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#192 Jason Flom with Glen Assoun · Wrongful Conviction

0:03
Speaker 1: On November twelfth, nineteen ninety five, Brenda Way's body was
0:06
Speaker 1: discovered behind a dumpster in Dartmouth.
0:09
Speaker 2: Nova Scotia.
0:10
Speaker 1: Her throat had been slit with a solid alibi. The
0:13
Speaker 1: initial investigation cleared her ex boyfriend Glennis Soon of the murder,
0:18
Speaker 1: but nearly a year later a new investigator was assigned
0:21
Speaker 1: to this cold case, who used the ramblings of a
0:24
Speaker 1: crack addict seeking leniency in order to bring Glenn back
0:27
Speaker 1: into suspicion. The investigation continued down an increasingly ridiculous path,
0:33
Speaker 1: involving psychics and even more crack addicts. While there was
0:37
Speaker 1: evidence pointing toward a bearded serial killer the entire time,
0:42
Speaker 1: police both disregarded and hid that evidence, though, choosing to
0:47
Speaker 1: stay with the course they knew was a farce, and
0:50
Speaker 1: Glenn spent over sixteen long, miserable years behind bars until
0:56
Speaker 1: Innocence Canada was able to unearth that detail and spring
1:00
Speaker 1: and from prison. However, nothing will ever replace all of
1:05
Speaker 1: the years. Is doolan from Glenn and his family. This
1:09
Speaker 1: is wrongful conviction with Jason Plomm. Welcome back to wrongful
1:26
Speaker 1: conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me, of course, I'm your host,
1:29
Speaker 1: and today you're going to hear a story from north
1:32
Speaker 1: of the border. We have two incredible lawyers, Sean McDonald
1:36
Speaker 1: and Phil Campbell from Innocence Canada. Sean, first of all,
1:40
Speaker 1: welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Thanks for being here.
1:43
Speaker 2: Thanks very much for having me.
1:44
Speaker 1: And Phil, I'm so glad that you're here as well
1:46
Speaker 1: to highlight the work that Innocence Canada does because I
1:50
Speaker 1: don't believe that this organization gets enough attention and we
1:53
Speaker 1: want to change that. So thanks for being here as well.
1:57
Speaker 3: Thanks so much.
1:58
Speaker 1: Jason, and of course, save the best for last. We
2:01
Speaker 1: have a guy who I can only call a hero
2:04
Speaker 1: to so many of us, Glenn as Soon, who went
2:07
Speaker 1: to hell and back and is here to share his
2:09
Speaker 1: story with us. So Glenn, thank you for being here.
2:12
Speaker 1: Thank you.
2:12
Speaker 4: I'm glad to be here.
2:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's sort of a miracle that you made it
2:16
Speaker 1: through and that you are here, and it speaks to
2:19
Speaker 1: your strength and your spirit. So I'm really excited that
2:22
Speaker 1: you're here and I'm sorry you had to go through this.
2:25
Speaker 1: Let's go back to the beginning, Glenn, where did you
2:27
Speaker 1: grow up?
2:28
Speaker 4: I grew up in Sydney, k Breton, Nova, Scotia. It's
2:31
Speaker 4: a small town.
2:32
Speaker 1: And how was your life before this? What were some
2:34
Speaker 1: of your hobbies.
2:36
Speaker 4: My hobbies was playing a guitar, try to learn how
2:38
Speaker 4: to play the guitar properly and stuff. Listen to country
2:41
Speaker 4: music and trying to play country music.
2:43
Speaker 1: And you were raising a pretty large family as well
2:45
Speaker 1: at the time, right.
2:46
Speaker 4: Yes, I had three kids to raise back in the seventies.
2:51
Speaker 1: And then everything went to hell in a handbasket. We're
2:55
Speaker 1: talking about Sunday morning, November twelfth, nineteen ninety five, your
3:01
Speaker 1: ex girlfriend, Brenda Way, was discovered behind an apartment building
3:05
Speaker 1: in Dartmouth, Nova, Scotia, and her throat had been slit.
3:09
Speaker 1: Even I think for avid listeners of the show who've
3:12
Speaker 1: heard so many of these stories, this one is fucking sick. Now,
3:17
Speaker 1: this is where I want to turn to the legal
3:19
Speaker 1: team because the preventable nature of all of this is
3:23
Speaker 1: so stunning to me. Tell me what the hell happened here?
3:27
Speaker 2: So at the beginning, police rightfully interviewed all the people
3:30
Speaker 2: that had contact with Brenda Way. They interviewed Glenn. They
3:33
Speaker 2: determined that he had an ALBI. He was with his
3:36
Speaker 2: roommate and friend and Morse all night with two other
3:40
Speaker 2: roommates that night. So he had a supportable, credible, truthful,
3:44
Speaker 2: most importantly alibi, and in the end it appeared to us,
3:47
Speaker 2: at least on the record that we reviewed, that they
3:49
Speaker 2: cleared him as a suspect or at least deprioritized him
3:53
Speaker 2: as a person of interest and moved on to look
3:55
Speaker 2: at other things.
3:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we had this excellent alibi within hours of
4:01
Speaker 3: the discovery of the body, and sometime in the year
4:05
Speaker 3: or two afterwards, the brenda Way homicide shifted to two
4:09
Speaker 3: different officers, and those two guys decided that Glennisoon must
4:14
Speaker 3: have done it. And really it's a kind of classic
4:17
Speaker 3: example of the tunnel vision that so often characterizes wrongful convictions. Well,
4:22
Speaker 3: you stop investigating a crime and you start investigating a person.
4:26
Speaker 3: And once they'd fixed on Glenn, the first thing they
4:29
Speaker 3: had to do was discredit the alibi. So they pulled
4:32
Speaker 3: in Anne Morse, who had told the truth. They arrested
4:36
Speaker 3: her for obstruction of justice for having told the truth.
4:40
Speaker 3: They told her she was going to jail for three
4:43
Speaker 3: to five years. They intimidated her, and then they finally
4:46
Speaker 3: persuaded her that maybe she couldn't know, and maybe she
4:49
Speaker 3: wasn't sure, even though she had always said before then,
4:52
Speaker 3: it has always said afterwards that that statement I gave
4:56
Speaker 3: the morning Brenda was found was the truth. So they
4:58
Speaker 3: thought they had a little c the alibi. And then
5:01
Speaker 3: they started finding recruiting other witnesses, and there was just
5:05
Speaker 3: a daisy chain of witnesses, each less credible than the other,
5:10
Speaker 3: but collectively they made up the case that the Crown
5:12
Speaker 3: eventually put in front of the jewelry.
5:15
Speaker 1: It's like they send in the clowns, right. One farcical
5:19
Speaker 1: witness after another is dragged into this. Can you walk
5:24
Speaker 1: us through this cast of characters real quick?
5:27
Speaker 2: Glenn was hitting the streets after Brenda was killed, trying
5:29
Speaker 2: to find out who killed her. One of the people
5:32
Speaker 2: Glenn was regularly speaking with was a woman by the
5:35
Speaker 2: name of Margaret Hartrick. Margaret was a well known street prostitute.
5:40
Speaker 2: Now it's interesting because at different times Margaret Hartrick would
5:44
Speaker 2: call Glenn and say I have information on Brenda's murder.
5:47
Speaker 2: And there were a number of occasions where Glenn brought
5:51
Speaker 2: Margaret to the attention of the police because she was
5:53
Speaker 2: telling him I know what happened. I'm hearing on the streets.
5:56
Speaker 2: What's happening, and Glenn was saying, well, you know, tell
5:58
Speaker 2: the police. Eventually was picked up by the police in
6:02
Speaker 2: relation to a customer of hers who had died, and
6:05
Speaker 2: while she was speaking to the police about this, she
6:09
Speaker 2: said to them, well, I also have information on Brenda
6:12
Speaker 2: Way's homicide. And so the police officer said, okay, well
6:17
Speaker 2: you know what do you have to say, and they
6:19
Speaker 2: sat her down and she started to go on this
6:21
Speaker 2: rambling die tribe about psychic visions and psychic dreams that
6:25
Speaker 2: she had where she saw areas of Dartmouth where Brenda
6:29
Speaker 2: was taken by different people and how she was killed,
6:32
Speaker 2: to the point where the cops just said, look, thanks
6:34
Speaker 2: for the information, and they started to shuffle her out
6:36
Speaker 2: the door, or at least that this is the way
6:38
Speaker 2: they recall the conversation and when they testified at Glenn's trial,
6:42
Speaker 2: and then Margaret suddenly said, well, I guess you don't
6:45
Speaker 2: care that Glenn was at the site of the murder
6:47
Speaker 2: at four point fifteen am and the morning Brenda was killed.
6:51
Speaker 2: So suddenly they're saying that she's changing her evidence. After
6:54
Speaker 2: forty five minutes of psychic ramblings, after months and months
6:58
Speaker 2: of ramblings, with Glenn to the police and puts Glenn
7:02
Speaker 2: at the scene of the murder, inconsistent with the alibi
7:05
Speaker 2: that they already checked out and found to be credible.
7:08
Speaker 2: And that was the moment where the new officers investigating
7:11
Speaker 2: this case had their witness. The investigation increased in pace
7:16
Speaker 2: from that point forward.
7:18
Speaker 3: The next development was the emergence of Brenda's sister, Jane.
7:22
Speaker 3: Jane told the police that she had found a knife,
7:25
Speaker 3: and she said that she had been looking for the
7:28
Speaker 3: knife near the scene of the crime, which had been
7:31
Speaker 3: thoroughly searched by police, because a psychic had told her
7:36
Speaker 3: that her sister was killed by a broken tipped knife,
7:40
Speaker 3: and lo and behold, she had gone out, looked around
7:43
Speaker 3: the area adjacent to the murder and found a broken
7:46
Speaker 3: tipped knife. The police would ultimately seize this knife. The
7:50
Speaker 3: knife would have no forensic evidence that tied it either
7:54
Speaker 3: to the homicide or to Glennis soon but it ultimately
7:57
Speaker 3: became an exhibited trial and it became the focal point
8:02
Speaker 3: of the next key witness's story, and that is a
8:05
Speaker 3: woman named Mary Cameron. Mary Cameron was, unsurprisingly to us,
8:11
Speaker 3: a friend of Jane, the sister, and she popped up
8:14
Speaker 3: to the police with a story that she had been
8:18
Speaker 3: with a friend of hers and Glenn had walked in
8:21
Speaker 3: and said, I killed her. I got her ear to ear,
8:26
Speaker 3: I cut her so hard I broke off the tip
8:28
Speaker 3: of the knife. This is a confession. He supposedly volunteers
8:32
Speaker 3: in front of a complete stranger, and Mary becomes the
8:37
Speaker 3: next crown witness, even though the woman who she was
8:40
Speaker 3: with her friend, who also knew Glenn, flatly denied that
8:43
Speaker 3: any such conversation had taken place. So that's Margaret and
8:48
Speaker 3: now Mary. So.
8:50
Speaker 2: Brenda's cousin is a woman by the name of Karen Way. Karen,
8:53
Speaker 2: within two weeks of the murder, was at a bar
8:57
Speaker 2: with her boyfriend and heard two guys walking down the
9:00
Speaker 2: bar in this dark, seedy bar in Dartmouth, one guy
9:03
Speaker 2: telling the other guy, you should have seen the look
9:06
Speaker 2: on Brenda Way's face when I slid her throat. And
9:08
Speaker 2: the guy who said it was a burly guy with
9:11
Speaker 2: dark hair and a beard, and it was so disturbing
9:14
Speaker 2: to Karen. Karen calls the police. Police show up and
9:17
Speaker 2: they do nothing. They take a report. That report gets filed.
9:21
Speaker 2: The officers did not go back to Karen Wade to
9:24
Speaker 2: try and talk to her about what she saw. They
9:26
Speaker 2: didn't go to the bar, they didn't look at cameras
9:28
Speaker 2: around the bar, they didn't do anything. And that description
9:32
Speaker 2: very closely tracks the description of Michael Wayne McGray, who
9:36
Speaker 2: is a serial killer currently doing life in prison, I
9:40
Speaker 2: think for seven murders or maybe eight that he's confessed
9:43
Speaker 2: to so far. The detective that investigated Glenn didn't give
9:46
Speaker 2: a crap about that evidence. Nothing was done with it.
9:49
Speaker 1: It's so sickening because, aside from the grotesque injustice that
9:54
Speaker 1: was done to Glenn and his family, all they had
9:58
Speaker 1: to do was follow up on that and then the
10:00
Speaker 1: rest of this mayhem could have been avoided and these
10:04
Speaker 1: other victims would never have known the terrible fate that
10:08
Speaker 1: befell them. So it's just sickening. It doesn't make any sense.
10:11
Speaker 1: It's never going to make any sense. But Glenn, back
10:14
Speaker 1: to you, So back in March of nineteen ninety eight,
10:18
Speaker 1: you surrendered to the police, right, and you still maintained
10:22
Speaker 1: that this was just going to get worked out because
10:24
Speaker 1: you was somebody who I presuming believed in the justice system.
10:28
Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought it was going to be worked out
10:29
Speaker 4: in two weeks time at the tops because I knew
10:33
Speaker 4: I was innocent. I knew they were making a mistake.
10:35
Speaker 4: But I found out that there was a Candon wide
10:37
Speaker 4: warrantone for me, So I turned myself into the RCMP.
10:42
Speaker 4: They arrested me. They took me on a plane, took
10:44
Speaker 4: me back to Nova Scotia, and I was never so
10:46
Speaker 4: embarrassing all my life since shackles and chains. Going to
10:49
Speaker 4: an airport. It was clogg full of people. It's just
10:52
Speaker 4: all happened so fast.
10:54
Speaker 1: So they gave you a polygraph. You passed a polygraph,
10:58
Speaker 1: but of course they ignored that as well, and you
11:01
Speaker 1: were smart enough to see what they were up to,
11:03
Speaker 1: which is why you requested a lawyer. But now it
11:06
Speaker 1: takes a crazy turn in the courtroom, and Sean, if
11:08
Speaker 1: you could take us through.
11:09
Speaker 2: That, Glenn didn't see eyed eye with the lawyer that
11:12
Speaker 2: he had. Glenn's approach was pretty simple, I'm innocent. Bring
11:16
Speaker 2: everybody in that you can find to say whatever they
11:18
Speaker 2: have to say, because the truth will show the jury
11:21
Speaker 2: that I didn't commit this murder. And that created tension
11:25
Speaker 2: between him and his lawyer. That hit a crescendo and
11:28
Speaker 2: Glenn fired his lawyer at the very beginning of a
11:31
Speaker 2: long jury trial of four second degree murder, and at
11:35
Speaker 2: that point Glenn was granted a short adjournment to try
11:38
Speaker 2: and find another lawyer. However, inmates inside of correctional facilities
11:43
Speaker 2: can't just go to a phone anytime they want, pick
11:47
Speaker 2: it up and dial a lawyer. They've got to have
11:49
Speaker 2: somebody accept a cleck call. On the other end. They
11:52
Speaker 2: have to have a lawyer who's willing to talk to them,
11:54
Speaker 2: and they have to have a lawyer who's capable and
11:56
Speaker 2: has the time to prepare for a murder trial. And
11:58
Speaker 2: in Glenn's case, those things didn't align and the court
12:02
Speaker 2: lost patience with him, and the judge said, I'm not
12:04
Speaker 2: giving you any more time. You're going to represent yourself
12:07
Speaker 2: with a grade six education and don't worry about it.
12:10
Speaker 2: Everybody has to have their first case, and that is
12:14
Speaker 2: when Glenn's trial started.
12:16
Speaker 1: This is basically like asking someone to go perform surgery
12:21
Speaker 1: on themselves. I mean, I think that's not an unfair comparison,
12:25
Speaker 1: because the odds of success are about the same. And
12:28
Speaker 1: at one point, Glenn, you told the jury you're innocent,
12:32
Speaker 1: and that evidence was being hidden from them all of
12:34
Speaker 1: which was true. And then the judge ordered the sheriffs
12:38
Speaker 1: to physically cover your mouth and drag you out of
12:41
Speaker 1: the courtroom in front of the jury as you screamed
12:43
Speaker 1: out your innocence. It's a fucking horror show. What was
12:47
Speaker 1: that like from your perspective?
12:49
Speaker 4: I said to myself, I need a lawyer. I can't
12:52
Speaker 4: do this. So I decided when the judge came in,
12:56
Speaker 4: I'm gonna tell her that I need a lawyer. So
12:59
Speaker 4: long story short, I had no idea that you can
13:01
Speaker 4: speak in front of the jury. And I stood up
13:04
Speaker 4: and said, your honor, I'm an innocent man.
13:06
Speaker 3: I need a lawyer.
13:07
Speaker 4: She said, take him out.
13:08
Speaker 3: Take him out.
13:09
Speaker 4: So two sheriffs dragged me across the courtroom floor and
13:12
Speaker 4: right in front of the jury. The judge said, if
13:15
Speaker 4: I hear any more outbursts of you, miss or as
13:18
Speaker 4: soon you'll be watching your trial tow circuit camera. All
13:22
Speaker 4: I could do is stay up all night and read
13:24
Speaker 4: statements and write out questions to ask these people say
13:26
Speaker 4: if I get them in their lives. Every time I
13:29
Speaker 4: would get to a point where I was putting them
13:31
Speaker 4: in a corner where they had no choice to tell
13:33
Speaker 4: the truth. To crown and object and clear the courtroom.
13:36
Speaker 4: I don't know how many times the jury was cleared
13:38
Speaker 4: in the courtroom, several and I was exhausted, but I
13:41
Speaker 4: kept on going through.
13:41
Speaker 1: It, and of course the results were predictable. September seventeenth,
13:48
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety nine, the jury went out and they found
13:53
Speaker 1: you guilty of second degree murder. And can you describe
13:56
Speaker 1: that horrible moment for us?
13:58
Speaker 4: It was a field never felt before. And I stood
14:01
Speaker 4: up and said, I'm wrongly convicted. Now it's official. And
14:05
Speaker 4: she objected to it. She said, mister Sonia had your
14:07
Speaker 4: chance to testify and trials over. Now you can't be talking.
14:11
Speaker 4: I knew I was being railroads, Railroads to hell.
14:25
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by the AIG pro Bono Program.
14:29
Speaker 1: AIG is a leading global insurance company, and for over
14:32
Speaker 1: a decade, the AIG pro Bono Program has provided thousands
14:36
Speaker 1: of hours of free legal services and other support to
14:39
Speaker 1: nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the
14:44
Speaker 1: program added criminal and social justice reform as a key
14:47
Speaker 1: pillar of its mission. This episode is brought to you
14:52
Speaker 1: by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated
14:56
Speaker 1: to helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years,
15:00
Speaker 1: Stand Together and its partners have been on the front
15:02
Speaker 1: lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action,
15:06
Speaker 1: supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses, Stand Together tackles the
15:11
Speaker 1: root causes of problems in our communities and empowers those
15:14
Speaker 1: closest to the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing
15:18
Speaker 1: unjust prison sentences through the First Step Act, empowering community
15:22
Speaker 1: based programs and help people re enter society, and now
15:25
Speaker 1: working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn how
15:29
Speaker 1: you may get involved, visit standtogether dot org slash conviction.
15:40
Speaker 1: There you are sentenced to eighteen and a half years
15:43
Speaker 1: to life on December thirteenth of nineteen ninety nine. I
15:47
Speaker 1: think many people in the United States have a vision
15:49
Speaker 1: of Canada as a peaceful place with a more just
15:52
Speaker 1: system that is violent perhaps, But in fact the prisons
15:57
Speaker 1: there are just as bad as here, and you were
16:00
Speaker 1: sent to one of the worst ones. Is that correct?
16:03
Speaker 1: That's correct?
16:04
Speaker 4: And I went to Dorchester Penitentiary and that's the last
16:07
Speaker 4: I had seen any scenery because of the forty five
16:10
Speaker 4: foot wall around the place. And that's all I seen,
16:13
Speaker 4: is that wall. And it was dangerous there for me.
16:16
Speaker 4: I almost got killed there a dozen times. I was
16:20
Speaker 4: telling anybody and everybody who would listen to me, because
16:22
Speaker 4: I'm an innocent man. They made a mistake. So I
16:26
Speaker 4: knew a guy in there who has done leather work.
16:28
Speaker 4: I had a hat with just a blank hat, and
16:31
Speaker 4: I got him to make up a patch on my hat.
16:33
Speaker 4: Wrongly convicted nineteen ninety eight. And I wore that hat
16:36
Speaker 4: around the prison until I wore it out, and then
16:39
Speaker 4: the guards took it from me. The guards came to
16:42
Speaker 4: me one day and they said, we're putting you in
16:44
Speaker 4: the hole. I said, why he put me in the hole?
16:46
Speaker 4: I didn't do anything. So they handcuffed me, took me
16:49
Speaker 4: down the hole. They got me in there, and they
16:51
Speaker 4: shoved me against the wall and they got me on
16:53
Speaker 4: the floor, and I was still handcuffed behind my back.
16:56
Speaker 4: Mind you, and this guard, he would weighed about two
16:59
Speaker 4: hundred seventy five pounds, he was beat me with the
17:03
Speaker 4: It looks like I was seeing a steel pipe. So
17:05
Speaker 4: he was beat me over the head with that and
17:07
Speaker 4: he broke my ankles with it. And they cut the
17:10
Speaker 4: clothes off me right there with a pair of scissors
17:13
Speaker 4: while I was still laying in my face taking a beaten,
17:16
Speaker 4: and they beat me half to dead, and then they
17:19
Speaker 4: took me into a camera cell and just left me
17:22
Speaker 4: there for about five hours. The only thing I had
17:25
Speaker 4: on me was my underwear. They cut the boots off
17:28
Speaker 4: of me and everything. The only thing was in there
17:30
Speaker 4: was a toilet and the sink, and the sink didn't work,
17:32
Speaker 4: so the toilet did. I was beat so bad I
17:35
Speaker 4: flushed the toilet a few times and I drank water
17:38
Speaker 4: the toilet. I was so dehydrated from the beaten that
17:40
Speaker 4: it took me.
17:43
Speaker 1: I mean, it's hard to even hear this story, and
17:45
Speaker 1: I just, you know, I want to apologize to you
17:48
Speaker 1: on behalf of you know, the entire human race, because
17:51
Speaker 1: nobody should ever be subjected to a fraction of what
17:54
Speaker 1: you went through. And you had to go through all
17:56
Speaker 1: of it. And here you are a guy that I
17:58
Speaker 1: think a lot of people can probably late to you
18:00
Speaker 1: more than you know. I mean, here you are a
18:02
Speaker 1: guy in your forties, five 'ot five, one hundred and
18:04
Speaker 1: forty pounds, no history of violence, no ability to navigate
18:09
Speaker 1: this foreign situation that you're thrust into. It's literally something
18:14
Speaker 1: out of a movie that would give anybody nightmares, and
18:17
Speaker 1: you went through it, but somehow or other, you got
18:19
Speaker 1: through it, and then you know, things eventually turned around.
18:23
Speaker 1: How did Innocence Canada become aware of the case and
18:27
Speaker 1: how did you manage to unravel this insanity?
18:31
Speaker 2: Added around two thousand and six, I was in the
18:34
Speaker 2: Innocence Canada office for a meeting with our executive director,
18:37
Speaker 2: and I had some time to kill and I was
18:38
Speaker 2: sitting in the boardroom. And in the boardroom at Innocence Canada,
18:42
Speaker 2: like most innocence organizations across the country or the world,
18:46
Speaker 2: there's boxes of documents and memos everywhere. So I happened
18:49
Speaker 2: to pick one up and it was a memo written
18:51
Speaker 2: by a lawyer at Innocence Canada by the name of
18:53
Speaker 2: Jerome Kennedy. And Jerome had represented Glenn a year beforehand
18:58
Speaker 2: on his appeal. And as I turned the pages, as
19:01
Speaker 2: everybody does with this case, I got madder, and I
19:04
Speaker 2: got madder and I got madder, And by the time
19:06
Speaker 2: I finished that overview memo, I was in And from
19:10
Speaker 2: that point forward, I knew that I wasn't going to
19:13
Speaker 2: start I wasn't going to stop working on Glenn's case
19:15
Speaker 2: until we were able to get them justice.
19:17
Speaker 3: So I looked at the five witnesses that were called
19:20
Speaker 3: a trial from the perspective of an appellate lawyer, and
19:23
Speaker 3: Mary Cameron was the strongest crown or prosecution witness. But
19:28
Speaker 3: Sean did some digging on her and eventually she signed
19:31
Speaker 3: an affidavit that took back most of her evidence, and
19:35
Speaker 3: Kathy Vlad, who had witnessed the supposed confession, made it
19:38
Speaker 3: very clear that nothing like that had ever happened. We
19:41
Speaker 3: managed to develop links between the sister of Brenda, Jane,
19:46
Speaker 3: who was led by the psychic to the knife, with
19:49
Speaker 3: the three core witnesses in the case. Each of them
19:53
Speaker 3: had connections to Jane or to her family, and so
19:57
Speaker 3: the thing started to crumble. But critical to it was
20:01
Speaker 3: a girl who also worked the streets of Halifax and
20:04
Speaker 3: who experienced something dreadful in the winter of nineteen ninety
20:09
Speaker 3: six ninety seven. We call her Meghan. That's a pseudonym,
20:12
Speaker 3: but Megan had been picked up by a burly man
20:17
Speaker 3: with dark hair and a dark beard, and he had
20:21
Speaker 3: taken her out to an industrial site in the middle
20:24
Speaker 3: of winter at night in the dark, assaulted her and
20:28
Speaker 3: raped her and then rather than killing her, drove her
20:31
Speaker 3: back into the city and in the course of that
20:33
Speaker 3: admitted that he was the killer of Brenda Way. Glenn
20:37
Speaker 3: had been brought back from British Columbia in the spring
20:41
Speaker 3: of nineteen ninety nine, in a blaze of local publicity,
20:45
Speaker 3: arrested for the murder of Brendaway. Meghan had seen that
20:49
Speaker 3: on TV and said, well, that must be the guy
20:52
Speaker 3: who assaulted me and confessed to killing Brendaway. And so
20:56
Speaker 3: she went to the police with that story, believing that
20:59
Speaker 3: it was true, although the man she described had striking
21:04
Speaker 3: similarities to the description of themand that Karen Way had
21:08
Speaker 3: heard brag about committing the murder days after it had
21:11
Speaker 3: happened in nineteen ninety five. Glenn, as it turned out,
21:15
Speaker 3: had spent that whole winter when that attack took place
21:18
Speaker 3: in Halifax, on the other coast of Canada, thirty five
21:21
Speaker 3: hundred miles away, and that could be documented. However, the
21:25
Speaker 3: Crown at trial ran a theory that Glenn had somehow
21:28
Speaker 3: gotten a plane ticket flow into Halifax in the middle
21:32
Speaker 3: of winter, raped Megan, confessed to the murder of Brenda,
21:36
Speaker 3: and then flown back without any other trace no evidence
21:40
Speaker 3: of his presence in Halifax, no evidence of his flight
21:43
Speaker 3: from British Columbia to Halifax. By the time of Glenn's appeal,
21:49
Speaker 3: in the early two thousands, Michael McGray, a burly bearded man,
21:54
Speaker 3: had been arrested and publicly identified as a serial killer. Indeed,
21:59
Speaker 3: he had shown a propensity to brag about his killings,
22:02
Speaker 3: and he bragged about killings enough that he was quickly
22:05
Speaker 3: identified as a serial killer. With McGray in custody and
22:09
Speaker 3: publicly known as a serial killer, Jerome Kennedy, acting for
22:13
Speaker 3: Glenn on appeal, asked for disclosure of what the police
22:17
Speaker 3: had on Michael mcgrae, and the police came back with
22:21
Speaker 3: a document that said that he was not viewed as
22:24
Speaker 3: a suspect by the police and the killing of Brenda Way.
22:28
Speaker 3: Jerome tried to advance that to the Court of Appeal,
22:30
Speaker 3: but it had no substance and it was rejected as
22:34
Speaker 3: a ground of appeal and Glenn's conviction was upheld. So
22:38
Speaker 3: that's the case that we were handed and we thought
22:41
Speaker 3: that Michael McGray looked like a good suspect if we
22:45
Speaker 3: just had more evidence about him. And at that point, Sean,
22:49
Speaker 3: who was a lawyer, but also an on the ground
22:52
Speaker 3: investigator in this case, got in touch with a couple
22:56
Speaker 3: of guys by just working the prison system.
23:00
Speaker 2: During the course of those inquiries, we found two people
23:03
Speaker 2: who had done time with Michael McGray, and both of
23:07
Speaker 2: those witnesses, independent of one another, none of whom knew Glenn,
23:11
Speaker 2: told us stories about McGray, providing detail of murders that
23:15
Speaker 2: he committed to them while they were in prison together.
23:18
Speaker 2: The story they told was chilling, and it was chilling
23:20
Speaker 2: not only because it demonstrated what we felt we already knew,
23:25
Speaker 2: which was that Glenn was innocent. They were disturbing because
23:28
Speaker 2: of the detail they provided, and these people had no
23:30
Speaker 2: idea what details attached to Brenda Way's murder. But suddenly
23:34
Speaker 2: we're getting these people giving us AffA Davis providing that detail.
23:38
Speaker 2: We later found out that McGray had lived but one
23:41
Speaker 2: hundred yards away from where the body was found, and
23:43
Speaker 2: we had another witness that came to us and told
23:46
Speaker 2: us they moved out of that apartment McGray and his
23:49
Speaker 2: girlfriend within forty eight hours of the murder. And not
23:51
Speaker 2: only did they move out, they left their furniture on
23:54
Speaker 2: the front stoop.
23:56
Speaker 3: So we've got McGray as a very plausible alternative of
24:00
Speaker 3: suspect in this case. Remember Megan, Meghan added one other
24:04
Speaker 3: really striking feature, the only very distinctive feature about her description.
24:09
Speaker 3: She said that the man who had confessed to Brenda's
24:12
Speaker 3: murder while raping and assaulting her, though it was the
24:17
Speaker 3: middle of winter and a very cold night with snow
24:20
Speaker 3: on the ground, was wearing socks and sandals on his feet.
24:23
Speaker 3: When we began to look at photos of McRae and
24:27
Speaker 3: then talk to these inmates who knew him, it became
24:30
Speaker 3: clear that that was a very well known characteristic of
24:34
Speaker 3: Michael McGray. So we've got a guy who fits the description,
24:37
Speaker 3: including in that unique way, who fits the m O perfectly,
24:42
Speaker 3: and so we were developing that for the Minister of
24:44
Speaker 3: Justice when something really stunning happened. We got information from
24:50
Speaker 3: your retired ur CMP officer that he had been speaking
24:53
Speaker 3: with another RCMP officer who knew much more than we
24:57
Speaker 3: ever dreamed about Glennis Soon's case and about Michael mcgrae.
25:01
Speaker 3: This fellow was an officer with the Behavioral Profiling Unit
25:05
Speaker 3: of the RCMP in Halifax, and he accumulated every data
25:11
Speaker 3: point possible about mcgrae. He spent the better part of
25:15
Speaker 3: a year conducting an investigation into McGray, but specifically into
25:20
Speaker 3: the murder of Brenda Way, which by this point was
25:23
Speaker 3: a solved, closed case, and he eventually reached the conclusion
25:28
Speaker 3: that mcgrae or another guy he identified were very probable
25:34
Speaker 3: killers of Brenda Way, and that Glenisoon was innocent. He
25:37
Speaker 3: had tried his best for months and months to get
25:41
Speaker 3: somebody in either the RCMP which he worked for, or
25:45
Speaker 3: the Halifax Police Service, which had investigated this case, to
25:50
Speaker 3: do something about it. And remember, Glenn is still before
25:53
Speaker 3: the Court of Appeal while this is happening, and not
25:55
Speaker 3: only that, but Jerome Kennedy, his lawyer, has made a
26:00
Speaker 3: specific request of the prosecution to obtain information about mcgrae
26:06
Speaker 3: to see whether there was anything relevant that he could
26:08
Speaker 3: use on Glen's appeal, and rather than disclosing this information,
26:13
Speaker 3: the report he got back from the Crown, who got
26:16
Speaker 3: it from the police was that there was no relevant
26:19
Speaker 3: information and McGray was not viewed as a suspect. It
26:23
Speaker 3: is hard to believe, but it is as blatant and
26:28
Speaker 3: as well documented as I have just summarized it. Eventually,
26:32
Speaker 3: we were able to establish exactly what I've just said
26:35
Speaker 3: that is that the police themselves had identified Michael mcgrae
26:39
Speaker 3: as a suspect for the murder Glenn was doing time for,
26:42
Speaker 3: and had suppressed it throughout the appellate process.
26:46
Speaker 1: I'm going to just go through that again because it's
26:49
Speaker 1: so incredibly just breathtaking in terms of the misconduct. While
26:55
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice was investigating, but unbeknownst to Glenn
26:59
Speaker 1: or his legal team, this police officer, this good cop,
27:03
Speaker 1: conducted a multi year investigation into Glenn's conviction and concluded
27:08
Speaker 1: that he was innocent. He had concluded that a serial
27:11
Speaker 1: killer McGray had lived one hundred yards from the murder
27:14
Speaker 1: scene and was the real killer. Oh my god. And
27:17
Speaker 1: then it gets worse. So this guy, to his credit,
27:21
Speaker 1: told all of his superiors that he believed there was
27:24
Speaker 1: an innocent man in prison with Glenn, of course, but
27:27
Speaker 1: instead of looking into the claims and freeing Glenn, as
27:31
Speaker 1: they clearly should have done, they transferred this officer from
27:34
Speaker 1: his unit and destroyed the fucking evidence that he had
27:38
Speaker 1: compiled over the course of his investigation. I mean, there's
27:42
Speaker 1: really there's a special place in hell for people who
27:46
Speaker 1: conducted themselves in this manner. I don't know how else
27:49
Speaker 1: to say it.
27:50
Speaker 3: Yeah, so in slightly less colorful language, that was our
27:52
Speaker 3: submission to the Minister of Justice.
27:55
Speaker 1: Well, well, it's a good thing I didn't write it.
28:12
Speaker 3: So between the information that suggested mcgrae was the killer
28:16
Speaker 3: and the massive constitutional violation represented by the non disclosure
28:21
Speaker 3: of evidence of innocence, we eventually had a very powerful
28:26
Speaker 3: case for first getting Glenn out of jail, which we
28:29
Speaker 3: managed to do in twenty fourteen, and then getting him exonerated,
28:33
Speaker 3: which the Minister of Justice and then the Supreme Court
28:37
Speaker 3: of Nova Scotia did in twenty nineteen.
28:40
Speaker 1: Glenn, what was it like to walk out of this
28:44
Speaker 1: living tomb that you were in, this torture chamber, into
28:48
Speaker 1: free air for the first time in this century.
28:52
Speaker 4: It was the happiest day of my life. I couldn't
28:55
Speaker 4: I couldn't be any happier, And it was just astronomical
29:00
Speaker 4: feeling of happiness to be a free man. And I
29:03
Speaker 4: don't know, I can't explain the feeling euphor you that
29:07
Speaker 4: I felt when I first got to my brother's place.
29:10
Speaker 4: The first day I woke up a freeman in a
29:13
Speaker 4: beautiful home. I went outside just to smell the air,
29:17
Speaker 4: and I went out in the backyard and I wouldn't
29:21
Speaker 4: go overs for about a week. I was too scared
29:23
Speaker 4: to go anywhere because I thought the cops are going
29:26
Speaker 4: to frame me again.
29:27
Speaker 1: So it took still almost another five years for the
29:32
Speaker 1: full exoneration. And I want to talk to the guys
29:35
Speaker 1: about how good did you feel? How good do you
29:37
Speaker 1: feel today knowing that Glenn is never going back. He's
29:41
Speaker 1: never gonna have to wear an ankle monitor again, He's
29:43
Speaker 1: never going to be subjected to this inhumane system again.
29:48
Speaker 3: You know.
29:48
Speaker 2: I think the person who summed it up best was
29:50
Speaker 2: the judge that acquitted Glenn on March the first of
29:53
Speaker 2: twenty nineteen. It was Justice Chipman, and he said, you
29:57
Speaker 2: kept the faith with remarkable dignity and that you are
30:00
Speaker 2: to be commended for your courage and your resilience. You
30:03
Speaker 2: are a freeman. I sincerely wish you every success, And
30:06
Speaker 2: that sort of summed up our feelings to Glenn has
30:09
Speaker 2: been steadfast. I mean, he is now a member of
30:11
Speaker 2: our family. He's not just a client. That's the truth.
30:14
Speaker 1: You know. I get asked very often two things, whether
30:18
Speaker 1: the people who framed the innocent man or woman faced
30:22
Speaker 1: any disciplinary actions, much less prison for their own misconduct.
30:26
Speaker 1: And whether or not the person who suffered so greatly
30:29
Speaker 1: the exonerated person themselves received any compensation. And I'm assuming
30:33
Speaker 1: the answer to both of those questions in this case
30:36
Speaker 1: is unfortunately no.
30:38
Speaker 3: So no.
30:38
Speaker 5: Actually, this case has really taken on an increased significance
30:42
Speaker 5: in Canada anyway, because it is the first case in
30:45
Speaker 5: Canadian history where the Premier, or in other words, of
30:48
Speaker 5: the governor of the province in which the wrongful conviction
30:52
Speaker 5: took place ordered his Attorney general to start in a
30:55
Speaker 5: criminal investigation into the officers who were involved and contributed
31:00
Speaker 5: to the miscarriage of justice and the destruction of the evidence.
31:05
Speaker 5: So the answer is yes to that, And the second
31:08
Speaker 5: part of your question with respect to compensation is also
31:11
Speaker 5: yes to the credit of Prime Minister Trudeau and Attorney
31:14
Speaker 5: General Lametti and of course the government of Nova Scotia.
31:19
Speaker 5: They came to the table and took this very serious.
31:21
Speaker 5: They understood that it was an egregious wrongful conviction of
31:24
Speaker 5: sort of historic proportions, and we were able to negotiate
31:29
Speaker 5: a financial compensation package for Glenn that as far as
31:33
Speaker 5: money can contribute, it's going to give him an opportunity
31:36
Speaker 5: to try and as best he can with the years
31:39
Speaker 5: he has left, move on with his life. And you
31:42
Speaker 5: have a pickup truck and a dog and maybe you
31:45
Speaker 5: know a little place in the woods where he can
31:46
Speaker 5: sort of relax and try and find peace to the
31:50
Speaker 5: extent that he can.
31:51
Speaker 1: Well, that's amazing news and I'm so glad they finally
31:55
Speaker 1: came around on this. But nothing is ever going to
31:59
Speaker 1: make up for all the time lost. Now this does
32:02
Speaker 1: go a long way towards making Glenn more comfortable. As
32:05
Speaker 1: you said, I like the visual with a pickup truck
32:07
Speaker 1: and the dog, but he deserves every blessing that life
32:11
Speaker 1: has to offer. If anyone wants to get involved or
32:14
Speaker 1: help out with the great work that Innocence Canada is doing,
32:18
Speaker 1: your help would go a long way. So we're going
32:19
Speaker 1: to have a link in the episode bio and you
32:22
Speaker 1: could also follow Innocence Canada on Instagram. Scroll down, click
32:26
Speaker 1: get involved. And now this is as good a time
32:30
Speaker 1: as any to turn to the part of the show
32:32
Speaker 1: called closing arguments. First of all, I want to thank
32:35
Speaker 1: Sean McDonald, Phil Campbell, and most of all Glenn Asson
32:40
Speaker 1: for joining me and us here and sharing your story
32:44
Speaker 1: and your spirit with our audience. And now I'm going
32:47
Speaker 1: to turn my microphone off, kick back in my chair
32:50
Speaker 1: and just listen as you say whatever you want to say,
32:55
Speaker 1: whatever that's left to say. And let's start with Phil,
32:58
Speaker 1: then Sewan and Glen.
33:00
Speaker 3: Of course, one of the things I find about innocence
33:04
Speaker 3: cases like Glenn's is that when you look back on them,
33:08
Speaker 3: when you start to unravel them, you see so many
33:11
Speaker 3: places where things could have taken a different turn, where
33:15
Speaker 3: things could have gone right but went wrong. There's never
33:18
Speaker 3: just one thing. There's always a cascade of injustice and error.
33:25
Speaker 3: And when I think back to the original police who
33:28
Speaker 3: had a sound alibi and acted on it and treated
33:33
Speaker 3: it with the seriousness that deserve, that was one place
33:36
Speaker 3: where things could have gone right but went wrong. When
33:40
Speaker 3: I think back to the trial that Glenn went through,
33:44
Speaker 3: and this was not a contest of equal adversaries, and
33:48
Speaker 3: then I think of the appellate process when the truth
33:53
Speaker 3: not just a glimpse into the truth, but a full
33:55
Speaker 3: dossier on the truth about what I believe is the
33:58
Speaker 3: real killer in this case was a veil to the authorities,
34:01
Speaker 3: and it didn't emerge when you go through that kind
34:04
Speaker 3: of history, you realize what I think is the great
34:08
Speaker 3: lesson of the criminal law, which is that we should
34:11
Speaker 3: always approach this business of arresting people and charging them
34:15
Speaker 3: with crimes, and putting them on trial and throwing them
34:17
Speaker 3: in jail. We should always approach it humbly, because we
34:21
Speaker 3: are fallible, and our processes, as well refined and carefully
34:25
Speaker 3: reviewed as they are, are fallible. The police we trust,
34:28
Speaker 3: the prosecutors we trust, the juries we trust. All of
34:32
Speaker 3: those things will fail sometimes, and we are best to
34:35
Speaker 3: go at this whole business of crime and punishment with
34:39
Speaker 3: a lighter, humbler touch. And this case, just to me, illustrates,
34:43
Speaker 3: as so many do, how many ways there are to
34:45
Speaker 3: go wrong, and how vigilant we should be to ensure
34:50
Speaker 3: that things go right.
34:52
Speaker 2: I look at this case as the evolution of not
34:56
Speaker 2: just a wrongful conviction case, but for me, looking back
34:59
Speaker 2: now more the evolution of a friendship, in the friendship
35:03
Speaker 2: that I developed with Glenn, from the first call that
35:07
Speaker 2: he made to my phone when it was only the
35:09
Speaker 2: two of us in this world. It was him on
35:11
Speaker 2: a penitentiary payphone, me on my phone talking to a
35:16
Speaker 2: guy that I clearly knew was in some deep, deep pain.
35:19
Speaker 6: And uh, you know, the evolution of that as it
35:23
Speaker 6: expanded and we started to work harder and get more
35:26
Speaker 6: evidence slowly as It's sort of the gratitude that Glenn
35:30
Speaker 6: and I felt as more and more people got involved,
35:32
Speaker 6: including Phil.
35:34
Speaker 2: Using the resources of Innocence Canada. We used many investigators.
35:38
Speaker 2: One in particular who isn't here today who died. His
35:40
Speaker 2: name is Steve Jones. Was an amazing investigator. I'm grateful
35:44
Speaker 2: to Steve. I'm grateful to Fred Fitzimmons, who was another
35:48
Speaker 2: investigator who was an x RCMP pomicide investigator who probably
35:53
Speaker 2: put one hundred people in jail for murder rightfully, but
35:57
Speaker 2: believed in Glenn's innocence. You know, I'm grateful to everybody
36:00
Speaker 2: else that got involved, including celebrities like Michael B. Jordan
36:04
Speaker 2: supported Glenn's case and did a video and we're in
36:06
Speaker 2: the process now of writing him to thank But the
36:08
Speaker 2: point is that as the case evolved, our friendship evolved,
36:11
Speaker 2: and as more people got involved, both Glenn and I
36:14
Speaker 2: are thankful to everybody that helped bring it to this point.
36:19
Speaker 4: Over to you, well, I'd just like to say to
36:23
Speaker 4: my two lawyers Sean McDonald and Philed Campbell. I'm so
36:27
Speaker 4: grateful for your help and for saving my life. Because
36:31
Speaker 4: you did, you literally saved my life. If you had
36:34
Speaker 4: to come along, I wouldn't have made it. I would
36:37
Speaker 4: have been dead by now. Just let you know, I
36:41
Speaker 4: had four heart attacks in prison and they only took
36:43
Speaker 4: me out for one and I got stints in my heart.
36:46
Speaker 4: Now I only got thirty five percent of my heart
36:48
Speaker 4: left because of what happened to me.
36:52
Speaker 2: Well, we love you, Glenn, as simple as that.
37:01
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction with Jason Flahm.
37:05
Speaker 1: Please support your local innocence projects and go to the
37:08
Speaker 1: link in our bio to see how you can help.
37:10
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
37:13
Speaker 1: Cliburn and Kevin Wardis. The music on the show, as always,
37:17
Speaker 1: is by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be
37:21
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37:28
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37:31
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