

I'm going to discuss momentarily, and once

4:54

I'd done sharing the remaining facts about

4:56

the case, I'll provide my theories and

4:58

analysis about what happened. So.

5:00

Without further ado, let us now

5:02

continue to explore the murder of

5:04

Linda Part. Start

5:33

off by discussing the presentation of Steven Trust

5:35

Cause case in front of the Court of

5:38

Appeal for Ontario in two thousand and six

5:40

which will require me to provide refresher on

5:42

some of the evidence from Stevens original file.

5:45

As a recap, see that always maintained

5:47

that I'm eating him tonight. Ninety Fifty

5:50

Nine. He only left ear Vice

5:52

Marshal Hugh Campbell school together on his

5:54

bicycle and will those always been dispute

5:56

about the exact time he left. Stevens

5:58

said it was around said. Twenty five

6:00

Pm. They. Headed north and

6:02

county road and pass a would like known

6:04

as Losses Bush which is where Lynn's body

6:07

was found two days later. Seeded.

6:09

Claimed that they soon cross a bridge which

6:11

ran over the Bayfield River, and he then

6:14

dropped lid off at an intersection of County

6:16

Road and Highway Eight. Where. She hitched a

6:18

ride in a car and was never seen alive again.

6:21

Of course, the authorities always alleged that Stephen

6:23

never made it to Highway Eight and instead

6:25

took Linda the losses bush in order to

6:28

killer. However, several witnesses

6:30

establish that Stephen did arrive back to

6:32

the schoolyard on his bicycle at around

6:35

eight pm. And. Then returned home

6:37

to baby sit his two younger siblings. So.

6:39

Stephen was guilty. The crime had to

6:41

have taken place during a widow of

6:43

around thirty five to sixty minutes. The.

6:46

Most crucial piece of evidence presented

6:48

at Stevens trial was testimony from

6:51

a pathologist named Dr. John Peniston.

6:53

Who. Before me original autopsy on land

6:55

and examined her stomach contents. Before.

6:58

She left her house. Lynn finished eating dinner

7:00

with her family at five forty five pm.

7:03

But. The meal was not completely digested when

7:05

she was. Docker.

7:07

Penetrated testified that since it would have taken

7:09

lead no more than two hours to digest

7:12

this food. Her. Death likely occurred

7:14

sometime between Seven Fifteen and Seven

7:16

Forty Five pm. And. Therefore,

7:18

said Stephen was with live during that window

7:20

of time. He must have been the killer.

7:23

Was. The years went on, there will

7:25

be a lot of questions about the

7:27

accuracy of Doctor Pedestals assessment, and he

7:29

did Peniston himself. May. Not have had

7:31

much confidence in it. The.

7:34

Court of Appeal for Ontario would

7:36

be presented with earlier trappers appendices.

7:39

autopsy report. Which. Have been withheld

7:41

from Steve It's defense team at his trial and

7:43

Nike. Fifty Nine. He. Turned

7:45

as a pedestal. Had additionally written down

7:47

three different estimates for the time of

7:49

lives death. And to these estimates

7:51

were for times later than eight Pm when

7:53

I was established that Stephen was at home

7:56

baby city and had an alibi. There.

7:58

Was also no time. The date listed

8:00

on the final version of Pedestals autopsy

8:03

report. So. No one could pinpoint when

8:05

exactly he wrote it. But.

8:07

The first piece of official documentation

8:09

where pedestal listed the time of

8:11

death as be between seven Fifteen

8:13

and Seven Forty five pm was

8:15

dated July the sixth, Usually, one

8:18

month after Stephen was charged with

8:20

murder. This. Case Steven

8:22

and his supporters. The impression. That.

8:24

Pedestal had only settled on the

8:26

specific timeframe in order to fit

8:28

the police's narrative. Rather, Than

8:30

using solid scientific evidence to reach

8:32

a conclusion. Another.

8:35

Piece of evidence which the defense did

8:37

not know about at the original trial

8:39

was a handwritten police bulletin. Which.

8:41

Have been panned and set out by the

8:43

lead investigator Inspector Harold Graham on the evening

8:45

of you in the A lab at the

8:47

Ninety Fifty Nine. only a few hours after

8:50

lives body was found. The.

8:52

Boat and stated that Lid had likely been

8:54

killed at nine pm on June. The nine.

8:56

Or. This nine o'clock estimate was never mentioned

8:59

again after Stephen was arrested because of

9:01

course, his whereabouts after eight pm on

9:03

the night of the murder were accounted

9:05

for. The same

9:07

bullets in also urged police to be on

9:09

the lookout for suspects with scratches on their

9:12

face, neck, hands and arms. But

9:14

no one ever reported see any fresh scratches

9:16

on Stephen after the crime took place. I.

9:19

Mentioned in our last episode that

9:21

the Supreme Court of Canada agree

9:23

to reduce demons Cincinnati's sixty six.

9:26

In. Order to determine if he was entitled to

9:28

a new trial. But. After a five day

9:30

hearing took place, The. Ultimately voted by

9:32

the to and majority top hold his

9:35

conviction. However, it turned

9:37

out that before this hearing took case. Docker.

9:39

Penistone had sent a letter to Inspector

9:41

Graham. And. which he wrote about

9:44

having made a quote unquote agonizing

9:46

reappraisal of his original testimony from

9:48

Stevens trial. And seem to be

9:50

second guessing it's findings about leads time of

9:52

death. He. Wrote that

9:54

even though it's conclusions may have an

9:57

accurate they were quote unquote not incompatible

9:59

with. That a later time. At.

10:01

Acknowledge that led me a bit killed as

10:03

many as twelve hours after her last meal

10:05

which would replace or deaths during the early

10:07

morning hours of June the tenth. However,

10:10

This letter was never turned over to

10:12

Steve it's defense attorneys and pedestal was

10:14

not called upon to testify at the

10:16

supreme court hearings. The. Letter

10:18

was not entered into evidence until the court

10:20

of appeal hearing said two thousand and six.

10:23

As it's Tennyson was deceased by this

10:25

point, he can no longer provide any

10:27

clarification on his statements. The.

10:30

Defense would call some expert witnesses

10:32

to the stand with tempted to

10:34

the Bond Pistons original conclusions. One.

10:37

Of them with Nicholas Diamonds,

10:39

a gastroenterologist at Toronto Western

10:41

Hospital. Who. Testified that a person

10:44

stomach almost never completely and these within

10:46

two hours of having a meal. As

10:48

it can still contain up to seventy percent of

10:51

it's contents after that much time has passed. Tennessee

10:54

believe that Led had not digested any

10:56

big since he found nothing insider small

10:58

intestine during his autopsy. A

11:01

diamond plane. This logic was faulty since

11:03

food often as these from the stomach

11:05

a minute quantities and can travel very

11:07

quickly through the bowels. The.

11:09

Crowd try to counter this by bringing in

11:11

Doctor Word or specced one of the most

11:14

prominent forensic pathologists in the world. Who.

11:16

Testified that penitence estimates about lives

11:18

time of death seem justified and

11:20

accurate. But. Doctor Spits

11:22

admitted that he a Nazi penitence letter

11:24

to grab or the draft autopsy reports

11:26

he wrote with the different times of

11:29

death. So. Spits conceded that pedestal

11:31

quote unquote may have made a mistake.

11:34

Or. One expert witness who tore

11:36

apart pedestals analysis was noted

11:38

British forensic Pathologists Doctor Bernard

11:40

Night. Who. Testified that there was

11:43

no way to determine a victims exact

11:45

time of death based on her stomach

11:47

contents and how quickly they digested. I'm.

11:50

In addition to discrediting pedestals

11:52

original testimony. The. Defense's new

11:54

strategy would involve utilizing

11:56

entomology, To. Prove that lid died at

11:58

a much later time of it. Seven Fifteen

12:00

And Seven Forty Five Pm. Insects

12:03

and maggots for collected from lens body

12:06

when she was found and habit preserved

12:08

as evidence. So. The defense will

12:10

call upon some entomology experts who believe

12:12

they could make an approximate estimation about

12:15

leans time of death based on where

12:17

the insects deposited their eggs or

12:19

lava. One. Of these

12:21

experts was Elgon Brown, a biologist who

12:23

have been working out the Ontario Attorney

12:25

General's Crime Lab, and Nineteen Fifty nine.

12:28

At. The time. Brown. Prepared report in

12:30

which he wrote that the maggots found on

12:32

lives body were in the early stage of

12:34

development. So. He estimated that the insects

12:37

had lay their eggs on the morning of June.

12:39

The tent. And. Likely hatch later that

12:41

afternoon at around two thirty p. Probably.

12:45

That Flynn had been killed before sunset on

12:47

June, the night. The. Maggots would have

12:49

been much larger by the time her body was

12:51

discovered. However, Browse report was

12:53

never presented to the defense at Stevens

12:55

trial, and he was not interviewed about

12:57

it until two Thousand Five. Forensic.

13:00

Entomologists doctor share a band layer

13:03

Hoeven testified at the hearing. And.

13:05

Estimated. That. The insects on lives body

13:07

at started laying their eggs and larva sometime

13:09

between eleven am on June the tenth and

13:11

eighty I'm on June the eleventh. And.

13:14

Doctor Richard Merit, the head of

13:16

the entomology department at Michigan State

13:18

University also testified a pretty much

13:20

reach the same conclusion. This.

13:23

Would have supported the idea that Lin

13:25

was murdered after sunset the previous night

13:27

during the time period when Steven had

13:29

an alibi. Now. Dr.

13:31

Neil Haskell, a forensic Anthropology professor

13:33

from Purdue University in Indiana, testified

13:36

on behalf of the crown and

13:38

shared a differing views. He.

13:40

Believes that the larva was likely deposited on

13:42

lens body between nine and nine thirty pm

13:45

on June, the night. With. Would

13:47

have been within two hours of her death

13:49

and pointed toward Stephen. Be your killer! however

13:52

there was some question about how

13:54

schools objectivity as prior to the

13:56

hearings he left a voicemail with

13:58

the ontario provincial police in which

14:00

he stated that he could do damage to the case

14:02

for Stephen's innocence if they put him on the stand.

14:06

The defense also tried to debunk the idea

14:08

that the legions found on Stephen's penis

14:10

at the time of his arrest were

14:12

caused by him sexually assaulting Lynn. As

14:16

you might recall, when Stephen was taken into

14:18

custody by the police, he was

14:20

examined at the Huron County Jail by

14:22

Dr. John Addison, his family physician, and

14:25

Dr. David Hall Brooks, RCAF

14:27

Station Clinton's senior medical officer,

14:30

who both testified to seeing a pair of

14:32

lesions on Stephen's penis, which were the size

14:34

of a quarter. Of

14:37

course, Stephen always maintained that these claims

14:39

were greatly exaggerated, and the defense

14:41

managed to unearth a report from a third doctor,

14:43

Dr. A. H. Taylor, who

14:46

was asked to examine Stephen at the jail

14:48

after he was charged with murder, and wrote

14:50

that he had not observed any sign of

14:52

injury on Stephen's penis. But

14:54

of course, Dr. Taylor's report was withheld from

14:56

the original defense team, and he was never

14:59

called upon to testify at trial. As

15:02

a side note, the reason Dr. Taylor

15:04

was asked to perform this additional exam

15:07

is because Dr. Brooks said he couldn't tell

15:09

if Stephen was circumcised and wanted Taylor to

15:11

take a look and help him figure it

15:13

out. Yeah, I think

15:15

it goes without saying that one should

15:17

question the credibility of a doctor who

15:19

is unable to determine if someone is

15:21

circumcised or not. At

15:24

the original Supreme Court hearings in 1966, the

15:27

defense had called upon a pair of

15:29

dermatologists, Dr. Norman Rong and Dr. Charles

15:31

Danby, the latter of whom had treated

15:34

Stephen while he was incarcerated at the

15:36

Collins Bay Penitentiary. They both

15:38

testified that these lesions were likely

15:40

caused by a pre-existing skin condition

15:42

rather than an injury related to

15:44

sexual assault. A

15:47

re-examination of the original police notes

15:49

and reports would uncover new information

15:51

which cast doubt on the credibility

15:53

of the Crown's key witnesses against

15:55

Stephen, and once again, this

15:57

documentation was never made available to the

15:59

defense. offense at the original trial. As

16:03

a refresher, one of these witnesses

16:05

was 13-year-old Jocelyn Gaudet, who

16:07

attended the same school as Lynn and Stephen,

16:10

and claimed that on the night before the murder,

16:12

Stephen had made a secret date with her to

16:14

meet at Lawson's Bush, as he supposedly

16:16

wanted to show her a cow and a

16:18

calf at Bob Lawson's farm which was located

16:21

on the same property. Jocelyn

16:23

testified that she was unable to find Stephen

16:25

at their pre-arranged meeting time on the evening

16:28

of June the 9th, which prompted

16:30

the Crown to push forward a theory

16:32

that Stephen had decided to take Lynn

16:34

into Lawson's Bush instead. Well

16:38

Stephen always denied that he ever made

16:40

this so-called secret date with Jocelyn, and

16:43

according to these unearthed police notes, Jocelyn

16:45

was interviewed multiple times during the early

16:47

stages of the investigation, but

16:49

never mentioned anything about this date

16:51

until after Stephen was charged with

16:53

murder. In fact, during

16:55

her original interview with Inspector Graham, Jocelyn

16:58

had told him that she went to Lawson's Bush

17:00

on the evening of June the 9th to search

17:02

for Lynn, but in later versions of the story,

17:04

she said she was looking for Stephen. According

17:07

to Jocelyn, after Stephen failed to show

17:09

up at Lawson's Bush, she headed to

17:12

Bob Lawson's farm at around 6.30pm

17:14

to see if Stephen might be there. Jocelyn

17:17

testified that she waited there for Stephen for

17:19

about 90 minutes or so, but when he

17:21

failed to show up, she left. However,

17:24

while Lawson did confirm that Jocelyn showed up

17:26

at his farm that night, he

17:28

said that she actually arrived at around 7.25pm instead of 6.30, and

17:30

was only there for

17:34

about 10 minutes rather than a full hour and

17:36

a half. Decades later,

17:38

Lawson was interviewed when this story was

17:40

featured on an episode of the Canadian

17:42

TV show The Fifth Estate, and

17:45

shared a surprising new revelation. Lawson

17:47

claimed that when Stephen's trial was taking place,

17:49

Jocelyn went to visit him at his farm,

17:52

and asked him to revise his original story,

17:54

and say that he had seen her there at 6.30

17:56

on the night of the murder instead of 7.25. but

18:00

Lawson refused to do this. Of

18:03

course, the defense had no knowledge of

18:05

this troubling inconsistency in Jocelyn's story during

18:07

the trial. Jocelyn's account

18:09

was also contradicted by the Crown's

18:11

other key witness, Arnold Butch George,

18:13

whom we'll discuss in more detail

18:15

a little later. Butch

18:17

himself gave a lot of inconsistent stories,

18:20

but in one of his statements to police, he

18:22

claimed that on the night of the murder, he

18:24

had been searching for Stephen, and

18:26

bumped into Jocelyn at the tractor trail, which

18:29

led from County Road into Lawson's Bush. Butch

18:32

said that he had asked Jocelyn if she had

18:34

seen Stephen, and she replied no, and

18:36

she then asked him if he had seen Lynn, and he

18:38

said the same thing. So

18:41

this seemed to indicate that Jocelyn had been

18:43

looking for Lynn that night rather than Stephen,

18:45

and since Butch said this encounter took

18:47

place sometime after 7 pm, this

18:50

contradicted Jocelyn's story that she was at

18:52

Lawson's farm from 6.30 until

18:54

8 o'clock. If that

18:56

wasn't enough, 10-year-old Phillip Burns,

18:59

another key witness for the Crown, had

19:01

also stated that he spoke to Jocelyn while

19:04

walking down County Road sometime between 7 o'clock

19:06

and 7.30 as well. At

19:09

the hearing, New Testimony was provided

19:11

by a pair of women named Sandra

19:13

Stolzman and Elizabeth Halbert, who had been

19:15

co-workers of Jocelyn when she was

19:17

employed as a resident nurse in Montreal in the

19:19

years following the murder. They

19:22

both claimed that in 1966, Jocelyn became panicky over

19:25

the idea that she might be subpoenaed to

19:28

testify at the Supreme Court hearing, and

19:30

admitted that she had lied under oath at

19:32

Stephen's trial, and did so out of jealousy,

19:34

because Stephen had wanted to spend more time

19:36

with Lynn than with her. Jocelyn

19:39

also claimed that she was pressured by the

19:41

OPP into changing her original story, as they

19:44

had taken her to the police station to

19:46

be questioned after midnight when she was very

19:48

tired. While Stolzman

19:50

said that she told the police about Jocelyn's

19:52

admissions back in 1966, nothing

19:55

was ever done with this information. Now,

19:58

you might recall that two of the strongest defense

20:00

witnesses at the original trial were

20:03

11-year-old Doug Yotes and 12-year-old

20:05

Gordon Logan, who both testified that

20:07

they were at Bayfield River on the night

20:09

of the murder and saw Steven and Lynn

20:12

riding their bicycle over the bridge together in

20:14

the direction of Highway 8. Gordon

20:16

also claimed that he saw Steven riding the

20:18

bike over the bridge again in the opposite

20:21

direction a few minutes later, which

20:23

would seem to support Steven's story about dropping

20:25

Lynn off at the highway. Well

20:28

the authorities attempted to cast doubt on

20:30

Gord's credibility as he was fishing in

20:32

the river about 600 feet away from

20:34

the bridge and they did not

20:36

believe he could have seen and identified Steven

20:38

from that distance. But

20:40

what the defense did not know is that

20:42

police had performed their own test in which

20:44

they had an officer stand at the same

20:46

spot where Gord would have been and

20:49

observe a girl crossing the bridge. The

20:52

officer wound up providing a very accurate

20:54

description of the girl and her clothing,

20:57

which suggested that Gord could have

20:59

correctly identified Steven, but the

21:01

official report about this test was never

21:03

disclosed to the defense. When

21:05

the trial originally took place, the

21:08

Crown attempted to discredit Steven's story

21:10

by pushing for an narrative that Lynn never

21:12

would have run away from home or hitchhiked

21:14

or climbed into a car with a stranger.

21:18

However, the original police note seemed to go

21:20

against this because when Lynn

21:22

did not return home and her

21:24

father Leslie Harper reported her missing

21:26

at the RCAF Guard House, he

21:29

expressed concern that Lynn may have decided

21:31

to hitchhike to her grandmother's house in

21:33

Port Stanley, which was nearly 130 kilometers

21:36

away. Before she

21:38

left her own residence that night, Lynn

21:41

had gotten into an argument with her parents because

21:43

she wanted to go swimming, but her

21:45

parents would not accompany her to

21:47

the base's outdoor pool, which required

21:49

adult supervision. When

21:51

Lynn went to the school to help out with a

21:53

scavenger hunt that the Brownies were having, She

21:56

apparently told one of the Brownie leaders that she

21:58

did not want to go home. That night

22:00

and was thinking about heading to her

22:02

grandmother's place. The. Police never

22:04

disclosed that a number of lids friends

22:06

had told them that she often like

22:08

to hitchhike. And. One friend even

22:11

claim that the hitchhike together. Or

22:14

last episode. I mentioned as a

22:17

bicycle tracks have been discovered on the tractor

22:19

trailer leading from County Road in the Losses

22:21

Bush. And while the crown try

22:23

to argue that they were from Stevens bicycle. The.

22:25

Tracks were likely made when the graham was

22:27

wet. As. Is or had

22:30

been any rainfall in the weeks prior to

22:32

lives Murder. The. Tracks for probably left

22:34

their well beforehand had no connection to

22:36

the crime. However,

22:38

Another key piece of information which was

22:40

withheld from the defense is that some

22:42

fresh vehicular tire skid marks have been

22:45

discovered on County Road, as well as

22:47

some spitting tire marks as a crest

22:49

of the tractor trailer. The.

22:51

Defense was also unaware that are

22:54

June the eleventh an elderly couple

22:56

named Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher Townsend.

22:58

Had. Told police that I'm eating. Lynn went

23:01

missing. The. A Cd young girl

23:03

hitchhiking on Highway Eight around the

23:05

approximate time. When. Steven said he

23:07

dropped lid off their. Know. That

23:09

houses acknowledge that they may have been mistaken

23:11

about the date. A. Could have seen

23:14

this girl on June the seventh, rather the

23:16

June the ninth. For.

23:18

A more intriguing citing was provided by Bob

23:20

Loss and who played that around ten pm

23:22

that night, about two and a half hours

23:24

after Lid was last seen alive. He.

23:27

Had a neighbor. Decided to drive to the bridge

23:29

in order to go swimming in the baby old

23:31

Reber. Well. Either way, they're.

23:33

Lawson. Said that he saw red

23:36

or Maru convertible which may have ended

23:38

early nineteen fifties model Ford. Park.

23:40

Alongside his properties fence on County

23:42

road. This. Was

23:45

near the tractor trail into losses bush.

23:47

And. Loss and recall seeing a man and

23:49

a driver seat and what may have any

23:51

younger girl in the passenger seat beside him.

23:54

The. Last, did not get a clear enough look to

23:56

be certain. Lawson.

23:58

Said that he showed his headlights. The car which

24:00

prompted the man inside to yell something out

24:02

i'm. A. Few minutes later

24:04

while Lawson with swimming in the river. He.

24:07

Saw the same car speed pass down

24:09

the road and someone yelled out what

24:11

sounded like obscenities at him. After.

24:14

He learned about lids Murder Lawson

24:16

reporter decided to the authorities. According

24:19

to the original files, Police. Did

24:21

speak to an Aramid who lived in the

24:23

area and own The Dark Convertible. And

24:25

he acknowledged that he sometimes park on

24:27

County Road with his dates. Those.

24:30

Usually closer to the river rob the next

24:32

to the Tracker trail. The.

24:34

Urban City sold as convertible about two

24:36

weeks after Lids murder took place. But.

24:39

It doesn't look like this lead ever went

24:41

anywhere and it was never established if this

24:43

was the same car Lawson saw. Whatever.

24:46

The case decide he was never shared

24:48

with the defense as Stevens trial. So.

24:51

After the five judge panel from the Court

24:53

of Appeal for Ontario, her three weeks where

24:56

the new evidence an eyewitness testimony in June

24:58

of two thousand and six. Stevens.

25:00

Defense team would appear in front of them

25:02

again in late January in early February of

25:04

two thousand seven. This. Time

25:07

The defense would spend the next ten

25:09

days outlining the arguments before the judge

25:11

is finally adjourned to make their decision.

25:14

While. Over eight months later, on August twenty

25:16

eighth, The. Court of Appeal finally

25:18

announced that they had voted unanimously

25:20

to acquit Stephen of all charges

25:22

writing quote. Indecision. Released

25:25

today, the court unanimously holds that the

25:27

conviction a mister Cross got was a

25:29

miscarriage of justice and must be quashed.

25:32

The. Court further horse at the appropriate remedy

25:34

in this case is to ensure an acquittal.

25:37

The. Court does orders that Mr. Across Gotcha

25:39

stand acquitted of the murder of Lin

25:42

Harper. And pot. The

25:44

judges felt that if the jury had full

25:46

knowledge of the entirety of the evidence, there

25:48

would have a reasonable doubt about the crown's

25:51

claim that Lin was murdered before a pm.

25:53

And this may have led to stephen been

25:55

found not guilty. However,

25:57

the also wrote quote. The. How

26:00

it is not demonstrated his factual

26:02

innocence. At this time and on

26:04

the totality of the record, we are no

26:06

position to make a declaration of innocence. In.

26:09

These circumstances, we cannot say that an

26:11

acquittal is the only reasonable. Third it

26:13

and quote. Unit that

26:15

nearly fifty years had passed since the crime

26:18

took place. The court found it would be

26:20

impossible to grant Steve an affair read trial.

26:22

And. Michael Bryant, the Attorney General

26:24

of Ontario, And. Outset, The crown

26:27

had no plans to appeal the court's

26:29

decision. Bride. Issued

26:31

a public apology to Stephen on behalf

26:33

of the provincial government. has said that they

26:35

were sorry for the miscarriage of justice.

26:38

Was. Tv cannot be declared factually

26:40

innocent. He felt that the

26:42

court's decision had finally given a vindication

26:44

and cleared his name. At

26:47

Christmas that year, Stephen received a rat

26:49

pizza box under the tree. As.

26:51

A gift from his youngest son did it. When.

26:54

He was paroled from prison back

26:56

in nineteen Sixty Nine. Stephen started

26:58

living under the assume named Steven

27:00

Towers. Which. He was still using when

27:03

he got married and had a three children. But.

27:05

When Stephen opened his sons Christmas gift,

27:08

they contain documents which showed that Devin

27:10

had now legally changed his last name

27:12

from Bowers to Trust God. A

27:16

July two Thousand eight, the Provincial government

27:18

announced that Stephen would be paid six

27:21

point five million dollars in compensation for

27:23

his wrongful conviction. He.

27:25

Would later use this money to launch

27:27

the Trust God Initiative Injustice Studies at

27:29

the University of Wealth. And fun

27:31

scholarships for students in the field. In.

27:34

Spite of the court's decision, Lynn. Harper

27:36

surviving family still do not believe

27:38

that Stephen was innocent. By.

27:41

This point, her mother surely a passed

27:43

away and nineteen Eighty one. And.

27:45

Her father, Leslie was living at a nursing

27:47

home and California. During.

27:49

Interviews Linz older brother Barry said that

27:51

it was a quote unquote real travesty

27:54

that his sister's killer have been awarded

27:56

millions of dollars. And. Leslie said that

27:58

the decision made him feel. Nom. Lazily.

28:01

Would pass away in March of two thousand and twelve

28:03

at the age of Ninety Four. And. Never

28:05

waver from his belief that Stephen murdered

28:07

his daughter. In. Two

28:10

Thousand and Twenty. A Canadian film

28:12

about this story titled Marlene would

28:14

be released. Strike actors Greg Brick

28:16

and Kristin Booth as Steven and

28:18

Marlene Prescott. The. Main

28:20

reason it was title marlene was because

28:22

she was the film central character as

28:24

it focused on her tireless pursuits to

28:27

clear husband's name. Is

28:29

Marlene was known for having meticulous eye

28:31

for detail and a gift for rotating

28:33

information. She. Spent a great deal

28:36

of time researching the police files, a

28:38

court transcripts, and hopes of uncovering new

28:40

evidence to support her husband's innocence. In

28:43

fact, this occupied so much a Marlies

28:45

time that she was forced to leave

28:47

the workforce and would. Stephen was awarded

28:50

six point five million dollars in compensation.

28:52

Marlene. Also, receive one hundred thousand

28:54

dollars for lost income. And

28:56

incidentally a one point during the film

28:58

Marlene says the words quote the Trails

29:01

Gone Cause and I'd like to think

29:03

it was it intentional homage to yours

29:05

truly. Anyway, At

29:07

the time but this recording stephen Trust

29:09

God is currently seventy nine years old

29:11

and continues to reside in Welp Ontario.

29:14

But. After nearly sixty five years, there's

29:16

still no conclusive answers about who

29:18

was actually responsible for the murder

29:21

of Lead Harper. So. I

29:23

guess you could say the trail went

29:25

cold. So

29:53

I often have conversations about the Canadian

29:55

Criminal justice system with people who live

29:57

outside our country. And. They sometimes

29:59

or. view that Canada can be too

30:01

lenient towards violent offenders. And

30:04

while that's technically not untrue, it always takes

30:06

them by surprise when I mentioned that our

30:08

country once tried to execute a 14 year

30:11

old boy via hanging. And

30:14

this was only in 1959, less than a century ago,

30:17

when you wouldn't expect a first world country

30:19

to still be hanging people. It's

30:22

not hard to imagine why this case

30:24

was so controversial because many people felt

30:26

that even if Steven Truscott was guilty

30:28

of murdering Lynn Harper, a minor

30:30

should not be executed like this. Hell

30:33

even the jury that found Steven guilty

30:35

made a recommendation for Mercy, but

30:37

since hanging was still the mandatory punishment

30:40

for first degree murder in Canada at

30:42

that time, Justice Robert Ferguson

30:44

still sentenced him to death. Looking

30:47

back, the thing about this case which

30:49

particularly shocks me is not just the

30:51

fact that a 14 year old was nearly

30:54

executed, but how quickly all these

30:56

events played out. To

30:58

recap, Lynn's murder took place on June 9,

31:00

1959, Steven was arrested a few days later and

31:05

convicted on September 30th, and his original

31:07

execution date was December 8th. If a

31:09

crime like

31:11

this took place today, it would probably be

31:13

years before it even went to trial, but

31:16

Steven was scheduled to be hanged just under 5

31:19

months after he was arrested. Now

31:22

before the United States ruled

31:24

capital punishment for juveniles to

31:26

be unconstitutional in 2005, there

31:28

were numerous documented cases of offenders being

31:30

executed for crimes they committed while they

31:32

were 16 or 17. However,

31:36

there would usually be years of appeals

31:38

and delays and the offender was an

31:40

adult in their 20s or 30s by

31:42

the time the execution went through. But

31:44

if Steven had been hanged on his

31:46

original execution date, he still would have

31:48

been only 14 years old at the time and

31:51

the visual of a teenage boy going to

31:53

the gallows was too much for some people

31:55

to handle. To put

31:58

this into perspective, one of the youngest Americans

32:00

to ever be executed was George

32:02

Stine, a 15-year-old African-American boy

32:04

who was convicted of murdering two younger girls

32:06

in South Carolina in 1944. That is considered

32:09

to be one of the

32:12

most controversial murder cases and executions

32:14

in the history of the United

32:16

States, yet George Stine was still

32:19

older than Steven Truscott. So

32:21

you can understand why this case helped

32:23

play a role and the eventual abolishment

32:25

of capital punishment in Canada in 1976.

32:27

After Steven was found guilty,

32:32

he was held in the Huron County Jail

32:35

to away execution and has often

32:37

shared a story about hearing the sound of

32:39

hammering outside his cell window. While

32:41

it only turned out to be routine construction,

32:44

he was terrified that this was the sound of

32:46

a gallows being built for his upcoming hanging, so

32:49

I think Steven was triggered by the sound of

32:51

hammering for years to come. The

32:54

general consensus seems to be that history

32:56

now looks upon this story as one

32:58

of the biggest miscarriages of justice in

33:00

Canadian history, but there are still

33:02

some people, including Lynn Harper's surviving

33:04

family, who believed that Steven Truscott

33:06

was guilty all along. And

33:09

to be fair, even though the Court

33:11

of Appeal for Ontario vacated Steven's original

33:14

conviction, they did not declare him

33:16

to be factually innocent. Yes,

33:18

I suppose it was not proven with 100% certainty

33:21

that Steven could not have committed this

33:23

crime, as unlike many

33:25

other wrongful conviction cases, there

33:27

was no available DNA evidence to

33:29

exonerate him. While

33:31

the timeline of opportunity for Steven to have

33:34

killed Lynn was very tight, it

33:36

was not mathematically impossible. Barring

33:39

the miraculous discovery of new evidence which

33:42

points to an alternate suspect, I'm

33:44

sure it will be difficult to conclusively prove

33:46

Steven's innocence after all this time. At

33:49

the beginning of Part 1, I mentioned that

33:51

sometime last year, I felt

33:53

inspired to cover this case on our anniversary

33:56

show after reading Until You

33:58

Are A Dead, Steven Truscott's Long into

34:00

history, which was written by

34:02

investigative journalist Julian Cher, and is

34:05

one of the most detailed and extensive true crime

34:07

books I've ever seen. During

34:09

the intro of his book, Julian Cher fully

34:12

admitted that he was a bit skeptical when

34:14

he was contacted by Steven Truscott, because

34:16

of course, virtually every convicted murderer

34:18

is going to try and claim they're

34:20

innocent. When Cher had

34:22

his first face-to-face meeting with Steven, he

34:24

told him, quote, if you want

34:27

to prove yourself innocent, hire a defense lawyer.

34:29

Our job is not to prove people innocent,

34:32

but to find out the truth and go

34:34

down any alleys no matter where they lead,

34:36

end quote. Steven then

34:38

responded, quote, that's fine, I'm not

34:40

afraid. Talk to anyone you find,

34:42

investigate wherever things lead you. I

34:45

know I'm innocent, I am not afraid of what

34:47

you'll turn up, end quote. After

34:49

reading until you are dead, it's clear

34:51

that after looking at all the evidence,

34:53

Cher reached the conclusion that Steven had

34:55

been railroaded and was the victim of

34:57

a terrible injustice. The

35:00

book was originally published before Steven's case was

35:02

heard in front of the Court of Appeal

35:04

for Ontario, but after they

35:06

quashed his conviction, Cher released an

35:08

updated version of the book which

35:10

was retitled, Until You Are Dead,

35:12

The Wrongful Conviction of Steven Truscott.

35:16

A number of books have been written about

35:18

this case, with the first being The Trial

35:20

of Steven Truscott, which was published by Isabelle

35:22

Levoorte in 1966, and started the big push

35:26

to overturn Steven's conviction. Another

35:29

book I've read was Steven Truscott,

35:32

Decades of Injustice, written by

35:34

author Nate Henley, who actually

35:36

appeared alongside yours truly at the

35:38

True Crime podcast, Live in Toronto

35:40

Show, which was organized by

35:42

Christy Lee of Canadian True Crime and

35:44

held at Toronto's Royal Cinema in August

35:47

of 2019. All

35:50

these books hold the view that Steven was innocent,

35:52

but I'll try to be objective and look at this

35:55

case from all angles. Now,

35:58

from what I've seen of Steven Truscott's true his

36:00

interviews, it's hard to imagine him being a

36:02

murderer, as he really does come across as

36:04

a kind, genuine man, and it sounds like

36:06

most of the people who have met him

36:08

feel the same way. This

36:10

is a case where we now have the benefit of

36:12

hindsight, because not only did Steven have

36:14

no known history of violence or getting into

36:17

serious trouble before he was charged with murder,

36:19

but he's been a model citizen and loving

36:21

family man ever since he was paroled from

36:23

prison over 54 years ago. I

36:26

mean, it is hard to imagine someone committing such

36:28

a vicious crime at the age of 14 and

36:32

then showing no signs of violent behavior at all

36:34

for the rest of their life. If

36:37

Steven was guilty, he easily could have

36:39

continued living in anonymity under his new

36:41

name Steven Bowers for the rest of

36:43

his life, but he made the

36:45

conscious choice to come out into the open again and

36:47

attempt to clear his name. He

36:50

also showed no hesitation about requesting

36:52

DNA testing, which could have conceivably

36:54

proved his guilt, and while

36:56

it turned out there was no longer any

36:58

DNA evidence available, he could not have known

37:00

that beforehand. There

37:02

was also the risk of Steven facing a

37:05

potentially major backlash in his community once

37:07

it was revealed that he was one of

37:09

Canada's most infamous convicted murderers, but

37:11

it sounds like most of the people who knew

37:13

Steven were nothing but supportive of him and did

37:15

not believe he was capable of doing what he

37:18

was accused of. As

37:20

a side note, I grew up in Orangeville,

37:22

Ontario, which is located less than an hour

37:24

from the town of Guelph, where Steven was

37:26

living. I've been to

37:29

Guelph several times, and from what I've heard, even

37:31

before Steven went public, it was

37:34

pretty much an open secret in the community

37:36

that people knew who he really was, but

37:38

they never made a big deal about it,

37:40

because they always felt he was wrongly convicted

37:42

and wanted to respect his privacy. One

37:45

of the things which really struck me, when I

37:47

read Until You Are Dead, were the amount

37:49

of character witnesses who were willing to

37:51

go on the record and defend Steven. It

37:54

would be one thing if it was just his friends and

37:57

family, but a number of people who knew time

38:00

at the Ontario Training School for Boys

38:02

and the Collins Bay Penitentiary had

38:04

nothing but glowing things to say about him. As

38:08

you might recall, after Stephen was convicted,

38:10

he was remanded to the Ontario's training school

38:13

until he turned eighteen, but

38:15

even though the authorities warned the staff

38:17

that this dangerous psychopath would be arriving,

38:20

the staff were pleasantly surprised when Stephen

38:22

turned out to be this quiet, polite

38:24

and respectful kid who caused no trouble.

38:27

And when Stephen was transferred to Collins Bay a

38:29

few years later, the staff and inmates

38:31

there pretty much said the same thing. Now

38:34

these are people who are used to dealing

38:36

with dangerous criminals who are good at lying

38:38

and being manipulative, so I'm sure they are

38:41

not easily fooled, but most of them reached

38:43

the conclusion that Stephen did not belong in

38:45

prison. Hell they had such

38:47

trust in the guy that during his last years there,

38:50

they let him live in the minimum security

38:52

farm annex and leave the prison to attend

38:54

university classes during the day even

38:56

though he could have attempted to escape at any time.

39:00

And when Stephen was paroled, one of

39:02

the parole supervisors, Malcolm Steinberg, had no

39:04

qualms about bringing this convicted murderer home

39:06

to live with him and his family.

39:10

While it's not overly surprising that a

39:12

juvenile serving a life sense for murder

39:14

would be paroled after ten years, parole

39:16

boards generally require offenders to admit what

39:18

they did and take responsibility for their

39:20

crime before they let them out. But

39:24

even after a number of psychologists forced

39:26

Stephen to take trucerum and LSD in

39:28

an attempt to extract confession out of

39:30

him, he never stopped maintaining

39:32

his innocence. However, I

39:35

think the main reason some people might still

39:37

have doubts about Stephen is that he was

39:39

the last known person to see Lynn Harper

39:41

alive, and his story about his

39:43

final interaction with her is admittedly a bit

39:45

unusual. Stephen claimed

39:48

that Lynn asked him for a ride on his

39:50

bicycle because she wanted to see some ponies at

39:52

a farm owned by a guy named Edgar Hodges.

39:55

He then dropped her off at the intersection of

39:57

County Road and Highway 8 and last saw. The

40:00

your thumb out to hitchhike he climbing into a

40:02

vehicle. But. Since Hodges Farm

40:04

is located about a half kilometer away

40:07

on highways. It does make you

40:09

wonder why lid would have asked even to take

40:11

are all the way. They're rather the drop her

40:13

off at the intersection. As.

40:15

Is Lynn probably could a block that distance to

40:17

the farm. Why? Did he bother hitching a

40:19

ride in a car? According.

40:21

To Hodges lead never arrived at his farm,

40:24

and it does seem odd that even

40:26

though this car was supposedly traveling east. Lynn's.

40:28

Body would wind up in Losses Bush,

40:31

which is about kilometers south from that

40:33

intersection. This is why

40:35

the authorities were inclined to believe that lead never

40:37

made it to the highway. And. Steve.

40:39

It instead took her into the bush in order

40:41

to rape and murder her. But.

40:44

There are a couple a potential explanations for why

40:46

Lin might have asked to be dropped off at

40:48

the highway. When. She asked

40:50

even for a ride. He told her that he

40:52

would be happy to do so because he was

40:54

going up there any way to see some friends

40:56

who were at the Bayfield River. So.

40:59

perhaps lead belts? He did want to into

41:01

need Stevens by asking him to take her

41:03

much further than the river. And

41:05

even if the lead didn't tell Stephen. As she

41:07

was heading to Hodges Farm. How can

41:10

we be certain that she was telling him the truth?

41:13

Remember. She had gone into an

41:15

argument with their parents earlier that evening. And.

41:17

Will I could hardly be described as serious.

41:19

She did apparently hit to someone. That.

41:21

She might be inclined to run away to

41:23

her grandmother's house and Port Stanley. Of

41:26

course we have no idea lead was actually planning

41:29

to do that, but if she was, She.

41:31

Made out of, wanted to share this with

41:33

Steven and or express purpose for going to

41:35

Highway eight was the hitch a ride to

41:37

a much broader destination and Hodges Farm. However,

41:41

if lid was murdered by an unknown party.

41:43

We. Technically can even be one hundred percent

41:45

certain that the driver of the car

41:47

that picked her up was responsible. For.

41:50

All we know they could have dropped

41:52

lid off somewhere as he was subsequently

41:54

murdered by completely different person. Even.

41:57

Though when was found in losses bush with a bloody

41:59

done. Shirt in a bloodstained blouse around

42:01

her neck. There. Was very little actual

42:04

blood at the scene. So. It's possible

42:06

that she could have been killed elsewhere before

42:08

her body was dumped at that spot. It.

42:11

Of Lin was not actually murdered and losses

42:13

bush. Did. You could safely eliminate

42:15

Steven as the perpetrator. Anyway,

42:18

I think that most people would agree

42:20

that regardless of whether Steven was guilty

42:22

or innocent, he did not receive a

42:24

fair trial. I. Mentioned in

42:27

our last episode, The Back In Nineteen

42:29

Fifty nine, Canadian prosecuting attorneys had no

42:31

obligation to turn over all evidence to

42:33

the defense at a criminal trial. He.

42:36

Would turn out that a lot

42:38

of potentially exculpatory evidence was withheld

42:40

by Crown Prosecutor Glenn Hayes. And

42:42

will his actions were certainly on ethical.

42:45

they were technically not illegal at that

42:47

time. Is. Reasonable to

42:49

assume that a Stevens defense attorneys have been

42:51

able to present all be available evidence that

42:54

the original trial he might have been acquitted.

42:57

However, One important point the Julian share

42:59

brought up in until You Were Dead was

43:01

that Nike Fifty Nine was just a much

43:03

different time when it came to the public's

43:05

trust in law enforcement and authority figures. and

43:08

they had a lot more faith in the

43:10

justice system. Unlike. Today there

43:12

was is not a general awareness of

43:14

how wrongful convictions can happen, and you

43:17

didn't have a ton of books and

43:19

podcast documentaries out there pushing for the

43:21

narrative of an innocent person being sent

43:23

to prison and the justice system gone

43:26

horribly wrong. Even.

43:28

Oh, Steven may have come across as an

43:30

unlikely candidate to be a murderer. A

43:32

lot of people still held the mindset that if

43:34

the police say he's the right guy, that he

43:36

must be the right guy. And.

43:39

He would stevens father didn't trust god.

43:41

Was taken to the Are Chf guard

43:43

house on the night his son was

43:45

interrogated. He was not too thrilled to

43:47

the police had detained his son without

43:49

notifying him. But as a military man.

43:52

Dann. Was conditioned to have trust and

43:54

respect for authority. And. Probably never thought

43:56

that a son would be charged with murder if

43:58

he did actually do it. And.

44:01

I think this mindset also applies to

44:03

lead Harper's family. I

44:05

mentioned earlier that even after Stevens

44:08

conviction was quashed and he received

44:10

millions in compensation. The. Harper's never

44:12

waver from their belief that he was guilty.

44:15

I. Feel nothing but a med sympathy for

44:17

the family because I can't imagine how

44:19

traumatizing it must be to lose a loved

44:22

one and be convinced that justice was served

44:24

at the right person. Went to prison, Only.

44:27

For all these old wounds to be

44:29

reopened when the case return to the

44:31

spotlight decades later. While. I

44:33

hesitate to say anything negative. About the

44:36

Harper's. You. Must be stated that

44:38

there were two separate occasions in which

44:40

they see to change their original stories

44:42

where they testified at Stevens trial. Of

44:45

course, I don't think he did it maliciously in

44:48

order to railroaded into said kid. As

44:50

I'm sure, they still genuinely believe that

44:52

Steven killed Led. By. Think

44:54

there's a good chance the police probably

44:56

advise them what to say in order

44:58

to increase the chances of a conviction.

45:03

Would. Surely Harper testified at trial and

45:05

asked of Lin had a history of

45:07

running away or hitchhiking? She replied

45:09

quote. Not. To my knowledge, However,

45:12

it really does. Appear that lead had

45:14

hitchhiked on multiple occasions prior to her

45:16

murder. Which. Might seem unusual for

45:18

a twelve year old girl, but like

45:20

I just said, nike fifteen. I was a

45:22

much different time. and people have less

45:24

awareness of the dangers of hitchhiking. He.

45:27

Seems like would Lean was first reported missing.

45:30

Her parents additionally felt that she might have

45:32

attempted to run away to her grandmother's residents.

45:34

But. This scenario was not push forward. a

45:37

trial. Because. The crowd wise to

45:39

maintain the narrative. The lid never would

45:41

have climbed into a car with a

45:43

stranger. So therefore steven story must not

45:45

be true. The. Other

45:47

piece of questionable testimony involving the

45:49

Harper's was the discovery of Lives Lock

45:52

It. On. My last episode I

45:54

mentioned that on the night she would missing.

45:56

Lead. Has supposedly been wearing a lot at which

45:58

was an Rc A. Logo In a

46:01

heartbeat. a plexiglass hey on a gold

46:03

chain. She. Was not wearing

46:05

it with her body was found in losses

46:07

voice. But. Eight days later, onto

46:09

the Ninety's. A. Girl came across

46:12

a lot matching that description. Hang

46:14

on a barbed wire fence about two hundred

46:16

eighty feet away from the tractor trailer which

46:18

led into the bush. At

46:20

first. Leslie. Harper positively identified

46:22

it as lives lock It but

46:24

what he testified at the trial,

46:26

he seemed to downplay this stating

46:28

quote lead had one similar to

46:31

it. Well. I think it's

46:33

too. Much of a coincidence that such a

46:35

distinct lock it would be sound only a

46:37

few hundred feet away from lives body. So.

46:39

I think it's safe to say that it belonged to

46:41

her. But. The problem is

46:44

that the locket put a potentially blown a

46:46

significant hole in the case against Stephen. Since.

46:48

It was not found until the week after

46:50

he been charged with murder and was already

46:52

parse rated to jail. Now.

46:55

It's entirely possible that the police simply

46:57

miss the lottery the original crime scene

46:59

investigation since it was technically outside the

47:02

bush. However, the day

47:04

before the locker was found. Corporal.

47:06

Heck Seo had collected soil samples from

47:08

a spot right next to the fence

47:10

at did not notice it. So.

47:13

Could it be possible that leads real killer

47:15

kept her lock it in their possession after

47:17

they murdered her and decided to return to

47:19

the scene on to the eighteenth or the

47:21

Nineties in order to place the last. It

47:23

on the fence. Granted, I'm not

47:26

sure why they would do that, but

47:28

I could see why the Chromium encourage

47:30

Leslie Harper to downplay the significance of

47:32

lock it. Since. It could have

47:34

proved that someone else besides Stephen committed

47:36

the crime. Snow.

47:39

Ago You attempt to break down the timeline

47:41

on the night of the murder and I

47:43

can't think of too many other cases in

47:45

which establishing a concrete timeline with so crucial.

47:48

If. This crime happened a day. He would

47:50

be much easier to use technology like cell

47:53

to establish who was out, which location, or

47:55

what time. But. The World of

47:57

Nightie Fifty nine Must see. Prehistoric by

47:59

compare. I mean, wristwatches

48:01

still existed back then, but since

48:03

these events took place outdoors, and so

48:06

few of the key witnesses were wearing

48:08

wristwatches that night, many of

48:10

them were forced to make rough estimates

48:12

about what time they did or saw

48:14

certain things. There

48:16

have always been differing accounts from different

48:18

people about the exact time that Steven

48:21

and Lynn left the schoolyard together, and

48:23

obviously, the Crown put more emphasis on

48:25

the earlier times which were provided, in

48:28

order to open up a larger window of time

48:30

for Steven to have committed the crime. Steven

48:33

claimed they left together at 7.25 pm,

48:36

and that he got the time by looking

48:38

at a clock through the window of the

48:40

kindergarten classroom. At one

48:42

point, investigators believed they had caught Steven

48:44

in a lie when they spoke to

48:46

an electrician, who told him that

48:48

he had disconnected the school's master clock

48:50

sometime before the murder, which meant

48:52

that all of the clocks in the building would have

48:55

been off about five or six hours from the correct

48:57

time. This seemed

48:59

to indicate that Steven had fabricated his story about

49:01

leaving at 7.25, but it turned out

49:04

that the school's kindergarten teacher had requested

49:07

that a separate electric clock be installed

49:09

in her classroom, so yes, Steven still

49:11

could have learned the correct time by

49:13

looking at this clock through the window.

49:16

Of course, even if Steven was telling the truth

49:19

about leaving at 7.25, it still would have

49:22

been possible for him to take Linda Lawson's

49:24

bush and kill her, though the time frame

49:26

would have been much tighter, since about a

49:28

dozen witnesses confirmed that he rode his bike

49:30

back to the schoolyard at around 8 pm.

49:34

One of these witnesses was Steven's older

49:36

brother, Ken, who confirmed that they

49:38

switched bicycles before Steven rode back

49:40

home to babysit his younger siblings.

49:44

I'm sure you all know that eyewitness testimony

49:46

in criminal cases can be unreliable, and there

49:48

are certainly going to be examples of that

49:51

in this case. One

49:53

detail which is always remained consistent is

49:55

that all of the witnesses who saw

49:57

Steven arrive at the schoolyard at 8

49:59

o'clock said he looked completely

50:01

normal and did not notice anything out

50:03

of the ordinary. They

50:05

did not recall seeing any blood or scratches on

50:07

him, and even though it was a

50:09

hot June evening he did not appear to be

50:11

sweating profusely or out of breath, even

50:14

though he had supposedly raped and murdered

50:16

Lynn only minutes earlier, something

50:18

which would have required a lot of physical

50:20

exertion since she was strangled to death with

50:22

her own blouse. You

50:25

also have to remember that Lynn's clothing was

50:27

found neatly folded at the murder scene and

50:30

three branches had been taken off some trees

50:32

and placed on her body. This

50:35

had initially given investigators the impression that

50:37

the crime was committed by an offender

50:39

who took their time, but

50:41

the narrow time frame indicates that Steven would

50:43

have had to do this rather quickly. So

50:46

I think it's safe to say that if Steven actually

50:48

was the killer, he had to be

50:50

one of the most calm, stoled cold psychopaths

50:52

of all time. The

50:56

most important witnesses for the crown were

50:58

Jocelyn Gaudet and Arnold Butch George while

51:00

the most important witnesses for the defense

51:02

were Dougie Oates and Gord Logan. But

51:05

while the two crown witnesses told

51:07

very inconsistent and constantly changing stories

51:09

and also had a known history

51:11

of line, the two defense

51:13

witnesses always kept their stories simple and

51:15

never wavered from them. I've

51:18

already gone through the issues with Jocelyn Gaudet

51:20

earlier in the episode, but as

51:22

a refresher on Butch George, he captured

51:24

the police's attention after word

51:27

spread that he had been telling some of

51:29

the schoolmates that he saw Steven and Lynn

51:31

going into Lawson's Bush together on the night

51:33

of the murder. Steven

51:35

claimed that he saw Butch in the Bayfield River when

51:37

he crossed the bridge on his bicycle with Lynn,

51:40

but Butch would later say that Steven had asked

51:42

him to lie to the police by telling them

51:44

he was there and that he saw Steven on

51:46

the bridge. Now of

51:49

course the biggest issue with Butch is

51:51

that even though he supposedly witnessed Steven

51:53

and Lynn entering Lawson's Bush, at

51:55

no point did he ever pinpoint a specific

51:57

time and place when he saw this man.

52:00

happened, even when he was

52:02

testifying under oath at trial. And

52:04

in some of the statements, Butchett implied

52:06

that he heard Steven and Lin went into

52:08

the bush and did not personally witness it. Butchett

52:12

told so many different versions of this story

52:14

that if I attempted to share each and

52:16

every one of them with you on this

52:18

episode, you would become so confused that your

52:21

head would explode. It's

52:23

so frustrating how the Crown's two

52:25

key eyewitnesses seem to contradict each

52:27

other's stories. Butchett

52:29

and Jocelyn both claimed that they bumped

52:31

into each other on the tractor trail

52:34

next to Lawson's bush sometime after seven

52:36

o'clock, where Butchett said that he

52:38

was searching for Steven and Jocelyn said that

52:40

she was searching for Lin. Like

52:42

I mentioned earlier, Jocelyn had originally claimed

52:44

that she was at Lawson's farm between

52:46

6.30 and 8pm, which

52:49

is obviously contradicted by Butchett's account,

52:52

and if Butchett was asking Jocelyn if she

52:54

had seen Steven, that he obviously had

52:57

not witnessed him entering the bush by this

52:59

point. And yet

53:01

he never provided any real confirmation if

53:03

he saw Steven and Lin go into

53:05

the bush at a later time. I

53:09

mentioned in our last episode that Butchett had

53:11

a reputation for being a pathological liar who

53:13

would make up stories for attention, and

53:16

one of his schoolmates said that he was the type

53:18

of person who would feed you a lie and then

53:20

completely forgot what he told you 20 minutes later. Since

53:24

Steven and Butche were friends, I wouldn't

53:26

say that Butchett intentionally made up a

53:28

story with the express purpose of falsely

53:30

accusing Steven of murder. I

53:32

think it's possible he was just making up stories

53:34

for the hell of it, which was something he

53:36

apparently liked to do, but once

53:38

this garnered the attention of the police, things

53:40

got a lot more serious than he ever

53:43

could have anticipated. Interestingly enough,

53:45

the first known instance of Butchett

53:47

sharing the story occurred at around

53:50

8.20pm on the evening of June the 9th, when

53:53

another kid named Richard Galatly mentioned

53:55

that he had recently passed by Steven

53:57

and Lin riding a bicycle together on

54:00

County Road, but just casually

54:02

remarked that they were in the bush together, but

54:04

he didn't know what they were doing, and

54:06

he then apparently kept repeating this to other

54:09

kids later that night and over the

54:11

course of the next few days. It's

54:13

very unusual that Butch would have said this

54:15

during the early evening hours of June the

54:17

9th, as Lynn had not been

54:20

reported missing yet, and no one had any

54:22

idea that something was wrong. But

54:25

I just mentioned that Butch and Jocelyn

54:27

both claimed that they had bumped into

54:29

each other outside Lawson's bush sometime after

54:31

7th E.M., and they asked each

54:33

other if they had seen Stephen and Lynn. So

54:36

given Butch's reputation for making up

54:38

stories, perhaps this encounter later

54:41

evolved into Stephen and Lynn were

54:43

in the bush together, even

54:45

though he never actually saw them there. If

54:48

Butch was not known for being a pathological

54:51

liar and was able to maintain a

54:53

consistent story, I might take his

54:55

statement on the evening of June the 9th as a

54:57

sign he was telling the truth. But

55:00

Butch probably never envisioned that he'd become the

55:02

center of a murder investigation and that his

55:04

little white lie would spin out of control.

55:08

It's also been reported that Stephen, Butch,

55:10

and three other boys went to the

55:12

bridge on the evening of June the

55:14

10th, the day before Lynn's body was

55:17

found, and Stephen supposedly confronted Butch over

55:19

spreading the story about him and Lynn

55:21

going into Lawson's bush. The

55:23

Crown tried to spin it as if

55:25

Stephen was angry about Butch potentially implicating

55:27

him in the murder and threatening him

55:29

into keeping his mouth shut, but when

55:31

these three other boys testified at trial,

55:34

they didn't really provide very consistent stories

55:36

about what happened. In

55:38

fact, only one of them made it sound like

55:40

Stephen was speaking to Butch in a threatening manner

55:43

and the two others just seemed to think they were joking

55:45

about the whole thing. On

55:47

the morning of June the 11th, which was still

55:49

a few hours before the discovery of Lynn's body,

55:52

there was an incident in the school washroom

55:55

between Stephen and a boy named Alan

55:57

Dernan, like he did with many others.

56:00

Butch had also shared a story with Alan

56:02

about having seen Steven and Lynn go into

56:04

the bush together, but while they were

56:06

in the washroom, Alan made a remark

56:08

that he couldn't believe Steven gave Lynn a ride to

56:11

the highway, because he felt that

56:13

a popular boy like Steven would have been out

56:15

of Lynn's league. Steven

56:17

responded by pushing Alan up against the wall,

56:19

but a teacher walked in and separated them

56:21

before things could escalate any further. Of

56:24

course at trial, the Crown painted this incident

56:26

as a sign of guilt on Steven's part,

56:29

but when you consider the fact that he

56:31

had been interviewed by police multiple times at

56:33

this point, and his schoolmates were teasing him

56:35

over an apparent lie that Butch had been

56:37

sharing, you can understand why Steven might have

56:39

gotten a bit frustrated in the heat of

56:41

the moment, even if he never did

56:43

anything. Now Butch also

56:45

claimed that on the evening of the 10th, Steven

56:48

asked him to lie to the police and

56:50

tell them he saw Steven and Lynn riding

56:52

over the bridge on their bicycle together the

56:54

previous night. It is

56:56

true that Butch shared a story like this with police on

56:58

the morning of June the 11th, but

57:01

here's the main issue with the theory that

57:03

he was intentionally providing Steven with a false

57:05

alibi. According to

57:07

Butch, Steve was panicky because he had

57:09

originally told police that he saw Butch

57:11

in the Bayfield River, but

57:14

now realized that he mistook him for Gord

57:16

Logan, so he wanted Butch to

57:18

tell the police he had been at the river,

57:20

so Steven wouldn't look suspicious. However,

57:23

a search of the original police reports

57:25

revealed that during his initial interviews prior

57:27

to the evening of June the 10th,

57:29

Steven never mentioned anything about seeing Butch

57:31

or Gord or any other boys at

57:33

the river when he crossed the bridge.

57:37

It wasn't until Steve was interviewed by police

57:39

on the morning of June the 11th that

57:41

he finally told them he remembered seeing them

57:43

there. On the evening of June 10th,

57:46

Lynn's body had yet to be found and

57:48

Steven was not a suspect, and

57:50

he had never told police about seeing Butch in the

57:52

river, So it would be completely

57:54

pointless to ask Butch to lie for him

57:56

and provide him with a fake alibi which

57:58

he didn't even know. Need at that

58:00

point. At. Trial puts testified

58:03

that he finally changed his story on

58:05

June. The twelve had denied having seen

58:07

Steven and Lane on the bridge after

58:10

he learned that leads body have been

58:12

found. This. Paid of

58:14

the pitcher. that Bush had only wanted to

58:16

do the right thing when he realized his

58:18

friend had killed someone. A.

58:21

While police records showed up which was

58:23

really interviewed on the morning of the

58:25

twelve, Yeah, see, continue to stick to

58:27

his original story about see Stephen Have

58:29

Lynn. He. A story did not

58:31

change until the next time. He was really

58:34

interviewed on June the fifties. And. Even

58:36

more serious, which did not formally

58:38

side any statements, it'll june the

58:40

twenty fifth. Which. Gives off the

58:42

impression that investigators. Had spent some

58:44

time attempting to help of craft. And

58:47

consisted story. The.

58:50

Same allegation about he been trying

58:52

to fabricated alibi would be directed

58:54

a gourd. logan. Who. Claimed he

58:56

saw Steven and Lid riding across the bridge

58:58

together before Stephen cross the bridge again at

59:00

the opposite direction. A few minutes later while

59:03

he was alone, Since. Stephen,

59:05

a gore, were friends, investigators do not

59:07

put much stock into his account as

59:09

bigger that gourd with simply line to

59:11

help. Well. Once again the

59:14

time he doesn't really seem to support

59:16

this idea As court for share this

59:18

story about see Steve It is Lynn

59:20

during an interview with police on the

59:22

morning up to the eleventh. At

59:25

that point, no one knew that Led had

59:27

been murdered and Stephen was not a suspect.

59:29

so Gourd would have been providing Stephen with

59:31

a false alibi. He did really need. The

59:34

other issue. Is. That will Gore was

59:36

friends with Steve and. The. Other T

59:38

alibi witness Doug Jones was not.

59:42

says. Does He was three years younger than Steven

59:44

and not a member of the social group. What?

59:47

Motive Would he have had to lie and

59:49

protect and accused murderer? Said.

59:51

Scored was in the river about six

59:53

hundred feet away. Investigators try to discredit

59:55

a story by saying that he could

59:57

have seen Steven and live from that.

59:59

This. But this logic

1:00:01

doesn't apply to Dougie, who was right

1:00:04

next to the bridge catching turtles, and

1:00:06

said that he waved at Lynn while she was passing

1:00:08

by and she smiled back at him. When

1:00:11

this case was featured on the 5th

1:00:13

estate, Dougie was interviewed, and even though

1:00:15

4 decades had passed, he still maintained

1:00:17

that he saw Steven and Lynn on

1:00:19

the bridge that night. I'm

1:00:22

not even sure you could say that Dougie might

1:00:24

have been confused about the day he saw them,

1:00:26

because I don't think there were any

1:00:28

other previous occasions where Lynn hitched a

1:00:30

ride on the crossbar of Steven's bicycle.

1:00:33

Dougie and Gord were both grilled pretty

1:00:36

hard by the police and faced considerable pressure

1:00:38

from them, but in spite of

1:00:40

their young ages, they never changed their stories.

1:00:43

I mean, I know you should never

1:00:45

let your opinion about a case hinge

1:00:47

on eyewitnesses because they could be mistaken

1:00:49

or unreliable. But if

1:00:51

Dougie and Gord's accounts are accurate, then

1:00:53

Steven cannot be guilty of this crime.

1:00:58

The Crown's case had some pretty ass

1:01:01

backwards logic, because they had one very

1:01:03

unreliable witness who supposedly saw Steven

1:01:05

and Lynn go into Lawson's bush, but

1:01:07

no other witnesses who could corroborate

1:01:09

this. So instead of

1:01:11

trying to prove that they were in the bush,

1:01:14

their primary focus was on attempting to prove that

1:01:16

they were not on County Road, and that's where

1:01:18

10 year old Phillip Burns came in. As

1:01:21

you might recall from our last episode, Phillip

1:01:23

claimed that he walked from the bridge to his home

1:01:25

on County Road that night, but even

1:01:27

though he supposedly did this during the time

1:01:29

period when Steven took Lynn to Highway 8,

1:01:32

Phillip did not recall seeing them. So

1:01:35

by process of elimination, that

1:01:37

must mean they went into Lawson's bush. It's

1:01:40

been speculated that Phillip could have passed

1:01:42

by Steven and Lynn and simply did

1:01:44

not notice or forgot about them, as

1:01:47

unlike some of the other eyewitnesses in

1:01:49

this case, I do not believe Phillip

1:01:51

was particularly close friends with them, So

1:01:54

passing by these people on a bicycle

1:01:56

on a seemingly uneventful night may not

1:01:58

have been that memorable for him. The

1:02:01

crowd also put a lot of stock

1:02:03

into the testimony of.duncan. Who. Claimed that

1:02:05

she drove or teach to the bridge to

1:02:07

go swimming at. Arrived at around seven pm.

1:02:10

Where. She saw another pity Richard

1:02:12

gladly leading on his bicycle right

1:02:14

before Philip walked on. Richard.

1:02:17

Claimed that he rode past even and

1:02:19

lid shortly before they would have reached

1:02:21

losses bush. But. It still it

1:02:23

was walking a few minutes behind Richard

1:02:25

and did not see Stephen Orland South

1:02:27

seem to lend credence to the idea

1:02:29

that they left County Road. But.

1:02:32

Here is where we get it. Even

1:02:34

more issues with the fallibility of eyewitness

1:02:36

testimony. I don't have

1:02:38

any doubts that.at. Dunkin Saw fill up because

1:02:40

he flat out walked up to her car

1:02:43

and briefly chatted with her and her kids

1:02:45

before he left. For. Why she

1:02:47

accurate about having seed Richard go

1:02:49

out, leave, leave beforehand? Could.

1:02:51

She had mistaken richer for another kid

1:02:54

or just miss remembered some details. Below.

1:02:57

Us brother believe that he arrived home at

1:02:59

around seven thirty. Which. Does slide

1:03:01

off with Duncan. Sideline: But.

1:03:04

A Stephen is telling the truth about having

1:03:06

left school at seven twenty five. Developed

1:03:08

likely would have already been off county

1:03:10

road by that point. Which. Would

1:03:12

explain why he never saw Steven and live.

1:03:16

With. Also felt that he did not

1:03:18

actually leave the bridge and start heading

1:03:20

home until around seven twenty. And.

1:03:22

This was it Stevens timeline since

1:03:24

Richard recall passing by Steven and

1:03:26

lid only about five to ten

1:03:28

minutes later. Like. Nh

1:03:31

earlier hit. This pride happened today. We.

1:03:33

Now have the technology to provide a

1:03:35

more accurate assessment of were all these

1:03:38

people were out, which times. But.

1:03:40

Back in Ninety Fifty Nine. Everyone

1:03:42

had to rely on memories and

1:03:44

guesswork. Is

1:03:46

the only evidence the crowd had against

1:03:48

Stephen. With these inconsistent eye witness statements,

1:03:50

it would have been much more difficult

1:03:53

to secure a conviction. Which. Is

1:03:55

why they had to rely heavily on the

1:03:57

testimony from Dr. John. Panicked and about lid

1:03:59

stomach content. As. Well as the

1:04:01

implication that the lesions found on see

1:04:03

this penis were the result of sexual

1:04:05

assault. Stephen. Has

1:04:07

always maintained that the to doctors who testified

1:04:09

at the trial greatly exaggerated the size of

1:04:12

the lesions and said they have been there

1:04:14

for weeks prior to the murder. The.

1:04:17

Crowd tried to debunk this idea by

1:04:19

asking why Stephen never told anyone about

1:04:21

the lesions. But. He claimed he

1:04:23

was too embarrassed and really. How

1:04:25

often is a fourteen year old going

1:04:27

to openly speak to his parents about

1:04:29

issues with his penis? Was. Possible

1:04:32

these lesions with a result of a skin

1:04:34

condition. The. Also could have been caused

1:04:36

by masturbation and well, that was a

1:04:38

much more taboo subject for a teenage

1:04:40

boy to talk about back in Nineteen

1:04:42

Fifty Nine. Another.

1:04:44

Race with put any stock into these

1:04:46

lesions is that we really don't know

1:04:49

the real nature of Lin sexual assault.

1:04:52

It's easy to believe that Lid was raped

1:04:54

said she was found partially nude. But.

1:04:56

Due to the level of deep opposition

1:04:58

honor vagina it was a possible that

1:05:01

conclusively determine if there was any penetration

1:05:03

and know seabed was ever found. Well.

1:05:06

It did appear to have injuries to or

1:05:08

battle area. Doctor. Pedestal What Acknowledge

1:05:10

years after the trial that they could have

1:05:13

been caused by a blunt instrument. So.

1:05:16

Of lives killer did not actually penetrator

1:05:18

on the road. Did you feel

1:05:20

completely debunked the idea that this cause

1:05:22

the lesions on Stevens penis? On.

1:05:25

A lighter note, given the subject matter,

1:05:27

I do find it amusing that John

1:05:29

Podesta and surname was spelled. P.

1:05:32

Add ah yes T A N.

1:05:34

If. I'm able to make it through the

1:05:37

series of episodes without mispronouncing it p To

1:05:39

stand that, I consider it a job well

1:05:41

done. So. While we're on

1:05:43

the subject of Penistone and I'm sure

1:05:45

you're well aware that many older wrongful

1:05:47

convictions which took place in the pre

1:05:49

Dna era. Where. Sometimes the result of

1:05:52

what is now considered to be junk science.

1:05:55

If. southern was charged with murder today

1:05:57

and the biggest piece of evidence against

1:05:59

them was supposedly a precise assessment

1:06:01

of when the victim digested their stomach

1:06:03

contents, I'm not even sure the

1:06:06

case would make it to trial, let alone result

1:06:08

in a conviction. But

1:06:10

I already mentioned that back in 1959,

1:06:13

the public just had more trust in authority

1:06:15

figures, and I think this logic would

1:06:17

apply to doctors as well, as

1:06:20

the jury may have automatically assumed that

1:06:22

Dr. Peniston knew what he was talking

1:06:24

about, and that his conclusions about Lynn's

1:06:26

time of death must be accurate. If

1:06:29

someone got on the witness stand today and

1:06:31

claimed they reached their conclusions by holding up

1:06:33

a victim's stomach contents in a jar to

1:06:35

a light in front of a window, they

1:06:38

would probably be laughed out of the courtroom. Now

1:06:42

obviously, since determining how long it

1:06:44

takes someone's stomach to digest food

1:06:46

is not an exact science, you

1:06:48

can't say with 100% certainty that

1:06:51

Peniston's original conclusions were wrong. At

1:06:54

the Court of Appeal hearings, Steven's

1:06:56

defense team utilized expert testimony about

1:06:58

entomology to push forward the idea

1:07:01

that Lynn's death took place at a

1:07:03

later time than Peniston suggested, but you

1:07:05

also can't take their conclusions as absolute

1:07:07

gospel either. The

1:07:09

issue is that methods like this are

1:07:11

far more useful for excluding suspects rather

1:07:13

than directly incriminating them, but since

1:07:16

the police absolutely needed to establish

1:07:18

that Steven killed Lynn during a specific

1:07:20

window of time, it sounds

1:07:22

like Peniston may have been encouraged to

1:07:24

adjust his conclusions accordingly. It

1:07:27

is troubling how none of the documentation dated

1:07:29

prior to Steven's arrest lists the

1:07:32

specific 7.15 to

1:07:34

7.45 pm time of death for Lynn,

1:07:37

and even though this time frame is listed on

1:07:39

Peniston's official autopsy report, the report is

1:07:41

not dated, so for all we know,

1:07:43

he could have typed it up after

1:07:45

Steven was already in custody. It

1:07:49

really seems like Peniston was doubting himself when

1:07:51

Steven's case was heard in front of the

1:07:53

Supreme Court in 1966, and

1:07:56

while Peniston never publicly recanted his

1:07:58

original conclusions, Julie and chair was

1:08:00

able to track down and speak to Penison's

1:08:02

daughter when he published Until You Are Dead.

1:08:06

Penison was already deceased by this point, but

1:08:08

his daughter expressed her belief that he had

1:08:11

been pressured by the police to reach his

1:08:13

conclusions and was always haunted by the whole

1:08:15

situation. Indeed, when you

1:08:17

look at the timeline for how these

1:08:19

series of events unfolded, this case pretty

1:08:22

much seems to redefine the term tunnel

1:08:24

vision. To recap, Lynn went

1:08:26

missing on the evening of June the 9th,

1:08:28

her body was found on the afternoon of

1:08:30

June the 11th, and later

1:08:32

that night, Inspector Harold Graham arrived

1:08:34

from Toronto to head up the

1:08:36

investigation. Since Stephen

1:08:39

was charged with a murder during the early morning

1:08:41

hours of June the 13th, it

1:08:43

essentially took Graham less than 36 hours

1:08:45

to solve the case, even

1:08:47

though the evidence against Stephen was not

1:08:50

particularly strong. While

1:08:52

it came as a great shock to the

1:08:54

community that a 14-year-old boy turned out to

1:08:56

be the killer, it appears that the RCAAF

1:08:58

was relieved about this because there was

1:09:00

an initial fear that the perpetrator might

1:09:03

turn out to be an airman, which

1:09:05

likely would have caused a major scandal. But

1:09:08

as we're going to talk about later, the

1:09:10

most prominent alternate suspect in this case was

1:09:13

an airman, and he was also a sex

1:09:15

offender. Inspector

1:09:18

Graham was already deceased by the time the

1:09:20

Court of Appeal for Ontario hearings took place

1:09:22

in 2006, but one of

1:09:24

his former investigators, OPP Corporal

1:09:27

Hank Sayo, was called upon

1:09:29

to testify, and he was asked this

1:09:31

question about Lynn's murder, quote, "...did

1:09:34

the thought ever cross your mind that for

1:09:36

someone to strangle her than sexually assault her,

1:09:39

you might want to be looking for someone who

1:09:41

is more of a pervert, more of a sexual

1:09:43

psychopath," end quote. And

1:09:45

Sayo's reply to this was, quote, "...I don't recall

1:09:47

that." Don't get me

1:09:49

wrong, I can totally understand why the OPP

1:09:51

would put so much focus on Steven as

1:09:53

he was the last known person to see

1:09:55

the victim alive, but it seemed

1:09:58

so irresponsible that they would not at least spent

1:10:00

some time exploring other angles and seeing if

1:10:02

there were any known sex offenders in the

1:10:04

area. It would be

1:10:07

one thing if the evidence against Steven had

1:10:09

been overwhelming, but it most certainly was not,

1:10:11

and it seems like Graham got tunnel vision

1:10:13

about the boy and tried to make the

1:10:15

evidence fit his conclusion rather than the other

1:10:17

way around. Solving this murder

1:10:19

seemed to provide a boost to Graham's career

1:10:22

and paved the way to him becoming commissioner

1:10:24

of the OPP, but in spite

1:10:26

of all the controversy surrounding this case, he

1:10:29

never stopped maintaining that he got the right

1:10:31

suspect all along. However,

1:10:33

the evidence seems to indicate that Graham

1:10:35

did a lot of fudging of the facts in

1:10:37

order to help secure this conviction, and

1:10:40

I just cannot imagine how he was able

1:10:42

to live with the possibility that he may

1:10:44

have condemned an innocent 14-year-old kid to be

1:10:46

hanged. So yeah, even

1:10:48

though I've tried to remain objective and

1:10:51

unbiased, I feel that there's pretty much

1:10:53

no way that Steven Truscott could have

1:10:55

committed this crime, and I want to spend

1:10:57

the rest of this episode looking at

1:10:59

alternate suspects. Obviously, the

1:11:01

most prominent one is Alexander Kalichuk, and

1:11:03

I'll get to him soon, but

1:11:06

there were some other interesting leads which

1:11:08

got shoved to the side during the

1:11:10

original investigation. This

1:11:13

situation doesn't involve a specific suspect, per

1:11:15

se, that at around 7 p.m. on

1:11:17

the evening of Lynn's murder, Corporal

1:11:19

Arlene Strowman, a flight control

1:11:21

operator from RCAF Station Clinton,

1:11:24

went to the Custard Cup ice cream stand with one

1:11:26

of her girlfriends. She said

1:11:29

that three young men in a 1959 Chevrolet

1:11:31

pulled up alongside both of them and offered

1:11:33

them a ride, but since the women did

1:11:35

not show any interest, the vehicle quickly drove

1:11:37

away. I do not

1:11:39

believe these men in the Chevy were

1:11:41

ever identified, and for all we know,

1:11:43

this interaction was completely harmless, but they were

1:11:46

driving a vehicle which matched the description

1:11:48

of the car which supposedly picked up

1:11:50

Lynn, and Strowman's encounter took

1:11:52

place only about a half hour earlier.

1:11:55

After learning about what happened to Lynn, Strowman

1:11:57

did report this incident to the military police,

1:12:00

but it does not look like the lead

1:12:02

was ever investigated because the police were so

1:12:04

focused on Stephen by this point. Another

1:12:08

potential alternate suspect was 37-year-old

1:12:10

Clayton Dennis, who lived in

1:12:12

the nearby town of Seaporth, and

1:12:14

while I'm not sure if this was widespread knowledge at

1:12:16

the time, he had previously served three

1:12:18

years in prison for a rape conviction from

1:12:20

1948. Dennis

1:12:23

sometimes worked as an electrician at RCS

1:12:25

Station Clinton and apparently

1:12:28

did know Lynn's father Leslie Harper,

1:12:30

and he also moved to the United States during the

1:12:32

fall of 1959, only months after Lynn's murder. Julie

1:12:37

and Cher managed to track down Dennis and

1:12:39

interview him for Until You Are Dead, and

1:12:42

Dennis denied any involvement in the crime, claiming

1:12:44

that he only moved away because the

1:12:46

available work in the area had depleted.

1:12:49

However, a family friend of Dennis would claim

1:12:51

that after the murder took place, he made

1:12:53

some weird remarks about Lynn in which he

1:12:56

said, quote, she had it coming to her,

1:12:58

or, quote, she was asking for

1:13:00

it. But of

1:13:02

course, since Stephen was arrested very

1:13:04

quickly, Dennis was never investigated by

1:13:06

law enforcement. Another

1:13:09

potential suspect was a 19-year-old airman

1:13:11

named Matthew Maron, who was stationed

1:13:13

at RCS Station Clinton in 1959.

1:13:17

He also worked as a lifeguard at the community

1:13:19

pool, where Lynn often liked to go swimming, and

1:13:22

transferred out of the area a short time after

1:13:24

the murder took place. I

1:13:27

do not believe Maron had a criminal

1:13:29

record at that time, but he eventually

1:13:31

got married and had two daughters, though

1:13:33

he developed a serious alcohol problem, which

1:13:35

led to him being dishonorably discharged from

1:13:37

the RCAF. Maron

1:13:39

would later be accused of beating his wife and

1:13:42

sexually abusing his daughters, and one of them even

1:13:44

claimed there was an incident, where he brought her

1:13:46

into the woods to rape her,

1:13:48

but when she resisted, he attempted to strangle

1:13:50

her before some hunters came to her rescue.

1:13:54

When Maron's wife confronted him about

1:13:56

attempting to rape their daughter, he

1:13:58

allegedly replied, quote, hey, rape is

1:14:00

better than murder. Of

1:14:02

course, Marin was never investigated and he died in

1:14:04

1985, but

1:14:06

interestingly enough, when he was stationed in

1:14:09

Clinton, Marin was reportedly

1:14:11

driving his mother's late model Chevrolet.

1:14:14

As you might recall, Stephen claimed that the

1:14:16

car Lynn climbed into had something orange or

1:14:18

yellow on the rear fender, which may have

1:14:21

been a bumper sticker or license plate. While

1:14:24

the Chevy belonging to Marin's mother

1:14:27

was originally purchased in Montreal and

1:14:29

in 1959, Quebec had yellow license

1:14:31

plates. There are a

1:14:33

couple of other potential suspects who have never

1:14:35

been named publicly. One of

1:14:38

them was another airman who had been

1:14:40

stationed at RCS Station Clinton in 1959,

1:14:42

but would later go to prison for various

1:14:44

sexual offenses during the 1980s. When

1:14:47

police searched this man's house following his arrest,

1:14:50

they discovered that he had a copy

1:14:52

of the eight-volume transcript of Stephen Truscott's

1:14:54

hearing before the Ontario Supreme Court in

1:14:57

1966. This doesn't

1:14:59

prove anything of course, but it does show that he

1:15:01

seemed to have a major interest in this case. Another

1:15:05

interesting unnamed individual was a

1:15:07

minister who had been living with

1:15:09

his family in Dungannon, a village

1:15:11

located about 30 kilometers north of

1:15:13

Clinton. While I don't believe

1:15:15

this man was ever arrested or charged with any

1:15:17

crime, his adult daughters would eventually

1:15:20

accuse him of sexually assaulting them during

1:15:22

their childhood. One

1:15:24

of these daughters claimed that in 1959, when

1:15:26

she was only six years old, there

1:15:28

was an incident where she was hiding in

1:15:30

her father's car and he drove it out

1:15:32

into a remote gravel road without realizing she

1:15:34

was in the vehicle. After

1:15:36

they stopped, she says he opened the trunk

1:15:39

and she then saw him carrying what appeared

1:15:41

to be a girl's limp body towards a

1:15:43

grassy wooded area and he was gone for

1:15:45

about half an hour before he returned to

1:15:47

the car alone. Unfortunately,

1:15:49

due to this girl's age, I'm not

1:15:52

sure if she was able to recall

1:15:54

any specific details about the date or

1:15:56

locations. And since we don't

1:15:58

know this man's identity and how he was have no

1:16:00

further details about his background, I

1:16:02

can't provide much assessment about the validity of

1:16:05

his daughter's story or if he seems to

1:16:07

be a likely suspect in Lynn's murder." In

1:16:10

October of 2014, a retired

1:16:13

OPP sergeant named Barry Rule

1:16:15

published another book about this

1:16:17

case titled A Viable Suspect,

1:16:19

in which he pushed forward another potential candidate

1:16:21

to be the killer. By

1:16:24

the time this book was published, the

1:16:26

suspect had passed away, so in order

1:16:28

to protect the privacy of this man's

1:16:30

family, Rule only referred to him

1:16:32

by pseudonym Larry Talbot, which incidentally

1:16:34

also happens to be the name

1:16:36

of the lead character the Lon

1:16:38

Chaney Jr. played in the film

1:16:40

The Wolfman. During

1:16:42

the summer of 1971, Rule

1:16:45

and his fiancé, Slash Future Walt, were

1:16:47

staying at our cottage in Sobble Beach,

1:16:49

Ontario when a masked man broke in during

1:16:51

the middle of the night. His

1:16:54

man turned out to be the notorious

1:16:56

Larry Talbot, and he seemed intent on

1:16:58

sexually assaulting Rule's fiancé, but Rule

1:17:01

noticed that the man was carrying a pellet gun

1:17:03

rather than a real gun and decided to call

1:17:05

his bluff. When Talbot

1:17:07

attempted to flee the scene, Rule chased after

1:17:09

him and managed to tackle him down before

1:17:11

he was arrested. Talbot

1:17:14

only wound up getting a two-year suspended

1:17:16

sentence for this incident, and while he

1:17:18

was never charged with any murders throughout

1:17:20

his life, he did have an

1:17:22

extensive criminal record for such offenses as

1:17:24

burglary and sexual assault. Rule

1:17:27

ultimately came to believe that Talbot may

1:17:30

have been a serial killer who was

1:17:32

responsible for the unsolved murders of at

1:17:34

least seven young women or girls which

1:17:36

occurred in southern Ontario from the late

1:17:39

1950s until the early 1990s, and

1:17:41

one of these murders was Lynn Harper. Talbot

1:17:44

worked as a travelling salesman and was known

1:17:46

to have frequented the Clinton area during the

1:17:49

1950s, and at the time, he also

1:17:51

apparently drove a car which would have looked

1:17:54

similar to the vehicle that Stephen claimed to

1:17:56

have seen. The saga of Larry

1:17:58

Talbot is a Pretty interesting. Rabbit Hole

1:18:00

on it's own and I don't have time to get

1:18:02

it as a whole thing here. But. I

1:18:04

would not be surprised if he was responsible

1:18:07

for some murders during his lifetime. But.

1:18:09

Much like all the other suspects in this case,

1:18:11

there's nothing to conclusively link up to the death

1:18:14

of late Harper or place him in the area

1:18:16

on the night of the crime. It

1:18:19

must be clarified that there is also

1:18:22

no direct evidence against the next individual

1:18:24

we're going to discuss. Sergeant Alexander College

1:18:26

Shock. But. He still considered to be

1:18:28

the most compelling candidate to be Lives Killer.

1:18:31

We. Talked about how a check in our

1:18:34

last episode but as recap. Steven.

1:18:36

And his supporters were completely unaware of I'm

1:18:38

for Decades until it all. Psychiatric fall was

1:18:40

an earth during the late Ninety Nineties, So.

1:18:43

The Fifth Estate episode about this case

1:18:45

mark the first time the college Shaq

1:18:47

was ever publicly nate. Howell.

1:18:49

Attacker once been seated at Rcs

1:18:51

Stacey Clinton. And even though he

1:18:54

was stationed elsewhere. And Nineteen Fifty nine. Yards.

1:18:56

And drove back to the Clinton area in order to

1:18:58

visit or fit in order to visit his family. Since.

1:19:01

College check was never investigated. We.

1:19:04

Have no idea if was in Clinton on the

1:19:06

night of Lives Murder. Or we do

1:19:08

know that he was arrested for attempting to

1:19:10

lure another young girl into his car only

1:19:12

three weeks earlier. Doubt.

1:19:14

This particular. Incident took place near

1:19:16

the town of St. Thomas, which is

1:19:18

less than twenty kilometers away from our

1:19:20

Cfc. Should elmer or college check was

1:19:23

stationed at that time. When.

1:19:25

The charges against how a check for this

1:19:27

incident were dismissed. The. Judge gave him

1:19:29

a stern lecture and warned that the authorities

1:19:31

would be watching over him. So.

1:19:34

Theoretically if tell a check. Wanted to

1:19:36

try something like that again with another

1:19:38

girl. Is. Reasonable to assume that he

1:19:40

would do so in the same area. And.

1:19:43

If he just happened to be over one

1:19:45

hundred kilometers away and Clinton on the evening

1:19:47

of to the night and saw in it's

1:19:49

have been to hitchhike she might have seemed

1:19:52

like a tempting target. I.

1:19:54

Find it to be very interesting timing.

1:19:56

That. Tell a check check into a psychiatric

1:19:58

clinic for depression and. right? He only

1:20:00

about a month after Lids murder and

1:20:03

as life just seemed to go on

1:20:05

a complete downward spiral until his death

1:20:07

in Nineteen Seventy Five. Even.

1:20:09

though it seems like how much it was.

1:20:11

Definitely a sexual predator, he's never been suspected

1:20:14

of any other murders. Sophie was the mayor

1:20:16

who picked up a lid on home. We

1:20:18

ate. It's. Possible that he wasn't

1:20:20

originally planning to killer. E.

1:20:23

Bay of only player to sexually assault land but

1:20:25

if she attempted to fight him off. Things.

1:20:27

Could have escalated into violence. Slightly.

1:20:30

Someone to death with their own blouse appears

1:20:32

to be an act Pure rage. But.

1:20:35

It's Lives Killer apparently took the time

1:20:37

to neatly for the rest of her

1:20:39

clothing and place branches over her body.

1:20:41

Data. Be an indication of guilt or remorse

1:20:44

over what they did. And.

1:20:46

Of college at was the Killer and Decay

1:20:48

played with guilt. This. Could explain

1:20:50

why he checked himself into a psychiatric

1:20:52

clinic a short time later. Now.

1:20:55

By the time college check checked himself

1:20:57

in, Stephen was already in custody for

1:21:00

lives Murder. So. Sound like he should

1:21:02

have been feeling overwhelming paranoia that the authorities

1:21:04

were going to come after him. But.

1:21:06

Of Caltech found out that it either sick kid

1:21:09

was taking the fall for his crime. He.

1:21:11

May have felt guilty about it, but not so

1:21:13

guilty that he was willing to turn himself in

1:21:15

and make a confession. Theoretically.

1:21:18

This could provide an explanation for the appearance

1:21:20

of lives. Lock it on the barbed wire.

1:21:23

fence your losses bush. We.

1:21:25

Still can't be wanted percent. Certain that the

1:21:27

lock it was not there all along and the

1:21:29

police simply missed it. But. If the

1:21:31

real killer placed on the fence, on to the

1:21:33

eighteenth or the night keep. It. Doesn't

1:21:35

make much sense for them to do so

1:21:37

since even was already in jail. I'm.

1:21:40

Not sure if the perpetrator intentionally held onto

1:21:42

it, but the A Flynn was murdered inside

1:21:44

a car. It's possible the lock it could

1:21:46

have come off during the struggle of a

1:21:48

killer to not even realize it was in

1:21:50

their vehicle to tell days after the fact.

1:21:53

Placing: The last. year the murder scene could

1:21:55

have been their way of letting the authorities know

1:21:58

they had gotten the wrong guy with actually

1:22:00

revealing their own identity. But

1:22:02

of course, by this point, the authorities were

1:22:04

so locked in on pitting the crime on

1:22:07

Steven that the sudden appearance of the locket

1:22:09

didn't make any difference. Now

1:22:11

the one thing which might go against

1:22:13

Kalechek being the perpetrator is that he

1:22:16

was driving a light yellow Pontiac Stratochy

1:22:18

at the time rather than a gray-colored

1:22:20

Chevrolet, but the vehicles looked similar

1:22:22

enough that when viewed from a distance during

1:22:24

the early evening hours, it's possible

1:22:26

that Steven could have mixed them up. After

1:22:29

all, Kalechek sold his Stratochy a

1:22:31

short time later, which struck

1:22:34

everyone as odd since he had only

1:22:36

purchased it recently. And

1:22:38

remember, we can't even be 100% certain

1:22:40

that the driver who picked up Lynn

1:22:42

on Highway 8 was the

1:22:44

person who murdered her, as it's

1:22:46

possible that they could have driven her elsewhere and

1:22:48

dropped her off as she crossed paths with her

1:22:51

killer at a later time. We

1:22:53

still don't know the significance of the yellow

1:22:55

or orange object that Steven said he saw

1:22:57

on the car's rear fender. It

1:23:00

may have been a license plate from a province

1:23:02

which had colorful plates at that time, such as

1:23:04

Quebec, or it could have simply been

1:23:06

a reflection of the sun on the fender and

1:23:08

it has no significance. The

1:23:11

biggest issue that Steven's detractors have always had

1:23:13

with this story is that if

1:23:15

Lynn climbed into a car which was heading east, why

1:23:18

would her killer circle back and head

1:23:20

south down County Road to place her

1:23:22

body in Lawson's Bush? Well,

1:23:24

since we have a window of over 40

1:23:27

hours between when Lynn went missing and her

1:23:29

body was found, we really can't

1:23:31

be sure when and where she was killed.

1:23:35

While there was blood on Lynn's clothing, there was

1:23:37

virtually no blood anywhere in the woods or near

1:23:39

the crime scene, so this has led

1:23:42

to speculation that she was murdered at another

1:23:44

location before the killer placed her in Lawson's

1:23:46

Bush. I mentioned earlier

1:23:48

that an intriguing eyewitness sighting, which was withheld

1:23:50

from Steven's defense team at his trial, was

1:23:53

provided by Bob Lawson, who claimed that

1:23:55

around 10 pm he saw a

1:23:57

red convertible part next to the tractor trailer. to

1:24:00

the bush, and as the owner of this

1:24:02

property, Lawson said it was very unusual for

1:24:04

people to park there. He

1:24:06

also thought he saw a male in the driver's

1:24:08

seat and a shorter female in the passenger's seat,

1:24:11

which possibly could have been Lin. Lawson

1:24:13

decided to shine his lights on the vehicle, and

1:24:16

a few minutes later, it sped past

1:24:18

him while he was swimming in the Bayfield River, and

1:24:21

someone apparently shouted obscenities in his

1:24:23

direction. Now, it's easy

1:24:25

to assume that this might have been Lin's

1:24:27

killer, but the big issue is that this

1:24:29

red convertible does not match the description of

1:24:31

the vehicle that Steven saw. And

1:24:34

if Lawson did see Lin in the front

1:24:36

seat, then I'm not sure there would have been

1:24:38

enough time for the driver to kill her, drag

1:24:40

her body into the bush, and then speed away

1:24:42

past the river a few minutes later. So

1:24:45

it's possible that this was nothing more than a couple

1:24:47

who had stopped there in order to make out, and

1:24:50

got pissed when Lawson shone his lights on them.

1:24:53

But even so, the Crown's calculated decision

1:24:55

to withhold this piece of evidence from

1:24:57

the defense lessened their chances

1:25:00

to create reasonable doubt and secure an

1:25:02

acquittal for their client. Once

1:25:04

again, the big issue is that it sounds

1:25:07

like Inspector Graham and the rest of the

1:25:09

OPP never bothered to investigate

1:25:11

any leads which did not involve

1:25:13

Steven Truscott, even though there

1:25:15

were other people in the area at that

1:25:17

time who seemed a lot more capable of

1:25:19

a crime like this than a fourteen-year-old with

1:25:21

a known own history of violence. In

1:25:24

many wrongful conviction cases, the investigators were

1:25:27

facing immense pressure to solve the crime,

1:25:30

and reached the point where they had no solid leads and

1:25:32

it hit a brick wall. He

1:25:34

got the sense that they were desperate enough to

1:25:36

pin the crime on anyone, regardless of whether or

1:25:38

not they were the right person. But

1:25:41

we didn't even reach that point in

1:25:43

this case, as Steven Truscott was charged

1:25:46

with murder only about thirty-six hours after

1:25:48

the discovery of the victim's body without

1:25:50

any other potential leads being explored. So

1:25:54

yeah, even though Steven was not

1:25:56

declared factually innocent per se, I'm one

1:25:58

hundred percent comfortable saying he did

1:26:00

not commit this crime, and that a serious

1:26:02

miscarriage of justice took place. But

1:26:05

at least unlike many other wrongfully convicted

1:26:07

individuals, Steven did manage to get out

1:26:10

of prison without even being exonerated, and

1:26:12

managed to build up a good life

1:26:14

for himself and his family. And

1:26:17

everyone who's met Steven has said that

1:26:19

for someone who has experienced such a

1:26:22

terrible injustice, he is remarkably not bitter,

1:26:24

and seems grateful for everything he does

1:26:26

have. But

1:26:29

sadly, in many wrongful conviction cases, the actual victim

1:26:31

of the crime is often lost in

1:26:34

the shuffle, and that's certainly the case with Lynn

1:26:36

Harper. Since she was murdered at such

1:26:38

a young age, Lynn was deprived of the opportunity to

1:26:40

start a family and lead a good life like Steven

1:26:42

did. And I can understand why this would be particularly

1:26:45

heartbreaking for

1:26:48

the Harper family, who continue to believe that Steven

1:26:50

killed her, but barring the uncovering of

1:26:53

conclusive evidence which points to another

1:26:55

suspect, I'm not sure that anything will ever change

1:26:58

their mind. In recent

1:27:00

years, genetic genealogy has helped lead to the resolution

1:27:03

of cold cases which are years, if not

1:27:05

decades old, as it can link DNA evidence to

1:27:07

a suspect who has already

1:27:10

deceased, and posthumously prove that they committed the

1:27:12

crime. Lest

1:27:14

the perpetrator happened to be around Steven Truscott's

1:27:16

age back in 1959, I

1:27:19

think it's safe to say that Lynn's real killer

1:27:21

is probably no longer with us, but without

1:27:24

DNA evidence, it will be difficult, if

1:27:26

not outright impossible, to prove who did

1:27:28

it. I do personally

1:27:30

believe that of all the suspects we've mentioned,

1:27:33

Alexander Kalichuk seems like the

1:27:35

most promising candidate, but there's no way

1:27:37

I could be absolutely certain of his guilt, since

1:27:39

he was never thoroughly investigated, and there was no

1:27:42

real evidence to link him to the crime. For

1:27:44

all we know, the real killer may be someone

1:27:47

who has never popped up on the radar. However,

1:27:49

even if we never know the full truth

1:27:52

about what happened, it's important for Lynn Harper's

1:27:54

memory to be kept alive, and for Steven

1:27:56

Truscott's story to be told, and cited as

1:27:58

an example of what happens, when

1:28:00

the justice system goes horribly wrong. So

1:28:03

that brings an end to our special

1:28:05

two-part anniversary episode. And if

1:28:07

you happen to have any information about the

1:28:09

murder of Lynn Harper, please contact

1:28:11

the appropriate authorities. But

1:28:14

if you just have your own thoughts about

1:28:16

what happened, feel free to leave me a

1:28:18

comment or send me an email to robin.warder@icloud.com.

1:28:21

That's robin.warder@icloud.com.

1:28:24

We also wanted to remind everyone that during

1:28:26

the month of February, the trail went cold

1:28:29

as teamed with a non-profit organization called Season

1:28:31

of Justice, which raises money

1:28:33

for the families of cold case victims

1:28:35

by helping spread awareness and attempting to

1:28:37

fund such initiatives as DNA testing. If

1:28:40

you would like to make a donation to Season

1:28:43

of Justice, all of the information about this is

1:28:45

listed in our show notes and on our social

1:28:47

media pages. But you can donate by

1:28:49

visiting the link givebutter.com

1:28:51

slash SOJ underscore the

1:28:54

trail, or by clicking a

1:28:56

special donate button for them on our website,

1:28:58

or by texting TRAIL24 to 53555. That's

1:29:03

givebutter.com/SOJ underscore

1:29:06

the trail,

1:29:08

or you can also text TRAIL24 to 53555,

1:29:13

or use the donate button at our

1:29:16

website, trailwentcold.com. You

1:29:18

wanted to provide another reminder that the

1:29:21

Trail Went Cold is on Patreon, so

1:29:23

please visit patreon.com/the trailwentcold to learn how

1:29:25

you can support our podcast and become

1:29:27

eligible for some pretty neat rewards. Over

1:29:30

the past five years, our Patreon page has

1:29:32

released nearly 70 exclusive bonus episodes, which are

1:29:34

all currently available in our archives for our

1:29:37

patrons in tiers 2 and 3. This

1:29:40

past month, I released an episode about a

1:29:43

very memorable case from Unsolved Mysteries, the

1:29:45

disappearance of wanted fugitive Randall Utterback, who has

1:29:47

not been seen since he broke out of

1:29:50

jail nearly 30 years ago. I've

1:29:52

also dropped an exclusive bonus episode from my

1:29:55

spin-off podcast, The Path Went Chilly, in

1:29:57

which myself and my two co-hosts, Jules and

1:29:59

Ashley, cover another memorable case

1:30:01

from Unsolved Mysteries, the

1:30:03

1989 disappearance of Patricia Meehan. And

1:30:07

for our patrons in Tier 3, I've recorded

1:30:09

another new audio commentary track, which can be

1:30:11

played over a classic episode of Unsolved Mysteries,

1:30:13

and we now have 60 of

1:30:16

these commentary tracks in our archives. I'd

1:30:18

also like to give a shout out to

1:30:20

our most recent listeners who have signed up

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with us on Patreon this week, and they

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are Andrew Z, Roni C, Lizzie,

1:30:27

and Annabelle K. Thank

1:30:29

you all so much for your support. I

1:30:31

also wanted to remind everyone that later this

1:30:33

year, the trail went cold as been booked

1:30:36

to appear on Podcast Row at two separate

1:30:38

CrimeCon events, the American CrimeCon, which

1:30:40

is taking place at the Gaylord Opulent

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Hotel in Nashville for May 31st until

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June 2nd, and

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CrimeCon UK, which is taking place

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at 133 Houndstitch in London on September

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21st and 22nd. If

1:30:54

you would like to purchase tickets, you have a specialized

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promo code to get a 10% discount

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at both events, so

1:31:01

please visit crimecon.com or

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crimecon.co.uk and use the

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promo code COLD24. Once

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again, that's crimecon.com and

1:31:11

crimecon.co.uk, and the promo

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code is COLD24 for

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10% off tickets

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to both events. I just

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wanted to give another shoutout to my supporters

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at the Unsolved Mysteries message board at the

1:31:24

Sitcoms Online Forum and the Unresolved Mysteries subreddit.

1:31:27

I need to provide a big thanks to Miguel

1:31:29

Foote, who edits and assembles this podcast together for

1:31:31

me, and Vince Nitro, who composes the

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ear and music he hear on every episode. They

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both been with me on this podcast

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support, and I never would have gotten the

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leave us a rating or review on Apple

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Podcasts or Spotify. Anyway,

1:31:53

it's surreal to think that the trail

1:31:55

when cold has reached its eight year

1:31:57

anniversary milestone, have

1:32:00

made it this far without the amazing support

1:32:02

of you the listeners, so thank you so

1:32:04

much. I'm actually going to

1:32:06

be on vacation next week, but while

1:32:09

I'm gone, the Trailwind Cold will be

1:32:11

dropping another special update episode. Yes,

1:32:13

I know we just released our last

1:32:15

update episode at the end of December,

1:32:17

but believe it or not, there have

1:32:19

been a lot of resolutions and developments,

1:32:21

and Trailwind Cold cases since the start

1:32:23

of 2024, so we've got a bunch

1:32:25

of new material to talk about. So

1:32:28

thank you all again for your support,

1:32:31

and have yourselves a great week, and

1:32:33

join us next Wednesday as we start

1:32:35

off year 9 of our podcast with

1:32:37

another special update episode of the Trailwind

1:32:39

Cold.