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it was one of the strangest cases in canadian history a squashed piece of fruit and a tiny
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pinpoint reflection in a picture was the only evidence but was it enough to catch a killer
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[Music] [Music] on june 19 1989 there was a thunderstorm in collingwood ontario but the rain didn't stop 33 year old
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debbie timlock from venturing out that night she was a pretty vivacious woman that
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loved to ski and i had a sailboat in the harbor she liked to sail and she liked people
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debbie a single mother left her six-year-old daughter lacey at her parents home for the night
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debbie and a few of her friends went to a local restaurant where they visited with each other and it was later in the
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evening when debbie and her friends said goodbye to each other in the parking lot
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her friend said debbie left alone and presumably went straight home at 3 25 in the morning however
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she phoned police to report she had been attacked she indicated she had been assaulted i
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don't believe she was in total understanding of what had occurred she was struggling to stay conscious
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but by the time police arrived it was too late when i entered through the door of the
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apartment i could see that there was an unclosed female body laying on her back next to the couch
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beside her left arm which was outstretched was the handset of a telephone there was a great deal of
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blood on the floor it was like something like this couldn't happen you know it's a small town
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and why you know investigators followed the trail of blood through the hallway and found a pair of metal frame
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eyeglasses and a woman's shoe both covered in blood upon entering debbie timlock's bedroom
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we noticed blood on the waterbed blood on different articles of clothing and sheets as well
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as a comforter that were either on the bed or on the floor there was also blood stains and some
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blood spatter on a headboard of the bed investigators also found evidence of activity in the kitchen
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the kitchen was disheveled it appeared the entry was through the kitchen window which was a ground level apartment there
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had been some disturbing of dishes and and that type of thing that had been in the kitchen sink
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outside the kitchen window was an area partially hidden behind some greenery on the ground investigators noticed
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a tomato debbie timlock had a tomato on her windowsill ripening and the tomato had
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likely been dragged out onto the ground when the suspect had pulled the blinds out of the window when we noticed the
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tomato was quite obvious that there was a partial footwear impression on the tomato itself
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they photographed the tomato then put it in debbie's refrigerator to preserve it
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police found no foreign fingerprints in the apartment and there were no valuables missing
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so investigators had to ask who would have wanted debbie dead that question produced a few
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troubling answers [Music] at debbie timlock's autopsy the medical examiner found she had been
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sexually assaulted and stabbed to death she died of a stab wound to the heart he
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also found that there was a stab wound to the back which penetrated her spinal cord
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the pathologist concluded that debbie was paralyzed from the waist down when she crawled to the telephone to call
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police i believe when debbie is told by the ambulance help is on the way she responds thank you and i believe at
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that point she died in a search for debbie's killer investigators found a possible lead
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four years earlier debbie lived with a man named ron osborne who had been involved in a drug smuggling ring
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1985 10 persons were investigated for attempting to smuggle drugs from united states into canada
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authorities had evidence that osborne transported illegal drugs in a boat from jamaica to florida
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at osborne's trial debbie reluctantly testified against him debbie testified that ron osborne had
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told her that he had been on a boat for a two-month period this boat is the one that was subsequently found to have
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storage compartments where the drugs had been stored osborne was in prison at the time of
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debbie's murder but investigators checked to see whether any of the other defendants might have
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killed her transcripts of the drug smuggling case were reviewed along with interviews of
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the investigating officers to determine where all the players actually were and how the entire investigation unfolded
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detectives concluded there was no connection to debbie's murder to us it made no sense that a small
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player like debbie timlock would be murdered in this drug investigation because she really had very little to do
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with it as a matter of routine police also interviewed debbie's ex-husband the
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couple had been divorced for four years and shared custody of six-year-old lacey
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he was a good guy and it just happens that they don't you know some people just don't get
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along together it was a reneable divorce both parties had got on with their lives
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and gone in different directions and the ex-husband of debbie was alibi up he was
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at home that night so investigators focused on the evidence left at the scene the pair of eyeglasses and the tomato
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with the foot impression we knew right away that we had a pattern in the tomato and we knew right away
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that it was a herringbone pattern when the film was developed and analyzed the flesh in the photo created
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distinct shadows we could see that along with the herringbone pattern was a second pattern
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or more detail than we had first been able to see which was an s shape that came through the herringbone pattern
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next investigators analyzed the eyeglasses they found debbie's blood on the glasses
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which told a story both of the arms were folded which to us we we believe had fallen out
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of someone's pocket debbie had dragged herself to the phone from the bedroom and had actually
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dragged herself over those glasses since debbie didn't wear glasses investigators assumed they belonged to
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the killer the pair was inexpensive and the lenses didn't fit properly in the frame
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the lens itself didn't exactly match the contour of the metal piece at the top
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so creating a sort of a gap in the appearance of the lenses it was clear they'd been worn for some
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time and there was a size discrepancy between the two lenses it was as if a portion of the lens had been
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ground off so that they just weren't the same shape which is is highly unusual
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then investigators got an important lead they learned that debbie's former next-door neighbor was 23-year-old james
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brown a one-time olympic hopeful brown had had some success in the sport of wrestling and had actually been to
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japan where he'd hoped to further that and maybe have a shot at an olympic spot on the team
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debbie told friends that brown had made advances towards her he did have a criminal record he had
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been convicted of a number of fences in the past mainly for assaults thefts and breaking enters
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that is why brown came on the radar screen quite rapidly he had done some time in jail but never more than three
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months when questioned brown denied any involvement in debbie's murder and said
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he was out of town on the night of the crime he indicated that he had been at a hotel
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where he was assaulted by persons unknown and as a result of that he went to the ground and he woke up on the side
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of the road several miles away brown had scratches on his face which he said came from the assault
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given his size detectives were skeptical of his story he was a man some six foot three in
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height large structure about 350 some pounds wide shoulders extremely wide fists
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and detectives noticed something else in his mug shots from a previous arrest brown
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was wearing glasses [Music] the prime suspect in debbie timlock's murder was her former next door neighbor
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a convicted criminal jim brown during questioning he wasn't wearing glasses although he admitted owning a
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pair for reading but claimed he lost them this gave detectives an opportunity to
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tie brown to the glasses found at the murder site they removed debbie's blood from the
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glasses and had an officer pose as a nurse and offer them to brown no they're not
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jim smelled a rat he looked at the glasses and said they were not his it doesn't mean they're not his
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it just means that we haven't got that connectivity yet police searched brown's apartment
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and his car we found a pair of blue canvas running shoes on the floor of the rear right passenger side
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of the vehicle we believe they were manufactured in czechoslovakia and were actually
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purchased by the ontario government and were provided to inmates in the provincial system
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who were doing time they also appeared to have the same distinctive tread pattern
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as the print on the tomato outside debbie's window there's a specific part of a design
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which i'll refer to here as either an s shape or a stylized seven that became
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very apparent in the photograph that really piqued my interest but forensic investigator jerry webb had
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a problem he needed to know if the weight of a 350-pound man created a different kind
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of shoe impression on a tomato than one you'd get by copying the shoe impression
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on paper or a transparency so webb designed an experiment i had a person that wore size 13 shoes
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put on a bomb suit and i added weights to the bomb suit in trying to increase the weight of this person to be more
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close to the weight of the suspect in this case jim brown webb sprayed water on tomatoes to
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simulate the rainstorm on the night of the murder then had his 350-pound model step on each one wearing
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the suspect's shoes [Music] webb discovered that the test impression on the tomato was virtually the same as
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the one taken directly from the shoe and the photo taken at the crime scene i was able to take those two overlays
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and put them over top of a photograph of the tomato itself and be able to illustrate that in fact that the pattern
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matched up on the tomato impression although the size of brown shoe and the tread pattern was the same as the shoe
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impression left at the crime scene there was no way to tell if this was the actual shoe
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the impression on the tomato could have been made by the left shoe of jim brown or it could have been made by another
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left shoe that had the same specific design and size since the shoes were prison issued
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they were unusual although not uncommon i feel that we need much more evidence to convict the person responsible for
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debbie timlock's senseless murder so they turned to the eyeglasses found at the crime scene
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dr graham strong a professor of optometry at waterloo university was asked to determine whether the crime
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scene glasses were the same as those worn by jim brown in a police mug shot taken several years earlier
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the problem we had with the mug shots is that they really weren't a frontal mug shot
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he was angled relative to the plane of the film to solve the problem dr strong mounted the glasses on a
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styrofoam head and tried to approximate the angle in the mug shots we didn't get it quite right it was
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compelling but it didn't rise to a level that was significant in our mind then
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dr strong enlarged the mug shot photographs and noticed something important [Music]
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tiny white dots reflections from the photographer's flash in brown's corneas
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you actually use the reflection from the front surface of the eye to make a very
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standard measurement when you make a pair of glasses namely the distance between the two eyes
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so that what you do is you measure the difference between the the reflection from the right eye to the left eye and
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that's the interpupillary distance from medical records dr strong knew that the distance between brown's pupils was
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72 millimeters so now he had a scale by which he could measure the exact size of
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the frames and the lenses for comparison to the glasses from the crime scene we're getting 20 odd identical
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measurements and observations related to the glasses so there's a bit of a eureka
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moment when that happens bottom line was the glasses in evidence belong to the accused and in fact were
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the ones that were worn in both of the mug shots that we analyzed we believe we have brown's glasses
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covered with blood in debbie's apartment but if that were true why were the frames in the mug shots
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gold and the frames analyzed by the expert brown after thousands of hours of police and
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forensic investigation prosecutors now knew what happened in debbie timlock's
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apartment on the night she was murdered it was a very warm night and the evidence shows that when debbie
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returned from an evening with friends she opened the kitchen window to help cool her apartment
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then she went to sleep [Music] it was a ground floor apartment the kitchen window was low the motive was
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unclear but the evidence shows james brown entered debbie's apartment and knocked the tomato off the
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windowsill then stepped on it leaving the impression of his prison shoes brown attacked debbie in the bedroom
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assaulted her stabbed her twice with a knife and left her for dead on his way out
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he dropped his glasses in the hallway debbie most likely paralyzed from the waist down from the stab wound crawled
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over those glasses on her way to call police she died before she could identify her attacker
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but her blood on brown's glasses did it for her i believe debbie died on the telephone
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knowing she had done her job i recall the day that dr strong came to our office in barrie like it was
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yesterday this was months after the initial investigation it was a piece of evidence that was
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individual and it truly was a high five yahoo moment because now we were able to speak for debbie tim
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lock yeah i was surprised at what they came up with so in involved it was it was so
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many um little clues to uh to have it together and put together a case the final hurdle for prosecutors was to
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explain why jim brown's glasses were gold in the mug shots but dark brown when shown to the jury a
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decision had been made by the investigators to deliver jim brown's glasses to him at
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the jail prior to doing that they wanted them cleaned of the blood that was on them
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the glasses were photographed in the studio they were then cleaned of the blood and in that process of cleaning the
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blood part of the laminate from the temples of the glasses was rubbed off in january of 1992
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two and a half years after debbie timlock was killed james brown went on trial for murder
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the trial lasted two and a half weeks and relied on the shoe print left on a tomato
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and mathematical calculations from the reflection of a flash bulb the jury deliberated for six hours and
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came back with a finding of first-degree murder in canada a first-degree murder conviction carries
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an automatic life sentence with no chance of parole for 25 years this case ranks among the most unusual
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in forensic history it was unique in fact to this day and i've i've been
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policing now for 28 years and 20 years in the forensic business i've never before or never again had an
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impression in a tomato it was amazing how dr strong based on a grainy mug shot of not great quality was able
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to determine all the nuances of these glasses and able to mathematically determine the chances of
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being another pair like that in this world when i first entered into the forensics field i attended coroner's
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court in toronto and there is a sign that is on their wall that says that we speak for
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the dead i've made that my motto over the last 20 years recognizing that that crime scene is now
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the voice for the dead [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] you