Murder at McDonald's

by Jessome, Phonse;

  “You know, like, if you wanna sit here and, like, do your stupid games with me, then you have to,” Wood said.

  “I’m not doin’ no stupid games with ya.”

  “No?” Wood’s answer was more of a challenge.

  “I’m doin this ’cause it has to be done.”

  “Do you honestly think Mike Campbell had something to do with this?”

  “With what we have, yes.”

  “Hmph. Well then you’re a bigger fool, then …”

  The two continued to debate the issues, and Wood continued to refuse comment until the conversation returned to Campbell. Mahoney kept pressing; if Mike was innocent, Wood could prove it by saying what had really happened. Wood could see through the approach: “I give up. I don’t even know how you made it through college, then, ’cause you’re not too bright.”

  “You figure you’re the brightest one in the room here, or what?”

  “Well, I’m smart enough to know that Mike doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

  Mahoney continued to try any approach he felt he could break down Wood’s defences, but the harder he pushed, the more resistance he met. “You don’t care about Mike. You don’t care about your little sister. You sure as hell don’t care about those four people that you tried to snuff out. How do you live with it, anyway?”

  “No offence, man, but you gotta take better psychology classes.” Wood was unmoved; his posture and tone suggested he was impressed with his ability to berate the officer. Mahoney pressed on regardless: “How d’ya live with it?”

  “No, seriously. You should take better classes.”

  “How d’ya live with it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  Finally, after a seemingly endless cycle of debate, Mahoney left the interview room to cool down and give Constable Wilson a chance to try the quiet, friendly approach by himself. Outside, Mahoney moved around the detachment, pacing and fighting to regain his composure. His body was rebelling against the stress he was feeling, and he tried to walk it off, bring himself back to the focus he knew he needed. Meanwhile, Wilson tried to relax Wood by making small talk about school, his experience with the militia, and other unrelated topics. Very gradually, he returned to the McDonald’s murders. Wilson also tried to give Derek Wood an avenue towards a confession by telling him he was really two Dereks—one sitting there, talking, and one responsible for what happened at McDonald’s. Wood laughed at the suggestion that he had a split personality, but Wilson continued with the approach and adopted an almost evangelical tone as he told the young man that Donna was watching him from heaven—that she forgave him, and the officer also forgave him, because they both knew there were two Dereks. Wilson moved his chair closer to Wood’s and lifted his hand heavenward in an effort to depict Donna’s perspective. Wood lowered his head and leaned forward in his chair, weary from the hours of constant questioning. Wilson brought his hand down from on high and placed it on Wood’s head, trying both to keep the suspect awake and make contact with something he hoped was inside.

  As Wood started looking as if he was literally falling asleep in his chair, Wilson became more dramatic, more animated. “You can’t forget things like that. Donna, with the gun shoved up to her nose. Boom! Boom!” He was shouting now, and the sound reverberated through the room, startling Wood and bringing his attention back. But no matter what techniques or approaches Jim Wilson tried, he couldn’t bring Derek Wood to the place he wanted him to be. Wood was not going to talk about the murders. In the next room, Karl Mahoney and Sergeant Phil Scharf were monitoring Wilson’s progress. By then, Mahoney’s focus and energy were back, and he decided to return to the room to give Wilson his chance for a break. Wood changed his posture at the changing of the guard; the movement in the room awoke him.

  Mahoney decided to try to convince Wood that Mike Campbell was indeed in trouble. The officer had never left the North Sydney detachment, but Wood didn’t know that. Mahoney’s voice was loud and confident: “I just got back from talkin’ to him,” he said. “I told you I was gonna see him. He’s tryin’ ta take the fall for ya.”

  “Who?”

  “Mike.”

  “Why? What’s he sayin’?” Wood was interested now.

  “He said, ‘Gimme twenty minutes with Derek, and I’ll get the gun for ya.’ He knows you were there, and he’s trying to take the blame.” The remarks did bring a reaction from Wood, but not the one Mahoney had hoped for. “Can I call my lawyer?”

  “Whaddya wanna call your lawyer for?”

  “I wanna talk to him for a second.”

  “Do you wanna call him right now?”

  “Yes.”

  “You figure you’re gonna get a hold of him now?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Twenty after five.” Mahoney reminded Wood that Mike was trying to take the blame.

  “Can I talk to him?”

  “Who do you want to talk to?” If Wood answered that he wanted to talk to his lawyer, it was over. The officers knew they would be starting all over again, once the suspect was reassured by Art Mollon that remaining silent was in his interest, that he should stop worrying about Mike Campbell. If Mike was not involved, they’d deal with that later.

  “Mike,” Wood answered. He had stopped asking for his lawyer; the questioning could proceed. Mahoney told Wood that no, he could not talk with his friend, and continued asking questions. Later, Wood’s lawyer would argue that nothing he said after he asked for his lawyer could be used against him in trial. But in the early morning of May 16, 1992, legal issues didn’t seem to be the point. Anyway, Wood was sticking to his guns, resorting to the same verbal one-upmanship he had used with the officer earlier: “Excuse me, did ya say somethin’ ta me?” was his answer to one question.

  “How’s that make you feel?”

  “What?”

  “What you’ve done, how does it make you feel?”

  “Are you talkin’ ta me?” In the monitoring room, Phil Scharf had had enough. He could see they were going nowhere, and as long as Wood tried to be clever and play word games, they would continue to go nowhere. He decided it was time for him to get involved. Shortly before six, Sergeant Scharf walked into the room, introduced himself, and began to lecture Wood—not question him, just preach at him. If Jim Wilson was good cop and Karl Mahoney was bad cop, then Phil Scharf was righteous cop—a new spin on the old police interrogation technique.

  Scharf pulled no punches as he tried to make it clear to Wood that it was not the time for games: “This is one of the worst tragedies I’ve ever investigated. It’s probably the worst tragedy that many of us will ever see in our service. You are the author of that tragedy—part of that tragedy. There is no doubt in our minds from what Darren has told Freeman—what Freeman told us. Darren said, not to me, but he told Freeman that you went crazy. Ya made Donna open the safe, then you shot her. Then you went looking around the building for anybody left.… If you got any pleasure outta this at all … Derek, my God, it’s gonna happen again.” Scharf leaned closer to Wood, accusing him of being sick, of enjoying what he did, relishing the power of playing God and watching the life drain from his innocent victims. Karl Mahoney remained silent, all but disappearing into the wall as Scharf drilled his points home again and again; he did not want to interfere with the flow. Scharf had Wood’s full attention, and he wasn’t letting up. Scharf’s lecture continued with no sign of abatement; his words came fast, and his disgust remained apparent.

  After a little more than twelve minutes, Derek Wood had had enough of righteous cop. At one minute past six in the morning, he interrupted the monologue: “Can ya shut up for a second? Whaddya want?”

  “I want the truth.”

  “Well, if you’d shut up an’ let me talk.”

  “All right, then. Talk. An’ be truthful. What happened?”

  Derek Wood leaned over to the table and picked up the list of charges Mahoney had placed there hours earlier. “Guilty. Gui
lty. I’m not sure about that one. Guilty. Not guilty an’ guilty.”

  “Why, Derek?”

  “I got scared.” A visible relief came over Derek Wood as he told the officers where they could find the weapon. He told them it would be at Michelle’s stepfather’s trailer, where Freeman had gotten it. Scharf was surprised. He had believed Freeman’s claim of having only been involved after the crime, when he took Darren to the brook. When he asked Wood about Freeman’s involvement, Wood again lifted the paper from the table, pointed to the charge of first-degree murder in relation to Jimmy Fagan, and said, “Guilty.” He then told the officer that Darren had used the knife, but he was not sure if he pulled the trigger or not.

  Derek Wood at the North Sydney RCMP detachment, shortly after his confession.

  Jim Wilson returned to the interview room and began a lengthy written statement from Derek Wood, and police got their first glimpse of the nightmare that led to the deaths of three innocent people and the permanent, disabling injury to a fourth. Throughout the night, they had told Wood that the others had already confessed—although they had not—but now police would use the Wood statement as leverage against MacNeil and Muise.

  Surprisingly, with the drama and tension behind them, Derek Wood and Karl Mahoney talked as though they were friends. After the written confession was completed, they chatted as they waited for an Ident officer to come to North Sydney. Wood had agreed to take both officers to the place where Freeman MacNeil had thrown his shovel handle after the murders, and to the pond where he himself had submerged Darren Muise’s bag of money. At the pond, Jim Wilson tried to get the money but could not find it as he teetered on the edge of the log. Wood offered to find it, and after the handcuffs were removed, he crawled out to the end of the log and fished out the money. All this was much more than the officers had ever hoped for—and certainly more than Wood’s lawyer had expected.

  Eleven

  On Saturday, May 16, Cape Bretoners awoke to news of arrests in the McDonald’s case. It was the news many longed to hear. Dave Roper’s voice came at the beginning of CJCB radio reports each hour, as the tape of his early-morning briefing was replayed. It would be evening before television audiences got their first glimpse of what had happened overnight.

  After a few hours of sleep, Roper had returned to the detachment to discover that one of the men had confessed and that Mike Campbell was no longer a suspect. He had, as Wood had insisted, been home in bed at the time of the crime, and he was released early Saturday morning, as soon as police were able to verify that alibi. As word of the Wood confession spread through the detachment, excitement filled the investigating team: one down, two to go. Roper knew he would be releasing the names of the suspects to the media at some point, but when reporters called him—every hour, on the hour—he told them to try later. The names could not be released until all three were remanded into custody by a justice of the peace, and by Saturday afternoon the RCMP had only one confession.

  We at ATV already had two names, Derek Wood and Mike Campbell—the witnesses from the Irish club had told me about them in the pre-dawn hours following the arrests—and when I returned to work, shortly after noon, I was expecting to be tracking down the others. That was not the case: Greg Boone had already done the research, while preparing a report on community reaction to the arrests. Greg, the senior reporter in the ATV newsroom in Sydney, is one of the most-respected journalists in Cape Breton. When I arrived that afternoon, my head was still buzzing from the late night and lack of sleep over the past week; a session with the meticulously organized Greg Boone was exactly what I needed. Always exceptionally cautious with information, Greg closed both doors to the newsroom and returned to his desk. He was going to brief me, and he didn’t want anyone to hear what he was saying—not even the two cameramen we were working with. He would not openly discuss information that had yet to be confirmed, and he was not going to have anyone say they heard Greg Boone identifying the suspects.

  Greg and I had worked side by side in the Sydney newsroom for ten years, and our relationship was one of mutual respect and trust; it had also grown into a strong friendship. I had learned a great deal from Greg’s conservative approach to information-gathering; our styles differed considerably, but we had the same measure of a reporter’s worth. Truth was the bottom line, and we’d both seen too many reporters who never let truth get in the way of a good story. I sipped my first coffee of the day and watched as Greg read through his notes. A few of us at work had often joked that if a movie were ever made about Greg’s life, Al Pacino would have to play the part. There was a strong resemblance, which was particularly apparent at times like these, when he was intensely focused.

  As usual, Greg had done his homework. When he arrived in the newsroom early that morning, he found out that there had been RCMP activity on East Broadway, in the Pier, so he headed over there. The cameraman who went with him recorded images of officers taking evidence out of a mobile home; neighbours gathered to watch, and he found out from them that a young man named Freeman MacNeil often stayed in the trailer, and that he had apparently been arrested in connection with the McDonald’s murders. Later, he picked up a second name; word of the arrests was spreading quickly through the community as the families and friends of the accused men found out what had happened.

  “I read from your notes that you have identified Derek Wood and Mike Campbell as the suspects arrested at the Irish Club,” Greg told me. “Well, we have a problem; I’ve also been given two names—Darren Muise from Patnic Avenue, and a Freeman MacNeil. He lives somewhere on the North Side, but stays with his girlfriend in the Pier as well. We have video of police searching her place.” It was clear why Greg had closed the door; we had one too many names, and that meant one of them was innocent. “There is good news, though,” Greg continued. “None of them are young offenders.” That was a relief. Reporters and police alike had been talking about the possibility of suspects under eighteen being involved, and if that had happened, they would have been protected as young offenders—their identities would never have been released, and they would not have been behind bars for more than five years.

  “O.K., I’ll try Dave Roper to see if there are four men in custody now.” I called Roper, and he assured me there were only three men in custody, but added that a fourth had been picked up for questioning; this man had been released, and was not a suspect. But he wouldn’t say who the fourth man was; he needed clearance before he could comment on any of the identities. I turned back to Greg: “I guess we’re going to have to build bio’s on all four and drop one when we get the names. I’ll do Campbell—I know him, and I hope I’m wrong—but I think I can get some background on Muise, too.”

  “Do you know him, too?”

  “No, but I’m pretty sure my mother does.”

  “I’ll see what I can get on MacNeil and Wood, then,” Greg said.

  “Actually, leave Wood for me as well. I have an idea on that. If you can find out who MacNeil is and try to track some pictures.” Greg turned to face his desk, and lifted his phone; I did the same. I hoped I was wrong about Darren Muise too; while I needed background information on all of the suspects, I did not want to confirm that one of them was the son of a woman I had known since I was a child.

  My mother and Gail Muise had worked together in the same clothing store before my mother retired, and Gail is someone I really like. She has four sons, and I thought I’d heard the name Darren mentioned. I phoned my mother and asked for the names of Gail’s sons. She bristled, wanting to know why I was curious about her friend—my mother knew what story I was working on. I told her that one of the boys might know someone involved. That was probably Darren, she said; she had heard that he knew one of the McDonald’s workers. I asked what school Darren went to, and she told me he had quit but that he had attended Riverview High.

  My throat was dry when we ended the conversation. I sat back and realized that the killers I’d been reporting about all week were not evil phantoms that
had slipped into Cape Breton under cover of darkness and then disappeared after completing their grisly work. I had met Mike Campbell, and knew he was a nice kid from a nice family, and now I was finding out the same thing about Darren Muise. The report I was working on was going to hurt a lot of people, I thought, realizing—for the first time since the tragedy—how deeply scarred the community would be by this crime. I reflected on Dave Roper’s confidence during the 3:00 a.m. press briefing; there was little chance these were false arrests. I knew Muise could have been the suspect who was questioned and later released, and that would mean Gail would be spared such tragic news. On the other hand, I didn’t want to hear of Mike Campbell being involved, either. I later learned there were friends and relatives of Derek Wood and Freeman MacNeil who were praying that afternoon—praying that those young men had been picked up by mistake. But no matter who was released, it meant three families were not going to have their prayers answered.

  I forced myself to put Gail Muise out of my mind and get back to work. “Greg, we need a yearbook from Riverview.” I called to my colleague. “We’ll get Muise’s picture there.” Then I phoned Garfield Lewis at home. The owner of the restaurant would certainly be able to tell me something about his employee, Derek Wood, and he might even have a photo. Lewis didn’t want to reveal anything, but he had more questions than I did. He was consumed by the tragedy, and police had not told him who was in custody; he did not even know that Wood was among the suspects. I told him I could answer some of his questions, if he would answer some of mine. Wood was among those arrested, I said, but didn’t identify the others. He gave me some background on Wood, who had just passed his employee evaluation. The young man was a relatively new member of the staff, and didn’t have many friends at the restaurant, Lewis said, but his work was up to standard and he had just been made a permanent employee. I thanked him and hung up.