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Commission
of Inquiry Into the Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard:
(Page 8)
Honourable Mr. Justice Edward
P. MacCallum, Commissioner
| Commission website
Pre-inquiry
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background (also see links on sidebar) Sask
to give inquiry another $700,000
PHOTO:
Gord Waldner, The StarPhoenix
Peggy Morrow, Gail Miller's sister, answers questions Wednesday
- Wilson believable at
trial
lawyer
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, April 12, 2005
The man whose lies helped convict
David Milgaard of murder told a subtle and believable story,
the lawyer for Milgaard's former defence lawyer suggested Monday.
Ron Wilson was only 17 when
he gave police a statement implicating Milgaard in the January
1969 murder of Gail Miller, but he already had two criminal convictions
on his record and had served time in jail, making him more experienced
than most people his age, suggested Alexander Pringle, the lawyer
for Calvin Tallis.
Tallis, who represented Milgaard
at his January 1970 trial, is now a judge of the Saskatchewan
Court of Appeal. He has standing at the commission of inquiry
into Milgaard's wrongful conviction.
Wilson has said that he might
have told the truth at the trial if Tallis had cross-examined
him more vigorously, had elicited information about his drug
use and showed him to be an unreliable witness.
Pringle noted that Wilson minimized
his drug use when questioned about it at the trial.
Pringle drew a picture of Wilson
as a motorcycle gang member who was more likely to tell police
to "stuff it" than to be afraid of them. Pringle suggested
Wilson was sophisticated enough to know that if the police had
evidence implicating him in the murder, they would have told
him. Since they didn't tell him of any such evidence, Wilson
would have had no reason to fear they would try to blame him
for the murder, Pringle suggested.
Pringle noted that Wilson's
statement subtly inserts circumstantial evidence, including allegations
that he and Milgaard had discussed purse-snatching to get money
for the trip, calling Miller a "stupid bitch" after
asking her for directions on the street and then saying he didn't
know if Miller had a purse.
As well, Wilson's allegation
that Milgaard said, "I fixed her," or "I got her,"
when he got back into the car after the supposed attack, made
the story more believable than if Wilson had said that Milgaard
had declared he stabbed the woman, Pringle said.
Wilson has previously told
the inquiry he was "a mess" from using LSD, speed and
hashish in 1969 and 1970. His mind was often fuzzy. Police manipulated
him by asking suggestive questions and giving him the impression
that he might be blamed for the murder if Milgaard were not.
Asked why he lied, Wilson said:
"To protect my own ass. I was scared, paranoid that they
might charge me."
Milgaard spent 23 years in
prison before he released in 1992 after the case was reviewed
by the Supreme Court of Canada. Wilson had recanted in 1990 and
repeated the recantation at the Supreme Court.
DNA evidence was used to prove
Milgaard's innocence in 1997 and to convict serial rapist Larry
Fisher in 1999. The commission of inquiry is looking into the
original investigation, the prosecution that led to the wrongful
conviction and the actions of justice officials in the years
afterwards, as new information became available.
The inquiry heard last week
that after Wilson recanted, the RCMP heard allegations from another
witness, George Lapchuk, that Wilson may have been paid to change
his story.
The lawyer for former Crown
prosecutor T.D.R. Caldwell complained to Commissioner Edward
MacCallum that Milgaard's lawyer had last week taken evidence
out of context and unfairly made her client look bad.
Lawyer Catherine Knox said
Milgaard's lawyer, Hersh Wolsh, gave the wrong impression last
week when he suggested that Caldwell's handwritten notes, made
prior to the trial, showed Caldwell deliberately kept evidence
out of the trial that could have shown Wilson was "an unsavoury
character."
Such information would have
led to the judge warning the jury to weigh Wilson's evidence
carefully because he might have a selfish reason for speaking
against Milgaard.
Knox said the inquiry will
hear in the future that Caldwell left out the information for
a legitimate reason. Caldwell and Tallis had discussed the matter
at the preliminary hearing, which resulted in Caldwell agreeing
in that public forum to leave out the negative information about
Milgaard.
Wolsh stood by his assertion.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Police connected Miller
murder to other rapes
Betty Ann Adam, The
StarPhoenix, April 13, 2005
Police investigating the 1969
rape and murder of Gail Miller correctly believed the crime was
committed by the same person who had sexually assaulted two other
women in the same neighbourhood in recent months, David Milgaard's
lawyer showed Tuesday.
Weeks before police obtained
a statement from Ron Wilson implicating Milgaard in the murder,
an investigator wrote a report saying police believed the previous
rapes "were definitely committed by the same person"
who killed Miller, lawyer Hersh Wolch showed the Milgaard inquiry.
Wolch referred to an April
7, 1969, report by an RCMP officer working with Saskatoon police
on the Miller case.
"It is believed that the
rapes which occurred in this area in the late fall of 1968 are
definitely connected to this offence," the report says.
Wilson's mother, Shirley Wilson,
who testified at the inquiry Tuesday, said she thought police
were talking about those rape victims when they told her that
"if he gets off" there were two other girls who had
lived.
Milgaard was wrongfully convicted
of the murder, based in part on the false testimony of Ron Wilson,
who has said police manipulated him into lying by asking suggestive
questions while implying he might be blamed if Milgaard was not.
Milgaard was never charged
with the two other rapes. Instead, months after Milgaard was
convicted, Larry Fisher admitted he had committed them. Thirty
years later, Fisher was also convicted of killing Miller.
That was after Milgaard had
spent 23 years in prison for the crime and after DNA from Miller's
clothing was linked to Fisher, not Milgaard. Milgaard was released
from prison in 1992.
Despite the investigators'
initial, correct belief that the other neighbourhood rapes were
committed by the same person who killed Miller, they did not
revisit the matter after Fisher confessed.
That refusal eventually led
to Joyce Milgaard's allegation of a coverup by justice officials
and is one of the things the commission of inquiry is assigned
to investigate.
Earlier in the day, Ron Wilson's
main complaint against the Crown prosecutor at Milgaard's 1970
trial evaporated. The admission came during cross-examination
by T.D.R. Caldwell's lawyer, Catherine Knox.
Wilson has said, since he recanted
his testimony in 1990, that when Caldwell spoke to him before
the trial, Caldwell implied Wilson should lengthen the time he
was separated from Milgaard on the day of Miller's murder, which
was when Milgaard was supposed to have committed the act.
Wilson acknowledged Tuesday
that Caldwell had not suggested he change his story. Instead,
Knox showed that Wilson gave the same length of time -- 15 minutes
-- at Milgaard's trial as he had in a May 23, 1969 statement
implicating Milgaard.
Knox showed that Wilson had
reduced the separation to five minutes during the preliminary
hearing several months before the trial. Wilson agreed that Caldwell
merely suggested Wilson think carefully about the length of time
he and Milgaard were separated before answering the question.
Wilson also backed off another
claim against Caldwell, acknowledging that Milgaard's lawyer,
Calvin Tallis, could have better attacked Wilson's lies if he
had known about Wilson's original March 3, 1969, statement, which
denied any wrongdoing by Milgaard.
Knox showed Tallis questioned
Wilson about the March 3 statement at the preliminary hearing
and the trial.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
Alleged Milgaard-Miller
link nonsense, inquiry hears
CBC, Apr 13, 2005
SASKATOON - Some startling
information came out Wednesday at the inquiry into the wrongful
conviction of David Milgaard suggestions, quickly discounted,
that Milgaard might have had a relationship with Gail Miller.
Miller was the 20-year-old nursing assistant who was raped and
murdered in Saskatoon in 1969.
Milgaard spent 23 years behind
bars for the crime, although he was later freed and exonerated
thanks to DNA evidence that proved he didn't kill her.
For the first time at the inquiry
that began in January, evidence was introduced suggesting a possible
relationship between Milgaard and Miller.
Miller's sister Peggy Morrow
was shown a hand-written police statement with her signature
on it that talks about letters she received from Miller concerning
a boy she'd met in Swift Current named David Milgaard.
Morrow said police talked to
her three times in the months after her sister was killed.
She said she told them everything
she could think of about her sister's friends and habits
even a detailed description of her cosmetic bag.
However, Morrow said she never
said anything to police about having received letters while Gail
was at nurses training in Swift Current.
And she vehemently denied she
had ever told police her sister and Milgaard knew each other.
Milgaard's lawyer Hersh Wolch
pointed out that in '67 or '68, Milgaard would have been 14 or
15.
He asked Morrow about the possibility
of Miller being involved with a "14-year-old hippie."
"I knew Gail and she would
never have gone with someone that much younger," Morrow
said.
The idea makes no sense at
all, she said.
During her testimony, Morrow
suggested the statement may have been falsified.
The lawyers representing police
and prosecutors did not challenge her assertion.
Miller's sister disputes
police statement
Betty Ann Adam of The
StarPhoenix, April 14, 2005
Gail Miller's sister told police
in 1969 that David Milgaard had been Gail's steady boyfriend
years before she was murdered, according to a police statement
presented to the Milgaard inquiry Wednesday.
But Peggy Morrow told the inquiry
she has no memory of giving Saskatoon police that information.
Morrow added Miller would have
been 19 at the time, and Milgaard 14, and her sister wouldn't
have dated a boy five years younger.
The statement was taken April
15, 1969, by Det. Sgt. George Reid at the Saskatoon police station.
It was written in his hand and signed by Morrow, whose name then
was Peggy Miller. It says Peggy came to the station with her
mother.
According to the statement,
Peggy said she had received three letters from Gail when Gail
was in nurse's training in Swift Current.
The statement says Gail wrote
in the letters that she had a steady boyfriend named David Milgaard,
who was from Regina and who came to Swift Current every weekend
to visit her. It says that Gail thought David was a nice guy
but that Peggy had never met him.
The document says Peggy thought
she had the letters at home.
"I do not recall ever,
ever making that statement," Morrow told the inquiry Wednesday.
Nor does she remember coming
to Saskatoon with her mother to give the statement.
She first heard of it in 1990
when RCMP revisited the case in response to Milgaard's request
for mercy from the justice minister.
Miller did her hospital practicum
for her nursing assistant training in Swift Current about a year
before starting work in Saskatoon in the fall of 1968. At that
time, Gail was 19 and Milgaard, 14.
"It makes no sense,"
said Milgaard's lawyer, Hersh Wolch. Morrow agreed.
Miller was killed Jan. 31,
1969. Milgaard spent 23 years in prison for the crime before
being released in 1992. DNA proved his innocence in 1997 and
helped convicted serial rapist Larry Fisher in 1999.
Other documents referred to
at the inquiry show that Reid had gone to Delisle on March 10,
1969, in part to see if Peggy recognized "new names."
Police had received their first
allegation against Milgaard on March 2, when Albert Cadrain told
them he had seen blood on Milgaard's clothing. By March 3 police
had statements of denial from Milgaard and Ron Wilson, who, along
with Nichol John, had come to Saskatoon the morning of Jan. 31
to pick up Cadrain for a trip to Edmonton and Calgary.
Documents also showed Morrow
described her sister's blue, zipper-top cosmetic case and pink
powder compact to police. Her description was markedly different
from the descriptions of those items given by travelling companions
who falsely implicated Milgaard in murder.
In 1991, the Miller family
issued a statement saying they had reasonable doubt about Milgaard's
guilt. Wilson and Cadrain had recanted by that time. The next
year, the case was reviewed by the Supreme Court of Canada and
Milgaard was released.
Morrow told RCMP in 1993 that
during Milgaard's trial, as she and other witnesses waited in
a room to testify, Nichol John said that she had seen Milgaard
murder Miller and that she did not intend to say anything at
the trial.
Morrow also said authorities
did not keep the Miller family apprised of developments in the
case in 1969 or in the years that followed. She said she and
other family members received most of their information from
the news media. She first heard Fisher had been arrested in 1997
from a StarPhoenix reporter.
Morrow agreed with Joyce Milgaard's
lawyer, James Lockyer, that the family should have been given
more information.
Later in the day, the inquiry
heard that George Lapchuk, one of the people who said he had
seen Milgaard re-enact the murder during a motel room party,
had admitted he lied.
According to statements and
Supreme Court testimony of Lapchuk's former wife, Launa Edwards,
which was read into evidence at the inquiry, Lapchuk made the
admission on three occasions prior to 1991. Lapchuk has since
died.
The first admission was in
1986 when Edwards and Lapchuk were visiting Bobbi Stadnyk, who
had been lifelong, loyal friends with Lapchuk and Craig Melnyk,
another of the motel room witnesses. Lapchuk said his lies had
helped send Milgaard to prison for a rape and murder he didn't
commit, Edwards said.
"He said he'd given them
exactly what they wanted. It seemed clear he'd lied," Edwards
said.
"He said it with indifference."
A few years later, Edwards
overheard Lapchuk talking with Melnyk about how they both had
lied. Melnyk was in agreement, Edwards said.
She said Lapchuk had more than
once "traded things, information" to avoid going to
jail for "things police had on him."
The third time was late one
night when the couple was alone. Lapchuk was drunk and remorseful
when he said he lied, Edwards said.
Melnyk told the inquiry earlier
this year that he did not lie when he testified at Milgaard's
trial.
The inquiry also heard the
Supreme Court transcript testimony of Stadnyk, who said Lapchuk
never told her he lied.
Nichol John's friend, Barbara
Wispinski, whose name was Berrard in 1969, also took the stand
Wednesday.
She said John told her in 1969
that while she was in Saskatoon, Milgaard had gone to check out
a house he might break into and that when he came back he was
covered in blood and said he had "killed her."
Wispinski said she has used
drugs, such as morphine and heroin, off and on through her adult
life. She hasn't used drugs in the past two years but thinks
the drugs have affected her memory.
© The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon) 2005
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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
