The Bulldog and the Helix

by Shayne Morrow

  THE VERDICT

  At 5:25 PM on December 3, after three days of deliberations, the jury returned to Courtroom 302, having informed the sheriff they had reached a verdict. As the Alberni Valley Times reported, Dhillon sat facing straight ahead while waiting for the jurors to arrive. As they filed in, he appeared to be scanning their faces for telltale signs before the judge asked the familiar question.

  “Mr. Foreman, have you reached a verdict?”

  “Yes, my lord,” the white-haired foreman replied.

  “And what is your verdict?”

  One word hung in the courtroom: “Guilty.”

  “Now let’s get this straight. Guilty of what charge?” Stewart demanded.

  “Guilty of first-degree murder, my lord,” the foreman replied.

  Stewart then asked all jurors who agreed with the verdict to stand. Twelve jurors rose to their feet.

  “Some stared directly at Dhillon. He didn’t flinch, didn’t blink. He appeared to be in shock,” reporter Brian Wilford wrote.

  When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say, Dhillon hung his head for a long moment, before replying “No.” Another pause. “Nothing to say.”

  Sentencing was brief and succinct. Justice Stewart delivered the mandatory sentence for conviction on first-degree murder: life in prison with no possibility of parole for twenty-five years. “Thank you,” Stewart told the jury. “We’ll simply adjourn.”

  At this point, Dhillon rose and placed his hands behind his back, waiting for the sheriff to arrive with the handcuffs. When the convicted man whispered a question to Chamberlain, the lawyer dismissed him. “There’s nothing more to talk to me about,” he said in voice loud enough to be heard throughout the courtroom. “We’ll just have to talk to the family and see what we’re going to do.”

  Lyle Price, who was standing in the doorway to the courtroom while the verdict was rendered, said the conversation resumed, more quietly this time. “He [Dhillon] asked, ‘So what happens now?’ And Chamberlain said, ‘You go to jail.’”

  ONE GUILTY PARTY was convicted of the crime, but the elusive blond second suspect has yet to be identified. All told, it had taken over twenty-one years to bring in a guilty verdict, although the appeal process would spin out for nearly three more years. The final decision took place two months after Port Alberni’s other DNA case, the one involving Jessica States, wrapped up.

  Dan Smith was at home when the guilty verdict came in. “I was awaiting a phone call with bated breath because this was my first big murder trial. In due course, I got a call that he was convicted. It was an unbelievable weight off my shoulders. The file was eleven years old when I got it, and ten more years [elapsed] before we got it to court . . . I felt a huge sense of relief—first, that it was over and second, that the jury was able to see what I felt was the truth.”

  Smith said that he also felt a “sense of accomplishment because this was the first murder file that I had ever been assigned. And I had been assigned it not to solve it but to simply submit updates periodically. I’m not saying that I solved it, but I was part of the greater team that did. I was the primary investigator when it was solved.”

  What Smith wouldn’t learn for some time was that, the same day Dhillon’s conviction was announced in the December 4 edition of the Alberni Valley Times, Port Alberni RCMP arrested the killer of Jessica States. It would be eight months, however, before his voluntary DNA sample set off the alarm bells at RCMP headquarters.

  Suspect on Ice

  AT NOON ON December 4, 1998, the day after the jury found Gurmit Singh Dhillon guilty, Brian Wilford’s story about the verdict appeared on the front page of the Alberni Valley Times: “Gurmit Singh Dhillon Guilty!”

  The Times had made the transition to full digital production in July 1997, but the deadline ritual was much the same as the days when pages were cut, pasted, and photographed. For those who have never worked at a newspaper, “hot off the press” is just an abstract term. But in those days, it was a daily ritual. A bunch of reporters cranked out copy until eleven o’clock in the morning. After a quick edit, the copy was sent off to production. Production assembled the last news pages at deadline and sent them out to the RIP (raster image processor), where they were turned into full-size negatives, which were burned onto plates. The last plates were hung on the press and, soon enough, the entire building would begin to shake as the presses spooled up to operating speed.

  And those bundles of newspapers heading out around noon were hot to the touch, as hot as the headline on the front page. It had taken twenty-one years, seven months, and nineteen days to bring Carolyn Lee’s killer to justice. It was a heady moment to be part of that news team.

  Also in the December 4, 1998, edition of the Alberni Valley Times was a letter to the editor from Corporal Dan Smith and Staff Sergeant Ken Williamson, second-in-command of the Port Alberni detachment, headlined “Surinder Dhillon Was Never a Suspect”: “It has been brought to my attention that your media coverage of the trial in Monday’s paper could be construed to portray [Gurmit Dhillon’s brother] Surinder Singh Dhillon as a possible suspect in this murder.” The article in question, said Smith and Williamson, had suggested that a defence witness made an out-of-context reference to Surinder Dhillon as a suspect. In their joint letter, Smith and Williamson explain that the brother of the accused voluntarily provided a DNA sample “as an investigation aide only, and there was never any reason for the police to suspect Surinder Dhillon of being involved in this crime.” Meanwhile, the third Dhillon brother, Manjit, had readily stepped forward to be DNA sampled in the Jessica States blooding.

  THAT DAY, I covered a series of events whose tentacles were to reach into the next DNA case in Port Alberni. First, I was called out in the morning to a recovery scene off River Road, where a woman had driven her car into the Somass River and required a swift-water rope rescue. Much to my annoyance, my trusty Nikon F-70 broke down, and I had to use my much slower backup camera, a Minolta Weathermatic. The slow action of this camera was to figure in a case later that day whose arrests set in motion the resolution of the murder of Jessica States.

  That evening, the RCMP street crew, headed by Corporal Dave Finnen, collared a couple of otherwise ordinary young break-and-enter artists. Finnen had called me at home at about eight o’clock. “We’re going to go out and bust down some doors tonight. Want to join us?” he asked. He explained that one of the two guys he arrested had ratted out his fence, who lived in the China Creek Apartments, about five blocks from my house. In the street crew’s basement office at the RCMP detachment, the team suited up. Finnen handed me his bulletproof vest. “There may be firearms at the scene,” he said. He knew how to sink the hook.

  With warrant in hand, the crew took their places, guns drawn, at the suspect’s door. I trailed behind, camera at the ready, knowing that, due to the slow cycling of the Weathermatic camera I had resorted to using that day, I was going to get one shot at a time. I hit the shutter as Constable Curtis Parker leaned back to put his foot through the apartment door. (When I had the film processed, the shot was acceptable. Just.)

  But the suite was empty. Finnen was furious. The rat had given him the right address but the wrong suite number. Presumably, the bad guy was supposed to hear the racket and get out of Dodge. Somehow (I never found out how), Finnen soon came up with the appropriate suite number. I hopped in an unmarked car with Constable Mark Zenko for a midnight run out to the judge’s home at Sproat Lake to amend the warrant.

  Back at China Creek Apartments, Finnen tracked down the building manager and talked him into handing over the key to the suspect’s suite. This time, he took the lead at the doorway. First, he quietly unlocked the door, listened for a few moments, then slammed on it a couple of times with his fist. With his left hand, he quietly turned the door handle to the open position and held it there.

  After a pause, a sleepy but irritated voice said, “Who is it?”

  “Police! Open Up!”

  Pause.
<
br />   “Fuck off!”

  I hit the shutter again as Finnen shoved the door open, snaked his right hand through the opening, and grabbed the suspect by the throat. This time, my little camera caught only a blur. After the suspect was led away, I joined the detectives who were checking out the heaps of stolen property lying around the suite. I had already taken a few photos when Finnen pulled me aside.

  “I have to tell you, you’re not really supposed to be in here,” he said, and I got one of those sinking feelings. As he explained, a recent decision in the BC Court of Appeal, on what he then believed to be a grow-op takedown, had overturned a conviction because police had allowed a TV film crew to enter the premises and film the bust. (Much later, I learned the case actually involved child pornography, not marijuana.) It was the first I had heard of R. v. West, and over the next few years it would drastically affect relations between Canadian police and the media.

  According to the appeal document, a journalist with CBC Television had obtained information that the accused, a Mr. West, was engaged in the “production, distribution or possession of pornographic material involving children.” After providing police with sufficient evidence to obtain a search warrant, the journalist was invited to accompany police on the takedown. West had asked the CBC team to leave his residence, which they did. However, once the suspect was taken away, they were allowed to shoot the crime scene from the doorway.

  At trial, the matter of media presence at the crime scene was the subject of a voir dire hearing. The trial judge ruled that all evidence seized at the scene was admissible. Once the evidence was declared admissible, West pleaded guilty to three counts related to child pornography, while at the same time reserving his right to appeal against the ruling of the voir dire.

  The appeal came before Justices McEachern, Lambert, and Southin on November 5, and on December 10, 1997, they overturned the conviction and ordered a new trial. The search was declared unreasonable under Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Of special concern to the three justices was the fact that police had allowed the TV crew to re-enter the scene after West had expressly demanded they vacate the premises.

  One year following that appeal, on December 7, 1998, the Monday after the China Creek raid, I published a limited account of it, omitting my entry into the apartment. The main focus of the article was the arrest of the two break-and-enter suspects that had taken place earlier that day, one of whom was Roderick Patten, who was then twenty years old. It was the first time that I’d heard that name. On the same day, the Times published a follow-up story from reporter Brian Wilford in which Dan Smith advised that the RCMP were keeping the Carolyn Lee file open. Smith reminded readers that, according to one witness account, there was still a suspect at large: the blond-haired man Alice Lazorko belatedly reported to investigators.

  But R. v. West would rear its head, with career-threatening potential. Summoned to the RCMP detachment, I found myself confronted by the new police chief, Inspector Lou Racz, and the GIS head, Sergeant John Van Schaik, who had succeeded Dale Djos the previous summer.

  It went something like this: “We need to know: did you enter the suite at China Creek Apartments on Friday night?”

  Silently cursing Dave Finnen, I denied setting a foot in the suite, despite the existence of a full set of negatives of the search and the stolen property.

  “If you entered the suite, it would invalidate the arrest, you know.”

  Somehow, I suspected Finnen had deliberately used me to queer the bust. At stake was my security clearance, which, due to my position on the local Crime Stoppers executive, was about as high as a civilian could attain. I continued to deny any wrongdoing.

  “Shayne, Finnen told us he took you inside. We just need to hear it from you, on the record.”

  “Well, if Finnen already told you, why the hell do you need to hear it from me?” I said in exasperation, then stopped short. I had walked right into it. They were gracious about it, and my security clearance was not affected. As it turned out, the China Creek Apartments suspect himself was never charged, but he subsequently rolled over on his suppliers, probably never suspecting that my presence at his arrest had conferred immunity on him.

  On February 3, Roderick Patten, however, was sentenced to fifteen months in jail on break-and-enter charges.

  THE YEAR 1998 marked the passing of a law that would further the evolution of the use of DNA evidence, an evolution critical to the successful prosecution of Patten. The DNA Identification Act had been reborn as Bill C-3 and received its First Reading on September 25, 1997, just three days after the 36th Parliament began sitting. The Second Reading followed on May 12, 1998, and the bill was eventually passed in the House on September 29. On December 8, just five days after Gurmit Singh Dhillon was convicted of first-degree murder, based in part on DNA evidence, senators received the Standing Committee report on the DNA Identification Act. The bill received Third Reading and Royal Assent the following day.

  The new legislation allowed the creation of the National DNA Data Bank, which was split into two components. A crime scene index would store DNA profiles derived from genetic materials collected at the scene of a crime in which a designated offence took place, while the convicted offenders index would contain DNA profiles of those convicted of designated offences. The DNA profiles could be created from genetic samples collected voluntarily or under DNA warrant.

  Further clauses set out the terms under which genetic material could be preserved and stored, and also set out penalties for anyone convicted of misusing the stored data. The law was made retroactive to allow the sampling of offenders who committed crimes before Bill C-3 came into force. Finally, Clause 22 ensured that DNA information in electronic form would be removed from the data bank “if they established no connection with the crime, the person was finally acquitted, or a year had expired following discharge, stay, dismissal, or withdrawal of charges.”

  COLD HIT

  Eight months after the conviction of Gurmit Dhillon, the RCMP crime lab in Vancouver got the long-awaited cold hit on Sample 700-something —Roderick Patten. The third generation of DNA technology enabled Hiron Poon to make the conclusive nine-loci (plus sex typing) DNA match.

  Stefano Mazzega said that, while it makes for good screen drama, forensic lab technicians do not typically shout cheers and slap high-fives when a positive DNA match is confirmed. But this case was different. “Normally, you could be working on up to twenty cases at once. It gets pretty overwhelming, so normally, once the report goes out the door, you move on to something else.” Mazzega said that, typically, when the technician had a potential match in hand, there was an extensive quality control procedure to be followed, and “that would be the point where you’d say, ‘This is looking good.’” At this point, the scientist said, a recording officer would likely advise his colleagues that a potential match was at hand. He might give the lead investigator a heads-up that one of his suspects was a likely match in order to focus the team resources more effectively.

  Mazzega said that the States case had generated so many samples that were systematically eliminated that there could have been a tendency for the analysts to become blasé about the investigation. But something was different about June 23, 1999. Hiron Poon says he remembers the moment vividly. On that day, there was a meeting scheduled with his supervisor and members of the lab crew, including Mazzega. He had a load of work to review, but for some reason, he had a feeling that something was about to break. He decided to risk a breach of protocol and asked to be excused from the meeting.

  “At the time, I was busy analyzing the data. By then, after two years, I pretty well had the [suspect] profile memorized in my head. So when the DNA profile came up, I saw it right away. I recognized it. I went over to the meeting room and said, ‘Hey—I’ve got a match!’ I also called Dan [Smith’s] office.” Within an hour, the news had spread throughout the lab.

  Poon had been looking for Dan Smith at the GIS office, but it was Shelley
Arnfield who took the call. “Dan had just gone on holiday when Hiron phoned, and he said to me ‘Are you sitting down? We’ve got a match.’ And I immediately just grabbed my big black binder, and I said, ‘What number, Hiron?’”

  When she checked the “700-something” number in her binder, she was shocked. “Roddy Patten. I thought, ‘I’ve known that kid since 1991.’ I had expected it to be ‘somebody you didn’t know.’ But . . . I had known this kid for all that time. He was twelve when I arrived [in Port Alberni], and I had been dealing with him for years.” Arnfield said the revelation brought a full mix of emotions in addition to simple stunned shock that the suspect had been in plain sight the whole time. “I sat there and thought, besides the guys in the lab, I am the only person in the world who knows who did it.”

  That day, only Arnfield and fellow GIS member Steve Sawlewicz were on duty. “I said to Steve, ‘They’ve got a match.’ And Steve said, ‘Okay! We’ve got to write the DNA warrant!’”

  Here, she paused. “Neither of us has a clue how to write a DNA warrant, and Dan has gone on holidays. He’s off fishing in the toolies somewhere. So [Constable] Terry Horrocks came on at four o’clock for the night shift. I said, ‘Terry, we’ve got a hit. We’ve got to find Dan.’ Terry took charge because he knew the general area where Dan had gone fishing. He got the Forest Rangers to go out in the bush, find Dan, and get him to call Terry.”

  Smith said he had barely settled in at his campsite when Arnfield received the news from Poon. “I had taken some annual leave. Because of these files, I was perpetually behind in my annual leave.” Smith had set up a campsite at the Ralph River Campground on Buttle Lake in the Campbell River area. According to the plan, his family would join him in a few days. He paid his camp fees and had just cooked a hamburger on his portable barbecue.

  “I was relaxing when the camp ranger drove up and stopped at my campsite. I’m thinking he wanted to collect the camp fees, which I have already paid. I was trying to explain to him that I’d already paid the fees at the Ranger Station. He said, ‘It’s nothing about that. Are you Mr. Smith? Are you a member of the RCMP?’”