Uncover - S5 "Sharmini" E6: Searching for Justice

Episode Date: September 11, 2019

Sharmini, episode 6 - Sharmini's brother Kathees shares the last time he saw her and recalls their interactions with Stanley Tippett before she went missing. The Toronto Police shares why no one was charged for Sharmini's murder, with context of another case around the same time. We hear her voice for the first time. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-5-sharmini-transcripts-listen-1.5277530 Also, after the credits, an update from the team.

Hey there, I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud. I am the host of Commotion. You know when there's that thing that's like all over your social feeds, or maybe a new movie or a show on Netflix that everyone is talking about, or maybe your favorite artist just dropped a new song or new album. These are the moments when I love to gather the smartest, funniest people together. We get them in the group chat, and then we dig into the culture that is all around us. And commotion does this every single day. Find us wherever you get your podcasts. This is amini. These recordings were made more than two decades ago when she was a little girl.

Songs and public speeches on cassette tapes. Her mother has played them over and over and over again in the 20 years since she was murdered. Hello, I'm going to talk about mothers and fathers. A mother gives milk, sings lullabies, and sacrifices her own eating time and sleeping time to take care of the child. A mother is like a candle. When a mother sings lullabies, she gives her child her Tamil culture and language. Give good advice and show us the path with love. Who else other than a mother could be more proud of a child's accomplishments?

You are Tamil. You respect our mother. Who else other than a mother could be more proud of a child's accomplishments? As immigrants, all our parents ever told us is like, we left everything behind for you to have a good education here. And for someone to leave their country to come here to have a better life, and then for that to happen, like, it's probably like a parent's nightmare. And we talk about justice. Well, this time, unfortunately, it was never served.

The interesting thing is, especially when you're dealing with a young person, is when you talk to the parents, they describe a person for you. When you talk to the teachers, they describe a person for you. When you talk to the friends, they describe a person for you. And they're three different people. But this was odd. You always got the same person with this. This is just a nice kid, hardworking, lots of fun, bright, funny, enjoyed life. I remember the last time I saw my sister, I was at home by myself with her, and my parents went there. She said, oh, I'm leaving for the job,

so I walked outside the door with her, and then she got in and she left. I'm Michelle Shepard, and this is Uncover, Sharmini. Chapter 6, Searching for justice. I've never heard Sharmini's voice before. It's hard to imagine covering any tragedy today and not finding some video or audio of the person, something posted online. We live public lives in a way we didn't 20 years ago. When I met Sharmini's brothers,

they mentioned they had their sister's voice on these cassette tapes, and they kindly offered to share them. The lobby of the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa is full of high-back leather chairs, grand portraits and marble floors. There's a busy Starbucks at one end and a brightly lit restaurant at the other. It's not the perfect spot to set up for an interview. There's a hollow echo from the floors

and you can't escape the music being piped in from hidden speakers. But it's a central place that makes most sense to meet Dinesh and Kathis. Would you like me to get us some coffees or something? I, like, just start right there. No, let me get them. Um, what do you, what do you drink? Over the years, I had stayed in touch with Charmaine's dad. We would email each other once in a while,

and I still have some of our correspondence. Here's one from 2005. Hi, Miss Michelle, he wrote. She would have been 21 years old. Cathice is in Carleton University doing second year of biochemistry. Dinesh is in graphic design. We never forget you. Say hi to your family and other staff. Mayinesh is in graphic design. We never forget you. Say hi to your family and other staff. May God bless you and long life.

When I approached Sharmini's dad about doing the podcast, he gave us his blessing, which I'm grateful for. I asked if the family would take part to record an interview, to tell us about Sharmini and how her death impacted their lives. But he worried a sit-down interview was too difficult. And I get that. But after a few months, I got a text from Dinesh. He and his brother had changed their minds. The only thing that I really wanted to say

was the positives that I really wanted to say was, the positives that I took out of it was that there was a lot of people that helped us. The community came together, people came together, people tried to help. And I find that generally when bad things happen, people get together to help, which is really great. Both brothers are warm and gentle like their parents

and very close. In fact, they married sisters. They live near each other and they see their parents all the time. The other thing, having this conversation, it makes me want to go back and look at that stuff, look at the pictures. The brothers tell me they've

never talked about Sharmini's death in this much detail before. And one of the things that I've always kind of struggled with is having kids and telling them that I had a sister at one point. So that's been like, it's been weird. Kathis gave his daughter Sharmini as her middle name. And his four-year-old son is starting to ask about the girl in family photos that are all over his grandparents' house. A lot of the behavior, the attitude, I still remember.

Dinesh tells me what he remembers about Sharmini. And just, there's like a strong attitude she has. Not like an attitude, not like a negative thing, but a positive one, I would say. That's what I remember. Kathis and Sharmini were closer, and he remembers the two of them ganging up on their older brother.

Actually, I was just telling my son a couple of weeks ago, I was like, oh, your uncle's a bully. Because he would take the TV remote and he would just change the channel to whatever he wanted. And so we would always tag team against him. I don't know. I mean, we were young. She was young. She was a good sister.

Both brothers have difficulty recalling that time in their lives. Dinesh was 17 when his sister disappeared. My biggest problem is just that a lot of the memory, I have no idea on the details. And a lot of the things I've forgotten or lost somewhere. Kathis was even younger, 13 when he lost Sharmini. Sitting across from him now, I can still see some of that little boy, the one who I watched sitting so quietly beside his sobbing mother. Yeah, definitely the same for me.

I mean, I have, it's like a complete block. I don't remember almost anything from that time. I have like a couple of of random, very specific memories. What are those that you do remember? Well, I mean, I remember the last time I saw my sister. I was at home by myself with her. She said, oh, I'm leaving for the job. So I walked outside the door with her.

She went to the elevator. She pressed the button. I stayed there talking to her. And then she told me, like, she reminded me to do the laundry. And I just said, like, jokingly, as I always do, I just say, no, I'm not going to do it. And then she kind of, I don't know what she said, but then she got in and she left. So I remember that. I remember, like, you know, during the time that she was missing,

like, every time we'd be driving somewhere or I'd be sitting in the car, I would look outside and I'd always, like, imagine, oh, you know, what if she was, like, she was, like, right there, driving down the highway, and you'd look outside, oh, you know, what if she was like, she was like right there, driving down the highway, and you'd look outside and you're like, oh, you know, what if she was like right there, and like, it's over. You know, and like that would happen over and over again.

And then the worst one was when I went to school. Like, I think I didn't go to school for a while. Eventually, Kathis did have to go back. So at that time, there was, like, a lot of people were collecting Pokémon cards, and that was, like, the big thing at the time. So I had Pokémon cards, and on the first day back, like,

my class had put together this, like, binder of Pokémon cards, yeah, that they had, like, all put together. Yeah, that they had like all put together. And so it was like, it was super nice. Coming home after school, that was like the day that we found out for sure that, you know, she was killed or that they had found her. that they had found her. And I remember just going in,

and in the hallway there was, like, lots of shoes, and I remember walking in, and the whole house was filled with people. And I remember that. It was, like, probably the few memories I have. It's hard not to cry as he tells this story. Such a sweet gift from his class. A moment to be happy after four months of agony. You can picture him hugging that binder as he comes home to show his parents,

only to see a hallway full of shoes and find out that his sister's remains have been found. You know, the reason she wanted to get a job is because she wanted money because we weren't that well off. So it makes me think, like, if you were more well off, maybe you wouldn't have wanted to go get the job and then this wouldn't have happened. And on the day that she went missing, you believed that it was...

the job she was going to had been arranged by Tippett. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Kavis says he was with Sharmini when Tippett would offer her a job. Because I was so close to my sister, like I knew, I knew when she left, I knew why she was leaving. I was there with her when we used to go to the swimming pool with this guy. I was there. It was me and her talking to him. So I was part of those conversations of him

telling her he's going to get her a job. So I knew exactly why she was leaving. I knew exactly who she went with. So nothing else was really even remotely a question So, like, I knew exactly why she was leaving. I knew exactly who she went with. So nothing else was really even remotely a question in my mind. He denies now that he ever took you guys swimming. I mean, yeah. You were there.

Yeah, yeah. So he did. You did take them. Oh, totally. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I can't tell you how many times we went with him, but we definitely went several, several times we were with him, just the two of us and him alone. Kafis also remembers thinking something else about Tippett. I mean, I guess I was young, and I believed that he was a cop,

and I think he showed us a badge at one point. This, this is the moment when the weight of the case against Tippett really hits me. Sharmini's brother was barely a teenager when she was killed, but there is no doubt in his mind that the job his sister was going to was arranged by Tippett. Tippett has always denied giving Charmini that job. He denied it 20 years ago, and he denies it today. All he did, he told me

in our 1999 interview, was give her an application for a job at the local swimming pool. But he never denied knowing the kids in the building or the fact that he took Sharmini and her brother swimming. So why is he denying it now? Cathice remembers it. He was there. And I wrote about it in that 1999 article,

because Tippett told me he did. Talking to her brothers about Tippett and how he led the kids in the building to believe he was a cop reminds me of the application police found in Sharmini's bedroom, the one for the fictitious Metro search unit. One of the things that we had, we had a job application that was in her possession that we believe Stanley gave her. I go back to the interviews I've had with Matt Crone, one of the lead detectives in Charmini's case. We can't directly connect that to him.

But it was, if you looked at the writing on it, you know, there's spelling mistakes. And it didn't, you know, it looked like a made up thing. And yeah, and it looked like something that someone in grade four had made. There was something else Matt told us that at the time should have seemed more significant, but we got caught up with all the other details. So we gave it to the CFS. That's the Center of Forensic Sciences. More or less said, we don't know what we're looking for on this, but here are the circumstances, just whatever you can do,

whether it's the type of paper, the type of ink, the font, whatever information that you can develop from this. And they couldn't do a lot for him. And unfortunately, what happened was they stored that in that heat, that heat active paper, activated paper. I don't know what that is. They used to use it on printers where the keys were actually heated. And when they strike, it's the heat of the key that turns the paper dark. So they stored that in a warm place and the whole thing turned black. So unfortunately,

we lost all of that evidence. Heat-activated paper, or thermal paper. Historically, getting fingerprints from this type of paper was difficult because of its unique chemical makeup. But here's the sad part. In recent years, new methods have been developed which now make it possible to lift fingerprints off that type of paper. So if the application had been preserved properly, maybe, just maybe, something could have been found. I phoned Matt again. That must have been obviously a mistake in how they stored it. I mean, they must have known that. Yes. Yeah.

Okay. That's the polite answer. Yes, that would be a mistake. I reached out to the Center of Forensic Sciences to see if they would talk about this. They wouldn't. 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. Okay, my name is Stacey Gallant. I'm a detective sergeant with the Toronto Police Service. Stacey Gallant is the detective sergeant in charge of cold cases for the Toronto Police.

We have over 650 current cold cases in Toronto. Charminis is one of them. She's listed as homicide number 36 for the year 1999. We don't reinvestigate cases in the cold case office. Homicides are investigated by top-level investigators from start to finish. By the time it becomes a cold case, that really means that everything that could have been done during the case has been done, and the investigation has no more leads to follow,

and there's nothing left that the original investigators can do. Gallant confirms to producer Kathleen Goldhar something Matt had mentioned, that after the original 1999 investigation, the cold case squad took another look into Sharmini's murder. We're talking about the reinvestigation in 2011. What prompted it? I would say new information that came in.

Can you tell me what that is? No. Unfortunately, between the two investigations that happened, they were unable to bring it to the point where anyone could be arrested or a prosecution could be mounted. Although Gallant won't talk about the new information, which prompted this second investigation, we know it coincided with Tippett's dangerous offender hearing.

So you have somebody in a homicide who's a person of interest. They don't get convicted for this crime. They go on and commit a whole bunch of other crimes that have very similar details to the one you're looking at. Can that be used to put a case forward to the Crown saying... Well, similar fact evidence can be used in certain circumstances, but I don't think that in and of itself is enough to mount a prosecution

against someone that's going to lead to conviction in court. But if you were so close with the original homicide investigation, you had so much circumstantial evidence, and now you have this, could it be enough to hypothetically tip it over? That's not my call.

That's up to the Crown's office. That's up to, you know, a judge to decide. You know, if I think you need more than circumstantial evidence, you need more than similar fact evidence, you know, without some direct evidence, it's very, very difficult to convict someone of a murder. So, how have you been? Good.

It's been a long time. Well, I retired 10 years ago, but I didn't really retire. Paul Culver spent many years, decades actually, prosecuting some of Canada's most infamous murder cases. I was employed as a Crown attorney in Toronto for 35 years. And over the course of that time, I did, I think, 38 murder trials. I think 38 murder trials and everything else related to criminal law and oversaw an office of 105 assistant crowns. We know police believe it was Tippett who killed Sharmini, but it's the crown attorney, Canada's prosecutor,

who advises police on whether there's enough evidence to bring someone to trial. And then, of course, it's up to a judge or a jury to decide if he's guilty. I think I told you I had no personal involvement in this case. I walk Paul through Sharmini's case. At the time, what we knew was that Sharmini disappeared. She was on her way to a job. What we know from the witnesses we've tracked down,

and I described Detective Matt Crone's theory, and the theory was whoever had offered her this job, who they believed was Stanley Tippett, had offered this as some sort of, you know, ruse. And why Matt thinks Tippett was the one who killed her. If you were the Crown at the time, what would you say you needed that they didn't have? Or, having described that, do you think,

I might have risked it, I might have risked it? I might have gone for it? Well, the test for laying a charge is reasonable prospect of conviction. The test for finding someone guilty is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. And somewhere in between, you have to weigh what are the consequences of laying the charge and taking it through to trial. So without knowing all the details, there must have been something here that was missing. Tippett could account for his whereabouts for most of the day Sharmini disappeared, except for about two hours when he said his car overheated

and he took a break from cutting lawns to let it cool. I think the big holes in the case were that nobody saw them together that day. No one could actually place them together. And then the lack of forensic evidence, because it was her remains were found four months later. It was a really hot summer. It was near a coyote's den. So there's very little that was left. Would that, those two factors alone be enough to say there's no reasonable prospect of conviction? They could be. Circumstantial cases are like putting a puzzle together. You have to get all the pieces, and if the part in the middle is missing, then that is a problem with your proof beyond a reasonable doubt. So in this case, I would think that there was a missing link

that just made the police and the Crown at that time not want to proceed. Beyond the possible lack of evidence, Matt Crone thinks there might be another reason why the Crown was apprehensive to lay charges in 1999. Guy Paul Morin. Guy Paul Morin. In 1985, he was charged with the brutal killing of nine-year-old Christine Jessop.

He was portrayed as her creepy neighbour and eventually convicted of first-degree murder. It would take 10 years before he was exonerated. Guy-Paul Marin was grinning from ear to ear celebrating his acquittal. Marin has always insisted he did not kill nine-year-old Christine Jessop and this morning the courts agreed with him. A public inquiry into his wrongful conviction condemned the officers and prosecutors for their tunnel vision and single-minded belief that Guy Paul Morin was the killer.

Christine Jessup's actual killer has never been found. I came onto this case fresh off of leaving the Christine Jessup reinvestigation. So all the sore points that we kind of got stuck with from Christine Jessup and Guy Paul Morin were still very fresh. So quite frequently, when we started the investigation, we'd ask the team, is there any other explanation? Are there any other suspects? Or, you know, should we be looking at an alternative theory? Should we be thinking of something else? And the responses I'd get were like blank looks going, what are you, stupid?

And it was kind of overwhelmingly all roads led back to Stan. It was kind of overwhelmingly all roads led back to Stan. So you go through all this, and now you have a case where you're worried you have perhaps the same tunnel vision. And is Stanley Tippett the Guy Palmeran? How does that impact you, or how did it impact you at the time? Well, we knew that if we were going to put ourselves into a position where we could prosecute Stanley Tippett for this, that the evidence we had to have had to be that good, that compelling.

The problems we had with that was there was no physical evidence. It just wasn't there. But you just think the threshold has been placed way too high because of that. I think sometimes there are triable cases. And I think that part of the issue is the public has a right to hear some of these cases. And I understand the need to avoid wrongfully convicting people. And, you know, people say, like, what are the things you used to fear in your cop?

And I go, number one is charging the wrong person. Police did lack forensic evidence, and Sharmini told different people different things about the job she was going to on the day she disappeared. Those conflicting stories could be problematic for the Crown during a trial. And we don't know of anybody who said they saw Sharmini and Tippett together on the day she disappeared. But still, even with these holes, the investigating officers felt they had a strong enough case

and brought an extensive file to prosecutors. They decided the case wasn't winnable. And whether or not Guy Paul Moran influenced the decision, we don't know. No charges were ever laid. We know that using similar fact evidence, the details from crimes that Tippett committed after Charmini was killed, is tricky. And former Crown Attorney Paul Culver also noted that it's generally more difficult to prosecute a cold case.

Witnesses may have died or can't be found or could forget details. You also take into account what the practical effect would be if this person is declared a dangerous offender. If you're a dangerous offender, there's potential for you never getting out of prison. So you'd also have to look at how much evidence still remained from earlier and what the practical effect would be of prosecuting this person. We asked the current chief crown attorney to talk to us about Sharmini's case,

but he declined our request. If Stanley Tippett did kill Sharmini, does it matter if he's charged? request. If Stanley Tippett did kill Sharmini, does it matter if he's charged? He's off the streets, declared a dangerous offender, so there's a good chance he'll never get out of prison, never be granted parole. To me, I actually, I really don't care. Sharmini's brothers are among those who believe Tippett was the killer. This is Kathis.

I don't care whether he gets charged specifically for my sister. I'm quite happy knowing he's in jail. If, like, he was getting out tomorrow and this would make a difference to put him in jail, that I care more about. And I wish that he was put in jail a lot sooner because he got caught again several times and let go and caught again. And so if he could have been put in jail right away,

like, you know, that would have been what I would have wanted. But today, I don't really care. Sharmini's older brother, Dinesh, feels the same. About him being in jail or not, or for this case, it doesn't really bother me at all. But if he got out, it would bother me a lot more. At least for any other cases, as long as it is, as long as he's not out there taking a chance on somebody else. taking a chance on somebody else. Everyone else we talked to wanted Sharmini's killer to be held responsible in a court of law.

To me, justice was never served for her, honestly. That's always how I felt. And I'm not, this is nothing against the police or anything like that. I'm not saying they didn't do their job. I'm just saying, truthfully, it was never served. I personally think it's important that regardless of whether he's already in or not, if there's enough to prove that he was part of this, he has to be, you know, made to pay the price.

But just to know that there is a closure in that case and you know it solidifies it and I feel like that as a parent I would want that I would demand that matters to me matters to all of us I think to you too and I want him to be accountable I think that when we know what happened, it helps us to move on. And if we don't know what has happened, then we're stuck. And I feel stuck, and I think many of us are. Matt Krohn, who tried for so many years to build a case against Tippett, has also had a hard time letting go. What would that mean to you if, for some reason, he now gets put on trial? When I retired, I found myself apologizing to the Anandaville family that we never solved this.

We never resolved this issue for them. I think they deserve resolution for this, which they haven't had, which nobody's given them. So that would probably mean more to me than anything more you could do to Stanley Tippett. We called this podcast Sharmini because we wanted to honour her memory. I know so much more about her today. Victims tend to be lionized in public, no matter their background. But everyone, everyone we talked to had only beautiful memories of Sharmini. By all accounts, she really was a sweet, smart kid. Months before we started writing this podcast, I met with Sharmini's father in Ottawa.

I couldn't believe how little he had changed. He was as warm and open as he was two decades ago. I reminded him about that picture of Sharmini, the one he gave me, the one of her in the gold sari, which I kept at my desk. And I told him about Tippett and how the article I wrote in 1999 had stuck with me. It was such an unfinished story. He responded with his thoughts on reincarnation, that justice doesn't always come right away. I'm really happy to see that he's at peace, as much as you can be when you lose a child. I think, like Matt Crone,

I just wanted to give Sharmini's family some sort of ending to this horrible chapter in their lives. Maybe there isn't one. 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 Z. Gu. Chris Oak is our story editor. Our video producer is Evan Agard.

Transcripts by Rasha Shahada, Varad Mehta, and Carol Park. Translations done by Karthana Sassithuram. Our senior producer of CBC Podcasts is Tanya Springer, and the executive producer is Arif Noorani. A special thank you to Jaharana, Shamhan Booyan, Bornomala Saeeda, Sarah Koenig for her advice, our lawyer Daniel Stone, Cecil Fernandez, CBC's Reference Library, Brian Sampowski, Thanks so much for listening to our series, Charmini. Just a quick heads up, we'll be back in the coming weeks with an update

to our investigation. When news of our podcast spread, someone reached out to me. Someone who has never spoken publicly or to homicide detectives about this case. I was just looking at the people crossing in front of me, you know. And I saw

Charmini, who I recognized immediately when I saw her picture on the news reports later. I saw her and a man walking across the road. I was looking at the guy because he caught my eye. But the thing is, I got to stress, it's not something that I saw recently and then remembered it from 20 years ago. It was something that I knew right away at the time who I had seen. And the fact that she was subsequently murdered really was something that stuck in me to this day. We're looking into his statement now as our police.

Thanks again for listening. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.