Bleeding behind the badge

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The Arlington Street Foodfare, at which Jeff Giles worked. He was shot at point-black range following a heist.

The inspector in the police dispatch centre paged me early in the evening and told me that a grocery-story clerk  had been shot and seriously wounded during a robbery.

It was between Christmas and New Year's Eve 1997, and the call did not come as a surprise. Street-gang members were stealing vans, arming themselves with sawed-off shotguns and nailing small businesses. The loot didn't amount to much. Cigarettes and petty cash, mostly.

Jeff Giles was the wounded clerk, and he'd been mercilessly, even casually shot at point-blank range with one of those sawed-offs just outside the Arlington Street Foodfare following the heist that netted the usual change and smokes. The three robbers and a getaway driver took off in a stolen minivan. Jeff was rushed to hospital.

We assembled our squad and headed to work.

The van was found abandoned a few blocks away. The robbers had bolted in different directions.

There are no perfect crimes and seldom perfect investigations. This case was no different, with a slip or two in the early hours that should not have been made. Police work isn't mechanical. It's a human profession, so when mistakes occur or judgments are bad, the trick is to learn and move on.

Some aspects did go very well in those early hours. Const. Liz Luke and her K-9 partner Art were working. They arrived at the abandoned van within minutes and in short order were onto a scent. Down busy streets, across lanes and through yards, Luke and Art worked their magic tracking at least one of the thugs. It's a tough, no-guarantee job. The trail was lost and nobody caught that night, but far along the scented track, there was an unopened pack of smokes in the snow.

That package was the key to the case. Forensic expert Const. Mark O'Rourke would painstakingly examine the package in ways that bear no resemblance to the work glamorized on CSI.

Days passed. Investigators followed leads, interviewed suspects. A new year arrived. Jeff died. With the golden hours of investigation behind us, we wondered if any early misstep had caused irreparable damage.

We decided to continue working through the weekend, chipping away at the pages-long to-do list. Late Friday evening, O'Rourke paged me. He'd pulled a print off the cigarette pack. It belonged to Ryan Starr, a gangster well known to police.

O'Rourke spread a little icing on the cake when he found another print on the smokes that he matched to a store employee. Other inquiries left no doubt that the cigarette pack was part of the stolen loot.

Suddenly, there was new focus, new energy. Over the next few days, the case was assembled and the focus turned to finding Starr who, it turned out, had pulled the trigger.

A detective team went to a house looking for information, but found Starr, taking a shower. He's been in custody ever since.

Two others were convicted in the killing -- some small comfort to the family of the young man who had been working to save money for school, but a big relief to the investigating team. Open files mean self-doubt and second-guessing would only be made worse if analysis had revealed that any of those early slips were part of the failure.

Winnipeg being what it is, I run into Jeff's mom, Lorraine, from time to time. We usually talk for a few minutes. She puts on a brave face. But I wonder how she can stand it. I wonder more about how she and her husband Greg and son David would be if the case were still open.

Because they don't all get solved.

"ö "ö "ö

Ron Campbell has been retired for 16 years. On Oct. 24, 1975, he was a Fort Garry detective working the day shift. His memory is remarkably clear for what should have been an unremarkable day. He and his partner, Bob Biggs, were assigned routine follow-up stuff that boringly defines a lot of detective work. He often thinks about that day; just a couple of cops driving along Pembina Highway at lunchtime.

As they racked up mileage on their unmarked car, across the river in St. Vital, Donna Connon's life was being snuffed out.

Donna was married, only 27 years old, with a wide range of friends and equally wide range of interests. She was always on the go, had her fingers in a lot of pies and even wrote a column or two for the Free Press.

While Donna should have been getting ready for a university class, someone was tying her up, gagging her and forcing her into the bathroom of her Blue Spruce Crescent home. She was thrown into the tub, and her head was bludgeoned with a hammer. Tiles were smashed in the fury. Blood splattered and dripped down the walls.

A neighbour saw a possible suspect who would now be about 65 years old.

Campbell later went to the morgue to identify the body. Who better for that job? Donna was his cousin, more of a sister, really.

Donna's father was an air force man, stationed in Gimli in the 1950s and Campbell's family regularly made the drive to visit. In the early 60s, Donna's family fell apart, and suddenly she and her mom, Ellen, were facing tough times.

About then Campbell's father died unexpectedly. He and his mother found themselves in dire straits, too. The two moms pooled their resources, and the four of them moved in together into the upper half of a duplex on Talbot Avenue. They lived there for years.

Campbell wonders about fate and what may have changed if he'd only dropped by that day.

Thirty-five years have passed and the case remains unsolved. The murder has never strayed far from his mind. He remembers helping to clean the house and how he had hoped for a flawless investigation.

He wonders if the case would still be open if the murder scene had the benefit of today's technology. The training and expertise of contemporary forensic experts far exceeds those from 30-plus years ago. He wonders why anyone bothered with a skimpy $1,000 reward.

He suspects he may carry an extra burden because he was a police officer, fully armed, plugging away at unimportant files at the very instant Donna was staring at death and the devil just a mile away. He's troubled, maybe, that as a cop he could never bring the answers his Aunt Ellen needed before she descended into an Alzheimer's prison and died.

Justice, more than vengeance, is on his radar and prison for his cousin's killer is secondary. His thoughts are hopelessly pulled to the horror, unable to understand the why of it all. Why her? Why Donna? Why the extreme? He's haunted by the thought of her "dying with the fear that she must have had in her heart." Tied up, helpless and at the mercy of a maniac with a hammer.

Campbell knows the file well and refuses to believe that there isn't someone in the know. Just last week, like many others across the country, he perked up with the news of the capture of a military man who is being characterized as a potential serial killer. But a quick calculation determined the charged soldier would have been only 11 years old when Donna was killed.

"ö "ö "ö

Loren Schinkel's been around the block more than a few times. He may be best known as the no-nonsense head of the Winnipeg Police Association, a job he held for multiple terms before taking a position with the province.

He also spent more than a decade investigating big cases.

Years ago, Schinkel promised himself that he would never abandon his duty to be the voice of the victim and that he'd do all in his power to find the evidence needed for a jury to properly visualize a murder victim's last moments.

Schinkel missed Christmas in 1988. He and his partner, Ed Paulishyn, were working the Christine Jack file. A devoted mother, loving daughter and dear friend to so many had vanished from the face of the Earth. Schinkel failed like the rest of us who worked the case because we never found her.

Christine had been reported missing on Dec. 17 by her husband, former Winnipeg Blue Bomber Brian Jack, after she supposedly took off in the family's yellow Chevrolet Blazer. From the outset it seemed fairly clear that she was not missing at all, that she'd been murdered.

Christine's marriage was in trouble, but she had decided to hold off separating until after Christmas. Perhaps for the sake of her husband, but more likely for her two small children, Adam and Kairsten.

While Jack stuck to his story that Christine had left in the vehicle never returned, an intense investigation offered something quite different.

Witnesses were found in Ste. Anne, where the bush begins and goes on forever and where finding anything would require a Herculean effort and a ton of luck. They identified a nervous Jack and the Blazer (with mechanical difficulties and in need of a tow) in the late evening at the small town's bar at the very time Christine and the Blazer had supposedly left for parts unknown.

The investigation heated up, but with no sign of Christine or the Blazer. Not until Jack himself -- using a phony name -- called the police, at 5:13 p.m. on Dec. 23, reporting the vehicle's whereabouts, at the Salisbury House at Fermor and St. Anne's Road.

Forensic officers found blood on the family couch and more hiding deep in the stuffing, some of which had been pulled out and thrown away. More blood was found in the cargo area of the recovered Blazer that Crown attorney Jack Montgomery later labelled a "canary-yellow hearse" used to deliver Christine "to her final resting place."

Forensics, documents and evidence from an extensive list of witnesses led to Jack being charged with Christine's murder.

Schinkel lived up to his pledge and spoke for Christine throughout the investigation and trial. And he gave his unending support to her parents, Stephan and Veletei Reiter, who didn't deserve what justice would ultimately serve up.

The Reiters are lovely people from Westfield, N.J. They leaned on Schinkel's half-mile-wide shoulders while he shepherded them through the unexplainable for nine years. Three trials and three appeals were heard before a final word from the Supreme Court of Canada in 1997.

The sterile outcome can still stun anyone with an ounce of common sense.

Judicial errors had led to the appeals, including the last one. The high court's final word was that a new trial was in order, but in a split decision, it agreed with Jack, who argued that he'd been through enough and he just wanted the whole thing to end.

And that was it. The O.J.-like case ended, and Jack walked away. The Reiters were devastated. Prosecutor Montgomery later wrote that he "wanted to vomit."

And Schinkel's family took stock of the toll the process had taken on him.

Anyone who knows Schinkel knows he's all business. His investment in this case was great, his dedication to the Reiters unquestioned. His pursuit of a just outcome was strong and sure. He had very good reason to be confident in his investigation.

His family was witness to the price he paid -- the anguish and disappointment -- after nine years of work and what many see as a gross wrong that can never be fixed.

He worked many other cases before, during and after the Jack case, but it's clear that after more than 20 years, this case still gnaws at his insides. He talks about it like it was yesterday and is frustrated that he's never been able to deliver some semblance of closure to a still-grieving family who sorely miss their mother, daughter and friend.

He continues his valued relationship with the Reiters despite the vast distance that separate them. They even visit at his cottage.

In spite of it all, Schinkel's enthusiasm for life is as strong as ever.

"ö "ö "ö

Jim Thiessen is a whiter-than-white-blond, green-eyed Mennonite who spent a couple of years working with Schinkel. He went on to head the Homicide Unit until his retirement three years ago.

Quick with a laugh, Thiessen's serious side is not to be understated. One of his fortes is an uncanny knack at bringing people of all races -- even those with an ingrained suspicion of the police -- on board in the spirit of co-operation and to seek a common goal.

In one case, he met with the family of a victim whose life ended in extreme violence. Shock of the news mixed with a deep distrust of law enforcement brought out the family's hostility, and it was aimed at Thiessen. He didn't give up and met with the family on several occasions, often on his own time. It was a factor in solving that murder. And Thiessen was a big factor in that family's coming to terms with the harsh realities of murder. They honoured him in the obituary that appeared in the pages of this paper.

Thiessen has never been a good sleeper, a problem that's been made worse by cases that remain unsolved. He was in charge of the still-unsolved, 2003 murder of Nicolle Hands. It troubles him to this day.

The killer was sloppy. There was physical evidence in and outside of her apartment where she was stabbed. There were people around.

Like Campbell, who strongly believes there must be someone who knows something about his cousin's case, Thiessen is absolutely convinced that somebody knows about Nicolle.

This case bothers Thiessen more than some others and that may run contrary to what some people may think. Nicolle was aboriginal. And she had her demons. Sometimes she was a working girl, and she had addictions. But Thiessen always looked beyond that to the goodness that transcended her lifestyle.

Nicolle's three perfect children were just down the hall when their mother was murdered. Today they are doing remarkably well. Her mother, Eleanor, maintains regular contact with Thiessen (even in retirement) hoping to hear that there's been progress or a break in the case and sometimes just to remind him to keep pushing his former colleagues so that they never quit looking for the killer.

Thiessen knows the case should have been solved. But the pieces just didn't line up.

That knowledge is his demon.

The file should fall in with the joint Winnipeg-RCMP task force examining murdered and missing Manitoba women. Thiessen's not alone in his hope that it can find the conduit -- an elusive witness, a speck of DNA -- that will lead to wrapping up this case. In the meantime, he racks his brain.

These cases are certainly not the only ones that haunt detectives. There are more in the archives, and the future will deliver more as well.

A homicide investigation is a house of cards with a foundation based on technicalities. Taking on a murder file is a huge personal investment. It's soul-stealing work where there's only one way to win and a million ways to lose. It's all or nothing in a world where we're told that principle defines justice but legalese can trump truth.

The stakes are high. For a cop, whose integrity and reputation are fair targets in the courtroom smear game, being victorious means someone goes to jail -- maybe for life. Coming up short means there is nothing to offer damaged families looking for the hard answers they need to move forward.

Schinkel knows his work meant he missed a lot of "the little things." Today he views family celebrations and his son's birthday through a different lens. And he's convinced that the price investigators pay for their prolonged dealings with the black hearts and dregs of this world are underestimated by many, including some of those who have occupied top spots in previous police regimes.

Perhaps his view is jaded. Maybe not. Given the opportunity he'd never take up that kind of work again.

But like most detectives, he wouldn't have missed it for the world.

rm112800@hotmail.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 27, 2010 H1