PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The toddler died several days later on Oct. 31. On Nov. 11, after his funeral, McLellan said the OPP (which had taken over the probe) told him they had information for the couple, but they would have to come to see police in Strathroy. Distraught, McLellan said his father drove them. In Strathroy, the couple was separated and questioned separately. McLellan said an OPP detective “interrogated” him for three hours. “She lied to me,” McLellan said of the detective. “I felt like they were trying to get me to confess to something.” McLellan said police were trying to make him believe that his wife had just “confessed” to injuring their son,"
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "At the end of Tuesday’s testimony, McLellan said that the summer after Nathaniel died he went to visit Van Hoof, searching for answers. He said his decision to go was prompted by seeing a Facebook post from Brian Van Hoof, the husband of the babysitter. He said the post was a picture mimicking the outline of a corpse — “a person’s dead body in their kitchen, they had it outlined with beer cans.” He said seeing the social media posting upset him and he felt like the Van Hoofs were “taunting” him. McLellan has not yet been asked to describe his visit to speak to the babysitter. The trial is presided over by Judge Michael Carnegie. There is no jury. The trial continues Wednesday."
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STORY: "Father of dead toddler Nathan McLellan testifies police lied during interrogation," by Chief Investigative Reporter Kevin Donovan, published by The Toronto Star, on January 6, 2025. (Kevin Donovan is the Toronto Star’s Chief Investigative Reporter. His focus is on journalism that exposes wrongdoing and effects change. Over more than three decades he has reported on the activities of charities, government, police, business among other institutions. Donovan also reported from the battlefields in the Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan following 9/11. He has won three National Newspaper Awards, two Governor General’s Michener Awards, the Canadian Journalism Foundation award and three Canadian Association of Journalists Awards. As the Star’s editor of investigations for many years, Donovan led many award-winning projects for the paper. He is the author of several books, including “Secret Life: The Jian Ghomeshi Investigation” and the “Dead Times” (a fiction novel).)
SUB-HEADING: "Kent McLellan, the second witness at the babysitter’s trial, says OPP were trying to get him to confess that his wife had a role in their son’s death."
Jan. 6, 2026
GIST: "The father of a baby that died mysteriously told court that police put him through a gruelling “interrogation” after their son’s funeral, using lies to try to get him to confess that his wife had a role in their son’s death.
The detective “was trying to make me believe that Rose-Anne had just confessed to something happening with her,” Kent McLellan told a London court. Meggin Van Hoof, the babysitter looking after 15-month-old Nathaniel, is on trial facing a manslaughter charge. Van Hoof has pleaded not guilty.
Court earlier heard from Rose-Anne Van De Wiele, Nathaniel’s mother, who testified that both the Strathroy-Caradoc and Ontario Provincial Police had focused their investigative efforts on them.
McLellan is only the second witness to testify at the trial, which began in September. He took the witness stand Tuesday afternoon, answering questions from Crown counsel Lerren Ducharme.
The owner of a heating and air conditioning company, McLellan said he and Van De Wiele have been married 26 years. He described Nathaniel as a happy, active little boy, who loved to go on walks (McLellan credits the arrival of Nathaniel with helping him lose 75 pounds) on their rambling, 180-acre property in Parkhill, Ont.
“He just wanted to be with you,” McLellan told the trial, his voice cracking. Nathaniel was their fourth son; Van De Wiele was pregnant in October 2015 when, as he described it, their world was turned upside down.
That Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2015, McLellan was in a Burger King drive-thru in Strathroy, where his wife taught school and where Nathaniel was being cared for two days a week by Van Hoof in an unlicensed home daycare.
He was very happy that day, he told court. The family had just had a fun weekend celebrating his father’s 70th birthday, his family was thriving and work was going well. He recalled doing a silly “happy dance” at one of his job sites that morning because the installation of an oil tank by one of his work teams was going so well.
Just before he picked up his sandwich at the drive-thru window, an unknown number popped on his phone. Strathroy hospital was calling, telling him to come quickly. At the time, his wife, Van De Wiele, did not own a cellphone. McLellan recalls walking into the hospital ER and being directed to where his wife was, then taken into a room where Nathaniel was being readied for transport to the better-equipped hospital in London.
Just a few hours before at home, McLellan said Nathaniel was his normal happy self, munching on “Baby Mum Mums,” a rice-based teething biscuit, and a full bowl of oatmeal McLellan had made before heading off to work. The evening before was “haircut” night for the older boys and Nathaniel was giggling as he threw the cut hair up in the air. McLellan said that there was nothing wrong with his son the night before or the morning of the accident.
Rushing into the ER, McLellan said he was told by hospital staff their son had suffered an “injury to his head.”
“I bent down to give him a kiss and I noticed he had suffered something on the left-hand side of his head, above his temple,” McLellan told the court. “There was some kind of an impact mark ... that I had not seen that morning” before leaving for work.
An ambulance took Nathaniel to London, and his parents followed behind. McLellan said he was surprised when a Strathroy police detective, questioning him, asked if he had “a life insurance policy” on Nathaniel. It was just one of a series of interactions that caused him to lose trust in the police, McLellan said.
The toddler died several days later on Oct. 31. On Nov. 11, after his funeral, McLellan said the OPP (which had taken over the probe) told him they had information for the couple, but they would have to come to see police in Strathroy. Distraught, McLellan said his father drove them. In Strathroy, the couple was separated and questioned separately.
McLellan said an OPP detective “interrogated” him for three hours.
“She lied to me,” McLellan said of the detective. “I felt like they were trying to get me to confess to something.” McLellan said police were trying to make him believe that his wife had just “confessed” to injuring their son
That was in 2015. In 2021, OPP detectives laid a manslaughter charge against Van Hoof, the babysitter. The charge came less than a week after a Toronto Star investigative series on the case was published. The series was also published as a podcast.
At the end of Tuesday’s testimony, McLellan said that the summer after Nathaniel died he went to visit Van Hoof, searching for answers. He said his decision to go was prompted by seeing a Facebook post from Brian Van Hoof, the husband of the babysitter. He said the post was a picture mimicking the outline of a corpse — “a person’s dead body in their kitchen, they had it outlined with beer cans.” He said seeing the social media posting upset him and he felt like the Van Hoofs were “taunting” him.
McLellan has not yet been asked to describe his visit to speak to the babysitter.
The trial is presided over by Judge Michael Carnegie. There is no jury. The trial continues Wednesday."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/father-of-toddler-testifies/article_7e50db14-1304-4722-843e-fe9cb300b91c.htmlPUBLISHER'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;
—————————————————————————————————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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