Speaker 1: In a quiet Ontario town. In nineteen eighty four, nine
Speaker 1: year old Christine Jessup vanished, but her remains would soon
Speaker 1: be discovered. Her brutal murder shook the community to its core,
Speaker 1: and a man hunt for the killer began. What followed
Speaker 1: was a tale of wrongful conviction, flawed justice, and secrets
Speaker 1: that would take decades to uncover. This is the story
Speaker 1: of Christine Jessup and the man who was wrongfully accused
Speaker 1: of her murder.
Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked.
Speaker 1: And Grim, a true crime podcast.
Speaker 3: Warning the following podcast and material intended more mature audience.
Speaker 3: Listener Discretion's advised, we're here.
Speaker 1: Where else would we be? I know, we could be
Speaker 1: in Mexico right now, or or we.
Speaker 2: Could be at the Taylor Swift concert.
Speaker 1: Oh no, Aris tour is over.
Speaker 2: It's over there, but I don't know if anyone else is. Are, Like, well,
Speaker 2: so she just played three concerts in BC, like Vancouver. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so I just feel like my whole feed is
Speaker 2: like Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. But it is like it
Speaker 2: was very exciting for a lot of people to go
Speaker 2: to that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was, But in all honesty, I can't
Speaker 1: believe we're talking about Taylor Swift on our show. All
Speaker 1: I've heard for the last week is fucking Taylor Swift.
Speaker 2: Oh man, Okay, let's change the subject.
Speaker 1: It even been playing Taylor Swift music and talking about
Speaker 1: it during Canucks games because yeah, happening at the same time. Different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was games like being played the same day
Speaker 2: as the concertain stuff, so yeah makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad she had a great tour. Glad everyone
Speaker 1: who attended had fun. But as a non swifty, I
Speaker 1: kind of want to move on a non Swift I'm
Speaker 1: a non swifty.
Speaker 2: Can you actually admit that?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I can admit that.
Speaker 2: That's funny, don't be wrong.
Speaker 1: I have nothing against Taylor herself. Fantastic artist, fantastic she
Speaker 1: seems like an amazing person.
Speaker 2: She does.
Speaker 1: I'm just not a swifty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's fine there. I don't think there's
Speaker 2: any shortage of swifties out there, so.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Because she made over two billion
Speaker 1: dollars gross in that eress too, I know she's wild.
Speaker 2: Wow. Well it was also over the span of a
Speaker 2: more than a year.
Speaker 1: So still Anyways, we digress. This isn't the Taylor Swift podcast.
Speaker 1: This is the Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we're drinking coffee this morning because we need to
Speaker 1: wake the fuck up.
Speaker 2: Yes always.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Fine, well, I think I like I have it's part
Speaker 2: tea in here, So tea does have caffeine in it,
Speaker 2: but not as much as coffee.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've just got coffee, just black coffee. And we
Speaker 1: just did a little pre show over on Patreon and
Speaker 1: we were talking about like how tired we have been recently.
Speaker 1: And I'm not sure if it's just like the holiday
Speaker 1: season or what. And I'm not sure if you guys
Speaker 1: are feeling it too, but we are just like drained
Speaker 1: of energy. Yeah, and it sucks. But caffeine does help.
Speaker 2: You know, Honestly, summer does. With summertime like does come
Speaker 2: more energy.
Speaker 1: I feel like, oh hell yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, it's like warm, you're not using your energy to.
Speaker 1: Stay warm, so it's warm. It's what you're saying warm.
Speaker 2: It's lighter out, it's it's more sunny, and it's happy.
Speaker 1: It's just got that all around good feel, right.
Speaker 2: It does like usually you're traveling a little more. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Christmas has a happy time too.
Speaker 2: It does, but it also can't touche I feel like,
Speaker 2: and people don't talk about that.
Speaker 1: To Schee. It's okay to not be happy during the holidays,
Speaker 1: it's okay to be alone, It's okay for all those things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just if you need help, of course seek it right.
Speaker 1: So we do have a lot of patrons. We got
Speaker 1: to thank today who of course they're going to be
Speaker 1: hearing that little bit of a pre show we did
Speaker 1: over on Patreon, So thank you and shout out to
Speaker 1: Haley Bumpus, Sarah Lily, Barbara O'Brien, Sarah Griffin, Chloe, Anna Conterras,
Speaker 1: Christine Sales, Gabriella and Angie West. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for signing up over on Patreon.
Speaker 2: Supporting us fantastic list. We've had a lot of people
Speaker 2: sign up lately like we have. Is just warm in
Speaker 2: my heart.
Speaker 1: We have and we've been a little bit shying away
Speaker 1: from Patreon the last couple of weeks too. We've been well,
Speaker 1: not shying away from it, we just have been a
Speaker 1: little on the inactive side. We got to get our
Speaker 1: butts back in gear. We've just been really busy lately,
Speaker 1: but we're we're gonna bring the hammer down here, especially
Speaker 1: around Christmas. But I got some ideas that's gonna be poppin'.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have a good time.
Speaker 2: I think we should do like a fun Christmas merch
Speaker 2: giveaway or something over on there. Okay, done, I think
Speaker 2: we should give away something for Christmas here in there.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: We have almost six hundred patrons now, which is pretty cool. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that is just like, oh, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much. Yeah, if you want to
Speaker 1: go join Patreon, you can go ahead and check out
Speaker 1: the link in the description of this podcast. You can
Speaker 1: find all of our stuff down there. You can find
Speaker 1: your way over to Patreon sign up. You can get
Speaker 1: all the good behind the scenes, the extra episodes that
Speaker 1: we do over there for exclusive Patreon content, and of
Speaker 1: course the giveaway that we're about to do that Nicole
Speaker 1: just decided right now, so I guess we're going to
Speaker 1: be doing a giveaway.
Speaker 2: I think we should. All right, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, the giveaway Patreon. All that aside, we have
Speaker 1: quite the case today for you here today, and it
Speaker 1: is a two parter and it is a Canadian case.
Speaker 2: Oh man, ding dang okay, ding dang, ding dang. I
Speaker 2: like those Canadian cases.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is one that, honestly, I mean, it's fairly
Speaker 1: big in Canada. But when I was doing my research,
Speaker 1: it's like this story hasn't really been told a whole lot,
Speaker 1: which is surprising to me. Oh yeah, So I'm really
Speaker 1: happy to actually talk about this one because of that.
Speaker 1: It's always good to give some publicity to the cases
Speaker 1: where you know, those victims need their story told a
Speaker 1: little bit more. So that's exactly what we're doing today.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: So this story takes us to Toronto, Ontario, which, of course,
Speaker 1: if you don't know, is a bustling city within Canada.
Speaker 1: The population is approximately two point eight million people, so
Speaker 1: it's quite a bit of people. But our focus shifts
Speaker 1: just beyond the city of Toronto into a quiet rural
Speaker 1: area that would soon be at the center of this
Speaker 1: whole tragedy. Okay, So it's like, you can say this
Speaker 1: happens in Toronto, but technically speaking, it's just a small
Speaker 1: town just outside of Toronto.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So on December thirty first, nineteen eighty four, the Durham
Speaker 1: Regional Police were called to a property near Sunderland. Sorry,
Speaker 1: I almost said Sutherland. It's Sunderland, which is a small
Speaker 1: town roughly hour drive of northeast of Toronto.
Speaker 2: Did you say December thirty first, like New Year's Eve?
Speaker 1: Correct?
Speaker 2: Oh Man?
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, so tis the season, right, I guess.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Fred Patterson was a local resident in the area and
Speaker 1: he'd been outside searching for his dog with his two daughters.
Speaker 1: So they're on their large property. It's kind of a
Speaker 1: wooded property, right and you know, got some acreage to it.
Speaker 1: And while they're walking through the area, they came across
Speaker 1: what at first seemed like a pile of garbage. Now
Speaker 1: Fred was curious and he kind of approached it and
Speaker 1: you know, checking it out, and he soon realized that
Speaker 1: this was something far more grim than just a pile
Speaker 1: of rubbish. He found a badly decomposed body.
Speaker 2: Oh geez, okay.
Speaker 1: The remains belonged to a nine year old girl who
Speaker 1: had been brutally murdered.
Speaker 2: Oh Man.
Speaker 1: Her body showed multiple stab wounds to the chest, so
Speaker 1: severe that the knife had gone very deep and all
Speaker 1: the way through, piercing her spine. In fact, the official
Speaker 1: cause of death would later be determined as these devastating
Speaker 1: stab wounds. The girl was dressed in a beige turtle
Speaker 1: neck sweater, a blue pullover, and a blouse that was
Speaker 1: missing some buttons. Nearby her right foot lay her underwear.
Speaker 1: Oh no, in the grass. Not far from her body
Speaker 1: was something else, a small plastic recorder, you know, the
Speaker 1: kind of like in musical instrument, like the little flute
Speaker 1: that kids learned to play music like their elementary school
Speaker 1: days or whatever. And the recorder had a name written
Speaker 1: on it. Christine Jessop now Christine Marion Jessop was born
Speaker 1: on November twenty ninth, nineteen seventy four, in the small
Speaker 1: community of Queensville, Ontario, about sixty two kilometers from Toronto.
Speaker 1: Queensville was a tiny, quiet place with a population of
Speaker 1: only around seven hundred people. It had the essentials, you know,
Speaker 1: a general store, a cemetery, a church, a community center,
Speaker 1: some homes, and playground that served as the heart of
Speaker 1: the neighborhood for the local kids. Now Christine's family included
Speaker 1: her mom, Janet, and her dad Bob, and her older
Speaker 1: brother Kenny, who was five years older than her. Bob
Speaker 1: worked as a led Sorry a lead installer for a
Speaker 1: telecommunications company that wired phone systems for business businesses and
Speaker 1: the area, and through his job, he became friends with
Speaker 1: Calvin and Heather Hoover, a couple who had also worked
Speaker 1: at the same company. Calvin was an installer and Heather
Speaker 1: handled dispatch. The Hoovers lived about fifty kilometers away and
Speaker 1: had four boys of their own. The two families grew
Speaker 1: close over time, spending weekends together whenever their schedules allowed it.
Speaker 1: They had barbecues, you know, tea parties and playdates that
Speaker 1: were you know, a regular part of their dynamic, and
Speaker 1: Christine adored Heather, affectionately calling her Anti Heather, while Janet
Speaker 1: jokingly referred to her friend Heather as goofy Newfie, which
Speaker 1: is a nod to her New Newfoundland roots. Right, So,
Speaker 1: if anyone who doesn't know, you know, Newfoundland people are
Speaker 1: often referred to as Newfees. It's a shorter term of saying,
Speaker 1: you know Newfoundland. So yeah, she's goofy Newfie. It was
Speaker 1: the kind of relationship that their family had, right, tight knit,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of friendly and just having fun together
Speaker 1: sort of thing. On October first, nineteen eighty four, Janet
Speaker 1: Jessup was visiting her friend Heather, So she's over at
Speaker 1: her house for tea. Now, at the time, Janet's husband,
Speaker 1: Bob was actually serving an eighteen month prison sentence. Oh
Speaker 1: shit for defrauding elderly family members. Oh yeah, No, the
Speaker 1: exact details. I didn't really dive too deep into or anything,
Speaker 1: but it's clear he was stealing some money, is what
Speaker 1: he was doing.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: So during their tea, Janet mentioned that she and her
Speaker 1: son Kenny were planning a trip over on October third
Speaker 1: to go and visit Bob in the detention center. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, even after his you know, conviction in jail time,
Speaker 1: these two families are still obviously very tight, right because
Speaker 1: they're going to go and visit him. So the trip
Speaker 1: was going to overlap slightly with the time that Christine
Speaker 1: was getting home from school, and Janet was worried about
Speaker 1: leaving her daughter alone for a little while. It would
Speaker 1: have only been about fifteen minutes that she'd be alone,
Speaker 1: but still, you know, she didn't want to do that,
Speaker 1: but it seemed like it was the only way. So
Speaker 1: from the time that Christine got off the bus at
Speaker 1: four pm until Janet and Kenny would come home. She estimated, yeah,
Speaker 1: four fifteen would be around when she would arrive at home.
Speaker 1: So that day came and on October third, nine year
Speaker 1: old Christine plans to meet her friend Leslie at the
Speaker 1: park at around four pm when she got off the bus,
Speaker 1: since she knew her mom and brother would be home
Speaker 1: right away. The park was just across the street, you know,
Speaker 1: from a local store as well, so Christine planned to
Speaker 1: stop home, grab some change for gum, head over to
Speaker 1: meet her friend, head over to the local store, grab some gum,
Speaker 1: and then come home shortly after. So that afternoon, Christine
Speaker 1: got off school, got onto the bus, and went home.
Speaker 1: Just as usual, Janet and Kenny arrived home from the
Speaker 1: detention center a little while later. Christine would have arrived
Speaker 1: home at about four o'clock on the bus, and these
Speaker 1: two got home at around four to ten pm, so
Speaker 1: a little earlier than she expected. So Christine was alone
Speaker 1: for about ten minutes and when she arrived home, Christine
Speaker 1: was nowhere to be seen, but it was fine. She
Speaker 1: knew she'd return soon from her gum buying venture with
Speaker 1: her right yeah. So however, by five o'clock, Janet started
Speaker 1: to get worried when Christine still hadn't showed up at home. Now,
Speaker 1: Queensville is a small, quiet place with only a handful
Speaker 1: of spots that Christine was likely to go, the store,
Speaker 1: or the playground, or the cemetery behind their house, which
Speaker 1: was sometimes an area they liked to play it. And
Speaker 1: soon Janet noticed that Christine's bike was still at the house,
Speaker 1: and she also noticed that Christine's jacket was hung neatly
Speaker 1: on a hook inside the home.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, and both those things would be gone if
Speaker 2: she went to get gum most likely.
Speaker 1: Most likely for sure, especially considering this is October, right, okay, yep,
Speaker 1: so she's probably gonna need her jacket. Now. This is
Speaker 1: the jacket being hung on the hook is a particularly
Speaker 1: interesting one that struck a chord with Janet. See it
Speaker 1: was hung on a hook, yes, but it was not
Speaker 1: hung in a hook that was like it was normally done.
Speaker 1: It was hung in a hook that seemed to be
Speaker 1: higher than Christine would ever be able to even reach,
Speaker 1: or that she'd ever use. Oh shit, almost like someone
Speaker 1: else hung her jacket for She also realized that the
Speaker 1: mail in the newspaper, still in its plastic bag, had
Speaker 1: been brought inside, so someone was there clearly. Whether it
Speaker 1: was Christine or someone else, it's up for debate. But
Speaker 1: someone brought in the paper, the mail and Christine's jacket
Speaker 1: was hung up on a hook, arguably on a hook
Speaker 1: higher than normal by all accounts. It seemed as though
Speaker 1: Christine had made it home, but she was nowhere to
Speaker 1: be found. Christine, now, she was a sweet, spirited little girl.
Speaker 1: She was sensitive, but feisty, independent and full of energy.
Speaker 1: She loved baseball, her older brother Kenny, her dolls, and
Speaker 1: all the animals that surrounded herself with Her favorites included
Speaker 1: pet frogs, baby chicks, and most of all, her beloved
Speaker 1: beagle named Freckles. Christine was absolutely adorable and there was
Speaker 1: no way that she would have just run away. Janet
Speaker 1: knew this. She's like no, so she didn't go off
Speaker 1: on her own, and as the sun began to set evening,
Speaker 1: Janet's worry was growing more and more. Finally she called
Speaker 1: the York Regional Police for help.
Speaker 2: Oh shit, that's just like you're just watching the clock exactly,
Speaker 2: and your stomach is just sinking and sinking and sinking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she was just hoping that at any moment Christine
Speaker 1: would come through that door should scold her daughter, and
Speaker 1: for not taking her jacket right and saying where were you?
Speaker 1: Should let me know, but she never walked through that door.
Speaker 1: Police immediately treated Christine's disappearance as an abduction. The problem
Speaker 1: was the York Regional Police had never handled an abduction
Speaker 1: case before, and mistakes were made right from the start.
Speaker 1: The scene that the jessup home quickly became chaotic. Police officers, neighbors,
Speaker 1: and friends and family came in and out, freely touching
Speaker 1: things and unintentionally compromising potential evidence. For instance, the newspaper
Speaker 1: Christine had brought inside, still in its plastic bag, was
Speaker 1: thrown away before anyone could test it her fingerprints what
Speaker 1: really Yeah, So, despite the early missteps, if you will,
Speaker 1: the police set up a command post at the local
Speaker 1: fire hall and managed to rally volunteers from the community
Speaker 1: for an extensive search. Bob, still serving his sentence at
Speaker 1: the Toronto Detention Center, was released on humanitary grounds so
Speaker 1: he could join the efforts to find his daughter. Investigators
Speaker 1: began operating at the assumption that most abductions aren't random
Speaker 1: and that the person responsible usually knows the victim. As
Speaker 1: a result, they asked the jess ups to provide a
Speaker 1: list of everyone who had access to their home without supervision.
Speaker 2: Okay, I just have to say that's kind of amazing
Speaker 2: that they let the data out, yeah, to help. Hey,
Speaker 2: because could you imagine being in that situation where like,
Speaker 2: I mean, he's serving time, but you're locked in, you
Speaker 2: can't do anything right, and your child's missing.
Speaker 1: I do think like, if he was a danger to
Speaker 1: the public, yeah, he probably wouldn't have been. Really, if
Speaker 1: he was like a murderer or something, Yeah, yeah, he
Speaker 1: probably stole a few thousand dollars or something like that,
Speaker 1: and it's like, hey, you got to serve your time
Speaker 1: and pay that back and a fine, and it's like
Speaker 1: your daughter's all of a sudden missing, and it's like
Speaker 1: her life is in danger. I mean that takes priority
Speaker 1: over a few thousand dollars. Yeah, Now, don't quote me
Speaker 1: on a few thousand dollars. I'm just giving that as
Speaker 1: an example. I don't know how much he stole, but yeah,
Speaker 1: So the list of suspects naturally included Calvin and Heather Hoover,
Speaker 1: the friends of the family, right right, And this is
Speaker 1: of course given their close relationship. So as the search continued,
Speaker 1: Heather came by to check on Janet. At the same time,
Speaker 1: police Sergeant Raymond Bunce questioned her about where she and
Speaker 1: Calvin had been around the time of Christine's disappearance. Heather
Speaker 1: said that she had been at work and Calvin was
Speaker 1: at home with the boys. However, their alibis were actually
Speaker 1: never verified and Calvin was never formally questioned. Time ticked by,
Speaker 1: and Christine's tenth birthday came and went on November twenty
Speaker 1: ninth without Christine. A month later, Christmas arrived, but still
Speaker 1: it wasn't anything joyful for the jess of family, no kidding.
Speaker 1: The absence of their sweet, lively, little girl cast a
Speaker 1: heavy shadow on this holiday season. And then shortly thereafter,
Speaker 1: on December thirty first, the unthinkable happened. Fred Patterson, while
Speaker 1: searching for his missing dog, as we already discussed, stumbled
Speaker 1: upon Christine's remains.
Speaker 2: And this wasn't even in the same little town, right, No, like,
Speaker 2: it was close but not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she had been missing for ninety days and
Speaker 1: her body was found fifty six kilometers east of her house.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, not super far, but far enough.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, far enough. It's about a half an hour's
Speaker 1: drive worth and if you yeah, Canadians, No, we judge
Speaker 1: everything not by distance. It's how long to get there.
Speaker 1: That's how we judge time. Sorry, travel is how long
Speaker 1: is the drive? By time?
Speaker 2: That's funny.
Speaker 1: So, because this Sunderland fell under the jurisdiction of Durham
Speaker 1: Regional the Durham Regional Sorry, the case was handed off
Speaker 1: to the during Regional Police. So the York Regional Police
Speaker 1: passed along their investigation notes, but these officers in the
Speaker 1: Durham office dismissed them immediately, calling the work to amateurish use.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm sure there would have been something helpful in.
Speaker 1: There, well potentially, I'm sure they went through it all,
Speaker 1: but it was Remember these police had never talked an
Speaker 1: abduction case before, and a lot of things at the
Speaker 1: beginning were mishandled and was probably not of any worth.
Speaker 2: But you think something they collected or did, you know,
Speaker 2: would have been helpful, but who knows.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure they took in the evidence and stuff
Speaker 1: as best they could, but for the most part the
Speaker 1: notes and stuff were just like it was too amateurish
Speaker 1: really for anything for them to do. So basically, it
Speaker 1: effectively meant that they've investigated. Investigations started over from scratch.
Speaker 2: Oh that is not good, it's.
Speaker 1: Not and this is ninety days later, Yes, exactly so.
Speaker 1: Inspector Robert Brown took charge of the case. One question
Speaker 1: haunted him, and it was why christine germains were found
Speaker 1: so far from her home fifty six kilometers. Brown assigned
Speaker 1: two detectives, Bernie Fitzpatrick and John Sheppard, to dig into
Speaker 1: the case and focus on identifying potential suspects. The investigators
Speaker 1: followed up on several leads, including a family friend, a
Speaker 1: neighborhood kid, and even Christine's own mother, Janet. They questioned relentlessly,
Speaker 1: and Janet was no exception to this relentless questioning. In fact,
Speaker 1: they asked the same thing of her many times, in
Speaker 1: many different ways, so much so that she began to
Speaker 1: doubt her own recollection. At first, she was sure, and
Speaker 1: I mean one hundred percent positive. She got home at
Speaker 1: four ten pm. She remembered very clearly looking at the
Speaker 1: clock and knowing that she had to call her husband's
Speaker 1: lawyer at five or sorry, four fifteen. Sorry did I
Speaker 1: say five to ten earlier? It's four ten.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't think so much she was.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent sure she got home at four ten,
Speaker 1: and she remembered looking to clock, knowing that she has
Speaker 1: to call her husbands Loawy at four fifteen because he's
Speaker 1: right at the time in jail.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, you would probably remember, like you, you would
Speaker 2: probably remember if you had something to do, you know,
Speaker 2: in five minutes, you would probably remember the time.
Speaker 1: Well, no, not five to fifty. Sorry, not four fifteen,
Speaker 1: four fifty.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, but still and you're like, okay, I have
Speaker 2: this much time before I could do this.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And three days prior to this actual day when
Speaker 1: her daughter went missing, she was having tea with her friend, right, yes, saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're going up to the prison to visit Bob and
Speaker 1: she's going to be left alone for about fifteen minutes, right,
Speaker 1: So she's very adamantly knowing and trying to mitigate that
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes. So she's very much so aware on that
Speaker 1: time span totally. So when she got home, I'm sure
Speaker 1: she would have noted four ten, Yes, okay, you know
Speaker 1: that wasn't very long ten minutes exactly, So I have
Speaker 1: no doubt in my mind that she knew that time.
Speaker 1: But after so much pressure, from detectives. She actually began
Speaker 1: to question it herself, wondering if she'd actually arrive later,
Speaker 1: oh maybe four twice or maybe even four thirty four
Speaker 1: to thirty five. But eventually she she stuck with her
Speaker 1: original statement, saying that no. Four to ten was accurate,
Speaker 1: but she did waiver and questioned herself along.
Speaker 2: The way, Well, that can happen if people are like
Speaker 2: really prying at yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So the police were certain Christine's abductor was someone that
Speaker 1: she knew, that Christine knew, given that she was shy
Speaker 1: and you know, kind of not the most outgoing individuals
Speaker 1: to strangers or anything. But weeks of searching turned up
Speaker 1: no solid clues despite anyone that they interviewed. However, one
Speaker 1: name eventually came up in the investigation, and that was
Speaker 1: twenty five year old Gee Paul Morin, a neighborhood sorry,
Speaker 1: a neighbor who lived next door to the Jessop family.
Speaker 1: So Ghee seemed like an unlikely suspect at first glance.
Speaker 1: He was a second child of Alphonse Morin and his wife,
Speaker 1: with no criminal record, just a couple you know, speeding tickets, right.
Speaker 1: He was a talented clarinet player, a member of three
Speaker 1: different jazz bands and had a reputation for being very
Speaker 1: polite and very respectful. He helped his parents keep honeybees
Speaker 1: and often gave jars of their homemade honey to the
Speaker 1: Jessup family as gifts. He also worked on cars with
Speaker 1: his dad, who taught him how to weld, and he
Speaker 1: didn't smoke, he didn't drink, and he lived a relatively
Speaker 1: quiet life. When detectives asked him about his interactions with
Speaker 1: Christine in the past, he said they were minimal. He
Speaker 1: was sixteen years older than her and he wasn't about
Speaker 1: to go you know, just like starting a relationship with
Speaker 1: a child sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he'd only spoken to her twice, he said,
Speaker 1: once about gardening and chips, and the other time he
Speaker 1: helped her find her missing beagle freckles chips.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sounds so innocent, table, I know, talking about chips.
Speaker 2: I mean, who doesn't like a bag of chips? One? Oh?
Speaker 1: Well, I could go for a bag right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But you know, this was just making me think
Speaker 2: if something bad happens to someone like in your life,
Speaker 2: that how you can You're just a suspect, you know,
Speaker 2: like even just being a neighbor and stuff. That's it's
Speaker 2: kind of scary. Yeah, I've never really I mean I've
Speaker 2: thought about that, but it's just yeah, like you could
Speaker 2: just literally be someone's neighbor and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: be something bad happens and you have nothing to do
Speaker 2: with it. But like you're you're like a big ass
Speaker 2: suspect there.
Speaker 1: Yep. But I mean nowadays, it's easy to rule people out.
Speaker 1: Like you have your cell phone, like they ping you
Speaker 1: and they can track you and timestamps here and there,
Speaker 1: like emails all that sort of stuff online it's all tracked.
Speaker 1: So I mean police can figure out your whereabouts pretty
Speaker 1: damn easy.
Speaker 2: I guess. But I mean if he was home and stuff,
Speaker 2: it could still.
Speaker 1: Be bad, you know, I'm sure, touche, But yeah, this
Speaker 1: is this is in the eighties, so they definitely didn't
Speaker 1: have that sort of stuff to track your whereabout right
Speaker 1: as easy. But when he was he pressed on that
Speaker 1: he hadn't helped. Sorry, but why he hadn't helped search
Speaker 1: for Christine when she disappeared. Gee explained that he had
Speaker 1: been busy helping his father install weeping tiles around their
Speaker 1: homes foundation and as for his whereabouts During the time
Speaker 1: of Christine's abduction. He told police that he'd been at work,
Speaker 1: had a furniture manufacturing facility called Steels and Wesson, which
Speaker 1: is about fifty seven kilometers south of Queensville, and he
Speaker 1: clocked out at exactly three point thirty two PM, which
Speaker 1: by his estimate, would put him home at around four fourteen,
Speaker 1: which is actually after Janet would have gotten home. Right. However,
Speaker 1: he had actually stopped for groceries and gas that day,
Speaker 1: so he didn't actually get home until about five point thirty,
Speaker 1: which is way later.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was like already missing at that point exactly.
Speaker 1: When asked about what he thought about Christine, his response
Speaker 1: was odd. He said, she's sweet and innocent, but sometimes
Speaker 1: they grew up to be corrupt. I mean, he's not wrong,
Speaker 1: he's not wrong, but it's an odd choice of words
Speaker 1: to tell the police that.
Speaker 2: About someone, especially who's like missing, yeah, or murdered and yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So basically what you say, she's a very nice girl,
Speaker 1: but she's kind of a little shit sometimes is probably
Speaker 1: what he's trying to say.
Speaker 2: But yeah, he would hear a lot probably about maybe
Speaker 2: how she was a bit naughty at sometimes, as kids
Speaker 2: are you know.
Speaker 1: Oh, definitely probably heard her screaming in the backyard or
Speaker 1: something like that a couple of times. Who knows. But
Speaker 1: when he described Christine this way, the police labeled him
Speaker 1: as odd and someone who didn't quite fit in, and
Speaker 1: it only fed their growing suspicions about him as a suspect.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, I don't know. Maybe he did
Speaker 2: do this, but like he could also have been nervous.
Speaker 2: I would be nervous if I was being interviewed about this,
Speaker 2: even if I had freaking nothing to do with it.
Speaker 1: Right, I agree. Now, soon the FBI was brought into
Speaker 1: help and create a psychological profile of the possible perpetrator. So,
Speaker 1: according to this profile, the suspect was likely a white
Speaker 1: male between nineteen and twenty six years old and dressed
Speaker 1: in a sloppy manner. Investigators believe that the person lived
Speaker 1: in Queensville, since they were convicted. Convinced that Christine had
Speaker 1: known the abductor. I'll also suggest that the perpetrator might
Speaker 1: have acne, a physical disability, a history of voyeurism or
Speaker 1: even arson, and an exaggerated macho type attitude. Now in
Speaker 1: this profile was released to the public and Guy's father
Speaker 1: Alphon saw this on TV. He joked with, sorry, Gee,
Speaker 1: not Guy. It's spelled Guy, but it's pronounced Gi. So
Speaker 1: he joked with Gee, that quote this sounds like you.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, I feel like that's so random. Some
Speaker 2: of the description in there, like how would they know
Speaker 2: that the person had acne?
Speaker 1: I know?
Speaker 2: And how would they know they're sloppy dressed and stuff?
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 2: Okay, just as you were reading that, I'm like, this
Speaker 2: makes no sense.
Speaker 1: That's the thing is it almost seems influenced.
Speaker 2: Like they were just saying it's basically him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay. Now, when Ghee's father said this after seeing
Speaker 1: a profile on TV, it was a harmless joke comment. Right,
Speaker 1: he's just goofing around with this kid, right. No one
Speaker 1: believed that Gee could be involved. I mean, honestly, his
Speaker 1: was quite firm, like his stamp out from work, his
Speaker 1: receipts for groceries, all that sort of stuff placed him
Speaker 1: away like he couldn't have done it. And the family
Speaker 1: found like this kind of almost comical that Gi was like, hey,
Speaker 1: it sounds like you ha ha ha ha, Right, they're
Speaker 1: just goofing.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, his alibi does seem pretty solid.
Speaker 1: It was, but the police. Though they weren't like his family,
Speaker 1: they weren't laughing. As the investigation dragged on, with no
Speaker 1: O the leads, they began to focus solely on Ge.
Speaker 1: It wasn't long before confirmation bias was setting in heavy.
Speaker 1: They stopped looking at other possibilities all together and began
Speaker 1: building a case solely around him. Evidence that didn't fit
Speaker 1: the theory was dismissed or even disappeared. Like, for example,
Speaker 1: there was a cigarette that was found at the crime
Speaker 1: scene and they're like, oh, you know what, here's like
Speaker 1: we can get your DNA off a cigarette. And it's like,
Speaker 1: hold on, gee, doesn't smoke. That cigarette vanished from records.
Speaker 2: Oh whoa, Yeah, that's terrifying.
Speaker 1: Yep. After they couldn't pin that cigarette on him, that
Speaker 1: cigarette was just gone.
Speaker 2: Well, and I also have to say, if she was
Speaker 2: a bit shy and stuff and didn't really have a
Speaker 2: relationship with this neighbor, it doesn't make sense either that
Speaker 2: he would be like, you know, going in the house
Speaker 2: and hanging her jacket or whatever.
Speaker 1: Well no, I mean, it never really makes sense when
Speaker 1: someone attacks or of ducts.
Speaker 2: But that she would be okay with him, well, I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: She'd be comfortable with a neighbor. Maybe he came up
Speaker 1: to the story of Oh, your mom told me while you're.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get them alone.
Speaker 1: I'm going to come watch you for ten minutes.
Speaker 2: Who knows, right, yeah, or your mom phone she was there,
Speaker 2: gonna be later she was a bit nervous, or yeah.
Speaker 1: Exactly now to keep going on with this kind of
Speaker 1: like bias that was setting in, One officer reportedly even
Speaker 1: kept two notebooks, one with all the evidence that was
Speaker 1: found and another containing only details that supported their suspicions
Speaker 1: of God Ghee. So I keep saying guy, his name's Gee. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The case against him, though, was thin at best, but
Speaker 1: authorities clung to whatever they could. They did find a
Speaker 1: single dark hair tangled in Christine's necklace when her body
Speaker 1: was found, and they also found semen that was detected
Speaker 1: on her underwear.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: These pieces of evidence were sent to the Center of
Speaker 1: Forensic Science in Toronto, where forensic scientists Stephanie Misnik analyzed them. Now,
Speaker 1: to compare the hair from the crime scene, police needed
Speaker 1: a sample from Ghee in a so she decided she
Speaker 1: needed to go undercover. So she posed as a cosmetology
Speaker 1: student conducting a study on hair samples. She attended one
Speaker 1: of Gee's band practices where she willingly handed over a sorry,
Speaker 1: where he willingly handed over a sample believing it was harmless.
Speaker 1: So she kind of goes over to where the band
Speaker 1: is practicing, being like, Hey, I'm a cosmetology student. I'm
Speaker 1: collecting hair sample so I can look at some stuff,
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. Got a hair sample from each
Speaker 1: of the band members. Gee was one of them, and
Speaker 1: now she has a willing sample delivered from him that
Speaker 1: she can now compare to.
Speaker 2: The other hair Weird Okay, I feel like if they
Speaker 2: just asked, he might have just given it to them too.
Speaker 1: He might have. Yeah. Now, the analyst determined that the
Speaker 1: hair from the scene matched Gee's hair both visually and
Speaker 1: under a microscope. This was presented as solid evidence, even
Speaker 1: though the hair analyst at the time was far from
Speaker 1: exact science because we are talking the eighties, right, So
Speaker 1: with this supposed evidence in hand, police made their move.
Speaker 1: On April twenty second, nineteen eighty five, as Gee was
Speaker 1: heading to band practice, fourteen police officers apprehended him and
Speaker 1: he was arrested on the spot. His life from then
Speaker 1: on was turned upside down. At first, Ghee was confused.
Speaker 1: He couldn't understand how he'd been tied to Christine's murder.
Speaker 1: He's just wondering what's going on. And then at the
Speaker 1: police station he spotted someone familiar, the woman who posed
Speaker 1: the cosmetology student and collected his hair sample. It all clicked.
Speaker 1: He immediately began claiming that he had been framed, so
Speaker 1: he had no other choice but to retain a lawyer.
Speaker 1: That lawyer's name was Clayton Ruby, a well known and
Speaker 1: skilled defense attorney. Ruby focused on Gee's alibi, which seemed
Speaker 1: very solid. Guide clocked out of work at three thirty
Speaker 1: pm and didn't get home until five thirty pm because
Speaker 1: he stopped for those groceries and gas along the way.
Speaker 1: His family fully backed up this timeline as well, so
Speaker 1: he not only has, you know, all this confirmation of
Speaker 1: his whereabouts, but also you have witnesses to back it up.
Speaker 2: And his family is probably like they were kind of
Speaker 2: joking about this, right and now it's all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: like really serious.
Speaker 1: Exactly now. I do want to say one thing. I
Speaker 1: did say that he most likely has receipts, and I
Speaker 1: do want to focus on most likely. I don't know.
Speaker 1: If he did have receipts, okay, he would more than
Speaker 1: certainly been able to prove walking out of work. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if he has receipts for groceries and gas.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming he does, okay, But at the very least
Speaker 1: he does have his family backing up when he got home,
Speaker 1: right and his story of groceries and gas, so he
Speaker 1: at least has third party witnesses potentially has receipts. Now,
Speaker 1: the Crown psychologists tried to try to paint a different picture.
Speaker 1: They claimed Geese family was conspiring to lie about his
Speaker 1: whereabouts on that day of her disappearance. It was a
Speaker 1: bold accusation, basically saying that they're flat out lying in court.
Speaker 1: But I mean, things against Key didn't just stop there.
Speaker 1: The so called forensic evidence, which also included the hair
Speaker 1: found in Christine's necklace, began to crumble under scrutiny. The
Speaker 1: hair analyst at the time was completely unreliable, as we
Speaker 1: know it's in its infancy stage at the time, and
Speaker 1: particularly for identifying someone rather than excluding them. The hair
Speaker 1: from the scene had been exposed to the elements for
Speaker 1: ninety days. It was degraded lightened by the sun, sun
Speaker 1: bleached right, and the root bulb had decomposed completely. This
Speaker 1: made it impossible to make any definitive comparison. Declaring it
Speaker 1: as a match both visually and microscopically had been a
Speaker 1: major mistake because it simply wasn't holy. The case didn't
Speaker 1: improve for the Crown when it was revealed that red
Speaker 1: fibers found in Christine's body had actually supposedly matched fibers
Speaker 1: from Geese car in comparison, see the source of these
Speaker 1: fibers was actually a red sweater worn by a forensic scientist,
Speaker 1: someone who didn't wear a lab coat, contaminating the samples.
Speaker 3: Why.
Speaker 1: Yes, So someone in the lab is not wearing a
Speaker 1: lab coat but instead wearing a red sweater and is
Speaker 1: checking out samples I'm assuming found on Christine's body and
Speaker 1: is like, there's red fibers here. His car has a
Speaker 1: red interior. Those match. Meanwhile, he's standing there wearing a
Speaker 1: fucking bright ass red sweater and they did think of
Speaker 1: any sort of contamination day.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, this doesn't seem like it's going well here
Speaker 2: for them, like actually getting solid evidence.
Speaker 1: No, this is a classic case of instead of following
Speaker 1: the evidence is trying to make the evidence fit your theory.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Now things got even stranger when a planted undercover officer
Speaker 1: was put in Gee's jail cell. So an individual by
Speaker 1: the name of Gordon Hobbes tried to draw incriminating statements
Speaker 1: from him inside the cell, even asking casual questions like
Speaker 1: what's your favorite movie? Just trying to get things out right.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, Gee was a little bit flustered at the time,
Speaker 1: and when was unable to recall the name of the
Speaker 1: movie he was trying to think of. In hindsight, it
Speaker 1: was The Shining by Stephen King, and he said, you know,
Speaker 1: the one with the scary kids in Red Rum, And
Speaker 1: he patted his heart and admitted that it scared him.
Speaker 1: He's like, you know, the one with like the kids
Speaker 1: and Red Rum. He's like, it got me, It scared me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But this Hobbes individual twisted this comment in court, saying
Speaker 1: that Gee had allegedly said he wanted to read Rum
Speaker 1: the Innocent and stab them in the chest. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: at all what he said. It's a complete fabrication, twisting
Speaker 1: his words again making it fit.
Speaker 2: Oh brutal, that's scary too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, despite the mounting evidence of police mishandlings and questionable practices.
Speaker 1: The Crown pushed forward, but Ghee's lawyer, Clayton Ruby, was
Speaker 1: sharp and persuasive. Ruby picked apart the weaknesses in the
Speaker 1: prosecution's case and challenged the unreliable forensic evidence and of
Speaker 1: course the dubious tactics tactics used by investigators. In the end,
Speaker 1: the jury saw through the cracks. Ghee Paul Marine was
Speaker 1: acquitted as innocence preserved for the moment. Okay, So even
Speaker 1: though he was acquitted, he went back home to his
Speaker 1: small town of Queensville. But everyone thought he was guilty, right.
Speaker 1: Media were constantly at his house. There were nasty notes
Speaker 1: left in his mailbox, beer bottles even thrown through a
Speaker 1: window of his house at one time, and it all
Speaker 1: just seemed horrible for his life, even though this whole
Speaker 1: acquittal had happened.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and he's living right next to the I
Speaker 2: don't know what the neighbor like, what the mom and
Speaker 2: stuff thinks, but still that is just uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, despite this solid acquittal in court, the Crown
Speaker 1: appealed in May of nineteen ninety due to a technicality
Speaker 1: based on instructions from the judge to the jury regarding
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt, and it all went back to trial again.
Speaker 1: It's hard to believe, but the second trial was actually
Speaker 1: even more flimsy than the first trial due to the
Speaker 1: poorly managed Forensic Science Center of Toronto. This time, two
Speaker 1: of Christine's bones were missing, actually displaced her remains. What Yeah, and.
Speaker 2: I cannot believe that. Yeah, like that they need to
Speaker 2: be buried together and stuff. Holy frick.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, and there was up to two hundred different
Speaker 1: hair and fiber slides that were missing as well, so
Speaker 1: slight like microsopic, microscopic slides. Yeah, there was a box.
Speaker 1: Those just gone. Don't know where they are missing? Really, yes,
Speaker 1: So they have her some of her remains and some
Speaker 1: evidence is just gone.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 2: I feel like if I was the parents. Hey, I know.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: This time, they presented the theory that Ghee had lured
Speaker 1: Christine into his vehicle to show her his clarinet. I mean,
Speaker 1: she's got this recorder. Maybe she's learning to play it.
Speaker 1: Maybe he's like, hey, you know, we can play together
Speaker 1: or something.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ghee did take the stand for both of his trials
Speaker 1: to plead his innocence, and unfortunately because he didn't look
Speaker 1: at the jury during his testimony. This time, the jury
Speaker 1: took this as a sign of his guilt, and so
Speaker 1: they found him guilty, and the thirty two year old
Speaker 1: was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of
Speaker 1: nine year old Christine Jessup. Gee was sent to Kingston
Speaker 1: Penitentiary and he protested his innocence the entire way and
Speaker 1: said that he was going to appeal. Now, we all
Speaker 1: know that child killers and anyone who focuses a crime
Speaker 1: on a child, let's just put it that way, are
Speaker 1: usually harshly treated in prison. However, in this case, thankfully,
Speaker 1: one of the big brute, toughest guys in prison had
Speaker 1: actually followed Gee's case pretty closely, and he knew Gee
Speaker 1: was innocent and told everyone there to leave him alone.
Speaker 2: Okay. I thought that was going to go a different way.
Speaker 2: I'm like, holy shit, like he's going to die in prison. No,
Speaker 2: he' an innocent man or something.
Speaker 1: You have the biggest brute toughest criminal in prison and
Speaker 1: he knows Geez innocent and he tells everyone to leave
Speaker 1: him alone, okay, and everyone did.
Speaker 2: Okay, So like he has has some luck. If you say,
Speaker 2: if you will, I guess on his side there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's where we're gonna stop today in part one.
Speaker 2: Right, Okay, Sorry, Well, I'm just like very invested in this.
Speaker 1: I know you. Yeah, I knew you would be I
Speaker 1: am trust me.
Speaker 2: Damn. This is a case and a half.
Speaker 1: Okay, just wait to hear the rest of it, because it's, uh,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. It's I don't know how this case hasn't
Speaker 1: been like done on more podcasts and stuff or like
Speaker 1: you know, those like makeup gurus on YouTube who like
Speaker 1: you know, do their makeup and true them at the
Speaker 1: same time. I don't know how any of them haven't
Speaker 1: covered it. But it's a good one and we'll talk
Speaker 1: all about how this moves on from here.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, okay, I mean yeah, we're gonna wait.
Speaker 1: Sorry, you seem so disappointed in that.
Speaker 2: I'm not disappointed in you. I'm just like, dang, because
Speaker 2: I have some thoughts and stuff, but I'm going to
Speaker 2: just hold on to them.
Speaker 1: Well, you can go ahead and say your thoughts. I
Speaker 1: will not respond. I will say okay at the end,
Speaker 1: that's it. Okay, go ahead and say your thoughts.
Speaker 2: Well, I kind of feel like the actual attacker may
Speaker 2: have been that the family, the other family that was
Speaker 2: really close to them and like one of their boys. Maybe. Okay,
Speaker 2: I don't know why I think this, but that's just
Speaker 2: something I feel. Okay, do we actually get to find
Speaker 2: out who the hell it is?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, Okay, this is this game isn't fun, so
Speaker 2: you have.
Speaker 1: To tune in your part two to figure it all out.
Speaker 1: You're good? Okay, I should have seen that coming.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, thank you guys for being harolfully enjoyed
Speaker 1: this part one of this story. Like I said, it's one,
Speaker 1: it's a doozy. It's worth turning into part two for
Speaker 1: We'll talk to you about that on Friday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's not that far away. We got this,
Speaker 2: We got that.
Speaker 1: It's only a few days and you know what, rounding
Speaker 1: out the end of the week with a good end
Speaker 1: to a story. Well I'm not saying a good end
Speaker 1: to a story, but you know, like hearing the end
Speaker 1: of the story and wrapping it all together and understand
Speaker 1: you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: So well, yeah, with her name's Christine, right, yes, Christine.
Speaker 2: And it would be good if Christine, for some reason
Speaker 2: wasn't dead. But we were very aware.
Speaker 1: She is so yes, very much awful, but yeah, so
Speaker 1: if you want to check out part two, it's coming
Speaker 1: out Friday. If you haven't listened to any of our
Speaker 1: other episodes, we have a giant library, over two hundred
Speaker 1: episodes backlogged. We've evolved over time, so some of the
Speaker 1: earlier ones, I know, I used to curse a lot
Speaker 1: at a very heavy, heavy tongue back then. I lightened
Speaker 1: up a little bit in recent years. But you can
Speaker 1: go back check out all of our other episodes. We
Speaker 1: have Patreon where we have exclusive content. We've got our
Speaker 1: social media. All that's in the description of this podcast.
Speaker 1: If you want to give us a rating, we'd really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. A review helps out the show. We are
Speaker 1: an indie show. It's us. We built the show from nothing.
Speaker 1: We produce, we research, we write, we talked. All of
Speaker 1: it is done by myself and Nicole. We are the
Speaker 1: ones who own the show.
Speaker 2: So we sure are we are so until part.
Speaker 1: Two, until part two, thank you for being here, Thank
Speaker 1: you for support. I stumbled in that your support, for
Speaker 1: your support, And until part two, stay wicked.