Latest / History Dark / Her murder took 10 years to solve _ The Murder of Alison Parrott _ TCC

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Her murder took 10 years to solve _ The Murder of Alison Parrott _ TCC · History Dark

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Her name was Alison Peratt. His name was unknown. But
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: they had his DNA. It pointed to one person in
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: the entire world. Where was he? And would they ever
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: catch him?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Enter the world of forensic science, the science of crime,
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: where a suspect's guilt or innocence can hang on a
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: single piece of evidence. In 1986, Canada's largest city was
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: still known as Toronto the Good. Parents felt if their
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: kids took reasonable precautions, the city was safe. The case
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: of 11-year-old Alison Perrault would shatter that myth forever.
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: I always wanted Scottish names for my kids. I think
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Alison's just a wonderful, perfect name, and it suited her
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: very well. She always knew who she was. And she
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: was great if anyone was having problems or if somebody
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: was a bit on the out. She loved people and
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: she kind of reached out to people and people were
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: really attracted to her.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: But the image in the public's mind was Alison the runner.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: It was summer vacation. Alison had qualified for three races
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: at the upcoming track meet in New Jersey. She told
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: her coach she dreamed of representing Canada one day in
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: the 3,000 meter race. She would never get that chance.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: On a hot muggy Friday morning on July 25th, 1986,
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: Allison got a phone call from a man who said
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: he was a photographer. As one of three kids in
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: her age bracket representing Ontario at the U.S.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Meet, the man told her he wanted to take.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Some publicity shots at Varsity Stadium. On the surface, nothing
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: seemed suspicious about the photo session. The man said other
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: members of Allison's track club would also be at the
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: stadium for the publicity shots. Allison called her mother at
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: work to see if it was okay.
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: She sounded a little apprehensive, but the apprehension seemed to
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: be around the exact directions of getting there. And so
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: we went over that a couple of times, and then she,
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: you know, she seemed fine.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Alison put on her favourite clothes, baggy shorts and a
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: green shirt that had once been her dad's.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: She planned to take.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: The subway to St. George Station across the street from
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: Varsity Stadium. A passerby remembered seeing her on the way
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: to the subway. That would be the last known sighting
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: of Alison Peratt.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: Whenever I got back to the house and she wasn't here,
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: I started getting anxious.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Around suppertime, the police were called in. They checked Varsity Stadium,
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: but there was no sign of her.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: I was sick.
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: Because, you know, Allison wasn't a kid who'd ever run
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: away or just wasn't, you know. We knew something terrible
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: had happened.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: Suspecting the worst, police immediately launch a massive hunt. When
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: news of the young girl's disappearance becomes public, Hundreds of volunteers,
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: including many of Allison's neighbors, join in. At first, detectives
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: aren't sure whether Allison even made it downtown. But a
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: surveillance camera and a bank across from Varsity Stadium shows
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: her from the waist down, striding past shortly before 11.30 a.m.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: The next day, Allison's parents went on TV.
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: If you're the person who's taken our daughter, please, please...
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: Bring it home.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: As the search intensifies, volunteers fan out across Toronto with
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: posters of the missing young girl. Then on Sunday around 6.30pm,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: two days after Alison's abduction, her nude body is found
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: in Kings Mill Park in Toronto's West End. The search
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: for Alison Peratt is over. Her disappearance has turned into
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: a homicide.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: You don't, you can't comprehend it at all. I mean,
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: you just utterly and completely, completely stunned.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Because the weather has been hot and muggy, her body
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: has suffered environmental damage. Given how quickly semen deteriorates and
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: suspecting a sexual motive, a pathologist takes vaginal swabs at
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: the scene.
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: I hope that the body will tell me the cause
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: of death. I'll be looking at the entire body to
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: see what is abnormal. Outside that is the skin, the surface,
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: and then what's inside the body, in all the body cavities.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Allison's body is then sent to be autopsied. The pathologist
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: finds signs that Allison was bound and gagged and brutally raped.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: While still alive.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: Based on the marks around her neck, he concludes the
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: cause of death is ligature strangulation. With additional samples taken
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: at autopsy, There are now seven vaginal swabs.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Using the ABO blood testing.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: System, scientists determine the swabs contain male semen from the killer.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: The bad news, they're insufficient to test against possible suspects.
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: But in hopes of future forensic use, the samples are
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: refrigerated at the Center of Forensic Sciences. The evening after
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Alison's memorial service, her mother finds herself looking up at
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: the first star.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: And I said the little rhyme out loud that I
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: used to, star light, star bright, first star I see tonight.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: And because Alison and I used to say that together.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: And I then bent my head and I prayed. I
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: prayed for forgiveness. I said all the things to Alison
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: that I felt wronged. that I wanted to say. And
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: I then had this sort of feeling of letting her go.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: It was a very mum thing to do. And I
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: opened my eyes and the star had gone out.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: In the sky.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Who had raped and murdered 11-year-old Alison Peratt? And would
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: he ever be caught? Exhibit A, a vaginal swab, key
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: evidence left by the killer at the crime scene. More
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: than 20 detectives hunt for Allison's killer, but it is
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: a daunting task. Because the caller knew about Allison's track accomplishments,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: men and boys in Allison's racing circles become suspects. so
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: do family friends and acquaintances. Police question previous sex offenders,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: particularly convicted pedophiles. Some suspects bring their wives. Some suspects
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: bring their lawyers. After 18 months, detectives have filed some 30,000 reports,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: interviewed 20,000 witnesses, and identified 1,200 suspects. But with no
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: prime suspect, the investigation gradually gets pushed to the back burner.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Around this time, the late 1980s, an amazing new forensic
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: tool helped solve a rape and murder case in England.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: The tool?
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: DNA.
• 9:50
  Speaker 6: DNA. Some of my colleagues have described it as God's
• 9:55
  Speaker 6: gift to forensic science. You read a lot about people
• 9:58
  Speaker 6: saying it's the best thing to come up with. to
• 10:00
  Speaker 6: forensic science in 100 years. It truly gives you an investigative.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: Tool to work with.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: What makes DNA so formidable is its power to test
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: minute biological samples, even degraded ones, and still finger one
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: individual in the entire world. If investigators can get a
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: DNA profile of Allison's killer, they will be halfway towards
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: solving the case. But by the time forensic DNA labs
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: are established in Canada, it's years after Allison's murder. Remember
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: those seven swabs containing male semen? In 1993, it was
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: time to see if they might yield a DNA profile.
• 10:47
  Speaker 6: I think 1993 was just the right time to take
• 10:52
  Speaker 6: this type of case and see if you could use
• 10:54
  Speaker 6: DNA as a tool to take the case to another level,
• 10:58
  Speaker 6: to go from the level of we have a case,
• 11:01
  Speaker 6: there's a lot of information about it, but we just
• 11:03
  Speaker 6: don't have that forensic input that puts it to another
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: level of being able to identify the person who committed
• 11:10
  Speaker 6: this crime.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: The results are better than expected. Investigators now have a
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: perfect DNA sample of the killer. All they have to
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: do is match that sample to a person. Between the
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: years 1993 and 1996, 75 suspects are tested. None of
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: their DNA samples match the sample from the vaginal swabs.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: Science alone can't solve this case. Luckily, in 1996, Detective
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: Vik Matanovic is heading up a cold case squad to
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: reinvestigate unsolved cases from the 70s and 80s. Often in
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: these cases, the original investigators were on the right track.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: They just ran out of time. But a cold case
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: has plenty of time. In fact, almost everything about a
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: cold case differs from a new one.
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: Because when you start off a new case, you start
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: off with zero information. and then you build up on
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: that information. Cold case is just the opposite. You have
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: all the boxes of information, and now you have to
• 12:24
  Speaker 4: go through the boxes, and in particular, this case had,
• 12:27
  Speaker 4: at that time, around 50 to 60 boxes.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: The first question is, why this victim?
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: Allison was an 11-year-old girl. She was energetic. She was outgoing.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Some of her peers considered her to be a leader.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: And she was very friendly, and she had the ability
• 12:51
  Speaker 4: to be able to converse with adults. Yet, according to
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: some of her friends, she was an 11-year-old, and she
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: was a little bit naive.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Allison would have been no match for a cunning and
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: dangerous killer. The next question is.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Why here?
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Why this crime scene? Though there are photos of the
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: crime scene from 1986, there is no substitute for a
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: firsthand visit.
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: You have to go to the scene so you can
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: get a three-dimensional view. And you don't do it just once.
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: You don't do it twice. You may do it 10,
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: 15 times. Each time you walk by, you have a
• 13:37
  Speaker 4: look around, and you have to keep asking yourself, why?
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Why was her body put here?
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: Allison's body was found in a dense thicket of bush
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: hidden from the roadway. Above it are two bridges.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: One bridge is for cars and trucks.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: And in 1986 there was construction going on. The other
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: bridge is for the subway. So the noise would have
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: drowned out any cries for help. In a fresh homicide,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Detective Matanovic would have pounded the pavement for a suspect.
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: In a cold case, experience tells him the killer's name
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: is somewhere among the investigative files.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: The killer is in the box.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: Alison Peratt was raped and murdered in 1986. Now 10
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: years later, Detective Matanovic is convinced he will find the
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: name of her killer somewhere in the boxes of evidence.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: Thanks to two dedicated Vancouver police officers and a parole
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: report from 1987, one name surfaced, Francis Carl Roy. Roy
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: was a runner who sometimes trained where Allison trained. At
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: the time of Allison's murder, he was on the lam
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: for sexually assaulting a 19-year-old girl in his apartment. But
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: in 1986, Mr. Roy, accompanied by his lawyer, had given
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: a statement to police and had been cleared of Allison's murder.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: According to his statement, on the Friday morning, Alison was
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: meeting her abductor at Varsity Stadium at 11.30 a.m. Roy
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: was on a 21-mile run through Toronto's West End, having
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: left at 9.50 a.m. and having returned at 12.13 p.m.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: Then he did some stretching in front of his apartment,
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: met a friend at a downtown restaurant, came back to
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: his apartment, and took the street guard to work. After work,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Roy headed back to his apartment, though he alleged he
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: was sneaking around since police were still looking for him.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: As Matanovic re-read Roy's statement, something nagged at him.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: In the statement he says, when he comes home late
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: at night at the apartment building, he's hiding, he's being cautious,
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: he's looking around, it's pitch black outside, and he's being
• 16:12
  Speaker 4: very cautious because he knows the police are after him.
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: Yet why doesn't he do that in broad daylight? He's
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: doing the stretching there. So to me, logically, that doesn't
• 16:22
  Speaker 4: make sense.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Added to this, Roy's running route was through Kingsmill Park.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: That running route took him right by the murder scene.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: The detective now needs science to corroborate his suspicions. Though
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: Roy's appearance changed drastically in the 10 years since Allison's murder,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: one thing was the same.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: He's DNA.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: But in Canada at this time, police couldn't legally demand
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: a biological sample.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: From a suspect.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: So an undercover officer tails Roy to a downtown bar
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: and seizes his discarded cigarette butts.
• 17:05
  Speaker 6: When we were able to generate a DNA profile from
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: both of those cigarette butts, which was a match to
• 17:11
  Speaker 6: the DNA profile from the semen from the vaginal swabs
• 17:14
  Speaker 6: from Allison. And so to actually get a hit, as
• 17:22
  Speaker 6: we call it in this particular case, was a very
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: euphoric moment.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: When Detective Matanovic gets the DNA results, it is almost
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: ten years to the minute since Allison was murdered. Francis
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: Carl Roy was arrested and charged with the first-degree murder
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: of Allison Peratt. But his trial will present a serious
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: challenge to DNA evidence. The DNA is Roy's.
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: He had pointed a finger truly at one individual and
• 17:52
  Speaker 6: maybe only one individual because it was so powerful.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: As a native Canadian, Roy chose to swear on an
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: eagle feather rather than the Bible. But Roy insisted he
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: had not murdered Ellison Peratt. Then why was his DNA
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: on the vaginal swabs? This is how he explains it.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: He had been out for a run through Kingsmill.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Park and had stopped to take a leak.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: That's when he spotted Allison's dead body. Some urge came
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: over him, and he poked his finger into her vagina.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Because he had masturbated that morning, some semen was still
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: on his fingers. Roy swears someone else murdered Allison, and
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: the reason his semen hadn't shown up on the vaginal
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: swab is simply because the killer had worn a condom.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: It was a distasteful story, even preposterous.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: But was it possible?
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Or was it just a clever con to cover up
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: a murder?
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: What do you think?
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: While the jury was sequestered and trying to reach a verdict,
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: the public discovered evidence about Roy's criminal past, evidence that
• 19:01
  Speaker 2: the judge had ruled too prejudicial for the jury to hear.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: For instance, the jury did not know that Roy was
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: a twice-convicted violent rapist who delighted in degrading and inflicting
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: pain on his victims, one of whom was a 14-year-old girl.
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: Nor did they know that just before Allison's murder, Roy
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: was at Kingston Penitentiary, where he worked as an inmate photographer,
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: and that he'd bragged he was going to use his
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: photography when he got out to lure women and young girls.
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: The jury was out for a day, then two.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: I thought we'd have had an answer within about 24 hours.
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: And that seemed to be reasonable. In fact, we got
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: into the sixth decade. with the jury sitting out there,
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: which was just unbelievable.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: After six days, the jury finally came back. They didn't
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: believe Roy's preposterous story about his DNA. Francis Carl Roy
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: was found guilty of the first-degree murder of Alison Perrott
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: and sentenced to life. In the end, Roy could con everybody,
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: but he could not con DNA. This is now what
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: Detective Matanovic believes happened on the day Allison was abducted.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: Roy had become.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: Fixated on Allison after seeing her around the track.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: He had probably found a way to talk to her
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: and knew she was excited about the upcoming U.S.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Track meet.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Then on Friday morning, July 25th, posing as a photographer,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: he used that information to arrange a meeting at Varsity Stadium.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: When Allison arrived and saw that the photographer was Roy,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: who she knew, she probably let down her guard. So
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: it was easier for him to con her into believing
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: that the photo shoot had been moved to Kings Mill Park. Then,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: on the pretext of going to meet the rest of
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: the track club, he lured her to a spot he
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: had preselected from his runs through the park.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: He then gagged, bound, raped, and murdered the 11-year-old girl.
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: You know, Francis Carl Roy is an evil, dangerous man,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: and he's in Kingston Penitentiary where he belongs, and he
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: should stay there for the rest of his life.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: The conviction was a testament to all the investigators and
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: forensic scientists who worked throughout the years to crack the case,
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: and to Allison's spirit.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Thank you. like Alison to be remembered for all she
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: was filled with love, filled with spirit filled with zest
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: and ultimately that Alison's legacy is that she couldn't be
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: destroyed by this evil that Alison's spirit, who she was
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: and the goodness of the life that she lived has
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: won out over this terrible.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: Evil Alison Perrault will always be remembered more than her killer.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And that's important.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: The stories on Exhibit A are based on true cases.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: The forensic scientists and investigators are the actual individuals who
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: worked on the cases.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: The names of the guilty are real.