Murder at McDonald's (41 page)

Ken Haley, Marc Chisholm, and Brian Williston walked across the courthouse parking lot to the prosecutor's office. They had been told that a meeting was being set up, but they wanted to get some work done before heading back to the courthouse. They had an idea what the meeting would be about, and decided to attend but remain quiet and listen to what the others had to say. A short time later, they were called back to the courthouse. The courtroom was packed with representatives of the victims' families and some of the highest-ranking officers involved in the RCMP investigation of the McDonald's murders.

Phil Scharf did most of the talking, but other officers had a chance to say their piece, too. The police knew that there had been a new offer from Darren Muise's attorney—Muise was willing to plead guilty to the second-degree murder of Neil Burroughs and to the robbery, if the Crown agreed not to offer evidence on the unlawful confinement charge and the murder of Jimmy Fagan. The victims' families were also aware of the offer; the prosecutors had told them about it before the trial, but said at the time that they intended to fight for first-degree convictions. Since then, however, the police had become concerned about that decision, afraid that it might cost them a victory. Scharf explained to Fagan's relatives that there was a wealth of experience on this investigating team, and that experience told the officers that it was unlikely Muise would be convicted of Fagan's murder. The only way to prove that Darren Muise handed Freeman MacNeil the gun would be to call MacNeil to the stand—and they were certain that MacNeil would not cooperate. Police also wanted the family of Neil Burroughs to accept that a second-degree murder conviction would be a lot better than having to see Darren Muise on the street. They explained that the judge might not agree to listen to Darren Muise's responses to the comments investigators had made to him, and that the confession might never be heard.

At first, the victims' relatives were angry; Joey Burroughs said he thought it would be just fine if Muise wanted to walk out of the courthouse and deal with him and his brothers. But the mood changed, slowly. In an emotionally charged moment during the meeting, Brian Stoyek stepped forward and explained that he knew what the victims' families were going through. Tears welled in his eyes as he talked about the assault on his wife, and the feeling of powerlessness that he was left with. By the end of the meeting, the consensus was that the prosecutors should accept the offer and fight for a lengthy sentence. Haley, Williston, and Chisholm explained that they would have to discuss the issue among themselves, and they returned to the prosecutor's office. Finally, they reached a decision: they would not take the chance of losing this one on technicalities. The promise made by Frank Edwards would not be kept. And the third member of the Crown team would get his nickname: Haley and Williston settled on “Deuce”—referring to the second trial, and the two charges to which Muise would plead guilty, one of them being the second-degree murder charge. Chisholm didn't like the name any more than Haley or Williston had welcomed theirs.

On June 9, the victims' families arrived at the courthouse disheartened. Darren Muise had confessed to being in the restaurant and using a knife on Neil Burroughs, and now the courts were hung up on the niceties surrounding the police interview. For those who had seen the video-taped image of Neil Burroughs's corpse, and heard the pathologist describe his wounds, the plea bargain still seemed to be a terrible deal. What the hell were the courts for, Joey Burroughs wondered, if not to see justice done. He could find nothing just in the deal. As Justice Kelly reopened the
voir dire,
Joel Pink interrupted, and asked the judge to reread the second and fourth counts from the indictment. Before reading the charges, Kelly asked Darren Muise if he was aware that the judge had played no part in any agreements between counsel. Muise told the judge he understood, then pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of Neil Burroughs, but guilty to the included offence of second-degree murder, and to the robbery. The other charges were dismissed after Marc Chisholm said he would call no more evidence. Kelly set June 24 and 25 as the dates he would hear arguments from Marc Chisholm and Joel Pink on how long Darren Muise should remain in jail before applying for parole. First-degree murder carries a mandatory life sentence with no parole for twenty-five years; a life sentence is also mandatory for second-degree murder, but the parole issue is open.

June passed quickly as the lawyers scoured their books in search of convincing arguments for and against a longer than usual parole restriction for Muise. On June 24, Marc Chisholm opened the proceedings by describing Muise's role in the McDonald's murders; the judge needed this information before he could sentence the young man. What took weeks to reveal during Derek Wood's trial was compressed into a single day. Chisholm walked the judge through the crime scene, using the scale model of the restaurant, which dominated the front of the courtroom. Constable Henry Jantzen removed the roof from the model, then lifted out the first floor to expose the basement area, as the young prosecutor took a pointer and retraced the steps of Wood, Muise, and MacNeil through each room. Chisholm's show-and-tell took everyone through the nightmare one more time, as he described how the victims were found and how ambulance attendants tried to help them.

“Donna Warren was moved from the small manager's office … she was pulseless. When her chest was pushed, blood came out of her mouth. There was blood and cerebral spinal fluid coming from her left ear.” Olive Warren wept as the image of her helpless daughter returned; Darren Muise showed no reaction. “Neil Burroughs was checked by two ambulance attendants. His throat had been slit and gunshot wounds to the head were noted. He was lying in a large pool of blood. He was pronounced dead at the scene.” Julia Burroughs kept a tissue pressed to her nose and mouth as she cried, remembering her husband. “Arlene MacNeil … lying on her stomach holding a handful of straws. Her head was in a pool of blood. She was unconscious … bleeding from the nose and mouth … gasping, barely breathing.” Chisholm circled the model, moving his pointer from one area to the next as he identified the location of each victim. “James Fagan … in a pool of blood … his teeth clenched in pain. He was still alive.”

Justice Kelly left his seat at the centre of the raised bench and walked over to the witness chair to get a better view of the model. Chisholm also presented the judge with the crime scene photos as he told his story. Walking about the courtroom with his wooden pointer, his posture extraordinarily erect, Chisholm looked for all the world like a strict schoolmaster—a demeanour appropriate for a man advocating severe punishment. The silver-haired judge appeared to be a particularly good student: Kelly hung on every word, occasionally looking at the book of photographs of the crime scene, or walking towards the witness chair to get a better view of the scale model. Darren Muise sat in the prisoner's chair, at times leaning forward to offer a comment to his lawyer, and at times staring at the floor in apparent boredom.

Chisholm soldiered on, making every effort to convey the terror, pain, and senseless death for which Muise was partly responsible. He emphasized Muise's actions in the days following the killings, portraying the eighteen-year-old as a cunning, calculating, uncaring criminal who benefited from the proceeds of the robbery—“blood money, which is freely and without conscience spent.” Like Kevin Cleary, who had found himself deeply affected by the reactions of the victims' relatives to his testimony at the Wood trial, Chisholm knew how hard it was for the families to hear what he had to say. Yet he had to continue, leaving out no detail, no matter how painful. His presentation to the judge would be a determining factor in how much time Muise spent behind bars.

When Chisholm finished the outline of Muise's part in the crime, he said the Crown was ready to move on to the victim impact statements—comments from those affected by a crime that are used in determining the sentence an accused person will face. Joel Pink had an objection; he did not feel impact statements from the MacNeil, Fagan, or Warren families should be permitted. His client had pleaded guilty to killing Neil Burroughs, and he was being sentenced for that crime alone. Justice Kelly agreed, and apologized to the three families. The judge also ruled that the statements from the Burroughs family would have to be read into the record by the prosecutor; he could not call the relatives to testify.

Cathy Sellars stood up and stalked out of the courtroom, her eyes filling with tears as anger began to bubble up towards the surface. All she could think about was her brother Neil, lying in a pool of blood. In the hallway, she came face-to-face with the television cameras. Cathy had never objected to the unrelenting television coverage of the case—in fact, she hoped it would show the public how terrible the crime was—but this time she had no patience for the media or for anyone else. The outraged young woman wheeled around and headed towards the bar that kept her family separate from Muise, the judge, and the lawyers. Justice Kelly had already left the bench and walked out the back door of the courtroom, and guards had escorted Muise out through another rear exit; only the lawyers remained. Marc Chisholm, who had spent his day working desperately to persuade the judge to use his power to lock Darren Muise up for the maximum term, was suddenly confronted with the full force of grief turned to fury, a powerful feeling shared by many of the victims' relatives, who could no longer abide the civilized atmosphere that surrounded the court proceedings.

Red-faced and shaking, Sellars shouted at Chisholm, her voice distorted with hysterical anger, her words almost unintelligible. The prosecutor stared blankly at the small, angry woman, who screamed for vengeance, sick of a justice system that she saw as protecting the guilty at the expense of the innocent. Tears filled her eyes, and other family members in the hallway hugged each other and wept to hear her echo their own feelings: “Day after day, we have to listen to this—how he was shot and stabbed and hit. Well, no more! No more waiting for you to do your job. An eye for an eye!” Marc Chishom knew the anger was directed at the system and not at him. His first thought was to turn and walk away, but he realized that would insult her, so he just stood and listened as she vented her fury.

Her outburst over, she marched out of the room again. Carmel Burroughs, Cathy's mother, had returned to try to calm her daughter but instead found herself caught up in the same emotional tide. The quiet, white-haired woman turned on Joel Pink; wasn't he the man who had besmirched her son's memory by seeing to it that Darren Muise was being sentenced on a reduced charge? “That's our son you're talking about, and he got it worse than all of them!” she shouted at Pink. “That bastard took our boy away, and now he has all the rights!” As the elderly woman was led from the room, one of Neil Burroughs's nephews screamed that he would get Muise at the correctional centre.

Those of us covering the trials were not surprised by the outburst. The constant strain on these families had not let up for a moment, and many had already expressed their dissatisfaction with the justice system. Dry legal arguments did little to ease their pain, and their longing for something—anything—that would mitigate their loss. As the shouting broke out in the crowd, I concentrated on what Gary was recording and took notes on what was happening out of the camera's reach. There would be very little time to edit all this into a report that showed not only the storm of emotion that had surfaced in the courtroom, but also the events preceding the outburst. Like the other reporters who were covering the trial, I tried not to dwell on the pain itself, just focus on what was being said and by whom. The daily grind of compressing hours of testimony and emotional anguish into a two-minute report was difficult enough; there was no time to stop and consider all the implications of the human drama that was unfolding.

Earlier in the day, one of Neil Burroughs's sisters had given me a poem that showed how deeply the victims' relatives were being scarred by their exposure to the court system. The poem was by Al Fagan, the retired steelworker and the father of Jimmy Fagan. I wanted to include it in my report, but I knew that the time constraints of television news would not allow it. Still, the words of the grieving father told the story better than I could, and I read it again, as we raced back to the station, our deadline less than an hour away.

Three punks came in with a lust to kill,

The sorrow they brought is with us still.

Shot in the head, four people were down,

Slaughtered and crippled by murderous clowns.

In the midst of our sorrow we have to smile,

Then carry our cross just one more mile.

There never seems to be an end,

Good news, they say, is round the bend.

We talk, we grieve, in a continual rage,

The prosecutor turns another page.

We sit in silence week after week,

For we are the parents, we cannot speak.

What will we have when the trial is done,

To repair the damage from one small gun?

We sit and we ponder, my wife and myself,

About what can replace a human life.

Reports of the emotional scene in the court reinforced the decision Sandy and Gail Muise had made to stay away. They were glad their son had admitted his guilt, and they would continue to support him as best they could. But the Muises just weren't able to cope with what he was going through; they couldn't sit there in court and listen to what had to be said.

The second day of the hearing proved to be as emotional as the first. Before opening the session, Justice Kelly told the families of the victims that he understood the feelings that prompted the events of the previous afternoon, but he warned them that it was his job to maintain order in the courtroom. It fell to Brian Williston to read the victim impact statements into the court record. There were two—the first by Anne Marie Fletcher, a sister of Neil Burroughs, and the other by his young widow, Julia. In her three-page letter, Mrs. Fletcher talked about how Neil's death had affected his family, and described the anger and frustration produced by some aspects of the criminal justice system. After he finished reading, Brian Williston took a deep breath as he turned to Julia Burroughs's letter; he had already read it to himself, and he knew it was powerful. Williston had dealt with pain and sorrow for much of his adult life, but for some reason he felt particularly uncomfortable as he lifted the pages from the podium and began to read.