Death's Shadow (20 page)

“You know if someone has obstructed us, this isn’t a little shoplift; someone’s life was taken. This is a murder. If someone has lied to us, we will charge them criminally.”

“Yeah, I’m aware of that.”

“And everything you have told me here today is the truth?”

“Yeah.”

The interviews over, Katrina and Sherri waited in the hallway for the detectives to take them home.

“I hate fucking cops,” Sherri said, loud enough for Jackson to hear.

A Killer’s Shoes

On Tuesday, February 1, the instructor walked into the classroom at Mohawk College at 8:00 a.m. He was an older guy, Katrina thought, but cute. Had some kind of accent. The class started. Katrina wrote the date on her notepad, and began: “Hey baby, how are you doing? Me, I’m tired …”

Katrina took courses at Mohawk in business, commerce, psychology, popular culture, sociology. She had fared poorly in all of them. They had a test coming up today, after the break. She was ready to fail it. What was the instructor talking about, she wondered? Didn’t understand a single word the dude was saying. She continued her letter to Kyro Sparks. “Hope he doesn’t ask me a question. Because for sure I won’t know the answer LOL.…”

After writing the test, she wrote: “Don’t know how I did, but filled in all the answers LOL. I have a hangnail on my thumb and it hurts.” She wrote to Kyro that after classes she was going back to the apartment to tidy things up with Sherri, rearrange some stuff: “I have some bad news, wish I could tell you in person. When I came home this weekend my parents decided it would be best if I got out of Hamilton. I have people watching me like fucking crazy.... Baby I want you to know that I’m not abandoning you, I would never do that. If it was that easy I wouldn’t be so sad. This is going to be just as hard for you as it is for me, but you have to still try and be good in there. When you get mad please don’t do something stupid....”

She was having a tough time, she told Kyro — trouble sleeping, lying awake every night, thinking about stuff. During the day it all made her want to cry: “Please try not to think of bad things and try to be happy. And if not, then just don’t do what you know what I don’t want you doing while you’re in there.… I almost didn’t want to tell you all this because I was scared how you’d react. But whatever you think, just please don’t think that I won’t be there for you, because I always will be ...”

On Wednesday, February 2, forensic detective Annette Huys visited Waterloo police. There she compared a fingerprint she’d lifted from one of the drinking glasses at O’Grady’s to prints Waterloo had on file for Cory McLeod. They matched.

The next day Maloney and Jackson also visited Waterloo police. They showed video stills from the No Frills store on Upper James recorded January 14 — the day of the killing — to a police officer and a Kitchener social worker who were both familiar with McLeod. The officer confirmed one of the males on the video was McLeod. The social worker said he was “110 percent sure that it is Cory McLeod.”

The detectives left the station. At 4:45 p.m. they visited Sherri Foreman’s home in Kitchener. Her mother was there. They said nothing about Cory McLeod.

“We have a suspect named Kyro Sparks in custody for a murder in Hamilton,” Maloney said. “We believe he has been associating with your daughter and her friend.”

They asked where Sherri had been around the time of the homicide. Her mother said she was unsure if her daughter had been at home in Kitchener on January 14 or 15. She’d never heard of Sparks before, but said Sherri had had a friend to the house the summer before named Cory. Just after 5:00 p.m., the detectives visited Katrina’s house and spoke to her mother. She said she had never heard of Kyro Sparks, and didn’t know where Katrina had been the weekend of January 14-16.

“Your daughter and Sherri Foreman visited Kyro in jail,” Maloney said. “I think your daughter and Sherri are not telling us the whole truth.”

Maloney knew they needed a crack at searching the girls’ apartment in Hamilton; they needed to look for evidence that Sparks, McLeod, and the third guy had been there the night Art was killed. But they still had no legal grounds for obtaining a search warrant. They had proof the girls visited and exchanged letters with Sparks and McLeod in jail. It wasn’t enough to get a warrant. If Katrina permanently vacated the apartment, however, that was a different matter.

On Monday, February 7, Maloney called Katrina’s parents. They told him their daughter was moving back home. This was their chance.

“We have to get up there,” Maloney told Jackson. “Time it when they are moving; maybe we can get consent to search.”

Wednesday morning Jackson and Det. Kevin Stanley dropped by the apartment on Upper James Street to see if Katrina was still there. The landlord said she had moved out the day before. Her dad had helped her. The father had been quite apologetic that she was breaking her lease.

The detectives asked the landlord if he would mind if they looked around the apartment? Jackson and Stanley entered apartment number 2. There was a shopping bag left on the floor. A No Frills bag. Nothing in it. The rest of the place was empty.

“They took some garbage bags out back,” the landlord said.

Out behind the building, they saw four green garbage bags. They loaded them in the backseat of their unmarked white cruiser and headed to Central Station. The detectives had been on the job too long, seen too much, sorted through too much garbage, to be overly enthused by the discovery. Stanley worked vice and drugs for six years — seizing garbage bags was standard procedure.

Real investigative work is not like
CSI
on TV — every search does not blow a case open. If you’re lucky, you might get one eureka moment like that in your career, where X really does mark the spot. Jackson and Stanley had already had theirs about five months earlier, investigating a stabbing homicide. One day Jackson suggested they check the roofs of buildings near where a witness had last seen the killer downtown. They climbed a ladder atop the first roof. Bingo: there was a bag containing a pair of jeans. Blood all over them. Victim’s blood on the outside, killer’s DNA inside. Case closed.

At 11:30 a.m. Maloney answered his phone in the office. It was Jackson calling from the car. “We found four garbage bags out back of the girls’ apartment,” Jackson said.

Maloney was unimpressed. More garbage. Great, he mused. Was the garbage even hers? It was possible, Jackson replied.

Maloney met the detectives in the basement garage at Central. Maloney and Stanley slipped on rubber gloves, opened the bags. One of the first items in the bag was an empty Timberlands shoe box. Interesting.

Police matched the tread on this shoe to an imprint on Art’s back.
Hamilton Police Service.

Kyro Sparks wore Timberlands. There was another pair of shoes, called Lugz. Phone bills, cable bills.

After opening the second bag Stanley noticed a pair of Nike running shoes, tanned colour. He held one shoe. Turned it over. Unbelievable. The tread. In his mind’s eye, he saw the drawing in his homicide case book. The circular pattern. The marks on Art Rozendal’s back the forensic pathologist showed him in the morgue. A killer’s shoes.

“These are the shoes!” he shouted. “These are the shoes, no doubt about it — these are the ones.” He put down the shoe, grabbed his notebook, turned to the page where he had illustrated the markings, showed the others. “Look at this. Look at it.”

Maloney took charge. “Let’s hold it guys; let’s just pause here.”

They needed to preserve the integrity of the evidence, record what they had, by the numbers, step by step. Get forensics in there to take pictures and secure it.

Annette Huys took the call in the forensic identification department. It was Stanley on the line. He told her she might want to come to the garage and take a look at something. They had a present for her. And bring your camera. In the garage Huys saw the tread. She had seen the autopsy photos. X marks the spot.

The back hallway of O’Grady’s, where Art Rozendal was beaten to death.
Hamilton Police Service.

Huys noticed a tiny dark spot on the left shoe. Might be blood. She could not use a Hemastix strip to test it on the spot; the sample was too small, almost a misting. The chemical from the Hemastix might compromise it. Better to seal the shoes for testing at the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto. If it was blood, whose blood was it? Just as important, who wore the shoe? Could they find DNA inside it? Not if the person wore socks, reflected Huys.

The DNA test was critical. After Huys had packaged the shoes, Kevin Stanley hit the Queen Elizabeth Way and drove the evidence to the CFS. The next day Alexandra Welsh in the biology section of CFS sent a fax to Maloney. She had finished analysis on the O’Grady’s drinking glasses. The DNA profile developed from a swab of one of the glasses matched the DNA profile on record for Cory McLeod. As a convicted offender, McLeod’s profile had previously been registered on a national database.

Maloney met with case manager Peter Abi-Rashed, Greg Jackson, and assistant Crown attorney Joe Nadel to discuss where the case might be heading. One suspect — Sparks — in custody; another — McLeod — in the works. Witnesses had told the detectives about a third guy who was also in that back hallway in O’Grady’s where Art died, and who had held the back door open. His identity was still a mystery.

They had forensic evidence proving that Sparks and McLeod drank from glasses in the bar the night of the homicide. A witness had described three young men with Art in the back hallway, including a man resembling Sparks kicking Art in the head. But did they have direct evidence that would be enough to prove in court that Sparks, McLeod, and the mystery third guy had been the ones who killed Art? Could they establish intent? The kick to the head? The tread marks on Art’s back? Could they prove who wore the shoes?

The DNA results were one key, and so was the final post-mortem report from Dr. John Fernandes, the forensic pathologist. What was it, specifically, that had caused Art’s death?

Two weeks later, on February 25, Maloney received a phone call from Alexandra Welsh. She told him she had preliminary results from the shoes found in the garbage bag. Tiny blood stains were detected on the Lugz shoes — but the amount was insufficient to analyze. They could not even tell if the blood was human or animal.

What about the misting on the Nikes? Welsh had tested the substance found on the exterior of the right shoe. It tested positive for blood. Art Rozendal’s blood. The probability that it was not his was 1 in 4.6 billion. The second part of the equation still remained. Who wore it?

Three Kings

Brenda Rozendal’s eyes stared emptily out the window. The stone for Art’s burial plot in Woodland Cemetery had not yet been put in, so she sat in her parked van, out of the cold, looking at the spot where it would eventually go. She awoke early most every day, alone but for the denim shirt in bed with her. The shirt was Art’s. At bedtime each night, Brenda pulled one of his work shirts out of the closet and held it close to her under the covers.

Each morning she picked up a cup of apple-cinnamon tea and parked by his plot, along the winding road in the cemetery. She lit a cigarette, alone with her thoughts. Sometimes, if the detectives had called her with updates on the investigation, she would walk over to the plot and tell Art the latest news.

Brenda felt a bond with the detectives; she loved those guys. But she was anxious for the police to arrest the others who had beat up Art. It was coming up on two months since he was killed. Bev, Brenda’s sister, was not shy reminding police of that fact.

“How is the investigation going? Are you working on it? Any new leads?” That was how Bev greeted Hamilton Police Chief Brian Mullan when she saw him in the grocery store on occasion.

The first week in March, a benefit for the Rozendals was held. Five hundred people showed: family, friends, police officers. They had raffles, draws. The money raised went toward an education trust fund for Neil and Jordan. The Rozendal boys also decided to donate some of the money to victims of crime.

Some people who never even knew Art dropped by. One guy donated an electric guitar to the raffle. “It’s a testament to the kind of person he was,” Art’s brother-in-law, Chris Seraphin, said in a
Hamilton Spectator
story. “If we could all have this many friends, we’d be in great shape.”

While the Rozendals waited for the police to catch the other attackers and tried to adjust to life without Art, Cory McLeod continued to wait in his cell in Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton. He knew how it all worked; knew his DNA profile was on file with police from previous convictions, and knew that if Hamilton police found his DNA at O’Gradys, they could match it to him. And yet, all this time had passed since that night, January 14, almost two months, and he had heard nothing from the cops.

He waited for his next court date on the Kitchener assault charge, certain that he could get a speedy trial, be found innocent. Then he could leave town, perhaps the country. Cory had had no contact with Kyro Sparks since Kyro’s arrest. No letters, calls. He knew that was not wise. But Sherri, that was a different matter. He loved that girl. He opened one of her letters:

March 6, 2005

Cory, Hey how are you doing? Hey, I’m all right still. I’m in a good mood actually cause I got to talk to you three times today.... I miss you so much....

I can’t wait till we get to be together again, I just never want to be taken away for this long ever again ...

March 8, 2005

I don’t like that I can only get to talk to you over the phone, and when I go see you, I can only see you through glass....

You asked me why I hooked up with you, well here’s why.

You are an amazing person, you are sweet, nice, you make me laugh, I feel so comfortable around you....

Holla back.

One love.

Ur wife, Sherri Price

P.S. Are we still engaged or were u joking around
?

Just after 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 8, Mike Maloney took a call from Alexandra Welsh at CFS. She had more results from the testing of the running shoes. She had developed a DNA profile from the insole of the left shoe. The profile indicated that the shoe had been worn by Cory McLeod. The next morning, at 7:30, Sherri’s mother heard a knock at the door. She opened it and looked up into the square-jawed face of Detective Greg Jackson. Behind him were several uniformed Waterloo police officers.

“We’re here to arrest Sherri Foreman for accessory after the fact of murder,” Jackson said. “We have a search warrant for your house.”

At that moment, Sherri walked down the stairs. Jackson looked at her.
We’re back,
he thought to himself with satisfaction. Her mother looked pretty surprised; so did Sherri, although she wasn’t crying or anything. Two officers searched the house. They found letters written between Cory and Sherri. At the same time, Mike Maloney showed up at the door of Katrina McLennan’s parents. Katrina, girlfriend of Kyro Sparks, was arrested on the same charge. The girls were each driven to Hamilton. There, Maloney sat with Katrina in an interview room.

“My lawyer advised me not to say anything,” she said.

“That’s good advice,” Maloney replied. “Unfortunately, your lawyer is not the one sitting in the seat here.... What do you think is going to happen to you? You’re smiling.”

“I’m not.”

“This is a serious offence. That man was a lovely guy, had a wife and two children. The whole community of Hamilton loved him.”

Maloney showed Katrina a photo of Art’s bruised face and asked about Sparks. “There he is; there is the result of your friends beating him.... You think Kyro’s worth throwing your life away on?”

“My lawyer advised me not to say anything.”

It went on like this — Katrina saying little. “Is there going to be a time when you tell the truth about this? What are you thinking about Katrina?”

“The stain on my pants.”

“The stain on your pants.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anything else?”

“No.”

A drawing found in Cory McLeod’s notebook.
Hamilton Police Service.

At the same time, Jackson questioned Sherri in a separate room. “Do you know anyone by the name of Daymein P?”

Sherri said nothing.

“It’s a simple yes or no answer. Do you know anyone by the name of Daymein P?”

“I won’t say anything. I’m not answering nothing.”

“We found papers in your room with Daymein P. written all over them. I’m going to suggest to you that Daymein P. is Cory McLeod. Is that right?”

“I’m not answering nothing. I told you.”

Maloney showed her a photo of the Nike shoe found in the garbage. “Whose shoe is that?” he asked.

“Next,” she replied. “Next picture.”

“Whose shoe is that?”

“Next picture.”

The questioning for each girl took just over an hour. The detectives got nowhere. Katrina and Sherri were taken to the lockup. An undercover female officer sat in a cell between them, listening. The girls said little. Sherri was overheard saying: “You guys threw shoes in the garbage?”

That afternoon in the forensic identification department, detectives Gary Zwicker and Annette Huys examined the papers found in Sherri’s room. Huys had heard how the interrogations had gone. She was astounded by the girls’ behaviour. Teenagers, in the middle of a murder investigation, and they didn’t budge. Standing by their man, she reflected sardonically.

She studied a sketchbook of drawings by Cory McLeod. Buried in among his doodles she noticed a stick figure drawing. It depicted three figures, wearing crowns, who appeared to be stomping on a fourth, who did not wear a crown. Her eyes lit up. Waterloo Police had said McLeod and Sparks were members of a Kitchener gang called the Kings.

The morning arrests of Katrina and Sherri were just phase one on arrest day. Peter Abi-Rashed had developed an operational plan assigning 17 Hamilton officers and three from Waterloo to make arrests and search residences.

At 3:15 p.m. that day, Cory McLeod was led by a jail official into an interview room at Maplehurst. In through another door walked two men in suits. Maloney and Jackson.

“Cory McLeod,” Maloney said, “you are under arrest for murder in the second degree of Arthur Rozendal in Hamilton on January 14, 2005.”

Jackson read him his rights, then he was cuffed and taken back to Hamilton. Among his personal items were a pair of white Nike shoes that had “Kings” and “D.P” written on them. In the Major Crime Unit, he was led through a room where the detectives had posted investigation photos, maps, diagrams. It was tactical — give the accused a sense of what they have. Shock him.
We already know it all, you might as well talk.

Cory was shaken by what he saw. There were autopsy photos on the wall. He had never seen anything like it. The images stayed in his mind’s eye; he could not shake them. Still, while taken aback by the display, and surprised at how quickly the police had gathered so much evidence against him, Cory was not about to talk. He knew the drill.

At 8:00 p.m. Maloney began the interrogation. “Back on January 14, when this happened, were you living in Hamilton or Kitchener?” he asked.

“I don’t have anything to say about any of these things. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Anything regarding the homicide type of thing?”

“Yeah.”

“You are in way over your head.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Sometimes we come in here and tap dance and try to trick you into giving a statement, but you know what? We have so much evidence against you I don’t have to do that.... I see you have a tattoo on your wrist. The Kings. Is that some street gang?”

“No, it’s not a gang.”

“What is ‘the Kings’?”

“I think I’m a king.”

“Do you?”

“Yeah.”

“I see you have DP on your shoe. What does that mean?”

“It’s personal.”

Maloney held up a photocopy of the crown-wearing stick figures doodle from Cory’s sketchbook.

“I’m wondering, Cory, if that’s you and your two Kings gang buddies stomping someone. Because if that’s a fact, then it’s first degree murder.”

“That’s doodling.”

“Done by you. Just so happens our murder, January 14, there were three males who stomped a guy to death. Just coincidence?”

“Yeah.”

After Maloney, Greg Jackson entered and continued the questions. Cory refused to answer. Didn’t do anything to anybody, he claimed. No comment on whether he was Daymein P.

Cory waited for the one playing bad cop. Just after midnight, he arrived. After the cool manner of Jackson and Maloney, Abi-Rashed entered the room like a brewing storm.

“Cory,” he said. “Cory, Cory, Cory. I’m their boss. You got nothing to say, right?”

“Yeah. I’m done talking.”

“You’re done talking?”

Abi-Rashed chuckled, then sat quietly, tapping his thick fingers on the table. “How are the sandwiches? Cheese. No ham? What shall we talk about? How you’re going away for a long time? When’s the last time you kissed Sherri? On the 14th or 15th? You know that’s the last time you will kiss her, right? You know what second-degree murder is? Life. The more I listen to you saying, ‘I got nothing to say, I didn’t have anything to do with it,’ the more I get excited, because that’s what I want you to repeat.”

He held up a photo of Art and his family. “Look at the picture of a nice family with two teenagers, a wife. Nice man, never hurt anybody. And who’s behind his death? Cory. Right?”

He said nothing.

“We have been going, ‘You know what? I don’t think we need to work on this case anymore because Cory is done like dinner.’ The victim’s blood is on your shoes. You do the math, Cory. We got your chain, we got Daymein P.; your girlfriend calls you that. We got your DNA. You were there, Cory.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Good one! That’s what I wanna hear. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ The more you say that, the better it is for me, because every time you say it, it’s a lie. You’ve been lying all night.... I want to thank you for making this a pretty easy case for us. Thanks buddy. Hang tight eh?”

Cory McLeod was locked up downstairs.

The next day Mike Maloney and another officer sat with him. Maloney told Cory they needed to take a fresh DNA sample. His profile existed on a national database but by the book they were required to do another. If he refused to give a sample, Maloney said, they could use any amount of force necessary to get it.

“What, you and him?” Cory said, motioning to the other officer in the room. Maloney grinned. Gang punks think they’re tough, but only fight when they have weapons or outnumber a victim.

“No, Cory. Actually, if it comes to that I’ll ask him to leave,” Maloney said.