CANADA Canada - Sharin Morningstar Keenan, 9, Toronto, 23 Jan 1983

[Chorley8]

From what I've managed to determine, this guy Robert James Miller is most likely a distant relative of the artist Charles Marion Russell (Charles Marion Russell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) and Dennis Melvin Howe might just be a distant relative as well. There is lots to link the two if one searches. Something connects them for sure and for some reason, this guy (Robert Miller) wants the connection to be known. Maybe they are cousins???

moo

Can you say any more about this not sure I follow (about being related) but I am interested.

Also I see on the National Post comments someone is asking why it is taking so long for the prints to come back? Anyone have an opinion on that?

 

[Chorley8]

Most recent comment on National Post page is from Miller himself giving info to counter the DMH claim. Interesting.

See link on post 115

 

[Danaya]

Also I see on the National Post comments someone is asking why it is taking so long for the prints to come back? Anyone have an opinion on that?

They probably did come back, but it's not him and they have nothing to report.

 

[dotr]

They probably did come back, but it's not him and they have nothing to report.

Imo, the amazing front page article is an excellent reminder that the victims are not forgotten and neither are the perps. on ' most wanted 'lists. LE showed open-mindedness in this unusual case.

If nothing else,we might learn a bit more about DMH.

 

[Chorley8]

I wonder why they don't take those clothes he said Tommy Ross/Dennis Howe left at his art gallery?

At this late date it would hardly lead to Howe......but if it does have his DNA it would show that he was in the States at whatever time it was he said that was he was working there.

I remember on another site he said among the clothes there were women's jogging shorts with blood on them?

(Hope I am remembering this correctly)

 

[Pink Panther]

After such a sensationalistic article on the front page, here's hoping the NP will have the cajones to follow up and provide an update soon.

moo

 

[Chorley8]

Interesting comments and diverse opinion including a couple of people who have first hand knowledge of him, have been in his store etc. google Metafilter Sharin Keenan

 

[dotr]

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/D...er+David+Ridgen+gets+ready/8627346/story.html

"OTTAWA — Hunting murderers has led award-winning filmmaker David Ridgen, a specialist in solving cold cases, to develop a fascination for the cicada, the noisiest bug in our woods and the one with the strangest life cycle.

The 44-year-old Arnprior native sat across a lunch table in his hometown last week and wrestled with words as he tried to explain the connection. There were long silences. He’s a man comfortable in the world of imagination, and bonds can be formed there. During one such lull he was asked if he felt haunted by some of the victims. That led to a longer silence which he broke by wiping his eyes, and saying: “Sorry.”






snip

"Ridgen started making a career of cold cases, and another of his successes resulted in a killer facing justice for the 1993 killing of Christine Harron, 15, of Hanover, Ont. His work has pinpointed the man responsible for the 1983 death of nine-year-old Sharin’ Morningstar Keenan of Toronto. Ridgen is convinced that man is alive and hiding, possibly in Alaska.

In 2010, Ridgen was again on awards lists for the Morningstar film"

 

[Chorley8]

Thanks Dotr interesting to note that this article at least (I had never heard of this case, Harron) contradicts what Ridgen says in the article you linked to.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/05/18/christine-harron-hanover.html

It says Ridgen interviewed him after the confession and he in fact denied the crime on Ridgen's show.

Why Alaska? Is there something he knows? Why not tell us? Why does he think he is alive has he heard something? Why does everyone seem either certain he is dead or certain he is alive? I don't see how we can know.

Ridgen's film opens (!)with Miller's bounty hunter story (!) recounted by Sharin's Mom: she says "long time ago someone told me that the bounty hunter's had killed him". WHO told her?!!

The Ridgen film is very polished almost weirdly so. I wonder why only her Mom appears no friend's of Sharin's teachers, other members of Sharin's family?

Sharin's artwork is worth looking at closely. If you freeze the images in the Ridgen video.

 

[musicaljoke]

For the technically minded: would a 1950s era fridge stop a human body decomposing for 8 days? The police notice nothing until Lawrie opens the fridge. I have read that her body was "icy" and that the autopsy had to be delayed. A question again: how is that possible in an old fridge? .

Yes, those old fridges were built like tanks and could certainly freeze a human body. You simply needed to turn up the dial.

I had one for many years. It would freeze everything solid with the dial turned up only half way. :/

 

[dotr]

Yes, those old fridges were built like tanks and could certainly freeze a human body. You simply needed to turn up the dial.

I had one for many years. It would freeze everything solid with the dial turned up only half way. :/

Thanks for that info.
Wondering if DMH used the fridge to buy time to flee, or if it was out of some kind of consideration for the other roomers or the landlord?
Did he want to shock the first responders, or make a difficult job easier?
Did he want to "freeze" the moment, or preserve SMK for her parent's sake? Could it be a nasty ode to the father's freezer food business and the small role S had in the commercial advertising it?

 

[Chorley8]

Thanks for info on fridge. That simplifies things if true. But then if frozen as you suggest wouldn't Lawrie have encountered a different looking victim than the one he always describes as in "Sharin moved a bit in there" and "how shiny her hair was" and also in one article her hair suddenly flopped out when he examined the fridge more. But what do I know luckily I have never had this horrific experience.

Dotr brilliant I hadn't connected freeze dried and fridge and maybe interest in the intense cold. Stories about how he could live outside in Regina's coldest nights which would be at least 40 blow zero C. also ideal job lumber camp at times Haines said they looked for him as far away as Russia in lumber camps and Ridgen thinks Alaska.

Fetish for cold? Deliberate part of the crime?

 

[Chorley8]

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix picked up the Tommy Ross etc. story two days ago their headline calls it a 'strange breakthrough". Not sure if they were lazy and just used the NP article or inquired at all whether they were still investigating......

 

[dotr]

The Saskatoon Star Phoenix picked up the Tommy Ross etc. story two days ago their headline calls it a 'strange breakthrough". Not sure if they were lazy and just used the NP article or inquired at all whether they were still investigating......

Considered posting link when it came out, but it was the NP article again.

 

[Chorley8]

Worth checking the Saskatoon Star Phoenix article for the comments one by Miller where he talks about his upcoming school reunion and names the schools he went to in Boise.

Seems concerned that someone will assassinate him (as happened to Tommy Ross according to his account).

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/news/Strange+breakthrough+year+murder+case/8747585/story.html

There is a James Miller class of 1963 at Borah High School in Boise which is who he says he is. There is a site where they offer to reprint year books for 100 dollars there are tiny samples of the pics though you can't make anyone out - but it would appear the one page that links to Miller is a group photo not a class photo possibly something military or quasi military which would fit with his story of having gone off to join the marines around that time.

 

[Dedpanman]

Hey, y'all. Noticed the discussion here and thought I'd post this article from the Toronto Star from way back in Jan. 2000.

Just for general interest... and the evidence therein that someone can stay "underground" for a long time... even with serious medical issues.

See attached.
Hope it's not too hard to read - I may have shrunk it a tad too small.

 

[dotr]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/1999/09/30/exhume990930.html
1999
"Records say the man buried in the grave they are exhuming is Peter Steven Sanderson, but the Sudbury force is convinced the remains are those of Howe, the man wanted for Sharin's murder.

Peter Steven Sanderson is still alive in Winnipeg. Sgt. Leo Thibault of the Sudbury Regional Police says they first learned of the connection between the living Sanderson and the missing murder suspect in 1996.

"It was as a result of a person in Winnipeg applying for unemployment insurance benefits" says Thibault. "The form was denied because they advised him that they had paid out death benefits for a person under that name and under the same social insurance number in Sudbury back in 1988."

The Winnipeg Sanderson had his identification stolen during a 1985 break-in and reported the incident to the local police. It took years for related information posted by the Sudbury force to filter through the police net"

 

[dotr]

Hey, y'all. Noticed the discussion here and thought I'd post this article from the Toronto Star from way back in Jan. 2000.

Just for general interest... and the evidence therein that someone can stay "underground" for a long time... even with serious medical issues.

See attached.
Hope it's not too hard to read - I may have shrunk it a tad too small.

Thanks for posting this Dedpanman, So it seems this mystery man is missing half of his right index finger, has a unique feather tattoo, could he be an old cell pal of DMH from Winnipeg, or could he have traded his own id to DMH to possibly help him to get across the border?

 

[Chorley8]

To make sure we stay as confused as possible LOL: am older man disappeared from a lodge in Alaska in 2009 John Melvin Wipert as of this year some bloggers have been suggesting he is DMH so the man with the thousand faces!

I don't think Wipert is Howe (google his name and you will find info) though his appearance and living status are way closer to what LE had had in mind for Howe.

 

[Sillybilly]

putting Sharin in the fridge in your own rented room isn't exactly brilliant

<rsbm>

I don't necessarily put that down to stupidity ... one article said the room was neat as a pin. He'd skipped, left the room neat, but Sharin's body in the fridge. He apparently wasn't a slob who left everything in disarray, so I suspect that act was intended for shock value / taunting.