Inside the McGray Investigation: Vancouver Sun Reporter Frank Luba on the Jeremy Phillips Killing

Name: Inside the McGray Investigation: Vancouver Sun Reporter Frank Luba on the Jeremy Phillips Killing
Uploaded: 2018-03-24T00:00:00Z
Duration: 3 min 12 s
Description: Vancouver Sun reporter Frank Luba describes covering the 2012 inquest into the death of McGray's cellmate, Jeremy Phillips, and the three-year wait for answers from Correctional Service of Canada.

Vancouver Sun reporter Frank Luba describes covering the 2012 inquest into the death of McGray's cellmate, Jeremy Phillips, and the three-year wait for answers from Correctional Service of Canada.

Subject: Michael Wayne McGray
Recorded: about August 2015
Runtime: 3:12

Content warning: Concerns the killing of a prisoner by his cellmate; no graphic detail.

The Interview

This is a short Vancouver Sun video in which reporter Frank Luba explains, to camera, how he pursued the story of Jeremy Phillips's death. It is not an interview with Michael McGray, and McGray is not heard. Luba describes covering the 2012 B.C. coroner's inquest into Phillips's death, where, he says, the inquest heard "video testimony" from McGray (news reports of the inquest describe a recorded police interview with McGray), and the access-to-information requests the paper then filed with Correctional Service of Canada.

Historical Context

McGray, born in 1965 and raised in Nova Scotia, pleaded guilty in 2000 to murders in Moncton and Montreal and was later convicted of others committed in eastern Canada from 1985 on. In November 2010, while serving life, he killed his cellmate, Jeremy Phillips, 33, at Mountain Institution, a medium-security prison in Agassiz, B.C. He received a further life sentence for that killing.

Circumstances of the Recording

A coroner's inquest into Phillips's death was held in Burnaby, B.C., on October 29 and 30, 2012, and its jury recommended that Correctional Service of Canada consider mandatory single cells for multiple murderers. Luba says the Sun's 2012 requests for information from Correctional Service of Canada had to be appealed to the federal Information Commissioner and rephrased, and that a package of documents arrived by mail "after almost three years". This places the recording at about August 2015, although the video was uploaded in March 2018.

What the Interview Covers

Luba calls McGray's account of the killing, shown to the inquest on video, one of the most horrific things he has seen. He says the released documents told the paper "very little", and that one of the longest sections concerned flashlights: a guard checking the cell saw only Phillips's feet sticking out from under a blanket and thought he was all right, and the prison did not learn Phillips was dead until about 12 hours later, when McGray told staff. Luba says the coroner suggested brighter LED flashlights for cell checks (the jury's verdict asked the service to review flashlight intensity) and that the prison could not tell him whether new flashlights had arrived. He ends by saying that McGray had told everyone he did not want to share a cell.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The video is a reporter's first-hand account of the inquest and of the slow official response to it. The recorded police interview with McGray that was played at the inquest is not included in this video and has not been located.

Archival Importance

The Phillips killing raised the question of why a serial killer who, Luba says, had said he did not want a cellmate was double-bunked. This video preserves a journalist's account of the inquest and of the gap of about 12 hours before the prison knew Phillips was dead.

Important Caveats

McGray is not heard. Luba's description of the video of McGray shown at the inquest is his own impression; that video is not played. Luba calls it "video testimony", but news reports of the inquest describe it as a recorded police interview with McGray. The date of recording is inferred from Luba's words, and the newspaper story he refers to has not been located. The transcript rests on a machine transcript only.

Frank Luba: In 2012, I was assigned to a B.C. coroner's inquest into the death of Jeremy Phillips at Mountain Institution in Agassiz. What I thought would be a regular assignment was instead looking into the face of evil. We got video testimony from serial killer Michael McGray, and I have rarely seen anything as horrific as his explanation of what he did to Phillips. The inquest finished, there were recommendations, we had questions for the Correctional Service of Canada, and did not get any answer.

Frank Luba: We filed access to information requests in 2012. Earlier this month, August, after almost three years, we received a package in the mail. It wasn't even email, it was mail: brown envelope, the yellow manila envelope, of a bunch of documents, and it told us very little. I've subsequently tried to call Corrections to get some of my questions answered, and they have been unable to respond to me. Maybe when they see the story in the paper, they'll finally come up with some answers. I've given them a list of things I'd like them to answer.

Frank Luba: I'll give you an interesting little sidelight. One of the longest sections of the data we received from the Access Act, which we had to appeal to the Commissioner of Information in Canada, and had to rephrase our questions to get anything at all from them, [unclear: "regarded flashlights" / "regarded as flashlights" / "was about flashlights"]. When the guard checked the cell of Phillips and McGray, all he saw was the feet of Phillips sticking out from under his blanket, and thought he was okay. A suggestion from the coroner was that the guards be given more high-powered LED flashlights so they could get a better look at the people when they were checking them to see if they were alive.

Frank Luba: The prison didn't know Phillips was dead until about 12 hours later, when McGray told them that Phillips was dead. So they're in the process of getting new flashlights, but they couldn't tell me if they've got the flashlights yet, or when they're coming through, or anything. They were in a process of, I guess, when flashlights wear out, they're going to replace them with new flashlights. The bottom line here is that even if someone is in prison, they don't deserve to be killed by their cellmate, particularly when their cellmate told everybody he didn't want to double bunk. He did not want to share a cell with anyone, and when he did, he killed that person. [About 03:05 to 03:12: no machine text; video ends.] ---