QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Rees spent 23 years behind bars in some of the toughest prisons in the country, knowing there was a target on his back after he was convicted of strangling 10-year-old Darla Thurrott in her bed. He never stopped insisting that he didn’t do it, even when an admission would have allowed him earlier parole. “I feel good that it’s finally over. It’s been a very long, hard battle,” an overwhelmed Rees told reporters gathered around him. “It should be a happy day, but it’s really not because I’m still sad over Darla’s death and there’s no justice for her.”
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Following Lockyer’s arguments before the Ontario Court of Appeal last year, Rees’s conviction was quashed last month and a new trial ordered. Not surprisingly, faced with the shameful conduct of the original homicide investigators, the Crown decided not to try him again."
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SECOND PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The judge turned to the nervous Rees standing before her. “I do wish you the best of luck going forward, sir. It may be a monkey off your back, but I’m certain that it will remain in your mind for the rest of your life.” We owe him more than our best wishes. On behalf of the justice system, we owe him an apology."
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STORY: "MANDEL: Tim Rees' life was stolen by shameful police conduct," by police Writer Michele Mandel, published by The Toronto Sun, on December 18, 2025. In her own words: (I've been a lifelong Toronto Sun writer since the start of my career — which goes back far longer than I'd like to admit. Along the way, I've had a front row seat to history covering some of the most exciting, and sometimes most tragic, events for the Sun: the cocaine trail from Miami to Colombia, the funerals of Princess Diana and Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the last Nazi trial in Germany, the rise and fall of the late Toronto mayor Rob Ford, the court cases of serial killers Robert Pickton and Bruce McArthur and the youth trials of the eight young girls convicted in the shocking swarming of homeless man Kenneth Lee. My focus since 2010 has been on true crime and justice issues and to the consternation of defence lawyers, I often write about the victims who are so often left behind. I received the university medal in journalism from Carleton University, Edward Dunlop awards of excellence for feature writing, the Canadian Nurses Association Award of Excellence and Beyond Borders ECPAT Canada media award for work on child sexual exploitation. When I'm not writing about the underbelly of society, I'm usually in the kitchen, covered in flour and chocolate.")
SUB-HEADING: 62-year-old freed Thursday after wrongly spending 23 years behind bars for murder of Darla Thurrott
PHOTO CAPTION: "After 36 years, the Crown withdrew a murder charge against Timothy Rees, who walks out a free and innocent man as he leaves the courthouse at 361 University Ave. in Toronto on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025. Rees spent 23 years in jail for the death of Darla Thurrott,
GIST: "For more than 36 years, Tim Rees has been considered the most heinous of criminals — a child killer.
The 62-year-old emerged Thursday from the downtown Toronto courthouse into the wintry sunshine, that yoke of shame finally lifted after the Crown withdrew the murder charge against him.
Rees spent 23 years behind bars in some of the toughest prisons in the country, knowing there was a target on his back after he was convicted of strangling 10-year-old Darla Thurrott in her bed.
He never stopped insisting that he didn’t do it, even when an admission would have allowed him earlier parole.
“I feel good that it’s finally over. It’s been a very long, hard battle,” an overwhelmed Rees told reporters gathered around him. “It should be a happy day, but it’s really not because I’m still sad over Darla’s death and there’s no justice for her.”
Because her real killer likely died in 1999.
Victim left for dead in her bed in 1989
It was the last day of school before March break in 1989 and Darla had gone to bed in the Etobicoke home she shared with her parents, a basement tenant and their landlord James Raymer, who slept in the room directly across from hers. Also sleeping over was Rees, her dad’s longtime friend who after a night of booze and drugs decided to stay rather than head home.
At 10:15 a.m. the next morning, Darlene Thurrott discovered her daughter’s stiff body lying in her bed. She’d never recover from Darla’s murder and fell into a life of prostitution and drugs that ended tragically with her own slaying eight years later.
There were five adults in the house that night but Rees would go down for second-degree murder and be sentenced to life with no eligibility of parole for 15 years.
After years of “banging (his) head off the wall and hoping someone would listen,” Rees finally convinced Innocence Canada to take on his case and lawyer Heather Pringle — now a judge in the Ontario Court of Justice — requested all of the police files in 2007.
In the chief’s office, Det. Keith Bradshaw with the Toronto Police cold-case squad discovered a banker’s box containing 58 cassette tapes.
Lawyer James Lockyer, who took over the case 11 years ago, told the court that after listening to each one, the diligent officer found an unmarked and “highly incriminating” police interview with Darla’s landlord that had never been disclosed.
Lost tape suggests landlord was prime suspect
Despite testifying at the trial that he hadn’t seen Darla that night, Raymer initially told police he’d kissed her goodnight — though he later backtracked — and claimed the child seduced him and they’d had sexual “fun” in the past. The next morning, before her body had been discovered, he didn’t go to work as usual as a Taco Bell cook.
At the very least, the explosive recording suggested the landlord should have been their prime suspect.
Yet the tape with Raymer, the son of an OPP superintendent, was buried and hidden after police successfully badgered a confession out of a hungover Rees.
Following Lockyer’s arguments before the Ontario Court of Appeal last year, Rees’s conviction was quashed last month and a new trial ordered.
Not surprisingly, faced with the shameful conduct of the original homicide investigators, the Crown decided not to try him again.
“The passage of time since the commencement of the prosecution in 1989 and many years the accused has spent in custody on this matter, the Crown has determined public interest in this proceeding no longer exists,” prosecutor Shane Hobson told Superior Court Justice Jane Kelly. “The Crown withdraws the charge.”
The judge turned to the nervous Rees standing before her. “I do wish you the best of luck going forward, sir. It may be a monkey off your back, but I’m certain that it will remain in your mind for the rest of your life.”
‘I paid the price’ for Darla’s death: Rees
We owe him more than our best wishes. On behalf of the justice system, we owe him an apology.
“Who wants to be labelled as a killer when you’re not right?” Rees asks. “It means the world to me to have my name. I did not kill Darla. I did not cause her any harm whatsoever. You know, I had absolutely nothing to do it with it. But yet I paid the price.”
Flanked by supporters who presented him with an “Innocent” shirt, Rees struggled to smile and truly accept his freedom and this new future he’s won at long last. It won’t be easy.
His eyes filled with tears when he was asked what he’s lost.
“I pretty much lost everything, right?” he said softly, looking off in the distance of what could have been. “The prime of my life. I’m never going to have my own kids and all that stuff.”
And then he sighed: “Just gotta deal with it.”
The entire column can be read at:
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/mandel-tim-rees-life-stolen-police-misconduct
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;
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