Murder at McDonald's (40 page)

At 2:26 p.m., the jury foreman sent a note to the deputy guarding the jury-room door. They were ready.

If the metal-detector searches and the secured second floor had seemed extreme to those attending the trial, the security in place for the reading of the verdicts was unprecedented. Thirteen law-enforcement officers crowded into the courtroom, most of them standing shoulder-to-shoulder to form a human wall between the gallery and the accused, who was flanked by guards. The RCMP and deputies knew that the emotions could run high at such times, and they wanted to keep the courtroom under control by making an intimidating show of force. For Joey Burroughs, it was indeed a time of great turmoil. Neil's brother had been half-joking with me for weeks about making a run for the accused when the trial was over. It was something he wanted to do with every muscle in his body. Short and stocky and very angry, Joey was boxed in, seated in the middle of the second row. The front row was empty, but there was a wall of men between him and Derek Wood. As he waited for the jury to return, the anger continued to build and Joey began to turn red, thinking of the grisly testimony from the pathologist, of the video tape, and, most of all, of how Derek Wood had come to court every day and shown no sign of remorse. Joey gripped the back of the wooden seat in front of him as the jurors finally took their places.

Before asking for the verdicts, Justice Tiddman addressed Joey Burroughs and the other anxious relatives of the McDonald's victims, commending them for showing strength throughout the trial, but warning them that he would not tolerate any outburst. Those who felt they could not control themselves should leave, he said.

He then asked for the verdicts on a count-by-count basis: “On count one, the attempted murder of Joan Arlene MacNeil, how do you find?”

“Guilty.” As the foreman spoke, a stifled cry from Arlene's mother could be heard, and Joey Burroughs pulled slightly on the back of the chair he was still gripping. Derek Wood looked pale, and lowered his head as he stood beside his lawyer.

“On count two, the unlawful confinement of Donna Alecia Warren, how do you find?”

“Guilty.” A louder cry from the gallery, and a firmer pull from the white-knuckled Joey Burroughs. Wood did not move.

“On count three, the first-degree murder of Donna Alecia Warren, how do you find?”

“Guilty.” Now a cheer—and the relatives quickly restrained themselves, grabbing each other by the arms and crying. There were tears of release. But Joey Burroughs still sat with his head bowed, both hands gripping the chair. And Derek Wood remained motionless.

“On count four, the first-degree murder of Neil Francis Burroughs, how do you find?”

“Guilty.” More crying, more hugging, and further attempts at self-control. Joey Burroughs pulled so hard on the wooden chair that it rocked backwards, straining at the ageing bolts that held it to the courtroom floor. If Derek Wood felt anything, he did not show it.

“On count five, the armed robbery …”

“Guilty.” A louder cheer echoed through the room, and the relatives hugged each other wildly before Justice Tiddman shot a stern look in the direction of the overwhelmed family members.

The judge then asked Derek Wood if he wished to speak before sentence was passed.

“No, my lord.” Wood's voice was strained, but he maintained control. Justice Tiddman sentenced Wood to two terms of life imprisonment with no parole for twenty-five years on the first-degree murder counts, a term of life imprisonment on the attempted murder charge, and two terms of ten years for the robbery and unlawful confinement. They were long sentences, but they would not be served consecutively. In Canadian law, a life sentence is a life sentence, and once it is imposed, no term can be added to it. There is no such thing as a multiple life term, or a consecutive parole-eligibility restriction.

As the sentences were handed down, Joey Burroughs bolted from the courtroom. He wasn't going to attack Wood, but he was too angry to allow him to leave without response. The prisoners entrance at the courthouse is located below a cement wall that borders an upper parking area. Burroughs ran to that wall and waited for Derek Wood to be taken to the waiting van. Others gathered and began to shout obscenities and threats at the young man as he was led to the van amid tight security. Joey Burroughs gripped the cement wall, his angry voice rising above the rest: “May you choke on every cock you suck from now on, you fucking prick!” he shouted, hoping everything he'd heard about prison was true. The other onlookers picked up the theme, shouting at the departing prison van. The verdicts had been a victory, but it was a hollow one; it could not restore the lives that had been lost or shattered. Their outburst at least relieved the tension of the three gruelling weeks of testimony.

Relatives of the McDonald's murder victims weep and embrace in the hallway of the Sydney courthouse after Derek Wood is found guilty of all charges against him. [Print from ATV video tape.]

After the release of frustration, those who had ventured outside returned to the courthouse, where the mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, and cousins of Arlene MacNeil, Donna Warren, Neil Burroughs, and Jimmy Fagan hugged, kissed, and cried in front of the television cameras. I rushed from one emotional relative to another, asking how they felt, getting their comments and tears on camera. Julia Burroughs sat crying on a bench, repeating the phrase: “You'll never know. No-one will ever know.” Germaine MacNeil was overwhelmed with emotion. Earlier in the day, as we waited for the verdicts, she told me Arlene would be arriving from Halifax the following day; she was being transferred to a hospital closer to home. Now I asked her to tell me the good news in front of a TV camera. She cried and gasped as she spoke: “Arlene … is … finally … coming home.” It was all Germaine could manage. Then I saw Joey Burroughs, still fuming; Gary and I went over to him. He too tried to express what he was feeling, but he was too emotionally spent to do much but cry. Al Fagan reluctantly agreed to make a brief comment on behalf of his family, saying only that he was relieved by the verdict. He was still worried that emotional comments from victims' relatives could threaten the trials of Darren Muise and Freeman MacNeil, who were charged with Jimmy's murder. I turned away from Mr. Fagan and saw Carmel Burroughs standing in the hall. Neil Burroughs's mother had been at home for most of the trial, but sometimes called me in the evenings after my news reports; her kids always told her what had been said in court, but she wanted to talk with someone who had been through murder trials before. When I asked Carmel for her reaction, she gave a very short comment about her feelings of relief, then pushed the microphone aside, wrapped her arms around my neck, and gave me a hug. Nearby stood Olive Warren, who was crying too hard to say much; she too pushed past the microphone and hugged me.

Just down the hall, in a closed office, another emotional scene was being played out, far away from the prying eyes of the cameras. After the verdicts were read and the weeping of the relatives spilled out into the hallway, a wave of emotion swept over the prosecuting team. At first, the lawyers joined the families in the hallway, but soon Ken Haley and Brian Williston realized that they couldn't remain—their eyes were filling with tears, and they needed time to regain control. Marc Chisholm also felt the force of the emotion being expressed, but he knew his colleagues from Sydney were under more strain than he was. They lived here, and they felt a particular pressure to successfully prosecute the case that had so dramatically changed their home town. After regaining their composure, the lawyers went back out in the hallway, where Haley took a few questions from reporters before returning to the office with his partners to begin working on the next trial.

Once we had something on camera from all four families, I took one last look around for Derek Wood's father, but could not find him. Gary and I headed back to the station to prepare our report, and afterwards I sat in the newsroom and began to wonder about the way Carmel Burroughs and Olive Warren had reacted. I had befriended both women during the trial—they were friendly people, and it would have been hard not to do so—but I didn't want to become emotionally involved in the story, nor did I want them to think of me as being “on their side.” Providing information about the legal process was something I did for many people in the community who approached me with questions during the trials. Television viewers often feel free to walk up to a reporter they watch at home each night, and talk as though they knew you well, and I always take time to answer their questions or just say hello. I decided that Olive and Carmel just felt overwhelmed after the verdicts, and expressed their thanks in a more-emotional way than they otherwise would have. Besides, like all the victims' relatives, they were facing another roller-coaster ride starting the very next day. The trial of Darren Muise was about to begin. And these overwrought people could use some understanding.

Fourteen

The Darren Muise trial was a very different experience for the victims' relatives, despite their feelings that they were now wise to the ways of the courtroom. Justice William Kelly, who was hearing his case, agreed that the publicity surrounding the Wood trial could make it difficult to find an impartial jury for Muise, and allowed the murder trial to proceed in front of a judge alone. Another difference between the two trials was the defence. The victims' families had been angered and frightened by some of the questions raised by Art Mollon and Allan Nicholson—the insistence on knowing how much blood was spilled during the murders; the preoccupation with the time Derek Wood made his phone calls. But Muise's lawyer, Joel Pink, was someone to fear even before they saw him in court. The well-known Halifax defence lawyer had been involved in some high-profile cases, and there was speculation about the prosecuting team being up to the clash. But perhaps the most striking difference between the two trials was the demeanour of the two accused men. Where Wood had avoided eye contact and kept his head bowed, Muise held his head high, looking directly into the cameras and the at people gathered in the courtroom as he was led to the chair where Wood had spent the past three weeks. Muise's tendency to swagger when he walked quickly annoyed the relatives, who wanted him to look frightened and overwhelmed, not confident and self-assured.

The first day of Muise's trial offered little more than an opportunity for reporters and the angry relatives of the shooting victims to take a look at the second suspect. Marc Chisholm, who was prosecuting the case, asked Justice Kelly for a few days to gather the exhibits from the Wood trial and have them released by Justice Tiddman. Many of the exhibits were common to all three cases, and the prosecutors had expected an interval of several days—not eighteen hours—between the end of the Wood trial and the beginning of the Muise trial. A new starting date was set: on Monday, June 7, the crown would begin its case against Muise.

Chisholm knew that to win the case, it was absolutely imperative for him to win the pretrial argument over the admissibility of Muise's confession. He would have to convince Justice Kelly to listen not only to the confession, but also to the prolonged interrogation that preceded it. Joel Pink had carefully prepared his arguments against allowing the confession. A psychiatric specialist had seen the video tapes of the police and Muise in the RCMP detachment and read all the written statements, and he was prepared to testify that Darren Muise did not confess with an “operating” mind—one of the legal criteria governing the admissibility of an accused person's statement to police. The doctor's opinion was that the long interrogation and the techniques used by the police had somehow robbed Muise of his faculties. But the prosecutors weren't so much worried about defence arguments as they were about Kelly's practice of hearing only one side of a statement.

Some judges prefer to hear both the police's questions and answers given by the accused, in the belief that the answers offer insight into a suspect's state of mind at the time. Others—and the prosecutors thought Justice Kelly was among them—prefer only to hear the questions, which they believe will reveal any threats, promises, or inducements on the part of the police, these actions being the other means by which a statement is judged admissible. Marc Chisholm and Joel Pink were preparing to go head-to-head on June 7, but the first day of the trial was taken up by other arguments. Art Mollon, Derek Wood's lawyer, had applied for a ban on evidence implicating Wood, arguing that any new trial ordered as a result of this client's appeal could be prejudiced. Justice Kelly dismissed that implication, but he did decide to follow the pattern established in the first trial by banning media reports on evidence that implicated Freeman MacNeil.

On June 8, the admissibility issue was finally considered. Chisholm urged the judge to listen to both sides of the conversations between police and Muise in order to get a clear picture of the accused's state of mind, while Pink argued that the police's behaviour during the discussions would show whether or not his client's rights had been violated and his mental state affected. Kelly reserved decision, saying he would deal with the issue when the evidence was presented. This left the door ajar, but the Crown attorneys realized there was a very real chance they could lose the argument. The brief encounter between Darren Muise and Brian Stoyek would be a problem if Kelly heard only what the officer had to say; a man the size of Stoyek calling an average-size eighteen-year-old a cold-blooded killer certainly sounded like a case of intimidation. Without considering Muise's reactions to Stoyek and the other officers, the judge might well rule that his confession was illegally obtained—and that would effectively destroy the Crown's case, because Freeman MacNeil and Derek Wood were not willing to testify against Muise. But the Crown would try its best. The prosecutors began the
voir dire
hearing with testimony from the RCMP's Glen Lambe and Phil Scharf, who described their frustrating conversations with Muise on May 13, 1992; and continued with a screening of the video-taped debate between Muise and Scharf over the polygraph test. That was as far as they got that day. As Muise stood to leave with the deputies, the victims' relatives glared at him from the gallery. They then filed out of the courtoom, only to be asked to stay a while longer. The RCMP had requested a meeting.