# data[].attributes.body
Tunnel Vision - Police want to find murderer and in return have tunnel vision, not clearly interpreting all evidence

# data[].attributes.headline
Teen Kyle Unger - Before He Lost His 14 years of his life

# data[].attributes.subject
Teen Kyle Unger - Before He Lost His 14 years of his life

# data[].attributes.body
Kyle, lost his early adult years. These are the years, when one develops their future, plans and achieves their dreams. Kyle had no chance to do this, as he was wrongfully convicted of Brigitte Grenier's murder.

# data[].attributes.body
This just shows, how once a wrongfully convicted person is proven innocent, they still have to endure more suffering. The courts should immediately settle these cases, so the innocent can start a new life.

# data[].attributes.body
Kyle Unger, finally acquitted!! After years, new DNA proves that the only source of physical evidence used to convict Kyle Unger, is not Kyle's!! How many years has he lost already, hopefully, he can rebuild a happy life.

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Don Slough, Manitoba's deputy attorney general, told Justice Glenn Joyal that the charges against Unger are being withdrawn because it would be unsafe to retry him on the available evidence.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

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kyle Unger acquitted of 1990 killing | CBC News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.body
After suing for his wrongful conviction, Kyle Unger to receive $14.5M after being incarcerated for 14 years. First he spends years in prison, wrongfully convicted. Then they find him innocent. It takes years for him to receive compensation, as he had to sue, in order to get compensation, this is a form of further victimization.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Kyle Unger spent 14 years in prison for the grisly slaying of a teenage girl before his case was deemed a likely wrongful conviction and he was acquitted.

On Monday, almost 29 years after the killing, the Manitoba government said it had settled a multi-million-dollar lawsuit brought by Unger, now in his late 40s.

"I can confirm a settlement has been reached. However, the terms of this agreement are confidential," Caitlin MacGregor, press secretary for Manitoba Justice Minister Cliff Cullen, wrote in an email.

Unger's lawyer, Gavin Wolch, also cited a confidentiality requirement. He said the end of the ordeal is hard to put into words.

"Kyle is a real person and he's lived through unimaginable frustration, to say it very lightly, in his life and I'm not sure words can capture it," Wolch said from Calgary.

"I hope it does become over for him, but I think if that I were in his position, I'm not so sure it would ever really be."
READ MORE: Feds deny liability in wrongful murder conviction
A media spokesperson for the federal justice department could not be reached for comment.

Unger was found guilty of first-degree murder in the 1990 death of 16-year-old Brigitte Grenier at a music festival in Roseisle, Man., southwest of Winnipeg.

Grenier had been beaten and mutilated, and her body was left in a creek.

Unger was sentenced to life in prison, but as the years went by the evidence used to convict him unravelled.

DNA tests in 2005 showed a hair found on Grenier's sweater, which an RCMP expert had testified belonged to Unger, actually came from someone else. It was the only physical evidence linking him to Grenier's body.

The only witness who claimed to have seen Unger kill the girl was his co-accused, Timothy Houlahan, who committed suicide in 1994.

Another key piece of evidence - a confession Unger gave to undercover police officers - also came into question. The officers posed as gang members looking to recruit Unger and said he had to prove to them he had committed a serious crime if he wanted to join
the gang.

Unger told them he had killed Grenier but got several facts wrong, including the existence of a bridge at the festival site that was constructed several months after the murder.

In 2009, the federal justice minister determined the conviction was a likely miscarriage of justice and, months later, Unger was formally acquitted of the crime.

Unger said he had confessed to the killing out of desperation.

"When you're 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," Unger told reporters in 2009.

Two years later, Unger filed a $14.5-million lawsuit against the provincial and federal governments and the RCMP.

The defendants initially fought the lawsuit. The federal government, in a statement of defence, said it and the RCMP had acted in good faith. It also said the hair analysis was acceptable practice at the time, before advanced DNA tests were available.

Similar hair evidence was used in the case of James Driskell, who was wrongly convicted of the 1990 murder of Perry Dean Harder north of Winnipeg.

Driskell was convicted partly because an RCMP expert testified that three hairs found in Driskell's van belonged to the victim.

Years later, DNA tests showed the hairs came from three different people.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Settlement reached in Manitoba man's wrongful conviction lawsuit - Winnipeg | Globalnews.ca

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kyle Unger spent 14 years in prison for the grisly slaying of a teenage girl before his case was deemed a likely wrongful conviction and he was acquitted. On Monday, almost 29 years after the killing, the Manitoba government said it had settled a multi-million-dollar lawsuit brought by Unger, now in his late 40s.

# data[].attributes.body
After 14 years of hell, Kyle is finally exonerated. However, 14 years of his life are gone forever.

# data[].attributes.body
Are Mr. Big Operations good? It has been proven that innocent people can cave and confess or say things that are not true. People can be urged and convinced by police to say and start to believe what is repeatedly hammered at them by the police. Is this justice? I do not think so.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Police Error, Misconduct, & Bias: Preventing Wrongful Convictions Starts at the Investigatory Level

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
by Louise Turner Wrongful convictions stand as a pillar of injustice in Canada’s society. Police misconduct, witness testimony, human error, and biases all contribute to the number of individuals that are incarcerated as a result of wrongful convictions. While efforts are being made to alleviate these contributing factors to wrongful convictions, one area of concern is still sanctioned by the government and not being addressed; Mr. Big Operations (MBO’s) (1). Over the years, guidelines have been

# data[].attributes.headline
Kyle Unger - Making a Difference to People's Lives

# data[].attributes.subject
Kyle Unger - Making a Difference to People's Lives

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kyle Unger - making a difference to people's lives!

# data[].attributes.body
This video shows how a young teen that makes some bad decisions, or says some off remarks, can then be targeted for something greater! An older Kyle Unger, comments to being young and doing silly things, and not listening to his parents. However, this does not mean he is guilty!!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Wrongfully Convicted Video Project: Kyle Unger