Death's Shadow

by Jon Wells

  On the morning of December 30, Phil said, he drove with his wife, Alex, from their apartment in west Hamilton to Quatrefoil, the restaurant where she worked. After dropping her off, he headed to Audrey’s. He turned his silver 2002 Hyundai Accent off Indian Trail into the driveway, past the small pond on the right and larger one on the left, and parked on the far side as he always did. He was bringing her a piece of her favourite cake. It was about 11:00 a.m. He did not go to Audrey’s front door. He always entered through the garage. He carried the cake from his car to the twin automatic garage doors outside. He punched in the code on the keypad. The door rose. The Camaro was parked in its usual spot, both its doors closed.

  That’s when he saw her, he said, on the garage floor, lying on her back. Had Audrey slipped and fallen on some ice, he wondered? Up close, he saw that that was not the case.

  She was wearing her winter coat. Her comfortable stretch pants were ripped. He went outside, put the cake back in the car, and called 911 on his cell. The person on the other end asked him to confirm that she was dead. He said he returned to the garage, knelt down, and felt her pulse. Then he went outside, sat on the bumper of his car, and waited.

  Police spoke of the brutality of the murder, that it had been a stabbing. She had also been beaten. From what Phil saw, or remembered, it was not a gruesome scene. But it all kind of blurred over in his mind’s eye. He did have flashbacks in the months to come. It messed him up. Audrey’s dark eyes had been wide open, as though she was looking at him. The eyes stayed with him for a long time.

  — V —

  There was no immediate family at the memorial service for Audrey Gleave, which took place shortly after her death. She had none. Former students and friends posted loving comments about her on the funeral home website. She was an original, brilliant, funny, eccentric. She could also be a polarizing figure as a teacher. A former student, Steve Mihalich, who was in her physics class in the mid-1970s at Barton Secondary School, said she was a tough marker, and especially severe with male students. He said her expectations were high — higher than her students were able to achieve.

  “It’s so sad what happened to her,” he said. “You never imagine that someone you knew in your past would have their life end that way.”

  Allan Gleave did not make the trip from where he lived up north to attend the memorial. Audrey’s ex-husband had heard it was a private affair and wasn’t sure he’d be welcome. And he wasn’t keen on tackling the winter roads.

  Two people spoke at the service. One was Phil Kinsman. His voice broke as he spoke: “I know private is a word that has often been used to describe Audrey, but I’m amazed at how many people she affected in her life.

  “I want to share one small story. I remember the first time Audrey ever hugged me. Understand, she was a private person, but even more so with physical affection.

  “I remember I was over at her house; we had spent the entire day planting flowers. She loved flowers. She shared with me all the research she had done. At the end of day, we were both exhausted and a bit frustrated, and she said to me point blank, ‘Well, did you learn something today or not?’ And I said, ‘Of course I did.’

  “The way she left us is tragic, but in these situations of chaos, it’s instinctive to ask why, to look for answers. I prefer to just be so thankful she left us with a lesson, that our time is so short. Every moment we can spend together in love, and cherish together, it’s so important to do that.”

  The other speaker at the memorial was Lynne Vanstone, whom Audrey had appointed in her will as trustee. (The will listed her house at a net value of $425,000, and personal property at $50,622.87.) Lynne handled all the arrangements. She could not fulfill Audrey’s request to bury her ashes in the pet cemetery beside two of her previous German shepherds — that is illegal in Ontario. Friends said the ashes were sprinkled on the golf course in Brantford instead.

  Her beloved dogs, Togi and Schatze, were assessed by animal control officials to see if they had suffered trauma during the murder. Audrey had previously purchased two plots for the dogs for when they died. A dog-loving couple out in the country adopted the shepherds.

  Lynne Vanstone talked to reporters initially, but then she stopped. The whole thing had been awful, the entire experience just terrible, she said. She was too upset to talk anymore. Moreover, the killer was still out there.

  “She was kind of a mystery woman,” Lynne said at the memorial. “She had a positive influence on every life she touched. She was private. And caring, kind, shy at times. Chatty when you got to know her. Stubborn. Fair. Real. A beautiful mind. A kind soul. Extremely intelligent. Funny. Eccentric. Generous. Giving. There are not enough words to properly describe our Audrey. She was unique and very special.”

  The mystery surrounding Audrey, and her death, fuelled interest far and wide. Why was she targeted? Why was nothing stolen? One rumour was that Audrey’s purse had been found by police inside the house, stuffed with important papers she always carried around, but it had been left untouched. Had the killer even entered the house from the attached garage? Were the dogs locked in the kennel inside where she kept them, or loose in the house?

  Phil Kinsman was emotional at Audrey’s funeral.

  Hamilton Spectator.

  The couple who adopted Audrey’s dogs said that Togi, the big male German shepherd, was agitated every night when they tried to put him in his cage — even though the dog had spent most of his time in a cage when Audrey had him. Had the dog been trapped in his cage as Audrey was being murdered, and did the cage symbolize something frightening for him? The owner, who is a dog expert, thought that was possible.

  Online true-crime chat forums discussed Audrey and the case at length. Why did she keep her married name, Gleave, all those years? Why did she not revert to her Doveika family name? Had Audrey — computer junkie that she was, up at all hours of the night — met someone online who frightened her? Is that why she was so paranoid about privacy and her safety? Had Audrey been the one to email friends just prior to her death, or was the killer on her computer, pretending to be her?

  One of the oddest comments came from an American who observed — incorrectly — that Audrey’s father had worked for the Atomic Energy Board in the U.S., the same place where Jack Tarrance worked. Jack Tarrance was thought by some to be the infamous “Zodiac Killer” in the San Francisco area in the late 1960s.

  Others were intrigued by the fact that Audrey’s parents were from eastern Europe, and by the fact that Audrey had posted a picture of Einstein in her classroom. Einstein left Nazi Germany in 1933, “only four years before Ms. Gleave’s birth,” wrote one commentator. “I have to wonder if there could have been some family or professional connection between Einstein and her parents.”

  Shortly after Audrey was murdered, word spread that the prime suspect was David Scott, the homeless man who had lived in a barn near the crime scene. His sister, Deb, visited him at the Brantford Jail in the days after the murder. David was serving time for breach of probation — he was caught with a large hunting knife concealed in his waistband when he used a washroom in a bank. Hamilton police waited for his release from the jail before they went after him and arrested him at a laundromat.

  Deb looked at David, into the deep blue eyes that matched her own.

  “Dave,” she told him, “you might want to think about getting a lawyer. You’re under investigation for Ms. Audrey Gleave’s murder.”

  “Who?”

  That was his first reaction: Who? He got upset. He told Deb maybe he knew someone who had been out that way. Why, he wondered, didn’t the police come and talk to him; he might be able to help. The naïveté, the innocence in his words — Deb knew her brother had done nothing wrong and that he was not capable of such violence.

  A friend pointed out to Deb that, while David was no dummy, he would not be smart enough to cover his tracks after a stabbing. Presumably, there had been blood all over the place, along with his DNA.

  She had always lo
oked out for David. He once called her his “anchor,” the one person he always could count on. But if he had done it, if David Scott had killed Audrey Gleave, Deb would never try to protect him. She was sure of that.

  She entertained the theory; she searched her heart. No way he had it in him to do it. She even called Hamilton Police to tell them so. The police weren’t listening to Deb, though. They had their man. She knew they had zeroed in on David from the start. She read in the Spectator how a neighbour of Audrey’s had called police offering more information, but the police had not even followed up. The writing had been on the wall. In the media, her brother was referred to as “David Laurie Scott,” the use of his formal full name casting an ominous shadow.

  Hamilton homicide detectives put him through an intensive interrogation. It is what detectives do: wear down a suspect until the truth emerges. He kept saying he was innocent. They showed David some pictures from the crime scene — also a common tactic. Look at this — see this? See what was done to Audrey?

  Deb had first heard about the murder from her older brother, who saw the news on TV. And David? His name was mentioned in the media from the get-go as a person of interest: the homeless guy, a drifter who had been spotted not far from Audrey’s place. Deb knew David had spent time out Lynden way, but not recently. But then she heard he had, in fact, been staying out in the barn on Lynden Road. Not good. And then he got arrested for breach of probation, carrying the knife. Also not good. The media made it sound as if David had been squatting in the barn, which wasn’t the case, Deb said. He knew the woman who owned the land there. She was fine with him staying in the barn.

  David Scott had grown up on a farm in Lynden, along with Deb and two brothers. He was the second born. The farm had crops, dairy; everyone worked it. When the parents split, they sold the farm; their father moved out east, their mother to Brantford. It was a tough time. Of all of them, David had loved the farm most.

  From that point on, David lived a freewheeling life, without a home. He had attended Brantford Collegiate Institute, but quit. Deb always left her door open for him, but mostly he was out on the street. He gambled a bit at Casino Brantford and just hung out there. He worked as a bricklayer. He drank some, but was not a drug user, Deb said. He attended church. Rumours in the community said he had burned down a church in town, that he was violent. Deb said that that was not true.

  He was unpredictable, could be loud, had resisted arrest in the past. His mother said he was diagnosed with schizophrenia years ago. She told Deb that during the Audrey Gleave investigation police had interviewed her and asked if, with his mental health issues, David’s anger would sometimes escalate. She had agreed that could sometimes be the case.

  Deb understood how it all looked. He was a marked man because of his proximity to the crime scene, his record, the knife, his personality.

  The Brantford Expositor reported that David had once been arrested for cruelty to animals. Deb knew that cruelty to animals was considered a significant sign. Wasn’t that part of the profile for a serial killer — hurting animals? Didn’t it show that you were mentally unstable, had anger issues. And David’s mother had said that she and her son had been on poor terms recently. So, perhaps people thought that he had taken it out on Audrey Gleave.

  Deb said it all wasn’t what it seemed. That big knife he carried — he didn’t use the thing. He didn’t hunt. He went into town each day to borrow a dollar from someone to buy food. He bought the knife with Christmas money his dad had sent him; showed it to the family for shock value. Cruelty to animals? She said that charge was for letting his girlfriend’s cat run away on purpose because he was jealous of all the attention the pet received. David had definitely been upset around Christmastime. The family had not wanted him to come over, which Deb thought was wrong. But the situation was manageable; he could always vent to her. She knew it was not something that would push him to hurt somebody.

  The Brantford Expositor reported that the judge who presided over the breach of probation matter portrayed David Scott as a loose cannon, but not dangerous. He has a problem with authority figures, Justice Ken Lenz said, “but the fact is, if you leave him alone, he’s fine.… I know he frightens people. Sometimes he frightens me.”

  In February, Deb’s second reaction upon hearing about her brother being charged with murder was to call police and lobby for his innocence, to wrack her brain about who might really be the killer. She thought about calling neighbours on Indian Trail herself, but wondered if they’d be freaked out hearing from “the murderer’s sister.” Her first reaction upon hearing the news was to slide off her chair, roll into a fetal position, and weep for a long time. She knew that if David was sent to jail he’d never survive. She talked to her dad on the phone about it.

  “I’ve just lost my brother.”

  — VI —

  “No reasonable prospect of conviction.”

  Those five words, spoken in court on Friday, June 3, 2011, by Hamilton assistant Crown attorney Warren Milko, kicked the Audrey Gleave murder investigation back to square one. Perhaps further back than that. “The decision to terminate a prosecution can be one of the most difficult for Crown counsel to make,” Milko told Ontario Court Justice John Takach.

  Milko said the threshold for determining “reasonable prospect of conviction” requires the Crown to consider availability and admissibility of evidence, credibility of witnesses, and possible defences that might be used in the case. He said that threshold had not been reached. “Accordingly, the Crown is requesting that the charge against Mr. David Scott be withdrawn.”

  David Scott had gone from the prime suspect headed to a trial in which he could end up imprisoned for life, to being a free man. His sister Deb was overjoyed. The entire family had been put through emotional torment for five months. She believed the police had been trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole from the start with David. They had had tunnel vision.

  Jail had been a horrible experience, David told her. He had been arrested by Hamilton Police in February and had spent some of his time in solitary confinement. He told Deb that he prayed for their family every day. When he was released from Barton Street Jail, she arrived to pick him up. The local TV news cameras were there, too. She was shocked.

  “We are not a story anymore; why were they there?”

  She hustled him away, the cameras followed. She threw a stone, yelled into the lens. David tried to calm her down. He was an innocent man, and now his identity was broadcast all over the Golden Horseshoe. She reacted frantically at that moment, but chuckled about her reaction later. Great optics, once again. She had lost a front tooth biting into an orange recently; she had always been very thin as well. Folks watching on TV probably thought the “murderer’s sister” was some kind of hillbilly on crack, she reflected.

  The day the charges were dropped, Staff Sergeant Steve Hrab, the case manager, did not talk to the media. A Hamilton Police spokesperson said he was on vacation. Another officer said the results returned from the Centre of Forensic Sciences in Toronto did not match David Scott, and so the charges were dropped. He would not say what type of forensic testing had been done.

  It’s not unusual for police to arrest a suspect and lay charges while still waiting for evidence to be developed — forensic or otherwise. But it is uncommon for the suspect to be freed when that evidence comes back. It was a big blow to Hamilton Police and the homicide unit. Police once again urged residents in the area to be “vigilant.” A killer was still on the loose.

  David Scott’s lawyer, Charles Spettigue, tore a strip off Hamilton Police, accusing them of shoddy investigating and worse. “Hamilton Police arrested him and tried to build their case around him,” the lawyer said on TV. “Finally they ran out of straws … they wanted a quick answer, rushed to judgment to appease the folks of Ancaster, a well-to-do suburb of Hamilton, so they grabbed the first person who was different and unique. If he lived in Ancaster and had a family pedigree and money, you can rest assured he w
ould not be treated this way.” When asked if he would take legal action against the Hamilton Police Service on behalf of his client, he said, “I’d rather not say right now.”

  The rule for homicide investigation is that detectives must build a mountain of evidence. They expect that in court the defence lawyers will chip away at their case, argue that the judge remove pieces of evidence from the mix, give the accused every chance at a fair trial — and then some. If the mountain is not built high enough, the Crown will lose. Clearly, the mountain had not been built high enough, since even the Crown had declined to prosecute the case.

  Hamilton homicide investigators frequently work with an assistant Crown attorney prior to laying first-degree murder charges, to outline the evidence gathered, lay out the case, and ultimately ensure the Crown is on board — that the prosecution anticipates a reasonable chance of conviction. Investigators know that it hurts their credibility with the Crown’s office when they present a case light on evidence.

  Why had Hamilton Police made the arrest in the first place, absent evidence in hand that was necessary to stand a solid chance of conviction at trial? Part of the reason was Steve Hrab’s inclination to pursue a prime suspect aggressively. Senior officers familiar with Hrab’s career say this has been his pattern. And in some respects, David Scott looked good as a suspect. Another motivating factor may have been perceived pressure from the public to arrest someone quickly.

  Audrey Gleave was not someone the public could dismiss as an inner-city drug addict who wrote the end to her own story. She was a retired teacher, living on her own. The case hit too close to home. And there was the issue of public safety. If the murder had been a random one, as Hrab had speculated, and you let the prime suspect live free, he might kill another person — although surveillance might have addressed that concern, and had been used on suspects in previous murder cases.