Murder at McDonald's (16 page)

RCMP press liaison officer Dave Roper talks to the author the day after the false arrests. [Print from ATV video tape.]

At two in the morning, Dave Roper's phone rang, once again waking him from a sound sleep. This public relations job was not what it used to be. Staff Arsenault explained the problem: the Burroughs family wanted to know why they had not been informed about the decision to release the suspects, and they wanted to talk to someone about it. Arsenault asked Roper to try to settle things down with the Burroughs.

On his way over, Roper tried to figure out what he would say. The damage had been done, and there wasn't much he could do to change it. Roper tried to be a diplomat, not so much defending the RCMP as explaining what had happened. The family convinced Roper that victims should be given a higher priority in investigations like this; it was not enough to drive to their house and inform them that someone they loved was dead. They wanted more from the police; they wanted to be kept informed as the investigation proceeded. Roper promised the family this would be the last time the family learned of a major development from a news report. Now all Dave Roper had to do was convince his superiors, and he was pleasantly surprised by the response from Sylvan Arsenault. Not only would the force agree to inform the Burroughs family before releasing information, but special constables would be assigned to the families of all four victims. These officers would be available to answer any questions they had, not only during the investigation, but also in the months between the arrests and the first court proceedings. It was the beginning of a practice that has since become standard procedure for many police forces. Victims' rights were beginning to take on a higher priority.

May 9 marked the point in the RCMP investigation when officers began to recover from the false lead and begin a new, highly focused probe aimed at uncovering the mystery presented by McDonald's employee Derek Wood. Investigators would find out everything they could about Wood, and the next time they sat down face-to-face with the teenager, they would be ready. In the days ahead, almost all the officers involved in the investigation would be told time and time again to go home at the end of the shift, only to be found back at work long before their next shift began.

Many of the investigators credit Sylvan Arsenault with fostering the team atmosphere that developed at the Sydney detachment that week. As coordinator of the probe, Arsenault divided the team into two twelve-hour shifts, so the investigation could continue twenty-four hours a day. He held briefings early every morning, as the night shift finished and the day shift prepared to pick up the thread of the investigation once again. Arsenault's main point was that there were no menial tasks here; every assignment was a critical component of the case the RCMP would build against the killers. In the first day of the investigation, rookies and senior officers alike found themselves collecting and examining the contents of the garbage receptacles in and around the Sydney River McDonald's. It was not a pleasant job, but it was one that could produce results. Criminals have been known to discard evidence carelessly in the panic of escaping the scene. That would not prove to be the case in Sydney River, but the police officers gladly rolled up their sleeves and sorted through the assortment of burger, French-fry, and soft-drink containers that filled the bags they had taken from the restaurant.

Corporal John Trickett, who had worked with all the veteran officers and knew the young ones as well, was surprised at the way personality conflicts that had surfaced during other investigations simply disappeared after the McDonald's murders. People who only days before had felt animosity towards one another became partners committed to working together on a case that consumed them. Detachment commanders marvelled at how quickly and intensely the team came together. Many of the officers caught up in the investigation later pointed to the early-morning briefings as a source of the cohesiveness that developed. Sylvan Arsenault did not simply assign officers to tasks; he explained where the investigation was headed and why a particular job was important. He let everyone know what had been uncovered or ruled out by the previous shift, and what new questions had to be addressed by those coming in.

An investigation with the high profile of this one was not without its drawbacks—the Cynthia Long experience had shown them that—and Arsenault made it clear they could expect other false leads. Any information had to be treated as the key to solving the case. Arsenault and other senior investigators knew only too well that ignoring an apparently ridiculous piece of information could come back to haunt them; if the information found its way to a defence lawyer, the investigating officer had to be able to deal with it in court.

Cleary and Arsenault set up the nucleus of the inquiry in a small office—a room not much bigger than the one in which Derek Wood spent twenty-six hours, and one in which Sylvan Arsenault and Kevin Cleary would spend many, many more. A long table and a set of metal file cabinets dominated the room. On a wall behind the table, a flow chart resembling a family tree plotted the progress of the McDonald's investigation. Derek Wood's name on the chart had a number of lines leading away from it, one of them connected to the name Freeman MacNeil. His name, in turn, pointed to others on the chart: during the interview with MacNeil, police learned that his actions on the night of the crime could easily be verified by the people he was with, such as Michelle Sharp and Darren Muise. Those interviews were believed to be formalities, since Sergeant Eagan and Constable Lambe were certain that young MacNeil had told them all he knew about Derek Wood and his actions on the night of May 6–7.

It was becoming clear that solving this case would take good, old-fashioned police legwork. The forensics experts had had two full days at the crime scene, and it was not telling them enough. Patrick Laturness, an expert in the examination and interpretation of blood patterns, had been flown in from the RCMP Regional Forensic Identification Support Lab in Ottawa. The amount of blood in the restaurant had convinced investigators that Laturness would be able to help them piece together exactly what had occurred. Unfortunately, the large pool of blood around Neil Burroughs had spread away from the body after the killers left, erasing any patterning that could have told Laturness something about the attack. Blood-spatter experts examine the shape of bloodstains to determine whether they are passive or active, and Laturness did discover some active, or cast-off, stains near the garbage can by the rear door where Jimmy had been killed. A cast-off stain shows where blood has made contact after being flung from a moving object, such as a knife or club swung through the air. But the stains on the inside wall by the door at McDonald's were attributed to the slip and fall of the taxi driver who had run into the restaurant to help ambulance attendants.

Laturness also noted a trail of passive bloodstains (left when blood drips from a static object) leading to the front service counter from the area where Neil Burroughs died. However, it was impossible to determine whether one of the killers had walked down the corridor, or whether the blood had dripped from Kevin Cleary, a taxi driver, an ambulance attendant, or even the medical examiner, all of whom had come in contact with Burroughs.

Laturness was only able to tell officers what they already suspected—that the bloodied fingerprints trailing down the front of the sink were most likely left by the victim, who had been struggling to get up; and that the bloodstains on the basement floor showed a pattern consistent with someone inhaling and regurgitating blood, which Henry Jantzen had seen Arlene MacNeil doing. The expert from Ottawa was not able to tell investigators anything about the people responsible for the murders, even whether they were covered in blood when they left the restaurant. Much of the blood at the scene could have been left behind, because the victims bled slowly after their assailants fled. As difficult as it was for officers who had been at the scene to accept, it was more than possible that the attackers escaped without so much as a drop of blood on their clothes; in fact, the small calibre of the weapon made this almost certain. Although all four victims had been shot in the head at close range, there were no exit wounds. All the bullets had stayed in the bodies of the victims, reducing the amount of blood-spattering that occurred during the shootings. There was some small consolation in this evidence; it relieved some of the sting Kevin Cleary felt about Derek Wood leaving the detachment before anyone bothered to ask him for his clothing. Cleary still would have preferred to have those clothes, but he knew it was too late now.

So it was hard slogging that would solve the case. The job of keeping track of Derek Wood was handed to the special observation unit of the RCMP, whose members had been brought in from Halifax for the first arrests. The unit was trained in following and observing suspects in major crime cases, but they were having their problems here. The McDonald's murders had people in the Sydney area jumpy, and a number of occasions helpful citizens phoned the RCMP to report suspicious cars parked at all hours of the night in the Hardwood Hill area. Mounties took the calls, then informed the observers they'd been “made” by the neighbours! Time to find a new place to wait and watch. The ATV parking lot turned out to be a good place for the unit, just up the road from the place where Wood was staying, and almost always full of cars. The arrangement also proved valuable for me. It didn't take a rocket scientist to recognize the guys parked discreetly in the corner of the lot as police officers. Maybe I could develop a relationship with them and learn something new. At first, the officers were reluctant to do more than confirm they were police and ask if it was all right for them to remain parked in the lot. Later, one of them, who was getting bored sitting in the car for hours while Wood watched movies at Mike Campbell's, began to open up. We would chat late at night about the duties of the observation unit and how they were kept separate from the main investigative team's assignments. The officer would not confirm who he was watching, but as I continued to spend time crouched beside the driver's window talking to him, I found myself picking up other tidbits of information—especially when the officer's radio squawked an order to move or a report from another observer.

While the observers kept track of Wood, Constable Pat Murphy worked frantically with prosecutor Brian Williston. The RCMP wanted wiretaps on phones at Mike Campbell's home and Derek's brother's apartment, and on two pay phones he was known to use. Because of the reluctance of courts to tap public telephones, police had been forced to set up surveillance at both pay phones so that Pat Murphy could convince a judge that Wood was using them regularly. Obtaining a wiretap is nothing like the process portrayed in TV crime shows. It is an intricate legal process involving sworn depositions prepared by officers familiar with a case, and requires that officers explain to the court why more-traditional means of investigating a case are insufficient. The courts are not inclined to invade people's privacy, even if they are suspect in major crimes.

Williston, like prosecutors Ken Haley and Frank Edwards, had offered his assistance to police. Prosecutors in Cape Breton usually allow police to conduct their own investigations, stepping in only when the file is ready for them to examine. But this time the prosecutors wanted to be involved from the outset—not that they were afraid the RCMP would bungle the investigation, but they simply wanted to be making a contribution to the effort. Williston and Murphy were well-matched for the job they faced: both were sticklers for detail and were more than willing to put in twelve- and fourteen-hour days.

Pat Murphy had prepared wiretap depositions for drug cases, so he was selected to prepare the court documents for this case. The constable looked more like an NFL linebacker than a police paper-shuffler, however. Light-haired and fair-skinned, he had the kind of physique that would have made him a natural choice to play a cop in a movie. His regular features were creased with worry, as he focused on the toughest job he'd ever faced. Williston's almost boyish enthusiasm for his job belied his years of experience. Only his greying hair was a testament to the strain of hard work. The prosecutor's light, almost comical air disguised a sharp litigator's mind, as those who had crossed him in court well knew.

It would take five days for Murphy to complete interviews of all the officers involved in the investigations and provide detailed explanations of police suspicions about Derek Wood, and for Williston to complete the necessary documents. Finally, the wiretap request was granted, and would later be extended to other suspects.

For Brian Williston, being at the centre of such an intense investigation was an eye-opening and unnerving experience. One evening, Sylvan Arsenault pulled him aside to tell him that a squad car had been sent to his home after one of the neighbours reported seeing a prowler in the woods nearby. Williston was the longest-serving prosecutor in the Sydney office, and he was well aware that in such a small community, many of the people he put behind bars knew where he lived. The report turned out to be a false alarm—the “prowler” was a patient who had wandered away from a nearby mental hospital, and there was no threat to the prosecutor or anyone else—but the fact that RCMP reacted by sending a car to Williston's home reminded him that the officers really were nervous. As long as those responsible for the shootings were still out there, anything could happen.

Dave Roper knew his role in the investigation was to try to ease the anxiety in the community after word of the release of the three suspects. Roper met with reporters on May 9 to explain that even while the raids on the first suspects were being contemplated, officers were pursuing other avenues. He was stretching the truth a bit: investigators later admitted that virtually all their energies were directed towards the false lead and the fruitless arrests. Roper conceded that the arrests had been unfortunate, but insisted that they in no way impeded the flow of the continuing investigator; they were just one part of a much bigger picture.