The Death of Donna Whalen

by Michael Winter

  Finally, the Crown called a jailhouse informant to testify. Leander Dollymont had an extensive record of fraud convictions and, when he initially approached the police with his evidence, failed a polygraph test. Despite this, he was a crucial Crown witness and his story became the Crown’s theory even though police investigators found no evidence to support it. It has been said that jailhouse informants rush to testify like vultures to rotting flesh. They constitute the most deceitful and deceptive group of witnesses known to frequent the courts. The more notorious the case, the greater the number of prospective informants. They are smooth and convincing liars.

  Leander Dollymont was interviewed a second time and allowed to testify. Leander said the murder took place in the kitchen, that the clothes Sheldon wore were buried in the graveyard, that Donna Whalen returned home at midnight with another man who left before the murder occurred, that Donna Whalen was wearing her clothes at the time of the murder, that Sheldon Troke went to his sister’s house to clean up after the murder, that Paul Troke was driving a car he bought from Billy Bennett, that Sheldon used taxicabs when travelling to and from Donna Whalen’s residence, that he shot up three times after being upset with Donna, and that he stabbed Jacob Parrott in a fight over Donna a few weeks prior to the murder. All of this testimony was found, in the end, to be false and, when asked about it, Leander said that he of course did not witness any of these events, but was told about them by Sheldon Troke. Why Sheldon Troke would confess to murdering Donna Whalen but then give Leander Dollymont false information about how the murder was conducted was never questioned. Leander Dollymont later recanted his testimony, saying the police harassed him into making a false statement. He said there’s a man in jail doing life that he doesnt know if he’s guilty. Leander doesnt think he is guilty. He then confessed to making up the story of Sheldon Troke’s confession, and suggested the police not only knew about it, they forced him to say it. Sheldon Troke, hearing that Leander had recanted, said this: The police done no investigation. They said Troke’s got a record, he’s got a past, and he’s violent, he done it. Leander Dollymont was sentenced to five years in prison in connection with his false testimony in the Troke case.

  Gary Bemister said, after the trial, that Ches Hedderson did not always take notes and he did not share information readily. Throughout the investigation Inspector Hedderson often visited witnesses by himself. Ches Hedderson is a big man. His presence can be intimidating. What evidence there is of his manner suggests he was aggressive and confrontational. His method of coordinating the investigation was telling his team what to do and when he wanted it done.

  The police visited the Vivian residence dozens of times. Ruth Vivian was interviewed on the promise that she would not have to take the stand. She gave six written statements to the police. Most of these statements were inconsistent or revealed new details she had never mentioned previously. Her testimony became so unreliable that a doctor agreed she was delusional, that she believed angels were visiting her. Still, her testimony stood, and the fact that she bumped into Sheldon Troke around eleven p.m. Friday night helped the Crown’s case that he returned to Donna Whalen’s after being dropped off at his parents’ home.

  There was an assumption by the police that witnesses were afraid to come forward with evidence—the incident of the hostage scenario at the courthouse is almost farcical but illustrates the paranoia surrounding the Troke family at the time. The phone calls Clifford Whalen received at his hotel, while disregarded by the judge, were still heard by the jury and made them wonder about the extent of the Troke clan’s power to intimidate. This was the atmosphere in which Sheldon Troke was tried. The police felt they needed to put pressure on witnesses to get them to reveal what they knew. There was also a belief that witnesses needed time to remember all of the details, rather than an understanding that what someone says soon after an incident is usually the most reliable version of events. Subsequent interviews only confuse or tamper with a witness’s testimony, as people learn things in the news, talk to each other and reshape their memories to fit into the picture they think authorities want to hear. The pattern of reinterviewing key witnesses was established very early in this investigation. Ches Hedderson drove his officers to collect evidence that fit the theory in place. No one on the case was involved in what is called contrarian thinking.

  Sheldon Troke knew how the police operated and had never, in the past, volunteered information while being questioned by the police. He was wily and street-smart and understood that if you were charged with a criminal activity, you should not speak to police without a lawyer present. Instead, this time he helped the police throughout their investigation, a reversal in behaviour, which should have been considered curious if he was in fact the culprit.

  The forensic team failed to notice a cigarette butt wrapped in a doily under the coffee table. When the doily was removed from an exhibit bag at Sheldon Troke’s trial, the butt fell out. There was a red stain on the cigarette, which the court assumed was lipstick belonging to Donna Whalen. Years later, a society for the wrongly convicted had the cigarette tested at Ontario’s Centre of Forensic Sciences. The red stain was melted carpet from Donna Whalen’s living room, and the DNA on the cigarette belonged not to Sheldon Troke but to his brother, Paul. The doily was under the coffee table, and so Paul Troke had to have been there before it was tipped over. The tipping of the table occurred immediately before the murder (Sharon woke up and heard the table knocked over and her mother calling out her name).

  On the day of this announcement, Paul Troke was found dead in his home of a drug overdose. He had been trying to turn his life around after his release from prison the year before, following a seven- year term for armed robbery. After Paul’s death, Cathy Furneaux came forward with information about the night of the murder. Cathy said she found out Paul had left her home after she went to bed and that knives were missing from her home. Also that night Paul had washed his own clothes for the first time ever and a taxi driver delivered a bottle of rum to Paul very early that Saturday morning. Inspector Ches Hedderson also said he learned that Paul Troke and Donna Whalen might have been sexually involved, and that Donna had information that implicated Paul Troke in the bank robbery.

  From the outset, though, the police did not ever consider that Paul Troke acted independently and murdered Donna Whalen with no assistance from his brother Sheldon. Paul Troke had a criminal record as extensive as Sheldon’s and, as it turned out, was better acquainted with Donna Whalen than he’d let on. The police understood that Paul Troke had been the person who knocked on Mabel Edicott’s door late that night, but their scenario had him arriving merely to help Sheldon clean up. Forensic evidence suggests that there was, in fact, no clean-up.

  Sheldon Troke’s lawyer, Jim Lythgoe, spent considerable time trying to reject the idea that Paul Troke was at the scene at all. If the defence had taken a different tack and agreed that it was Paul who knocked on the Edicotts’ back door, and that perhaps Paul was the one who killed Donna, then it may have been a scenario the jury could agree with. It is unknown whether Sheldon Troke had instructed his attorney not to develop this approach.

  Those who knew Paul Troke said he acted like he was being eaten away by guilt after the murder. In his investigation Inspector Hedderson found no new evidence that pointed to Sheldon Troke, but key evidence against Sheldon Troke at trial was found to be unreliable, including Ruth Vivian’s testimony, which destroyed his alibi. Sheldon Troke and Jim Lythgoe did not help matters by suggesting that many witnesses were lying, including Ruth Vivian. The fact is, Ruth had problems with her memory, and while what she saw and heard was probably accurate, the dates on which she experienced these events were often confused. She did hear Sheldon Troke late at night up at Donna’s, but this was on the Thursday night after he visited the Chinese takeout, not the Friday night of the murder. She did hear pumps, but that too was on the Thursday night when Donna went to answer the door for Sheldon. The police found sneakers at the top of t
he stairs, the last thing Donna wore Friday night, and Sheldon confirmed that they both wore sneakers that night. Gary Bemister’s response was that it didnt matter what Donna wore, as only the toe of the shoe hits the stairs. So even though Ruth Vivian heard pumps, the police were fine with finding the sneakers. Sheldon Troke and Jim Lythgoe also took exception to police testimony, to Pat Vivian’s description of the car and to Sharon Whalen’s own testimony. Sheldon Troke said that Sharon wasn’t intentionally lying about what she heard and saw, but that the police were suggesting a lot to her, and youngsters are very impressionable. The Crown prosecutor took this to mean that Sheldon Troke was indeed saying Sharon was lying in her testimony, a fact that the jury found hard to believe.

  Six years after Sheldon Troke’s conviction, following an application to admit fresh evidence, the Newfoundland Court of Appeal overturned his conviction and ordered a new trial. Two police investigations into the murder concluded that Paul Troke, if alive, would have been charged with the murder of Donna Whalen and that there exists no credible evidence upon which to charge Sheldon Troke. The Crown entered a stay of proceedings and, a year later, this stay expired. No further charges were laid against anyone in the death of Donna Whalen and, nine years after her death, Sheldon Troke commenced civil proceedings against the provincial government alleging police negligence and malicious prosecution.

  The public housing unit Donna Whalen was living in has since been torn down, though several other duplexes still exist alongside hers on Empire Avenue. If you walk up from St John’s harbour you will take the stairs beside the courthouse where Sheldon Troke was tried and convicted. You will pass Cathy Furneaux’s row house where Paul Troke lived. If you keep walking you will cross Merrymeeting Road. From here to your left is the area of Buckmaster Circle and below you, to the north, the field where Donna Whalen lived. Beyond this field are the university and the provincial House of Assembly where the lawyers and judge and police officers received their education and their instruction. To the east is Quidi Vidi pond and Her Majesty’s Penitentiary and the wide open sea. The city has prospered since the murder of Donna Whalen. Sheldon Troke is still living here, cycling in and out of prison on misdemeanour charges. While in prison, Sheldon got addicted to a painkiller for cancer patients. He was also wired into morphine. Oxycontins, he’s said, do nothing for him—that’s how high the drug was he was doing in jail. His lawyer, Jim Lythgoe, still represents him. He says the drugs offered Sheldon a crutch. That Sheldon was ashamed that people thought he was Donna’s killer. He was insecure and drugs are a way to escape the world. There are times Sheldon has asked the court to put him in jail to get him off his drug problem.

  The court and the government recently awarded Sheldon Troke two million dollars and an apology for the wrongful murder conviction.

  Some members of Sheldon’s family have thought all along that Paul Troke was involved in Donna’s death. There was a sense that Paul was trying to shift the blame. And the whole process tore the Troke family apart. It came out that Sheldon’s older brother, Raymond—now deceased—was a police informant. Paul Troke, in fact, may have killed Raymond, and he certainly killed himself upon hearing about the DNA evidence pinning him to the Donna Whalen crime scene. Iris Troke doesnt speak to her mother or father any more, there was a stabbing incident between Iris and her father, Clayton, and there was an arrest after several members of the family accosted each other after a radio open-line show discussed who might be to blame for the deaths of Donna Whalen, Raymond Troke and Paul Troke.

  These days people dont think Sheldon will make it to next week. He says that’s enough for him right there to prove them all wrong. He’s far from killing himself, but he does have to keep a check on it. Years ago he could go on a tear for three days and wake up with no money and be forced to sober up. But now, with the settlement from the government, there’s no limit to his excess. He has to be careful. Some days are better than others. But don’t get him wrong—he’s not walking around whacked out of it all the time. Since being released, he has talked about his brother’s involvement in Donna Whalen’s death. He has visited Paul Troke’s grave. He finds it hard to forgive the brother he had loyally defended. He wonders if he’s in hell.

  APPENDIX

  FAMILIES

  Donna Whalen was the murder victim. She had two children, Sharon and Cory. Donna’s mother and father were Agnes and Aubrey Whalen. Her aunt is Edie Guzzwell. Her brother is Clifford Whalen.

  Sheldon Troke, the murder suspect, has two brothers, Paul and Raymond, and a sister, Iris. His mother and father are Bertha and Clayton.

  NEIGHBOURS

  Donna Whalen’s downstairs neighbours were the Vivians: Ruth, Pat and their son, Tom. Next door were the Edicotts: Mabel and her son, Keith.

  FRIENDS

  Cathy Furneaux went out with Raymond Troke. She has a son, Robert Furneaux. Trisha Hickman was Paul Troke’s girlfriend. Kim Parrott was Donna’s best friend. Kim’s ex-husband was Jacob Parrott. They have a son, Nicholas. Kim’s boyfriend was Rod Tessier. Eugene Driscoll, Joey Yetman and Vicki Pinhorn were friends of Sheldon’s. Albert Canning was a former boyfriend of Donna’s.

  POLICE AND DOCTORS

  Inspector Ches Hedderson and Constables Gary Bemister, Charles Stamp and Louise Motty investigated this murder. Percy Morgan was the sketch artist. Jim Pike drove the ambulance. The doctors who testified were forensic pathologist Philip Abery, family doctors Norman Seviour and Hubert Galgay, and psychiatrist Howard Strong.

  LEGAL

  Jim Lythgoe was Sheldon Troke’s defence counsel. The Crown prosecutor was Robert Ash. The Supreme Court judge was Richard Adams.

  OTHERS

  Douglas Saunders, director of Her Majesty’s Penitentiary

  Leander Dollymont, police informant

  John Noftall, witness for the defence

  Tang Man, Chinese takeout operator

  Michael Porter, taxi driver

  Scott Locke, bouncer at the Sundance Saloon

  a cognizant original v5 release october 26 2010

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This novel is based on court transcripts from a murder trial in St John’s, Newfoundland, transcripts that are in the public domain. I’ve changed the names and conflated some characters and turned most of the testimony into a third-person narrative. The epilogue is a reworking of selected statements made by the Right Honourable Antonio Lamer in his public inquiry into how the criminal justice system dealt with three discredited murder convictions in Newfoundland. Some of the prepared summations made at sentencing by the defence counsel, Crown prosecutor and the judge have also been paraphrased. The quote concerning the reliability of jailhouse informants is from Justice Peter Cory’s Sophonow Inquiry Report, which dealt with the wrongful conviction of Thomas Sophonow. I’ve mixed in several newspaper reports updating Sheldon Troke’s situation, as well as a few personal comments about the location of Donna Whalen’s home on Empire Avenue.

  I must thank my editor, Nicole Winstanley, and my readers, Larry Mathews, Lisa Moore, Lynn Moore, Anne McDermid and Christine Pountney, for helping me shape this story.