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Jason Dix
The RCMP
went to lengths to frame Jason Dix for murder that stun the imagination.
This story is back in the news as the fifth estate ran the story
in April, 2000 and Dix has a $15M lawsuit against the RCMP.
Jason
Dix murder charges
September 4th, 5th and 6th,
1998 issues of the Edmonton Journal carried articles on this
story.
The bodies of two men were
discovered at the Crown Packaging plant in Edmonton on Oct. 1,1994.
Const. Donald Drissel of the Sherwood RCMP, the senior investigator
at the scene, took only a couple of minutes to determine there
was nothing suspicious about the deaths. Tim Orydzuk, the plant
manager and his right-hand man James Dieter, had been electrocuted.
Thirty-six hours later the medical examiner got his first look
at the bodies and almost immediately realized the men had each
been shot three times in the head. The revelation was a huge
embarrassment for the RCMP and they were under pressure to find
the killer. After grilling several suspects they focus on Jason
Dix, a friend of one of the dead men.
What transpired was a conspiracy
of underhanded, undercover operations, witness tampering and
police and prosecutorial misconduct. Along with the madcap theories
developed to explain Dix's motive for murder his case has quickly
become as infamous as that of Guy-Paul Morin's.
The undercover operation, called
Project Kabaya, lasted 13 months and involved wiretaps, search
warrants and 52 police officers. Expenses alone amounted to $137,000.
An undercover cop posed as
an ex-con and a potential customer for the company Dix worked
for. He befriended Dix and led him to believe he was being recruited
for an organized crime net-work. The RCMP arranged for Dix
- to witness a staged murder
in B.C.
- to be wined and dined by fake
gangsters in Toronto.
- to help these same bogus (or
maybe not so bogus) gangsters to count one million dollars in
cash.
At no time did Dix confess
to or boast about the killings of Orydzuk and Dieter.
In their other investigations
the police, according to provincial court Judge John Maher, "repeatedly,
continuously and brazenly lied to the accused, his family and
his co-workers, with the intent of psychologically co-ercing
them into saying what the police wanted them to say". One
witness was told Dix failed a lie detector test and police "knew
for a fact" he was responible for the killings. They repeated
that assertion to Lu Payette, Dix's mistress, and told her he
was a monster and a homosexual. They implored her to join their
team as they needed her "to get this guy".
The police reasoned that Dix
was either jealous of Dieter's attention to his girl friend or
that he feared Dieter would tell Dix's wife Lori about his affair
with Payette. Kerry Powell in his article on Sept. 4 "How
the Case Cracked" writes; "To Payette, the motives
made no sense. She insisted Dieter didn't know about the affair
and he showed no sign of any sexual interest in her. Nor did
she see any sign of animosity between the two men. Moreover,
Dix was not a jealous or violent man, she said, an opinion shared
by his wife".
The murders had taken place
between 10 am and 11 am, the police were adamant on that point.
Powell continues " but between his wife and his mistress,
Dix was accounted for until 11:40 and from 12:50 onward. So when
a new team of investigators took over the file in March of 1996
they developed a second theory designed to fit the time for whch
Dix had no alibi". That such a "window of opportunity"
would have enabled Dix to kill the two men was said by Judge
Maher to be unlikely, improbable and very, very remote. The new
theory for motive was equally implausable. Corporal's Doug Workman
and Rick Pasker suggested to Payette that she must have said
something that morning that enraged Dix enough to kill. She was
unable to think of anything. It was these officers who urged
Payette to "join their team". Judge Maher said of this
interviewing technique
"I consider the concious
team-building by police in interviewing witnesses to be a deplorable
practise. The investigation of crimes is not a game pitting one
team against an accused. The investigation ...must remain independant,
objective and fair The fact of the matter is ... the police were
out to get the accused".
In late October of 1994 Dix
and Payette had spent a week-end at a cottage on Baptiste Lake.
Police searched that property in May 1996, discovering a stash
of 4 guns. They identified a .22 calibre Taurus revolver as the
murder weapon and arrested and charged Dix a short time later.
Although they had their suspect
in jail there was still no direct evidence against him so they
set about cultivating informants to bolster their case. For the
next two years three men, whose identities were kept secret until
a few short weeks before the trial, were recruited to testify
against Dix. Their testimony would "dovetail" quite
nicely with the circumstantial evidence Crown Prosecutor Arnold
Piragoff assured the court in his opening remarks. Mark Simpson,
Jeffrey Harris and Blaine Jerabek were the classic jailhouse
informants, willing to crawl into bed with the RCMP and give
them the information they wanted without regard for the niceties
of the law. All three had sordid criminal records and no credibility
as witnesses. Charles Davidson, the head of the defence lawyer's
association, said that in comparison to these guys "the
informants whose false testimony convicted Guy Paul Morin look
like Sunday school teachers".
On April 27/98 Dix's trial
began and on May 21 it adjourned when it was revealed that in
addition to the aforementioned RCMP shenanigans the prosecutor
Piragoff had misrepresented evidence at Dix's bail hearing in
Jan./97. He had allowed the judge to believe a letter sent to
Dix in jail was written by the informant Simpson when in fact
it had been written by Cpl. Workman in an attempt to get Dix
to incriminate himself. A week later Dix was granted bail and
on Sept. 3/98 the case against him was dismissed.
"If there is something
fundamentally wrong and there's criminal activity within a police
force . . . appropriate action would be taken to suspend that
police department and bring it back into line"...... Alberta
Premier Ralph Klein responding to a report in November of 1998
charging that native police forces in his province are inadequate.
In the aftermath Jason Dix
is unemployed, living with his mother. Crown prosecutor, Arnold
Piragoff, continues to work for Alberta Justice while he awaits
the outcome of an internal review and a defence complaint to
the law society about his conduct on the case. Justice Minister
Jon Havelock, has announced new guidelines on the use of jailhouse
informants. Const. Donald Drissell, the author of the electrocution
theory, has been promoted to Corporal. Corporal Randall Marchand,
now retired, was the only officer sanctioned by the RCMP ---
for not going to the scene and for releasing the cause of death
to the media. --Ottawa Citizen
Jason Dix
EDMONTON (CP) - Alberta has long prided itself for
controlling rats of the four-legged variety. Now Justice Minister
Jon Havelock wants to rein in the two-legged kind - jailhouse
informants who testify against their cellmates in return for
lighter sentences.
The testimony of some in-custody
informers has been shown to be untruthful and has resulted in
miscarriages of says a Justice Department document.
The danger of an unscrupulous
witness manufacturing evidence for personal benefit is a significant
one.
Alberta Justice came up with
the guidelines after a messy, problem-plagued murder investigation
that ended in charges being dismissed against Jason Dix.
"This decision provided
us with an opportunity to assess a very difficult area and establish
a proposed set of rules for the use of evidence from witnesses
characterized as jailhouse informants," Havelock said Wednesday.
Dix was charged with two counts
of first-degree murder in the execution-style deaths of two men
in Sherwood Park, a bedroom community of Edmonton.
The trial ended in May after
allegations that Crown prosecutor Arnold Piragoff misrepresented
evidence at one of Dix's bail hearings.
Piragoff let the judge believe
that a letter sent to Dix in jail was written by an informant
when it was actually made up by RCMP as a ploy to get Dix to
implicate himself.
The letter was later used to
bolster the informant's credibility as a witness.
Havelock would not discuss
an internal review of Piragoff's conduct, adding "he is
still employed with the department.".;
Under the new guidelines, all
jailhouse informer cases must be referred to a senior justice
official who will evaluate the reliability of the evidence.
Police will be required to
closely investigate the informer's background. Any favours in
return for the testimony - bail, reduction or withdrawal of charges
or a financial reward - must now be made in writing and used
to determine the reliability of the testimony.
Informer testimony should only
be used "where there is compelling public interest";,
the guidelines advise.
You still need to rely on it
but only in limited circumstances," Havelock said.
We've tried to put in some
safeguards to ensure that the Dix situation does not arise again"
Rick Stroppel, an Edmonton
defence lawyer, said the hazards of using the testimony of prisoners
are well documented.
Almost all the recent cases
we've had in this country involving wrongful conviction of people
who are later exonerated involved jailhouse informants.
Guy Paul Morin, David Milgaard,
they involved jailhouse informants.
All kinds of experiences have
shown there's extreme danger in receiving this kind of evidence.";
Bruce Elman, a University of
Alberta law professor, said there still is a need for jailhouse
informants.
"There are some instances
where there is a paucity of evidence and it may be necessary
for the Crown to use jailhouse informants as long as they don't
try to solicit the information and they are not getting a major
benefit out of it,", he said.
But as a general rule they
are to be avoided."
The guidelines are based on
those recently adopted in Ontario following an inquiry into Morin's
wrongful conviction.
Fred Kaufman, who led the inquiry,
criticized the use of jailhouse informants who claimed Morin
had confessed to a young neighbour's slaying. That evidence was
later shown to be unreliable.
Feb. 2/99;Edmonton Journal
The victim of a botched RCMP investigation who spent nearly two
years in jail before the case finally fell apart wants $15 million
in compensation and punitive damages.
A 21-page statement of claim
filed Monday in Alberta Court of Queen's Bench names 33 defendants
in all: 22 RCMP officers, four Crown prosecutors, the RCMP commissioner
and assistant commissioner, the provincial and federal governments
and several of their cabinet ministers.
"You know, money speaks
volumes in this world we live in. It's certainly going to help
me and my family and my father," Jason Dix said Monday night
when asked whether a protracted legal fight would make up for
losing his job, his wife, his privacy and his freedom.
"Depending, of course,
on what happens," he said. "We've only just started."
Court documents filed Monday
detail how Dix suffered mentally and physically as the prime
suspect in the Oct. 1, 1994, murders of James Deiter and= Tim
Orydzuk in Sherwood Park.
The statement of claim has
not yet been proven in court and awaits a stat= ement of defence
from those named in the suit.
The civil suit starts a new
chapter in a saga which began five years ago = when police found
two dead men at a paper recycling plant in Sherwood Park and
determined they had been electrocuted.
A day and a half later, a medical
examiner concluded Orydzuk and Deiter d= ied of gunshot wounds
to the head but at that point, the crime scene was = tainted
and all physical evidence rendered useless. Determined to solve
the double murder, police made Dix their prime suspec t, tapping
his phones and following him everywhere. They eventually found
what they believed to be a murder weapon, connected it to Dix,
threw him in jail and spent the next two years gathering evidence
from jailhouse informants which later proved flimsy and unreliable.
The case against Dix collapsed
in September 1998 after the Crown prosecutor withdrew from the
case and the trial judge dismissed the charges for lack of evidence.
Dix states in court documents
that he was "darkly depressed and attempted suicide,"
resulting in confinement to a psychiatric ward.
He alleges police defendants
"conspired" and "intentionally abused their powers"
in the investigation and prosecution for the purpose of, "covering
up the incompetent investigation and satisfying the public that
a person had been charged and convicted for the two murders in
question, without regard for the actual guilt or innocence of
the plaintiff."
Documents go on to say how
police "cajoled and intimidated," lied to, and attempted
to trick witnesses and informants to gather evidence against
Dix. Their actions, Dix says, trampled his rights as guaranteed
in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
He further says Crown prosecutors
breached those same rights by failing to disclose and even suppressing
evidence, and by failing to conduct the prosecution "fairly
and dispassionately."
Dix was wary of saying too
much about the statement of claim. But he did say he hopes the
lawsuit will return to him some of the things he lost under the
relentless scrutiny of police and prosecutors.
"I spent 22 months in
prison. How could it ever be over for me? I have those memories,
thoughts and loss of freedom for the rest of my life," Dix
said Monday night.
"I've got my life back
together, to some degree. It will never be the same. I'm working
on making it as normal as possible. I can't just sit in the corner
and grow mould and die. I've got to move on and that's what I'm
doing."
Alberta Report of Jun. 1/98 (A thorough report)
- RCMP:
A force under fire:
- Mounties facing more
controversy after taking down the wrong man
By Bill Schiller, Toronto
Star Feature writer February 28, 1999
| ``Most
Canadians presume without question the integrity of our police,
particularly senior police. How often do we hear the phrase,
`If you cannot trust a police officer, who can you trust?' '' |
- Judge John
Maher
Provincial Court of Alberta |
It may be true, as the saying
goes, that the Mounties always get their man. But in the case
of Jason Dix, a one-time well-driller from Edmonton, the Mounties
got the wrong man.
The Mounties ``knew, or ought
to have known,'' according to a lawsuit filed in an Alberta court,
that Jason Dix did not kill two men in a local factory one Saturday
morning in the fall of 1994.
But the men in red, once symbols
of police propriety, pursued him anyway - on a ``hunch'' according
to one Alberta judge - using tactics the judge called ``dangerous,''
``deplorable'' and ``reprehensible.''
Throughout the investigation
the Mounties ``repeatedly, continuously, and brazenly lied,''
not only to Dix, but to his family, his wife and his co-workers.
Trying to elicit damning evidence,
the RCMP assured them Dix was ``a monster,'' ``a son-of-a-bitch''
and ``a homosexual.''
But after a 13-month operation,
involving six months of wiretaps and 53 officers in a case that
cost taxpayers' $1.5 million, it was a bust.
Dix hadn't murdered anyone.
The charges were dismissed
and the Mounties' reputation for honesty, integrity and trust
took a significant hit, says Edmonton criminal trial lawyer Gwilym
Davies, a former law professor.
``The revelation of tactics
used in this case disturbed a lot of people, especially the (RCMP's)
lying to prospective crown witnesses, trying to get them to change
statements.
``Any reasonable person is
going to find that obnoxious.''
Dix certainly did.
This month he launched a $14.2
million lawsuit against the RCMP and others to try to restore
his life and name. As a consequence the Mounties, already suffering
from a litany of botched and bungled high-profile cases, find
themselves in yet another fine mess.
Details of the Dix case reveal
a police force ``out of control'' and ``out to get Dix at almost
any cost,'' according to Peter Royal, who defended Dix on the
murder charges.
``They were almost lawless,''
says Royal. ``The police seemed to think they could do almost
anything they wanted without any repercussions at all.''
In Alberta, some are comparing
the Dix case with that of Ontario's Guy Paul Morin, who was awarded
$1.25 million after a public inquiry into his wrongful conviction
for the murder of Christine Jessop.
Already the Alberta Criminal
Trial Lawyers' Association has demanded a public inquiry into
RCMP activities across Alberta.
But back in the RCMP's austere,
bunker-like headquarters, in a former Catholic seminary just
off Ottawa's Vanier Parkway, Commissioner Philip Murray seems
blissfully unfazed.
He has grown accustomed to
controversy. He has presided over much of it since taking the
RCMP's helm in 1995.
``Every morning I wake up there's
another surprise,'' he says.
At 55, Murray is an avuncular
man with gray hair, glasses and broad shoulders. He joined the
force at 19, straight out of high school, and says he never dreamt
he'd land in the commissioner's chair.
He concedes the Dix case ``had
some difficulties throughout.''
But he sees no crisis of competence
within the RCMP. To the contrary, he says, he's proud of the
``dedication and commitment'' of the RCMP's 14,800 men and women.
The RCMP's major challenge,
as he sees it, is ``a funding crisis . . . there is systemic
underfunding of the RCMP.''
He acknowledges the force frequently
finds itself involved in controversy, But the public must remember
``that we're in a controversial business. What we do, gets us
in people's faces.'' Even by the most sympathetic standards,
however, the RCMP has been in the nation's face a little too
often than is healthy for any organization, let alone a national
institution.
First there was the embarrassing
1995 break-in at the Prime Minister's RCMP-guarded residence,
leaving Jean Chrétien clutching an Inuit carving to defend
himself.
Then in early 1996, came the
bungled Airbus investigation, in which a leak revealed the RCMP
was investigating former prime minister Brian Mulroney on suspicion
of taking kickbacks. Mulroney sued successfully.
Next came the 1996 flag day
incident, in which the RCMP failed to clear a demonstrator from
the PM's path, again leaving Chrétien to fend for himself.
Consequently, pictures were beamed around the globe, showing
a snarling Chrétien grabbing hold of a demonstrator.
And there was more. The RCMP's
use of pepper spray in the 1997 clash with APEC demonstrators;
the RCMP's fatal 1998 shooting of an aboriginal mother and child
in Alberta (the Mountie who pulled the trigger was cleared of
criminal wrongdoing), and last year's RCMP bombing of an Alberta
well shed, trying to pretend it was the work of eco-terrorists.
| `The
revelation of tactics used in this case disturbed a lot of people,
especially the (RCMP's) lying to prospective crown witnesses,
trying to get them to change statements.' |
- Gwilym Davies
Former law professor |
All of these public relations
fiascos have had one thing in common: They all occurred during
Phil Murray's watch.
In Ottawa, a town rife with
rumours that there is little love lost between the Prime Minister's
Office and the RCMP, Murray seems strangely untouched by it all.
``Whether the Prime Minister
likes me or not is completely irrelevant to me,'' he observes.
``I'm appointed by the government . . . so I would presume that
if the Prime Minister is not happy with my services, he'd ask
me to leave.''
That hasn't happened.
According to the suit filed
by Dix's lawyers, the RCMP's double murder investigation got
off to a bizarre start. Despite the fact that the murder victims,
Tim Orydzuk and James Deiter, had both been shot in the head
three times, the investigating RCMP officer puzzlingly put the
killings down to death by electric shock.
Adding to the confusion, according
to the suit, the RCMP's Watch Commander at the time didn't bother
to visit the site, so police lost control of the crime scene
for 36 hours. By the time the Reform party raised the issue in
Parliament, however, the RCMP had finally woken up to find itself
in a very deep investigative hole. And the pressure to find a
suspect was on.
The spotlight fell on Dix,
a man with no criminal record, but someone who had had a drink
with one of the victims the night before.
That's when Dix's nightmare
began. Working on the premise that Dix was the killer, the RCMP
decided to create an underground group of criminals - played
by RCMP undercover officers - to surround Dix and take him into
their confidence in the hope that he, too, would take them into
his own, and reveal his complicity in the double murder.
The RCMP staged a fake killing
in front of him, flew him to Toronto to witness fake money laundering
transactions and treated him in all respects like the criminal
they believed him to be.
The only problem was the RCMP
had the wrong man.
Still, on July 10, 1996, at
the age of 31, Dix was arrested, charged with murder and ``paraded''
before the media, his lawyer says. From then on Dix's life changed
dramatically.
Over the course of the next
22 months, he lost his job, his wife and, for a time, his mind.
He tried to commit suicide and was briefly committed to psychiatric
care. Wrought with worry, he shed 27 kilograms.
According to Judge John Maher,
who ultimately committed the case for trial, the Mounties blatantly
lied to witnesses, saying Dix had failed two polygraph tests
when he hadn't failed either one. In sum, it seemed there was
very little the RCMP didn't do to get their man.
The case finally unravelled
after an over-eager prosecutor misrepresented a document in court
and was forced to withdraw from the case. A new prosecutor, having
reviewed the case and sensing the debacle he'd taken on, invited
the judge to dismiss it.
He did. And today Dix is a
free, though frailer man.
As of last week, the RCMP and
others being sued, had failed to file a statement of defence
contesting Dix's version of events.
``It's important to me that
when we make mistakes, the thing is to admit them, correct them
and do whatever is necessary to preclude them from happening
in the future,'' Commissioner Murray says.
To that end, the RCMP ordered
an examination and re-evaluation of the Dix case, by the RCMP's
own assistant commissioner from neighbouring Saskatchewan.
As a back-up, for anyone who
might question the impartiality of a review of police by police,
that evaluation is now being looked at by a retired Alberta judge.
The judge was picked by the RCMP and, at the judge's request,
the RCMP will not identify him.
For trial lawyer Royal, this
is the last straw.
``Now we have a secret report
going to a secret judge for a secret response,'' he says. ``This
just isn't good enough.''
In Edmonton, RCMP Assistant
Commissioner Don McDermid says he sees no reason to make the
review public. Transparency isn't needed he says.
``The only people I've heard
from who are concerned about transparency are the defence counsel
in the case.''
The judge's contribution will
ensure the review is ``independent,'' he assures.
| `It's
important to me that when we make mistakes, the thing is to admit
them, correct them and do whatever is necessary to preclude them
from happening in the future.' |
- Philip Murray
RCMP commissioner |
McDermid, Alberta's top police
officer, denies his investigators were ``out of control'' in
the Dix case. Lying, he says, is just sometimes a ``necessary''
investigative tool. Whether it was appropriate in the Dix case,
he notes, is for the courts to decide.
On the topic of the RCMP's
bombing of a gas shed in Alberta last fall, revealed in a court
hearing in Alberta last month, he was aware of it beforehand
and he approves.
``We did what, we did,'' he
says, declining to comment further.
And as for the fake killing
in the Dix investigation there was nothing exceptional about
that either.
``It was a ploy to get the
suspect to loosen up a bit, if you will,'' McDermid explains.
Other Canadian police forces have also staged similar shootings,
he says.
``How much acting skill is
required in modern police work?'' he is asked.
``A certain amount,'' he says.
``Police work is not a cut and dried situation.''
In Ottawa, Murray points out
that he can't comment directly about specific cases.
``When these things are before
the courts, essentially our hands are tied,'' he says. ``The
difficulty is that we are not able to advance our side of the
story.'' But later he adds, ``I'd rather take the flak than lose
the case.''
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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
