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Commission
of Inquiry Into the Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard:
(Page 19)
Honourable Mr. Justice Edward
P. MacCallum, Commissioner
| Commission website
| Lockyer shows similarities
with Guy Paul Morin investigation |
Even as millions are spent
on this inquiry into a 37 year old murder, two prime examples
of how wrongful convictions occur are unfolding in Saskatoon.
Wilfred Hathway is having
his defence severely handicapped as prosecutor Brent Klause has
successfully obtained an order from now Chief Justice Robert
Laing to keep disclosure out of the hands of his defence team.
Denver Crawford's
memory is not being well served. Material has surfaced which
indicates Dominic McCullock's
lawyer, Mark Brayford, did not provide a vigorous defence for
his client who was convicted of killing Jaime
Wheeler. This brutal murder was described as savage, committed
by a dangerous person, by Judge Laing, even though the conviction
was for second degree murder. This raises again the 2000 conviction
of Leon Walchuk who has steadfastly
maintained his innocence in the murder of his wife and whose
appeals have been turned down, despite evidence not presented
at trial which would show serious flaws in the Crown's case.
<
< < Page 18 | More
background (also see links on sidebar) Sask
to give inquiry another $700,000
Linda Fisher wrote journalist,
inquiry hears
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, Wednesday, January 18, 2006
A writer who in the early 1980s
investigated David Milgaard's prosecution said Tuesday he was
pained to realize after Milgaard was released from prison in
1992 that he had received information that could have helped
Milgaard and hadn't realized it.
Peter Carlyle-Gordge told the
Milgaard inquiry that in 1992, he discovered among his Milgaard
papers letters Linda Fisher and her common-law husband, Bryan
Wright, had written to him in 1983.
Carlyle-Gordge didn't remember
receiving the letters and didn't respond to them, he said.
He did not know, at the time,
that Fisher had gone to the Saskatoon police in 1980 to say she
thought her former husband, serial rapist Larry Fisher, had committed
the crime.
Ten years later, Milgaard's
lawyer, Hersh Wolch, heard from an anonymous source that Linda
Fisher believed her husband had killed Gail Miller, for whose
murder Milgaard was serving a life sentence.
In 1983, Linda Fisher and Wright
had written in response to a classified advertisement Carlyle-Gordge
had placed in The StarPhoenix asking for information on her whereabouts.
At the time, Carlyle-Gordge
knew only that the Fishers had lived in the basement of the home
of Albert Cadrain, which Milgaard had visited the morning of
Miller's death in January 1969.
In 1983, Carlyle-Gordge was
withdrawing from the case in frustration and moved that year
to England, where he remained until 1990. He actively investigated
the case from 1980 to 1983.
"We hadn't found the murderer,
it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. Now with hindsight,
you know, many years later, I can see the haystack was the very
house that Cadrain lived in and that Milgaard visited. That is
painful to know," Carlyle-Gordge said.
Milgaard was convicted of murder
in 1970. In the early 1980s Carlyle-Gordge was investigating
the case and was convinced Milgaard was innocent. He was seeking
information to prove Crown witnesses had lied at Milgaard's trial
or proof that someone else had committed the crime.
Carlyle-Gordge did not realize
at the time that Larry Fisher had been convicted of committing
other rapes in the neighbourhood where Miller was killed in the
months just prior to the murder.
By the time Carlyle-Gordge
placed the ad in the newspaper, he had already invested thousands
of unpaid hours investigating the case and had not found the
evidence he sought. Nor had he been able to convince his editors
at Maclean's magazine, for whom he was the Manitoba correspondent,
to publish a story about Milgaard's possible wrongful conviction.
Carlyle-Gordge also wanted
to hear Linda Fisher's observations of Cadrain from that period
because he thought Cadrain was mentally unstable.
He believed Cadrain had lied
about seeing blood on Milgaard's clothing and wondered what motivated
Cadrain to lie.
He said he interviewed Cadrain
in Dalmeny in 1983 and found him to be prone to embellishing
stories, so he took what Cadrain said "with a huge, huge
lump of salt."
Carlyle-Gordge's theory is
that Cadrain was jealous of Milgaard. Cadrain thought Milgaard
was spoiled and manipulative, while Cadrain, who had eight siblings,
received less attention from his parents and was denied some
things he wanted, such as music lessons, Carlyle-Gordge said.
Cadrain also felt inadequate compared to Milgaard, Carlyle-Gordge
said.
Cadrain appeared to take a
"perverse pleasure" in saying he didn't "save"
Milgaard at the trial, Carlyle-Gordge said.
The inquiry has previously
heard a recording of Carlyle-Gordge's interview with Cadrain
in which Cadrain said Milgaard looked at him at the trial with
a "baby face smile . . . as if to say, my buddy, my pal,
hey you don't screw me, eh?"
"You should see the horror
on his face when he seen I wasn't going to try to save him. .
. . You should have seen the horror in his eyes," Cadrain
said.
Also Tuesday, commission lawyer
Doug Hodson scheduled next Wednesday and Thursday for Wolch to
present two expert witnesses in support of Milgaard's application
for accommodations in presenting his evidence to the commission.
Milgaard wants to respond to
written questions and will have psychologists testify about the
medical reasons why commissioner Justice Edward MacCallum should
grant the request.
Carlyle-Gordge returns to the
stand today.
badam@sp.canwest.com
Milgaard Inquiry
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006
Tactics of journalist come under
fire at inquiry
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix, January 19, 2006
The methods of a Winnipeg journalist
who investigated David Milgaard's case in the early 1980s were
called into question during vigorous cross-examination Wednesday
by lawyers representing former Saskatoon detective Eddy Karst
and former Crown prosecutor Bobs Caldwell.
Writer Peter Carlyle-Gordge
said he knew that he was going out on a limb when he wrote, in
a 1982 essay which appeared in a book called, Winnipeg 8: The
Ice Cold Hothouse, his opinion that Milgaard was convicted on
perjured testimony.
Under cross-examination by
Karst's lawyer, Chris Boychuck, Carlyle-Gordge acknowledged that
he wrote that police "leaned on" witnesses to influence
them to give evidence against Milgaard even though he had not
yet spoken to the witnesses or seen documented evidence of that.
Boychuck asked if Carlyle-Gordge
was willing to lie to draw attention to the case.
"The whole case (against
Milgaard) was built on lies," Carlyle-Gordge said.
He said he believed passionately
in Milgaard's innocence and hoped the essay would draw the attention
of others who might want to help Milgaard, who had been in prison
for more than 12 years at the time.
After repeated questions on
the point, Carlyle-Gordge acknowledged that he had felt the ends
justified the means.
In response to questions from
Caldwell's lawyer, Catherine Knox, Carlyle-Gordge said he did
not tell Caldwell he (Carlyle-Gordge) was working in co-operation
with Joyce Milgaard when he asked to see the Milgaard file in
1982.
Caldwell recognized Carlyle-Gordge's
name because he was a Manitoba correspondent for Maclean's magazine.
Carlyle-Gordge told him he was researching a book on famous Western
Canadian murders.
The writer said he didn't think
Caldwell would have let him look at the files if he had admitted
his connection to Joyce Milgaard.
Caldwell was very co-operative.
He met with Carlyle-Gordge on a weekend, gave him an office to
work in and allowed him free access to the prosecution file,
he said.
Knox questioned him at length
on a remark Caldwell made to Carlyle-Gordge, during their taped
interview.
A transcript of the interview
that followed has Caldwell referring to "bad goings on in
Calgary," and then saying Milgaard had been implicated in
other rapes that were never "brought home to him" in
court. Caldwell said it would be slanderous to use that information.
Carlyle-Gordge said Wednesday
he understood that Caldwell was referring to allegations by Milgaard's
accuser, Albert Cadrain, that Milgaard had raped a girl in a
bathtub in Calgary. That allegation was not investigated and
no charges were ever laid in connection to it, the inquiry has
heard.
Caldwell's reference to other
rapes has been interpreted by some, including Joyce Milgaard's
lawyer, James Lockyer, as evidence that Caldwell knew about other
rapes in the neighbourhood where Gail Miller was killed and that
someone other than Milgaard may have killed Miller. That supposition
has led to allegations that Caldwell tried to cover up his own
misconduct, Knox said.
Carlyle-Gordge said he thought
Caldwell believed Milgaard was guilty and said he had no indication
Caldwell was trying to suppress any evidence. Despite that, he
told RCMP in 1993 that he thought he probably had not been allowed
to see Caldwell's entire Milgaard file, he said Wednesday.
Knox also grilled Carlyle-Gordge
on the basis of his written assertion that Saskatoon police told
Crown witnesses not to talk to Milgaard's mother, Joyce Milgaard.
Carlyle-Gordge said he believed
Joyce Milgaard when she told him that one of the witnesses had
told her that. He couldn't remember which witness it was.
When shown statements by witnesses,
Carlyle-Gordge acknowledged that many, including key Crown witnesses,
have said police did not tell them not to talk to Joyce Milgaard.
Later in the day, David Milgaard's
lawyer, Hersh Wolch, showed Carlyle-Gordge police documents in
which the police chief instructed then-superintendent Joe Penkala
to ask outside police forces to ask witnesses if they were willing
to speak to Joyce Milgaard, whose lawyer had requested their
contact information.
Instead of asking an outside
force to make the inquiries, Penkala, who had been involved in
the Miller murder investigation, asked another officer who had
been involved, Raymond Mackie, to go and "confirm"
that the witnesses didn't want to speak to Milgaard.
Carlyle-Gordge said it was
surprising that Caldwell allowed him, a journalist, to see a
police report about another sexual assault on the same morning
as the Miller murder when Milgaard's trial lawyer, Cal Tallis,
was not provided with the information.
Carlyle-Gordge agreed with
Wolch's suggestion that even a very good defence lawyer would
be at a disadvantage without adequate disclosure of the evidence
that tends to show his client's innocence.
badam@sp.canwest.com
Milgaard Inquiry
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006
Ex-officer saw no signs
of Fisher coverup
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, Tuesday, January 24, 2006
A retired Saskatoon police
officer who gave confidential police information to David Milgaard's
lawyer says he never heard anything within the department to
suggest there was a coverup of Larry Fisher's rape convictions.
Tom Vanin told the Milgaard
inquiry Monday he had never heard of Fisher in 1991, when lawyer
David Asper asked Vanin to see what he could find out about the
serial rapist.
Vanin, a senior officer in
the department at the time, believed Milgaard was innocent and
was involved in a long-standing dispute with Joe Penkala, who
was then chief of police.
Vanin said he asked around
but nobody knew anything about Fisher. Even Vanin's friend, detective
Eddy Karst, said the name didn't mean anything to him.
Karst called Vanin some time
later in 1991 to say that he did remember the name after all.
Karst said he had gone to Winnipeg to interview Fisher about
Saskatoon rapes. Vanin said he didn't ask Karst further questions
about Fisher.
Vanin said he relayed the information
to Asper.
Asper was also receiving information
from three other police sources, the inquiry heard Monday.
They were "Big" John
McDonald (as opposed to another John McDonald who worked in the
department), former Saskatoon Police Service officer Terry Thrasher
and retired RCMP officer Mike Brecht.
Vanin said he asked staff in
central records to provide him with any documents pertaining
to Fisher, but staff were unable to locate any files.
They did locate an index card
with Fisher's name and four occurrence numbers that probably
corresponded to the sexual assault files, Vanin said. Records
staff also located a single page from a police report, which
had Fisher's name on it, he said.
Vanin said he took photocopies
of the paper and card and showed them, on Asper's direction,
to private investigator Paul Henderson, who came to Saskatoon
with Milgaard's mother, Joyce Milgaard.
He didn't let Henderson have
the photocopies and later destroyed them, he said.
"I was afraid of being
charged under the Police Act or even under the Criminal Code.
I still wanted to be cautious," he said.
Fisher was convicted in 1999
of firstdegree murder in the 1969 death of Gail Miller. He was
released in 1992.
Milgaard spent 23 years in
prison after being convicted of the crime before DNA evidence
was used to prove his innocence in 1997.
Vanin told the inquiry into
Milgaard's wrongful commission he also gave general information
to Globe and Mail reporter Dave Roberts.
Some of the information Vanin
gave Asper made its way into Roberts' news stories, including
the fact the files on Fisher's rape victims were missing.
Commission lawyer Doug Hodson
showed Vanin several newspaper articles that quoted Saskatchewan
police sources, but Vanin was reluctant to acknowledge he was
the person quoted.
One of the four rape files
did eventually surface, the inquiry has heard, but Vanin said
he didn't know about it.
He denied being the person
who showed the file to Henderson, as Henderson reported in a
letter to Asper.
Vanin said he did not agree
with a comment attributed to Asper in an August 1991 article
in which Asper said the Fisher rape files had recently disappeared.
Vanin understood that the files had disappeared long before that.
The inquiry has previously
heard that the files were among some others that went missing
when all the police fi les were being transferred to microfiche.
Vanin said that sometime before
Fisher was released from prison in 1994, Vanin asked then-police
chief Owen Maguire if he could go to the British Columbia prison
where Fisher was being held and interview him about the Miller
murder but Maguire refused, saying the case was closed.
Milgaard Inquiry
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006
Bad tips spurred
probe, inquiry hears
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Incorrect information leaked
to David Milgaard's lawyers about missing police files led to
negative news reports and an investigation by the Saskatchewan
Police Commission, the Milgaard inquiry heard Tuesday.
Retired police sergeant Tom
Vanin testified that he had an ongoing dispute with then-police
chief Joe Penkala and that he gave confidential information to
Milgaard's lawyer, David Asper, and general information to Globe
and Mail reporters Dave Roberts and Timothy Appleby.
The inquiry has heard there
were also three other police sources: "Big" John McDonald
(as opposed to another John McDonald who worked in the department),
former Saskatoon Police Service officer Terry Thrasher and retired
RCMP officer Mike Brecht.
Vanin denied Tuesday that he
was the source mentioned in an August 1991 Globe and Mail report
that said police files on Larry Fisher's rape victims had gone
missing. The story quoted a confidential police source who said
it was unheard of for files to disappear and who alleged that
files had been tampered with.
Vanin said he didn't think
he was the source but acknowledged he thought rape files were
kept indefinitely.
The inquiry has heard that
the newspaper allegation led to the police commission investigation
and report, which found no evidence of file tampering. Instead,
commission chair Robert Laing found the Police Act requires that
solved rape files be kept for a minimum of 10 years. The rape
files in questions had been concluded in 1971.
In 1993 or 1994, Joyce Milgaard
told RCMP she met the sources only a couple of times. They dealt
mainly with private investigator Paul Henderson, who was working
on David Milgaard's case.
"I thought they had it
in for Penkala and that they were trying to use me to get him,"
Joyce Milgaard said in the interview transcript which was shown
at the inquiry Tuesday.
The inquiry also heard that
Milgaard lawyer Hersh Wolch promised Vanin his identity would
be kept secret. Wolch and Asper, his associate, never did reveal
Vanin's name.
RCMP discovered his identity
in 1993 or 1994 when they obtained a copy of the private investigator's
report, which named Vanin as the police source.
In 1998, Vanin wrote to lawyer
Greg Rodin, who had taken over the Milgaard file after Asper.
In the letter Vanin requested a $5,000 payment for fees and expenses
related to his interviewing police and civilians and obtaining
sources within the police department.
Vanin said Tuesday he never
received a response to the letter or any payment.
Henderson took the stand Tuesday
afternoon. Henderson, who works for New Jersey-based Centurion
Ministries, helped Joyce Milgaard interview key witnesses.
He returns to the witness stand
today.
The inquiry is looking into
the investigation of Gail Miller's 1969 killing, the prosecution
of David Milgaard and whether the case should have been reopened
as new information came to light pointing to Milgaard's innocence.
Milgaard spent 23 years in prison before he was released in 1992.
DNA evidence helped prove his innocence in 1997 and to convict
Fisher two years later.
badam@sp.canwest.com
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006
Milgaard witness
felt guilt, inquiry hears
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, Thursday, January 26, 2006
A private investigator who
obtained a recantation from witness Ron Wilson in 1990 says Wilson
felt guilty about his role in David Milgaard's 1970 murder conviction
and was ready to talk about it when approached.
"It was guilt. It was
written all over his face. He felt very badly," investigator
Paul Henderson told the Milgaard inquiry Wednesday.
Henderson said Wilson had a
"victim mentality."
"He felt he had been forced
to do something he didn't want to do, felt he was forced to betray
a friend," said Henderson, who works for New Jersey-based
Centurion Ministries.
"He felt that he had been
put through an ordeal by police," Henderson said.
Wilson's admission he had lied
at the trial was a major development in the Milgaard case, Henderson
said.
At the time, Milgaard was awaiting
a decision by federal justice minister Kim Campbell regarding
Milgaard's application for a case review. That application was
dismissed in February 1991, but a second application that same
year was successful. The case was reviewed in April 1992 and
resulted in Milgaard's release.
By the time he interviewed
Wilson in June 1990, Henderson believed Milgaard was innocent,
based on reading the trial transcript and interviewing Albert
Cadrain and others.
Henderson had also spoken with
Linda Fisher, the ex-wife of repeat rapist Larry Fisher, whom
Henderson believed was the real killer of Gail Miller in January
1969.
DNA evidence proved Milgaard's
innocence in 1997 and was used to convict Fisher of first-degree
murder in 1999.
Henderson told Wilson he believed
police had manipulated Wilson into giving false testimony.
"I believed there was
a reason for him to come up with false evidence. . . . People
like Ron Wilson don't just make up lies about their friends,"
Henderson said.
Henderson said he spent about
six hours with Wilson and took a statement from him, in which
he helped Wilson describe his experience by providing words,
such as "coerce," which Wilson might not otherwise
have used.
Some of the words were Wilson's,
such as his description of the six-hour polygraph test as a "sweat
session," Henderson said.
Henderson had already interviewed
Cadrain, who maintained that he had told the truth in court when
he said he saw blood on Milgaard's clothing.
Henderson had begun his interview
with Cadrain and his brother, Dennis Cadrain, by saying he knew
Fisher had committed the crime and may have already confessed.
Fisher has never confessed to killing Miller.
Henderson said his strategy
was to suggest that another person had been proven guilty, which
would mean Milgaard was innocent. If so, those who had given
untrue testimony could expect to be questioned by authorities
about why they had said what they said.
Henderson said it would go
easier for witnesses if they told him they had been pressured
by the police to lie about Milgaard before those questions began.
Although Cadrain stood by his
story, he did give Henderson a statement about his experience
as a police witness, in which he said police pressured him until
he cracked.
Dennis Cadrain told Henderson
that after Albert went to the police to say he saw blood on Milgaard's
pants the day of Miller's death, police took Albert Cadrain in
for questioning for 10 to 12 hours at a time, repeatedly, for
a month or more, Henderson said.
Henderson said he thinks police
must have been trying to get Cadrain to say more than he knew.
Henderson, 67, worked on the
Milgaard case from 1990 to 1993 and obtained interviews with
the main Crown witnesses in the Milgaard case.
He was a Pulitzer Prize winning
investigative journalist with the Seattle Times before becoming
a private investigator in 1985. In 1987 he joined James McCloskey's
Centurion Ministries as a criminal justice investigator defending
the wrongfully convicted.
The Pulitzer Prize was awarded
for a series of stories he wrote which helped to prove the innocence
of a man who was wrongfully convicted of rape. Henderson's stories
led police to the real rapist, who eventually admitted to committing
52 rapes in Seattle. The case against the innocent man had been
built on mistaken identity, police suggestions, lies about evidence
by authorities and an erroneous polygraph test, Henderson said.
badam@sp.canwest.com
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006
Defence lawyer reluctant
to put Milgaard on stand
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, February 07, 2006
There were several reasons
why David Milgaard's lawyer was reluctant to have his young client
take the witness stand in his own defence, the Milgaard inquiry
heard Monday.
Calvin Tallis didn't want to
raise topics that could give the prosecution a chance to delve
into Milgaard's character or question him about certain suspicious
behaviours, he said.
Tallis said he proceeded on
the footing that what Milgaard told him was correct, but Tallis
acknowledged that he thought it was suspicious that Milgaard
drove around the block by himself after he and his travelling
companions, Ron Wilson and Nichol John, arrived at the home of
Albert Cadrain.
That brief absence was suspicious
because murder victim Gail Miller's wallet had been found on
the boulevard just two doors down from the Cadrain house.
The Crown theory was that Milgaard
had stolen the wallet when he attacked Miller and had thrown
it away when he went to drive the car around the block.
Milgaard couldn't provide much
information to explain why he left Cadrain's house to drive the
car around the street and alley two times.
He told police the car was
parked on the far side of the street and he wanted to park it
directly in front of the house.
"I like to drive,"
he told Tallis.
Tallis said "without a
doubt," he wanted to avoid having the Crown prosecutor cross-examine
Milgaard on that subject.
Milgaard was convicted of murder
in 1970 and was released in 1992 after the case was reviewed
by the Supreme Court of Canada. DNA evidence was used to exonerate
him in 1997 and to help convict serial rapist Larry Fisher of
the crime. Fisher lived in the basement of the Cadrain house
at the time of the murder.
The commission of inquiry,
headed by Justice Edward MacCallum, is looking into the investigation
and prosecution of Milgaard and whether the case should have
been reopened when new information came to light.
Tallis said Milgaard acknowledged
that he had thrown a woman's makeup compact out of the car window
after the group left Saskatoon bound for Edmonton and Calgary.
The Crown took the position
the compact belonged to Miller and that the act demonstrated
consciousness of guilt, Tallis said. Milgaard was not able to
give any explanation of why, after John found the compact and
asked whose it was, he took it from her and tossed it out the
window.
Milgaard said he didn't know
why he'd done that, Tallis said.
Since Milgaard had admitted
to Tallis that he had done it, it would have been unethical and
unprofessional for Tallis to suggest, while cross-examining the
witnesses who described the act, that it hadn't happened, Tallis
said.
In his application for a case
review, Milgaard denied that the compact incident happened.
Milgaard told Tallis he changed
his pants at Cadrain's house because the crotch seam had come
apart but Milgaard had no idea what had become of the pants.
He also told Tallis there was
no blood on his pants but there may have been spots from battery
acid on them.
Tallis said he clearly remembers
his desire to locate the ripped pants to use as evidence. They
were never found.
Tallis said Milgaard confirmed
another element of the Crown witness's story: He admitted the
car got stuck after the group stopped a woman to ask for directions
and that Milgaard and Wilson got out of the car.
It was during that stop that
the Crown alleged Milgaard raped and stabbed Gail Miller.
With Milgaard admitting the
stop had occurred, all Tallis could do was question Wilson and
John on how long the boys were gone from the car, Tallis said.
Milgaard recalled in his review
application that the car's heater had stopped working while they
were stuck and that the teens took the car to a service station,
where they ate chicken soup.
Tallis said Milgaard never
told him that. Tallis said he would have pursued that possible
alibi if Milgaard had told him.
Tallis also didn't want the
jury to hear about Milgaard's using drugs or buying and selling
marijuana.
Tallis said he asked Milgaard
if he knew of any reasons why his friends would lie about his
involvement in the murder.
Tallis said he asked if there
was jealousy among the group over which boy Nichol John was with,
but Milgaard didn't think that was likely.
He said the group was headed
toward St. Albert, Alta., near Edmonton, to see Milgaard's girlfriend
Sharon Williams so he wasn't bothered by John's interest in Cadrain,
Tallis said.
Nor did Milgaard think it likely
any of the teens were motivated by the $2,000 reward that had
been offered for information leading to the arrest of Miller's
killer, Tallis said.
Tallis returns to the witness
stand today.
Milgaard Inquiry
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006
Witness had reason
to lie
former Milgaard lawyer
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, February 08, 2006
During David Milgaard's preliminary
hearing in the summer of 1969, his lawyer Calvin Tallis zeroed
in on an important inconsistency in a key Crown witness's testimony
that Tallis hoped would cause a jury to cast doubt on that witness's
credibility.
Albert Cadrain had claimed
he saw blood on Milgaard's clothing on Jan. 31, 1969, the day
Gail Miller was killed.
Cadrain had said nothing about
seeing blood on Milgaard when he was being "worked over"
by Regina police in February, after he was arrested for vagrancy,
Tallis discovered while cross-examining Cadrain at Milgaard's
preliminary hearing, the Milgaard inquiry heard Tuesday.
Instead, Cadrain said he laughed
when police suggested he or any of his friends may have been
involved in Miller's death, Cadrain said at the hearing.
Parts of transcripts from the
preliminary hearing and trial were reviewed with Tallis Tuesday
as he recounted his preparation for Milgaard's January 1970 murder
trial.
Cadrain had claimed he learned
about Miller's death from his family in March 1969, when he returned
to Saskatoon, and that prompted him to go to the Saskatoon police.
Cadrain revealed in cross-examination
that Regina police were interested in the fact a group of teenagers
had left Cadrain's house in the neighbourhood where Miller was
killed on the day of her death.
Cadrain said he was stripped
naked and searched by Regina police. He also was taken from cells
and interviewed by five plainclothes detectives.
They told him not to hang around
the streets because he would find himself dead in an alley, Cadrain
said.
Cadrain said he realized they
considered him a murder suspect.
Despite the intense questioning,
Cadrain told Tallis he didn't remember seeing blood on Milgaard's
clothing until weeks later.
Tallis said he felt better
after the preliminary hearing about how to handle Cadrain's damning
testimony because he could show that Cadrain's belief he was
a suspect may have motivated him to shift the blame to Milgaard.
On the morning of Miller's
death, Milgaard, Ron Wilson and Nichol John had come from Regina
to pick up Cadrain on their way to Alberta. They travelled to
St. Albert, Edmonton, Calgary and Banff, before returning to
Regina about a week later and going their separate ways.
It was around that time Cadrain
was arrested and questioned. There appears not to have been a
police statement arising from that interview.
Cadrain was convicted of vagrancy
and spent a week in jail. He then went to work at a farm near
Regina for a couple of weeks before returning to Regina and then
to Saskatoon on March 1.
On March 2 he and his brother,
Dennis Cadrain, went to the Saskatoon police station, where Cadrain
gave a statement saying he saw blood on Milgaard's pants the
morning of the murder.
Tallis told the jury hearing
Milgaard's trial they should examine Cadrain's evidence carefully
and pointed out how strange it was that Cadrain forgot about
the blood until weeks after he thought he was a suspect in Miller's
death.
Tallis also considered Wilson
a "treacherous," "shifty" and "back
stabbing" witness.
Wilson changed his evidence
at the trial from what he had said at the preliminary hearing
by doubling the length of time he said he and Milgaard were away
from the car when Milgaard was said to have committed the crime,
Tallis said. Tallis was asked to respond to the assertions by
some critics that he should have questioned Wilson about his
first, non-incriminating statement to police, when he said Milgaard
was never away from him long enough to have committed the crime.
Tallis thought it possible
Wilson would claim he had lied and tried to protect Milgaard
initially.
Also, Wilson had made significant
omissions in that statement, which could have reflected badly
on Milgaard, Tallis said.
Wilson had left out the fact
he and Milgaard had stolen a car battery in Regina and Milgaard
had broken into a grain elevator in a small town on their way
to Saskatoon.
Tallis told the inquiry he
worked long hours on the Milgaard defence, writing draft cross-examinations,
seeking out numerous sources of information, visiting Milgaard
in jail in Prince Albert, requesting disclosure from the Crown
beyond what was strictly required by them and visiting the area
of the crime repeatedly.
"I felt very sincerely
that it was my duty, not only to David but I had a duty to the
court, a duty to society and a duty to myself. I had to look
myself in the mirror in the morning," Tallis said.
Milgaard was convicted of murder
and spent 23 years in prison. DNA evidence proved his innocence
in 1997 and was used to convict serial rapist Larry Fisher in
1999.
The commission of inquiry into
Milgaard's wrongful conviction is examining the police investigation,
Milgaard's prosecution and whether the case should have been
reopened when new information came to light.
Commissioner Edward MacCallum
will give his decision today on Milgaard's application to testify
in writing to written questions from the commission.
The inquiry will take a six-week
adjournment during March and early April.
Tallis returns to the witness
stand today.
badam@sp.canwest.com
Milgaard Inquiry
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2006
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Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
