Someone Knows Something - S5 Episode 4: Graveyard Road

Episode Date: October 22, 2018

A local teenager witnessed two vehicles leaving the crime scene the night Kerrie was murdered. What did he see that night? And more importantly, who? For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/sks/someone-knows-something-season-5-kerrie-brown-transcripts-listen-1.4850662

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Listener discretion is advised. You are listening to Someone Knows Something from CBC Podcasts. In Season 5, David Ridgen travels north to Thompson, Manitoba to investigate the 1986 murder of Carrie Brown. This is Episode 4, Graveyard Road. I'm gonna try and call in a raven or two if I can. I guess they're around. It's a crisp Thompson morning and I'm with Trevor outside his place. One will come in and let me know that it's something that'll land up there on that hydro tower.

Yep. Or on the roof of the house over there or up in this tree over here. They just, they'll come in and sometimes they sneak in, but they're out of shouting distance it would seem right now. There's a lot of noise going on. Going on background noise too, yeah. Yeah, we'll keep our eyes peeled. They might come in. The ravens aren't materializing

so we decide to go to the Thompson Courthouse instead where, hopefully, transcripts from Patrick Sumner's preliminary hearing await. You go down, I'll go down. You go up, I'll go up. Okay, so we're just walking along here into the courthouse. We're walking into a busy brown and concrete building off the main street. Patrick Sumner, at age 22, was arrested on October 23, 1986, for Carrie's murder,

about a week after her body was discovered at the Hydroline off Mystery Lake Road. But the case was thrown out in February 1987, before it could even go to trial, and I want to know exactly why. The RCMP said they would try to find the transcripts of Sumner's prelim for me, but we'll look here, too. First, we have to get inside.

Trevor's got his arm looped through my left arm as I record our progress. So I was going to come to some steps here. Sure. Yeah, I'm just kind of following the... I see this step here. Step up, step up, step up, then walk. Employee entrance only. Use front entrance. Foiled.

Foiled is right. Watch your hand there. Finally, we get inside and more steps. Okay, sharp left at the bottom. Great. We find the counter we're supposed to be at and are approached by a pleasant, dark-haired woman. Hi, how are you?

Not bad, you? I'm good. I think we've been in touch, or someone in my office has been in touch. I'm David. I work at CBC in Toronto. And I'm working on the Carrie Ann Brown case, which there was a prelim for that case. A long time ago, right? February 1987. February 1987.

And we were interested in getting the documents, if there's any way to find them. If it's been created once already, and most likely if it went to the prelim stage, it has been. But we don't have access. We only keep 10 years' worth of stuff here, and so this would be a situation where we'd be seeking requests from Winnipeg to mail stuff back and forth. What exactly are you looking for? Just the transcript of the proceeding? It would be the preliminary trial for Patrick Somner. We leave our request with the clerk.

Thanks so much. Okay, see ya. Bye, sorry dude. Okay, let's go. Until I get out of here, yeah. Oh, watch out, there's a middle thing here. There we go. This way?

Yeah, we got a door. My angles are all messed up right now. It's okay. This is where we came in. It's locked. There's like a slide. There used to be a slide. I remember coming out with a slide.

There's a big raven? No, no, you guys go ahead. If you're hungry... No, I'm okay. I don't think about food when I'm talking about Kerry generally. Back at the Brown household and I'm in the living room with Trevor and Jim. The hunt for the preliminary transcript that will contain much of the evidence against Sumner and about Kerry's murder itself brings up the obvious next questions. So, Patrick Sumner... He lives here. He's still here. My dad sees him at the Hub,

the restaurant my dad goes to have a beer at once in a while downtown. Sumner goes in there still. Do you know where Patrick Sumner lives? No. I wish. You know, my dad asked me, do you actually think Sumner's going to talk to him? And I said, I hope so. My dad says, I don't. I don't think he's going to.

My dad still believes he knows something. And the cops will tell you he knows something. But they can't connect him to that crime scene. That's what we know. And they know. They charged him. They charged him. They arrested him. They were convinced it was him.

And in fact, my dad has talked to guys that had backroom card games, cops involved, okay, here in Thompson, that talked about if they had a million dollars, they would pay someone a million bucks to kill this fucker because they're convinced he had some. Which doesn't make sense to me. If you're a cop, you have a million dollars. Why are you going because they're convinced he had some which doesn't make sense to me like if you're a cop you have a million dollars why are you going to pay someone that only million dollars you have to kill a person that you may not actually know is guilty

of something but they're that convinced he's involved mr brown yes tell me about your meetings with uh patrick sumner maxwell the crown liar when the last thing he said to me when he left Mr. Brown, tell me about your meetings with Patrick Sumner. Maxwell, the Crown Lawyer, the last thing he said to me when he left Thompson, we have the right man. I'm focused that way. I found a gun out in the snow going around the plaza. I got it cleaned by a guy. I got him to get me bullets. I loaded that gun up,

carried it in my Camaro for about five years. But when I got thinking after that, what good is it for me to shoot somebody if there's no evidence that he did anything and all I'd wind up is in jail so I abandoned that I gave the gun to a guy he's got the gun but I had problem with him just thinking yes possibly you are the guy and wherever I met him I give him a hard time Sumner yeah it was a restaurant or in the bar he if he was sitting in the bar, I'd purposely sit right beside him. He wouldn't even finish his beer, he'd take off. One time I met him at the Burnwood Hotel. He's blocking the door talking to somebody. I just grabbed him and paired him right against the brick wall.

And every time that I bothered him, he got on his phone. The police come to me, Mr. Brown, you cannot touch him or do anything or we can't use nothing against him if you force him to say anything. So about four incidents I had with him. And then finally I said, well, you know, even at the preliminary hearing, I only went two out of the three days because I seen nothing there that whatever you could ever charge him with murder, a bit of circumstantial stuff, a couple of arguing in court about what they saw on the road. They saw his car.

One didn't, wasn't sure it was him or who it was, but that's about it with Sumner more or less. He won't talk nothing about anything about Kerry. He'll talk about cars or something like that, and just briefly, he's driving so he only has two beer and away he goes. Yeah, this place is a lot bigger than I remember. I never really came out here in the daytime because I didn't really know anybody that was out here when I was a kid. I'm here at the Thompson Graveyard at the end of Cemetery Road with Trevor, part of the tour of the case. It's just across Mystery Lake Road and

the hydro clearing where Carrie was murdered. I can hear one of the Mayans working in the background and Trevor's moved off on his own trying to navigate around the stones. I catch up to him. Where's Carrie Ann buried? She's not. She's cremated. She's in an urn out on the west coast right now. She's been passed around family. People take turns with her ashes and my mom's ashes. Carrie's in a beautiful white marble urn for her ashes. When do you think you'll spread the ashes for Carrie? That's a good question.

Maybe after we get to have some answers. Yeah, I would think. My phone begins ringing back at the SUV. I run back through a group of headstones to see that the call is coming from Winnipeg. It's the Manitoba archives. They've done some searching for Sumner's preliminary hearing transcript.

...in Winnipeg, and I see no indication that a transcript was ever created. Because normally what happens would have been court reporters. Court stenographer, yeah, okay. And there's no indication that a transcript was ever ordered in this particular case. So there is no transcript. And then the records or anything else associated with this file

have since been destroyed because it is as old as it is. Oh, okay. Wow. That's just mind-boggling in such a huge case as Carrie Ann Brown's that that would happen. And I'm not casting blame. Without the transcript, basically, I'm stuck with having to go talk to people who actually went to the prelim and testified. And then it becomes a memory thing, right? What did they remember saying? Well, I'll try my best to continue looking, but I really thank you for calling and clearing that up. But thanks very much for your time. You're welcome. Good luck in your search.

Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye. We're both a bit disheartened by the transcript news. Finding official information in print would help to anchor some of the facts. Later, I tracked down one of the transcribers who was in court for the Sumner hearing. Sometimes they keep transcription tapes beyond the legal time frame, but no luck. She destroyed the originals. Back to the graveyard. I need to look at the fuckers that did this. I need to look them in the eyes and know that they're not going to walk free anymore

because they have no business walking free. They haven't for the last 30 years. As far as I'm concerned, they're cancers that need to be excised from humanity. Just put them in a fucking jail cell and throw away the key. We make a quick call to the medical examiner's office in Winnipeg to get the ball rolling on the autopsy request.

Okay, let me just put the last name. How do you spell the last name? Brown. B-R-O-W. Apparently Trevor just has to send a letter asking for it. Where do I fax the letter to? You can fax it to our office or you can mail it. It's the office of the chief medical examiner. We sit in the graveyard, sullen and frustrated. We're both anxious to find some kind of tangible evidence. Maybe time will tell. If we solve this,

then I know I've said I'll move on. I'm going to move on once I know who did this and I'll get on with my life. And not that I haven't tried, but just no motivation I don't know I don't know how to explain it Dave let's go uh take a break here as we drive down cemetery road we pass a shortcut that leads to the main highway beyond mystery lake road on the other side of that shortcut, the gravel access road that leads to the stables and then to the hydro clearing beyond where Carrie was found. The key witness against Patrick Sumner said they were at this crossroads on the night Carrie disappeared. If I could find him, we'd get something tangible.

Here in northern Saskatchewan, looking for Sean Simmons. Sean was one of the more important witnesses as the investigation unfolded into the murder of Carrie Brown. Back in 1986, Sean had come forward supposedly with stories of what he saw that night. And since we now know that the Sumner preliminary trial transcripts are unavailable, eyewitnesses must tell me themselves what they saw. Hi. You're breaking up a bit. Oh, okay.

So how do I find you? Okay, take care. Yep, bye-bye. Score. After asking around and a bit of digging on contact information, I'm able to finally connect with Sean. It feels like a mini-victory after the bad news on the preliminary hearing documents. Just approaching Sean Simmons' place here in a small northern Saskatchewan town. It's about 8 degrees as I drive into the low-rise farming community where Sean lives.

I pass a white Ukrainian church close to his street and pull up to a small red house. Sean's standing next to a truck, talking to a dog. Sean! Hey! How you doing? Good, how are you? I'm good. Sean leads me past his dog named Dunna into his kitchen.

He's mid-40s in brown work overalls, short brown hair and trimmed beard. Well, it's about time something happened. Every year I wonder if Something's gonna happen It's been a long road I was joking to a friend I said I'm gonna say a whole bunch of things That could be taken out of context

So they can build a narrative around this And I don't even know what the narrative is anymore You know our memories are basically myths, and you think about them so many times, and nobody remembers. We remember remembering. You know, that's what it is. But even keeping that in mind,

I think I still remember that night and the events pretty clearly. And I don't know how much is story that we tell ourselves, but yeah. It's obvious Sean's been working through his memories of Carrie Brown and the night she disappeared for a long time. He's never spoken about what happened that night

to anyone in the media. Well, I knew Carrie Brown from elementary school, her and her brother Trevor, and I know there's another brother, Ian, but I think he was a few years older than us. I remember Ian from high school. I wouldn't say Carrie Brown was in a completely different crowd, because you know how circles kind of overlap a bit. But, you know, I didn't really talk to her in high school. I think she was a grade behind me.

She was going into grade 10. So, yeah, I just started grade 11. That works. Because this was October, I think. So to go back to the night of, I had just gotten my driver's license. And my parents, I believe they went to Selkirk because my father was looking at

transferring to there with Manitoba Hydro. And he left me the family truck. I think they took the work truck and left me the Red Ford truck, which was amazing. It was supposed to be my time to shine and prove what a responsible young man I was. And I just drove the balls off of it. I remember, oh my God, I put hundreds of miles on that truck in like one or two days, you know, driving down forest roads, just driving everywhere because I have the truck. And it was a school and work night I can't be 100% sure in that way you know this is where things become weird we're out me and three buddies we're out playing four buddies we're out playing vehicle tag

and I had the red truck and I don't remember what the other car was but I think it was this kid Rene's car and he had a car and then Tom Henderson had his truck and Curtis Beaver was riding with Tom Henderson and Larry Leapart was riding with me and we had a football and now he basically drove all the hell around Thompson, graveyard, train station, just every back road trying to find each other, hit the other vehicle with the football. I hadn't actually heard of the game before this night that we played it, but fine, it was great. And we went for coffee two or three times over the night. We went to the radio station and took them a Black Sabbath album we wanted them to play. Lots of trips out to the cemetery, a couple trips down the horse stable road.

We'd go for coffee again. And then somewhere around midnight, me and Larry did a loop of the graveyard, cemetery, just did all these things. And it was, you know, one of those nights where time seems to just stretch on forever. And then at some point, and I'm not going to say the time because I don't really know the time anymore, but it was late. I'm going to say it was midnight-ish. Let's just use that as a pinpoint.

Me and Larry driving the red truck were exiting the graveyard, not on the main drag, but on a little cut-across road. And from that cut-across road, you can see on the other side of the highway, the road that leads into the horse stables. And we had our lights off because we're playing vehicle tag and Renee or Tom could be anywhere around here. So we crept up that road to the highway with the headlights off. And as we did, we saw two vehicles.

Might have been three, this is where memory's fuzzy, but it was two vehicles coming out of the horse stables with their lights off. Which is like, okay, is that them? Are they doing the same thing we're doing? But it wasn't them. It was a car, and behind the car was a white van. Which is like, okay, is that them? Are they doing the same thing we're doing? But it wasn't them. It was a car, and behind the car was a white van. It wasn't them. And then I pulled my headlights on, and then, you know, in a blink, they pulled their headlights on.

And the way the car was angled in the front, they were turning toward Thompson. And I'm turning toward Thompson, but I'm turning turning left so I'm waiting for this guy to go I'm waiting for him to go, I'm waiting for him to go, he doesn't go so finally I go so I pull out, turning left onto the highway and then the car pulls up behind me and so does the van so now we're three vehicles in a line heading to Thompson,

heading toward the bridge where the Popeye's restaurant is. And the car, rather than passing me, you know, in the opposing lane like most cars do, he passed me on the shoulder, which was very strange. You know, as a new driver and knowing how things work in the world, nobody does this. Especially when you have a clear view of the bridge and nobody's coming. This guy passes me on the shoulder. On the shoulder, like a crazy person. Now, me and Larry are laughing about what a fucking idiot this guy is.

And we're able to get a look at him. And I was able to see into the car. And we didn't have a spotlight or a floodlight. Either he had his interior light on. Or some other light. Maybe from the Welcome to Thompson sign. Maybe there's a halogen light above the Popeye's restaurant. I don't know. But I was able to see the guy in the Thompson sign maybe there's a halogen light you know above the Popeyes restaurant I don't know but I was able to see the guy in the car and he looked at us like he looked at us like

you know as he's going around and is that real or is that mythology it seems pretty real to me and then as he passed us and got back on the road he just gunned it and he disappeared over the bridge and into the city of Thompson so you were able to see the face in the car that passed yeah he was a like a scrawny little guy with uh with a mustache and scraggly hair anyway he speeds around us takes off on the bridge and does, I don't know, 80 miles an hour into town and disappears, burning rubber. The van behind us, we're expecting similar shenanigans. The van just slows down, slows down, slows down, drops out of sight. And I would say, look in the rearview mirror, look in my mirrors, it drops out of sight and disappears pretty much in the vicinity of MacReady Park, which would be a quarter of a mile behind us.

Do you ever see the van turn around or go the other way? No, I never. It was just the diminishing headlights. It was, he wasn't driving the same speed as everyone else. And then he never did come along. You know what I mean? Yep. So you never saw the van turn up the other direction?

In my present memory, no. But, I mean, that's one of those really muddy areas. If they show me a statement where I said that, then that's probably true. But in my present memory, I mean, that's gone. It's just been edited out. I just remember the diminishing headlights of the van and then it not being there anymore. And that's that story. You know, we just, these fucking idiots, blah, blah, blah. We went for coffee again. I know I got breathalyzed once or twice that night. I think I still have a little

breathalyzer things because it was my first breathalyzer test and I passed because we were just smoking cigarettes. So then that's all for that night. I asked Sean to continue, but we'll be returning to this initial story. And I was, after school, I was working at Hillcrest Car Wash. You know, this is where times and dates get fuzzy. I don't know that it was the next day or the day after that that I'm talking to Craig Jordan at the radio station.

He called me, or maybe I called him for some unrelated reason, but I think maybe he called me and he was saying he was concerned or he was about to do a bulletin about Carrie Brown being missing. And, you know, oh, that's creepy. That's weird and that's creepy. But there was nothing more to that.

She was just missing. But that night, I was at Santa Maria Pizza after work. That's a place, you know, it was a 24-hour joint. It's a place where a lot of the kids went for coffee after hours, and I was there, and I don't know, can't remember who I was with, and then Ian Brown came in, and he might have been with somebody. I mean, the table seems full in my memory. And he repeated that his sister's missing.

So he had me drive him all around Thompson. He was knocking on doors. We were driving down roads. We were driving down the... I can't even remember what we used to call that. But it was behind Riverside Drive. We just drove down roads and knocked on doors and he went to houses. And so now I'm getting to the point where I think, again, the weirdness in memory, so now two or three days later,

he said they just found a body out at the horse stables. To clarify, Kerry was not out at the horse stables. To clarify, Cary was not found at the horse stables, rather on a hydroline offshoot of the same road that passes by the horse stables. So, as the raven flies, almost a kilometer away from the stables. We Built This City is a collection of stories from Mississauga, capturing the rich history, culture, sports, music, and incredible individuals who have shaped Mississauga into the vibrant city it is today. This brand new series created by Visit Mississauga

celebrates a city 50 years in the making, paying homage to Ontario's vibrant, diverse, and dynamic third largest city. Tune in to Visit Mississauga's brand new podcast, We Built This City, to learn more. Available now on CBZ Listen. 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. What came first? I don't know. But at some point, there's a body discovered at the horse stables. Then at some point, maybe it's identified as Cary Brown. And then a car pulls up to the pumps at Hillcrest. What's the pumps at Hillcrest? The gas pumps at Hillcrest Car Wash. That's where it works.

So a car pulls up, and I recognize the car. That's the idiot that passed us on the shoulder of the road. And so then the news starts to break that Carrie Brown's been found dead. They think the murder occurred this night, which was the night she went missing. And then I started thinking, wait a minute, we saw guys leaving the horse stables on that night. And technically earlier in the evening, we'd been at the horse stables. So we saw guys leaving the horse stables.

I just called the cops because I'm like, this might be something. So I called the police. They had me stop by the station on my way home from work. We talked about what I'd seen the night in question, the night of the vehicular football game, people leaving the stables. And then I said, well, Larry Leapheart was with me. And so they interviewed Larry Leapheart, I believe. Now, one thing that would come to pass was that I got the colour of the vehicle wrong. So in my initial interview, I called the vehicle an old boat, kind of greenish in colour. It turned out to be an old boat, kind of brownish in colour.

This discrepancy in colour from green to brownish, actually what some I've interviewed call a goldish colour, makes me wonder about other similar cars that may have been in the area. Something to look into. I reported that I saw this old beat-up boat, kind of greenish in color, and the fellow's car turned out to be kind of brownish in color. And I've always maintained that in those lights at night, they look the same. I don't know. I just thought it was, you know,

one of those kind of oversized horseshit cars. It's like a pukey brown. And the color discrepancy didn't throw me off when I recognized the guy pulling up to the pumps. I've never been a vehicle guy. Like, I can't say that's an 81 Mustang or you know that's a 67 whatever. Like I've never been that guy. But the car that pulled up to the pumps was the guy that passed us on the shoulder. He was the same guy. It was the

same face. It was the same car. And when he came to the pumps hey that's the guy from the shoulder of the road that passed us on the shoulder so now i've given a statement and the whole town you know was in an uproar we had guys like punching lockers and kicking the shit out of each other and threatening to kill other guys in high school who were driving vans because Because this story, what happened? It affected everybody that lived in that town. There's nobody that wasn't affected somehow by this story, by what this tragedy is, the thing that happened. So then the police said, do you know the guy who's driving the car? And I said, no, I don't know him.

He's not somebody I know. And the next night at work, the car came to Hillcrest Car Wash again. And the guy got out and asked me if he could cash a check. And I said, what kind of check? Like a personal check? You're writing Hillc cast a check for your gas and he says no I got paid

I need some cash I want to cash my check we're not allowed to do this but I said this is the guy this is the car now I know his name if I take the check so I did that

then I called the police they came and requis I take the check. So I did that. Then I called the police. They came and requisitioned the check. Whatever the word is for it. Absconded with it. Wrote a warrant for it. They came and took the check and I can't remember the amount. I don't know whether it was $50

or $500. And it was for some light work he'd done at the hospital. And then that was that. I think I think the next day, again, days being fluid here. At some point it was out that you know, this fella, can I say

his name? Are we doing the name? So that this fella, Patrick Sumner was wanted or taken in for questioning regarding the murder of C Carrie Brown. Did he wash his car when he came to the car? No, he just got gas. Most people just came for fuel.

And it should be noted here that the family, the Sumner family, lived at the dump like they managed and maintained it. But, you know, it all gets so much weirder because once the name was out there, and once he was taken in, especially once the arrest was made, the people in that family, the Sumner family, started tailgating the red truck, our red truck, all the time. Like my mother could not go to the grocery store

without having the Sumner father following her. And he'd follow her around town. And she knew it was him? Yeah. Oh, yeah, because I can't remember his name myself, but... So your mother knew that it was Patrick's father that was following her? Yeah, following her. And sometimes it would be Patrick. So it would be Patrick's father driving his truck,

following my mother driving the truck, because, like I said, the red truck that I was driving was actually the family truck. I got to use it to go to work and school sometimes. But, you know, it was also for groceries and my mom's errands, and she would be followed by either the father or Patrick Sumner himself. And the woman that I was living with later on,

because, I mean, there's a whole cycle of things that happen after this, but then when I'm living with a woman and she's driving the red truck, sometimes the same thing's happening to her. She's being followed around. And this went on for like two years or more. This would be after the prelim was over. Uh, some of it was before the prelim started because Patrick would be in custody? The father. I can't verify who may have been following the Simmons red truck. Patrick Sumner appears to have been in custody between Thursday, October 23rd, 1986 until he was discharged on February 27, 1987.

Did you ever speak to Patrick Sumner about this case? I don't think so. I know that in later years, we're talking 10 years later when I'm mining, he'd come into the same restaurant where everybody had coffee. And there was one time where I was sitting with some people, you know, that he happened to know perhaps, and it's a longer table, and he sat down at the other end, and I got up and left. Let's go back to...

I've got a lot of questions, but let's go... What do you take in your coffee? Do you want anything in your coffee? Black is good. Here we pause for a coffee break. I resume by switching back into Sean's story for more detail. That's awesome. Thank you very much. So on the evening that you were playing this football tag game, I've been to that road where you were. I know that lip that you had to go up. It's a steep

lip. Yeah. And you're looking kind of across. When you turned your lights on, you say these other vehicles turned their lights on. There was a pause. I don't know how long a pause it was. I can't tell you. There was a pause. I turned my lights on. They turned their lights on. And if we look back in time, we had like some time device.

And it turned out that they turned their lights on. Then I turned my lights on. I can't say that's not the way it didn't play out. Sure, but the lights were off, and your lights were off. My lights were off, their lights were off. And then it came to be that both lights were on at some point before the turn happened. So they turn, or you turn first. I turn first.

You turn left, they turn right. I'm left going into town. They turn right going into town behind me. So when you turn, you're looking in your rearview mirror at them, and you're seeing lights because you can't see a car at that point because it's nighttime. Right, lights. The car is right behind me.

And the van is behind the car. And the second set of lights is behind the car. We knew what the vehicles looked like because we'd seen them when we put our lights on at the road. Can you describe the car to me in detail uh can i describe it in detail it's like a shitty old rusty old muscle car-y kind of thing you know it turns out i mean it was a pukey brown and there was some primer spots some rust spots i mean beyond that describe the car to you i don't know just so be careful here and i know you are trying to be careful the car that you

saw versus the one you know sumner owned so try that but i didn't know sumner owned a car before this i didn't know sumner right but after there's a point where you said i got the car wrong how do you know you got the color wrong like what color did you see and then find out later it was you know what i mean like okay so on that night i would have called it and this would be from the bridge moment later on from the bridge moment later on it was like a like a greenish color. But we're talking about, you know, orange street lamps on the bridge. We're talking so I said, I called it like a greenish color.

When the car pulled up to the pump, you know, when I identify it later, that's the car, that's the guy. It was brownish, but it still had that greenish you know, hue to it. Okay, so that's what you mean by when you saw Sumner at the pump,

then you saw the car, you realized, oh, it wasn't necessarily a green. It was more of a brown. I didn't even get hung up on that sort of thing. I knew that was the car. I knew that was the guy. It was only later when they said, oh, this is a brown car, but you said green car. And it's like, well, I saw the thing at night yeah and again at night and again at night and you're looking at it in in broad day sunlight photographing it with you know your csi cameras or whatever it's

completely different and you say that you saw sumner's face in the car. Yeah. In the vehicle you saw that night. Yeah. Okay. What did Larry see? I don't know. Did you ever talk to Larry about his vision of that night? You know, we didn't discuss things like that.

I mean, there's an interesting side note anecdote I could tell. At some point before the preliminary, when they're building, you know, whatever their case is going to be. At some point, Larry and I are flown to Winnipeg for deep hypnosis by the RCMP. So the police came to my house, as I assume they did to Larry's house. They said to my mother, you know, we want to take Sean to Winnipeg. We're going to hypnotize him. Bada bing, bada boom. Can you sign here? And it was a big moment for me. It was exciting. My mom gave me, I think, $200 to buy a leather jacket in Winnipeg. I'm like, right on. We flew down on a twin otter, got to ride with a corpse

we stopped at it was cross lake and they they body bagged this guy and they sat him up and seat belted him in in the seat behind me it was great you know to a teenage kid it's the greatest but so we went with Constable John Toast T-O-S-T he took Larry and I to Winnipeg and he took us to shoot billiards but when we arrived at the hotel there was

two rooms side by side two doors side by side he said this is your room guys this is my room I'm right next door so he goes into one of the rooms and he comes out and he says, sorry, this one's your room, not mine. I'm this one. So the rooms were switched. This is you guys. Go in here. So as soon as we got into the room within five minutes, I said, I'm ordering a fucking beer. And I called downstairs

and we ordered fries, whatever, and make sure you bring a beer. I can't remember what kind I would have asked for at the time, probably a Labatt's Blue. And so the food arrived without the Labatt's Blue. And I said, oh, he's listening to us. And then Larry said, later on, he said, I wonder if they'd put us in that room so they could see what we talked about while we were alone in the room. And I said, yeah, that's a good idea. That would be a good thing to do.

But I think all we talked about was tits and balls and whatever. If police were listening to what the boys were saying, I wonder how it made them feel about their witnesses, more confident or less. And then we went to this hypnosis thing where they put you in this deep state of relaxation. How did they do that? I don't know.

It's a little more elaborate than the shit you see on TV. So it's like, hi, Sean. How are you? We're going to achieve a deep state of whatever. I don't really remember it all that well. I thought it was horse shit. Even as a 17-year-old, I thought hypnosis was horse shit. And it's only in recent years that I realized that Larry was probably right. And the hypnosis thing was probably just a story. You know, we just went and did that because they really did want to see what these two kids would talk about when they're in the room.

If these two kids were the killers, they'd talk about the crime they did. If these two kids were making shit up, they'd talk about the shit they were making up. You know, it makes a lot of sense. I think it was a good move. And I hope all that shit's on record somewhere because I'd like to know what we were talking about in that room. So Larry and you never really exchanged information or... Oh, you know, nothing that I recall.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, but nothing that stands out. I recall things like, boy, do you remember that? Remember when the guy passed us on the shoulder? That was crazy, right? Fuck yeah, that was crazy. And I can't remember if Larry was more of a car guy and was able to give them information. I have no idea what information or how Larry's information plays out versus mine. I do think that if the two things are here, and this is my information and this is Larry's information, I think you should go with mine.

That's what I think. Larry was usually pretty high. Were you guys high that night? I wasn't. Okay. Has he been smoking? He's always been smoking. Yeah, no.

I've always had a problem with marijuana. Like anytime I did smoke marijuana, say we're at a party, it just made me nauseous and sick. Still does to this day. You don't know if Larry was able to identify Patrick Sumner's face that evening or not? No, I don't know. How certain are you, like on a scale from one to ten, that Patrick Sumner was the person you saw in the car that night? Nine. Let's go with nine. I'm not going with ten. There's too much uncertainty in the world, and like I said, the mind creates its own mythology. Based on what I know,

and what I think I know, and what I remember, I'm going with a 9. 9 out of 10 is a very certain number. If Sean was as confident then as he is now, I can only think that police must have been fairly confident in their witnesses, even with LeapArt being high, as Simmons suggests. Well, I do think there was... this is the thing I go over, like, there had to have been corroborating stuff. I mean, I do get to sleep at night thinking that hopefully I'm just the guy that pointed

them in that direction. I don't want to be the guy that sent them the wrong way, you know what I mean? But again, as we talked about, that's got to be on them. I'm a 16 year old kid who thinks he knows something, you know, that had to have been corroborating stuff. And I don't know what it is. I don't know. Tell me about the prelim. Tell me what happened and tell me about how the rcmp dealt with i remember almost nothing about the prelim because i think i think we're in ptsd territory now by the time we got to that i know it was my 17th birthday

and i was just out of it like everything was i'm not saying i was like out of it. Like, everything was, I'm not saying I was, like, out of it weird. It's just a big, numb blur. I know they gave me a paperclip to play with the way they do now with fidget spinners. They said, here, play with this paperclip when you're on the stand, and it'll help you focus. And I remember that my mom was in the courtroom. I don't even recall seeing her.

She's talked about it in the years since where I asserted myself and I told what I knew compellingly and that the other guy, I was not allowed in the courtroom, of course, but that the other guy, Larry, basically maybe

shit the bed or something. I don't know. I know that the defense attorney was getting lippy with me like they do on TV. And I do recall a point where I like stared at myself and said, no, I just said what I said. Whatever it was. I don't recall the line. I just know that I don't like this guy. He's a weaselly little bastard.

And I know that I identified Patrick Sumner in court, which is what you do. He's sitting right there. I'm just wondering if you felt that the RCMP, through John Toast, I guess, who was the interactive with you, may have helped to channel your energy towards Sumner. I don't think so. Okay.

I mean, I don't think that. And, you know, 17-year-olds are pretty fucking stupid, really. You know, so back when I was 17, I probably thought I was smart. Of course I was not smart. But I don't think so. I think he was pretty vague about the things he needed to be vague about. So he was not, you know, feeding me stuff. The RCMP and John Toast, they would not exchange information with you about what other people were saying?

No. Because, I mean, as a 17-year-old, and maybe even now, I mean, I'd be trying to get that information. But no, no. I would try to get info. I like getting info even to this day. So what happened to you after the prelim? The prelim ends, and it's over

it felt like the house shattered it felt like a murderer had gotten away with something and everything all the emotions and energy that people invested in this was for nothing so that's what it felt like

and it felt like the bottom falling out yeah it just felt like and it felt like the bottom falling out yeah it just felt like absolute failure on every level failure of the justice system failure of the police failure even of myself if I just noticed one more thing

I can't recall what make and model the van was I knew it was white and I have thought and I say I'm nine out of 10, nine out of 10 certainty that Patrick Sumner was involved. I don't think we can say did it because we're pretty sure there were more than one people there. Nine out of 10, me talking, in my opinion. But I mean, that one out of 10 of ten you know I've laid awake at nights and

wondered if you know this stupid 17 year old steered everything wrong you know I don't think so but it's a possibility and it has kept me up at night but then I think well they're the police they're supposed to have their eggs in many baskets. They're not supposed to put all their eggs in one basket because a girl was murdered, viciously. Did police ever come to you in later years and ask for help on this? Yeah, 1999. I want to say 99, could have been 98. 1999, they were trying to reopen the case,

and the police came to my door and asked for blood and DNA samples, then I gave them. And that's the last I've heard. That was the first and last I've heard from them at all. Despite Sean's rumination about the tricks memory can play, I find his recollections and the narrative of the evening Carrie disappeared to be fulsome. According to police's version of Carrie's timeline that evening, she left the party around 11.45pm.

Police say that Simmons saw the car and van emerging from the stable roads around 1am. It's about a 14 minute drive from the party to the hydro clearing where Carrie was found. A fairly narrow window of opportunity. If the timings here are roughly accurate and the occupants of the vehicles Sean Simmons says he saw had anything to do with Carrie's murder. She would have had to have been raped and killed within a range of about 35 minutes to 75 minutes after leaving the party. In talking to Trevor later, he reminds me that, during the preliminary hearing, Larry Leapheart's testimony differed slightly from Sean Simmons. Simmons said this in the prelim, right? He testified to what he saw.

They testified to it in court, yeah. They kind of contradict each other. Well, not contradict, I will say their stories, Sean and Larry, were not identical, as I said. The way, who saw what vehicle coming out first. And Larry, to be honest, never got a look at the driver of the car that went by on the shoulder of the road. Yet Sean, the driver, got a look, which is weird because Larry was closer to the vehicle, technically. He was on the passenger side. But he never saw, like again, that's maybe a reference to the state of mind he was in at the time.

Not really just out in his own world high as a kite. I haven't yet been able to connect with Larry Lepart. So we're here at Setting Lake. I'm just about to drive up to Sean Simmons' mother's place, about an hour outside of Thompson. And Sean said that his mother was every day at the prelim, so what I'm interested in getting is an accurate picture or portrait of the prelim and what people can remember from it.

I also want to talk to her about Larry Liepert's testimony, because as the mother of Sean, the other eyewitness from the same vehicle, from the same truck, I think that Mrs. Simmons would be attentive to what the other person said. So if we can't find Larry, Mrs. Simmons might be our best hope of understanding how the testimony went. Okay, let's just see if we're in the right place here. Hello. Hello. Mrs. Simmons. Good morning.

Nice to see you. I've got Trevor with me here. Trevor Brown. Trevor Brown. Kerry's brother. Okay. Come on in, Trevor. It's okay. Thank you. I never met you. You know, I've heard of you. Leave your shoes on. Oh, you sure? I haven't shampooed the carpet yet.

Okay. We enter Marilyn's lakeside cabin home, fireplace on, sitting at the kitchen table. Marilyn's in a striped white top, has short white hair, and, like her son, looks younger than her years. I had a great conversation with your son Sean and that went really well. What I'm interested in finding out from you, apart from what you want to tell me, is you went to the prelim, the Sumner prelim. Yes. Did you go every day? Yes.

Great. So I'm interested in hearing from you what you heard, what you remember, what stands out from the Sumner prelim and also what you can remember about Larry Liepert's testimony. I don't remember much about his, no. My son, he was the one that I was worried about, eh? Because, let's face it, you have kids under age going to this, and I wanted to be there to look after him in a sense, okay? Larry, I didn't pay attention to. You know know there was the kids all morning that first morning yes paid a lot of attention to that

and then Sean was in the afternoon on that first day the whole afternoon and then the whole next morning I think he did well now that night Sean was with all the driving that they were doing, he, if I can remember right, they stopped for coffee at, I think, Chicken Chef or whatever at one point. I don't know what time and in what order, but the cops actually stopped him because one taillight wasn't working properly. They had that time. They also went into a place on the other side of that

Selkirk Avenue where the university had set up some kind of alcohol, you know, they were checking for alcohol, breathalyzers. And Sean, he thought this was great. Like, I mean, it was, he's a new driver. And he went through that a couple of times. That was all documented as times. And that was brought out in the trial. And in the prelim, do you remember somebody saying, Larry or your son saying, that the van turned into McCready's campground? That's right. Your son said? He watched two vehicles pull out onto the highway behind him.

But then one of them turned off towards mccready park okay okay and larry leepert's testimony do you have any recollection whatsoever about how his testimony may have differed from sean's testimony no i don't have any recollection sorry do you remember that it did differ from sean's testimony? Okay. The next morning, Tuesday morning, it was Sean, and it was against Wilson. Richard Wilson, a prominent defense lawyer in Manitoba, served as Patrick Sumner's counsel. He actually tried to say, this car is not the one that really was there. You know, and he had pictures of Patrick Sumner's car in this photo album. Sumner's lawyer had pictures of the car. Oh, yeah. And so then he would,

he said, well, that's the car. And eventually Sean literally stood up and said, I already told you. Everybody in the courtroom clapped because Wilson had been hammering out these kids. They weren't adults. They were young kids. And it was terrible. And they told me at that time that Sean was their star witness, that everything was being placed on Sean. And I just thought, this is a terrible thing to put on one teenager's shoulders. I said, why did you get involved? And he said, because it's the right thing to do. I said, but you're going to be tied up with this now for months.

And he said, but mom, like that's, you have to. Then Sunday, the police went out to see Patrick Sumner. I don't know whether they arrested him that day or what, but they took him into custody, talked to him and everything. From what I can tell, Sumner was actually arrested on Thursday, October 23, 1986, just five days after Kerry was found, around midday on the Saturday before. But Marilyn and Sean Simmons imply that police were on to Sumner much earlier, based on the information Sean brought to them.

So Saturday Carrie was found, and you're saying Sunday they had Sumner? Saturday they found her. Sean then saw that car. Then Sean went to the RCMP. Okay. Right. On the same Saturday. On the same Saturday. I'm trying to remember, but I think that's when the cops eventually checked that car belongs to Patrick Sumner. Sunday, I think they went out to see him. They confiscated his car. Maybe they didn't, but at some point that car, you know, they went over it. Carrie, this came out in the hearing, she was taking a medication that would cause her to lose hair faster than we would normally. And so they found hairs in his car that matched up,

trying to think of how many points, was it 16 out of 20 points or whatever, because back then the DNA was different, which that was considered a very, very good match. So you remember in the prelim that the hairs were a close match to very close carries. Yes. And that that was not proven to be dog hairs or something like that. That's right. Do you remember where the hairs were found specifically? In the back, in the backseat of his car, I believe. Okay, that was a Sunday. Sean was working various nights, and it was two of those nights following that Sunday that he's working at Crazy Pete's,

and this guy, first of all, parks down the road. Next night, he actually comes in to cash a check, and Sean called the police, because now he sees the guy face-to-face and says, that's the guy I saw driving the car. Okay, so the police go to them and say, okay, you've been identified. So after that, now he's after Sean. And he literally followed Sean home because Sean came... Patrick Sumner.

There's no way to verify if or when Patrick Sumner or anyone else followed Sean Simmons home. Sean was coming home from work, and I don't know which night it was. It was within that next week. It could have been Tuesday or Wednesday night, but Sean's coming home, and he never finished work until 10. Okay, so now he's coming home, and he gets home finally,

and I said, where were you? I was worried about you. And he said, Patrick Sumner was following me. He said, so I was trying to get rid of him. And he said, out at the train station. I thought, what the hell would you go out to the train station for? I said, you drive right home or you drive right to the police station. I can remember being so upset with him. And he said, well, I had a bat underneath the seat, mom, if anything happened. Would he have been driving the truck, the red truck?

Probably. Oh yeah. Probably the red truck. The same truck that he had the other time. And then the same thing happened to me though. And I can't remember which day it was. But who was following you? Patrick Sumner. He was just about right on my rear end. And I kept, because I pulled out of the dump and I had seen his vehicle parked over by his house. And then the next thing he's right behind me. And I thought, oh my God. And he stayed right on his house. And then the next thing, he's right behind me. And I thought, oh, my God. And he stayed right on my tail.

And just before getting to Thompson, he pulled out, and he was right alongside of me. And he just stayed alongside of me for about a minute and then took off in front. And you're sure it was him? Oh, yeah. Not his father? No.

Okay, it might have been a Sumner, but I mean, it had to, you know. Oh, well, that's a big difference between a Tim and a Sumner. It was, oh, yeah. You got to be sure because Patrick was arrested on the Thursday. Well, okay, no, but my daughter-in-law was with me. Okay. And she looked over and said it was Patrick, okay? I didn't identify because I didn't know who Patrick Sumner was.

Did you ever call the RCMP and tell them that you believe someone in the Sumner family was following you? No. Why not? I guess I just didn't think of it. I don't think until the prelim Sumner would have been told that Sean was the witness. Really? I don't think that Sumner would have found out.

Maybe he recognized the truck. Maybe when he was coming out of the barnyards. Because our truck was unique. It was red. It was a 75 Ford super cab and the cap on it was a steel cap with the blue windows down the side. There was nobody in town that had a cap like that. So you think Sumner may have recognized it from that night? Oh, I think so, definitely. From that night. Oh, yes. It was recognizable anywhere in town.

Just the fact that when Sean found out where she was found, and then he sees those two vehicles at that time and night, and they could even corroborate like what time, because Sean said a certain song was on the air. They even checked with the radio station to know that song was played at that time that Sean saw. The radio station closes at one. So it was just after 12, like 10 after 12 or something like that. Do you think that's the timing?

That's good. I need to know that. Police timing is closer to 1am. Sean and Marilyn put it closer to midnight. The police checked that out and that song played at a particular time. At that particular time.

That's good. You're helping a lot. You don't even realize you're helping a lot with this timing. When the prelim was over and it was determined that Sumner could go free, what were your thoughts? We all knew he was guilty. And I don't even know whether I should say this.

We were down in the cafeteria and Judge Charles Newcomb was there. He had already made the ruling. This was more or less like within half an hour of the whole thing. We were down for coffee. And he and I were talking, and I said, how can you let him go? And he said, we all know he's guilty, but we just don't have enough for the jury to unanimously say he's guilty at this moment. And he said, this way at least I can go back to trial.

The judge in the prelim said... I hate to say that, but I mean, that's what he told me. The judge in the prelim said Patrick Summerow was guilty. No, he said everyone knows he's guilty. But Charles Newcomb isn't here anymore. He's passed away? Yes. I believe it was two years ago.

It stuck in my mind for a long time. Trevor and I finish up with Marilyn and say our goodbyes. According to Sean and his mother, Sumner appears at or near the gas station where Sean works on a few occasions at times after Carrie disappears. And that leads Sean to identify Patrick as the person he saw coming out of the stable road the night Carrie disappeared. Sean is nine out of ten it was Sumner. But who else might have had a car like the one Sumner owned? And what did Sumner own? And what about the van that pulled out after the car, according to Sean, and drifted back in

his mirror until its lights disappeared from view? view. You have been listening to Episode 4, Graveyard Road. Want a place to discuss episodes with others and discover exclusive content? Join our new Facebook group and follow us on Twitter at SKSCBC. Someone Knows Something is hosted, written, and produced by David Ridgen.

The series is mixed by Cecil Fernandez and produced by Chris Oak, Steph Kemp, Amal Delich, Eunice Kim, and executive producer Arif Noorani. Original music by David Fetterman. Our theme song is Thompson Girl by the Tragically Hip. We're down to the dead house plan Thompson girl We'll jettison everything we can She says springtime's coming Wait till you see it broken through With them shoots of beauty

It's the end of an old view weather It's time to end this, it's each together Thompson Girl Thompson Girl Thompson Girl Someone Knows Something is a CBC Podcast. I know. you on a journey from new love, marriage, and baby through portrayal and loneliness. And yet, no matter how many times love kicks her in the shins, Michelle doesn't give up on hope.

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