SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH BEGINS

After months of wrangling over funding, legal issues and timing, the
inquiry into how Guy Paul Morin was wrongly convicted of murdering his neighbor
starts today.

The first witness is Robert Dean May, a jailhouse informant who told two
trials Morin confessed to murder, sobbing "why did I kill that little girl?".

May, who was described as a pathological liar by experts, later told friends
he concocted the story.

The first issue the public inquiry will delve into is the role jailhouse witnesses
played in the misscarriage of justice that lead to an innocent man being covnicted of first
degree murder.

Nine-year-old Christine Jessop, Morin's next door neighbor in Queensville, just north of
Toronto, disappeared October 3rd, 1984.

Her body was discovered in a field almost three months later, and autopsies revealed she
was sexually assaulted, beaten, slashed and stabbed.

Morin was acquitted of first degree murder in 1986 but
convicted in July, 1992 aftera retrial

Morin was exonerated in January, 1995 when DNA tests
showed he was not the killer.

In both trials, two men testified they heard Morin confess in the Whitby jail
on June 30, 1985.

SOURCE:
The Calgary Sun
Written by: Tracy Nesdoly
February 10, 1997