Canadian True Crime - Karen and Krista Hart [1]

Episode Date: January 15, 2022

A two-part series — On August 4, 2002, Nelson Hart took his three-year-old twin daughters, Karen and Krista to play by Gander Lake. They both ended up in the water, and the decisions Nelson made in the aftermath baffled everyone—including the RCMP. This is the shocking case of a murder investigation that forever changed the face of the Canadian justice system.Look out for early, ad-free release on CTC premium feeds: available on Amazon Music (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts, Patreon and Supercast. Full list of resources, information sources, credits and music credits:See the page for this episode at www.canadiantruecrime.ca/episodes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly through advertising. The podcast often has course language and disturbing content. It's not for everyone. Hi everyone and happy new year. This is part one of a two-part series. Part two will be released in a week. And if you're getting ad-free episodes on Patreon or Supercast, part two is available right now. Before we continue an additional content warning, this case is about the death of a child. There are no graphic details in the case, but please take care when listening. This case takes place in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, specifically in the central part of the island of Newfoundland.

And in that area is a small town of about 11,000 residents called Gander, a town that had originally grown around an international airport that became famous after September 11, 2001. when North American airspace was closed and flights were forced to land there. The town of Gander is situated near a long and relatively narrow lake called Gander Lake. It's 56 kilometres long and several kilometres wide. On part of the shoreline is a small unattended recreation area that's popular with local families in the summer months. It's called Little Harbour and it's made up of a trio of small coves.

one which has a wharf and a public boat launch, and there's also a pebble and sand beach perfect for swimming, playing and relaxing. Even though Little Harbour is only 12 kilometres away from the town of Gander, it has a real secluded and isolated feel, because the only way to access it is to drive 1.5 kilometres down a gravel road, surrounded by a coniferous forest. Sadly, in 2002, Little Harbour, would be the scene of a tragic incident, an incident that would stun the community and baffle the

police. And almost two decades later, the public opinion on the case is still as polarized as it was on the day that it happened. It was a pleasant summer morning, Sunday, August 4th, 2002, and the town of Gander was preparing for their annual festival of flight celebrations, or Gander Day, locals call it. It's a civic holiday to commemorate one of Newfoundland and Labrador's premier family festivals, an event where locals enjoy live music, picnics, a car-smashing demolition derby, fireworks, a parade and other festivities. One of the families planning on attending the demolition derby was the Hart family, made up of married couple Nelson and Jennifer Hart and their twin daughters, Karen and Krista. The girls were three and a half years old and they had

cherubic little faces and big brown eyes. Jennifer had already fed the girls and gotten them ready to attend the demolition derby. They were dressed in the same matching outfit and their dark alban hair cut into classic page boy haircuts was immaculate as usual. But 28-year-old Jennifer wasn't ready herself. She needed about 45 more minutes. So 33-year-old Nelson suggested to her that he take Karen and Krista to Little Harbour. They loved the swing set there and because the town was preparing for Gander Day, they knew it would be quiet and they could swing back and pick Jennifer up afterwards. At first, she was surprised at the suggestion. Nelson wasn't really one for taking the girls' places. In fact, he'd only taken them to the park on his own once before.

But Jennifer agreed, grateful to have some extra time to get herself ready while the girls had a play at the park. Jennifer walked them all to the door and Nelson promised they'd be back to pick her up within an hour. But he was home much sooner than that. After about only 30 minutes, he berthed through the front door of the family's apartment, yelling, Christa fell in the water. Jennifer immediately noticed that her husband was alone. Neither Karen nor Krista were with him.

Realising that both three-year-olds were back at Gander Lake, Jennifer got back in the car with Nelson and they sped back towards Little Harbour. As they pulled into the parking lot, Jennifer's eyes transfixed on something floating in the water near the wharf, that seemed to be the same color as the t-shirt she had dressed Krista in before they left that morning. Her heart sank. Neither Jennifer nor Nelson knew how to swim. Little Harbor was deserted because the locals were preparing for Gander Day.

They were the only ones there. There was no one to ask for help. Jennifer jumped out of the car and yelled at Nelson to drive off again and come back with more help. So Nelson sped off, pulling into a gas station and restaurant on the Trans-Canada Highway just outside Gander. It was about 10 a.m. when he entered the gas station and yelled that his daughter had fallen into Gander Lake. The cashier immediately called 911 for an ambulance, assuming that the man's daughter must have been in the car and they could treat her there. But as they waited, he noticed that the behaviour of the father was a little. little odd. He didn't seem to be emotional or overly upset. In fact, he seemed calm and certainly

wasn't acting the way you might expect a man whose daughter had fallen into a lake and needed medical assistance would act. And then, after a few minutes of waiting, the father suddenly dashed back to his car and sped back towards the direction of Gander Lake. The ambulance hadn't even arrived yet, and the cashier was bewildered about what was going on. Eventually, the emergency crew from Gander's small municipal police force put two and two together and arrived at Little Harbour, which was of course all but deserted. The only people there were Nelson and Jennifer Hart, who were at the water's edge desperately trying to recover three-year-old Krista,

who was still floating face down in the water. A paramedic quickly jumped in and swam to retrieve her. She was still breathing, but her twin sister Karen was still nowhere to be seen. Constable Paul Matheson was one of the first RCMP officers on scene, and when he saw Krista floating in the water, he believed that Karen was going to be found alive and well, likely hiding out somewhere waiting for her father to return. As Krista was loaded into the water,

the ambulance, Nelson and Jennifer jumped in their own car, ready to follow it to hospital. As the ambulance rushed off with Krista and her parents followed, Constable Matheson knew it was now up to the RCMP to find Karen. RCMP Constable Matheson thought quickly, figuring that it was likely Karen may have been hiding in the woodland that surrounded the bay. He started running around the the shore, yelling her name at the top of his lungs. He ran the length of the U-shaped bay, and when he got to the other side, about 270 meters from where Krista was found, his heart sank as he looked across and spotted a small body face down in the water. Even though the constable

was experienced, he would later say that it was one of the toughest moments of his career. He launched himself into the water and swam out to recover the second twin, Karen. Sadly, it was too late and the three-year-old was declared dead. Things weren't faring so well with Krista either. After arriving at the local hospital, she was airlifted to the Children's Hospital in the city of St. John's in critical condition. She was soon declared to be brain dead. The next day, the tough decision was made for Krista's

life support to be turned off, and she died in her mother Jennifer's arms. In the aftermath of the tragic incident, as plans for the girls' funerals were being made, the community really came together, offering support, donating money and making sure that Nelson and Jennifer were feeding and taking care of themselves. No one quite knew what had happened, but what they did know was that Nelson and Jennifer only had two children and now they were both gone. So whatever happened, local residents of Gander were there for the grieving parents in a way that a small town always is in the wake of a tragedy, but especially this small town. This was August of 2002, not even a year after 9-11, when the town

took in those stranded passengers. They knew exactly what to do. On the 9th of August, Karen and Krista Hart were laid to rest. The church was filled to the brim with loved ones and strangers alike. The community had been touched by the tragedy and wanted to pay their respects to the two young lives that had been cut short. Around 600 people showed up to bid farewell to the girls, including Ganderthamere at the time Claude Elliott, who remarked that there wasn't a dry eye in the church.

Local residents who knew or interacted with the family described Karen and Krista as typical three-year-olds, often scurrying around and wanting to explore. While they were twins, they weren't identical twins and their personalities couldn't have been any more different. Karen, who was slightly older, was remembered as being reserved and quiet, and she looked up to Krista almost as though she were her big sister.

Krista was rambunctious and loud, and Karen would watch her intently and then copy her, a dynamic that Krista reveled in. Their similarities lay with their appearances. Both girls had chocolate brown hair and big, dark eyes. Karen looked more like her mother Jennifer, while Krista resembled her father Nelson, but they loved to dress exactly the same. An unidentified relative described the girls to the National Post as your typical little darlings. Krista and Karen's tiny white caskets sat at the front of the church. Jennifer and Nelson had chosen open caskets, with Jennifer taking care to dress her girls in their best matching dresses,

with matching Winnie the Pooh sandals and neatly curled hair. She wanted everyone to see how sweet her girls were. One local would say to the National Post that they look like two porcelain dolls. As the chaplain spoke to the congregation, Jennifer wailed in grief and clung tightly to Nelson. The devastated parents put on a united front. The mourners sat in silence other than the sound of sobs. While Jennifer and Nelson really wanted a nice headstone, all they could afford were two small white cross. in a cemetery on the outskirts of gander.

After the funeral, though, away from the crowds, in quiet corners, locals were whispering to each other, trying to make sense of what had happened that day. The story was that it was an accidental drowning, but there were details making their way around the rumour mill, details that didn't quite appear to be adding up. How did two three-year-old girls die in an accidental drowning close to the shore. And why did it seem like no one had tried to save them?

As the local community grappled with the awful news of the two three-year-old twins drowning in Gander Lake, the RCMP were also trying to get to the bottom of what happened. And Nelson Hart's story was unusual. He told investigators that when he first drove Karen and Krista to Little Harbor, he parked the car and let them out. But when he wasn't looking, the preschoolers managed to escape, running quickly from the car down to the end of the wharf, and suddenly Krista fell in.

When Nelson realized that no one was around to ask for help, he panicked. He didn't want to jump into the water after her because he couldn't swim, but he also couldn't just stand there doing nothing. He explained to investigators that the only thing he could could think of was to drive back home and get Jennifer. So he jumped in the car and sped off again, leaving his two three-year-old daughters at the lake, Krista floundering in the water, and Karen presumably looking on helplessly. From there, he drove about 12 kilometres, passing a gas station

and a hospital to the apartment to pick up his wife who also couldn't swim. He said that when they arrived back at Little Harbour, that's when Jennifer saw Krista floating face down and told him to go and get help again, proper help this time, so he drove to the gas station and asked the cashier to call 911 before returning to Little Harbour. That was Nelson's story. The RCMP soon made an announcement that they were looking into filing criminal charges against 33-year-old Nelson Hart. A spokesperson, and told the media that it was an unusual situation given it was twin sisters who drowned at the same time and there were far too many questions to simply classify it as an accident.

So they were no longer treating it as a routine sudden death investigation anymore. Quote, we've called it strange, bizarre, unusual, suspicious. It fits all of those descriptions. The unanswered questions were starting to pile up. Constable Matheson had noted that there were three small boats tied up at the wharf at Little Harbour, which could have been used by Nelson to try and rescue Krista when she fell in, but he didn't. Many people within the community and even further afield also questioned why or how. A father would choose not to risk his own life to try and save the life of his drowning child. Constable Matheson would say to the National Post,

it's not even a question because the answer is obvious. If that was your little girl who fell in the water, what would you have done? Investigators wondered why Nelson didn't use a cell phone to call for help. They discovered that he actually had two cell phones with him that day, his own cell phone and one that he actually found the night before. See, the family had been at Gander Lake the night before Karen and Krista drowned, and they found someone else's cell phone there. The cell phone was still on, it still had battery,

so Nelson put it in the glove box. It was still there during the incident at Little Harbour the next morning, along with his own cell phone. RCMP investigators asked him why he didn't use one of the phones to call for help when Krista fell into the water. Nelson said that when it came to his own cell phone there was no minutes on it. It would be pointed out that in Canada, even if a mobile phone is not on a plan or has all credit used up, emergency calls can still be made to 911.

Nelson had no explanation for why he didn't use the second phone that he found, although it was turned into the rightful owner who turned it straight on and noticed it was working perfectly. Additionally, there was a phone at the apartment where Nelson lived with Jennifer, so one of them could have called for help when he went to pick her up, but no one did. Investigators were also suspicious about the fact that Nelson and Jennifer had both chosen to leave the scene to follow the ambulance carrying Krista, while Karen was still unaccounted for. And there was more. Why was Karen's body found more than 270 meters away?

from the wharf where Krista fell in. The investigation was hampered by the fact that there were no witnesses. Dozens of RCMP investigators had scoured the town of Gander to try and identify at least one potential eyewitness to what happened that day, but by all accounts, Gander Lake was deserted that morning other than for Karen, Krista and Nelson. It seemed that the next focus of the investigation would be, be digging into Nelson's story and trying to figure out why he made the decisions he did. And there was a lot to dig into.

Five years before the tragic incident at Little Harbor on Gander Lake, Jennifer Hicks had just moved to Gander with her sister, from Musgrove Harbor about an hour away by car. The sisters were best friends and had plans to take a business administration course, but because Jennifer had left school after grade 10, she wanted to get her high school diploma first. The sisters moved into a housing apartment complex, when Nelson Hart happened to live.

Jennifer bumped into him in the hallway, and the pair hit it off. In a later interview with the Globe and Mail, Jennifer would say that she was drawn to Nelson because he seemed caring. She would later write a book about the case, where she disclosed that there was something about, Nelson that was oddly attractive, but she couldn't put her finger on it. Within a few months,

the relationship had progressed, and Jennifer had moved into Nelson's apartment. She was overjoyed. Now, Nelson had health challenges. He had epilepsy and had suffered from grand mal seizures from around nine months old onwards. Grand mal seizures are what most people think about when they think of epilepsy. These kind of seizures are caused by abnormal electrical activity throughout the brain and they can cause a loss of consciousness and violent muscle contractions. Nelson's epilepsy had been inherited from his father's side of the family and in a long-form article by McLean's magazine, his mother Pearl indicated that the seizures had a very large impact on his life

and had caused mental health problems including depression. Nelson wasn't able to work and lived on social assistance. When Jennifer first met him, he had a personal care worker paid for by the government who came by his apartment a couple of times a week for general help. And when the PSW couldn't come, then typically Nelson's mother Pearl would swing by to help him out. Nelson's seizures were triggered by anything that caused over-excitement, over-stimulation or stress. And during a seizure, Nelson would experience confusion, blackouts and memory loss. While Nelson's health issues weren't a problem for Jennifer,

she started to see some quirks of his personality come out after she moved in with him, that she didn't much like. While Nelson had seemed to be kind and caring when they were first dating, in a later interview with the Globe and Mail, Jennifer explained, quote, person. He started getting violent, getting mad and smashing up furniture. Nelson Hart was known as a troubled person and at times displayed emotional instability and immaturity. According to reporting by McLean's magazine, he only had a grade four education. He spent three years trying to pass grade

five and by the time he was 12 years old, his mother Pearl met with school officials and ultimately decided it would be best if Nelson left school altogether and stayed home with her. Nowadays, Nelson may likely have been able to access support and accommodations that would allow him to continue his schooling, but this was 1981, in a small town in Newfoundland and Labrador, so the options were likely limited. In any event, from that point on, Nelson lived with his mother at home, and he was still doing that when he hit his mid-dive. 20s on disability support. It was an arrangement that seemed to suit them both, until his mother Pearl got a new boyfriend and Nelson threatened to kill him. Pearl ordered Nelson to move out.

When Nelson met Jennifer, he was living independently in a small, low-income apartment with the help of the personal care worker and his mother. Now Jennifer was working as a waitress at a local motel restaurant, and she enjoyed it. She loved meeting and interacting with the customers, and she also loved the tips that they left. But after Jennifer moved in, Nelson became jealous and possessive and asked her to quit her job to stay home with him. And she did. With no income other than social assistance, the couple were living week to week, trying to stretch Nelson's disability checks as far as they could. Nelson wanted to do. Nelson wanted to do. Nelson. Jennifer home all the time. If she left the apartment to go shopping with what little money they had,

Nelson would wait in the parking lot. On one occasion, he held a knife to his throat and threatened Jennifer that she would be charged with murder if he killed himself. According to Jennifer's book, at first she thought Nelson's mood swings might have been linked to his grand mal seizures, and she felt a great deal of empathy for him, determined to help him get through. it. But the mood swing started to become more prevalent and she realized that she was wrong. They did not match up to the seizures. One example from the book says, quote, Nelson began to yell and started slamming his forehead into the bedroom wall. It wasn't a seizure that much Jennifer knew for sure, but he was hitting his head hard enough that she expected

to see him put a hole clear through the drywall and suddenly he grabbed at a hole. his hair and pulled out a handful. Jennifer didn't like this behavior at all. It scared her, but she loved Nelson, she loved taking care of him, and she enjoyed being needed by him. She perceived his jealousy and codependence as love for her. And every time there was a violent outburst, he begged for forgiveness and love bombed her with generous gestures until she gave in. In 1998, the following year after they met, Jennifer found out she was pregnant. At about five months into the pregnancy, she discovered they were having twins, and she was absolutely ecstatic. But Nelson, on the other hand, didn't feel the same.

According to his mother Pearl, Nelson was worried about his epilepsy, because sometimes his hands would clench up when he had a seizure, and he was scared he might accidentally hurt a baby, and now there would be two of them, not to mention two extra mouths to feed when they'd already struggled to support themselves. The following March of 1999, the twins were born. Karen followed by Krista a couple of minutes later. When they were discharged from hospital,

their crib remained in the box in their bedroom. Nelson said he was going to set it up, but evidently he hadn't found the time or motivation. A year later, Jennifer Hicks and Nelson Hart tied the knot down at the local courthouse. It was a very casual and laid-back affair, with Jennifer wearing a t-shirt and jeans. That's all they could afford. Nelson's mood swings had continued. While his mother Pearl would say that there was nothing Nelson wanted more in life than to work and have a family,

Jennifer's account was different. She observed that he paid very little attention to their two girls, and on occasion even appeared to resent them. She gave several examples in her book. One time she was feeding the girls and Nelson came in asking for something. He shouted at Jennifer, You care more about them youngsters than you do me. She described another occasion when Nelson kicked his foot through the girl's bedroom door

when they wouldn't stop crying. She said that he never actually hurt the girls, but could be mean to them. And money was becoming even more of an issue. With two new mouths to feed, Nelson took to gambling to try and inflate what little they had, often gambling the night away until the slot machines shut down. As the saying goes, the house always wins,

and before long Nelson had gambled it all away. The family were barely holding on to their tiny apartment. Nelson had been selling their furniture, including their bed, forcing them to sleep on the floor. They literally live day to day and experienced frequent food insecurity, which meant they often had to skip meals or rely on the local food bank for assistance. According to the Canadian Council on Social Development, the poverty line income cut off for a couple with two children in Newfoundland and Labrador in 2001 was about $30,000 a year. And the approximate amount that a family would have received on welfare

would have been $17,000 to $25,000 a year, far less than what was needed to keep them above the poverty line. And Nelson's abusive behaviour continued, but every time there was a mood swing or a violent outbursts, burst, he begged Jennifer to take him back, and she always did. In April of 2002, things came to a head when Nelson's health landed him in hospital in St. John's. For Jennifer, their fragile house of cards had finally fallen, and it was time to ask for help. She called Child and Youth Services, the government department in Newfoundland responsible for

child protection, foster care and more. She apprehensively told them that she and Nelson did not have enough income needed to support their family, and feeding and caring for their three-year-old twins had become increasingly difficult. They were having trouble meeting Karen and Krista's basic needs. The family were assigned a social worker who assessed the situation with the girls and their home life. She found that the family were facing both food and housing insecurity. They were behind in rent to the amount of $1,600 and were in the process of being evicted. The family briefly relocated to Prince Edward Island before moving back to Gander, but again, they faced housing insecurity. Social workers considered taking the girls from the family until Jennifer and Nelson sorted out where they would live,

but Jennifer's father stepped in and offered for them to stay with him in the short term. This worked for a while, but by June of 2002, two months before the incident at Little Harbor, the family were experiencing homelessness again, and social workers were again called in to assess their options. Nelson's mother, Pearl, said she would not allow her son or his family to live with her and asked her younger son, Mervyn, if he would take them on. Mervyn was prepared to take the girls and Jennifer, but not Nelson, his brother, as they weren't close.

Nelson wasn't a fan of that plan and angrily stated that he didn't want his girls calling his brother, daddy. But the social workers told him it was either that or foster care for the girls. But before a decision was made, the family managed to find a family managed to find another apartment, so Karen and Krista could remain with their parents as long as social workers continued to check in. According to court documents, the issue of possibly apprehending the girls was resolved at that time. There were no current plans on the table to remove them from their parents. Fast forward to the 29th of July 2002, just six days before the day that Karen and Krista

died, another social worker came to check in at the heart home to see how things were going. She received a very hostile reception. Nelson was confrontational and behaved in a very abrasive manner, making it abundantly clear that he was angry at the social worker for what he perceived to be too frequent checking in on the children. In reality, she was just doing her job. At one point, though, Nelson grabbed a handful of dishes and threw them into the sink to demonstrate to the social worker just how angry he was about her visit. But also, during the same conversation, both Nelson and Jennifer expressed concern about some behaviours that Karen was exhibiting. They complained that they were exhausted with the difficulties of dealing with these behaviours

and expressed fear that she was developing delays. The social worker made a note, but there were no further incidents until that tragic day at Little Harbour. At least 16 RCMP officers had been assigned to the heart case, but after the funeral of Karen and Krista, that number was ramped up to 20. A plethora of questions remained, and investigators weren't the only ones trying to find answers to explain why the tragedy happened. The rumour mill was running rampant, and the general consensus in the town was now that Nelson had some involvement in the death of his two girls. When a tragedy of

that magnitude hit such a small town, the grief is palpable. And as is often the case, the community were vocal about wanting some resolution in the case, but the investigation was in its early stage. While RCMP investigators remained very tight-lipped, by November, three months later, they decided to give an update, but it didn't satiate the public's desire for answers. A spokesperson essentially said they were still trying to figure out what happened at Little Harbour, but the only person who could give them that answer was Nelson Hart. Behind the scenes, RCMP investigators had been playing their cards very close to their chest, intentionally keeping the public in the dark about investigation tactics and whether or

not there was any evidence that Nelson was somehow involved in the girl's deaths. He had been brought into police headquarters to be interviewed by investigators and would ultimately be interviewed a few times. Each time he repeatedly deflected the accusations that he was involved in Karen and Krista's deaths, saying that it was an accident. By the third interview, which took place just a month after the girl's deaths, The RCMP had developed a theory that he had killed Karen and Krista on purpose. During the interview, they pressed hard for a confession,

but Nelson stubbornly stuck to the same story he had provided the day that the girls drowned, which was this. Krista fell off the wharf into the water, and he couldn't swim, so he panicked and left both girls there to drive into Gander to get help from his wife Jennifer, who also couldn't swim. Nelson's demeanor was described as somber. He added that he was in shock after he saw Krista fall off the wharf and into the deep water. The investigator had several pertinent points to clarify, though.

Quote, What I can't understand is why you didn't go to Krista when she went off the wharf and into the water. Nelson responded in his thick, Newfoundland accent, that he was afraid he would drown. He said he was nervous when he was in a boat with his dad, and he stays clear of the water. The next question was, why when just Christa went in the water, did he not take Karen with him to the car? He explained his thought process at the time, quote, when Krista went off the wharf, I was in shock, and I forgot about Karen. I just thought I got to get to Jennifer, I can't swim, so I left to get someone who could get her out of the water.

Nelson denied any blame in their deaths. Stress was one of the triggers for grand mal seizures for Nelson, and the stress of the interview itself caused him to go into a seizure during it. None of the officers knew Nelson had epilepsy, but one of them there had experience with the condition, recognized it as a seizure right away and was able to quickly take the appropriate actions to make sure Nelson was safe. He observed that the seizure lasted for about a minute and Nelson tried to hide behind a door when it happened and then when he seemed to be coming out of it, he seemed

confused for just a few seconds. Now up until his third interview with the RCMP, Nelson had repeatedly told the same story that it was an accident. But about two months after the tragedy, he proactively contacted the RCMP and told them that he had not been truthful in the previous statements. It was still an accident, he claimed, but there was more to the story. Now, Nelson told investigators that he drove to the wharf

and as he was letting Karen and Krista out of the car, he suffered from an epileptic seizure and passed out. When he came to, he said he saw Krista in the water and this sent him into a panic. When Nelson was asked by RCMP investigators why he hadn't told them that he had an epileptic seizure right away, why it took him three pretty intense interviews and two months, he said that he was afraid that he would lose his driver's license. He had lost it at least once before. As it turned out, he told his mother Pearl about the seizure and it was her who urged him to tell the RCMP.

Nelson was asked to provide more detail about what exactly happened after the seizure. He said he came to, he felt dopey, but could see Krista in the water, but Karen was nowhere to be seen. He couldn't swim, he was scared of the water, and in his panic, all he could think of to do was drive home and pick up his wife. After this new information, the RCMP acted quickly, notifying the Motor Registration Division to tell them that Nelson's seizures would be a danger to the general public if he's allowed to continue to drive a motor vehicle. His driver's license was promptly revoked.

As far as the local public were concerned, investigators remained very tight-lipped, But eventually, everyone would find out why. As the months turned to years, the RCMP major crimes unit remained determined to keep the case of Krista and Karen Hart alive. But as time progressed and people carried on with their lives, the case went colder and colder. There were no new leads, and by the third year, the investigation had come to a standstill. With a lack of physical evidence in the case, RCMP investigators decided that they needed to use another tactic to secure an arrest warrant. It was time to bring in Mr Big.

The Mr Big tactic is a procedure developed by the RCMP in British Columbia in the early 1990s and is sometimes referred to as the Canadian technique. It's a last-ditch tactic that police may choose to use when they have a maximum. main suspect, but not enough evidence to arrest them, and the case has gone cold. Regular listeners of this podcast know that Mr Big undercover stings are elaborate operations with large budgets. The goal is to invite the suspect, in this case Nelson, to be part of a fictitious crime gang, and after the suspect starts participating in the illegal operations of the gang, which are actually a series of stage scenarios with undercover agents playing criminals

within the gang, the suspect is showered with praise, friendship, a sense of belonging and money. The situation culminates in a highly anticipated and hyped up meeting with the head of the gang, the Mr. Big character. He is yet another undercover officer whose job is to further manipulate the power dynamic to get a confession out of the suspect. The Mr Big technique is highly controversial. This is not your usual police undercover operations where an undercover agent infiltrates an existing gang of criminals. This is an operation where the police pretend to be the gang themselves

and lure in the suspect to participate in fake criminal activities. It's so controversial that it's banned outright in the US and the UK. Each operation takes months, sometimes years, and requires serious budget allocation. After all, a gang of fake undercover officers who stage fake crimes and exchange fake payments needs to be convincing. The scenarios often end up being so flashy and elaborate that they have been shown to influence people who are actually innocent of the crime they're being investigated for to provide a false confession. In the case of Nelson Hart, before approaching him in the first scenario to kick off the operation and deliver their first offer, the RCMP conducted what they call lifestyle surveillance on him, to get a picture of his lifestyle habits, his financial situation and his activities.

The goal of this part of the operation is to find areas where the suspect is vulnerable and then use those to lure them into an undercover sting operation. It didn't take the RCMP long to uncover Nelson's main vulnerabilities. He was unemployed and living in poverty. A judge in the case would note that at this time in Newfoundland and Labrador, a couple living together without children would receive a total of $968 in monthly income and rent from social services. and this amount was then subject to various deductions. It was clear that Nelson needed money.

The RCMP also discovered that he lived a socially isolated lifestyle. He very rarely left his house and on the occasion that he did, it was almost always in the company of his wife, Jennifer, who he seemed to have a codependent relationship with. This was something they wanted to factor into the construct, of the scenarios that would play out as part of the Mr. Big operation. They wanted to be Nelson's new best friends. After the surveillance was complete,

a strategy was developed and the operation began with the first scenario. It all starts pretty innocently. In this case, an undercover investigator posed as the owner of a trucking company who happened to run into Nelson and told him he needed help searching for his sister. He helped the owner look for his fake sister, and then they got to talking, and the trucking company owner ended up offering Nelson a job as a courier. Now, as you'll recall, when Nelson first told the RCMP about his seizure in 2002, they had immediately notified the Motor Registration Division that he had active epilepsy

and his driver's license was promptly revoked. By the time the Mr. Big operation was initially, In initiated in 2005, Nelson had been given medical clearance to drive again and had his full driver's license back. This would work nicely with the type of scheme they had in mind. The next part of the plan would be for Nelson to discover that the trucking company was also the front for a criminal gang operation, all fake of course, but first, Nelson had to believe that the first meeting happened purely by chance. This was the first meeting or scenario out of 63 that undercover RCMP investigators would set up with Nelson. They wanted him to feel comfortable enough among the other members of the fictional crime syndicate

that he would reveal to them what really happened at Little Harbour because they believed he had not told them the truth. Early in the undercover operation, however, there was a fear that it was all going to fall apart before they were able to secure a confession from Nelson. He had grown suspicious of one of the characters, a man with a long jacket and a short haircut, who Nelson thought looked like the archetype of a police officer. He confronted the man,

but the undercover officer quashed his suspicions by going on a diatribe about how much he hated the police. Nelson came to believe that he was really who he said he was, a serious mobster. So over the course of four months, Nelson came to believe that he was part of a powerful crime syndicate. He left behind his old life of unemployment, poverty and social isolation, and took on jobs for the fictional crime gang, believing that he was working alongside a national crime network with a global business reach. We all know how Mr Big works. The undercover RCMP and investigators built up friendships with Nelson, introducing him to other alleged gang members and their

girlfriends. In reality, every single person that Nelson was introduced to was an undercover RCMP officer. According to court documents, he participated in scenarios or simulated criminal tasks over those four months, which included transporting all-terrain vehicles and delivering packages which contained credit cards that he believed had been stolen by the gang. For these and more tasks, he was paid more than $15,000 in cash, which for a person relying on social assistance and food banks was unimaginable wealth. Nelson reportedly used a chunk of this money to purchase a headstone for Karen and Krista. He was also sent on several trips across Canada, to Halifax, Montreal,

Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver, staying in top hotels with room service on tap and occasionally going to fine dining restaurants, all paid for, of course, by the gang. Money needed to be flowing freely for the undercover operation to be believable. Most of the Mr Big Scenarios initiated by the RCMP involved going to strip clubs gambling and dining at high-end restaurants. When it came to Nelson, he was indulging in a high-rolling lifestyle that he wasn't familiar with, but wanted to be familiar with. He grew closer to his new friends and felt like he'd gone from rags to riches, grateful for these new people and experiences and his new life. One of the RCMP investigators, will call him Pat, was given the key role of essentially becoming Nelson's best friend in the gang.

It was almost too easy. Nelson became especially close to him, constantly expressing gratitude, telling him that he loved him, and even confiding in him that the only thing he missed while out on his endeavors with the crime syndicate was his wife, Jennifer. There were a few occasions where Nelson had brought Jennifer along on his trips without checking with the gang first, and Pat would admonish him, telling him that bringing his wife had demonstrated a lack of trust. And that was the crux of this elaborate sting, to gain Nelson's trust and plan to seed in his mind that he needed to give them something significant that might get them to trust him again. The RCMP hoped that he would be comfortable enough to confide

in them about what really happened that fateful day. Nelson was told over and over that the number one rule of this crime syndicate was honesty and loyalty. It was something that was repeatedly stressed and in the meantime he was shown how those who had demonstrated those traits were treated. Nelson had been socially isolated for most of his life and he came to view the undercover RCP investigators as his family. According to court documents, he would constantly call his new friends looking for work, and he would wait anxiously for their planned meetings. He expressed a desire to leave Newfoundland so he could work for the organisation full-time, and even said he would leave his wife if that's what it took.

One day, Nelson was riding in the car with an undercover officer, when all of a sudden he demanded they pull over so he could relieve himself. When the undercover officer pulled over in a nearby plaza, Nelson got out but instead ran up to a store that was closed, grabbed the door handle and repeatedly pulled at it. Then he started turning in circles with his head bent at a strange angle. The undercover RCMP officer would recall that he shouted at Nelson to ask what he was doing, but instead, quote,

He wasn't looking at me, it was like he was looking over me. The officer told him, you're weird. And then Nelson replied, I'm not weird. Let's go. The officer came to the conclusion that Nelson must have been experiencing a seizure and found a second to sneak away and call his supervisor to see what he should do. It's not known what the supervisor said, but after this incident, the RCMP continued to ask Nelson to drive relatively long distances

on at least five more occasions. He drove between Ontario and Quebec in a cube van, and drove a U-Haul truck from New Brunswick to Nova Scotia. Eventually, the investigating officers became so uncomfortable with Nelson's driving that they started asking to drive instead, and eventually just stopped accompanying him on his missions altogether, leaving him to drive by himself. Evidently, Nelson was feeling very comfortable.

On April 10, 2005, almost three years after the deaths of Karen and Krista and two months into the Mr. Big operation, he was eating dinner at a popular sports bar in Montreal with one of his new criminal friends, who we'll call Paul. They were talking about how the crime syndicate had strong ties to the sex worker trade in Montreal, and that sometimes, when a sex worker did something bad, the crime gang had to deal with them. Paul asked Nelson if there was any limit to what he would do for the crime.

syndicate, to which he replied, no, and then he added something else. While he had always told the gang the same story that he told the police, that the reason his daughters ended up in the water was because he had a seizure, at the sports bar he told Paul that he had done something so terrible that it would bring tears to his eyes. Nelson added that he had dealt with two people in the past and those two people were now in the ground. This was proof that there was no limit to what he would do with the crime gang. Paul, the undercover officer, was surprised by this unexpected information. He wanted more, but he had to play it cool. He rolled his eyes at Nelson and told him that he didn't need to lie

to impress him. Nelson then took his wallet out of his pocket and produced a photograph of Karen and Krista. Placing it in front of Paul, he chillingly stated, I'll leave it at that. But he didn't. He continued even further explaining that the two girls in the photograph were his flesh and blood and that he, quote, got rid of them. Paul didn't push for any more details or information, but this was the moment that RCMP investigators had been waiting for. The thing was, though, they didn't expect it to come at that time. Paul was not recording the conversation and they were still building up their scenarios

to lead to the big Mr Big meeting. He made notes of their conversation afterwards but there needed to be a recorded confession for an arrest warrant to be signed. So the RCMP said about making sure they had laid all the groundwork needed to convince Nelson that a full confession with all the details was in his best interests.

And then, when they had it, they could finally ask him, why? Why did the two little girls have to die? That's where we'll leave it for part one. And this isn't just another Mr. Big case. It was chosen for a very specific reason and you'll find out why in a week's time on Saturday, January 22nd.

If you access the premium feeds on Supercast and Patreon, you'll find part two available for you. you right now. Special thanks to Emily G. Thompson and Eileen McFarlane for writing and research in this case. In the meantime, you might want to check out my podcast recommendation today, which is Voices for Justice, which was started by Sarah Turney, the sister of Alyssa Turney who vanished from North Phoenix in 2001. Thanks to Sarah's work raising awareness for Alyssa's story, the case has progressed to a point where it is now awaiting trial, and Sarah is devoted to covering other cases in need of justice. She isn't just a storyteller. She has firsthand experience advocating for victims and their family members in the true crime

space and has spoken at some of the premier podcasting events about ethics and true crime. And each episode of Voices for Justice features exclusive interviews with families, survivors and advocates, and ends with a call to action that help cases in need. of justice. This isn't just any true crime podcast. Subscribe to Voices for Justice on your favorite podcast player. Canadian true crime donates regularly to Canadian charitable organizations that help victims and survivors of injustice. This month we have donated to Black Lives Matter Canada, who are working to fight against anti-black racism and creating spaces to build communities that offer education, events and more to support.

healing. You can learn more at black lives matter.ca. To find out more about this or any Canadian True Crime episode and for full credits and resources, check the show notes or see the page for this episode at Canadian Truecrime.ca.com slash episodes. Thanks to the host of True for voicing the disclaimer and also to We Talk of Dreams who compose the theme song. I'll be back soon with another Canadian and true crime story. See you then.