Canadian True Crime - The Death of Darcy Allan Sheppard [6]

Episode Date: July 1, 2022

[Part 6 of 6] The conclusion. 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.

Hi everyone, this is the final part of a six-part series. I know it's been heavy and grueling, and this episode is the same. It's action-packed until the very end. Obviously, a longer episode means the entire production process blows out, so thank you so much for your patience with a slight delay. And while I'm here, I wanted to thank you for all the lovely emails and messages. I don't have time to reply at the moment, but I read them all and I appreciate them so much. I also wanted to let you know that after this, I'll be taking a bit of a break to spend time with my family, but we'll be back with a new episode in a month on August 1st. Now, before we start, I have to give the standard disclaimer.

As part of today's episode, you'll hear some interview clips, but the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect my opinion or the official position of this podcast. Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly throughout The podcast often has coarse language and disturbing content. It's not for everyone. The last episode described the end of the court proceeding, where the special independent prosecutor explained why the charges were being withdrawn. In layman's terms, his argument was this. When you take into consideration Michael Bryant's fear that night, which was justified because of Darcy Allen Shepard's past history of aggression, Michael's driving of the Saab

was consistent with what any other decent driver would have done in the same situation. And that's why there was no reasonable prospect of conviction. Michael Bryant's criminal defense lawyer, Marie Henan, also provided some commentary, telling the court that when the objective facts were fully exposed and examined, they pointed to one and only one conclusion, Michael's innocence. The Michael Bryant, who pulled up at the court, who pulled up at the court, the lights that night was described as someone celebrating his 12th wedding anniversary with his wife, until a raging Darcy Allen Shepard cycled into their sphere and interrupted their warm and

nostalgic night of reminiscing. At the end of the proceeding, Justice P. Bentley praised both the Crown and the defence, saying that they worked beyond what he had seen in many years and that they represent the best interest of the justice system. After the Special Independent Prosecutor put Michael Bryant's untested version of events on the public record that day, many media outlets jumped on board to describe Michael as an every man who was reacting in fear and panic, to Darcy, a deranged cyclist hothead, consumed by demons from his awful past. Behind the scenes, Darcy's supporters and his father, Alan Shepard, were reeling. They felt blindsided. The Crown is not required to explain why it's withdrawing charges,

and most of the time it doesn't, which is something that can often be frustrating for those on the victim or survivors' side. But that day, Richard Peck made the decision to not only explain the charges, but to do it in detail as part of a full presentation where he referred to evidence that hadn't been tested at trial. He also introduced the scope of Pellidi evidence, those incidents that apparently demonstrated Darcy had a prior history of aggression with other drivers and used that as a justification for Michael Bryant's response that day. That evidence hadn't been tested at trial either. In fact, none of the evidence referred to by the special independent prosecutor was available to the public.

So Alan Shepard decided to apply under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, to see what documents he could get access to. As that was being processed, Michael Bryant published his memoir, 28 seconds, revealing that he and his wife were not celebrating their anniversary that night because their marriage was on the rocks and he was under immense pressure in his career, something of a midlife crisis. That was the driver who pulled up to the lights that night, one who'd described tiptoeing on eggshells at home

before a tense evening where they debated, argued about the future of their marriage. And it was the same driver who had told Jennifer Wells of the Toronto Star that he felt liberated when leaving politics, that he no longer needed to put an election sign on anyone's lawn, and he saw the Saab as a symbol of his new freedom. He was quoted saying, Road rage is back in my life, just three months before Darcy Allen Shepard died. And in the book, he described Darcy as big, drunk and raging, a beast, a growling man who seemed to be howling at him and screaming at people on the sidewalk.

But he also used the book to position himself next to that growling man, revealing that he too was engaging in hazardous use of alcohol during his time as Attorney General. He explained that his memoir was an offering for other alcohol addicts, adding that he saw many Darcy Allen Shepherds in the 12-step recovery rooms he attends, describing their tattoos and scars and hoarse voices, their bones out of joint and their closely cropped hair. The connection between closely cropped hair and the 12-step program is unknown, but the message coming through was that Michael Bryant had flaws too. He wasn't so much a Toronto elite or a golden boy. In fact, he was just like Darcy Allen Shepard. Then he went on a media tour to promote his book, which included multiple appearances on the TV shows of his high-profile acquaintances,

prompting accusations of favouritism to downright conflict of interest. Three years after Darcy's death, Alan Shepard finally received the Collision Reconstruction report. report. Its conclusion that both men shared responsibility for what happened jumped out at him. So too did the statement that there was no evidence to suggest that Darcy Allen Shepard physically attacked Michael Bryant or affected the steering of the Saab. And when Alan compared this report to the transcript of the court proceeding, he soon saw some pretty significant inconsistencies. Later in today's episode, you'll hear from Alan Shepard. And I'll be asking him some questions that I was left with after doing my review and analysis of the materials in this case.

But first, I want to take a trip back to May 25, 2010, the day that the special independent prosecutor explained the reasons for his decision to withdraw Michael Bryant's charges. Like, first of all, I didn't know the court the case was even, I just was waiting. and then a friend of mine calls up and she says, oh, did you see the news? Michael Bryant's like been acquitted, or I don't know if it's acquitted if you've never been to trial, but basically he's got off. Charges withdrawn, that's it.

So I was like, what? How is that possible? And she said, it's on the news. Victoria and her husband, Steve, were the primary two eyewitnesses who were close to the lights at the mid-block pedestrian crossway. They saw the altercation right up until the card drove off with Darcy clinging to the side. You've heard their 911 calls and clips from the full statements they gave that same night.

Behind the scenes, Victoria was alerted to this podcast series. And if you follow the Canadian True Crime Facebook page, you might have seen that she identified herself in a comment on one of our Facebook posts. From there, she and I started emailing, which led to an interview of sorts. There's little value in asking Victoria to rehash what happened that night, since she and her husband Steve gave permission to publicly release their full statements, and they both still stand by them. Instead, I wanted to ask her a few key questions that have been swirling around as I reviewed everything. And before we continue,

in the interests of fairness and balance, I want to emphasize that my questions to Victoria are intended as a counterbalance to some of the things Michael Bryant stated in his memoir. In no way am I implying that what Victoria said in her statement, or what you'll hear in her conversation with me, is something that should be believed over what Michael Bryant asserted and wrote in his book. It's true that she and Steve gave their original sworn statements separately, hours after Darcy Allen Shepard died. And it's also true that Michael's.

gave his statement seven months later, under less than transparent conditions, but it's also important to remember that none of their statements have ever been tested in court by a trier of fact, like a judge or a jury. I asked Victoria how she felt in the aftermath of Darcy Allen Shepard's death, when it became a prime feature of the news cycle and the story twisted and changed. After about a couple of days, I don't really know. know the time scale because I was so upset by the whole thing. I couldn't really, I had to stop listening because suddenly it went like, you know, from this accident happened on Blur Street and Michael

Bryant had hit this cyclist to like the cyclist attacked him and he was scared for his life and you know, he grabbed his steering wheel and he jumped in the car and all this stuff and I was so upset because that's not what happened. So I called the I called the police woman who interviewed me, and I said to her, I can't watch the news. This is awful. Where are these witnesses who's saying this stuff? Like, we were the only people there, you know? You can see that in the video.

There was one video where you could see me, even with my hand in the air, kind of going back and forward, showing him the telephone. You know what I mean? You could see my hand. And so I just called her and she was like, you know, it's just the press. Don't worry, it's just the press. stopped, I stopped kind of listening to it because I found it very upsetting. Because we'd given our statements, we'd given our 911 one call, and then suddenly there, then it's like a whole different story. And I kind of felt that if, you know,

they started portraying Darcy in such a terrible way and I kind of thought that if it had been me on the bike, they couldn't really have done that. You know what I mean? Why do you, why do you say that? Because, you know, if it had been me, because I'm, I don't have a history of, you know, alcohol addiction or drug addiction. So I just kind of felt that, you know, like if it had been anyone else on the bike, they couldn't have switched it around so easily.

I found it very upsetting, to be honest. I actually started having panic attacks when I was driving, couldn't drive at night. It really affected me. Victoria did what was expected of her as an eyewitness and stayed quiet, expecting that she and Steve would eventually be contacted about the statements they had given, and they would likely have to testify in court.

They waited for months and months. So I asked her, were you ever contacted by Richard Peck or his Toronto agent Mark Sandler? No. We may not have contacted by anybody ever again, which is kind of what I couldn't believe. Like, how can you, he's got his, like, defence, but what about the prosecution? Like, how can you not interview witnesses and then just say, like, okay, we're just, I just couldn't understand it. No, never. And that brings us to May 25th, 2010, when a friend told Victoria that the charges had just

been withdrawn. Chargers withdrawn, that's it. So I was like, what? How is that possible? And she said, it's on the news. And so I couldn't believe it. and I kind of, can I say the, I basically I lived down the road from him, and I knew where he lived, and I used to drive past like the end of the road every day, and I saw after a couple of days a convertible in his drive,

and suddenly I kind of kept thinking that can't be possible. Since Victoria brought up the convertible in the driveway, I have to do some explaining before we continue. This case has a huge amount of information available, and in trying to keep the series down to six parts, It would be impossible to include it all. But when I went through Darcy Ellen Shepard's background and history, I made a decision to include every publicly known thing that he did and said that could be criticized. And the reason I did that was because I wanted to avoid bias. I didn't want to cherry pick what facts to include.

Just lay it all out there. But when it came to Michael Bryant's side, he's a public figure who has done many public interviews and written a memoir, So there's a lot more information about him in the public eye, and I had to be much more selective about what I choose to focus on. There were a few things that he said and wrote after Darcy Allen Shepard's death that raised eyebrows for showing a lack of self-awareness. And one of the things that I left out of this series was something that he wrote about in his memoir.

When the charges were withdrawn, it meant that his ban on driving was lifted. In his memoir, Michael wrote that at the press conference, a reporter shouted to him, Are you going to get another convertible? He said he bit his lip and said, we'll see. But he wrote that the question actually gave him an idea. That same afternoon, he decided to ride the subway up to the station located at the intersection of Bloor and Young Streets, where he said he first saw Darcy throwing garbage and picking fights with people. There was a higher car place there and he rented a convertible, writing in his book

that he hadn't driven a car for nine months. Quote, I put the top down, then I went straight into a traffic jam for 45 minutes, wondering what it was exactly I had missed. I got a phone call about an hour later from a friend saying she'd heard I was in a convertible. I said I was. She told me to pull over, put the top up and go home. So I did. In his book, he wrote that some people might have perceived what he did as the old Bryant Chudspar, Chudspa, being a Yiddish word meaning gall, audacity, extreme self-confidence. But he wrote that it was much more than that, describing his love of convertibles as a celebration of his sobriety, and he also wanted to get back on the horse and not be afraid anymore in a car.

Broadcaster Amanda Lang actually brought this up in his CBC interview, pointing out the optics of hiring a convertible the same day that his charges for criminal negligence and dangerous driving causing death in another convertible were withdrawn. He was sheepish when he responded. Victoria and Steve lived close to Michael Bryant's house at the time. And she's about to explain how she felt when she saw that convertible in his driveway. And just to clarify, this is not intended to be a judgment call about whether Michael should or shouldn't have hired a convertible.

It's Victoria's personal reaction to seeing that convertible that's important, because it's what prompted her to do what she did next. Let's continue. It's a convertible in his drive. And suddenly, I kind of kept thinking, that can't be possible. He can't be driving a convertible. If you were scared for your life and you, you know, you thought you were going to be killed by someone or whatever, and it leads you to get off, would you actually get into a convertible ever again? Like, I don't think so. So I saw it and I kind of, I saw red.

I was like, this is unbelievable. So I contacted the first police station that where we were interviewed and I said, I don't understand. like, how is this possible? And they couldn't really officially say anything to me, but they were in disbelief. And then I tried to contact the people on the letter because I got a letter from Sartler's office, which said you could call it any time to speak to anybody.

So I called the policeman on there, and they didn't call me back. And I called every day. I wasn't going to let it lie, because I wanted to know how this could be the case. And finally, I got one of the police. He spoke to me for about an hour. He told me that there was nothing wrong with a bike. And I was like, how is that possible? I don't know the forensics on the bike, like, but they said they sent it,

he told me they sent it to Virginia and that it had nothing wrong with it. And I said, but it had to because I couldn't, I couldn't wheel it. I had to carry it. And he told me that Michael had said he stole the car and I said, I'd never heard such rubbish in my life. I was standing right next to the Like, literally, I was in disbelief. I'd driven a manual my whole life. I'd never driven an automatic. No, I do because of all the stop signs. But, you know, like, you know, in England, I'd only ever driven a manual.

Here, my first car was a manual. Just to interject for a second, I too learned to drive with a manual or a stick shift. In fact, it's all that I'd ever driven for the 13 years that I drove in Australia. I've now been driving in Canada for just as long. But when we first moved here, I got a bit stressed out about having to manage the gears and the pedals on the other side of the car while driving on the other side of the road. So it's been automatics for me ever since. Kudos to Victoria for figuring it out.

My point is that I will never forget my embarrassing season of constant bunny hops as a 16-year-old learning to drive. I stalled the car too many times and a variety of different ways. so it was amusing to hear a similar reaction about stalling from Victoria. We're about to get to where she explains why she decided to reach out to Alan Shepard, but before that, she just heard that Michael Bryant said he stalled the car. Car was a manual, and I said to the policeman, if you walk in front of someone who drives a manual,

if it stools, you should get out the way, because it's going to jump forward two car lengths and knock someone off their bike and throw them over. I've never heard so much rubbish in my life. I don't think that's ever happened to anybody. I mean, maybe it has. But like I said to him at the time, you don't think that standing so close to him

if he had stalled his car, I would have seen it, and I would have said he stalled his car. There's, I drive a manual car. Like, he told me all those things. And I kind of was so annoyed. So I actually, the longest short of it is, I contacted,

Alan, because I just wanted to tell him that his son didn't do any of those things that they said he did. So I just wanted him to know that, you know, people were painting such a bad, aggressive picture of him. And I wanted to say, the picture that I had of him in those seconds or minutes was not the big, crazy, drunk, aggressive person. It was actually quiet. slightly, you know, he kind of tormented him when he turned around to him, but that was two seconds and he did nothing else after that, nothing, you know what I mean? Obviously he held onto the side of the car, which put him in danger and probably antagonised Bryant, but he didn't do anything.

I just wanted him to know that, and that's why I contacted him. Alan Shepard still lives in Edmonton, and he's now 84 years old. Earlier on in this series, I described him as someone who's always been full of love and empathy for his late son, while pragmatically acknowledging the shades of light and dark in Darcy's past. It was Ellen's brutal honesty that first caught my attention when I came across an update to the case, which was his 2015 interview on the Canada Land podcast. Alan was of course aware that I was doing this series, and while he said he was available if I had any questions, he encouraged me to research the case myself and come to my own conclusions,

which is how I prefer to work anyway. So once I got near the end, I circled back with my questions. Because we had a recorded phone call, the audio on Alan's clips is a little bit muffled at times, but I got what I needed for the purposes of this episode. I asked him, what he would most want people to know about Darcy. And as part of his response, he refers back to how he felt when Victoria and Steve first reached out to him. Well, what I want people to know about Darcy is that he was a complex individual, that he was a charmer, which meant that people liked him easily, and that he was smart.

But at the same time, he used those gifts that he had inappropriately at times. He did break the law, and he broke the law consistently. And I'm not going to excuse him over that. What I think is wrong is that what I understand to have happened at the crosswalk in his first, in his encounter with Mr. Bryant, as is presented in the, Collusion and Reconstruction Report and is presented primarily by statements from by Steve and Victoria, is that in many cases that actually came as a surprise to me. I went along at the beginning with the decision because of all that I knew about my son's

past and how he dealt with me and how he dealt with other people. And I made the mistake of judging him by his past. as I learned from talking to Steve and Victoria and hearing their statements, from reading the Reconstruction Report, and from talking to cyclists who have been in some of them in similar situations, that my son actually acted surprisingly well in that circumstance. There's more to come from Alan and Victoria, but next, we'll rejoin the story from 2013,

where he's just received the Collision Reconciliation, Construction Report and realized that it almost completely had been left out of Richard Peck's explanation for why the charges had been withdrawn. Darcy Allen Shepard supporters scheduled an event to announce the inconsistencies in the Collision Reconstruction Report to be held at the native Canadian Centre of Toronto, because as you'll remember, Darcy was Métis. A press release was distributed to the media and the event was attended by cycling at advocates, bike messengers, Darcy's loved ones, other activists and some reporters.

Alan Shepard, then 75 years old, traveled to Toronto by Greyhound Bus from his home in Edmonton. He told the crowd he wasn't looking for vengeance. He was not calling for the case to be reopened, nor did he have any objection to the charges being dropped. What he did have a problem with was that his review of the documents struck, strongly suggested that the Crown Prosecutor, quote, tweaked, massaged and cherry-picked evidence and testimony, and anything that did not support Mr. Bryant's version was rejected. Alan said that the special prosecutor ignored or rejected the Collision Reconstruction Report

and dismissed the statements from 19 eyewitnesses that did not line up with Michael Bryant's version. The statements that suggest he was at least as aggressive as the court heard Darcy Ellen Shepard had been, if not more. He told those gathered that he accepted from the start that Michael Bryant would likely claim self-defense, and he knew that Darcy's history would likely have been used to raise doubt about Michael's guilt. Alan Shepard emphasized that the injustice was not in the dropping of charges, it was in the Crown's explanation for why the charges were dropped. The documents they received so far raised serious questions, questions that they hoped the Crown files for the case might be able to answer.

And they had applied for those files as well, but the request in that case was denied. Alan said he was appealing that decision, but he was told not to get his hopes up. He added, surely justice requires more transparency and accountability than that. He went on to state that he recognises that the Crown represents. society, the community, all of us, including Michael Bryant. And while he knows that the Crown must find a balance between conflicting expectations, that balance must recognize that Darcy Allen Shepard was just as much a part of society as Michael Bryant was.

He questioned why the special prosecutor appeared to cross to the other side of what is supposed to be an adversarial relationship, to become the special. defender of Michael Bryant. He said it's not a question he can answer, but one he hopes that, quote, some of you will attempt to answer with skills, resources, experience and energy that I do not have. Alan Shepard ended his rallying cry by stating, quote, To be clear, the injustice I see is not in the decision to drop charges. It is the decision by Mr. Peck and Mr. Sandler to explain that first decision, decision in a way that exonerates Mr. Bryan of all responsibility and accountability and, in

effect, justifies what he did to my son, without the transparency necessary to support such a conclusion. He called on the media to investigate further, but not with malice. Unfortunately, the timing was not good. May 23, 2013 happened to be a big newsday for Toronto. It was just after allegations had surfaced that there was a video showing the Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine. At first, the mayor denied it was him, and that day, the media was scrambling to report on breaking news that he had fired his chief of staff, Mark Tuey, who had advised him to get help at a rehab centre. Months later, the mayor would admit that it was him on the video. But because of the unfortunate timing, with Darcy Allen Shepard's press conference held the same day,

there were less reporters there, so less stories were filed. But there was one journalist at the press conference who decided the story was worth looking into more. Jennifer Wells would write an e-book or long-form article called Lost Boy, the death of Darcy Allen Shepard for the Toronto Star. In it, she said her interest in writing up Darcy's full story was spurred when Alan Shepard described the fact that Darcy had been assigned a role in the tragedy of his death, the role of a berserker. The Toronto Star paid for their own copy of the Collision Reconstruction Report,

and Jennifer Wells would write that it shed striking new light on the details of Darcy's death, details that appear to contradict the version of events presented by Michael Bryant in his book. She details Darcy's childhood and life, piece together from interviews with people who knew him, including his biological mother Diane and his adoptive parents, Ellen Shepard, and his ex-wife Beth. The journalist also spoke with Darcy's brother David, his ex-partner and mother of his first two children, and other sources, including his friends. The Lost Boy piece is long, detailed and an amazing read. There's a link to it in the show notes.

Jennifer Wells also met with and interviewed many other people involved in the tragedy, including Victoria. By this point, they had given permission for their video statements and 911 calls to be released to Ellen Shepard, and so Jennifer Wells viewed them as well. After noticing that their statements were not consistent with the Crown's repeated assertions that Darcy was enraged and acting aggressively throughout, she got clarification from Victoria and then asked the special prosecutor's local representative Mark Sandler for a comment. He told her that he remembered doing an analysis of Steve and Victoria's statements, and quote,

If I recall correctly, there were some things in the statements that were undermined by other things we had. He acknowledged his response wasn't helpful and he no longer has the file, but then he posed a question. Even if you were to accept the veracity or accuracy of their statements, what would that mean for the Crown? His answer was, quote, Let's assume for the purposes of a discussion that Mr. Bryant came into modern at least slight contact with his bicycle, and that was what spurred Mr. Shepherd to go ballistic or get aggressive in some way toward Mr Bryant. It still wouldn't be criminal negligence causing death or dangerous driving causing death. End quote. It sounds like a cut and dry

answer, but the question wasn't really answered, and the response given appears to contain a bit of a logical fallacy. If Mark Sandler did accept that Steve, and Victoria's statements were accurate, then he would also have to accept that Darcy was not in a rage, nor was he going ballistic at any point. And if he accepted their statements that Darcy was actually quiet and passive aggressive and Michael Bryant's car did come into contact with the bike that first time, there is no way he would be able to discount charges of criminal negligence or dangerous driving causing death the way he did. Jennifer Wells also noted that Michael's version of the story was that Darcy was in a rage

before there was any contact between the car and the bike. And in his memoir, Michael had written, quote, it was Darcy Shepherd who then pulled directly in front of our car and spun his bike around to confront us, sneering at me. This is completely contradictory to both eyewitness statements and the surveillance. footage. Although Darcy turned his head back, both he and the bike were facing Ford the whole time. The journalist had contacted Michael Bryant for an interview, but he declined, so she asked him for clarification on this point, and he responded by email. This is what he said, quote, There has never been any question that Darcy Shepard was facing the Saab. The video and witnesses were clear on that point. I read.

recall, regardless of which bike wheel was closest to the car. If Michael isn't so sure when asked for clarification, then it appears to be a definite choice that he made, to write up a significantly more dramatic version of Darcy's conduct before the car made contact with the bike. He ended his response by pointing to Richard Peck's address to the court, specifically where it says, one of the largely consistent, themes is that Mr. Shepherd was acting loudly and aggressively, confronting Mr. Bryant, while he and his wife remained passive. As you'll remember, there was no further explanation given about how exactly Darcy was acting loudly and aggressively. No examples given, no eyewitness

statements were mentioned. So, did Darcy spin his bike around to confront them or not? I asked Victoria for clarification. But first, I wanted to know just how close she was to the Saab. From what I understand, you saw everything that happened up until the car took off for 100 meters with Darcy clinging to the side. I wanted to ask you, how far away were you from Michael Bryant's car at that point? So I was actually very close because, weirdly enough, on Blue Street, there wasn't any much traffic. So I was standing with my feet, my turn. My tone was on the curb. So if Darcy had put out his hand, I could have touched him.

And what was it that first caught your attention about the incident? What happened was the car was there, and then the bike pulls in front, and it was all quiet, so you wouldn't think anything was going on, nothing at all. And then suddenly Darcy turns around, and he says something like, so now you want me to move, don't you? And I was like, oh, that's weird. something must have happened, you know, for him to say that. You know, he must, something must have happened. Everything was quiet and still. They were quiet. There was no talking. Nothing. Like nothing at all.

You wouldn't know anything was going on until, I suppose, lights changed and Darcy just turned around it, and then he looked ahead and that was it. Nothing else. Michael also wrote in his book that Darcy spun his bike around to confront us, sneering. Did you witness any of this? No, no. His bike. Mike was like facing forward the whole time. And he had, he literally just turned his head, kind of look back and said, now you want me to move, don't you? And then looked forward, nothing else. Because I was kind of like, whoa, something's gone on here.

But, you know, like it, but it didn't seem like that when they first got there. You know what to me that's so quiet? I was like, wow. Oh, okay. I also asked Victoria about the part in Michael's memoir 28 seconds, where he wrote that when Darcy first pulled up directly in front of the Saab, he and his wife felt trapped. And he described Darcy as big, drunk and raging.

And they both wondered if Darcy had a weapon on him. How does that line up with what you saw? Did you think he was big, drunk and raging? No, no, not at all. It was quiet. Like I said, he literally came up, rode in front, went in front of him. And I was standing so close. I didn't notice anything at all was happening.

But that's what was so weird about the whole thing. Like Michael and his wife were quiet. Darcy was quiet. The only words that I heard were, you want me to move, don't you? In this next part, Victoria is first referring to Darcy's reaction after the Saab moved onto the back wheel of the bike, knocking the bike over and jostling Darcy.

And then when he, when the first bit, you know, where the bike went under the car, he just pulled it up. He didn't say anything. He just pulled the bike up. I think he was in shock. Like he didn't, he didn't utter one word. No words were spoken. He lifted up the bike, you know, then when he rammed into him, that was such a shock. He was on the floor. He didn't even, I didn't hear him say anything. I know people said, he said, you're my witnesses. I did not hear that. I just saw him like, look at me, throw the bag. And when he went to the car, the car was moving already, so it wasn't like he was like grabbing onto something that was moving. And as soon as he put his hands on the side, he put his foot down.

In court, the special prosecutor had implied the Crown had other eyewitness accounts who said Darcy was attempting to attack Michael, specifically citing one who said they saw Darcy in the Saab from the waist up. Now this statement was contrary to the findings of the collision reconstruction expert, and according to the report, there were only a few eyewitnesses to that first part of the incident before the Saab took off down the wrong side of the road, and Steve and Victoria were the main ones. As an eyewitness herself, I asked Victoria for her perspective on these other eyewitnesses

cited by the special prosecutor. So the witnesses who came forward, who when they said, oh, you know, he attacked him, he jumped in the car. and all this kind of stuff. I know for sure that Steve and I, it was him me, there's one other man you can see in the video. That's not Steve. You can see one other person.

And then there's the guy that took the bag from me who saw whatever happened before. And then across the road there were people. There were a lot of people and down the other side. So there wasn't anyone else who came forward. There wasn't anyone who stood with us. There wasn't anyone who came forward. You know what I mean?

Here's what Michael Bryant wrote in his memoir, about Darcy reportedly attempting to attack him. Quote, I couldn't take my two hands off the wheel even if I'd wanted to. I was struggling with Darcy Shepherd for control of the wheel. The journalist Jennifer Wells for the Toronto Star asked him for clarification on this, in the context of the Collision Reconstruction report that states there was no physical evidence or independent. witness statements, suggesting Darcy affected the steering of the Saab. Michael's response was to once again direct her to Richard Peck's presentation, in particular the struggle that caused the vehicle to turn sharply and head on to the wrong side of the road.

So now that the narrative presented by the Special Independent Prosecutor had been put on the public record by way of that executive summary distributed to the media, It was quick and easy for Michael to refer back to that when asked a specific question about what happened. You remember he also did it at that press conference held after the charges were withdrawn. When a reporter asked him to clarify why he didn't take his foot off the gas, he declined to respond and deferred to the Special Independent Prosecutor's presentation, calling it an exhaustive explanation of what happened that day. But it needs to be pointed out that the main source for that explanation appears to be Michael Bryant himself in a statement given to the Crown

without prejudice seven months after the incident and after they'd viewed all the evidence. And it's true that he did not have to give a statement at all. It is his right under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to remain silent. So that begs the question, What might have happened if Michael didn't give a statement? Obviously, the Crown always has the burden of proof. So a prosecutor would have referred to evidence like the sworn statements of those 19 eyewitnesses,

any testimony they might give in court, the audio of the 911 calls, and the findings of experts like the Collision Reconstruction Report. On the other side, if Michael Bryant upheld his right to silence, the only way a defense could have been mounted is essentially the same, to suggest what his side of the story might have been through witness testimony and defense exhibits. It's highly unlikely that whatever this evidence is that the special prosecutor mentioned, evidence behind a firewall that corroborates Michael Bryant's version of events, is enough to completely override all the other evidence that is publicly available.

It deserve to be tested. in court before a trier of fact, but I digress, back to his version of events. After the Saab accelerated into Darcy, sending him over the hood and onto the road, Michael Bryant wrote what happened next. I'll quote a paragraph from 28 seconds before we cross to Victoria. He wrote, quote, I was now especially terrified of taking my eyes off him. But in order to back up, I had to. I looked behind me, turned my back on the beast.

It looked clear enough. I put the Saab in reverse. As I was looking back, Shepard hurled his backpack, containing a heavy bike lock at us. It went sailing over my head. I put the car in first gear and tried to drive around him. Outraged, he raced towards the front of our car. I remember Susan screaming, oh my God, over and over. Chasing after us, he leapt at the Saab as if in slow motion.

Shepard landed hip first to break his fall. The way you see stuntmen as cops do the hood slide on crime shows. It made a crunching noise. I felt the impact of a man over 200 pounds landing on my car. He then grabbed the windshield wiper and bent it back toward him. He began pulling himself toward me, hand over hand as if the wiper were a rope. The strength of the man was extraordinary. He seemed almost superhuman. His upper torso was now on the hood's edge, driver's side, with the car still moving forward. He swung around, put his right arm inside the door, his left armpit around the side mirror.

He held up his legs, a feat of some strength, no doubt assisted by the adrenaline that I later learned Darcy so often sought. The car suddenly swerved sharply to the left, almost 45 degrees. I have no recollection how that happened. He must have grabbed the wheel. In wrestling for control of the car, we crossed over to the south side of the street, heading westbound into the eastbound lane.

End quote. So according to Michael Bryant, the reason the car swerved to the left, which is how it ended up on the wrong side of the road, in the opposite direction of travel, was not his fault. He claimed it was because Darcy had latched on to the side and was trying to control the steering wheel. Now, Victoria actually referenced this in her original statement.

As she saw it, the Saab was already heading over to the wrong side of the road when Darcy ran after it and latched on. Just another reminder here that this is a counterbalance. neither of their statements have been tested in court. But something has to be said for the fact that Victoria's sworn statement was given hours after Darcy died. She didn't know any of the people involved, she had no personal agenda influencing her perception, and she couldn't have known what the future held for this case. Here's what she said.

Then the guy in the car started to drive off on the wrong side of the road, The man on the bike gets up and starts to run after him. Probably maybe ran, not very good at distances. It was pretty much kind of not, it was across the road at an angle. Halfway through, he jumped on the side of the car. So the car wasn't going too, too fast, but it was kind of going to go, and he was running fast. He jumped on the side, and he literally put his arms, both arms,

over the driver's side of the door. But it wasn't like the driver was, like, scared of him. You know what I mean? It wasn't like he was scared. They were both very angry. It was kind of like, I think what he thought maybe was that the driver would stop. But the driver then put his foot straight down on the gas and at the top speed with the man dragging on the car like in a movie, like holding on for dear life. I don't think he could let go. I wanted her to clarify again in the context of what Michael Bryant wrote in 28 seconds. But I had other questions as well, like what happened to Darcy's backpack or messenger bag?

The way Michael wrote about it, there was an obvious implication that Darcy was intentionally using his bag with the bike lock as a weapon. Now, Victoria, you were the person who picked up that backpack because it landed at your feet. So can you tell us what you saw? Okay, so basically that was after he'd been, you know, Michael had banged into him and he had gone onto the bonnet of his car and then he fell into the road. So he was kind of sitting on the driver's side, but not near the driver's side. Like, you know, he had bounced off it onto the road and he was sitting there. And he just looked, it was like he was in disbelief and he had the backpack in his hand.

Michael was reversing back because he couldn't go forward because the bike was there. So he was reversing between Darcy and the bike. and he'd already gone, like he was already ahead of Darcy when Darcy got up, threw the backpack, and then he ran towards the moving car. Like the car wasn't stationary at all. You know what I mean? He threw the backpack to me and I would never have,

I didn't think anything was in it. Now, obviously, there is no way to know what was in Darcy's backpack or what his intention was when throwing it. But since Michael Bryant gave his perception of Darcy's intention, he is Victoria's as a counterbalance since she actually picked the backpack up. But remember, neither have been tested at trial. So when you picked the backpack up, did it feel like it had a heavy bike lock in it?

No, it didn't know, because I had it on my arm and I had the bike in the other arm, like I was carrying the bike in my right hand, his backpack over my shoulder, until the guy who caught up with me, because Steve was on the 911 call behind us on the pavement. He was talking to them. And I just, I don't know what I even thought. Why did I pick it up? Why did I even move it?

I don't know. I just felt he was on the other side and I didn't want him to have to come back for it. It was so ridiculous. I just picked it up, handed it. And the guy said, I'll help you. Do you want me to take something? And I gave him the backpack.

And obviously, like your perception of whether there was a bike, clock in the backpack is not a categorical statement that there wasn't a biclock but also neither was Michael Bryant's he could not categorically state. There's no way he could know because how would you know if I threw my bag at you you wouldn't know it was in it. I didn't know what was in the bag and it didn't cross my mind anything was in the bag. It wasn't violent like it really wasn't violent at all. It was it was quiet. It was it was actually really bizarre. So when Darcy threw his backpack, did you feel like he was throwing it in the direction of Michael Bryant or just? No, me, 100% he was throwing it at me. He was looking at me.

He just, you know, like, it was so unbelievable what happened. You could see he was thinking like, what the hell? This guy has rammed into me, made me go right over his, like, fall onto the hood of his car, fall onto the floor and now he's driving off. I could see that. You know, I'd be mad if someone did that to me. Like it was, it was, and I think he was just, he just looked at, he looked in disbelief that that had happened.

You know, it wasn't, and he definitely, he threw his bag to me or to, you know, where I was standing. Journalist Jennifer Wells also had some questions for the special prosecutor's local agent. She asked Mark Sandler about the video surveillance, pointing out that he had referred to that evidence as the most important in the case, despite it being so inconclusive. The Crown had cited independent video experts who reached a different conclusion to the experts who wrote the Collision Reconstruction Report.

So if the most important evidence in the case was polarising and inconclusive, did the Crown consider re-interviewing the eyewitnesses at hand for clarification? Mark Sandler's reply was that they normally don't go back and start re-interviewing all the eyewitnesses at this stage of the process, adding that the interviews he did conduct at Richard Peck's direction were of Michael Bryant, his wife, and interviews and information given to them by the defence, which is of course the Scopolidi evidence, those six motorists. He was also asked if the statements given by Michael Bryant and Susan Abramovich seven months after Darcy Allen Shepard's death were taken under oath.

He replied, I can't remember if they were sworn. They probably weren't. As we've explained, they weren't. Back to the surveillance video line of questioning. The journalist also asked Mark Sandler, how was it that the opinion of the independent video experts cited by the Crown was so different to the conclusion reached by the collision reconstruction experts?

He responded that the frame-by-frame breakdown of the video surveillance footage was commissioned by Michael Bryant's defence team with the same video expert who testified at a recent commission of inquiry, and that expert had been made available to the Crown for an interview about his findings, which was conducted by Richard Peck. Mark Sandler stated that he wasn't involved in the process and added that the Crown also retained its own video expert. It's not known who the Crown's expert is, what their contribution was,

or which video expert was responsible for the opinions that informed Richard Peck's presentation in court that day. All we have to go off is that Mark Sandler referenced the frame-by-frame breakdown by the defence's expert, who was made available to the Crown. But what he didn't mention was that, that same video expert was actually discredited by the commissioner in that same inquiry. The video expert's name is Grant Fredericks, a retired Vancouver police officer turned video analyst instructor and expert witness in criminal trials. Here's a quick rundown of what happened and how his evidence was discredited.

The inquiry was about the 2007 case of Polish immigrant Robbins. Jakanski, who was tasered by the RCMP at Vancouver International Airport. The 40-year-old man died of cardiac arrest minutes later, and the Crown made a decision not to press charges against the RCMP, saying the evidence fell short and there's not a substantial likelihood of conviction in this case. After much public uproar, the Bradwood Commission and Inquiry was established to determine if charges should have been laid. There was video of the incident that had been recorded by an eyewitness, and Grant Fredericks was called as a video expert to testify in defence of the RCMP at that inquiry,

that the use of Taser was justified. Fredericks testified in 2009, the same year of Darcy Allen Shepard's death, giving the opinion that the video showed that Robert Jacob, Tzinski took three distinct steps towards one of the RCMP offices, evidence of aggression that allowed the RCMP to justify their use of taser. But the lawyer on the other side, representing the government of Poland, brought in two independent experts of their own, who separately pointed out that Grant Frederick's verification methodology and analysis was flawed.

In his final report, inquiry commissioner and retired BC Supreme Court Justice, Thomas Bradwood, sided with the two experts who pointed out those flaws and went even further to discount the opinion of Fredericks completely, determining that he didn't have the expertise necessary to reach the conclusions he presented. And quote, his opinion deserves no greater weight than the opinion of any other careful observer. And also, the Commissioner added that he personally watched the video multiple times

and couldn't see any steps taken forward, let alone three. The inquiry concluded that the RCMP's use of taser was unjustified. In response to that, it was announced that a special independent prosecutor would be appointed to review the inquiry report and determine whether criminal charges should be laid on the the RCMP. And that special prosecutor was Richard Peck. The announcement was made in June 2010, a month after the court proceeding where Michael Bryant's charges were withdrawn. Now obviously, the inquiry was done and dusted by the time it was handed to Richard Peck to review, so it wasn't him who hired Grant Frederick's for the inquiry. And when it came to Michael Bryant's case,

We know it was his defense team led by Marie Hennon, who hired the video expert. But Richard Peck's review of the inquiry findings would no doubt have included Grant Frederick's discredited testimony and the inquiry commissioner's critical comments. At first, Peck indicated that the decision to not lay charges on the RCMP should be revisited. But the following year, he announced that he had arrived at the same conclusion as the original Crown prosecutors in that case, that there was no substantial likelihood of conviction. He declined to recommend criminal charges against the RCMP

for what they did in the death of Robert Jekansky, instead recommending that the members be charged with perjury as a result of what they said at the public inquiry. The Bradwood Inquiry hearings were in 2009, But the Commissioner's final report was dated May 2010, the same month as the court proceeding where Michael Bryant's charges were withdrawn. It's not known if Richard Peck knew that the video expert made available to him by Michael Bryant's defense, a video expert that he then interviewed, had known credibility issues.

And it's not known if he knew that the Bradwood Inquiry Commissioner had discredited his testimony at that point. Michael Bryant wrote in his memoir 28 seconds that when it came to getting the charges dropped, obtaining watertight expert evidence was the lynchpin, and he states that the seminal expert was the video expert, who, quote, took what the police had provided all those videos of shadows and figures and the Saab and its headlights, and made sense of it. He was able to break down the event to one one hundredth of a second.

Michael Bryant states that Marie Hennon, his lawyer, took all that expert evidence and had even more experts peer review their video experts report to ensure that all the evidence was watertight. And that is how she calculated that the entire incident from the moment that Darcy Allen Shepard pulled in front of the Saab to the moment when he was dislodged from it took 28 seconds. There's no way to know who any of these video experts are, except Grant Fredericks,

whose frame-by-frame analysis Mark Sandler specifically referenced when Jennifer Wells asked him about those video experts. Sandler mentioned he had testified at the inquiry, but there was no mention that that testimony had been discredited. And additionally, it should be noted that this was not the first or only time that Grant Frederick's credibility had been called into question. In fact, in 2009, the same year of Darcy Allen Shepard's death, he ruffled many feathers in a case known as United States of America v. Carl F. Thompson Jr.,

a case where a New York City police officer was charged with excessive force in the death of a man named Otto Zim. It would take much more time than we have available to explain the entire story. But according to a 2012 U.S. federal court filing, after Fredericks viewed the excerpts of the video shown in the media, he contacted the police department unsolicited to offer his favorable opinion as a video expert. In the court filing, he was accused of reaching that conclusion before he had finished his full analysis of the video, and he was also accused of changing his report between versions. Elsewhere in the court document, it states,

The United States submitted to the district court extensive documentary evidence that Frederick's post-trial statements included allegations that were false, incorrect and inconsistent with his prior sworn testimony. And then in 2014, 12-year-old Tamia Rice, who was black, was killed in Cleveland, Ohio by a 26-year-old police officer who was white. Grant Fredericks was called as an expert video witness in defense of the officer, and when his analysis was released publicly, it quickly drew criticism, prompting Tamir Rice's family to release a statement through their lawyer, stating that the video continues to reveal that police officers rushed upon the 12-year-old

without assessing the situation, and it also shows that. that the officers didn't administer first aid while Tamir lay bleeding and dying on the ground. Yet, quote, the frames contain editorial comments that attempt to make excuses for the officers, comments which were authored by Grant Fredericks. It is a long and involved rabbit hole that we don't have time to go down, but it's certainly food for thought when it comes to the video analysis in the case of Darcy Allen Shepard, and those things that the video experts reportedly saw, like the luminosity of the headlights which the court heard could be explained by the car stalling and being restarted,

or when the video expert was cited as saying the video shows no contact between the Saab and Darcy's bike, which is not consistent with the statements of both Steve and Victoria, who both reported that the car moved on to the back of the bike, knocking the bike over and jostling Darcy. The 2013 Long-form article Lost Boys by Jennifer Wells for the Toronto Star ends with a mention that Michael Bryant joined the roster at the National Speakers Bureau. And the summary for his chosen speaking topic started, quote, In this gripping presentation, Bryant chronicles the fateful aftermath of that late summer evening.

in August 2009, an evening when everything changed. It appeared that Michael Bryant was planning to monetise his side of the story in the incident that caused Darcy Ellen Shepard's death as a professional storyteller, a public speaker, for hire. The following year 2014, Special Prosecutor Richard Peck was awarded a very prestigious award, the G Arthur Martin Criminal Justice Medal, for outstanding contributions to criminal justice.

The lawyer the award is named after is considered an expert on criminal law and has been called the greatest criminal lawyer Canada has produced. Now, Richard Peck is also a highly respected criminal defense lawyer who practices in British Columbia, and he does have some very notable wins. He represented the accused Air India bomber Ajab Singh Baghry, who was acquitted in 2000. And four years before that in 2001, he defended John Robin Sharp in a landmark case that ended up challenging Canada's child pornography laws in the Supreme Court. But it was soon pointed out that this particular medal is awarded by the Ontario Criminal Lawyers Association.

Richard Peck is not licensed to practice in Ontario, which is a reason why when he's hired by the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General as special prosecutor, he appoints a licensed local representative, who in this case was Mark Sandler. And even though he practices as a criminal defence lawyer in British Columbia, Richard Pick's only work in Ontario appears to be as a special independent prosecutor. If it all sounds a bit conspiratorial, it became slightly less so when the following year 2015, it was Mark Sandler, who was awarded the prestigious medal. He is a criminal defence lawyer who practices in Ontario, but the optics of these two appointments in successive years was troublesome to some, as cycling advocate Joe Hendry wrote about for now Toronto. He argued that in the province of Ontario, the criminal defense work that Sandler and Peck are most known for is the Michael Bryant case, where they

acted as special independent prosecutors. He questioned, quote, did they receive the medal in part for their work on this case? And there appears to be no way to tell. There's no write-up about why they were nominated and why they won the medal. An online search turns up blank, and even on their respective websites where the award is announced, it's just one or two sentences and it only states that the medal was for outstanding contributions to criminal justice. And to be clear, I'm not saying that they didn't deserve their medals, or questioning why they should have won them. In fact, the reason why questions arose in the first place could almost wholly be attributed to what Michael Bryant wrote in his memoir, 28 seconds, which was published,

two years before the first of those medals was awarded. You've heard it earlier in the series, but he wrote, I learned something about the criminal defense bar in Toronto. They stick together and work together to help each other, even if they're not retained on the case. This doesn't apply to every lawyer, but amongst those who reciprocate, there is a small group of colleagues

who advance the interests of the accused at large. He wrote, that his own defence lawyer, Marie Hennon, was able to consult with any number of senior criminal lawyers, including a couple of his own supporters who, as he described it, happened to be strong legal minds. Marie Hennon, who is a criminal defence lawyer in Ontario, has never been awarded the G-Arthur Martin Medal, even though, as Laurenstile.ca put it, she built a defence so strong that the Crown dropped the charges before trial. And she has had other high-profile wins, including former CBC radio host Gian Go Meshi, who in 2016 was acquitted of four charges of sexual assault and one of choking a woman.

In fact, Marie Hennon had written something of her own that is notable. In 2014, two years after 28 seconds was released, she wrote an essay that was published in a book called tough crimes, true cases by top Canadian criminal lawyers by Christopher Dudley Evans and Lorene Scheiber. Her essay titled Split Seconds Matter is listed on the book's back cover as a comment on the wrongfully charged. In an article written for law now.org, McEwen University English professor J. Mark Smith would write, quote, possibly because 28 seconds did no favors to Bryant's public credibility, Marie Hennon's essay, Split Seconds Matter, reiterates in broad brush the argument she made in 2010. She recalls an overwhelming pressure in 2009 to 10 to get the right result,

i.e. to win the case. The full passage from Marie Hennon's essay reads, quote, The truth is that Michael Bryant was well loved by the legal community. Many identified with him, Many knew him personally, and many were utterly grief-stricken over his situation. The pressure to get the right result was, to be honest, overwhelming at times. Nothing in law school gets one ready for this amount of scrutiny. One's failure will be as notorious as one's success, and the legal community, just like the public, loves both stories equally voraciously. End quote.

Michael Bryant appeared to lay relatively low for a few years when it came to public life. In 2016, Law and Style.C.A. published a piece called Whatever Happened to Michael Bryant by Daniel Fish. In it, Michael is quoted as saying that he had no idea that innocent people were every day being treated like guilty people, even though he'd been the Attorney General of Ontario. Quote, I had no idea that the presumption of innocence is a joke. Of Darcy Allen Shepard, it was the same story, Michael Bryant's story, a story that minimizes his own involvement,

although the piece did acknowledge that Joe Hendry's Bryant Watch blog was publishing pieces that suggest Bryant is more culpable than he was willing to admit. In the piece, Michael Bryant details how his own life changed. Quote, over the next year, Bryant's marriage collapsed, his brother died, and he grappled with PTSD, that's post-traumatic stress disorder from the accident. According to the Wikipedia page, Michael Bryant separated from his wife Susan Abramovich in December 2010, seven months after the charges were withdrawn. In that time, he said he became a regular volunteer at 6,000. Sanctuary Ministries, a Toronto charity that helps people living on the streets, a charity that he was told Darcy Ellen Shepard used to frequent. His experience there led to a decision to become

a criminal lawyer, and as law and style put it, build a practice that would serve those on the bottom rung of the socio-economic ladder. And he did. In 2015, Michael Bryant had begun working for legal aid Ontario as a duty council, representing people in bail courts who can't afford their own. He described his plans for the future as more shifts as duty council, and over time taking on more cases with a focus on the disadvantaged. And there was more. In a 2018 CBC News series called Do-Over, Michael Bryant claimed his work with sanctuary helped him deal with Darcy Ellen Shepard's death. Quote, that's something that is just with me all the time. He was a human being and he lost his life and that's something I can't undo and can't go back. So what do I do

today? That's how I'm living. And before long, his listing with the Speakers Bureau had netted him a TEDx talk in Toronto that same year. The talk is available on YouTube and is titled Becoming Who You Are meant to be, with a description that reads, quote, Who are you? Where are you? Michael Bryant, a former attorney general, answers these questions with brutal honesty, how a rapid climb up the ladder of success and equally rapid fall, forced him to uncover, discover and discard his false self, and to become the person he was supposed to be. In the talk, Michael doesn't go into detail about Darcy Allen Shepard's death. Although he does state several times throughout the talk that the charges were withdrawn.

Instead, the story he tells focuses on what he did in the months afterwards, how he started volunteering at sanctuary, how at first he felt uncomfortable, but then he made friends, including with one of Darcy's friends, which led to him working in a bail court in Brampton. He described the whole experience as humbling. You can find a link to watch the TEDxie's. talk in the show notes. It is a decent talk with a decent message. It's clear that the underlying intent is to demonstrate his personal growth through self-reflection, and while he's clearly

comfortable on stage this time, the opposite could be said for a portion of the audience who watched it, including Darcy Allen Shepard's loved ones. The comment section has many people protesting the fact that he was invited to talk in the first place, with one notable comment flipping around the title of the talk. Quote, one wonders if 33-year-old Darcy Allen Shepard would have become who he was meant to be had he not encountered the old arrogant elitist Michael Bryant on Toronto's Bloor Street back in 2009. Sadly, his family and friends will never know. The following year 2019, Darcy's father, Alan Shepard, responded in a piece for Canada land with the headline,

Michael Bryant did a TEDx talk about how killing my son helped his personal growth. Alan writes that while Michael attempts to portray a journey from the top of the ladder to someone who now understands and cares for Darcy and people like him, Few references he did make about Darcy were perceived as strangely affectless, referring to the man who died, like he was merely a coincidental participant in Bryant's personal trauma. Alan points out that by Darcy dying in the way that he did, it helped put Michael Bryant on his path to redemption, to becoming who he seems to believe he was meant to be. During the TEDx talk Michael gave some advice, which was, quote,

If your first thought is anger or upset or fear or resentment or stigma, hold that thought. Your second thought and your first action can be something else. Alan Shepard noted that this advice could have seemed profound if it were not so lacking in self-awareness. Quote, had Michael Bryant practiced that preaching, my son might not have died. To play on Bryant's TEDx rhetoric, the life he would have saved might have been my sons. He might have found a better way to become the better man he claims he now is. So is it asking too much to expect Bryant could have acted then, according to precepts he proclaims now? Elsewhere in this article, Ellen refers to the media, specifically citing a 2019 Globe and Mail article titled Michael Bryant's Second Life.

Once he wielded the power of the state, now he challenges it. Here is how author Sean Fine wrote about what happened that fateful night. Quote, as they drove home, a cyclist Darcy Shepard jumped onto the driver's side of their car. a convertible with the top down. The car swerved before coming to a stop on the wrong side of the road. When it started off again, Mr. Shepherd was leaning over Mr. Bryant when the cyclist bumped into a fire hydrant and fell off. It should be noted that this piece was written four years

after all the Freedom of Information documents had been publicly released, including, of course, the Collision Reconstruction Report, eyewitness statements and 911 calls. The piece makes no mention of any of this. In a Twitter thread, Canada Land publisher and media critic Jesse Brown described the article as the Canadian press at its worst, pointing out that Michael Bryant's account has never been tested at trial, and it is contradicted by several eyewitnesses.

He's never been cross-examined, yet his account is repeated as fact by the media again, and again. Quote, the real lesson of the Bryant-Shepard story is that justice works differently in this country for some people. The fact that the media sees it as a story about one man finding personal salvation is grotesque. At the end of his article, Alan Shepard issued a plea to the media. If they must tell and retell Michael Bryant's redemption story, he asks that they please speak with someone on Darcy Allen Shepard's side of the story for balance. As Darcy's father, Alan acknowledged that the media may deem him to be too close to the matter to be objective and

credible. And quote, fair enough, but if that standard is applied to me, why not to Bryant, whose self-interest is so evident? Michael Bryant was reportedly still working in the bail courts, but by that time, an announcement had been made that he had been appointed the new executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, a non-profit that advocates for the constitutional rights of Canadians. That same year 2019, the Canadian Lawyer magazine named him one of the year's 25 most influential lawyers, an award that is voted on by other lawyers. And then, in October of 2021, the now 55-year-old was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Legal Aid, BC. In an article for the Vancouver Sun, author Ian Mulgrew wrote,

quote, once considered a contender to be Premier of Ontario, a chastened Michael Bryant is returning to his home province. The author acknowledged that the appointment might seem odd, quote, another entitled white man hired to run an organization whose impoverished clientele includes minorities, indigenous people and the vulnerable. But Bryant was described as having an overachiever's resume, governance skills, and importantly, quote, an especially relevant personal trauma and experience that gives him a unique, pertinent perspective. It appears that every time an announcement is made about Michael Bryant's latest high-profile move, it always includes a mention of how the incident that killed Darcy Allen Shepard was now a personal redemption story. Towards the end of that

article in the Vancouver Sun, the author writes that, quote, The searing transformation of Bryant's life, his atonement and his focus since has given him a deep firsthand understanding of what those in need have been through. Michael is then quoted as saying, I know that feeling a little bit because I was there and I know how terrifying it is to be on the other side of that window in those cuffs. Not only would comments like this feel like salt in the wound for the loved ones and close supporters of Darcy Ellen Shepard, but there are others as well.

Others who don't even know Darcy but just don't like the injustice of it all, the lack of transparency. And whenever an update to Michael Bryant's story is posted, the comment sections, if they haven't been closed, are filled with people pointing out that the case was not so cut and dry as many media outlets portrayed it. Over the years, there have been petitions created, interviews and documentaries started and developed, but nothing ever seems to come of them. And in February of 2021, Darcy Ellen Shepard's inner circle of supporters suffered another blow when cycling advocate Wayne Scott passed away after a long battle with cancer. Wayne was one of the people who convinced Alan Shepard to apply under freedom of information

and he was also championing a documentary on Darcy's case. As for Stephen Victoria, she told me they were contacted by several different media outlets. She did an interview with the Globe and Mail, but that went nowhere. A TV crew for CBC's The Fifth Estate also interviewed them with the same result. I asked her how she felt when the documents were released, and it was clear that neither her nor Steve's statements had been considered or included in Richard Peck's explanation for why he was dropping the charges. She said she didn't actually realize the extent of it until she listened to this podcast.

I thought, do you know what, I'm just going to listen to this podcast now. And when you started, I was like, I emailed, I emailed maybe you straight away. I was like, oh my gosh, this is like, I can't believe. I just was, I was in disbelief. And certain things that you said that I knew, I, and when you said it about the accident report, that was unbelievable too. No, I had no idea. The first time, and I actually only read it yesterday, because I thought, I just, then I thought,

I'm going to read this and see what it says. It's unbelievable. How would they not use? How could they not use our 911 uncles? We're the ones who made the 911 uncles. I had something else to ask Victoria. It's about Michael Bryant's side of the story, which starts at the main intersection before the block

where the Midway pedestrian crossing was. He claimed that there was a cyclist picking fights with people, throwing garbage, cycling figure rates from curb to curb and generally impeding traffic, causing the other drivers to hang back until he forced a vehicle over to the side of the road, allowing Michael Bryant and the other drivers to pass. We've mentioned that this part of the story has never been corroborated by any evidence or eyewitness accounts.

None of these other pedestrians or motorists have ever come forward. Stephen Victoria's statements make it very clear that a passive altercation was already underway when, Darcy deliberately stopped his bike in front of the Saab. But there's a mystery there. What happened? How did this altercation start? I don't have an answer, but I have discovered a possible clue.

Victoria had actually mentioned something in reference to this towards the end of her videotaped statement, but nothing was ever mentioned about it again. Here's what she said. It was almost as if they had had some confrontation before they got to. where I was because there's no way someone would just stand in front of a car for no reason and say, you want me to move now, do you kind of thing? You know, there's no way. So they definitely look like something he'd be going on. One of the drivers from behind told me that he had

had, like someone said to me who was standing with me, he parked his car straight away. He had seen me on the side door. He came over and said that the guy in the black car had already had something go on with him earlier and that he'd throw the bicyclist had thrown bollards in front of the car like what do you call them here Kurt the cones yeah in front of the car before he got to me so that's obviously why he was agitated so when I saw him he was literally so close to the car that the car driver couldn't move so they definitely were they were agitated but the driver wasn't he wasn't saying anything that was the thing it was just the man on the bike who said you want you want me to move

You know, now do you? Kind of like this. And the driver just retaliated with doing what he did. He didn't say a word. Obviously, this statement coming from Victoria about what someone else said to her about what they saw is hearsay. It doesn't appear that this guy's statement was ever taken

because I'm guessing that if it had have been, it would have been mentioned as it is the only thing that appears to corroborate Michael Bryant's version of events, apart from his own wife, of course. It's been 13 years since Victoria gave her statement, but I had to ask her about what she said in her statement about this man. And as it turns out, he was the same guy who helped her pick up and carry Darcy's backpack and bike. So that was the backpack man. So he was driving, apparently, I think he was driving a car.

I think that's what he said to me. I was kind of like shocked. with her happen. And he had said that he saw Darcy putting cones in the street. And he just said that he thought, I don't know what he's, he said he thought that the car had maybe cut him up or something. But he didn't say it was like violent or anything like that. He just said, oh, he was, you know, like he was pissed off. And like, as he was riding his bike, he put a few bollards, you know, in front of the car. But he, he didn't say to me like this was, you know, like this was, a crazy, road rage, angry, drunk person, nothing like that. From what he said to me, it seemed like so he was mad and that's why he did it. But when we were, um, after I went over to Darcy,

I took the bike and the backpack, the guy was with me. And then the police were kind of like dealing with stuff and I practically had to say like, do you want a statement? And I said to them, you should ask that man with a backpack what happened before because he, he stopped his car and came to join me and he obviously saw what happened before. But they didn't. And so he left. He must have left and he didn't give a statement. Now, things were chaotic on Bloor Street that night. So perhaps he left the scene before the police could get around to him. But he never reached back out to make himself known, which is unfortunate. But even if he did come forward now 13 years later,

and he confirms that what he saw was far less dramatic than how Michael Bryant painted it. It doesn't really affect the bigger picture of what happened in what he refers to as those 28 seconds or the aftermath. So what options does the average person have in situations like this? The first step was obviously to apply under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act for specific documents. And while Alan Shepard received some documents, including the Collision Reconstruction report, he didn't receive all of them. So he did appeal the decision. I asked him about the process and what happened.

The basic processes is to fill out an application and pay a nominal fee to the Freedom of Information Commissioner or the whatever agency you want to get the information from and then you get it. There are many, many grounds for the government or the agency to turn down a request for information. And then the next step is to appeal to the information commissioner, with whatever reasons you have. And the information commissioner makes a decision. In this case, the information commissioner made a decision against giving me access to the information I wanted. And they gave me the advice that if I wanted to proceed,

I should get a lawyer. And that means that the standard freedom of information procedures have finished and one now has to sue in court to get access to the information. When I reached that point and got that advice, I hit a dead end from my point of view because I don't have the kind of money that it would take to get a lawyer and then have the lawyer pursue through the courts. That option still exists and that's the one that I have hoped for the last 10 years to be able to proceed with, hoping to find a partner in the media that would take on the case

as in the public interest. But so far that hasn't worked out. And I keep plugging away, hoping that I will be able to get access. Now, when Ellen's referring to a partner in the media, we're actually seeing this play out here in Ontario as this series has been released. In 2017, pharmaceutical billionaires Barry and Honey Sherman were found. murdered in their Toronto home, and to date the mysterious case is still unsolved. When the Toronto Star applied for access to investigation documents under freedom of information and protection of privacy and were denied, the paper then essentially sued the government for the documents, saying that it was in the public interest to report on what happened.

And that's why there's been a trickle of documents released as decisions are made and files are unsealed. Large media outlets do this all the time. They have budget for suing for access to documents when it's believed to be in the public interest and obviously aligned with their business interests. But when it comes to this particular case, no one has stepped up. After the charges were first withdrawn, Alan Shepard had told reporters that he doesn't know what justice is in this circumstance and he wasn't happy with the result, but he's also not sure what would have made him happy. That was, of course, before Victoria and Steve came forward, before the Collision Reconstruction Report and the other documents were released. And after years and years of processing, I asked

Ellen what he thought now. I don't think he intended, I don't know how you would prove if it were true that he intended to kill my son. But his actions, which were inappropriate to the circumstances, resulted in the death of my son. Whether because of my son's background, not because of anything that happened on the scene, but because of my son's background, it was possible for the defense to make a case of a reasonable doubt.

I conceded that from the very beginning. But the question that I would put to you and I would put to your audience is simply this. A little mental exercise, since you all know the circumstances of both people. Put my son driving the car and put Mr. Bryant driving the bike. All other circumstances being the same. Does anybody seriously think that the same conclusion would be reached? Again, my son's background, not what he did at the scene, but his background would convict him.

And that's what's happened here. My son's background is a factor. there's no doubt about that. I have never, you know, I said from the beginning that given my son's background, I don't think that the crown would have an easy time proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Bryant acted deliberately in the case, that he did not act on a self-defense. But that does not mean automatically because that doubt could be raised that Mr. Bryant was entirely innocent, that he was exonerated.

that he was vindicated. Alan added, though, that his main issue is not with Michael Bryant, but with the Crown, who is, of course, the special prosecutor and his local agent. And not because the charges were withdrawn, it was the way the whole thing was presented. How the special prosecutor only had to say that the evidence existed, and it was put on the public record as though it was proven fact, There is no option to appeal the special prosecutor's decision to withdraw charges, because they are set up to be independent from the government that appoints them and they operate at arm's length. That's why the only option seems to be to hire a lawyer.

Alan gave an example. Richard Peck stated that, according to video experts, there was no definitive contact with Darcy's bike. But the collision reconstruction report said the opposite, as did eyewitnesses on the scene. Steve and Victoria both said there was contact and the bike was knocked over. Surely we have a light to get access to the file to determine how and on what authority, Mr. Peck said there was no definitive contact because there was. Maybe there is information there that confirms what the special prosecutor said. But right now there is an officer.

direct conflict between the two, and I'm not prepared to take the special prosecutor's word for that, because all of the information that the special prosecutor used to justify his decision was information that was provided him by the defense. That's an example. There are many such examples of contradictions between the reconstruction report, which has not been tested in court, and the statements that the that the prosecutor made to explain his decision, which have also not been tested in court. So I believe, and I think if we could afford to get a lawyer to argue, the lawyer would be able to argue in the public interest that we should have access to whatever information is on the file that supports the allegations made by the special prosecutor

about many pieces of evidence that were presented. It's all good news for large media outlets and people who have the funds to hire a lawyer, but to everyone else, the average citizen, it all sounds pretty grim. I asked Alan what he would like to see changed in our justice system to increase transparency and make it more fairer and balanced for everyone, which is in the public interest. He said there are a number of things, starting with the practice of appointing special prosecutors, which right now happens when there's potential for actual or perceived conflict of interest. So while the government refers these cases to a special prosecutor

to maintain an appearance of independence, it's not like they go to the equivalent of a special prosecutor's temping agency and one is independently assigned to the case. We have to remember that the special prosecutor was selected by the same government who referred the case to them in the first place. He's Ellen. So that automatically right off the start says that the government gets to choose its own judge. It also gets to choose its own prosecutor,

he gets to choose the proponent of laws and the proponent of facts to be considered against those laws. So the whole thing, the whole case is turned over by the government through a special prosecutor who theoretically has a firewall between him so that the government does not tell him what to do. How is that reasonable? There is, in fact, a conflict of interest, whatever is decided. You ask me or somebody will ask me, well, what's the alternative? It's legal in Canada and has been legal from the beginning and will continue to be legal. In cases where it's appropriate, a province can ask the federal prosecution service to prosecute a case.

As the federal prosecutor and cases of potential conflict of interest, can ask a purpose. provincial prosecutor to prosecute the case. And so you'll get to choose who, or they get to choose is which province they go to. They don't get to choose who that prosecutor will be. Another thing Alan mentioned he'd like to see is regarding the typical practice of prosecutors not explaining their decision when they withdraw charges. They are not required to do this and he would like it to be a required practice that they do not, although he does acknowledge that people won't agree.

I've covered cases before where the Crown has decided to withdraw charges with no explanation, and the lack of transparency is highly frustrating for many, so I'm typically one of those people who wouldn't agree with Alan. But after thinking about it, he does make a good point, one that I want to expand on. In withdrawing charges with no explanation, it might attract questions about transparency. There might be outrage at the decision, but when it comes, to the public record, nothing is added to it except the fact that the charges were withdrawn. In this case, Richard Peck's decision to explain why gave the appearance of transparency,

but in reality there were far-reaching consequences. As you'll remember, Michael Bryant wrote in his memoir that his team wanted to avoid going to trial. That was always their strategy. And we know that this could have easily been achieved by just announcing that the charges had been withdrawn. But what would that have meant for his reputation, since he was a highly visible public figure? The case was already polarising, and the public questions about what actually happened would no doubt have intensified. In fact, that exact scenario had played out in the months between Darcy Allen Shepard's death and the court proceeding seven months later. In September of 2009, a man was stopped by police for speeding,

north of Toronto, Ontario. The man's name was Rahim Jaffer, and at the time he was a member of Parliament from Edmonton, Alberta. So when it was announced that he had also been charged for drunk driving and cocaine possession, it made the headlines. But the following... March of 2010. It was announced that the cocaine possession, drunk driving and speeding charges had been withdrawn, and he would just be pleading guilty to the lesser charge of careless driving.

There was no explanation given as to why, and according to an article in the Globe and Mail, quote, there was an outcry after prosecutors withdrew criminal charges against Rahim Jaffer yesterday, leaving legal observers wondering what went wrong for the authorities. Now, just two months after that decision to withdraw charges, an even more high-profile figure with strong political ties also had his serious driving-related charges withdrawn. And if there had have been no explanation, that outcry no doubt would have snowballed.

So the decision to provide that explanation was a good one when it came to Michael Bryant's reputation. There would be no outcry and no more questions. And as special prosecutor, Richard Peck had been given the ultimate trust and authority to be able to do this. But by distributing that executive summary to an awaiting, hungry media, it effectively put the explanation for withdrawing the charges on the public record. And to be clear, no one was under the impression that it was a trial,

nor did the executive summary imply or state that. The problem is that it appears Michael Bryant's side of the story was presented as the reason for withdrawing the charges, which was then repeated by most of the media as fact, without also clearly stating that none of it had been tested and proven in court by a trier of fact. And this would have been great for Michael Bryant, but the collateral damage when it came to Darcy Allen Shepard was immense. His past history meant that he didn't have much of a reputation to protect to start with, but it's clear that he was loved by many. And as these people grieved his death in the context of the shocking way that it happened, they also had to bear witness to his character

being systematically destroyed in the court of public opinion. And when it comes to Michael Bryant hiring a crisis communication firm, it is what anyone else in his position would have done, but planting false narratives in the media, like Darcy grabbing the wheel and wrestling for control of the car, is not typical, nor should it be condoned. And after that May 2010 court proceeding, with help from the media,

Darcy Ellen Shepard was reduced to nothing more than a big, drunk and raging beast who attacked a terrified and panicked Michael Bryant unprovoked. Taking a look back in hindsight, it appears that Darcy was considered an undesirable, someone unimportant in the grand scheme of things, someone whose life didn't matter as much, who was ripe for scapegoating in the incident that caused his own death because he was already dead. He couldn't protest or complain. So when several years later his father got that Collision Reconstruction Report, written by more than 50 experts, who concluded there was no

evidence that Darcy attacked Michael Bryant in any way, and also concluded that both men shared responsibility in the incident that caused his death. Imagine how that must have felt. Darcy was not blameless, but neither was Michael. Here's Alan again. And that's what I object to. that my son should be demonized to the point that many people call and say, well, it was a drunk, and what would you do if a drunk jumped into your car and tried to grab your steering wheel? As you established very clearly near the beginning, that never happened.

That was out, that was part of the defense. I've had this pointed out to me as well, that Michael Bryant must have been terrified when someone latched onto his car. And I don't doubt that he was. But what seems to be forgotten is that even in his sanitised retelling, Darcy only latched onto the car after the car accelerated into him, after he was carried forward two car lengths on the hood, dumping him on the road, crumpling his bike underneath and then reversing to drive away. And other than Michael Bryant's statement, it appears that the only evidence of anything

that Darcy said or did before that was pulling. in front of the Saab, and not taking off as soon as the light turned green, with a turning of his head and a passive-aggressive comment as he and his bike faced forward the whole time, and it seems that before that he might have moved some traffic cones or pylons on the road. How can that be considered a justification for a car accelerating into a cyclist? I've stated many times that none of this evidence has been tested in. court, including the Collision Reconstruction Report, but it should have. The report concluded that both men shared responsibility in the incident that caused Darcy Allen Shepard's death.

I'll quote again, Mr. Shepard died as a result of his injury sustained in the collision. Mr. Bryant's final actions in the third collision sequence led to the death of Mr. Shepard. Mr Bryant's failure to stop the Saab when Mr. Shepherd deliberately hung on to the side of the Saab and driving his vehicle on the opposite side of the road in an attempt to dislodge Mr. Shepherd from his vehicle gave the appearance of a deliberate act according to witnesses. Mr. Shepherd also is responsible for his actions that led up to the concluding incident. All of these incidents were unfortunate and avoidable. Darcy Allen Shepard was not a perfect victim, and no one denies his past or criminal history.

But he was a human being, and he deserved better than the manipulation and calculated choices that appear to have been made to place all the blame on him, while completely erasing the other party's involvement and their culpability. One of the cornerstones of the Canadian justice system is that not only must justice, be done, but it must also be seen to be done. I don't know what justice would be in this situation, nor do I think my opinion matters. What I will say is that it was most definitely not seen to be done in this case. Each year on the anniversary of Darcy's death, a memorial gathering has been held to remember him, but the feeling of hopelessness grows more and more with each year. No matter what documents and information has been uncovered and released into the public domain, those who wield

the power to make changes often have no appetite to make those changes unless it is beneficial to them. And that's why the status quo often continues. My final question to Ellen Shepard was this. Has Michael Bryant ever apologised to you for his role in Darcy's death or reached out at all? He reached out to me a couple of years afterward. And I, in fact, did meet with him. And two of my colleagues in this sort of journey, Joe Henry and Wayne Scott were with me because I didn't want to meet with Mr. Bryant alone. Mr. Bryant did not apologize in any way to me that it was meaningful.

I realized as we were going through, and I believe he may have admitted to it, but if not, that doesn't matter. He was in fact simply meeting with me to make amends according to the ninth step of the AA program. It was for his benefit. So, yes, he did meet. But any words that he says about indulances or whatever are meaningless to me, as long as he adopts a position that nothing that he did lost anything that happened on the evening that my son died, and that everything that happened was the result of what my son did. As long as that's Mr. Bryant's position, anything that he says to me by way of apology is empty. It doesn't mean anything.

If he would ever say to me, yes, I made the mistake. I'm sorry. I would accept that. But he made no mistake. The only apology he can make is that, yes, I made some mistakes. Your son made some mistakes. I regret what I did. And I'm sorry.

But he doesn't. He inks my son and has his lawyer and the crown prosecutor. my son as some kind of demon out of hell that he was unfortunate to have encountered. This six-part series might almost be finished, but it won't be the last you'll hear about Darcy Allen Shepard. As you'll remember, he was the oldest of three children who were put in foster care. Darcy and his younger brother David ended up with Alan Shepard's family, but their younger sister, who was only a baby, was sent to a different family.

family. Her name was Chantal Gail Savard, and sadly she's now on the list of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls and two-spirit people. In 2013, the 34-year-old mother was found unresponsive, outside a home about 400 kilometres northwest of Edmonton. An autopsy concluded that her death was a homicide, and almost 10 years later, the family still has no answers. In early June, I'm was alerted to a news article where Chantel's daughter, Michelle, issued a plea to the public to help. In an RCMP news release, she said, quote, It's been nine years since my mum was taken from us. Nine years and the wound is still as fresh as it was when they gave me the news.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any information about Chantel or the circumstances of her death, but I do want to look into it. In the meantime, there's a link to. in the show notes to see the news release, along with the details of who to contact with the information. There's also more to come about the Scopolidi evidence. It's been too much to cover in this series, but in an episode coming soon, I'm going to cover the original case from 1979, where a shopkeeper in Orillia, Ontario, named Antonio Scopalidi, shot and killed two teenagers and then claimed self-defense. His lawyer,

Eddie Greenspan, now considered one of Canada's most well-known criminal lawyers, introduced evidence that the two teenagers had committed prior violent attacks. But a key difference in that case was that there were no witnesses, and no other evidence about what happened other than Scopolidhi's statement. So stay tuned for that in an upcoming episode. When it comes to this particular case, I also wanted to clarify that I'm not a journalist. so I don't work the same way. I utilize what's already in the public domain and build on that if there's an opportunity or need. So while I recorded conversations with Victoria and Ellen Shepard,

and I've also chatted with Darcy's partner Misty, who preferred not to be as visible, it wasn't until after I had finished analyzing all the materials that I had specific questions to ask them. When it comes to Michael Bryant, Richard Peck, Mark Sandler and Marie Henan, there are no questions that I feel would be worth my time asking, so I saw no need to reach out to them just for the sake of it. There's something else to consider here, though. For Darcy Ellen Shepard's loved ones, this whole thing is intensely personal. They have grieved his loss for 13 years now. But for the group of lawyers, it's business. It's a job they had from quite a few years back. and I doubt they even know or are bothered that some unqualified indie true crime podcaster has been writing about it.

That said, I've posed quite a few rhetorical questions during this series, and if anyone of note reaches out to provide answers or any other information, I'll commit to including it as a future episode as appropriate, like the case updates episodes I usually do each year. And finally, I want to request that you, please do not send them any public hate or toxicity. That is never my intention in any of the cases I cover. Thanks for listening, and special thanks to Victoria and Steve,

Alan Shepard, Darcy's partner Misty and cycling advocate Joe Hendry for his painstaking work on maintaining the Bryant Watch blog. To view the full list of sources and resources used for this episode and anything else you might want to know, see the show notes or visit the page for this episode at canadian truecrime.ca. We donate regularly to help those who have faced injustice. This month we have donated to the Bicycle Messenger Emergency Fund, who's active in Toronto providing emergency compensation to bicycle messengers who are hurt on the job.

For more information, visit BicycleMessinger.org. I also wanted to say a huge thanks to the people who helped me make this series. Thanks to producers Haley Gray, who also researched the case, and Aviva Lassad for helping me to get started and creative direction with the 911 an eyewitness statement audio. A huge thanks to Eileen McFarlane from Crime Lapse podcast. She's a legend for rush audio editing on the final few episodes, and of course we talk of dreams for audio editing on the first few he was moving house. Additional research, writing, interview, sound design and mixing and mastering was by me. We talk of dreams,

compose the theme songs, and the disclaimer was voiced by the host of True. I'm now going to be taking a little bit of a break since my kids are now off for the summer. I'll be back on August 1st with another Canadian true crime story. See you then.