Uncover - S7 "Dead Wrong" E5: The Cold Walls of Prison

Episode Date: June 20, 2020

Glen faces new horrors while being locked up in prison. But then he makes a connection with someone on the outside who provides a lifeline — and possibly, a route to freedom. 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. Let me tell you something, Bull Prison. How I equate time. Each minute is like an hour. Each hour is like an hour. Each hour is like a day. Each day is like a month. Each month is like a year. Each year is like a decade.

And each decade is like eternity. That's how I got quit each time. So it's 117 years. That's what I spent in prison for a crime I did not commit. On April 5, 1998, Glen Assoon was arrested for the murder of Brenda Way. He was put directly in jail and stayed there until his trial was finished. Then, after his conviction, he was sent to Dorchester Penitentiary in New Brunswick. He appealed for a new trial with the help of lawyer Jerome Kennedy, but the appeal was denied on April 20th, 2006.

Prison is terrible for everyone, but for those who maintain their innocence and refuse to show remorse, it can be even worse. It can be even worse. Now, I knew I was innocent, and I knew someday I'm going to prove my innocence. One time in Tide, in Georgechester, I needed a mattress because I got shipped to a new cell one day, a different cell, different area in a prison, and the mattress was all full of feces and everything and

full of blood and stuff. So I drug it over to SIS Supply and Services to get a new mattress and they wouldn't give me one. And I said, have a look at this one I'm going to sleep on. I can't sleep on that. They said, well, we're not giving you a new mattress. You had a new mattress not that long ago. I said, yeah, but I went to a different cell and I didn't take it with me and I can't get it now. Anyway, long story short, I went and seen the minister, the chaplain, to see if he could call the warden.

Like, this was getting late on a Friday afternoon. And he couldn't get a hold of the warden in his office anyway. And so I said, okay, I'm going to get a hold of the warden then. So I climbed the bell tower and I shimmied up the bell tower and I was kicking the bell, ringing the bell. And it actually closed the prison down. The warden showed up then and a whole bunch of other officials and high-end guards and stuff like that and they were telling me to come down. I said I want two things. I said I want a new mattress and I want a new trial. I said I'm not coming down until I get them. But I was kind of wigging out a bit, to tell you the truth. I was up there about probably close to a half hour.

They said, well, if you come down, we'll guarantee you, we'll get you a new mattress. And I said, what about a new trial? They said, well, we can't do nothing about that. But if you come down, don't jump. They thought I was gonna jump. I wasn't gonna jump. If you come down, don't jump.

They thought I was going to jump. I wasn't going to jump. I was professing my innocence up on the bell tower. And I said, I'm an innocent man. I want a new trial. They said, well, you come down. We'll have a talk. So after a while, I did come down because I couldn't hold on anymore because there wasn't much up there to hold on to.

And if I had have fell, I would have got severely hurt because it was a long drop down. When Glenn finally comes down from the bell tower, he does get a new mattress in the hole. They put him directly into segregation, what is commonly called solitary confinement. After that, they move him to a psychiatric ward inside the prison, where he stays for the next three years.

I'm Tim Bousquet, and this is Uncover Dead Wrong, Episode 5, The Cold Walls of Prison. Dorchester Penitentiary was built in the 19th century and first put in the service in 1880. It's an imposing stone structure set atop a hill overlooking a valley in New Brunswick. There are four guard towers, one at each corner, and razor-sharp coils of barbed wire protect the upper perimeter. When Glenn enters Dorchester, prisoners spend 10 to 15 hours a day inside their 60 square foot cells. Their five hour work day accounts for most of the time they spend outside their cells. Violence is rampant.

Prisoners arm themselves with handmade knives and a stench permeates the air. Human waste is collected in gutters outside cell blocks from prisoners who clogged their toilets in acts of protest. This is where Glenn Assoon begins his life sentence. A small man, about 5'4", and weighing in at 140 pounds. Glenn, still proclaiming his innocence, is about to enter hell. I was mad all the time. I got so mad, I just started kicking the wall. And they used to make fun of me. I was fighting all the time, because I was little. And people wanted to fucking beat up little guys, you know, and stuff like that.

And, oh, yeah. At times I had to armor up, armor up. I had put phone books around me and stuff like this and put them underneath my coat and stuff so I wouldn't get stabbed up. Dorchester is a three-hour drive from Dartmouth. Here's Tanya Assoon, Glynn's oldest daughter. When he was in Dorchester Penitentiary, we tried to go down as much as we possibly could, but the experience was completely traumatizing. And, you know, obviously, that's something I'll never forget. It's not something

that I would wish on anyone to have to go to a prison to visit their parents. I mean, and have to walk away and go outside that prison door and leave them behind. It was the worst feeling in the world. I also talked with Glenn Jr. about his memories from when his father first went to prison. It affected my life really bad. After he got sentenced, about a year after that, I had my first kid. We were in an apartment with no furniture, and me and my common-law spouse, we were pretty much sleeping on the floor, and I remember just laying there on the floor in my living room thinking about Dad and where he was and what he was missing.

And I just lost. I lost it. It was like wee hours in the morning. And I just started bawling my eyes out. I had a really bad breakdown because I missed my father. That was actually one of my questions is how often you went to visit and and what what was it like when you went there when dad first went in it was many many years that i've seen him um i kept filling out application after application and they kept denying it denying it denying it did they tell you why they were denying no? No, no. Didn't tell me why.

And then finally, my father had to write a grievance. And then they accepted it after they got the grievance. And so then my first time going down there, I was really excited to see him. I was nervous at the same time. So on the drive down there, I remember me, Tanya, and Amanda, and my mom, we were, about old days and laughing about this and that. It was an exciting ride down, right?

Glenn has four children. Jamie, Tanya, Glenn Jr., and Amanda. And then when we got down there, I had a Corvette hat on. And it wasn't a hat I wore all the time. I was just going somewhere, so I was dressed up and stuff. And I was sitting there, and I was looking at his hat, and it was all ripped up really bad. You could tell it was through the wringer.

Definitely seen better days. And he said, geez, boy, he said, I like that hat you got on. And I said, well, I can give you this hat. And he goes, geez, I don't know. The guards be wondering where I got it and stuff. I can get in trouble putting the hole for that, right? As Glenn Jr. tells it, he and his father go outside for a cigarette and put together a plan for Glenn Jr. to leave the hat behind a garbage can inside where Glenn can find it when he's cleaning up. And so when we were done, we went upstairs, checked back through again,

and the guard goes, where's your hat? Just my luck, the guard would have to say that, right? They noticed everything there. I was like, oh, damn. I left it down on the table. I said, oh, go get it, right? Oh, no, no. We'll send it to you, they said.

And I think Dad got locked in the hole for that. And they didn't send me my hat. I'd never seen it again. And after that, I'd never seen Dad again. So you only went to see him one time? Then they canceled my visits. And then it was seven years since I'd seen him after that, over a hat. You know, we all try to be strong.

We're all very close in age, so one tried to look out for the other and be there for one another through all of this trauma, all of this basically nightmare of a situation we had to live. Our father suffered on the inside, and we suffered on the outside. Glenn couldn't keep Glenn Jr.'s Corvette hat, but he became very noticeable around Dorchester for his own handmade hats. I was professing my innocence all the time, and I wore a baseball cap. I'm probably wrongly convicted.

In 1998, I used to make them, and they let me wear them for a while, and then after a while, they'd take them from me and destroy them. But I'd get another one and I'd make another one and I'd put it back on again. And I'd write it on the back of my coat and everything, wrongly convicted, 1998. Glenn was actually wrongly convicted in 1999. But since he was put in jail as soon as he was arrested, he put the year as 1998. When he arrived at Dorchester, Glenn refused to unpack his duffle bag.

Glenn said he would tell the guards, I'm an innocent man, I'm not staying. So the guards would unzip the bag and put Glenn's clothes on his bed. Then Glenn would take the clothes and put them back in the bag and zip it up. It got to the point where the guards took the duffel bag completely. So Glenn got a garbage bag and put his clothes in that. Life for prisoners inside Dorchester is monotonous and repetitive. Five times a day, beginning with the 6.30 a.m. public address or wake-up call, until lockdown at 11 p.m., the prisoners are counted.

Each day passes with the same routines, including five hours of work. Glenn works in the boiler room. It's so noisy in the boiler room. Like, you have to wear earmuffs because it's loud and hot. When I finished my job, I was making notes and studying my case, and I was studying law at the same time, and I'd be back in the tool crib, right? It was Glenn's job to assist a blue-collar professional

who was hired by Dorchester to do maintenance work down in the boiler room. And he'd be talking to me about foolish stuff, talking about his boss, he didn't like his boss and stuff like that, and he'd be acting with me for a few minutes, and he'd have all these keys. So he'd leave the keys there, and he'd go up in the office and fall asleep and put his feet up on the desk. And I'm locked in this place, right? Now, in the boiler room, underneath Dorchester Penitentiary are tunnels.

And in the middle of the boiler room was a cage. Well, you open that cage, you go down, and those keys will take you right over Westmoreland, and you can fuck off. So a couple times I went up and just walked in the office

and dropped the keys on desks, and he jumped up real quick. I said, I forgot these down on my desk down there. Yeah. I could have went up to the tunnel and left any time at all. I had the keys to the door, just to pen the change. And I gave them back to them. So Glenn could have taken those keys and could have walked away.

This is Sean McDonald, a lawyer for Innocence Canada. And I said, I don't know if I could have maintained that much self-control. And he said, no, I'm leaving that prison one of two ways, dead or as an innocent man. I came upon Glenn's case by chance, actually. I came upon Glenn's case by chance actually. I was in, at the time our organization was called Aidwick or the Association in defense of the wrongly convicted and I had a meeting there one afternoon and I had to wait in the boardroom for whoever I was meeting. As I'm sitting in the boardroom I noticed a banker's box on the table with a bunch of documents in it.

And on the top, there was a memo that was written by a guy named Jerome Kennedy. The scene Sean is describing happened in 2006, not long after Jerome Kennedy's appeal to get Glenn a new trial was denied. By this time, Glenn had been locked up for eight years. Jerome Kennedy's appeal to get Glenn a new trial was denied. By this time, Glenn had been locked up for eight years. So I'm reading Jerome's memorandum, and there's significant facts that are popping out at me as I'm reading it. It was a page-turner, and for me it was like reading a Grisham novel.

I mean, we read a lot of these things at Innocence Canada, but this one kind of stuck out for me. And by the time I read it, I was a combination sad and furious because as Jerome laid it out, something didn't smell right. And so after reading it, immediately I marched into the executive director's office and I said, please, can you please give me this case? I want this case. that started off, I think, two boxes, went to four, went to eight, went to ten, and then before I knew it, my house had been taken over by Glenn's case. Our job is to see whether it's legitimate, wrongful conviction,

and that in and of itself takes years. I mean, years and years and years. We vet these cases collectively for many years before we decide that we're going to put our name behind it. Sean McDonald is from Cape Breton. He went to high school in Halifax and lived in the North End. Sean graduated from law school at Dalhousie University. Early in his career, Sean established himself as a dogged investigator and he's taken that skill and applied it to a passion for representing the wrongly convicted. I tried for months before he agreed to an on-the-record interview. It's not about me, he'd tell me. I don't want to take the spotlight off my client.

But I finally did get that interview. As with the other Innocence Canada lawyers, Sean does his wrongful conviction work pro bono. He does some criminal defense work on the side to pay the bills, but he devotes the bulk of his time to his work for the wrongly convicted. Let's talk about you and Glenn. When did you first meet him? Well, I talked to him on the phone first.

And it's a funny conversation because the lead investigator in the case that resulted in his wrongful conviction, his last name was McDonald, Dave McDonald. So Glenn and I get on a phone call because he finds out I'm going to look at his case. And it was an interesting sort of dance, I have to say, because he didn't know if I was related to the detective or the officer that wrongly convicted him. So he was very standoffish. I mean, he called me, sir, I don't know how many times during the conversation. And, you know, we kind of warmed to one another. And it's a funny conversation, because I think at the end of it, he realized that I, number one, I had no relation to the officer that wrongly convicted him. And number two, that I was going to give it my all.

A lot of people I've spoken with had pretty negative first impressions of Glenn. You know, they'd say something like, man, this guy's a real asshole or he's difficult. Do you have that read on him? Well, at first, I never thought that he was an asshole, period. I saw him, and my take on Glenn was that he was extremely vulnerable, extremely hurt, and extremely sincere.

Although, you know, I do know back in the day, he was a country music listening hellraiser. There's no question about that. But not a bad guy. And certainly, absolutely, 100% not a murderer. There are things that happened to him in federal penitentiary that he shared with me. And there are some things that he has yet to share with me.

And if he's willing and he's comfortable, he can share at some point. with me and if he's willing and he's comfortable he can share at some point but to say that he was tortured over a 17 year period would be the understatement of the century sean tells me that although it's admirable that glenn won't stop proclaiming his innocence it makes him a shiny object in prison he called called me and said, you know, my life is in danger. And that's a call you don't take lightly as a lawyer and as a friend. And there was a guard there that was particularly cruel, psychologically cruel at the very least. And this one particular day, he's telling me the guard just called me a rat

in front of 28 other federal penitentiary inmates. People who aren't exposed to the federal penitentiary system or the justice system think that's just kids play, that's somebody calling somebody names, and it's not a big deal. You know, kids play. That's somebody calling somebody names, and it's not a big deal. But no, in a federal penitentiary, that's not just calling somebody a name. That is requisitioning 28 other people plus to contract murder. What that means in a penitentiary, if you are considered a rat, which is an informant,

In a penitentiary, if you are considered a rat, which is an informant, means you are more than likely going to be murdered in a federal penitentiary, or at least there will be people who attempt to take your life. After that happened, and I'm pushing the deputy warden and the warden to get him transferred for safety purposes, Glenn goes out into the yard, and by mistake, another cell door opens. So it was only supposed to be Glenn in the yard, small yard, exercising or walking on his own

one hour a day to at least see the sky. They made a mistake and unlocked another cell, and that person got out of the cell and immediately went and attacked Glenn. Broke his nose, cracked his ribs, did some fairly substantial damage to him. And I think it was two or three days before they got him to a doctor. They didn't want the bruises to show, I think. Glenn has even worse stories of abuse,

ones that may be difficult for some listeners to hear. Yeah, they make it worse for you in every way. They mistreat you. I was tortured in prison by prison guards, physically tortured. They came to my cell one morning. They told me to lock up at 8.30. 8.30 is work up. I was on my way to work.

And I asked them, what are you telling me to lock up for? They said, just lock up. We've given you a direct order. So I did. And after they did the count, they come back to my cell and they told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back. So they handcuffed me and they took me down to a hole. There was about seven of them. And they pushed me

inside the door in a hole and I bounced off the wall and fell on the floor. And this guy, this guard jumped on me. He weighs about 300 pounds, and he had a piece of metal in his hand. It's used as a counter when they do the rounds. It's stainless steel, and he was beating me on the head with it, and he broke all the bones in my ankles when I was face down on the floor, handcuffed behind my back. And they cut the jeans off me, and they just beat me half to death.

And then after they finished, they just picked me up, and they opened an empty cell, and they threw me in there on a hard bed. There was no mattress or nothing. I fell on the floor because I was stunned from the beating I just took. That was the worst beating I've ever taken in my life, from those seven prison guards. Yeah, they were teaching me a lesson. Then they made me walk up through the back way to the Shepparty Healing Centre

and they put me into a cell just with a mattress on the floor for 11 days. And wouldn't let me see a doctor because my face was all bruised up and my leg was all broken and it was all swelled up and it was turning black on me and what saved me a nurse came back from holidays and she seen me and I just had on a pair of pajamas and she said Glenn what what happened to your foot this looks like it's all broke up I said I can't tell you that right now she said did you see a doctor I said no she said I'll get you down to see a doctor this afternoon. You'll get a cast on that.

You've got a broken foot. And she did. If it wasn't for that nurse, I would have lost my left foot. And I'll never forget her. I asked Glenn if anything happened to those guards. Nothing. Not a thing. They said I broke my own foot.

I filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Corrections at the time. I think it was Lucy McClung. And she ordered an indoor investigation. So the guards investigated the guards. So it's just like the police investigating the police, same thing. So they come up with the conclusion that I broke my own foot kicking my door. That's not true. They beat me half to death for professing my innocence. Glenn wouldn't give me more information about this alleged beating at the hands of the guards. He says he's protecting someone who helped him.

I contacted Corrections Canada to ask them about the incident with the guards. A spokesperson responded saying that by law they cannot speak to the specifics of individual cases and in any event they can only release information about people currently imprisoned. Despite his treatment in prison, Glenn managed to hang on, partly because he's headstrong and angry. But additionally, Sean McDonald showed up just when things seemed most bleak to Glenn. Sean was now Glenn's lifeline to the outside. Sean and Glenn talked on the phone almost every day.

One of their rituals was something they called Friday calls. On Fridays, Sean would give Glenn only good news to give him a boost and help Glenn get through the weekend. I asked Glenn once how he kept up hope. He told me he never lost faith that he would be exonerated. And he had his music. Glenn plays guitar and sings. Here's Glenn with a song he started writing when he was in Dorchester. I was down on my luck

But nowhere to turn And the walls of my world Came crashing in on me. They put me in prison for a crime I didn't do. The cold walls of a prison will always haunt me. Will always haunt me First night in prison Was nothing but sheer hell When it turned out to light

In this lonely prison cell I lay there in silence, my heart full of pain The cold walls of a prison will always haunt me 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 3 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. Sean McDonald is reinvestigating the Brenda Way murder, building on the work done for Glenn's appeal by lawyer Jerome Kennedy and private investigator Fred Fitzsimmons. Sean's job is to build a case to take to the CCRG, the Criminal Conviction Review Group.

Since all of Glenn's appeals have been exhausted, the CCRG is the last resort for justice in the Canadian system. Sean reaches out to an Innocence Canada colleague, lawyer Phil Campbell. And Sean just came to me one day and said, I've got this case, and I think the guy's innocent, but there were five witnesses against him. And I kind of gulped and thought, well, let's go through each witness. And eventually, as I got deeper into the case and in that process, looking at it witness by witness, I realized not one of them was remotely reliable. And I said, I'm in. And I said, I'm in.

Phil Campbell thought the relationships between all five witnesses and the timing of them coming forward were obvious red flags. The idea that they were all independent was an illusion. The police should have known it. They should have probed it. A little bit of elementary inquiry would have established that. This cluster of witnesses shows up so long after the homicide in such a short period of time, and the friend of one is the girlfriend of another. friend of one is the girlfriend of another. It's hard for me to understand why those linkages were made. There was one witness who was very damning to Glenn's case where no connection

was ever found to the other witnesses. She is the woman I call Roberta. Roberta is the sex worker who was tortured and assaulted by a man in the winter of 1996-97. She testified that the man told her he killed Pitbull, Brenda, and he'd kill her too. Everyone I've talked with believes this story is credible. I found Roberta a few years ago and spoke with her. I believe her too. She was attacked. But by whom? We know this.

Roberta was watching TV and saw Glenn getting arrested for the murder of Brenda. And Roberta contacted Halifax police to tell them that Glenn was the man who had violently assaulted her. Glenn maintained he was living in British Columbia at the time. Sean McDonald looks closer at Roberta's story. story. She was a quasi-homeless, vulnerable teenager who was brutally attacked by a sociopath slash psychopath. She associated Glenn's arrest with the guy that did those horrible things to her. Phil Campbell also explains why Roberta was different from the other witnesses. She was, in my reckoning, a pivot point because she was telling the truth. She experienced that ghastly attack at this tool shed in this remote part of greater Halifax.

And it was chilling. And one thing I think about is the impression she must have made on the jury with that story. But it doesn't meet any of the legal criteria for reliable or perhaps even admissible evidence. Just think it through. She has experienced this attack by this man who at the conclusion of it admits that he was the killer of Brenda White. So she's got that fixed in her brain.

The man who did this terrible thing to me killed Brenda. She then sees Glen Assoon on TV, not as part of a lineup, not with anybody else who she has to sort of figure out who the suspect is from a pool. He's there identified as the person arrested for killing Brenda Way. What is she going to think? Of course she's going to identify him. Sean McDonald tracks Roberta down and interviews her. Are you willing to provide a sworn videotaped statement regarding the defense investigation into the murder of Brenda Way

on November 11th slash 12th, 1995 at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia? Have you been offered any promises or are you under any threat or inducement to provide this statement? No. Do you know Glenn Eugene Assoon? I know of him. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Is all the information you are about to give true and accurate to the best of your recollection? Yes. As Sean McDonald interviews Roberta, he refers to a most wanted video. That is the video she saw with a picture of Glenn being charged with the murder of Brenda Way. You raised the issue of seeing the most wanted video, so we might as well talk a bit about that right now.

And where did you see the most wanted video? On the news. On the news? Yeah. Did you see that only one time, or did you see that more than one time? I've seen that a few times, and in the courtroom. Where else would you have seen the most wanted video? At the police station.

At the police station? So the police would have shown you the most wanted video? Yes. Did they show you pictures of anybody else at that time? No. Did they show you pictures of anybody else at that time? No. Here, Roberta confirms that she was never shown a picture of anyone else other than Glenn

or given a lineup to pick her attacker from, which is standard procedure. And in the most wanted video, indicated what he was most wanted for. Yeah, murder. And did you, did they, and who was it? They said Brenda Way. Okay.

But no one else picked up. Yes, okay. Do you remember, did they talk to you before you gave that statement? They told me that if I knew anything about Glenn, that if I didn't say anything, that I could be seeing myself in that cell a lot longer. So they told you that if you didn't talk to them,

they would keep you locked up longer? Longer. I didn't see that cell longer, yes. Were you locked up at that time? Yes. They kept picking me up for stupid stuff, and every time they picked me up, they asked me, do you want to talk, do you want to talk? So you weren't free to leave when you were sitting in the station before you gave that statement? No, they had me uncharged for prostitution.

Did they discuss any other charges with you? Yes, withholding information. When I first heard this, it stopped me dead in my tracks. Roberta was saying the police were threatening her. Identify Glenna soon as your attacker or spend more time in jail. Now, you said he had a beard and a mustache? Yeah. Now, I want to slow down and back up to the moment that he picked you up. No.

I want to slow down and back up to the moment that he picked you up. Did you have a discussion with him? Did you guys talk about anything? Well, not till the end, until we come back. What did he say when he came back? Well, I just asked him, do you live around here? And he said, yeah, just over there on Jackson. Over there on what?

Jackson Road. And where is that? In Dartmouth. In Dartmouth? That's fine. So he said that he lives on Jackson, lives over there on Jackson Road. He pointed nice at Jackson. This bit of information was hugely important and totally unexpected. Here's how Innocence Canada put it in a legal brief.

Roberta had now disclosed a fact omitted from her police statements and testimony. A fact of which she could not appreciate the significance. She says that she asked the man in the pickup truck where he lived. He answered that he lived on Jackson Road, the street parallel and immediately west of Albert Lake Road. Glenn, they pointed out, had never lived on Jackson Road and would have no reason to give that address in the winter of 1996-97 when he was actually living in British Columbia. So you would have, did you have an opportunity, a good opportunity to see his? He had no pants on yet. He just had his shirt on. Yeah.

Did you notice anything unusual about his legs? Can you describe his legs? Hairy. Yeah. Socks and sandals. I keep remembering the socks and sandals because he didn't take them off. Yes. And did you notice any scars on the legs?

Nothing. Any deformities? Nothing. Nothing unusual? No. Sean checked that detail with Glenn. Phil and I went to Dorchester to meet him. I had a couple of key features of her evidence. Number one, that her uh had hairy legs hairy no scars or no noticeable features on

the legs of the sociopath that did that to her i said well what about your legs glenn within a millisecond had dropped his drawers to show us his legs because he was like guys i need your help look look at my legs right i have no hair on my legs. I have a big chunk. Glenn had a motorcycle accident. One of his legs is noticeably mangled. There is a huge chunk out of his leg as a result of a motorcycle accident. So there are features that helped our case. Back to Sean's interview with Roberta.

You talked earlier about, you described the person that victimized you, sexually assaulted you in Burnside. And you said that he was wearing socks and sandals. He had a beard and a mustache. He was just scruffy looking. He was just scruffy looking. He was... I'm going to ask you if you recognize...

I'm going to ask you to look at... Those. Exhibit number... That's okay. Exhibit number six. Okay. Has anybody ever... Any police officer ever shown you, if you remember it, these pictures?

No. They've never shown me these pictures. This is the guy. Are you okay? Yeah. Can you tell me what makes you so sure of that, this many years later? I know it's him. That's just in it. That's his face. I can see it.

I just remember the look on his face. In this interview with Sean McDonald, Roberta has identified the man private investigator Fred Fitzsimmons, named in 2005 as a possible suspect in Brenda Way's murder. The same man who the Halifax Police and the RCMP did not provide information about for Glenn's appeal. The same man lawyer Jerome Kennedy had presented to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, a man who in 1995 lived on Jackson Road,

just a stone's throw from the site where Brenda Way was murdered. Roberta has just identified serial killer Michael McRae. Coming up on Dead Wrong. This guy is an exception to the rule. His victimology is all over the place. He kills little girls, and he kills women, and he kills grannies, and he kills men, and he kills women and he kills grannies and he kills men and he kills gays. And he said, well, maybe I should describe for you one of the murders that I committed that I've not been found guilty of. I want to get some treatment and I don't know what will help,

but I know that the killing hasn't stopped. I'm almost ready to do another one right now. Dead Wrong is written and produced by Janice Evans, Nancy Hunter, and me, Tim Bousquet. Sound design by Evan Kelly. Shamham Buyan provided transcripts. Our digital producer is Emily Connell. Special thanks to Peter Finley. 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.