Note: This was my 12th grade Canadian history ISU. If you're interested in learning more about Steven Truscott, e-mail me and I'll send you my bibliography.
It all began on June 9th, 1959. It was a hot summer evening on the military base near Clinton, Ontario. Families sat out on their porches, children rode their bicycles in the street. It was an idyllic scene. Little did the people in this peaceful picture realize that in the next few days, a series of events would occur that would lead to one of the greatest injustices to ever occur in the history of the Canadian judicial system. At its conclusion, two children were robbed of their lives; one due to a vicious murder and sexual assault, and the other because of the tunnel vision of the police department, the crown attorney, and the general public.
On that night, fourteen year old Steven Truscott was riding his bike past the local school when his classmate, twelve year old Lynne Harper stopped him and asked for a ride to the highway. Steven consented and the two rode off together. A short time later, Steven dropped Lynne at the highway and rode back to the school. That was the last time anyone would ever see Lynne alive – two days later, her body was found in a nearby wooded area. Steven, being the last person seen with Lynne before her death, was quickly arrested and convicted. He spent ten years in prison, then was paroled and lived quietly under an alias in southern Ontario. Only recently has he broken his silence in an attempt to prove what many people have known since the beginning of his trial – that Steven Truscott is an innocent man. Since his initial arrest, Steven has maintained that he did not kill Lynne Harper. At the time, no one who knew him believed him capable of murder. He was a popular young man who was well-liked by everyone. He was the star of his football team and he did well in school. As said by his classmate, Gail Coombs, “[t]here was never any talk among the girls that he was a guy you had to watch out for.” At the trial, no previous history of violent or overtly sexual behavior was established. Furthermore, while in prison, Steven subjected himself to a series of psychological tests in an attempt to prove his innocence. None of the tests either proved his guilt or suggested any sort of psychological disorder. Therefore, why would a seemingly normal fourteen year old boy one day decide to commit murder? Steven had nothing to gain from killing Lynne, she was simply a classmate who he was indifferent to. During the trial, the crown was never able to prove or even suggest a possible motive.
Even in the present day, when Steven would have nothing to lose by admitting his guilt, he still maintains his innocence. In 2000, the CBC series the fifth estate filmed an episode about Steven’s case. To Julian Sher, the segment producer, Steven made the statement, “I’m not afraid. Talk to anyone you find, investigate wherever things lead you. I know I’m innocent and I’m not afraid of what you’ll turn up.” It is that attitude which has led to the confidence of so many people in Steven’s innocence. As said by Julian Sher in his book Until You Are Dead, “Steven Truscott’s claim of innocence was nothing new. But his willingness to let journalists probe into the deepest corners of his life was.”
Steven Truscott suggests that he has no secrets in his life regarding the death of Lynne Harper, and based on the witness testimony heard at trial, he is undoubtedly truthful in that statement. Steven’s version of the events of the night of June 9th, 1959 are as follows. In the early evening, he was riding his bicycle around his neighbourhood. He eventually decided that he would bike to the river to see if any of his friends were there. He passed the school at approximately 7:25 pm and this is when Lynne stopped and asked him for a ride to the highway. Since the river and the highway were in the same direction, Steven agreed. They rode down the county road, past Lawson’s Bush (where Lynne’s body was later found), over the bridge that spanned the Bayfield River, finally stopping at the highway. The distance covered was just over one mile and took them only a few minutes to travel. After dropping Lynne at the highway, he turned around and returned to the school grounds. He estimates the time of his arrival back at the school grounds to be sometime between 7:45 and 8:00 pm. Witness Richard Gellanty, a classmate of Steven’s told police that he saw Steven leaving the school at 7:25 pm, verifying that part of Steven’s story. Likewise, witnesses Dougie Oates and Gord Logan testified to seeing Steven and Lynne crossing the bridge over the Bayfield River at a time that they estimated to be 7:30 pm. Gord Logan further testified to seeing Steven cross the bridge alone, in the opposite direction “about five minutes” after he had seen Steven and Lynne initially cross it. Allen Oates, the older brother of Dougie Oates, backs up his brother’s testimony by saying that he remembered seeing Steven standing alone on the bridge at 7:45 pm. At 8:00 pm, several more witnesses admitted to seeing Steven on the school grounds, looking calm and normal, with no discernable sweat, blood, or scratches on him or his clothes.
Despite the numerous witnesses whose testimony could have benefited Steven, the two most memorable witnesses were another two of Steven’s classmates, Jocelyne Gaudet and Butch George. Despite their conflicting stories, they became the Crown’s star witnesses. Jocelyne testified that she had been on the county road near Lawson’s Bush at 7:30 pm because Steven had told her to meet him there for a date. There were several holes in her story, including her statement which said that Steven had come by at 5:50 pm that night to visit her. This was easily disproved by Steven and his mother, who could both testify that Steven was out running errands at that time. Jocelyne also claimed to have met up with Butch George while she was waiting. She asked him if he had seen Steven anywhere and he said that he had not. Yet in Butch’s initial statement, which he later recanted, he said that he saw Steven and Lynne crossing the bridge around 7:30 pm. Butch later spread a rumour around school that he had seen Steven and Lynne going into the bush together.
Neither Jocelyne nor Butch were considered trustworthy by the people who knew them well. Around the school, Jocelyne had the reputation of being an unreliable, fame-seeking braggart. Likewise, Butch was described by one of his classmates as “the biggest liar I’ve ever met”. For the jury, it was the word of Butch and Jocelyne who said they never saw Steven on the county road between 7:30 and 8:00 pm versus the word of Dougie Oates, Allen Oates, and Gord Logan who all testified to seeing Steven during that time period. Although, in the schoolyard, no one would have trusted Jocelyne and Butch, the jury chose to believe them.
The greatest challenge for the Crown at the trial was proving that Lynne was murdered between 7:30 pm and 8:00 pm, since during that time, Steven’s whereabouts were not precisely accounted for. It was pivotal for them to prove that Lynne died during that time period – without proof of her time of death falling within that period, the Crown had no case against Steven.
Enter Dr. John Penistan, the coroner who performed the autopsy on Lynne’s body. By putting some of Lynne’s stomach contents in a vial and holding them up to a light to examine them, he placed the time of death between 7:15 and 7:45 pm, a time that was relative to the time of her last meal. With that evidence in hand, the Crown had the final nail to hammer into Steven’s coffin.
From a modern perspective, Penistan’s methods appear highly unreliable. If fact, modern scientific technology has proven Penistan’s method to be ineffective and his conclusions incorrect.
Interestingly enough, seven years after the trial, Dr. Penistan announced publicly that the statement that he originally gave at the trial was false and that Lynne could have died any time during a forty-eight hour period. Had that been his original statement, the Crown’s case against Steven would have been significantly weakened. As stated in the book, The Trial of Steven Truscott, “If a different time of death had been estimated, all the other evidence would have been meaningless.”
Some believe that Penistan was influenced to make his time of death conclusion such that it would fit in with the case that was being gathered against Steven. Said Dr. John Butt, a former chief medical examiner for Nova Scotia, “[w]ell, the big question here is whether or not that information said to have been developed from the stomach contents … was meeting some predetermined parameter.”
Undoubtedly, even if witnesses and experts were not forced to make statements that only supported the Crown’s case, the police department and the Crown both suffered from a severe case of tunnel vision with regards to solving the case of Lynne Harper’s murder. The police were content to merely charge someone with the crime so they could revel in the glory of solving such an atrocious crime. They cared not for the true story or the capture of the real murderer, instead they just wanted to give closure to the people of their small town. As summarized by Linden MacIntyre of the fifth estate,
Steven himself concurs with this. “It was the easiest route out for them, and a fourteen year old kid was the easiest possible way.”
Following Steven’s initial questioning, the police never investigated any other suspects, despite the fact that there were many leads that could have easily been followed up on. When Steven dropped Lynne off at the highway, he saw her get into a car that he said looked like a 1959 Chevy with a yellow or orange license plate or bumper sticker. Later, in Lawson’s Bush, fresh car tire marks were found on a tractor trail near Lynne’s body. In response to the 1959 Chevy, a few cars were stopped and their drivers questioned. The police did nothing to follow up on the tire marks in Lawson’s Bush.
Another suspect that the police could have interrogated was Sgt. Alexander Kalichuk. He was an officer at the nearby military base who had a history of sexual assaults and pedophilia. Only a few weeks before the trial, he had been arrested for stalking young girls. His whereabouts on the day of Lynne’s murder were unknown. And, to top it all off, in early July he suffered from a breakdown. According to the psychiatrist who evaluated him, Dr. A. M. Beach, he was suffering from “overwhelming anxiety, tension, depression, and guilt.” Although the evidence against Kalichuk is merely circumstantial, it still should have warranted investigation by the police.
Along with Kalichuk, many young men moved through the base over short periods of time. With some of these men, alcoholism was a problem. There were many other possible suspects, but the fact that the police did not investigate further is proof of their determination to convict Steven as the murderer of Lynne Harper. Henry Lamb, a resident of the nearby town of Goderich, said it best when he stated, “At the base there would have been a thousand men to question, but instead Steven just got railroaded.”
In this case the police seemed to ignore all evidence that didn’t point to Steven as the killer. An example of this was the finding of Lynne’s locket 280 ft from the northern tip of the bush. This was problematic for the Crown because, according to the case that they built against Steven, he entered the bush about 200 yards from where the locket was found. No fingerprints aside from Lynne’s were found on the locket which meant that it would have had to have fallen off of Lynne’s neck as she had entered the bush. This entirely defeated the Crown’s description of how the events of the murder occurred.
The police’s treatment of witnesses also suggests their desire to pin the crime on Steven. While in questioning, Dougie Oates and Gord Logan were accused of being liars and conspiring with Steven to cover up the crime that the police were accusing him of. They also admitted to being heavily pressured into changing their stories.
On the eighth of December, 1959, Steven Truscott received a guilty verdict. He was sentenced to death by hanging, a sentence that was later commuted to life imprisonment. While incarcerated, he was a model prisoner and eventually received parole in 1969. Shortly after, he married and moved to Guelph, Ontario, where he quietly raised a family and worked as a millwright. Since his release he has lived a life entirely free of crime.
Over the years, there have been a number of movements by citizens everywhere for Steven to be exonerated. Although he is free from prison, Steven is not free from the title of convicted murderer. As said by his wife, Marlene, “[h]e is not scot free. He goes to bed every night as a convicted murderer, and he wakes up every morning as a convicted murderer. Why should he be?” Most recently, the Association in Defense of the Wrongfully Convicted filed a section 690 appeal, which gives the case directly to the justice minister to review, on his behalf. The decision on this appeal is still pending. With any luck, justice minister Anne McLellan’s ruling will finally allow Steven Truscott, in the eyes of the law, to be what he has always been – an innocent man.
Update
October 28th, 2004 - The Federal Justice Minister has ordered that Steven Truscott receive a new appeal in the Ontario Court of Appeals. The court of appeals can ultimately dismiss the appeal, order a new trial, deliver an acquittal, or substitute the verdict. No time frame has been set on the appeal, but it does put Mr. Truscott one step closer to his goal of acquittal.