Sunday, February 10, 2008

Kingston Police Disparaged Sharon's Mother During Autopsy; Witness Statement;

DR. QUEEN DID RECOLLECT THAT DURING THE AUTOPSY, THE POLICE MADE DENIGRATING COMMENTS ABOUT THE MOTHER, i.e. THAT SHE "HUNG OUT WITH BIKERS".

FROM DR. MARTIN QUEEN'S WITNESS STATEMENT TO THE GOUDGE INUIRY.

A pathologist who began working at the Toronto Forensic Pathology Unit (where autopsies are performed) in 1996, says Kingston police disparaged Sharon's mother during the autopsy.

This comment is attributed to Dr. Martin Queen in a "witness statement" filed with the Goudge Inquiry.

(The "witness statements" are actually summaries of interviews conducted with potential witnesses by Inquiry staff);

"By coincidence, Dr. Queen was on-call the weekend the first autopsy in Sharon’s case was performed at the TFPU," the statement reads.

It was the only time in his three years at the OCCO that Dr. Queen remembers Dr. Smith performing an autopsy there.

Dr. Queen was in the autopsy room conducting his own post mortem examination at the time that Dr. Smith performed the autopsy.

He remembers some talk about scissors and dog bites. He has no specific memory of looking at the body or discussing the wounds. His opinions were neither sought nor offered.

Dr. Queen did recollect that during the autopsy, the police made denigrating comments about the mother, i.e., that she “hung out with bikers”.


Dr. Queen's recollection is disturbing because it indicates that police were predisposed against Sharon's matter from the outset - even before the autopsy was completed, a pathologist's report had been obtained and forensic samples had been analyzed.

The Kingston force put Sharon's mother through a horrific ordeal because they allowed their personal and tunnel vision to get in the way of a professional, objective investigation.

They fought as hard as they could against withdrawal of the murder charge against Reynolds - even in the face of clear expert evidence obtained by the Attorney General's Ministry that poor Sharon had been killed by a dog and was not the victim of eighty-one stab wounds inflicted by knives and scissors as Dr. Charles Smith had opined.

It boggles this Blogster's mind that the Kingston force cannot admit that it made a horrible mistake that put a grieving mother and her family through hell, learn whatever it can from the experience, and just get on with it.

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;