Someone Knows Something - S4 Episode 2: Death Letter

Episode Date: February 12, 2018

David meets the police officers involved in the Greavette case to learn about their investigation and find out what the evidence reveals about who might have killed Wayne. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sks/season4/someone-knows-something-season-4-greavette-transcripts-listen-1.4517196

Despite what your current bank says, mortgages are not one-size-fits-all. Let Dominion Lending Centres help. There are many options, better rates, and more comfortable terms out there. It's your mortgage renewal. Get the right choices for you. Find a mortgage expert in your area at dominionlending.ca. This is a CBC Podcast. This is the side road that we usually come down with delivering our mail. We stop at each box as along the way. When we come to this box it was parcel, I opened the mail, put the parcel in, and put up the red flag. It was a regular day, happened to be a day that we had my grandson in the back seat and he would hand the parcels to me and

it was a very neatly done parcel very distinct because the thing that I noticed and I mentioned to my daughter before we put it in the mailbox was the fact that it had this very nice ribbon on it and it was something that you would use on a wedding gift or something like that and it was tied very neatly and that was the only distinctive thing otherwise it was just a regular parcel. How heavy was it? I mean, my grandson got there, it wasn't a heavy parcel. You know, it was just, like I say, a normal... It was like a chocolate box, only much thicker. If it hadn't had that fancy ribbon,

we would have never paid attention to it at all. Yeah. And what happened after, when you dropped off the packet? We just continued on our route and we have to go down further and after we turned up the next line to do that line we heard police car sirens more than one and then we heard what sounded like an ambulance and I said to my daughter, there sounds like there's been a serious accident somewhere and we didn't know anything about what had happened on our delivery until the next

morning when we went back to the Acton Post Office. Everybody was outside and the police were there and that's the first we found out what had happened. I'm back at the Moffat farmhouse and I'm with Joyce, the person who, on December 12, 1996, delivered a package here. A package that, unbeknownst to her, contained a bomb. Joyce is wearing a white nylon coat, dark khakis and glasses, and hasn't spoken much about her experience before.

Joyce was unofficially helping her daughter Diane that day. Diane is a Canada Post employee and also along for the ride, Diane's son. I wonder about the postage on the package and asked Diane about it. It was excessive, like more than enough to make sure the parcel never got returned for not having enough postage. So does that indicate to you that the person got the stamps, went home, put them on the package, and then dropped it in a mailbox? To me, it sounds like that. Because when you have excess postage, that's a clue to something they told us. It was just after the fact.

The next day when we went in, they had the police and the bomb squad and the dogs and everything. And they brought us into a room and they showed us what you know didn't get blown up and they showed us the paper and they showed us the stuff and they told us about the postage and all that stuff and it fits like whoever this is my thinking it had to be whoever did this had to have measured that mailbox. Because it fits, like when you put it in, there was just a little bit to each side. You know what I mean? It went in there perfectly.

Do you think about it often? Yeah, it comes to me every once in a while. You know, you sort of have a guilty feeling that you were part of doing something that was serious. And also the fact that

having my daughter and my grandson in the car, it could have affected our whole family. You are listening to Someone Knows Something from CBC Original Podcasts. In season four, David Ridgen continues the work

he started nine years ago on the Wayne Gravett case. This is episode two. Death Letter. I've been looking forward to today and sitting down with the family. It's been a long time since we've all been together. I'm in a car with Ontario Provincial Police Detective Constable Paul Johnson. Johnson was at the crime scene at the Moffat Farmhouse the day Wayne Gravett was killed. He's an imposing man with a soft voice and a dark suit.

So just go around the big block. Sounds good. We're on our way to see the Gravetts, who are gathered as a family at Justin's place. They're anxious to hear directly from Paul Johnson where Wayne's case is. Hi. Hi. Good to meet you. Nice to see you.

Been a long time. Yes. I don't really remember. I remember you vaguely, but that was, you were much younger then. I remember your voice, I think. More on the phone than in person. Yeah, I used to call a lot for you. Yes, you did.

We move inside where the family gathers around Justin's dining room table with Paul Johnson. I respect everything about you and how hard you've worked on this case. And, you know, I guess we're just thinking everything that maybe we could have missed or what we can do. I'm reading the whole thing over again just to make sure that nothing was missed. That's good. You're planning on sticking into it until we get to every avenue we can get. We have we have pretty much exhausted every avenue. Technology changes so with technology changing is there is there hope hope that perhaps new technology could bring out something

that was missed with some of the the bomb fragments? The technology so far of the day hasn't been able to bring us anything new but that's not to say that the technology five years from now because of the leap in technology between 96 and now. Absolutely. We've had lots of people come forward, lots of people talk to us that had, you know, had words with your dad because your dad was a very dynamic individual and didn't have any problem at all telling somebody how he felt. No. So there's lots of people that, you know, he had words with and, you know, that he

had altercations with. And we've talked to all of them. I just, I can't discuss with the family or with anybody outside the investigative team any aspect of any person of interest, any suspect, most of the physical evidence. I mean, I just, we don't put that out. We keep that in the investigative team. That's what we do. And we understand that. What about the profile that was done of the person who... What did the profile say? What kind of person would be...

In a nutshell? Yeah. Above average intelligence, a very focused hatred, and a desire to extract revenge from a distance. They're an absolute fucking coward. We have no idea whether it's the water bottling industry, whether it's private life, we don't know. We just, we don't have the information. We don't have a direction. If somebody were to call in and give us a direction, we could conceivably do the background work and solve this. Maybe that's what this show will do,

this program will do, is jog somebody's memory, or if they have that information, they'll phone in. I want it solved as badly as everybody else here. Well Paul, it was very nice, thank you very much. Thanks, good to see you. You too. We really, you know, people thought, you know, that we were well okay and really we weren't. And the only support we really had was the police and Paul Johnson. They were the guys, you know, they were the guys I believed in

to get into this case and find out what the hell happened. 20 years later, without a solution to the case, the Gravettes still have a fair, balanced impression of the OPP and their attention to Wayne's case. Like many victims' family members, they rely on police to help keep their case alive. Their questions are some of the same facing police. Who would decide to kill someone?

Who would use a bomb to do it, activated by switching on a flashlight? And who would choose to send it through the mail system where it could explode indiscriminately. But what's the evidence to work with? It was December 12th of 1996. I was contacted by my seniors to go down and assist a detective inspector of record. I'm with Paul Johnson once again, this time at the Brickton Police Station in London, Ontario, that houses the OPP's Unsolved Homicides investigative team. The information that we had when I arrived on site was that there had been a massive explosion in the office of his business, which was in his house.

He leads me past a number of wall-sized whiteboards laid out in grids of long, narrow rectangles. In each row, written in blue dry-erase marker, the name of an unsolved homicide victim. Beside every name, some case basics, including whether there's DNA evidence available or not. The word SPRING is written next to Wayne's name in green. Wayne died instantly as a result of the explosion.

His son was injured and his wife had just minor injuries. Police photos of the aftermath show a room converted into a home office, completely obliterated. Papers, broken furniture and glass, all encompassed by an explosive spatter emanating from the area where Wayne and Justin had been sitting. Wayne is still on the pink couch in the photos I've seen. The blasted remains of his upper body,

partially covered by the old blanket Diane had laid there. It was a cold day in December. The flashlight was filled with roofing nails for shrapnel, and these roofing nails had a very profound effect on Wayne. He was very seriously injured and died as a result very and died instantly shrapnel had gone through several different layers of drywall into several areas of the home so the examination of the scene took several days we had people that we were interested in persons of interest and i would gather information over the next two years about them and their activities through search warrants

of banking records or hotel records or telephone records. But we never did develop a true suspect. You feel that the answer's in the file? The answer's got to be in the file somewhere. We haven't found the answer yet. The filing cabinets I see tell the tale of years of police work on the Gravette case, an investigation that went back to business interactions from 1986 onward. There are tapes of interviews, photo lineups, officer notes, telephone and banking information,

contacts for explosives companies, and copies of bomb design manuals. If the answer is in the files, what pattern or detail did police miss? Later, I meet Paul Johnson at a very modern-looking OPP identification lab located in Tilsonburg, a town renowned for its tobacco fields and back-breaking work. So we're going to the case room. This is a representative sample of the debris that we seized from the Winged Revet crime scene. Paul's in the same dark suit, but now wearing purple rubber gloves. He's walking down a nondescript institutional hallway, always lit by greenish fluorescence.

Paul walks me into a room that reminds me of one of my high school chemistry labs. Johnson adjusts his rubber gloves and lifts a clear plastic sleeve from a file. This is the original letter. The original letter that was sent to Wayne Gravett and the original envelope saying Merry Christmas. You can see on the letter that the original ink signature of William J French of Acton Home Products Johnson slides a slightly crumpled piece of paper out of the sleeve there's stains on it that look like blood and the letter carries a chill with it a cold penetrating stare from the mind of the person who killed Wayne. It's typed in all caps in a playful font, the kind you might see in a church newsletter

or perhaps a kid's soccer schedule. Not a business font. Friendly. To conceal the hate hidden within. Mr. Wayne Gravett, dear sir. My partners and I are opening a new business sometime early in the new year called Acton Home Products, and would be very interested in having you give us a price on rebuilding some equipment.

You did some work for a company I was with a few years ago, and although you won't remember me, Lisa and your delivery man Joe most likely will. We don't plan on doing anything until after the new year, but would be most anxious to proceed at that time. We have no staff or office in place just yet, but you can reach us by mail at our new address below. Thanks for your time, and I'll look forward to hearing from you

sometime early in the new year. Sincerely, William J. French, Acton Home Products, RR No. 1, Unit No. 6, Acton, Ontario, L7G2N1. P.S. Didn't realize you had moved. Had some trouble finding you. Have a very Merry Christmas and... And may you never have to buy another flashlight. May you never have to buy another flashlight.

I have a photocopy under the blotter on my desk. I was always quite moved by the PS and how cold it was. There's a signature made by a blue pen that all but surely was held in the killer's hand. But it's the PS that draws initial attention. The postscript is in the least sociopathic by definition and may hold a key to identifying personality traits of the perpetrator. The supposed business address and Acton home products itself don't exist. The postal code was for a residence in Georgetown, a short drive away from Acton. The name William J. French, also fake and unknown to the Gravettes. But the other two names mentioned,

Lisa and Joe, are people Wayne knew, fellow employees at Surge Beverage, the company where Wayne worked. Joe, Joe Zotic, was a delivery man and Lisa, Lisa Irvin, a secretary. In the letter, Lisa's name is spelled incorrectly as L-I-S-A, but she actually spells it the much more uncommon way, L-E-E-S-A. He misspelled Lisa's name. We don't know why. And it could have been on purpose. It could have been just because he'd only heard the name. We don't know.

It would be speculation. I have to assume that the person who made the bomb and wrote the letter would have built in a safety so that their identity would be protected? Was the letter and its contents a red herring, the complete opposite of the world the perpetrator may have come from and nothing to do with the food and beverage industry? Or did it contain half-truths? Would Wayne have been able to figure out where the letter came from had he survived? The profile of the individual, in answer to the question why wouldn't they do something more direct, the profile of the individual is someone who's got a deep-seated hatred,

but it's also somebody that wants to retaliate from a distance. It doesn't have, perhaps, the confrontational skills or doesn't think that they would win in a direct confrontation so that they've used a bomb and done it indirectly. In terms of why they would use the names, well, you know, of Lisa and Joe in the letter, well, that's obviously to lull Wayne Gravett into a false sense of security as to the author and the contents of the package. Like what the heck would Wayne have to have done to elicit this?

We don't know what's precipitated this. We don't know what Wayne did to this individual to cause them to react this way. In profiles that I've read, it could be something as simple as cut them off in traffic. You and I would just go and drive on. Or he could have, you know, it could be something through business or his personal life too. We just don't know. And do you think he did do something with his person? The person thinks that Wayne did something to them. And that's what's important. Obviously it's something that's caused this person to have a very deep-seated

hatred for Wayne, but it would be pure speculation as to what it would be. No fingerprints were found on the letter, but there may be a clue found in the typewriter font itself. It's very unique. It's almost like a fingerprint in itself in this type letter. And the letter has actually led us to find which particular font was used and that there is an anomaly in the daisy wheel. The daisy wheel is used by older style printers or electric typewriters. Press the B key and the daisy wheel spins to B. An actuator sends the B into an ink ribbon and then impacts both onto the paper,

forming an inked letter B. And so on as fast as you can type. Police determined the letter mailed to Wayne had been typed on a Smith Corona typewriter with such a daisy wheel. Each wheel came with a different font. The font used in the Gravette letter was called Script 1012, daisy wheel number 59543. At the time, only 2% of people who had a Smith Corona typewriter owned the daisy wheel that made this font, according to police. What's more, the daisy wheel and typewriter combination used to type the letter to Wayne displayed a unique anomaly. If you can see behind every period, this one stands out the most behind the word year.

Behind the period there's an upslash that shouldn't be there. An imperfection after every period, so small you might not see it. A very tiny slash, possibly caused by a bent daisy wheel arm. Yeah, the daisy wheel could have fit into either of these typewriters here and you can see inside the daisy wheel would fit into here. This is the Smith Corona this is quite popular in 94, 95, 96 and the typewriter itself opens up and you can see the point here where the daisy wheel is actually inserted. And our understanding is that the reason that's there is because there's a bent arm on the

daisy wheel. It's just made of plastic. It is actually, if you look at it, quite fragile. Any bend would translate onto the type page. A tantalizing clue, one that could find the typist, possibly the killer. But despite extensive months examining the Gravette's business records and those of other companies to see if somebody had ever sent or received another letter using the same type of font with the anomaly, police couldn't find another example that matched the letter that came with the flashlight. Paul Johnson leads me to a different room and we're joined by another

officer with a badge pinned to his uniform that says T. McLeod. He's also wearing purple rubber gloves. So what we're looking at here are individual packages and each one has a piece of debris in it from the actual explosive device, the flashlight. Dozens of brown evidence envelopes with yellow labels are laid out in neat rows on a table before me. You can see this one's marked wire, grey plastic debris, red coated wire,

and this would all be stuff that was in the actual bomb. So you can see within the debris there's roofing nails and small pieces of plastic. There's a metal fragment that was found in the ceiling in the living room. The everydayness of the roofing nails, pieces of wire and plastic doesn't compute as fragments of a bomb. More like the remains of a day's work on a shop floor to be swept up. The grey plastic flashlight was a Duracell brand floating lantern, about 23cm long and 15cm tall, with a yellow ring around the screw-on lens cap and a yellow on-off switch.

This is the kind of flashlight that was used to construct the bomb. Here's a question for you. Do you think it was meant to construct the bomb. Here's a question for you. Do you think it was meant to kill him? Absolutely. Absolutely it was meant to kill him. It's obvious that the device was meant to kill Wayne Gravett. From the amount of explosive emulsion in the device and from the fact that there were roofing nails packed around it,

it was a perfect improvised explosive device. It was intended to be lethal. Despite what your current bank says, mortgages are not one size fits all. Let Dominion Lending Centres help. There are many options, better rates, and more comfortable terms out there. It's your mortgage renewal. Get the right choices for you. Find a mortgage expert in your area at dominionlending.ca. Oh, that coffee smells good. Can you pass me the sugar when you're finished? Whoa, what are you doing? That's salt, not sugar. Let's get you another coffee. Feeling distracted? You're not alone. Many Canadians are finding it hard to focus with

mortgage payments on their minds. If you're struggling with your payments, speak to your bank. The earlier they understand your situation, the more options and relief measures could be available to you. Learn more at Canada.ca slash it pays to know. A message from the Government of Canada. Everything that's in this box is the wrapping paper that the flashlight was received in. Is that plastic? No, that's ninhydrin. That's a fingerprint chemical. Now, the wrapping paper was the hunter green on one side and the white on the other. Yeah, so it was almost wrapped inside out.

Right. I turn my attention to a pile of pink, stained, colored newsprint. The stain, I'm told, is from forensic investigations looking for fingerprints and other physical evidence that might have been left on the paper during packing. And those would be the flyers that it was wrapped in? Yes. The flashlight had been wrapped inside a cardboard wine box stuffed with flyers, the kind of unsolicited advertising anyone might get in their mailbox on the weekend. But one particular flyers, the kind of unsolicited advertising anyone might get in their mailbox on the weekend. But one particular flyer was only distributed locally.

Yeah, this castle building center flyer here is from Copeland Lumber, Main Street in Milton. You can see here, 700 Main Street East and Milton. The one that's of most significance would be the one from Milton, showing that it was local. The person who wrapped the flashlight must have gotten the flyer from the Milton distribution area, from the store itself, from inside a local newspaper, or possibly from a local mailbox or recycle bin. This is the wine box that the flashlight was inside of and then it was wrapped up with the wrapping paper. The wine box is festive, covered in deep fuchsia photos of roses. It had originally held a Cabernet red wine under the brand name of Domaine D'Or. I notice a rectangle neatly cut out from the lid area. Where would the UPC code have gone in there?

So the UPC code would have been here. But there was no new UPC code on the box. We'd have to assume that it was razored off there. And what does that indicate? Why would somebody cut the product number off? To confuse the identity of where the product came from. You wouldn't be able to say it came from a specific store or a specific location. It would really muddy the waters as to where it came from. It could be from anywhere then.

It's like taking off the fingerprints. And what does it tell us about the perpetrator? That it's well planned. As part of the investigation, we interviewed persons at the post office and persons responsible for the rural mail delivery. When we did that, they remembered that someone had come and asked about Wayne Gravett and where he had moved to. There were two people that had come to the post office. And they both asked the same question? Yes. One dealt with a desk person and another dealt with another person outside

trying to find Wayne's new address. About a month before the explosion, two men went to the Acton post office looking for Wayne's address. The Gravettes had previously lived in Acton but would have moved to the farm near Moffat five months before these men were allegedly seen. Police sketch artists drew pictures of the men based on witness information.

So there's two sketches of two different people. And anything ever come of that? We never found out who the sketches were of. I hope to look into these drawings as I move through the investigation. The police released these sketches but didn't get any leads, so we're hosting them on the SKS website, along with photos of the letter, wine box, and packaging material. I'm Dan Lincolnheld. I'm in my 29th year of service. I've been a detective since 1991. I meet some of the other OPP detectives who have worked the Gravette case.

My name's Ian Maul. I'm a detective inspector with the Ontario Provincial Police. Detective Dan Lincolnheld, with grey beard and the amiable presence of someone's uncle near retirement, held carriage of Wayne's uncle near retirement, held carriage of Wayne's case for two years, then handed the case to Paul Johnson. And Detective Inspector Ian Maul, in a dark pinstripe, brown-beige tie with crystal-clear glasses, is head of this OPP investigative unit and an explosives expert.

He, Dan and Paul sit at a table in front of racks of boxes with information and evidence from dozens of cases. Dan speaks first, followed by Ian. Now the Duracell flashlight was set off with a single cell AA battery. The explosive that was used in this device was a superfrac emulsion, which is generally used in the mining business for fracturing rock. And generally it's packed into holes and then set off with a detonator for controlled explosives. But it's a high explosive and a small amount would cause significant damage, which it did in this case. Yeah, it would have been probably less than a pound or a pound and a half of emulsion that would be able to fit within the confines of the battery cavity.

Is the feeling then that this was a store-bought material? It would be purchased through manufacture, but it could have been obtained through theft from a gravel pit or some other explosive distributor at some point in time. For the most part, at that point in time in 1996, you did not need a license to obtain that stuff. I ask Ian how much training someone would need to put together a flashlight bomb

like the one that killed Wayne. So anybody who worked with those types of explosives in the mining industry would have the ability to put something together. The ability to build an improvised explosive device or an IED, which is what this flashlight was, could be obtained at that point in time through some magazines that were available on the black market or, quite frankly, a lot of bookstores. The Internet was sort of in its infancy back in 1996,

so there was limited information on the Internet, but it still could be found if you were looking for it. So yeah, a lay person could put that together. It would be riskier. The explosive itself is quite stable. It takes a detonator and a power source in order to ignite and explode. You can take plastic explosives, put it on the table and hit it with a hammer all day and it won't go off. You've got to ignite and explode. You can take plastic explosives, put it on the table, and hit it with a hammer all day and it won't go off. You've got to have a trigger.

You've got to have a spark. But it happens like that. But then there was debris blasted all up the... everywhere, like the hallway, through the walls. Yeah, it was everywhere. It just blew into it. Here. Up.

Yeah. Hands off. It looked like there was a snow angel on the wall. But... The outline of a human. But it was sprayed with blood around the outside. Because it initiated from his... From his lap. From his lap.

And so his body would act as a shield for everything that was expelled out of the explosion, leaving the silhouette on the wall. Well I'm sure Justin's told you he was right beside his dad when it happened. Basically the positioning of his dad's body is what protected him from getting injured. You have to have that in your mind when you're putting that together and you're sending it to somebody's home. Somebody else could be there, not necessarily the intended victim, but his family. How callous is that? No DNA was detected on the postage, but Johnson says that two hairs were discovered under the tape on the package. At the time, though, DNA was in its infancy. We did have two hairs that were found in the packaging material,

but they didn't have the root sheath to the hair. As a result, we ended up contacting the FBI in Quantico, Virginia, and the hairs were actually taken down there for mitochondrial DNA testing, which in 1996, early 1997, wasn't available in Canada. They weren't able to come up with a viable profile at the time. There's certain criteria that's met to make them searchable to known perpetrators, and in this case we don't have that. Police also came to a dead end on the source of the Hunter Green packing paper and spent months in the basements of liquor stores in a 50 to 80 kilometer radius of the Hunter Green packing paper, and spent months in the basements of liquor stores

in a 50 to 80 kilometer radius of the farm, sifting through cash register receipts to look into anyone who bought the same Domain Door wine box that the flashlight was delivered in. We never came up with a viable suspect through that purchase. It wouldn't make sense to me for a perpetrator to expose themselves to a public drop-off of the box at a post office counter. Far more likely, given the extra postage that the box was placed in a drop-off chute attached to the exterior of a postal building or

even a random red mailbox. Diane, the postal worker, said she believed that the perpetrator had measured or at least estimated the size of the Gravett's mailbox in person before sending it. I think we're fairly confident that that person is from within that area. We know that from the information in the letter that was in the package that they had to have some familiarity with Wayne Gravatt and his family and his business. Anyone in the water bottling industry is familiar with barcodes to mark their products. So again, that leads back to the business

that somebody has some familiarity with that in order not to leave any traces behind as to where that bottle or that box was purchased. They've cut that out and they have their knowledge base from the water bottling industry. I leave the police and rejoin the Gravettes as they discuss the evidence and strategize their next move. The two men who were seen asking for the Graervette's address at the Acton post office come up first. Like obviously they were looking for us and whether or not two guys ended up being paid to go in there to the post office and try and find us I'm not quite sure but

those two guys still exist out there somewhere. There's somebody out there, I think, that knows something. The two men are intriguing, especially given the timing. But they could also have nothing to do with Wayne's murder. Still, it's odd that nobody has come forward to say it was them, if that's the case. We're not investigators, and we can't go out and launch this whole big investigation. So we've got to start with what we got, and hopefully something can come out of it.

Okay, we don't know if they're the people of interest to them, but we have people of interest to us. And at the end of the day, will it make us feel better inside that we have talked to these people, or that we've tried to talk to these people? I will feel better. The family moves forward with the notion of investigating the case together. Talking to people they once knew, who knew Wayne, and who may know more. We might approach some people and they just slam the door in our face.

They will. Right? And that's, you know, but there's nothing preventing us from leaving that card on their doorstep. That might just spark something, even though they're not willing to sit down face to face with us. It might get them to think. I'd like to speak to some people that, you know, he was associated with and our family was associated with. In thinking of all the directions the flashlight could have come from over the years, one that the Gravette family keeps returning to is a company called Surge. Wayne had been a partner at Surge Beverage, which was owned by a man named Ed Galick. Ed and Wayne had, at least for a time,

a close, almost father-son relationship, with Ed taking Wayne under his wing in the business. So you helped your dad? As an employee. I did what I was told. Justin worked alongside his dad at Surge Beverage and knew Ed and the business well. When he had stopped working at Surge and started his own business, my mom and him, I joined in and worked right alongside them. So tell me about your dad working at Surge.

My dad and Ed Gillick, had done worked on a lot of packaging equipment for years and years and years and ed came back and started up surge and after a while my dad had actually come back and started working with ed and what they did was packaging equipment tappers fillers labelers i know they put in the sleeman's's line that Ed was, well, he was Uncle Ed. He was as close to me as, if not closer than any uncle I ever had. And my dad became business partners in search. And my dad actually would run the whole company while Ed would go trotting off throughout the U.S. and Arizona. He would run off to Arizona and while he was gone in Arizona we took care of the house

and took care of the business and they had a falling out and that's where the partnership ended. What was the basis of the falling out? In its entirety, no, I don't. I know that it was messy. I've had no dealings with them since, so... Wayne and his business partner at Surge, Ed Galick, had a major falling out,

and it's difficult to know exactly what might have happened without going to the source. Justin and Danielle decide that the time has come to pay a visit to Uncle Ed. Well, maybe we could pose the question too, is what sort of things could Dad have done that would have pissed off customers, right? And then one of the questions I really wanted to talk is, how was he respected with his employees? Like, Dad was a pretty abrasive person. I think it's important, too, that we lead them up to these questions

by saying, like, the good with the bad. Like, we want to know, like, don't think that you're going to hurt our feelings or, you know... Figuring out a strategy for this meeting is important, especially considering that one of the main people of interest to the Gravettes is Ed Gaelic himself. We're going to have to, like, at the beginning,

it's going to have to be all social, you know, and that kind of takes some of... I would think, anyway, if I was in their position, it would put their guard down. Yeah, exactly. We're at the point now where not knowing is so much harder. So anything that you guys can help us with. I think that's perfect. Yeah, so if we wanna, once we get to sit down.

The road comes down, we're gonna go up the driveway. Your driveway bends around like this. And up here is where we're gonna, that big barn used to be. Got it? Yep. All right. Let's go. Here goes nothing.

As we approach the property, Justin and Danielle appear to lose their initial nervousness about the coming meeting and instead begin to reminisce about their childhood. We hid down at the bottom of the driveway and we skipped school. We just waited until Mom and Dad left. That was the longest, coldest walk in the wintertime. Oh my God. All right. Danielle?

Yes. I love you. Wow? I love you. Wow. I love you too. Ed Galick's house is at the top of a tiered, manicured hill at the end of a long, twisting driveway. A high fence circles a field to the right, a pen for other animals.

They're deer. Who are you? to the right a pen for other animals. They're deer. Oh yeah. There's a car in the driveway. There is? Yep. You can see the shiny roof. Oh, wait, that's a big dog. Hello.

Hi. How are you? Oh, hi. You have been listening to Episode 2, Death Letter. Visit cbc.ca.sks to see evidence collected by the police, including a copy of the letter and sketches of the men seen at the post office. Someone Knows Something is a proud part of CBC Original Podcasts. Addicted to SKS? Looking for more? Check out On Drugs, a podcast that explores our complicated relationship with drugs.

After graduation, when I looked at my circle of people who got high, it was elected officials and doctors and lawyers and other business people, young executives in companies. Subscribe in Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to SKS. Someone Knows Something is hosted, written, and produced by David Ridgen. The series is mixed by Cecil Fernandez and produced by Chris Oak, Steph Kampf, Amal Delich, Eunice Kim, and executive producer Arif Noorani.

Our theme song is Higher by Olenka Krakus. Baby, oh baby What have I done? Turn my eyes from your eyes just to stare at the sun. I've been burning with shame since the day it is said.