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SKS S5 E5 "ROLLIE & MAD MAX" PT I & II

[Music: Theme]

DR: So what's up? Oh really? Okay. So. But his father's dead. So maybe that ... yeah. Well, I bet you that's where he lives. Okay. So we could go by there tonight and just scope it out. And then figure out a way to approach and then make it as easy as possible for him to talk. Yeah. Good work. Good work.

DR: So I've got some good news. Well, got a little bit of good news that Trevor may have found somebody who can help us locate Patrick Sumner...which is great because I really want Patrick...to tell us the story... of what happened with the police and why, in particular, they felt that he was the number one suspect. I do wonder if he has some knowledge. Was he there that night? Did he come upon the scene? Did he drive down that road even, that night? Was it him in the car but he had nothing to do with it? These are all things that really need to be answered, and I'm sure that Trevor and Mr. Brown would love to pose those questions and hear those answers. I've got my surveillance kit here. Binoculars. Telephoto zoom on my Nikon.

TB: [In distance] Oh, hey Dave.

DR: Hey.

TB: Let’s rock n’ roll.

DR: Trevor's in a colourful Hawaiian shirt and wearing terrifically oversized leopard print plastic glasses.

TB: K.

TB: I feel like I'm in a limousine.

TB: Sure. Once around the park, Jeeves. Then home for tea.

DR: So where do we go? We go...

DR: Okay.

DR: I see it there, yeah. There's a van in the driveway right now. The windows are sort of ajar. Someone is there.

DR: Yeah, there's a Mustang there. That's for sure where he is.

DR: So it's going to be tough because there's little kids, and they all...

DR: They all know what's going on. It’s a tough entry here.

TB: The ravens are going off.

TB: They're like that's it. You're close.

TB: Conspicuous.

DR: Yeah. There's a lady right there staring at us.

DR: Don't look.

DR: I think it's possibly better to go and see him during the day rather than just at suppertime.

DR: I'll go by myself.

DR: I don't think it's a good idea...

DR: Yeah.

DR: I'm going to take my binoculars off so I don't look like a bird watcher.

DR: Do you remember the two witnesses from Cemetery Road?

DR: We return to Trevor's to brief Jim on what's happening. And then we start talking about Sean Simmans and the vehicles he and the other witness Larry Leepart say they saw coming out of the stable roads the night Kerrie was murdered.

DR: So the only thing connecting Sumner to the case was Simmans pointing the finger at him.

DR: That's it.

JB: I didn't learn much, except like I told you, that I could not see where they had anything to convict Sumner. Like circumstantial, a little bit of stuff. They found a spoon out there, which there was a similar one found at his house out of the dump that they hot-spooned or whatever. I'm not into dope or anything, so I don't know. But that's all I could see outside of like I say, the spoon and that. They figure they had blood on clothing they found out in the laundry back at the dump there. Sumner's parents' place. That stuff, but that turned out to be not his blood or Kerrie's blood or anything they could identify. I mean, I'm not that bright, but I could not see nothing there to say this man murdered or raped or did anything else. Like I knew it was nothing that would ever stand up in court.

TB: I don't know about that.

TB: That's it. Yeah, the two in town.

TB: Yeah, that's the weird thing. Kerrie's friend's father had the other one. Yeah, they happened to drive a vehicle that looked eerily similar to Sumner's car.

TB: Derek Herkert.

TB: Herkert...

TB: Derek..."Grimace" is his nickname, Grimace. And his older brother drove that car, that green coloured car.

TB: The father's dead, yeah.

TB: Very well. Kerrie and Derek were good friends.

TB: He dated Nicole Zahorodny.

TB: Him or his brother.

DR: So do you know if Grimace...or sorry...

DR: Was cleared by the police?

[Sound: A GPS issues commands]

[Sound: Car door unlocking, a seat belt comes off, and the keys come out of ignition. The car door opens and then closes. DR is walking on some gravel]DR: If Derek aka Grimace drove a similar car, I need to talk to him.

DR: You're Grimace?

DR: I know why they call you Grimace. [G laughs] How's this dog?

DR: Hi! How are you?

DR: Derek's sitting in his backyard around a fire-pit accompanied by his dog Xena. She looks like a , but she's actually part black lab part mastiff. Derek's in sunglasses and a tank top, and he's got a beer in his hand.

G: No problem.

G: Yeah. I've got coffee, Pepsi, Diet Pepsi, Ice Tea.

G: And beer. If you want a beer. [laugh]

G: See, I'm getting off night shift so.

G: I've been up since 5 last night.

G: I work in the Mill. I'm a crusher, operator, helper. The ore they bring up from the underground. It comes in ... we just crush it down to smaller ... smaller size so it can go into the mill and they grind it down to powder so they can ship it to the smelter… Nickel.

G: Since I was 15. [laugh] So yeah. I've had it for a long time. Even at work my boss calls me Grimace.

G: Yeah.

G: So 16 or 17. Probably 17.

G: Afterwards. Well, I found out later on it ... it actually affected my dad pretty good. And ... you know, he didn't show anything. But ...It changed a lot. But ... I don't know...it's hard to ... I don't talk about it to people I don't know. It's hard to open up.

G: The group of them. Like Kerrie and Ronda and Nicole and... And we just hung out every weekend. There was, you know, roughly about 20 of us and...It was a pretty close group.

DR: Grimace was also at the Trout Avenue party where Kerrie went missing.

DR: Do you remember seeing Kerrie Ann at the party?

DR: So you were the usual designated driver?

G: And I don't even know if she .. if that happened before I left or after I left. It was pretty close. It would have been within minutes.

G: I would think so. They estimated that time around midnight or just before midnight, which is the same time I was leaving. Theories? I don't know. I think it's like the Pas. With that Helen Betty. There's got to be people that know. It's been far too long. The town is too small. There's got to be people that know something. I think when they do solve it, you're going to find out that there's a few people in town that knew something. Oh, I thought they already knew. I really think that. I kind of hope they were on the right path with the guy they went after because...

G: Cause it kind of makes them look stupid if there were completely wrong. But I think for the longest time they were fixated thinking it was somebody there. There was so many finger pointing going on, you know?

G: Oh yeah! I did lot of interviews.

G: Yup. Lie detector. DNA. Yeah.

G: I don't know. They came to the door and asked. You don't even have to question, you know. I got her picture hanging on my wall...actually, we did it on the driveway. You want to go in the house. I said 'no, let's give the neighbours something to talk about'. So she just pricked my finger right in the driveway.

G: Well, my car cause my car... to a lot of people thought it looked like Sumner's. But to anybody that knew anything about cars they knew it wasn't .. they didn't look a lot a like. Like Sumner had a white top, mine was all gold. Mine was rusted out, he had bondo. He had big wide tires, I didn't. I had regular tires, you know?

G: I think it was a Cornett.

G: Satellite. Plymouth Satellite.

G: No. Dad was mad at me that night. No, I wasn't allowed to take the car out. That's why I had to be home early that night.

G: No.

G: Yup. My dad knew Kerrie's dad because they worked at T3.

DR: Did they come under any scrutiny in regard to the case?

DR: Oh?

G: No. I don't think so. Not someone she didn't know.

G: Oh yeah. Guaranteed! Cause she wouldn't have bailed on Nicole. She wouldn't have just, you know, jumped in and took off. That's not Kerrie.

G: Nicole's house wasn't too ... too far away. So maybe, but I would think she would wait a few minutes.

G: It was here.

G: Yup.

DR: This is your family home?

DR: Grimace pulls out another beer.

DR: What's the feeling in town about Patrick? Do you know?

DR: Do you know anything about RCMP looking into the various older cars up here? Did you hear anything from RCMP directly or anybody else who said how many cars they were able to look into?

DR: You don't still own the car?

DR: You sold it?

DR: The car talk brings someone else to Grimace's mind.

DR: Who's Rollie?

DR: Is he still in town?

DR: Do you know him?

DR: Do you know where he is?

DR: Rollie Becker. What a great name.

DR: Oh hi, can I speak to Rollie please?

DR: Uh this is Dave Ridgen calling from CBC Radio.

DR: Yeah.

DR: Are you Rollie?

DR: Ok. I'm...doing some work on the Kerrie-Ann Brown case. And...your name has come up as somebody who might be good to talk to. So I was wondering if you'd be interested in just chatting with me a bit about that case if I could come and see you.

DR: Rolly. Ok, so you're Rollie. Alright.

RB: Why would my name come up? And what's your angle on it?

RB: Yeah, no I wouldn't mind finding out who was responsible myself.

RB: When?

RB: Yeah, ok.

RB: I'll probably be in the garage.

[Sound: DR walking]

DR: Look at all these cool vehicles here. Wow, that's an old car!

DR: I'm guessing he's in here

TORRANCE: Yeah, I'm the first one.

DR: Torrance, Rollie's teenage son who answered the phone, has short black hair and is in a black t shirt and pants.

TORRANCE Sure, got enough of 'em.

RB: Ah, I just tinker around on crap.

RB: Yep.

RB: Uh, pretty much, since 1960.

RB: No.

RB: No, my dad worked for Inco, so I knew enough not to. Oh, it was good growing up. You know, a small community as kids we were just always out in the bush, building forts, catching frogs, whatever like. Seemed like a great community growing up. Uh, seems to have gotten a little rougher, but do things change or do we change? And how do you know?

DR: What was your interest in the Kerrie Brown case.

DR: But, can you give me any insight as to what you might have to say? Without naming a person?

DR: And your information is from a credible source you would say?

RB: After a few minutes, and a bit of convincing, Rollie tells me what he knows.

DR: And this was Friday?

DR: The "incident" being Kerrie's disappearance. Patrick, being Patrick Sumner.

DR: Right. So it'd be the 17th, Friday the 17th.

DR: At what time would you say?

(crosstalk)

RB: I mean you know, young guys have pride in their cars, and you know (laughs) uh and can almost be uh OCD about their cars, but still, I just thought it was a bit odd. And then...Saturday then her body was discovered. And then within a few days, Patrick Sumner was in custody.

RB: And so then, everything clicked, I thought ok, that is obvious why he seemed so agitated and was persistent in cleaning his car for the entire day.

RB: No. I...I had heard from a guy working in the court that they couldn't even find his fingerprints in the car.

TORRANCE: Cuz he, cuz he cleaned it so good.

DR: That's a lot of cleaning.

DR: Ok, that's good to know.

RB: But you know, a lot of it just doesn't add up as to what car was seen and then which car was then pointed out. [pause] The RCMP officer that I talked to said that someone had seen a green Dodge muscle car...leaving the area and passing them on the shoulder. And it appeared that they had shifted gears with a floor shifter as they went by on the shoulder.

DR: I hadn’t heard about the question of floor vs column shifter, and standard vs automatic in the evidence. And I asked Sean Simmans about this when I saw him.

SS: [laugh] I don't .... I don't recall that. I don't have a memory like that.

DR: What state was Patrick's car in when you got it?

DR: Was it usable like drive-able?

DR: How do you know it was his car that you got?

DR: OK.

DR: Ah, ok, ok, that makes sense.

DR: So Patrick came to you after he was let out at the prelim and sold his car to you?

DR: And did you ever talk to Patrick about that time or that incident or any of that event?

DR: Rollie's knowledge of cars and in particular, Sumner's car is helpful, but we still don't know whose car was seen the night Kerrie was murdered.

RB: Well, he seemed more of a loner, but uh you know, he seemed like someone that probably like everyone else kinda wanted to fit in with the crowd.......and you know, would go along with uh, go along with the crowd at times or whatever or be on his own at times. He seemed like a fairly quiet, reserved individual.

RB: Perhaps just once or twice, but never talked to him.

RB: Well, he could very well be fearing for his life, if he saw the brutality that happened to Kerrie at the hands of someone... well then he would have reason to fear for his own life. You can only speculate on it.

DR: It's all speculative...I don't want to get into that territory but I'm just kind of ruminating with you. (pause)

DR: So you saw the car before it went to Sumner and after it came from Sumner?

DR: But that RCMP officer was able to confirm to your memory that Sumner's tires…

DR: Whatever…

RB: Well you know I hope I can help. I mean I really feel for Kerrie Brown and her family and uh, like I said, little Ian come around the shop a lots, sold him a car, ripped my heart out when I heard what happened to his sister (sounds emotional) (sniff) But uh you know, I hope no one takes any offence of anything I've said, but uh you know there's some things burned in my memory and I'm just recollecting things the best that I can.

RB: Well, there was one, in particular, I know of at that time that was that style, but it was the GTX so it would have came standard with a 440 big block, and a floor shifter whether it had been automatic or standard. And this one, if my memory serves me right was a standard. But either way, the GTX came base model with the floor shifter and the big block 440.

RB: And it was green...

RB: Yeah, but I'd rather not say...

RB: And I know he drove like a madman most of the time anyway. Because even the RCMP asked me, they said oh you know, so he was driving like he was leaving the scene of a crime? And I told them, I said no he was driving (laughs) like that cuz he always drove like that. And he was a fellow I knew from the demolition derby days there so...

RB: I don't know. At the 10-year mark, they you know, took down the information and whether they followed up on it I couldn't say.

[Sound: A car door opens]

DR: Check, check, check.

DR: Hello?

DR: Okay. Oh, hello. Hi, dog. This might be Max's place. There's a wasp in there. Watch out, doggie. You're going to get stung.It's pretty run down backyard with lots of stuff in it. Some kind of welder. Batteries. Some kind of old press thing. Looks like lots of different parts of different machines and gas cans.

DR: Oh! Ey! I'm looking for a guy named Max.

DR: I'm looking for Max.

SKS S5 E5 "Rollie & Mad Max" PT II

[Music: Theme]

DR: Oh! Ey! I'm looking for a guy named Max.

DR: I'm looking for Max.

DR: Oh, you're Max. [laugh] Sorry. How's it going? I work for CBC Radio. I don't know if you're the right Max Coombs though. Did you used to live in Thompson?

DR: Okay. Maybe you can help me. Do you mind just chatting for a sec? I just have two questions for you.

DR: Yeah, yeah. And I'll just stay here.

[Sound Car driving away]

DR: That's gotta be the smallest compressor I've ever seen.

DR: Is that for paint?

DR: Oh really? ...like staplers or actual nail guns?

DR: Here's my card. So I tracked you down...I'm looking for someone named Max Coombs, who used to live in Thompson.

DR: I'm working on a case. Kerrie Brown case.

DR: And I was wondering if the police ever came to you because you owned a car that looked similar to the one that was seen that night.

DR: Oh really?

DR: Oh, okay.

DR: Is that right?

DR: So what kind of car did you own?

DR: And what colour was it?

DR: Was that GTX a floor-shifter?

DR: At what time were you out there?

DR: Really? Do you remember coming out of the stable roads with your lights off?

DR: Okay.

DR: Max had been driving his GTX around but was told to take it off the road by police, he says, because it was too loud. He then got into a 1973 dark red Vega and resumed driving around Thompson. I want to know if Mad Max was the guy who may have passed Simmans on the right, as Rollie Becker implied.

MC: No.

MC: Well, yeah. People called me Mad Max, but it was just...

MC: No. No. I was the one that got passed on the right. And that was a satellite that... about a '72, '73 Satellite. A brown Satellite. I could've swore it was fucking Sumner's.

MC: Yeah, on this side.

MC: We were coming back from the airport, a car come out of the stable road and come out, just about hit us, but pulled out on the right and then pulled in front of us and left.

MC: Yeah. We were coming this way and it come off the stable road and…

MC: Yeah.

MC: Coming out with the lights off. With no lights on, and buggered off down the highway.

MC: Fuck, I can't remember, man. That's a long time ago.

MC: I think I was in the Vega.

MC: Yeah. We were out driving around. I think we were smoking pot or something, and out touring around. It was a nice night. It was fucking decent, so...

MC: I had my wife and I think we had..maybe Glenn Barnhart, I'm not sure.

MC: Yeah. Yeah.

MC: Yeah, they were with me when... when... everything. Like they were with us all night.

GLEN BARNHART: Goodmorning!

GB: Speaking!

DR: I called Glen Barnhart, and he also remembers driving with Max from the airport toward Thompson on Mystery Lake Road when a mid-70s brown car came out of the stable road very quickly as they went by, and then passed them on the shoulder.

GB: I'm going to say around 10-11 o'clock at night.

DR: Did you see Patrick Sumner in the car?

DR: What colour was it?

DR: And you say it was a Satellite?

DR: You know it was a Satellite. You know cars...

DR: You know cars.

DR: According to Rollie, Sumner’s car was a two-door Dodge Coronet.

DR: Bondo? Rust?

DR: No? Nothing you noticed?

DR: Nothing special about the headlights?

DR: Different? Any passengers in the car?

DR: Headlights? Were they off when you saw them first?

DR: Did you see a van at the time?

MC: I think it was red. It had Saskatchewan plates. It was an older Ford, like one of those straight up the front.

MC: Yeah, we had told the cops that this time, that van, I couldn't fucking believe it...

MC: It was locked. It was locked earlier that day. Like it's locked up after a certain time of the year or whatever and they just leave it out. The chain was hanging. I can't remember if the lock was on it or not, but it was hanging. It was open. We drive in there, and they're camping there, eh?

MC: No, it was closed.

MC: No.

MC: Yeah.

MC: Yeah, it was a full-window van.

MC: It would've been, I'm thinking... maybe 70s, early 70s?

MC: And it was odd. It was just fucking odd that it would be there camping and they would've… like normally you'd go camp in a fucking parking lot somewhere. They weren't in a tent either. And there was a light in the tent. The tent was lit right up. You could see it. And there was nobody in the tent.

MC: No. No.

MC: Yeah, just when we drove by. And we drove around next morning. Actually I went around next morning to McCreedy Campground. It was gone.

MC: Yeah.

MC: No.

MC: Oh, I can't remember. I think we took it home about probably 10:30, 11.

MC: Something like that. What had happened is they had those RCMP...stopping to find out what number of people were drinking and driving. And they were doing like a survey. So we went through that. And when we pulled, cop stopped me and he says yeah, they're doing a check. I'm stopping you because your car is too loud. I said no, it's not loud. [laughs] It's quite fine. Oh no, he says. It's loud. I could hear you three, four blocks away. [laughs] So he says take it home. It was... fall time anyway. It was close. I was actually going to park it for the year anyway.

MC: Yeah. That was the exact night, yeah. I can remember... after we come out of that... see, we must have been out there more than once because we went in and drove and turned around by the stables too. And come back out, and then we drove out south out to, I think the Johnson Lake Road and we went down an old road there.

MC: Yeah, yeah. But not quite out to the dump, all the way to the dump. Like a little this side.

MC: And we turned around. And somebody had skinned a bear. And when the fucking headlights went on, I swear it was a man.

MC: Yeah.

MC: No, it was kind of like a dead old road, like a trail through the bush, eh? [clears throat] We went in there, was turning around and lights hit it. I swore to fuck somebody was dead in the road, so we got out and looked at it. It was a bear, eh. But you'd swear it was a man. You see a bear skinned out, it looks just like a man.

MC: Oh, it was wicked. Yeah, with the GTX...it was fucking quite done up, eh? You wouldn't drive it on the gravel roads….We'd stay strictly on the pavement, yeah.

MC: No. No.

MC: We went… We pulled into the stables and then we made a right turn. Actually we were not that fucking far away from where they found Kerrie, I don't think. Where we turned around there.

MC: Yeah, it would've been... fuck, after midnight, I think.

MC: No. No.

MC: No.

MC: No. No.

MC: Sean Simmans?

MC: I don't even know a Sean Simmans.

MC: No.

MC: No, not to my knowledge.

MC: Oh yeah. No.

MC: Doesn't ring any bells.

MC: But we weren't looking either.

MC: You know.

DR: So, Max was either there at the same time Sean Simmans was, and the same car passed them both on the shoulder. But neither Sean nor Max remember seeing each other. And Max didn't see a white van. Or, it was a different time of night, so Simmans wasn't there when Max was, and neither was the white van Simmans says he saw. But a 1970s car similar or identical to Patrick Sumner's came out of the stable roads at that different time, and also passed Max Coombs on the shoulder. The common denominator between Coombs and Simmans is seeing the 1970s era car that, they say, looked like Sumner's.

MC: Oh, I don't know.

MC: I'm 65.

MC: I would've been...40, something like that.

MC: Yeah. I think we're out fucking hootin'. We're out smoking a few joints and it was just a beautiful fucking night.

MC: And just, didn't want to go home, eh?

MC: The two things that stick out about that night is that van in the campground and that bear. Because at the time, we didn't know that fucking Kerrie Brown had been murdered, eh? We had no

fucking idea.

DR: So then you were interviewed by police.

DR: Okay.

DR: So some blood then. Okay.

GB: Like we expected the police to get a hold of us. But they got on to that Pat Sumner shortly afterwards and they were like a dog with a bone on that and they never ever followed up on too much else I don’t think. Like I say we were out there that evening. You would have thought they'd come and asked us a few questions at the time. But...no.

MC: But...what I had heard was they had fucking evidence against Sumner and it was pretty well cut and dried that it was fucking Sumner. So nobody looked any farther, eh? And he was, Pat was a bit of a fucking oddball, eh?

MC: Not about that. I talked to Pat quite a bit. I knew him good anyways. I knew his dad good.

MC: Oh, Bob, he was a bit fucking... odd too. He run the fucking dump out there, but yeah. I had to get along with him because there was a lot of stuff went out there that was decent, eh? You know, so you had to get along with Bob.

DR: Anyway, thanks again.

DR: Across the stories, the same general notion prevails, a big 70s car that looked like Patrick Sumner's Cornet was seen, brownish tan or gold-ish green-ish in colour. But there was also a van seen. Simmans saw a white one emerge, lights off at the same time as the 70s car. Max Coombs didn't see the white van, but later in the evening says he saw a red one with Sask plates at McCreedy campground. And...Donna Covic, who found Kerrie's body on the Saturday while riding her horse, also has a story to tell about a van she says she saw early on the Friday morning around the time Kerrie had disappeared. Donna was at the horse stables. About a kilometre from where Kerrie was eventually found just down the road.

DR: Oh! 4:00 in the morning you were bathing your horse?

DR: Who put you under hypnosis?

DR: She was in the van? Did you see Kerrie Ann in the van?

DR: So you're saying...you saw her in the van on the Friday?

DR: You may have seen her in the van on the Friday morning?

DR: What colour was the van?

DR: Round or square?

DR: The person in the van that you saw…

DR: Middle-aged white guy.

DR: Long hair, dark hair?

DC: I...I don't know what they got from the hypnosis. Maybe they tell you. I don't know. He was one of these people it just pierced staring at you and you're wondering 'what's on your mind buddy?' You know, I'm here alone at 4:00 in the morning bath my horse. I can get in my truck pretty darn fast. That's what I was thinkin'. If he would have stopped or got out of the vehicle, I would've been gone like a shot.

DC: They drove out of the yard. And then...

DC: They left.

DC: Not to the highway. I knew they went down that road, but that's why I thought they're drinking somewhere or on something to drink.

DC: Yeah. They kept going. You could hear them. Everything out there, it's so crisp. You know, especially it was cold that night. And it's so crisp, and you can hear everything for a long time. Like I heard him coming when he turned off the highway. The sound really travels. And I thought 'who the hell is out here this time of night,' and then I thought maybe is some my friends...or whatever. You know. And I thought maybe that. But also another point. My husband that I'm married to now, I didn't know him then. Him and his buddy...were drinking out by the graveyard, and they heard a girl scream. And they got scared and took off. And they often feel bad about that too. We've talked about it that they wish they would have investigated a little further the same night.

DC: But like I told you, the sound travels so much at night. You can't really pinpoint it. But they did hear it and they got scared and they left.

DR: And you didn't hear anything?

DR: Did you ever see any other vehicles?

DR: Including that van again?

DR: No vehicles coming and going that night?

DR: And you say that you saw Kerrie in the van?

DR: Ok. What did you think about Patrick Sumner's case, or the fact that the police had focused on him?

DR: Another van with suspicious timing? Or was it one of the two already seen… the red or the white. One that had Kerrie in it, according to Covic under hypnosis. Hypnosis has long been tried by law enforcement to probe for evidence allegedly lodged in our subconscious, but credible studies have found the technique can, under certain circumstances, result in distortions of memory. The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2007 that evidence obtained via hypnosis shouldn't be used in criminal trials because it isn't "sufficiently reliable". But up until 2007, evidence gleaned from hypnosis had been used for almost 30 years in Canadian courts. Covic and Simmans both say they were hypnotized by police. Sumner's car or not Sumner's car. Sumner the driver Sumner not the driver. The timing, the vehicles, what was seen that night? At the end of a long day of questions, Trevor and I plan to take one more drive.

[Sound: A knock on the door, the door opens]

TB: Dave? Is that you knocking?

TB: Is it dark? Sorry, Dave. I'm half cut.

TB: Yes. Do you want to go?

DR: It's end of day and Trevor's had a few beers, but he says he wants to go anyway.

DR: Ok, let’s go.

TB: You're a smart cookie, tapping on your dashboard like that.

TB: Oh shit, that's a first.

TB: I drank 12 beers today, Dave. But no, I don't drink hard everyday. And that's the madness of an alcoholic. And so one day you'll have two. And the next day you'll have three. And the next day you'll have four. And that's fine. That's sociable drinking, right? But the next day you have 15. That's the alcoholic. That's what I am, Dave.

TB: Oh, are we at the spot?

DR: Sean and Larry were.

TB: Can you see the other side of the highway?

TB: Right. And that's what it would've been back then. Definitely. That time of year, that time of night? It would've been black. Like black, black…

DR: There's a car coming down Stable Road with its lights on right now.

DR: Yeah. So there it is with its lights on and you can barely see it, of course.

DR: You want me to go drive on it?

DR: Yeah.

TB: Where are we right now, Dave?

TB: Oh, so we're at the hydro line?

DR: It's pitch black but for the dashboard lights. We're able to drive carefully down the stable road to the highway. By Simmans explanation, he surprised the two vehicles by turning his own lights on. Then they followed suit, turning their lights on. Sean says he turned left toward town and the car and the van both turned right toward town after. Max Coombs says the car he saw also turned right toward town. If the vehicles had turned left, they would have headed out of town. Passing the airport in that direction, one is then faced with almost a hundred kilometres of frost broken highway through black spruce forest before coming to the Cree community of Nelson House.

ATW: You have been listening to Episode 5 Part Two: Mad Max. If you wish to submit an anonymous tip about Kerrie Brown’s murder, visit www.cbc.ca/SKS, or email the show at SKS@cbc.ca. Want a place to discuss episodes with others and discover exclusive content? Join our new Facebook group and follow us on Twitter: @SKSCBC. Someone Knows Something is hosted, written and produced by David Ridgen. The series is mixed by Cesil Fernandes, and produced by Chris Oke, Steph Kampf, Amil Delic, Eunice Kim and executive producer Arif Noorani. Original music by David Federman. Our theme song is “Thompson Girl” by The Tragically Hip.

TRANSCRIPT: Someone Knows Something - Season 5, EP 5

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