Danny Wood

Case Summary

Merla Marie Laycock was sexually assaulted, stabbed, and strangled to death in downtown Calgary at around 12:30 a.m. on March 1, 1979.1 An eyewitness, Darlene Jensen, reported to police that she saw Laycock with an unknown man shortly before the murder.2 Jensen’s description of the man and a resulting police composite drawing roughly matched the appearance of Danny Wood,3 who had previously been convicted of sexual assault and murder, for which he was serving a life sentence.4 In 1982, police arranged a photo line-up for Jensen that included Wood’s picture, but she did not identify him or anyone else from the photo array.5

Meanwhile, in Toronto’s Don Jail, Wood provided a written statement to a corrections employee on August 13, 1982. He stated that a fellow inmate, Fernand Robinson, had confessed to a series of unsolved crimes in conversation with Wood.6 To gather more information, undercover police officer Cst. Hobbs was placed in the cell between Wood and Robinson. According to police, Hobbs had not been told the Calgary murder holdback information (i.e., offence details kept off the public record, so that they are known only to the perpetrator and investigators). While Hobbs was acting in this role, Wood prepared a second statement containing further information that Robinson had told him. Upon receipt of this statement, police found that it included holdback information regarding Laycock’s murder.7

Toronto Police forwarded this second statement to the Calgary Police – who then learned that Robinson was 14 years old, and in an Ontario psychiatric facility, at the time that Laycock was killed. Investigators turned their attention to Wood, as it appeared that he was the true source of the holdback information that he had attributed to Robinson.8 In 1984, police showed Darlene Jensen a second photo lineup, which included an updated picture of Wood. This time, Jensen identified Wood as the man she had seen with Laycock.9 The case against Wood gained further strength from a statement made by Hobbs, to the effect that Wood had told him: “I did a murder one in Calgary.”10 

Later in 1984, police charged Wood with the first degree murder of Merla Marie Laycock.11 After a jury trial, Wood was convicted of this offence on September 23, 1985, and sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for the first 25 years.12

Wood successfully appealed this outcome to the Alberta Court of Appeal. The court found that the trial judge had erred in permitting the Crown to lead evidence of Wood’s previous murder conviction as support for its case against him regarding the Calgary murder. Due to this legal error, the court quashed Wood’s conviction and ordered a new trial.13

On January 30, 1992, Wood was again convicted of first degree murder, after a judge-alone trial. The court agreed with Crown counsel that the following proved his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt: (1) Jensen’s positive identification of Wood as the man she saw with Laycock on the night of the murder; and (2) the evidence that Wood concocted his statement implicating Robinson, drawing on holdback details that indicated Wood himself must be the perpetrator.14 He was again sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years.15

Wood again appealed his conviction, but this time the court dismissed the appeal, on January 3, 1992.16 The Supreme Court of Canada denied him leave for a further appeal on September 24 of that year.17

On November 28, 1993, Wood applied to the Minister of Justice for a review of his conviction.18 The Department of Justice Canada’s Criminal Conviction Review Group eventually investigated, and they “discovered that significant evidence was not disclosed to Mr. Wood or his counsel during any of his criminal proceedings. This new and significant evidence could have had an impact on the fairness of Mr. Wood’s trial and his conviction.”19 As a result of the Criminal Conviction Review Group’s findings, the Minister referred Wood’s case back to the Alberta Court of Appeal on February 10, 2005.20

Accordingly, the Court received and examined the new evidence that had not been disclosed. This fresh evidence saliently included the following three elements. First, Jensen had identified an alternate suspect in 1979 whose appearance also matched the composite drawing. Second, correspondence between Calgary and Toronto police called into question the state of Hobbs’ knowledge regarding the holdback content (thus raising the spectre that Hobbs was the source of these details in Wood’s statement). Third, Hobbs had also obtained a confession from wrongfully convicted man Guy Paul Morin by posing as a fellow inmate.21 On November 27, 2006, the Court overturned Wood’s conviction and ordered another new trial.22 Rather than prosecute Wood a third time, the Crown stayed the proceedings against him.23

Merla Marie Laycock’s murder remains unsolved.


[1] R. v. Wood, 2006 ABCA 343 at para. 1 [Wood 2006].
[2] Ibid. at para. 7.
[3] Ibid.
[4] “Appeal court to review conviction of man in 26-year-old Calgary sex-slaying,” Canadian Press NewsWire (15 Feb 2005): n/a.
[5] Wood 2006, supra note 1 at para. 7.
[6] Ibid. at para. 9.
[7] Ibid. at para. 11.
[8] Ibid. at paras. 12-13.
[9] Ibid.
[10] R. v. Wood, 1992 ABCA 27 at para. 6 [Wood 1992].
[11] Justice Canada News Release, “Minister of Justice Refers Murder Case to Alberta Court of Appeal” (15 Feb 2005), online: <https://www.canada.ca/en/news/archive/2005/02/minister-justice-refers-murder-case-alberta-court-appeal.html> (accessed 26 Jan 2023).
[12] Wood 2006, supra note 1 at para. 3.
[13] Ibid.; R. v. Wood, 1987 ABCA 230 at paras. 12, 77, 79.
[14] Wood 2006, supra note 1 at paras. 3, 5, 16.
[15] Justice Canada, supra note 11.
[16] Wood 2006, supra note 1 at para. 3; Wood 1992, supra note 10 at para. 36.
[17] Wood 2006, supra note 1 at para. 3; R. v. Wood (1992), 131 A.R. 386 (S.C.C.).
[18] Wood 2006, supra note 1 at para. 4.
[19] Justice Canada, supra note 11.
[20] Wood 2006, supra note 1 at para. 4.
[21] Ibid. at paras. 17-20.
[22] Ibid. at para. 61.
[23] Daryl Slade, “Charge stayed in 1979 murder,” Calgary Herald (18 Sept 2007), online: <https://www.pressreader.com/canada/calgary-herald/20070918/281990373145395> (accessed 25 Jan 2023).

 

Case Details

  • Full name:

    Danny Wood

  • Gender identity:

    Male

  • Race/ethnicity:

    Unknown

  • Age - at the time of conviction:

    31

  • Charges - specific offences:

    First degree murder

  • Date of conviction:

    1985-09-23

  • Date wrongful conviction was overturned:

    2006-11-27

  • Sentence - total time served:

    Unknown

  • Legal mechanism by which wrongful conviction was overturned:

    696/690 and new appeal with new evidence

  • Status of alleged crime:

    Unsolved

  • Compensation Received?

    No

  • Guilty plea?

    No

  • Cause(s) of wrongful conviction:

    Wood’s wrongful conviction for first degree murder resulted from non-disclosure of important evidence. (First, it revealed frailties in the eyewitness identification of Wood as the suspect. Second, it undercut police claims that Wood must be the perpetrator because he knew “holdback” details — which there is a danger that an officer provided.)