|
 January 25, 2005: The
Federal government released the first
national examination of the reasons for so many wrongful convictions
in Canada.
This should be required reading for every prosecutor, cop and
criminal defence lawyer in the country. News reports
| This feature article in the Hamilton Spectator, spring 1998,
was instrumental in bringing attention to the injustice against
Chris McCullough. New Trial ordered
> > >
Chris McCullough
New evidence could free
convict in Perrin slaying
Barbara Brown and Paul Benedetti
- The Spectator
Chris McCullough remains behind
prison wire in British Columbia, convicted of a murder all evidence
suggests he did not commit. Photo: Diana Nethercott, Special
to The Spectator
Chris McCullough has served
eight years of a life sentence for the brutal murder of schoolteacher
Beverley Perrin. But in a special six-part investigative series
beginning today, evidence will show that McCullough is innocent.
Reporters Barbara Brown and Paul Benedetti spent three months
poring over volumes of wiretap transcripts, forensic evidence
and court testimony to piece together what appears to be a gross
miscarriage of justice.
Chris McCullough and Nick Nossey
had sat for three months in the prisoner's box waiting for this
moment.The foreman stood to deliver the jury's verdict. The courtroom
went silent.
McCullough and Nossey were
on trial for the most serious offence in the Criminal Code --
first-degree murder.
McCullough was 22. Nossey,
21. In a moment they would find out whether they would walk out
as free men, or spend the next 25 years in prison.
After weeks of difficult
and disturbing testimony, the six men and six women of the jury
had taken 12 hours to make their decision. From late October
to mid-December 1991, they had listened to evidence of how a
55-year-old woman named Beverley Perrin was abducted, sexually
assaulted, beaten and strangled.
Perrin was a mother of
five children, a well-liked and respected public school teacher
who had taught thousands of children to count and read and write
during her 23 years in the classroom.
On the night of her death --
Feb. 13, 1989 -- Perrin was heading home from hospital after
visiting her husband, Eugene, who was dying of cancer. Perrin
dropped her daughter off at night school, and then about 6:30
p.m. drove to the A&P on Barton Street East at Centennial
Parkway. She was tired, but wanted to make sure she had Valentine's
Day treats the next day for her kids at Tapleytown School. Carrying
a bag of groceries, Perrin walked across the parking lot and
disappeared. Two days later, her frozen body was found by a man
and his son in a farm field in upper Stoney Creek.
The day after that, her 1986
Mercury Marquis, jacked up and missing its back tires, was discovered
in a parking garage on Grandville Avenue, a few blocks from where
she was last seen. Those were the incontrovertible facts of Beverley
Perrin's murder.
One year after her death, police
had little else to go on. Months of useless tips and hundreds
of dead-end interviews had left homicide detectives frustrated.
They were feeling pressure from a community upset by Perrin's
death and demanding answers. Then, in early 1990, police jumped
on a promising lead. Inside six months, they would have the case
wrapped up and three men charged with first-degree murder.
The key to resolving the investigation
was provided by one man -- Steven Wayne Clarke, a 37-year-old
drifter and petty criminal. Clarke would tell police he and the
three other men abducted and killed Perrin. In exchange for his
testimony, the Crown allowed Clarke to plead guilty to less serious
charges. He would be sentenced to four years in prison. Two of
the men Clarke named - McCullough and Nossey - stood trial together.
A judge ruled that the third man, Terry Pearce, would be tried
separately at a later date.
It was Clarke's version
of events the Crown presented to the jury in its opening remarks
at the 1991 murder trial.
The defence offered a dramatically
different story - that Clarke alone abducted Perrin from the
parking lot after she stumbled across him robbing her car, drove
her to a deserted field, tied a rope around her neck, and choked
her to death.
Almost two years after that
night, the foreman was rising to announce which story the jury
had accepted. His words tore the room in half. Nick Nossey: Not
guilty. Chris McCullough: Not guilty as charged, but guilty of
second-degree murder. McCullough's mother, Rossi McCullough,
stood and cried out "they're making a mistake."
She was right. Her son
was also innocent.
Rossi McCullough's son
has now spent eight years in prison since the day he was arrested.
She talks to him on the
phone long distance from British Columbia two or three times
a week. She says Chris has been on edge lately, and so has she.
They are both anxious about the appeal of his case coming up
on Sept. 8. His lawyer, the high-profile Brian Greenspan, is
calling for a new trial based on fresh evidence - that a key
Crown witness says her testimony at McCullough's trial was an
utter fabrication.
Tammy Waltham told the Court
of Appeal last November that the story she told about McCullough
being in a car with Perrin and three other men was completely
made up. Her admission gives McCullough a chance to prove his
innocence. McCullough, who maintained from the start he had nothing
to do with the murder, says he has confidence in Greenspan's
ability to "get the job done . . . and prove that I am an
innocent man, just like I claimed from day one."
McCullough has filled his days
learning about west coast aboriginal art and carving from his
native cellmates. He plays first base on the inmate baseball
team, has acted in a prison stage play, and has completed his
high school diploma. But fighting the reality of a life sentence
has been hard.
"Knowing I'm an innocent
person has helped a lot. I can't say I haven't had days where
I am completely frustrated. But my mom has helped me maintain,"
McCullough said by phone from prison. "She has kept me remembering
that there is hope."
Rossi McCullough, 50, is an
intelligent, plain-speaking woman who works in a food processing
factory in east Hamilton. She raised her son alone, with a lot
of support from a large, close-knit family. When Chris was transferred
from Millhaven Penitentiary to a prison in B.C., she was so worried
about his safety and emotional health she arranged a leave from
work to be near him. Living in a friend's home, she journeyed
back and forth to the prison to visit Chris.
"I also had a couple
of trailer visits and a couple of socials that I went to at the
institution. I met one of the other inmates that he chummed with.
The guy seemed pretty decent and he was keeping an eye out for
Chris and that made me feel a little better," she says.
Though the McCulloughs are optimistic the appeal court will overturn
Chris' conviction, they realize his is a difficult case, complicated
by a number of issues.
McCullough admitted at trial
that he talked to an undercover police officer posing as a hitman
about having Clarke killed. Another hurdle was Pearce's confession
and 1992 guilty plea to manslaughter in the Perrin case. It appeared
then the police and the Crown had the case nailed shut. But appearances,
as it turned out, were misleading.
This is a complex story
about what the evidence points to as a gross miscarriage of justice.
The fourth 'M'
Like the cases of Donald Marshall,
David Milgaard and Guy Paul Morin, the wrongful conviction of
Chris McCullough - whom his family calls the Fourth "M"
- is a twisted, almost unbelievable tale.
It is a story of questionable
investigative techniques, the failure of police to take into
account forensic evidence, the dangerous and discredited use
of jailhouse informants and, finally, tunnel vision by police
and Crown prosecutors. Hamilton-Wentworth police Deputy Chief
Bruce Elwood still defends how the case was handled. "I
strongly support our officers in the investigation of the murder
of Beverley Perrin, in all aspects of that investigation,"
he says. Rossi McCullough still believes strongly in her son's
innocence. This case is far from over, she says. "I cry
myself to sleep more times than I care to admit. I haven't had
a Christmas tree in eight years because that was always Chris'
job, putting up the Christmas tree," she says. "He'll
put the next one up."
The Cast of
Characters
The Victim
Beverley Ann Perrin, a 55-year-old
wife and mother of five, was last seen the evening of Feb. 13,
1989, at an east- Hamilton shopping mall. The well-liked school
teacher was buying Valentine's day candies for her grade 1 and
2 pupils. Her body was found two days later in a farm field on
Tapleytown Road. She had been strangled.
The Investigators
Staff Sergeant Gary Clue (now
retired) headed the Perrin homicide team that interviewed more
than 1,000 people during a 15-month investigation.
Sergeant Steven Hrab, who has
since been promoted to staff sergeant, defended the deal with
Clarke as the only means to break down "the wall of silence"
surrounding the case. At the trial Hrab testified: "In my
18 years of experience, I think those admissions made Mr. Clarke
one of the lowest human beings in the world."
Sergeant Mike Hanmer was involved
in interviewing many of the key witnesses and suspects. He escorted
Clarke from Stony Mountain Institution outside Winnipeg to Hamilton
to testify at the trial.
Sergeant Bruce Graham was a
former member of the Joint Forces Unit, which surveilled organized
crime in the Golden Horseshoe. Graham monitored evidence from
wiretaps and electronic listening devices used in the Perrin
case.
"The Lone Killer"
Steven Wayne Clarke, now 44,
was born in Cobourg, Ont. At the time of the murder, Clarke was
staying in an apartment at 40 Grandville Avenue, down the street
from where Perrin's car was abandoned. He pleaded guilty to forcible
confinement and accessory after the fact of murder on Dec. 19,
1990. Clarke was sentenced to four years in prison. He never
applied for parole, served the full term, and was released. His
whereabouts today are unknown.
The Wrongfully Accused
Terry Kenneth Pearce, now 30,
lived on Delawana Drive at the time of the murder. Perrin's car
was found just down the street from his house. Pearce had a criminal
record, was on welfare and living with 16-year-old Tammy Waltham,
who was pregnant with their first child. Pearce pled guilty to
manslaughter on June 1, 1992. He now maintains his false confession
was the result of high-pressure tactics used by the police. Pearce
is now on parole and doing volunteer work in the community.
Christopher Gordon McCullough,
now 29, was convicted of second-degree murder on Dec. 18, 1991.
McCullough has always maintained his innocence. At the time of
Perrin's murder, he had a Young Offender record and was working
installing kitchen cabinets. He has spent the last eight years
in prison.
Nicholas Nossey, now 28, was
acquitted on Dec. 18, 1991. Nossey told court he survived 19
months in jail, waiting to have his innocence established beyond
any doubt, by reading the Bible.
The Witness
Tammy Jean Waltham, now 25,
says she fabricated her witness statements in an effort to corroborate
her common-law husband Pearce's false confession and save him
from being arrested for first-degree murder. Waltham separated
from Pearce and in 1995 moved to British Columbia. She returned
to Ontario last November to testify before the Ontario Court
of Appeal. Waltham continues to stand by her recantation.
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