Lynne Harper /// Part 1 /// 142 | Forensic Files

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foreign [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] of tiny little moments in the long run some of them matter and
some of them don't in the end most of those tiny little moments are forgotten because most of the time it's just
another ordinary day Tuesday July 9th 1959 should have been just another ordinary day
full of tiny forgettable moments but it wasn't because a little girl went missing
and two days later her body is found she had been brutally murdered there are so many questions about that
now Infamous day [Music] so many tiny moments that if some of them maybe just one were different
than that little girl might still be alive [Music] what if a teenage boy didn't ride his
bike to the schoolyard that evening what if that little girl didn't have an argument with her parents at the dinner
table [Music] what if she didn't ask that boy for a ride what if he had turned her down
and just went off by himself to play with his friends would she still be alive [Music]
[Applause] [Music] thank you Lynn Harper was born to Leslie and Shirley Harper on August 31st 1946 in
New Brunswick Canada her real name is Cheryl but she goes by Lynn she is the middle child with an older
brother Barry and an older brother Jeffrey her father Leslie joined the military in the family relocated to the
rcaf base in Clinton in 1957. Lynn is a socially active child spending much of her time in the Girl Guides that's like
the girl scouts or what do they call that the brownie Scouts and she attended Sunday school as well
now the rcaf base is an Air Force Base which is actually just a little south of Clinton which is in Ontario
now in 1959 Lynn is in the seventh grade at the air Vice Marshall Hugh Campbell school I wonder what kind of sport teams
that school had back then can't you just picture air Vice Marshall Hugh Campbell
school on a on a little kids team jersey anyway she is in the seventh grade but this is one of those split classes so
this is a seventh slash eighth grade shared class one of Lynn's classmates is 14 year old
8th grader Stephen Truscott now Stephen is a popular athletic kid he spends a lot of time playing at the river which
is nearby this is a popular spot for all of the kids in the area you know they would go swimming fishing there's
there's plenty of things to do down at the river it's very similar when you think about it if you watch the first it
Stephen King's It you know the time period that this case is based in and the time period that when their children
it's based in and how those children would go down to the river and play and you know create a dam and all that stuff
on Tuesday June 9 1959 Lynn Harper came home from school and she got into an argument with her parents
she then went to her Girl Guides brownies meeting at around 7 PM she sees Stephen Truscott
in the schoolyard now Lynn asked Stephen what is he doing well he says he's going
to go down to the river to see if there are any other kids there Lynn asked if he would take her to the
highway Stephen has a bike with him and she wants a ride he says of course I'm going
down that way anyway so yeah I will take you she asked Stephen Truscott for a ride to
the highway so she could visit a farm to see some ponies this is what Lynn called
or referred to as the White House Down on Highway 8. uh this is a farm with animals but more importantly to Lynn
with with these ponies that she wants to see so Stephen true Scott gave her a ride on the handlebars of his bike down
the gravel road well what's going to be very important in this case is to be able to visualize
um this scene so just think of it as a straight line and at the bottom of that straight line
we're going to have the school you go up a little bit further you're going to have the area that we're going to call
the bush that bush is going to be on the right side and when we talk about Bush it's a it's a little dirt road that
leads off into the brush right yeah like a wooded area so you have the school you
have the bush right go a little bit further on that straight line and you will have a bridge that passes over the
water that's the water that Stephen is talking about go a little bit further on that straight line and that runs to a
stop sign and that is going to be highway or state route 8. yes so we have now we have uh Lynn on the
handlebars riding on Steven's bike he's pedaling along this is when Lynn tells Stephen about the argument that she got
into with her parents that took place at dinner time um they pass a wooded area that the
captain mentioned which is known to the kids in the area as farmer Lawson's Bush
farmer Lawson owned a big farm in this area and that's what they called this little wooded area that's off this dirt
road well what's this argument about uh I'm unclear about what this argument is about and it I mean she's in seventh
grade it could be something silly she came home late from school or you know a carryover from some some former
disagreement that they've had yeah um it doesn't sound like this I think if this argument was more of a big deal we
would know more about it yeah or if it was more significant to the actual case well they passed that area known as
farmer Lawson's Bush and then they go over the bridge so Lynn wrote on his bike on
Steven's bike for about 1.2 kilometers so it's like three quarters of a mile roughly okay all right so she rode on
the handlebars on a gravel road probably not too comfy you know what I mean yeah
but this is back you know again in the 50s they had the big swooping handlebars so it's really easy to kind of sit
somebody in the middle of those handlebars and then then you'd pedal along but but this also makes you know
obviously their presence to be a lot bigger because you now have two individuals on the bike yeah and trying
to visualize this like the captain said it's very important so by this point they've left the schoolyard they go past
the wooded area known as Lawson's Bush and they've gone over the bridge now they're making their way toward that
intersection with the highway eight um this is where uh Lynn asked Stephen to let her off of the bike
um he says that she said she would hitchhike the rest of the way um the farm is less than half of a
kilometer away from this drop-off point so Stephen lets her off of the bike and he turns his old bike around and he
heads back into uh Town quote unquote Town well in worst case scenario she'll just walk the rest of the way so Stephen
he did however stop his bike he stopped his bike on the bridge when he was returning and he sees some kids playing
in the river there while he's standing on the bridge he turns and he looks back at the highway and he sees Lynn getting
into a car hey he's going to see Lynn get into a Chevy and what's kind of odd about this is uh you know back in the
day especially in the 50s that you'd have very uh unique bumpers and and headlights and tail
lights and all that stuff so he sees kind of a unique tail light kind of looks like big eyes but the other thing
that's kind of interesting here is that Steven sees some kind of orange object that's on the car like maybe a bumper
sticker or something like that yeah it's often reported that this would have been
a yellow or our orange license plate or possibly an orange or yellow bumper sticker at 11 20 PM that night Lynn's
father Leslie reported his daughter as missing now at some point he must have heard through the grapevine that the the
two kids were spotted together by other neighborhood kids at some point that evening because there are reports that
he went to Stephen truscott's house and asked him about you know where he had last seen his daughter has heard from
her you know he's he's out looking the neighborhood for his daughter right um it's it's not reported what they
actually spoke about what what Stephen he's only 14 spoke with Lynn's father about that evening I would imagine that
that he's probably hearing a similar story to what we just heard that he last seen her getting into a car at Highway
8. um one thing that we should kind of underline here here before we go much further is that he says he saw Lynn
getting into a car he doesn't say that he saw her being pulled into a car and I think that's going to be something that
is key now the next morning on June 10th at around 9 30 a.m a 14 year old Stephen
Truscott is pulled from his class and he's asked to sit in a police cruiser where he will be interviewed this is
Constable Hobbs yeah after last week we have another officer Hobbs right yeah um
anyway very popular yeah anyway he when asked about their trip to go see the pony Stephen tells the officer that he
gave her the ride he let her off of his bike at the intersection just like we had said on his way back he sees her
getting into a car and Steven just like the captain said gets a good description
of this vehicle and um there there are a couple versions of this description in any way they're not
too far off from one another so I'll let you be the judge of how good of the description is but one report says
Stephen said that he saw a gray 1959 Chevrolet possibly a Bel Air with either that yellow or orange license plate or
yellow or orange bumper sticker another says that he saw a late model Chevrolet possibly a Bel Air with a lot of Chrome
on it I'm I'm guessing the reason for more than one report is as we're going to see here Steven is going to be asked
what happened to Lynn many times by several different officers and several different people so I think we should be
clear here this is not a situation of what I believe where Stephen is changing his story
um I I think this is those are both those are both descriptions that sound very like one another one like we're
saying and kind of what we LED on to in the trailer was you know you're not expecting her to go
missing so you you know how much details are you paying attention to you see a car you
kind of remember this you remember that you know especially in banking you know we had to take tests all the time on you
know watching robberies and then they'd ask us questions about the robbery afterwards so we could kind of train
ourselves for when if or if we ever got robbed uh what we could remember and it always changes and again that's when
you're being you know you'd mess up the little tiny things and that's when you know that there's a test so so you gotta
assume that there's going to be some things messed up because obviously Steven didn't know there was going to be
a test well the other thing too Captain is your answer could change depending on
whom you're speaking with because I mean think about it this way if if I'm 14 years old and somebody asked me about
the vehicle I saw okay I saw her getting into a 59 Chevrolet probably a Bel Air well are you sure it was a 59 you do you
really want to do we want to say that it was a 59 or do we want to say that it was a newer car right Chevrolet oh yeah
yeah it was a newer one um so I think that's where we have these little discrepancies here
um now the this should be a really good possible lead here right um the the other thing is that at some
point Steven gives them a plate number uh he he got a plate number off of the car the the problem with this is the
plate number doesn't really go anywhere they're able to check the number that he
reports to them they're not able to you know this could be one of several different things okay one either that
plate number didn't actually exist you know when they punched in into the system right or two if it did exist it
didn't have a matching car uh that went along with that that plate as far as his
description goes the other thing too is it's very likely that if a plate of that
number existed it could have been somebody from you know far away or out of the area my suspicion on this is that
that plate number was completely fabricated by Stephen or right fabricated or or wrong yeah and
misremembered yeah but I think at the end of the day too it's like you know State Route eight you have state rail
eight and then you have the bridge and if you're sitting at that bridge and you're looking towards State Route 8
that's a pretty far distance and so uh you know this the police actually speculated that maybe he couldn't even
make out what kind of car would be so then you're going to tell me if you if you could barely make out the car you're
going to be able to make out a license plate I think this was a lot of questioning by authority figures to a 14
year old scared boy and they're leading him and then he was like oh I'll just make up a number and we'll see what
happens well and you're exactly right here Captain because if if the if the kid can't even tell you if it's a if
it's a license plate or a bumper sticker that he's seeing how is he seeing any numbers on that plate so as law
enforcement is retracing Lynn's steps you know talking with Stephen they go back to the the fight with the parents
that night and then they start suspecting that maybe she ran away right yeah they they think they're probably
looking for a runaway situation here but on Thursday the military organized a search party and on that day they end up
finding Lin they found Lynn dead um so they find her in that Lawson's bush area that wooded area we spoke of
she is laying there almost nude she has been brutally raped and strangled uh with her blouse somebody used her blouse
to strain angle her they find blood on her and around her there is a cut on her leg she had one arm kind of up and out
and the other one resting on her chest so she's only wearing her bloodied undershirt and of course the the blouses
tied around her neck but there's some peculiar things here because her her shoes
and other clothing they are neatly laid next to her so the shoes are neatly placed next to her her socks are
together like paired and rolled up the zipper on her shorts was even zipped up the she had a necklace there was a
necklace that she was wearing that they found hanging on a fence nearby her body
and her killer has placed three small branches on top of her body there are also some interesting go ahead
hold on so what is the suspicion here is it that she was raped and murdered in the bush
or was she raped and murdered somewhere else uh at a different location and then
placed there because to me it seems like if you if you're gonna place the body and then beside it you're placing the
the clothes nice and neatly folded that's pretty strange it's very strange first of all um but
the theory here the thought is and I can only go off of what the inspectors were
saying at the time um they said that they believed she was raped and killed in the same location
that she was found um again they give a reason why they believe that though well I'm guessing
here Captain but the statement of them finding blood on her and around her I'm guessing is what would lead one to cause
that she believed that she got that injury that caused her to bleed at that location
um and there was probably some other indications that she would have been attacked and killed there yeah and I
think those are all probably good reasons to believe the only reason why I question it and then maybe also start
questioning the time of death and we'll get to that a little bit later but that this is a secluded area but it's not
super secluded it's just right off the road and we also have plenty of eyewitnesses that we'll get to later
that were on that road that day and during this time period that the law law enforcement is going to claim that she
was murdered or that the this attack took place right so it's kind of suspicious there so if if in fact she is
killed at this location then the this means that the killer took the time to straighten up her clothing
basically you know um kind of laying it out neatly I've almost I've heard one person say that it
was like almost folded you know like like somebody would when you lay out clothes
um I I don't know this to be true that's just one report that I heard but hearing
that the socks were rolled up like paired and rolled up together and then that's how I fold my socks and then the
thought is that the zipper on the shorts possibly was that the killer zipped the
shorts back up before folding them up and laying them neatly next to her well my hunch would that would be that the
rape took place somewhere else maybe the murder took place in this area but we're
talking about you know if the motivation which based on the evidence the motivation for this murder would have
been for the sexual assault for the rape then you would assume that this individual wouldn't want to hurry that
process so I'm just my hunch is that it took place somewhere else and then um moved her there but maybe murdered
her there which doesn't have to be a building or anything it could be or any type of structure it could be the
vehicle that she was seen getting into now and I want to kind of stress something else here too you know I I
purposely said that the killer placed three small small branches on top of her body because when I first heard this
report I thought well that that almost sounds to me like somebody trying to hide the bodies trying to cover
something up I've seen pictures of these branches and that was definitely not the
the purpose of placing these on top of her okay they were considerably smaller than her from what I've seen and it it
just it to me it means it means something but it but it it might mean the same weirdness that the clothing
meant if that makes sense um you know not trying to been done in a state of panic or something where
there's the person's now not thinking clearly and then they're like oh well this will this will cover up and it's
like no that's those are small branches there are some interesting tracks in the area of the
body um and I and I want to stress that as well in the area of that the body was
found um it's not clear to me with certain tracks with the exception of these Footprints of how close these tracks
were located to where they actually found her body like the captain said you know you could access this wooded area
you could drive up on a car or a bike to this area but at some point you're not going to be able to drive into this
wooded bush area um and and so you wouldn't expect to find these tracks right next to her body
but they did find a bike tire track leading the words are leading to the body um there are footprints like I said now
the the bike tire tracks are not right next to the body but these Footprints are and these marks measure about 10 to
11 inches they also find some vehicle tire tracks in the area as well I don't think this would be uncommon to find
bicycle or vehicle tire tracks in this area you know even if there wasn't a body there
um now yeah well because it's best especially once you start getting to the eyewitness accounts you know going into
the bush or hanging out in the bush is something that kids did so you know they would ride their bikes back there and
that the actual like dirt road that you went on or this Gravel Road that you went on I think it was like Loosely
graveled like mainly a dirt road but wow we put a little gravel down on there but
I think this was a a road that was used by cars too so again like you were saying very common that these tracks
would be there so now the the property owner this is Lawson farmer Lawson and his neighbor
um they both come forward with the story that they saw a vehicle with that they dubbed a strange vehicle on the property
sometime that at night that's that's the best they could narrow it down was sometime that night
possibly after dark and the description they have of this vehicle is that it's a
52 possibly a 52 dark convertible possibly a Ford so not a very great description there but again like the
captain said in in kind of what we were leading to in the trailer there this is supposed to be an ordinary day
you might not notice you know you might not take note of a of a proper vehicle description just by seeing a vehicle
there somebody could use that that could be a place where people frequently turn
around in you know they figure out they're going the wrong way under the cover of Darkness though I'll tell you
what Captain that to me does not look like a place that I would pick to turn around in
um it doesn't seem it that's the only place on that that road but it doesn't seem to stand out enough for me is what
I'm saying if I were traveling in the dark I think that I I also have fields on on both sides so I think any time
you're on a country road and you see a split in the field that's your chance to turn around there's so much more to get
into let's get into that right after this quick beer break foreign we're back cheers mates and uh and a big
happy birthday to the the colonel oh thank you Captain it's the Colonel's birthday uh wait find him on untapped
follow him follow his drinking Journey you can harass me on untapped and and then tell him happy birthday he's he's
uh 47. if I'm not on on there for a while for a couple days 49 he's 49. all right all right never mind enough of
this all right Captain so 56. we have Harold Graham is a gentleman that is brought in to head the investigation he
is like a big shot you know they bring him in from out of the area to lead the investigation he tells the officers
um that they should be looking for a guy with obvious signs of injury mainly looking for persons that may have
scratches to the face hands and or arms um the thing here is that's what he tells the officers to be looking for
however that's not who they arrest and I'm going to jump ahead here a day because we'll go back into some of these
eyewitness accounts but I think we got to set this up properly and to do that we got to explain that on June 12th uh
shortly after 7 PM Stephen Truscott the 14 year old that had given the ride to Young Lynn Harper he's taken into into
custody and at about 2 30 a.m on June 13th he was charged with first degree murder yeah so he's questioned for how
many hours um it's about seven hours yeah that's responsible let's question a 14 year old
that is probably scared out of his mind with no parent present no lawyer present
we're going to question this individual for seven hours and this is also back in
this is in in the 50s this is back when you are allowed to have leading questions now if you're talking to a
minor you can't lead the question does that make sense right there's laws against that you can't you have to have
them uh create this scenario not you create this so again they're probably creating the scenario over and over well
Stephen even though he's interviewed for or interrogated however you want to call
it for seven hours on that Friday night he he never confesses um but he does get close I will say that
he becomes confused towards the end of the questioning and at some point um he tells the police about five that
he saw five boys uh that he saw playing in the river this is trying to solidify his story of you know I dropped her off
I rode my bike back to the bridge I stopped because I saw some kids I knew playing turned and saw her get into a
car um apparently he gets two of the boys wrong but I think here still three out
of five is pretty decent I I don't know the distance that he saw these kids are he just mistook two of them for other
kids he went to a pretty small school so he should know everybody's name but I mean how many times did you like run
into somebody and you're like well I I Know Jack and I know Timmy right but these other two guys I'm not really for
sure what their names are now there's a note here regarding this this uh interrogation that says that at some
point you know I said he became confused but at some point Stephen tells a doctor
so apparently there were doctors present and we'll get into that more here in a minute but at some point he tells a
doctor's present but no lawyer's present that he may have molested the girl that
he may have molested Lynn Harper but he couldn't remember um yeah I don't know what to make of
this because I wasn't in that room he's 14 years old and he's been he's been interviewed and interrogated for hours
by this point well you have to question if he even said that or did they put that on a piece of paper and he signed
his name to it and he you know so picture this we have him being asked all these questions tell us your story tell
us your story again tell us your story again and then an officer leaves and another one comes in ask him the same
questions tell us your story tell us your story again you know I I I'm I'm standing up for the
kid and saying that I can see how a 14 year old would become confused now regarding the doctor
um yeah but for seven hours though he stayed strong on his conviction that I I'm not responsible for her
disappearance I'm not responsible for her murder right you know I dropped her off at State Route eight and that's it
we didn't go in the bush right never happened and so yeah that's why this whole willy-nilly uh well maybe maybe I
molested her like no I I think that's all fabricated BS now after he's arrested he's like
checked for injury right they check his body for these injuries they're looking for somebody that may have had scratches
on them you know assuming they got DNA you know and they have skin and claw marks they know that she put up a fight
so and but now you're gonna arrest and charge this individual that has no signs of that right and he doesn't have any
signs of that but he does have a strange um let's say injury um they two of the doctors report that
he has two quarter-sized lesions on his penis um this this okay well the strange thing
here Captain is that well somebody he just ruined somebody's lunch well they said that these injuries were you know a
sign that he brutally raped the girl that these were the were injuries caused by friction now the thing here is he's
he's then uh checked out by a doctor the following day yeah the from the prison yeah and
this doctor says he has no signs of injury on his entire body at all and actually doesn't make any reference to
these lesions on the on his penis and I imagine this is something that was supposed to be checked
um regarding this um you know we would eventually get an answer for this Stephen triscott uh was
said to have been suffering from some kind of skin uh disorder and he would get these different lesions dermatitis
or something like that that he was being treated by his family doctor for on a number of occasions now the argument
here is that uh you know I don't know if this uh you know illness or whatever you want to call it
affects the the genitals um that I don't know I I don't know that Captain all I can state is that we have
two doctors saying he has this thing uh has these injuries to to the penis and one saying he doesn't I don't know it
might have been a chronic pocket pull player you know I'm gonna I'm gonna be honest here with everybody I don't know
how to make heads or tails of this portion of the story well look okay so maybe there was something there that
they're blowing out of proportion the third doctor didn't see it it's possible or this is just fictitious
[ __ ] that that they made up and then the third doctor that is not on team let's pin somebody for this murder I'm
just a doctor doing my job in the prison I didn't see anything you know it's unlikely that these big
lesions would get uh healed within 24 hours so again I think some of this stuff is
just fictitious like him saying possibly that oh I possibly molested her I look that could have just been made up too
you know we're they're creating a narrative here and that that is uh Dangerous Waters
well they're working under a theory now they they've pieced together a theory and the theory is this that that Stephen
Truscott never made it to the bridge with with Lynn on his bike that before they got to the bridge they veered off
and they went into Harper's bush and at some point he attacked raped and killed the girl and left her body there
that's the the very general basic theory that they're working under now we have several eyewitnesses and there's going
to be some problems with these eyewitnesses because we have well first of all they're all children
and we know how this can work we've seen this in several different situations are
you calling children stupid yes they're all very stupid no I'm joking don't please don't write
to the show it's my birthday uh somebody's gonna ride in I can't believe the colonel called all children stupid
just most of them so we have if you'd like to write into us that's a true crime garage at gmail.com put it on the
blog so everybody can see how bad of a person I am there so here's the eyewitnesses right Captain let's go
through these first of all the one that looks pretty tough if you're in the if you're in the defense seat here is this
Jocelyn Cadet okay she is somebody that that goes to school with Stephen true Scott I believe she's 12 or 13 at this
time okay um so she says that the day before the day before the um before Lynn Harper went missing
did Stephen Truscott tried to make up some kind of date with her you know let's let's book a date okay
um and this ladies man was to go to Lawson's Bush uh maybe for you know a little makeout session right uh this was
supposed to this was supposed to take place just before 6 p.m the evening of of Lynn going missing
now it's also reported that Steven trisk got stopped by Jocelyn's house that night to remind her of the date like hey
don't forget yeah so the thought is that he doesn't end up having this date with
Jocelyn he goes to the schoolyard that's where then Lynn asked him for the ride and he's like oh Plan B I'll take Lynn
Harper to the bush with me right I can talk her into this um we gotta kind of go through this in a in
a strange way Captain because there's a lot of information that's collected in the original investigation that will not
come out until later and it'll be obvious for why but I while we're on each eyewitness I want to kind of go
through them one at a time and discuss everything that we know about their accounts so we have a full story because
it'll get too confusing if we discuss it later so there's some question as to the
credibility of this Jocelyn Cadet story for several reasons okay first of all the saying that Stephen truce got
stopped by her house to remind her of the date right um there's a big question if that even
happened because Stephen Truscott says that I didn't ask her on a date I don't know what you're talking about right she
wishes their their wishes I asked her out on a date yeah there's some there's some things in the police notes that
they would discover later that would would kind of state that it's very unlikely that that situation happened
that Stephen trisk got stopped by to remind her of the date right um whether there was a date scheduled or
not that isn't so much called into question other than Stephen saying that we didn't we didn't have a date
scheduled now um she would later testify that she went to Lawson's Bush to look for Stephen and she also says that she
went to look for Steven triska at Lawson's Farm um again there's some different times on on on these things here yeah
because when she goes to the farm it's not like she just wanders around the farm she actually runs into the farmer
yeah she talks to the farmer asks him if he's seen Stephen true Scott and then later
after Stephen triscott is arrested she goes back to the farmer because there's some discrepancy in the time
that what time was she there asking and looking for Steven triscott right and she asked the farmer to
you know what time did it was I here oh well that's not the time I told them could you
could you make it the same time that I told them and he says no I can't do that yeah I'm not going to do that so
basically you know this hussy can I call her no you can't whatever she's she's making up stories that some
guy asked her out on a date right so we don't know if there was a date that's questionable uh Stephen says no she says
yes there's actually some letter to that kind of goes back and forth on that one
well the police notes somewhere it's noted by one of the investigators that that that that that didn't happen right
then the other thing is that he stopped by our house there's you know we're questioning that now and then she says
well I went to the bush and this is what time I told the law enforcement now if she was in that bush
and this attack was taking place wouldn't she see this individual right depending on what time depending
on what time and her time could be wrong she could have been looking for Steven at six o'clock remember they're supposed
to have this date at six o'clock I do believe that she's looking for Steven at some point that doesn't seem to be a
question because she the farmer backs up that part of the story the problem is that what hour was she actually out
looking for Stephen yeah and uh and this timing is going to come into question and do you want to get into that now
about the diamond the time of death yeah um yeah I guess we should because it might get confusing if we don't
so it's pretty simple um based on what she ate is how they figured out the time frame now they
figured out this time frame afterwards um basically once they started trying to pin this onto Stephen they had to make
sure that the murder took place within a certain time frame right because Steven
actually went somewhere that night yes and so he the murder would have to take place before he actually went there so
it's like before 7 45 I believe something like that yeah so well let's go through this real quick so we have
Lynn Harper who she left her home at 6 15 p.m that night and then she met Stephen truska around 7 P.M
um you know this is a casual meeting bumped into him um and now that's at 7 pm Stephen
triscott was seen back at the base around 8 p.m and then back at home afterwards and was babysitting so the
time of death here is extremely crucial and very important because the time of death would you basically have an hour
if Stephen truska is your guy then then Lynn Harper needed to to have died between about 7 15 and 7 45. uh if she
didn't die during that time then Stephen Truscott could not have murdered her right and so what time did they claim
that she died right so here's here's where we go with this so time of death huge the reports were prepared by a Dr
John peniston now peniston he his opinion was based on his examination of Lynn's stomach contents during the
autopsy uh and the last the the time of her last meal was reported at 5 45 p.m on June 9 1959. he told he would later
tell the jury that the stomach normally empties within two hours of eating and Lynn's stomach appeared to contain a
full meal meaning that she would have had to have died by 7 45. relying on these factors that peniston provided to
jurors with with his view that Lynn had died between 7 pm and 7 45 on June 9th uh this was a time when true Scott he
was admittedly in her company right you know so if Lynn was dead by 7 45 then it's basically a matter of logic that
Stephen Truscott killed her yeah and so a couple problems with this though is like when like we said when Stephen
returns to the base does he act strange no he doesn't act strange does he have attack marks on him no did the doctors
find attack marks on him no so those are some issues there the other issue here is then when experts come out and say
okay how much is this you know what kind of scientific evidence is this I've seen
several evidence or several experts now this is kind of talked about a lot like in the JonBenet Ramsey case right
uh I actually thought there was more of a science to this now to see these experts come out and say well actually
the only thing studying the stomach does is really kind of tells you the last meal or what's in the stomach but it
doesn't give you much of a timeline so for example if you took this evidence now we're talking in the 50s this test
was done doing this test now would give you a window of about 12 hours so so technical technology is way more
advanced now science way more advanced now and you're going to give a time frame of about 12 hours
well let's let's let's play along for now okay let's pretend that that you're able to come up with that precise time
of death the time of death that precise within a what I say half an hour 45 minutes
so that what that means then Captain is that if she died during that time Stephen triscott did it especially if we
can prove that nobody saw the two of them together on the bridge or at Highway eight because then that means
our theory is right that Stephen Truscott left with Lynn on his handlebars veered off into the the bush
area never made it to the bridge never made it to Highway 8. he attacks rapes and kills her there and then returns
back to the base on his bicycle right so now we have to get some people to say that uh you know he he wasn't
where he said he was he didn't drop her off like he said he did so this is where
we we enter a character named Butch George um he told another boy that he saw Stephen Truscott with Lynn in the bush
um he was not called at the trial though um because there seems to be some question as to his accountability his
credibility um because his story changes often now remember Jocelyn Cadet that we just
spoke about she says that she bumped into Butch George on the road the night of the murderer the night that she
disappeared and asked Butch if she had seen Stephen triscott Butch says no uh Butch's story like I said would change
many times that's part of that is just being a scared kid at some point he does tell
law enforcement that he saw Stephen triska on the bridge uh and then later was he also LED that well he he's he
says he only said that because Stephen Truscott asked him to say that okay now we have Philip Burns this is this kid is
only 10 years old he's walking on the road this is the road where you know he should have seen Stephen triska in in
Lynn Harper traveling together he he's walking on this road just after 7 pm he says he never saw Lynn Harper never
saw Stephen triska on the road at that time so police now believe that if they were not on the road because of what
Philip Burns says ten-year-old Philip Burns if they're not on the road at this time it's because the boy didn't see
them because they were in the bush at this time okay well now we have some arguments
against all of that at the river down at the river playing at the river remember the boys in the
river we have Dougie Oates he says he saw the two of them on the bike he sees Lynn Harper Stephen
triscott on the bike they cross the bridge they're heading toward Highway 8. there's the is Dougie close to the
bridge or he's is he far away from the bridge um from my notes Here is that he's at
the river playing alongside the uh the bank there okay um I don't know how close he is to the river because there's
two eyewitnesses two major eyewitnesses from the river right the one that's on the bank and then the one that's further
down in the river fishing yes the one that the boy that's fishing in the river his name is Gordon Logan okay well let's
stay on dougie dougie oats that's a good rap name so Dougie Oates says he saw the two of
them on the bike crossed the bridge head toward Highway 8. so that backs up Steven triscott's story we have Gordon
Logan who says the same exact thing he says he saw Stephen Truscott traveling uh going over the bridge and then later
sees Stephen Truscott on his bike by himself so this whole story matches up with
Steven triscott's the police don't like this story okay so you have Gordon Logan
who's further away from the bridge and they basically discredit Gordon Logan's story because they say you know what
from that distance he wouldn't have been able to tell who's on the bike he wouldn't be able to you know
discern if it's uh Timmy or John or George or or buck you know he wouldn't be able to tell who was on that bike
regarding Dougie oats though their their statement whether he's telling the truth
is complete is a lot more strange to me where they say you know what these boys are buddies with Stephen Truscott
they're just kind of banding together and they're going to have his back they're probably making up a story that
they saw him with Lynn Harper past the bridge right we can't believe this story of these kids saying that but let's go
back to Philip burns the 10 year old who's walking alone on the road who says he doesn't see uh Stephen true
Scott he doesn't see Lynn Harper we can believe the 10 year old but we're not going to believe these two boys that
were in the river were playing by the river to believe in whatever whatever individual tells them the story that
they need to append this on Stephen that's that's what they believe 10 year old kid no watch
look when I was 16 I couldn't tell you what time it was if I didn't have a watch right or even close what time is
it Now's the Time okay so but here Captain I want to throw this out there too though with this Philip Burns 10 years
old walking by himself doesn't see them however we have other Witnesses other children that say that they saw Philip
Burns walking that they passed Philip Burns walking on the street that they rode their bike past Philip Burns and he
doesn't report having seen those children either so it's not that he didn't see them so it didn't happen and
it's he didn't notice them they they could have very well there was a bunch of people right is what you're saying
right he could these it's it's likely that these kids could have traveled past him on a bike and he may not have seen
them for whatever reason this kid was in his own world or past 20 people I didn't
see him I didn't see anything or Phil Burns is just confused about the whole situation or yeah
again to the the difficult thing here for me is this happened on a Wednesday she went missing on a Tuesday night okay
so Tuesday but still you got the day before you have school the day before then you have the school the day after
because they don't find her body right away right so that you know we talk about this a lot with the Adnan Syed
case the quest you know there's so many conflicting stories because they questioned so much later but we're
talking about kids that are a lot younger a 10 year old 12 year old they're they're not going to remember
what ha if it happened on a Monday Tuesday or a Wednesday you know I mean so I think the cops just went hey well
this story fits our narrative so let's go with that and then I think they started doing this thing when they
started burying all the stuff that contradicted it and and stopped trying to do work and yes this horrible thing
happened to a very young individual a 12 year old girl but you you gotta do your job you gotta
just do your due diligence you or you are um you are paid it's your duty to find
Justice not just find anybody that you can pin it on but the problem here though is there are
issues with Stephen triscott's story 100 There's issues there and what I'm gonna
do here Captain to kind of clean this up a bit because this thing's a mess I'd like to start with the idea that
he's a 14 year old boy there's going to be some again does he know the time look
all he's trying to do is tell you what he can remember well to clean this up a bit I say we
throw out all of these eyewitness accounts that's what I would do I mean the good and the Bad and the Ugly all of
them you got I think you got you have to throw them out I can't I can't sit here
and believe that he wasn't seen at a certain time and then have other people tell me that he was seen it you can't
pick one or the other you know it one only one of those versions work only one of them happened I I don't to me I can't
pick between the two so I think you throw them both out well yeah if you look at his story it's pretty simple I
pick her up at the school the drive past the bush would drive past the bridge we stop at the stop sign
State Route 8 drop her off I drive I ride my bike back to the bridge by the time I'm back at the bridge looking at
people playing I look back I see her get into a car later on I go back to the base then I go to babysit that's his
story right right what are the obvious problems you see with that story though as an investigator I'm looking at this
thing and I have obvious problems with this young man's story I I don't have any problems with that
story but okay so my first issue is why does why does she all of a sudden want off the bike if the whole plan was
in this I call this into question a little bit too if you're almost to the destination why
not just continue to to receive the ride to the the destination point you know you're not very juicy felt bad
for for you know asking for a ride you know to the complete thing when she knows that he's just gonna go play at
the bridge we're talking about 12 year old and 14 year olds right I mean no I know that I know that but a
lot of rhyme and reason here but I have to make heads or tails of this thing right so so first of all I have a
problem with it seems like she there we're going to this this predetermined destination and then all of a sudden I
need off the bike yeah but it's not clear what she asked for you're right there's you know because she could have
just said hey can you take me to the stop sign yeah I'm going that way anyways right and it's not that much
further from the bridge right you know that's a lot different than can you take me to and you're gonna ride your bike on
a state route I mean I I don't know the area that well but it seems like the the
road that they're on was Less Traveled than the state route eight so maybe it was one of those things where it's like
yeah well I can take you to the stop sign but you know I really shouldn't be riding my bike on this road yeah who
knows but that's not clear so you can't sit there and say well I have a problem with this because it's not clear but
it's not clear from the beginning so it's not you know that there's nothing nefarious going on with
Stephen's story there it's not clear what you're right but but that's I can have a problem with it being unclear I
perfectly can and I'll tell you what that doesn't point to innocence or guilt well there is some question as to if she
wanted a ride to that specific location or if she just wanted to ride to the highway I'll give you that much right
but then we have the other strange statement of okay if she only wanted to ride to the highway then then when I get
you to that point why would you say I'll hitchhike the rest of the way it just doesn't it doesn't ring true to
me it seems very odd for several reasons one is she going to hitchhike there and
how's she going to get back she's going to hitchhike on the way back yeah but I never heard that come from Stephen I
that you know that those statements that I heard about the hitchhiking came from
the law enforcement and I'd argue that you have seven hours of interrogation you also have seven hours of leading the
witness you have seven hours of leading a 14 year old kid into a story that you want to hear
so what did they write down what notes did they make what were correct what what things were correct and what was
not correct I mean you got two doctors saying that there's lesions on this kid's penis and one doctor not even
making references to it right you think this would be a big deal and there's constantly things like so again so what
what did the detectives write down of importance and and and then in their notes what they wrote down was that
actual statements from Stephen or just [ __ ] that they're writing down on a piece of paper
and the other thing is what actually comes out in court you know because the prob a big problem with this case is
going to be that when they try Steven Truscott back then the the prosecutors didn't have to provide everything they
didn't have to be fully disclosed all of the information that they had collected
throughout the investigation to the defense team so what they're able to do is they're able to
conduct their investigation collect as much evidence as they can as much information as they can and they're able
to sift through it and then say okay you're preparing for your defense here's a portion of what we've collected and
what we found along the way and you can build your defense against that well right and so here's the story that we
came up with this fits our narrative the problem is is if you give the rest of the notes that the police officers had
that contradicts The Narrative period so the cops should have said look we we don't have a clear story because every
time that we start getting somewhere some lead way guess what happens somebody else comes along and
contradicts it right now if it just happens once okay maybe it's just the eyewitnesses you know mess up right but
it happens over and over and over you you have to take a step back you're the adult here
and you got to take a step back and go well maybe this this isn't our kid right this isn't this isn't the person that
we're looking for all right Captain I think that we have to kind of put a bow on this for now because we're running
out of time but there's a lot more to discuss here so to kind of clear this up we have on September 16th Stephen
truscott's trial began all the evidence presented in court was basically circumstantial uh it's centered on
placing Lynn Harper's time of death uh within that very narrow time frame which implicated Stephen triscott
um like we said there were there were only certain sides of the argument that were presented at this trial now a big
problem here for the public and for the citizens was that they decided to charge
Steven triska as an adult which means that he's going to be sentenced to death if he's convicted he had death by
hanging this was a very controversial thing at the time um you know we don't often see minors
being charged and sentenced to death he was ultimately convicted of this and he was sentenced to death
um there are a lot of things that didn't come out in that trial that we need to get to and we'll cover those as well as
is he guilty not guilty in our eyes and are there other potential suspects out there that could have done this
all right again happy birthday to the colonel we'll be back tomorrow in the garage make sure you go to the store
Page we have the douche canoe shirts what we did was we made them green with a blue letters this time because I was
getting tired of that blue so we a bunch of people asked for him yes back by popular demand we were receiving many
emails every week about the return of the douche canoe so you can go to the website right now True Crime garage.com
click on the store Page uh pre-order one of those shirts today thanks to everybody for joining us in the garage
today we'll see you back here tomorrow until then be good be kind and don't let him
thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Lynne Harper /// Part 1 /// 142

Part 1 of 2

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Lynne Harper was a 12 year old girl who disappeared on June 9th, 1959. She was last seen in the area of the RCAF Station in Clinton, Ontario. Lynne's father reported her missing. Two days later Lynne's body was recovered on a farm. It was discovered that Lynne had been raped and strangled with her blouse. A classmate of Lynne's was questioned and later arrested and charged. The real question, is he guilty? If he is not were other very good leads and suspects ignored in this case? Tonight we discuss the murder of Lynne Harper and the highly controversial conviction of Steven Truscott.Beer of the week - Apocalypse Cow by Three Floyds brewing companyGarage Grade - 4 and a half bottle caps out of 5

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Brief Summary

The episode covers the 1959 murder of Lynn Harper and the trial of Stephen Truscott, examining evidence and witness accounts.

Key points

The Missing Girl. On July 9, 1959, Lynn Harper went missing, leading to a tragic discovery two days later.
Speculative Moments. What if small moments had changed? Could Lynn still be alive?
Brutal Discovery. Lynn's body was found, brutally murdered, raising many questions about the case.
Neatly Placed Evidence. The discovery of Lynn's body revealed peculiar details about her clothing.
Murder Location Theories. Questions arise about where Lynn was actually murdered, complicating the investigation.
The Investigation Begins. Harold Graham is brought in to lead the investigation, focusing on signs of injury.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

What if that little girl didn't have an argument with her parents?

Speculation on the events leading to the tragedy.

4:59WatchDec 2, 2022

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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