Speaker 1: True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
Speaker 1: waters that this podcast was recorded on. In nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 1: fifteen year old Canadian Chrissy Harn was being a typical teenager.
Speaker 1: She didn't love school. In fact, she had a history
Speaker 1: of skipping classes. She was messy, a bit of a tomboy, and,
Speaker 1: according to a friend, a bit of an easy target
Speaker 1: for bullies too. She'd been struggling with her parents' divorce.
Speaker 1: Her dad lived too far away for regular visits. She
Speaker 1: didn't really get along with her new stepdad, but she
Speaker 1: was trying. Amongst the arguments, there would also be moments
Speaker 1: where they would connect, helping him out in the garage
Speaker 1: replacing the spark plugs in his car. A sensitive and
Speaker 1: shy girl, Chrissy wasn't a partier. In fact, her parents
Speaker 1: had praised her when she'd returned from an event because
Speaker 1: she said she felt uncomfortable with her peers drinking and smoking.
Speaker 1: Chrissy loved her mind Mary Anne, but like any teen
Speaker 1: parent relationship, they also fought, and so when her mum
Speaker 1: told her to get to school on the afternoon of
Speaker 1: May eighteen, nineteen ninety three, she put on her jacket
Speaker 1: and reluctantly started the short walkover. Mary Anne will remember
Speaker 1: this moment for the rest of her life like a
Speaker 1: scar that never heals, because that argument would be the
Speaker 1: last time she would ever speak to her daughter.
Speaker 2: And then she lacked to go to school.
Speaker 1: She walked down the other side of the street and
Speaker 1: around the corner, and that was the last I've seen
Speaker 1: of her. I'm Claire Murphy and this is True Crime Conversations,
Speaker 1: a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
Speaker 1: to the people who know the most about them. It's
Speaker 1: a parent's worst nightmare, a missing child, a police pease
Speaker 1: force who thinks every teenager is a runaway, and a
Speaker 1: mother who desperately searches despite the roadblock she faces from
Speaker 1: the authorities. The case of missing Ontario teen Chrissy Haron
Speaker 1: would not be one sold in a year, not even
Speaker 1: a decade on from her disappearance, but a shock confession,
Speaker 1: a botched court case, an undercover sting, and more than
Speaker 1: twenty years later, someone would finally be held accountable for
Speaker 1: her death. Chrissy Harron's body has never been found, but
Speaker 1: the person who took her life is paying for his
Speaker 1: crime thanks to the dedication of a mother and one.
Speaker 1: Independent film and podcast maker David Ridgan worked alongside Chrissy's mother,
Speaker 1: Mary Anne for more than fifteen years as they brought
Speaker 1: her killer to justice. The host of the Someone Knows
Speaker 1: Something podcast sat down with us to tell us how
Speaker 1: a mother's undying love can outlast at all. Before we
Speaker 1: dive into the interview with David, there are a few
Speaker 1: key points you should understand to fully grasp Chrissy's story
Speaker 1: and David's investigation. Police kept Anthony Ringle in custody for
Speaker 1: thirty seven hours, five hours of that was before he
Speaker 1: was even read his rights. He was allowed phone calls
Speaker 1: to lawyers after he requested legal representation, spending a total
Speaker 1: of around twenty minutes only on calls with them, but
Speaker 1: no lawyer attended the questioning. When asked to explain himself
Speaker 1: on the record, Ringle would only say no questions, no comment.
Speaker 1: Despite this, police continued to question him, often without taking
Speaker 1: notes or recording the conversation. A second officer stepped in
Speaker 1: to take over the interrogation after it had seemingly wrapped up.
Speaker 1: Ringle said he did not want to continue and said
Speaker 1: he was advised by the lawyer not to take them
Speaker 1: to the place that he had had initially told the
Speaker 1: officer after calling nine to one one that Chrissy's body was,
Speaker 1: but they took him anyway. The list of questionable police
Speaker 1: conduct was adding up as Ringle's confusing and sometimes barely
Speaker 1: audible responses continued. He would switch from admitting to the
Speaker 1: murder to no comment. When asked why he would confess
Speaker 1: to it if he didn't do it, he gave no
Speaker 1: real answer. Several undercover police officers would infiltrate the trailer
Speaker 1: park where Ringle lived. They connected with him by telling
Speaker 1: him how they too were victims doing it tough in life.
Speaker 1: Then one night they sat down and watched the documentary
Speaker 1: about him. In the footage taken over many hours, Ringle
Speaker 1: would get upset with what he said were inconsistencies in
Speaker 1: the documentary's telling of his story. He would say they
Speaker 1: got it wrong when they claimed he drowned her. He had,
Speaker 1: in fact, more suffocated Chrissy by pushing her face down
Speaker 1: into the mud. He explained how he'd used her jacket
Speaker 1: to restrict her hands as he had nothing to tie
Speaker 1: her up with that enabled him. He said to remove
Speaker 1: her pants. He described the location where it all took place,
Speaker 1: just across the river, and how he had just come
Speaker 1: across her in the park that day, a place she
Speaker 1: used to frequent. He explained how he left her out
Speaker 1: there the first night, before returning to cover her body
Speaker 1: with sticks and logs the next day. Ringle also told
Speaker 1: the undercover officers how he'd thought about doing it again,
Speaker 1: but in almost attempting to justify the crime, Ringle said
Speaker 1: that by only doing it once and never again, essentially
Speaker 1: he'd been a good person. He even went as far
Speaker 1: as to say that he hoped he had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to apologize to Chrissy in the afterlife, where he would
Speaker 1: ask her was her life better before or after he
Speaker 1: did what he did. I know you've been investigating the
Speaker 1: case of Christine or Chrissy as she was known harn
Speaker 1: For gosh, it must be getting close to two decades now,
Speaker 1: but I'd love to take you back to the beginning.
Speaker 1: When did you first hear about her story and what
Speaker 1: led you to really focus in on this.
Speaker 2: One for Christine Herron. I'm a documentary filmmaker before I
Speaker 2: was a podcaster, and I had been looking at cold
Speaker 2: cases in general for television since two thousand and four,
Speaker 2: and at the time I found out about Chrissie's case,
Speaker 2: I was developing some television documentaries for CBC, the Canadian
Speaker 2: Broadcasting Corporation in late two thousands. I think about cold
Speaker 2: cases obviously, and I recall Chrissie's case made the shortlist
Speaker 2: pretty much right away for several reasons. I attended a
Speaker 2: memorial service for her in Hanover, which is a small
Speaker 2: town here in Ontario, southwest Ontario, just to do some
Speaker 2: initial research and something about the service for her, her
Speaker 2: photo up there on the stand, how people spoke about her,
Speaker 2: the whole atmosphere, it was very thick. It made me
Speaker 2: want to try to help, and I remember I remember
Speaker 2: saying to the associate producer who was there with me
Speaker 2: at the time, that Chrissy was someone I wish I
Speaker 2: had been able to meet. And I remember actually crying,
Speaker 2: and I remember feeling this kind of heat of frustration
Speaker 2: about the case. You know, I just kind of knew
Speaker 2: that I wanted to help on it, but I wasn't
Speaker 2: able to at the time. There are other cases took
Speaker 2: over in the early stages, but eventually I did get
Speaker 2: to Chrissie's case as the fourth in a series of
Speaker 2: films I made for CBC, and then the podcast kind
Speaker 2: of came after that, So there's several stages of production
Speaker 2: that went into Chrissie's case.
Speaker 1: Well, talk to me a bit about what it was
Speaker 1: about Chrissy that made you feel like she was someone
Speaker 1: that you wanted to meet. What was she like and
Speaker 1: what did you learn about who she was as a person.
Speaker 2: Christine was fifteen at the time she disappeared. She was rebellious,
Speaker 2: she didn't like school, but she enjoyed her walks outside.
Speaker 2: She liked the natural world, she liked reading, she liked
Speaker 2: being around children. She had that kind of, like I say,
Speaker 2: kind of counterintuitive nature that maybe she didn't get along
Speaker 2: with everybody, but she was very kind and I could
Speaker 2: just tell the way people were talking about her. But
Speaker 2: that's what she was like. And you know, when I
Speaker 2: met her mother, Mary Anne, I saw some video of
Speaker 2: Chrissy at the time and it was quite touching around
Speaker 2: the Christmas tree and things like that. It's hard to
Speaker 2: explain really what makes me want to take on a case.
Speaker 2: There's some other factors that were interesting as well, but
Speaker 2: mainly just the way it struck me at that ceremony
Speaker 2: for her.
Speaker 1: Well, let's delve into Chrissy's story. It's May eighteen, nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety three. You mentioned there that she didn't love going
Speaker 1: to school, and she'd woken up that morning and claimed
Speaker 1: to be unwell. Whether she actually was or not is
Speaker 1: a question many parents ask themselves about their children when
Speaker 1: they're trying to get out of going to school. But
Speaker 1: her mum was a bit concerned about the truancy officer
Speaker 1: Maryann who you mentioned, and insisted her daughter does go
Speaker 1: to school that day, so she kind of sends her off.
Speaker 1: What was Chrissy's reaction to her mom trying to force
Speaker 1: her to go to school that day.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's like anything, if you try to
Speaker 2: make it happen, the opposite happens. If you try to
Speaker 2: force that idea out of your head, it's actually it
Speaker 2: galvanizes the idea in your head. So I think that
Speaker 2: by trying to get Chrissy to go to school, she
Speaker 2: was less likely to want to go. But eventually I
Speaker 2: think maybe it formulate a plan formulated in Chrissy's head
Speaker 2: that Okay, I'll go to school, but not go to school.
Speaker 2: You know, I'll go to school the school the long way,
Speaker 2: and it turned out that on that morning she was sick.
Speaker 2: And it was May eighteenth, nineteen ninety three. As you said,
Speaker 2: they had an argument and the obtruancy officer called, and
Speaker 2: so it was I guess it was around one or
Speaker 2: midday in the afternoon that Chrissy finally said okay, got up,
Speaker 2: left and slammed the door. And this was allegedly on
Speaker 2: her way to school. Mary Anne saw go down the
Speaker 2: street and turn the corner and that was the last
Speaker 2: that she ever saw of her. And it turns out
Speaker 2: that Christy didn't go to school that day.
Speaker 1: Was her mother, then, the last person to actually see
Speaker 1: her alive, apart from the person who would take her life.
Speaker 1: Did anybody else spot her in the aftermath of her disappearance.
Speaker 2: There was nobody else that came forward at the time.
Speaker 2: Nobody else reported to police or buy police in to
Speaker 2: my knowledge, and I've looked through thousands of pages of
Speaker 2: investigative information over two different police departments, the local department
Speaker 2: and the opp the Ontario Provincial Police which took over
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety nine. Nobody else saw Christy that day
Speaker 2: to my knowledge or anybody else's except for the person
Speaker 2: who killed her.
Speaker 1: So Marianne does what most parents would do in this
Speaker 1: situation where their kid, who is known for skipping classes
Speaker 1: at school, does calls all their friends. Doesn't have a
Speaker 1: big circle of friends, but she know none of them
Speaker 1: have seen her. Police states too early to really do anything,
Speaker 1: but she does report it to police later that What
Speaker 1: was the police's initial response to mary Anne's request for
Speaker 1: them to search for her daughter.
Speaker 2: Well, initially, police, and in many cases this happens, right
Speaker 2: or wrong, police suggests that she'll come back, you know,
Speaker 2: so she's a runaway, and usually that's a pretty temporary
Speaker 2: maneuver by police. Usually it's give it some time. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: everybody knows in the true crime world at the first
Speaker 2: seventy two hours and blah blah blah are important, and
Speaker 2: they are. And in this case though the police kept
Speaker 2: to that story, kept to that narrative. The local police
Speaker 2: chief his daughter had a habit of departing, apparently according
Speaker 2: to him, so he was saying, citing these kind of
Speaker 2: anecdotal stories of she'll be back, my daughter always comes
Speaker 2: back kind of thing. But that went on for like
Speaker 2: a year, and there were these false sightings of Christy
Speaker 2: and Toronto police kept, you know, suggesting that maybe she
Speaker 2: was with those people that were being seen in Toronto,
Speaker 2: or she was with a bunch of punk rockers or something.
Speaker 2: But basically, nothing ever came back of a real true
Speaker 2: sighting of Chrissy, and in the meantime, important time was passing.
Speaker 2: If you get to know the story, you'll realize that
Speaker 2: this was a massive mistake at this time because they
Speaker 2: could have probably found her if they did a proper search.
Speaker 2: They only undertook a rudimentary search around town and they
Speaker 2: never found any trace of her. But if they had
Speaker 2: taken it a little bit more seriously, I'm not sure
Speaker 2: what would have made them take it more seriously, maybe
Speaker 2: more experience. It was a very small force, local town
Speaker 2: force they had over police. In fact, the guy, the
Speaker 2: man who investigated the case in the beginning, was later
Speaker 2: arrested for you know, some kind of horrible crimes he
Speaker 2: himself committed, So I'm not sure how great of an
Speaker 2: investigator he was. The Ontario Provincial Police when they took
Speaker 2: over the case, reinvestigated everything, They reinterviewed everybody, They talked
Speaker 2: to other people that they hadn't talked to before, and
Speaker 2: the other investigation, but still nothing happened. You know, that
Speaker 2: was nineteen ninety nine. This happened in nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: so nothing the police did really made any difference to
Speaker 2: the case.
Speaker 1: You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me Claire Murphy.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking with David Ridgan, host of the podcast Someone
Speaker 1: Knows Something about the case of Chrissy Haron. Next, David
Speaker 1: and I dive into why Marianne searched for her daughter
Speaker 1: was derailed and how the community in Hanover, Ontario not
Speaker 1: only failed to help, but actually told her to give up.
Speaker 1: Do you think the police's attitude to Chrissy's disappearance contributed
Speaker 1: to how the community responded to Marianne and her other
Speaker 1: family members in that time, because Marianne spoke to you
Speaker 1: and said that she would put up posters asking for
Speaker 1: information about the whereabouts of her missing daughter that would
Speaker 1: get torn down, and that people kept telling her to
Speaker 1: kind of let it go, and that you know, Chrissy
Speaker 1: was just off, you know, being a rebellious teenager. Do
Speaker 1: you think the police's attitude didn't help that the community
Speaker 1: didn't seem to rally around them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not sure that it did. Help. I think
Speaker 2: the communities tend to have kind of a singular mind sometimes,
Speaker 2: and if one person thinks that something, then many of
Speaker 2: them will think the same thing. You know. They definitely
Speaker 2: Chrissy and Marianne were not wealthy people. They were not
Speaker 2: from a wealthy background or family, working class family very
Speaker 2: much so. And I'm not sure how much that impacted
Speaker 2: the case, but I can only imagine it. Did you know,
Speaker 2: this person's not as important as everybody else, which is
Speaker 2: another part of the reason I thought the case was important. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, if police take it seriously, other people will
Speaker 2: take it seriously too.
Speaker 1: We did mention that eventually the opp does take over
Speaker 1: the case from the local police, but that is six
Speaker 1: years down the track. Do we know what actually led
Speaker 1: to that being escalated beyond the local police.
Speaker 2: I think that I think the local police in Hannover asked,
Speaker 2: but I also think that there was some pressure from
Speaker 2: Marianna and her family about this case, and I think
Speaker 2: that that eventually took over. See, the OPP in Ontario
Speaker 2: at that time was expanding and they were trying to
Speaker 2: basically user small town forces and take over them and
Speaker 2: be paid by the municipality instead of the small town force.
Speaker 2: So they would argue, for example, we're a force of
Speaker 2: a thousand members investigators, we have a huge forensic team,
Speaker 2: and we got lots of money. Why would you want
Speaker 2: to have four men or four people, you know, policing
Speaker 2: your city or town of six thousand when you could
Speaker 2: have you know, uber force taking over. But you know
Speaker 2: a lot of times towns did pay to have OPP
Speaker 2: come in and then we're unhappy because the sort of
Speaker 2: roster or menu of what they were going to be
Speaker 2: providing investigatively was not what they expected. However, in this case,
Speaker 2: the OPP took over the case and I think eventually
Speaker 2: took over policing in the town, just like many other
Speaker 2: small towns on Ontario at the time. So I guess
Speaker 2: it was part of an expansionist effort. So it kind
Speaker 2: of worked into the parents requesting that the OPP take
Speaker 2: it over. So you know, it might have been the
Speaker 2: thin edge of the wedge that allowed the OPP to
Speaker 2: kind of start to make their move on that town
Speaker 2: as well. I maybe talking out of my ass on
Speaker 2: that one. I'm not exactly sure about that history, but
Speaker 2: that's pretty much what I think happened.
Speaker 1: What Chrissy's family told anything about these investigations, like how
Speaker 1: much information were they given after the escalation to the opp.
Speaker 2: Very little, and that's not abnormal. But when you hide
Speaker 2: things from parents, you do it to help protect the
Speaker 2: case to some extent. I understand the impulse to do that.
Speaker 2: You don't want to distribute information to somebody who you
Speaker 2: think might then tell someone else that there's a suspect
Speaker 2: or that you're talking to this guy or you know,
Speaker 2: and then that information gets sed it around the community
Speaker 2: and soon enough, everybody's pointing at the same guy just
Speaker 2: because the police said they're interviewing him to somebody. Right,
Speaker 2: So you're kind of seeding the information, the poisoning the
Speaker 2: case by giving out too much information. But you would
Speaker 2: think that at some point police would learn to trust
Speaker 2: family members and realize that they kind of need the
Speaker 2: information to kind of help them get through their day
Speaker 2: to day, you know, they need something to hold on to.
Speaker 1: You can see how that might be an issue because
Speaker 1: the place where they live is not big, right, It's
Speaker 1: not a huge community of people. It's less than ten thousand,
Speaker 1: and that's pretty small town mentality when you think.
Speaker 2: About it, right, Yeah, it's pretty small. It was a
Speaker 2: pretty big industrial base when it started, it was like
Speaker 2: a furniture making place in Ontario. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of German settlers moved in at one point and lots
Speaker 2: of furniture production. But when I started working there and
Speaker 2: when Chrissy disappeared, it was kind of a shadow of that.
Speaker 2: Most lot of abandoned buildings and old factories around, and
Speaker 2: it was a small town down on its luck to
Speaker 2: some extent. Yeah, when I got in there.
Speaker 1: We mentioned out factories. What's a really interesting piece of
Speaker 1: evidence was that a young man in that community claimed,
Speaker 1: in the aftermath of Chrissy's disappearance that he received a
Speaker 1: phone call from someone claiming to be her and that
Speaker 1: she was in fact at one of these old abandoned factories.
Speaker 1: Did anything come of that?
Speaker 2: Nothing came of that, and in any of the documentation
Speaker 2: I've read extensively on that, it feels like somebody was
Speaker 2: playing a joke on this guy. I'm sure he got
Speaker 2: the call, but it felt like somebody was making a
Speaker 2: prank call on him, and I think that's what police
Speaker 2: figured out at the end as well. I mean, obviously
Speaker 2: Chrissy didn't show up. It was two or two months later.
Speaker 2: I think she would have had no resources. It's a
Speaker 2: small town, like, yeah, you can hide in a building
Speaker 2: for a couple of days, but it's not credible. And
Speaker 2: there was some other issues with the person who got
Speaker 2: the call, which I'm not going to mention now, but
Speaker 2: it seems like that it wasn't the first time that
Speaker 2: crank calls were made. What's to say, Well, let's fuss forward.
Speaker 1: Eleven years has passed since Chrissie's disappeared. It's August two
Speaker 1: thousand and four. There's finally a breakthrough in the case,
Speaker 1: but it does not come from any police investigation. Can
Speaker 1: you talk us through a bit of the surprise confession?
Speaker 2: Part of the reason I was intrigued by Chrissy's case.
Speaker 2: The other part is because there appeared to be a suspect.
Speaker 2: But this is a suspect that the police had not found.
Speaker 2: Up until August of two thousand and four. Police had
Speaker 2: no idea what happened to Christy, as I just talked about.
Speaker 2: And remember, Christy disappeared, as he said, eleven years ago,
Speaker 2: eleven years before in May of nineteen ninety three. So
Speaker 2: in August two thousand and four, at a party with
Speaker 2: his family members, a man aged thirty five at the time.
Speaker 2: Near the end of the evening, after some drinks and
Speaker 2: some kind of upset he had with his family, started
Speaker 2: telling people that he had killed Christine Herron. He picked
Speaker 2: up phone, he dialed nine one one and then he
Speaker 2: hung up. He changed his mind, but the police responded anyway,
Speaker 2: I don't know what happens in Australia, but here, even
Speaker 2: on a hang up to a nine one one call,
Speaker 2: they will respond to find out what the hang up
Speaker 2: was all about. So the police officer arrives, the man
Speaker 2: notices and starts walking down the stairs towards him, holding
Speaker 2: his hands up as if he wants to be handcuffed,
Speaker 2: and he confesses again I killed Chrissy, says I killed
Speaker 2: Chrissy to the responding officer, and he says, I can
Speaker 2: show police where I left her. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: eleven years earlier, when Chrissy disappeared, the guy would have
Speaker 2: been twenty four years old at that time, and his
Speaker 2: name was Anthony Edward Wringle. And this is a guy
Speaker 2: police said no and was not on the radar. Local guy,
Speaker 2: local guy. And he was born on December tenth, nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight, one of six children five for nine or thereabouts,
Speaker 2: blunt features, thin browning hair, and he had worked at
Speaker 2: the local Canadian Tire which is like a hardware store
Speaker 2: that yes does sell tires here, but he was unemployed
Speaker 2: at the time in May nineteen ninety three when Chrissy
Speaker 2: left the house to allegedly go to school that May,
Speaker 2: and when I met him, he was living between locations
Speaker 2: like at a family member's house, couch surfing, and at
Speaker 2: a local trailer park. So Anthony Ringo goes through the
Speaker 2: stages that what would have been a murder trial in
Speaker 2: two thousand and six. They took him to the police
Speaker 2: station and interrogated him, but the judge throws the case
Speaker 2: out basically because of police mistakes. So this is two
Speaker 2: thousand and six, and I heard about the case in
Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, so the case has stayed in
Speaker 2: two thousand and six for a year. So basically it
Speaker 2: sits in suspended animation until new evidence is brought forward.
Speaker 2: But no new evidence was brought forward, so Ringo is
Speaker 2: freed and nothing new happens, and it just sits there
Speaker 2: from two thousand and six onwards, And at the time
Speaker 2: Anthony still lived in the area. Nobody did anything. There
Speaker 2: was very little reporting on it, like there was like
Speaker 2: article in the paper about this, No reporter talks to him,
Speaker 2: no police action can be seen happening still two thousand
Speaker 2: and six, and then add three years more and I
Speaker 2: come on the scene two thousand and nine, church service,
Speaker 2: et cetera, and I begin working with Chrissy's mom, Mary Anne.
Speaker 2: Police barely assist me, but regardless, we're able to uncover
Speaker 2: many of the court files and investigative documents from the case.
Speaker 2: By freedom of information. Mary Anne for the first time
Speaker 2: learns what's actually happening or what happened, why did it fail,
Speaker 2: why did the case get thrown out? Some of what
Speaker 2: Anthony said, and we go from there. That's the television
Speaker 2: doc part. So that's what I'm shooting with my camera
Speaker 2: for television. So the podcast covers that and takes over
Speaker 2: with the new process. So throughout the process we have
Speaker 2: mary Anne confronting the murderer, Like we try to go
Speaker 2: to visit him, he won't talk to us. It doesn't
Speaker 2: work out the scenario the way we had imagined it.
Speaker 2: So I go try to speak to this guy myself,
Speaker 2: Anthony Wringle, I do meet him. I knock, cold knock,
Speaker 2: on his trailer door at a trailer park, the same
Speaker 2: trailer park. We speak for a long time and I
Speaker 2: ask him the direct and pointed question did you kill Christine?
Speaker 2: And you'll hear the answers and podcasts. So all that
Speaker 2: information about the case, the court drama, talking to Ringo,
Speaker 2: all that stuff goes into a twenty minute doc made
Speaker 2: for CBC goes to air in the spring of twenty twelve.
Speaker 2: And then shortly after the documentary went to air the
Speaker 2: television documentary, police start an undercover operation on Anthony Wringle
Speaker 2: in the same trailer park where I met him. So
Speaker 2: then the podcast takes over and tells that story and
Speaker 2: picks up with the TV show left off because nobody
Speaker 2: knows about this on an undercover operation. This is all
Speaker 2: brand new news that this podcast is breaking.
Speaker 1: Basically, So do police actually tell you that your documentary
Speaker 1: is the catalyst for this undercover operation? Do they say
Speaker 1: why they actually start this when they've left this case?
Speaker 1: Kind of just sit this as.
Speaker 2: I long, I can only assume that it had something
Speaker 2: to do with it, because it basically the documentary exposes
Speaker 2: a ton of police errors and mistakes, and it's very
Speaker 2: embarrassing for the opp who's been telling people that they're
Speaker 2: such an amazing investigative force, and to some extent, they are.
Speaker 2: So it picks up tells the story of the undercover operation,
Speaker 2: and it shows directly that the work Mary and I
Speaker 2: did is literally used by police so they can arrest
Speaker 2: Anthony again. So the film is literally used so they
Speaker 2: can get them again in February twenty thirteen. So except
Speaker 2: this time, the trial in twenty sixteen goes forward and
Speaker 2: he's convicted and now is serving a life sentence here
Speaker 2: in Ontario in a federal penitentiary, a second degree murder.
Speaker 2: They got him on and yeah, I feel good about it.
Speaker 2: That's the next question. How do you feel about that?
Speaker 2: And it's pretty amazing that the work did its job,
Speaker 2: So that's all I can say about it. You know,
Speaker 2: I think people have to listen for themselves. But it's
Speaker 2: a real up and down roller coaster and quite satisfying.
Speaker 2: It's over fifteen years of work.
Speaker 1: So what's really interesting too, is you know that work.
Speaker 1: You have worked alongside Marianne for that entire time, and
Speaker 1: without you, she would not know the majority of the
Speaker 1: things that happened during the first court case or even
Speaker 1: during the second because she was considered a potential witness,
Speaker 1: so wasn't allowed to sit in court, so she never
Speaker 1: got to see any of those undercover videos that were
Speaker 1: recorded by police. You actually played them to her? What
Speaker 1: was that like? Because Ringle goes into quite a bit
Speaker 1: of detail about what he actually did, and that would
Speaker 1: have been heartbreaking to show to her.
Speaker 2: It is heartbreaking and it's awful, and Marianne wanted to
Speaker 2: see it, and I still didn't show her. She knows this.
Speaker 2: I didn't show her everything because some of it is
Speaker 2: just too it's really hard. It's one thing that you
Speaker 2: know that somebody killed someone, there's the perpetrator, but when
Speaker 2: you hear them talking about it in such great detail
Speaker 2: in the confession that they gave to the undercover officer
Speaker 2: and they don't know they're being filmed, it's a real
Speaker 2: vulnerability that they kind of expose everything about what they're
Speaker 2: thinking was and it's quite dark in a way that's
Speaker 2: blacker than black, you know, in terms of that kind
Speaker 2: of darkness. So I didn't want to expose Marianne to
Speaker 2: that level. But I do think, and she believes too,
Speaker 2: that confronting the stuff actually helps. So we made the
Speaker 2: decision to watch it together some of the confession just
Speaker 2: to kind of get the story of what happened that day,
Speaker 2: like why did you take her? Et cetera. And I
Speaker 2: mean the answer why is like I hate mondays, you know,
Speaker 2: like why did you do it? I mean, that's not
Speaker 2: really that interesting actually to me, and I don't think
Speaker 2: to Marianne, but it's more sort of tell me what happened,
Speaker 2: you know, what happened that day. So I think that's
Speaker 2: what she had in head. And we watched some of
Speaker 2: the undercover stuff together. I try to talk about the
Speaker 2: other things that I didn't show her sort of in
Speaker 2: a general way, and I think it did help her.
Speaker 2: I mean she's told me it has, That's all I
Speaker 2: can go on. And she's told others that it has.
Speaker 1: So she does say to you though that and she
Speaker 1: said this to other Metia outlets too, that not even
Speaker 1: Wringle ending up with a life sentence is closure for her.
Speaker 1: That you can never truly get closure in a case
Speaker 1: like this, but you have been trying to help her
Speaker 1: kind of get as close as possible to that. Right.
Speaker 1: Has Ringle ever agreed to sit down and speak with
Speaker 1: Marianne about what happened.
Speaker 2: That day, not yet. I mean, for I think closures
Speaker 2: bullshit myself, and I think Marianne kind of agrees. But
Speaker 2: I think it's kind of a media presentation, what the
Speaker 2: idea of closure, because it kind of adds an ending
Speaker 2: to a story. I don't think closure is actually possible.
Speaker 2: I think it's more acceptance that you're looking for and
Speaker 2: trying to be able to move away from having to
Speaker 2: try to solve the case every day and every second
Speaker 2: in your head. It's okay to walk away from that,
Speaker 2: and it's okay to have a good time. It's okay
Speaker 2: to live my life again, you know. And I don't
Speaker 2: think that means closure. I just think it means that
Speaker 2: you have to accept this thing in you that's horrible.
Speaker 2: You know that you're this lost. You have to accept
Speaker 2: that and just live with it like a bubble inside
Speaker 2: you that's never going to go away, and then continue.
Speaker 2: And that's that's what she's looking for. But also she
Speaker 2: wants to know where Chrissy is. And that's one of
Speaker 2: the things that I've found in many cold cases or
Speaker 2: with the families of missing people, is that they don't
Speaker 2: care about the perpetrator. They don't give a fuck about
Speaker 2: that person. They don't give a fuck about what that
Speaker 2: person wanted to do or what they did. They just
Speaker 2: want to know where their loved one is. They want
Speaker 2: to know where their daughter is. Bring her to me.
Speaker 2: I don't care about you, you know, bring her to me,
Speaker 2: Tell me where she is. And I think if some
Speaker 2: perps knew exactly how simple it might be to help
Speaker 2: themselves and help the families, they could just tell that
Speaker 2: a little part of the equation, you know. So I've
Speaker 2: been trying to help Marianne find Chrissy because we know
Speaker 2: where generally she was led to by Wringle that day,
Speaker 2: very specifically actually, and we did try with kadaver dogs.
Speaker 2: Kim Cooper, whom I'm known to be, you know, to
Speaker 2: work with and on other cases, came with me, and
Speaker 2: we went too late in the season because the ferns
Speaker 2: were almost above my head and the dogs. It helps
Speaker 2: to have an open area dogs. It can't be closed
Speaker 2: in like big umbrellas over the ground. It has to
Speaker 2: be open so the smell moves around. So we're going
Speaker 2: back on Good Friday actually this month, because the ferns
Speaker 2: won't be opposite high I actually don't even think they'll
Speaker 2: be emerged that be what they call fiddle heads here,
Speaker 2: which is like the tiny one foot high things, but
Speaker 2: that will be much more preferable. I think we have
Speaker 2: a good chance of getting scent and maybe finding Chrissy
Speaker 2: or some element of Chrissy's remains, So we're going to
Speaker 2: go back and try again.
Speaker 1: David, How do cases like this impact you personally? I mean,
Speaker 1: you see something like this where it is it is
Speaker 1: literally people's worst nightmare that a stranger will come out
Speaker 1: of nowhere snatch you or snatch your child and horrifically,
Speaker 1: you know, rape and murder you or your child like
Speaker 1: that is the stuff of nightmares. How do you personally
Speaker 1: emotionally get through that, especially when you're there with mary
Speaker 1: Anne with her mum, and not take some of that
Speaker 1: emotion on board.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess there's no real secret. I guess I
Speaker 2: do take it on board, and I don't really deal
Speaker 2: with it, you know, Like I think at a younger
Speaker 2: age in this process, I might have thought that I
Speaker 2: could get through it without getting affected. But the truth is,
Speaker 2: like I can just keep pushing things downstream, and then
Speaker 2: when the work's over, maybe six months later, that wave
Speaker 2: catches up and I often feel sudden, a sudden panic
Speaker 2: attack or can't breathe, or moment where it's just overwhelming
Speaker 2: sleep problems. And I've got another case i'm working on
Speaker 2: right now, and several more planned. I don't know how
Speaker 2: much more I can do. You know, I'm not a
Speaker 2: younger man. I think people think I'm like twenty five.
Speaker 2: But I've done a ton of these, and I feel
Speaker 2: like I've work cases just as hard, if not harder,
Speaker 2: than some police investigators have, and certainly been as exposed
Speaker 2: or maybe even more to some of the stuff because
Speaker 2: of the relationship with the family and how close and
Speaker 2: how long the relationship is. But I did choose this.
Speaker 2: It's not, oh poor David, you know, like I chose.
Speaker 2: I choose to be in the seats talking to you,
Speaker 2: and it's you know, the families and the police that
Speaker 2: experience these cases have my sympathies, and I'm, you know
Speaker 2: that part of the reason. I know what they're feeling,
Speaker 2: and I know that this situation, I can help the situation.
Speaker 2: So I feel like I'm using the things I've learned
Speaker 2: and helping them to help myself, which.
Speaker 1: If that makes sense, David, It's been nearly ten years
Speaker 1: since Ringo pled guilty back in twenty sixteen. What do
Speaker 1: we know of him now? Is there any chance of
Speaker 1: him getting out of jail anytime soon? Any possibility he
Speaker 1: might let the family know what happened that day or
Speaker 1: where Chrissy is.
Speaker 2: We've been trying to get in touch with him. I
Speaker 2: think that eventually he will get out. There will be
Speaker 2: an opportunity to be released. He may or may not
Speaker 2: make that opportunity on the first time or two. Eventually,
Speaker 2: I think he will be released, and I think eventually
Speaker 2: we will be able to talk to him, Like I'm
Speaker 2: not giving up on that approach to him. Once he
Speaker 2: gets out, he'll be in the community again. He'll be
Speaker 2: right back, probably in the same trailer park. And I'm
Speaker 2: just going to go back up and knock on the door.
Speaker 2: If I'm eighty, I'll do it, you know, like I
Speaker 2: don't go away, which is part of the problem, but
Speaker 2: it's also part of the promise that I make. So
Speaker 2: that's how I get into these cases.
Speaker 1: Thanks to David for helping us tell this story. True
Speaker 1: Crime Conversations is hosted by me Claire Murphy and produced
Speaker 1: by Charlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for listening. I'll be back next week
Speaker 1: with another true crime conversation.