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This article speaks about Steven Truscott freed but how his life is still at battle with his fight against prostate cancer in 2012.

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GUELPH, ONT.-As a teenager, he faced the hangman's noose, condemned as a child killer and a rapist. For more than 50 years, he fought to clear his name of a crime that he insisted he did not commit.

But now Steven Truscott, one of Canada's most famous victims of a wrongful conviction, is fighting one final, daunting battle - against cancer.

Truscott, a 67-year-old grandfather, had his entire prostate removed last year in an attempt to destroy a potentially deadly tumour. He has since undergone 33 radiation treatments and doctors continue to test him for any warning signs that the cancerous cells may have returned.

"Worrying about it isn't going to make it go away," Truscott told the Toronto Star in an exclusive interview at his home. "I figured if the government couldn't get rid of me, this wasn't going to get rid of me either."

At age 14, Truscott faced execution for the murder and rape of a classmate, Lynne Harper, in 1959 near the air force base where they lived in Clinton, Ont. His sentence was commuted to life in prison just weeks before the scheduled hanging.

That early brush with death seems to have informed Truscott's resolve to fight his cancer. "You're put on this earth and what's thrown at you - you either handle it or you don't," he said.

Inspired by the very public battle waged by the late NDP leader Jack Layton, Truscott agreed to discuss his medical condition to send a message to Canadian men to regularly take a simple test for prostate-specific antigen (PSA), a possible early indicator of cancer.

"I'd always been healthy. I figured you don't need the test if I feel fine," he said. "It takes two minutes to take the PSA test. If you know someone who has died from prostate cancer, it is not a pretty picture."

Truscott spent 10 years behind bars and then a lifetime on parole as a convicted murderer. In 2007, after a decade-long legal battle to reopen his case, the Ontario Court of Appeal unanimously overturned his conviction as "a miscarriage of justice" that "must be quashed."

The following year, the Ontario government awarded Truscott $6.5 million in compensation. He moved into an expansive home on the outskirts of Guelph with his wife Marlene and looked forward to a comfortable life with their three children and four grandchildren.

Then, the devastating news. Truscott, who says he never spent a day in his life in the hospital, had not visited his family doctor in two years. When he finally booked a visit, a routine checkup and blood test found dangerously high levels of PSA.

A subsequent biopsy confirmed he had prostate cancer.

"I can remember thinking: 'Why does this have to happen to him?'" said Marlene, Truscott's wife of 42 years and the driving force in her husband's battle to prove his innocence. "I was just sick, absolutely, completely sick from worry."

Truscott, who had learned to control his emotions after years in prison and frustrated legal appeals, was more reserved - at least outwardly.

"He handled it almost stoically; none of this 'poor me' stuff, just about the way you would expect Steve to react," said Mac Stienburg, who was Truscott's prison chaplain in the 1960s and, later, his parole officer. He has remained a close family friend.

"This (cancer) would sound like peanuts in comparison with a death sentence to hang," said Stienburg. "This paled in comparison."

Still, when Stienburg got a late night call from Truscott, he sensed the man he had known since he was a teenage inmate was more concerned than he would admit.

"What's God doing to me?" Stienburg remembers Truscott asking, only half-jokingly.

"I don't know, but I'll ask him and put in a good word," said the former chaplain.

Last summer, Truscott underwent surgery for a prostatectomy, the complete removal of his infected gland.

It went well but Dr. Timothy Wesley-James, the urologist who performed the operation, found the cancer had infected 40 per cent of Truscott's prostate and "microscopic" traces had spread locally.

"You have concerns," Wesley-James told the Star.

Then late last year, a blood test detected PSA again - bad news because with the prostate removed the only explanation for PSA readings was that some of the cancerous cells indeed were still present. So over the winter, Truscott began intensive radiation treatments, five days a week for almost two months.

In April he walked into the office of Dr. Joda Kuk, his radiation oncologist at the Grand River Regional Cancer Centre in Kitchener, to get the latest test results.

Kuk had drawn a smiley face and the scrawled the word "YAY!" on Truscott's medical folder: The PSA levels were undetectable.

"It was evidence that I had hit the target of cancer cells," Kuk said.

About 40 per cent of men like Truscott who had high-risk features in their prostate cancer might see a recurrence of the disease, Kuk explained, but effective radiation treatment can cut that danger in half.

"The outlook is good but you monitor these patients for 15 years because it could still come back," said Wesley-James.

The surgery, radiation and stress over the past year have taken an obvious toll on Truscott. Once a strong, fit man with the ramrod-straight bearing of a boy who grew up on an air force base, Truscott has put on weight, walks more slowly and lacks the energy he once had.

"I tire out faster," he admits.

Marlene has also spotted a "big personality change," noting her usually easygoing husband at times is "far more distant, more irritable."

The Truscotts have largely stepped out of the public limelight since Steven's acquittal in 2007 after a gruelling decade of appeals, hearings and campaigns against wrongful convictions.

The family has quietly launched the Truscott Initiative in Justice Studies at the University of Guelph, funding two scholarships for students in the field and working toward setting up a chair devoted to justice and social issues.

They still get letters and emails regularly from supporters and schoolchildren working on projects about the famous legal case.

Truscott said there is only one thing that would bring him back into the public eye: "If they ever try to bring back the death penalty," he said, referring to occasional murmurs from some Tory politicians.

"How many wrongful convictions have there been in Canada, and how many of those people would be dead (under capital punishment)?" he asks. "I would come back for that."

But for now, Truscott wants to think about life, not death.

He and his wife dream of spending more time with their grandchildren and taking a road trip to explore Canada.

"I was given two chances," Truscott says, escaping a hanging death after a criminal conviction and - for now at least - a lingering death from cancer. "My cat has nine lives, so I have seven more to catch up."

He breathes heavily as he rolls his 270-kilogram Kawasaki motorcycle out of his garage. So far this spring he has found the energy to take the bike out for a spin three times, an exhilarating jolt of freedom for the grandfather who still chafes at the memory of spending his teenage years behind bars.

"You just get out there and feel free," Truscott says, a hint of that boyish twinkle in his eyes. "Nothing holds you back."
Julian Sher can be reached at 514-944-6943, at sher.julian@gmail.com and on Twitter @juliansher.

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Steven Truscott fights another battle for his life | The Star

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GUELPH, ONT.-As a teenager, he faced the hangman's noose, condemned as a child killer and a rapist. For more than 50 years, he fought to clear his name of a crime that he insisted he did not commit. But now Steven Truscott, one of Canada's most famous victims of a wrongful conviction, is fighting one final, daunting battle - against cancer.

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This article speaks about an OPP sergeant who believes he has found a suspect in the murder of Lynne Harper that the OPP overlooked due to placing the blame on Steven Truscott too quickly in the process.

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Who killed Lynne Harper?

Retired OPP sergeant Barry Ruhl believes he knows the identity of the person who killed the Huron County pre-teen in June 1959.

Ruhl, the author of A Viable Suspect, spoke to a Petrolia audience recently and outlined his theory.

Steven Truscott, only 14 at the time, was convicted of 12-year-old Harper's murder and then sentenced to death, a sentence later commuted to life in prison.

The Clinton youngster was later released on parole and decades later acquitted, but the Harper case appears to have grown cold and her real murderer has never been arrested.

Speaking at the Petrolia library, Ruhl said he first met who he believes is Lynne Harper's murderer - whom he calls Larry Talbot, although that's not the suspect's real name - when Talbot attempted to rob Ruhl and his wife.

Since the suspect has a family Ruhl chose not to use Talbot's real name.

"I didn't want to name them because they weren't part of his deviance."

But Talbot, the retired OPP sergeant contends, might be responsible not just for Harper's murder, but for a string of unsolved Ontario cases.

"I believe Larry Talbot should be considered a person of interest in several of them," he said.

Ruhl said the suspect was a traveling salesmen, and was considered a person of interest in other cases.

One such case was the murder of Oakville's Pauline Dudley. Talbot's car, Ruhl said, was spotted not far from where Dudley's body was found and when police searched it they found blood on the headrest and hair on the floor, along with other items in the trunk.

Talbot was never charged.

In Harper's case, Ruhl lists a number of connections, including similarities in the car Talbot owned and the one Truscott said he saw (a 1959 Chevrolet Bel Air) the same evening that Lynne Harper went missing. Ruhl also argued that Talbot would have known the Clinton area, and that Talbot had the same type of blood as found on the scene where Harper's body was located. There was also a similar shoe size imprint found at the scene.

"Not slam dunk, but circumstantial," said Ruhl.

While Ruhl said he took his theories to his superiors about the string of unsolved murders, and that Talbot was tailed for a time, it wasn't pursued far enough.

And when the theory was re-evaluated decades later, it was too late. Talbot died before police had a chance to finish the investigation.

Ruhl said that although the suspect has since died, he hopes his work can still serve a purpose.

"It's a message to the police that there's a lot of cold cases in Ontario."

Amongst those in attendance at the Petrolia event was long-time Petrolia resident Mary Edgar, whose husband, the late Maitland Edgar, taught both Harper and Truscott in Clinton and always believed in Truscott's innocence.

"Everything was all botched," Mary Edgar said, in complaining about the police handling of the case.

She said investigators had to follow the theories of their supervisors.

"The police pretty well had to do whatever the top guy said."

Edgar added that although her husband worked with both the victim and the accused every day, police weren't interested in his input.

"He was never interviewed by the police."

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Who killed Lynne Harper? Retired OPP sergeant says travelling salesman a suspect in string of unsolved murders

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Who killed Lynne Harper? Retired OPP sergeant Barry Ruhl believes he knows the identity of the person who killed the Huron County pre-teen in June 1959. Ruhl, the author of A Viable Suspect, spoke to a Petrolia audience recently and outlined his theory.

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This CityNews article gives a brief case timeline to understand what happened at every stage throughout Truscott's 45 years behind bars for a crime, he never committed.

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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 is Lynne Harper, the young girl who was murdered by an unknown suspect. But the blame of the murder of Lynne Harper was placed onto young Steven Truscott.

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Steven Truscott after his trial had been declared a miscarriage of justice in 2007.

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This video discusses a retired OPP officer's theory on the murder of Lynne Harper in hopes of proving Steven Truscott innocent.

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CTV London: New theory in Steven Truscott case

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A retired OPP officer has released a book about Steven Truscott, and it reveals who he thinks killed Lynne Harper in 1959.

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This video gives an overview on the case of Steven Truscott and has a interview with Steven Truscott where he voices his side of the story and speaks about how the Criminal Justice System had failed him of 45 years of his life.

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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 short video provides information regarding the amount of compensation given to Mr. Truscott.

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Steven Truscott's $6.5 Million Award for Wrongful Conviction

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This is the mugshot of the young Steven Truscott when he was arrested for the murder of Lynne Harper.