|
Commission
of Inquiry Into the Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard
(page 3)
Honourable Mr. Justice Edward
P. MacCallum, Commissioner | Commission
website
Pre-inquiry
publicity | 2004
| Day 1 | Day
2 | Lockyer
shows similarities with Guy Paul Morin investigation | Profile
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it on the blog | Sigrid
MacDonald's blogspot
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Pathologists shouldn't
take sides, expert says
CBC Jan 28, 2005
SASKATOON - One of Canada's
most experienced pathologists says people in his profession should
be taken out of the adversarial system in criminal cases..
Dr. Harry Emson, a pathologist
in Saskatoon with 50 years of experience, was testifying for
the second day at the inquiry into the wrongful conviction of
David Milgaard.
Milgaard spent 23 years behind
bars for the 1969 murder of Gail Miller. It was Emson who conducted
the autopsy on Miller and he admitted earlier in the week that
some mistakes were made.
On Thursday, Emson told the
commission of inquiry that pathologists should not be in the
position of appearing either for the Crown or defence in criminal
cases.
That's the way the system works
now. In murder trials, it's common to have one or more pathologists
testify as a Crown witness and a different pathologist testify
for the defence.
Too often, he said, pathologists
are seen as being either too close to the Crown or, alternatively,
as hired guns who will testify for money.
Emson said taking pathologists
out of the adversarial system and having them give evidence as
"friends of the court" would serve everyone better.
Emson said it is possible for people to be convicted based on
mistakes on the part of pathologists.
He said a national panel of
respected pathologists and medical examiners should be set up
to provide expertise to the courts about what is often very complicated
scientific evidence.
"In cases where there
is a need for an additional opinion or in cases where there are
problems with pathology evidence these people could be called
in as an impartial bank of judges," he said.
The Milgaard inquiry wrapped
up its second week of testimony on Thursday. It will take next
week off.
When the hearings resume, the
commission will hear from the people who originally accused Milgaard
of Miller's murder.
- Miller's body may have
been dumped: pathologist
- Doctor didn't press
point with investigators in 1969
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
January 27, 2005
The pathologist who did the
1969 autopsy on Gail Miller's body told the Milgaard Inquiry
Wednesday that from the start he thought it unlikely the sexual
assault on the woman occurred outdoors on such a cold morning.
Dr. Harry Emson said he thought
Miller might have been sexually assaulted elsewhere and her body
dumped in the alley, but he didn't press the point with police
or prosecutors because he didn't have access to all the information
they had.
Emson said he didn't know the
Crown case against the then-16-year-old David Milgaard required
the assault to have happened outside, at the place where the
body was found.
Emson said Miller had superficial
slashes on her throat and neck, which were consistent with having
been inflicted by a right-handed person. Those slashes, by themselves,
were not serious enough to have killed her, he said.
Miller was also stabbed five
times on her left front chest, several times on her right back
and once on the right side. It was the wound on her side, which
punctured her right lung, causing it to fill with blood, that
was the main cause of her death, Emson said.
Lying in the snow in bitter
-40 C conditions, and the shock of the assault itself, probably
also contributed to Miller's death, Emson said. The cold alone
could cause death to a non-moving, semi-dressed person in 15
minutes.
When Miller's body was found
in the alley near her rooming house, her underpants and stockings
were pulled down around her ankles, one boot was missing and
the top of her nurse's assistant uniform was bunched down by
her waist.
Her arms had been removed from
the sleeves of the uniform, but she was wearing her black cloth
coat. She had been stabbed through the coat.
Emson also said that if he
was performing the autopsy today, he would not throw away the
semen he removed from Miller's body.
James Lockyer, the lawyer representing
the Association In Defence of the Wrongfully Convicted, said
during a sometimes testy cross-examination of Emson that the
semen sample could have been used by the RCMP lab in Regina to
cast doubt on Milgaard as the person who sexually assaulted Miller.
Milgaard spent 23 years in
prison for Miller's murder before he was released in 1992 at
the direction of the Supreme Court.
DNA evidence exonerated him
in 1997 and was used to convict serial rapist Larry Fisher in
1999.
The commission of inquiry is
looking into the original death investigation, the prosecution
of Milgaard and why it took so long for the case to be reopened
after new information about the case came to light.
Commissioner Justice Edward
MacCallum spent all day Wednesday hearing testimony from Emson,
who said the decision to discard the semenal fluid would have
been a collaborative one between him and the two police officers,
Joe Penkala and Thor Kleiv, who were present at the autopsy.
Emson said that he didn't think
there was any other use for the fluid sample after he determined
it contained sperm, thus proving Miller had intercourse within
the previous eight to 12 hours.
"I can only assume we
discussed if there was a further use for the specimen. We were
not aware there was another use," Emson said.
Lockyer said that in the days
before DNA matching, laboratories trying to identify a sexual
assailant could examine certain characteristics of the protein
in semen to rule out some people with different characteristics.
A few days after the murder, analysts at the RCMP lab in Regina
examined Miller's underpants to see if there was any semen they
could use for such a test, Lockyer said.
Emson said he wasn't aware
of that. He now believes all evidence should be kept because
there is no way to know whether it might become useful in the
future.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
- Justice system on trial:
lawyer
- Impartial body may
help prevent wrongful convictions
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
Friday, January 28, 2005
Canada's criminal justice process
needs independent oversight and access to independent experts
to prevent wrongful convictions in the future, a defence lawyer
and a pathologist said Thursday at the Milgaard Inquiry.
"The problem that occurs
in so many cases, is there is no objective assessment about information
collected," said criminal defence lawyer Brian Beresh, who
represents convicted killer Larry Fisher at the inquiry.
The commission of inquiry is
looking into the 1969 Saskatoon police investigation into the
sexual assault and murder of nursing assistant Gail Miller, the
prosecution which led to the wrongful conviction of David Milgaard
and whether the case should have been reopened based on new information
received by justice officials.
Milgaard spent 23 years in
prison before he was released in 1992 at the direction of the
Supreme Court. DNA was used to exonerate him in 1997 and to convict
Fisher of the crime in 1999.
Beresh thinks 90 per cent of
wrongful convictions could be prevented if the justice system
included a review of major crime files by an impartial body not
affiliated with police or Crown prosecutors.
"That would add a screen
to the process that presently doesn't exist," Beresh said.
Because police have the job
of enforcing the law and are under pressure to solve major crimes,
they take, "a certain approach or view of the evidence collected,"
he said.
Each province could have an
independent review body comprised of one or more people with
knowledge of the criminal justice system, who would make sure
the investigation had been done properly, without bias and that
expert evidence was properly reviewed before the file was sent
to prosecutors, Beresh said.
"The prosecutor then gets
what would be a clear case. It would reduce the chance of wrongful
conviction, in my view, by 90 per cent," Beresh said.
The review could be done in
the normal course of things and wouldn't have to prolong the
process, he said.
Beresh included "bad pathology"
in a category of "junk science" on a list of the causes
of wrongful convictions. He also included inadequate investigations,
tunnel vision by investigators, malicious prosecution, dishonest
witnesses, reliance on informants who stand to gain by their
testimony, mistaken identification, false confessions and lack
of experience in the system itself.
Dr. Harry Emson, the pathologist
who did the autopsy on Miller, agreed with the idea of independent
review as it applies to pathologists who testify as expert witnesses.
Emson would like to see a panel
of accepted experts available to review the pathology evidence
being used in criminal prosecutions, especially when the interpretation
of clinical findings are controversial and could lead to a wrongful
conviction.
Such a panel would provide
a type of quality check on forensic pathological evidence which
is especially important for small population provinces, which
have fewer experts.
Experts on the panel might
be chief medical examiners from provinces that have them or other
people with established reputations, he said.
"In cases where there
is a need for additional opinion, or where there was serious
difficulty with the pathology evidence at trial, these people
could be called in as an impartial bank of judges.
"I would like to move
toward some form of independent expert for the court, particularly
in those cases where there is conflict of evidence or difficulty
in interpreting it," he said.
Emson does not think Saskatchewan
needs to move from the present coroner system to the medical
examiner system and can't afford it either, he said.
A medical examiner system relies
more heavily on scientific and medical expertise than Saskatchewan's
coroner system, in which only seven or eight of the 160 coroners
are physicians.
Saskatchewan is one of six
provinces in Canada that still use the coroner system, which
began hundreds of years ago in England. Under that system, physicians
or lay persons can be appointed as coroners, whose job is to
determine the cause and manner of sudden, unexpected and violent
deaths.
They must investigate death
scenes, determine necessity for autopsy by pathologist, obtain
additional investigative information from witnesses, law enforcement,
the medical profession and others to interpret the information
to make those determinations.
The appointment of a new chief
coroner in Saskatchewan last year, "seems to indicate that
the provincial government is not moving toward a medical examiner
system," he said, but he thinks the chief coroner will make
changes to strengthen Saskatchewan's "forensic pathology
capability."
That will require collaboration
between the departments of justice and health, he said.
Up until now, the justice department
has expected the health department to supply pathologists for
use by the justice system, but it now needs pathologists with
increasingly specialized knowledge in forensics.
Emson would like to see the
province hire two forensic pathologists for Regina and two for
Saskatoon, who would work within the coroner system.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Milgaard likely suspect
in 1969 murder
Les MacPherson, The StarPhoenix,
February 08, 2005
Innocent though he was, David
Milgaard was in many respects a likely suspect for the 1969 murder
of Gail Miller. But there were serious problems, too, with the
case against him.
The inquiry into his wrongful
convictions heard Monday of evidence both implicating and exculpating
Milgaard.
Witnesses told city police
that Milgaard was in the neighbourhood with two companions, driving
through back alleys, around the time of the murder. Miller was
killed in an alley.
Her wallet was found a block
away, not far from the Cadrain residence on Avenue 0. This was
Milgaard's destination the morning of the murder. That he was
broke suggested robbery as his possible motive.
Miller was also sexually assaulted
and stabbed to death. Her killer almost certainly would have
been smeared with her blood. This cast further suspicion on Milgaard.
Witnesses told police that he immediately changed his clothes
upon reaching the Cadrains. He also tried to clean out the car
he'd been travelling in. Police were told he seemed excited and
in a hurry to leave town. When he and his companions finally
did leave for Calgary, he drove 100 miles an hour, sometimes
on secondary roads.
Milgaard was regarded as dangerous
by at least some of his acquaintances. He was known to indulge
in drugs. He was characterized as sexually voracious. He had
a juvenile criminal record of "serious offences," details
of which have not been made clear. He had also received psychiatric
treatment, but for what, the inquiry has yet to learn.
Interviewed for the first time
by police a month after the murder, Milgaard was reportedly unable
to account for his whereabouts when Miller was killed. Police
found him to be less nervous than they'd expect of an innocent
17-year-old suspected of a serious crime. Also deemed suspicious
was his failure to ask for a legal aid lawyer. One gets the impression,
however, that police would have found it just as suspicious if
he had asked for a lawyer.
Most damning of all were statements
provided by Albert "Shorty" Cadrain. It was Cadrain's
house that Milgaard and two companions were looking for around
the time of the murder. Cadrain told police and later testified
in court that Milgaard had blood in the crotch area of his pants
and on the front of his shirt. It was Cadrain who first alerted
police to Milgaard as a suspect. For this, he would later collect
a $2,000 reward.
But Cadrain was not the most
reliable of witnesses. He would later spend time in a psychiatric
ward, suffering from religious delusions. Confused and paranoid,
he imagined himself to be the son of God. The diagnosis was schizophrenia.
Killed some years later in
a hunting accident in British Columbia, Cadrain was unavailable
to testify at the inquiry. He was heard, however, by means of
a interview recorded by an author working on a book about the
Milgaard case. The recording revealed Cadrain's grip on reality
to be less than firm.
His account of his association
with Milgaard was disjointed, overly elaborate and simply unbelievable.
Among other things, he claimed to have lived with his girlfriend
for several days in an attic over Regina City Hall, where they
smoked marijuana with members of the Mafia. He further imagined
Milgaard to be a member of the Mafia. As if the Mafia would want
among its membership an erratic, teenage hippie from Langenburg,
Sask. Other evidence pointed more directly to Milgaard's innocence.
For starters, police connected
the Miller murder with three earlier rapes in the city, all of
which were striking similar. Milgaard was nowhere near Saskatoon
when those crimes occurred. They were all the work of serial
rapist Larry Fisher, who would later be convicted of the Miller
murder as well.
The jury that convicted Milgaard
never heard about these previous rapes.
Other witnesses pointed away
from Milgaard. The two people who'd been driving around with
him that morning, Nicol John and Ron Wilson, told police they'd
seen no blood on him. Rather, he'd changed after spilling battery
acid on his clothes.
Wilson and John also said they'd
been with Milgaard the whole morning, except for a minute or
two, so he would not have had the opportunity to assault and
kill Miller. Police initially found them to be credible witnesses.
Only later, under intense police pressure, did they change their
stories to implicate Milgaard.
That Milgaard was a hippie
could not have helped his cause. Hippies were not well liked
by police in 1969. Long hair, recreational drugs and free love
they regarded as a threat to society.
This was revealed by the treatment
afforded Shorty Cadrain around that time by Regina city police.
While walking down a street in that city, he was arrested, strip
searched, roughly handled by four or five cops, charged with
vagrancy and thrown in jail for a week. All this because he was
unshaven with long hair and scruffy clothes. Rather like Milgaard.
les.macpherson@TheSP.com
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Milgaard inquiry hears
testimony from 'star witness'
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
February 9, 2005
Albert Cadrain, the Crown's
main witness against David Milgaard, told federal prosecutors
in 1990 that Saskatoon police's interrogation of him in 1969
amounted to mental torture that caused him to have bleeding ulcers
and led to psychiatric problems and shock therapy, the Milgaard
inquiry heard Tuesday.
But three years later, Cadrain
recanted, saying police did what they had to do. In 1993, he
also repeated his statement that he saw blood on Milgaard's clothing
the day of Gail Miller's murder in 1969.
A review of Cadrain's statements
over the years to police, transcripts from court hearings and
interviews with journalists and more police reveal a mental decline.
The inquiry heard Monday that Cadrain was hospitalized in a psychiatric
ward and was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1973.
His subsequent statements included
embellished details with new, bizarre anecdotes about Milgaard,
his own fear of the Mafia, his vision of the Virgin Mary and
his ability to read auras. Cadrain died in a 1995 hunting accident
in British Columbia.
The Milgaard inquiry, which
sat for its 10th day Tuesday, is looking into the 1969 investigation
of the rape and murder of nursing assistant Gail Miller, Milgaard's
wrongful conviction for the crime and what justice officials
did when new information arose. Milgaard spent 23 years in prison
before he was released after the case was reviewed by the Supreme
Court. DNA later proved his innocence and was used to convict
serial rapist Larry Fisher.
Milgaard, then 16, was on a
road trip with two friends from Regina, Ron Wilson and Nicole
John, when they came to Saskatoon to pick up Albert "Shorty"
Cadrain. The teenagers got lost looking for Cadrain's house and
were stuck in a snowy alley before they found the Cadrain residence
at 334 Ave. O South.
They did not know that Miller
had been murdered just a few blocks away that same morning.
Coincidentally, Larry Fisher
lived in a basement suite at the Cadrain family residence.
Cadrain went on the road trip
with the trio. About two weeks later, after the group split up
in Regina, Cadrain was arrested by Regina police and searched
for drugs.
He has said he was strip searched
and questioned by five officers who asked questions about the
Miller murder. Cadrain was sentenced to two weeks on a vagrancy
charge and later worked on a farm for a couple of weeks before
returning to Saskatoon.
He heard more about the murder
from his family and learned that police were offering a $2,000
reward for information. The next day he told Saskatoon police
he had seen blood on Milgaard's pants the morning Milgaard arrived
at the Cadrain house.
In 1990, Cadrain told federal
lawyers he was interrogated for 12 hours by two Saskatoon police
investigators, Eddie Karst and Charles Short, who took turns
playing "good cop, bad cop" with him.
"They put me through hell
and mental torture . . . I was spitting blood all the time after
that. . . . Before that I was just a normal, happy-go-lucky kid.
They pushed me over the edge and I cracked," Cadrain said.
He also said in 1990 that knowing
his statements contributed to Milgaard spending so many years
in prison added to his stress throughout his adult life.
In 1993, two RCMP officers
interviewed Cadrain at his home in British Columbia. He said
his brother, Dennis, had coaxed him into giving the previous
statement to help Milgaard get out of prison because Dennis thought
Milgaard had served enough time.
New elements of Cadrain's story
in 1993 included Milgaard arriving at Cadrain's house the morning
of the murder and demanding to know when the garbage would be
picked up, Cadrain's sister saying it would be that day, and
then Cadrain alerting Milgaard when the garbage truck arrived.
Cadrain said Milgaard stuffed the bloody pants he had been wearing
into the garbage and ran, in his bare feet (in some versions
it was stocking feet), to the garbage truck with it.
Cadrain said Milgaard stopped
at the Calgary public library the day after the murder to read
the Saskatoon newspaper. Milgaard wouldn't let Cadrain read the
paper, he said.
Throughout the various accounts,
Cadrain was consistent about the tough questioning by Saskatoon
police, who drove him to the place where Miller's body had been
found, showed him a knife and pictures of three young women.
He said police watched his reactions when they took him to those
places.
After months of repeated interrogations,
Cadrain said police told him he should stay in hiding at his
father's farm because they didn't want anything bad to happen
to their star witness.
The inquiry also heard that
when Cadrain went to Ottawa in 1992 to testify at the Supreme
Court reference hearing for Milgaard, Air Canada lost his luggage.
An airport guard wrote to the
RCMP in Saskatchewan to say they had Cadrain's suitcase containing
explicit, handwritten notes about Cadrain's experiences related
to the Milgaard matter. The 25 pages of notes apparently were
faxed to the RCMP.
Cadrain was surprised that
the RCMP had the notes in 1993. He said Air Canada had lost his
luggage and when it was returned to him, he could tell the notes
he'd made had been tampered with. He later gave the notes to
a woman he met at a welfare office. He never got the notes back.
Cadrain assumed the woman must
have given the notes to someone, or else how would the RCMP have
them, he asked. He then laughed as he suggested the RCMP might
have gotten the notes from his suitcase when Air Canada had it.
He said it didn't bother him
that RCMP had the notes because he had intended to give them
to a federal lawyer anyway.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Cadrain's brother believed
story
Albert Cadrain told police David Milgaard wore bloodied pants,
shirt after 1969 murder
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix, February 10,
2005
Kenneth Cadrain says his memory
of seeing blood on David Milgaard's clothing may have been false
The youngest sibling of Albert
Cadrain said Wednesday his memory of seeing blood on David Milgaard's
clothing may have been false, a result of hearing his brother
repeat the statement many times over the years.
Kenneth Cadrain was five years
old on Jan. 31, 1969, the day Milgaard came to his family's home
to see his teenage brother Albert Cadrain, who later claimed
he had seen blood on Milgaard's clothing. Kenneth Cadrain did
not testify when he was a child but he took the witness stand
Wednesday at the Milgaard inquiry, which is looking into the
1969 police investigation into the rape and murder of Gail Miller,
the wrongful conviction of Milgaard and the actions taken by
justice officials in the following years. Milgaard spent 23 years
in prison.
He was proven innocent in 1997
through the use of DNA evidence, which was used in 1999 to convict
serial rapist Larry Fisher of the crime.
The inquiry has heard that
Albert Cadrain told police that Milgaard came to his house in
the hours after the murder with blood on his pants and shirt.
He was a key witness for the prosecution at Milgaard's 1970 trial.
Fisher and his wife rented
the basement of the Cadrain house at 334 Ave. O South.
In 1990, Cadrain told the CBC
he made the allegations against Milgaard as a result of a torturous,
12-hour interrogation by Saskatoon police. The interrogations
and pressure continued for months, the inquiry heard earlier
this week.
The stress of the police pressure
and fear they instilled in him by suggesting someone might want
to kill him led to a mental breakdown, Albert Cadrain said in
1990.
"They pushed me over the
edge and I cracked," he said at the time.
Cadrain spent two months of
1973 in the psychiatric ward of Saskatoon's University Hospital,
where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. In later years Albert
Cadrain repeated his earlier statements that he saw blood on
Milgaard's clothing, saying he had been pressured to deny it
in 1990.
On Wednesday, Kenneth Cadrain
told the inquiry that he looked up to Albert and believed his
story. In 1990, when Kenneth was 27, he gave his version of events
for the first time to investigators. He said he couldn't remember
seeing blood on Milgaard's clothing that January morning in 1969,
when he was five years old.
He said Albert asked Milgaard
about blood on his clothes, and Milgaard explained the blood
by saying he had "screwed a virgin." Though Kenneth
was too young to understand what that meant, he said he asked
Albert about it.
In 1993, Kenneth offered RCMP
a different version of his story, saying Milgaard took bloody
pants to the garbage as a garbage truck came down the alley.
On Wednesday before the inquiry,
he was adamant that he had seen this and had always had such
a memory. Later Wednesday, he backed down from those declarations.
Joyce Milgaard's lawyer, Joanne
McLean, demonstrated that Kenneth added details to the story
during the 1993 interview by RCMP.
He added more details at Fisher's
1999 murder trial, where he was called as a witness for the defence.
Kenneth said at that trial Milgaard balled up his bloody pants
and shirt and took them to the garbage truck. McLean also showed
that Albert Cadrain had changed his story over the years and
that Kenneth's versions were similar to Albert's later versions.
Albert never mentioned Milgaard
taking clothes to the garbage truck until the mid-1980s. In 1969
and 1970, Albert said he thought Milgaard took the clothes with
him in a suitcase.
After the inconsistencies were
laid out, Kenneth Cadrain acknowledged it is possible the things
he remembers from that morning may have come from his hearing
Albert repeat them many times over the years.
"You assume," Kenneth
said. "Whether it's right, I don't know anymore. Maybe I
didn't even see David Milgaard come to my house that morning,"
he said.
Upon questioning by the lawyer
for the Saskatoon Police Service, Kenneth Cadrain said Saskatoon
police never told him to say he had seen blood on Milgaard's
clothes.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Woman's
story has new detail
Milgaard enacted mock stabbing, sister of Albert Cadrain tells
inquiry
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
February 11, 2005
The older sister of David Milgaard's
friend Albert Cadrain recounted increasingly detailed accounts
of Milgaard and his behaviour with each official telling of her
story, including a surprising new twist that came out at the
Milgaard inquiry Thursday.
Celine Armstrong said Thursday
that when her brother returned from a road trip with Milgaard
and two other teens, he talked to her before going to police
to say he had seen blood on Milgaard's clothing.
Armstrong said Cadrain told
her Milgaard had enacted a mock stabbing on a pillow at a motel
room while they were on the trip.
The statement appeared to surprise
Milgaard's lawyer, Hersh Wolsh, who pointed out that the incident
Armstrong was referring to had not yet occurred at the time of
Cadrain's first statement to police on March 2, 1969.
Other witnesses at Milgaard's
1970 trial for the Jan. 31, 1969, murder of Gail Miller testified
that later that spring, after Cadrain gave his statement, they
were in a motel room with Milgaard when a television news item
about the Miller murder prompted Milgaard to pretend to stab
a pillow.
Commissioner Edward MacCallum
interjected that the incident Armstrong referred to might have
been a different incident. If so, it would mean Milgaard had
done the mock pillow stabbing on more than one occasion, something
which was not suggested at Milgaard's trial.
Albert Cadrain never said anything
about Milgaard doing a mock pillow stabbing in any of his statements
to police, the courts or journalists, which have been entered
as evidence at the inquiry.
The inquiry is looking into
the investigation into Miller's rape and murder, the wrongful
conviction of Milgaard and what actions justice officials took
in the years that followed. Milgaard spent 23 years in prison.
He was exonerated in 1997 with DNA evidence, which was used to
convict Larry Fisher of the crime in 1999.
Cadrain was the first person
to tell Saskatoon police he had seen blood on Milgaard's clothing
the day of the murder. That statement led police to focus the
investigation on Milgaard, the inquiry has heard.
Armstrong was 20 at the time.
She was home the morning of Miller's death, along with Albert,
who was 16, and their brother Kenneth, who was five.
The same day Cadrain gave his
first statement to police, Armstrong also gave a statement. She
said she didn't remember seeing any blood on Milgaard's clothes.
She said he was dressed neatly in dark pants and a sweater.
Armstrong said she made breakfast
for the teens. Milgaard did most of the talking and he wanted
Cadrain to come with them on a road trip.
Armstrong was not called as
a witness at the trial. The defence lawyer never spoke with her.
The next time she gave an official
statement was to RCMP in 1990. By then her story had changed
to include Milgaard repeatedly asking Cadrain for a pair of pants
on the day of Miller's death, and Milgaard wearing her father's
pants when she met him in the kitchen.
Armstrong explained the new
details by saying she told the police officer in 1969 about Milgaard's
repeated requests for pants but the officer said they didn't
have to include that detail. As a 20-year-old unfamiliar with
police procedures, she didn't argue to insist the details be
included, she said Thursday.
Wolsh asked her if she would
agree that the officer who interviewed her didn't do his job
properly. She did not agree.
In later years, Armstrong added
in other statements that her mother found a pair of bloody pants
in a hall closet in the spring of 1969 and it made her mother
cry.
On Thursday she agreed with
a statement by Cadrain that her mother had washed bloody pants
for Milgaard.
Cadrain's original statement
said he thought Milgaard took the pants with him when he left
he house that day. There was no mention of his mother washing
them.
The inquiry resumes Monday.
It does not sit on Fridays.
Transcripts of the hearings
and documents referred to are available on the Internet at www.milgaardinquiry.
ca.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Brother believes witness
mentally ill
Betty Ann Adam, The StarPhoenix,
February 15, 2005
Dennis Cadrain told the Milgaard
Inquiry Monday that his brother, Albert Cadrain, experienced
a hallucinatory vision before he testified in August 1969 against
David Milgaard at his preliminary hearing on a charge of murdering
Gail Miller in January of that year.
Dennis Cadrain now believes
his brother, then 17, may have been mentally ill when he originally
told police, a month after the murder, that he had seen blood
on Milgaard's clothing. He said he now believes Albert was an
unreliable witness when he said he'd seen blood on the clothing.
Dennis Cadrain, now 52, was
one year younger than Albert, who died in a 1995 hunting accident.
Albert was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 1973 and spent two
months in a psychiatric ward where he was treated with shock
therapy and drugs.
Albert Cadrain was the first
person to give the police information that led to Milgaard's
wrongful conviction in 1970. Milgaard spent 23 years in prison
before the Supreme Court ordered his release in 1992. DNA evidence
was used to prove his innocence in 1997 and was used to convict
serial rapist Larry Fisher of the crime in 1999.
The inquiry is looking into
the Miller death investigation, the wrongful conviction and the
subsequent actions of justice authorities. Milgaard and two other
teens, Ron Wilson and Nicole John, arrived in Saskatoon early
on the morning of Jan. 31, 1969, within hours of the time that
Miller, a 20-year-old nursing assistant, was raped and murdered.
Her body was found in an alley behind the 200 block of Ave. O
South.
The Milgaard group had come
to pick up Albert Cadrain to join them on a road trip to Calgary.
They got stuck in an alley about five blocks from where Miller's
body was found as Milgaard tried to locate the Cadrain house.
Milgaard had stayed with the Cadrains for about four days the
previous fall, the inquiry has heard.
The Cadrain house was about
two blocks from the place where Miller's body was found. Fisher
and his wife rented the basement of the Cadrain house.
Dennis told the inquiry he
believed Albert's story about blood on Milgaard's clothes but
he was skeptical about many of the details Albert added to his
story about events on and after the day of the murder.
The new details came out after
Albert had been interrogated by police, Dennis said.
"All he told me before
we went (to talk to the police) was about the blood," Dennis
said.
The additional details included
Albert's claim of Milgaard giving packages out of the car trunk
to a trucker on the highway, Milgaard being a member of the Mafia,
Milgaard going by himself to the Calgary library to read the
Saskatoon newspaper and Milgaard asking Cadrain to kill Wilson
and John.
"I knew it could not be
true. I didn't believe it then. It was farfetched. I don't know
how anybody could believe it," Dennis Cadrain said Monday.
"There was no discussion about a gun before we went to the
police."
Unbeknownst to Dennis, Albert
had been questioned in Regina about the murder before he returned
to Saskatoon on March 1, before Albert told Dennis he'd seen
blood on the clothes.
In the weeks after Albert first
went to the Saskatoon police on March 2, they questioned him
many times, possibly every day for two weeks, Dennis said. The
sessions lasted about 12 hours, he recalled.
Albert was under great pressure,
Dennis said. Eventually, the police stopped the questioning and
Albert went to the family farm to work while awaiting the preliminary
hearing, where he was to be the star witness, the inquiry has
heard.
Albert told Dennis he saw a
vision of the Virgin Mary while he was at the farm, before he
returned to the city to testify in August, Dennis said. Albert
was convinced Milgaard was guilty because in the vision, Mary
stood on the head of a snake, which had Milgaard's face.
Dennis said he told his mother
before the preliminary hearing about the vision. He doesn't know
what, if anything, his mother did with the information.
Although Dennis didn't believe
parts of Albert's story, he was satisfied in the truth of the
bloody pants story because John and Wilson also had information
that supported Milgaard's guilt, Dennis said.
Dennis' doubt about the veracity
of Albert's story has placed him at odds with other members of
his family over the years, he said Monday.
"They thought I was being
disloyal to the family," Dennis said.
Opinions in the family are
so polarized Dennis cannot discuss the matter with his siblings
and could not talk with Albert about it before his death, Dennis
said.
As questions arose in the mid-
to late-1980s about the possibility of a wrongful conviction,
Albert's mother sought the advice of police investigator Eddie
Karst. She then counselled Albert not to talk to Milgaard's advocates,
Dennis said.
Albert avoided talking on the
record about the Milgaard matter until an investigator, Paul
Henderson, who was working on behalf of Milgaard, approached
Dennis and convinced him there was doubt about Milgaard's guilt.
Dennis then persuaded Albert
to talk to Henderson.
That interview in 1990 resulted
in Albert signing a statement saying the police put him through
"hell and mental torture. . . . They pushed me over the
edge and I cracked."
The statement was the first
time Albert Cadrain claimed to have come under intense police
pressure and the first time he cast doubt on his own story against
Milgaard.
Dennis said Henderson may have
pressured Albert to the point where he was too tired to resist
Henderson's insistent questioning about police tactics. Albert
may have agreed to the statement, which was largely composed
by Henderson, to put an end to the questions, Dennis said.
"He felt trapped, really
nervous. He'd told me things happened but it was never as bad
as that," Dennis said.
"I don't think he knew
what was real anymore," Dennis said.
The Henderson interview had
been done to support Milgaard's first application to the federal
justice minister for a hearing at the Supreme Court.
The Justice Department sent
its own representative, Eugene Williams, to talk to the Cadrains.
Albert reverted to his long-held claims against Milgaard.
Albert also gave an on-camera
interview to the CBC, which aired a national program featuring
Albert's comments about the torturous police interrogation.
The rest of the Cadrain family
was angry with Dennis for arranging the interviews. Their mother
wrote Dennis a scathing letter to express her unhappiness, Dennis
said.
Dennis Cadrain also discounted
as "total fabrication" two versions of a story about
the pants Milgaard changed out of while he was at the Cadrain
house that morning. The boys' older sister, Celine Armstrong,
told the inquiry last week that their mother found a pair of
bloody pants in the hall closet in the spring of 1969.
"If she had found the
bloody pants, she'd have taken them to the bloody police,"
Dennis said.
A version told by Albert many
years after the murder had his mother laundering the pants for
Milgaard the day of the murder.
"It didn't happen,"
Dennis said.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
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