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This article goes through the step by step events that caused Kyle Unger to be wrongfully convicted and how he fought for his innocents and won. Because of false testimony, a false confession, tunnel vision, and flawed forensics, Kyle Unger spent 14 years in prison for the murder of his classmate Brigitte Grenier. Though he was innocent, he had to appeal the decision and fight for his freedom

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On Friday, June 22, 1990, nineteen-year-old Kyle Unger attended a rock music festival at a ski resort near his hometown of Roseisle, Manitoba. Brigitte Grenier, then sixteen years old and a high school classmate of Kyle's, also attended the festival. Between midnight and 1:30 a.m., Brigitte Grenier was observed dancing, kissing and fondling seventeen-year-old Timothy Houlahan.

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This video tells the story of three men (including Kyle Unger) who are wrongfully convicted and the Crown prosecutor, George Dangerfield, who presided over all of them. During Kyle Unger's interview with The Fifth Estate, he reflects on the time he lost being falsely imprisoned, the damage to his reputation he has suffered, and he his life with his family has been destroyed.

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A string of wrongful murder convictions... and the man who prosecuted them.

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Brigitte Grenier's Father opposes new trial

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Brigitte Grenier's Father opposes new trial

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This article is an interview of Ron Grenier (Brigitte's father) by CBC news. In the interview Don talks about how he does not wish to go through another trail for the murder of his daughter because it would be too painful. He feels that there should be a limit to how many appeals a case can have and that it is unfair to the family members of the victim to have to suffer through a trial again.

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The father of Brigitte Grenier, who was slain in 1990, doesn't want to go through another trial.

Federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced this week that a new trial has been ordered for Kyle Wayne Unger, who spent 14 years in a B.C. prison for the sexual assault and killing of the 16-year-old.

But Ron Grenier told CBC News not a day goes by that he doesn't think about his daughter, and another trial would only add to his pain.

"Once this happens, once this keeps on going, your family life is destroyed, there's no doubt about it," he said. "Talking about closure for myself will never come because I will know until my dying days how she was murdered, how she died."

Brigitte was beaten, strangled and sexually mutilated at a rock concert in the small Manitoba community of Roseisle, about 120 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.'

Unger and another man, who has since died, were convicted of murdering the teen.

The decision about whether to proceed with another trial for Unger is now in the hands of Manitoba Justice. No decision has yet been made but Unger's lawyers have said there is no forensic evidence left against him.

"What they [Crown] should do, if they don't go ahead, is call no evidence and allow an acquittal to be entered," lawyer Hersh Wolch told CBC News on Wednesday.

The primary piece of evidence was a hair sample found at the scene. It was used to convict Unger in 1990, but in 2004, a Forensic Evidence Review Committee established by the province called into question that hair comparison evidence.

Subsequent testing using DNA technology revealed the strand of hair did not come from Unger. In November 2005, at the age of 34, Unger was granted full bail.

Prior to that, Unger had tried unsuccessfully to appeal to the Manitoba Court of Appeal and was denied leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

Grenier thinks there should be a limit on how many appeals are allowed in such cases.

There should be limits ... how many times the system passes victims through," he said.

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Murder victim's dad opposes new trial for Kyle Unger | CBC News

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The father of slain teen Brigitte Grenier says Kyle Unger should not get a new trial. Ron Grenier told CBC News not a day that goes by that he doesn't think about his daughter, and he does not want to go through another trial.

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This article covers the acquittal of Kyle Unger. The crown was unable to present the court with any DNA evidence connecting Kyle Unger to the crime scene . Kyle tells the reporters ""I never was angry — upset, but not angry," he felt that being angry would waste the time he has left in life and he has already lost out on too much.

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Murder charges against Kyle Unger were dropped Friday in a Winnipeg courtroom, ending a 19-year legal odyssey after the Crown determined it didn't have enough evidence to retry him for a 1990 killing.

Don Slough, Manitoba's deputy attorney general, told Justice Glenn Joyal that the charges against Unger are being withdrawn because it would be unsafe to retry him on the available evidence.

Slough said DNA testing shows no trace of Unger on any of the exhibits and cannot link him to the crime scene.

Based on an absence of evidence, Joyal ordered that Unger be formally acquitted of all the charges against him. Joyal then wished Unger "good luck."

"Finally," a smiling Unger, 38, told reporters outside the courthouse. "It's still surreal, almost."

He said the decision marks "the first day of the rest of my life, a new beginning."

An acquittal does not necessarily mean a person is factually innocent, but what it does mean is that "in the eyes of the law, he's an innocent man," Unger's lawyer, Hersh Wolch, told reporters.

Asked whether he was angry about how many years of his life have been wasted, Unger said he wasn't.

"I never was angry - upset, but not angry," he said. "When you feed off anger, it takes more. They already took my younger years away from me. Why let them have my mind?"

Unger spent 14 years in a B.C. prison for the sexual assault and killing of 16-year-old Brigitte Grenier. She was beaten, strangled and sexually mutilated at a rock concert in the small Manitoba community of Roseisle, about 120 kilometres southwest of Winnipeg.

A new trial for Unger was ordered in March of this year after federal Justice Minister Rob Nicholson ruled there was a reasonable likelihood he had been wrongfully convicted.

Unger said on Friday that the hardest part of his ordeal has been "waiting for it to come to an end. It's a long journey."

Wolch did not present evidence for the defence at Friday's hearing. Instead, he went through discredited prosecution evidence against his client then told Joyal the prosecutors "should be ashamed."

"It's not sufficient enough to say those were the standards then. You're wrong, and it had horrible consequences for this young man," Wolch said.

He called Unger's 1992 conviction "a blatant miscarriage of evidence" and "an extreme example of tunnel vision."

Slough told reporters that he spoke to the Grenier family leading up to Friday's events and explained what was going to happen.

"They're devastated by this. They've suffered this horrible loss," he said. "That's all I can say about that. I don't want to repeat the conversation."

Grenier's father, Ron, told CBC News the past 24 hours have been horrible for the family.

"I guess it can't compare to what happened to ... Brigitte. [It's] worse for her because she took the beating and the suffering and the whatever before she passed away," he said. "I'm still alive, I'm still here."

A Canadian first

The acquittal, rather than just a stay of the charges, is a Canadian first, Wolch said.

He said it was "a momentous day."

"The minister rarely from federal [government] sends the matter to a retrial. And then an acquittal? It's virtually unheard of. It is unheard of, so this is huge," he said.

"We do have an historical day today, but we haven't learned enough," he added. "When the Crown calls no evidence, it's because the Crown has no evidence to call.

"We did not fear a trial for a minute, and the reason is this man didn't do the crime. This has all the hallmarks of what causes wrongful convictions."

Wolch said he expects to pursue monetary compensation for Unger.

"We have to sit down and formulate a position, and we will," he said. "I anticipate making an approach for compensation."

But Manitoba Justice Minister Dave Chomiak said Friday afternoon there are no grounds for compensation because none of this would ever have happened without Unger making a confession. For the same reason, there are no grounds for inquiry either, he said.

Confessed to police

Unger had confessed to undercover police who were part of a sting operation known as Mr. Big, in which the officers promised money to a targeted suspect to help them out.

Asked on Friday why he made the confession in the first place, Unger said he was "young, naive and desperate for money."

"They hold a lot of promises to you, so you say and do what you have to do to survive, just like in prison - you have to do what you have to do to survive and get through it."

Unger, who now lives in B.C., was asked whether he intends to move back to Manitoba.

"I don't know. I definitely will be coming back a lot for holidays [to] see my family," he said.

Co-accused committed suicide

Unger was convicted, along with Timothy Houlahan, who was released on bail in 1994 when his conviction was overturned by the Manitoba Court of Appeal in 1994. Houlahan killed himself later that same year.

Although court was told at the time of the trials that Unger and Houlahan did not know one another, Crown prosecutor George Dangerfield argued they conspired to kill Grenier.

Dangerfield, now retired, has made news in recent years as a number of his cases have been overturned as wrongful convictions. Some of those past cases involve Thomas Sophonow and James Driskell.

In September, the case of a fourth Dangerfield murder conviction, Stanley Ostrowski, was put under review. Ostrowski is still in prison.

Appeal initially rejected

Unger's initial appeal to the Manitoba Court of Appeal following his conviction was rejected and leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada was denied. But in September 2004, a forensic evidence review committee established by the province called into question the hair comparison evidence used at Unger's trial.

New DNA testing suggested a strand of hair found at the scene of the crime and originally used to convict Unger did not come from him. Evidence from a jailhouse informant and a police sting operation were also discredited.

Unger's lawyer subsequently filed an application to the minister of justice for a review of the murder conviction. Based on the DNA evidence, a judge of the Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench said she had "very serious concerns [he] may have been wrongly convicted of murder."

In November 2005, Unger was granted bail pending the minister's decision.

Following Nicholson's announcement in March, Unger's bail conditions were loosened by a Court of Queen's Bench judge in Winnipeg. A curfew restriction was lifted by the court.

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Kyle Unger acquitted of 1990 killing | CBC News

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Murder charges against Kyle Unger were dropped Friday in a Winnipeg courtroom, ending a 19-year legal odyssey after the Crown determined it didn't have enough evidence to retry him for a 1990 killing. Don Slough, Manitoba's deputy attorney general, told Justice Glenn Joyal that the charges against Unger are being withdrawn because it would be unsafe to retry him on the available evidence.

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This video talks about DNA evidence and how people have been convicted of crimes because of the lack of knowledge and updates in DNA testing. Now because we have advanced our knowledge and ability in testing DNA more accurate, many cases that where based on DNA years ago are being retested to confirm the results. This is one of the reasons Kyle Unger won his appeal in 2003, when they retested the hair found and the crime scene and the test showed that the DNA of the hair was not a match for Kyle.

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Faulty DNA Evidence Is Causing False Convictions

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Case Study: Kyle Unger

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Dave Chomiak Minister of Justice and Attorney General

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Dave Chomiak Minister of Justice and Attorney General

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This video is of Dave Chomiak, the attorney General involved in Kyle Unger's case. He speaks on the decision to exonerate Kyle of the murder charges. He states that he does not blame anyone for the wrongful conviction and that the crown actually suggested to Unger that he have the case and evidence reviewed after being convicted of murder. He also further states that there is no compensation for the 14 years Unger spent in jail based on the law.

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Dave Chomiak Media Scrum on Kyle Unger Exoneration - Oct. 23, 2009 - Winnipeg, Manitoba

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http://www.ChrisD.ca Minister of Justice and Attorney General Dave Chomiak speaks on the decision to exonerate Kyle Unger of murder charges on Friday, October 23, 2009 relating to the 1990 murder of Brigitte Grenier in Roseisle, Manitoba.

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The judge involved in Kyle Unger's acquittal denied Kyle compensation for the reasoning that he had a major role in being convicted of the crime when he confessed to an undercover RCMP officer. This helped the crown convince the jury and being found guilty of the murder. this article talks about the lawsuit Kyle Unger is bringing against the Manitoba government for $14.5M but no court date has been set.

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WINNIPEG -- The Manitoba attorney general's office has responded to a $14.5-million lawsuit filed by Kyle Unger, who spent 14 years in prison for murder before being cleared.

A statement of defence filed recently in Court of Queen's Bench says the office acted in good faith and followed accepted procedures in investigating and prosecuting Unger.

The attorney general also says Unger was convicted largely on repeated confessions he made to undercover police officers in a sting operation.

Unger, who is now 43, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1990 death of Brigitte Grenier at a rock concert south of Winnipeg.

His lawsuit alleges he was tricked into making a false confession by undercover officers posing as gangsters who offered him money and work if he had committed a serious crime.

In 2009, the federal justice minister determined that the conviction had probably been a miscarriage of justice.

The provincial attorney general said the undercover sting, known as Operation Drifter in the Unger case, was accepted practice at the time.

"The investigation into Grenier's death, including all aspects of Operation Drifter, was conducted on a good-faith basis and in a careful and conscientious manner consistent with accepted law enforcement standards and procedures in place at the material time," the statement of defence reads.

"Any loss or damages ... were caused, or significantly contributed to, by the plaintiff's own conduct which includes but is not limited to his repeated confessions to having murdered Grenier."

The federal government used similar wording in its statement of defence filed last year. It also pointed out that while federal agents such as the RCMP were part of the investigation, the ensuing prosecution was the responsibility of the provincial Crown.

Unger was sentenced to life in prison along with his co-accused, Timothy Houlahan, but as the years went by the evidence used to convict him began to unravel.

An RCMP hair analysis expert had testified at Unger's trial that a hair found on Grenier's sweater belonged to Unger. It was the only physical evidence against him, but DNA tests in 2005 showed the hair belonged to someone else.

The only witness who claimed to have seen Unger kill Grenier was Houlahan, who committed suicide in 1994 while waiting for a retrial he was granted when he appealed his conviction. Unger's attempts to appeal were rejected.

The other key piece of evidence -- the confessions Unger gave to undercover police officers -- also came into question. Unger told them he had killed Grenier, but got several facts wrong. He mentioned a bridge at the concert site that had actually been built several months after Grenier's death.

Eventually, Unger was formally acquitted.

His lawsuit alleges that police and Crown attorneys relied on faulty science, ignored evidence that pointed to Houlahan as the killer and used a flawed undercover sting to get a false confession.

"The plaintiff was led to believe that if he said he committed the Grenier murder, he would receive a career, money, respect, companionship and many things sorely lacking in his life," Unger's statement of claim reads.

No court date has been set to hear the lawsuit.

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Manitoba government counters wrongful conviction lawsuit filed by Kyle Unger

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WINNIPEG -- The Manitoba attorney general's office has responded to a $14.5-million lawsuit filed by Kyle Unger, who spent 14 years in prison for murder before being cleared. A statement of defence filed recently in Court of Queen's Bench says the office acted in good faith and followed accepted procedures in investigating and prosecuting Unger.