Innocence Canada Urges Review of Deeply Flawed Christine Jessop Murder Investigation
TORONTO, Oct. 26, 2020 /CNW/ - The answer to the question of who killed Christine Jessop is now known, leaving one thing missing in this 36-year-old tale of deceit, folly and botched opportunities - official accountability.
Innocence Canada (IC) is therefore calling for an independent review into how both the Durham Regional Police and Toronto Police Service (TPS) failed to long ago detect and investigate the killer, Calvin Hooper, as a viable suspect.
From 1985 to 1995, the case resided with the Durham force. Upon Guy Paul Morin being exonerated and acquitted of the killing in 1995, Toronto Police took over and assigned nine officers to the Christine Jessop Task Force in order to investigate the case with fresh eyes. Having failed in this mission, the task force was disbanded in 1998.
The case was finally solved ten days ago, when TPS cold case investigators, acting on information from forensic DNA testing by US crime labs, identified the killer as Calvin Hoover, a Jessop family friend at the time of the sex-slaying.
As the country's leading advocate for the wrongly convicted, Innocence Canada believes that invaluable lessons can and must be extracted from this 36-year debacle to provide guidance to future investigations and to forever underline the importance of rigorously adhering to elementary, methodical investigative steps.
"Tens of millions of dollars were sunk into two murder trials and appeals, and the year-long Kaufman public inquiry into the Morin wrongful conviction," said IC co-president Kirk Makin. "To now stint on a carefully targeted review of police failures would be a mockery of all this expense and the human misery caused by this awful case."
Such a review would in no way duplicate the 1996 Kaufman public inquiry, Makin said. It need not involve public hearings, nor would it examine a host of other events and mistakes that have been painstakingly cataloged by Justice Kaufman.
"It was stunning to learn, 36 years after Christine Jessop was murdered, and 25 years after Guy Paul Morin's exoneration based on DNA testing, that multiple police investigators on multiple police forces failed to follow up on Jessop family friend whose existence was known to investigators," said IC board member and defense counsel Joanne McLean, who has represented Mr. Morin through most of his legal ordeal.
It has become clear in recent days that authorities are anxious to avoid being called to account for their failings.
In a Toronto Star article Durham Police spokesman Dave Selby is quoted as saying that no review of investigative failures in relation to Calvin Hoover mistakes is being contemplated and when Toronto Police spokesperson Meaghan Gray, was asked to shed light on why Calvin Hoover was not a suspect, she told the Toronto Star: "To comment on why would be purely speculative."
SOURCE Innocence Canada
Kirk Makin, Innocence Canada co-president (and author of Redrum The Innocent; the murder of Christine Jessop and the controversial conviction of Guy Paul Morin), [email protected], 416-504-7500 ext. 101; Joanne McLean, Innocence Canada board member and counsel to Guy Paul Morin, [email protected], 416-518-7318; Bhavan Sodhi, Innocence Canada staff counsel, [email protected], 416-504-7500 ext. 104
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