Part Nine: Interrogation of An Innocent Woman: Part Nine; How Far Will Police Go To Convict The Innocent?

In previous postings in this series we saw how the Sudbury police were so desperate to find evidence against Lianne Gagnon to back up the Chief Coroner's Office's suspicions that she was responsible for her 11-month-old son's death that they obtained a warrant to seize a farewell letter that she had left in Nicholas' casket.

This is not the only example of the extraordinary length that police officers went to in bid to get evidence against Dr. Smith's victims: The Peterborough police force planted an undercover officer in a bid to get a confession from Brenda Waudby after Smith came up with a time of death (later proven wrong) that implicated her.

(Waudby was arrested and charged with murdering Baby Jenna; Years later the teenage male babysitter pleaded guilty to killing her. Brian Gilkinson, Waudby's prosecutor, will testify at the Goudge Inquiry later today);

Here is the story my colleague Peter Edwards and I wrote on the excess of police power in the Waudby case.

It backs up a comment by Rubin Hurricane Carter - former Executive Director of the Association In Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, as to how hard the authorities have to work to convict an innocent person.

It appeared in the Toronto Star on April 12, 2002;

Brenda Waudby badly needed a friend, and the woman with the
blonde, scraggly hair who sat next to her at her Narcotics
Anonymous meeting seemed to fill the bill.

Waudby was trying to cope with the sudden death of her
21-month-old daughter, Jenna, who died just hours after Waudby
dropped her off at a babysitter.

She was also fighting to shake a cocaine addiction, and she
and her common-law husband were breaking up.

So Waudby desperately needed someone to confide in during the
spring of 1997, and the woman who introduced herself at the
meeting as Ramona Speigel seemed to need her, too.

"I felt sorry for her," Waudby recalled. "She was an addict.
She was in the same boat as everybody else. She was genuine. She
was a nice woman."

Waudby grew to value her as a trusted friend, close enough to
bring to her mother's home and baby Jenna's grave.

It was not until five months later that Waudby discovered that
her friend, who had attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings off
and on during that time, wasn't Ramona Speigel at all.

She was really Maja Schlegel, a Toronto undercover officer
sent to Narcotics Anonymous to gather information on her
regarding Jenna's death.

Waudby found herself staring at Schlegel in disbelief as she
was charged with second-degree murder.

She also found herself wondering how police could be allowed
to infiltrate a closed-doors therapy group that she thought was
confidential, and to confiscate counselling records.

"I just shook my head," Waudby recalled.

"She apologized to me. She said she was sorry that she had to
do it."

A crown attorney threw out the charge against Waudby as
unfounded before it reached trial, after reviewing medical
reports indicating she was not with her daughter at the time the
fatal injuries were inflicted.

Peterborough police Chief Terry McLaren declined to comment,
saying the case is still under investigation.

Requests for interviews with Toronto police Chief Julian
Fantino and Schlegel were referred to Staff Inspector Bruce
Smollet, who said the undercover operation at Narcotics
Anonymous would have been approved by Peterborough police, who
headed the case.

Smollet said Toronto police have no written policy against
undercover operations in counselling groups, and would not
comment on whether they have infiltrated other Narcotics
Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

"You've got to be really careful on this one," Smollet said.
"Maja ... didn't go into these groups looking into the groups
themselves. She was in there as an undercover officer with the
subject, so that the actual content of the group was not a
concern of hers."

This winter, five years after Jenna's death, there was finally
a break in the case.

The new evidence had nothing to do with Waudby and her
counselling files.

It was a single dark, curly strand of hair or fibre - which
was never tested or used as evidence - that fell into police
hands when they removed it from the office of Toronto
pathologist Dr. Charles Smith last December.

Yesterday, after the strand was examined at the Centre of
Forensic Sciences in Toronto, the case was reviewed in
Peterborough by a group that included a group that included
McLaren, Ontario deputy chief coroner Dr. James Cairns, centre
director Dr. Ray Prime, and prosecutor Brian Gilkinson.

Cairns declined to comment on the results of forensic testing
on the strand, citing the ongoing investigation.

Meanwhile, the undercover operation at Narcotics Anonymous -
dubbed Project Jenna by investigators - has driven at least
three recovering drug addicts besides Waudby out of the
counselling group, according to the woman who was her NA
sponsor.

"I was shocked, angry and disillusioned," said Waudby's
sponsor, a professional woman and recovering drug addict.

"It's (police infiltrating meetings) never been an issue
before, and I've never heard of it happening."

Narcotics Anonymous is modelled on Alcoholics Anonymous.

A spokesperson for Alcoholics Anonymous North America said he
has never heard of undercover police officers planted in an AA
meeting.

The Narcotics Anonymous Web page said the group uses
"confidential self-disclosure" to help wean addicts from
drugs.

"NA has only one mission: to provide an environment in which
addicts can help one another stop using drugs and find a new way
to live," it states.

Waudby said she was further shocked to read a newspaper report
that the officer who posed as her friend for five months was
honoured as the city's Police Officer of the Year for 1998, in a
gala ceremony sponsored by the Toronto Board of Trade.

A police news release on the award stated:

"The officer maintained contact with the suspect every day,
gaining her confidence, and a month later, the suspect confessed
to the murder of her child."

After The Star questioned police about the operation, the Web
site carrying the news release was altered this week to delete
the text, "the suspect confessed to the murder of her child."

Smollet said the deletion was made because it would be
"absolutely unfair" to Waudby to leave the impression that
she had confessed to murdering her daughter.

Reports and transcripts of the undercover operation refer to
Waudby repeatedly arguing that she was innocent and that she
suspected the child's babysitter of the killing.

On Sept. 5, 1997 - the day Waudby received a copy of the
coroner's report on Jenna's death - a police bugging device in
the undercover officer's apartment recorded Waudby repeatedly
stating she didn't beat her daughter.

Ironically, it also recorded Waudby saying that she thought
she was going to be wrongly charged with murder.

Waudby: I have this funny feeling I'm going down for murder,
eh.
Schlegel: What happened then?
Waudby: Wednesday morning?
Schlegel: Um hum.
Waudby: Got her up out of the crib. Cuddled up with her. Found
that she was tired. Put her back to down and let her cry herself
to sleep ...
Schlegel: (unintelligible) You didn't shake her?
Waudby: Nope.

On Sept. 7, 1997, Waudby was riding in the undercover
officer's green Chevrolet Corsica, which had been bugged as
well. Waudby complained that she thought people from her old
drug-taking days were out to get her.

Waudby: (Expletive) man. I wish you were a cop. I wouldn't
have any worries.
Schlegel: Sorry.
Waudby: Or are you one of them?
Schlegel: Can't do 'er, sorry.
Waudby: (Laughing) Or are you one of the ...
(Talking at the same time - unintelligible.)
Schlegel: Fake I'm an addict (laughing). You never know.
Waudby: I don't know. (Person's name) works for them.
Schlegel: Well, there ya go.
Waudby: On drug squad nonetheless.
Schlegel: They may be able to hire me onto the drug squad.
Waudby: Hire you as an informant. You'd have to
(unintelligible).
Schlegel: I don't think I'm into ratting, thank you.

Their final taped conversation was at 9: 58 a.m. Sept. 17,
1997, when Schlegel called Waudby to tell her that Schlegel's
sister had been critically injured in a car accident.

Schlegel sounded distressed, saying, "The best I can say is
I'm going to call you when I get a chance, okay?"

The next day, Waudby was arrested for second-degree murder,
and she saw the woman she believed was her friend at the
Peterborough police station, as one of her arresting officers.

"I felt horrible." Waudby recalled. "I feel like the system
violated me personally."

Waudby said she felt violated again Sept. 28, 1999, when
police seized her psychiatric records from the Etobicoke office
of Dr. Mark Ben-Aron.

The raid came three months after charges were dropped and
focused on a psychiatric assessment that had been ordered by her
lawyer before the charges were dropped.

Ben-Aron said in an interview that he protested to the officer
who took the records that they were protected both by
patient-doctor and lawyer-client privilege, since Ben-Aron had been
retained by Waudby's lawyer.

"When police came in, I was distressed," Ben-Aron said.

"The issue was much greater than me. The issue here is in
terms of the protection of the inherent rights of the
individual."

The court order from a justice of the peace did not require
the records to be sealed, but Ben-Aron sealed them anyway.

He said he can't help but worry about them.

"I worried that someone might unseal it and then reseal it,"
the psychiatrist said. "That's human nature."

Other counselling records from Waudby were seized on Feb. 7,
1997, from 4Cast, Four Counties Addiction Services Team Inc.,
where she had been getting one-on-one therapy at the same time
she was attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

Waudby said she's still receiving counselling but would never
attend a group session again.

She said she even has trouble opening up in one-on-one
sessions, noting she balked when her current therapist asked her
to put her thoughts down on paper.

She said she only hopes that the tiny hair or fibre tested
finally points police away from her and toward her daughter's
real killer.

"They had tunnel vision, and it was me and me alone who they
saw in the tunnel."

Harold Levy: hlevy15@gmail.com;