Case Summary
On the evening of June 9, 1959, between 7:00 and 7:30 p.m., 14-year-old Steven Truscott gave his classmate, 12-year-old Lynne Harper, a ride on the handlebars of his bicycle.1 The two were on a busy County Road, near a Royal Canadian Air Force station outside of Clinton in southwestern Ontario.2 Truscott dropped Harper off at an intersection past a bridge, and then doubled back.3 Three children saw him crossing the bridge with Harper and returning alone after dropping her off.4 Truscott happened to look back and saw Harper getting into a grey car with a yellow licence plate.5
This was the last time Harper was seen alive. At around 8:00 p.m. that evening, fellow students saw Truscott return to the school grounds, where he and Harper had started their journey.6 Just before midnight, Harper’s father reported her missing. Two days later, a search party found her body in a wooded area. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.7
Police suspicion fell on Truscott because he seemed to be the last person who had seen Harper alive, and at a location close to where she was murdered.8 Truscott was arrested on June 12, 1959 and charged with Harper’s murder the following day.9 At first, he was classified as a “juvenile delinquent”; however, on June 20, 1959, the court ordered him to stand trial as an adult for capital murder, meaning that he would face the death penalty if convicted.10
Truscott’s trial began on September 16, 1959 in Goderich, Ontario. The Crown called sixty witnesses.11 Its case rested on “four pillars” supporting its theory that Truscott was the perpetrator: (1) Harper’s time of death – forensically determined to be 7:00-7:45 p.m., meaning that Truscott had the near-exclusive opportunity to kill her; (2) evidence from witnesses on the County Road who saw Truscott with Harper that evening; (3) Truscott’s conduct after her disappearance, purportedly evincing a guilty conscience; and (4) abrasions that a doctor observed on his penis, attributed to the sexual assault.12 The defence called fourteen witnesses, including the children who saw Truscott on the bridge and an internal medicine specialist who questioned the Crown’s forensic conclusions.13 Truscott did not testify.14
The jury found Truscott guilty on September 30, 1959. He was sentenced to death by hanging.15 On January 20, 1960, the Ontario Court of Appeal dismissed Truscott’s appeal of his conviction.16 Shortly after, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed his request for leave for a further appeal.17 Thankfully for Truscott, however, the Prime Minister commuted Truscott’s death sentence to life imprisonment.18
The 1966 publication of a book entitled The Trial of Steven Truscott drew public attention toward perceived problems with his conviction. The federal government referred his case to the Supreme Court of Canada in April 1966, directing the court to review his conviction and determine whether there had been a miscarriage of justice. The following year, the court found that no miscarriage of justice had occurred.19
Truscott was released on parole, at the age of 24, on October 21, 1969. He had spent more than ten years in prison.20
Several decades later, Innocence Canada (formerly known as AIDWYC) took on Truscott’s case beginning in 1997.21 In November 2001, Truscott applied to the federal Minister of Justice for a further review of his case, due to extensive fresh evidence that he had unearthed with the assistance of his counsel. These materials had never been disclosed to the defence. Moreover, advances in forensic pathology made it possible for experts to challenge the Crown’s autopsy evidence from Truscott’s trial.22
In October 2004, the Minister of Justice referred Truscott’s case back to the Ontario Court of Appeal, directing it to determine whether a miscarriage of justice had occurred.23 The Court undertook an extensive review of the fresh evidence and its impact on each “pillar” of Truscott’s conviction. The Court found that, given this evidence, not one pillar remained unscathed.
The Court of Appeal heard fresh evidence from experts regarding Harper’s time of death that greatly diverged from that given at trial. The Crown’s pathology expert, Dr. Penistan, had performed Harper’s autopsy and established her time of death as between 7:00 and 7:45 p.m. on June 9, 1959 – when she was alone with Truscott. Penistan reached this conclusion primarily based on analysis of Harper’s stomach contents. He had testified with confidence that their presence and condition could precisely establish the time of death.24 By contrast, Truscott’s expert witnesses testified that this conclusion was “scientifically unjustified.”25 Essentially, Penistan’s opinion could not be supported given that many different variables can affect the rate of digestion.26
Along similar lines, Penistan had also relied on the degree of rigor mortis and extent of decomposition to establish Harper’s time of death.27 However, the Court heard that “the extent of rigor mortis” was no longer regarded as “a reliable indicator of the time of death except within very broad parameters,”28 while decomposition rate can be a “highly variable phenomenon.”29
In addition, the Court received fresh evidence from entomologists (i.e., experts in insect development). The entomologists opined that the insect and larval populations present on Harper’s remains did not accord with the 7:00-7:45 p.m. time frame.30 In contrast, the most likely time frame was at least some hours later – long after Truscott had been sighted at the school.31
Closer to home for most legal professionals, the Court heard that Penistan’s opinion had also evolved over time. He had prepared a number of reports, unbeknownst to the defence.32 Each gave a different time of death estimate, converging towards the Crown’s theory.33 In addition, Penistan had reviewed his work prior to the 1966 Supreme Court reference. He described the resulting report, which again was never disclosed, as an “agonizing reappraisal” of his trial evidence.34 Taken together, the pathology fresh evidence struck at the foundation of the prosecution’s case, establishing that Penistan’s opinion was “scientifically untenable.”35
The Court of Appeal also reviewed many materials pertaining to eyewitness evidence. In brief, much of this evidence – obtained “mostly from children” – was circumstantial, fragile, and could not be properly tested since witness statements and police interview notes were never disclosed to defence.36
Likewise, the post-offence conduct (“guilty conscience”) evidence was compromised due to undisclosed statements from star witness “A.G.” that cast doubt on his credibility.37 Further, the Crown had argued at trial that Truscott lied about seeing Harper get into the grey car, because it was “physically impossible” for him to have seen what he claimed from his stated location.38 However, the undisclosed materials included a police reconstruction confirming that Truscott’s alleged observations were, indeed, perfectly possible.39
Finally, the Court heard that the evidence of the penile lesions was essentially valueless, as they could have been caused by any number of things.40
The Court of Appeal concluded that Truscott’s conviction was a miscarriage of justice. It further found that conducting a new trial in these circumstances “would be unfair to [Truscott] and … a disservice to the public.”41
On August 28, 2007, the Court of Appeal quashed Truscott’s conviction and acquitted him.42 He received $6.5 million in compensation from the federal government and an apology from the Attorney General of Canada.43 Lynne Harper’s murder remains unsolved.44