Someone Knows Something - S2 Episode 5: Girlfriend

Episode Date: December 19, 2016

In the weeks surrounding Sheryl's disappearance, Michael Lavoie began a relationship with another woman, Sheila Darbyson. Sheila talks for the first time about many surprising details. (Episode 6 will be released on Monday, January 2, 2017) For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sks/season2/someone-knows-something-season-2-sheryl-sheppard-transcript-listen-1.3846237

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We'd love to talk business. This is a CBC Podcast. You are listening to Season 2 of Someone Knows Something from CBC Radio. Previously on SKS. two of Someone Knows Something from CBC Radio. Previously on SKS. And were any of those messages from Michael Lavoie? There was one, yes.

Oh, there was one, yeah. They ran into Lavoie in the underground parking again and he had bags of clothing. He said, she's upstairs, she's sick, she's vomiting, and he made another comment to the fact that she's so sick that she hasn't contacted her mother.

This is the stairwell that leads out the back of 851 Queenston. He's bullshitting dropping her off there. I know that because she never worked there for me. It's just taking the best of me, you know? To bring a child into this world. See her grow up again for a while, for someone to take her life. This is Episode 5, Girlfriend. I am embarrassed by my actions.

I do regret my actions, like especially the sex part. Oh, I do. And to be honest, it wasn't even worth it. Sheila Darbison lives in a compact townhouse in a Canadian town that shall remain nameless. She moved here some years ago and I found out about her through social media posts related to the Cheryl Sheppard case. Hang on a sec, let me get that other mic going. Wanted a coffee? If you had some kind of coffee, that would be totally awesome. Sheila is mid-forties, whitish blonde hair, bright green eyes and a rugged but pleasant face.

The last couple of days I've been trying to think about all the different stuff so that I can let everyone know that gave me the conclusion to why I believe in my heart, my mind, and my soul that the police do have the right suspect for Cheryl's disappearance. Obviously, no trace of her. People don't just vanish off the face of the earth. After many messages and calls, Sheila has agreed to talk to me about experiences she says she's had with Michael Lavoie and what she knows about Cheryl. It's important to note before we go further that Michael Lavoie in his discussions with police has said he had nothing to do with the

disappearance of Cheryl Shepard. Given the situation, that's why they say your past always comes back to haunt you but things that you do growing, but things that you do growing up, things that you do, make choices as a young adult, and we all make our mistakes, and obviously, regardless of what somebody's lifestyle is, Cheryl didn't ever deserve that whatsoever. Whatsoever. Um, what do you taking your coffee? While Sheila tends to the coffee in her tiny kitchen, I move to a spot in a small, clean front room where the sun streams through a window.

It smells of cigarette smoke here, and I wonder what past has been haunting Sheila. Her cat, an older green-eyed tabby, has settled on my equipment bag, scratching at it with his claws. Okay, this one. Oh, let me get him out of the way. Oh, he's great. I don't want to claw your bag though. He loves bags and he'll probably try to sit on it. He likes to lick his paws. Yes, he's obsessed with cleaning himself. Obsessed.

And I believe every person has an obsession about something. Like animals, house cats, obsessed. Sheila has recently recovered from an aneurysm that burst in her brain, and she claims that since it happened, she has had trouble sticking with a single train of thought. After being distracted by the cat, she's back to making coffee again. I gave you like percolated. I'm a little nervous, don't mind me.

And I'm hoping my train don't derail here. Well, I'm thinking about different things because there's quite a few main points that I will talk about. I'm going to go back to October 4th, 1997. Okay? I split up with Mr. Mark Dempsey, which is the father of my children. My children are now all adults. Back then, they were very young. And I knew Mike, well, at least I thought I knew him for the 13 years. Because of all the family picnics, all the stuff that we all did, and the way he was with his kids,

and, you know, with his girls, because he has three beautiful girls, which I believe has everything to do with the mother, their mother. Here, Sheila is referring to Mike Lavoie's former partner, Gwen. I have three children, and all of them called him Uncle Mike, because I knew Mike for 13 years before all this happened. Sheila knew Gwen and together at age 16 in Toronto, the two met Mike Lavoie and a man named Mark Dempsey. Mark Dempsey is Michael Lavoie's stepbrother.

Sheila went with Mark and Gwen went with Mike. Both couples had three children and neither were married. So I guess Sheila can be thought of as Michael Lavoie's sister-in-law. Obviously we're a family. He was like my brother-in-law. There was no blood. Sheila babysat Michael Lavoie's three children when he and Gwen were still together. According to Sheila, Lavoie's three girls called her Auntie. Sheila also knew Cheryl Shepard and met her, she says, after Michael Lavoie separated from Gwen. I met Cheryl on two different occasions. After, like at the end, after when the mother of Michael Lavoie's kids and him

had separated. And then when he met Cheryl Cheryl that was the greatest day of his life. He went around bragging, she's a stripper, she can do this, she can do that, all this stuff and meanwhile I was still with Mr Dempsey which is the father of my kids. So it was the greatest thing, he went around bragging to his brothers because they were very close. According to Sheila, the Lavoie brothers were very close back then. But things would change very quickly once Sheila broke up with her partner Mark Dempsey in the fall of 1997, just a couple of months before Cheryl disappeared. Nothing ever transpired between Michael Lavoie and myself through the whole entire time that I was together with their father.

He was together with the mother of his children. Nothing ever transpired. I knew come October 4, 1997, it was totally done between me and Mr. Dempsey, Mark, the father of my kids, and we were totally finished. Sheila says she wanted to hook up with Michael Lavoie. So I said to my friend at that time that I said, well, I said, I'm going to get a hold of Mike. I am.

Because I hadn't heard much about Cheryl and Mike at all. So I thought, okay, maybe I didn't even know if they were together or what. What's whatever. I tried a couple times to get a hold of Mr. Lavoie. But when I did phone him that, there was no answer. So. To get a hold of him for. To get together with him.

Yep. To get together with him. For sex. Yes. For sex. And that's all I wanted. One time thing. That's it. Just to try it out. From the stuff he said through the years to me and stuff. So that's all that was ever supposed to ever come about of that whole situation. Mind you, it's something I've paid for for the rest of my life. Sheila says that she reached out to Michael Lavoie

after her fall breakup with her partner Mark. This would be while Michael Lavoie was still together with Cheryl. But she's adamant that nothing happened between her and Lavoie until January 1998, shortly after Cheryl disappeared. So, turn around, I wrote this letter, and I went and put it in the mailbox, because at this point, when I found out that he proposed to her, and she went missing, I thought,

all right, he must be so brokenhearted, he must be so devastated. You know, here he proposed to the woman that he loves, and, you know, and she's disappeared. This is what I had in my mind frame at that time. In the letter, it stated that, you know, it was about us getting together. I can't remember, but it was to all effects of us getting together, to have sexual encounters, because that's all I wanted from him.

That was it. Police knew all about this letter. Retired Hamilton police investigator Don Forgan, who had already been working Shepard's case, found out about it from Lavoie's own parents. Do you recall your first meeting with Sheila Darbison? The parents of Lavoie contacted Warren Correll and myself and said that they had discovered a mysterious letter

that had been left at the apartment. It was addressed to Mike, and it had been left where returned mail would be left in the lobby. And then there was a second letter as well. They were concerned that, for Mike's safety, actually. And this person wanted to meet up with Mike. So Coral and I arranged to be at this variety store near Mike Lavoie's parents' place.

We set up, watched what happened. A car pulled up. Mike got in. And then we pulled it over on a shopping plaza lot. Got the driver's license in it. It turned out it was Sheila Darbinson. And she explained that she didn't want Mike's parents to know of her involvement with Mike because she was with Mark Dempsey. I had a conversation with her saying, you know, about her own safety.

So you got together with Mr. LaVoy. In Hamilton. And you lived with him for... No, no, we didn't end up living... No, no, no. Oh my goodness, no. This is about two weeks after Cheryl disappeared. Yes.

Darbison goes on to tell the story of driving to Hamilton for her first date with Michael. This is January 24th, 1998, at around 8.26pm. When she picks Mike up, he asks if he can drive her car and then tells her that the police are going to be pulling them over. And he goes, well, you see those two cars over there? He goes, those are detectives. They're going to pull us over. I'm like, what? What do you mean they're going to pull us over?

Why are they going to pull us over? Like, I didn't do anything wrong. He's like, do you have insurance? Yeah, I have insurance. And that, so. Michael may have known police were there because his parents had called them, or he may simply have spotted them as he was waiting to be picked up. Police have also told me that they saw Michael's sister Tracy

in a 1987 blue Mercury Cougar driving around the area and keeping a watchful eye on things. Sheila says Michael pointed to the car Tracy was in as they drove away. Sheila continues the story. We get pulled over. The detective asked me to come out and step out of the vehicle. And the detective, Don Forgan, he had told me that she was missing and warned me to be careful. But told Mr. Lavoie to stay in the car.

They told him to stay in the car, so brought me over to their car. Sorry, I missed that part. Police spoke to Sheila briefly, and she then returned to her own car, where Lavoie was waiting. After we got in the car, I wanted to get a coffee. We go and we stop at the Tim Hortons. And as we both got out from there he goes wait a minute and he starts checking around all around the seats. I was like what are you doing? And he goes well you never know you can't trust them they could have threw something inside the car to listen to what we're

saying or anything like that. Why would they do that? From there he goes oh they're just trying to pin this on me. I'm like okay. Michael's vigilance here does not mean he's guilty of anything. So we go in, get our coffees, we leave, come out. So we're driving, and he's taking me down all these back roads, everything, it was pitch dark. I don't even know what way he took me to get down to Mississauga because we're driving down to a friend of mine's house. This is where we're going to go spend the night.

So from there, we get down to my friend's house to go spend the night so from there we get down to um my friend's house we spend the night there everything i didn't really ask him any questions or anything like that everything seemed to go fine then he says to me he goes oh do you want to carry this on i'm like well all right i guess like all right i guess so so there, that's how it carried on. After that point, he started coming over to my house. Mind you, my children never see him. He stayed down in my basement for about a good week. He'd come up, use the washroom, like when my son would go off to school. My daughters were younger.

My youngest one didn't really talk too much. So from there, he hung around at my house, stayed for about a week. In the weeks and months after Cheryl's disappearance, while police were conducting their investigation and trying to keep tabs on Michael Lavoie, he was having sex with Sheila, and at least for a week, staying in her basement. Sheila Darbison can give us insight into Michael Lavoie's behavior immediately after Cheryl's disappearance, and we'll hear more from her later in the episode. But I'm also interested in Michael's behavior

and especially his treatment of the women in his life before Cheryl. To learn more, I need to plan how to approach Gwen, the mother of Mike's children. Odette also has some questions. She's telling him to see Odette again. She'd expressed an interest in going to see Michael Lavoie's children and Michael Lavoie's ex-wife and I think that's a good idea because all of those people are some of the last people to have seen Michael or to have witnessed Michael at the time that Cheryl Shepherd went missing. It'd

be interesting to see what their point of view was on the on those days even though the children were young. The mother would certainly remember some things. As I walk up Odette is standing near a newish truck in the driveway. She and Ron got it to help deliver flyer bundles for Hamilton's newspaper, The Spectator, door-to-door once a week. And there's an interesting coincidence here, because I found out that Michael Lavoie also delivers newspapers. There you go. Wow, that's a nice truck. It looks pretty much brand new inside. Yeah. That's nice. Oh so I see those are the papers you deliver.

Yeah, yeah, the flyers. Oh cool. We walk inside and Odette confides that she has been tormented over the rumor we heard from Betty Yergin about Cheryl ending up in a wood chipper. Oh, I am, because I'm telling you, I'm not finished with this. I want to put an end to it. And then for what Betty said that she overheard, that played on my mind.

Of course. You know? But then, wouldn't that be a mess? It would be a total mess. I would suggest that those kinds of rumors do more damage to your psychology than anything. Right? But I'm not finished. I'm going to keep on going.

What I'd like to do is talk to you about, you said that you wanted to speak to Gwen first, and that's Michael Lavoie's ex-wife, and Michael Lavoie's daughters, who are also living out west. Yes. Well, I think we can arrange to get you there. It's a matter of who would you talk to, how would you talk to them, and what would you say. I mean, those are the things, right?

Right. So I was thinking we should just go out there. So when did she move up there? I don't know, but I know she's there now. I wonder why she moved up there. She might be from there. But why don't we think of going out there, and when are you available to go out west to see these people?

Odette doesn't like to fly. In fact, she's only flown once in her 70 years, and I have also white-knuckled a few flights in my time, so the talk turns to trains or driving. It'll be worth the trip, I know it. I've done this before with family members, and I think we call when we get there, and you talk, and you say why we're there, I want to meet you. Michelle's important because she was nine years old at the time, so if she'll talk to you and us, that would be awesome. And Gwen will remember things

from that time, and I think they're really crucial to talk to, and you're right to want to talk to them. Odette asks if she might bring a friend along, or maybe Ron, and I think that'd be okay with CBC. You could come, but what are we going to do with Muffy, you know? I decide to let her think about it for a while and change the subject, so we chat about her clock and spoon collections. They all tell different times. Yeah, yeah.

How many clocks do you have in there? You must have... Oh, quite a bit. You must have three dozen, well, looks like you've got about two or three dozen clocks. Clocks given to her by her friends, including several by Cheryl, and spoons from all over the world,

places Odette has never been. She's rarely had the means to travel further than New Brunswick. I got 30. 30 clocks. Yeah. Everybody's bringing things from all over the world to you then. Yeah, yeah. That's interesting. Yeah, yeah.

That's actually really nice. Most of her clocks have stopped and stuck at certain times in the past, much like Odette herself. Sheila Darbison seems similarly stuck in a haunted past. Let's go back there and get into some more detail of what was going on with Michael Lavoie in the aftermath of Cheryl's disappearance. This part is what makes me really cringe. When I think about it, it creeps me out. I'm not going to get into really too much detail about this part, but having sex with him, it changed.

It changed dramatically. It was, what word does Michael LaVoy love to use? Offside. It was offside, meaning there was something wrong. Just the way that he was, my name is Sheila, her name is Cheryl, and he would be like, saying half the name. It was almost as if he was going to say Cheryl. It was weird. It was like, I don't even know, like, makes me cringe. Even thinking about that, it makes me cringe. And for Sheila, things took a darker turn with Michael. And I went through that with him for about a good week. And then from there, he's sitting on my couch at this point.

He has his shirt off. And on his left side, his upper arm, there's a bite mark. There's a pretty good bite mark. Like the bottom teeth went in. So that didn't quite sit too well with me. But nearing the end of the week, when he was still down in my basement, before going back home to his parents, the one time he was on his way down, and when he had taken off his shirt, he had, like, all these scratch marks all down his back.

He used to tell me shit would get rough with him, and all this, this, and that. All right, if that was the fact, then three weeks later, you still have these? So, right there, I'm not knowing what to think. I don't know. It seemed so surreal to me. It didn't seem real. Even though it was very real, it didn't seem real to me. At Desjardins, we speak business.

We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. Your education experience should be yours to create.

At Athabasca University, we offer personalized pathways to achieve your goals. We recognize your previous education and work experience to get you that much closer to completing your goals and a timeline that works for you. Open your options with a more personalized online degree and choose an education that works for you, not the other way around. Find out how at athabascau.ca slash options. Describe the scratches. Oh, they were like purpley red and like very dark. They were, um, oh, they were really, oh. They took a long time to heal.

Let's put it that way. You can see it took a long time for them to heal. I want to take you back to the bite mark. Tell me a bit more about the bite mark. And when you noticed it, was the bite a fresh bite or was it scabbed? It was half scabbed over. It was scabbed. The bite mark itself, I originally, sorry, I just remembered my, it's the way my mind works now.

I jump all over the place. So I'm trying to keep on track so people can follow this as those events unfold, as they unfolded. The first time I felt it, the first time like I touched his arm, but I felt it. And he had like one of those, like his t-shirt on first time I felt it, the first time, like I touched his arm, but I felt it. And he had like one of those, um, like his t-shirt on and I felt it. And it just like, I don't know, maybe feel like, I don't know. It's true. You feel things from people. It just made me feel a certain way about it. It did. When I did see it, it was scabby from the top. He was always picking at it too. And it's like, don't throw that on my floor. That's just, that's nasty.

But he was like, oh, he's picking at it. And that, and I never asked him. I never asked him about the bite mark. It was just something that kind of scared me. And I don't know if the whole entire thing scared me into being quiet for those so many months, not knowing what was going to happen to me, especially if this came out, like what would Mark do? I have three young children here.

And I was like, I was going in circles, let's put it that way, in circles. My mind was starting to, I felt like I was going a little bit nuts. I did. Eventually, Michael Lavoie would leave Sheila Darbison's basement and return to his parents' place in Hamilton. And about a week after that, detectives Don Forgan and Warren Correll got in touch with Sheila Darbison, asking to meet. I told Mr. Lavoie that they were on their way over, that they were coming to talk to me. He didn't like talking on the phone too much because he could possibly be bugged. Mike told me, don't talk to them. Don't ever talk to them.

You know, don't say nothing to them and trust no one. That was his big thing. Don't tell anybody anything and don't trust anyone. No one. You don't trust anybody whatsoever. It doesn't matter who they are, you don't trust them. Lavoie had had interactions with police before, and his behavior here could be seen as standard operating procedure for anyone familiar with the street code. Don't put anything on yourself.

So from there, Detective Don Forgan and Warrell Carl came by. They see me. They brought two black binders, one with Mr. LaVoy's name on it and the other one with mine. So they're a little bit scared. So with the detectives there at my house, they told me at that point in time, I was very evasive with them. I was very closed mouth. I didn't say much.

I took in everything that they were saying to me that, um, she hadn't used her credit cards, every piece of her property, like her glasses, um, her purse, wallet, everything was still left at the apartment that she didn't take a single thing with her. And I'm like, okay. Did you tell them about the bite mark no it's very evasive I was very shut mouth at that time and I was sitting there and just quiet so took everything in that they said and they said if I had any information to give them a call they left their cards so as soon as they left they called mr. LaVoy okay I'm living in Toronto at this time at martin grove and um

martin grove and oh my goodness i can't remember the intersection but it wasn't basically from where mike was living to where i was living and if he drove at normal speeds you know it'll probably take you about 45 minutes he was there like very quick he was there quick he did not want to hear on the phone he wanted to know exactly what they said when they came. So I told him and he goes, oh, okay. Nothing, no responses to it. Just like, oh, okay, kind of thing. And he's like, all right. So there's another red flag, Sheila. I just ignored it all. I did. And he's like, what do I do? According to Sheila Darbison, Michael Lavoie had healing scratches on his back and a bite mark, and police didn't hear about it from her during those initial meetings.

Sheila wrote a book she intended to self-publish about her experiences with Michael Lavoie, and in it she outlines the bite mark. The book was written and is published, but was never distributed. I talked to Detective Warren Correll about Sheila Darbison. And just so I can have a sense of the police's view of Sheila Darbison as a whole, knowing her past and her involvement with Mike and others maybe, and what she said, how credible do you see Sheila Darbison's information? I think that she's credible, personally.

At the beginning, I know that she was not telling us the whole truth, and then later on, she actually told the truth to the point where we could support the things that she was saying. And she was, I think that she's credible. Did you read her book? I didn't, but she couldn't provide a copy of it. I took some pictures of some of the pages regarding seeing scratch marks and bite marks

and things like that on Lake and things like that. I asked Warren Correll about the bite marks and whether he believed Sheila Darbison's story. You know, that bite mark thing, you know, we believe that there's some substance to it. And we had, I had got a search warrant to, when Mike was in the hospital after he, you know, we found him in the garage, right?

And Steve Rabb and I were on our way to the hospital with the search warrant to grab his clothing, which, you know, Cheryl's circle of friends were, you know, not the most upstanding people. And, you know, they're basically, the coined phrase is, they were known to police, right? So to put all your cards in one situation was, you know, as a detective, you keep an open mind in these things, eh? But, you know, you also follow the strongest leads. So we get to the hospital and find out that he just left.

And we would have been able to take all the clothes off of him. And certainly if there was a bite mark, it would have been seen. But, you know, that was one of the things that got lost. But he left still needing care in the hospital. Who knows who caused the alleged scratches and bite mark, whether they were made by Cheryl or someone else Lavoie may have been involved with at the time. According to Sheila Darbison,

the hospital wouldn't be the last time Lavoie had run-ins with the police. He calls me up one day and he goes, I got arrested. It's like, what? And he goes, oh no, not for that. He goes, I got caught stealing a vacuum from my sister. I'm like, oh. I'm like, he just took that and brushed it off like, oh no, not that.

Like, it just, all right. Mr. Lavoie had a thing about going out to Zellers and stealing stuff. A search of courthouse documents shows Michael Lavoie had two theft-related charges after Cheryl disappeared. One was withdrawn, and for the other, he was sentenced to 90 days and fined $200. There was a charge on his record from before Cheryl disappeared in 1997 for possession of break-in instruments, and that too was dropped, but he received a suspended sentence at the time for mischief under $5,000. I gotta think, there was stuff he would sporadically say, just randomly say. He would just come out and I would just kind of look at him.

Then Sheila remembers a different story that occurs again at a Zeller's store. On this occasion, they went there so Michael could get a pair of shoes. Sheila waited for him in the car. He comes out of Zeller's, gets into the car, because I'm driving my car. He gets into the car, and he goes, oh. He goes, you know what this detective said to me? He asked me, oh, did you enjoy kicking her in the head and that? And he goes, what is that?

I guess looking for a response from me. I didn't give him a response because I didn't know how to respond to any of that. Sheila didn't respond to the story and police involved in the case say they have no knowledge of this incident either. Sheila carries on with another story involving her mother and Pat Lavoie, Michael's mother. My mom was talking to Pat. Pat went and said to my mom that they had found a body close to the water. So I called up Mike. Oh, no, I didn't call him up. We went out for supper.

And I didn't say anything until I was with him at the restaurant. And I said, well, your mom was talking to my mom. And they said they came across the body. And he goes, what? Like this. He got all weird. He got really weird. He was paranoid.

When you went out for dinner with him, when was that? When did they find this body? How many months? Around the end of January. It was around the end of January. It was still pretty new at this point. Everything I'm talking about with him is still at the beginning, within those first few months.

Everything that I'm talking about now is within those first... So you went out to dinner with michael lavoy and said that the police have found a body and then what happened by the water because he asked me where and i said by the water and he goes what just the way he reacted to it and it's like it could have been anybody's body and then um that conversation was left at that until the next day i think it was the next day or the day after i I can't remember specifically. It was like within those couple days, and he goes, oh, you know that body they found? It was a man's. I'm like, oh, okay.

Like, everything was nonchalant to him. Like, it just, for somebody that, yeah, it was just unreal. There's a number of anecdotal stories involving Mike that Sheila, in retrospect, finds suspicious. But it's difficult to know how much weight to give them. After all, it has been almost 19 years. It's frustrating because I do regret in every being of my soul that he didn't say something sooner to the detectives.

I gave Mr. Lavoie exactly what he wanted. Helped him emotionally, didn't say anything to the police. And as a human being, that makes me feel very, very horrible. And still to this day, I feel very horrible about it. I do, with a lot of regret for that part. So, from there, I wanted to write a book. I thought, how am I going to do this? So, I decided to do it myself.

So, it took me a good year to figure out how to publish a book. I did a lot of research into it to do all that stuff with ISBN numbers and all that. So, I went ahead and did that. And I put my story into the book about the situation, the truth with Cheryl and Mike from everything that I got from Mr. LaVoy. I put it out, but then I pulled it back. I got freaked out for my safety. I did. There was people that did buy the book. I sent a copy. I gave it to the police department. I gave Odette Fisher one. A few other people.

I had a bookstore order them, and then I pulled it off. And I thought, for my kids' sake, and my own mental well-being at this moment, because there's nothing more that I can do other than put in that story. So tell me, since you've come out talking about Michael LaVoy and your history with him and your feelings about him and the case, have the police been in touch with you? Have you talked to police and been doing interviews?

I have talked to the police since then, since the day that they came to my house with the black binders. I have talked to them. I did. You told them about the bite mark and the scratches? Yes. I did tell them about it. I told them about all of that. From there, they had asked me if anybody else had seen it. And there was still some of it left.

We don't know if anyone else ever saw the bite mark or scratches that Sheila says she saw. I will even take a lie detector to everything that I say. I will. It's like, Mom, Mr. LaVoy, you take one too. You asked him questions about scratches, the bite mark, anything else? Did you point blank ever ask him if, did you kill Cheryl Shepard, Michael? No. No. I never point blank asked him that. No. I was just afraid. It was like a frozen afraid. Like a fear that made me freeze. I don't know.

Like, oh. Afraid. Just afraid of seeing it. and afraid of all that. In 2005, I thought, okay, this is the last thing I can do to try to help make this come forth until they come across her, someone comes across her, her remains, and that this is the last thing I do. So I wrote that book, and I actually called it, it was Closure, It's Time to Come Forward. Closure, It is time to come forward. A book titled For Every Case I Know.

Odette was not excited by the prospects of this book going public and I Know asked Sheila not to publish it, fearing that the details might be too disturbing. When I did talk to Odette, I didn't ask her too many questions. I sat back and I listened to a very heartbroken woman. And she's right. You can see that there is a huge hole in her soul. You can see it when you're talking to her. You can feel that from that lady.

Very broken lady. But part of her is missing. Her child is every part of her, and she's missing. By the time I finally went to the Hamilton Police Department, and it took some time, because I was frozen in fear, frozen in that, for my children and for my life at that time. So but when I finally went in that and that is my biggest regret in life is not going to them or talking to

them when they were sitting at my kitchen table with those black binders. Not only did Sheila go to Hamilton police, she actively assisted them in some of the investigations. The details of this assistance remain confidential. I interview Sheila on another occasion in my car and I asked her about the last time she saw Michael. So I met up with him. When was that though? It was nice out. It was the summer. Summertime? It was sometime in the summertime because it was still nice out. It was the summer. Summertime, sometime? It was sometime in the summertime because it was still nice out.

I always let him drive because he knew the area. I didn't. So that's why I let him drive my car at that time. But we're driving around. We're down a street and I can't remember the street.

It wasn't busy. It was like a side type thing that we were down and we're there. And I started, that's when I decided to start asking him things like I start asking questions about what about about Cheryl like about that night like well you know what happened kind of thing like what actually happened and that which he kind of avoided answering and then all of a sudden I broke down.

I was like, how the fuck can you do this to me? Like, how can you do this? Like, pull me into this. You know, but I started crying. So things weren't really coming out right. So he leans over to hug me. And then he said to me along the lines, if I thought he did anything to Cheryl,

I could run him over. He got out of my car, went up about 15, 20 feet, laid down on the ground. And I'm looking like, oh my goodness. And it did go through my mind about running him over. It did. But I didn't. I have children. And then how did that end?

Like what? That was it. I just sat there. I just sat. He got up. And that was that. And then you never saw him did that end? That was it. I just sat there. I just sat. He got up, and that was that. And then you never saw him again after that. So he got up and just left. He didn't ever come back to the car.

That was it. And did you ever speak to him again after that? No. I think that was the last time. I do think that was the last time. Again, assigning a value to stories like this is difficult. How they played out at the time, if they did at all, and from whose point of view. Back at Sheila's apartment, I ask if she'll read me some of her book, and she says okay. After wrestling through yet another closet piled high with boxes and notes about her life with LaVoy. What I have here is all the stuff from in the book, things I've written down. I believe there may be a couple of newspaper articles. Oh, no.

Okay, this isn't a box. This isn't one of them. It's in one of these. Oh, boy. I don't know. This might be a little harder than I thought it was going to be. Hold on. I'm hoping it's in these boxes.

Some of this stuff. I think it is. And then, Sheila finds a few handwritten pages. Okay, the second night I see Michael LaVoy was when he told me the third major lie. I believe it was the fourth night he spent with me. Mike and I were sitting on my couch. I discovered a very bad bite mark on his right arm where you could see the teeth marks I was touching Mike's arm as soon as I touched it I moved my hand away from it a few minutes passed I got up I

went up to the bathroom I turned back we started talking about well basically Mike started talking about how Cheryl used to hit him and biting him and scratching him so conveniently tells me this after I touch it doesn't tell me before but after I discover it So he said that that was Cheryl's bite mark Basically, he tell you that that was Cheryl's bite mark. Oh Wow, oh After I felt it and I came downstairs from the bathroom and he that's when he started about Cheryl hitting him and used to hit him

And bite him and scratch him and then it was shortly after that is when I seen the scratches on his back. So he basically told you that Cheryl did that to him? Basically, yeah. I never even thought about it like that. Oh wow, see what happens with new perspectives? Oh wow. I'm just trying to see if there's something else in here. In speaking to Sheila, we get closer to Michael Lavoie through someone who knew him intimately. There's his behavior, the bite mark, the police interactions,

and Sheila's desire to come forward, now as a sort of living testimony to tell us what she experienced. Michael knew Sheila and was communicating with her prior to Cheryl's disappearance, but Sheila says they never got together until after Cheryl disappeared. The timing is odd. Even Sheila would say that. And circling in, closer to Michael Lavoie, there are others who have more to say and who have never spoken publicly before,

like Sheila's ex-partner and Michael Lavoie's own stepbrother, whom he grew up with, Mark Dempsey. Oh my goodness. see. Hey, are you busy? Okay. I'm here with David Ridgen. Ridgen? Ridgen. Ridgen. And that, like we've been going through everything for the last couple of hours. So I did explain that you're out there at work and that. So's right here so he's going to talk to you for a minute okay so hang on one minute okay this is Mark go ahead You have been listening to Episode 5, Girlfriend. Visit cbc.ca slash sks for more photos, articles and videos about the case. We'll be taking advantage of the holidays to work on new information that's coming forward,

which means there won't be an episode released on December 26th. Episode 6 will be released in two weeks on January 2nd, the anniversary of Cheryl's disappearance. Someone Knows Something is hosted, written, and produced by David Ridgen and mixed by Cecil Fernandez. The series is also produced by Chris Oak, Steph Kampf, and executive producer Arif Noorani. Our theme music is by Bob Wiseman, with vocals by Mary Margaret O'Hara and Jess Reimer. All our love

I will never stop my love I will never sleep Something here is precious A memory I keep I will never, never stop my love, I will never sleep All I want is an answer for this mystery we keep For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.