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SKS Season 5 Episode 6 : “The Call”

ATW: The following program contains mature subject matter. Listener discretion is advised.

AT: You are listening to Someone Knows Something from CBC Podcasts. In Season 5, David Ridgen travels north to Thompson, Manitoba, to investigate the 1986 murder of Kerrie Brown. This is Episode 6: The Call.

[Sound: A phone connects]

DR: Hi, is this Kathleen?

DR: Hi Kathleen, it's Dave Ridgen calling. How are you?

DR: Kathleen Gold is Trevor Brown’s cousin…

DR: Kathleen lives in Western Canada, where she cares, pretty much full-time, for her twin daughters, both on the autism spectrum. She’s also one of the administrators of a Facebook page dedicated to the Kerrie Brown case.

DR: If I could ask about what he was saying or alleging in his conversations with you — this RCMP officer?

DR: This retired officer could be a gold-mine of information. Kathleen cites a note he wrote to her on Facebook about evidence that he says was available to RCMP investigators at the time but...

DR: To back this last point up, Kathleen reads me one of the more revealing public posts made by her retired RCMP source.

DR: And is it Jean like J E A N?

DR: Where does he live in Ontario now? Do you know?

DR: Let's go see Jean-Marc.

DR: Hello!

DR: Jean-Marc, thanks for doing this.

DR: Jean-Marc Villeneuve seems taller than his six feet to me. Serious, with glasses and short white hair. He doesn’t come off as reckless.

DR: To be sure it’s him, I ask to see his ID, and he shows me his Veteran’s Affairs card, a retired RCMP member’s badge with number, and later some photos of him in his red serge RCMP uniform.

DR: Yeah, I’m…

DR: Villeneuve makes some coffee, and we move outside...

JMV: I was a member of the RCMP for 30 years. I was posted in Thompson, Manitoba from December ‘85 to January 1990.

JMV: I'm First Nation. My dad’s Ojibwe. But I was brought up in Ottawa — brought up in a French-Canadian environment. I didn't speak any English until I joined the RCMP.

JMV: Nope. I didn't even bring it up when I was up north because for any NCO or officer, if you were First Nation, you were worse than lice. The RCMP knowledge were all Indians are lazy, all they want to do is sleep, and drink, and get drunk. Basically, any special constables we'd have were treated like dirt. And a lot them would just leave their guns and leave, and go back to their communities because they were treated like dirt. You cannot forget, Thompson was an extremely violent community. Every scene we went to was either a knife, or an axe, or a 2 X 4, or something.

JMV: It was an accumulation of violence over the years, being a mining town...Basically, a lot of people from throughout Canada. A lot of people that went there to make money quick. And what do they do on their days off — was drink, use drugs, and fight. And it had been like that since the creation of Thompson, but it progressively got worse and worse and worse.

DR: How fast were you out there after Kerrie Ann had been found.

JMV: Not that I remember. Not by myself.

JMV: By what I could see by the footprints, the car prints, and everything else, it was totally contaminated in more ways than one. It was like... too many people had gone through it, too many people had seen it. I never saw the body. I wasn't there when they found the body or they moved the body. And they moved it awfully quick, which I really didn't understand that part either. All I know is, I had heard that it was a very violent scene, and she had been sexually assaulted and her head crushed. That’s all I knew. In regards to the crime scene, the other problem was… the RCMP, again because of budgets, would re-use body bags. So you were suppose to wash'em and re-use'em. In those days, you can't forget, all we had was hair, fibre, blood, and anything that was found on the body. But it's pretty hard to have good samples of anything if the body bags are contaminated. And the body bag … somewhere in the file, I haven't read it, but I was told....it was said they found...black hairs...because of contamination...

JMV: After the murder, I started getting calls from my sources, and they were going in a direction which was basically three kids, which were known to me and quite violent.

DR: There were three men from ages 17 to early 20s at the time — two of them were brothers and the third was a man who goes by the name Eagle. For legal reasons, I can't reveal them at this time.

DR: So a report would have be written every time...

DR: Oh, so no service revolver report.

DR: I’ve put in several calls to former RCMP member Donnie Fisher to try to corroborate Villeneuve’s story. Fisher now lives in Northern Canada, but so far, nothing back.

JMV: At the time, they would have been anywhere from 17 to 19.

DR: I have no idea if any of these men have any knowledge of Kerrie’s murder. The criminal records that I am able to find for them from the late 80s and early 1990s reveal drug, theft and assault charges. His brother Keith has a shorter rap sheet with no assault charges. The last known address that I can find for one of them is in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario where, in 2015, he was charged with assaulting a man with a beer can. Villeneuve also says that the three drove around in a white-ish van — one that often looked grey with grime.

DR: An air mattress. I wonder if it was like the one used for traction, to get a vehicle out of the mud next to where Kerrie was killed? It’s an intriguing detail, but for me, it’s far from evidence. Owning a van and a mattress and having a history of run-ins with the police, does not necessarily make someone a suspect in Kerrie’s murder. I’ll be looking into the three men Villeneuve mentioned later, but will do so with a high degree of skepticism.

JMV: Because we were told to work on our files, basically conclude them, and that was it. The major case manager’s theory was that you have 72 hours to find a suspect. After that, it becomes a computer dump. Everybody who has been tasked to do something is only tasked to do one thing and one thing alone. And you must follow those guidelines. It was business. It was business. It all had to do, at the time, with the senior officers, their budgets…

JMV: When I first arrived there, any homicide, any strange death, we all did as a detachment. It was all hands on deck. Basically, we all reached into our bags of who we could talk to, to find out what was happening in town and what had happened.

JMV: We had no real information during this time…

DR: On tape? On a tape?

JMV: Correct.

DR: Not even the Brown family knew Kerrie was missing early Friday morning. She wasn’t reported missing until later on Friday afternoon. That’s when the posters started going up, according to everyone I’ve spoken to. Kerrie’s body wasn’t discovered until Saturday at midday. So, this call talking about a murder came in after she disappeared, before she was known to be missing, and over 24 hours before it was known that she was murdered.

DR: She was a civilian?

DR: A civilian operator working at the RCMP’s Operational Communications Centre or OCC.

DR: Once Kerrie was found, Villeneuve says, the phone operator connected her murder to the phone call she received, and went into the RCMP HQ. That Saturday was her day off, but she knew the information she had could be important.

DR: Jean Marc Villeneuve says he overheard an argument between Jon Tost and Dennis Heald about the call near his desk at the Thompson detachment at that time.

DR: Do you recall seeing John Tost and Dennis Heald at the time, arguing?

DR: And it was related to that phone call?

DR: Okay. At that time. But you may not have understood all the details you were hearing.

DR: Afterwards, as details became filled in by his conversations with the phone operator, he says he realized what that conversation was about.

DR: I ask Villeneuve if he can put me in touch with this telecoms operator. Maybe she knows more. Maybe she still has a tape of the call. The voice. But according to Villeneuve, she may have moved East, perhaps working for RCMP again, which could make it difficult for her to speak out.

JMV: I don't know if anything else came in because everything was streamlined towards major case management. So we knew nothing about anything happening. So that is basically what I remember of that. But the call’s voice would have identified the person.

DR: Interesting! What is it that's making you talk about this stuff in this way now?

DR: How much to believe Villeneuve? I’ve rarely met the officer — even a retired officer — who would speak this candidly about an investigation. I asked Villeneuve if he had any official problems with the RCMP, and he sent me documents showing a dispute over the handling of an informant. An internal RCMP investigation was conducted, charging Villeneuve with disobeying an order, but the case was eventually dropped, and Villeneuve returned to work, but retired a few years later, due to health issues. I can’t imagine why a phone call like the one he described from someone who may have known about a murder, would be ignored by the officers investigating Kerrie Brown’s case. The only way to know for sure is to speak to the officers themselves. Of the two original lead investigators, I’ll try John Tost.

[Sound: Rushing water from a sink]

[Sound: A phone connecting

DR: Hey John, it’s Dave Ridgen calling. Sorry I didn’t get your call there.

DR: Constable Janna Amirault declined to put me in touch with the original investigators on Kerrie’s case. But I was able to get in touch with John Tost, and eventually we connect for an interview.

JT: Yes, yes, yeah. I am. Yeah.

JT: Yeah, I am. Yeah. This is my 17th year of polygraph, but… my work has been split between plain clothes and uniform...….But when Kerrie Ann was murdered. I was on.....the Thompson General Investigations Section. So looked after street-level drugs, major crime, that sort of stuff taking place inside the city. By the time I got there, by the time that thing happened, I had 12 years experience.

DR: Before getting to the phone call received around the time that Kerrie disappeared, I want to get a sense of what Tost might remember about the case and perhaps answer some of the other questions that have been percolating.

JT: In terms of what I do recall, obviously right off the top, is just the horrific nature of it. I was the first member that went out to the scene that day. I was working that afternoon. And we received a call that a girl's body had been found, appeared to be a murder victim. And we knew, of course, Kerrie Ann was missing. So I went directly out there. I spent most of my time pretty much with her body until more people arrived. I knew from the moment that Kerrie Ann's body was discovered, we knew that that was going to be a complex investigation. She'd been missing for some time. We're dealing with that type of a crime scene.

JT: No. No, I wasn’t. That's a fair question. No, all I knew quite frankly is that we had a young girl that had been horribly bludgeoned. We had a body. We were going to be doing an active homicide investigation. But with regards to observations at the scene regarding how many people could have involved or whatever, no, there was nothing at the scene that indicated to me whether it was one person or more...at least my involvement with the scene didn't tell me that.

JT: Really no. The scene again, the way we process crime scenes is I wasn't involved in the collection of evidence. So I wasn't involved in seizing of exhibits or evidence or anything along that line. Quite frankly, my focus was directed again to make sure that nobody was contaminating the immediate crime scene and that was where her body was.

JT: Well, I mean let's face it. In terms of dealing with an investigation, you can always look back and wonder could there have been contamination? But by the same token, I think a person's also got to look at it in terms of we were dealing with a pretty big crime scene. If you looked at where the areas were in terms of tracks, where the air mattress was, branches, that sort of stuff, we're dealing with we're outside of the city limits. We're dealing with an area that's basically wilderness. And one of the things you've got right away is you begin to worry well, what is crime scene, what isn't? So really to have processed any type of crime scene maybe without some degree of contamination, I'm going to suggest probably may have been impossible. But as far as anybody being careless or trampling evidence or whatever, I can't speak to that. And had I seen anybody that was basically contaminating or destroying evidence, I would have said something at the time.

JT: We were aware as to what was at the scene, but whether we can conclusively state that those articles — the air mattress and that sort of stuff related to the murder, I can't say with certainty right now. I'm not so sure I could even have stated back then.

JT: Dennis was in charge of...the GI section at the time. And I was working along with him. He was responsible for exhibits. He came from a science background, and they thought that would be particularly beneficial. So for the most part, a lot of the time that put me in the spot as lead investigator. And then once he was able to devote more time to it, he and I worked very closely on it. We began to investigate, of course. And then we went where the evidence led us at the time.

JT: Well again, it's well known that it identified a suspect that we wound up charging and taking to court, and who was later discharged after a preliminary hearing.

JT: There is a difference between, of course, a discharged hearing and an acquittal. And Pat Sumner was not acquitted. The court never determined that he hasn't committed the offense, in other words, he was not found not guilty. We never got to that phase. They just said that we didn't have enough evidence to proceed to trial at that point. They're saying well, go back to the investigative phase. We need to gather more evidence. And again, that's basically the way it sat ever since.

JT: I don't know. My involvement ended when I left Thompson. And that would have been in 1988. I transferred out of there in July of 1988. So at that point, I think all DNA work was done after I had left.

JT: Yeah, I can. We spent quite a bit time with Sean Simmans and another young lad...Another young fellow by the name of Larry Leepart. And by the time we were finished, of course, we believed that they were witnesses and credible witnesses.

JT: You know I think it's fair to say that the information that we got from Sean Simmans and Larry Leepart certainly pointed us in that direction, of course. I mean if you've spoken to Sean Simmans, he was a sharp, young fellow. I was impressed with him at the time. I just was.

JT: There was an interest in the white van. I think there were inquiries originally. I do believe there was a white van located, may have been checked or whatever. Beyond that, I really cannot comment...because I can't specifically recollect. But I know there was information regarding the white van. And also, the vehicle that, of course, we later seized. But I really can't be much more specific in that regard.

JT: I know we did our best to run that lead down. It wasn't like we just said well, we're going to concentrate on one vehicle.

JT: Well, it wasn't so much that it was a green car because if that was the only description we'd have had, we wouldn't have been able to do anything with it. What I do recall when the vehicle was described is that Pat Sumner's vehicle that time was considered to be, shall we say a rather distinctive vehicle, particularly in that city. I think it was maybe the only vehicle of its type at that point. So we had a rather accurate description of it. So it wasn't just a matter of it was a green car. The colour itself was kind of somewhere between green and brown….It tended to be sort of a more tan. And I can see where it may be could be described as green. It wasn't too far off.

DR: Then, I zero in on the mysterious phone call, where the civilian operator heard someone say something about a murder.

JT: No, I don't. I recall no such thing. I really don't. Had we heard that, we would've followed up on it.

JT: No, absolutely. I don't recall ever being advised of it. I can tell you I didn't follow up on it. But I can certainly tell you if we had heard of anything along that line, then we certainly would have. I'm aware of something... years later I heard of something along that line. But no.

JT: Just basically a little bit of social media. I don't want to comment much beyond that, but I was aware that there were comments being made or whatever...

JT: Had we heard that, then obviously we would have vigorously followed up on it at the time.

JT: Yeah, no I'm familiar with him. He was... I didn't know him well. He was...there were lots of people stationed at Thompson at the time. He was a uniform investigator. Beyond that, no, I had very little to do with him, and he didn't play an active role in this investigation, at least at the time that I was involved with it.

DR: Okay. What would you say the credibility of Jean-Marc is?

DR: I set Villeneuve and that mysterious call aside for now, and move on to asking Tost about the hairs found in Sumner’s car.

DR: Do you recall where they were found in the car?

DR: Okay, somebody had said that there were two black hairs found in the body bag with Kerrie. Is that something that you recall?

DR: Okay. So the hospital sheet would have been a clean sheet, do you think?

DR: Okay. Is the supposition then that the black hair was part of the crime scene?

DR: Were there other suspects in the case?

DR: So Sean Simmans and Merilyn, his mother, both claimed to me that Sumner himself and his family members at various times were following them around town very closely in an aggressive manner. Did you ever hear... after this, after Kerrie was murdered. Did you ever hear about any kind of threats from Sumner family to others such as Simmans?

DR: But after Sumner was discharged, what did you continue to look into the case, personally or how did that work?

DR: There's a lot of rumours, lots of fingers pointing, lots of "I know this happened." He must have done it."

JT: I feel terrible for the Brown family. But by the same token, we don't owe anybody apologies for what we did. We did the best we did with what we had at the time, and we operated in good faith. There were a lot of people that believed we were on solid footing to put that into court, and to charge Pat Sumner for the murder of Kerrie Ann Brown. I believe there is someone that knows. At least one person. I really do. I think there is someone that can tell us what did take place that night. And I just hope that one day we're able to gather that sort of information to give the family what they need because it's long overdue.

[Sound: An elevator announces that it has arived on the eighth floor]

DR: Okay. Suite 880. APTN. Aboriginal People's Television Network. I'm looking for Kenneth Jackson.

RECEPTIONIST: Hi.

RECEPTIONIST: Yeah, um… And what's your name?

DR: APTN, The Aboriginal People’s Television Network, is a national Canadian broadcaster of news and stories by, for, and about indigenous peoples. The Ottawa Bureau is located in a suite of corridors and big-windowed offices converted into studio spaces, housing about ten employees, close to Parliament Hill.

DR: Kenneth. How are you?

DR: Nice to see ya.

[Sound: Doors swinging. DR and KJ walking]

KJ: this is the whole Ottawa Bureau, yeah...

DR: So...tell me a little bit about yourself, and how you got into APTN?

DR: After a few years reporting crime for the Sun in Ottawa, Ken decided to strike out on his own...and eventually found his way to APTN.

DR: And in 2013, early into his tenure at APTN, Ken came across the Kerrie Ann Brown case.

DR: The story already sounds familiar, and so is the name of the former RCMP officer: Jean-Marc Villeneuve.

KJ: She goes, he sounded scared. He didn't want to be recorded, he didn't want to give any information. But he knew about this murder before anyone else. And she didn't have call display, he wouldn't give a number, but surely there was other means of tracking down that phone call and who made it and where it was placed and whatnot. None of that happened. And from what I understand, she used the term tunnel vision. The investigators had tunnel vision, and they had a suspect in mind. I'm used to hearing, and so is anyone else, that they treat Indigenous cases differently, and they've... Oh, they ran away, or, She was in the sex trade. She was just a dirty hooker, and she deserved it. You know, whatever. That's the frame of mind that people have grown up with.

DR: You know what would be great is if you just played it for me, if you played the beginning and said, this is it. And then it's like...

DR: You sort of intro it, and then I can just get it from...

[Sound: A door closes]

KJ: Or I didn't do it properly. I've never listened to it since.

KJ: Ah… well, it says June 12, 2013.

DR: A recording that has sat dormant for five years.

KJ: So far so good.

KH: Hi, it’s Ken Jackson. How are you?

DR: Villeneuve shared with me his Facebook chats with the telecoms operator over this time period in 2013. They seem to show someone who is ready and willing to help, but justifiably concerned over the repercussions that speaking out might have for her family. Shortly after these conversations began, the operator’s husband was transferred to another province. And she was hoping to find a job there, possibly working once again for the RCMP.

KJ: Alright. I’ll be in touch.

DR: We both have extremely mixed emotions about the phone call we’ve just heard.

On the one hand, it’s clear that she is a credible witness, one whose information could positively change the trajectory of this investigation. On the other hand, it’s clear that her interview with Ken can’t be published. And that’s why I can’t play it for you here.

KJ: Yeah...

KJ: Maybe she is willing to...I know it weighs on her.

[Sound: A door slams]

JB: What?

DR: I’m at Trevor’s place, and he’s about to call up some Facebook messages on his television screen. He contacted one of the two brothers with the van, the ones that Villeneuve mentioned.

TB: I’ve got to get into my Facebook here. So bear with me.

DR: Yup.

DR: April 19th 2014 at 1:31, you wrote this message. ‘Long time without speaking. I just wanted to ask you if you or anyone in your family were ever interviewed by the RCMP regarding Kerrie's homicide...Please forgive me for my abruptness, but I'm just trying to make sense of what I'm just hearing right now. Please drop me a line when you can. Much appreciated. Trevor.

DR: 15 years ago, yes, they took all her blood. They took mine. But that was 15 years ago. I ... what's the problem now. I meant to say they took my blood but why we going to answer

back. What's going on.’

TB: This is when I didn't know he had messaged me back I was telling you.

DR: The brother wrote a number of messages, becoming increasingly upset with Trevor’s silence after broaching such a sensitive topic.

DR: Trevor didn’t attempt to pick up the conversation again until over two years later, in May 2016.

DR: ‘Hey. Sorry I missed all of your messages. I'm not sure why I didn't see them at first?

DR: And then he says on the 19th of May at 3:30 'anybody that goes to jail will always get

their blood put on the DNA bank to check it anyway. Why you asking me something I don't know about. When you're asking the wrong people. The police stopped me in the street London in the Pas, Manitoba and they requested my blood so I gave them my blood. This was 15 years ago.' So they asked him and he says he did.

TB: He was living on London street. I know that street in the Pas...

DR: The messages read as frustrated and angry. He closes with…

TB: Someone else.

TB: That's the last. That's it.

ATW: You have been listening to Episode 6: The Call. Visit: www.cbc.ca/sks to learn more about the Kerrie Brown Case. 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. Special thanks to Ken Jackson, and the team at APTN. Original music by David Federman. Our theme song is “Thompson Girl” by The Tragically Hip.

TRANSCRIPT: Someone Knows Something - Season 5, EP 6

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