Murder at McDonald's (12 page)

“Do you have any suspects at this time?”

“No, at this time we are pursuing a number of avenues.” Roper knew that Derek Wood was being questioned, but the young man was still being considered a witness, despite the growing belief within the detachment that he was in some way involved in the tragedy. Besides, even if he was involved in the crime, two other people had been seen running away, and there was no point letting them know that Wood was already in custody. Roper cut off the questioning by inviting the reporters to come back at 3:00 p.m. for another briefing. At that time, Roper would face tougher questions and a group of unfamiliar faces; the reporters attending the first briefing knew Roper, and he knew them. In the months since he had become the media officer, he had met with all of them on stories ranging from crime-prevention initiatives to safe-driving campaigns. The reporters from the
Cape Breton Post,
CBC Radio and TV, CJCB Radio, and ATV had enough for now, but we'd be back.

With the information from Roper and the crime scene description from the motorist who had seen where Jimmy Fagan's body had fallen outside McDonald's, I headed to the ATV newsroom to file the first in a series of reports on the crime. The most powerful image we had was the tape that showed the ambulances leaving the restaurant, and it figured prominently in the first reports. Within hours, the procession that had been witnessed by only the three of us was seen by millions, as stations across Canada and the U.S. picked up the video. Local Crown prosecutor Ken Haley saw the report at home, on an American network; at first he thought the incident had occurred in some crime-ridden city in the States. When the news anchor reported that the shootings had occurred in the small Nova Scotia community of Sydney, Haley's heart skipped a beat. He dressed quickly and left for work, knowing he could get more information at the Crown office. Little did he realize how involved he would become in this case in the months ahead.

Just before 6:00 a.m., Corporal Brian Stoyek returned to the interrogation room at the Sydney RCMP detachment, where he found Derek Wood using the phone that was sitting in the middle of the table. “Who are you talking to?” Stoyek asked. “My cousin Mike,” the young man replied. Wood had no idea that by making this second call to his cousin, he was also making Mike Campbell a potential suspect. He also had no idea what a complex chain of events was unfolding outside the small room. But he would soon discover that he was by no means home free.

“You'll have to hang it up,” Stoyek said. “You can't talk to him until we finish asking you a few questions, Derek.” Wood hung up, and Stoyek unplugged the phone and took it out of the interview room. When he came back, he was carrying a note pad; he told Wood he wanted to get a detailed written statement. In that statement, the young man told the officer he had finished his shift at McDonald's but stayed behind when Arlene MacNeil asked him to help with the inventory; they did that work in the lobby, and then he went downstairs to change. After that, he decided to have a cigarette, so he went out through the basement door, propping the inner door open with his knapsack and standing outside the big outer door to smoke. The outer door could only be closed and latched from the inside, so he didn't have to worry about holding it open while he enjoyed his cigarette. Wood said he was smoking at about one o'clock in the morning when he heard two shots that sounded like a C-7 or an American M-16; he recognized the sound of these high-powered rifles because of his training with the Cape Breton Militia District. The two shots came real fast, he said—real close together—and they were followed by a single scream, which sounded like Donna's voice. After hearing that scream, Wood said, he took off along the route he had shown Stoyek.

A short time later, Kevin Cleary joined Stoyek in the interview room; the corporal had convinced the investigating officer that something was not right with Derek Wood. The young man was unaware that he was becoming a focus of the just-developing case, but he was beginning to realize that his first impression—that it would be easy to fool the police—was far from accurate. At least, this big Stoyek guy and the Cleary fellow were obviously not ready to accept what he had to say at face value. But he wasn't particularly worried when officers came in to check his sneakers; if his footprints were by the basement door, it only supported his story.

The two officers kept pressing for details and pointing out things they said didn't make sense. Wood tried to buy time, filling in blanks with facts he was sure of, things that had happened before and after the shootings. He told them that he made two calls from Kings Convenience, but that he was pretty sure the first call was to an ambulance company. He told them that he phoned Mike from the same store; he told them that he went for a walk. He talked about helping Arlene with the inventory and then having a cigarette with another cash worker before she left. But then they would do something like ask him how it was he could smoke inside after working with her, and then have to light up outside the back door later.

Wood was relieved when Kevin Cleary left, at about 8:00 a.m. Maybe he would get a break. Cleary had decided to check on a few points in Wood's story; he was not comfortable with what Wood was telling him, and he wanted to see how the evidence at the scene fit into the picture. Back at McDonald's, the corporal talked with Ident officer James Leadbetter, who was still working inside. Leadbetter showed Cleary where he had marked the footprints on the blue tile floor in the crew training room—the faint set of prints leading to the basement door, and the more clearly defined ones, extending from the back door into the restaurant; one of the stronger prints lay directly across one of the prints headed out of the basement. Clearly, the people coming in were the last ones to walk in that room, which did not fit with Derek Wood's story about having a smoke, then running away after hearing shots. Wood must have let them in, at least.

Then, Cleary and Leadbetter tested the big black steel door, which had been locked when officers arrived on the scene. Wood's explanation was that he slammed it when he ran away. Corporal Leadbetter slammed the door; it did not lock. Again and again it did not lock. Leadbetter must have slammed that door twenty times, and only twice did the steel lever fall into the bolt. It was highly unlikely that anyone running away could get that door to lock by slamming it. Finally, the two officers searched around the door and the driveway for fresh cigarette butts; Derek Wood said he had smoked two. There were none.

The evidence at the scene; the cut hand; the phone call to his cousin from Kings, looking for a drive home; his decision to walk away from the store and not wait for the lift. This was all very disturbing—and Cleary had a new concern about Wood. He learned that Wood had phoned Freeman MacNeil's house from Kings—and that the young man had neglected to tell police about this. Wood had told Stoyek that Freeman drove him to work that night, but he hadn't mentioned the phone call he made later. Police found out about that call early in the morning, after Corporal Trickett visited the MacNeil home to ask Freeman a few questions. The young man wasn't there when Trickett arrived at the MacNeil home on Beaton Road, so Trickett spoke to his mother.

The corporal really liked Edith MacNeil; the slight, friendly woman reminded him of his own mother, and he repeatedly assured her she had nothing to worry about—he just wanted to ask Freeman about a friend he had driven to McDonald's. Edith asked if that friend was Derek and told Trickett he had called there looking for Freeman at around one in the morning. Derek had missed Freeman by only a few minutes, she said; her son and a friend had left after picking up an asthma inhaler that Freeman's girlfriend needed. That was probably where Freeman would be now, she said. As the officer was about to leave, she wished him luck, saying: “We'll be thinking of you. I hope you catch the people who are responsible.” Trickett would have liked to stay and chat with her a while longer, but he couldn't afford the time; there was too much to do. He told her he appreciated her good wishes, and turned to go, noting, as he drove down the long driveway, that the old white house needed a paint job.

In the small interview room, Cleary began to confront Derek Wood with some of the inconsistencies in his story. Wood had no explanation, and as Cleary talked, he began to fold himself into a fetal position in the chair—a posture that suggests to police that a person has something to hide, something to protect. By noon, it became clear to the officers that they were not making a lot of progress; they left the room to plan a new approach.

It had been a very frustrating morning for Brian Stoyek, who occasionally left Wood alone so he could clear his head and try to figure out how to get through to the small blond teenager who sat in the room, fidgeting but showing no signs of panic, or any other emotion, for that matter. Stoyek was certain Derek Wood, knew something—at least who he had kept that basement door open for—and he could not understand how this apparently normal young man could sit in the interrogation room and protect killers, instead of helping police avenge the deaths of his co-workers.

After the two officers talked, Cleary decided it was time to let Derek Wood know he was no longer being considered a witness. At 1:07 p.m. on May 7, Derek Wood was told he was under arrest on two charges of murder, two of attempted murder, and one of robbery. This was really just an attempt by the police to show Wood just how serious the situation was. They did not arraign the eighteen-year-old or even consider taking him before a judge to be formally charged; they knew there was no evidence to support such charges—but maybe he would decide to hand over those who were responsible. After all, during the interrogation they had continually told Wood they did not believe he was responsible for the shootings but that they did feel he knew more than he was admitting.

Wood could see that the situation was deteriorating, but he held onto the comforting knowledge that police still felt he was not the killer.

Six

The name Industrial Cape Breton is a throwback to the days when coal mines and the steel mill thrived, employing thousands. By 1992 the steel mill had been modernized and downsized, and the Nova Scotia government, the owner for more than twenty years, had decided to sell the money-losing enterprise. The coal mines, too, had seen more-prosperous days; coal was developing a reputation as a dirty fuel, as communities and regions became more environmentally responsible. Yet the industry-town attitude remained a strong part of the Cape Breton identity: people knew their neighbours and cared about what happened to em. Community spirit had grown strong in the 1920s, when overworked and underpaid coal miners fought for their rights. The bond, created during that struggle and strengthened when mining tragedies struck, remained an important component in the fabric of the industrial area. On May 7, 1992, it did not take long for word of the shootings at McDonald's to spread throughout these communities and shake them to the core. Cape Breton was changing; in fact, it had changed. Violent crime, once something read about or seen on TV, was hitting much too close to home.

Cape Breton had not been immune to murders; it was just that this one was different. For the most part, murders on the island involved people who knew one another—friends or lovers, who, for some reason—usually one intensified by alcohol—reached an impasse that ended in a moment of violent passion. That was part of the reason the RCMP were looking closely at the victims in this crime; people were usually killed by someone they knew. But for Cape Bretoners, the McDonald's murders represented a turning point: it was the second time in only a few months that random violent crime was dominating their conversation. On a stormy March night, convenience store clerk Marie Lorraine Dupe was stabbed to death during an apparent robbery. Sydney police still had not solved that case, and people in Cape Breton, the police included, began to wonder if there could be a connection between the two crimes; thus police were especially motivated to move quickly to find those responsible. The idea of a crazed killer or killers on the loose changed the way many people saw themselves and their neighbours. The island was a place where people felt comfortable sleeping with unlocked doors, but for many that sense of security disappeared as word of the McDonald's murders spread.

In the newsrooms on the island, we were trying to tell two stories on Thursday, May 7. We wanted to convey what had happened in Sydney River—a story I told by using Dave Roper's news briefing and the interview with the motorist on the highway behind the restaurant—and we wanted to describe the community's reaction to the crime. The second story was an easy one to tell, because very few people we encountered did not have something to say about what had happened and what it meant to them. The mayor of Sydney said that Cape Breton had changed overnight, that violence was becoming a daily occurrence. Church leaders cited chronic unemployment as a contributing factor, saying that people without work and without hope could resort to desperate acts. Many business owners immediately began taking action to protect their employees; video surveillance systems became a hot seller, and the area's security-system companies were quickly tasked with installing new alarms and monitors. And some business people concluded that late-night operating hours were simply no longer worth the risk.

Teenagers in the area seemed particularly overwhelmed by what had happened. The Sydney River McDonald's is only a short walk from Riverview Rural High School; students frequented the restaurant daily, and many had found part-time employment there. On the morning of the murders, small groups of teens gathered around the school property, whispering and wondering about what had happened. Word spread quickly that a former student, Derek Wood, had been the one to call police—that he was lucky to have escaped alive. Other employees who had worked the night shift spoke about police coming to their homes to take their sneakers and ask who was left in the restaurant when they had finished work. The murders became the prime topic of conversation among the student population, as it did in almost every sector of the Cape Breton community.