CANADA Canada - Christine Jessop, 9, Queensville, Ont, 3 Oct 1984 - #1

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Dedpanman

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Basic summary of the case:

October 3, 1984. At approximately 3:50 pm, Christine Jessop got off her school bus on Leslie Street, just north of the main intersection in Queensville, Ontario. She was most likely excited about her new acquisition – a plastic recorder (a whistle-like musical instrument) given to her that day by her school teacher. She had apparently made plans to meet her classmate, Leslie Chipman at the park (just east of the main intersection and near the corner store) around 4 pm.

Christine picked up her family's mail and bounded up the lane and into her home. No one was there. Her father (Bob) was serving time in a correctional facility. Her mother (Janet) was out running errands with Christine’s older brother (Ken).

According to witness testimony, at some point between 4:00 and 4:30 pm, Christine strolled into the convenience store located at the intersection south of her home on Leslie Street and bought some gum.

Leslie Chipman, who had apparently called Christine’s house shortly after she got off the school bus and got no answer there, went to the park to await Christine. Christine never showed up.

When Janet and Ken Jessop arrived home at about 4:10 pm, they saw Christine’s bicycle where she normally kept it – but it was in a fallen state with some minor damage. Her book bag was on the kitchen counter, as well as the mail.

Unable to find Christine, they called her friends and searched the neighbourhood and the nearby park. She was nowhere to be found. Sometime between seven and eight o’clock, Janet called police and a massive search for the little girl began.

On December 31, 1984, Christine’s body was found at the edge of a farmer’s filed near Sunderland, a community 40 km east of Queensville.

Details of the crime scene according to the “Kaufman Report” (CHAPTER V):

“Her body was on its back and decomposed. Her legs were spread apart in an unnatural position and her knees were spread outward. Animals appeared to have eaten at the legs. Her head was pointed north and her feet south. A sweater was pulled over her head. A few bones were scattered between her head and what remained of her legs, giving the appearance that her head and waist were not connected. The victim was wearing a beige turtleneck sweater, a blue pullover sweater, a blouse on which some buttons were missing and two pairs of socks. Her panties were found at her right foot. Blue corduroy pants with a belt and a pair of Nike running shoes were found just south of her feet. These clothes were subsequently identified as belonging to Christine. Her school recorder, with her name still taped on it, was found next to her body. The hand-knitted blue sweater with the zippered front and no collar, which she was last reported wearing, was not found on the body; nor was it ever located.”

Christine had been killed by multiple stab wounds to the upper body.

In 1995, DNA from the semen found on her underwear was used to exonerate a Queensville man who had been wrongly convicted of her murder (Guy Paul Morin). A subsequent inquiry into the matter revealed numerous police blunders and misconduct during the investigation, contaminated evidence, and fabricated witness testimony.

Christine Jessop’s murder remains unsolved to this day.
 
For anyone interested in this case, check out the following sources:

REDRUM: THE INNOCENT by Kirk Makin. This book is the definitive true crime book of this case. It's well-written and filled with detailed information. The book lacks an index and this can be frustrating at times when you are trying to quickly locate details and specific facts.

THE COMMISSION ON PROCEEDINGS INVOLVING GUY PAUL MORIN (commonly known as the Kaufman Report) is filled with information and is available online in PDF format.

JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS by John Douglas (pages 78 -85). Douglas provides a profile of the perpetrator based on his involvement in the case. Douglas's findings are controversial and contain flaws, but his take is still useful.

Not yet released:

REAL JUSTICE: GUILTY OF BEING WEIRD: THE STORY OF GUY PAUL MORIN by Cynthia J. Faryon. This book won't be published until September of 2012. It might be useful if it contains new information not found in the previous materials.
 
When discussing a particular crime, I think it's important to remember that we're talking about a real human being -- and in this case, a child. A picture is worth a thousand words.
 

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This is an “essay” on my thoughts concerning this case, and I humbly present it here for the consideration of any readers visiting this forum.

I was twelve years old when Christine went missing and I remember it well. I followed the murder case against GPM in the media (both trials) and had lengthy debates in high school law classes about it. I have read numerous books on criminal behaviour and criminal psychology. I’ve read Makin’s book (Redrum: The Innocent) twice – some chapters and sections I’ve read and studied numerous times. I’ve read most of the Kaufman report – some sections numerous times. I’ve read and studied John Douglas’s psychological profile of Christine’s murderer (Journey Into Darkness, pages 80 - 82). I’ve been to Queensville. I’ve been to the Jessop house. I’ve explored the cemetery behind the house. I’ve walked from the Jessop house to the corner store and back again. I’ve been to the park. I’ve mapped out Christine’s “route” according to the witness testimonies and the various timelines. I’ve driven from Queensville to Sunderland and I’ve been to the body dump site. I say all this to establish a certain level of integrity – not to assume the mantle of an “expert” – as there are no experts in this case anywhere and I certainly don’t consider myself one.

Given all that, I would like to present my thoughts and conclusions so that others might carry the torch… or, so that my ideas can be summarily dismissed. You decide.

First of all, this case will not be solved here in this forum or any others. I understand the attraction of playing with this mystery from the comfort of an armchair, (as I have done plenty of that myself) connecting the dots, working the puzzle pieces, sharing various theories. However, I must say, if you are at all serious about working this mystery, and if you able, you must get out into “the field”, get your feet wet, and see this case through the lens of the real world. You can not fully appreciate this case from the comfort of your armchair. The established facts can only be tested and put into context when superimposed over a real geography. However… I acknowledge that not all of you can do that.

First of all, neither Makin’s book, nor the Kaufman Report can be treated as gospel when it comes to the presentation of “the facts”. You can not trust the information presented therein, or in the newspapers of the time. This case is a house of cards. And most of the cards are wrong. Each dot, each puzzle piece is contradictory to the other dots and other pieces. The few accurate “facts” of the case have been polluted by a multitude of police and witness errors. These errors, I believe, stem primarily from incorrect witness memories.

Let me elaborate. Most of the established facts concerning Christine’s movements that day (October 3, 1984) are based on people’s memories. I am referring specifically to witnesses who claimed to have seen Christine at the corner store, talking to other children at the corner, and even struggling against phantom-abductors in various vehicles. It can not be denied that memories are easily created where no actual experience existed. I’m talking about innocently-created, fictional-constructs of the mind formed through suggestion and imagination. It is human nature for someone to inject themselves into important events that have occurred around them. Please see the work of Elizabeth Loftus for more details concerning this very real phenomenon. Loftus has made outstanding contributions to the understanding of human memory in both laboratory and field settings. To quote from her paper, “Our Changeable Memories: Legal and Practical Implications”:

“Memories are not fixed. Everyday experience tells us that they can be lost, but they can also be drastically changed or even created.” Loftus goes on to say, “...if you are an eye-witness to a crime, your scrambled recall could send someone to prison…” and that, “…you might feel perfectly sure of the truth of your memory.”

I highly recommend reading Loftus’s work in order to gain insight into the nature of memory and how false memories can be created without an individual even being aware of it.

Witnesses claimed that Christine was in and around the Queensville corner store shortly before she was abducted. This evidence can not be treated as gospel. In my opinion, all the “memory-evidence” of this case should be dismissed from the big picture. Why? It simply can’t be trusted. Much of the memory evidence contradicts itself. More importantly, when one works out Christine’s movements based on the timeline of the memory-evidence, the timeline collapses. It’s not logical or believable that Christine could be in all of the places she was reported to be at the times the witnesses indicated seeing her. Walk it. Bike it, and compare – and you’ll see what I mean.

On the day of her disappearance, Christine had apparently arranged to meet a friend (Leslie Chipman) at the park that day (but even Chipman’s statement can be called into question as she would have been a suggestible child of 9 years). For the sake of argument, I shall continue with this line of thought.

The park in question where the two girls were to meet can be seen from the doorway of the corner store. The proprietor of the store claimed Christine came in to purchase a piece of gum and then left. Logic would indicate that if Christine was at the store – she would have also gone to the park to see if Chipman was there. Why? Because the park is visible from the store entrance and it would only take seconds for her to travel there – and less so if she was on a bike (more on the bike later). According to Makin, Chipman indicated that she had gone to the park but Christine never arrived. If Christine was at the store as the witness indicated, why did she not go the short distance to the park? Maybe she did – prior to Chipman’s arrival and she was abducted from there? Not likely, as it’s a very visible place for a child abduction. Far too risky an action for even the most cowardly and desperate pedophile. Remember, it’s around 4pm. Families are arriving home from work and from school. Also, if Christine was abducted from the park, her bike would have been found there (if she took her bike). And, it makes no sense that Christine’s abductor would take her bike home before hightailing it out of Queensville with the little girl.

I’m going to return to the issue of the bicycle in a moment, but first, another point about this scenario that no one has mentioned (to my knowledge): in Makin’s book, he talks about how Christine and Chipman had agreed to take their Cabbage Patch dolls to the park. Was Christine’s Cabbage Patch doll ever found, and, if so, where? At the Jessop house, perhaps? The point being: if Makin is correct, and Chipman was telling the truth and not fabricating details about taking their dolls to the park, and Christine’s Cabbage Patch Doll was at her house after she disappeared – that would suggests Christine never made the journey to the corner store and thus never went to the park, either. However if Christine’s Cabbage Patch doll had disappeared, then it’s strong evidence that Christine did make a journey from her house to the park and took the doll and it disappeared with her. As far as I know there is no mention of this issue anywhere (I could be wrong on this point and if anyone can direct me to a document that addresses this issue, please do so.) Is Chipman correct about the doll? Is Makin? This is a potential linchpin for the whole abduction scenario and I’m surprised that there’s no further mention of it anywhere (again - to my knowledge – I could be wrong).

I am of the opinion that Christine never went to the store – either on foot or on a bicycle. The distance from the Jessop house to the corner store is exactly .71 km. This happens to be almost the exact distance from my childhood home to the corner store that I frequented as a child. It’s a fair walk, and I always preferred to ride my bike to the store because I had a bike and I was allowed to ride it there – as Christine did. Why would a child who had a working bike and who had permission to go to the store with it – not take her bike? The answer is, she wouldn’t not take it. If she went to the store, you must factor in her taking the bike. Some of you who are familiar with the case might say, “but it was damaged – that’s why she didn’t take it.” The damage to the bike that was noticed after she vanished was minimal (involving the kickstand and carrier, if memory serves.) If Christine went to the store, she certainly took her bike, but then, for me, that’s why the whole “journey to the corner store scenario” falls apart, because why then, was her bike found at home? There simply isn’t time for her to ride to the store, ride to the park, ride home, get abducted with just a few minutes to spare before Janet and Ken arrive home to find her gone. It pushes credibility too far.

Theories that her abductor took the bike back there after taking her are also ridiculous. Some people entertain theories that her bike was hit by a car while she was riding it and then that person took her and the bike back to the Jessop house, left the bike, and then abducted her. Also ridiculous. A child on a bike getting hit by a car – even in the most minimal way – would have been a highly visible incident. In one’s imagination, this might seem plausible, but now I challenge you to go to Queensville. Walk along Leslie Street and see the proximity of the houses to the road and imagine parents and children arriving home from school around 4 pm. Imagine busy traffic. And now imagine no one spotting this child tumbling off her bike after a minor collision with a car. A car and driver stopping to deal with the child. An injured, crying child. A bicycle lying on the ground… People would see this and remember it. So, this scenario doesn’t hold water. The simplest scenario, and the most likely one in my mind, is that Christine didn’t go anywhere with that bike. She did not go to the store. She did not buy gum. She did not go to the park to meet Chipman. So, why was the bike found “damaged” and in a fallen state? Well… because bikes fall down. Lord knows my childhood bike fell over a thousand times outside my house or outside the corner store I went to. This alone could account for the damage found on the bike. I propose that the slightly-damaged, fallen bike means nothing.

This also goes for the issue of the Christine’s “cowering” dog when Ken and Janet arrived home. I suspect that this was an elaborated detail – overemphasized after the realization that Christine was missing. Human beings tend to look for patterns where there are none. We’re wired that way genetically. That’s why we see a face on the moon or dragons in the clouds. That’s why our ancestors could detect the stripes of a tiger hiding in the grass. We see patterns, even when there are none. So, a little girl goes missing, and suddenly everyone is looking for meaning and patterns in things that are essentially meaningless and without pattern. A fallen bicycle. A jacket not on the right peg. People acting strangely in a car at an intersection. The list goes on and on.

At this point, I’ll deal with the jacket on the higher peg. It doesn’t mean anything. Christine Jessop was a somewhat neglected child. Neglected in the sense that the Jessop family had a lot going on at the time – and on that day specifically (Oct. 3, 1984). Bob Jessop was in jail. Ken had a dentist appointment. Janet Jessop, without her husband, had to run around and make everything work. It’s not surprising she wouldn’t definitively know what her daughter wore to school that day. Also, she didn’t report Christine missing until 8:30 that night. That’s a lot of time for things to get moved. The house was filled with strangers, police, firefighters, people all trying to help. No one knows for sure when it was noticed that Christine’s jacket was out of place on a higher peg. There was plenty of opportunity for someone to innocently place it on the higher peg after it had fallen off its usual peg. The jacket detail doesn’t mean anything.

So, then, where does that leave us? If we abandon the commonly held belief that Christine went to the store… then, where and when was she taken? First, let me point out that once the established timeline is thrown out, Christine’s journey may have been an entirely different one from the one we imagine from the "established facts".

To help us visualize new scenarios, we should not focus just on this one case, but look at others that are just like it.

Here’s a story: A girl in a small town leaves home, goes to her local corner store, and disappears. Her body is eventually found 20 miles away. She was sexually assaulted. A local “weird man” is the number one suspect and he’s charged by police. In fact, the “weird man” confesses he killed her. Later, however, it turns out that the “weird man” is completely and definitively innocent of the crime. Does this sound familiar…?

Surprise: I’m not talking about the Christine Jessop case. I’m talking about a similar case that is useful for comparative purposes. I’m talking about the Katie Collman case that happened in Crothersville, Indiana in 2005. The “weird man” was Charles “Chucky” Hickman, a Crothersville drug addict who confessed to killing Katie. A unique cigarette found at the body site later implicated and convicted another man: Anthony Stockelman. Stockelman lived near where Katie’s body was found. He was a factory worker and had a family. Stockelman was moving items out his mother’s empty house in Crothersville that January day when Katie walked by on her way home from the store. Stockelman said something in him snapped, and he lured Katie into the empty house with a story about a lost puppy. He raped her, made Katie put her clothes back on, drove out of town with her – to a spot he knew – 20 miles away, where he could kill the little girl in relative privacy. Doesn’t this all sound familiar? There are so many echoes here of the Jessop case. These are the kinds of patterns we should be looking for. Criminal behaviour patterns and similar crimes.

So, using the Katie Collman rape/murder as a template… what might have happened to Christine? I suspect something similar. The cemetery behind the Jessop house would provide a location with lots of cover and few prying eyes. Most people on this forum imagine the perpetrator in the Jessop case as a cunning planner. He wasn’t. He was a pathetic loser and just very, very lucky. I believe this was a crime of opportunity. The perpetrator of the Jessop murder did not wake up that morning with the intent to take Christine. He may have been entertaining fantasies about abducting a child, but this guy was not brazen enough to do it on a main thoroughfare like Leslie Street, or at the park, or drive up to someone’s house on the off-chance he could find a child alone. I believe random chance brought these two people together in a place where their encounter was unobserved. What actually happened – the truth – is probably far stranger and far simpler than we can imagine.

But, let’s try. Christine ventured into the cemetery on her own after arriving home. Why? Who knows. Cemeteries are intriguing places for children. If Christine was feeling sad or alone, it’s a logical place for one to go in order to be alone and reflect. I’d like to mention here that GPM went to the cemetery to look for Christine after she was declared missing because he had seen her in the cemetery many times before and was worried she might have fallen into an open grave (Redrum, page unknown – the book has no index so it’s very difficult to go back and find important details).

Christine might have been lured into the cemetery by someone “needing her help”, like the Katie Collman case: “Hey, have you lost a puppy? There’s a little dog running around in the cemetery.” A little girl, wanting to help a lost puppy could be easily lured away from home. I’d like to point out that Victoria Stafford (a recent Ontario-schoolgirl murder) was lured away, raped, killed, and her body disposed of in a farmer’s field – because she wanted to see a puppy that the perpetrators offered to show her.

The first sexual assault on Christine could have happened in the cemetery behind her house. This is ironic and sad because she was eventually laid to rest there as well. She was then made to put her clothes back on, forced into a vehicle, then driven away up Leslie Street to the north to Ravenshoe Road and then east to Sunderland and to her ultimate fate.

Christine’s killer took her to a place that he knew, a place where he knew privacy was ensured – probably because he lived a mile or two away from where she was found. He may have hunted that area, or driven a snowmobile around those fields and trails. At this “safe” spot, a second sexual assault probably occurred, and then she was murdered.

If the cemetery scenario doesn’t work for you – consider another scenario (one that I’ve not seen presented anywhere). At the time of her disappearance, there was a sign in the Jessop’s front yard that read, “Jessop Sales” (Redrum, pg 2). Christine’s father had some kind of business involving gardening and landscaping machinery. So, conceivably, someone could have pulled into the driveway seeking paving stones or some piece of equipment and no one was home except Christine. This little, precocious girl answered the door and gave away the fact that she was home alone. An opportunity presented itself… and she is taken. Put into the car, and -- gone.

After Christine is declared missing, people all over Queensville start searching their memories. Did I see her? Maybe I did? They visualize her. Imagine her… and imagination becomes memory, memory becomes fact, and then the police are hunting the wrong man. And we’re now so far away from what actually happened. The only two people who really know what happened that day, are Christine and her killer.

In conclusion, I think, really, there’s only one hope of solving this case – and it involves the DNA material found on Christine’s underwear. It is unclear that there was enough of it left after GPM was exonerated for a complete or partial DNA profile to be created and entered into the National DNA Data Bank. For Christine’s killer to be caught through a matchup to his profile in the data bank, the perpetrator must still be active, but he may not be. He might be dead. Dennis Melvyn Howe raped and murdered Sharin’ Morningstar Keenan in 1983 and has never been found.

So, what now? Those of you who wish to engage in some armchair detective work, I suggest this strategy: read Makin’s book (knowing that it’s not “the gospel truth”) and read the Kaufman Report (knowing that it’s not “the gospel truth”) and then try placing “the facts” into one of two categories:

CERTAIN FACTS and UNCERTAIN FACTS

You’ll soon be surprised at how little is actually certain in this case. Next, go out into the world. Go to Queensville. Walk around. Talk to people (if they’re willing to talk to you about this case). Collect new information. Maybe you can shake something loose.

All that we know for sure, is that on October 3, 1984, Christine Jessop got off her school bus at approximately 3:50 pm… and slipped away into history.

Everything else is confusion.
 
This is a recent photograph of the intersection that plays a big part in the geography of this mystery. The camera is looking east across Leslie Street. The yellow/orange building to the right was the convenience store in 1984 where Christine supposedly purchased gum and then vanished. The park where she was to meet Leslie Chipman is in the background below the green "Leslie St" sign. Note that the park is very close to the store - and even more so in real life as camera lenses can distort distances. A number of witnesses recalled seeing Christine in and around this area after it was determined that she was missing. If she was indeed in this area around 4 pm on October 3, 1984, it is unclear if she had her bicycle with her. Witness testimony is very inconsistent. In the photograph, Leslie Street goes left (north) up a gradual hill. Christine's house was .7 km north of this intersection on the west side of Leslie Street. My understanding is that in 1984, there were no traffic lights at this intersection. I believe it was a two-way stop with north-south traffic able to drive straight through.
 

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This photograph was taken on Concession Road 4, looking east towards Durham Regional Road 2. Christine's body was located on the south side not far from the intersection.

I include this picture as it might indicate something about the killer. This is a sparsely populated area. Very forlorn geography. Many people believe the killer lived near here, or was familiar with this area.

In the words of John Douglas: "... he (the killer) clearly knew where he was going. He knew the area well. He would have had to, to have arrived at this rural, secluded field in nearby Sunderland."
 

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Nice to meet you Dedpanman - I respect your depth of knowledge for this case. Your essay is very well written.

I have also walked and driven the routes you mention in Queensville and from there to Sunderland to the 4th Concession. I very much agree Christine could not have made the journey to the store that day and that she was taken from her home through the cemetery. I find it the only scenario that makes any sense timewise and not to have been seen. Both are necessary as you point out. I also like how you point out not to sweat the small stuff - the small stuff will only be sorted out if and when her killer is ever caught. Well done.

I will bring my knowledge and experience here as well for consideration. I wish justice for Christine and her family.
 
Woodland - great - let's roll up our sleeves and discuss this case.

In regards to the "first assault"... I can't remember where I got that. It must have been either Makin's book, or the Douglas book. It really doesn't matter, actually, because the evidence is screaming it. Her underwear had semen on it. That can only mean she was assaulted, forced to put her clothes back on (like the Katie Collman case I mentioned) and that's how the semen go on her underwear. When C was taken to the field near Sunderland, she was most likely assaulted again before she was killed - as the body was found in a state of undress.

I supposed there are other scenarios that could explain the DNA on the underwear, but that one seems the most logical to me.

In regards to a second profile that was almost obtained from the underwear...

I'm shaking my head, because if that's accurate and true... then it potentially puts a completely new spin on the entire case. If that is accurate information, I wonder why that never came out in the Kaufman Report?

On the other hand, I suppose the partial profile could be that of Christine herself, as she would have been injured after her initial assault and certainly her DNA would have been there, too.

That's just off the top of my head.
 
And - another thought regarding a potential second profile off the underwear...

Don't you question the integrity of the evidence? I'm thinking that there was lots of opportunity for someone (police/lab/court) to contaminate that particular item. How long was it in police storage? How long was it handled by people (and handled without proper measures in place)? There were two trials before the 1995 test eliminated GPM. For each trial - more handling of the evidence...

It's an interested tidbit, I suppose...

What are your thoughts on that?
 
Sleeves are rolled up - Christine was most certainly redressed following a sexual assault in order for semen to be deposited on her underwear - logical due to simple physics.

The Kaufman report has what then Det-Sgt Neale Tweedy wants it to have regarding investigative info. Page 13. Tweedy was a homicide detective with Toronto Police and took over the case following the exoneration of GPM.

The DNA profile derived from Christine's underwear, from the 1995 test is -

DQA1, 1.2/3; LDLR, BB; GYPA, BB; HBGG, AB; D7S8, BB, GC, AC

I am putting this here as I recently found out it is now possible to convert this profile from a test no longer used to coincide with the new tests. Wide audience, maybe someone can take this on.
 
I question much on this case, especially Toronto Police Service still advertising on their poster that Christine went to the store that day. The case will never be solved using a scenario that can't be recreated.

The only reason I don't question the DNA profile is it was used to exonerate someone. The test was done in a Boston, MA lab headed by David H. Bing and Edward Blake - top of the field then and they describe their approach in a methodical way.

The article is 32 lines with no paragraph breaks and very techie. I had to read the first line, re-read the first line, read the second line, re-read the first and second line etc etc in order to have some comprehension of what was being said. All the while looking up terms on another tab.

In my mind there must be something to that. There was great difficulty in enhancing the existing and minimal balance of spermatozoa due to using samples for previous and unsuccessful test. PCR amplification, in it's infancy then, was successful.
 
Question: do you have any information about Christine's Cabbage Patch doll? In my "essay", I wrote:

In Makin’s book, he talks about how Christine and Chipman had agreed to take their Cabbage Patch dolls to the park. Was Christine’s Cabbage Patch doll ever found, and, if so, where? At the Jessop house, perhaps? The point being: if Makin is correct, and Chipman was telling the truth and not fabricating details about taking their dolls to the park, and Christine’s Cabbage Patch Doll was at her house after she disappeared – that would suggests Christine never made the journey to the corner store and thus never went to the park, either. However if Christine’s Cabbage Patch doll had disappeared, then it’s strong evidence that Christine did make a journey from her house to the park and took the doll and it disappeared with her.

In terms of Chipman's reliability as a witness, here's an excerpt from REAL JUSTICE: GUILTY OF BEING WEIRD: THE STORY OF GUY PAUL MORIN by Cynthia J. Faryon:

Guy Paul’s name kept coming up, along with the epithet “weird,” and so the police decided it was time to talk to this “weird-type guy.” But first they did some digging, starting with Christine’s best friend Leslie, whom they interviewed just beforehand:

“So Leslie,” the detective asked, “tell me about Christine’s neighbour, Guy Paul Morin. You said you were friends with Christine.”

“Yeah, she was my best friend.”

“So, when you were playing over there at Christine’s and you saw Guy Paul, what was he doing?”

“I don’t know,” said Leslie.

“Well,” said the detective, “was he cutting his lawn?”

“No.”

“Was he standing next to his fence?”

“Yes.”

“Could he have been cutting his hedges?”

“Yeah, I think so. He must have been cutting his hedges.”

“Well,” asked the detective, “was he holding the clippers tight?”

“Well,” Leslie said. “I don’t know.”

“Well,” pushed the detective, “were his knuckles white, did they look like this?” and he held out his fist so his knuckles looked white.

“Yeah, sure. Okay. Yes, it did look like that.”
p.63

I'm not saying this proves anything. It just illustrates that a little girl can be easily manipulated by the suggestions of adults. So, is that detail on pg 2 about Cabbage Patch dolls, a real "fact", or not?

I want to know if Christine's doll was ever found. And if so, where?
 
Leading questions by LE - no words can describe the harm that can be done. Hopefully they have learned to stfu and listen to a witness telling what they saw. LE can do more with that info.

It's funny, the other day I was going to post the similarity between this case and the arrest for Audrey Gleaves murder (Lynden, Ontario near Ancaster), which did not hold up in court. Seems to me the lead detective was hot over someone pointing out some weird guy living down the road and may have failed to properly assess what could have happened based on what evidence he had.

Could the cabbage patch doll have been substituted for the recorder?
 
Touching on John Douglas and his profile for a moment - he may have a credible career in profiling, but this case must haunt him.

From one of my posts on unsolved twitters - apparently a profiler requires a full autopsy report. John Douglas did not have this when he gave his profile that pointed to GPM. This was following a lunch date with the lead detectives - another no, no.

The pathologist that conducted the original autopsy failed Christine, her family and the community miserably. Dr John Hillsdon Smith neglected to find most of her horrific injuries. Not small injuries, horrific injuries. How he could have missed her fractured nose that radiated into her skull is beyond me. This type of blow can kill someone. He also failed to notice that an attempt had been made to cut her breastbone vertically and a piece was missing. He also missed that an attempt had been made to decapitate her.

All Douglas had was death by multiple stabbing from a pathologist that didn't care - and with a small pocket knife at that. From that Douglas claimed to know that the killer liked music. I laughed long and hard at that one - why not add whether he liked his eggs scrambled or over easy. Preposterous. Jmo.

It's impossible for me to place any credibility on the profile.
 
I agree with everything you said in regards to Douglas. The man comes off as very arrogant (and I'm not just talking here - but elsewhere). Still, I think his profile is still uselful, but one has to recognize that there ARE errors in it. There has to be, for the reasons you stated. The guy was exhausted when he arrived on this case and he didn't have all the facts, and he was too cozy with the police.

Interesting idea about the Cabbage Patch dolls actually being the recorders. That makes sense. Things get twisted, especially when time goes by. You can see it in the newspapers all the time. I wish Makin would come on here so he could clarify where he got some his "facts".

I wonder how, "We decided we were going to meet at the park and we were going to bring our recorders," became, "we decided we were going to meet at the park and we were going to bring our dolls,"...?
 
Makin may have made the substitution as the case is/was unsolved. Could have been for integrity sake and not meant to be misleading. Don't get me wrong that I am defending him in any way - I spoke to him once. Like Douglas - very arrogant. Why would Makin want the case solved when he has a book that is used in many classromms? Jmo.

I like his in depth study on the finding of Christine's body. I do buy into everything said there. And his list on who arrived to search for her when she was first reported missing.
 
Where I think Douglas is off base is where he's talking about the killer being someone in Queensville. He should have focused on the killer being someone out in the Sunderland area who knew that spot where her body was dumped. When you drive there from Queensville, and imagine yourself being the killer, with a body to dispose of, or a girl to kill (and it's horrible to put yourself in that frame of mind, but that's what profilers do) and you drive 40 km past creeks, forests, fields, bogs, swamps, bush, etc - millions of places to get rid of a body... but you go there - to that spot. Why that spot? You don't accidentally stumble upon a location like that. The killer knew where he was going (in my opinion). Compare this to the Katie Collman case in my "essay". Again, that reference doesn't prove anything, it's just useful to compare this crime to the behaviour of another child-killer. He took her to a spot where he knew he'd be safe doing what he wanted/had to do. Man, it makes me shudder just writing this.
 
To me, the killer is from Queesnville and could see the family movements that day - as in Christine arrived home from school but no cars in the driveway. I think the killer was onto her father not being around for the last three weeks. For those new to the case, that is how long Bob Jessop had been incarcerated for prior to Christine's disappearance.

To be from Sunderland, one would have to travel to Queensville mid-afternoon on that day and go to the cemetery to coincidently and randomly see Christine there, or see her through her yard.

I agree the killer knew where he was going. Have driven the route and it is far from direct - twists and turns are required to arrive at the end of Concession 4.

Whether it was 3 October or another day, I'm not sure. I think he had a place to keep her for a short time, in Queensville.
 
I did a study on families from Queesnville and Sunderland going back to when they were first surveyed and incorporated.

Some of the farmers/residents in Queensville today can trace their roots back to the mid 1850's. A few times when there were many boys in the family (people had up to 12 kids in those days) some had to go elsewhere as there was not enough land in the family to go around when they grew up. Some drifted to Sunderland.

The ties that bind?
 
I get what you’re saying about the killer being from Queensville and being an observer and also about how he could have kept her for some time before dumping her in the Sunderland field. I have carefully considered that scenario... but I’m leaning away from that type of offender at this time.

This is why:

There are essentially two types of offenders. The organized and the unorganized. The type of killer you describe (and let me elaborate on the scenario a bit) would have to be an organized offender. Someone who had “inside” information about the habits and movements of the family. Someone who was spying on them from the cemetery. Someone who fantasized and planned the abduction. Someone who waited there that day for C to come home from school and lured her into the cemetery. Someone who would have rehearsed in his mind ways to take her. There would be a lot of thought and planning necessary to pull that off. In other words: an organized offender. And, I can buy all that. What doesn’t mesh with that scenario (for me) is what the crime scene says about the offender.

Organized offenders tend to strangle their victims. It speaks to their confidence and their planning. They have thought the whole thing through from beginning to end. Strangulation is relatively quick and not messy. Less mess, less chance of getting caught.

Consider Francis Carl Roy and his victim, Alison Parrot. Woodland, I’m sure you’re familiar with this case, but other readers may not be, so let me summarize quickly by grabbing the basic info from Wikipedia:

Alison Parrott was an 11-year-old girl who went missing from her home in Toronto in 1986. Her remains were found two evenings later in a densely-wooded area of Kings Mill Park.

At about 11 o'clock on the morning of July 25 (1986), Alison received a phone call at her Summerhill Avenue home in midtown Toronto. A male caller, claiming to be a photographer, asked her to meet him at the University of Toronto's Varsity Stadium where, he said, he would be taking publicity photos of her and her teammates. Alison, a member of the Tom Longboat Roadrunners, was to participate in an international track-and-field meet in Plainfield, New Jersey, on 1 August, exactly a week later. She phoned her mother, Lesley, at work and got permission to attend the session (the same man had called 11 days earlier, while Alison had been at summer camp, asking for her). She then left to keep the appointment, leaving word with the family housekeeper. When she failed to return home by six p.m., Peter and Lesley Parrott inquired among their neighbours, none of whom had seen her; they then called police.

Alison was found dead two evenings later in a densely-wooded area of Kings Mill Park, on the Humber River just below the Old Mill subway station: she had been raped and strangled.

Almost exactly a decade after Parrott's murder, Francis Carl Roy was arrested for the crime on July 31, 1996. Roy was an avid runner with a keen interest in photography. He also had a long criminal record which included such offenses as burglary, petty theft, fraud, assault and rape. At the time of Alison's death, Roy had been on parole after serving only two and a half years of an 11-year sentence for the rapes of two teenaged girls, 19 and 14 years old. DNA evidence found in Alison's body linked him conclusively to Alison's death.

I use this as an example of a highly organized offender who strangles. Roy’s planning for this abduction was… extensive.

Other notable, organized offenders who strangled their victims: Russell Williams, Dennis Rader, Albert De Salvo…

Now, when we look at the Jessop crime scene, a different personality seems to present itself. This looks like an unorganized offender to me. The use of the knife... The almost random stabbing... The attempt at decapitation (I say attempt because of conflicting information). The blunt-force trauma to the head. It looks to me like this was a killer who didn’t know what he was doing. Someone who was almost desperate to end this child’s life. Someone who hadn’t thought that far ahead in terms of how to do it easily and without mess.

So an offender who is lurking around in the cemetery and working out the perfect plan to abduct Christine (and wasn’t it perfect?) is easy to imagine. It’s just hard to reconcile that with the crime scene – because, if the killer was so meticulous a planner… why didn’t he have a better plan for “disposal”. Sorry if that sounds harsh.

Compare the Jessop case to the Victoria Stafford case. Michael Rafferty and Terry-Lynne McClintic seemed to be organized in a fashion, but really, if you followed that case, you’ll see that they were improvisers and not organized at all. McClintic invented a story about a puppy right on the spot to lured away Victoria. Rafferty drove them to a place he knew would be secluded and private for rape and murder (a farmer’s field in the middle of nowhere). They stopped at a Home Depot in Guelph to purchase the murder weapon because they weren’t organized enough to even bring one, and neither one of them was confident enough to even think of strangulation. In the end Victoria met her end in a farmer’s field in a frenzy of hammer swings. Horrible, horrible stuff…

I’m probably being redundant, but I’m suggesting that Christine’s killer was more like Rafftery/McClintic or Anthony Stockelman (Katie Collman case) in that her abduction was more of an opportunity and not well thought out. Someone who had lost control of the situation and was just damned lucky.
 
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