COLUMNIST SUGGESTS DUBIOUS FORENSIC HAIR EVIDENCE WAS USED BY PROSECUTOR TO NAIL DOWN CIRCUMSTANTIAL CASES: KYLE UNGER CASE; LETT COLUMN; WFP;

"FIRST, DANGERFIELD PRODUCED A HAIR FOUND ON GRENIER'S CLOTHING THAT WAS MATCHED MICROSCOPICALLY TO UNGER'S HAIR. CONSIDERED "JUNK SCIENCE" NOW, HAIR MICROSCOPY WAS OFTEN USED BY DANGERFIELD TO BIND TOGETHER OTHER PIECES OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. UNFORTUNATELY FOR THE CROWN, POST-CONVICTION DNA TESTS WOULD SHOW THE HAIR DID NOT BELONG TO UNGER."

COLUMNIST DAN LETT: WINNIPEG FREE PRESS;

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Columnist Dan Lett's hard-hitting column on the kyle unger case was published in the Winnipeg Free Press under the heading: "When common sense trumps relief: Unger's case had hallmarks of wrongful conviction;"

"When the RCMP arrested Timothy Houlahan and Kyle Unger for the murder of Brigitte Grenier, the entire province uttered a loud sigh of relief," the column begins;

"It was June 1990, and the popular teenager had been found in a creek, covered in mud. She had been strangled, sexually assaulted and mutilated," the column continues;

"It was warm and breezy the evening Houlahan and Unger were taken to the RCMP detachment in Carman to be processed.

Outside the detachment, reporters mingled with investigating officers who made no secret of the fact they were relieved; it was quietly suggested that veteran police officers who attended the scene of the crime were overwhelmed with emotion as they retraced the events that led to her death.

That sense of relief permeated the case. It remained all through the trial of Houlahan and Unger, and through their appeals. Right up until Wednesday, when Unger's conviction was quashed by the federal justice minister.

The justice system tells us an accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Except when that person is accused of a horrific murder of an attractive teenager. In those cases, relief trumps common sense.

It should come as no surprise, really, that the case against Unger has unravelled into a tangled ball of yarn. The hallmarks of a classic wrongful conviction were evident at the original trial to anyone who wanted to see them. They were expertly revealed by lawyer Sheldon Pinx's surgical dismantlement of the case against his client.

The problem is, nobody cared. Our need to hold someone accountable, along with our lust for relief, appears to have clouded our judgment.
Unger was at a disadvantage right from the start. Pinx had sought a severance so that Houlahan and Unger could be tried separately. The court decided otherwise, and so jurors heard the full text of Houlahan's confession implicating Unger in the crime. Normally, the statement of a co-accused is not admissible, except when prosecutors are lucky enough to keep both accused in front of the same jury.

Even so, Pinx exploited the improbability of Houlahan's statement. Pinx pointed out how unlikely it was for two men who did not know each other to form a murderous conspiracy. And how it was Houlahan, not Unger, who was covered in mud and Grenier's blood. A jailhouse informant testified Unger admitted in a remand centre cell he had "gotten away with murder." Pinx found a video showing Unger was not in the cell when the informant said he overheard the confession.

There was Unger's confession to undercover RCMP officers who were running a sting operation. The Mounties convinced Unger he was being recruited into a criminal organization, and urged him to disclose exactly how he had killed Grenier. Unger obliged.

However, Unger claimed in testimony he had lied to impress his new criminal friends. Pinx backed up this assertion by showing his client's confession was fraught with errors in fact. Unger seemed unaware of the simplest of details; he wrongly identified the spot where Grenier was killed.
Every time the Crown threw up a piece of evidence, Pinx shot it down. Unfortunately, in a troublesome pattern that contributed to two other wrongful convictions, prosecutor George Dangerfield had two weapons that Pinx would not overcome.

First, Dangerfield produced a hair found on Grenier's clothing that was matched microscopically to Unger's hair. Considered "junk science" now, hair microscopy was often used by Dangerfield to bind together other pieces of circumstantial evidence. Unfortunately for the Crown, post-conviction DNA tests would show the hair did not belong to Unger.

More importantly, however, Pinx was not dealt a fair hand. Either deliberately or by wilful neglect, key evidence was not disclosed to the defence. This included statements from friends and would-be jailhouse informants that pegged Houlahan as a Satanic worshipper. The mutilation suffered by Grenier was consistent with Satanic rituals.

It's not clear if or when someone inside Manitoba Justice realized the case against Unger was a sham. Perhaps it was in 1994, when Houlahan won a new trial on appeal but killed himself before he ever entered a courtroom again. Ironically, the court of appeal granted a new trial because Pinx tried too strenuously to point a finger at Houlahan at the original trial. The court, it seemed, found that to be unjust.

In this case, we should not fear that Kyle Unger's wrongful conviction means a killer runs free; there is direct physical evidence tying Houlahan to the crime. However, as Manitoba Justice struggles with the decision to put Unger on trial again, perhaps we should all take the time to ask ourselves a critically important question.

How relieved do we feel now?"

Harold Levy...hlevy15@gmail.com;