Who Killed Lynne Harper?

I see a Blogging Tory has picked up on the fact that Steven Truscott was not declared innocent. He was acquitted of a crime, which means he is 'not guilty'. Hello.

You cannot be declared innocent under Canadian law because well you are innocent, until proven guilty. Once proven guilty you can only be 'acquitted'. Is that so hard to understand?

You can however be declared 'innocent' by the court, however that cannot be done in an appeal case. It requires a new court case.

Though the court concluded that Truscott's conviction was a "miscarriage of justice," they fell short of declaring him factually innocent. Lockyer said without DNA evidence available to clear him once and for all, the declaration of complete innocence is impossible.

Of course the Blogging Tories are the same folks who considered Maher Arar a terrorist even after he was found to have been framed up by the RCMP and CSIS.

And like the Arar case they are all upset over the idea that a man wrongfully jailed may be entitled to compensation.

The judge mulling Steven Truscott’s right to compensation says the issue turns on the fact Truscott was not declared innocent.

In this case the bleeding heart Tory is sympathetic to the Harper family who believes in their heart of hearts that Truscott is guilty. Of course Lynne's father believes that, he has too. His world shattered the day his daughter died.

Like a lot of other folks he was stationed at the military base in the town.

At the time of Lynne's killing, the Harpers had only been living at RCAF Clinton, a base in southwestern Ontario, for about two years. Mr. Harper was a flight lieutenant. His wife, Shirley, stayed home to care for their three children, Lynne, 12, Barry, who was in Grade 10, and Jeffrey, who was only four years old when Lynne's body was found in Lawson's Bush.

And he would have known this guy who may have been the real killer.

A convicted pedophile stationed at the RCAF base at Clinton at the time of Lynne Harper's death. The OPP learned about him in 1997 after being contacted by a retired London, Ont., police detective, who felt the man was capable of murdering a child.

The man had pleaded guilty to sexual offences and possession of child pornography in the late 1980s. When police searched his house in connection with those offences, they found an eight-volume transcript of Truscott's hearing before the Supreme Court of Canada in 1966-67.

An airman who had been stationed at Clinton prior to 1959. He was stationed at Aylmer at the time of the murder, but had a home in Seaforth, close to the base, which he visited frequently.

He was identified by CBC's the fifth estate as Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk, who died in 1975.

MACINTYRE: In the 1950's Clinton was a military base … home and workplace for thousands of airmen …among them, at least one troubled individual whose medical files should have flagged him as a suspect.

Two years ago the fifth estate, assisted by the National Archives in Ottawa, retrieved a 900 page dossier on an acquaintance of the Harper family, once stationed at Clinton … a sexual predator with an unhealthy interest in young girls.
His name was Alexander Kalichuk.

Sgt. Kalichuk was a troubled man, a heavy drinker with a history of sexual offenses. He lived in this farmhouse with his wife and three children ... less than a 20 minute drive from the Clinton base. He worked as a supply technician there until 1957... He transferred to another base, in Aylmer, about a one hour drive away ... but made frequent trips back to Clinton ... where Lynn Harper's father was the senior supply officer.

Kalichuk's record of sex offenses went back at least a decade. In 1950 he had two convictions for indecent exposure in Trenton, where he was stationed.

About three weeks before Lynne Harper's murder he stalked three young girls on a country road outside St. Thomas. When two of them had gone home, he tried to lure the third into his car. Nancy Knowles … now Nancy Davidson …was 10 years old.

Today she remembers how the car followed at a distance until she was alone.

DAVIDSON: He asked me if I would come around and get in the car because he wanted me to pick out the prettiest present and I said, No. And then he pulled out - he had this brown paper bag and he pulled out this underwear.

MACINTYRE: Little kid's underwear.

DAVIDSON: Yeah, yeah.

MACINTYRE: And what did he want?

DAVIDSON: He wanted me to pick out the prettiest pair of underwear. He had a bottle between his legs. His eyes were bulgy and he had that glassy look and there were dark circles and I knew he was drinking and I just wanted to get away.

MACINTYRE: Kalichuk was caught and charged and appeared in Elgin County court a week later.

In spite of his prior convictions, the judge released him with a warning.
Three weeks after Lynne Harper's murder, Kalichuk entered a psychiatric hospital. According to records he was suffering from anxiety, depression and guilt.

Kalichuk was released but apparently far from cured. A heavily censored confidential military memo about "Sgt Kalichuk's aberrations" warned cryptically that when he was later posted at a base near Clinton, ongoing incidents were serious enough to get into the local paper.

In fact, police were warning about the activities of an unidentified molester who was preying on young girls from a car ... through all of which, Sgt. Kalichuk managed to avoid particular attention as a suspect ....in those incidents ... and, most significantly of all, in the murder of 12-year old Lynn Harper.

Kalichuk spent the rest of his life in and out of psychiatric hospitals and died in 1975 from alcoholism.

JULIAN SHER: Alexander Kalichuk is really just the worst example of a long list of potential suspects ignored that showed that the military and the police really were not interested in a serious investigation into who killed Lynn Harper.

The producer of the fifth estate documentary on Truscott two years ago continued to investigate the case independently … and has now written a book: Until You are Dead. Julian Sher.

SHER: In any rape case it would be normal for the police to investigate likely suspects in the area, people with a history of, of rape convictions, sexual deviants. In this case police didn't do that. Within 24 hours they focused on Steven. We uncovered names of people the police could have looked at. There was a man doing electrical repair work on the base who knew the Harper's who, according to one member of his family, said after Lynn Harper's murder, She had it coming to her. He had a rape conviction several years prior to the murder. He was never looked at. There was a lifeguard on the base and Lynn Harper was a very active swimmer who, according to members of his family, continued to engage in forms of sexual abuse and assault throughout the '60s and always was very nervous about the Harper case. He was never investigated by police. There were other men around the area who had known convictions and the police clearly didn't do their basic homework.

A new investigation into the case is needed since this was clearly a 'miscarriage of justice'. Now it is a case of actually finding Truscott innocent that would require a new police investigation.

Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Julian Fantino is not ruling out a renewed search for Lynne Harper's real killer, but he admits his officers would face "major hurdles" in trying to solve the murder for which Steven Truscott was wrongly convicted in 1959.

But the likelihood of that happening is moot.

"The trail has gone cold," Sher said. "A lot of these people are dead. I think that unlike the cold cases on TV, this case is going to stay cold because there was never a serious investigation back in 1959."

The point remains that this was a case of a miscarriage of justice from the start,and the result could have meant the hanging of a 14 year old Steven Truscott.

In 1959, Truscott, then 14 years old, was sentenced to hang for the rape and murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper. The case was a spectacle from the start, as Truscott became Canada's youngest death row inmate, spending 31/2 months in a "death cell" before his sentence was commuted to life in prison.

And it appears that part of the problem was an over zealous cop who decided not to investigate further since he had his boy. Unfortunately this is a common practice that has led to other innocents being railroaded for crimes they did not commit.

Pathologist's kin supports ruling

The pathologist's original conclusions allowed for a time of death much later than 7:45 p.m. -- perhaps even the next day,when Truscott was in school and therefore couldn't have committed the crime.

In October 2004, Julia Penistan told the Stratford Beacon-Herald she thought Truscott's conviction should be overturned and she believed her father faced pressure to support the police theory that Truscott was the murderer.

MACINTYRE: The lead investigator in the Harper murder case was a senior Ontario Provincial Police officer from Toronto … Inspector Harold Graham.
His quick disposition of the case and the conviction of Steven Truscott made Graham a legend among Ontario policemen and, before he retired, he'd become the OPP commissioner.

Graham died recently … adamantly rejecting our requests to discuss his biggest bust.

But at least one of his colleagues harboured serious misgivings. He was Corporal John Erskine …one of the three lead officers in the Harper murder investigation.

HARRIS: Well, he was a perfectionist in everything he did. Like it had to be done right or it wouldn't be done at all.

MACINTYRE: Dee Harris is Corporal Erskine's widow and she remembers how he became increasingly distressed by the case.

HARRIS: Oh not right at the start. It was later on in the investigation. He said at that time after he had looked at different fact that he said, I'm sure he's not guilty.

MACINTYRE: But the boss … Inspector Graham … had his mind made up, so the corporal kept his opinion to himself … His widow is still troubled by it.

HARRIS: All the police officers would come back to our house. I know Graham definitely felt he was guilty. He was convinced right at the start. The first day pretty well. You can't decide an investigation in the first day whether they're guilty or not guilty. You don't have enough facts to go on.

MACINTYRE: But after the first day of the Harper murder investigation Inspector Graham clearly believed he had his murderer … even though he originally thought the murder probably happened at 9 o'clock … when Truscott was home watching television.

MACINTYRE: That crucial detail quickly changed. As the police and prosecution prepared their case against their prime suspect in the fall of 1959.

Documents recently uncovered suggest that they suppressed crucial evidence supporting Truscott's claim of innocence.

There was a statement by a nine year-old girl, in clear and accurate detail, that Steven and Lynne crossed the bridge on his bike just as he and two other boys said he did. Neither the defense nor the jury ever saw that statement.

Mrs. Harper testified that is was unlikely that Lynn would ever hitch-hike. But according to three police reports, that's exactly what she and her husband first suspected when Lynn went missing. Neither defense nor jury ever saw those reports.

If there was one piece of evidence that sealed Steven Truscott's fate it was the report by the pathologist, Dr. Penistan, that she died shortly before eight o'clock in the evening of June ninth, 1959. But Dr. Penistan changed his mind about that seven years later … after what he called "an agonizing reappraisal".

He told Harold Graham … by then the assistant OPP commissioner … that Lynne Harper's death could have been at any time in a 48 hour period. Significantly, this was in May of 1966 … just as the Supreme Court of Canada was about to review the Truscott case … It might have been a bombshell … if the justices had known about it. But somebody struck Penistan's name from the list of prospective witnesses before the hearing started.

In the end Justice has been served. The Truscott case opened the debate on capital punishment in Canada, and for fifty years stood as the example of the horror of state murder of someone who could be innocent.

We've come a long way from the good old days when hanging anyone - let alone a teenager - was an acceptable form of justice. Each time we hear of a murder conviction overturned we give thanks that Canadian lawmakers rejected the state's role as executioner. Each time a conviction is overturned we become more determined that our prison system is one that protects the public, but also treats its inmates with some dignity.

Amen.

Ironically it was a Conservative government which commuted Truscott's death sentence.

The Conservative government under then prime minister John Diefenbaker commutes Truscott's sentence to life in prison.

Our New Conservative government would not be so forgiving given their rhetorical fixation on Law and Order and punishing Young Offenders as Adults. After all Harper ain't no Dief the Chief.


SEE:

Say No To Capital Punishment

Why I Oppose Capital Punishment

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Say No To Capital Punishment

Two little words this morning prove why Capital Punishment, murder by the state , is never justified.

Steven Truscott.

For fifty years he awaited justice, while the justice system failed him and Lynne Harper the victim of a brutal rape murder. This morning the Ontario Court of Appeal acquitted him.

Acquittal, but not innocence, likely for Truscott

Sentenced to death in 1959 for the murder of a 12-year-old, there is no avenue for the Canadian legal system to declare him innocent

The real sexual predator who brutally raped and murdered Lyn escaped justice, while Truscott suffered from a justice system that saw him as their best bet for conviction and would not be deterred by facts to the contrary.

Fifty years, the life of a man, to appeal an injustice, resulted finally in justice being served. Truscott is an excellent case for why capital punishment is never justified, it is an irreversible judgment.

No other crime in Canada has divided public opinion as much as the tragic story of the June 9, 1959, murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper, for which Truscott, then 14, was ultimately convicted. He was the youngest person ever sentenced to death in Canada (his death sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment). Still protesting his innocence, he began serving his sentence. His appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal was dismissed. Leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied.

Public opinion ran passionately in favour of his guilt. Pierre Berton had written a sympathetic verse in this very paper a week after the trial and later said he had never known a more violent response to any column he had ever written.

He was called "a sob sister for a monster" and callers expressed the hope that his own daughter would soon be raped. Yet, seven years later, the tide of opinion shifted spectacularly.

The public came to believe that Steven's trial suffered from serious deficiencies, questionable expert testimony and unfairness to the accused. The case was discussed everywhere, including the House of Commons. All because of Isabel LeBourdais, who had published The Trial of Steven Truscott in March 1966. The book was a passionate, emotional defence of Steven Truscott and a scathing denunciation of his trial. She was named woman of the year by The Canadian Press.

Isabel LeBourdais, whose book raised questions about the Truscott investigation, talks with Steven Truscott in 1968 outside Collins Bay Penitentiary.

The doubts raised by the book and the language in which these doubts were framed struck a nerve deep in the Canadian consciousness. As a result of the book, the minister of justice, for the first time in Canadian history, directed a reference to the Supreme Court of Canada as to the propriety of the conviction. It is also the first time in which that court heard live testimony.

The Supreme Court affirmed the conviction on May 4, 1967, but doubts remained. Justice Emmett Hall, one of the most eminent judges of the court, wrote a powerful, passionate and stinging dissent and would have directed a new trial. He sharply criticized the conduct of the Crown. An already inflamed public, he said, was further inflamed by the Crown's improper suggestions and the trial judge's improper charge to the jury. Many Canadians believed that of the nine judges on the Supreme Court, only Justice Hall got it right.

Because of the Truscott Case capital punishment in Canada was reconsidered and eventually removed from the criminal code.

Canada banned the death penalty because of fears about wrongful convictions, concerns about the state taking the lives of individuals, and uncertainty about the death penalty's role as a deterrent for crime.

The case of Steven Truscott, who was just 14 years old when convicted of a murder that many continue to believe he did not commit, was a significant impetus (although certainly not the only one) toward the abolishment of capital punishment.

The return to having Capital Punishment in the criminal code is a platform from the old Reform Party that is the base of the Harper Conservatives. And it came up in the Conservative Leadership race.

Tony Clement declared that he believes that capital punishment should be an option for extreme cases. "My personal view is that in the case of serial killers and murderers of police officers, for instance, that it would be appropriate in those circumstances". -- Tony Clement

This decision should bury that forever. But if it doesn't then my reply to the Law and Order right wingers who endlessly lobby for state murder, will forever remain two little words; Steven Truscott.

The first private bill calling for abolition of the death penalty was introduced in 1914. In 1954, rape was removed from capital offenses. In 1956, a parliamentary committee recommended exempting juvenile offenders from the death penalty, providing expert counsel at all stages of the proceedings and the institution of mandatory appeals in capital cases.

Between 1954 and 1963, a private member's bill was introduced in each parliamentary session calling for abolition of the death penalty. The first major debate on the issue took place in the House of Commons in 1966. Following a lengthy and emotional debate, the government introduced and passed Bill C-168, which limited capital murder to the killing of on-duty police officers and prison guards.

Contrary to predictions by death penalty supporters, the homicide rate in Canada did not increase after abolition in 1976. In fact, the Canadian murder rate declined slightly the following year (from 2.8 per 100,000 to 2.7). Over the next 20 years the homicide rate fluctuated (between 2.2 and 2.8 per 100,000), but the general trend was clearly downwards. It reached a 30-year low in 1995 (1.98) -- the fourth consecutive year-to-year decrease and a full one-third lower than in the year before abolition. In 1998, the homicide rate dipped below 1.9 per 100,000, the lowest rate since the 1960s.

The overall conviction rate for first-degree murder doubled in the decade following abolition (from under 10% to approximately 20%), suggesting that Canadian juries are more willing to convict for murder now that they are not compelled to make life-and-death decisions.

All of Canada's national political parties formally oppose the reintroduction of the death penalty, with the exception of the Reform Party which supports a binding national referendum on the issue.

The debate over capital punishment was renewed once again in 1984. There was a free vote in the House of Commons on the topic in 1987. Supporters of capital punishment narrowly lost the vote, 148 to 127. The Bill to reintroduce capital punishment came from Conservative backbencher Gordon Taylor. Taylor initially introduced the Bill to reinstate capital punishment for Clifford Olson in 1986 but the Speaker of the House refused the Bill, as a law cannot be passed relating to a specific person. Taylor therefore changed the Bill to cover all those convicted of first degree murder and mass murders. In the end though, the Bill was not successful.

The debate concerning capital punishment is far from over, and it is an issue that is not likely to end in the near future. For now though, the debate seems to be dormant. Yet at a time when Canadians are demanding that criminals be held accountable for their actions and that justice be put back into the justice system, it is not likely that the call for the reinstatement of capital punishment will ever go away. Poll after poll shows that Canadians support the use of capital punishment in certain circumstances, but the political will is simply not there. The recent acts of terrorism in the United States might spur a renewed call for capital punishment, even if only for terrorist murders.

In 1976, capital punishment was removed from Canada's Criminal Code. After years of debate, Parliament decided that capital punishment was not an appropriate penalty. The reasons for this decision were due to the possibility of wrongful convictions, concerns about the state taking the lives of individuals, and uncertainty as to the effectiveness of the death penalty as a deterrent.

• In 1961, legislation was passed which reclassified murder into capital and non-capital offences. Capital murder referred to planned or deliberate murder, murder that occurred during the course of other violent crimes, or the murder of a police officer or prison guard. At this time, only capital murder was punishable by death.
• On December 10, 1962, Arthur Lucas and Robert Turpin were the last people to be executed in Canada.
• In 1967, a bill was passed that placed a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, except in cases involving the murder of a police officer or corrections officer.
• On July 14, 1976, with the exception of certain offences under the National Defence Act, the death penalty was abolished in Canada. The bill, C-84, passed by a narrow margin on a free vote.
• In 1987, a free vote regarding the reinstatement of the death penalty was held in the House of Commons. The result of the vote was in favour of maintaining the abolition of the death penalty, 148 to127.
• In 1998, Parliament removed the death penalty with the passing of An Act to Amend the National Defence Act and to make consequential amendments to other Acts, S.C. 1998 c. 35.
• In Canada, the abolition of the death penalty is considered to be a principle of fundamental justice. Canada has played a key role in denouncing the use of capital punishment at the international level.
• The Supreme Court of Canada has held that prior to extraditing an individual for a capital crime, Canada must seek assurances, save in exceptional circumstances from the requesting state that the death penalty will not be applied.

SEE:

Saddam and the CIA

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Homolka's Child

The announcement , or rumours, that S&M kink freak and serial killer Karla Homolka had given birth, reminded me of this....

The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

W.B. Yeats The Second Coming



And thinking of her victims, this....
I HAVE NO MOUTH, AND I MUST SCREAM


See

Karla Homolka

Serial Killer


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Afghanistan Government Approves Of War Crimes

Canadian troops fighting and dying for a corrupt regime in Afghanistan, which even now continues to oppress women and girls, just as their Taliban counterparts do. Kettle, pot, black.

Afghanistan: Draft Law Grants Immunity to Warlords If approved by the Meshrano Jirga, or Afghan Senate, the bill would exempt the warlords from any kind of reprimand for their previous acts, like violations of human rights and other war crimes.

Outspoken female MP, Malalai Joya, was among the handful of Members of the Afghan Wolesi Jirga or Lower House, who voiced concern over the passage of a controversial bill supporting immunity for former warlords, mujahideen commanders and communist-era leaders. The 249-member Lower House introduced the bill on Wednesday in the wake of rising criticism from human rights groups, such as Human Rights Watch (HRW), demanding punishment for those complicit in war crimes after the expulsion of Soviet forces from this landlocked country, beginning in 1988. The bill, introduced and forcefully supported by pro-jihadi MPs, asks the Afghan government not to accept any internal or foreign pressure for trials of those involved in the civil strife. If approved by the Meshrano Jirga, or Afghan Senate, the bill would exempt the warlords, most of whom are now part of the Afghan government or sitting in either House of Parliament, from any kind of reprimand for their previous acts, like violations of human rights and other war crimes. Malalai Joya, the outspoken female MP from Afghanistan's western Farah province, however, ruffled the House as she launched into a tirade against the former warlords and communist-era leaders. The 28-year-old Joya was the first to speak out against these same warlords during the Constitutional Loya Jirga held in London in late 2003 as a constituent assembly for a future government in this insurgency-wracked country. Joya said the proposed law would excuse the warlords of the crimes they had committed, which, she said, would be an injustice against the Afghan people, who are the ultimate sufferers and victims of the previous conflict and the existing insurgency and unrest. She failed to be recognized, however, by House Speaker Yunus Qanuni, who himself is one of those appearing in the "war crimes" list of the HRW. Along with a few others, she staged a walk-out from the male-dominated Lower House.

See:

Schools In Afghanistan

Sir Robert Bond Idiot

Afghan Woman Speaks Out

The War For Women's Rights

Democracy In Afghanistan

Where Are The Women?

Afghanistan

Women





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