|
Commission
of Inquiry Into the Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard
(page two)
Honourable Mr. Justice Edward
P. MacCallum, Commissioner
 Commission
website
Pre-inquiry
publicity | 2004
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More
background
Inquiry probes memories
of Miller's roommate, neighbour
Betty
Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix, Wednesday, January 19, 2005
The Milgaard inquiry on Tuesday
delved into the minutiae of the 36-year-old investigation that
led to David Milgaard's wrongful conviction and 23-year imprisonment
for the 1969 rape and murder of nursing assistant Gail Miller.
Serial rapist Larry Fisher,
who committed other sexual assaults in the area around the same
time, was convicted of the crime in 1999, after DNA found on
Miller's underclothes matched Fisher and exonerated Milgaard.
On Tuesday, commission counsel
Doug Hodson called witnesses who seem peripheral to the case.
He explained in an interview that part of the commission's mandate
is to examine the conduct of the police investigators of the
day.
"We need to hear their
dealings because we are looking into the conduct of the investigation,"
Hodson said.
"If (witnesses) had observations
in 1969, we need to know what they were. All the parties are
entitled to have them come and be tested by cross-examination
and ask them about their dealings with the police and others
both in 1969 and subsequently," Hodson said.
Some witnesses will say they
remember things that were not included in the police statements,
Hodson said.
"There will be witnesses
who will say, 'I remember things differently from what I wrote
down or someone else wrote down,' or, 'I wasn't asked this question.'
"The interviews that were
done and testimony at other proceedings were for other purposes,
and different rules applied in the proceedings as to what was
relevant. The scope of our inquiry is broader than all the previous
reviews.
"Not . . . every witness
will have something new to say. But because it's a public inquiry,
I need to hear from them as to whether they do."
Four witnesses appeared Tuesday,
two who testified at Milgaard's 1970 trial and two at Fisher's
1999 trial. Hodson also read into the record the previously recorded
statements of three additional witnesses, who are now dead.
The commission heard Tuesday
that witness Maria Gallucci Trupej regularly caught the bus at
the same stop as a young woman, who she believes was Miller,
and a young man in a yellow construction hat, who later turned
out to be Fisher. Gallucci Trupej was not called to testify at
Milgaard's trial but was called to Fisher's.
Gallucci Trupej said she never
saw the pretty, young nurse after Jan. 30, 1969, but the construction
worker continued to catch the same bus most mornings.
Within days of the murder,
police spoke to Fisher at the bus stop, the commission has heard
previously. Fisher told police he had caught the bus the day
of the murder and was not questioned any further during the investigation,
which became focused on Milgaard.
The inquiry also heard from
Miller's friend and roommate, Betty Hundt Silverfox, who said
she was not aware of any other attacks on women in the area prior
to Miller's death. Nor was Hundt Silverfox aware that another
woman was attacked in the area the same morning as the murder.
Hundt Silverfox gave police
the names of several of Miller's male friends and acquaintances,
including a man Miller had dated the night before the murder.
Hundt Silverfox was not called to testify at Milgaard's trial.
Information about the inquiry,
including a witness list and transcripts of the hearings, is
available online at www.milgaardinquiry.ca.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Sask. inquiry into wrongful
murder conviction hears repeated testimony
Canadian Press, Tuesday,
January 18, 2005
SASKATOON (CP) -- The
second day of the inquiry into the wrongful murder conviction
of David Milgaard went into a slower gear Tuesday with testimony
from a roommate of slain nursing aide Gail Miller and a woman
who used to ride the same bus.
Miller's friend Betty Hundt
Silverfox testified she was not aware of any other attacks on
women in the area prior to her roommate's death, nor did she
know another woman was attacked the same morning as the murder.
Maria Gallucci Trupej told
the inquiry she used the same bus stop as Miller and a young
construction worker who turned out to be Larry Fisher, the man
who raped and fatally stabbed Miller on Jan. 31, 1969.
She said after that date, she
never saw Miller again but Fisher continued to catch the same
bus most mornings.
The commission has already
been told that within days of the murder, police spoke to Fisher
at the bus stop.
Fisher told the officers he
had caught the bus the day of the murder and was not questioned
any further during the investigation, which became focused on
Milgaard, a 16-year-old hippie who was passing through town.
Milgaard served 23 years in
jail for the crime until DNA evidence cleared him in the late
1990s and convicted Fisher, a serial rapist who had committed
other sexual assaults in the area around the same time.
Commission counsel Doug Hodson
said although Tuesday's witnesses might seem peripheral to the
case, part of the commission's mandate is to examine the conduct
of the police investigators of the day.
"We need to hear their
dealings because we are looking into the conduct of the investigation,''
Hodson said. "If (witnesses) had observations in 1969, we
need to know what they were.
"The scope of our inquiry
is broader than all the previous reviews. Not ... every witness
will have something new to say. But because it's a public inquiry,
I need to hear from them as to whether they do.''
The inquiry is expected to
last at least about a year. Before it's over, about 100 witnesses
will have testified and more than 300,000 documents will have
been examined.
© Canadian Press
Day
3
Witness's memory hazy
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, Thursday, January 20, 2005
The Milgaard inquiry on Wednesday
got a glimpse of killer Larry Fisher slipping through the net
of police investigators in the days just after Gail Miller's
1969 murder.
David Milgaard, who was a teenager
on a road trip, passed through the city that day. He was convicted
of the crime he didn't commit and spent 23 years in prison before
he was released in 1992. He was exonerated in 1997 with the help
of DNA evidence that was also used to link Fisher to the rape
and murder. The inquiry is looking into the 1969 investigation,
the prosecution and why it took so long for authorities to reopen
the case when new evidence surfaced.
After the discovery of Miller's
body in an alley near her Avenue O and 20th Street bus stop,
police were quick to identify bus driver John Husulak as a possible
source of information about people who knew Miller, the inquiry
heard Wednesday. Police tracked Husulak down at home on the evening
of Friday, Jan. 31, 1969, the same day as the murder.
Husulak, who testified Wednesday,
doesn't remember the details any more but was able to confirm
that his statements to police in 1969 would have been the truth
as he remembered it then.
Police records show that Husulak
told them about a fairly regular male passenger who often wore
a red hard hat when he boarded the Route 2 bus shortly before
7 a.m. on weekdays at Avenue O and 20th Street. Husulak knew
the hard hat man hadn't been on the bus that morning.
Other testimony has shown that
Larry Fisher wore a yellow hard hat with a red liner. He continued
to take that bus after the murder, another witness said earlier
this week.
The following Monday morning,
two plainclothes cops got on the bus, where Husulak pointed out
a different young man, Tony Humen, who regularly got on at the
same stop as Fisher and Miller. Miller's body had been found
down the alley from Humen's house on Avenue O, where he lived
with his two sisters and brother-in-law.
Humen said he was acquainted
with Miller because she had once sat beside him on the bus and
had introduced herself. Humen also knew who Larry Fisher was
because he'd seen him around, at a pool hall and at the Albany
Hotel bar.
Humen recalled Wednesday that
as a 21-year-old fresh off the farm, he had great respect for
the police and was scared when two officers took him off the
bus and questioned him about Miller's murder. They asked him
outright if he had killed Miller.
Humen denied it and said he
never wore a hard hat either. Humen did wear a red, peaked hunting
cap. He protested that his strict boss at the flour mill would
fire him if he were late, so the police drove him to work. Notes
made by a detective McCorriston on that Monday show that when
police told bus driver Husulak that Humen denied wearing a hard
hat, Husulak acknowledged he could have been mistaken.
Humen said the police questioned
him once or twice after that and he often saw them watching his
comings and goings from the house. They returned sometime later
to show him a knife blade and handle. Unbeknownst to Humen, police
had found the blade under Miller's body the day of the murder
and the handle had been found March 2 in a yard adjacent to the
place where the body was found.
Humen told the police he thought
it was a knife his sister had broken and thrown away. He told
the inquiry he assumed the police had found the knife pieces
in the garbage from his house.
He didn't hear from the police
any more after that, despite the apparently damning admission
about the knife. By that time, according to a chronology of events
provided at the inquiry, police in Regina had already arrested
Milgaard's travelling companion, Albert "Shorty" Cadrain.
During that week of Feb. 6,
while he was in jail on a vagrancy charge, Cadrain was questioned
by police about his movements in Saskatoon on the morning of
the murder.
The same day the knife handle
was found, March 2, Cadrain went to the Saskatoon police and
gave a statement implicating Milgaard, who was immediately apprehended
in Winnipeg and questioned about the murder.
The inquiry also heard Wednesday
from Syd Sargent, who says he vaguely knew who Miller was because
he'd met her somewhere socially. Two weeks after the murder,
he called police to say he thought he'd seen her standing on
20th Street a block from her bus stop on the morning of the murder.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Inquiry into wrongful
murder conviction hears more testimony
Canadian Press, January
20, 2005
SASKATOON (CP) -- A man who
says he and Gail Miller were watched as they returned from a
date the night before she was killed was never called to testify
at David Milgaard's murder trial.
Dennis Elliot told an inquiry
into Milgaard's wrongful conviction that he drove Miller home
from his 23rd birthday party around 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 30, 1969.
As they sat talking in his
car, Elliot made eye contact with the driver of a 1963 Pontiac
Parisienne that was parked across the street with its motor running.
Elliot said he commented on
the car to Miller because its side panel was damaged.
The 20-year-old nurse's aide
didn't seem to take much notice of the car or driver, he said.
The next morning, she was found
raped and stabbed to death in a back alley. Milgaard, a 16-year-old
hippie who was passing through town, was convicted of the slaying
and spent 23 years in prison before DNA evidence cleared him
of the crime.
The same evidence was ultimately
used in 1999 to convict Larry Fisher, a serial rapist, in Miller's
death.
Elliot testified that although
he did not mention the incident the first time he was interviewed
by police, he later phoned an officer and gave him a statement
about the car and its occupant.
Joanne McLean, lawyer for Milgaard's
mother, Joyce Milgaard, asked Elliot why the description he gave
police of the driver was followed by a statement that Elliot
had never seen Miller's boyfriend, Les Spence, until her funeral.
Elliot said the officer asked
him questions, he answered and the officer wrote down his responses.
Previous witnesses have said
Miller had an off-and-on relationship with Spence.
One of Miller's friends testified
that Miller told her Spence had slapped her quite hard.
The inquiry saw a police report
Thursday that noted that police checked Spence and determined
that he was at home at the time of Miller's death.
Tony Humen, who waited at the
same bus stop as Miller most mornings, has also testified that
a two-tone 1963 Pontiac had driven past the bus stop one evening
a few weeks earlier as he waited there, along with Miller.
The back seat passenger side
window was open and a male inside hollered something toward the
bus stop. The same car drove past again, a few minutes later
and the same person hollered again, Humen said.
The car and its locations do
not correspond with Milgaard's movements at those times. Neither
Humen nor Elliot were called to testify at Milgaard's trial and
neither was contacted by Milgaard's defence lawyer.
The inquiry is looking into
all aspects of the 1969 investigation, the prosecution of Milgaard
and why the case was not reopened sooner.
(Saskatoon StarPhoenix)
Inquiry prep work needs to be done
Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenix,
Thursday, January 20, 2005
If you think of the Milgaard
inquiry as a legal renovation, we're just at the stage of sanding
and priming. This prep work is not the most rewarding part of
the project, but it has to be done. Otherwise, the finished job
won't stand up to scrutiny.
All this is to say that the
inquiry's first three days of testimony have been less than electrifying,
but not necessarily unimportant. We don't know at this early
stage what's important. Better, then, not to miss anything now,
because it could look very bad later.
What has emerged, among other
things, after three days if testimony is a vignette of a vital,
bustling, west-side Saskatoon neighbourhood, even on a cold,
dark January morning in 1969. This was the area around 20th Street
and Avenue O. Now a welfare-class neighbourhood, it was working
class in 1969. All kinds of people were out and about around
7 a.m. when, not far away, Gail Miller was raped and murdered.
Unfortunately, what they all have in common is that none of them
knew until much later, when they were questioned by police, that
there had even been a crime.
That includes Murray Duffus,
then a potash miner who lived at 20th and O. Around the time
of the murder, he was outside, trying to coax his frozen car
into starting. What distinguishes Duffus and quite a few other
inquiry witnesses is that they are dead. Their witness statements
are being read into the record by inquiry counsel Doug Hodson.
To hear deceased-witness statements
read into the record is rarely the highlight of any legal proceeding.
This in no way diminishes the significance of the testimony.
In this case, for example, statements given by the late Mr. Duffus
revealed that Miller that morning probably did not make it as
far as her bus stop, right in front of the Duffus home. If she'd
been there, he'd have seen her, and he didn't.
What a witness didn't see is
often what matters. What's remarkable, however, is that a violent
rape and murder could have taken place with so many witnesses
around. Among the others heard from so far are an oil company
truck driver just beginning his route through the neighbourhood;
a woman who worked at a drycleaner's on 20th; the caretaker opening
St. Mary's Church; a neighbour who worked at The StarPhoenix
cafeteria, watching through the window for a cab; a flour mill
worker and a federal employee who often caught the same downtown
bus to work as Miller, at 20th and O.
Miller was probably walking
to that bus stop when she was dragged down an alley and murdered
by Larry Fisher, a violent serial rapist who then lived in the
neighbourhood. Quite a few of the inquiry witnesses testified
at Fisher's trial in 1999. Ironically, quite a few, testified,
too, at the 1970 murder trial when David Milgaard was wrongfully
convicted.
The inquiry also heard from
Miller's friends and roommates at a rooming house where she lived
on Avenue O, just off 21st Street. They were young, working singles
then, doing pretty much what young working singles do now. Their
testimony gave Miller a human dimension not always apparent in
musty police reports.
Everyone who knew her remarks
on how pretty was the 20-year-old nursing assistant. The exceptional
shininess of her black hair often comes up, too. By all accounts,
she was as easy to like as to look at. When she sat next to a
young man on a crowded bus, she introduced herself by name. He
still remembers it 36 years later.
Miller had a stormy relationship
with her sometimes-boyfriend. When she caught him kissing another
girl at a dance, she let him see her kissing another boy. Yet
another boy, a U of S student, promised to take her out more
often if she'd only dump the boyfriend. Sometimes, she'd go out
with other boys without telling him. But don't forget, this was
1969. Miller's girlfriends believed her to be a virgin.
On the last night of her life,
a Thursday, Miller was out partying with friends. She wore a
short-sleeve, fisherman-knit sweater under a siwash, brown slacks,
bobby socks and desert boots. At midnight, when others were going
home, she went with friends on a beer run at midnight to the
Windsor Hotel. She didn't get home until 2 a.m. Even so, she
was up and ready for work before 7 the next morning.
Why she never made it is not
for this inquiry to determine. That, we already know. Larry Fisher
killed her. Rather, the inquiry's mandate is to determine how
another man, Milgaard, came to serve 23 years in prison for Fisher's
monstrous crime.
This is a much more complicated
project. Thus the meticulous preparation.
les.macpherson@TheSP.com
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Day 4
- Miller's date never
testified
Friend saw car outside house night before murder
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, January 21, 2005
A man who dated Gail Miller
the night before she was murdered Jan. 31, 1969, was never called
to testify at David Milgaard's trial to tell about a man who
sat in a car watching Miller's house when she returned home that
night, the Milgaard inquiry heard Thursday.
Milgaard was convicted of Miller's
rape and murder and spent 23 years in prison before the Supreme
Court ordered his release in 1992. DNA evidence was used to exonerate
him in 1997 and to convict serial rapist Larry Fisher of the
crime in 1999.
The inquiry is looking into
all aspects of the 1969 investigation, the prosecution of Milgaard
and why the case was not reopened sooner.
Dennis Elliot told the inquiry
Thursday that he drove Miller home from his 23rd birthday party
around 1:30 a.m. Jan. 30, 1969, and that they sat talking in
his car for 15 to 45 minutes before he walked her to her door.
As they sat in his car, Elliot
made eye contact with the driver of a 1963 Pontiac Parisienne
that was parked across the street with its motor running. Elliot
said he commented on the car to Miller because its side panel
was damaged. Miller didn't seem to take much notice of the car
or driver, he said.
Elliot did not mention the
car the first time he spoke to police on the day of the murder.
He said he remembered the car the next day. He phoned the police
to tell them about it and later gave a statement that was written
down by an officer.
In the Feb. 6 written statement,
Elliot described the driver as being 5-foot-10 and weighing 160
pounds.
Milgaard's lawyer, Hersh Wolsh,
challenged that detail of the statement, suggesting it was not
reliable since Elliot said the man never got out of the car.
Elliot agreed.
Joanne McLean, lawyer for Milgaard's
mother, Joyce Milgaard, asked Elliot why the description of the
driver was followed by a statement that Elliot had never seen
Miller's boyfriend, Les Spence, until her funeral. Elliot said
the officer asked him questions, he answered and the officer
wrote down his responses.
Previous witnesses have said
Miller had an on and off relationship with Spence. One of Miller's
girlfriends testified that Miller told her Spence had slapped
her quite hard.
The inquiry saw a police report
Thursday which noted that police checked Spence and determined
that he was at home between 11 p.m. Jan. 30 and 11 a.m. Jan.
31.
A previous witness, who waited
at the same bus stop as Miller most mornings, has also mentioned
a two-tone 1963 Pontiac. Tony Humen told the inquiry such a car
had driven past the bus stop one evening a few weeks earlier
as he waited there, along with Miller. The back seat passenger
side window was open and a male inside hollered something toward
the bus stop. The same car drove past again, a few minutes later
and the same person hollered again.
The car and its locations do
not accord with Milgaard's movements at those times.
Neither Humen nor Elliot were
called to testify at Milgaard's trial and neither was contacted
by Milgaard's defence lawyer.
The inquiry also heard from
former Westwood Funeral Home employee, Terry Michayliuk. An eight-year-old
girl, who had discovered Miller's body at 8:30 a.m. in the alley
near the funeral home, had come to the business to get an adult
to come and see. Michayliuk called the police and covered the
body with a blanket.
Two men, who were also eight
at the time, testified Thursday about their separate finds of
items which later became evidence at Milgaard's trial.
On March 2, 1969, Rick Hounjet
was playing in his back yard, behind which Miller's body had
been found a month earlier. He kicked the snow and a beet-red,
plastic knife handle flew out. The blade had been broken from
the knife.
Police had found a blade, later
matched to the handle, under Miller's body.
A month after Hounjet's find,
on April 2, his classmate, Giles Beauchamp, was kicking the snow
bank beside the sidewalk across from St. Mary's School on Avenue
O when he uncovered a brown leather, folding wallet.
The discovery was three doors
down from the house of Milgaard's friend, Albert Cadrain. Fisher
lived in a basement suite at the same house.
Beauchamp checked for money
in the wallet. He didn't find any but tossed away two pieces
of orange paper, which later turned out to be Miller's hospitalization
card. Beauchamp stashed the wallet under the school's rink shack.
Later, he returned for it and took it to his friend's house.
His friend's mother looked at the identification still inside
and realized who it belonged to. She called the police.
The inquiry will not sit today
and will resume on Monday.
Transcripts and documents of
the inquiry are posted on the Internet at www.milgaardinquiry.ca.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Murky memories explored
at Milgaard inquiry
Les MacPherson, The
StarPhoenix, Tuesday, January 25, 2005
The Milgaard Inquiry took a
strange detour Monday into the murky realm of human memory.
A seemingly simple thing like
who found a wallet and where is now in question. This even though
the wallet's location appears not to be terribly relevant. Sharply
divergent memories on this seemingly minor issue do not bode
well for resolution of the really contentious issues yet to come.
The inquiry is looking into
the wrongful conviction of David Milgaard for the 1969 murder
of nursing assistant Gail Miller. Serial rapist Larry Fisher
was eventually identified as the real killer and convicted on
the strength of DNA evidence, but not before Milgaard had served
23 years in jail.
Among the witnesses to testify
at the inquiry so far are two Saskatoon men who both claim to
have found Miller's stolen wallet where it was presumably discarded
by her killer. Neither has any apparent reason to tell other
than the truth. Both seem entirely sincere. And yet their stories
could hardly be more divergent. One or both witnesses must be
wrong. Not just a little wrong. Totally wrong. And yet they both
appear to be trying their level best to tell the truth.
Now middle-age men, they were
just schoolboys in 1969. Norman Remenda was 12, Giles Beauchamp,
eight. Both lived just blocks from where Miller was killed.
Beauchamp's testimony, then
and now, was that he found the wallet in a snowbank on Avenue
O, between 20th and 21st Streets, while walking to a friend's
place. While he walked, he kicked at the snow, as eight-year-old
boys still do. That's when he kicked up the wallet. He later
gave the wallet to a neighbour who called the police.
This is more or less the version
supported by contemporary police statements. However, Beauchamp
revealed to the inquiry last week that he had not told the whole
story. In fact, before he turned in the wallet, he'd stashed
it for a time under the skating shack at St. Mary's school. The
wallet contained papers identifying Miller, but Beauchamp did
not at first connect it with the murder.
Remenda, however, claims it
was he who found the wallet while playing shinny on the St. Mary's
hockey rink. He testified that he was looking for a puck he'd
shot over the boards when the wallet turned up. The location
was a few houses away from where Beauchamp claimed to have found
the wallet. This does not now appear significant. But at this
early stage, what is significant is not always clear.
Remenda told the inquiry that
he gave the wallet to Beauchamp's mother, who called police.
When police arrived, he was sent home, leaving Beauchamp to get
the credit. Remenda says he's long been troubled by official
acceptance of an inaccurate version of events, but he didn't
think it mattered. Thus, he did not try setting the record straight
at Milgaard's trial, or again, years later, at Fisher's trial.
Only last Friday did he finally come forward.
What does it all mean?
Probably not much, except to
draw attention to the fallibility of 36-year-old childhood memories.
Documentary evidence is much more reliable. As the ancient Chinese
proverb reminds us, the palest ink lasts longer than the best
memory.
Other testimony Monday was
from people who saw Milgaard in the minutes and hours after the
murder. He was not exactly keeping the low profile you'd expect
of an escaping murderer. Rather, he and his companions were blundering
around the unfamiliar neighbourhood, looking for a friend's house.
They stopped at a hotel where Milgaard asked for a map. They
stopped to help push a stuck car. They got stuck themselves.
They got a tow. They went to a service station to have their
car repaired. Milgaard was thus seen at close range soon after
the murder by at least half a dozen people.
What's interesting is what
these witnesses didn't see. None among them noticed blood on
Milgaard's clothes. He'd supposedly stabbed a woman to death,
but all these people who saw him noticed nothing special about
his clothes. Milgaard's companions, however, after repeated police
interviews, would eventually say that they saw blood on his clothes.
This contradictory evidence
is not so easily explained away by murky memories.
les.macpherson@TheSP.com
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
- Milgaard inquiry
hears conflicting testimony
Woman claims
to have found body of Gail Miller
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
January 26, 2005
The Milgaard Inquiry on Tuesday
heard the puzzling testimony of a woman who believes she, not
Mary Marcoux, found the body of murdered nursing assistant Gail
Miller on the morning of Jan. 31, 1969.
It also heard video testimony
from a couple who met David Milgaard that morning when their
car got stuck in the alley behind their house, five blocks from
the place where Miller's body was found.
Linda Duffus, who testified
in person Tuesday, was in the fifth grade at the time of the
crime for which David Milgaard was wrongfully convicted and spent
23 years in prison.
Duffus believes she also was
present at an important moment in the investigation, that she
had key information about evidence that was not brought out until
a 1993 RCMP investigation into the original Saskatoon police
investigation and that she was the first person to make a public
statement about the finding of the body.
Duffus is the second witness
at the inquiry to say she or he had a previously unrecognized
role in events, but whose recollections are not borne out by
records of the day. On Monday, Norman Remenda recalled that it
was he, not his younger schoolmate Giles Beauchamp, who found
Miller's wallet two months after the murder.
Police statements from witnesses
in 1969 show Marcoux and Beauchamp were the children who found
the body and the wallet respectively and brought their findings
to the attention of adults. Marcoux and Beauchamp testified at
Milgaard's trial in 1970.
Duffus told the inquiry that
she regularly walked to school with a boy named Matthew Hnatiuk
and that she was on her way to his house when she found a woman's
body in the alley between the 200 blocks of Avenues N and O South.
Duffus said she thought it was a woman who sometimes got drunk
and fell asleep in the snow. She didn't realize the woman was
dead.
Duffus said it was she, not
Marcoux, who was standing looking at the body when Hnatiuk came
out of his back yard that morning. She recalls telling Hnatiuk
to get his mother and that Mrs. Hnatiuk came out and told the
children to hurry off to school.
Duffus told her class during
that morning's current affairs discussion that she had found
the woman in the snow bank.
A few days after the murder,
Duffus went back to the alley where she saw a tent police had
placed over the spot where the body had laid. As she watched,
a police officer bent down and picked up a small blade, which
she thought was a knife. The officer turned away from her and
showed his find to another police officer, she said.
Duffus also recalls that she
was friends with Rita Cadrain, whose brother, Albert "Shorty"
Cadrain, was a friend of Milgaard's and a key witness against
him at his trial. Duffus said that within about a week of the
murder, she was in Rita's unfinished basement bedroom when Rita
told her she had found bloody clothing on her bed.
Duffus said Rita told her the
clothes belonged to her older brother's friend, who had stayed
overnight in her bed. Duffus said it gave Rita the creeps to
think that guy had slept in her bed.
Duffus gave her first statement
about her memories to the RCMP in 1993. She did not talk to police
about her information before then, she said. Duffus said she
assumed Milgaard committed the crime because she knew about the
bloody clothes.
Duffus's story appears not
to accord with the known fact that Larry Fisher and his wife
at the time, Linda Fisher, lived in a basement suite at the Cadrain
house at the time of the murder.
The inquiry has not heard what
the layout of the Cadrain basement was, or if Milgaard spent
a night in Saskatoon.
The Duffus family lived on
20th Street near the Avenue O bus stop. Linda Duffus's father
was Murray Duffus, now deceased. His statements from 1969 and
1993 were read into the record last week.
He told police in 1969 that
he was trying to start his car that cold morning. He didn't see
anything noteworthy at the bus stop that day, though he recalled
other mornings having seen a woman wearing the white stockings
of a nurse waiting there.
Earlier Tuesday, the inquiry
watched the videotaped statements of a couple who encountered
Milgaard and his friends in the hours just after Miller was murdered.
Sandra and Walter Danchuk said
they didn't notice blood on the clothing of Milgaard, who was
polite and talkative. The couple were interviewed in Nanaimo,
B.C., where they now live.
The couple were leaving for
work when they got stuck in the alley behind their residence
on the 100 block of Avenue T South.
A car pulled up behind them
and immediately began trying to push the Danchuk car but, instead,
the other car got stuck too, Sandra Danchuk said. The two young
fellows and one teenage girl came to wait for a tow truck in
the stairwell outside the Danchuk's basement suite. Milgaard
came down to the suite to ask for a glass of water. While there,
he complimented Danchuk on their nice home.
The comment stuck with Danchuk,
who, as an 18-year-old newlywed, was pleased that he had noticed
her efforts. She didn't notice anything unusual about Milgaard's
clothing and did not see blood on him or his clothes.
In the years since then, Danchuk
has found herself with a thought that Milgaard might have had
a nosebleed before he came to their house, but she doesn't know
why she has that idea.
Danchuk testified at Milgaard's
preliminary hearing and his trial. She spoke with Milgaard's
mother, Joyce Milgaard years later, gave an interview to the
CBC's Fifth Estate program and answered RCMP questions in 1993
about the 1969 event.
Her husband, Walter Danchuk,
didn't see blood on Milgaard either. Later that morning he gave
the Milgaard group a ride to a service station in his car which
had white leatherette upholstery. He has wondered why if the
police thought Milgaard had fresh blood on his pants which might
have smeared on the upholstery, they never asked to look at his
car during the investigation.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Conflicting
stories heard at Milgaard inquiry
CBC News, Jan 26, 2005
SASKATOON The passage
of time is causing some problems at the inquiry into the wrongful
conviction of David Milgaard.
So far, the inquiry that began
Jan. 17 has heard from many of the people who had contact with
Milgaard the day of Gail Miller's 1969 murder.
Milgaard spent 23 years in
prison for a crime he didn't commit. Larry Fisher was eventually
convicted of Miller's murder.
The inquiry is supposed to
find out how the system failed.
But 36 years after Miller's
death, it's becoming apparent that some memories have faded.
This week two different men
swore they found Miller's wallet. Two different women claimed
they found Miller's body.
The inquiry is expected to
call experts on memory at some point.
Other testimony has been more
straightforward.
On Tuesday, the inquiry heard
from Sandra and Wally Danchuk. They were a young couple who got
their car stuck in an alley right in front of the car Milgaard
was in.
Both talked about helping the
three teens get help, allowing them into their suite to keep
warm. The Danchuks also talked at length about how polite David
MIlgaard was.
What the testimony of all the
people who had contact with Milgaard that day in 1969 has in
common is that no one noticed any blood on Milgaard.
Wally Danchuk said after all
these years he still wonders why police didn't look harder for
blood.
"They kept asking about
the blood on his clothes. Well, the interior of the car was all-white
leatherette and that was never brought up," Danchuk said.
"If he did have blood...you'd
see something on it."
Meanwhile, the attention turns
Wednesday to the pathologist who examined Miller's body and whose
findings helped convict Milgaard.
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