The Deleted Suspect File: CBC News on the Glen Assoun Documents and Michael Wayne McGray, 2019

Name: The Deleted Suspect File: CBC News on the Glen Assoun Documents and Michael Wayne McGray, 2019
Uploaded: 2019-07-12T00:00:00Z
Duration: 7 min 51 s
Description: A July 2019 CBC News Network report and interview on the day a Nova Scotia court unsealed documents showing that police files on an alternate suspect in Brenda Way's murder, later reported to be McGray, had been deleted.

A July 2019 CBC News Network report and interview on the day a Nova Scotia court unsealed documents showing that police files on an alternate suspect in Brenda Way's murder, later reported to be McGray, had been deleted.

Subject: Michael Wayne McGray
Recorded: July 12, 2019
Runtime: 7:51

Content warning: Concerns the 1995 murder of a woman and a wrongful conviction; no graphic detail.

The Interview

This is a CBC News Network news segment from July 12, 2019, not an interview with Michael Wayne McGray, who is neither heard nor named in it. Reporter Brett Ruskin reports from the Halifax courthouse on documents released that day in the case of Glen Assoun, and the anchor then interviews Assoun's lawyer, Philip Campbell of Innocence Canada. The documents showed that police had held, and then deleted, information about an alternate suspect in the murder for which Assoun was convicted. The segment calls that suspect "a serial murderer"; CBC's written report the same day identified him as McGray.

Historical Context

Brenda Way was killed in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, in November 1995. Her former boyfriend, Glen Assoun, was convicted of second-degree murder in 1999 and spent about 17 years in prison, always denying the crime. In February 2019 the federal Minister of Justice overturned the conviction after a review, and the charge was withdrawn the next day. McGray, born in 1965 and raised in Nova Scotia, had by then been convicted of six murders committed in eastern Canada between 1985 and 1998, and in 2010 he killed his cellmate, for a seventh life sentence.

Circumstances of the Recording

The Justice Department's review had been sealed under a publication ban. CBC, The Canadian Press and the Halifax Examiner went to court to lift it, and on July 12, 2019, Justice James Chipman of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court released the material. According to CBC's reporting, a former RCMP analyst, David Moore, had identified McGray in the early 2000s as one of several strong suspects in Way's killing, and his work was later deleted.

What the Interview Covers

Ruskin reports that information about an alternate suspect was deleted from a police database before Assoun's appeal, that the RCMP said the deletion was not malicious, that no one has been convicted of Brenda Way's murder, and that Assoun says he has no time left for anger. Campbell says the deletion was deliberate, ordered, and protested by some of the analysts told to carry it out. He describes the suspect only as a man who lived close to the scene, matched the method of the crime, and resembled someone who had confessed to the murder while committing another crime, and says that Assoun's appeal lawyer, Jerome Kennedy, had asked for information on that man by name in the early 2000s and was never told of the analysis. He calls for accountability and redress for Assoun without his having to sue.

What Makes the Recording Significant

The segment records, on the day the documents were released, the response of Assoun's lawyer to the disclosure that police analysis of a convicted serial killer as a suspect in Way's murder had been destroyed and withheld from the defense.

Archival Importance

The Assoun case is one of Canada's notable wrongful convictions, and the deleted analysis became a central question about police conduct in it. This segment captures the first public account of that material.

Important Caveats

McGray is not named or heard in the video; the link to him comes from CBC's written reporting and the released documents. He has not been charged with Brenda Way's murder, and the case against him is a suspicion: an analyst's assessment and an inmate's report of what McGray told him. The RCMP said at the time that the deletion was not intentional; Campbell disputes that, and his statements are his view as Assoun's lawyer. Ruskin's phrase "convicted of the murder in 1995" refers to the year of the murder; the conviction came in 1999.

Anchor: The other big story we're following is in Halifax, where a report from the federal Justice Department was unsealed today. It concerns Glen Assoun, a Nova Scotia man who spent 17 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of murder. The report, which hasn't been seen by the public until now, led to his conviction being overturned. CBC's Brett Ruskin is at the Halifax courthouse and has the details about what's in the Assoun report.

Brett Ruskin: Glen Assoun spent 17 years behind bars, and we learned today that some of the information that could have led to his release was deleted from a police database. That's according to documents that were released here from this courtroom, after a publication ban was fought against by CBC News as well as the Canadian Press and the Halifax Examiner; we all worked together to hire a lawyer to fight this publication ban. The publication ban was lifted, and in the documents released today, it shows that there was information about an alternate suspect that police had in hand, but then that police deleted in advance of an appeal of the conviction of Glen Assoun. So the RCMP have said, yes, we did have the information, it was deleted, but it was not done with malicious intent. Now, Glen Assoun again was arrested, tried and convicted of the murder in 1995, and throughout the '90s the trial did continue: the murder of Brenda Way. He spent nearly 17 years in prison, has now been exonerated. Meanwhile, there is no convicted killer of Brenda Way as we speak. Glen Assoun, on his part, he says he spent 17 years behind bars. He is not angry or frustrated, because in his 60s, with the time that he has left, he says he doesn't have time for anger. He doesn't have time for frustration. He just wants to live his life now as a free man. Brett Ruskin, CBC News, Halifax.

Anchor: For more on this, we're joined now by Glen Assoun's lawyer, Philip Campbell. He works with Innocence Canada on cases of wrongful conviction. He is in [unclear: "Paris, Greece"] today. So now, Philip Campbell, first of all, congratulations on having this wrongful conviction overturned. I'm curious to know your thoughts about the fact that all these documents now are being made public. What do you think about that?

Philip Campbell: Thanks for having me on, Diane. It's a big day for me and my co-counsel, and for Glen Assoun, and for Innocence Canada. We've known about this information for five years, and we respected the reasons why Justice Chipman kept it sealed, but the public interest arguments in favor of exposing it, spearheaded by three media companies, were overwhelming, and the story is a grim one. I've done a lot of legal work and a lot of work on wrongful convictions in my career, and I haven't quite seen anything like this. I think there's a massive public interest in having this story told and explored further. We know the bare facts, but we don't know where accountability should lie, and we don't know, the question that still puzzles me, which is why. What did these police officers, senior police officers, think would happen when they started pressing delete, or ordered frontline criminal profilers to press delete on all this material? It's a bit baffling.

Anchor: Well, one of the shocking things that we have been hearing today is that in these documents it comes clear that in fact there has been another suspect for many, many years. In fact, what our reporter on the scene, Brett Ruskin, was telling us is that the other suspect was a serial murderer, and you've been aware of this for some time, but the public hasn't known. Is that the situation?

Philip Campbell: Well, it's certainly, the public hasn't known it. Here's, here's the striking thing about this. In 2004 through 2006, the appeal lawyer, Jerome Kennedy, was thinking that this man, who lived pretty much next door to the scene of the murder, and had a lot of things in common with the, with the modus operandi of the murder, and with the appearance of somebody who actually confessed to the murder whilst committing another crime: we knew about that, and Jerome Kennedy knew about it in the early 2000s, and he was pursuing that issue with the Crown. What he didn't know, what we didn't know until these documents were [unclear: "created" / "revealed"], was that there was a whole line of analysis within, within the RCMP and the Halifax Regional Police that the same guy was a top suspect in the crime. And not only that, but the lawyer in the early 2000s, during the appeal, was asking specifically for that information, by name, and yet it was not only destroyed digitally and in hard copy, but nobody told him, even though he was making specific inquiries. And this issue went in, clearly documented from clear sources, it went right to the top of the ViCLAS unit in, in Ottawa. So now we know. It remains just a head-scratcher.

Anchor: Now, the RCMP did give a statement to CBC News, our reporter was mentioning it on CBC News Network earlier, saying that these, the delete button that was pressed, as you were mentioning earlier, was not done in a malicious way; it was accidental. What I'm curious to know right now is, are you going to be taking any further steps on behalf of Mr. Assoun? What, what's the next thing to happen here?

Philip Campbell: It's, so, I don't know. It wasn't accidental. It's admitted in the document, that your reporters will see, that it was not only deliberate but ordered, and not only deliberate and ordered, but protested by some of the analysts who were required to carry it out. So there's nothing accidental about it. They claim that it's not malicious, and I don't know what that means, because, yeah, because if it wasn't malicious, if it was accidental or done in good faith, they could have just admitted it. And instead, the requests from Jerome Kennedy for information about this fellow, and about the criminal profiling of him, was left completely unanswered. It was, so there's nothing innocent about this.

Anchor: And so you'll be pursuing legal action, then?

Philip Campbell: Well, the legal action that Glen Assoun needed is an acquittal, and he's got that. What should happen here is that the people who are responsible for, the people who did this, government officials, should be taking the initiative not only to figure out what happened and assign some accountability for it, but, yeah, assign, grant some redress to Glen Assoun. He should not have to go through a legal action to have the right thing done, in the face of overwhelming evidence, documented and admitted by the people who perpetrated the wrong.

Anchor: Thank you so much for being with us today. We really appreciate your time. [About 07:50 to 07:51: no machine text; video ends.] ---