Uncover - S7 "Dead Wrong" E2: Psychic Visions

Episode Date: June 23, 2020

The police investigation into Brenda Way’s murder is going nowhere until a new investigator is assigned to the case. Suddenly, new witnesses and evidence start to appear, and all of it points in one direction. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/uncover/uncover-season-7-dead-wrong-transcripts-listen-1.5612940

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This is a CBC Podcast. There are over 100 unsolved murdered or missing person cases in Nova Scotia. Brenda Way was murdered in 1995. Because she was seen as just a sex worker, there wasn't much media attention. Six years earlier, another young woman captured the media and the public's attention when she went missing and was presumed murdered. It's perhaps the best-known case in Nova Scotia, and it reveals something about how at least one murder investigation was being handled by the Halifax police, and how that ties into the murder of Brenda Way. HALFACTS POLICE, AND HOW THAT TIES INTO THE MURDER OF BRENDA WAY. UNLIKE BRENDA, KIMBERLY MCANDREW WAS NOT A SEX WORKER.

KIMBERLY WAS 19 YEARS OLD, A PRETTY WHITE WOMAN, THE DAUGHTER OF AN RCMP OFFICER. SHE MOVED FROM A SMALL TOWN IN NORTHERN NOVA SCOTIA TO ATTEND DOWHOWSIE UNIVERSITY IN HALFACTS. SHE GOT A JOB AT a job at Canadian Tire. Then on August 12th, a Saturday afternoon, she got off work a little early, walked out the door to the parking lot, and was never seen again.

Like so many other cases in Nova Scotia, Kimberly's disappearance went unsolved. Then, in 1995, a new investigator was assigned to take a look at the case. When he was investigating what happened to Kimberly, he evidently got frustrated. So frustrated that he talked to a psychic, a woman in the U.S. named Noreen Rainier. I found Rainier in Florida, called her up, and asked about her sessions with the Halifax police. She kindly sent me the recordings of the sessions, and I published the recordings in the Halifax Examiner, because, well, this is nuts. Wow, this is nuts.

Normally, to prove that I'm psychic to the police, I usually describe the victim. But you've given me pictures of her, so I appreciate that. I'll have to maybe do a little bit mentalness on her. Maybe I'll go into her mind a little bit because I can see how she looks and just how she was before she left. The handwriting I'm going to be holding. I've got the pictures.

I'm just bringing everything closer to me. Okay. And just say her name again, please. Now, which is the most recent or last picture of the profile? Just one moment. I believe, Noreen, that the profile would be the most recent photograph. Okay. I like to look in the eyes, and I can't in those, so I'm going to look in her other eyes.

But let me just go into her personality just a little bit, how she was when she was living with you. Okay, I want to be Kimberly. I want to be Kimberly and I want to see how Kimberly acts. Part of the testimony that convicted Glenn Assoon was also reliant on a psychic. Part of the testimony that convicted Glenn Assoon was also reliant on a psychic. I talked to retired cop Tom Martin because he was actually on the call with that psychic from Florida. You show up on the psychic interview. I was told to show up on the psychic interview.

Who told you to show up? My staff surgeon at the time. What do you think about psychics? Not much. I can tell you that I have a very good friend by the name of Dr. Peter Collins, who is a forensic psychiatrist out of Toronto. Peter worked the profiles on Bernardo Hamoka,

did a lot more cases. He teaches at Quantico. He teaches at Quantico. He teaches at Interpol. Very, very intelligent man. And one night, Peter and I were talking about psychics, and Peter said, well, I'll tell you something, Tom. There's never been a case in North America solved by a psychic. And he said, that's all I'm going to say about it.

To this day, Kimberly McAndrew's case remains unsolved. And it looked like Brenda Way's murder would also go unsolved. Nothing seemed to be happening in the investigation. Almost a year would go by, and then all of a sudden, everything would change. A new police officer is assigned to take over the case. The same man who just before Brenda Way was murdered had taken over the Kimberly McAndrew case. The same cop who had consulted with psychic Maureen Rainier.

His name is Constable Dave McDonald. And just a few days after Dave McDonald took over the Brenda Way investigation, he got a phone call. Someone had just discovered what they thought was an important piece of evidence. Evidence that was predicted by a psychic. I'm Tim Busque, and this is Uncover Dead Wrong, Episode 2, Psychic Visions. Given that he had been charged with assault for beating Brenda, Glenn assumed was an obvious early suspect in Brenda Way's murder. But he had an alibi. An alibi confirmed by three other people, which the police at the time accepted. On the evening after Brenda's murder, Glenn went to the police station and was interviewed for about an hour. While there, he wrote a two-page

statement. In the statement, he recounts his two-and-a-half-year relationship with Brenda, her struggle with drugs, and what he said was their recent attempt to patch things up. Glenn wrote that on Saturday, the night of Brenda's murder, he was at Ann Morse's house. on Saturday, the night of Brenda's murder, he was at Ann Morse's house. I had about eight beer, he wrote, and I went to bed at approximately 1 a.m. Ann told me that my pager went off and it was a girl. Ann said the voice sounded like Brenda. I learned of Brenda's death from her father when I called there tonight looking for her. Police never got a search warrant for Glenn's phone records to see if there was a call to his pager. The thing is, police had very little to go on in this investigation.

As we've said, there was no physical evidence and no eyewitnesses. But there were people out the night of Brenda's murder. Stephen, thanks for coming out. Oh, no problem. You were delivering newspapers the morning Brenda was killed. Yep. The Daily News. The Daily News. Back in 2015, when I first started investigating this story,

I found a paper delivery guy named Stephen Angle, whose paper route included the building that Brenda was found behind. He was there around 5.30 the morning Brenda's body was discovered, and he remembers seeing at least one other person in the area that night. And he remembers seeing at least one other person in the area that night. I remember going in the building, hearing a pounding on the door, and, you know, I want in, get me in, let me in, let me in. And when I went by, he was pounding on the door,

and I didn't say anything to him. I seen him. The entryway Stephen Engel is talking about is the front door to 109 Albert Lake Road. Thinking the man who was pounding on the door might have been fighting with his girlfriend, Stephen ignored him and went on with his deliveries. The next thing he saw was a Camaro, or maybe a Firebird, speeding out of the back parking lot. Stephen said there were two men in the car, and it was being driven by the same black man he had seen pounding on the door just a few minutes before. You know, I know it was a gold, maybe dark yellow, golden car. It was about 5.30 in the morning.

Yeah. Blown up this driveway. So when you found out Brenda had been murdered that morning, you called the police? Yeah. And what happened? Then I went and had an interview and he said if we need any more information we'll contact you. I never heard nothing more about us. So here we have a witness who was near the murder scene at a time that could have been very close to the time of the murder. He sees possible suspects or possible witnesses to the crime, but the police never follow up.

Police were told that a man named Jason Sparks said that on the morning Brenda was killed, he was with her at a crack house at around 5 in the morning. That crack house is almost directly across the street from 109, the apartment building behind which Brenda was killed. It's not clear that police ever interviewed Sparks about this. According to police notes from the investigation, Brenda had told another sex worker hours before she was murdered that she was being threatened by two sex workers

from the downtown Halifax stroll, and she was very afraid of them. I can't find any indication that police followed up on this lead either. And then there's this story from Karen Way, Brenda's cousin, as reported by the CBC. Karen Way is haunted by memories. Her cousin, Brenda, murdered. I see Brenda telling me to go for it and to go get him. Make this right. Two weeks after the killing, Brenda's cousin,

Karen says she heard a conversation at a bar that stunned her. What I overheard was, you should have seen the look on her face when I slid her effing throat. I called the police. I said, what the eff? And called the police and waited for the police to respond. And unfortunately for Glenn and for Brenda, there was no real investigation into that. So your tip went nowhere. Exactly. Karen Way believes her tip was ignored. Nobody, nobody followed up on it. Why do you think that? Nobody, nobody followed up on it. Why do you think that? Because Brenda was a prostitute. And she accuses police of having tunnel vision.

In the days and weeks after the murder, Glenn was trying to solve the crime himself, as he was frustrated with what he thought was a lack of action by police. I talked to Glenn's son, Glenn Jr., about it. He was really upset, and he sat at my house, and he was very angry. I have no idea what thinking was going on in his head, but his girlfriend was murdered. They were only broke up. Well, for sure, we knew my father didn't do it. And, I mean, when that happened,

me and Dad, we don't know, kicking down doors. Police had to tell Glenn to stop roughing people up and that they would take care of the investigation themselves. Glenn was having difficulty coping. I could tell. He didn't want to be around anybody. I was a whole week, I heard from him. And that's not normal, right? Usually, he's always calling me.

And I said, something's not right. So I went down to check on him, and I'm yelling up his window. I'm like, Dad, Dad. Trying to get his attention, and then he peeks his head out the window, and he had a baseball bat sticking out the window. He didn't know who it was, right? So I ended up getting in. We went in, and he was a wreck. You could tell he hasn't slept in days. He was drinking. He was upset,

emotionally upset. Eight months after Brenda's murder, Glenn decides to pack up and move to B.C. Two months after that, Constable Dave McDonald is assigned to the case as lead investigator. Tom Martin worked with Dave McDonald in the major crime unit at that time. Dave had the skills and ability of a very good investigator. However, his way to achieve something wasn't exactly my way. My approach has always been a very simple approach, a very straightforward approach,

a very get out and knock on doors, beat the bushes, do your canvases talk to your witnesses talk to them again talk to the family spend time with the families so yeah Dave was a little

flash and dash I mean there's no question about that in 1990 when I went into major crime we had some of the legends and these were the

old school detectives and some of them were great some of them you stayed clear of because they were just full of shit dave was about in the middle of the pecking order when i went there after about a couple years, you know, by 92, 93, I think you're starting to see a lot of the senior guys leaving. And guys like Dave all of a sudden found themselves in a senior position, senior investigator. Dave wanted the big cases. Dave really wanted to be the hero and save the day. Dave really wanted to be the hero and save the day. And just after Dave McDonald starts his new job, miraculous new evidence and witnesses start to appear.

And it all begins with psychic visions. Okay, it was roughly about a year after my sister was murdered. It was in the path not too far from her body. There was two trees there. I was walking through there one day with my son. This is Jane Downey, Brenda Way's older sister. Something felt weird, so I moved the grass, and I seen the brown handle, and I picked it up,

and I looked at it, and I seen some, it looked like a rusty color stain on it. so what I'm thinking is this is a weapon that did do something to my sister first thing I did was walk into my father's pick up the phone and called the police which was the day I first met Dave McDonald he come up and retrieved the knife that I found Dave McDonald, he'd come up and retrieve the knife that I found. Jane Downey said she found the knife on the path near her father's apartment. She called police and Constable Dave McDonald came to pick it up. Jane said she came upon the knife close to where her sister's body had been found, the murder scene that had been scoured by police and police dogs.

I talked to Tom Martin about this. I wonder what your opinion is. In this case, the crime scene was exactly what you described happened. It was taped off. I didn't show it up. Cops started knocking on doors. Two dogs were brought in, actually. Nothing was found.

Two dogs? Yeah. Okay. And nothing was found. Seven, eight months go by. The sister of the victim happens to be walking through the same crime scene. Just outside the taped area discovers, claims to discover, a knife on the ground.

Does that seem credible? Well, I've never, ever. One thing I've learned working my career in major crime homicide and as a police officer there's no such thing in this world as coincidence I think I would first off go back to square one and emphasize the necessity for a thorough and complete search of the scene. It sounds that if this knife was located, you say, adjacent the actual scene, you know, what's adjacent? Are we talking 10 feet?

Are we talking 20 feet? 100 feet? 20, 30 meters. 20 or 30 meters. From where the body was found. Well, that is something that I would have expected would have been found. I would think it would have been found during the initial search. What we did not hear Jane mention in her statement was what happened before she found the knife.

Back in the summer of 1996, seven or eight months after her sister had been murdered, Jane went to a baby shower. There, she met a woman who said she was a psychic. I spent considerable time trying to find out who this psychic was, but haven't been able to identify her. In any event, Jane said she told the psychic that her sister had been murdered, but no one had been charged with the crime. That conversation led to four sessions between Jane and the psychic, over four separate days. At the end of that time, the psychic told Jane that Brenda had been killed with a knife,

and that knife had a broken tip. Wasn't there something about a broken tip on that knife? Yeah, the sister had gone to a psychic. Oh, goody. The knife that Jane Downey claimed to have found on the path, in the grass, was a knife with its tip broken off. Dave McDonald has his first major lead, a potential murder weapon. All he needs now is the person who wielded it. it in. 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. I'm under the McDonald Bridge which is a suspension bridge that connects Halifax to Dartmouth

Back in 1996 there was a remarkable event here. It was November 3rd at 2.23 a.m. So just after the bars closed in downtown Halifax and downtown Dartmouth, one of the bridge commissioners, he came down here and there was a car running and he looked in the window of the car and there was a man. The man was dead and the man's pants were around his knees. There was a woman's coat on the seat next to the dead man. A jacket was left in his vehicle, which was identified as belonging to Margaret Hartrick.

Constable Anthony Blinko of the Halifax Police. Going back, I was seconded to talk to various street prostitutes for the Brenda Way matter. Approximately one year after Brenda's death, I came into contact with Margaret Hartrick. Margaret Hartrick is known by friends and family as Robin. Robin is a well-known sex worker on the Dartmouth Stroll. It turns out that Robin had been performing oral sex on the man under the bridge when he had a heart attack and died. She said she freaked out and took off, leaving her jacket behind. The police were satisfied that this was true. We've asked for interviews with all the police officers mentioned in this podcast,

but the Halifax Regional Police Department has declined to make them available. We have, however, obtained audio tapes from the 1990s of many of these officers, including Constable Blenko. We'll deal with Margaret for the death of the gentleman underneath the McDonald Bridge, after we had finished investigating that matter and took a statement from her, she stated that the whole reason she'd become a street prostitute

was to find information about Brenda's murder so that she could provide it to the police. In fact, Robin had been a sex worker for many years before Brenda was murdered. Robin also had a serious crack cocaine problem. And she started telling us about a red truck that she felt was responsible in the murder. We started asking her various details, what size truck, any features, a license plate, how many occupants, and it became clear that she didn't know anything about the truck.

She'd never seen it, never heard it. She began telling us this was a psychic vision she'd had and that there was no actual physical thing that she had seen. It all came to her in a dream. We asked her if she knew anything about the murder and she stated another story that she thought had taken place on what she referred to as the old pipeline road. We asked her what she'd seen there and again she told us she hadn't seen anything. This was a vision that she had. At this point, we felt that she was yanking our chain,

and she had no viable information to give to us. And we asked her to leave. We were getting frustrated she had no information. As we were walking her out of the interview room, she got very upset at us and said, I guess it doesn't matter that at 4.15 in the morning, Gladys Glendale soon told me that he killed Brenda outside of Linda Grandy's apartment. And we asked her, is this a vision you had or is this fact?

She turned around and told us, this is fact. Blenko and his partner take a written statement. Blinko and his partner take a written statement It's sent to Dave McDonald Who orders them to get a videotaped statement from Robin But Robin will be off the police radar For months at a time And when they do catch up with her She is too high to give a coherent statement

One time police managed to sober Robin up And bring her into the station to get her on video, but later find they had forgotten to push record on the camera. It takes 15 months to finally get her recorded statement. Here's Robin reading her written statement. Reading her written statement. I saw Brenda on the afternoon before she was found dead. I know that she went to the Krakow. I missed her by a couple of minutes, sometime between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. Then I went to Linda Grady's place at 109 Albor Lake Road.

Linda Grady told us about the police knocking on her door the morning of Brenda's murder. Linda lived on Jackson Road, not at 109 Albor Lake Road. And Linda denies even knowing Robin. I left Linda's place around 4.15 a.m. and Glen as soon was coming up the walkway towards the building. He said to me, well, she's finally gone now. That's the weight off my shoulders. I asked him, where is she gone? I know he was talking about Brenda. He said she's dead. He said, if I find out the bitch or prick who did it, they're dead. He looked like he was on drugs.

But I know Glenn doesn't do drugs. He looked very strange, he was wasn't there. I asked him the time. His arm was right shaky so I held his arm while he looked at his watch. He said it was 4.15 a.m.

He was freaking me out so I told him I had to go and I got out of there. He was freaking me out, so I told him I had to go, and I got out of there. Robin says she knows Glenn doesn't do drugs. Robin knows Glenn and knew Brenda very well. She and Glenn sometimes slept together, even though Brenda and Glenn were a couple. And after the murder, she continued to hang out with Glenn, including having sex with him in a hotel room. And in her words, she ripped him off for about 400 bucks while he

was sleeping. Robin said Glenn bought her crack so she would tell him anything she knew about the murder. And now here, she gives a devastating statement that points directly to Glenn. In all the official statements police took from Robin, there is never mention of dreams or psychic visions. Now Constable Dave McDonald has two leads, a key witness and a potential murder weapon predicted by a psychic. And Jane Downey, Brenda's sister who claimed to have found the knife, had more for the investigation. She had called and said her boyfriend had beat the, excuse my language,

beat the shit out of her, and he threatened to blow her effing head off. And if she was dead between the next day by 12 o'clock, to tell the police, Glenn assumed he had done it. This story that Jane tells is not from the night of the murder. It's also not the only incident Jane relays about Glenn abusing Brenda. Jane's stories have never been substantiated. I don't think it's a stretch to say that Jane thought Glenn was responsible for killing her sister. David Way, Brenda and Jane's father, said he believed Glenn killed Brenda.

I've never been able to talk to Jane about the knife or about Brenda. Jane died in 2007 before I started reporting on this story. Here's where the case really starts to build. In early 1997, a man named Wayne Wise is picked up on fraud charges. As he's being taken to jail, Wise tells the cops that he has some information they might be interested in. About his uncle, Glenn Assoon. Wise says that a few months earlier, he had called his uncle Glenn out in B.C. and Glenn said he was out there hiding because he was a suspect in his wife's murder. Wise says wife, he means Brenda.

Wise says he asked him if he did it and Glenn said yes. he asked him if he did it, and Glenn said, yes. Two weeks later, Dave McDonald brings Wise into the Dartmouth police station for a statement. McDonald also arranges for Wise's girlfriend to be there, so Wise can have a visit with her in a room to themselves. Wise's girlfriend brings a friend along with her. That friend, Tina Cameron Says she didn't even know why they were going to the Dartmouth police station But once there, Cameron also makes a claim to Dave McDonald She says that a year and a half earlier She overheard Glenn Assoon say

I got her, Brenda From ear to ear with a knife and the tip broke off. Now, suddenly, the knife that had no forensic connection to the crime has a purported connection to Glenn Assoon. Two days later, after the statements from Wise and Cameron, Dave McDonald shows up at Ann Morse's house, Glenn's alibi. He said, I'm placing you under arrest for accessory to murder. And I said, you can't be serious.

And he said, yes, I am. And then he read me my rights. When we got to the police station in Dartmouth, he gave me a list to call a lawyer. I did call. Nobody would come see me. As Ann Morse told it, McDonald started asking questions, even though she didn't have a lawyer. Dave McDonald started asking me questions, even though she didn't have a lawyer. And he said, F-U-C-K-U, as far as I'm concerned, you're doing three to five.

He then took the folder, pulled Brenda Way's dead body, picture of Brenda Way's dead body, threw it in my face with her throat slashed. I had then had a nervous breakdown. And I've been seeing a psychiatrist ever since. I had then had a nervous breakdown, and I've been seeing a psychiatrist ever since. I've seen the photo of Brenda's dead body and the other crime scene photos. Reporters see a lot of these horrible photos, and it never gets easier. So I can understand how the photo of Brenda's body would sit with Ann to this day.

Still, despite the gruesome photo thrown in her face, Ann didn't change her story, and Ann wasn't charged with accessory to murder. All this time, Glenn is living in Maple Ridge, British Columbia, completely unaware that he is under investigation for murder. But in January 1998, Dave McDonald again interviews Robin Hartrick, the woman who placed Glenn at the scene of the murder. And in April of that year, McDonald issues a warrant for Glenn's arrest. Glenn's brother tells him about the warrant,

and Glenn immediately heads to the RCMP station to turn himself in. He tells his girlfriend he'll be back in a couple of weeks. After all, he didn't do it. I'm in my car heading towards Harborview School. School was just let out, so there's still some cars in the parking lot. I'm here because of what happened on September 10th, 1998. This school is an elementary school. I'm walking on the west side of the school through the parking lot and next to the ball field and along the side of the school there's a little playground area. This gravel trail turns up towards Victoria Road and we're no longer on school property. So this trail cuts right through the woods and it would be the obvious route for school children

going to school from north of Victoria Road. They would cross Victoria and then come down this trail. is where the school children came upon a badly beaten body. The children of Harborview Elementary School come upon an awful sight. A woman who has been badly beaten, unconscious, barely alive. The woman is Robin Hartrick, and it is the same day Glenn Assoon, who has been sitting in a Nova Scotia jail since his arrest, is scheduled to have his bail hearing.

No connection, says lawyer Don Murray, between his client, Glenn Assoon, and the beating last week of 35-year-old Margaret Hartrick. Elementary students found her unconscious in the woods behind Harborview School. Assoon is charged with killing a Dartmouth prostitute three years ago. Hartrick, who police say was also a prostitute, was a crown witness in that case. Lawyer Murray says police should keep that information away from the public until his client's trial is over. Glenn Assoon's murder trial is set to begin next June. Richard Perry, CBC News, Halifax.

After the children find her, Robin is taken to hospital. She never wakes up. She dies eight days later. Despite the timing of Robin's death, no link is ever made to Glenn's trial, and no one is charged with her murder. Robin Hartrick joins the long list of unsolved murders in Halifax. of unsolved murders in Halifax. Glenn Assoon's trial will start in a few months, and Robin will remain one of the most important witnesses in the case against him, a witness who can never be cross-examined. Her recorded testimony will frustrate Glenn

and spark a series of events that will lead to his downfall. Coming up on Dead Wrong. Can you tell us today how much crack cocaine you had consumed prior to when you say you met Glenn Assoon on the street. In April. And that's no effect on my memory. Back in June, I told the court that I'm wrong. Mr. Assoon, you are not to address the jury. No, you are not.

He needs to be taken out of the court. There's too much. He kept hitting me and told me to shut up or I'll kill you. And I asked him if he killed Pepple. He shut up or I'll kill you. I asked him if he killed Pippo. He said yes and I'd be next. Dead Wrong is written and produced by Janice Evans, Nancy Hunter, and me, Tim Busque. Sound design by Evan Kelly.

Shamham Buyan provided transcripts. Our digital producer is Emily Connell. Chris Oak is our story editor. The senior producer of CBC Podcasts is Tanya Springer. And our executive producer is Arif Noorani. For discussion, posts, pictures from the case, and more, find us on Facebook and Twitter at UncoverCBC. We're also on Instagram at CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.