Pod Insights Canadian True Crime The Murder of Christine Jessop [1] About this episode [Part 1 of 2] The brutal murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop in 1984 shattered her family’s tiny Ontario community. When police arrested her quiet neighbour Guy Paul Morin, the case spiralled into a circus of trials, appeals and outrage, leading to one of Canada’s most notorious wrongful convictions. When the real killer was found in 2020, the memory of the little girl at the centre of the case had been overshadowed by the spectacle.
Additional content warning: this is about the murder and sexual assault of a child. Minimal graphic details will be given. Please take care when listening.
The Christine Jessop Story https://www.crave.ca/en/series/the-christine-jessop-story-58528 is a new documentary series on Crave (our series is not sponsored). For the first time, Christine’s family gives their unfiltered truth about the case that captivated Canada. It’s a story of corrupt policing, revolutionary forensics, and a family forced to go through the unthinkable.
Look out for early, ad-free release on CTC premium feeds available on Amazon Music https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fbe63977-5737-4910-a067-1745b99fae36/canadian-true-crime (included with Prime), Apple Podcasts https://apple.co/3LZBCxa, Patreon https://www.patreon.com/canadiantruecrimeand Supercast https://canadiantruecrime.supercast.com/.
Canadian True Crime donates monthly to those facing injustice. This month we’ve donated to the Sexual Assault Centre of Kingston, who are supporting 28 victim-complainants https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/michael-haaima-sexual-assault-trial-kingston-1.7547033involved in the ongoing sex trafficking trial of Michael Haaima https://www.thewhig.com/news/local-news/trial-of-alleged-sexual-predator-haaima-resumes-with-witness-testifying-about-choking-call-to-police of Kingston. Donate here https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/sexual-assault-crisis-centre-kingston-inc/ and note “Haaima” in the message box.
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1:00 Speaker 01 At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans, and their spouses get automatic Milo's Rewards Silver Status benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honor and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms, and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.
1:31 Speaker 02 Canadian True Crime is a completely independent production, funded mainly through advertising. You can listen to Canadian True Crime ad-free and early on Amazon Music, included with Prime, Apple Podcasts, Patreon, and Supercast. The podcast often has disturbing content and coarse language. It's not for everyone.
1:48 Speaker 03 An additional content warning. This case centers around the murder and sexual assault of a child. While there are no graphic details about the assault, you will hear some details about the autopsy that might be difficult to hear. Please take care when listening.
2:13 Speaker 03 Hi there, I hope you're well. Since I started Canadian true crime, there have been a few cases that listeners never stop asking about. One name comes up again and again: Guy Paul Morin. His wrongful conviction captivated the nation for decades, becoming one of the most high-profile miscarriages of justice in Canadian history. In 1985, police charged him with the abduction and murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop, his neighbour in a small rural village north of Toronto. For the Jessop family devastated by their loss, the arrest seemed like the first step towards justice. But what followed was a media circus.
2:57 Speaker 03 Headlines twisted facts, speculation became truth, and both families, the grieving Jessop and the accused Morans, were pulled into years of pain and public scrutiny. Eventually, fresh evidence surfaced that proved what Guy Paul Morin had always said: he was innocent. His harrowing story of resilience in the face of decades of injustice exposed deep flaws in our justice system and helped spark meaningful reforms. But Moran's exoneration laid bare a terrifying truth: the real killer was still out there somewhere. The police had been so certain they had their man
3:40 Speaker 03 that they neglected to look closely at anyone else. The murder of Christine Jessop became one of Canada's most haunting cold cases. The Jessop family was left waiting, wondering and hoping for a breakthrough that seemed less likely with each passing year. They had to wait a long time, but eventually, the same DNA that exonerated Guy Paul Morin would be matched to the real killer. After thirty-six years, the case that had haunted Christine Jessop's family and the nation was solved. I followed these developments, so when I recently learned that Christine's brother
4:22 Speaker 03 Kenneth and mother Janet had taken part in a new documentary series, I scrambled to watch it. I found it interesting that the Christine Jessop story is the first time they've actually told their full, unfiltered truth. They did give a few cautious interviews over the years, but they say they were too scared to speak openly about what was really happening behind the scenes. The Christine Jessop story stands as a kind of final word on the family's legacy, because Christine's parents passed away in recent years, and only her older brother Kenny remains. It was his moment to speak out about his own heartbreak too, and it's gut-wrenching.
5:06 Speaker 03 As they grieve the unbearable loss of Christine, their lives became a nightmare beyond their comprehension, as they were also forced to go through the unthinkable thanks to sensational and false media narratives. The community was shattered, and their family torn apart, turned into targets of suspicion and judgment. And lost in all the sensational headlines and outrage and speculation and the rollercoaster of legal battles is little Christine Jessop. She was small but fierce, like a little pixie, according to her mother Janet.
5:44 Speaker 03 She loved animals and kept many pets, including the family beagle Freckles, her constant companion. Bright-eyed and independent, Christine was known for her quick smile and big personality.
6:23 Speaker 03 The year was 1984 and it all began on a completely ordinary autumn afternoon in Queenstown, Ontario, a tiny farming community about an hour north of Toronto. It was the kind of place where kids rode their bikes until the streetlights came on and neighbours all knew each other by name.
6:46 Speaker 03 In this quiet corner of the world, lived nine-year-old Christine Jessop. Christine loved sports. She also adored her big brother Kenneth, who was 14. Kenny remembers teaching her how to catch and throw a baseball. He also caught the little pixie sneaking into his room to steal his hockey jerseys. Bob and Janet Jessop originally lived in Toronto, where they adopted Kenny as their first child. Five years after that, Janet discovered she was pregnant, a surprise that delighted the whole family. But Bob made some poor financial decisions that cost them their house.
7:28 Speaker 03 Janet's father stepped in and bought them a farmhouse up in Queenstown for a fresh start. But about a year later, Bob's financial troubles caught up with him again. He was convicted of fraud for defrauding a relative of money and sentenced to 18 months in the old Toronto Metro West Detention Centre. This left Janet on her own with two kids.
7:54 Speaker 03 The day Christine disappeared was Wednesday, October 3rd of 1984. That day, Janet had to take Kenny to Toronto for a dentist appointment and decided to stop off at the prison for a visit. Kenny had won a medal in a baseball competition and wanted to show his father. By this point, it had been about three weeks since Bob Jessop began his prison sentence and Christine was desperate to visit her dad as well. But Janet felt she was too young to see her father in that setting, so she broke it to Christine that she couldn't come this time. Christine was told to go to school and catch the bus home like usual.
8:37 Speaker 03 And when she got home, the house would be empty. But Janet and Kenny wouldn't be far away. They'd be home within twenty minutes, Janet estimated. It was a short period of time for the nine-year-old to be home alone and she was always responsible. For Janet, there were no worries. But little Christine was not happy. She made a huge fuss. She was a daddy's girl and she wanted to go and see her dad. And she'd just gotten a new recorder at school, she wanted to show him. Christine chucked a little bit of a tantrum that morning. Exhausted, Janet phoned her friend Heather Hoover. Their husbands worked together in Toronto.
9:20 Speaker 03 The Hoovers lived about fifty kilometres from Queensville, near the Toronto Zoo. But the families were close. Janet and the kids had visited for dinner just two days earlier. She needed all the support she could get while Bob was in prison. That morning, when Janet called her friend to check in, Heather could hear little Christine having a tantrum in the background, insisting it wasn't fair that Kenny was allowed to go visit their father and she wasn't. Eventually, she had to accept she wasn't going to win this one. Christine got on the bus and went to school, and Janet and Ken drove down to Toronto to see Bob Jessop in jail, and then a dentist appointment on the way back.
10:06 Speaker 03 When they arrived home, Christine wasn't there, but her bike was. And it had been thrown on the ground, which she would never do because she took a lot of pride in her bike. She always put the stand down. Her bag from school was there and so was her jacket, hung on a high hook that the nine-year-old wouldn't have been able to reach. And freckles, their beagle, seemed nervous and jittery. But at the time, Janet didn't think too much of it. It was 1984 and the kids were free-range, allowed to play outside as long as they were home by dark. Christine was probably off showing her recorder to someone.
10:55 Speaker 03 By 5pm, Christine still hadn't returned home, so Janet went to the park to look for her. She wasn't there. Janet walked through the nearby cemetery calling her daughter's name, then began phoning Christine's friends. No one had seen her. One of those calls was to Christine's close friend Lesley, who was also confused and concerned. Lesley explained that earlier that day at school, she and Christine had made plans to meet at the park after class and bring their dolls. Lesley had waited, but Christine never showed up. Across from that park was a small corner store.
11:38 Speaker 03 Janet went in there to ask about Christine. The attendant had seen her at about 4pm, the same time she was supposed to meet her friend Lesley. The attendant said Christine bought a pack of gum and waited outside, holding the new recorder she'd gotten at school that day, the one she was desperate to show her father. This was the last reported sighting of Christine Jessop. Janet was concerned, but it wasn't dark outside yet, so she hoped Christine was just out playing somewhere, or maybe she'd gone to a neighbour's place. But sunset was fast approaching,
12:20 Speaker 03 and she started to worry that maybe Christine had been injured and needed their help. So Janet and some others started going door to door. Queensville was, and is, a really small place. The population, even today, is less than 400, and everyone knew everyone, but no one she spoke to had seen Christine.
12:47 Speaker 03 As the sun began to set and the streetlights came on, concern turned to fear. Christine wasn't the type to run away or wander off, and even if she did, she always followed the rules. Janet called York Regional Police and the official search began. The local force was small and unprepared for a case like this. They didn't think to seal off the Jessop home as a possible crime scene or protect potential evidence. Officers came and went from the home freely, joined by friends, neighbours and other well-meaning volunteers.
13:27 Speaker 03 Police set up a mobile command post and launched a large-scale search, using helicopters to scour the area from above. Christine was described as being a little over four and a half feet tall. She was petite with long, dark blonde hair, brown eyes with freckles scattered under them, and a crooked front tooth. She was last seen wearing a blue sweater with a zipper and blue corduroy pants, and she was carrying a cream-coloured recorder. In any missing child case, the first 24 hours are critical. All possibilities were on the table. Had Christine fallen into an old well?
14:09 Speaker 03 Could she have wandered into one of the nearby cornfields and gotten lost? Some even wondered if she might have been trapped somewhere on the local mushroom farm. Hundreds of people joined the search, combing more than 10 square miles of farmland and woodlots with tracking dogs, horses, motorbikes and even ultralight planes, according to The Toronto Star. At the local fire hall, community members kept the search teams fed with sandwiches and coffee, but the mood in Queenstown was one of anxiety, fear and disbelief. No one could imagine something like this happening in their town. And paranoia was starting to set in.
14:53 Speaker 03 The press spoke to several local residents who said they were looking inward to their own families and would not be letting their children out of sight. The police had started asking Janet about people she knew. Family members, close friends, babysitters, anyone who might have been allowed to enter their house while no one was home. By this point, Janet's friend Heather Hoover had driven up from Toronto to be there for Janet and help with the search. She confirmed to the police that the two families were close. On the day Christine went missing, Heather said she and her husband were both working. It was similar stories for other friends of the family, dead end leads.
15:38 Speaker 03 Bob Jessop was quoted in one article from prison, pleading for whoever took his daughter to bring her back safely. He said, quote, "I don't think she would have run away. She was upset the first week I was in here, but according to her mother, she had settled down. We've never been separated before in our lives. She's not the type of girl even to think of running away. If she did, she sure as hell fooled everyone in the household." The Jessop family stated that Christine had been taught never to accept a ride with a stranger, not willingly anyway. On the third day, Bob was granted bail from prison on humanitarian or compassionate grounds
16:23 Speaker 03 to help with the search. It ended up being permanent and he never returned. But after a week with about a hundred police officers investigating along with all the volunteers and constant tips with reported sightings of Christine, there were still no firm leads or evidence about what happened to her. Everyone felt very helpless and the rumor mill had started up. Someone called in a tip about a silver Datsun with a rounded roof being seen in Queensville the day of Christine's abduction. The car did not belong to a local.
17:02 Speaker 03 The police investigation focused on the theory that Christine returned home after buying the gum, and that's where she was taken, but they found no sign of physical violence at the home. Halloween came and went, 28 days with no sign of Christine. If the local kids weren't too scared to go out trick or treating, their parents would have been too scared to let them. Janet Jessop was quoted in a Toronto Star article saying that since Christine's disappearance, their lives had become a hell on earth. Quote, "An emptiness that your brain never turns off.
17:42 Speaker 03 You can't sleep, you can't eat, nothing makes it go away." Christmas came and went as well. The Jessop family did not put a tree up. They couldn't bear to celebrate anything while Christine was missing. While her loved ones tried to hold hope that she might return safely, everyone knew deep down what the outcome was likely to be. But that New Year's Eve, everything would change.
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19:26 Speaker 01 At Lowe's, this Veterans Day and every day, military members, veterans and their spouses get automatic MyLowe's Rewards Silver Status Benefits. Plus, 10% off eligible purchases with no annual limit. It's one way we honour and give back to those who have served and still do. Learn more and verify now at Lowe's.com/military. 10% discount can't be combined with another offer. Exclusions, terms and conditions apply. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions. Details at Lowe's.com/terms. Subject to change.
20:05 Speaker 03 Three months after Christine Jessop disappeared, the search finally came to a heartbreaking end. On New Year's Eve of 1984, a man went out with his two daughters to look for their missing dog near their home in the small community of Sunderland, more than 50 kilometres east of Queensville. It was freezing cold and the ground was covered with a thick blanket of snow. As they walked along a white trail on the large wooded property, the man noticed something unusual. There was a half dug pit and beside it looked like a pile of discarded garbage. When he moved closer, the man recoiled.
20:48 Speaker 03 He realised it was a badly decomposed body, a very small one. Police quickly arrived and roped off the area. It looked as if the remains belonged to a little girl who was lying on her back with her legs in an unnatural position. She was wearing a beige turtleneck, a blue sweater and a blouse with several buttons missing. Nearby, lay her pair of blue corduroy pants, running shoes and her underwear, which was near her feet. And in the tall grass just beside the remains was a small cream coloured recorder with the name Christine Jessop written on it.
21:32 Speaker 03 Between fifteen and twenty Durham police officers searched and photographed the site before carefully transporting the remains to the coroner's office in Toronto. The next day, dental records confirmed the worst: the remains belonged to Christine Jessop, and it looked like she'd been stabbed to death.
21:58 Speaker 03 The farming area where Christine lived was in the York region of the Greater Toronto Area, and the police there would be criticised for failing to preserve the Jessop farmhouse as a potential crime scene. After the remains were found in the next region over, the investigation was officially transferred to Durham Police, who would make a series of mistakes of their own. In the days afterwards, the press descended on the immediate area where Christine's remains were found and spoke to local residents. They learned something highly distressing. A lady who lived nearby told the press that the night Christine went missing, she had
22:41 Speaker 03 heard screams of "Help me, help me" coming from a distance outside. She reported it to the local police detachment, but they didn't think anything of it. The Christine Jessop investigation was hampered by the fact it spanned two police jurisdictions. Often when this happens, it's because information hasn't been shared, but in this case, all Ontario Regional Police had received a report of a missing child in York Region. So when Durham Police, more than fifty kilometres away, received a report about screaming that same night, they did not make a connection.
23:22 Speaker 03 Three months later, when the remains were found, and the press broadcast the interview with the woman who lived close by and heard the screams, it was big news, and it really affected Christine's mother and brother.
23:37 Speaker 03 Janet and Kenny decided to go to the site. Janet desperately wanted to find out if her daughter's last words had been heard, reported, then ignored by the police. So Janet stood in the area where the remains were found, and Kenny went up to the lady's house and listened. Janet screamed, "Help me, help me." Kenny heard it from the house. He realised with horror that it probably was Christine that the woman had heard that night, and he knew his mum would be devastated. He decided he needed to spare her from the heartbreak. In the Christine Jessop's Story documentary,
24:20 Speaker 03 seeing Kenny recount this story is one of many gut-wrenching moments. He was just 14 years old. His father had been in prison when Christine disappeared, and for those first few weeks before he got out, Kenny felt like he had to step in and be the man of the house, even though he was starting to fall apart himself. Kenny decided to lie and tell his mother that from the house where he was standing, he did not hear any yelling. And when they switched positions, with Janet at the house listening out, Kenny stayed quiet when he was supposed to yell. He did not say a word,
25:03 Speaker 03 so that his mother wouldn't have to live with the knowledge that someone had heard Christine's final moments, but nothing had been done.
25:16 Speaker 03 After an emotional funeral, Christine was buried with her favourite Cabbage Patch doll, Katie Victoria. But afterwards, her brother Ken had a feeling he just couldn't shake. He felt a very strong sense that not all of Christine had gone into the ground in her casket. He was having nightmares that there was something missing. He couldn't sleep, and started asking his parents to check in with the police. They did, and the police reassured them that nothing had been missed from the crime scene. But Ken still couldn't shake that feeling, so they decided to go back to the site where Christine's remains were found, just so he could look himself.
26:01 Speaker 03 They searched around for about an hour, and just as they were about to leave, Kenny looked down. There, on the ground, was a small pile of tiny little bones. It was not a clean crime scene. When Christine’s remains were first reported, it was New Year’s Eve and it was snowing, freezing cold. The police arrived at the crime scene with coffee and Styrofoam coffee cups. They forgot to take their garbage with them when they left. This was another heartbreaking moment from the documentary, The Christine Jessop Story.
26:41 Speaker 03 Kenny, describing picking up his sister’s bones and putting them in a dirty Styrofoam cup he’d found on the ground from a crime scene that had supposedly been processed, and then having to hold that cup in the car. The family drove the bones right back to the police station, where they were reassured they were probably just from an animal. They weren’t. This series of breakthroughs would have consequences, but it didn’t shed any light on who was responsible for the murder of Christine Jessop. In desperation, the US FBI Behavioral Science Unit was contacted to see what they could make of the case.
27:26 Speaker 03 After analyzing the details of the murder, a criminal profile was put together. The FBI found that the person who killed Christine Jessop was most likely white, aged 19 to 26, high school educated, and a night person. He likely lived in the same area that her family lived in, and she likely knew him. The killer was described as intelligent and sane, and would have used some ruse to get the nine-year-old into his car without her alerting anyone with screaming or audible struggling. The FBI’s profile suggested the ruse might have had something to do with Christine
28:08 Speaker 03 being excited about the recorder she’d received at school that day, and how upset she was that she couldn’t show her father in prison. As the police were going through their files to see if anyone matched these details, the profile was publicised widely by the media. There were public pleas and rewards were offered, including one for fifty thousand dollars for information leading to an arrest. The tips came in hard and fast, and a couple of potential suspects were identified, according to a nineteen ninety-two Fifth Estate documentary by CBC called The Odd Man Out. One suspect was a seventeen-year-old named Paul,
28:51 Speaker 03 who worked at an auto shop in Newmarket, which wasn't far from Queensville where Christine vanished. Three days after she disappeared, Paul's boss noted the seventeen-year-old power washing the inside of a truck with industrial cleaner, an unusual act that made him suspicious enough to call Durham Police. The police saw no visible blood on the truck and never ordered forensic testing.
29:20 Speaker 03 Another suspect was a teenager named Mike, who worked at the Queensville Cemetery, one of Christine's favourite places to play, and one of the first places her mother looked for her. Mike was a drug user, who was already known to police for sexual incidents involving children. His probation officer contacted the police. Investigators learned that Mike's sister also suspected him, but again, the lead went nowhere. Then there was Tom, a man who came to the police's attention after his estranged wife accused him of sexually abusing a five-year-old child. She described years of violence and threats,
30:02 Speaker 03 saying he carried a knife, had a rifle, and possessed child sex abuse material. She told detectives that he sometimes drove through Queensville. The police decided to skip the investigation and go straight to a polygraph request. Tom agreed. When the operator interpreted his responses to the questions as being truthful, the detectives took that as fact and closed the lead.
30:31 Speaker 03 The investigation continued, but didn't seem to be progressing. Police visited the Jessop frequently and repeatedly asked Janet the same question: "Who around you might have done this? Who seems strange or out of place?" Eventually, Janet racked her brain and gave them four names. The fourth person on the list was a quiet young man who lived right next door.
31:03 Speaker 03 Guy Paul Morin fit the FBI profile. He was a white man, aged 24 at the time, and he lived with his parents, both retired teachers. Guy Paul was one of five siblings and the only one still living at home, and he did live in the same area as Christine. The Morans and the Jessop were next-door neighbours, separated by a driveway and a hedge. While the Morans typically stuck to themselves, the two families exchanged occasional neighbourly contact. Guy Paul had never been in trouble with the law before. He didn't drink or smoke and had no known vices.
31:46 Speaker 03 After finishing high school, he had trained in a few different trades, and at the time, he was working in Toronto, finishing furniture at a factory. Outside of work, Guy Paul kept beehives in the backyard and helped his father with projects around the house. He was also known to be a gifted musician who played a number of instruments, most notably the clarinet. So why was Guy Paul Morin on the list? He was shy and reserved, quiet and introverted. He kept to himself. He was a loner. To some, he just seemed unusual. Others decided he must be a weirdo.
32:32 Speaker 03 Christine's mother Janet couldn't help but notice when everyone in their small community was searching for Christine, their own next-door neighbour did not participate. Guy Paul said he was too busy working around the house that night. The 24-year-old also didn't attend Christine's funeral. His parents were away on vacation at the time, but Guy Paul was at home and could have attended. He would later testify he'd never actually been to a funeral before and thought you had to be invited. But to those desperate for answers about Christine Jessop, the fact that he didn't attend stood out.
33:14 Speaker 03 These days, we know that people react to situations in widely different ways. There are many documented examples of a person later identified as the killer enthusiastically joining the search, inserting themselves into the investigation, speaking to the media and mourning at the funeral. But in the mid-1980s, weird antisocial behaviour was considered highly suspicious, maybe even indicative of a guilty conscience. Two of the Durham police officers assigned to the case were veteran detectives Bernie Fitzpatrick and John Sheppard, known as Fitz and Shep.
33:56 Speaker 03 And by this point, everyone had been on high alert for months, so there was a lot of pressure on them to solve the case. When they zeroed in on Guy Paul Morin, they learned some other pieces of information that intensified their suspicion about him. The evening that Christine was first reported missing, the Moran house was one of the first to be visited by police with tracking dogs, according to a later inquiry. The police arrived at about 10.30pm to ask if the Moran family had seen Christine or noted anything unusual. While they spoke to Mrs Moran, one officer noted that Guy Paul was there as well, staring
34:39 Speaker 03 straight ahead and showing no apparent interest in the conversation. That officer noted it was a weird reaction. Mr Moran gave the police permission to search the property around their house, but would not allow them to search inside. He would later testify that their family was private, and he saw no reason to allow police into his home to search for something he could very well search for himself. This would end up having a negative reflection on both his son, Guy Paul, and his entire family. While the police searched around the house, Guy Paul hung back on the porch to answer some questions.
35:23 Speaker 03 The 24-year-old told the officers he hadn't seen Christine that day. He'd been at work at a Toronto furniture factory all day until 3:30pm, and he stopped to get some groceries on the way home. After putting the groceries away, Guy Paul said he took a nap for about an hour, then had dinner with his parents. By the time the police arrived later that evening, he'd spent several hours working on a project with his father. Meanwhile, outside, one of the officers with the dog sniffing around the property reported something. His dog Ryder had picked up Christine's scent on the exterior of the Moran family's Honda parked in the driveway.
36:09 Speaker 03 The officer later explained his process. Christine's family had given the police one of her sweaters, and he allowed Ryder to sniff it. Then, as a test, he took the dog over to Christine's bike. Ryder showed a positive reaction. The dog showed the same positive reaction when sniffing the Moran family's car next door. Christine must have been in the car. It didn't come out till later that the officer was not a trained dog handler, and Ryder was not actually a police dog. But back when the FBI profile was put together and Janet was asked for a list of suspects,
36:51 Speaker 03 this was considered yet another black mark against Guy Paul. And the police were under intense pressure to find the man who killed Christine Jessop as soon as possible. The Durham detectives Fitz and Shep made several attempts to engage Guy Paul Morin under the pretense that he was a potential witness, though internal notes would show they already viewed him as a suspect.
37:18 Speaker 03 Once his name was mentioned, the police dropped every other lead and focused entirely on him. It's called tunnel vision in policing, when they get stuck on one suspect or theory and stop seeing or considering anything that doesn't fit with it. And in a high-profile case like Christine Jessop, there was pressure coming from all sides. The Jessop's wanted answers, and their terrified local community wanted reassurance that the killer had been apprehended. To police, Guy Paul Morin seemed like their best bet. Problem was, they only had circumstantial evidence: his weird demeanor.
38:02 Speaker 03 They began surveillance on his home, determined to catch him out. At one point, they waited in the car in the driveway, determined to interrogate Guy Paul right then and there, with Christine's house in view. This was in February of 1985, almost two months after Christine's remains were found. Guy Paul agreed to talk in the police car and didn't know the conversation was being secretly recorded. He told Sheppin Fitz about a conversation he had with his father the night Christine went missing, and recounted saying, "I bet that little Christine is gone." Another black mark.
38:47 Speaker 03 The detectives asked Guy Paul a series of questions that resulted in him telling them that Christine was a "very, very innocent kid. She wasn't aware of anything bad out there." He added, "All girls are sweet and innocent, but they grow up to be corrupt." Later, Guy Paul Morin would testify that the answers he gave to those questions were more a reflection on the morality of society than about young girls in particular. His defence lawyer Clayton Ruby would argue that Moran always speaks in a peculiar way. This was no different. But to Sheppin Fitz, it was yet another black mark.
39:31 Speaker 03 But the two detectives weren't able to work the tape recorder properly, and it only recorded part of their conversation. What they claimed to be Guy Paul Morin's incriminating comments had not been recorded. Shepp and Fitz submitted their police notes and an unsigned witness statement instead. This would become a key piece of evidence at trial. The detectives had decided that Guy Paul Morin was the one responsible, but he had a pretty solid alibi.
40:07 Speaker 03 The furniture factory in Toronto that employed Guy Paul to finish furniture confirmed that he did leave work at 3:32 that day. His time card was stamped to prove it. And while it would have taken him 45 minutes to drive home to Queensville, Guy Paul told police that he didn't drive straight home that day. He had some errands to run, and stopped off at a few stores and Newmarket on the way home to get some groceries and other shopping. He also purchased a lottery ticket and might have put some gas in his car. Guy Paul's father, sister, and brother-in-law confirmed they saw him arrive home with bags of groceries between 5:00 or 5:30pm.
40:53 Speaker 03 The police were now honed in on Guy Paul Morin, but his alibi presented them with a serious timeline problem. They had concrete evidence that the school bus dropped Christine off at about 3:50pm. At around 4pm, she was seen at the corner store buying gum. Her mother Janet estimated she arrived home with Ken from their jail visit and dentist appointment at about 4:10pm. They found Christine's bike, jacket, and school bag, but no Christine. So if she was missing at that time, and Guy Paul Morin didn't arrive home from work until about an hour later or more,
41:36 Speaker 03 there was no way he could have been responsible. But the police had noticed his family were acting very secretly. They started working with a theory that Guy Paul's alibi story must have been concocted by his family, a group effort to protect one of their own. But even then, the timeline was off. His stamped time card was a solid anchor that placed him at work in Toronto until 3.32. But even if he did drive straight home to Queensville, the drive took 45 minutes, so the very earliest he could have arrived home was about 4.15pm. Five minutes after, Janet and Ken estimated they got home.
42:23 Speaker 03 Detective Shep and Fitz spent months subtly trying to persuade Janet and Ken that they must have been mistaken about what time they thought they arrived home. Eventually, they gave in. Janet and Ken changed their version of events to indicate they arrived home at 4.30 instead of 4.10. So assuming Guy Paul's alibi had been concocted and he drove straight home from work, arriving by 4.15 at the earliest, it was now plausible that he could have quickly nabbed Christine from next door and taken her somewhere before Janet and Ken arrived home. Very, very tight, but plausible.
43:12 Speaker 03 In April of 1985, just over six months after Christine Jessop disappeared, Guy Paul Morin was arrested and charged with her first degree murder. The police decided to make a show of it, alerting the press to a perp walk. People gathered to watch as Guy Paul Morin was brought in in handcuffs. He made no attempt to hide his face, and a photo published by the Toronto Star shows him looking directly at the camera, his eyes wide.
43:46 Speaker 03 The arrest happened on the 15th birthday of Christine's brother Kenny. News that their 24-year-old next-door neighbour had been charged left the Jessop family exhausted and emotionally drained, according to Bob Jessop. He told the Star, "We don't much feel like celebrating a birthday now." "The only thing that separated the two houses was a driveway and a hedge. On one side, the family of a little girl that had disappeared.
44:20 Speaker 03 On the other, the family of the man accused of murdering her."
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46:12 Speaker 03 Guy Paul Moran was placed in custody in the Whitby jail. He was denied bail. Almost six weeks later, his cellmate and another inmate in the next cell over reported to the authorities that Guy Paul had divulged some incriminating information. After negotiating benefits for themselves in exchange for the information, the two inmates offered what they had. The cellmate said that Guy Paul had burst into tears and confessed that he had "killed that little girl", the other convict overheard it from the cell next door. The pair agreed to wear a wire to see if they could get Guy Paul to confess again,
46:56 Speaker 03 and this time record it. They went in wired up, but all they managed to capture was Guy Paul crying and effectively insisting the police were trying to frame him. One of the inmates also claimed that Guy Paul told him conflicting stories about the afternoon Christine Jessop vanished. At first, according to the inmate, Guy Paul said he drove straight home from work. But then later, he said he'd gone shopping at three different grocery stores and returned home at about 5:30pm. This was consistent with what Guy Paul's family members said. They also confirmed they did their grocery shopping across three different grocery stores.
47:42 Speaker 03 But by this point, the police were side-eyeing the entire Moran family as though they were hiding something. Guy Paul would later testify that this so-called jailhouse confession was a lie. He never confessed to anything because he didn't do anything. His defence would argue that both inmates were known and self-admitted liars who were clearly trying to sweeten their own situations. One had 11 convictions for various offences related to fraud. The other had a juvenile and adult record for multiple offences involving sexual abuse of young people. They were both unsavoury characters.
48:27 Speaker 03 After Guy Paul's encounter with those two, the police sent in an undercover officer posing as a child killer to try and get Moran to confess. The officer asked him a series of questions, which included how he took out his frustrations. Guy Paul apparently made stabbing motions towards his own chest and answered, "I just red-rum the innocent." Red-rum is murder spelt backwards, a reference from the movie The Shining, which both Guy Paul and his father said they'd recently watched. He would later testify that the undercover officer asked him about his favourite movies, and he was just playing on words,
49:10 Speaker 03 being sarcastic and foolish and on high alert about what he said to anyone.
49:19 Speaker 03 The first trial was held in January of 1986 in London, Ontario, way away from Queensville, where everybody knew the situation. A forensic pathologist testified that the autopsy determined Christine had been stabbed in the chest at least five times with a very sharp cutting edge. One stab was so powerful that it fractured a rib. The degree of decomposition suggested the little girl had been murdered around the same time she went missing in October, several months earlier. By the time her remains were found, there was also evidence of animal activity. At autopsy, it was difficult to determine
50:04 Speaker 03 whether Christine had been sexually assaulted, but there was strong circumstantial evidence. Her underwear had been found near her feet, and there were blood and semen stains on it. But the science at the time couldn't do much with DNA evidence anyway. There was more so-called forensic evidence. Christine had dark blonde hair, but a dark brown hair had been found caught in the necklace she was wearing when she was murdered. Guy Paul Morin had dark hair. The police went to great lengths to get a sample of his hair to compare, sending an undercover officer to his band practice posing as a student
50:46 Speaker 03 to ask for hair samples for a science project. The court heard testimony from a forensic expert who concluded the dark hair could have come from Guy Paul Morin's head. In addition, three blonde hairs were found inside that Honda that could have come from Christine. Under cross-examination, the forensic expert witness agreed it was impossible to make any kind of conclusive determination about any of this evidence. Years later, it would be revealed that Guy Paul Morin's hair had a characteristic known as looped cuticles, something that Christine Jessop's hair did not have.
51:30 Speaker 03 The forensic expert witness did not consider this in the original examination. The court also heard about other mysterious fibres found in the Moran's Honda and inside their home that could have come from the same source as fibres found with Christine's remains, though the common source of those fibres was never located. Guy Paul Morin and his parents testified that Christine had never been inside their car or their home. Neither had her parents. And even if the hairs and fibres were a perfect match, Guy Paul's defence lawyer Clayton Ruby
52:13 Speaker 03 referred to testimony about the careless way the evidence had been handled and stored that could have resulted in cross-contamination. And of course, the two families lived next door to each other. Cross-contamination was almost certain.
52:31 Speaker 03 The court also heard about a cigarette butt, apparently found near Christine Jessop's remains that had been collected and photographed by the Durham Police Officer in charge of the crime scene, Sergeant Mikowski. This cigarette butt was considered prime evidence related to the killer. That is, until the police started zeroing in on Guy Paul Morin and learned he never smoked. The cigarette butt took the focus away from the police's prime suspect. So there was relief when one officer stated it might have been his. This meant that cigarette butt couldn't have come from some killer who wasn't Guy Paul Morin.
53:15 Speaker 03 It just belonged to a careless police officer. Later, that officer would realise the butt couldn't have been his after all, because it was found before he even arrived at the crime scene. Then, the butt mysteriously disappeared. It would also come out that Sergeant Mikowski had been keeping duplicate notebooks. The notebook referred to at trial was the one where he only wrote notes about information he believed pointed to Guy Paul Morin's guilt. Anything that did not fit with that was written in a secret second notebook that the sergeant kept to himself. Sergeant Mikowski would be charged with
53:59 Speaker 03 perjury and obstruction of justice, not just for the duplicate notebooks, but because a cigarette butt he introduced at trial and falsely claimed to have seized at the crime scene actually had nothing to do with any of it.
54:16 Speaker 03 It's a tangled web of smoke and mirrors, but the essence of it all is that the investigation lacked truth and integrity and was designed to keep Guy Paul Morin front and centre as the prime and only suspect. And ultimately, the goal was to allow Durham Police to solve the case and relieve that public pressure to find the killer.
54:44 Speaker 03 A defining moment of this trial is that halfway through, defence lawyer Clayton Ruby suddenly told the jury that Guy Paul Morin was insane. And if he did murder Christine Jessop, it was because he was in a psychotic rage and had buried the memory deep in his subconscious. A number of expert witnesses in the psychology field testified that they believed Guy Paul was seriously mentally ill and likely had schizophrenia, based on some unusual and disjointed responses he gave during clinical testing. Apparently, he told them he'd never had sex before and believed masturbation was a way to rid the body of poisons.
55:28 Speaker 03 More weird comments. The psychologists all agreed the 26-year-old lived a socially-isolated life, and they believed his father controlled him and discouraged his independence. The defence told the jury that although Guy Paul Morin maintained his innocence, he was still quite strange. So if he did kill Christine Jessop, he would not have understood what he was doing. But jurors were urged not to confuse craziness with being guilty. Quote, "Have they got the right man? Or have they just got the crazy neighbour?"
56:11 Speaker 03 The jury was given three options: guilty or not guilty of first-degree murder, or Guy Paul could be found not guilty by reason of insanity. In that case, he would be sentenced to a maximum-security psychiatric facility indefinitely. The jury deliberated for 14 hours and found Guy Paul Morin not guilty. The courtroom was stunned. The Moran family were relieved and vindicated. Guy Paul told the press that he was very happy that the system worked, that the verdict, quote, "has proven me for what I am: innocent."
56:53 Speaker 03 He described feeling sympathy for Christine's family. The Jessop family were devastated. Bob Jessop told the media, "We've lived a year and a half of hell, and now the hell goes on." And in their tiny community of Queensville, the paranoia intensified. Most people remained convinced that Guy Paul Morin killed Christine Jessop, and the not guilty verdict was a serious miscarriage of justice. They took their frustration out on the Moran family. According to a later feature for York Region by Jeremy Grimaldi, local residents put threatening notes in the Moran family's mailbox,
57:36 Speaker 03 and someone threw a bottle through their window.
57:46 Speaker 03 Behind the scenes, the police and the Crown were very embarrassed by the verdict. Despite all their efforts, the jury found reasonable doubt and couldn't convict Guy Paul Morin. The Crown announced an appeal, on the ground that the judge made fundamental errors in instructing the jury about reasonable doubt and the possible verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity. The Ontario Court of Appeal agreed and ordered a new trial. Guy Paul Morin's defence team appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada to reverse that decision and uphold the not guilty verdict. Canada's top court dismissed his appeal.
58:31 Speaker 03 There would be a second trial.
58:37 Speaker 03 At some point, the defence discovered something that the Crown never disclosed to them, that Christine's brother Kenny Jessop had found additional bones at the crime scene after it had apparently been processed by police. This revelation suggested the original autopsy might have been incomplete or mishandled. Furious, the defence applied for an order to exhume Christine's remains and conduct a second autopsy. Police and the Crown opposed the move, even urging Christine's family to fight the order. But the Jessops desperately wanted answers. They allowed the exhumation. The family would later come to believe
59:21 Speaker 03 that the only reason the authorities wanted to stop it was to keep their own mistakes and manipulations from being exposed.
59:30 Speaker 03 Christine's remains were exhumed in 1990, six years after her murder. This time, it was concluded that only about 94% of her skeleton had been recovered from the crime scene, and the bones found by Kenny Jessop did indeed belong to her. Evidently, nothing had been done after Kenny took those bones to the police station.
59:58 Speaker 03 The second autopsy also revealed major gaps in the first. The forensic pathologist in charge of this autopsy used a more involved process to get more information, and the documentary filmmakers for the Christine Jessop story managed to track her down to explain it. She describes her shock when she opened the casket and saw a very clean cabbage patch doll lying next to Christine's remains. It really brought home to her that this was a child. The forensic anthropologist explained that for this second autopsy, they decided to boil the bones until they were clean, to reexamine them again and count the stab marks.
1:00:44 Speaker 03 It sounds horrific, but this process revealed a lot of new information about what happened to Christine. The first autopsy found that she had been stabbed at least five times during a violent sexual assault that no human should have to suffer through, let alone a little girl. The conclusion of the second autopsy depicted an even more disturbing level of brutality and suffering. Christine Jessop had been stabbed more than 200 times. That number alone tells a story of a shocking level of violence.
1:01:23 Speaker 03 It would have taken time, strength, and a sustained amount of anger to inflict so many wounds, especially on a small child.
1:01:34 Speaker 03 There were deep wounds across Christine's ribs and spine, and hesitation marks suggesting that the perpetrator had paused mid-assault. Christine also had a broken nose and severe blunt trauma to her face. There was extensive neck damage as well, but the forensic anthropologist was sure that this happened after her body had been disposed of, likely by animals. This would be twisted by the Crown Prosecution and the media into a shocking headline during the second trial that simply wasn't true, but stirred up a frenzy across the country.
1:02:15 Speaker 03 There were also clear signs that Christine tried to fight back. There were defensive wounds on her hands and arms, marks of a desperate struggle against an attacker far stronger than she was. And in the end, she was overpowered.
1:02:36 Speaker 03 Guy Paul Morin's second trial was held in 1991, seven years after Christine Jessop was murdered. He hired a new legal team for a fresh defence. He was going to need it. This time, the pressure to get a guilty verdict was off the charts. The police needed it, the Crown needed it, and so did the Jessop family, after the rollercoaster they'd been through. This trial would go for nine months, the longest in Canadian history at the time.
1:03:23 Speaker 03 Thanks for listening. In part two, available in a week, you'll hear how the same flimsy evidence was presented again at the second trial, but this time backed by new witnesses who seemed to appear out of nowhere. Several shocking moments turned a weak case into a media storm, and there was dramatic testimony from Christine's brother Kenny about a sensitive issue that haunted the Jessop family for decades, something Kenny finally spoke out about as part of the Christine Jessop Story documentary.
1:03:59 Speaker 03 While Guy Paul Morin was eventually cleared and completely exonerated, the damage had been done. And it would be many more years before the real killer was finally identified. This series has been pieced together from court documents, an inquiry report, the news archives, and the Christine Jessop story. With special thanks to filmmaker and executive producer, Jo Virgo. She and her team spent years immersed in the case, working with Christine's family and becoming a kind of bridge for their perspective. It's an excellent three-part documentary encreve. Canadian True Crime donates monthly to those facing injustice.
1:04:43 Speaker 03 For the next few months, we'll be donating to the Sexual Assault Centre of Kingston, who are supporting an unprecedented 28 victim complainants involved in the ongoing sex trafficking trial, Michael Hamer of Kingston. More to come. Visit canadiantrecrime.ca and follow us on Facebook and Instagram. Audio editing was by Crosby Audio and Eric Crosby voiced the disclaimer. Our senior producer is Lindsay Eldridge. Research, writing, narration and sound design was by me and the theme songs were composed by We Talk of Dreams. I'll be back soon with part two. See you then.
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