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This is a video by the 5th estate regarding Steven. This video is all about his story but more in depth. Includes evidence missed, interviews, key scenes reacted, along with Steven Truscott's interview after 40 years of silence.

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Steven Truscott - His Word Against History - the fifth estate

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It was a hot, muggy evening in 1959 when 14-year-old Steven Truscott gave his schoolmate Lynn Harper a ride on his bicycle near an air force base outside Clinton, Ontario. Two days later, the girl's body was found in a wooded grove near the town. She had been raped and strangled.

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This is a short video around 5 minutes which describes the Steven Truscott Story from the National post. Doesn't give complete details.

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This is a time line of which all things took place. It gives you a better concept of the case. Provides different dates and what took place on those dates.

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It is either the longest miscarriage of justice in Canadian history or an injustice to the memory of a murdered 12-year-old girl.

As the hearings into the case of Steven Truscott begin again, a court will revisit a crime that dates back to 1959 in hopes of finally figuring out if the right man paid the price for a vicious killing.

Here's a timeline of the events:

1959

June 9: When 12-year-old Lynne Harper goes for a walk and then disappears from the air force base near Clinton, Ontario, her parents and officials become concerned. An all-out search is launched for the pre-teen, with fears she may have been lost in the bush filled countryside. But no one knows what happened to her.

June 11: After two days of searching, the worst fears of everyone involved are realized. Harper's body is discovered on a nearby farm. Evidence shows she's been raped and strangled. Fourteen year-old Steven Murray Truscott, a classmate, was the last person seen with the victim. He had apparently offered her a bike ride before she disappeared.

June 12: Truscott is questioned by authorities. He admits he was with the girl, but claims they split up and he saw her getting into a car as he was riding away. Despite his story, as community outrage grows with demands for action, the young boy is placed under arrest and is officially charged with her murder the next day. He maintains his innocence from the start.

December 8: After months of preparation and a trial, a jury finds Truscott guilty of the murder. Despite his age, they sentence him to death by hanging. The court case lasts just 15 days.

1960

January 22: Amid much controversy about the serious sentence, the Conservative government under then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker commutes the penalty to life in prison. Truscott has been on death row for four months.

1966

The story falls out of the headlines and becomes yesterday's news until a journalist named Isabel LeBourdais publishes a book called "The Trial of Steven Truscott", the first document to raise serious questions about the case and its outcome. It prompts the Supreme Court to take a second look at the issue. But after deliberating and reviewing the case, the justices vote 8-1 against giving the young man a new trial.

1969

After ten years behind bars, and despite his life sentence, Truscott is released from jail. He disappears, taking on a new identity and settling into obscurity in Guelph. But despite his second chance at life, the convicted killer, now in his mid-20s, remains haunted by bearing the scar of a guilty conviction for a murder he insists he didn't commit.

He marries and has three children, but his secret stays safe for the next 20 years.

1997

September: Truscott agrees to the same type of DNA testing that exonerated Guy Paul Morin and David Milgaard of murder. But crucial evidence that may have helped clear him had been destroyed.

Prominent attorney James Lockyer agrees to take on his case. He's the same advocate who helped overturn the wrongful conviction of Morin for the death of Christine Jessop in Queensville, Ont. in 1984.

2000

March: Truscott comes out of hiding and reveals himself for the first time in almost 40 years, with an interview on the CBC. He vows to do everything in his power to clear his name.

2001

November 28: Lawyers for the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted file an appeal to have Truscott's case reopened, as the public outcry against the original decision grows.

2002

January 24: Retired Quebec Justice Fred Kaufman is appointed by the federal government to review the case.

2004

After two years, Kaufman's report goes to the Justice Minister. But its conclusions aren't made public.

October 28: Justice Minister Irwin Cotler sends the case to the Ontario Court of Appeal to consider if new evidence would have changed the outcome of the trial back in 1959.

2005

November 29: The public finally gets to see the Kaufman Report. It suggests there was a miscarriage of justice but there's simply not enough evidence to get Truscott of the hook.

2006:

April 6: After more than four decades and a lifetime of scientific advances, the body of Lynne Harper is exhumed. But Truscott is doomed to more disappointment - after so much time, no useable DNA is found on her remains. She is reburied four days later.

June 19: Truscott finally gets his day in court, as the Ontario Court of Appeal starts hearings in his case. They last until July, and as the court hears witness after witness talk of irregularities and problems with the evidence, lawyers for both sides are ordered to make oral arguments in January 2007.

2007

January 10: Attorney General Michael Bryant announces cameras will show cases from the Ontario Court of Appeals. The first one to be televised: the Steven Truscott case.

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Steven Truscott Case Timeline - CityNews Toronto

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It is either the longest miscarriage of justice in Canadian history or an injustice to the memory of a murdered 12-year-old girl. As the hearings into the case of Steven Truscott begin again, a court will revisit a crime that dates back to 1959 in hopes of finally figuring out if the right man paid the price for a vicious killing.

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This article is about Steven's appeal to the Ontario Court of Appeal where he had the victory of acquitted him for the murder of twelve year old Lynne Harper.

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Steven Truscott's long fight for justice ended in victory Tuesday when the Ontario Court of Appeal acquitted him of the 1959 murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper and pronounced his conviction "a miscarriage of justice."

The court rejected the option of ordering a new trial for the 62-year-old Guelph millwright, who was sentenced to hang for the murder at age 14.

A new trial after so many years would be a "practical impossibility" and would amount to an injustice given that Truscott and his family have lived with the burden of a wrongful conviction for nearly half a century, the court said in its 300-page decision.

"The appellant in this case served ten years in the penitentiary and has lived his entire adult life in the shadow of a conviction that we have concluded must be quashed as a miscarriage of justice," said the five judge panel, speaking in one voice simply as "the court."

"I never in my wildest dreams expected in my lifetime for this to come true," Truscott told a packed news conference Tuesday afternoon at the offices of his lawyers and the group that helped to secure the acquittal, the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted.

"It's a dream come true."

Moments after the judgment was publicly released, Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant held a news conference outside Osgoode Hall, where he apologized to Truscott, who spent 80 per cent of his life living as a convicted murderer.

"For that miscarriage of justice, on behalf of the government, I am truly sorry," Bryant said.

He told reporters he has asked Sydney Robins, a retired judge of the Ontario Court of Appeal, to provide "advice" to the attorney-general's ministry on the issue of compensation for Truscott.

Bryant added that he didn't know how any compensation payment might be affected by the court's failure to declare Truscott factually innocent.

Lynne Harper's father, Lesley, a former RCAF flying officer, and one of her two brothers will have input into those compensation discussions. Bryant said he spoke this morning with her brother, who asked if the family could make submissions to Robins.

Bryant said he agreed.

Truscott had harsh words for the Crown, saying it fought his lawyers "every step of the way" for years despite having the fresh evidence which helped overturn his conviction. "The Crown chooses not to think about justice," Truscott said at Tuesday afternoon's news conference.

"I know (Bryant) apologized on behalf of the government, but I don't really feel that the apology was sincere. For the past four and a half years they had the same evidence as what the judges have had, and they chose to fight us every step of the way. I don't feel the apology was sincere."

During oral arguments before the court earlier this year, Truscott's legal team urged the court to go even further - not just acquitting him, but declaring him innocent.

But the court said it was in no position to do so, pointing to the difficulty in making a case for absolute innocence given the absence of DNA.

"The appellant has not demonstrated his factual innocence," said Justice David Doherty, Karen Weiler, Marc Rosenberg, Michael Moldaver and former Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry.

"To do so would be a most daunting task absent definitive forensic evidence such as DNA. Despite the appellant's best efforts, that kind of evidence is not available."

"The task of demonstrating innocence is particularly difficult in this case where in addition to the passage of almost a half-century since the crime, certain immutable facts cast some suspicion on the appellant," the court added. For example, Truscott was the last person known to see Lynne alive.

But while a conviction would still be possible, the more likely result at any hypothetical new trial would be that Truscott would be acquitted, the court said.

The court quashed Truscott's conviction on the basis of fresh evidence from medical experts and previously undisclosed reports authored by Dr. John Penistan, who conducted the autopsy on Lynne's body, which "destroys" the "damning" testimony that helped convict Truscott in 1959.

Penistan claimed that by examining the state of Lynne's stomach contents he could fix her time of death to between 7 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. on June 9, 1959, a narrow time frame that gave Truscott exclusive opportunity to commit the murder.

The use of stomach contents to ascertain when a person died is a tool that "cannot withstand scientific scrutiny" and expert evidence now confirms she could have died much later, the court said.

The court's judgment ends one of the longest and most fiercely contested legal battles in Canadian history. Five decades after the crime took place, with the possibility of wrongful convictions widely acknowledged, Ontario's attorney general fought assiduously to prevent the case from being reopened.

The story began on hot summer night, June 9, 1959, at the school grounds on the Royal Canadian Air Force base near Clinton, Ont., when Lynne climbed onto the crossbar of Truscott's bicycle. Both lived on the base with their families.

Truscott told the Ontario Provincial Police that Lynne had asked for a ride to Highway 8 and hoped to visit some ponies at a nearby farm. He said they headed north, along what was known as the "County Road."

After he dropped her off at the highway, Truscott said, he turned around and saw her getting into a grey 1959 Chevy that had either a yellow licence plate or bumper sticker.

Lynne's body was found by an RCAF search party two days later, just off the County Road, in a grove of maple and ash trees known as "Lawson's Bush."

Had she lived, Friday (Aug. 31) would have been her 61st birthday.

Today's ruling comes ten years to the day Truscott's lawyers notified the attorney general's ministry their client wanted his case reopened and had consented to having exhibits from the 1959 trial subjected to DNA testing.

All evidence that might have been suitable for testing, however, had been destroyed. Truscott instead applied to the federal justice minister to have his case reviewed under sec. 690 of the Criminal Code (now sec. 696.1).

In a Nov. 2001 brief to the government, his lawyers argued the Crown and police withheld crucial evidence from the defence at Truscott's 1959 trial and that the trial itself was inherently unfair.

The federal government retained retired Quebec appeal court judge Fred Kaufman to review the case. Kaufman concluded there was reason to believe a miscarriage of justice likely occurred, but said some of the evidence before him may not be admissible in a court of law.

His recommendation that the case be sent to the Ontario Court of Appeal was accepted by Justice Minister Irwin Cotler in 2004. In June 2006, a five-judge panel began reviewing the case, including a mountain of fresh evidence, as if it were an appeal of Truscott's 1959 conviction.

The Crown's circumstantial case against Truscott essentially consisted of two parts. The first was the so-called "County Road" evidence, which consisted of eyewitness accounts from people, many of them children, about Steven and Lynne's whereabouts along the County Road the night she disappeared.

The second was so-called scientific and medical evidence purporting to establish Lynne's time of death.

During an autopsy at a Clinton funeral home, Dr. John Penistan, the regional pathologist, made what was perhaps the most crucial finding in the case. He claimed that by examining Lynne's stomach contents - placing them in a jar and holding them up to a light bulb - he could tell that she died within two hours of eating dinner, pinpointing her time of death at between 7 p.m. and 7:45 p.m. on June 9, 1959.

The evidence was devastating for Truscott, who acknowledged being with her at that time. At the 1959 trial, the Crown attorney told jurors the evidence tightened like a vise around Truscott's neck.

But other experts expressed doubts at the time about the ability to use stomach contents to determine a person's time of death and the methodology has now been discredited.

In fact, during hearings in the case last year, the Ontario Court of Appeal was told that for nearly 40 years, the federal government had notes and memos buried in its files indicating that much of Penistan's evidence was founded on "entirely and absolutely wrong" medical and scientific conclusions.

The federal justice department sought out expert medical opinions about Penistan's findings in 1966, just weeks before the government referred Truscott's case to the Supreme Court of Canada for review.

The experts, among them a pathologist employed by the federal government, warned there was "no justification" for Penistan's claims.

But at no time did justice department officials ever disclose the information to Truscott's lawyers or the Supreme Court judges, who ultimately ruled 8-1 to uphold the conviction, the Ontario Court of Appeal was told.

The documents were released to Truscott's lawyers in 2005.

Meanwhile, the County Road witnesses included two boys, Gord Logan and Dougie Oates, who told police that while they were swimming and catching turtles in the Bayfield River on the night of June 9, they saw Steven and Lynne ride over a bridge towards the highway. Steven later rode back alone, they said.

At the 1959 trial, the Crown painted the boys as liars, alleging they were part of a conspiracy orchestrated by Truscott. The prosecution's theory was that Steven and Lynne never made it to the highway.

The Crown alleged that Truscott veered off the County Road well south of the bridge and headed into Lawson's bush, where he raped and murdered Lynne.

A 9-year-old girl named Karen Daum, however, corroborated much of Truscott's statement. She told police in June of 1959 that she saw Lynne and Steven riding north of the bush, towards the highway. Daum was never called to testify at the 1959 trial.

Testifying before the appeal court in 2006, Daum, now Karen Jutzi, recanted her 1959 police statement.

Another prominent witness at the 1959 trial was a 13-year-old girl named Jocelyne Gaudet, who testified that she'd made a "date" with Truscott to meet at Lawson's Bush around 6:30 p.m. on June 9, 1959 to look for calves.

The Crown's maintained that when Gaudet didn't show up, Lynne became a substitute for Truscott, who was portrayed as a lust-crazed teenager intent on luring her into the bush.

That theory showed serious signs of splintering six years ago, however, when two women who went to nursing school with Gaudet in Montreal in the 1960s came forward.

At a get-together in a student residence in 1966, just before the Supreme Court hearing began, Gaudet announced that she had lied at Truscott's trial, the women told the Ontario Court of Appeal last year.

Soon after her shocking outburst, Gaudet checked herself into a psychiatric hospital.

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Steven Truscott's long fight for justice ended in victory today when the Ontario Court of Appeal acquitted him of the 1959 murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper and pronounced his conviction "a miscarriage of justice." Ontario Attorney General Michael Bryant said he is considering compensation for Truscott.

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The link below is a Picture of Steven when arrested along with some details at the time of arrest

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Steven Truscott | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderers

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Murderpedia, the free online encyclopedic dictionary of murderers. The largest database about serial killers, mass murderers and spree killers around the world

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What Steven aged to look like.

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On June 9, 1959, 14-year-old Steven Truscott was seen giving his classmate, Lynne Harper, a ride on his bicycle. They parted ways. Later on that evening, Lynne had been reported missing. Two days later her body was found in a nearby wooded area - she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death. On June 13, 1959, Steven was charged with her murder and ordered to stand trial as an adult. On September 30, 1959, he was found guilty. Due to Criminal Code provisions at the time, this meant that despite Steven's young age, he was to be sentenced to death by hanging. Steven went through a horrible time not only trying to save his life but prove his innocence as well. To learn more about Steven's case, click here.

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Innocence Canada - Steven Truscott (June 9, 1961 - August 28, 2007)

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On June 9, 1959, 14-year-old Steven Truscott was seen giving his classmate, Lynne Harper, a ride on his bicycle. They parted ways. Later on that evening, Lynne had been reported missing. Two days later her body was found in a nearby wooded area - she had been sexually assaulted and strangled to death.

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This is a news channel covering Truscott being able to maybe over turn his case. Word spoken by Truscotts attorney.

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Steven Truscott's $6.5 Million Award for Wrongful Conviction

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A picture of the victim.

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October 2016

In the late 1950s, a shocking murder took place near a Royal Canadian Air Force base in south-western Ontario; the murder of 12 year-old Cheryl Lynne Harper. Lynne, as she was known, was the daughter of Flying Officer Leslie Harper, a supply officer posted to RCAF Station Clinton, and Shirley Harper.

On 9 June 1959, Lynne disappeared after being seen double-riding on a bike with one of her classmates, 14 year-old Steven Truscott,both of whom lived in the Permanent Married Quarters on base.

The two youths were last seen in the early evening of June 9, riding along a county road just north-east of the base, heading towards Provincial Highway 8. Shortly afterwards, Truscott was seen riding along the same road back to the base. Truscott would later state that he dropped Harper off at Highway . Before riding off, he looked back and saw Harper getting into an unknown car.

Harper never returned home that evening and her father reported her disappearance to the Station Guardhouse at 11:00 pm.

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) lead a search team of 250 military, civilian and police searchers in a frantic search to find Harper.

Two days later, on the afternoon of June 11, searchers discovered her body in a nearby farm woodlot owned by 23 year-old farmer Bob Lawson, known locally as Lawson's Bush. Harper was partially nude and had been raped and strangled with her own blouse.

It was determined during the course of the very brief investigation that Truscott liked to spend time at Lawson's farm to chat, help with the chores or play in the bush-lot, just like lots of other children in the area including Harper herself.

This didn't bode well for Truscott, despite the fact Bob Lawson had gone to the guardhouse at base to report seeing a strange car parked near his fence line the night Harper disappeared, something that Truscott obviously didn't have. The car was a convertible, possibly a '52 Ford. Lawson stated that he and his neighbour Ross Crich had seen a man in the driver's seat and what appeared to be a shorter girl beside him in the middle of the seat, neither of whom they recognized.

The officer on duty wasn't interested and this lead was never followed-up. Lawson was told that a suspect had already been arrested and charged.

Truscott was quickly arrested and charged 2 days later by the lead investigator, OPP Inspector Harold Graham, a man who would later serve as Commissioner from 1973 - 1981. Graham's insistence he had the right man after such a short and obviously deficient investigation would be one of the many criticisms of the case years later.

Graham's investigation never explained how Truscott could have committed the rape and murder, yet he did not appear out of breath, sweating, scratched, his clothing in disorder or rattled in any way that might be expected of someone who had just committed such a crime. The night of June 9 was a warm night and Truscott would most likely have been profusely sweating if he had attacked and dragged Harper into Lawson's Bush. It's quite possible that he would have had some scratches on him or disordered clothing from Harper fighting back. None of the witnesses or police who interacted with Truscott in the hours afterwards noted anything amiss with Truscott, who seemed very calm.

Truscott was just as quickly convicted on 30 September 1959, just 3 months later in 15-day trial, despite little more than circumstantial evidence. He was sentenced to death by hanging, becoming the youngest person in Canadian history to be given a death sentance.

Primary among the evidence used to convict Truscott were the very controversial findings of the examining pathologist, Dr. John Penistan, linking Harper's time of death to the time period Truscott was seen with her. Dr. Penistan came to the time of death by examining undigested food from Harper's stomach, a finding that he concluded put Harper's death at around the time Truscott was admittedly with her.

This theory is now-discredited. Even Dr. Penistan backed away from it when testifying at a Supreme Court hearing in 1966. In his re-assessment, Dr. Penistan now concluded that Lynne could have died up to 12 hours after her last meal.

Truscott's sentence so shocked the government of John Diefenbaker that it was commuted to life imprisonment in February 1960.

During his incarceration, Truscott never wavered from professing his innocence, but his protests fell on deaf ears and his appeals were denied.

Truscott was paroled in 1969 and originally went to live with his parole officer and his family. Truscott, later moved to Guelph, Ontario, where he lived anonymously and worked as a millwright, a trade he learned in prison, under the name of Steven Bowers.

Truscott later married his wife Malene, with whom he raised three children. They remain married today.

It wasn't until 2000, that Truscott re-emerged in an interview on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's (CBC) investigative news program The Fifth Estate, which revived interest in his case.

In November 2001, an appeal was filed by the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted on behalf of Truscott and the following January, retired Quebec Justice Fred Kaufman was appointed by the federal government to review the case.

An appeal of Truscott's conviction was heard by the Court of Appeal for Ontario beginning on 19 June 2006, a five-judge panel, headed by Ontario Chief Justice Roy McMurtry.

On 28 August 2007, Truscott was formally acquitted of the charges, although no declaration of innocence was made, something Truscott had hoped the court would announce, meaning he is still legally a suspect in the murder of Lynne Harper.

However, then-Attorney General of Ontario Michael Bryant officially apologized to Truscott shortly afterwards on behalf of the Ontario government for a miscarriage of justice.

Bryant also made it clear that the Crown would not be appealing Truscott's acquittal.

Truscott's acquittal didn't sit well with Harper's family, who have never thought that Truscott was innocent of the murder. In July 2008, Harper's brother described Truscott's $6.5 million compensation package as "a real travesty".

So who killed Lynne Harper? There have been several other suspects that have come up over the years, including a convicted pedophile who had been stationed at RCAF Station Clinton at the time of Lynne Harper's death. This suspect came to the attention of the OPP in 1997 from a retired police detective in London, Ontario.

However, none of the other suspects were taken very seriously by either the Ontario Provincial Police, who had jurisdiction over the murder since it apparently took place off the military base, or the RCAF Air Force Police, even years later as doubt in Truscott's guilt began to surface.

" A VIABLE SUSPECT"

One very strong suspect was a man with a lengthy criminal history; a man whom author and retired Ontario Provincial Police Sergeant Barry Ruhl calls by the pseudonym of "Larry Talbot" to protect the privacy of "Talbot's" family, even thought he is now deceased.

In his book "A Viable Suspect," Ruhl documents his 30 year investigation into the career criminal and alleged serial-killer with whom he first came into contact with when the suspect broke into a cottage Ruhl and his fiance (now wife) Pat were sharing in Sauble Beach in 1971. "Talbot" sexually assaulted Pat and shot Ruhl with a pellet gun after Ruhl chased him out of the cottage. Ruhl eventually caught up to him and arrested "Talbot" after a brief struggle.

Ironically for Ruhl, although he was a victim in this incident and might have died if the gun had been real, his superiors seemed quite concerned about the fact that he was sharing a cottage with a woman to whom he was not married. The fact that they were engaged may have helped Ruhl escape discipline for that "offence".

Ruhl's investigation of "Talbot" as a possible serial killer began in an official capacity and continued it "unofficially" after he had been removed from the case by his OPP superiors.

"Talbot" was known to drive a grey 1957 Chevy Bel Air, similar to the car that Harper allegedly got into when Truscott last saw her (possibly a 1959 Bel Air) and was also a traveling salesman whose company had contracts at RCAF Station Clinton, thus "Talbot" was known to frequent the Clinton area during the years of 1951-1959 and would have been familiar with the area.

Other evidence Ruhl cites in relation to "Larry Talbot" include the size of his shoes matching a shoe-print found at Lawson's Bush, a sample of type A blood found at the scene ("Talbot" had type A), some other his idiosyncrasies and a "rape-kit" he kept in the trunk of his car.

Ruhl attempted to have "Talbot" declared a suspect in the Harper murder, even after he retired from the OPP in April 1994.

"Talbot" was a suspect in seven other unsolved homicides of young women in southern-Ontario that had similarities to them, ranging from the type of location of the crime scene where the bodies were found, to the neatness of the crime scene, to the abduction and/or crime scenes being areas "Talbot" was known to frequent or live. In fact, all of the crime scenes were located close to where "Talbot" lived at the time or within an easy drive.

"Talbot" was interviewed and investigated on several occasions by several other police officers, including by Halton Regional Police for the 1973 murder of Pauline Dudley, but nothing came of these efforts. Ruhl feels that "Talbot" was never properly investigated, particularly by the OPP, and this allowed "Talbot" to ultimately escape justice.

"Talbot" died on 3 September 2008, taking to the grave anything he knew regarding the unsolved homicides in which he was a suspect, including Lynne Harper.

"Talbot" certainly didn't say anything to Ruhl when he called him out of the blue at home 2 months before he died and 37 years after their first encounter in Sauble Beach. "Talbot" wanted to complain about a Toronto Star article about the Harper murder that noted Ruhl had identified a suspect who was "A former salesman who drove a 1957 Chevy......" Although the article didn't mention "Talbot" by name, he took enough offence to it to seek out Ruhl's phone number. In an interesting and surreal "Last Call", "Talbot" and Ruhl spent most of the conversation catching up like old buddies and even joked about their first encounter in Sauble Beach; that each of them got in a few good punches at the other.
TROUBLED AIRMAN WAS A KNOWN SEX OFFENDER
Another suspect in Lynne Harper's murder who stands out is Alexander Kalichuk.

Born on 3 November 1923, Kalichuk was a Royal Canadian Air Force Sergeant who lived and worked in the area at the time of the murder. Sgt Kalichuk was known to be a heavy drinker with previous convictions for sexual offenses, some involving young girls.

Kalichuk served in the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II, but was released in 1945 and returned to civilian life.

In 1950, Kalichuk re-enrolled in the RCAF and was originally posted to RCAF Station Trenton, but soon after was transferred to RCAF Station Clinton, north of London, Ontario. Prior to leaving Trenton, Sgt. Kalichuk was twice convicted for indecent exposure in Trenton.

Kalichuk served at Clinton as a Supply Technician until 1955, when he released from the RCAF to take a civil service examination. Unsuccessful, Kalichuk returned to the RCAF and Clinton before the end of the year.

In 1957, Kalichuk transferred to RCAF Station Aylmer, about an hour away from Clinton. However, Kalichuk made frequent trips back to Clinton, where Lynne Harper's father was the senior supply officer, as his residence was a 20 minute drive from the Clinton air station.

About three weeks before Lynne Harper's murder, Kalichuk was arrested and charged by the Ontario Provincial Police for attempting to lure three young girls into his car outside St. Thomas, Ontario. The charge was dismissed shortly afterward (just 12 days before Lynne Harper was murdered) but the judge gave Kalichuk a warning regarding his behaviour.

On the same day Harper disappeared, 9 June 1959, air force medical officers held a discussion regarding Kalichuk's drinking and behaviour. Around this time, Kalichuk's probation officer advised air force officials of another incident of indecent exposure involving Kalichuk in the Town of Seaforth, not far from the Clinton base.

On July 2, three weeks after the murder of Lynne Harper, Kalichuk was hospitalized due to "overwhelming anxiety, tension, depression and guilt", as reported in RCAF documents.

Police were warning about the activities of an unidentified molester who was preying on young girls from a car. Through all of it however, including the murder of 12-year old Lynne Harper, Sgt Kalichuk managed to avoid particular attention as a suspect.

In 1959, Kalichuk had requested a transfer back to RCAF Station Clinton, but given the recent murder of Lynne Harper, senior officers at Clinton were worried about having a known sexual offender in their midst, thus he was posted to the nearby RCAF Station Centralia.

Sgt Kalichuk finally got his wish to return to RCAF Station Clinton in 1965.

Kalichuk drank himself to death in 1975. His final days were spent in a psychiatric hospital in Goderich, Ontario. A former RCAF veteran, who knew Kalichuk from his days as the base drunk at Clinton, was working at the same hospital. This man was shocked to see a disheveled and incoherent Kalichuk wandering the halls, apparently suffering the final stages of chronic alcoholism. He is buried in St James Cemetery near Seaforth, Ontario.

The OPP has never confirmed whether Sgt Alexander Kalichuk was ever investigated regarding the murder of Lynne Harper.
CASE NOT CLOSED
The murder of Lynne Harper is still legally an open-case, as there is no statute of limitation for murder, but it's one that is obviously very cold and likely will never be solved, not the least of which because most, if not all of the evidence that could lead to a conviction is gone. Likely only a confession will solve Harper's murder now, but not one person has talked in the 57 years that have passed, not even from the grave in the form of a confession letter found by a relative.

In April 2006, Harper's body's was exhumed from her grave in Union, Ontario, in the very small hope that there might be some DNA evidence still on the body, an investigative tool not available to police in 1959. Not surprisingly, nothing was found on Harper's remains due to the passage of time.

Another person who went to their grave leaving a lot of unanswered questions is retired OPP Commissioner Harold Graham. Author Julian Sher tried to interview Commissioner Graham while researching his book, "Until You are Dead - Steven Truscott's Long Ride Into History," but Graham always declined to be interviewed. Graham never answered many questions posed over the years from why he seemed so convinced that Truscott was guilty after such a myopic and questionable investigation, to why evidence that could have raised reasonable doubt, if not exonerated Truscott, was withheld from defence attorneys and the court?

Commissioner Graham died on 3 November 2001, not long after new evidence uncovered by Truscott's wife Marlene, his lawyers and various journalists was presented to Justice Minister Anne McLellan. This information would lead to the review headed by Justice Kaufman 2 months later.

As a final note, David Yates, a reporter with the Goderich Signal Star points out, in an article published in the Signal Star on 4 January 2015, one of the greatest tragedies of the murder of Lynne Harper, other than her death:

"The most enduring tragedy of the Harper-Truscott case is that there will be no closure for the Harper family. There are no websites or organizations demanding justice for Lynne Harper. There is no monetary settlement for the Harper family to compensate for their half century of suffering. That, in the end, is the ultimate tragedy."
Other sources on the Lynne Harper murder case:
"Who killed Lynne Harper?" by Bill Trent and Steven Truscott

"The Trial Of Steven Truscott" by Isabel LeBourdais

"Other leads on possible suspects", Toronto Star, 29 August 2007 - The article that prompted "Talbot" to call Author Barry Ruhl at home in 2008. - www.thestar.com/news/canada/2007/08/29/other_leads_on_possible_suspects_ignored.html

"Last chance for justice", The Globe and Mail, 30 November 2001 - www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/last-chance-for-justice/article764574/

The episode of CBC's news program The Fifth Estate featuring Truscott can be found on the CBC web site - www.cbc.ca/fifth/episodes/40-years-of-the-fifth-estate/steven-truscott-his-word-against-history

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Case not closed: The enduring tragedy of the Harper - Truscott murder case

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October 2016 In the late 1950s, a shocking murder took place near a Royal Canadian Air Force base in south-western Ontario; the murder of 12 year-old Cheryl Lynne Harper. Lynne, as she was known, was the daughter of Flying Officer Leslie Harper, a supply officer posted to RCAF Station Clinton, and Shirley Harper.

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This is a blog, which describes the whole story is depth, along with some opinions which will have you thinking! Talks about everything from the day the main incident took place, to the amount he gets in compensation.