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GameChanger [Music] [Applause] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks
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enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:28
crime [Music] ly Harper was a 12-year-old girl who disappeared on June 9th 1959 from the rcaf station in Clinton
00:03:41
Ontario now two days after her disappearance Lynn's body was recovered on a farm it was discovered that Lynn
00:03:48
had been raped and strangled with her blouse now on June 12th we have 14-year-old Steven triscott he's taken
00:03:57
into custody because he's last reported to have seen Lynn Harper he tells the police that he sees her getting into a
00:04:05
car they don't believe him and then on June 13th he is charged with her murder now I kind of want to underline all of
00:04:14
that just think about how fast things are happening here right so less than 48 hours after her body is found we have a
00:04:22
14-year-old who was arrested and charged with first deegree murder mhm so very fast
00:04:31
investigation maybe uh understatement or maybe no investigating at all is would be the
00:04:39
question there um on September 16th of that same year Steven Truscott his trial began and then on September 30th the
00:04:48
jury returned a verdict of guilty let's go through Steven's accounts of the events one more time he picked up Lynn
00:04:55
on his bike at the school they went at her request right she asked for a ride he said sure I'm going that way anyways
00:05:03
they ride down the road they pass the bush that's what we call it then they pass the bridge then he drops her off at
00:05:11
the stop sign at State Route 8 and then he heads back to the bridge turns around
00:05:16
sees her getting into a vehicle uh maybe a Chevrolet right yeah a Chevy late model or 1959 Chevy possibly a Bel Air
00:05:27
gray in color a lot of Chrome right and something orange on the back we don't know if it was a license plate or not
00:05:35
and then he heads back to the base and then he ends up babysitting that night uh within within an hour right he is out
00:05:43
of that area so that's his story yeah he's sticking with it even though he is now charged he is now in prison he is
00:05:52
now waiting to the death penalty but he's going to be hung that's that's a that's the worst death penalty I think
00:06:01
or your head being chopped off I well let's not get into that debate I think that's a whole another show in itself um
00:06:09
but the thing here is Captain not only do we have a very small very short and fast
00:06:15
investigation we have what I would say is a very fast trial as well he he's brought to trial on the 16th of
00:06:22
September and he's gets a guilty verdict on the 30th of September this was supposed to be a controversial ual trial
00:06:30
this was supposed to be a big deal because we have a 14-year-old a minor who is charged with first-degree murder
00:06:37
and oh yeah that's a death penalty case this was supposed to be a big deal I'm surprised that the that the trial was so
00:06:45
fast um now when the jury did return with the verdict of guilty they did have a recommendation for Mercy um to the
00:06:53
judge the judge however sentenced trus Scott to death uh to hang as you had said I don't I don't think we need to
00:07:01
look into this and and and judge what kind of Judge this is and whether he did the right thing or the wrong thing I
00:07:08
think here we have a situation where we have a certain type of crime was committed and there's a certain penalty
00:07:15
for that type of crime and so I think even though that there was a recommendation of Mercy um that just
00:07:22
being he's a 14-year-old boy and that's hard to sentence that person to death um
00:07:27
I think we have a judge just putting into place what is supposed to happen in these type of Trials it would eventually
00:07:34
be overturned and this would be commuted to a life sentence instead of the verdict to hang well cuz he was actually
00:07:41
supposed to die pretty quickly yeah it wasn't like you know here or and also this is again the 50s so it was like you
00:07:51
know within months they were going to you know uh take out his sentence but uh that was quickly overturned yeah yeah we
00:07:59
thought Texas executed people quickly this was supposed to be very a very fast execution uh thank God it was it was
00:08:07
commuted to a life sentence um there there would be another trial okay um and a big part of this was
00:08:17
there was an A U author that wrote a good book called The Trial of Steven Truscott and in this in this book the
00:08:24
author basically takes his side and says that he's wrongfully convicted mhm so this is going to lead to um people
00:08:32
looking at his case again and we're going to learn some things that we weren't told in the first trial and I
00:08:40
think you're going to be able to see how we have a jury that comes out and and comes back with a guilty verdict because
00:08:47
there were certain things they didn't hear uh the the first and I think which is the most important is the time of
00:08:54
death and we discussed that regarding the stomach contents of Lyn Harper it was discussed that she had her last meal
00:09:01
around 5:45 p.m. she goes missing and the jury is told that her stomach should have emptied within 2 hours of that last
00:09:10
meal well it couldn't empty within 2 hours because she was killed before that time had elapsed yeah put in the time
00:09:18
period between 7:15 and 7:45 which makes Steven triscott look very guilty because he's admittedly with
00:09:26
her during that approximate time mhm so he he's most likely our guy if you go off of that now one thing that we end up
00:09:34
learning here is that that same doctor had submitted several reports regarding this and regarding the time of death and
00:09:43
those earlier reports that he was submitting had a much bigger window of time you know he's stating she died
00:09:52
sometime between 7 7:45 7:15 7:45 that's a very precise amount of time mm the earlier Reports say that she died
00:10:01
sometime between 7 and about 700 a.m. the following morning so a 12-h hour window yeah well
00:10:09
cuz what happened with the trials once they put such a you know exact time period you know 715 to
00:10:17
7:45 the scientist Community comes out and says hey that that's not how this uh test do you know and you can't have a
00:10:26
you can't pinpoint it that accurate so he actually went back and did the test again still put in the time of death
00:10:33
between 7:15 and 7:45 but also in in uh parenthesis stating or possibly within 12 hours of that right so again this is
00:10:45
now you're you have a big gap and and remember though we have eyewitness reports stating a odd vehicle in the
00:10:53
bush later that night yes way past 8:00 yeah so the the theory is that Steven attacked her killed her and left her in
00:11:02
the bush but then was able to return and be back with other people by 8:00 p.m. no visible signs of injury on him and we
00:11:12
when we have these other reports when we start to look into this we have some some reports that would come out many
00:11:19
years later regarding the insects and the things that take place on a body as it's decaying there is there is a
00:11:27
scientist stating that she firmly believes she says she gives it a 95% 95% chance of accuracy that Len Harper was
00:11:37
killed after Sundown and killed sometime before Sun up uh based on what she sees
00:11:45
with these insects and their activity on the body there is somebody else that states that she would have been killed
00:11:51
before Sundown so I don't know that that gets us anywhere um but we have several
00:11:56
different reports pointing towards the possibility that she was killed at a later time mhm Okay and like the captain
00:12:03
said the big problem with that is well there was a vehicle spotted on the lawon property and this is a a dark colored uh
00:12:12
52 uh Ford convertible they found tire tracks in that area as well this wasn't investigated this
00:12:21
vehicle was not investigated and I'll tell you why it wasn't reported to the police until after they had already
00:12:29
zeroed in on Steven triscott MH by this point they had already interrogated him for hours probably had already charged
00:12:36
him by the time they hear about this vehicle we don't need that information because guess what we've already got our
00:12:43
guy our guy has no access to a vehicle right so that that doesn't mean anything to our investigation well a big problem
00:12:49
with this investigation it happened so quickly you know the charge happen so quickly then you have whatever evidence
00:12:56
now we have one you know we have evidence coming in of we saw this vehicle well we're not going to
00:13:01
investigate that because that has nothing to do with our guy or our Theory so that's one piece of evidence but I'm
00:13:07
guessing normally in murder cases there's hundreds of uh leads so how many leads came in after the arrest and and
00:13:16
pushed aside you know pushed aside because we already got our guy we're we're building a trial here now we're
00:13:22
we're not working on an investigation anymore we got our guy and I think what we have here Captain I think that we
00:13:29
have an investigation where I think it quickly circled in on this 14-year-old and if he is your Prime Suspect I think
00:13:35
these investigators thought you know what it's only a matter of time before we get that confession we I believe they
00:13:41
thought he was guilty and I think they thought it's only a matter of time because he's a kid he'll eventually
00:13:46
confess and then boom we got our trial we're all done with this thing what other stuff was not not worked on as
00:13:52
part as part of this investigation one thing that I found very strange was many years after the fact
00:13:59
their teacher came out and now keep in mind this was a split level class this teacher taught both of them even the day
00:14:06
of her disappearance mhm it's very rare I think that you have a situation where somebody knows a victim and knows the
00:14:15
person that's supposed to have committed the crime and this teacher says he was never interviewed the police asked him
00:14:21
no questions at all that seems seems a little hurried and a little strange to me yeah but this is a typical case of a
00:14:28
investigation having blinders on creating a theory and then trying to make that theory stick MH you know this
00:14:35
is uh you know this is error 101 right this is the number one error that these in investigators make the first thing to
00:14:43
do is yeah if you do have a theory then let's prove that theory wrong right and I think if they would have done that
00:14:50
they would have found that their theory was proven wrong pretty quickly mhm yep you you speculate as to what you think
00:14:56
happened then you have to go find the evidence to back up that speculation and lead you to the correct person to the
00:15:03
correct suspect uh here they circled in on the suspect first well on the time frame is really difficult because if
00:15:11
this crime happened today it'd be pretty simple let's run DNA test and we'll know
00:15:16
the answer within days right and I kind of want to back up what we were talking about earlier regarding the stomach
00:15:23
contents and the reason why I believe that the earlier reports of what the doctor saying is probably more accurate
00:15:30
than the later report where he really zeros in on that that short 45 minutes saying this is your time of death is
00:15:37
that you can see that the doctor was kind of tailoring his report his later report to what the investigators had
00:15:46
learned during their short investigation because in the early reports he states that the stomach contents may have
00:15:53
contained meat he doesn't say they did contain meat or they didn't contain meat he says may have in the later report he
00:16:02
says that the stomach contents contained turkey well where did he get this information this came from questioning
00:16:10
her parents what did she eat for her last meal oh around 5:45 that night she finished dinner we had turkey for dinner
00:16:18
right again boom all of a sudden turkeyy is in the report right yeah this is this
00:16:22
is ridiculous and not to mention that every eyewitness that goes along with your theory there's one that contradicts
00:16:29
it or several that contradict it m so my big thing here is they have evidence that she put up a fight right right and
00:16:39
there's no marks on Steven so therefore he didn't do it to me that's all you need that's all you need that's you know
00:16:45
all this other stuff doesn't matter to me if you know cuz you know unless you're going to tell me that you're
00:16:52
theory is that Steven and somebody else attacked her mhm then where's the marks on on his body right it doesn't make any
00:17:01
sense well ultimately Steven triscott he would end up getting out of prison he would end up serving a 10-year sentence
00:17:08
and then he would be placed on parole uh there's a bit of a weird situation here
00:17:12
where I guess the warden uh at the prison at some point became a parole officer and Steven triscott went to live
00:17:19
with the former Warden uh his current parole officer lived with him and his family um so which I think shows you
00:17:26
something about Steven's character yeah um you know we have somebody that watched over him in prison feeling like
00:17:32
it's safe enough to bring him around his his family yeah and stepen actually you
00:17:37
know uh 14 I think to 18 was in one prison and then he actually was moved he was transferred a couple times
00:17:46
that's correct there was a lot of concern that you know we have a I mean he he went into prison at 14 yeah like
00:17:54
you know this could be bad for him some some people get in the system and they never can get out well so let's let's
00:18:01
keep that in mind because they're not saying that he's innocent but he's he's not serving the sentence that he was
00:18:08
supposed to serve if he was guilty of first-degree murder right can we agree on that he's serves 10 years and then
00:18:14
he's paroled that that seems like a big jump from a death sentence or a life sentence so you had mentioned you know
00:18:21
what other leads or possible suspects would have been uh ignored let's say and this is something that I found
00:18:29
interesting because you know this was from the Ontario Court of Appeals many years later these were arguments that
00:18:36
were made before the Ontario Court of Appeals M um so the defense maintained that once the Ontario police officers
00:18:45
locked in their sights on triscott back in June of 1959 that the investigation like you and I had said stopped indiff
00:18:53
indifference took over and seemingly obvious leads were ignored including cluding previously undisclosed
00:19:00
information pointing to other suspects now unfortunately in this report that we have here these suspects are not named
00:19:07
in the court documents because they have not been charged with anything but these
00:19:11
individuals include a convicted pedophile stationed at the rcaf base at Clinton at the time of Lyn Harper's
00:19:19
death the opp learned about him in 1997 after being contacted by a retired London Ontario Police police detective
00:19:29
who felt that this man was capable of murdering a child the man had pled guilty to sexual offenses and possession
00:19:36
of child pornography in the late 1980s when the police searched his house in connection with those offenses they
00:19:43
found an 8 volume transcript of truscott's hearing before The Supreme Court of Canada from 1966 to
00:19:51
1967 interesting also mentioned in this is an Airman who had been stationed at Clinton Prior to 19 1959 he was
00:19:59
stationed at alimer at the time of the murder but had a home in Sea forth uh which is close to the base which he
00:20:07
visited frequently close to C5 yeah uh between c3d and C5 you're correct he was identified later by the
00:20:16
CBC uh This Is The Fifth Estate show uh identified him as sergeant Alexander smelly pants no sorry uh Sergeant
00:20:25
Alexander kichuk and I say close yes very close we'll get to kichuk here in a minute cuz we have more information on
00:20:32
him uh also mentioned in this report we have a former salesman who drove a 1957 Chevy and apparently called at the
00:20:40
Clinton base frequently the man came to the police attention after he tried to break into a home of a retired op
00:20:47
detective this is Barry Ru who shot him with the pellet gun and then began his own investigation in a report to the op
00:20:56
rule concluded that the the man could be a potential suspect in several murders including Lynn Harper um this case the
00:21:05
cases that he mentions have common characteristics all the victims well a lot of them are are listed as
00:21:11
hitchhiking victims um and their bodies or clothes were dumped in what what were
00:21:16
considered lovers Lanes yeah why I wonder where they the clothes folded that's a good question we'll get we'll
00:21:23
get back to that too because we have some information on this salesman as well also mentioned we have a convicted
00:21:29
rapist who lived in Sea forth at the time of the murder and worked on the Clinton base as an electrician at least
00:21:37
one day a week the man who was convicted in 1948 he had spent 3 and A2 years in prison and had been to the Harper home
00:21:45
this is very strange MH okay so we have he's convicted his convicted rapist who had
00:21:52
been to the Harper home before the murder to rep well he was there to repair a clothes dryer he was an
00:21:59
electrician yeah well there there's a connection you know I I believe a lot of times these people know that you know
00:22:06
know they're attacker I I'm with you there and again if she's getting into a vehicle not pulled in a vehicle remember
00:22:13
there was no report of a struggle but did she know that individual was it somebody she had seen before somebody
00:22:20
she knew and trusted she like you said seemed to have willingly gotten to the vehicle yeah and if this sick piece of
00:22:28
[ __ ] was in her house uh fixing a dryer you know he probably would remember her
00:22:32
name mhm Caesar walking past Drives By hey hey you need a ride somewhere Lyn do you need a ride yeah want me to take you
00:22:41
back to your house yeah pretty easy um also mention in here we have a minister uh who is an accused sexual offender we
00:22:50
got we have to say accused um he lived in a village just north of the Clinton base uh he had been accused of sexual
00:22:58
assault by his grown daughters years later well he's real sicko but one claims that when he was when she was 6
00:23:06
years old she hid in her father's car and remained there when he took it out for a drive at some point on this drive
00:23:15
he stopped on a gravel road and opened up the trunk moments later she claims that she saw him carrying the limp body
00:23:23
of a girl towards a grassy treed area Jes where he spent about a half an hour uh before returning to the car alone
00:23:32
right now but some of these leads and stuff are coming out way after investigation yeah so I mean to be fair
00:23:39
to the investigators you're exactly right and and you know what uh you know those are all very strange situations
00:23:46
but I've just come across a maybe even a more strange one because I have in my notes here um read through the suspect
00:23:53
descriptions and then ask the captain which ones jump off off the page um they they all maybe they could jump off the
00:24:02
page and ride into prison well look I mean you have to you have to like the suspect that actually worked at the
00:24:08
school and worked at the family's house that that's a big worked at the base and
00:24:15
then there was one that worked at their house yes because those are obvious connections mhm that that's you know
00:24:22
that the attacker would have known the victim and but all these scenario iOS to me sound a lot better than
00:24:31
Steven yeah they do but the problem that I keep coming back to with this whole case is that it's very strange to me
00:24:41
let's say that Steph is completely innocent let's say that his story is correct that he dropped her off at the
00:24:47
at County Line or at the County Road Highway 8 and she was picked up by a vehicle it it doesn't it seem weird to
00:24:56
you captain that that whoever picked her up and then ultimately ended up doing this to her that she ends up back very
00:25:04
close to where she's p i mean extremely close to where she's picked up from with
00:25:09
within a mile within a half a mile maybe even a quarter of a mile from where she
00:25:13
was picked up from right so are you saying that that's strange and that points to Stephen I'm saying that it's
00:25:20
strange in the sense that it it it would it would Point me away from her getting
00:25:24
into a car I'll say that um it doesn't to me the well the only reason why because all the eyewitnesses all the
00:25:32
eyewitnesses that saw them right or didn't see them or stepen it comes back you can't Overlook the the big biggest
00:25:42
piece of evidence to me is that they know that she put up a fight and I don't know exactly what that evidence is but
00:25:51
I'm guessing blood on her hands uh you know F maybe broken fingernails from clawing at somebody I'm not really for
00:25:58
sure but they know for a fact that her attacker would have marks on them and Steven did not mhm so again it's it's
00:26:08
too small of a window um he was doing a nice thing for somebody you know you need a ride I I'll take you in chances
00:26:16
are that Lynn you know being the younger girl maybe she had a little bit of a crush on Steven and that's why she asked
00:26:23
Steven for a ride and not to walk with somebody else mhm and and this this older boy gives her a ride on the bike
00:26:31
and drops her off and several people see it but again no marks on this boy right
00:26:38
I'm I'm not saying Stephen by posing this question I'm not saying Stephen what I'm saying though it
00:26:44
seems very strange to me that she would have gotten into a car abducted by the driver of that car raped and killed and
00:26:51
placed in a location that's almost the exact same location that she's picked up from well I believe that within a very
00:26:58
short amount of time I I'm thinking I you know going off the top of my head here all the cases we've covered all the
00:27:05
cases we've read about that we've see on the internet how many can you think of where
00:27:10
a child is abducted and then the body's found almost in the same location as the
00:27:17
abduction it just it's got to be close to zero right I mean I I I can't think can can you think of any no just not not
00:27:26
off the top of my head but look you pick up an individual you know the motivation
00:27:32
here is sexual right obvious and I believe this happened like I said somewhere else and then in the process
00:27:39
of looking for a place to dump the body you know this person might not have known the area super well mhm and just
00:27:47
drove around to find a spot mhm and oh well oh here we go I can pull off here you know and then they dump the body but
00:27:57
to me I'm like I'm saying I'm just saying it's a percentage thing I'm not saying it's impossible I'm not saying
00:28:02
that it didn't happen but what I am saying is out of all the cases that that we've reviewed and all the cases I've
00:28:07
looked at over the years I it's hard for me to think of that same situation taking place right but what I'm also
00:28:15
what I'm saying though is that the person the murderer right did not might not have known that they're dropping the
00:28:23
body off so close to where they picked the person up at is what I'm saying have they would have no clue that they're
00:28:29
returning to damn near the same place to to drop off something they picked up I'm
00:28:33
saying there's a possibility they might not have known okay I'll give you that what I'm saying I'll give you that but
00:28:39
you know off the top of my head there's the only a couple situations that I can think of where where this was even a
00:28:45
possibility and you know one would be the deli case that we covered but there's a big question if those girls
00:28:51
were even removed from that wooded area and then returned yeah but look I I don't think that matters I I just think
00:28:59
I find it strange oh and here maybe here's another situation I think the Oakland County child killer I think one
00:29:05
of those victims was returned to roughly the same area but they were held for days um I I'm just pointing out here
00:29:12
that it's it's strange to me that to to believe that she got into a vehicle drove away somewhere for hours and then
00:29:20
was returned to the same location I I'm not saying it's impossible I get what you're saying but I think we can agree
00:29:27
that it does seem it's an oddity yeah I guess anyways there's a lot more to get to right after this
00:29:35
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today you can do this when you Angie [Music] that all right Cheers Cheers mates cheers all right so we have a suspect
00:31:53
here in Lin Harper's murder who stands out and this is that Alexander cajic and the reason why he stands out and the
00:32:01
reason why we bring him up is he is somebody that a lot of people involved in this investigation or close to this
00:32:08
investigation back in 1959 believe that he should have been somebody on their radar he should have been somebody he
00:32:16
should have been a concern for them and a piece of this investigation and it doesn't appear that he was so let's go
00:32:23
over who kich is he was born in 1923 uh he was uh part of the Royal Canadian Air Force he was a sergeant uh who lived
00:32:33
and worked in the area at the time of the murder now Sergeant kichk was known to be a heavy drinker um and from the
00:32:41
stories I told or been told uh heavy drinker might be an understatement he's heavier than than us
00:32:51
times four yeah well he's basically if you take what I drink and what you drink and times that by four there that's what
00:32:58
I meant yeah so he's a heavy drinker with previous convictions for sexual offenses some involving young girls MH
00:33:07
now like we said he served in the air force during World War II um but he returned to civilian life in 1945 in
00:33:16
1950 uh he re-enrolled at the in the rcaf and was originally posted at the station in Trenton but soon afterwards
00:33:25
he was transferred to the station in Clinton now we know this from our case you know this is close to our case here
00:33:33
he served as a supply technician until 1955 but in 1957 he was transferred to another station now this is located
00:33:42
about an hour away from Clinton however kich made frequent trips back to Clinton
00:33:48
where Lyn's Harper where ly Harper's father was the senior Supply officer well there's your you know connection
00:33:55
there yeah good possible connection but we also have this situation that takes place about 3 week 3 weeks before ly
00:34:02
Harper's murder kich was arrested and charged by the Ontario Police for attempting to lure three young girls
00:34:09
into his car outside of St Thomas Ontario the charge was dismissed shortly afterward um but the judge gave kich a
00:34:19
warning regarding his behavior basically the way this thing went down is he sees
00:34:24
three girls walking on the side of the street he pulls up to them opens up the car door he's trying to lure one if not
00:34:31
two or three of them into his car um there's different reports on what he was using to as a ruse one is saying you
00:34:39
know uh possibly new clothes or new underwear yeah when they said the new underwear I thought yeah that seems like
00:34:47
a strange thing to offer somebody to get in a car you want some new underwear yeah like anytime you hear that run for
00:34:55
your life well I guess there's hey come in the garage want some new underwear nah I guess there's lack of sufficient
00:35:04
evidence because like we said the charge is eventually dismissed but the judge gives him a Stern warning the warning uh
00:35:11
goes something like this hey I know what you're up to I know that you were what you were trying to trick those little
00:35:17
girls into your car we're going to be watching you kind of thing that's the kind of warning he got yeah well they
00:35:23
should have said hey look with this underwear stuff right no more no more you don't even look at little girls and
00:35:33
if you do no new underwear for you for the rest of your life or we're going to hang you you sick son of a [ __ ] well
00:35:43
here's a reason why cich should have been on their radar for for reasons already stated but more importantly for
00:35:49
this one uh in the early part of June in 1959 we have kichuk probation officer advises is the Air Force officials of
00:35:59
another incident of indecent exposure involving kichuk in the town of SE forth not far from the Clinton base now on
00:36:08
July 2nd just 3 weeks after the murder of ly Harper kichuk was hospitalized due to overwhelming anxiety tension
00:36:17
depression and guilt um according to the rcaf documents but this is after the charges are dropped right right but but
00:36:27
he's he's experiencing this overwhelming Ani anxiety this tension depression and
00:36:33
guilt 3 weeks after the murder of Lyn Harper right that's my point is that a lot of people would assume well he was
00:36:40
charged with this but they dropped the charges so he shouldn't have anxiety over that is what I'm stating yeah that
00:36:46
that's no longer on his mind right the other thing that I think to me is like bingo bango
00:36:53
Boingo is that this idiot sold his car mhm and and again I think if you look at um everybody that heard this story Lyn
00:37:04
Harper's story they also heard about Steven's story and Steven's accounts and Steven claiming that he saw a car and
00:37:14
that he saw an orange thing on the car M and I think that spooked him and that's
00:37:20
why he got rid of the car I also believe like I said that the crime took place at
00:37:24
least the sexual crime took place place somewhere else and I believe that vot was probably the car do we have a rough
00:37:31
description of that car that he sold uh I actually could not find that okay but but it is mentioned that he
00:37:39
sold his car after her death right okay that's that's very interesting in itself
00:37:45
now kichuk drank himself to death in 1975 uh his final days were spent in a psychiatric hospital in Ontario yeah it
00:37:54
just seems like this whole case you know is law enforcement investigators putting
00:38:00
their blinders on going after Stephen not following leads you know I I don't know if it was ever reported if uh kich
00:38:09
was um investigated at all well you're right it's never been confirmed that the Ontario Police ever investigated him
00:38:16
regarding the murder of Lynn Harper now I want to bring up somebody and we shift
00:38:21
gears here a little bit Captain we'll bring up somebody his name is Barry Ru uh he's a retired op Sergeant uh he says
00:38:29
that a traveling salesman uh should be a suspect in a string of unsolved murders
00:38:34
he also believes that he knows the identity of the person who killed Lynn Harper in June of 1959 Ru is the author
00:38:42
of a book called a viable suspect Ru said he first met who he believes is Lynn Harper's murderer um who he calls
00:38:51
Larry talbet uh although that's not the suspect's real name uh Talbot's not you know he's not been convicted of any of
00:38:59
these things a lot of fictitious names in True Crime he's got he's got family members out there and we have an author
00:39:05
who's accusing him of multiple murders so choosing to use a different name um he says that he met talbet during a
00:39:14
robbery um but it's a bit more complicated than that it's it's reported as a robbery I've heard uh Barry Ru
00:39:21
story on this of how this robbery went down and sounds like a good recommended reading uh yeah I want to take you
00:39:27
through this this story a little bit so Barry R uh his his now wife her name is Pat um at this time they weren't lovely
00:39:37
name they weren't living together um Pat had a cottage and Barry had a place elsewhere but anyway one night they have
00:39:45
dinner they have drinks and Barry decides to stay over that's the night that the breaking happens he's sleeping
00:39:53
he hears a loud disturbing noise he gets up out of bed only to find a masked man with a gun
00:40:01
inside this Cottage okay now so Barry exited the bedroom and and confronted this MK man in another room well the
00:40:10
first thing that the guy wearing the mask says to Barry where's the bride or bring out the bride something something
00:40:18
of that nature so he says you know let's leave her out of this you know go ahead
00:40:24
you can I can give you my wallet what ever let's leave her out of this he says no bring her out here he's got a gun you
00:40:31
got to do what he's saying so he calls for Pat Pat comes out of the bedroom MH he tells the burglar tells Pat to lift
00:40:41
up her night gown expose herself MH um you know Barry pleads with this guy let's again let's not get her involved
00:40:50
in this he insists so she lifts up the night gown eventually what what ends up taking place is that he that Barry and
00:40:59
Pat are robbed he takes some money from them and at some point Barry he's a he's
00:41:06
a he's a police officer at some point he must have realized that this burglar does not have a real gun he has a pellet
00:41:13
gun so he starts calling the burglars the the bluff here because because this guy's threatening them and he's asking
00:41:21
them to do things that they don't want to do I mean pet guns hurt but I mean you can take one you take a couple so at
00:41:28
some point Barry recognizes this to be a pellet gun and he starts to challenge the man that's broken into the home and
00:41:34
he says you know what I don't think you're going to shoot us I don't think you're going to shoot us at all I like
00:41:39
this guy I like the cut of his jib that's right nice jib the thing here is now the mass man he gets scared of Barry
00:41:47
and he flees the house well Barry is a police officer he he sets out on Chase and he's chasing after this dude while
00:41:55
he's chasing the dude the dude turns around and shoots Barry in the chest with the pellet gun mhm Barry fights
00:42:02
through this he tackles this man and let me put it how can I put this politely does he say to him now lift up your
00:42:11
skirt for me boy no to put it politely he beats the crap out of the guy all right very good right I don't think this
00:42:19
guy was out to rob the place and I tell you why and Barry doesn't either because
00:42:24
of things that they found on this guy after he's arrested okay he had four sets of shoelaces in his
00:42:34
pockets okay inside the guy's car they found they found his car parked nearby he had left the keys on the wheel and
00:42:43
inside the car were his shoes and his underwear so this burglar had was wearing gloves and a mask mhm carrying a
00:42:53
flashlight a gun he had a knife on on him he had four sets of shoelaces he had removed his shoes so he could be quiet
00:43:02
and also probably not to leave Footprints and he had removed his underwear as well possibly for some kind
00:43:10
of fast situation if you need to be fast with your pants I think he I like Barry think that
00:43:18
this man was there to to rape Pat to tie her up and who knows possibly kill her mhm but because because this guy is
00:43:30
somewhat of a sophisticated criminal when caught in the act he's able to turn it into a burglary I was just there to
00:43:35
rob you guys anyway this is how this guy this Larry Tolbert guy becomes known to
00:43:41
Barry rule yeah the problem I have with this and and feel free to give me the evidence to say that I'm wrong but he's
00:43:49
breaking in to possibly rape uh older lady well they weren't old at the time they
00:43:59
were they were in their early 20s right but in the 50s that's a older lady okay right well it's older than our
00:44:07
victim that we're talking about Len Harper cor right that's what I'm saying so I'm just saying that it doesn't that
00:44:14
part doesn't fit for me well Barry rule believes this Larry talber is guilty of multiple or well let's say this to put
00:44:22
it more accurately he says he should be a a lead suspect in several unsolved murders that took place over a span of
00:44:30
years in this area now one of them one of these such cases was the murder of a Oakville woman um this is Pauline Dudley
00:44:40
um she was age 17 her body was found and located by a farmer working in his Fields um this was in Oakville in August
00:44:50
of 1973 she was 17 years old um the thing here is the car that tber owned at the time was
00:44:59
spotted not far from where Dudley's body was found and when police located him they searched his car well they found
00:45:08
Blood on the on the headrest and hair on the floor along with other items in the
00:45:14
trunk well here's what they found in the trunk they found a wooden dildo cream a
00:45:20
knife two flashlights brown sheets a short sleeve shirt and inside the pockets of the short sleeve shirt were
00:45:28
surgical gloves they bring him in because of these strange items that they find in his vehicle that's spotted near
00:45:35
the body MH of this unsolved murder and when they bring him in he fails several polygraph
00:45:43
tests long story short Talbert was never charged for Pauline Dudley's murder it was one of those situations captain that
00:45:53
we've talked about plenty of times on this show where we have a group of police and we have a group of detectives
00:46:00
who say we know who did this we're we're absolutely convinced we know who did this we got nothing on the guy we got no
00:46:07
evidence so yeah we have no evidence and we're not going to make it up thank you
00:46:13
that's what they're basically saying we know that they did it how does this but we can't prove it and we do and we're
00:46:21
refusing to man to manufacture yeah well how does this bring us back to the murder of young Lyn
00:46:29
Harper well I think part of that you brought up something interesting was that you know ly Harper was a young
00:46:35
victim 12 years old I think this Pauline Dudley thing shows that that this person
00:46:42
is might be capable of committing murder against a younger girl uh I know 17's different than 12 I get it um but here's
00:46:51
the big thing um Barry rule list a number of reasons a number number of connections but the one that that stands
00:46:58
out the most is including the similarity between culbert his Talbert's car at the
00:47:04
time and the one that Steven Truscott said he saw now Truscott said that he saw 1959 Chevy possibly Belair on the
00:47:14
evening that Len Harper went missing and we have Tolbert who has a 1957 Chevy mhm so we have a similar
00:47:24
vehicle there's one problem here though uh the vehicle that tolber owned at the time was a turquoise blue now according
00:47:32
to Barry rule we have a situation where she probably disappeared if she got into
00:47:37
that car she disappeared around 7:30 7:45 Sunset was at 9:06 that night um so Barry would tell us that there's a
00:47:48
chance that with that sun and at that angle in the distance that we have Steven trescott from the car that he had
00:47:55
may have thought he was seeing a gray car right one thing that they share the similarity of is they both have a lot of
00:48:03
Chrome on them he did say he saw a lot of chrome now we have this Larry tulbert why would he be in the area he's a
00:48:11
traveling salesman what does he sell um hopes and dreams no I don't I I don't know what he sells murder I don't know
00:48:21
what he sold but I do know this that we have Barry rule uh the retired op Sergeant he likes he likes Talbert for
00:48:31
several murders he believes he should be investigated and looked at in several cases um all of these were ones that he
00:48:38
was able to go back in time and he was able to confirm that Tolbert would have been in the area or near that area when
00:48:46
a murder was committed well maybe he sold shoelaces and underwear I don't I don't think he was a shoelace salesman
00:48:55
or maybe maybe wooden dildos but you know Barry Ru points out something interesting here you know what better
00:49:01
job for a uh serial killer to have than a traveling salesman you know you you could commit a murder on Tuesday in one
00:49:10
town and you could be hours and hours away by Wednesday or Thursday mhm you know and if nobody saw you if nobody
00:49:17
spotted you maybe they don't have things to connect you to the crime I'm going to
00:49:21
go with this Captain it's a little bit of a stretch it's a leap I'm going to say a leap but he should have been
00:49:26
investigated but we could just make the argument that the case should have been investigated period yeah and I mean
00:49:33
Barry rule list several other cases that he would like to see this uh Larry Talbert um uh investigated for um I'm
00:49:43
not going to go into all of them um because like I said it it's a bit of a leap and we're here to discuss the ly
00:49:49
Harper case but it's certainly an interesting leap and one that I'm willing to take I hopefully have to pick
00:49:55
Pi up his book at some point I did not get a chance to read the book itself but I did see um an interesting presentation
00:50:02
that he did regarding his suspect all right well let's get back to LY Harper's case and and so what are our final
00:50:09
conclusions on this ly Harper case cuz we had a you know a kid sentence then released now he's out mhm uh it's just
00:50:19
seems like even after they let him out they didn't really investigate this case no it's it's it's similar to the West
00:50:26
Memphis 3 case where you have somebody that ends up not serving the appropriate sentence for the crime that they're
00:50:32
convicted of and later they're released and then you just say uh yeah uh we can't we're not really going to go back
00:50:40
and investigate this even though now it looks like we never found the guilty party yeah it's sad too because you know
00:50:46
in this case it's even harder though because the amount of time that's passed the the um primitive investigative tools
00:50:54
that we would have been using back in 1959 well they actually uh went to test Steven so they could get answers mhm uh
00:51:01
DNA test but when they went back through the DNA evidence that they collected at
00:51:06
the time it was all damaged uh so they couldn't actually do the test and he was willing to take the
00:51:13
test yeah I think I think again shows another sign of his character that's definitely a check mark on the Steven
00:51:19
trust side uh that he did not commit this murder um what are what are my thoughts and opinions it's tough for me
00:51:27
Captain because like I said it's it's that one hour of time that there seems to be so many questions in differing um
00:51:36
opinions as to what happened by eyewitnesses during that one hour of time it's very tough it's very confusing
00:51:43
I do like that we have um in Steven trescott favor I like that he spotted a vehicle um and then later we have Barry
00:51:53
rule coming out saying hey I have a suspect that has a similar vehicle right I like that in his favor what I don't
00:51:59
like is that you give me a license plate number and that's not a legit number it
00:52:04
doesn't work yeah I think that whole part of the story is fictitious I don't think he saw a license plate I think he
00:52:10
might have I'm hoping that he's innocent because I I I like to and I know it does
00:52:15
happen but I don't want to believe that this kid was killed by another kid um I think maybe he was scared into
00:52:23
giving that license plate number the problem that have too with the license plate is me personally if I see a
00:52:30
situation go down to the point where I'm going to make a mental note not only of
00:52:34
the description of the vehicle but a mental note of the license plate number then guess what it's not going to take
00:52:41
me till police come to me to ask me what happened to LY Harper I'm going to be going to other people and saying look
00:52:49
this could be nothing but I was with Lyn Harper she's only 12 and I saw her get into this car and here's the license
00:52:55
plate number I think something weird happened right I mean to to take special not I drive past a thousand cars every
00:53:03
day I never I never make note of the license plate number right but again this case is all about the small little
00:53:10
things that don't really matter MH until a tragic event actually happens and to me this is very much like a butterfly
00:53:18
effect case you know if if Steven wasn't so nice to give her a ride that maybe she wouldn't have been on state rout 8
00:53:28
at the time that there was a uh somebody traveling in that area to pick her up right that could have done this
00:53:35
crime um if somebody saw him if the DNA evidence um didn't get destroyed there's
00:53:45
all these little tiny things that if they happened we would have had to answer the and then the big butterfly
00:53:51
effect in this case that we haven't really talked about much but you you have a country that sentenced a boy
00:53:58
that's 14 years old for a crime that I believe he didn't commit he sentenced to be hung within months of being tried mhm
00:54:07
when you didn't even spend months on the investigation and this was such a black
00:54:12
eye on um the Canadian justice system that they got rid of the death penalty all together right and uh Stephen was
00:54:22
one of the main reasons for that it was a good wakeup call for them yeah so this case to me is all these
00:54:27
little you know Butterfly Effects if Steph didn't or what if uh you know heck what if Stephen and Lynn actually went
00:54:38
into the bush to make out for a little bit maybe this doesn't happen there's all these little tiny things that maybe
00:54:44
could have stopped this tragic event but it's a really fascinating story this is
00:54:48
one like you know as we're researching in it like the the first day of researching it I I really got into it
00:54:54
and trying to break down all the different points of the eyewitness uh testifying and all that stuff and what's
00:55:00
really interesting too is you know Stephen went by a different name for so many years now him and his wife actually
00:55:07
have become experts on this case and they can break down all the testimony all the eyewitness accounts that
00:55:13
contradict what the investigators have and again rule number one don't create your
00:55:20
own Theory and if you do create your own Theory spin as much as you much time trying to prove it or trying to disprove
00:55:28
it as you do trying to prove it yeah and I think for me you know we talk about all these tiny little
00:55:35
moments for me too one thing that I come back to that makes me believe Stephen is
00:55:42
innocent and underlines that for me is what what exactly were Lyn Harper's intentions that evening that we don't
00:55:51
know we've heard stories that she wanted to go see the ponies or that she wanted
00:55:55
a ride up to Highway 8 for some reason she if she wants to see the pony she doesn't accept the ride all the way
00:56:03
there what was that argument about that night was she planning to walk away or run away from home and got picked up by
00:56:12
the wrong person and that's why she wanted Steven to drop her off rather than take her all the way to The
00:56:18
Farmhouse you know I I if if we knew her actual intentions I think that would give us a better Direction better sense
00:56:26
of direction as to stev intentions and I maybe and I'm I'm with you Captain I think they're we got a
00:56:35
couple people that see him on the bridge we got a couple people that see them cross the bridge that lines up with
00:56:41
Steven's story that makes that that makes that very precise small little time window even smaller all right so do
00:56:49
we have a recommended reading for this week yes this week we are recommending a question of evidence the case book of
00:56:56
great forensic controversies by Colin Evans um scientific sleuthing and slip-ups in investigations of 15 famous
00:57:06
cases ranging from the suspicious death of Napoleon to the murder cases of Dr Sam The Fugitive Shepherd and OJ Simpson
00:57:15
a question of evidence takes readers inside some of the most vexing forensic controversies of all time in each case
00:57:22
Colin Evans lays out the conflicting medical and scientific evidence much like we saw in the Lyn Harper case and
00:57:29
Steven trescott case today all right thank you to you Captain thank you to everybody out there and remember we you
00:57:37
don't have much time we have a pre-order of the douche canoe shirts so you want to go to True Crime garage.com click on
00:57:43
the store Page and and get your douche canoe shirt I don't want somebody saying 6 months from now oh I wish I would have
00:57:50
got one like too late I'm not you know too late yep all right that's enough for this week thank you to everybody out
00:57:57
there we will see you back in the garage next week until then be good be kind and
00:58:01
please pretty pretty please don't Litter or we'll kill [Music] [Applause] you [Music]
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