|
Atif/Rafay
| Wilf Hathway
| Brian Hutchinson's investigative
report on scenario stings | Jean
Paul Aubee | Australia
use of RCMP tricks | Christine
LePage |
Gordon Strowbridge
Another "scenario"
sting
Stings rarely serve the
public interest
The type of sting used to get
Gordon Strowbridge to confess to killing Marie Dupe in Cape Breton
would not be allowed in the U.S. Australia cops are studying
it. Al Haslett has been promoting it, claiming that using the
Big Boss or some other scenario, the cops can get anyone to confess.
Around the same time I was
looking into these stings last fall, I happened to catch a segment
on A&E's Cold Case files about a sting in Ontario. The RCMP
claimed to have linked Gordon Strowbridge to the murder through
DNA extracted from a cigarette butt found in the spring after
the snow had melted. They traced Strowbridge to Ontario and then
spent THREE MONTHS enticing him into a criminal organization.
They lured him with promises of huge sums of money, some of which
he was allowed to count. They bought him new clothes, flattered
him and showed him the extravagent life he could expect if he
was allowed into their ranks. To accomplish this he must pass
some tests. He has to have committed a murder, an initiation
requirement for this organization which is so cool they do not
even speak its top dog's name.
They then arranged for him
to meet the Big Boss.
The scene in a luxurious Toronto
hotel where Strowbridge finally meets the OPP officer posing
as the crime boss is the only scene shown on the segment. Bill
Curtis' voice-over tells us he confessed. The OPP, like the Mounties
have once again got their man.
Often, we will hear that a
culprit has confessed and that this confession is valid because
he "revealed details of the crime that only the perpetrator
would know."
So they say. What they do not
say, and what we know is that in the three or six or however
many months leading up to the actual "sting" the cops
have been operating in complete secrecy and that they cleverly
feed details of the crime to the target. The target is usually
broke and often in a vulnerable mental state.
This is clearly the case with
Gordon Strowbridge.
The Supreme Court has told
us that it is legl for police to lie, or use "ruses"
as long as they do not commit actions which "offend community
standards." Corruptible officers have taken this as a green
light to do anything they please. This includes lying to "suspects,"
lying to the media -- and lying to the court.
If they have evidence, there
is no reason to sting someone for a confession. If they do not,
then they are running amok, spending hundreds of thousands of
dollars on elaborate stings which may or may not be catching
criminals. They have won the right to lie and lost their credibility.
The successful convictions
they claim to have made with scenario stings are successes for
them. For us, they are a crapshoot. Flip a coin.
Mr. Officer, now when were
you telling a lie and when were you telling the truth?--Sheila
Steele, March 20, 2005
Gordon Strowbridge: How
much did the RCMP spend to "sting" him?
From A&E
Case #2: THE "MR.
BIG" STING
Marie Lorraine Dupe's first night shift working at the local
Big Ben convenience store turns out to be her last. She is found
inside the shop bleeding and barely alive the night of March
21, 1992. Outside one of Cape Breton's fiercest blizzards blows.
Police battle the snow and respond to the scene, but Dupe dies
within the hour. Witnesses tell detectives about a suspicious
young man seen in the store, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Cigarette butts in the store's ashtray are taken into evidence.
But with DNA still in its infancy and no other solid leads, the
case goes cold.
In 2001, police enter a DNA
profile extracted from the cigarettes into Canada's DNA database
and get a hit: Ernest Gordon Strowbridge. While the cigarettes
place him at the scene in the store, it does not prove murder.
To prove that police plan an elaborate sting operation that gets
the killer talking about a snowy night of murder.
From CBC
In 1992, Marie Dupe was
brutally stabbed to death while working an all-night shift at
a convenience store in Sydney, N.S. Despite an intensive investigation
involving 1100 interviews and 230 suspects, the case stayed cold
for 10 years. But advances in DNA technology later matched a
cigarette butt found at the crime scene to the stranger drinking
coffee at a table in the store the night of the murder. It took
an undercover operation in Ontario and a police interrogation
to close the case. The show features tapes of the sting and the
confession by Ernest Gordon Strowbridge, who was 17 years old
when he stabbed Dupe 40 times. It features an exclusive interview
with Strowbridge, now serving seven years in prison after pleading
guilty to second-degree murder, and interviews with the detective
and undercover policeman who succeeded in getting a confession
from Strowbridge. (orig. aired on The Docket Mar. 11)
The Cold Case Files
Scene Re-enactors
I'm somewhat addicted to
the various FBI and crime-solving/forensic science shows that
are frequently aired by A&E and The Discovery Channel.
(To be clear, the crime "dramas" like CSI do
NOT count. I only watch the real stuff...like that makes it any
less trashy.) The Cold Case Files, hosted by former Chicago-based
news anchor, Bill Kurtis, is filled with all the murder, suspense
and mustachioed po-lice from Florida's backwoods swampland that
one can hope for. In order for the audience to grasp the true
barbarity of the crimes in question, A&E conveniently
recreates the events that shape each murder. The casting agents
for A&E have to hire actors that resemble the psychotic
hillbilly serial killers, their victims, the friends and family
members and/or the police investigators involved in each case.
These actors never get any lines and there are usually three
scenarios: the murder, the reaction and the paper shuffling.
The killer's role usually calls for him to simulate a bludgeoning
with a hammer or a slow-motion throat throttling. Meanwhile,
the wife/husband/child/jogger must react in an appropriately
horrified manner when they find the body sprawled on the bed,
dumped by the highway or under a loose pile of leaves in the
park. The police actors sit at desks, point at chalkboards and
practice looking stern while interrogating the suspect. Sometimes
they play with their mustaches.
Casting agent: What kind of past experience do you have
that would make me want to hire you?
Actor: Well, I played the murderer Ernest Gordon Strowbridge
in "The "Mr. Big" Sting" episode.
Casting Agent: And what did that entail?
Actor: I smoked the cigarettes that allowed police
to trace his DNA back to the crime scene.
Casting Agent: As you know, the role we're offering
today involves a rigorous reenactment of multiple stab wounds
to the chest with a hunting knife. How do you feel about that?
Actor: I feel great about it.
Casting Agent: Good. I've got a feeling about you...don't
let me down.
Actor: Don't worry. All those years at Julliard
won't disappoint.
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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