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Commission
of Inquiry Into the Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard:
(Page 13)
Honourable Mr. Justice Edward
P. MacCallum, Commissioner
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More
background (also see
links on sidebar) Sask to
give inquiry another $700,000
Officer aware of Fisher
conviction
Retired staff sergeant says knowledge came in small increments
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, August 19, 2005
Saskatoon police knew Larry
Fisher had been convicted in Regina in 1971 of rapes that occurred
in Saskatoon, a former officer told the Milgaard wrongful conviction
inquiry Thursday.
Retired Staff Sgt. Harry Valila
is the first Saskatoon police officer to say he knew about the
convictions.
Other more senior officers
have denied that they were aware of the facts, which David Milgaard's
supporters say were deliberately suppressed while he spent 23
years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.
Valila said he had learned
by 1974 that Larry Fisher had been convicted of four Saskatoon
rapes and one attempted rape.
Milgaard was convicted in 1970
of another of Fisher's crimes, the rape and murder of nursing
assistant Gail Miller.
Fisher was caught raping a
woman in Winnipeg in August 1970 and later confessed to two of
the Saskatoon offences. Saskatoon Det. Ed Karst and Insp. H.
Nordstrom were sent to Winnipeg in December 1970 to interview
Fisher. In early 1971 Fisher was taken to Regina, where he pleaded
guilty to four rapes in Saskatoon and one attempted rape.
Valila told the Milgaard inquiry
he learned of the unusual handling of the matter in small increments
over several years.
Valila was a corporal in the
morality section, which dealt with rape cases, when he first
heard "talk around the station" that some members of
the Saskatoon police department had gone to Winnipeg to interview
somebody about "some of our files."
Sometime after Valila was promoted
to the detective section in 1971, he learned that Karst and Nordstrom
were the officers who went. Valila wasn't surprised Karst would
be sent because he was known as a good investigator.
But Valila was surprised that
Nordstrom had gone because he was an administrator whom Valila
had never known to be involved in an actual investigation.
Valila said a police officer
told him, or he overheard a discussion, that "somebody had
pleaded guilty in Regina to some of our files."
There were no names when he
first heard, he said.
"Later on, I can't tell
you how long, the name Larry Fisher surfaced," he told the
inquiry Thursday.
The name meant nothing to Valila
when he first heard it, but he was curious about why a Saskatoon
file had been handled in Regina.
"It seemed rather odd.
I couldn't understand why someone would appear in Regina on our
charges unless he was apprehended there," he said.
Valila said he had a conversation
with Nordstrom, who has since died, about the matter because
he wondered if the Fisher rapes might have been files he had
worked on when he was in the morality section.
Valila received a terse response
from Nordstrom that Valila felt precluded further questions.
"His answer, as best I
can remember was, 'They've been taken care of.' I never got any
further. . . . He didn't allow me to elaborate any further. .
. . He knew exactly what I was talking about," Valila said.
Investigators had been convinced
in the first weeks of the Miller murder investigation that the
killer was the same person who had raped other young women in
the same neighbourhood in recent months. They were unsuccessful
in finding out who that was and abandoned the rapist-as-murderer
theory after Milgaard was identified as a possible suspect.
Milgaard was convicted based
on statements by several other teenagers and in the absence of
any physical evidence linking him to the crime.
He was sentenced to life in
prison and served 23 years before his case was reviewed by the
Supreme Court of Canada in 1992. DNA was used to prove his innocence
in 1992 and helped convict Fisher in 1999.
Milgaard's mother, Joyce Milgaard,
worked for years trying to gather the evidence that would prove
her son's innocence. She has long maintained that Saskatchewan
justice officials covered up Fisher's conviction because they
didn't want to re-open the Milgaard case. She believes David
could have been released years earlier if justice officials had
acknowledged the possibility of a miscarriage of justice.
The commission of inquiry is
headed by Justice Edward MacCallum of the Alberta Court of Queen's
Bench. It was called after Fisher exhausted his appeals of the
Miller murder conviction and is looking into the murder investigation,
the prosecution of Milgaard and whether the case should have
been reopened when new information became available.
The inquiry also heard Thursday
from retired RCMP Cpl. Ed Rasmussen. He disagreed with his former
superior, Stan Edmondson, who on Wednesday had downplayed his
own role in the Miller investigation.
Rasmussen said a report to
RCMP headquarters was authored jointly by himself and Edmondson.
Rasmussen said Edmondson had more information about the case
than he, Rasmussen, had.
Edmondson thought that in February
1969 there was consensus among Saskatoon city police and RCMP
helping in the investigation that Miller was murdered by the
rapist who had attacked three women in the neighbourhood in recent
months.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
- Investigation led by
senior officer
retired detective
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Another former Saskatoon police
officer told the David Milgaard wrongful conviction inquiry Monday
he wasn't in charge of the Gail Miller murder investigation;
he just took orders from his superiors.
Retired Det. Eddy Karst, 76,
conducted many of the police interviews central to the investigation
that resulted in Milgaard being charged with Miller's January
1969 stabbing death.
Milgaard spent 23 years in
prison for the crime before his 1992 release. DNA evidence proved
his innocence in 1997 and helped convict serial rapist Larry
Fisher in 1999.
Karst said that as far as he
knew, Lieut. Charles Short supervised most of the investigation
and Supt. Jack Wood was the overall supervisor.
"I presume he was directing
it," Karst said, noting that many meetings were held in
Wood's office to discuss the case.
Former Lieut. Joe Penkala also
"took a very active role in the whole case," Karst
said.
Former Det. Raymond Mackie,
Short and Penkala, "were really directing things,"
he said.
Wood and Penkala have downplayed
their roles in the case. Short is deceased.
Karst's claim that he was not
in charge of the file appears to be corroborated by reports which
show the investigation had been going on for more than a month
before he became a main investigator.
On March 2, 1969, Albert "Shorty"
Cadrain came to the police station and was the first person to
give information implicating Milgaard when he told Short that
Milgaard had blood on his clothes the morning of the murder.
Short had Karst take a statement
from Cadrain.
It was the first hot lead the
police had received since the murder and police acted quickly
to corroborate details of Cadrain's story. Parts of it checked
out and Karst was sent to Winnipeg that same night to interview
Milgaard.
Karst and RCMP Cpl. Ed Rasmussen
interviewed Milgaard there and determined more investigation
was needed.
Karst was also involved in
interviews with Ron Wilson, who said Milgaard confessed to him.
Karst had less interaction
with Nichol John, who signed a police statement saying she saw
Milgaard stab a woman. John never repeated the statement at Milgaard's
trial nor since.
After Milgaard was identified
as a possible suspect most of the attention turned to him, but
Penkala continued to pursue a commonly held police theory that
the murder was committed by the same person who had raped two
young women in the same neighbourhood in recent months and attempted
to rape a third.
The common perpetrator theory
turned out to be correct but it was eventually abandoned when
lab tests indicated the rapist was a different blood type from
the murderer.
Karst said Monday he was not
aware of the common perpetrator theory, yet he acknowledged that
he conducted an interview for the Miller investigation of a man
who looked similar to a composite drawing of the rapist, which
had been created based on the description of the one of the rape
victims.
That suspect was cleared because
his blood type didn't match the one gleaned from frozen semen
found at the crime scene.
About nine months after Milgaard
was convicted, Fisher was caught committing a rape in Winnipeg.
He confessed to some of his Saskatoon rapes and Karst was sent
to Winnipeg to interview him.
There is no record of what
Fisher said and Karst's police notebooks from that era were destroyed
sometime prior to 1990.
Fisher was taken to Regina
in January 1971, where he pleaded guilty to committing three
rapes and one indecent assault in Saskatoon.
Police did not inform the rape
victims that their assailant had been convicted. Nor did authorities
inform the news media, though they had earlier distributed public
warnings about the rapist in the media.
Milgaard's supporters have
said Saskatchewan justice officials deliberately suppressed information
about Fisher's conviction because they didn't want to revisit
the Milgaard conviction.
The commission of inquiry,
headed by Justice Edward MacCallum of the Alberta Court of Queen's
Bench, is looking into the murder investigation, the prosecution
of Milgaard and whether the matter should have been reopened
when new information came to light.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Detective doubted
key witness after 'far out' statements
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix. Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Former Saskatoon police Det.
Eddy Karst said Tuesday he had doubts about the credibility of
Albert "Shorty" Cadrain after Cadrain added "far
out" elements to his original story implicating David Milgaard
in the 1969 death of Gail Miller.
Cadrain was the first person
to link Milgaard to the rape and murder of nursing assistant
Gail Miller.
Karst said Cadrain seemed sincere
in his original claim that he saw blood on Milgaard's clothing
the day of the murder.
But Karst told the Milgaard
inquiry Tuesday he had doubts about Cadrain's later allegation
that Milgaard was a member of the Mafia and that he had asked
Cadrain to kill two other teenagers, Ron Wilson and Nichol John,
because "they knew too much."
"It registered with me
but I don't think I placed a lot of credence in it. It was too
far out," Karst said.
"It didn't seem right."
The statements were so bizarre
that Karst didn't write them into any police report until months
later.
The remarks first showed up
in a police document that outlines a theory of how the known
facts about Milgaard could fit into murder scenarios.
That document is thought to
have been authored by Det. Sgt. Ray Mackie. It is believed to
have been used during a meeting of senior officers when they
decided to bring in a Calgary polygraph expert to interrogate
Wilson and John, who both insisted Milgaard was never out of
their company long enough to have committed the murder.
Karst included Cadrain's allegations
about Milgaard's Mafia ties and the request to kill the two teens
in a July 2, 1969, report, about a month after Milgaard had been
charged with Miller's murder and while police were preparing
the case for the Crown prosecutor.
Karst's doubts about Cadrain's
allegations were underscored by the believability of Wilson's
and John's alibi for Milgaard. They also denied Milgaard had
any blood on his clothing.
The three were interviewed
separately and all gave essentially the same story.
Karst said Cadrain's "far
out" remarks caused him to think they should be checked
out thoroughly, but he said he didn't doubt Cadrain's claim that
he saw blood on Milgaard's pants because Cadrain's five-year-old
brother, Kenneth, also said he had seen blood, Karst said.
Commission counsel Doug Hodson
pointed out that there is no police record of Kenneth's observation,
and asked if it was possible Karst's memory had been affected
by things he has heard in the years since then.
Karst thought he had an independent
memory of the boy's remarks and said he might have written it
in his police notebook at the time. The notebooks were destroyed
prior to 1990, the commission has heard.
Milgaard spent 23 years in
prison before he was released in 1992. DNA evidence was used
to prove his innocence in 1997 and to convict serial rapist Larry
Fisher in 1999.
The commission of inquiry is
looking into the murder investigation, the prosecution of Milgaard
and whether the case should have been reopened as new information
came to light.
Karst returns to the witness
stand today.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Detective didn't connect
Fisher rapes to murder
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, Thursday, August 25, 2005
Saskatoon police Det. Eddy
Karst says it never occurred to him that rapist Larry Fisher,
who confessed to him in Winnipeg about crimes he committed in
Saskatoon, was the same rapist once thought to have killed Gail
Miller.
Karst said Wednesday he can't
remember going to Winnipeg to talk to Fisher and can only answer
questions about the incident based on recent readings of police
documents from that period.
Karst was sent to Winnipeg
10 months after David Milgaard was convicted in January 1970
of murder in Miller's death. Winnipeg police had notified Saskatoon
police that a former Saskatoon resident had been caught raping
a woman and had admitted to committing some offences in Saskatoon,
too.
Fisher told Karst he had raped
a young woman in February 1970 and had tried to rape another
young woman on Nov. 29, 1968, but had been scared off.
Documents presented to the
Milgaard wrongful conviction inquiry show Karst asked Fisher
if he had committed two other rapes in the fall of 1968, but
Fisher denied involvement.
Those two rapes and the attempted
rape were the unsolved cases Saskatoon police had originally
linked to the death of Miller, who was killed in January 1969.
Karst has said he didn't know
about a police theory that there was a common perpetrator, even
though references to the rapes appear in numerous Miller investigation
files.
Fisher didn't tell Karst he
had lived in the basement of Albert Cadrain's house on Avenue
O South at the time of Miller's death but Karst said even if
Fisher had told him, it probably wouldn't have been enough for
him to reopen the murder investigation.
Karst denied that he or Saskatoon
police covered up Fisher's confessions and later convictions
to avoid questions being raised about Milgaard's conviction.
Milgaard was in the process
of appealing his murder conviction at the time of Fisher's confession
and the information may have been useful to Milgaard, commission
counsel Doug Hodson suggested to Karst.
Karst said it would have been
wrong to knowingly withhold information that might show an innocent
man had been convicted. Karst would have taken the matter to
his superiors if he had suspected such a thing, he said.
Karst acknowledged Wednesday
that it was unusual for a member of the detective unit, as he
was, to be sent to Winnipeg to conduct interviews for the morality
unit, which dealt with rape cases.
Although Karst denies knowing
about the common perpetrator theory, records show police may
have connected previous rapes to the rape that occurred three
weeks after Milgaard's conviction. Karst was assigned to do some
of the investigation on the rape. The record also shows Cadrain
was questioned about whether he had any information about the
new rape.
Karst said he didn't remember
the incidents.
The inquiry also heard Wednesday
that another Saskatoon police officer, Angus Weir, told a newspaper
reporter in 1990 that he didn't learn about Fisher's conviction
on a rape case he investigated until years later.
Documents presented at the
inquiry show that Weir reported having spoken to the victim and
telling her someone had been apprehended.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
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