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This story was previously found
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Clayton Miller
Photo Illustration
by Robert Cross, The Ottawa Citizen / Hand-written notes by Ed
McNeil, a retired Sydney police officer who led a Nova Scotia
Police Commission investigation in 1990 into Clayton Miller's
death, describe statements made by Deanna Bailey, who had been
arrested during the May 6 raid at The Nest. Deanna told Mr. McNeil
she saw a boy in a police cell making 'no movement' on the closed-circuit
monitor. Inset: Maria MacEachern of New Waterford made a statement
on April 17, 2000 which states she came to the conclusion in
1994 'that Clayton died in the hands of the New Waterford police
force.'
Who killed Clayton Miller?
A Cape Breton town has been
torn apart over a 17-year-old boy's mysterious deathfollowing
a police raid on a teen drinking party in 1990. The cause of
death and the extent of police involvement, if any, has always
been in dispute. Now, in response to new evidence and a Citizen
investigation, the Mounties have re-opened the case.
Gary
Dimmock,
The Ottawa Citizen, Tuesday
8 May 2001
NEW WATERFORD, N.S. - On Friday, May, 4, 1990, Clayton Miller's
family sat down for supper at 5 p.m. sharp, as they always did.
Gervase, a welder by trade, sat at the head of the table, with
Elizabeth, 6, and Clayton, 17, at either side, while Maureen
served mashed potatoes and fried bologna.
All Clayton could talk about
was restoring the 1980 Buick Regal that sat in the yard. He and
his father were about to sand it down and paint it black.
But Gervase told Clayton, a
shy and reliable boy, that he should go have fun with his friends.
The Buick could wait until Saturday.
Just before he left, Clayton
joked with his mother as she washed the last of the dishes. Maureen
chased him into the living room, tickling him and kissing his
cheeks. At 5:45 p.m., Clayton, still laughing, rode off on a
bicycle he had built himself from old parts.
Warren Gordon,
The Ottawa Citizen / Maureen and Gervase Miller: 'I go to bed at
night thinking about the case. I wake up the next morning thinking
about the case,' says Mr. Miller. 'It's all I will do until we
get answers.'
From the corner of
Atlantic Avenue, named for its view of the unforgiving sea, Clayton
headed down Stanley Street, the town's main drag. He stopped
outside a store that was a popular teen hangout, where everybody
was talking about a party that night at The Nest.
About 6:30 p.m., Clayton stopped
at the home of a friend, Dale MacKinnon, where, with another
boy, Billy Brushett, they stole a half-bottle of Captain Morgan's
rum belonging to Dale's older brother.
They passed it around for a
while, then headed to The Nest.
Once a coal mine, the area
has since been filled in. Its beaten-down walking trails are
lined by bushes, and the area is divided in places by a stream.
Just before Clayton, Dale and
Billy arrived, one of the early arrivals at the bush party noticed
Const. Darren Drinovz, who was off-duty and walking his dog in
the woods. He didn't acknowledge the teens, and didn't ask them
to put down the booze.
Instead, he testified at the
inquest, he told patrolling officers Michael Abraham and Michael
Cecchetto about the bush party and then walked home.
By the time Clayton and his
friends arrived at 8:30 p.m., the party was in full swing. A
bonfire, its smoke thick and black from burning tires, raged.
About 70 teenagers -- nearly every teen in town -- were there.
Most of the teens who testified
at the inquest said they hadn't been drinking at the bush party.
Those who had been were drinking
beer and whatever they had pilfered from their parents' liquor
cabinets.
After 30 minutes, Clayton announced
he had had enough, and was going home.
As Clayton was getting ready
to leave, the police were getting ready to raid the party in
response to Const. Drinovz's report. A resident who lived near
The Nest had told them about the underage drinking.
New Waterford police say that,
at the time, they hadn't raided The Nest in more than five years
-- but some of the people who were teens at the time recall that
police raided parties there several times in 1990 alone.
Sometime before 10 p.m., at
least six officers armed with service revolvers set out in cruisers
and a police van to corral the teens.
It was at that moment that
Clayton was telling his friends: "I'm on my way home."
He had stopped drinking.
Someone noticed cruiser headlights
bouncing in the dark. "It's the cops!"
Most of the teens ran off in
a panic, scrambling through the darkened brush as police gave
chase.
Even today, teens in New Waterford
usually run when the police come for them. But in 1990, the town
police had a reputation for being particularly rough. By 1991,
more than a dozen complaints had been filed against the force,
ranging from allegations of verbal abuse to use of excessive
force.
On the night of May 4, 1990,
the teens in The Nest were running scared. Some were so afraid
of getting caught by police that they wept as they ran, several
teens later testified. Others burst into nearby houses, screaming
and whimpering to those within that the police were after them.
Clayton, running alongside
Jill Ratchford, Kelly MacEachern and Lawrence Ellis, turned back
when his cap flew off his head. The others later testified that
they ran down to the brook, and when they looked back, Clayton
was out of sight. They hid from police, crouching in the alders
along the brook, but Clayton never came over the embankment to
join them.
Most of the teens got away;
some who were caught simply refused to enter the paddy wagon,
insisting they hadn't been drinking. The police station was soon
a circus. Of the 70 teens at the party, about 10 were taken into
custody, some of them drunk and belligerent.
Deanna Bailey, who was 16 at
the time, was one of the 10 teens taken to the police station.
Standing at the information desk, she could see a closed-circuit
monitor. In it she saw a boy slumped face down in a jail cell.
She says it was sometime after
9 p.m. The time of the raid has always been in dispute. Police
said they stormed the bush party at 10 p.m., while the teens
said the raid happened between 8:30 and 9 p.m.
Deanna says she repeatedly
asked the desk sergeant who was in cell No. 1, and pointed out
the boy to her friends. She says the sergeant shut the monitor
off.
Some parents arrived to pick
up their kids, while three boys, all above the legal drinking
age, were locked up and charged with being drunk in a public
place. They were later driven home in the middle of the night.
The police had seized eight
bottles of Labatt's Blue, four bottles of Oland's Export Ale
and six bottles of Molson Canadian.
By 11 p.m., the police went
back on their regular patrol. For them, it was just another night.
- - -
By 1 a.m., Clayton Miller had
not arrived home. He'd missed his curfew before, but usually
called. Maureen called his friend, Billy Brushett, whose mother
Marion told Maureen that the police had raided The Nest and that
some of the teens had been taken into custody. Gervase phoned
the police, and was told Clayton had not been among those picked
up.
Throughout the night, the Millers
waited for Clayton to come home. Just before 9 a.m., Maureen
called the police again, reporting that Clayton was still missing.
The police did not record the
conversation, nor take any notes.
Maureen called a third time,
at 11:30 a.m., and was told to bring a picture of Clayton to
the station. Still, by the next night -- some 25 hours later
-- only the Millers were looking for Clayton, phoning everywhere,
turning up nothing.
Earlier that day, others had
been searching for something else. Gerald Coady, then 26, and
Baxter Thorne, then 20, had returned to The Nest, hoping to find
a case of beer they had dumped in the stream while fleeing the
police. They say they walked along the stream, searching every
inch of it, but found nothing.
Sheila MacLean, then 17, says
she also walked through The Nest that Saturday with two friends.
She made a point of walking through The Nest on mornings after
parties, looking for anything that might have been left behind,
such as liquor or empty bottles, or sometimes money. She told
the Citizen that she walked the trails, noted the still smouldering
fire, then walked as far as the stream -- but found nothing.
Const. Drinovz, the off-duty
officer who had first reported the party, testified that about
3:15 p.m. he led Const. Paul Muise to The Nest to show him where
the teens might have hidden liquor. He said they parked their
cruiser on an embankment overlooking the stream and stayed for
all of two minutes, didn't see anything unusual, and didn't get
out of the car.
But a woman who lives near
The Nest tells another story.
From Debbie Walker's home on
Park Street, you can see everything that goes on at The Nest.
She said in an interview with the Citizen that shortly before
5 p.m. -- almost two hours after Const. Drinovz and Const. Muise
testified that they left -- she saw a police cruiser pull up
beside the stream. From her living room window, she says, she
watched as one police officer leaned against the cruiser while
another went down to the stream for a few minutes.
She recalls the time because
her husband returned from work minutes later.
One hour before sunset, at
6:40 p.m., Const. Drinovz said he returned to the stream, this
time alone. He said he parked and got out this time, and started
looking for beer that might have been left behind. He said he
walked 100 feet along the stream and found nothing.
That night, the Miller family
kept a vigil for Clayton. They prayed and tried to retrace Clayton's
steps, phoning everyone they could think of.
By Sunday morning, Gervase
Miller couldn't think straight. He had barely slept, and his
mind was fixed on his missing son. Somehow, he pulled himself
together for another day's work at the power plant.
Jerry Aucoin hadn't gotten
much sleep either. He had worked the bar at the Lions Club Saturday
night, and was returning, on foot, at 6 a.m. for the cleanup.
His home borders on The Nest. On his return to the Lions Club,
he says, he spotted a paddy wagon and a police cruiser at the
party spot.
When he returned home at 10:30
a.m., he told his wife Wanda, "I bet you they find that
young lad's body today." He had heard Clayton was missing,
and thought if the police were at The Nest, they must have found
something.
Billy Brushett was just rolling
out of bed at 10:30 a.m. His brother Tommy was on the phone with
Maureen Miller, who had called again looking for Clayton. Half
an hour later, Dale MacKinnon called Billy, asking if he wanted
to look around The Nest.
Leaving Dale's house around
12:30 p.m., the boys, wearing rubber boots, trudged along a trail,
and noticed Friday night's bonfire was still smoking. Billy stood
by the fire while Dale walked to the stream.
Seconds later, they found Clayton
Miller's body lying across the stream, face down. Clayton's right
hand was stiff and curled up beside his cheek. His left arm was
bent up high behind his back.
They couldn't have missed seeing
the body, because Clayton was wearing a bright red sweatshirt.
The stream is only ankle-deep, so his body had never been submerged.
Dale's mother, Mary, called
the police at 1:50 p.m., then went to the power plant to break
the news to Gervase Miller.
The police arrived at the MacKinnon
house within 10 minutes and were directed toward the stream.
Gervase Miller raced home to
tell Maureen their son was dead. Together, with friends Lisa
Brushett and Charles Steele, they drove to The Nest.
When he arrived, Gervase slid
down the bank, ran to the body of his dead son, and clutched
it to his chest. He shouted to Sgt. Tom Dwyer to get Clayton
out of the water in case he was still alive. Maureen stood at
the bank, her face pained.
What happened to Clayton Miller
in the moments leading to his death remain a mystery. Looking
at the condition of his body, it must have been terrifying.
The boy's face looked as if
he had been beaten, and his parents found it hard to imagine
that if he had fallen into the stream by accident he would have
landed with one arm behind his back.
His upper lip was severely
swollen. There was deep bruising around his eyes and on his forehead.
His nose was swollen, bruised, and looked as if it had been pushed
way out of joint. There were tiny bits of what looked like fresh
asphalt all over his face, neck, hands and abdomen, as if he
had been dragged along the ground.
A handful of people had gathered,
and Sgt. Dwyer removed the body immediately. The police did not
cordon off the scene, nor did they take a single photograph of
the body before it was removed.
Police stayed on the scene
for 15 minutes, then headed to the hospital.
The preservation of the scene
of death and subsequent documentation is the foundation of any
investigation. Even in cases of suicide, New Waterford police
are required to document the scene before moving the body. It
is a standard practice for all police departments.
In New Waterford, police call
in the Mounties to perform crime-scene investigations. When RCMP
Cpl. Jerry Tucker of the identification unit arrived, he was
frustrated that the body had been moved. All he could do was
take photographs of the scene -- the stream, and the boy's fluorescent
orange cap, which lay some six feet from his body's original
location.
At New Waterford Consolidated
Hospital, the police deposited the body on a gurney, stripped
it and began taking photographs while Dr. John Stevens, the physician
on duty, performed his examination.
Dr. Stevens found no major
wounds, but noted superficial marks on Clayton's right cheek.
He estimated the boy had been dead about 36 hours. Lung and chest
X-rays confirmed no obvious fractures. Given the congestion in
Clayton's lungs, Dr. Stevens said he likely drowned.
Clayton's clothes were taken
by Sgt. Dwyer and placed in his office at the police station.
The body was moved to the hospital morgue and an autopsy was
scheduled for the next day.
Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani performed
the autopsy at 11 a.m. on May 7, with four police officers looking
on.
Now 89, retired and living
in Ottawa, the Nigerian-born doctor says he doesn't like talking
about the case.
Dr. Ikejiani reported no major
injuries or evidence of strangulation. He noted three superficial
abrasions on the back of Clayton's neck and another abrasion
on his right shin. And he said Clayton's blood-alcohol content
was 120 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood, indicating
"mere" intoxication. The legal limit for driving is
80 milligrams.
He suggested Clayton had died
from pulmonary emphysema, implying severe damage to his lung
tissue, something that usually occurs slowly over years. The
diagnosis would later be disputed by Nova Scotia pathologist
Dan Glasgow, who said emphysema of that sort would be most unusual
in a healthy, 17-year-old boy.
Dr. Ikejiani also told police
that Clayton could have died from asphyxiation, perhaps smothering
himself after an accidental fall in the stream, but he couldn't
be sure.
Police interviewed some of
the teens who had attended the bush party, focusing their questioning
on Clayton and how much he'd had to drink.
Of the 10 teens interviewed,
comments from only four appeared in the police notes that were
drafted months later for the inquest. The notes did not include
actual statements, but rather paraphrased comments that portrayed
Clayton as being staggering drunk after drinking a quart of moonshine
-- which conflicts with testimony given by witnesses at the inquest,
who said the boy had been drinking rum, not moonshine.
- - -
In the months that followed,
the Millers grew more frustrated and became convinced the police
had something to do with Clayton's death.
On May 19, 1990, Billy Miller,
Clayton's cousin, complained to the Nova Scotia Police Commission
that he had been left barely able to speak after a New Waterford
police officer held him in a choke-hold. He was charged with
being drunk in public and obstructing a police officer, but was
found not guilty on both charges.
Allegations against the town
police were piling up. Between 1990 and 1992, the Nova Scotia
Police Commission investigated 15 separate allegations of police
brutality or wrongdoing in New Waterford, ranging from the use
of excessive force during arrests to beating suspects violently.
For the Millers, life without
Clayton grew unbearable because they still did not know how their
son had died. They pressured the Nova Scotia government day after
day, and finally, after five months, the Department of Justice
appointed a judge to preside over an inquest.
For the first time, the Millers
had hope.
On Sept. 13, 1990, the first
day of the inquest, the Millers' lawyer, Elizabeth Cusak-Walsh,
had to fight to win standing at the inquest. Justice Hughes Randall
finally agreed, but reserved the right to revoke her standing
if he felt the hearing had become adversarial.
Joseph Roach, the provincial
coroner for New Waterford, leafed through autopsy photographs
and testified there were no signs of a struggle, and no bruising.
But later, in a taped conversation with Gervase Miller, Dr. Roach
said it looked like the boy "had a going over ... on his
nose and face."
Dr. Roach also testified that
Clayton Miller may have died in a "dry drowning," a
rare means of instant death in which even a splash of very cold
water into the oral cavity can cause the larynx to spasm, causing
unconsciousness and paralysis of the respiratory centre, followed
by cardiac arrest. The spasm is set off by a sudden immersion
in cold water.
He said the boy's lungs appeared
normal, with no sign of pulmonary emphysema.
Dr. Ikejiani testified that
he never performed a diatom test, an exam using a microscope
to determine the presence of organic matter in water, routinely
used to determine if a person was alive when immersed, or dumped
in the water after death.
Although he had never studied
the scene of death, Dr. Ikejiani also testified that the three
pinprick abrasions on the back of Clayton's neck must have been
caused by a fall into the stream.
"I assume that certain
sticks or something in the water pierced that, that's all I can
think of," Dr. Ikejiani said.
Dan Glasgow, a pathologist,
testified that Clayton likely died of hypothermia. He based his
belief on weather records showing near-freezing temperatures
on the night of the party, and Clayton's slight intoxication,
which would have dropped his body temperature considerably. But
the autopsy showed no signs of frostbite or other common symptoms
of hypothermia.
The inquest also heard that
Clayton had been dead for about 36 hours before being found,
although none of the teens who say they walked by the stream
during that period without seeing his body was called to testify.
The police officers who testified
conceded their notes -- usually meticulous in police work --
had been written months after Clayton's death.
The inquest seemed to put the
Millers on trial. Had their son ever run away from home? Yes.
Did he have a curfew? Yes. Was their home a drinking home? No.
Had they really reported their son missing the day after the
raid? Yes. And if so, had they provided a proper description?
Yes.
In the final hour of the inquest,
the judge stopped the Millers' lawyer from making closing remarks
or submitting written briefs.
Then the inquest was over.
A few weeks later, Judge Randall
released a seven-page report without ruling on the cause of death
or placing blame. In the report, dated Nov. 21, 1990, Judge Randall
wrote: "It is to be noted in the evidence of all the police
officers that Clayton Miller was not known to them prior to the
evening of May 4, 1990, and at no time were they ever advised
by anybody that possibly Clayton Miller was one of the young
people who was at the Nest.
"Based on the evidence
presented at this inquiry from all the witnesses and the supporting
documentary evidence, it is my opinion that there was no culpable
negligence on the part of anybody."
The Millers felt as helpless
as they had the day their son died. They lost faith in the justice
system.
- - -
For months after Clayton's
death, Lorrie MacDonald, then 17, had trouble sleeping at night.
In November 1990, she came
forward with a story many find hard to believe.
In a bizarre twist, Lorrie
agreed to be hypnotized. The next day, under hypnosis, she told
the Millers her story. Her written account, dated Nov. 13, 1990,
was sent to the RCMP and Nova Scotia's Department of Justice.
In her account, she says she
was fleeing The Nest when Clayton fell back. She says she saw
two police officers grab Clayton by the arm and shove him into
the back seat of a police cruiser. Then she says she felt a sharp
pain in the back of her head, and the next thing she recalls
is waking up in a dimly lit building, lying beside Clayton.
She says she tried to get him
up, but he was too heavy and too injured. He told her to go for
help. She says she remembers a set of stairs but can't recall
how she got out of the building.
The building in her story matches
the description of one of the structures located in a municipal
storage area near The Nest. These buildings stand at the edge
of the park, and are used to store municipal trucks, sand and
asphalt.
The police never took Lorrie's
account seriously, and threatened to charge her with mischief
for lying. Prosecutors later dropped the charge.
By July 1990, the Millers had
persuaded the Nova Scotia Police Commission to probe Clayton's
death. They had faith in commission investigator Ed McNeil, a
retired Sydney police officer.
But Mr. McNeil's report would
never see the light of day. The commission halted Mr. McNeil's
probe after two months, when the Mounties announced they would
step in and investigate Clayton's death.
Mr. McNeil retired a year later,
and died on Aug. 28, 1994. His notes on Clayton Miller's death
lay unread until the Citizen recovered them from his daughter's
house.
The secret McNeil notes, dated
Nov. 8, 1990, to Jan. 18, 1991, document a troubled New Waterford
police department . According to Mr. McNeil's notes, several
officers had been accused of police brutality, and one officer
had been accused of having sex with a 12-year-old girl and sexually
assaulting two other girls.
On Nov. 8, 1990, Mr. McNeil
interviewed Deanna Bailey, who had been arrested during the May
6 raid at The Nest. Deanna told Mr. McNeil she saw a boy in a
cell on the closed-circuit monitor.
She thought it was strange,
because none of the other boys had been locked up. In her statement
to Mr. McNeil, Deanna said the boy was lying on his side on a
cot with his head turned to the wall, away from the monitor.
She said the boy's hands were "limp in his lap ... no movement."
Mr. McNeil wrote that he believed
she'd identified Clayton. "Fitting Clayton's sweater. She
identified the sweater, etc."
This entry is significant because
New Waterford police have always insisted they didn't see Clayton
on the night of the raid, let alone take him into custody.
The McNeil file also reveals
that the Nova Scotia Police Commission met with the Department
of Justice to discuss suspending the entire New Waterford police
department in light of the brutality allegations.
On Dec. 11, 1990, a few weeks
before the Mounties launched their investigation into Clayton's
death, Mr. McNeil told the Millers that New Waterford Mayor Gerard
Marsh and police Chief Doug Crowe had called the Nova Scotia
Commission, seeking to have Mr. McNeil's investigation stopped.
They scheduled a meeting, but never showed up. Mr. McNeil also
read the Millers a letter from the police union urging him to
stop his investigation.
Mr. McNeil's files also contain
a copy of a 1982 police commission investigation report into
allegations the New Waterford police used excessive force while
arresting teens at a pub.
The 1982 complaint involved
some of the same officers who raided The Nest on May 4, 1990.
The 1982 investigation concluded that police had not used excessive
force, although Nova Scotia Police Commission chairman Harry
Porter noted deep concerns about the credibility of the New Waterford
Police.
Mr. Porter wrote: "It
is, therefore, with great regret that the commission reports
that one of the most disturbing things which came out of the
hearings of this inquiry was the extent to which the commission
found the evidence of all the police officers who appeared as
witnesses, some more than others, was mistaken, shaded, deliberately
misleading, changed to suit the circumstances and, in some instances,
deliberately false, to the extent that the impression was given
that no force at all was used in apprehending the youths, that
there was no punching or hitting, and that there was no shouting
or loud conversation."
On Jan. 18, 1991, the Nova
Scotia Solicitor General's office ordered the RCMP to investigate
the New Waterford police department on allegations from the Millers
that the police had murdered their son.
The Mounties concluded, on
May 14, 1991, that the New Waterford police had done nothing
wrong, and dismissed the accounts of those who claimed to have
walked the section of stream where Clayton's body was found a
day earlier and had seen nothing unusual.
They felt the witnesses were
confused, or lying, about the exact times and locations they
had walked along the stream.
Today, some 11 years later,
these witnesses insist they are telling the truth and that they
were not confused.
The RCMP insisted that Clayton
Miller had never been taken into police custody on the night
of the raid. The RCMP drew that conclusion without reading Mr.
McNeil's notes.
- - -
Photo Illustration
by Robert Cross, The Ottawa Citizen / (Who killed Clayton Miller?)
On a Saturday night -- May
25, 1991 -- a beer bash at the town rink got out of control.
Brawls spilled out onto the street. Just after 1 a.m., seven
officers responded. The members of the mob, 100 strong, stopped
fighting among themselves and directed their anger at the police.
Like the Millers, they blamed the New Waterford police for Clayton's
death.
That same month, the Mounties
had investigated 13 complaints of police brutality against the
18-member force. Only one stuck.
The people began shouting that
the police had killed Clayton, and that they'd had enough.
The mob swarmed the police
cruisers and rocked them. They shoved and pushed the police officers.
In the end, eight people were hauled off and charged with being
drunk, assaulting a police officer and damaging police property.
- - -
When the RCMP probe ended,
the New Waterford Police Commission launched its own review of
the allegations that town police had killed Clayton. The commission
hired lawyer Leo MacPhee to review the case. His review wrapped
up on Aug. 2, 1991.
Mr. MacPhee's review covered
little new ground and was based almost exclusively on evidence
given at the inquest. Mr. MacPhee did recommend that any call
about a missing person should result in a written report. He
also recommended that New Waterford police log calls and that
they secure crime scenes.
The Millers had become obsessed
with finding out how Clayton had died. At first, it consumed
just their free time, but eventually became part of their daily
life. Gervase Miller left work on permanent stress leave. Maureen
quit her job at the fish plant, choosing to stay home and raise
young Elizabeth.
They compiled and tape-recorded
hundreds of interviews and filed away every piece of correspondence.
They wrote then-justice minister Kim Campbell, then-Opposition
leader Jean Chretien, Buckingham Palace, even talk show host
Oprah Winfrey, demanding a public inquiry into Clayton's death.
But no one listened, and the form-letter replies piled up.
In the fall of 1993, the Millers
hired private investigator Dennis Fahey, a former New Jersey
police officer they had seen on a U.S. television documentary
about the unsolved death of a teen. Within days, they had gained
government approval to exhume Clayton's body for a new autopsy.
John Butt, a former Alberta
medical examiner, would perform the autopsy while Michael Baden,
a former New York City medical examiner, would represent the
family for a $10,000 fee.
Dr. Butt dismissed dry drowning
as a cause of death and pointed to alcohol, though Dr. Ikejiania
had earlier concluded that Clayton was "merely" intoxicated
the night he died.
"The issue of male adolescent
risk-taking is well-known ... In my opinion this death is clearly
related to risk-taking, alcohol (including inexperience with
same) and hypothermia," Dr. Butt concluded.
He also said it was regrettable
that Gervase Miller had disturbed the scene before a police photographer
arrived. Dr. Butt simply believed Clayton died of hypothermia
-- that he had been drunk and not dressed properly for a freezing
night.
Dr. Butt concluded there had
been nothing suspicious about Clayton's death, and said it was
regrettable that gossip had distorted public opinion.
The Nova Scotia government
declared the case closed.
But Dr. Baden concluded that
Clayton had died of exposure and that his body could have been
dumped in the stream after death. "The possibility that
he died elsewhere and was then brought to the stream cannot be
excluded," Dr. Baden said in his report.
And in a briefing report to
the solicitor-general, Mr. Fahey reported some strange discoveries
during the second autopsy.
Other than a single 30-gram
block of sample tissue taken from the right lung, Clayton's lungs
had never been dissected, according to the Fahey briefing report,
even though Dr. Ikejiani had testified at the inquest that Clayton's
lungs appeared normal during the original autopsy.
At the second autopsy, he wrote,
Dr. Ikejiani walked into the examining room at the very moment
the pathologists were talking about the presence of embalming
fluid in the lungs.
Dr. Ikejiani commented that
he, too, observed fluid in the lungs. One of the examining pathologists
advised Dr. Ikejiani they were talking about embalming fluid,
and that the lungs had never been dissected.
According to the briefing report,
Dr. Ikejiani turned on his heel and left the room. Mr. Fahey
made note of Dr. Ikejiani's comments to an RCMP officer, who
was acting as a witness. The RCMP officer notified his superior,
but both agreed it was not a police matter and was up to the
pathologist to do something about it.
Despite the irregularities,
the RCMP would not re-open the case, and the Millers kept pursuing
answers. They sent files to Louis Roh, a renowned U.S. forensic
pathologist, who reviewed the case. He concluded without doubt
that Clayton Miller did not die of hypothermia. They paid the
forensic pathologist $1,500 U.S. to review the file.
Dr. Roh concluded that the
boy's blood-alcohol level -- 0.12 -- was not high enough to cause
him to lose consciousness or control of his body. He noted that
there was no major trauma to the body, and with the absence of
"washer woman's skin" -- swelling and wrinkling of
the skin caused by a period of time in water -- he said Clayton
most likely died from being held in a chokehold or sleeper hold.
This hold, used commonly by
police officers, leaves no marks on the skin and doesn't damage
internal organs but stops the oxygen flow. The doctor also said
lacerations on Clayton's right leg and neck indicated a possible
struggle in the boy's final moments.
"The body was probably
then placed in the stream after the police and Clayton's two
friends passed through the area on May 5, 1990," Dr. Roh
wrote.
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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
