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Introducing: Someone Knows Something · Hell and Gone: Murder Line

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: School of Humans.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: I'm at another river, this one flowing through a southwestern
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Ontario town on a clear but darkening springtime evening. I
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: recorded these nature sounds well over a decade ago for
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: a TV documentary using the same microphone I now use
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: for the podcast. This thing always seems to be standing
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: between me and the unknown, somehow oddly comforting, just.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Crouching at the riverside. Here a park and Hanover, Ontario.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: This is the Sage River, which the mouth of the
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Sagi actually empties.
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Out into the Lake Huron.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It's about sixty kilometers downstream, I think, flowing clear, but
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: there's lots of debris kind of pushed against the shoreline.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: There's obviously a pretty high floodplain here. There's an old gazebo,
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: a swing set, there's an old gate.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I remember focusing on the sounds these things made. Here,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: chains on a swing, muddy logs at the high watermark,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: brushy grasses along the path, and that metal gate. I
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: wonder if these objects or the sounds they made, ever
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: held any actual comfort for anyone.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: At one time, this park was Christine Harron's favorite place
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: in the whole world. I have been told if i'd
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: been here. Before May eighteenth, nineteen ninety three, I might
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: have seen her down here catching frogs or fishing. Nobody
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: here today, this path next to the river.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: The sounds I recorded here don't reveal any secrets, but
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: I feel pulled back to places like this again and again,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: pulled back into long term investigations, their grief and the hope.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Even after some questions have been answered, there's always more
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: and more difficult ones. Over thirty years ago, just one
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: week after her fifteenth birthday, Christine Herron disappeared, and her
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: full story has yet to be told. I'm David Ridgin,
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: and this is someone Knows Something, Season nine, The Christine
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Heron Case, Episode one, Chrissy. I first learned about Christine
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: in the late two thousands as I was scanning through
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: some of the many unsolved cases out of Ontario. I
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: was preparing to make a documentary series for CBC Television's
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: news program The National. I sorted Chrissy's case into a
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: much smaller pile, a short list of sorts, cases that
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: for some reason spoke to me.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: We gathered here this morning for a celebration of life
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: in the life a Christine.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: Or I'd learned that a memorial service was being held
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: at a church seventeen years after Christine disappeared. So I
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: traveled west to Hanover in the springtime of twenty ten.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: Let us bring loving to go out.
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: Look with mercy on those who mourned for Christine, who
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: has died by the violence of our fallen world. Be
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: with us as we struggled with the mysteries of life
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: and death.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Framed photos of Christine in curly dark hair and glasses
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: sit on a small table at the front of the church,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: next to the minister. There are others sad people whom
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: I assume are her family standing close by, including the
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: woman that I know is her mother, Mary Anne.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Described by her mom as a bit of a loader.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: Christie didn't have a lot of close friends.
• 4:28
  Speaker 5: In our culture.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: Her loader mentality meant that she was viewed as being different.
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: She wasn't someone who has hung up on appearances or
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: who is doing what with whom She had other things
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: to do, other things.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: This minister's words, his impressions of Christine filled me with
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: a chill of sadness. Tears suddenly rolled down my face
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: for this young person I'd never met, and right there
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: I decide that I'm going to do this case.
• 5:02
  Speaker 6: This is the last slaves Christie had lived.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: I would take several more months of information gathering before
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: I contacted Chrissy's mother, Mary Anne.
• 5:14
  Speaker 7: That front window was the living room, and that's where
• 5:18
  Speaker 7: her and I had spent the morning together watching television,
• 5:22
  Speaker 7: with her laying her head on my lap.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I've got mary Anne framed up in my documentary camera
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: on a cool, windy day, pale skinned in glasses, with
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: meticulous makeup and shorter hair. Mary Anne stands in front
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: of the small brick two story she'd been renting back
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: in the spring of nineteen ninety three at the time
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Christy disappeared. Mary Anne gestures to where she says Chrissy
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: walked away from home that.
• 5:50
  Speaker 7: Day and then she left to go to school. She
• 5:54
  Speaker 7: walked down the other side of the street and around
• 5:58
  Speaker 7: the corner, and that was the last I've seen of her.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Mary Anne says she watched from an upstairs window as
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Chrissy turned the corner on the way. Mary Anne thought
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: to Grade nine classes at John Diefenbaker High School, not
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: that far away. It was sometime between one thirty and
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: two pm. Chrissy had not felt well that morning, so
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: stayed home. She'd been known to skip classes and didn't
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: want to go to school that afternoon either. She and
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: her mom had argued about it, and mary Anne suggested
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: that perhaps Chrissy should get a job instead. Chrissy walked out,
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: saying see you later and slammed the door. She was
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: wearing blue jeans, a jean jacket, black running shoes, plastic
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: glasses with a broken nose piece on one side, and
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: possibly a silver bracelet.
• 6:54
  Speaker 6: She was in a good mood that morning, but she
• 6:56
  Speaker 6: was mad that she had to go to school. She
• 6:58
  Speaker 6: even we were in the process of packing and moving
• 7:00
  Speaker 6: to another place, and she says, well, even let me
• 7:03
  Speaker 6: stay home and I'll pack all day. Times did it
• 7:06
  Speaker 6: go on that day? But I said, you can't truant
• 7:08
  Speaker 6: officers waiting.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: There were other tensions in the household at the time
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: as well. Chrissy had been deeply troubled by her parents'
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: divorce years earlier. Her father, Lorne, lived in Western Canada
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: at the time of Chrissy's disappearance and has since passed away.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Chrissy got along with her younger brother named Sean, but
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: did not always see eye to eye with her stepfather,
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: who was also named Sean. Sean Russworm, who was then
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: aged twenty six.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Well, she didn't like keeping a room clean. She's kind
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: of a tomboy.
• 7:43
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Russworm is a large man in a T shirt sporting
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: a mustache and smudgy blue line tattoos on each shoulder.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Back at their current home, he and Marianne are settled
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: into a couch. Two chihuahuas named Chloe and Angel sit
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: on their laps.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: Wow, as well as they behaved, than maybe they can stay.
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: You.
• 8:08
  Speaker 6: The best thing to do is to hand her to
• 8:10
  Speaker 6: you and let you hold her. Stare Angel?
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: See Mary Anne hands me Angel the extra small one
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: so she can get used to me and stop barking.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: I walk around the room a bit with the dog
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: in hand, looking at some photos of Chrissy spread out
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: on a coffee table with a yellow lunch pail on
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: her first day of kindergarten, blowing out birthday candles in
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: red ribboned pigtails and Christmas tree moments.
• 8:40
  Speaker 8: I was gonna try something with that light.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, the dogs seem calm and we start talking about Chrissy.
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: I'd like to take stuff apart.
• 8:54
  Speaker 6: And put her back together to see what made it work.
• 8:58
  Speaker 6: She loved kids, love going for walks, into cricks, catching frogs.
• 9:05
  Speaker 9: And.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: I see Chrissy seeming to watch me through her big
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: glasses in the photos.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: I love those.
• 9:13
  Speaker 6: Glasses, but she hated them.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: There was times where other people would pick on her
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: younger brother, Sean, and then Chrissy be right there sticking
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: up for her brother. Chrissy was right there and punched
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: out a couple of boys that were picking on Sean.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: This was in public school already, so she could hold
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: her home and she was feisty and when she needed
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: to be.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: Sean admits that his relationship with Chrissy was sometimes strained,
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: and he says that he's bipolar and sometimes can be aggressive.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: But he says that one of his last memories of
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: Chrissy is her helping him replace the spark plugs in
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: his car.
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: When we started to get closer, she'd come out to
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: the garage and asked me if she could use my tools. Yeah,
• 10:05
  Speaker 3: they're right there if I go to help. No, No,
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: she wanted to do it herself.
• 10:11
  Speaker 6: But she wasn't one to go out to parties or
• 10:14
  Speaker 6: anything like that. Like she'd come home a couple of
• 10:16
  Speaker 6: times and said, well, they're drinking.
• 10:18
  Speaker 7: So I left.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: She was against.
• 10:21
  Speaker 6: Smoking, she was against drinking.
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: I told her we were really proud of her for that.
• 10:26
  Speaker 6: She was close to her grandma, my mom, very close. Yeah,
• 10:31
  Speaker 6: they spent a lot of time together.
• 10:36
  Speaker 10: We always had a good relationship for any reason. If
• 10:39
  Speaker 10: she just wanted to talk, she'd call me. She used
• 10:42
  Speaker 10: to spend a lot of time out there with.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Me, Grandma Phillis socks at her home.
• 10:48
  Speaker 10: And then when ninety three we moved to Gwelf. That's
• 10:53
  Speaker 10: what upset me so bad, because I felt she if
• 10:56
  Speaker 10: she's out there, she's going to try and reach me,
• 10:59
  Speaker 10: because she always did if she wanted something other. And
• 11:05
  Speaker 10: I thought, I move away, she won't have my phone number,
• 11:07
  Speaker 10: and that's upset me. And once I moved away, I
• 11:11
  Speaker 10: couldn't even look at her pictures anymore for a long time.
• 11:14
  Speaker 10: It really upset me bad.
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: It says Grandma, It says Gramall wild as all.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: Wild they saweya Oh God, says Grandma.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Christine sits around a Christmas tree with her family in
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety I watched the grainy archival video as she
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: quietly makes sure that everyone has a gift to open
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: before she does. Then the footage shifts to a Santa
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: theme park and Christine's pretending to be a reindeer in
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: front of a big red sleigh, a mischievous strength to
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: her every move, just three years before she walks off
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: into oblivion.
• 12:01
  Speaker 10: Whoh, I got sewing machine. I'm bringing her out and
• 12:07
  Speaker 10: letting her use it. She made an apron the one
• 12:10
  Speaker 10: time she was out and we'd baked and we'd just
• 12:13
  Speaker 10: play games. We always used to go do worm hunting
• 12:16
  Speaker 10: and picking with her too, and she'd go fishing. I
• 12:21
  Speaker 10: just couldn't believe it when she disappeared and she didn't
• 12:24
  Speaker 10: call me. It's something you can't never forget. I don't know,
• 12:30
  Speaker 10: no matter what, you can't forget about it.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: Mary Anne reported Christy missing to Hanover Police at nine
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: to twenty one pm on the day she disappeared, May eighteenth,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety three. Christy was known to have a poor
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: sense of direction and would get lost easily, But despite
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: this and her habit of skipping classes or sleeping over
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: at friends' houses, mary Anne and others say that Chrissy
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: would always call home and never go far.
• 13:00
  Speaker 6: When she didn't show home, I started phoning her friends
• 13:03
  Speaker 6: and my family, just to see if maybe she went
• 13:07
  Speaker 6: to one of her friend's house after school or something.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: The story of Christine's case, at least in the beginning,
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: is a familiar one. A teenager leaves home, supposed to
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: be somewhere school, but never makes it. Local police investigatively inexperienced,
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: finding nothing and flying in the face of what a
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: mother knows.
• 13:30
  Speaker 6: And nobody had seen her or heard from her. So
• 13:34
  Speaker 6: then the family and I we started going out and
• 13:36
  Speaker 6: looking for her, looking in parks in the area, just
• 13:39
  Speaker 6: to see, you know, if she was someplace else and
• 13:42
  Speaker 6: just hadn't come home yet. We had formed the police
• 13:46
  Speaker 6: and they said it was too soon yet to do anything.
• 13:49
  Speaker 6: What we actually got from the Hanover police chief himself
• 13:54
  Speaker 6: was that his daughter runs away a lot, takes off
• 13:57
  Speaker 6: for days. So mine probably did the same thing. So
• 14:01
  Speaker 6: she never showed home, and I sat up all night
• 14:03
  Speaker 6: and waited for were reading. I even had the feeling
• 14:09
  Speaker 6: too all along that she was down there by the
• 14:10
  Speaker 6: park somewhere. I kept trying to get them to search more,
• 14:16
  Speaker 6: and the church and I we even got together and
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: formed our own search and we wanted to search down there,
• 14:23
  Speaker 6: and they wouldn't let us. They made us go in
• 14:25
  Speaker 6: the opposite direction, and the.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Top police was very upset when we yes, when we
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: set that up. They were not impressed that you set
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: up a search.
• 14:37
  Speaker 6: Yes, yes, they didn't want the public to panic.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: We were told that we went anywhere near the park
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: that weekend, the very first weekend she disappeared, there would
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: be consequences and repercussions.
• 14:50
  Speaker 6: Who told you that the police.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: There had been an antique car show on at the
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: park that coming Victoria Day weekend, and police were concerned
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: about disrupting it. According to Mary Anne, Hanover police and
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: fire department did eventually coordinate and conduct a single search
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: using volunteers on May twenty third, nineteen ninety three, five
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: days after she disappeared. The search encompassed the Hanover Park,
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: the south shore of the Saggin River going east, and
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: the town water tower. No trace of Christine was found.
• 15:30
  Speaker 6: I think everybody just wanted to believe she was a runaway.
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: Nobody would actually think of her as something had happened,
• 15:37
  Speaker 6: not in a small town, not to their town. So
• 15:40
  Speaker 6: everybody who just told us, no, she's a runaway, She'll
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: come back when she's ready, even when we were putting
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: up posters. People would take them down. They just didn't
• 15:49
  Speaker 6: want to believe it.
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: The town police took them.
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: Down, Yeah, but nobody would believe it. I actually got
• 15:56
  Speaker 6: phone calls from people, you know, stop making such a fuss,
• 15:59
  Speaker 6: she'll come back. Yeah.
• 16:05
  Speaker 8: Did you ever cast any suspicion or doubt suspicious of
• 16:08
  Speaker 8: people in town.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: Or anything home of it?
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: Nope, Mary Anne and Sean didn't have any suspects, but
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: almost a year later they had to be ruled out
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: as suspects themselves.
• 16:23
  Speaker 6: Yes, we all were. At one point they asked us
• 16:25
  Speaker 6: to take polygraphs, and I agreed just to rule out
• 16:29
  Speaker 6: being a suspect so that they would get on with
• 16:31
  Speaker 6: the case and find the person that did it. Or
• 16:34
  Speaker 6: I did it willingly knowing that it would clear me
• 16:37
  Speaker 6: and would help the case. I would would have done
• 16:40
  Speaker 6: anything at that time. And you went through two of them.
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: I went through too. The first one was fairly basic.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: It didn't bother me too much. The second one was
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: at a very tense time in my life. My employer
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: at the time was on strike. In nineteen ninety nine.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: I had the interview over at milfors Pp Eastation and
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: I believe it was October of nineteen ninety nine and
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: I was interviewed by one of their forensic people from Kingston,
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: supposed to one of their head people. It was very
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: very intense, suppost a four to five hour process, and
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: they accused me in many different ways of murdering Christine, strangling, rape,
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: shooting her, drowning her, and just everything they could to
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: push my buttons. What pushed my buttons the most during
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: this process, I know that they were videotaping and recording
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: the session. They mentioned that they had Paul Bernardo in
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: another room. They wanted to know what my thoughts were.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Paul Bernardo was a serial rapist and murderer in Ontario.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: In the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties. He and his
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: partner Karla Homolka horribly murdered two young women. Bernardo had
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: been arrested and jailed months before Christy disappeared, So using
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: his name here was a tactic to get Sean talking, and.
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: With myself already being bipolar things that were going on
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: in my life at that time, I completely lost it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: I jumped out of my seat. I seemed to remember
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: throwing a couple of things around. I just said, let
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: me add the son of a bitch, because only one
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: of us is going to walk out of the room alive.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: I completely lost control. They tried to calm me down.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: I shut them off. All I had in my mind
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: was looking for Paul Bernardo and wanted at him, and
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: I wanted him dead. And that's the last I could remember.
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Russworm had been at work until three pm in Durham, Ontario,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: at the time Christy disappeared, about a fifteen minute drive
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: away from Hanover. After work, he drove to Marianne's, where
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: he heard that Christine had left for school shortly before
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: he arrived.
• 19:10
  Speaker 8: And what did they tell you about the results of
• 19:12
  Speaker 8: either of those polygraphs that you took.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: On that I was clear, as far as they're coriscerned,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: I had nothing to do with it. What they said
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: they had to do what they had to do to
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: prove that I was not guilty.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: Sean and Marianne did pass their first polygraph tests, according
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: to documents, and neither was ever arrested or charged in
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Christine's case.
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: Do I wish anyone to ever go through a process
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: like that? No, it's hell, it's not a very nice process.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: What they did everything that they needed to do, and
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: I commend them for doing it. I just still wish
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: that we had something more could bring justice and bring
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: Christine home.
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: I did know before the night was over she was dead, though,
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: call it mother's intuition or whatever, I knew she was going.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: There weren't many Christine heron news reports to look at.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Early on in my investigation items I could find. Talked
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: about the local Hanover police making no headway in Christine's case,
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: claiming even a year later that there was no evidence
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: of foul play. Even though Chrissy had left her house
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: without her id, any extra clothing, or the eighty dollars
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: in birthday money she had just received. Police continued to
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: suggest that she was a runaway, that there were sightings
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: of her. Christine was in Toronto with skinheads who had
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: been seen in Hanover, she'd dyed her hair blonde and
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: shaved the side of her head, or she'd left home
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: to go live with her father Lauren, out west, but
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: she never appeared there or Toronto, or was seen anywhere
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: else again. After May eighteenth, nineteen ninety.
• 21:06
  Speaker 11: Three, mary Anne and I spent a lot of time
• 21:11
  Speaker 11: the first six months to a year we went to Kitchener, London, Toronto.
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: Where else did we go here? I can't even remember.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: Even if police weren't looking for Christine, Marianne and Sean
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: were trying their best.
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: Every chance we had, going to places that we probably
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: we checked, shelters we went into. I'm not sure if
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: it's a halfway house or a drug house or what
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: it was.
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: The media would report on these supposed sightings of Christy
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: and help to generate more rumors and to make matters worse.
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: According to Mary Anne, the few articles that were written
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: were often filled with inaccuracy.
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: I found that whenever you tried to tell them something,
• 21:58
  Speaker 6: they twisted into something else. It was never what you
• 22:02
  Speaker 6: were trying to explain. They always just took bits and
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: pieces and made their own sentences.
• 22:09
  Speaker 12: It wasn't always the truth that we had said. So
• 22:15
  Speaker 12: it became frustrating and upsetting, to the point where we
• 22:21
  Speaker 12: just had to refuse to speak from We were so
• 22:25
  Speaker 12: scared of jeopardizing Christine's case that.
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: We shut out all reporters for quite a while until now.
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: I've kept most of the clippings the newspapers all these years,
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: got those and somewhere the posters, Yeah, typical girl.
• 22:50
  Speaker 8: Yes, So do you think there's a chance in this
• 22:56
  Speaker 8: case still or what's your want?
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: It solved justice and solved. I think you're still a chance.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: I hope, I hope this will bring her home. We'll
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: do our best marking, sure you will, but Canver does
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: not feel like home anymore. She went missing us. It's
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: not our home.
• 23:37
  Speaker 9: We had the same home room in grade nine, so
• 23:39
  Speaker 9: the only desk was right beside her, So that's how
• 23:43
  Speaker 9: I met her and Finn there we pretty much were
• 23:48
  Speaker 9: like fat sons.
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: Like Christine was very shy.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Cindy Galen McPherson, one of Christine Herron's school friends.
• 23:57
  Speaker 13: I mean, if you didn't know it, it took a
• 24:00
  Speaker 13: long time to kind of.
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: Get to know it. And a lot of people like
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: to pick on her.
• 24:06
  Speaker 9: Because she was really easy to pick on.
• 24:08
  Speaker 14: How So, if somebody said, well, why don't you go
• 24:12
  Speaker 14: do this, she'd go and do it because she wanted
• 24:14
  Speaker 14: to be accepted.
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: People would like froll in a locker. She'd just stay
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: there until like, we we're gone.
• 24:21
  Speaker 9: And I'd come and be like, okay, you can get
• 24:23
  Speaker 9: out now.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: She really wasn't.
• 24:25
  Speaker 15: Once for conflict, even if people were fighting or if
• 24:29
  Speaker 15: there was a chance that there could be fighting, she.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: Was out of there.
• 24:34
  Speaker 13: We'd hang out pretty much every weekend.
• 24:39
  Speaker 15: The day she disappeared and I found the house, then
• 24:42
  Speaker 15: her mom answered and I'm.
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: Like, it's Christy.
• 24:44
  Speaker 7: Know.
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: She's like no, if she hasn't gotten home from school yet,
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: I thought it was kind of weird.
• 24:49
  Speaker 15: And I'm like, well she didn't, she wasn't at school,
• 24:52
  Speaker 15: and her.
• 24:52
  Speaker 14: Mom's like, oh, okay, And then I think it was
• 24:57
  Speaker 14: about two hours later. I got another phone call and
• 24:59
  Speaker 14: she's like, are you sure Christy isn't there, And I'm
• 25:01
  Speaker 14: like no.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Cindy and her father drove the roads that Chrissy might
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: have traveled to get to their farm.
• 25:10
  Speaker 15: And we didn't see her. So my dad's like, well,
• 25:13
  Speaker 15: we can't stay out, you know. So I went home
• 25:17
  Speaker 15: and I phoned their moment. I said, well, we didn't
• 25:19
  Speaker 15: find her on any other roads coming from Hanover.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: Cindy had spoken to Chrissy on the phone the night
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: before she disappeared. They were planning the May Long weekend
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: where Chrissy was supposed to come to Cindy's farm.
• 25:34
  Speaker 15: So like I was the last person to talk to
• 25:37
  Speaker 15: her and everything seemed fine.
• 25:40
  Speaker 5: She was excited. She loved being at.
• 25:42
  Speaker 15: My house because of all the animals and everything like that,
• 25:45
  Speaker 15: saying May we had baby goats.
• 25:47
  Speaker 13: And sheep and calves and plaids, and she was excited.
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: To come and see them.
• 25:52
  Speaker 15: And I didn't really.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: Think anything was up. Okay, So the police then did
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: they talk to you?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 26:00
  Speaker 13: Wait, a couple of years they come.
• 26:02
  Speaker 9: And May returned.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Cindy says she spoke to police several times over the
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: years and that sometimes they would insist that Cindy knew more,
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: that she knew where Chrissy was, but she didn't. The
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: best Cindy could do was tell police about what Chrissy
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: was like, her routines and habits, certain places she liked
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: to go.
• 26:25
  Speaker 13: Christy used to go and put on the swings at
• 26:27
  Speaker 13: the park and just think she said, that's what she
• 26:31
  Speaker 13: liked to do, and she wanted to think was go
• 26:33
  Speaker 13: and put on the swings like Cristy was a very
• 26:36
  Speaker 13: good friend to me, and it kind of hurts me.
• 26:40
  Speaker 15: To know that she's miss out on a lot of
• 26:42
  Speaker 15: stuff that I've gotten to do.
• 26:45
  Speaker 5: And what's your theory? Everyone's got one. I think somebody.
• 26:48
  Speaker 13: Picked her up, Chrissie. What would have gotten into a
• 26:51
  Speaker 13: car with somebody.
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: Do you think that she would have run into a
• 26:54
  Speaker 5: stranger's car if they were nice to her?
• 26:56
  Speaker 14: Probably she was like.
• 26:59
  Speaker 5: Just driving for some sort of Oh I doubt to
• 27:03
  Speaker 5: prove it.
• 27:04
  Speaker 14: Well, if you were and you were a nice time,
• 27:07
  Speaker 14: she would move having.
• 27:09
  Speaker 5: A night to keep that.
• 27:12
  Speaker 15: Like that.
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: I don't even know the word. I'm looking for that, Yeah,
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: to keep that attention on her. So do you think
• 27:23
  Speaker 5: she got into a car and you think that there
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: was the wrong car?
• 27:27
  Speaker 9: I honestly do.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: It should be noted here that some feel Chrissy would
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: be shy of strangers or even run away from them
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: if she were alone.
• 27:38
  Speaker 5: Just for sure, she.
• 27:39
  Speaker 13: Would have phoned me if she was still alive, Like
• 27:42
  Speaker 13: push first, she would have phoned me.
• 27:44
  Speaker 5: And I kind of knew deep down.
• 27:46
  Speaker 15: I had to say, I'm like, she's not around anymore,
• 27:50
  Speaker 15: she's dead.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting in the passenger seat as Sean and Mary
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Anne give me a short tour of Hanover, Main Street,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: the river, the school, the park. Population about seventy seven hundred.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Hanover rose and then fell as a furniture making capital
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: of Canada, with much of that business gone now overseas
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: a town at the time of her disappearance down on
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: its luck, but where Chrissy called home. Sewn and Marianne
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: moved not long after Chrissy disappeared to shelter themselves from
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: what sounds like an onslaught of neighbors.
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: They were very rude with us.
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I actually had phone calls. You get a lot
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: of calls in the middle of the night, were hanging up,
• 28:45
  Speaker 6: so we had the hand of her. Police put a
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: trace on her phone so they could try and find
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: out who was doing the phone calls, but they never did.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: A brief flurry of police activities surrounded a call that
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: a boy going into grade ten named mar Koons received
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: in July nineteen ninety three, a couple of months after
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Chrissie disappeared. The call Coont's told his parents and police
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: came from someone who said they were Chrissy. The girl
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: on the other end said she was calling from a
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: payphone and that she was near one of the abandoned
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: factories in town. The person on the phone said she
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: had run out of money and asked Coontz to meet
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: her behind a shed near the school. She also told
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: him that she wanted to have sex with him. Coontz
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: says the person sounded like Chrissy, but when he went
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: to the shed with police standing by, nobody appeared. Later
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: that night, another call came in where the girl's voice
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: asked Kons if he had told police. He said he had,
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: and the voice said thanks a lot and hung up.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: Coontz admitted later that he had previously received crank calls
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: on other topics, and also that he had not heard
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Chrissie's voice for well over a year and barely knew
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: her or saw her even then.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: We had asked for the OPP to be able to
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: step in. We pleaded with the hand Or police to
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: bring the OPPN. They said no, it was their jurisdiction.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: They don't have to bring an outside source in and
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: it turned out to be six years later before we
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: were able to have the OPP come in.
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety nine, Hanover Police requested the assistance of
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the Ontario Provincial Police on Chrissy's case. At that time,
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: a cataloging of the case was undertaken by the OPP
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: and new interviews were conducted along with reinterviews. DNA samples
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: were taken from Mary Anne and a profile obtained for
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Chrissy from a tube of her lipstick. A reward fund
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: for thirty thousand dollars was renewed on the ten year
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: anniversary of Chrissy's disappearance in two thousand and three. One
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: of the original investigating officers on the case, Stanley Edwards,
• 31:04
  Speaker 2: is charged with several criminal offenses, including robbing a bank,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: forcible confinement, and sexual assault. None of the charges were
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: connected to Chrissy's case.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: Moves back now, this talks will be nice quiet.
• 31:23
  Speaker 8: Did you ever receive any documents from the OPP.
• 31:26
  Speaker 3: By the case?
• 31:27
  Speaker 6: No, the opp wouldn't let us know anything.
• 31:31
  Speaker 8: And since that time, we're now in twenty eleven here,
• 31:34
  Speaker 8: what has the OPP done or to your knowledge, how
• 31:38
  Speaker 8: they communicate it to you?
• 31:39
  Speaker 6: Or they followed up on some other leads, but we've
• 31:43
  Speaker 6: never been told any results from those. We haven't heard
• 31:47
  Speaker 6: from them. So as far as I know, the case
• 31:49
  Speaker 6: is closed, I'll.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: Get into telling you what I know to myself.
• 31:55
  Speaker 8: I'm going to leave you with some today that.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: You guys can read.
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Did you ever back at Marianne and Sean's place, I
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: share some documents with them that the Ontario Ministry of
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: the Attorney General has sent me The basic story that
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: they tell is known to Mary, Anna and Sean, but
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: the crucial details have remained hidden and out of reach
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: until now. Details about a local man named Anthony who
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: had a frustrating night at an August two thousand and
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: four party. He'd had a few drinks and then confessed
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: to killing Christine Herron. This season on Someone Knows Something,
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: the Christine Heron case.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: The Crown Attorney told us was a slam dump. At
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: one point he was ninety percent sure he was going
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: to be convicted. Listen to me very carefully.
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: Right now, you're under arrest of the murder of Christine
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Herron because you told that police officer that you killed her.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: This story, hearing move me to a didy fuckin doesn't
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: weave these webs.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Did you know Christine?
• 33:16
  Speaker 5: Did you kill Christine?
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: Why did you confess to their murder? Someone Knows Something
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: is hosted, written and produced by me David Ridgin. The
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: series is also produced by Katie Swires. Sound design by
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: Evan Kelly. Natalia Ferguson is our transcriber. Emily Knell as
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: our digital producer. Chris Oak is our story editor. Our
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: executive producer is Cecil Fernandez Tanya Springer is the senior
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: manager and Rafnurani is the director of CBC Podcasts. If
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: you want to help new listeners discover the show, please
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: rate and review Wherever you listen. Find us on Facebook
• 33:57
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• 34:03
  Speaker 2: You can hear next week's episode now by searching for
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: the CBC Podcasts channel on YouTube. If you're looking for
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: more investigations, check out the past seasons of Someone Knows
• 34:13
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• 34:17
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• 34:21
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• 34:24
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• 35:06
  Speaker 1: School of Humans