Last Seen With the Deceased...

In this article I am going to compare two crimes which have some similarities. They are both cases of murder. The accused were male, the victims female. Sexual motives were obvious in one case, probable in the other. In both cases the main reason to suspect the accused was that he was  the last person to be seen with the victim. Both accused maintained their innocence throughout. In both cases the additional evidence was suggestive but far from conclusive. In both, the examination of a map of the area supplies interesting conclusions.  Both cases - although this is not particularly relevant - involve bicycles. The verdicts, however, were different. Although I naturally have my own opinions, I will try to be as objective as possible in giving the facts, and would welcome any comments and opinions from readers. (Since I originally published this article there have been developments in the latter case.)

The earlier of the two cases occurred in Leicestershire on 5th July 1919. In the early evening of that Saturday, Bella Wright, a 21 year old factory worker, cycled from her home in the village of Stoughton, to the cottage of her uncle, George Measures who lived in Gaulby. Also at the cottage was one of his daughters, Margaret Evans, Margaret’s husband James and their two small children. Measures’ younger daughter, Agnes, was to arrive later. When Bella cycled up, she was accompanied by a man, who waited outside. Bella told her uncle that the man was a stranger to her, but he had spoken to her and ridden with her that day. She waited, hoping that the man would leave, but he remained outside the cottage. During this time, James Evans spoke to the man, and discussed his bicycle. Evans was a cycling enthusiast, and he noticed some unusual features about the stranger’s machine. Eventually, it grew late, and Bella left. She did not seem too concerned about the stranger, saying that she thought she could give him the slip if necessary. As she left the cottage the man greeted her, saying, according to the witnesses, "Bella - I thought you had gone the other way." These words were later to disputed. Bella and the stranger walked their cycles up a short hill to level ground and rode away. This happened at some time between 8:45 and 9 p.m.

Bella’s route home was a straightforward one, one she had cycled many times before, but for some reason she must have turned off that road and taken a more circuitous way. At approximately 9:20 p.m., a local farmer found Bella's dead body lying in the road. From the bloodstains on the roadway it was obvious that she had met her death at that spot. His natural first thought was that she was the victim of an accident, and the local doctor’s examination, hampered by the increasing darkness, did not contradict this conclusion. It was left to an alert local Police Constable to consider that there might be more to the matter than met the eye. The body of the dead girl had been lying in the nearby chapel, and P. C. Hall set out in the morning light to look at it again. He then saw what both the farmer and the doctor has missed - a bullet hole in the left cheek and an exit wound in the top of the head. Reporting the matter to his superiors, he went back to what he now suspected was a murder scene. Careful searching revealed some curious staining of blood on the field gate near where the body had lain, and bird tracks leading from the pool of blood to the field. In the field was a dead bird. He also saw in an adjoining field some man-made tracks, which the farmer believed to be recent. More importantly, in the centre of the road, some 17 ft. from where the body had lain, he found a .455 spent bullet.

The doctor was recalled urgently and his more thorough examination confirmed that Bella had been shot through the head . The appearance and direction of the wound was compatible with her having been shot at a distance of six or seven feet while she was lying on the ground. Further searches were made, but no weapon was found.

A description of the stranger (aged about 35-40, medium height, in need of a shave, squeaky voice) was circulated as well as that of his bicycle, which was green, and had two notable features , the unusual shape of the handlebars and the pattern of the back-pedalling brake. It had also been recently repaired. On 10th July, Harry Cox, a cycle repairer of Leicester contacted the police to say that he had repaired the bicycle, the owner having called for it at 2 p.m. on the day of the murder. The descriptions tallied, and suggested that the rider was a local man, but still no-one came forward. When the bicycle was eventually discovered it was by pure chance.

On 23rd February 1920, a canal boat man allowing his tow-rope to slacken, and dip into the water, saw it snag on an object in the canal, which he saw for a few seconds before it slipped back. Thinking he recognised a fragment of bicycle, he dragged the spot, and found pieces of a green bicycle, which he handed to the police. It was clear that the bicycle had been systematically dismantled, and its identification marks had been filed away, however a minute examination by an expert revealed an order mark which the owner had missed. The bicycle had been purchased in 1910 by a Mr. Ronald Light, who at the time of the murder had been living in Leicester. From the beginning of 1920 he had been working as an assistant mathematics master at a school in Cheltenham.

Light fitted the description of the wanted man, in that he was aged 34, the right height and build, and had a squeaky voice, although he was neat and clean-shaven. He was first interviewed at the school when he stated that he had been nowhere near the site of the murder on the day in question, knew nothing of Bella Wright, and had never owned a green bicycle. When it was pointed out to him that his purchase of the bicycle was well documented, he admitted that he had bought such a bicycle but had sold it many years ago but could not remember to whom. He was arrested, and while waiting in the cells told the police that he had sold his bicycle to a Charles Bourne. Bourne was interviewed and it was found that he had bought a black bicycle from Light in 1908, two years before Light had bought the green one. On 4th March, Harry Cox was brought to the police station and had no trouble in picking out Light at an identity parade. Light was taken back to Leicester and charged with murder.

On 9th March, two girls, Muriel Nunney aged 14 and Valeria Cavan, aged 12, made a statement to the police. They had been riding their bicycles from Leicester at about 5:30 p.m. on 5th July 1919 when they had encountered a man on a green bicycle travelling in the opposite direction, who had turned and followed them. They were uneasy about him, and when he stopped to attend to his bicycle, they hurried off, leaving him behind.

There were further identification parades. George Measures and James Evans picked out Light without hesitation. Agnes Measures and Margaret Evans, who had not got a good look at the man following Bella, picked out another man who looked similar. Muriel Nunney and Valeria Cavan identified him, as did another witness who had seen an unshaven man in the company of a girl.

Ronald Light was from a respectable and not impecunious middle class family, well educated, and an ex-soldier who had served in the First World War. His mother Catherine was the daughter of a solicitor. His late father, George, had been a colliery manager who later became involved in the manufacture of sanitary ware, and had patented a number of improvements. Ronald Light, their only son, had been educated at public school, then later at the Institution of Civil Engineers, and the Central Technical College where he received his B.Sc. (Engineering). He was employed as an Assistant Engineer with the Midland Railway, until the outbreak of war, when he trained with the Royal Engineers, and was finally posted to France in 1915. In July 1915, however, he was required to resign his commission on the grounds that he was lacking in initiative and unlikely to make a good officer. In September he re-enlisted in the Honourable Artillery Company as a gunner and sailed for France in November 1917. He was invalided out in August 1918 and went to live with his widowed mother in Leicester. With them lived his mother’s maid and companion Mary Webb.

While Light remained in custody, dragging of the canal continued, and on 19th March a sodden Army pattern revolver holster was recovered. Inside it were a number of live and blank .455 cartridges. By the end of April some more bicycle parts had been recovered from the canal, while a search of Light’s room at his Leicester home revealed some metal guards, a chain and a bicycle bell. At the magistrates’ court, Ronald Light was committed for trial for the murder of Bella Wright. He reserved his defence.

It is thought that up to the opening of the trial, on 9th July 1920, Light continued to deny any connection with Bella or the green bicycle, despite considerable evidence to the contrary. His defence counsel clearly had a problem on his hands, but that counsel was Sir Edward Marshall Hall K.C., one of the leading defenders of his day, then at the peak of his career. After a discussion, Light thought matters over, then later in the day passed a note to Marshall Hall indicating what he would say in the witness box.

The prosecution presented its case. Muriel Nunney and Valeria Cavan repeated their stories and identified the prisoner. Dr. Williams who had conducted the post-mortem referred to the entry wound of the bullet as large enough to admit an ordinary lead pencil. To the amazement of the court he opened his black bag and produced a bottle of formalin from which he took the piece of skin from Bella’s cheek containing the wound, and demonstrated with his own silver propelling pencil that it would barely go through the hole. He added that other injuries on the body were consistent with a fall from a bicycle. There had been no sexual interference, in fact the clothing was not disturbed beyond what might have been expected from the fall.

George Measures, a somewhat excitable witness, identified Light, and confirmed that Bella had told him her cycling companion on that fatal day was a complete stranger to her. James Evans was emphatic that when the man, whom he identified as Light, spoke to Bella his first word had been "Bella" and not "Hello".

Ethel Tunnicliffe took the stand. She had known Light when he worked for the Midland Railway, and it seems there had been a romantic relationship, although how serious it was cannot be known. This appears to have continued until 1914, though they stayed in regular touch certainly until 1916, and even after matters had cooled, Ethel still maintained her friendship with Catherine Light. Ethel had received a letter from Light in 1916 saying that he would be sending her a parcel which she was not to open, but must take to his Leicester home. She did as asked, and when the parcel was opened she saw that it had contained a revolver.

On the second day of the trial, evidence was given by Mary Webb. When living at his mother’s house after demobilisation, Light had used his green bicycle every day, and it had normally been kept in the back kitchen. She remembered Light taking the bicycle to be repaired and bringing it home, then going out for a ride. He was due to return for supper at 8 p.m., but had not returned until 10 p.m., looking dusty and saying that the bicycle had broken down. After a few days he had taken the bicycle from the kitchen and put it in the upstairs box room. To her knowledge, he had never ridden the bicycle again, and had not taken it out until shortly before Christmas. He later told her he had sold it.

The next witness of importance was Henry Clarke, a gunsmith. He was shown the bullet found near the body and confirmed it was identical in type to those found in the canal. Marshall Hall, who was very knowledgeable on the subject of firearms, suggested that the bullet might just as easily have been fired from a rifle as a revolver, and Clarke agreed. Hall was also able to plant the suggestion that the bullet could just as easily have been fired from a distance considerably greater than 6 or 7 feet, and that someone shot at less than 5 yards with a service revolver would have had far more mutilating wounds than those sustained by Bella.

At last, Marshall Hall rose impressively to his feet and announced that he would call the prisoner to give evidence. Light gave a good performance in the witness box. Cool and consistent, none of the questions seemed to trouble him. He told of his army record, how he had been invalided home with shell-shock. He admitted to owning a service revolver but said he had left it behind in France. He had never possessed any revolver apart from that one. When shown the holster and the ammunition from the canal, he admitted that they were his.

On the day of the murder he had collected his bicycle from the repair shop, and went for a ride in the country. He denied having met either of the two girls who had given evidence. He had met Bella for the first time as she stood by her bicycle trying to make some adjustments, and they had ridden on together. He had waited for her outside the cottage during which time he had discovered he had a flat tyre and had had to mend it. When she emerged from the cottage he had said "Hello, you’ve been a long time. I thought you had gone the other way." He had never addressed hr as "Bella" and did not know her name until he read it in the newspapers. They had ridden as far as the crossroads when he had taken the road on the right leading back to Leicester and she had turned left. He had not seen her again. The raincoat and coat he had worn on the day of the murder had been sold.

He admitted that he had not ridden the bicycle since the day of the murder, had placed it in the box room, and then, some months later, thrown it away. Light in fact, admitted to practically everything the prosecution could prove against him. He said he had first learned of the murder in the newspapers, and seeing that he was being connected with it, was astounded and frightened. He had not come forward to try and clear his name because he did not want to worry his mother, who was in poor health. When first questioned by the police he had simply said the first thing that came into his head.

In the prosecution’s closing speech it was pointed out that Light was the last person seen with Bella, he had first hidden then disposed of the bicycle, the fatal bullet was of a kind owned by him, and it had been shown that he had once owned a revolver. When first questioned he had lied to the police. An innocent man would have come forward from the start.

Marshall Hall emphasised the lack of motive in the case - that Light and Bella had not met before that day. He was scathing about the evidence given by Clarke, saying that a bullet of the calibre produced could not have made such a neat wound. He attributed the prisoner’s concealment of his role in the case to his nervous condition due to shell-shock, and worry about his mother who had a heart condition.

The jury was out for just over three hours and returned a verdict of "Not Guilty". Thus ended what Marshall Hall always considered to be one of his greatest successes.

After the trial, Light did not return to his post as a mathematics master because while he had been in custody it had been discovered that he had obtained the position with forged testimonials. That was just one of the many curious facts about Light that had not been presented in Court. Here are some more. In 1902, Light had been expelled from school after lifting a girls clothes over her head. He had been seventeen at the time. He had been dismissed from his job at the Midland Railway because he had been suspected of setting fire to a cupboard, and also drew rude figures on the lavatory walls. His sending back from France in 1916 was certainly abrupt, and while there is no proof of the precise reason, there was a persistent rumour that he had committed a sexual assault on a French postmistress. Light spent part of the summer of 1916 working as a farm labourer, but was dismissed because he was suspected of setting fire to hayricks.

Having joined the H.A.C. in 1917 he awaited posting to France, and orders were received in May for his draft to make themselves ready. This order was cancelled by telegram the following day. Further orders for departure were received, and once again were cancelled by telegram. It became apparent that the telegrams were bogus, and the men were ordered to take a handwriting test. It was concluded that the telegrams were in Light’s handwriting, and he was duly Court-martialled. He was also charged with improper possession of passes, to which he pleaded guilty, and wearing decorations to which he was not entitled. Light was sentenced to one year’s detention. He was also expelled from the Institution of Civil Engineers.

After four months, Light was sent back to France, and in August 1918 was admitted to Wharncliffe War Hospital due to progressive deafness from heavy shell fire. He was not diagnosed as suffering from shell-shock and appears to have made a complete recovery. While at the hospital, Light made sexual advances to the 15 year-old daughter of an ambulance driver. The matter was reported to the hospital authorities, and Light was given a warning.

In October 1919, Light was taken to a Leicester police station and accused of improper conduct with a girl aged eight and a half. At first he denied the allegations, but eventually he admitted an offence and apologised. It was decided not to press charges, and he was released.

Would the trial have gone differently had any of these facts been known? Proof of forgery and deceit do not necessarily mean that a man is capable of murder, but the evidence of child molesting is more serious, and certainly puts the evidence of Muriel Nunney and Valeria Cavan in a new light.

The best argument in Light’s favour is that, as shown by tests, the wound was too small and neat to be made by a heavy calibre bullet, though the leading ballistics expert of the day had commented to Marshall Hall that the bullets were unsuitable to be fired from a rifle, as had been suggested at the trial. Hall was implying that the death of Bella Wright had been an accident, someone firing a rifle, perhaps at birds, as she passed by the gate. The angle of the shot rather negates this. So if the large bore gun did not kill Bella, what did? It has been revealed quite recently that at the time Light was arrested he was found in possession of a small revolver and small bore ammunition. He had claimed that the revolver had been confiscated from a boy and the ammunition belonged to the school. Since at the time the police were looking for a weapon which would fit the ammunition found in the canal, they seem to have made no further enquiries on this matter, and there is no evidence that Light’s story was ever checked. The police certainly believed in the existence of another weapon, (not the one found) which had been the one used, and after the trial the Director of Public Prosecutions considered bringing a charge of perjury, but it was concluded that matters should be allowed to rest.

One other matter of interest should be mentioned here. Bella had been unofficially engaged to Archie Ward, a young sailor who had been in Portsmouth at the time of the murder. She was close friends with his sisters, Sally and Gertrude. They had a story to tell, but at the time had been ordered by their father not to get the family involved, and had kept silent until much later. For some weeks before her death, Bella had confided in the sisters that a man had waited for her as she returned home from the factory. She had told him to stop this but he was most persistent. Bella had later pointed the man out in the street. Advised to tell her parents about the man, Bella had said she could never induce them to talk about boyfriends, and in any case she thought the man would not persist. Sally later claimed that she knew where the man lived, and had gone to Light’s home in Leicester about October 1919, on the pretence of making enquiries about his bicycle. It was certainly the case that Bella’s family in the Measures’ cottage that day had been of the opinion that despite what she said, she had known the man waiting outside.

After the acquittal, Light went back to live with his mother. He later moved to Kent under an assumed name, and in 1934 he married. He did not go back to his real name until 1945. Ronald Light, once described in print by Marshall Hall’s clerk as "a decent sort of chap against whom nothing of an unpleasant character was known", died in 1975 aged 89.

One thing that has been a source of puzzlement to many commentators on this case, is why Bella's body was found where it was.  Why did she turn off the quickest route home?  I think I can suggest the reason.  If Light had been pestering her for some while she must have known that his route home was along the more direct road leading to Stoughton.  Light himself had claimed that he had taken this route when she had turned South.  Bella, having failed to shake him off, (recall that she had told her family she would give him the slip) decided to turn off the road she knew he would take, planning to circle back to Stoughton.  If she had turned off before reaching the village of Little Stretton then she would have had to negotiate some obstructive gates, but she could have turned off later and cycled through Little Stretton.   Either way, it is my belief she took this unsual route in order to shake off her pursuer.   Perhaps she had fallen from her bicycle trying to outrace him.   The reason for her murder is unclear, as she had not been assaulted, but maybe her pursuer wanted only to threaten her into silence by pulling a gun, and it had discharged by accident in the heat of the moment.  Either way, Ronald Light must have walked from the court a very relieved and fortunate man.

Nearly forty years after the death of Bella Wright, a murder took place in Canada which has been the subject of controversy ever since.

It was 9th June 1959. The temperature that day, at the Royal Canadian Air Force base in Clinton Ontario, was in the high eighties Fahrenheit. It had not rained since May and the ground was parched. The families of the Air Force personnel lived in a small village of houses and apartments, the Permanent Married Quarters, or P.M.Q.s, a short distance from the school. Lynne Harper, the twelve year old daughter of a Flying Officer, arrived home from a baseball game at about 5:30 p.m., and ate dinner with her parents. Lynne wanted to go swimming on her own in the R.C.A.F. tank, where the company of an adult was required by the rules. After arguing with her parents on this subject she went out to try and get a permit to swim without supervision. Failing to obtain this, she returned home, helped wash the dinner dishes, then went out again without saying where she was going.

Steven Truscott, aged 14, had returned home at 5:30. He had gone on an errand for his mother shortly before six, and eaten supper on his return.

On that hot day, Steven, in common with most of the children on the base, wanted to be outdoors. It was still light - in fact sunset that evening would not be until 9:08 p. m. He went out on his bicycle after supper, at around 6:30, agreeing to be back home by 8:30 to baby-sit. He was sitting on his bicycle in the park near the school grounds, when Lynne Harper approached him, and they talked for a while. According to Steven, Lynne said that she wanted to see a man who lived in a house on Highway Eight, and had some ponies. Would Steven give her a ride there? He agreed, and they walked together through the park, past the football field, to the County Road which led to Highway Eight. There, Lynne climbed on the crossbar, and Steven began pedalling along the road.   This would have been at about 7.30, and they had arrived at the highway at 7.45.   He had returned accross the bridge at 7.55, arriving in the schoolyard some ten minutes later. 

Before going further with this account it is important to describe some of the geography of the area. The County Road ran roughly North from the school to a crossroads where Highway Eight intersected, running East/West. Farmland lay on either side of the County Road, the O’Brien farm to the West, and Robert Lawson’s farm to the East. From the school to the intersection is a total distance of about a mile and a half. At about 1000 yards from the school, on the east side of the road, was a wood lot called Lawson’s bush, accessible from the road by a lane, usually referred to as the "tractor trail". The trees and the field were separated by a barbed wire fence. After this was a grain field, then, about 500 yds from the trees the road crossed a single railway track. Less than 200 yds. further on, the road passed over the Bayfield River by a small flat bridge some 10 ft. above the water, then continued between more fields to the highway some 400 yards further on. The area of the river near the bridge was a popular place for the local children, where they hunted for turtles or used the swimming hole about two hundred yards east of the bridge. The land north of the farms was very open in 1959, with no buildings between the farms and the highway. From the intersection it was possible to see some distance down the highway on either side.

The route described by Steven, along the County Road to the highway, would therefore have taken them past Lawson’s Bush, over the railway track, then over the bridge within sight of the children playing by the river. On a warm evening, with everyone outdoors, one might expect witnesses to this ride, and these will be discussed later. According to Steven, he took Lynne to the highway, then rode back alone to the bridge, and got off his bicycle to stand and watch his friends playing. As he stood there, he glanced back and saw Lynne being picked up by a car, which headed east. He thought it was a grey 1959 Chevrolet, with a yellow licence plate. Steven was back at the football field at about eight, where he spent a little time chatting to friends, telling them he had dropped Lynne off at the highway, then he headed home and arrived there just before half past eight. According to everyone who saw him at that time his behaviour and appearance were perfectly normal.

Lynne Harper did not return home that night, and by the following morning, her father was asking everyone he knew if they had seen her. At that point, her parents were worried but not panicking, since they thought it possible Lynne had run away because of their refusal to take her swimming. When Steven said he had seen her hitching a lift on the Highway, Harper alerted the police. Steven found himself repeating his story to the police several times that day, taking them over the route he had travelled. A description of the girl and the car were circulated, and the man with the ponies was interviewed, but there was no indication that Lynne had been to the house.

On the second day after Lynne’s disappearance Steven was interviewed again, and asked to give the names of children who had seen him at the river when he rode over the bridge. All the children who had played at the river that Tuesday were questioned as to whether they had seen Steven and Lynne. Meanwhile, a search party was being organised. Two groups of 125 men were to comb the area of farmland on the east and west sides of the County Road. Less than an hour later, they found Lynne’s body lying in a hollow amongst the trees of Lawson’s Bush. She had been raped and murdered. Most of her clothes were scattered nearby - she wore only her undershirt, and her blouse which had been wound into a roll and wrapped tightly about her neck, though her right arm remained in the armhole. Some branches had been twisted off the trees and laid across the body. Two deep marks of crepe-soled shoes were in the earth below her feet, and it was clear that these had been made by the feet of the rapist.

The body was examined by Dr. John Penistan, the official district pathologist. He gave the cause of death as strangulation. Two vital questions that he needed to answer were - what was the time of death? and had she been killed at the spot where she was found? Two days after death, the best clue as to the time of death was stomach contents. The details of her last meal - what she ate and the time she ate it, were known. In a normal child, the stomach will begin to empty after about two hours. Penistan found that the stomach contents matched the description of Lynne’s supper with her parents, and virtually none of the partly digested food had begun to move out of the stomach. He concluded that death had taken place between 7:15 and 7:45 p.m. on the Tuesday, the same time as Lynne’s ride with Stephen. Evidence of rigor, temperature, and maggot infestation supported this conclusion. Pressure marks on her skin from the twigs and uneven ground, and drips of blood from the crotch area and a shoulder wound, showed that she had died at the spot where she was found. Grooves made in the earth by the rapists feet, and the presence of the clothing and a button that had fallen from her blouse, also suggested that this was the scene of the murder and rape.

The next time Steven was questioned by the police it was as a murder suspect. Two doctors examined him, and found sore patches on the skin of his penis which they thought had been there only a few days. Steven said he had had this sore for several weeks, but didn’t know how he had got it. By the following day, he had been charged with murder. 

The trial opened on 16th September 1959. The case for the prosecution relied very strongly on the evidence of Dr. Penistan regarding time of death. The defence produced an expert witness, Dr. Berkeley Brown, an authority on the digestive system, who testified that the meal as described would have taken longer than Dr. Penistan’s estimate to digest, possibly twice as long. Brown, however, had not had the opportunity to examine any of the samples in the case, and this reduced his effectiveness before the jury.

The prosecution also brought evidence regarding the skin condition on the penis which they attributed to the act of rape, and also the fact that there were numerous small scratches and abrasions on Steven’s body. While his skin had been about as grubby as one might expect of an active 14 year-old boy, the area around the genitalia was considerably cleaner, and it was suggested that he had cleaned himself off after the crime. There was no evidence offered to directly connect Steven with the scene of the crime. A scratch on his leg might have been caused by barbed wire, and his trousers, which had been laundered since the murder had a tear in the back corresponding with the scratch, and grass stains on the knees.  He was known to have owned some crepe-soled shoes but these were never traced. Tyre tracks of a bicycle were also attributed to him, but impressions were poor in the dry earth. A stained item of Steven’s underwear was produced at the trial, but this had been taken from him while he was in custody three days after the crime, and there was nothing to suggest that he had been wearing the underwear since the day of the murder. The garments he had worn that day had already been laundered by the time he became a suspect. 

Eyewitness evidence became very important. If Steven was guilty, he had either ridden with Lynne only as far as Lawson’s bush and returned alone, or he had ridden with her across the bridge then returned with her to Lawson's Bush.   If he was innocent, they had ridden together all the way along the County Road, and he had then returned the whole way alone.  The map of the area makes this comparison very clear.  Which story did the witnesses support?

There were numerous witnesses to Steven and Lynne departing from the school grounds, or who had seen Steven return to the school grounds alone. Those who had spoken to Steven at about eight, said that they did not notice anything unusual in his behaviour. The chief defence eyewitness was 14 year-old Gordon Logan. He stated that he had been standing on a rock near the bridge, and had seen Steven and Lynne ride over the bridge in the direction of the Highway, and then five minutes later, Steven had returned alone. This entirely supported Steven's story.   12 year-old Douglas Oats said he was on the bridge when Steven and Lynne rode across, but he had been under the bridge shortly afterwards, and had not noticed either of them returning. Allan Oats, Douglas’s older brother said he had seen Steven standing alone on the bridge watching the other children. The prosecution did its best to show that the defence eyewitnesses were lying, but were unable to shake their stories. Mrs. Truscott testified to Steven’s behaviour on the day of the murder, and also said that the tear in his new trousers and the scratch on his leg had come from a tumble off his bike before he had gone out that evening.  One anomaly is that Lebourdais mentions that Logan had given his alibi before the body had even been found, while Simpson states that the defence witnesses's stories had only come to light when Truscott's father was trying to assemble evidence in his son's defence on 16th June, a week after the murder. 

An important prosecution witness was 12 year-old Joscelyne Goddette who said that Steven had made a date with her for 6 p.m. that Tuesday to go with him to Lawson’s Bush to look for new-born calves. He had asked her to keep the date secret. She had eventually cancelled the date, because she had not yet had supper, but later she had gone to look for Steven but not found him. Arnold George, another schoolfriend, seems to have told several different stories. He initially backed Steven's story,  that he had seen Steven on the bridge and waved to him, but later he said this statement had been false and he had not seen him at all.  In his next statement Arnold said that on the Wednesday after Lynne disappeared, Steven had asked him to tell the first story. Steven’s explanation for this request was that he had told the police he had waved to Arnold, but now believed he was mistaken, it must have been Gordon Logan he waved to.   Afraid of getting into trouble, he needed Arnold to back him up.  A further story told by George at the trial which he had not told at the preliminary hearing (and which was denied by Steven) was that he had gone to Steven's house that night and said he had heard Steven had been in Lawson's Bush with Lynne.  Steven's own account is that he listened to the testimony of Godette and George with anger and disbelief, unable to understand why they were lying.   With some kinds of testimony, such as time, or the exact details of a conversation, it is easy to suggest that an error has been made, but in the case of Goddette and George, there is no middle ground.  Either the date with Steven had been made, or it had not.  Either Steven had asked George to lie for him or he had not.  Either Steven was lying or his two friends were.  It is easy (perhaps too easy) to say that Steven had a motive to lie while the others did not.   Of course, since George had changed his story, he had therefore demonstrably lied at least once.

No witnesses were available to say that they had seen Steven and Lynne go into the Bush or that they had seen Steven coming out. Richard Gellatly had been swimming and had left the river together with Phillip Burns at about 7:10 or 7:15, Richard cycling, Phillip walking. Richard had seen Steven and Lynnecoming towards him north of the school, but Phillip, who had been some way behind, did not recall meeting them. The suggestion was that they had turned off the road before Phillip came along, but no-one had seen them do so. The prosecution discounted the evidence of Gordon Logan and the Oats brothers, and preferred to rely on Joscelyne and Arnold, mainly because they, during the evening had actually looked for Steven, and not found him, the implication being that they had missed him because he was in Lawson’s Bush committing murder.

The defence had one singular difficulty in the trial, and no Marshall Hall to apply his ingenuity. If the prosecution wanted to show how Lynne had arrived at the Bush, this was simplicity itself. For the defence, starting from the assumption that Steven’s story about the car was true, things were far more difficult. Supposing this car driver to have been the guilty party, the suggestion would have to be that having sped away with the girl, he then turned round, and took her back to within a mile of her home before murdering her. If, however, this driver was innocent, he had never been traced or come forward. He would have had to take Lynne to some destination unknown where she had been seen by no-one, then she would have had to be picked up by a hypothetical second person who took her back close to home before killing her. Both these scenarios seem unlikely, but then, so does the idea of a fourteen year old boy as a rapist murderer when there had never been any previous indication that he was anything other than a normal child.

Steven did not enter the witness box, and was unable therefore to refute the suggestion that he had said he could read the car number plate, something he had never claimed. The prosecution brought evidence to show that it was not possible to read number plates at the distance from which Steven said he had seen the car, thus giving the jury the impression that he had lied on this point.

The trial lasted two weeks and the jury returned a verdict of guilty. The judge had no alternative but the pass a sentence of death by hanging, though it was generally understood that the sentence would be commuted. The Court of Appeal heard the case the following January, and shortly after it was dismissed, the courts commuted the penalty to life imprisonment. Steven was sent to the Ontario training School for boys where he remained until he was eighteen, then he was transferred to Collins Bay Penitentiary, Ontario.

In August 1964, Steven was offered the prospect of parole.  He filled out the form, and in the space reserved for pesonal comments added some words which would cause him some some embarassment later.   In 1966 Isabel Lebourdais published her book, "The Trial of Steven Truscott", which criticised the conviction and made a strong case for Steven’s innocence. The noted British pathologist Francis Camps endorsed the conclusions in the book, however, the equally celebrated pathologist Keith Simpson, examined the papers in the case and found Ms Lebourdais’s conclusions ill-founded. When Simpson was in Toronto in 1966, he found that the laboratory specimens had been preserved, and he was able to examine them before submitting a report when the case was re-heard in October 1967. Eleven judges heard the case at the Ottawa Supreme court, and were mainly concerned with the medical evidence. Steven Truscott, now a young man, gave evidence, repeating the story he had originally told the police. His written comments to the Parole Board were read out in court..   According to Truscott he had written that if released, he would not get into trouble again.  This was not intended to be an admission of guilt, but was what he thought the Parole Board would want to hear, as he was obviously desperate to be released.  Simpson's account is different, he states that Truscott had asked for a chance to prove that one dreadful mistake would ensure that he would not make another. Asked to explain this, in court, he had said that he thought that if he continued to argue his innocence, he would stand less chance of getting out. Either way, one must make allowances for Truscott's keenness to say what was required to obtain release, but the difference is curious.  The conclusion of the court was to uphold Penistan’s original findings, and decide that there had been no miscarriage of justice. Truscott returned to prison. Possibly as a result of the publicity the case had received, there was some sympathy for him, and he was released in 1969. He started a new life under an assumed name, and is married with three children.

It is obvious that the two most vital factors in this case are the time of death and the place of death.  The prosecution expert had testified that death had taken place within two hours of the last meal being eaten, which placed it during the time Lynne had been with Truscott.  The defence had argued that death could have taken place up to an hour later, at which time Truscott had an alibi.  There has never been any serious evidence that death took place anywhere but where Lynne was found, however, looking at the map, this raises serious problems for the defence. 

Whether or not Truscott was guilty, it is tempting to believe that with Marshall Hall to defend him, he could have been as fortunate as Ronald Light. In 1966 Professor Simpson was most impressed by the fact that all the samples and slides had been retained, and this gave me hope that the case would finally be solved by DNA testing.   In 1998 Truscott asked for a test to be done, but the original samples could not be found. 

A New Look

In April 2000 Steven Truscott finally shed his alias, and took part in a TV program that re-examined the case.  Two crucial points have emerged.  First of all, Dr Penistan had, some years later admitted that the forensic evidence, while suggestive that death had taken place within two hours of the last meal, could also be compatible with a time of death much later than that.  Recently, forensic pathologists have re-examined Penistan's findings and declared that it is not possible even today to pinpoint time of death so accurately just by stomach contents. The second piece of information is that a known sex criminal was in the area at the time. Sgt Alexander Kalichuk, then 36, had worked at the Clinton base until 1957.  In 1959 he was living a 20 minute drive away but still occasionally visited the base.  He was a heavy drinker with a number of convictions for sexual offences.  Only three weeks before the murder of Lynne Harper he had tried to lure a 10 year old girl into his car.   There is no direct evidence linking Kalichuk to the murder, and none of the cars he was known to have owned match the description of the car Steven said Lynne got into, however, Kalichuk was known to the police and should have been questioned at the time.   That he was not was an appalling oversight, and many people have read something sinister into this. I think that the police, once they had found that Steven was with Lynne at the time she is said to have died, believed thay had the murderer and did not look any further. Steven was arrested very soon after the finding of the body, and no attempt seems to have been made to search police records for details of known sex offenders. It is a blinkered point of view, but one which in over 30 years of reading about true crime I have seen happen again and again.  There have also been accusations of an Air Force cover up.  This is just sensationalism without any foundation. It is tempting for some people to see an organisation such as the Air Force as some vast faceless entity.  The personnel on the base were family men, with sons of their own.  It is ridiculous to suggest that they would pin a crime on a fourteen year old boy to protect a paedophile. 

It is not the purpose of this article to attribute guilt or innocence, only to present the information as detailed by researchers, and let the reader make up his or her mind.  It is my opinion, however, that if Penistan had not given the time of death so precisely, the case would have had less of an air of certainty, and conviction would have been less likely.  His evidence was crucial, and the fact that he revised it later should encourage an official re-examination of the verdict.

Kalichuk is beyond all questioning now - he died an alcoholic in 1975. The DNA samples are now officially "presumed destroyed". Our last hope for proving innocence or guilt beyond any doubt is gone.

.............................................

An interesting analysis of Stephen Truscott's statements is at http://www.statementanalysis.com/truscott/ 

Linda Stratmann

©Linda Stratmann

References

The Green Bicycle Murder

The Green Bicycle Murder by C. Wendy East. 1993, Alan Sutton Publishing. Buy The Book!

The Green Bicycle Case, by H. R. Wakefield. Phillip Allan 1930.

Real Life Crimes. Midsummer Books Ltd. 1993-5.

Steven Truscott.

The Trial of Steven Truscott by Isabel Lebourdais. Garden City Press 1966

Forty Years Of Murder by Professor Keith Simpson. Harrap 1978.

Autopsy by Milton Helpern with Bernard Knight. Star 1982

Real Life Crimes. Midsummer Books Ltd. 1993-5.

The Steven Truscott Story by Steven Truscott and Bill Trent.  Simon and Schuster of Canada Ltd 1975 edition.

Investigation on The Fifth Estate   See http://tv.cbc.ca/fifth/truscott/

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