Front Burner - 36 years later: The truth about who murdered Christine Jessop

Episode Date: October 20, 2020

After 36 years, an infamous cold case involving the rape and mutilation of a little girl has finally been solved. The horrific mystery surrounding the abduction and murder of Christine Jessop captured the attention of the nation in the '80s and led to the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. Today, former CBC investigative journalist Linden MacIntyre has come out of retirement to explain why it took nearly four decades to uncover Jessop’s killer and what haunting questions still remain.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Well, I was numb as to who it was, but I was very glad that, you know, it's over now. The end has come, and we have now some closure, and that was very, very important to get. 36 long years later, a cold case involving the rape and mutilation of a little girl has finally been solved.

The person responsible for the DNA sample found on Christine's underwear, Calvin Hoover of Toronto, Ontario, was 28 years old in 1984. The horrific mystery surrounding the abduction and murder of Christine Jessup once captured the attention of the nation and led to the wrongful conviction of an innocent man. Well, they did make a grave mistake. And I emphasize the word, like I said, grave. They as police officers should not be police officers knowing what they've done to me.

They did make a mistake. Today, CBC investigative journalist Lyndon McIntyre comes out of retirement to explain why it took nearly four decades to uncover Jessup's killer and what haunting questions still remain. I'm Jamie Poisson and this is FrontBurner and a warning here, this episode contains graphic and disturbing details. Hi, Lyndon. Thank you so much for making the time to chat with me today. Well, I'm glad to be here. So I'd like to start at the beginning here. 36 years ago, a 9-year-old girl named Christine Jessup went missing on October 3, 1984. What do we know about the details surrounding her disappearance? It was one of those classic rural Ontario autumn days, sunny. The Jessup family were living in

Queensville. They moved out there, as I understand it, from Toronto. They thought it would be a safer, more comfortable place for a family, the kind of place where the kid can come home from school, the door isn't locked. The kid is perfectly safe. On this particular day, she was dropped off by a school bus in her driveway. She went in the house. There was nobody home. But again, I mean, that was not considered to be an unusual circumstance. My understanding is that she found some spare change and she went down to a store not far away and she bought some candy. The store owner says she comes by every day. She come in all the time, is happy, smile,

and she called me by the name, like, you know, and she buy gum and she walk out. She had a little friend who she was supposed to meet up with in a playground not far from the school. The little friend showed up at the playground and waited on a swing for Christine to come, and Christine never came. Shortly after she left the store, she was picked up by somebody and never seen alive again. Since last night, hundreds of volunteers and York Regional Police have mounted a massive search for the girl. It affects you in a very selfish way because you think, that could be my daughter.

And then you look at what happens with the community. We don't lock doors around here. No, we do. It makes me think twice now about leaving the children even to go to the store. Just, I'm paranoid. I really am now. But as the day wore on and more than 30 square miles of hunting turned up nothing, it began to look like Christine will be away from her family for another night. And then almost three months would go by before her body was found. On New Year's Eve of that year, there was, of course, this horrific discovery.

This man and his two young daughters made the grisly discovery while out on a walk. My oldest girl said to me, some garbage over there. And when I got over there, I thought it was a body. What state was she found in? She was decomposed. She had been mutilated. She had obviously been stabbed to death after a violent sexual assault. She was found 25 miles, I think, away from home, and it was a horrifying discovery. Her parents spoke of the pain of not knowing. Today, Robert Jessup knows. It's been a horrendous three months, not knowing and constantly hoping and praying that something positive would come. And it's left us pretty empty. It raised a whole lot of questions, how she got there, why that particular place. It was in the middle of nowhere.

And the investigation, of course, at that point sort of began to focus on the clothes she was wearing, what was left of her body, and what kind of evidence the killer might have left behind. But today, police released this profile of the killer, prepared by the FBI's behavioral science unit in Quantico, Virginia. White, between the age of 19 and 26. He lives in Queensville. He is a night person. He is a sloppy dresser. Not well-groomed. And I know there was a tremendous public interest in this case, so much scrutiny. And police began very quickly to zero in on a single suspect, right? A guy named Guy Paul Morin. And why did they zero in on him? Well, that's one of those questions. It gets into

philosophy, sociology, anthropology. I mean, he was a neighbor. He was, as one of the police officers recorded in his investigative notebook, a weird type guy. He soon came to their attention because he was around, he was there. He would actually chat with the cops when they were on the scene. They found him suspiciously curious about the crime, and he had strange observations about the nature of the crime. In one, I suppose, very damning moment, he volunteered to the officers that he thought it was sad how little girls are so sweet and innocent as little girls, and then they grow

up into kind of corrupt adults, and they lose all the innocence and the rest of it. And these police officers are sitting in a car. He was sitting in the car with them. I mean, this was just sort of sociable chit-chat from his point of view. And they kind of made a note of that, and they thought that this was a very twisted, odd thing to say in the context. And further investigation off Gipol revealed to them really incriminating detail, like the fact that he didn't have girlfriends, he didn't hang around with the guys, didn't seem to drink. His interest in music was fairly arcane. He played a clarinet, And he had no social life. His best friend, as he put it to them, was his dad.

The family was considered to be a little unusual because they were very tight. They didn't sort of mingle much in the neighborhood. I remember in one observation, somebody reported that this family was working in the backyard on some backyard project and and for lighting in the evening when they were working after dark they were using lamps from inside of the house plugged in somehow and this was considered to be peculiar and in the particular situation here peculiarity began gradually to take on sinister character, and soon the focus was entirely on that family and entirely on Guy Paul. At 7.45 last night, police from the regions of Durham and York arrested 25-year-old Guy Paul Morin as he drove to a band practice in the town

of Stouffville. Morin lives next door to the Jessup family in Queensville, north of Newmarket. Okay, and I guess this is where we get to talk about the second tragedy in this story, which is the unjust treatment of Guy Paul Moran by the police. In April of 1985, he's arrested for the murder of Christine Jessup. And in January of 1986, his trial begins in London, Ontario. And I know that there have been many problems identified about the way police conducted their investigation. And what are the most egregious? Well, the most egregious to me was the conscious decision that was being made during the investigation to disregard certain evidence that was exculpatory. And there was an almost universal media preoccupation with his guilt. The media generally and the coverage jumped to a conclusion, as did the police, that they had the right guy, that he was strange. In any case, he went to trial.

He was found not guilty. The system does prove to be quite effective. It has proven me as I am innocent. And I'm very, very happy for today's verdict. The town can hardly believe what's happened. I was astounded, I guess. Why? I don't think the neighborhood really considered a not guilty verdict.

Right, and this is the first trial. It was discovered the police had switched a cigarette butt found at the murder scene. There was also testimony from a known liar who told the court that he heard a jailhouse confession, right? The jailhouse guy. So there was enough of this kind of stuff revealed about the nature of the investigation that a jury decided there was no sort of compelling basis on which to convict this fellow, and he was judged to be not guilty. Moran's lawyer says the jury made the right decision. One of the difficulties in a case like this is that when the majority of evidence is gathered after arrest, one can never be sure

whether the police are really finding out who committed the crime, or whether all they're finding out is that if you put somebody under enough of a microscope, enough of a spotlight, you will indeed find evidence that looks like something, even though it's not very convincing to a jury. Okay, so Guy Paul Morin is acquitted in this first trial, and the prosecution obviously does not agree with the verdict. They appeal it to the Ontario Supreme Court, and a second murder trial is ordered.

I know this is around the time that you got very interested in the case. And can you tell me about the second trial? The second trial was also was in London, Ontario. It went on and on and on. The defense was convinced that there had been some serious problems with the first trial. So they attempted to sort of like do the whole thing all over again, kind of forgetting that they had actually reached a not guilty verdict the first time around. So the thing went on for a year. And to everybody's surprise, I think everybody's surprise, the second verdict was the opposite of the first verdict. Guy Paul Morin has been found guilty of murdering nine-year-old Christine Jessup.

It took a jury in London, Ontario, a week to come to the first-degree murder verdict. Right. And he was swiftly sentenced to life imprisonment for 25 years. Some people were convinced of Morin's guilt all along. Others are surprised at the verdict. Well, it's so confusing because it's gone so long and it's been dragged out so many times that people don't know what to believe now. That was when my ears as a reporter went up. We have two verdicts. They can't both be right. One of them is wrong. And is that what drew you to the story to try to get to the bottom of this? Well, then we started going back through all the evidence. We started paying close attention to it. We started talking all the evidence. We started paying close attention to it.

We started talking to the family. We started looking for possibilities of other suspects. I very quickly came to the conclusion that he couldn't have done it. Based on just a most superficial and preliminary set of questions was, what time did he leave work? He punched a time card when he left work. He went to a grocery store. There was a receipt with the time that he was work? He punched a time card when he left work. He went to a grocery store. There was a receipt with the time that he was at the grocery store.

According to his parents, he arrived home at the usual time in the usual good cheer with a bag of groceries. Somewhere between work and his arrival at home, Christine Jessup went missing, never to be seen again. There was a suggestion that his parents were making it up to create an alibi for him, that he arrived home at 5.30 or whatever it was. And there's absolutely nothing to suggest that they were liars or that, I mean, these were quiet, simple people who, they were entirely credible. We talked to Guy Paul himself. The guy was totally credible in every respect. He was

sitting in Kingston Penitentiary when we first met him. He was terrified. He was traumatized. He had just been through more than 10 years of the cloud of suspicion. He was a mess, but insisted very credibly to my ear that he had nothing to do with it. Everyone's looking at you. You say one word improperly, it's logged. And if you're not a linguist or articulate, it's used against you. He didn't even strike me as being a very weird guy. He was sort of a likable, quiet fellow who just wanted to live a very simple life,

and had been in the process of living a simple life when this landed on his head. What was the basis for the suspension? And it soon became obvious to us that we were dealing with a classic case of tunnel vision, where they become convinced that they've got the right perpetrator, and then they start to lose sight of everything else that might be relevant. Lyndon, what about some of the scientific evidence that was put forward, hard evidence that there was a hair sample that, you know, apparently was similar to Guy Paul Morin's? Well, but none of that was conclusive. There was hair and fiber evidence produced, but it was so, like, you had to really torque everything in order to make it look like it was evidence against him.

The actual role of the forensics laboratory in this whole case really raised a lot of questions in the long run. And so all these things just kept piling up. in the long run. And so all these things just kept piling up. And of course, you were correct in your conclusion, because Guy Paul Morin was exonerated sometime later in 1995. DNA evidence finally proves that he did not kill Christine Jessup, right? Well, the science at the time, it was specific enough to be able to prove that he, that the DNA sample that they took from the scene was definitely not from him. My lawyers did the best they could throughout the system. They really tried. But you know, it failed them as it did me, as it did society.

But my DNA, the scientists, I commemorate them 100%, knowing that they did a beautiful job. The scientists, they exonerated me. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years.

I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I watched an interview that you did with Guy Pomerant after he was released, after the DNA evidence came forward as well. It struck me how almost at peace he was with all of this. He didn't seem angry. Like you would expect someone to be incredibly angry if this happened to them.

It's nearly impossible for me to say I can be bitter when I'm so ecstatic that finally, like today, I was in court and the Crown Attorney came up to me. He shook my hand. He apologized. It's a wonderful gesture on his part. Well, this was one of the features of his character that was obvious right from the outcome. When we interviewed him immediately after he was incarcerated in Kingston Penitentiary, you didn't find that sort of bitterness

you didn't find the cynicism that you would expect you know he was in a in a philosophical state of mind i remember the line and i think we used it in our documentary back you know the first the first time we we did the story that uh... first you had uh... mark marshall then you had milgard and i think that more, he said. Is there something about the letter M that makes us vulnerable to this sort of thing? All I can really say is that it's been like a ten-year nightmare,

but finally we can see the light at the end, and it's like picture, movie, perfect ending. And it was kind of whimsical. He had a profound and genuine empathy with the Jessup family. He knew these people. He was a neighbor. He had a profound empathy and grief at the loss of this little girl, this horrifying crime. He was genuinely distraught.

He was astonished. He was telling a story about a conversation he had with the police about the fact that they got the wrong guy, and they kind of looked at him, and he was amazed to hear them say, We don't make mistakes, Guy. We don't get it wrong, Guy. And he's looking at them and saying, but you did. I know what you will not accept. I didn't do it. I don't know if they're listening,

and whether they are or not doesn't really matter to me. But I know that they're wrong. They made a mistake in their career. And they, as police officers, should not be police officers knowing what they've done to me. And that kind of self-consciousness was his solace, I guess. So I imagine it's easy to get caught up in this moment, the exoneration of Guy Pomerant. It was such a win for justice, but, of course, that also means that Christine Jessup's

killer was still out there. Well, see, Jamie, this is the eternal problem. Two things happened here that society will never, ever be able to atone for. One was, this guy was robbed of 10, 11 years of his life. But worse, the real culprit walked free. And of course, that was 25 years ago. And then suddenly, late last week, Toronto police make this announcement that a Toronto man named Calvin Hoover has been identified as Christine's killer. He died in 2015.

However, if he were alive today, the Toronto Police Service would arrest Calvin Hoover for the murder of Christine Jessup. And this is thanks to new DNA analysis called genetic genealogy. Police used essentially computer databases where people have handed over their DNA. It's usually used by people constructing family trees. And this technique was also used to identify the Golden State Killer. And talk to me about what else we've learned this week. What's come to light here?

Well, I guess the biggest mystery of all is how this guy escaped even curiosity, never mind suspicion. He was a neighbor. He was known to the family. He was a young man. It's astonishing to me that just in the course of a police investigation, you just don't go knocking on all the doors in the neighborhood, a few hundred houses around. You knock on doors and you say, what do you know? Anything suspicious going on? Where were you? You know, you say, Calvin, can I see you, you know, chat for a little while. You knew this family. Maybe you saw something. Maybe you saw her around that day. Maybe you saw some suspicious people hanging around. And you have a conversation with

the guy. You should have a conversation with everyone who might have had any contact with the family then or before or after. But obviously, nobody ever even talked to this fella. Wow. And pretty chilling details this week from the family. The Jessup family said that Calvin Hoover... He was searching for Christine after she went missing.

He was at the funeral. He was at the funeral. He was at our house at the wake. I want to know why and that would never be answered. I'm sure he wouldn't tell me why. And obviously now there are so many questions that have been raised here also about Calvin Hoover. This was such an incredibly violent crime. Police are interested in his whereabouts. Does it seem plausible that he had more victims? Well, he was, you know, at the time of this crime, he was 28 years old.

I mean, this was the work of a deeply damaged human being that led to this particular crime. This is something that lurks deep within the spirit, and it manifests itself much before you reach the age of 28, I'm pretty sure. And it doesn't go away. It sticks around. And there's 30 years go by from the time of the crime until the time he dies. You know, I get a little nauseous when I think of what else might have happened

in this guy's private moments during all that time. What must have happened when he felt completely immune to any sort of suspicion after Guy Paul Morin was found guilty? He got away with this, not just like by the skin of his teeth,

he got away with this big time. Lyndon McI of his teeth. He got away with this big time. Lyndon McIntyre, thank you so much for your insights today. My privilege. And, you know, after all these years, I guess the sadness that I feel is that there was so much that should have been done and might have been done to narrow this field of suspects down. And it's sad that about the only thing that's satisfied here is curiosity and not justice itself. Thank you so much. Bye.

All right, that's all for today. So yesterday on the show, we covered how the opposition to a Mi'kmaq lobster fishery in Nova Scotia has grown increasingly violent. Well, yesterday, the Speaker of the House of Commons greenlit an emergency debate on the matter, which took place on Monday night. Will the member not agree that the first step to ending racially moted violence is to call out the racism that's driving it and to defend the Indigenous community that is the target of this violence? Member for West Nova, in 30 seconds or less, please. Do you want to talk about racism? Let's talk about some of those very things. They are not a racist people.

They are very concerned about the livelihood of their families. Shame on her for calling them racists. Earlier on Monday, Indigenous Services Minister Mark Miller condemned the acts of violence, calling them disgraceful, racist in nature, and unacceptable. Every person in Canada, whether Indigenous or non-Indigenous, must be able to feel safe in their home communities and be able to learn, earn a living to support their families.

Under the Supreme Court's martial decision, the Mi'kmaq have a constitutionally protected right to fish in pursuit of a moderate livelihood. We will continue to uphold that right. And no act of violence will prevent Canada from upholding that right. That's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.