WEBVTT - #192 Jason Flom with Glen Assoun 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.880 On November twelfth, nineteen ninety five, Brenda Way's body was 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:09.480 discovered behind a dumpster in Dartmouth. 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:09.760 Nova Scotia. 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:13.760 Her throat had been slit with a solid alibi. The 0:00:13.760 --> 0:00:18.000 initial investigation cleared her ex boyfriend Glennis Soon of the murder, 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.560 but nearly a year later a new investigator was assigned 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:24.040 to this cold case, who used the ramblings of a 0:00:24.079 --> 0:00:27.520 crack addict seeking leniency in order to bring Glenn back 0:00:27.720 --> 0:00:33.480 into suspicion. The investigation continued down an increasingly ridiculous path, 0:00:33.800 --> 0:00:37.600 involving psychics and even more crack addicts. While there was 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:42.240 evidence pointing toward a bearded serial killer the entire time, 0:00:42.880 --> 0:00:46.839 police both disregarded and hid that evidence, though, choosing to 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:50.080 stay with the course they knew was a farce, and 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:56.040 Glenn spent over sixteen long, miserable years behind bars until 0:00:56.120 --> 0:00:59.880 Innocence Canada was able to unearth that detail and spring 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:05.000 and from prison. However, nothing will ever replace all of 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.560 the years. Is doolan from Glenn and his family. This 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:26.400 is wrongful conviction with Jason Plomm. Welcome back to wrongful 0:01:26.400 --> 0:01:29.360 conviction with Jason Flamm. That's me, of course, I'm your host, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.440 and today you're going to hear a story from north 0:01:32.480 --> 0:01:36.520 of the border. We have two incredible lawyers, Sean McDonald 0:01:36.560 --> 0:01:40.399 and Phil Campbell from Innocence Canada. Sean, first of all, 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:42.840 welcome to Wrongful Conviction. Thanks for being here. 0:01:43.200 --> 0:01:44.520 Thanks very much for having me. 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:46.840 And Phil, I'm so glad that you're here as well 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.040 to highlight the work that Innocence Canada does because I 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:53.560 don't believe that this organization gets enough attention and we 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:56.800 want to change that. So thanks for being here as well. 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:57.880 Thanks so much. 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:01.440 Jason, and of course, save the best for last. We 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.040 have a guy who I can only call a hero 0:02:04.320 --> 0:02:07.040 to so many of us, Glenn as Soon, who went 0:02:07.160 --> 0:02:09.480 to hell and back and is here to share his 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.040 story with us. So Glenn, thank you for being here. 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:12.600 Thank you. 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:13.880 I'm glad to be here. 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:16.520 Yeah, it's sort of a miracle that you made it 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.800 through and that you are here, and it speaks to 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:22.680 your strength and your spirit. So I'm really excited that 0:02:22.760 --> 0:02:24.560 you're here and I'm sorry you had to go through this. 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:27.920 Let's go back to the beginning, Glenn, where did you 0:02:27.960 --> 0:02:28.440 grow up? 0:02:28.800 --> 0:02:31.160 I grew up in Sydney, k Breton, Nova, Scotia. It's 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:31.920 a small town. 0:02:32.240 --> 0:02:34.680 And how was your life before this? What were some 0:02:34.760 --> 0:02:35.560 of your hobbies. 0:02:36.040 --> 0:02:38.400 My hobbies was playing a guitar, try to learn how 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.120 to play the guitar properly and stuff. Listen to country 0:02:41.160 --> 0:02:43.040 music and trying to play country music. 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:45.720 And you were raising a pretty large family as well 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:46.760 at the time, right. 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:51.440 Yes, I had three kids to raise back in the seventies. 0:02:51.400 --> 0:02:55.840 And then everything went to hell in a handbasket. We're 0:02:55.880 --> 0:03:01.000 talking about Sunday morning, November twelfth, nineteen ninety five, your 0:03:01.040 --> 0:03:05.360 ex girlfriend, Brenda Way, was discovered behind an apartment building 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.120 in Dartmouth, Nova, Scotia, and her throat had been slit. 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:12.320 Even I think for avid listeners of the show who've 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:17.440 heard so many of these stories, this one is fucking sick. Now, 0:03:17.480 --> 0:03:19.440 this is where I want to turn to the legal 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:23.440 team because the preventable nature of all of this is 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.359 so stunning to me. Tell me what the hell happened here? 0:03:27.080 --> 0:03:30.040 So at the beginning, police rightfully interviewed all the people 0:03:30.040 --> 0:03:33.799 that had contact with Brenda Way. They interviewed Glenn. They 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:36.280 determined that he had an ALBI. He was with his 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:40.000 roommate and friend and Morse all night with two other 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:44.280 roommates that night. So he had a supportable, credible, truthful, 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:47.720 most importantly alibi, and in the end it appeared to us, 0:03:47.720 --> 0:03:49.800 at least on the record that we reviewed, that they 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.440 cleared him as a suspect or at least deprioritized him 0:03:53.480 --> 0:03:55.880 as a person of interest and moved on to look 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:56.800 at other things. 0:03:57.080 --> 0:04:01.160 Yeah, so we had this excellent alibi within hours of 0:04:01.240 --> 0:04:05.240 the discovery of the body, and sometime in the year 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:09.360 or two afterwards, the brenda Way homicide shifted to two 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:14.440 different officers, and those two guys decided that Glennisoon must 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:17.280 have done it. And really it's a kind of classic 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:22.440 example of the tunnel vision that so often characterizes wrongful convictions. Well, 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:26.039 you stop investigating a crime and you start investigating a person. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.680 And once they'd fixed on Glenn, the first thing they 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:32.880 had to do was discredit the alibi. So they pulled 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:36.200 in Anne Morse, who had told the truth. They arrested 0:04:36.240 --> 0:04:39.960 her for obstruction of justice for having told the truth. 0:04:40.839 --> 0:04:42.960 They told her she was going to jail for three 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.599 to five years. They intimidated her, and then they finally 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:49.120 persuaded her that maybe she couldn't know, and maybe she 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.880 wasn't sure, even though she had always said before then, 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.000 it has always said afterwards that that statement I gave 0:04:56.040 --> 0:04:58.840 the morning Brenda was found was the truth. So they 0:04:58.880 --> 0:05:01.400 thought they had a little c the alibi. And then 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:05.560 they started finding recruiting other witnesses, and there was just 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:09.720 a daisy chain of witnesses, each less credible than the other, 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:12.880 but collectively they made up the case that the Crown 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:14.480 eventually put in front of the jewelry. 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.440 It's like they send in the clowns, right. One farcical 0:05:19.880 --> 0:05:23.960 witness after another is dragged into this. Can you walk 0:05:24.040 --> 0:05:26.520 us through this cast of characters real quick? 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.880 Glenn was hitting the streets after Brenda was killed, trying 0:05:29.880 --> 0:05:32.360 to find out who killed her. One of the people 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:34.960 Glenn was regularly speaking with was a woman by the 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:40.800 name of Margaret Hartrick. Margaret was a well known street prostitute. 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.760 Now it's interesting because at different times Margaret Hartrick would 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:47.800 call Glenn and say I have information on Brenda's murder. 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.000 And there were a number of occasions where Glenn brought 0:05:51.120 --> 0:05:53.560 Margaret to the attention of the police because she was 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.280 telling him I know what happened. I'm hearing on the streets. 0:05:56.279 --> 0:05:58.600 What's happening, and Glenn was saying, well, you know, tell 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.039 the police. Eventually was picked up by the police in 0:06:02.080 --> 0:06:05.360 relation to a customer of hers who had died, and 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:08.880 while she was speaking to the police about this, she 0:06:09.120 --> 0:06:12.640 said to them, well, I also have information on Brenda 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:17.440 Way's homicide. And so the police officer said, okay, well 0:06:17.480 --> 0:06:18.919 you know what do you have to say, and they 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:21.120 sat her down and she started to go on this 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:25.560 rambling die tribe about psychic visions and psychic dreams that 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:29.240 she had where she saw areas of Dartmouth where Brenda 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.159 was taken by different people and how she was killed, 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:34.960 to the point where the cops just said, look, thanks 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:36.920 for the information, and they started to shuffle her out 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:38.200 the door, or at least that this is the way 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.120 they recall the conversation and when they testified at Glenn's trial, 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:44.960 and then Margaret suddenly said, well, I guess you don't 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:46.960 care that Glenn was at the site of the murder 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:50.120 at four point fifteen am and the morning Brenda was killed. 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:54.680 So suddenly they're saying that she's changing her evidence. After 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:58.800 forty five minutes of psychic ramblings, after months and months 0:06:58.839 --> 0:07:02.560 of ramblings, with Glenn to the police and puts Glenn 0:07:02.600 --> 0:07:05.839 at the scene of the murder, inconsistent with the alibi 0:07:05.880 --> 0:07:07.880 that they already checked out and found to be credible. 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:11.880 And that was the moment where the new officers investigating 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:16.560 this case had their witness. The investigation increased in pace 0:07:16.600 --> 0:07:17.679 from that point forward. 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:22.120 The next development was the emergence of Brenda's sister, Jane. 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:25.400 Jane told the police that she had found a knife, 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.400 and she said that she had been looking for the 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.160 knife near the scene of the crime, which had been 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:36.120 thoroughly searched by police, because a psychic had told her 0:07:36.440 --> 0:07:40.480 that her sister was killed by a broken tipped knife, 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.600 and lo and behold, she had gone out, looked around 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.760 the area adjacent to the murder and found a broken 0:07:46.800 --> 0:07:50.600 tipped knife. The police would ultimately seize this knife. The 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.720 knife would have no forensic evidence that tied it either 0:07:54.760 --> 0:07:57.880 to the homicide or to Glennis soon but it ultimately 0:07:57.920 --> 0:08:02.320 became an exhibited trial and it became the focal point 0:08:02.480 --> 0:08:05.920 of the next key witness's story, and that is a 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:11.160 woman named Mary Cameron. Mary Cameron was, unsurprisingly to us, 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:14.800 a friend of Jane, the sister, and she popped up 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.120 to the police with a story that she had been 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.040 with a friend of hers and Glenn had walked in 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:26.000 and said, I killed her. I got her ear to ear, 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:28.320 I cut her so hard I broke off the tip 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.720 of the knife. This is a confession. He supposedly volunteers 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:37.040 in front of a complete stranger, and Mary becomes the 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:40.240 next crown witness, even though the woman who she was 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.880 with her friend, who also knew Glenn, flatly denied that 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:48.679 any such conversation had taken place. So that's Margaret and 0:08:48.760 --> 0:08:50.040 now Mary. So. 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:53.679 Brenda's cousin is a woman by the name of Karen Way. Karen, 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:56.680 within two weeks of the murder, was at a bar 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:00.720 with her boyfriend and heard two guys walking down the 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:03.439 bar in this dark, seedy bar in Dartmouth, one guy 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:06.000 telling the other guy, you should have seen the look 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.760 on Brenda Way's face when I slid her throat. And 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:10.960 the guy who said it was a burly guy with 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:14.240 dark hair and a beard, and it was so disturbing 0:09:14.400 --> 0:09:17.760 to Karen. Karen calls the police. Police show up and 0:09:17.920 --> 0:09:21.120 they do nothing. They take a report. That report gets filed. 0:09:21.520 --> 0:09:23.960 The officers did not go back to Karen Wade to 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.040 try and talk to her about what she saw. They 0:09:26.080 --> 0:09:28.319 didn't go to the bar, they didn't look at cameras 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:32.000 around the bar, they didn't do anything. And that description 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.880 very closely tracks the description of Michael Wayne McGray, who 0:09:36.960 --> 0:09:40.160 is a serial killer currently doing life in prison, I 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.360 think for seven murders or maybe eight that he's confessed 0:09:43.400 --> 0:09:46.520 to so far. The detective that investigated Glenn didn't give 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.840 a crap about that evidence. Nothing was done with it. 0:09:49.840 --> 0:09:54.520 It's so sickening because, aside from the grotesque injustice that 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:58.240 was done to Glenn and his family, all they had 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:00.600 to do was follow up on that and then the 0:10:00.640 --> 0:10:03.880 rest of this mayhem could have been avoided and these 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.040 other victims would never have known the terrible fate that 0:10:08.120 --> 0:10:11.360 befell them. So it's just sickening. It doesn't make any sense. 0:10:11.400 --> 0:10:14.640 It's never going to make any sense. But Glenn, back 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:17.880 to you, So back in March of nineteen ninety eight, 0:10:18.000 --> 0:10:22.040 you surrendered to the police, right, and you still maintained 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:24.679 that this was just going to get worked out because 0:10:24.720 --> 0:10:27.880 you was somebody who I presuming believed in the justice system. 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:29.840 Yeah, I thought it was going to be worked out 0:10:29.880 --> 0:10:33.440 in two weeks time at the tops because I knew 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:35.439 I was innocent. I knew they were making a mistake. 0:10:35.840 --> 0:10:37.840 But I found out that there was a Candon wide 0:10:37.880 --> 0:10:41.319 warrantone for me, So I turned myself into the RCMP. 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.360 They arrested me. They took me on a plane, took 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:46.360 me back to Nova Scotia, and I was never so 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.320 embarrassing all my life since shackles and chains. Going to 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:52.480 an airport. It was clogg full of people. It's just 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:53.959 all happened so fast. 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.920 So they gave you a polygraph. You passed a polygraph, 0:10:58.559 --> 0:11:01.560 but of course they ignored that as well, and you 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:03.240 were smart enough to see what they were up to, 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:05.960 which is why you requested a lawyer. But now it 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.920 takes a crazy turn in the courtroom, and Sean, if 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:10.120 you could take us through. 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.480 That, Glenn didn't see eyed eye with the lawyer that 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:16.040 he had. Glenn's approach was pretty simple, I'm innocent. Bring 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:18.839 everybody in that you can find to say whatever they 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.240 have to say, because the truth will show the jury 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.960 that I didn't commit this murder. And that created tension 0:11:25.000 --> 0:11:28.199 between him and his lawyer. That hit a crescendo and 0:11:28.240 --> 0:11:31.280 Glenn fired his lawyer at the very beginning of a 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:35.280 long jury trial of four second degree murder, and at 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:38.560 that point Glenn was granted a short adjournment to try 0:11:38.559 --> 0:11:43.400 and find another lawyer. However, inmates inside of correctional facilities 0:11:43.960 --> 0:11:47.080 can't just go to a phone anytime they want, pick 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:49.880 it up and dial a lawyer. They've got to have 0:11:49.960 --> 0:11:52.280 somebody accept a cleck call. On the other end. They 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:54.040 have to have a lawyer who's willing to talk to them, 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.040 and they have to have a lawyer who's capable and 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.760 has the time to prepare for a murder trial. And 0:11:58.800 --> 0:12:02.520 in Glenn's case, those things didn't align and the court 0:12:02.600 --> 0:12:04.800 lost patience with him, and the judge said, I'm not 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.840 giving you any more time. You're going to represent yourself 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:10.200 with a grade six education and don't worry about it. 0:12:10.640 --> 0:12:14.280 Everybody has to have their first case, and that is 0:12:14.320 --> 0:12:15.679 when Glenn's trial started. 0:12:16.600 --> 0:12:21.439 This is basically like asking someone to go perform surgery 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:25.120 on themselves. I mean, I think that's not an unfair comparison, 0:12:25.120 --> 0:12:27.960 because the odds of success are about the same. And 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:32.520 at one point, Glenn, you told the jury you're innocent, 0:12:32.640 --> 0:12:34.600 and that evidence was being hidden from them all of 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:38.160 which was true. And then the judge ordered the sheriffs 0:12:38.160 --> 0:12:41.199 to physically cover your mouth and drag you out of 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:43.800 the courtroom in front of the jury as you screamed 0:12:43.840 --> 0:12:47.720 out your innocence. It's a fucking horror show. What was 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:49.360 that like from your perspective? 0:12:49.920 --> 0:12:52.280 I said to myself, I need a lawyer. I can't 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:55.880 do this. So I decided when the judge came in, 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:58.800 I'm gonna tell her that I need a lawyer. So 0:12:59.120 --> 0:13:01.520 long story short, I had no idea that you can 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:04.120 speak in front of the jury. And I stood up 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:06.079 and said, your honor, I'm an innocent man. 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:07.120 I need a lawyer. 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:08.680 She said, take him out. 0:13:08.720 --> 0:13:09.360 Take him out. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.719 So two sheriffs dragged me across the courtroom floor and 0:13:12.840 --> 0:13:15.520 right in front of the jury. The judge said, if 0:13:15.559 --> 0:13:18.040 I hear any more outbursts of you, miss or as 0:13:18.080 --> 0:13:22.200 soon you'll be watching your trial tow circuit camera. All 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:24.040 I could do is stay up all night and read 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:26.760 statements and write out questions to ask these people say 0:13:26.800 --> 0:13:29.480 if I get them in their lives. Every time I 0:13:29.520 --> 0:13:31.800 would get to a point where I was putting them 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:33.480 in a corner where they had no choice to tell 0:13:33.480 --> 0:13:36.280 the truth. To crown and object and clear the courtroom. 0:13:36.280 --> 0:13:38.040 I don't know how many times the jury was cleared 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.599 in the courtroom, several and I was exhausted, but I 0:13:41.040 --> 0:13:42.040 kept on going through. 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:47.959 It, and of course the results were predictable. September seventeenth, 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:53.080 nineteen ninety nine, the jury went out and they found 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.360 you guilty of second degree murder. And can you describe 0:13:56.400 --> 0:13:58.400 that horrible moment for us? 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:01.679 It was a field never felt before. And I stood 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:05.160 up and said, I'm wrongly convicted. Now it's official. And 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:07.720 she objected to it. She said, mister Sonia had your 0:14:07.800 --> 0:14:11.160 chance to testify and trials over. Now you can't be talking. 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:25.040 I knew I was being railroads, Railroads to hell. 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.880 This episode is underwritten by the AIG pro Bono Program. 0:14:29.120 --> 0:14:32.640 AIG is a leading global insurance company, and for over 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:36.520 a decade, the AIG pro Bono Program has provided thousands 0:14:36.520 --> 0:14:39.600 of hours of free legal services and other support to 0:14:39.680 --> 0:14:44.160 nonprofit organizations and individuals most in need. More recently, the 0:14:44.200 --> 0:14:47.920 program added criminal and social justice reform as a key 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:52.520 pillar of its mission. This episode is brought to you 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:56.760 by Stand Together. Stand Together is a philanthropic community dedicated 0:14:56.800 --> 0:15:00.280 to helping people improve their lives. For more than twenty years, 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.440 Stand Together and its partners have been on the front 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:06.320 lines of criminal justice reform. By empowering people to take action, 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:11.000 supporting nonprofits, and working with businesses, Stand Together tackles the 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:14.160 root causes of problems in our communities and empowers those 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:18.280 closest to the problems to drive solutions. Solutions like reducing 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:22.360 unjust prison sentences through the First Step Act, empowering community 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:25.600 based programs and help people re enter society, and now 0:15:25.800 --> 0:15:29.360 working to bridge divides in our communities. To learn how 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:33.400 you may get involved, visit standtogether dot org slash conviction. 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.040 There you are sentenced to eighteen and a half years 0:15:43.080 --> 0:15:47.160 to life on December thirteenth of nineteen ninety nine. I 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:49.320 think many people in the United States have a vision 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:52.040 of Canada as a peaceful place with a more just 0:15:52.240 --> 0:15:57.040 system that is violent perhaps, But in fact the prisons 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:00.200 there are just as bad as here, and you were 0:16:00.240 --> 0:16:02.800 sent to one of the worst ones. Is that correct? 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:04.120 That's correct? 0:16:04.160 --> 0:16:07.800 And I went to Dorchester Penitentiary and that's the last 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:10.520 I had seen any scenery because of the forty five 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.720 foot wall around the place. And that's all I seen, 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.840 is that wall. And it was dangerous there for me. 0:16:16.880 --> 0:16:19.920 I almost got killed there a dozen times. I was 0:16:20.120 --> 0:16:22.920 telling anybody and everybody who would listen to me, because 0:16:22.920 --> 0:16:26.160 I'm an innocent man. They made a mistake. So I 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:28.360 knew a guy in there who has done leather work. 0:16:28.880 --> 0:16:31.280 I had a hat with just a blank hat, and 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.840 I got him to make up a patch on my hat. 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:36.760 Wrongly convicted nineteen ninety eight. And I wore that hat 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:39.840 around the prison until I wore it out, and then 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:42.440 the guards took it from me. The guards came to 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:44.280 me one day and they said, we're putting you in 0:16:44.280 --> 0:16:46.520 the hole. I said, why he put me in the hole? 0:16:46.560 --> 0:16:49.840 I didn't do anything. So they handcuffed me, took me 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:51.520 down the hole. They got me in there, and they 0:16:51.560 --> 0:16:53.800 shoved me against the wall and they got me on 0:16:53.840 --> 0:16:56.240 the floor, and I was still handcuffed behind my back. 0:16:56.320 --> 0:16:59.640 Mind you, and this guard, he would weighed about two 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:03.320 hundred seventy five pounds, he was beat me with the 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:05.840 It looks like I was seeing a steel pipe. So 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:07.719 he was beat me over the head with that and 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.520 he broke my ankles with it. And they cut the 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.280 clothes off me right there with a pair of scissors 0:17:13.440 --> 0:17:16.240 while I was still laying in my face taking a beaten, 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.520 and they beat me half to dead, and then they 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:22.520 took me into a camera cell and just left me 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.160 there for about five hours. The only thing I had 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:28.040 on me was my underwear. They cut the boots off 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:30.120 of me and everything. The only thing was in there 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.600 was a toilet and the sink, and the sink didn't work, 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:35.639 so the toilet did. I was beat so bad I 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:37.960 flushed the toilet a few times and I drank water 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.639 the toilet. I was so dehydrated from the beaten that 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:41.119 it took me. 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:45.720 I mean, it's hard to even hear this story, and 0:17:45.800 --> 0:17:48.239 I just, you know, I want to apologize to you 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.840 on behalf of you know, the entire human race, because 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:54.600 nobody should ever be subjected to a fraction of what 0:17:54.680 --> 0:17:56.480 you went through. And you had to go through all 0:17:56.520 --> 0:17:58.280 of it. And here you are a guy that I 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:00.720 think a lot of people can probably late to you 0:18:00.760 --> 0:18:02.199 more than you know. I mean, here you are a 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:04.919 guy in your forties, five 'ot five, one hundred and 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:09.480 forty pounds, no history of violence, no ability to navigate 0:18:09.520 --> 0:18:14.240 this foreign situation that you're thrust into. It's literally something 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.320 out of a movie that would give anybody nightmares, and 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:19.560 you went through it, but somehow or other, you got 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.760 through it, and then you know, things eventually turned around. 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.160 How did Innocence Canada become aware of the case and 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:30.360 how did you manage to unravel this insanity? 0:18:31.080 --> 0:18:34.600 Added around two thousand and six, I was in the 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:37.480 Innocence Canada office for a meeting with our executive director, 0:18:37.520 --> 0:18:38.879 and I had some time to kill and I was 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:41.960 sitting in the boardroom. And in the boardroom at Innocence Canada, 0:18:42.160 --> 0:18:45.600 like most innocence organizations across the country or the world, 0:18:46.000 --> 0:18:49.119 there's boxes of documents and memos everywhere. So I happened 0:18:49.119 --> 0:18:51.159 to pick one up and it was a memo written 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.520 by a lawyer at Innocence Canada by the name of 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:58.639 Jerome Kennedy. And Jerome had represented Glenn a year beforehand 0:18:58.680 --> 0:19:01.800 on his appeal. And as I turned the pages, as 0:19:01.880 --> 0:19:04.359 everybody does with this case, I got madder, and I 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.240 got madder and I got madder, And by the time 0:19:06.280 --> 0:19:10.080 I finished that overview memo, I was in And from 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:13.080 that point forward, I knew that I wasn't going to 0:19:13.080 --> 0:19:15.000 start I wasn't going to stop working on Glenn's case 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:16.920 until we were able to get them justice. 0:19:17.680 --> 0:19:20.000 So I looked at the five witnesses that were called 0:19:20.040 --> 0:19:22.840 a trial from the perspective of an appellate lawyer, and 0:19:23.080 --> 0:19:27.399 Mary Cameron was the strongest crown or prosecution witness. But 0:19:28.240 --> 0:19:31.359 Sean did some digging on her and eventually she signed 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.560 an affidavit that took back most of her evidence, and 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.679 Kathy Vlad, who had witnessed the supposed confession, made it 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.879 very clear that nothing like that had ever happened. We 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:46.679 managed to develop links between the sister of Brenda, Jane, 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.600 who was led by the psychic to the knife, with 0:19:49.760 --> 0:19:52.960 the three core witnesses in the case. Each of them 0:19:53.040 --> 0:19:57.399 had connections to Jane or to her family, and so 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.240 the thing started to crumble. But critical to it was 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:04.879 a girl who also worked the streets of Halifax and 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:09.040 who experienced something dreadful in the winter of nineteen ninety 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:12.720 six ninety seven. We call her Meghan. That's a pseudonym, 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:17.000 but Megan had been picked up by a burly man 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:21.080 with dark hair and a dark beard, and he had 0:20:21.080 --> 0:20:24.680 taken her out to an industrial site in the middle 0:20:24.720 --> 0:20:28.399 of winter at night in the dark, assaulted her and 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.639 raped her and then rather than killing her, drove her 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:33.760 back into the city and in the course of that 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:37.679 admitted that he was the killer of Brenda Way. Glenn 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:41.399 had been brought back from British Columbia in the spring 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.080 of nineteen ninety nine, in a blaze of local publicity, 0:20:45.359 --> 0:20:49.119 arrested for the murder of Brendaway. Meghan had seen that 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.800 on TV and said, well, that must be the guy 0:20:52.000 --> 0:20:56.120 who assaulted me and confessed to killing Brendaway. And so 0:20:56.160 --> 0:20:59.240 she went to the police with that story, believing that 0:20:59.320 --> 0:21:04.359 it was true, although the man she described had striking 0:21:04.440 --> 0:21:08.720 similarities to the description of themand that Karen Way had 0:21:08.800 --> 0:21:11.840 heard brag about committing the murder days after it had 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.760 happened in nineteen ninety five. Glenn, as it turned out, 0:21:15.840 --> 0:21:18.679 had spent that whole winter when that attack took place 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:21.600 in Halifax, on the other coast of Canada, thirty five 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:25.040 hundred miles away, and that could be documented. However, the 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.480 Crown at trial ran a theory that Glenn had somehow 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.680 gotten a plane ticket flow into Halifax in the middle 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:36.840 of winter, raped Megan, confessed to the murder of Brenda, 0:21:36.920 --> 0:21:40.120 and then flown back without any other trace no evidence 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.040 of his presence in Halifax, no evidence of his flight 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:48.639 from British Columbia to Halifax. By the time of Glenn's appeal, 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:54.520