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Who
was John Chalmers before the police and Crown decided to target
him? | 2005: The same kind of creative ingenuity by the Crown
failed to convince the court a coerced confession from Farand
Bear should be admitted in Saskatoon
John Chalmers
No injusticebusting
in Justice Joe Donohue's courtroom! If the Crown calls it evidence,
that's cool with him even if it's just a product of the Crown's
imagination.
In this case,
an expert claimed injuries on a skull which had been buried for
fifteen years " . . . could not be consistent with falling
from a horse, being kicked by a horse or falling on farm machinery
. . ."
injusticebusters say this is not "clear
and convincing evidence" which disproves the original coroner's
report. Experts who have been paid by the Crown use credentials
which may have been legitimately earned to add credibility to
theories for which there is no real evidence. Louise Reynolds
is suing two experts and the Kingston police for $7M.
Charges against Mitchell
Minde were thrown out after Alberta Queen's Bench Honourable
Justice M. T. Moreau reviewed the evidence in voire dire.
I mproper interrogations were among the
reasons today for two more murder convictions being quashed by
the supreme Court December 12, 2003. See Duguay
and Taillefer
Chalmers sentenced to
life without eligibility for parole until 2017. Prosecutor tells
media:
"Well, obviously a
lot of the evidence that might
have been available at the time was no longer available so we
had to rely on a lot more ingenuity and creativity I think in
trying to solve this case".--Prosecutor Diane Foster on
CTV/CKCO News at 6:00pm and 11:30 pm, December 9/03.
If you have
not yet viewed the Gemini winning Dislosure piece "Inside
the interrogation room," please take 17 minutes to watch it.
Then consider that this is exactly the technique which was used
on John Chalmers. A Manitoba
judge, when he threw out the case against Mike St. John called
the technique "repugnant to society's sense of decency and
shouldn't be condoned." See also Brenda
Campbell, from whom a false confession was extracted in Winnipeg.
- Chalmers sentenced
- Courtright man gets
life and will not be eligible for parole for 14 years
By JACK POIRIER of The Observer,
December 10, 2003
Still professing his innocence,
convicted killer John Chalmers will have the next 14 years, locked
away in a federal penitentiary, to consider his role in his first
wife's death.
The 55-year-old Courtright
man, convicted last month of second-degree murder in the March
15, 1986 death of 31-year-old Jane Chalmers, maintained his innocence
yesterday as he was sentenced to life imprisonment, with no possibility
for parole for the next 14 years.
"Janie's death devastated
me as much as anybody," Chalmers told the court. "I
think anybody that knows me knows I didn't do this. It was a
mistake in 1986 and it's a mistake now."
In 1986, provincial police
deemed her death a horseback riding accident. Officers reopened
the investigation in 2001, later charging Chalmers with murder
after he provided police four detailed confessions over a two-day
period in October.
In setting the parole eligibility
term to the "unique" case, Justice Joseph Donohue told
Chalmers he needed to reassess his role in his first wife's tragic
death. She was bludgeoned and left for dead in a deep ditch along
a stretch of lonely, rural Waterworks Side Road.
Donohue said deterring other
men from committing the same crime against their wives was his
utmost priority.
He admonished Chalmers, a remarried
father of two, for showing no remorse and breaching the ultimate
trust between husband and wife. Donohue likened Jane Chalmers'
demise to the steps a farmer might take to destroy a diseased
farm animal.
"With no forewarning you
heartlessly dispatched five blows to her head . . . You would
have lived out your life under false pretenses (were) it not
for some pretty astute police work."
During sentencing proceedings
Crown attorney Diane Foster asked for a 15-to-17-year period
before Chalmers would be eligible for parole.
Defence lawyer Donald Elliott
called for 12 years, arguing that aside from this "isolated,
violent and swift act of passion," his client had led an
exemplary life.
Following their Nov. 13 verdict,
10 of 12 jurors recommended the minimum 10-year designation.
However, Donohue settled on
14 years, telling Chalmers he clearly acted in "cold-blooded"
fashion.
"You killed her and you
know it," Donohue said, as Chalmers' stunned and teary-eyed
family members looked on. Holding up a picture of Jane Chalmers
on her wedding day, Donohue told Chalmers he broke the promise
he made that day to take care of her.
"Your public remorse lasted
less than a day."
As part of his sentence Chalmers
will also have to provide a sample of his DNA for the national
databank for violent offenders. He was also handed a lifetime
firearms prohibition.
Outside the courthouse, Foster
called the sentence just and appropriate. She credited OPP investigators
for their work in solving the case.
However, the same could not
be said for Chalmers' family members, who picketed outside the
court building prior to the proceedings.
In a statement prepared by
Ken Tuckey, Chalmers' current father-in-law, he said his "biggest
concern and regret in this case is the fact that in 1986, if
the police would have done a complete and proper investigation
and closed this case properly this family would not be going
through the hell and financial and emotional burden that it has
caused for the past two years." Chalmers' sister Katherine
Scott was also critical of the investigation.
"My brother was sentenced
for a crime he did not commit," she said, before falling
into the arms of her supporters.
She said an appeal is in the
works, focusing on the Reid Interrogation Method that police
used to obtain a "false confession" from her emotionally
fragile brother.
Banned in the U.K., the nine-step
police interrogation method has come under some fire in Canada.
CBC's Disclosure program focused one of its segments on Reid,
which it reported had resulted in some false confessions.
"My brother has never
shown any signs of violence at all," Scott continued. "I
know my brother and I know that this is about something that
was done to him and not about something that he did."
Scott said she will continue
to work with a group called Injustice Busters, which fights for
the wrongfully convicted. She appealed to the public in a letter
to the editor that appeared in Monday's Observer to attend the
court, to show support for change in "our antiquated judicial
system."
That letter raised Donohue's
ire.
Prior to the beginning of sentencing
procedures before a half-filled courtroom, Donohue cautioned
there would be "no justice busting" during the proceedings.
Any outbursts would result in removal from the court and a possible
charge of contempt, he warned.
But, following the sentencing
Scott took aim at the justice system, saying her dying father
asked her to continue to fight for the truth.
"And his words to me were
'Kathy, if you don't stand up for the truth, no matter what your
reasons, all hell breaks loose.' And this is what happened in
our justice system. It's the truth that has to matter . . . and
these methods blind us."
However, what was missing from
the proceedings was some show of remorse, said Jane Chalmers'
sister Vivien Synnott.
Synnott, who sat silently throughout
her former brother-in-law's trial, was allowed to read a victim
impact statement in court, detailing the tragic effect her sister's
death had on the family.
"That life was stolen
away, not only from Janie but also from the people who cared
for her, family and friends," Synnott read.
She said she not only lost
a sister in 1986 but part of her mother as well, as her health
slowly deteriorated over the years.
After the sentencing concluded,
a relieved Synnott said she didn't believe Chalmers' plea of
innocence.
"I really don't think
that's the truth and the next 14 years he's going to have to
live with it.
"I'm happy it's all over
... and we're going to the cemetery now to say goodbye to Janie."
The information presented here
by The Observer is free of charge and for informational purposes
ONLY . The Observer strives to provide accurate and timely
information; however, inadvertent or factual inaccuracies and
typographical errors are possible.
John Chalmers: Tricked
by improper interrogation and railroaded to a conviction of murder
Mr. Chalmers
was convicted November 13 and will be sentenced December 9.
As the improprieties
in the James Driskell case are surfacing in Manitoba, this Ontario
case shows that police and Crown prosecutors are still up to
the same dirty tricks which have resulted in wrongful convictions.
On March 15,
1986, Jane Chalmers was found dead in a ditch. The coroner ruled
her death was accidental, caused by falling from her horse. Police
officer Mark Dew was suspicious and raised his concerns with
his superior officer. The concerns were dismissed and the death
was accepted as accidental. Mark Dew kept some of the pictures
of what he believed to be a crime scene in his drawer for fifteen
years. The rest of the file, including the original coroner's
report were destroyed.
in 2001, Mark
Dew passed the pictures on to an officer who was also experienced
with horses. The original file was gone. Based on the partial
set of pictures, the case was re-opened. . The body was exhumed
and looked at again. A new expert found dents in Jane Chalmer's
skull and which could not have been caused by a falling from
a horse.
Murder. Just
as Dew suspected. But how did it happen? Since the files from
15 years ago had been destroyed, because those in charge of destroying
files were confident this cases was closed, an accident, the
new investigators were at a disadvantage.
In October,
John Chalmers was picked up and a "confession" extracted
from him in living colour video as he was coached to "re-enact"
his "crime." They also did a polygraph. Two days later
he was charged and released to his family, his wife Celia and
his children, aged 10 and 12. Disoriented and confused, he managed
to communicate that he had signed a statement after being told
that this would save his family from grief and embarrassment.
He was in terrible shape.
In August,
2002, before the pretrial, he underwent a psychiatric assessment
at which it was determined that his statement could not be considered
voluntary. He also underwent a polygraph. The pretrial judge
accepted the "confession," ruling that the psychiatrist
was not an expert in law, and that if Chalmers could "feed
himself and wasn't wetting himself" he was competent to
be interrogated. While he would not allow into evidence the results
of the polygraph test, he allowed a conversation, where the polygrapher
told Chalmers "I have absolutely no doubt that you killed
your wife" to be tendered.
He went to
trial this fall. Justice
Joseph Donohue
allowed the evidence from the pretrial.
The jury was
shown the videotaped movie made by police. I call it a movie
because it was edited and fictional, with several takes necessary
because of the reluctance of the principle actor. They gave the
piece a rave review and took five hours to convict John Chalmers.
This shoddy
conviction would seem to be the product of deliberately malicious
police work, over-zealous prosecution. During his instructions
to the jury, the judge noted that Chalmer had made 28 denials
during his "confession."
Use of the
Reid method of interrogation has been covered by CBC's Disclosure
( See Inside
the interrogation room) and was also responsible for the
wrongful conviction of the five teen-agers in the Central
Park jogger rape case in New York. (The five were freed after
the real rapist confessed and this confession was matched with
DNA evidence.) A supreme Court ruling on the Hoickle
case from Nova Scotia clearly shows that reckless use of
the Reid technique is not acceptable.
(Note: This piece is in
progress. It is being written from a distance, but I have full
access to John Chalmer's sister. A previous version attibuted
more involvement to Officer Dew.
Husband found guilty
of second-degree murder
London Free Press, November
14, 2003
SARNIA -- A jury took five
hours yesterday to find a Courtright man guilty of second-degree
murder in his wife's death 17 years ago, ending a five-week trial.
John Chalmers, 55, will be sentenced next month.
His lawyer, Donald Elliott,
expressed disappointment in the verdict, but said he wasn't surprised
given the Crown's strong case against his client.
An appeal is possible on the
grounds a taped confession Chalmers gave police should not have
been allowed in evidence, the lawyer said later.
"That's been discussed,"
Elliott confirmed.
As the verdict was announced
yesterday, several people in the courtroom burst into tears,
including the victim's sister, Vivien Synnott, and about a dozen
supporters of Chalmers.
The body of Jane Chalmers,
31, was found March 15, 1986, in a ditch. Ontario Provincial
Police originally deemed her death the result of a freak horseback
riding accident.
But police reopened the investigation
in February 2001. Eight months later, Chalmers was charged with
her murder, having confessed his guilt repeatedly over a two-day
period in October.
Chalmers pleaded not guilty
to second-degree murder.
He testified he falsely confessed
to killing his first wife because he wanted to take the easy
way out.
He said he was being selfish,
wanting to give up on his family after suffering serious injuries
in a June 1, 2000, car accident that left the family's financial
future uncertain.
Yesterday, Crown attorney Diane
Foster said the jury used common sense to arrive at the right
conclusion, considering the detailed confessions Chalmers provided
police, describing how he clubbed his wife with a heavy, metal
object and left her for dead.
Copyright © The London
Free Press 2001,2002,2003
Suspect changes testimony
CP, November 7, 2003
SARNIA -- A man accused of
beating his wife to death offered contradictory testimony yesterday
about an apparent confession to police -- at first acknowledging
he seemed to admit to the crime, but then later saying he was
misunderstood. John Chalmers, 55, is charged with second-degree
murder after his 31-year-old wife, Jane Chalmers, was found dead
in a ditch following an apparent horse-riding accident in 1986.
During questioning yesterday,
Chalmers told the court he wasn't lying during an investigation
in 2001, when he told police he hit his wife and left her for
dead.
But later, Chalmers tried to
distance himself from the police statement, saying that although
it was truthful, it was also frazzled and confused.
Copyright © The London
Free Press 2001,2002,2003
Victim was having an
affair, Chalmers murder trial told
CP, October 24, 2003
SARNIA -- A woman whose death
was initially attributed to a horse-riding accident was having
an affair before she died, a witness testified yesterday at the
murder trial of the woman's husband. Jane Chalmers "wasn't
happy at home" in the months before she was found dead in
a ditch in 1986 after taking a horse ride, Barb Foster told the
court.
She said Jane Chalmers, 31,
told her that her husband John Chalmers was boring and they weren't
compatible.
Foster, a neighbour who began
a friendship with Jane in the years prior to her death, said
she suspected John Chalmers, 55, murdered his wife and had reported
her suspicions to police.
Jane Chalmers was found dead
March 15, 1986. Although her death was originally attributed
to a horse-riding accident by provincial police, the case was
reopened in 2001 and a charge of second-degree murder was laid
against John Chalmers.
Foster said Jane Chalmers began
socializing and going out more after making the comments about
her marriage, Foster said.
"She must have been looking
for attention because she found it from (Don) Moore. The two
started having an affair."
Foster also testified that
a few days after Jane Chalmers' death she told John Chalmers,
". . . Everybody thinks you killed her."
In an interview with police
played in court, John Chalmers told police he never suspected
his wife was having an affair.
"As far as I knew, she
was happy," he said.
Copyright © The London
Free Press 2001,2002,2003
Woman 'likely' died from
blows to head
JENNIFER O'BRIEN , London
Free Press, October 21, 2003
SARNIA -- A Sarnia woman found
dead near her wandering horse was "most likely" killed
by multiple blows from an object such as a metal pipe, court
heard yesterday at her husband's murder trial. For 15 years the
death of Jane Chalmers, 31, was deemed accidental -- the result
of a horseback riding accident near Waterworks Road in the former
Sarnia Township.
Two years ago, police reopened
the case, charging 55-year-old John Chalmers with second-degree
murder in his wife's death March 15, 1986.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Yesterday, pathologist Dr.
S.W. Williams testified the dead woman's injuries were not consistent
with being thrown from a horse, kicked by a horse or falling
into any type of farm machinery.
"I'm not aware of any
object that could produce these types of injuries if you fell
on it," he said under questioning by assistant Crown attorney
Diane Foster.
"The best fit would be
a linear object."
Foster produced a large metal
pipe and asked if multiple blows from such an object might cause
the fatal injuries.
"Yes, that's the kind
of object," he replied.
Williams conducted the autopsy
on Chalmers the day after she was found dead in a ditch.
The cause of death was "fracturing
at the base of the skull and cerebral contusions," he testified.
Chalmers had several two-centimetre
gashes on the right side of her forehead, one on the left side
and more lacerations behind her left ear.
Her skull was fractured and
her brain was bruised -- injuries that could have resulted from
blows that caused the lacerations, said Williams.
The testimony came during the
second week of what's expected to be a five-week jury trial in
Superior Court in Sarnia.
Stories of the couple's marital
trouble became an issue at the trial last week, when a man claiming
to have been Jane Chalmers' lover testified.
Don Moore said he was unsure
whether his lover's husband knew about the affair.
Another witness said she had
heard the Chalmers discussing "one-night stands" in
the past.
In court yesterday, John Chalmers
displayed no emotion. Frequently he closed his eyes while listening
to testimony by medical experts.
Jane Chalmers' sister was among
a handful of spectators in the court.
Court heard from Williams'
assistant and an auxiliary OPP officer who observed the autopsy
on Chalmers. Both testified Chalmers' head had not been dropped
during the autopsy.
But under cross-examination
by defence lawyer Donald Elliott, both men had trouble remembering
exact details from the post mortem.
Copyright © The London
Free Press 2001,2002,2003
- Taped confession heard
at trial
- Second-degree murder
trial finishes second week
By JACK POIRIER of The Observer
Saturday, October 25, 2003
Upset with his wife's late-night
partying and having rumours of her infidelity thrown in his face,
accused murderer John Chalmers admitted something inside him
snapped.
"She got off the horse
with me and I just started hitting her," Chalmers told police
during an interview following a polygraph test that he granted
OPP police at the Petrolia detachment on Oct. 5, 2001.
The majority of the five-hour
taped interview and lie-detector test was shown in court Friday,
as John Chalmers' second-degree murder trial finished up its
second week.
Jane Chalmers was found dead
in the east ditch on Waterworks Side Road, between Confederation
and Churchill lines, in the early afternoon on March 15, 1986.
Having been out horseback riding
at the time, her death was initially ruled accidental, the result
of falling off her horse and being trampled.
However, police reopened the
investigation in early February, 2001, charging Chalmers with
his wife's death following the interview with police.
"I wanted to talk to her,"
Chalmers told Det. Edward Murray during the interview.
Prior to his confession, Murray
of the OPP's behavioural sciences unit, told Chalmers there was
"absolutely no doubt" in his mind Chalmers had caused
his wife's death after scanning the results of the polygraph
test.
Justice Joseph Donohue instructed
the jury that while polygraph tests and their results are not
admissible in court, statements and exchanges between Chalmers
and the detective are.
Asked how he caused his wife's
fatal head injuries, Chalmers said he had picked up an object
from the ditch and hit her about five times.
"I grabbed her. I think
I just threw her."
The two fell in the ditch,
Chalmers explained. That's when he located the object he used
to strike her.
"I think I just threw
(the weapon) when I left . . . She could have still been alive
when I left her."
As the six-man and six-woman
jury focused on the projection screen displaying the video, Chalmers
frequently stared down at the floor, while seated in the prisoner's
box.
Asked by Murray during the
interview what made him so angry, Chalmers said it was his wife's
"staying out so late, then not caring."
Later, Chalmers said he had
heard his wife was having an affair with people at the horse
barn, specifically Don Moore.
His neighbour Barb Foster and
her sister Connie were "throwing it in my face," he
said.
After assaulting his wife,
Chalmers said he left the area and returned home, where he fed
his wife's dogs. Then he returned to the Spitzig farm where he
was to pick up his wife and acted "just like nothing happened.
"And when police said
it was an accident, I just accepted it. I closed it out."
Chalmers then agreed to write
a letter explaining his actions to his dead wife's mother and
return to the crime scene to re-enact what had happened 15 years
earlier.
When asked by Murray why he
decided to confess, Chalmers stated during the interview, "To
get this settled. I was hoping to save my family."
Court previously heard that
Chalmers, a former city hall employee, was engaged to a woman
named Cecilia three months after Jane Chalmers' death. The two
were then married on Oct. 3 that same year. They have two children
together.
The trial is scheduled to resume
Tuesday at 10 a.m.
The information presented here by The Observer is free of charge
and for informational purposes ONLY . The Observer strives
to provide accurate and timely information; however, inadvertent
or factual inaccuracies and typographical errors are possible.
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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
