Uncover - S5 "Sharmini" E3: Stranger to the Truth

Episode Date: September 14, 2019

Sharmini, episode 3 - In the years between being a suspect in Sharmini's killing and his 2009 conviction, Stanley Tippett exhibited disturbing patterns. Michelle talks to law enforcement officers, old neighbours, and witnesses about Tippett's behaviour as he moved from Oshawa to Collingwood to Peterborough. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-5-sharmini-transcripts-listen-1.5277530

When was the last time you said, hmm, I never thought about it that way? The Current aims to give you that moment every single day. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and our award-winning team brings you stories and conversations to expand your worldview. Sometimes they connect to the news of the day, sometimes to the issues of our time. And you'll hear all kinds of people on The Current, from best-selling authors to the prime minister to maybe your neighbor. Find us wherever you get your podcasts now, including YouTube.

I'll talk to you soon. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello? Hi, can you hear me now? Yep. Oh, good. Okay, thanks. This is Michelle Shepard calling.

I actually just went through Canada 411 and was trying to find any Murray Pfeifers. Huh? What is it about? I'm working on a podcast right now for CBC, and it's looking into Stanley Tippett. Yeah, apparently he got arrested or something for down in the city or something for trying to rape that girl or something. Yeah, she was just, she was so kind. She just had this smile that could light up the room. She really did.

the room. She really didn't. The narrative that was developing was that she left home in the morning to go to a job at North York Rec, but her friends were saying, no, no, that wasn't the case. She was going to work as an undercover drug operative for Stanley Tippett. He was on our radar right from the day he arrived in Peterborough. We just had a feeling that he was going to problems. And sure enough, he was. Hi, Michelle, it's me, Stanley Tippett calling. I just wanted to call. I'll try again later or possibly tomorrow. Take care. Thanks. Bye. I'm Michelle Shepard, and this is Uncover, Charmini. Chapter 3, Stranger to the Truth. I'm just going to make it easier.

So yeah, questions, answers, questions, you can. I just want to make sure you're just already asked. I, um, because we, he uses this for Simon, so we're good until, we're good an hour. Okay. There are banker boxes of documents in the Peterborough Courthouse, all labelled in a black sharpie with the name Stanley Tippett. Oh, I see. That's where I came across Murray Pfeiffer's name. Murray is now retired and lives in Meaford, Ontario, about two and a half hours northwest of Toronto.

But he knew Tippett years ago. They were neighbours in a housing complex in Collingwood, Ontario. Tippett moved around quite a bit after leaving the Don Mills apartment where he lived one floor below Sharmini's family. First he went to Oshawa, leaving two weeks before Sharmini went missing in the summer of 1999. A few years later, he moved with his family to Collingwood, a ski town on the tip of Georgian Bay. He lived just two doors down from me.

There was one family at the end, and then my neighbor, and then me, and then Stanley. We all lived on the same side. When he first came up, he was very friendly. He'd do anything for you. He'd bend over anything for you. Like, you know, he'd bend over backwards for you. That didn't last. For a couple years after Sharmini's death, I remained interested in Tippett. I would drive to Oshawa to see if I could find him around town.

A few times, I'd knock on his apartment door, asking if he would talk. And he always would. I even told him I thought he had killed Sharmini. And for some reason, he would still talk. Maintaining his innocence, of course. But even after I accused him of killing her, he couldn't help himself. But even after I accused him of killing her, he couldn't help himself. Then I moved on to my terrorism beat, and I became a foreign correspondent.

So it wasn't until years later, when I saw his name in a news brief, that I realized he was still on the police radar. It was 2005, and Tippett was convicted of harassing his neighbor. And this is the case where I read about Murray Pfeiffer. That he tried to help her. Yeah, well, I talked to her and I said, Stanley has got a bit of a crush on you. I said, I wouldn't go anywhere with him in the van.

I said, I've heard some strange stories. He wanted to take her to Orangeville. Wanted her to go for a ride with him. Murray didn't know Stanley was a suspect in Charmini's death. He just had a feeling. A bad feeling. What did Stanley do? Did he find out that you spoke with her?

No. I don't think he did anyway. But he thought I was after her. Oh. So what did he do about that? He started slapping my tires. He was slashing your tires? Yeah.

And you knew it was him for sure? Oh, I knew it was him. As soon as I told him that he was going to be carried out in a pine box, I never had no more flat tires. What was it like when you confronted him? When you said, as you said, that he's going to go out in a pine box? He just didn't, he denied that he did it. He just kept denying it? Oh, yeah.

And I told him, I said, well, if it happens again, I said, you're going to be the sorriest man that lives here. Police would eventually charge Tippett with criminal harassment of Murray's neighbour. Court documents state that when the neighbour rebuffed his romantic gestures, he wouldn't give up. He would, quote,

park in front of her residence and would sit and stare. He also made false allegations to the Children's Aid Society about how she treated her young son. In the six years between being a suspect in Sharmini's killing and his guilty plea in Collingwood, court documents show that there were other disturbing incidents. In 2000, Tippett was accused of stalking a cashier at a grocery store in Oshawa. He wasn't charged, but he was told to stay away from her and given a no trespass order for the store. In both Collingwood and Oshawa, he continued to tell neighbors he was a police officer.

In both Collingwood and Oshawa, he continued to tell neighbours he was a police officer. After that, he moved to Peterborough. Dan, can you hear me okay? It's Michelle. Yep. Hey. Is this an okay time now? Did you get home? Yeah, I'm home. Okay, great. Dan Smith is retired now. He was born and raised in Peterborough, and he brought up his four kids there.

For most of his 36 years on the force, he worked in his hometown. When did you first hear his name? When did you get involved? He came to our attention because we were notified when he first moved to Peterborough area because he was already on probation for stalking another woman up in Collingwood. So he was on our radar right from the day he arrived in Peterborough. We just had a feeling that he was going into problems. And sure enough, he was.

The first hint of trouble came when Tippett allegedly offered a 12-year-old girl a fake job at the YMCA. When she told her mom, her mom called the police but no charges were laid. This idea of a fake job brings back memories of Sharmini. Sharmini had disappeared on the morning of what was supposed to be her first day of a fake job brings back memories of Sharmini. Sharmini had disappeared on the morning of what was supposed to be her first day of a new job. After looking into it, police determined the job wasn't real and the whole thing was a ruse. But these weren't the only times Tippett was accused of offering

a fake job. He approaches this girl in a lineup, I think at Walmart or something like that. She was looking for a job. Once again, new Canadian,

vulnerable, and says he can get her a job at the YMCA, and somehow gets her address. He starts dropping stuff off at her house, and then he sees her, I think at Taco Bell,

trying to get a job, and he actually got mad, and said, you know, I offered you this position to fill out the application for the job at YMCA and I'll get you there. So he was supposed to take her to a job interview or do something, but she got a little bit suspicious and called the Y. The YMCA was like, no, there's no job openings here. They called the police. And that's when the bells and whistles went off.

Holy jeez, what's this guy doing? Police moved in to arrest Tippett, searched his home, and seized his van. They discovered Tippett was using a fake name, calling himself Jason. And for eight days, he pursued the woman. He got arrested for criminal harassment. And when he got arrested, that's when they found duct tape and tie straps and all sorts of stuff that would be your, you know, your abduction kit 101. In his van, they found concealed knives, a hammer under the driver's seat, rope, plastic sheets and restraints. In his home, they found a pellet pistol hidden in the basement.

hidden in the basement. Tippett pleaded guilty to criminal harassment and was sentenced to two years. Justice Lauren Chester stated during sentencing that Tippett had designed a sophisticated plan for the fate of his victim. He wrote, quote, Yes, I guess in a way there's speculation about the pellet pistol hidden in the basement and the plastic restraints and the ropes in the back of the van. Yes, that might be considered speculation.

But under the circumstances, perhaps it's not a quantum leap to think we are dealing with a situation that could have escalated into physical violence against the victim. Hi, I'm Michelle. Hi Amanda. It's nice to meet you. This is Kathleen. I'm here to meet Stanley Tippett's lawyer. He works in a nondescript mall in Mississauga, a suburb just outside of Toronto. All right. So, as you know, my name is Haig Darusha, and I've been lawyering for a long time. Called to the bar in Ontario in 1984, and I've been doing some elements of criminal law ever since. Haig Darusha is also Tippett's cousin.

He's oddly formal when we talk, and we talk for a long time. He's oddly formal when we talk, and we talk for a long time. Well, Stanley is a person who has been challenged, first of all, with a syndrome that's called Treacher-Collins syndrome. And that is a genetic type of disorder, so he's born with it. Other members of his family have it. It's not something I have but it is something that other members of the family have and it creates difficulties in hearing with deformed unusual. It is, in a sense, a curse that someone has to carry around with Treacher-Collins syndrome. Is there anything else about Stanley in terms of his growing up? I think on the phone you had mentioned that he'd had some difficulty,

had been bullied at an early age. Can you paint a little bit more of a picture of his sort of early years? We didn't live in the same community, so I would see him at family events, and he would be like any other person you would see at a family event. You talk about your life generally, you talk about how things are going, talk about how things are going, but I certainly got the impression that he felt very challenged by his situation. Stanley is not mentally challenged, to my knowledge, in terms of, you know, having low IQ, but he is challenged because if you don't have the background and the ability to get into the college, university system, that limits you. He has always had to face these challenges, and that will happen for him the rest of his life. In this case with Stanley, he says,

I didn't do it. I'm prepared to assume Stanley is telling the truth. And I think everyone should in terms of Charmini. But Haig says that's not how the police or the media see it. I can say that he was pursued by the police for years following Sharmini's murder. And her murder is absolutely tragic. Of course it is. But what has happened to Stanley because of her murder is also terrible.

Because he's a suspect wherever he goes. Now, if he is the perpetrator and you cannot find evidence to get him convicted in spite of all of these steps, don't you have to acknowledge that he's not really the perpetrator, that he is innocent. But he's not labeled innocent by the public because of the newspaper reporting about how he's a suspect. And if you cannot find enough evidence to convict, or sorry, to charge at least, the suspect that you have at the time, and you follow them and you assemble everything you can

and six months or a year goes by and you still haven't got enough evidence to charge them and five years goes by and ten years goes by and you still don't have enough evidence to charge them don't you have to then acknowledge that that you you've probably been going down the wrong road or that there's no reason why they should be labeled this suspect and be presumed to be a dangerous person any longer. I feel like we've really taken up a lot of your time today. We can stop asking you questions. Yes.

Thanks, Amanda. Okay, bye now. Bye now. I'll leave you a call. Yes. Thanks, Amanda. Okay, bye now. Bye now. I'll give you a couple months to talk about this. Okay, bye. You too, take care. Thanks. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news.

So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Well, I went to that school at the end of June in 2007. Rosemary Hinks was a principal at St. John Catholic Elementary School in Peterborough, where Tibbett had just enrolled three of his five children. So tell me about that first meeting when you met Stanley and his wife.

It was very uncomfortable. He was fairly aggressive. He tried to make himself out to be very clever and was basically trying to tell me what would be happening. And he was very dominating of his wife. At this point, Rosemary didn't know anything about Tippett. She just had a feeling that something wasn't right. Then she got a call. A parent phoned the school anonymously and said that, did we realize who this person was? And we didn't. And I think the person sent us newspapers or else told us to check

online. Rosemary read that Tippett had been a suspect in Sharmini's death, and that police believe he lured her away with the offer of a fake job. And then there was a case in Peterborough in which he had done something similar, but she was a 19 or 20-something-like-that-year-old girl that he had come across in a Walmart, I think. So we knew that we had to really be very careful around him, that he had this propensity to target young girls. So we increased the supervision of the yard,

and he was frequently seen on the yard or he would be at the fence looking, watching when it was recess. Also the staff was not allowed to speak with him alone for two reasons. One is I wanted to be there. I didn't think it was fair for them to be in that position. And secondly, he was never truthful. So we needed another witness. Did you talk to the police at all during this time? Yes, throughout the whole year, yes. Mm-hmm.

He was always trying to charm his way in with students and you would find him in odd places in the school or in the school grounds and we'd always say, you can't be here. But it always seemed like he would try to find a way to be in a place so that he could be watching the students. Did you ever hear reports of what he would tell the students? I got a report from a teacher that we had a co-op student from the local high school. The teacher was concerned that he would be talking to her, befriending her. We informed the community police officer

and the school board as a result of that we were able to serve a no trespass order. Did he ever breach it? Yes he he did. He came one day. He brought a lunch. Supposedly one of the children had forgotten a lunch. So he came in through the front door and came to the office. So I came out. I said, you can't be in here, and you know you can't be in here. So I followed him out to his van.

I said, Stanley, you know you cannot come into the school. I don't see what you need. Got very argumentative. Like, this is ridiculous. He just became pretty aggressive. And then I said, no, you cannot come. And I'm informing the community police officer that you were here. But I did take the lunch and took it in. But I thought it was just a ruse. It was something he thought of as a way to get into the school. Rosemary had a terrible feeling that when the school year was over, it would not be the last time she'd hear of Tippett. He's incorrigible as far as we could see.

He was very deceptive, very manipulative and he just, I don't think he can help himself. Less than a year later, she would hear his name on the news. Another bizarre twist today at the Peterborough Courthouse. That's where 32-year-old Stanley Tippett made his first court appearance, accused of abducting and sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. Tippett's van was found by police Wednesday after it was spotted racing from the Cordes High School, where the 12-year-old was assaulted. So, I got called in in the middle of the night.

So we had a missing girl who had been abducted. This is Dan Smith, the Peterborough cop. We were just about ready to put an amber alert out. We had an idea based on description, you know, because really when people describe Stanley, he's pretty, pretty descript, right? I mean, that was the red van and his facial features. and his facial features, he's pretty unmistakable. So, as we're getting our ducks in a row in the morning,

they've got a caller on the phone who wants to speak to me and they think it was related to what we were investigating. And sure enough, it was Stanley. She patched him through to my office, and I recognized his voice right away. And he was trying to tell me that he had been kidnapped at gunpoint, and his van was stolen. And I wanted to find out where he was. I wanted to get to him before he could either discard evidence or change clothes or whatever. So our guys started heading out that way

and it was within half an hour that they had him under arrest. According to a court judgment, Tippett was driving home just after midnight and he stumbled upon these two young girls. They were very drunk. One, a 12-year-old, was so drunk she needed help walking. Tippett offered them a ride in his van. He dropped off one girl at a park, and

then he drove off with the 12-year-old. That was more of a crime of opportunity. He, you know, he came across these drunk 12- and 13-year-old girls, and he just, that was like his smartest work for Stanley, right? He couldn't help himself. That's how sick he is. The judge concluded, almost from the first moment of encounter, Mr. Tippett began to isolate her from her friends by means of lies like,

I'm phoning the police, and I'll take her to the hospital. These lies enhance his ability to isolate her and sexually assault her. Tippett drove almost an hour away to the town of Curtis, Ontario. There, he stopped at a local high school, and he parked his van. Neighbors heard the child screaming, no, and please, and they called police at 2 a.m.

One caller said the screaming voice, it wasn't the sound of a young person horsing around. When police first arrived at the school, they walked along a path that separates the school from a wooded area. An officer saw a van in the school's back parking lot and then a person walking towards the van. When he shouted, police, and stop, the man jumped into his van and drove away.

To avoid the police cruiser, the van's driver drove over the curb and became airborne. In news footage from the scene, you can see broken car parts on the road. The van took off. The officer followed. Speeds reached as high as 100 kilometers an hour on the sleepy residential streets of Curtis. Eventually, the chase was called off because it became too dangerous, but not before the officer was able to get the license plate and a good look at the driver. He later identified him as Tippett, noting that the physical features of his head and face were very distinctive.

The van? It was registered to Tippett. Back at the wooded area outside the school, police found a child stumbling around. She was confused and intoxicated. She had no idea where she was. Her shirt was torn. She was naked from the waist down. As he was being led out of court this morning, 33-year-old Stanley Tippett insisted the judge was wrong.

Tippett was found guilty. Inside, Justice Bruce Glass pronounced him guilty on all seven counts, including kidnapping, sexual assault, and sexual interference. The lead detective spoke just outside the courtroom after the verdict came down. As an investigator, it's difficult to manage an offender like him, and we're just pleased with the verdict today, for sure. To this day, Tippett maintains that he did not attack the child. Yes, he says, he picked her up in those early morning hours, but only because he wanted to help.

He insists he was not only wrongly convicted, but he was also a victim of a crime. Here's Tippett's version of what happened. He picked up the two girls, he dropped one off, and then he was carjacked by two men and driven around for a bit. Then the men threw him out of the van and they took off with the girl. Tippett says he landed in a ditch and had to climb out. He walked for a bit, then he phoned his wife and she called him a cab. Then he took the cab to his uncle's house

and it was from there he called Peterborough detective Dan Smith to report the carjacking. So those two people would also know if there are two other people that committed this offence and not Stanley. So that's three people on the planet. This is Haig Darusha again, Tippett's lawyer and cousin. Other than that, nobody on the planet, I can imagine,

would know. Not the young girl, because she says she was drinking and she's not accustomed to drinking, I guess, and she was basically blacked out or still functioning, I suppose, but has no recollection and cannot assist in describing how it is that she was sexually assaulted. I guess the question is, do you believe him? In this case with Stanley, he says,

I didn't do it. I have no personal knowledge as to who did it, in terms of I wasn't there, so I can't form information about what happened because I was a witness or I was there. So I'm prepared to assume Stanley is telling the truth, and I think everyone should. Police found two used condoms inside the abandoned van, and the victims' clothes nearby. Do you want to say anything about the judge's decision? What do you think your chances on appeal are? While DNA was collected, there was never enough to make a match for anybody other than the victim.

You still sticking to your carjacking claim? In a muffled voice, all he said was, I told the truth. I told the truth. Was there ever a moment when he's going through this abduction story that you think, okay, this is absolutely ludicrous, but maybe, like, I have to keep an open mind. Maybe there's something to this. Did you ever, for just a nanosecond, think, well, that's weird. Maybe this happened.

No, and I mean, I hate to use the term that I had tunnel vision, that there's no way. But in my view, we had so much evidence to suggest that it didn't happen based on everything. This again is retired Peterborough detective Dan Smith. His story didn't make any sense at all. It was just, it was so far-fetched. Knowing Stanley and knowing the fact every time his lips moved, it was a lie. It didn't matter.

You must have felt so sick when you got that call that there'd been these girls involved. Oh my goodness, because we knew what he was capable of. We knew, you know, this man was so dangerous. Immediately after Tippett was convicted of sexually assaulting and kidnapping a 12-year-old girl, the Crown applied to have him declared a dangerous offender. They wrote in their application, Mr. Tippett is a stranger to the truth. As part of his pattern of repetitive, aggressive,

and sexual behavior, he lies to his targets, his wife, doctors, Children's Aid Society officials, police officers, and the court. Do you want to say anything about the judge's decision? No comment from Stanley Tippett as he leaves a courthouse. Justice Bruce Glass says Tippett would re-offend if he was ever released from prison, that he's obsessed with sex and the community isn't safe. You are declared a dangerous offender in Canada if the court believes it's not safe for you to be released, even after you've finished your sentence. The judge says over the years Tippett's crimes escalated from setting fire to a teacher's desk in the early 1990s to kidnapping and sexually assaulting a drunk 12-year-old girl

in 2008. Dangerous offenders can apply for parole, but it's rarely granted. On October 31, 2011, Stanley Tippett was designated a dangerous offender. So you don't think he should ever come out of jail? I truly don't believe so. I think there are those that can be rehabilitated, but I believe wholeheartedly 100% that that man can never ever step foot in in society again without putting people at risk and you've been on the force for 36 years.

Have you ever met anybody like him before? No. No. Never. Never. Never, ever have I met a man like him and dealt with a lot of serious offenders. Never have I ever come across a person like Stanley Tippett.

When I interviewed Tippett 20 years ago, I knew very little about his past. I was focused on the details of Sharmini's murder and his alibis on the day she went missing. I asked all the questions I could. But now we've learned about his crimes both before Sharmini's death and after. How there's this pattern of impersonating cops, of harassment, and attempts of luring young women with fake jobs. There's so much more to ask him now. Next time on Uncover, yourself? Good. Do you want me to put stuff on your belt? Sure.

Okay. For you here to see. Stay in the tippet. Oh, okay. You know that name? Oh yeah. Uncover Sharmini is written and produced by myself, Michelle Shepard, and Kathleen Goldhar. Our associate producer is Alina Ghosh. Our audio producer is Mitchell Stewart.

Our digital producer is Judy Ziyi Gu. Chris Oak is our story editor. Our video producer is Evan Agard. Transcripts by Rasha Shahada, check out Uncover, The Village. For years, men were disappearing from Toronto's gay village. Police said they weren't connected, but they were. And it turns out that was only the beginning of this story. Subscribe to Uncover wherever you get your podcasts.