Murder at McDonald's

by Jessome, Phonse;

“Wood should be a Riverview student too,” said Greg, who had also just hung up. “He may have graduated last year, so we’ll need a couple of yearbooks. I don’t know about high school, but I know he went to Malcolm Munroe junior high—and Freeman MacNeil is not from North Sydney, he’s from the Coxheath area. He also went to Riverview.” Greg had called a cousin who attended Riverview; he was trying to get the yearbook I had mentioned. She told him she didn’t know Darren Muise, but Freeman MacNeil and Derek Wood were familiar names. And she had a junior high school yearbook with a picture of Wood, and her Riverview yearbook from a couple of years of ago had MacNeil’s picture in it. Greg rushed out to get the books and talk to his cousin about the suspects.

  We now had three pictures to go with three names. I had recovered a photo of Mike Campbell from the newspaper report on his intervention in the neighbourhood clash the summer before; all that remained was to find a current yearbook with a photo of Darren Muise. I called a student I knew who was about to graduate, and she not only had the book, but also knew Darren and had heard that he was in custody. I was surprised how quickly the word had spread—and even more surprised when she told me that people at school had been talking about Muise and Wood all week; the local teens were certain the two were involved. I asked her why no-one had called police with information, and she said they figured the police knew—they had talked with Wood. Besides, the kids were not 100-per-cent sure, and didn’t want to report the wrong people. The young woman also gave me names of a few other people who knew Darren Muise, and she said would drop off the yearbook on her way into town. I called a few teachers from Malcolm Munroe and Riverview. They were shocked that I was asking about Muise, Wood, MacNeil, and Campbell. It turned out all four had attended the same junior high and secondary schools, and all four were well-liked by the teachers, who could not believe their names were connected to this case. By late afternoon Greg and I had assembled photos and brief biographies on all four young men.

  Having the names and pictures was one thing; releasing them to the public was another. Without police confirmation, the names could not be used. A check with Dave Roper showed that the Mounties were not yet ready to release names, but Roper did say again that police were now dealing with three suspects, not four. Mike Campbell had been released, but Roper could not reveal his identity, either. We were still working with four pictures, one of which would have to be dropped. That ruled out prepackaging a report on the suspects; I couldn’t commit anything to tape until I knew who the innocent party was and pulled him from the group.

  Reaction from the victims’ families would have added strength to Greg’s report on community response to the arrest, but it was not to be. The Burroughs, Warrens, MacNeils, and Fagans had been advised by the RCMP not to speak with reporters, and they made it clear they would follow that advice. It was frustrating for us, but trying to convince most people that they don’t have to do what they are told by police in a case like this is fruitless.

  At the RCMP detachment in Reserve Mines, Darren Muise was playing hardball with Dave Trickett and Brian Stoyek. During the interrogation, Muise maintained a degree of control, asking for a glass of water and a pack of cigarettes. Later, he asked for another glass of water but instructed the officers to run the tap a little longer this time to make the water colder. While Derek Wood had occasionally argued and become defiant, Muise, at times, was almost abusive—not so much what he said, but what he did. His every comment was polite, but he kept blowing smoke rings at Trickett and Stoyek, making it clear to both officers that they were not reaching him.

  Darren Muise at the Reserve Mines RCMP detachment shortly after being arrested. He was the last of the three to tell his story.

  After being taken to the detachment, Muise spoke to a lawyer on the phone for about an hour, then sat down to face Trickett’s and Stoyek’s questions. Muise refused to comment on the McDonald’s case, and held his ground for hours as the police tried to persuade him to get his side of the story on record. Trickett lectured in the style of Phil Scharf; that is, he conducted lengthy monologues as he tried to explain the importance of the truth to Muise. The monologues had little effect. Muise responded when Trickett insisted on an answer, but stayed away from the particulars of the case. Telling the truth might be a good idea, but he wasn’t about to volunteer any.

  While Wood had made it clear he did not want to be talking with police, Muise seemed to have no problem with this; in fact, he encouraged Brian Stoyek to talk with him about his past. He might be under arrest for murder, but Darren Muise still liked to be the centre of the conversation. The officers were amazed as he talked of his future and how he planned to correct the mistakes he’d made since leaving high school. “I’d like to go back to school. I wanna get my high school diploma.”

  “How ya gonna get that? Goin’ back full time, or classes?” Brian Stoyek was curious about how Muise thought his future would unfold.

  “I might even write my G.E.D., or, um, go to night school, or go back to school full time, ’n then, hopefully, get somethin’ to do with fitness, or anything really to do with computers, ’cause computers is kind of the way of the future.” Muise did not appear to be grasping the significance of the situation, or else he simply liked to hear himself talk about things that were not going to occur. He knew he was guilty, and he knew the police knew it, but he was still willing to talk freely about his ambitions.

  In North Sydney, Wayne MacDonald and Rod Gillis had examined Derek Wood’s confessions and decided it was time to question Freeman MacNeil again. They took MacNeil from the holding cell, but no matter how they pleaded or what approach they took, he simply informed them he would follow his lawyer’s advice and remain silent.

  Anger seethed in Rod Gillis as he leaned over the interview table. He knew now that MacNeil had fired the gun that killed Jimmy Fagan. “You’re so low, you could walk under a snake with a top hat on. You’re so tough, attacking women with sticks and guns, but you don’t even have the guts to come over the table after me.” Gillis looked at his partner and then back to MacNeil. “Don’t worry about him, he won’t stop you.”

  Both Gillis and MacDonald were outraged that MacNeil had so successfully lied to them the night before. They were also beginning to show the signs of a sleepless night and the stress of the investigation. MacDonald realized it was over—things had simply deteriorated too far—he too let MacNeil know what he thought of him. MacDonald stood and told his partner it was time to leave, and he told MacNeil why. “I’m sick of looking at the likes of you. I couldn’t sleep last night, but you had no trouble—I watched you in that cell. We’re through with you, but there will be other officers in here and they’ll get to the truth.”

  The officers put MacNeil back in his cell, but not before photographing and fingerprinting him. MacNeil hung his head as he was booked, but he still felt he had won the session with Gillis and MacDonald. He was convinced his lawyer’s advice was working; he was remaining silent, and the police were being frustrated. This was better than giving them more and more information and still ending up being kept here. MacNeil figured he’d stay with the new technique. He was worried, though. Constable Gillis had read a list of information to him that made it clear the police were not lying when they said his partners in crime had confessed. In fact, only one of them had confessed by this point, but the police wanted MacNeil to know they had the inside information, and they needed him to believe Wood and Muise had given him up. He was certain of one thing as he sat in his cell: someone had given them the goods on what had happened at McDonald’s.

  At the Sydney detachment, Kevin Cleary reviewed the information he had. Derek Wood had given a full account of his activities inside the restaurant, but claimed he shot Arlene MacNeil, Neil Burroughs, and Donna Warren each once. If he was willing to admit shooting them in the head, it made no sense to deny the number of times he’d pulled the trigger, and Cleary knew the autopsy reports well; both Donna and Neil had been shot more than once. If Wood had indeed
cleared his conscience, then either Darren Muise or Freeman MacNeil must have delivered the second and third shots that hit Burroughs and the second shot that struck Warren. Wood did say Muise took the gun from him while he cleared out the safe, but added that the next time he saw the gun, MacNeil was using it to kill Jimmy Fagan. In fact, Wood said MacNeil wanted to take the weapon downstairs and finish off Arlene. If MacNeil was that intent on using the gun again, maybe he was the one responsible for the other shots—but if Muise took the gun from Wood, and MacNeil ended up with it, there was a good chance all three had used it. The Wood confession was a great break in the case, but Cleary knew it raised as many questions as it answered. He needed more. The officer wanted to know who was responsible for every injury suffered by the four innocent restaurant workers.

  Cleary considered his next move. Brian Stoyek and Dave Trickett wanted to continue their work in Reserve Mines with Darren Muise, but it was clear that Rod Gillis and Wayne MacDonald were finished, so Cleary decided he would try his luck with Freeman MacNeil. He chose Pat Murphy as his partner for the interrogation. It was time MacNeil met with officers who were his size; until this point he had towered over every Mountie who had questioned him. The investigators didn’t want to intimidate the young man, but they didn’t want him looking down on them, either. Murphy and Cleary headed to North Sydney, agreed on a friendly, low-key approach. They would try to befriend MacNeil and convince him it would be in his best interest to get his story out.

  At 3:30 p.m. Saturday, Cleary and Murphy led MacNeil back to the interrogation room, showed him their badges, and asked if they could be on a first-name basis. MacNeil agreed. He liked these officers. Pat Murphy reached out and shook MacNeil’s hand, and at that very moment he felt the interview would succeed; he could feel in MacNeil’s grip that the young man was reaching out to him. He could also see it in MacNeil’s eyes. Murphy sat at the end of the table in the small room, Cleary beside him, and MacNeil in front of Cleary, facing the officers. The three stayed very close, in an almost-intimate grouping, with MacNeil’s and Cleary’s knees within centimetres of touching. MacNeil told the officer he was following his lawyer’s advice to remain silent. Cleary said he knew what MacNeil’s lawyer would have told him, but his lawyer was at home and MacNeil had to deal with the predicament he was in. “We’ve had three funerals already,” he said. “We may have a fourth. Are you proud of that?”

  MacNeil, who had become emotional at times with Gillis and MacDonald, now began to fold himself into a fetal position in the chair; he did not want to listen. Cleary remained firm but calm as he reached for the young man’s folded arms, taking one of them and pulling it down to his leg. “Don’t fold up on me now, Freeman, you’ve got to be open.” Moments later, MacNeil again folded his arms and lifted his legs, and this time Cleary kept his hand on the young man’s arm as he gently eased it back to his lap.

  Then, the officers tried to emphasize how serious the matter was. Murphy read the charges MacNeil was facing, and while he spoke, he was overcome by emotion, his voice cracking as he was flooded with memories. Kevin Cleary sat back in surprise when he realized where his partner was going. On the verge of tears, but just managing to remain controlled, Pat Murphy told Freeman MacNeil that he knew very well what the victims’ families were going through. Seven years before, he had been summoned to identify the body of his own teenaged daughter, who had been killed in a car accident.

  “I can never erase that terrible memory, and I know the families of these kids will carry this with them forever. You can help ease their pain by telling the truth, by making sure they know what happened.” Murphy looked down at the pen in his hand as he spoke. It was a powerful moment, and there was no question he was looking deep inside himself. There was no pretence here; there was real pain and genuine human compassion. Murphy had never told a suspect about his personal tragedy before—and has never taken that approach since—but at the time he wanted to remove all barriers, to somehow let MacNeil know he too was human, to make it clear that he considered this a horrible tragedy. This could not be about gamesmanship or talking in circles; this was just too serious. People were dead, and it was time to deal with that.

  “You’ll never find a more compassionate officer than this,” Cleary told MacNeil as he looked at Murphy. The mood in the room was not what it had been moments before. Murphy had breached something; there were no longer two men trying to persuade a third to do something he did not want to do. Now three men were grieving together. The officers explained that they were not there to judge MacNeil, but rather to help him forgive himself for what he’d done. They quietly asked him to be truthful for his mother’s sake—she was now a victim in this, and at least she would know that her son told the truth when it mattered.

  Cleary continued to remind MacNeil that police had all the information about the crime but felt it was important for him to get his version of the events on the record; it would be better for him in the long run if he told his story now. Cleary painted the picture of MacNeil and Muise and Wood heading to the rear door of the restaurant, with Muise wearing a mask and Wood holding the gun. Just before 4:30 p.m., Cleary was describing the scene inside the basement door: “… And you had a stick in your hand,” he said. At that remark, Freeman MacNeil began to cry. He cried hard, engulfed in emotion. Cleary tried to reassure him. Pat Murphy reached out and took his hand, holding it on the table between them. The three were very close now; the circle was complete, with Cleary holding Freeman’s arm—their knees almost touching—and Murphy holding MacNeil’s other hand. He had had enough. Freeman MacNeil wanted to tell these men everything; he wanted to get it all out.

  Cleary asked MacNeil to take himself out of the picture, if it was too disturbing to remember what happened while thinking of his own involvement. “Just be like a movie camera,” the officer said. “Move along one frame at a time and tell us what you see.” With MacNeil in such an emotional state, the officers could not stop him and ask him to repeat things, as Wilson had when taking the written confession from Derek Wood hours before. Pat Murphy worked furiously, his free hand writing everything he could, and his other hand tightly squeezing MacNeil’s. As his confession proceeded, MacNeil became less emotional, but occasionally he would start crying again, and Murphy would squeeze his hand again, looking up from his notes to comfort him. At one point, encouraging him to continue, Murphy told MacNeil he forgave him.

  The picture that emerged—the movie Freeman MacNeil described—was painful for all three. MacNeil had trouble describing it, Cleary found it tough to hear, and Pat Murphy tried not to think about what he was writing. MacNeil’s camera conjured up images from hell—a sobbing Donna Warren, on the floor beside her friend Arlene; blood pouring from Arlene’s face and spreading on the tile floor; a blood-soaked Darren Muise, standing over the body of Neil Burroughs. He described himself, hitting Burroughs with his shovel handle and knocking him back to the floor; and Muise again, running for the gun and returning to fire a shot into the head of the fallen man.

  When MacNeil finished, all three men relaxed in a brief, awkward silence, which Kevin Cleary broke by asking MacNeil to go over it all again in a detailed written statement. MacNeil agreed, saying he wanted to get it all done at once. The tension and emotion in the room had left Pat Murphy parched, and he felt it probably had had the same effect on the others. “Can I get you a glass of water or anything?” He was talking to MacNeil, but both Cleary and MacNeil said they were thirsty.

  Murphy walked out of the interview room and was called over by another officer; MacNeil’s lawyer had arrived and wanted to see him. David Ryan had been contacted earlier by Art Mollon, who could no longer handle the MacNeil case because of possible conflict with his client Derek Wood. Ryan had met briefly with MacNeil in the morning and was back to see his client again. Pat Murphy’s heart sank, and he silently cursed his thirst. They had the information, but a sworn, signed statement, including a written police caution and Charter of Rights proclamation, would
be better—and that was what MacNeil had just agreed to give them. In the interview room, Cleary was reading MacNeil his rights; they had gone through the process earlier in the afternoon, but the officer was now writing them out and asking MacNeil to sign, confirming that he had been informed of and understood his rights. Pat Murphy opened the door and summoned Cleary. The senior officer immediately shot an impatient look at his partner; whatever it was, it was not important enough to interrupt this confession. Murphy insisted, and the two left the room. As David Ryan entered the interview room, it seemed the two officers had reached the end of the line.

  At 5:45 p.m., David Ryan emerged after spending about twenty minutes with his client. Cleary and Murphy went back into the room to try to convince MacNeil that it was too late to remain silent, because he had already told them everything. To their surprise, MacNeil told them he would go ahead with the written statement; he just wanted to get it over with. MacNeil’s written statement confirmed some of the information in the Wood confession, but also answered some of Cleary’s questions about the number of shots. Wood had said that after shooting Arlene MacNeil, he ran upstairs and shot Neil Burroughs once. MacNeil claimed he heard two shots from upstairs when Wood went up there, and another two as he was walking upstairs later, after Wood had taken Donna Warren up to open the safe. That was in line with the autopsy report that both Donna and Neil had been shot at least twice.

  MacNeil also identified Darren Muise as the one who used the knife. “When I got to the top of the steps, there was a guy holding himself up by his hands and knees, and he was saying, ‘Help me.’ His throat was cut and there was blood everywhere and Darren was standing there with the knife in front of him and there was blood all over the knife and all over his gloves and arms. Darren said, ‘The guy won’t die … Derek shot him, I cut his throat, and he still won’t die.’ Darren hit him six to eight times with the knife, and he bent the knife, stabbing him with it in back of the neck.” This claim puzzled the officers. The autopsy on Neil Burroughs showed no sign of multiple stab wounds; there was only one cut to the side of the victim’s throat. Was MacNeil trying to lessen his role by painting a crueller picture of Darren Muise?