KIM PARROTT
Her friend had been stabbed to death, so that put a damper on her situation. She was nervous at the time she gave her statement. If something like that could happen to Donna, it could happen to her.
The police turned up at Kim’s home. They spoke to her out in the car. She was shown a drawing, but it was a copy. She did not know anyone who resembled that person. She was talking to Donna on Friday, and Donna had a tape recorder. If anything ever happened to her make sure this tape recorder is found, is what she said.
Kim told the police she didnt hear the tape. And then she told them she did. She was afraid of the Trokes and the Troke reputation—that’s basically her whole problem through all this. You dont have to be threatened to be nervous. You just got to know the reputation. Things that Donna said to Kim alone were enough to make you nervous. Hearing the tape made her nervous. She didnt know what she was dealing with. Sheldon’s been in jail before for stabbing.
MABEL EDICOTT AND THE VIVIANS WIRETAP
Mabel: I’ll read it to you if you can hear me. Keith will you go out in the kitchen and pass me in the paper on the table?
Ruth: Now it’s impossible not to hear you. That’s his brother.
No they got Paul in for armed robbery. They havent got him in for that reason.
The light-haired guy?
He’s in for armed robbery.
But he’s in on the murder too.
You dont know that. Youre only going on hearsay.
Pat Vivian: I can picture that little youngster that morning screeching out.
Mabel: Thirty-one knife wounds. That’s not counting the beating up she took.
Ruth: Her jaws and everything were broke.
Mabel: And he must have strangled her with her underwear. Dirty rotten bastard. God forgive me.
She knows who killed her mommy. You knows it was Sheldon.
The only Troke that’s blond is Paul. All the rest got dark hair.
I won’t doubt but that Sheldon was in on the robbery too.
That happened afterwards. There was more people in on it but they were with Paul Troke.
Buddy upstairs walking over the room.
Police still over there?
They just walked over the room.
Theyre up there listening to you. Well youre not saying anything wrong anyway.
I’m only talking to you and you werent prepped.
I’m not intending to be.
I hope they puts him away in a little fucking icy cold room.
They say everywhere they went the only cooperation they got was from down to Mrs Vivian’s.
If you knows something you got to tell it.
She’s never out of my mind.
What happened is he ended up breaking her jaw, that way she couldnt scream.
Then he raped her.
I heard them. But the last going-off she could barely sing that way.
You heard her singing out?
I only wish I had to stay up longer.
I only wish you had to get it in your head to call the police.
How could I have called the police?
If I heard a big argument next door.
There wasnt no big argument. Who said that?
But she was saying Sheldon stop dont do it no more.
That’s right.
That’s enough to phone the police on.
They were always into it. That was nothing new.
That’s true.
I hope he rots, the bastards whoever done it.
You knows now whoever.
Like you said to Pat, if they only had to put the knife in and get it over.
He was after strangling her I’d say. She was probably dead before he stabbed her.
It could have started down the hall because I heard her taking off her pumps. And I knew exactly because I told the police. I dont know if theyre up listening to me. What odds.
Well this is the start, it’s out in the papers.
GARY BEMISTER
Ruth Vivian was having a lot of back pain and she spent a good deal of time lying on her bed. She had a television in her bedroom. Gary was seated on the side of her bed. There were police officers upstairs constantly, between the guards that they had at the scene and the identification personnel who were up there. They were moving furniture around, seizing exhibits, taking pictures. Ruth Vivian’s bedroom door was open and Gary had no problem hearing the officers upstairs. One day he heard the cameras, they had the automatic wind and you could hear the film advancing in their cameras. They still had their police boots on and as Gary was speaking with Ruth Vivian there was a police officer upstairs tapping his foot on the floor and you could hear that very easily. That was in the middle of the day so you can imagine what it would be like there in the early-morning hours.
When Ruth got to the details regarding her son Tom she changed her mind. At first Tom went to bed at nine-thirty and then she said she got the nights confused. Her son cleaned up the coffee table and end tables in the living room. This was later on that Friday evening after Mabel Edicott left. What happened here was she got the sequence of events within Friday night confused, not Friday night as opposed to Thursday night.
There was somebody possibly waiting outside for Donna. She came home with a bag of Wendy’s and that food was all eaten so there was a time period between when she got home and when someone came to visit her.
It is clear that she went in alone shortly after one. And went upstairs and stepped right out of her clothes in the bathroom. Got her nightie on and lay down. Up to that point no one else is around.
Mabel Edicott and her son Keith, they heard the soft knock on their own kitchen door and Mabel Edicott heard the knock on Donna’s door and yet they didnt hear any sounds coming from that apartment that evening. Until the sound like dragging furniture.
There was a violent act that took place in a fairly small area. And it is quite easy to hear from apartments on all sides. The only sign of any type of bloodletting was in the living room area. A great portion of blood was spilled on the couch and then a large soaking on the floor when Donna went to the floor. The initial attack was on the sofa when she was dressed.
She had on a pair of socks.
About the pumps. When you are going upstairs, whether you are a woman in high heels or a man, it is only the ball of your foot that touches the stairway.
SHELDON TROKE
Sheldon got up at seven and went in the bathroom. He got washed. He went downstairs. There was two eggs in the frying pan. He cooked his breakfast and phoned Mrs Whalen. Mister was up and Agnes told Sheldon that she’d call back when Mister was leaving for work.
He ate his breakfast. He went in the living room and had a cup of coffee, a cigarette, watched the news—five after eight, the phone rang. Mister was after leaving and he had to go to the dump to drop off the garbage that was in the truck. Actually, it was the grass that they mowed in the graveyard. Agnes told him to leave in about a half an hour and Sheldon looked at the clock and said I’ll leave at eight-thirty. How’d you and Donna get along last night, she asked. Sheldon said all right. She said, Did Donna go home? I dont know, he said. She might have went over to Kim’s. They said goodbye. Sheldon went upstairs and called his parents and asked for a run to work. His father come down.
He got aboard the car and Clayton dropped him to work and Mr Whalen wasnt there. Sheldon walked around the graveyard to see how much grass was left and what else needed to be done and Mr Whalen come and Sheldon walked down and met him and they walked back up towards the shed. Mr Whalen opened the shed and got the tools out. He told Sheldon he had some more work to do in the Jewish Cemetery, which is a small cemetery at the top of the graveyard. Sheldon was going to start Mr Abbott’s son’s grave, Gil Abbott. He sells cars or he used to. His son was there and his grave over the years was after sinking and Sheldon told Mr Whalen that he’d start that and take the sods off and fill it in. So he got Mister to give him a hand to line up the grave where
he was going to cut the sods off. They were talking and got everything lined up. They had the wheelbarrows and everything. Mr Whalen went back up to the Jewish Cemetery. Sheldon had something like a pick but it cuts the sods off the ground with a side. It’s flat on one side and they got a handle on it like a pickaxe. He was using that and he noticed a car driving back down the road again and he looked and it was his father. Sheldon walked down towards where Mr Whalen’s pickup is at and when he got down, he could see that there was something wrong, the way his father was sot in the car. Sheldon walked over and opened the door. What’s wrong, Dad? and he said Sheldon, I’ve got some bad news.
How can you explain it? Sheldon was in jail one time and there was a guard Lewis Tulk come on the range and got him. Sheldon could tell just by the way he approached him and the way he was talking that there was something wrong. He told Sheldon that the chaplain wanted to see him and as he was walking up to the chapel with the guard, and he said Lewis, who is it? His brother Raymond was after passing away.
He said to his father, What’s wrong? and he says, Donna. What about Donna? DOA. Now he thought he’d said OD’d. Sheldon said oh Jesus, and he started to run and he was heading towards Mr Whalen and he didnt want to run up to him and say it to him so he went up and said Mr Whalen we got to go, and Aubrey said, What? You got to go? and Sheldon said no, we got to go, and Aubrey got his wheelbarrow and started putting it away, like Mr Whalen puts everything in order, and Sheldon was saying Mr Whalen, we got to go, we can put this away later. And he asked Sheldon what was wrong and he didnt want to tell him. He said Donna’s sick, and he asked was she in hospital and Sheldon said he didnt know. They got down to the car and the truck and Mr Whalen said he was going to go home and Sheldon said yes and they left and Sheldon remembers when they left the graveyard, they were driving down the road and they were turning and he wanted to get down to Donna’s and there was a dog walking across the street and the dog it was just taking its time and where his father was stopped to turn he had to wait for the dog and Sheldon was saying to his father, Donna wasnt on nothing last night. Donna wasnt on nothing.
They got to Donna’s and pulled up on the right-hand side. There was a lot of vehicles there. Sheldon got out of the car and was going to Mrs Whalen. Pat Vivian and Mrs Whalen were coming across the street and Ches Hedderson come over and he said, Youre Sheldon? He said yes. He asked would he get in the car and Sheldon got in the car and he started to write things down and then when he see Mrs Whalen he got out of the car and started to go across the street and never got across the street. Missus and Pat Vivian come across the street and Sheldon was going to ask Mrs Whalen where were the youngsters and her and Pat were saying, Dont go saying nothing, and Ches Hedderson come over and he got in between them and Sheldon was trying to talk to Mrs Whalen and Ches Hedderson was moving her back away from Sheldon and they had a few words with each other and Sheldon told Ches Hedderson to leave her alone, she was seventy years old. And Sheldon started asking what was on the go and Hedderson told him to get back in the car we’re dealing with a possible homicide, and Sheldon just stopped and went and got in the car and then Hedderson asked another officer to get in the car with him.
He asked Sheldon would he go to the police station with him. Sheldon said I got to talk to my father, and he said, No, that’s all right, I’ll tell him. And he got out and went up and told Sheldon’s father whatever he told him.
They went to the police station. They come in through the back. They were getting off the elevator and Ches Hedderson stopped him and asked him to stay down by the elevator. It’s off a hallway. He said I got to see where the youngsters are at. Sheldon asked him how the youngsters were and he said theyre all right, and he walked over and looked and he said to the other officer, Okay, come on, and they brought him down the hallway to an interrogation room.
Ches Hedderson asked Sheldon for his coat. He took his coat off and gave it to him and he put the coat in another room. They were in the interrogation room. Hedderson come in and the other officer there read a caution. They asked Sheldon if he wanted a lawyer, if he wanted to give a statement, then started firing all these questions at him. It was about nine-thirty in the morning. Asking him what happened last night, what time he got home, did anybody see him leave Donna’s, who was home at his house when he got home, did he have sex with Donna, did he kill Donna, did he know who would have killed Donna. Hedderson asked him would he give a DNA test and to give blood at the Health Sciences Centre and let them take photographs. They did that at the Health Sciences Centre. Sheldon was asking them questions and they wouldnt answer them. He asked them in the afternoon can he talk to a lawyer and they said yes and he called Jim Lythgoe and explained what was going on and that he was going to do everything they asked him.
It came around suppertime and Sheldon was after doing everything and him and another officer were sot in the interrogation room and the officer was staring at Sheldon. He kept staring and a half an hour went by and Sheldon asked him do you need anything else. He didnt answer. So Sheldon said do you want to give me a run home? And they did. He went home. He phoned the Whalens’ residence. He was talking to Agnes and asked her how the kids were doing and she told him that Clifford had them out for ice cream that day. After that he phoned Kim, asking her do she know of anyone that would do this to Donna and do she know if Donna was seeing anyone and anything she know, tell to the police.
Sheldon never threatened no one. Nobody throughout this whole investigation was never threatened. Excuse me, so-called investigation.
CHARLES STAMP
The first one is a facial view. The next is an overall shot showing the clothing Sheldon Troke was wearing. Photograph three is from the centre of the chest down to the floor including the legs and the boots and pants. The right hand, then the left hand. The palm side of the hands. Photograph seven is the chest down to the belt line.
Ches Hedderson said, Take a picture of his chest. I want a picture of a scratch. Charles Stamp said, It’s not a scratch, but a crease.
Just above the belt line. Across the abdomen there is probably three or four of them.
It is a crease from sitting down or something, Charles Stamp said.
Sheldon was subdued, very quiet.
Their department has installed a video image booking system. It is done through a video camera and is saved on a computer screen and put on a hard drive inside the computer. It enables them to take a picture off very quickly. This is a computer-processed photograph. Charles asked the computer to give him fifteen copies, so that accounts for the slight blurriness in the eye area.
The colour appears to be not true flesh tone. It depends on the way the light hits the person. They have three halogen lamps that are lowered from the ceiling and pointed at the person. And it depends on how the skin tone reacts under the light and sometimes they are not true colour as you would see in a 35 mm photograph. Sheldon was there for ten minutes, just long enough to take the photographs. He then left the room with Ches Hedderson. Sheldon was very quiet and he maintained that expression throughout the photographs. Charles talked to Sheldon Troke and borrowed three cigarettes from Sheldon and he told Sheldon that he had quit smoking and Sheldon said I’m glad to hear that.
SHELDON TROKE
Sheldon stayed home. Upstairs in his room crying. He was devastated. It was two in the morning. He didnt even turn the lights off. Sunday he got up and phoned the Whalens.
Donna’s parents, her aunt Edie, Donna’s brother Clifford, come by the door. Edie Guzzwell told Sheldon that Mrs Whalen wanted him and he went out and Edie got in the back seat and Sheldon got in the driver’s side. Mrs Whalen was quite upset. She passed Donna’s house and was roaring out to Donna. Sheldon gave her a hug. She gave him a cheque. Clifford told him that he was after having a few beers. He said if I thought you done this, I’d blow your fucking head off. Edie was in the back staring in Sheldon’s face.
He phoned the Vivians. He asked for the son, but he was talking to Pat. Tom w
as over to the police station. Sheldon asked Pat if he heard anything and all he heard was when him and Donna were leaving. He was talking to Ruth Vivian. He told Ruth if you hear anything, tell it to the police.
He went to Cathy Furneaux’s and then back home. Constable Bemister called to ask a few more questions. So he went to headquarters. He was there for two and a half hours, then the police drove him home. Sunday night he was crying. Monday he got up and went in town trying to find out what was on the go. He was told not to call Donna’s house no more. He brought a suit to the dry cleaners. He went to Cathy Furneaux’s to see if there was any suits there belonged to Raymond. His brother Paul was there. He had a jacket belonged to him so Sheldon asked him could he have the jacket back because he wanted to wear it. It’s a black leather one, a dress jacket. The police have it now.
He asked Paul would he go to the wake. It was supposed to be that night and Paul said yes. When they were leaving to go home Paul asked for a run over to the 301 Club. His father drove him over there. After they dropped Paul off, they were on their way home. Sheldon asked his father to drop into Neville’s to get some flowers. They went home and Sheldon went upstairs. He had pictures of Donna and the youngsters. He laid down on the bed and he was crying. He ended up getting about an hour’s sleep. There was a knock at the door and he heard his mother talking. It was Gary Bemister and Ches Hedderson.
He was coming down over the steps and they said, Sheldon, we got some bad news for you. There’s a parole warrant out for you. They were armed. Sheldon looked at them. Sheldon’s after being arrested four times for a parole warrant. Not once did the Homicide Section come to arrest him for a parole warrant. Sheldon went back upstairs and tried to contact Jim Lythgoe. He wanted to wash his face and brush his teeth. Hedderson come up with him. Then back down. Walking out through the door, Sheldon seen an unmarked unit a couple of doors down from the house and there was another police car just driving up the hill.
The Death of Donna Whalen Page 15
