PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I was utterly confused when I left court today after hearing Day One of Tim Rees's appeal of his conviction and life sentence with no parole for 15 years for murdering Darla Thurrott. For background, read the previous post (June 27, 2024) of this Blog, headed, "Did cops 'deep-six' incriminating statement of alternate suspect in 1989 child murder?", by Toronto Sun Reporter Michele Mandel, a very fine criminal justice scribe at the Toronto Sun (and my concluding comments at the bottom of this post) and I think you will understand why today's hearing reminded me a bit of Alice in Wonderland.
Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog:
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THE PREVIOUS POST: (Michele Mandel was reporting on an earlier portion of Tim Rees's on-going application to the Ontario Court of Appeal.)
STORY: "Did cops 'deep-six' incriminating tape of alternate suspect in 1989 child murder?, by Reporter Michelle Mandel, published by The Toronto sun, on June 27, 2024. (Michele Mandel is a veteran writer on justice issues for the Toronto Sun,)
GIST: "It was like watching a true crime documentary playing out in real time in Ontario’s highest court.
On the stand for the second day was George Clanfield, a retired Toronto cop who conducted a recorded interview with the landlord who lived across the hall from Darla Thurrott, the 10-year-old Toronto girl found dead in her bed by her mom on March 17, 1989.
Darla had died of manual strangulation, with the coroner noting some evidence of anal intercourse.
Their prime suspect at the time was James Raymer, who’s aunt was famous actress June Lockhart.
In the 30-minute audio tape played in court, Raymer admits being the last person to see Darla alive. He said he kissed her goodnight on the cheek, which he later recanted, and then saw her after midnight when they both headed to the bathroom on the second-floor of his Etobicoke home.
But what was even more suspicious was the landlord’s disturbing claim that the child, 42 years his junior, had seduced him and they’d had sexual “fun” over the previous few weeks.
Yet that incriminating recording mysteriously disappeared and was unknown to the defence lawyers for Timothy Rees, a friend of Darla’s stepfather who had stayed over at their home that night and was found guilty of second-degree murder in 1990.
The cassette tape wasn’t discovered by Toronto Police until 2016 and it ultimately led to Innocence Canada winning a review of Rees’s conviction before the Ontario Court of Appeal.
Clanfield, who was a constable seconded to homicide at the time, said he has no memory of interviewing Raymer.
“The tape is a complete revelation to me,” he told Rees’s lawyer James Lockyer.
But what an interview it is.
Sounding like a hard-nosed Sam Spade out of a black-and-white movie, Clanfield draws Raymer into telling him about his illicit relationship with Darla. At first, the Taco Bell cook is pretty chatty – recounting how he kissed her, how he’d rub her between the legs and how he went into her room on the night she was killed.
Then he seems to backtrack and insist they hadn’t interacted at all that night, which sees Clanfield press him on his waffling story.
“You know Christians don’t lie. And in the face of God in this room we need to hear the truth. You know how important the truth is,” he told Raymer. “You know confession is the best part of redemption, isn’t it? Don’t ya wanna be redeemed? Well then redeem yourself now.”
“I didn’t see her last night. I seen her other nights but not last night. That’s the truth,” he whined.
The officer tried again: “You touched Darla and got her excited and, and you got all excited and everything. Right?”
“Yeah,” Raymer agreed, but again maintained he hadn’t seen her that fateful night.
Now 67, Clanfield agreed with Lockyer that he would have certainly handed over the tape to his superiors on the case: Doug Massey, who later died in 2023, and Wayne Cotgreave, who is expected to testify Friday.
“I have no idea where that tape went and how it ended up in a box,” he said.
Lockyer had a surprising suggestion about why it may have gone missing – Raymer’s father, he said, had been a superintendent at the OPP.
“Did you understand him to be from a well-connected family?” the lawyer asked.
“Not that I recall,” Clanfield replied.
Lockyer then suggested that the tape he handed over was never meant to be found.
“Mr. Raymer was not just an obvious suspect from the beginning, he was the obvious suspect from the beginning,” the lawyer charged.
“Mr. Raymer is a good suspect,” the retired officer agreed.
But then everything changed when Rees, 25 at the time, gave what he says was a false confession.
“Once Mr. Rees was charged,” Lockyer insisted, “it was decided that anything implicating Raymer would be purged or deep-sixed.”
The cops had their man, the tape mysteriously vanished, Rees served 23 years behind bars before parole and Raymer died in 1999 at the age of 63."
The entire story can be read at:
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CONCLUDING COMMENTS: Back to my comments on today's proceedings in the Ontario Court of Appeal: Courtroom 10: I was confused, if not horrified by the fact that Tim Rees had to be in that courtroom at all, pleading for an acquittal, utterly unaware at the time of his trial and unsuccessful appeal that the police had been in possession of mountains of evidence (discovered long after the trial and appeal) which had disappeared, or perhaps had been 'deep-sixed' by the police. Indeed, if the police had informed Rees's prosecutor that this mountain of evidence incriminating Raymer existed, it is highly doubtful that he would have been charged at all with the terrible crime, and Raymer would be rightfully occupying the prisoner's box. Given the sordid history of this miscarriage of justice, I would expect the lawyers from the Attorney General's office handling the appeal today - (they were not the prosecutors at trial) to be horrified by the failure of the police to bring forward to the trial prosecutor every scrap of that mountain of evidence pointing to Raymer as Darla's killer - and by the prospect that the during the trial the police were keeping silent when they knew that witnesses were lying to the jury. That being the case, I would expect the Attorney General's representatives at this important hearing to make amends to Mr. Rees, by apologizing to him for the ordeal he has been put through - the loss of such a huge portion of his life to prison - and by supporting Rees's lawyers call to the appeal court for a clear, unfettered acquittal, which will tell the world that he is an innocent man." Nothing less will do,
HAROLD LEVY: PUBLISHER: THE CHARLES SMITH BLOG:
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PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
