Suspicion - Bodies To His Name

Episode Date: April 4, 2025

Bombshell. On the eve of the murder trial, a young Toronto police officer emerges with two confidential sources, one of them purporting to be a gang member, who tell a very different story about Chris Sheriffe. It throws Chris’s defence team for a loop. And here’s the problem. The judge won’t let the lawyers attack this new information. Audio: NBC’s Law and Order, CTV, Toronto Police Video

Suspicion, Season 4, is brought to you by Havelock Metal. Quality metal roofing and siding. It's 2011, two years and a bit after the Kim Golub murder. The scene is a courthouse in Toronto. Don't picture dark oak panelling in one of those sweeping marble staircases you've seen on legal dramas. This is a satellite operation in a tired brown brick office building. Courtrooms, a couple of restaurants, the best one being Rosa's place. Old school Italian dining, celebrity photos lining the walls. If a judge wanted to take a new lawyer to lunch and tell war stories, they'd go to Rosa's.

A new prosecutor, Laura Byrd, has been assigned to shore up the faltering case against Chris Sherriff and Awet Asfaha. By chance, Byrd runs into a young police officer in a back hallway. That was a long time ago, but I do remember running into Laura Byrd at the courthouse. That's Amman Nasser. He's now an inspector working for the Surrey Police Force in western Canada. Back then, he was a police constable in Toronto. At the eleventh hour, Nasser got pulled into the case.

I was a part of the expert section. I did not gather evidence. I didn't do all those other things that were done by the homicide investigators and the other people. That's not what I did. The case was struggling because the preliminary hearing judge had ruled there wasn't enough evidence to support first degree murder. Sure, the judge said, you can have a trial,

but on reduced charges. Awet, the alleged shooter, second degree murder. Chris, the car driver, just accessory after the fact. The evidence just wasn't that strong. Then, out of the blue, prosecutor Byrd runs into Constable Nasser. They'd met on a previous case. Byrd asks, anyone ever tell you these two guys were in a gang? Nasser says no.

Actually, he's never even heard of them. But he'll ask around. A couple of days later, Nasser says no. Actually, he's never even heard of them. But he'll ask around. A couple of days later, Nasser's back. His contribution would bolster the prosecution's case and introduce a unique and highly controversial way to use confidential informants in Canadian courts. It sort of became the precedent moving forward on upholding, I guess, the use of confidential informants in expert evidence. Not one but two sources had emerged with exactly what the prosecutor wanted.

Nasser said they told him both Chris and Awet were in the Jamestown Crips gang. Awet, the older of the two, he was putting in work, hoping to earn his stripes. And 19-year-old Chris, the former soccer star, the sources said he was a gang leader and already had bodies to his name by the time Kim Gollop was gunned down. Not a lot of people had dealt with him, but he had a very, very strong reputation

in the Toronto area on the West End. And he was a feared person. From the Toronto Star, I'm Kevin Donovan, and this is Season 4 of Suspicion, Murder on Mount Olive. Episode six, Bodies to His Name. In the last episode, I told you about Chris and his family,

the work ethic of his parents and the neighborhood they lived in where cops too often stopped young men just for being black. How injuries ended Chris's hopes of a national soccer career and his pivot to carpentry. Just as he was about to get his first job in the trades, police charged him with first-degree murder. But the evidence was shaky. So shaky that in the early days of the case, two homicide detectives came to see Chris's mom Marjorie. They said, if your son helps us out, he'll get a reduced sentence.

Oh, most he'll get is a couple years. That meeting went nowhere. Chris had told his mom all he did was give a guy a lift home, and Marjorie believed him. Back then, police didn't have much to go on. Here's homicide detective Doug Sansom with his original and unsupported hunch. They were just driving by and happened to see the victim standing there on the road with his red thing on and his long hair. Sansom's theory was that Chris and Awet were members of the local Crips gang, which uses

the color blue as their flag. And they spotted a guy in a red shirt in their territory and assumed he was from the rival Bloods. My guess is that they just said to each other, hey, there's that asshole from two weeks ago. Let's, you know, and they came up with a plan that was about 30 seconds in the making. You pull over here, keep the car running, and I'll go do them and I'll be right back. I think it was as simple as that. But a theory is not evidence. After more than two years, police had no proof that either

man was in a gang. That connection was key. Yes, Awet and Chris were nearby at the time, but cops didn't have much more. Finding a motive would help. It was a prosecutor who changed the tide. That's the sort of thing that happens on the classic NBC show, Law & Order. The cops are the first half of the hour, then the prosecution takes over. There's been a fumble in the case, and the lawyers save the day. Here's three prosecutors planning strategy on one episode. Yeah, with any other lawyer, baby. Michelle Cates could convince the jury Jeffrey Dahmer had an eating disorder.

Megan lied to the police. She was an hour late to the practice room. Meaningless without evidence. So can I take my vacation now? You want something to do? Find out why she did it. But that's television. In real life, especially in Canada, the police do the digging and the prosecutor does the prosecuting. But it did happen this time. A rising star, Laura Bird had developed expertise in all kinds of cases, but gang shootings were her specialty. She'd just secured the

murder conviction of a member of a Toronto gang called the Five Point Generals. The victim was a 22-year-old construction worker who sold cocaine and marijuana to make extra money. One night, a deal went horribly sideways. Toronto's CTV Local News reported the story. The murder victim, 22-year-old Daniel De Silva, died in the driver's seat of his expensive black BMW SUV, apparently shot several times at close range. A passenger in the vehicle fearing he too might die jumped out and ran for his life. The evidence was so much stronger in this case.

The guy who jumped out of the car identified the killer. There was video too. The Kim gollop shooting had none of that. New prosecutor Laura Bird got busy. She came in after, after I got him out on bail, and after I had this signal victory at the prelim, they dropped her in because she was an experienced veteran crown. That's Christopher Hicks, Chris Sherriff's defense lawyer.

He'd been feeling pretty confident in his case up until then. Two victories. First, he got his client out on bail, no small feat when the charge is first degree murder. Then he convinced a preliminary hearing judge to lower the charge to accessory after the fact. By the way, that's still a big charge, but it pales in comparison to first degree murder, which carries an automatic life sentence of 25 years. The law books say the accessory conviction can have a life sentence, but in practice it's usually less than 10 years.

So two wins for Hicks. But now he had Laura Bird to deal with. She was a good lawyer. They brought her in after I won that argument. Bird's first task was to appeal the ruling that lowered the charges. In a one-day hearing in front of Superior Court Justice Faye McWatt, Bird argued that Justice French overstepped,

that he engaged in fact-finding, which was not his job. Bird also argued that Justice French repeatedly took the defense side when interpreting a piece of evidence or the testimony of a witness. Bird was successful. Justice McWatt, the appeal judge, reinstated the first-degree murder charges for both men. Hicks could have appealed, but didn't. Some of the lawyers who later worked on Chris' case say that was a mistake. I think Hicks simply thought he wouldn't win.

Next, prosecutor Bird wanted to show the two young men were gang members. Enter Constable Nasser, who Bird ran into in the courthouse hallway. Detective Sansom said he was the kind of officer they never had enough of. When I got on and I was a rookie and started to move up, I was told by other coppers, like, that's the guy you want to be. Sansom says this kind of cop always has their ear to the ground.

You want to be that copper that the squads come to to go, hey, who's this guy and who's that guy? But how do you prove someone is part of a gang? Over the years, police had developed a checklist to prove gang association. It wasn't an exact science. I think there's like 12 criteria the courts will consider to prove somebody is a gang member.

And so we had a little copper from that division that was just all over like who's who in the zoo there. And though the why of a killing is not necessary in a murder case, Detective Sansom said it's nice to find it. You don't have to prove motive in, as you know, in a homicide trial, but it really does help.

It helps with the jury because they want to make sense of what the hell happened. Police assumed the Kim Gollop shooting was part of a back and forth retaliation between rival gangs. But veteran homicide and guns and gangs detectives had come up empty handed. Sansom said Nasser, a junior cop at the time, had better sources. So he was one of those guys and he was just all, he was on top of who the gang members were. We'll be right back.

I grew up in the renovation business. If I wasn't a reporter, I would have been a builder. And I know quality is key. So whether it's for your house, cottage, or building, make your next roof last with Havelock Metal. Havelock Metal has been specializing in steel roofing, siding, trim, and accessories for over 30 years. Visit HavelockMetal.com to request your quote today. Now, there's a backdrop to this part of the story. Toronto had roughly 250 shootings every year between 2009 when Kim Gallup was gunned down

and 2012 when prosecutors were getting ready for trial. Most were believed to be gang-related. In more than half, someone was killed or seriously injured. The number of shootings annually would double a decade later. But even back then, the justice system felt it was fighting a losing battle. I took a look back at this time period and found frequent police press conferences where cops were trying to both send a tough message to the bad guys and reassure the public. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen,

and thank you for being here this morning. I am certain you're all quite anxious to ask questions of the investigative team in this investigation, so I'll try to keep my remarks brief. I think it's tremendously important this morning, as we announce the results of in this investigation, so I'll try to keep my remarks brief. I think it's tremendously important this morning as we announce the results of Project Summon, summit to remember the victims of these terrible crimes and the families of these victims.

That's former Toronto police chief Bill Blair in 2011, just before he announced a slew of charges in one gang homicide that killed four young men. Senior brass were aggressively pushing for arrests. During the time frame that all these other weapons were seized, our young officers out in the street were seizing firearms virtually every day in the routine kind of work that they do in investigative and stopping cars, our officers on bicycles in neighborhoods, our information from crime stoppers.

Here's a senior Toronto officer talking about another bust. This one resulted in 60 arrests and more than 20 guns seized. Handguns, automatic rifles, even a vintage bolt-action rifle with a bayonet attached, all laid out on a table at the police division for the media to photograph. Police said they were doing their best. Certainly worked together with the community to try and restore some sense of safety so

that people can go outside and prove the quality of business and life in the neighbourhood. Charges were one thing, but how to get convictions at trial. Proof of gang association helped. One part of the toolbox was the Toronto Police gang criteria. You heard Detective Sansom reference it. He said there's 12 criteria, there's just seven. It's a one-page checklist filled out for each person arrested. If he had a blue or red bandana, which police consider a gang flag, that box is checked, even though it might just be a fashion statement. Or if a person is caught doing a gang flag, that box is checked, even though it might just

be a fashion statement. Or if a person is caught doing a drug deal, that's another check, because selling drugs was considered gang activity. A third, hanging around with individuals police have determined are in a gang. I think that one could be a bit circular. Let's say police label Person X a gang member. Then his friends become gang members by extension, even though they may not be. Get one of his friends to trial and you can now say he's in a gang because he knows Person X, and on and on, building on that first association. When it came to this case, Awet Asvaha did check some of the boxes.

He had a criminal record for trafficking cocaine and a handful of minor convictions. Police had also carted him hanging around with someone they considered a gang member. They'd also stopped him one day wearing a blue bandana. But parts of Awet's story didn't track with the gang criteria. He had two jobs, one at a Toronto hospital and a side gig sealing driveways. Police acknowledged that would be unusual for a gang member doing conventional work. Chris Sheriff posed an even bigger problem for the police. He didn't appear to check any of the boxes.

Former soccer star, completed high school, had worked two jobs as a busboy and was a few weeks away from starting as a carpenter's apprentice. Lots of stops and carting by police, but no criminal record. What I will say is the way people present on paper just because they haven't isn't always the reputation they have. And from the information I had, I do know that the particular reputation of Mr. Sharif was one that did not align with somebody who's not involved in this.

That's Amman Nasser in an interview I had with him. A few words about how we connected. I had reached out to him at the Toronto police. No luck. Turns out he'd left the Toronto force and taken a job as a staff sergeant in Surrey, British Columbia, a city southeast of Vancouver. Recently, he's become an inspector, but this interview was before that promotion. I sent him a message on LinkedIn and he called me within an hour. So I'm a reporter with the Toronto Star and I'm working on a So I'm a reporter with the Toronto Star and I'm working on a

Series that relates to a case that you dealt with back in 2011 and 2012 it's the Christopher sheriff case Do you remember that I do These days I'm always surprised when a cop talks to me There's a growing reluctance among police and other public servants to be interviewed. I think everyone's worried about saying the wrong thing. But the case was a big one for him. It's even on his resume. At the time that Laura Bird ran into him in the Toronto courts,

he was in his late 20s, really just getting going in his policing career. He had a university degree in phys ed and Caribbean studies, started out in uniform, and then moved into plainclothes duty, and eventually was assigned to the gang squad. He's clean cut now, but back then, he wore his long black hair in either cornrows, braids, or a ponytail.

As a youth, he spent some time in Rexdale, near where the Kim Gollib shooting was. The streets are violent, he tells me. I can speak to a bunch of the other shootings in Etobicoke and Jane and Finch where you have groups of two or three people walking through complexes with guns. They won't shoot women, they won't shoot children, but any male is likely going to get shot. Nasser said gun crimes pose a big problem for police and the community. Yeah, and it's probably five times worse now than it was back then. He didn't know anything about the Kim Gollum shooting when it happened. Didn't work the case.

Two and a half years later, when the prosecutor asked for his help, he started beating the bushes. His memory about what he did is not great. Now you're asking me to answer questions about something from 12-ish years ago, 12-13 years ago, but I don't have the documents in front of me in B.C. But I have those documents, Nasser's report on his interactions with his informants, and a transcript of his testimony at the trial. What you're going to hear now, in my voice, are summaries of Nasser's own words from back then.

According to Nasser, a street gang is a group of people who commit crimes for the benefit of the people within that group. Drug sales, that's the main business. It's extremely lucrative. When someone was arrested for a crime, Nasser would do what he calls a debrief. He'd sit down in the police station for a chat, not about what the guy was arrested for,

but to gather information about who's who in the neighborhood. That's what homicide detective Doug Sansom was talking about. By the time prosecutor Laura Bird approached him, Nasser had done hundreds of these. He estimated five to ten a week. Sometimes one of these people becomes a confidential informant, providing information the police just couldn't get on their own. In police jargon, a CI. Policing thrives on this sort of insider information. And these CIs, they usually have criminal records.

Some might even be members of a dangerous gang. You're probably wondering, why would a gang member risk his life by talking? It's not for altruistic reasons. They speak for cash or to get a break on criminal charges they're facing. Toronto Police has a special unit to handle these cash payouts. There's even a signed receipt to guard against a cop stealing the cash. And if the deal for information involves the dropping or reduction of charges, a prosecutor gets involved. But here's where this case took a turn.

Until the Kim Gollib shooting, CIs were only used to point cops in a direction. Here's Snausser. What's usually given by confidential informants is tangible information that can be verified through executing a search warrant or seizing evidence. So a CI tells his police handler, go look in such and such a place, you'll find something, a gun, drugs, stuff like that. So they'll say this person has a gun or this person's drug. In the Kim Gollib case, the plan was to use CIs in a much different way,

not to tell police where to find something, but to tell the jury through the conduit of Officer Nasser that Chris and Awet were gang members, with no opportunity for the defense to cross-examine these sources. It had never been done before, and I don't believe it's been done since, despite what Nasser said in my interview with him. He said it established a precedent.

I've talked to some veteran prosecutors about this. They were shocked that a judge allowed this to happen. I'll get into more of that in a later episode. For now, Nasser says he found two CIs who told him Chris Sheriff was a criminal. People on the street called him Hitz. A lot of people knew the nickname Hitz and knew who he was. As you've heard before, Hitz was the nickname Chris had since he was a little kid. First, his mom called him that because he kept hitting his siblings when he was a toddler. Then on

the soccer field, the name got a new meaning because of how hard he struck or hit the ball. But Nasser said hits had a more sinister meaning. According to the officer, his sources also had a completely different take on the Kim Gallup shooting than the homicide detectives. Here's retired detective Doug Sansom with his initial theory. So Winsome has a son and he's abandoned.

He's a member of the Bloods. And so the theory was that these two mutts mistook Winsome's, well, mistook the victim for Winston's son and thought he was a member of the Bloods. We'll be right back. Whether it's for your house, cottage or building, make your next roof last with Havelock Metal. Havelock Metal has been specializing in steel roofing, siding, trim and accessories for over 30 years. Visit HavelockMetal.com to request your quote today.

Sansum and his partner speculated that the shooting was part of a gang war between the Crips and the Bloods. That Chris and Awet were Crips. They saw a guy in a red shirt, assumed he was a Blood, and shot him. This theory gained traction because the woman hosting the barbecue had a son police believed was a blood. Now, Nasser comes along and says no, this isn't a Crips and Blood feud. This is an inter-gang feud between two rival factions of the Crips and an innocent bystander was killed. Nasser says this happens a lot. Yeah, I can probably mention off the top of my head of people who should not be in other particular areas, not because they're involved in crime, but simply because that neighborhood

has a particular problem with another neighborhood. And unfortunately in Toronto, that's how a number of murders have occurred. And I can list a bunch of the ones that I've investigated in Toronto, where completely innocent victims who were just going through a particular part of the neighborhood were shot and killed by groups of people because they fit a particular look of somebody who would probably be from that neighborhood. I asked Nasser, how does a cop know a CI is being truthful? Can you just tell me a little bit about the concept of a police officer dealing with confidential informants and how you established that they're telling the truth?

Oh sorry okay so in terms of establishing that they're telling the truth it could be a number of ways but you will not ever be able there's a distinction between the information that was used in this case versus what's traditionally provided by confidential informants. Nasser said it boiled down to this. He had a good track record with both CIs providing information in the more typical way CIs are used. Tips to find something like guns or drugs. And that's kind of where history and reliability, so the more times, the more frequently an informant does provide information, the more information you have to assess their sort

of reliability and credibility. Just who were these CIs? Nasser described them in a report. I've got a copy of it. There's a lot of blacked out sections, but here's the gist. One CI was close friends with members of the Jamestown Crips. The other was a full member of the Jamestown Crips. Both would check the boxes on the police list I told you about.

Both had criminal records, but Nasser pointed out that they'd never been convicted of perjury or obstructing police. He says that's important. It tells him they're not liars. In the report, Nasser refers to himself as their handler and says what they say should be treated as fact. Now this next part, it really gave me pause.

In my business, journalists aren't allowed to pay sources for information. The belief is that taints what they say. But police are allowed to pay for information. According to the last line of Nasser's report, they were both compensated in some way for the information they provided. But when he eventually testified, Nasser says they were compensated but in return for information unrelated to the Kim Gollop case. This is obviously confusing, and the

jury only heard Nasser's testimony about the CIs, it never saw the report. What we do know is that they received compensation for something. The first CI, it was cash. Nasser wouldn't say how much. Certainly in the thousands of dollars, I've heard of cases where someone is paid $5,000, $10,000, and more. The first CI also got a break on his criminal charges. The second CI, he's the actual member of the Crips gang. He didn't get cash, but he did get a break on some charges. That's the guy who told Nasser that 19-year-old Chris

Sheriff already had bodies to his name. Nasser won't reveal specific details of the compensation. He says to do so might identify the source. A gang member might say, hey, remember that guy was walking around with cash? Or remember, he never went to jail on that gun charge. But one thing Nasser did talk about was what his sources said about Chris Sheriff. Not a lot of people had dealt with him, but he has a very, very strong reputation

in the Toronto area on the West End. And he was a feared person. Nasser's information was, to say the least, jaw-dropping. How had it been missed? And there was more. Nasser's information was, to say the least, jaw-dropping. How had it been missed? And there was more. The CI who was a gang member gave Nasser a color photo showing 10 young black men. Chris Sheriff is in the center.

I've got a copy of it. According to Nasser, this was a photo of a group called the Hustle Squad. His CI said the Hustle Squad was a subgroup of the Jamestown Crips. The ten young men in the photo are all wearing black, a few with white t-shirts showing. I suppose they do look imposing, stern, but what's the context? Chris has that same non-smiling face from most of his soccer photos back to when he was a little boy in house league. Nasser drew the prosecutor's attention to the hands of three of the young men.

He says they're making the sign for the Crips, holding their fingers like a C. Another of the young men is pointing his finger forward in what Nasser says mimics a gun. Nasser told me that he's kept tabs on all of these guys. I think a number of those people have been arrested and in charge with very significant firearms trafficking and other gang-related offenses, including international firearms trafficking. Nasser was also prepared to testify that his sources told him the shooting of Kim Gollib was payback for an earlier shooting somewhere else.

In his report, Nasser said one source told him that Chris Sheriff had been roaming the streets looking for a Mount Olive Crip nicknamed Drops who had been shooting up Jamestown. The report says that when Sheriff and his crew couldn't find drops, they shot anybody they could find because they wanted blood. Kim Gollib was the anybody who got caught in the crossfire. This information, arriving just before trial, hit Chris's defense hard. They would not be able to attack it. Secrecy alone the identity is protected.

That's Christopher Hicks, Chris' sheriff's lawyer. I was very suspicious about this confidential informant that appeared so suddenly. Normally, when someone levels an accusation in a court case, there's the right of cross-examination. You put the witness on the stand, ask questions, test credibility. But what was about to happen in this case was very different. Officer Nasser was going to tell the jury what these two CIs had told him.

Chris Hicks fought back. But I couldn't get by the law, which is pretty much absolute about the identities of these people and anything that would tend to reveal their identities. Think about that for a minute. Accusations of gang membership leveled by two people the defense can't challenge, can't find out who they are, how much they were paid in the past. Were they paid this time? What kind of charges were settled in the past? Hicks had no way to determine if the CIs were lying. That actually happened in a dramatic federal case where a CI was paid $400,000 by the RCMP,

Canada's federal police force. Turns out that CI made up the information, all of it. But it sent a man to prison. He served a full year before the bad CI was outed. He'd lied to make money. In the Kim Gollib case, the jury would be relying on what is normally considered hearsay information. Lawyer Hicks was, to say the least, not pleased.

But that's the way it goes. Yeah, I got this guy X and he's reliable. I've used him in the past and he's always, you know, I've arrested people. His information has always been solid. Hicks would make two separate motions before the trial judge, Justice Eugene Uischuk. Hicks wanted everything about the informants released.

Justice Uischuk shut him down. Hicks did win one battle though. Nasser was not allowed to tell the jury that one of his sources said Chris Sheriff already had bodies to his name, or the specific allegation that Chris had been searching for these mysterious drops and wound up killing the innocent Kim Golub instead.

But Nasser was free to relay most of what his sources told him, specifically that Chris Sheriff was the leader of a violent street gang and that Awet Asfaha had the hallmarks of being a gang member too. Sitting in prison today, Chris wonders, perhaps even a little cheekily, if the Toronto police were in possession of information about other killings, why did they never follow up?

Which bodies where? Especially if you're a police officer, I feel like you should ask where? What bodies? They should tell you. They should tell them. What bodies do I have? Who did I kill? Who did I shoot? What did I do? When? I would like to ask them for a date. And that's what I really wanted because how the time I've been living in the country. Since the trial, there's been a lot of speculation as to who Officer Nasser's sources were. I have my own hunch that one of them was someone who was a casual friend of Chris's who was in a legal jam. Nasser told me that many people believe that a wet Asfaha, the co-accused, was one of his secret sources. The one who said Chris Sherriff led the Hussle Squad, talking to the cops to try and help himself.

In fact, when Asfaha eventually testified at trial, he would bring up the same unsubstantiated story about drops, further fueling speculation that he, Asfaha, was the source. Not true, Nasser said. And I can say this clearly, Asfaha was not the informant. But because of the specific details of what the informants knew, we're almost mirrored as to what Asfaha knew. There's something else about this source information that bothers me, beyond the fact that it appeared

so close to trial. It's this dangerous gang called, according to Nasser's CI, the Hustle Squad. And the Hustle Squad is supposed to be a subgroup of the Jamestown Crips. But here's the thing. In all of the police files on gangs in Toronto, and their voluminous documenting gangs, gang membership, factions of gangs, street names, the Hustle Squad was never heard of before the Kim Gollop shooting,

and it's never been heard of again. Which got me thinking, what was the Hustle Squad and what was the backstory to that photo of ten young men? I've become fixated with answering these questions, but for now, this information that Nasser dug up provided Laura Bird with exactly what the prosecutor was looking for. The question as they moved closer to the trial was, could they get more? After all, Chris Sheriff was out on bail. Next time on Murder on Mount Olive. Two down, one more left to go.

Murder on Mount Olive was written and narrated by me, Kevin Donovan. It was produced by Angeline Francis and Sean Pattendon. Our executive producer is JP Fozo. Additional production by Kelsey Wilson, Matt Hearn and Tanya Pereira. Sound and theme music by Sean Patten.