Cleary pulled his car next to the taxi, and MacVicar quickly told his story—how he had heard the “firecracker” and seen two people run—and he pointed towards Fagan. Cleary ordered MacVicar to pull over to the back of the lot and wait until someone took his statement, then went to the door to investigate. He was approaching the building just as MacInnis came screaming out the back door, almost knocking over his fellow driver; Cyril Gillespie was still with the fallen Fagan. Gillespie backed away at the sight of MacInnis’s terror-stricken face.
“They’re still in there—I heard them!” MacInnis shouted. “There’s bodies everywhere, and they’re still in there!” MacInnis started away from the building, and the officer grabbed him, trying to calm the frightened driver and direct him to stay with Daniel MacVicar.
Then, Corporal Cleary pulled out his gun and made his way towards the door. He checked James Fagan and could hear him struggling for breath, and see the tiny bullet hole in his forehead. Cleary had to make a quick assessment of the situation. The excited driver had given him information to work with: there were other bodies, and although the driver had not seen an assailant—or assailants—he had heard sounds from the basement and was under the impression that somebody dangerous was still inside. He also knew, through Daniel MacVicar, that at least two people had run away, which could mean that the people left inside were all victims. Cleary radioed Stan Jesty to make certain that ambulances were on the way; MacVicar had said they’d been called by the taxi dispatcher, but Cleary wanted to be certain.
Next came the question of going inside. Henry Jantzen would be there any second, but Cleary still needed to decide whether or not they would go in. His first reaction was to call for Emergency Response Team backup, but that would take more than a hour—even if the team was able to fly from Halifax on a moment’s notice. The Sydney RCMP subdivision once had its own ERT, but it had been disbanded; the Halifax-based squad now handled the entire province. ERT members were trained to deal with armed assailants inside a building, but Corporal Cleary knew his first duty as a policeman was the protection of life—and there were injured people inside. Cleary decided to sweep the building alone. Grabbing the portable radio he’d taken from his car, he reported his intention. “I’m going in to see what’s in there. We have several injuries at least.” Cleary’s throat was dry as he released the transmit button and prepared to go in. Before he could move, his radio came to life with a response. “You want me in there with you?” It was Henry Jantzen. The burly, heavy-set constable was on portable radio as he ran across the parking lot to join Cleary. The corporal’s “Yes” was the last radio transmission Stan Jesty would hear from the two officers for several agonizing minutes.
The first ambulance rolled into the parking lot behind McDonald’s as Kevin Cleary and Henry Jantzen inched inside the restaurant with their guns drawn. At the same moment, Derek Wood ran out from between an Irving gas station and the Sydney Video Entertainment store on Kings Road, about a half-kilometre away from McDonald’s. He ran across the road and headed for a tiny strip mall that housed a fried-chicken franchise, a submarine sandwich shop, and Kings Convenience, a twenty-four-hour variety store with video poker machines that Wood had played a few times before. On familiar ground now, he burst through the door of Kings and ran to the counter, demanding to use the phone. The startled clerk was irritated at first—Wood had interrupted a couple purchasing cigarettes—but when he recognized the young man and saw the state he was in, he left the other customers. “There’s been a shooting at McDonald’s. Call the cops. I need to call the cops,” Wood blurted as he reached the counter.
The clerk checked the list of emergency numbers next to the phone, dialled, and handed Wood the receiver. Wood thought the clerk had made a mistake—he didn’t think he was talking to the police—but by then he was genuinely panicked and couldn’t be sure. It sounded more like the guy said “Ambulance” when he answered, not “Police.” Whoever it was, the guy said they had people on the way, so Wood hung up. He paced and lit a cigarette and worried, and finally decided he should call the police again. This time a second clerk dialled the RCMP number from memory. Whichever call connected Wood to police, it was Stan Jesty he reached. Jesty recorded the incoming call at 1:21 a.m.
“RCMP Sydney. Emergency.” Jesty’s voice was clipped; he was in the process of directing officers to the scene and was waiting to hear from Cleary and Jantzen.
Derek Wood quickly got Jesty’s attention. “Hello, yes, I just called a … like, reported fellows shooting.”
“Yes.” Jesty was listening.
“I was wondering, like, I’m fuckin’ scared shitless here, eh, ’cause I, like, fuckin’ I was there.”
“What’s your name?”
“Ah, Derek Wood.”
An officer stands guard outside the employees’ entrance to the Sydney River McDonald’s, where Jimmy Fagan’s body was found. [RCMP crime scene photo.]
“Were you at McDonald’s, Derek?”
Wood seized the opportunity he had hoped to create. “I don’t know. I was, like, in back having a smoke, and I heard a shot.”
“Were you inside the restaurant or outside?”
This was Wood’s chance to explain the bag. “I was outside with the door, like, the doors are open, and the metal door there. All I heard was ‘Bang!’ and it was, like, from inside.”
Jesty asked for Wood’s address and phone number; he felt he had a witness on the line. Wood gave the officer the address and number of his brother’s apartment in Sydney. The teenager was staying there, but would soon have to leave; like many other young Cape Bretoners, Derek’s brother David had lost his job and decided to move away from the island in search of work. Just as Wood asked what he should do next, Jesty was interrupted by a call from Corporal John Trickett, whom he had phoned after hearing Kevin Cleary’s transmission indicating several people were injured at the scene. Jesty knew Trickett and his police dog, Storm, would be needed, and now the dog master was en route to the restaurant, wanting to know what he was driving into—was there any danger, or could he take Storm directly to the building? Trickett usually had time to get such information earlier, but he lived only moments from the restaurant and knew he’d be there before he had a chance to gather his thoughts. As Jesty informed Trickett he was not yet certain of the situation, the radio came alive with other requests from the officers at McDonald’s. Jesty had his hands full, so he told Derek Wood to go home, where officers would contact him in the morning. In fact, the police attempted to reach him within the hour, but Wood had not gone back to his brother’s place.
While Derek Wood was reporting the shooting at McDonald’s, Kevin Cleary and Henry Jantzen were discovering its horrifying aftermath. Once they had moved a few feet inside the doorway, the two officers parted. Jantzen headed down the stairs and slowly pushed the steel door open, looking to see if anyone was waiting for him on the other side. What he found was Arlene MacNeil, gasping for breath; she was inhaling blood from a puddle that had formed around her face on the floor. He rolled her over to ease her breathing, then notified Cleary by portable radio that he was standing guard over a victim who showed strong signs of life and needed medical attention, and fast. Upstairs, Kevin Cleary moved slowly, turning to the right around a corner near the entrance to the drive-through service area, his body in a crouched position as he proceeded. The restaurant had to be secured before he could let the ambulance attendants come in. First he saw blood on the floor, and then, as he inched closer, he saw Neil Burroughs.
The pool of blood was still widening around the fallen man’s body, but there were no signs of life. Just then, Cleary noticed an unusually powerful odour, something he had never encountered in any of the murder investigations he had carried out in the past. Then he realized what it was—a smell of fresh blood and gunpowder, a sickening combination, which he would never forget. The realization reinforced his biggest fear, that he was at a crime scene so fresh that the criminal or criminals were still inside. Afte
r seeing Jimmy Fagan and Neil Burroughs, Kevin Cleary realized he was dealing with killers like none he’d ever contemplated. At any moment, he could join the victims on the floor with a bullet in his head: whoever was responsible would not stop at killing a cop.
Every nerve in Cleary’s body tingled as he continued his crouched advance towards the front of the restaurant, sweeping his gun ahead of him at every step. He turned left and found himself inside the main service area of the restaurant; tucking his head down, below the counter that held the cash registers, he made his way to the other side of the kitchen. At the far end of the service counter he turned left again, heading back towards the basement stairs, where Jantzen had headed. On his right, through an open door, he saw a foot. Another victim. My God, he thought. It’s got to stop. Cleary took a deep breath and moved forward again. There was an open safe door beside the foot, and then he could see two feet, and legs. It was a woman. Cleary put his back to the wall outside the tiny office and peered in through the door.
What Kevin Cleary saw inside that office continues to haunt him to this day—an image that clearly depicted the savage, senseless nature of the crime. There on the floor lay a pretty young woman with a hole in her right eye; a large black stain surrounded the eye, making it appear that she had been hit in a fight. But this was no bruise; it was gunpowder stippling and sooty discharge, telltale marks left on a victim when a gun is discharged at close range. Blood stained the wall behind Donna Warren’s head, and her hair was matted with blood where her head had slipped closer to the floor. Then Kevin Cleary was shaken to his core. On the floor in a pool of Donna Warren’s blood was a crumpled five-dollar bill and a mixture of change. God, no! There was no way this could be about money. It had to be about more than money. Cleary took another deep breath and got back to his job. This was no time to allow himself to feel anything—not sympathy and not anger. He had to think clearly.
The corporal’s search had taken him to the doorway leading away from the kitchen and into the public area of the restaurant. He moved quickly, remaining quiet as he carefully searched the area. With the public area clear, there was only one more place to check. Kevin Cleary had taken his kids to this restaurant many times and knew that the only enclosed areas in the public portion of the building were the two washrooms at the back corner. He moved to the door of the first washroom and swore to himself as he realized that the door opened towards him. Pulling it open, he moved away from the line of fire, quickly stepped inside, and kicked open the door to the stall. It was empty. Cleary hoped the other washroom would be vacant as well; surely if there were anyone inside, they would have heard him kicking open that stall door. And he was right. Secure in the knowledge that the upstairs was clear, the officer rushed back to the entrance to get an ambulance attendant inside. The attendant confirmed the officer’s first impression—Neil Burroughs and Donna Warren were beyond help—so the two returned to Jimmy Fagan. The second ambulance had arrived, and Cleary sent that attendant down to the basement to have a look at Arlene MacNeil, still being guarded by Henry Jantzen. The taxi drivers joined in the effort, and moments later Arlene and Jimmy were on the way to hospital.
The safe in the office where Donna Warren died. A stack of two-dollar bills was left behind in the till, and change was scattered on the tile floor. [RCMP crime scene photo.]
Cleary pressed the transmit button on his radio. Nothing happened; it was dead. He moved quickly back to the door where another officer, Constable Dave Trickett, was now standing guard at the entrance. Seeing the problem the corporal was having, Trickett handed Cleary his portable radio. Cleary turned his attention to securing the scene and helping Henry Jantzen in the basement, where those responsible could still be hiding—or, God forbid, more victims were yet to be found. He needed more backup, and he had to deal with the strong possibility that those responsible had escaped. Before Cleary could call Stan Jesty and arrange to bring in every available officer, he heard someone else on the radio. It was Corporal John Trickett, asking Jesty what the situation was. Cleary quickly interrupted, not knowing that he and Trickett were forcing Jesty to cut short his conversation with Derek Wood: “Three-zero-six, come into McDonald’s right away.” Cleary wanted to use Storm to search the basement, so that officers would not be put at risk.
Other traffic on the radio kept Trickett from hearing Cleary’s call. Jesty cleared the channel. “Go ahead, Kevin, give him a call again.”
The crew training room at McDonald’s, where Henry Jantzen waited, sweating, for backup from fellow officers. [RCMP crime scene photo.]
“Three-zero-six, do you copy? Come in as soon as you can. We want you to check out the inside. We got several down, and we need you to check inside and, ah, Stan, call other PDs.” Cleary wanted roadblocks set up in the area, and the RCMP did not have enough officers for the job. Jesty called municipal police in-Sydney, Glace Bay, Dominion, North Sydney, Sydney Mines, Louisbourg, New Waterford, and Eskasoni. Every available law-enforcement officer in the area would help in any way possible. Cleary instructed Jesty to call RCMP in Port Hawkesbury, about 150 kilometres away; he wanted a roadblock at the Canso Causeway, the man-made link that joins Cape Breton Island to mainland Nova Scotia. Cleary was going to take advantage of geography. No flights were leaving Cape Breton at that hour, and he would make sure that no-one responsible for the carnage in McDonald’s would simply drive off the island into the night.
As Cleary made those arrangements, Corporal John Trickett arrived with Storm. Officers already at the scene were happy to see the big German shepherd; in the years since Storm had been posted to the Sydney subdivision, he had helped nearly all of them out of tough situations, his mighty bark prompting more than one criminal to call out from a building that he was prepared to surrender. Storm knew he was about to go to work, and was leaping back and forth in the back of the big four-wheel-drive truck as Trickett came to a stop in the parking lot. As the big truck shook under the dog’s weight, the other officers thought about why Storm was there—that he was trained to take a bullet to protect any of them. A sickening feeling settled into their stomachs as they realized he might have to do just that in the moments ahead. But none of them said anything about it.
Corporal Trickett went over to Kevin Cleary and got a quick rundown on the situation. Henry Jantzen had already reported finding locked offices, and he had come across an open room where he saw a door held open by some kind of bag; he had backed away from the room but was keeping it in his sights. Jantzen enjoyed working out on the target range, and now he wondered if all that practice would prove useful. He knew he could empty, reload, and empty his gun again into a target in a matter of seconds, and drew some comfort from that knowledge as he watched the open door.
Comfort was just what the young constable needed. Sweat matted the burly officer’s flyaway hair and rolled down his back, staining his uniform shirt. It seemed an eternity had passed since he pushed open that basement door to find Arlene MacNeil lying on the floor, inhaling her own blood. Every sound in the eerie atmosphere of the restaurant basement was amplified; compressors from the pop fountain and freezers clicked and hummed unexpectedly, heightening his anxiety. After Arlene was whisked away by the ambulance attendants, Jantzen moved gingerly through the basement, all too aware that a culprit, or culprits, could be in one of those rooms he passed. His pulse quickened as he tried the doors; they were all locked. But there were more doors ahead and, ready to react to any sound, he crept ahead, his gun held out in front of him. He hoped he would not have to test the skill he knew he had.
Outside, Corporal Trickett was expressing doubts that Storm could work inside the restaurant. The dog would become so agitated by the presence of the two bodies that Trickett felt he would not be able to accurately read Storm’s reactions. Cleary decided he would use the officers on the scene to search the basement, and asked Trickett to use Storm to track the two people that cabby Daniel MacVicar had seen run off.
Trickett knew he would have to keep his eyes
on Storm, so he wanted another officer with a shotgun to back him up; the dog could very quickly lead him into a deadly situation, if those responsible for shooting all these people were still hidden in one of the fields nearby. Kevin Cleary assigned an officer to cover Trickett, but Constable Dave Trickett stepped forward. “If anyone’s gotta watch out for him, it’s gonna be me.” The other officers understood. The shotgun was handed to the younger brother as both Tricketts, donning bulletproof vests, set out to find the killers. The taxi driver had told police that he thought he saw two people running alongside the building, in the direction of Kings Road, so the officers led Storm across the road and down towards the Sydney River Shopping Plaza. It was the same route Derek Wood had taken after he left his kitbag in the door and went to meet his accomplices at the coffee shop.
“You remember when we used to walk along the shore back home with our pellet guns? Never thought we’d be doin’ this.” Dave Trickett was trying to relieve the intense strain he and his elder brother felt as they moved along, not knowing what was ahead of them. The older Trickett picked up the theme. “Yeah, well, as long as you don’t decide it’s time to get back at me for stealin’ your pellet gun all those times you weren’t around.”
“Don’t you worry. I’m watchin’ your back, brother.”
The brothers had grown up near Conception Bay, Newfoundland, where John had decided he wanted to be a Mountie after seeing officers in RCMP shore-patrol boats. The younger Trickett had followed his brother’s lead a few years later.
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