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The Harrison Family Murders Investigation - Mississauga, Ontario · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to picture a house, not like
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a dilapidated mansion on a hill or some isolated cabin
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: in the woods, just a quiet, completely normal suburban home. Right.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: The kind you drive past every day.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Exactly. This one is in Mississauga, Ontario. It has a
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: paved driveway, manicured shrubs, just the absolute picture of domestic
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: middle class invisibility, you know. Yeah.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Totally unassuming.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: So keeping that house in mind, I want you to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: ask yourself a question. What does it take for a modern,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: well-funded police department to finally realize that this perfectly normal
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: family home is actually the hunting ground of a serial killer?
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, the assumption is that the system just works.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: You assume a detective spots a scuff mark or maybe
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: a coroner flags a weird toxicology report and the whole
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: machinery of justice just kicks into gear.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Right, like in the movie.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: But the reality in this case, it completely defies every
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: expectation you have about law enforcement. Because the answer to
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: what it takes for the police to wake up isn't
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: a clever deduction.
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: No, it really isn't.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: It's a third body in four years lying in the
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: exact same house.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: It's just staggering to even say out loud.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: It really is. So today we're doing a deep dive
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: into part three of an incredible investigative series by Joel Wittenable.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It was originally published in The Pointer and it's called
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: The Harrison Murders. Police finally catch a killer. But expose
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: their own failures.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And our mission for this deep dive is to
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: look way beyond just the mechanics of a single crime.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: We are going to examine the actual architecture of institutional failure.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: Because this isn't just about catching a bad guy.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: No, we're looking at a story where undeniable forensic evidence.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: A literal digital trail of premeditation and like a glaring
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: neon lit motive were almost entirely neutralized.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: And they weren't neutralized by some criminal mastermind.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Exactly. They were neutralized by the staggeringly poor investigative work
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: of the very people whose literal job description is to
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: protect the public. Right.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: And to understand how a system fails this spectacularly, we
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: really need to start at the breaking point.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: The third body.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Late August 2013. The address is 3635 Pitch Pine
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: Crescent in Mississauga. Right.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: So it's a typical morning. A cleaning lady arrives at
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: the house. She's just going about her normal routine, you know, vacuuming,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: dusting the shelves.
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: Just a completely mundane Tuesday, basically.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And a co-worker of the homeowner, a guy named
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Caleb Harrison, also lives in the house. Now, Caleb hasn't
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: shown up for work, so this co-worker decides to go
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: check his bedroom.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Which makes sense.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Right. So he and the cleaning lady open the door
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: and they find Caleb in bed.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: And the scene they walk into is deeply unsettling because
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: of how aggressively normal it looks at first glance.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: Right. It was peaceful.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Very. Caleb's just in bed. The sheets are tucked securely
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: around him. There's a pillow resting gently over his head.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It projects this illusion of rest like it's just
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: someone who passed away quietly in their sleep.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: But the moment they pull that pillow away and they
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: pull back the sheets, they immediately call 911. The illusion
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: completely evaporates.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Completely. Because when the coroner arrives, the physical reality of
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: the scene tells a story of extreme, extreme violence.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: The autopsy really laid out a brutal inventory, didn't it?
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: It did. Caleb had abrasions under his chin. There was
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: deep bruising all over his neck. They found scratch marks
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: across his chest and back. and his right knuckles were
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: heavily swollen.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: Which means he was throwing punches, right? Like, he woke up,
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: realized someone was trying to murder him in his bed,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: and he fought back.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: He fought desperately. But, you know, the most critical findings
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: actually weren't visible on the surface of his body.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Okay, what were they?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: The internal examination revealed a broken hyoid bone and severe
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: damage to the cartilage surrounding his voice box.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I hear this term, hyoid bone, thrown around
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a lot in true crime, but I've never, like, fully
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: understood the mechanics of it. Why is that specific bone
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: breaking such a massive red flag?
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Well, the hyoid is a small U-shaped bone. It's situated
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: right at the root of the tongue in the front
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: of your neck.
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: And it's really unique because it doesn't articulate. It doesn't
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: connect with any other bones in the body. It's just
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: suspended there by ligaments and muscles.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, wait. It's just floating there. Yeah.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. And because of its specific location and how
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: it's structured, it is incredibly well-protected. By the jaw and
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: the neck muscles.
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: So it takes a very specific, intense, and targeted compression
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: of the neck to actually fracture it.
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: So it doesn't just break if you, I don't know,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: trip and fall down the stairs or if you bump
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: your neck on a steering wheel?
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Generally speaking, no. In the context of a suspicious death,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: finding a fractured hyoid combined with that damaged voice box
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: cartilage and the neck bruising, I mean, it's the forensic
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: equivalent of a smoking gun for manual strangulation.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Wow. Because it requires such sustained lethal force.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: So Caleb Harrison was brutally strangled to death and then
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: someone carefully tucked him into bed and placed a pillow
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: over his face to make it look like a peaceful passing.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, that alone is a bizarre and terrifying crime scene.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: But this specific house on Pitch Pine Crescent, it has
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: this unimaginably dark history.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: It really does. Because four years prior to Caleb's murder,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: going back to 2009, his adoptive father, Bill Harrison, was
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: found dead inside this exact same house. And then the
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: very next year, in 2010, Caleb's adoptive mother, Bridget Harrison,
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: was also found dead in this house.
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: So that is three people from the exact same immediate
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: family at the exact same address.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And from what the sources show, Bridget Harrison's autopsy in
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: 2010 also showed signs of strangulation.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: It did. There were explicit documented red flags raised by
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: coroners back in 2010 regarding Bridget's death.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: But the police just ignored them?
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: Pretty much. Beale Regional Police looked at those findings. They
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: looked at the fact that her husband had died in
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: the same house a year earlier. And they concluded that
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Bridget had simply suffered a tragic accident.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: An accident.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And they closed the case.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I just I am really struggling to process the level
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: of blindness required to make that call.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: It's profound.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I mean, it makes me think of like a spam
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: filter on your email.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: You set up a filter to catch obvious scams. But
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: if your filter is calibrated so poorly that it only
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: flags emails with the subject line, I am a scam.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: then highly dangerous malicious stuff is just going to land
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: right in your primary inbox every day.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: That is a highly accurate way to frame it, actually.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: It feels like the Peel Police's investigative filter was calibrated
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: to only see homicides if the killer left, like a
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: signed confession.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: On the fridge. Yeah, well, when investigators arrive at a scene,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: they operate within a set of parameters and biases.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: So if the initial responding officers categorize a scene right
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: away as a sudden death rather than a suspicious death,
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: this profound institutional inertia sets in.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: Because nobody wants to do the extra paperwork to change it.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Partly that and partly pride. It takes an overwhelming amount
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: of contrary evidence to force a bureaucratic machine to reverse
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: course and admit, hey, we miscategorized this.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: But with Caleb's death in 2013, the third body, the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: machine finally reverses course.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: It had to.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: Right. And there was this 123-page internal administrative review team report,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: which was released years later. And it actually stated that investigators, quote,
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: quickly identified the similarities between Caleb's death and his mother's death.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, using the word quickly in a police
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: report after three years and an entirely preventable third murder,
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: it's quite the exercise in bureaucratic self-preservation.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: Quickly is definitely doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly. However, the mobilization in 2013 was undeniable. Peel Police
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: established a major case management team. They finally activated the
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Homicide Bureau. They began deploying massive resources.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, so once they actually open their eyes, where do
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: they look? They have a strangled man in a staged bed.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Who actually benefits from Caleb Harrison dying on that specific
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: day in August?
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: Well, the police conduct an interview with a family friend
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: shortly after Caleb's bodies is discovered. And they are immediately
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: handed a motive. And this motive is tied to a
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: literal expiring clock.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Tell me about the clock.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Caleb was embroiled in a deeply acrimonious custody battle with
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: his ex-partner, a woman named Melissa Merritt. They had a
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: 50-50 custody arrangement for their two children.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: And that arrangement was changing.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: It was expiring that exact day.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah.
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: Caleb Harrison was preparing to regain full legal custody of
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: those children.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Meaning Melissa Merritt was about to lose them completely.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: That is the ticking clock. And as investigators pull on
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: that thread... They uncover a decade-long psychological nightmare for the
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Harrison family.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: They were terrified of her, right?
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. The fear of Melissa Merritt and her new partner,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Chris Vittor, just permeated the entire family. A neighbor even
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: described Merritt as a, quote, nightmare for the family.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Jeez.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: It was so severe that during this 2013 investigation, Caleb's
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: aunts and uncles formally demanded police protections.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: I mean, you don't ask for a police detail outside
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: your house unless you are certain that the person who
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: killed your family is still out there and still has
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: a grievance against you.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: So let's look at the timeline of the previous two
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: deaths because this is where the coincidences cross the line
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: from improbable to mathematically impossible.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, let's wind the clock back to April 2009. Bill Harrison,
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Caleb's adoptive father, is found dead in the bathroom of
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: that Pitch Pine Crescent home. That death... occurs on the
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: precise day that Melissa Merritt and Chris Vittor blatantly violate
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: their custody agreement, abduct the children, and flee the province
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: to Nova Scotia.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Wait, Caleb was incarcerated at that time, right? Correct.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: So Bill Harrison, the grandfather, was the primary guardian. He
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: was the main obstacle to them taking the kids.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: So the primary obstacle dies on the exact day they
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: commit a parental abduction. Yes. Okay. What happens in 2010
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: with Bridget?
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: Well, Merritt and Fator are eventually located out east and
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: brought back to Ontario to face criminal charges for the abduction.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Right, because you can't just steal kids.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: No, you can't. So Bridget Harrison is scheduled to testify
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: against them. She is prepared to deliver a victim impact
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: statement in family court. She is found dead at the
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: foot of her staircase the day before she is scheduled
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: to speak.
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: The day before. I just I want to make sure
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: I am grasping the full absurdity of this. 2009, Bill
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: dies the day they abduct the kids. 2010, Bridget dies
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: the day before she testifies against them for the abduction. 2013,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: Caleb dies the day he gets full custody.
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: That's the timeline.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: If you are a detective and you cross reference the
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: dates of death with the family court docket, How does
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: that not immediately trigger a massive homicide investigation? It's like
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a bad movie script where the villain's timing is so
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: ridiculously on the nose that the audience is just rolling
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: their eyes.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: It really speaks to the danger of working in silos
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: within law enforcement.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: Well, the patrol officers responding to a sudden death in
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: a suburban home are not necessarily looking at family court dockets.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: They're looking at the immediate scene.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Right. They're just dealing with a body.
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Furthermore, if a coroner suggests Bridget maybe fell down
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the stairs, the police use that to confirm their initial bias.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: They think, OK, this is just a tragedy, not a conspiracy.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: So they just look for evidence to support the easiest
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: conclusion rather than objective data that challenges it.
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: Precisely. But now it's 2013 and the data is literally
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: screaming at them. So they finally knock on Melissa Merritt
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: and Chris Vittorio's door.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: OK, so how does that go?
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: The evening Caleb is found, detectives inform the couple that
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: his death is a homicide. Both Merritt and Fator exercise
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: their legal right to decline, providing a statement at that moment.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Which, to be fair, is standard legal advice.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: It is. But four days later, on August 27th, they
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: do voluntarily provide statements.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: And what's their story?
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: They offer a very specific domestic alibi. They claim they
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: were home in bed the entire night of the murder.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: And they add these granular details stating they were woken
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: up at 4 a.m. and again at 6 a.m. by
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: their youngest child.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Trying to sound as normal as possible. But the police
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: aren't buying the accidental death narrative anymore. They have them
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: under heavy surveillance at this point, right? What kind of
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: net are they casting?
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: The net is incredibly extensive. Within the first week, investigators
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: seize Merritt's cell phone. They secretly install a GPS tracking
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: device on the couple's vehicle.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: They conduct physical sweeps of the sewer drain surrounding the
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Harrison home, looking for discarded items. And they begin collecting
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: what is known in forensics as cast-off DNA from the suspects.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, stop there for a second. What exactly is cast-off DNA?
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Are we talking about, like, following someone in a trench
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: coat until they throw a coffee cup in the trash?
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: Not quite. You're thinking of surreptitiously discarded DNA, which is
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: a coffee cup or a cigarette butt.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Oh, okay.
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: Cast-off DNA in this specific investigative context often refers to
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: biological material that is inadvertently transferred to the environment or objects.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: It's the shedding of skin cells, sweat, or saliva that
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: an individual leaves behind without even realizing it. Investigators are
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: looking for this biological signature to place the suspects at
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: the scene or to link them to a murder weapon.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Got it.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: And while they are building this biological profile, the suspects
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: make an absolutely catastrophic mistake with their household garbage, right?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Huge mistake. Investigators quietly seize the trash bags that Merritt
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: and Fator have placed on their own curb for collection.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: Just standard garbage day.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: Yep. Inside one of those standard green garbage bags, police
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: find a gray plastic Walmart shopping bag. And inside that
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: Walmart bag, they find a pair of black latex gloves
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: and a pair of black and white Velcro shoes.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: Velcro shoes.
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: A very distinct style of footwear. So investigators take this
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: detail and they immediately subpoena the couple's bank records.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: And what do they find?
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: They discover a transaction showing that Chris Fartore... Wow.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Let's just explore the psychology of this for a second
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: because it's wild.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: It really is.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: You plan a murder. You execute the murder. You stage
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the body. And then you take the shoes you wore
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and the latex gloves you used and you put them
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: in your own curbside garbage can.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: It's almost hard to believe.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, how does someone capable of a methodical triple
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: homicide make a mistake that is goodably stupid?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate manifestation of the illusion of safety.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: You really have to put yourself in their mindset for
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: a minute. From their perspective, they murdered Bill in 2009.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: The police said it was natural causes. They murdered Bridget
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: in 2010. The police literally told them it was a
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: tragic accident.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: Right. They got away with it.
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: Twice. Exactly. When authority figures repeatedly validate your innocence after
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: you commit the ultimate crime, it breeds an intoxicating level
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: of arrogance.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: So they didn't hide the shoes because they genuinely believed
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: the police were too incompetent to ever look in their trash.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: They felt invincible because the system had inadvertently trained them
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: to feel invincible over four years.
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: But the heat is on now and they definitely realize
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: it because the GPS tracker shows them making a move,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: doesn't it?
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: It does. On September 9th, Melissa Merritt formally applies for
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: sole custody of the children. Almost simultaneously, the GPS tracker
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: reveals their vehicle driving straight out of Ontario, heading east
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: to Nova Scotia.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: Fleeing back to the East Coast, just like they did
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: during the 2009 abduction.
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Exactly the same playbook. They return briefly to Ontario, but
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: Fitor's probation officer alerts the police that the couple intends
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: to relocate to Nova Scotia permanently.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: What was the excuse this time?
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Fitor claims he has secured employment out there as a farmhand. So,
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: by the end of September, they hire three moving trucks...
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: pack up their entire Brampton rental home, and flee the jurisdiction.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: But in the chaos of packing three massive trucks and
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: rushing across provincial lines, they leave something behind.
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: They do.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: And this brings us to one of the most fascinating
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: aspects of modern investigations for me. Digital forensics.
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: It is a game changer. In early October, police execute
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: a search warrant on the vacated rental property in Brampton.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: And among the discarded items left in the empty house...
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: They find abandoned USB flash drives and two laptop computers.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: I mean, when you abandon a laptop, you aren't just
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: leaving behind plastic and circuits, you know. You are leaving
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: behind a digital reflection of your brain.
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it.
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: So investigators crack open these drives and they find a
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: literal search history of premeditated murder.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: It's chilling.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: We need to read some of these because the timeline
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: of these searches is horrifying. Let's look at early 2010. Sure.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: So on April 1st, 2010, which... Keep in mind, it's
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: precisely 20 days before Bridget Harrison was found dead, one
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: of the users searched. How long until someone dies from
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: being choked?
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: 20 days later, Bridget is choked to death. It's just, ugh. Also,
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: in April of that year, they searched for gross pictures
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: of dead bodies, basically looking through various morbid image queries.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: And if you go back two months prior to that,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: on February 11, 2010, the query was, if a grandparent
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: has custody of children and they die, which of the
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: parents gets the kids?
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: And Bridget was the grandparent with custody.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They were researching the legal fallout of the murder
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: before they committed it.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: So moving into July 2011, after Bridget is dead, but
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: before Caleb is killed, the searches sort of evolve, don't they?
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: They become much more tactical.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They research how to extract poison from an oleander plant,
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: how to synthesize poison liquid, and the most brazen search
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: of all, easy ways to kill and get away with it.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Just typing it into Google like a recipe. And by
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: August 2011, the practical logistics begin. They search... How to
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: get through a locked patio door.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: And the absolute clincher here. They searched for Bill and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Bridget Harrison by name on the specific days surrounding their deaths. Right.
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: They were actively monitoring the news or seeing if the
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: police had released any statements about the bodies.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: It is just an evidentiary goldmine. It doesn't just show intent.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: It maps the entire evolution of their methodology from blunt
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: force strangulation to researching poisons to. Breaking and entering logistics?
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: It maps the whole conspiracy.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: I have to ask, why do people do this? I mean,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: I understand the physical disconnect, right? You're sitting in a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: quiet room, typing on a keyboard, and it feels entirely private.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: It feels ephemeral, like a thought just passing through your head.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Yes, it feels safe.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: But you are essentially writing a signed confession on a
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: Google server farm somewhere. Why do criminals leave a literal
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: search history of their crimes?
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: It's a profound cognitive dissonance. The human brain hasn't fully
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: evolved to understand that digital actions are permanent physical records.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: When you type a query into a search engine, the
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: immediate gratification of getting the answer overrides the logical understanding
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: that the query is being logged, timestamped, and stored on
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: a hard drive.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Even if you clear your history.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Even if you hit delete, it can be recovered.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: So this search history, objectively speaking, is a slam dunk.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: It proves premeditation. It proves malice. It proves method. This
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: is the moment the police... finally secure their airtight conviction, right?
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: It absolutely should have been. But the legacy of the
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Harrison case is that the system continually sabotages itself.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Oh, no. Yeah.
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: This undeniable digital goldmine. It was entirely thrown out of court.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Wait, what? A judge looked at a search history asking,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: how long until someone dies from being choked? 20 days
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: before a victim is actually choked to death and so
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the jury isn't allowed to see it.
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: That is correct.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: How does a prosecutor lose that evidence?
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: They lose it because the police committed a catastrophic series
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: of unforced errors. And in the process, they violated fundamental
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: constitutional rights.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: OK, walk me through this. How did they mess it up?
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: The issue started with attribution. The police found the laptops
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: in an abandoned house.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the rental property.
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: So to use the searches in court, they couldn't just
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: say someone in this house searched this. They needed digital
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: evidence linking the specific keystrokes to either Chris Vittor or
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Melissa Merritt.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: Which requires digging deeper into the user profiles, the login times,
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: maybe cross-referencing with other activity to prove who was at
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: the keyboard.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Exactly. But to do that, the investigators unilaterally extended the
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: scope of their search warrant.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Unilaterally, meaning without asking a judge.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Yes. They dug into areas of the hard drive they
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: were not legally authorized to access under the original warrant.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: And during this unauthorized deep dive, they accessed and read
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: private emails between Melissa Merritt and her defense lawyer.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Oh, that is bad. Solicitor-client privilege. That is
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: the bedrock of the entire legal system.
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: It is a sacrosanct protection under the Canadian Charter of
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Rights and Freedoms. The Charter is the supreme law that
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: dictates what the state can and cannot do to an individual.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Breaching solicitor-client privilege is one of the most egregious violations
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: an investigator can possibly commit.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Why didn't they just, I mean, why didn't they just
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: go back to a judge, explain they needed to attribute
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: the user profiles, and get an expanded warrant? It seems
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: so simple.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: That is the multi-million dollar question.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: And it often boils down to a phenomenon known in
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: law enforcement as noble cause corruption.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: Noble cause corruption. Okay, explain that mechanism to me because
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that sounds really important.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: It's a very dangerous psychological trap. An investigator knows with
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: absolute moral certainty that the suspect is guilty.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Because they've seen the bodies. They know the history. Right.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: And because they believe their ultimate goal catching a killer
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: is righteous and noble, they internally justify breaking the rules
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: to achieve it.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: So they think, I'm the good guy catching the bad guy,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: so the rules don't apply.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: Basically. They think getting a new warrant will take a week.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: The kids are in danger. I know they did it.
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to look at these emails really quick
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: to confirm it. They fundamentally believe the ends justify the means.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: But the legal system doesn't care about your noble intentions.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: If the state breaks the law to enforce the law,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the entire system collapses.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Which is exactly what Justice Fletcher Dawson pointed out during
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: the pretrial hearings. His ruling wasn't just a polite technical
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: exclusion of evidence.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: What did he say?
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: He delivered a blistering condemnation of the Peel police. He
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: actually accused senior police officers of actively staging a cover-up
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: to minimize the illegal conduct of the investigators.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: A judge officially accusing the police of a cover-up from
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the bench.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: Yes. He cited a pattern of withheld disclosure. He called
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: the officer's testimony on the stand disastrous. He highlighted severe negligence,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: shockingly poor note-taking, and outright dishonesty.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: That is unbelievable.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Because of all that, the digital evidence was tainted beyond repair,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: and it was tossed out.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: And that wasn't their only unforced error with digital evidence,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: was it? Let's talk about the phone they seized back
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: in September.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Right. So when police initially seized Melissa Merritt's cell phone
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: before they fled to Nova Scotia, They eventually found a
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: 28-page PDF document downloaded on it.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, what was the document?
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: The document was a highly detailed technical manual outlining the
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: exact hardware and functionality of the specific security lock used
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: on the Harrison family home.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: That is literally a blueprint for a break-in.
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: It is. But once again, the police overstepped their legal authority.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: When they discovered that PDF, they only possessed a warrant
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: to physically seize the phone.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Wait, seize as in just take it from her? Yes.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: They did not have the judicial authorization to digitally analyze
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: its contents.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: So it's another charter violation. The state searched her digital
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: property without permission. Was the PDF thrown out as well?
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: In a surprising legal maneuver, the judge actually allowed the
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: PDF to be admitted into evidence.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: Hang on, how does that work? If they violated her
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: rights to find the search history and it got tossed...
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Why does violating her rights to find a PDF get
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a pass?
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: It comes down to a very complex legal concept called
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: balancing the probative value against the charter breach.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: Break down probative value for me.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Probative value essentially means how useful and essential the evidence
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: is to proving a fact in court. A judge must
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: weigh the severity of the police misconduct against society's interest
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: in adjudicating a murder on its actual merits.
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, I think I follow.
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: So in the case of the laptops... Breaching lawyer-client privilege
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: is so fundamentally destructive to the justice system that the
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: evidence must be thrown out to punish the state, regardless
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: of how valuable the searches were.
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: You can't let cops read lawyer emails. Ever.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: Exactly. With the phone, the judge determined the police error
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: was serious, but the evidence in the lock manual was
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: so highly relevant, and the breach wasn't reading privileged lawyer communications,
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: that excluding it would harm the justice system more than
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: admitting it.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: It's a massive high-wire balancing act. But even with the
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: PDF admitted, the core digital confessions, the Google searches about
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: choking and poisons, are gone.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Gone completely.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: So the prosecution is staring down a trial where the
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: defense can easily exploit these massive police failures to create
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. They needed something absolutely bulletproof.
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: And they had to look all the way to the
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: East Coast to find it. By mid-November, investigators secured a new,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: hopefully legally sound, warrant to wiretap Merritt and Fattori's new
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: residence in Nova Scotia.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: The wiretap. You and I have talked about this kind
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: of thing before. The sheer psychological pressure of waiting in
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: a listening room.
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: It's grueling work.
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: Detectives just sitting with headphones on, logging hundreds of hours
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: of mundane domestic conversations, you know, arguing about the dishes,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: just waiting for the suspects to drop their guard.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: And because of that illusion of safety we discussed earlier,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: their guard eventually drops. The audio probes captured some astonishing moments.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Like what?
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: In one instance, detectors are listening live as Chris Vittor
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: is actively researching how DNA transfers through sweat or tears.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: And while he's reading this on his computer screen, he
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: speaks aloud in the house, saying to Merritt, I was
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: wearing my hood, my long-sleeve hooded Cumberland hooded sweater.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: He is literally putting himself at the crime scene, analyzing
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: his own wardrobe for DNA liabilities, and he's doing it
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: into a live police microphone. Yes.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: But the definitive moment, the piece of evidence that saved
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: this entire bungled investigation, happens on January 1st, 2014.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Happy New Year to the wiretap team.
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Seriously. Melissa Merritt and Chris Vitor are having a conversation.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: The tension between them is escalating, and Merritt is recorded saying, quote,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: You have to realize that the underlying fact of the
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: matter is that you killed Caleb. Wow.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: And Vitor's response.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: He replies, quote, I know.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: I know. I know. Two syllables that erase years of
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: police incompetence.
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: Three weeks after that recording is logged, police move in
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: and arrest them both.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the trial in 2017. The mechanics
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: of the murders are finally presented to a jury. They
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: hear the wiretaps. They see the Velcro shoes from the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Walmart bag. But because the investigation was so severely compromised
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: over the years, the verdicts aren't a simple sweep.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: Are they?
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: No.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: The verdicts reflect the messy, fractured nature of the evidence.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Both Chris Vittor and Melissa Merritt are found guilty of
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: first-degree murder and the death of Caleb Harrison.
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: So they are held accountable for the third body. What
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: about Bridget in 2010?
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: Chris Vittor is found guilty of Bridget's murder. However, the
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: jury actually deadlocked regarding Melissa Merritt's involvement in Bridget's death.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: They couldn't agree? Right.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: They could not reach a unanimous decision, which resulted in
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: a hung jury for her on that specific charge.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: And what about Bill, the grandfather who died in 2009
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: on the very day they abducted the kids?
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: Neither Fator nor Merritt are found guilty in the death
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: of Bill Harrison.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: Unbelievable.
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: The passage of time and the total lack of an
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: initial homicide investigation back in 2009 made it impossible to
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: prove beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: The evidence just wasn't there anymore.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: You know, when a verdict like this comes down, it's
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: so easy to look at the first degree murder convictions
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: and say, well, the system worked, but the system didn't work.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Not at all.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: This trial is like looking at a skyscraper that was
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: built with faulty steel, sank into the mud, caught fire twice,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: and only stayed upright because a single, random support beam
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: happened to hold it the last second. They caught the killers,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: but only because the killers eventually confessed into a microphone.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: That structural analogy is vital, because the trial was merely
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: the endpoint of the story for the Harrison family. What
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: the trial actually accomplished on a macro level was pulling
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: back the drywall to expose a profound systemic rot within
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: the Peel Regional Police Force.
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: And this is where we have to pivot. We need
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to guide you, the listener, away from the specific tragedy
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: of the Harrison home and look at the institution that
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: failed them.
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: Because it wasn't just them.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: Right. If this was just the story of two or
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: three sloppy detectives having a bad year, we could write
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: it off as human error. But this was not an
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: isolated incident. No.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: To understand the failure at Pitch Pine Crescent, You have
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to look at the statistical reality of the department during
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: that era.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: What's here than numbers?
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: A 2016 investigation by the Toronto Star analyzed disciplinary records
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: within Peel Police since 2010. They found that roughly 640
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: officers had been formally disciplined for misconduct.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: 640 officers. Let's provide some scale for that because numbers
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: can get blurry. What percentage of the force is that?
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: At that time, 640 officers represented nearly one-third of the
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: entire Peel Regional Police Force.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: One out of every three officers wearing that uniform had
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: a documented disciplinary record. for misconduct. We aren't talking about
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: a few bad apples. We are talking about an orchard
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: that is fundamentally diseased.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: And the institutional response to this reality was just blatant denial.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: The former chief of police, Jennifer Evans, had publicly claimed
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: that only about 2% of her officers were ever disciplined.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: 2% versus 33%.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: The internal data completely contradicted her public narrative.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: We have to look at some of the specific examples
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: of misconduct cited in Joel Whitnable's reporting because they illustrate
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: how degraded the moral compass of the department had become.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: The Harrison negligence wasn't an anomaly. It was the standard
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: operating procedure.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: It really was.
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the drug squad incident in August 2019.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: This case is a perfect microcosm of institutional arrogance. Four
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: officers on the drug squad, individuals, who were internally lauded
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: as the best of the best, pleaded guilty to obstructing justice.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: And how did the best of the best obstruct justice?
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Did they run a complex wiretap scheme? Did they skim money?
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: No. They stole a large wooden statue of a movie
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: character from the storage locker of an accused drug dealer. Wait.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: They stole a wooden statue?
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Yes. Scarface, specifically. And when questions were raised about the
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: missing property, these officers took the witness stand in court
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: and lied under oath to cover up the theft.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: They committed perjury, a felony, over a piece of wooden memorabilia. Yes.
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: And because they lied on the stand, the entire drug
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: trafficking case against the dealer collapsed and had to be
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: thrown out.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: So a drug dealer walks free because the cops wanted
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: a wooden statue.
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: The officers eventually resigned. Their punishment for perjury and obstruction
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: of justice. A one-year conditional sentence requiring them to serve
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: just six months of house arrest.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: They sabotaged a major drug prosecution for a prank, lied
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: to a judge, and got to sit on their couch
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: for six months. If that's the culture among the best
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: of the best, what happens when someone actually tries to
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: hold them accountable? Let's look at the retaliation case involving
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: the defense lawyer.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: This example really highlights the defensive posture of the bureaucracy.
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: A different Peel officer was caught allegedly stealing $ 20, 000 in
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: cash during a search of an accused person's home. Okay.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: A defense attorney named Leora Shemesh discovered this theft and
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: exposed it.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: So a lawyer blows the whistle on a corrupt cop
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: stealing 20 grand. How does Chief Evans' department respond?
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: Instead of launching a rigorous internal affairs investigation into the
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: officer holding the bag of cash, the department turned its
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: resources against the whistleblower. They targeted Leora Shemesh, an accuser
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: of perjury.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: They weaponized the legal system to frame the lawyer who
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: exposed their theft.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: Shemesh was ultimately fully vindicated of the fabricated charges And
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: she subsequently sued the Peel Police Services Board for the retaliation.
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: The sheer audacity is staggering. And the pattern just continues
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: in the courtroom, right? In 2011, Justice Douglas Gray was
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: forced to halt a major human trafficking and pimping trial.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: Why?
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Because he discovered that Peel vice officers had literally fabricated evidence. Yes.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: He called their conduct, quote, an affront to decency.
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: And a year later, in 2012, Justice Dina Ballman had
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: to spare a convicted drug defendant from jail time. She
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: found that Peel police officers had, in her words, colluded
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: and then committed perjury en masse to cover up an
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: illegal search.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: En masse. A coordinated conspiracy to commit perjury. So to
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: you listening right now, when you have a police force
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: where one third of the members face discipline, where units
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: are fabricating evidence, where officers coordinate mass perjury to cover
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: up illegal searches, and where the leadership retaliates against whistleblowers...
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: The bureaucratic filter is entirely broken.
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: Completely broken.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: A culture of impunity doesn't just result in stolen wooden statues.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: As the Harrison family learned, a culture of impunity leaves
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: bodies lying in suburban bedrooms.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: It does. Because when an institution accepts corner cutting, illegality
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: and negligence as the price of doing business, complex homicides
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: are actively downgraded to accidental falls down the stairs.
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: It is administratively easier. It is faster. And the officers
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: know intrinsically that the internal hierarchy will not hold them
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: accountable for failing to look deeper. Which brings us to
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the ultimate question of accountability. Caleb is dead. Bridget is dead.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Bill is dead. The killers are in prison. The public
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: knows the police bungled the case for four years. What
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: happens next? How does the bureaucracy investigate itself?
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: Well, in May of 2020, Peel Police finalized that 123-page
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: administrative review we mentioned earlier. It laid out 14 new
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: recommendations for the force.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: What a ton of recommendations.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: Mandating updated training for sudden death investigations. Requiring the use
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: of major case management models when a death is suspicious.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Implementing a peer review protocol where the Homicide Bureau must
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: evaluate all undetermined deaths on a monthly basis.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Call me cynical, but shouldn't reviewing suspicious deaths have been
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: standard operating procedure like 50 years ago?
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: It absolutely should have been. The current chief of police,
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: Nishan Durata, issued a public statement He acknowledged the, quote,
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: significant trauma inflicted upon the Harrison family by the delays.
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: But he was careful to politically insulate himself, noting that
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: this decade-long saga transpired, quote, before my time with Peel Police.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: The classic bureaucratic sidestep. The house burned down before I
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: took the job as fire chief, so don't look at me.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Pretty much.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: But internal reviews are one thing. Weren't there external investigations
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: into this disaster?
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, there were. The Office of the Independent Police Review Director,
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: often referred to as The OIPRD launched investigations into the
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: handling of the Harrison case.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Stop there. What exactly is the OIPRD?
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: At the time, the OIPRD was the civilian oversight agency
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: in Ontario, responsible for receiving, managing, and overseeing all public
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: complaints about police in the province.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, so they're the watchdog.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: They're supposed to be the independent watchdog that ensures police
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: don't just sweep their own mistakes under the rug.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: So the Independent Watchdog investigates. What did their report say
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: about the detectives who let a serial killer walk free?
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: We actually don't fully know. Yeah. Because under the rules
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: of the Police Services Act at the time, OIPRD reports
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: regarding officer discipline are kept strictly confidential. They are hidden
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: from the public.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: Wait. The civilian oversight body, funded by taxpayers to hold
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: police accountable, legally hides their findings from the taxpayers. Exactly.
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It highlights a massive legislative flaw where police union
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: protections and bureaucratic secrecy override public transparency. The only reason
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: the public knows anything about the OIPOD findings in the
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: Harrison case is because the surviving family members were so
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: outraged by the secrecy that they leaked the information to
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: the media, specifically the Toronto Star.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: The victims had to become whistleblowers just to find out
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: why their family was murdered.
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: So based on what was leaked, did anyone actually face
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: real consequences?
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: It all hinged on how the chief of police categorized
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: the officers' failures. Chief DeRipa evaluated the misconduct of the
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: investigators who bungled the 2009 and 2010 deaths, and he
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: legally categorized their misconduct as less serious.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: Less serious. Three people are dead because these officers couldn't
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: be bothered to look at a family court docket, and
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: the chief calls it less serious.
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: That classification is crucial, legally speaking. By deeming the misconduct
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: less serious, it legally bypassed the requirement for a public
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: disciplinary hearing under the Police Services Act.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: So they didn't have to face the music in public.
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: It meant the discipline could be handled internally, quietly, at
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: the divisional level, without any public scrutiny.
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: So what was the actual final punishment for the officers
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: who closed the book on Bridget Harrison's murder?
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: Two specific officers, Inspector Sean Brennan and Gregory Amoroso, formally
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: accepted responsibility for their failure to properly follow up on
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: the investigations. Okay. Inspector Amoroso, crucially, is the officer who
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: incorrectly documented in his official report that there was no
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: evidence of foul play in Bridget's death, which effectively killed
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: the homicide probe in 2010.
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: And for drafting the document that shielded a killer, what
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: was his penalty? Was he fired? Demoted? Suspended without pay? No.
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: They suffered a loss of days off.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Wait, they lost vacation time.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: Essentially, yes. The docking of accumulated days off was the
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: final disciplinary action.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: A detective loses a long weekend, and the Harrison family
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: loses a father, a mother, and a son. The disparity
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: between the consequence for the police and the body count
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: for the victims is genuinely sickening.
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate manifestation of a broken accountability loop.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: When the institutional penalty for blindness that enables a serial
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: killer is the equivalent of a minor HR infraction, it
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: sends a crystal clear message to the rank and file.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it does.
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: It tells them that negligence is, at worst, an inconvenience.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: It tells them the system will protect them no matter
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: the cost to the public. As we wrap up this
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: deep dive, let's just look at the totality of what
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: we've uncovered today.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: It's a heavy list.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: We have the Harrison family. Terrorized for a decade, three
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: generations wiped out in the same house. We have killers
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: who leave a literal digital blueprint of their crimes on
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: an abandoned hard drive. We have a police force that
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: illegally breaches attorney-client privilege, destroying their own best evidence in
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: the process. We have convictions that only happen because of
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: an accidental wiretap confession. And zooming out, we see an
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: entire police department crippled by a culture of impunity. where
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: stealing evidence, committing perjury, and ignoring murders results in nothing
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: more than a slap on the wrist.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: The Harrison tragedy is what happens when relentless sociopathic malice
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: intersects with absolute bureaucratic apathy.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: And that brings me to a final uncomfortable thought for
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: you to carry on. with you today.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: The Harrison family was ultimately destroyed by two forces working
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: in tandem, a pair of methodical killers and a negligent
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: institution that inadvertently served as their shield. It forces you
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: to look at the statistics we discussed today.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: The 640 officers.
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah. If it took a third body lying dead in
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: the exact same house with the exact same signs of
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: violent strangulation for this specific police department to finally notice
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: a homicide, how many other files are sitting in their
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: archives right now?
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: How many other cases were hastily closed by an officer
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: who just wanted to end their shift?
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Exactly. How many accidental falls down the stairs or peaceful
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: passings in the night are actually unsolved murders? Murders that
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: are perfectly hidden, not by the brilliance of the killer...
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: but by an impenetrable wall of institutional negligence. Thank you
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: for joining us on this deep dive. Always keep asking
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: questions and never assume the official narrative is the whole truth.