Leander said he had no reason to think such a thing, even though his suspicions were building. Leander looked at him and Sheldon was sobbing. It was at that point that Sheldon said, I murdered her because I loved her.
Leander wrote the letter with Sheldon’s return address. The letter was done very business-like and there was probably one paragraph on the first page and a few lines on the next page.
It was four to six days later that Sheldon was charged with the murder of Donna Whalen.
SHELDON TROKE
He’s lying. It’s all lies.
LEANDER DOLLYMONT
Sheldon treated him nice, he was charming and attractive. When he went down to rec, Sheldon talked to him and Leander looked upon him as a pretty decent person. It didnt seem to bother Sheldon that Leander was a homosexual. Homosexuality in prison does take place. You will meet people who will treat you with disrespect, but within the prison system it is accepted.
A relationship started between them and it was kept very secret from inmates at the penitentiary. It was kept secret to the point that there was nobody going to say anything to Sheldon. He more or less put it out in a joking manner. It began by Leander being really good to Sheldon. Being homosexual, he does not deny that he was attracted to him. Leander helped him out with canteen. He spent a lot of time talking to him, playing cards—it was during that summer Sheldon learned him to play crib. They spent a lot of time together. Leander was helping him through a bad experience. They became affectionate with touching and kissing and it led to oral sex. This took place in Sheldon’s cell. Sheldon was Leander’s top-notch man down in the pen. The penitentiary was no help to Leander, it was more harm than health.
Sheldon was well known, people looked upon him as heavy. He was one of the rulers of HMP.
SHELDON TROKE
Dolly used to be down to the pen chasing everybody around. Oh, this one’s cute, that one’s cute, look at the arse on that one. Sheldon never had nothing to do with him. When Sheldon first met him he was coming out of jail. It was like a woman talking and Sheldon was talking to some friends down in the bottom flat and somebody yelled out and said Trokie and he turned around. Dolly come over and said are you Paul’s brother? Sheldon said why? and he turned right red and he said I knows Paul and that same day Sheldon went up to Unit 4 and Paul was up on Unit 4 and Dolly come up and Sheldon said to Paul who’s your friend? and Dolly blushed.
LEANDER DOLLYMONT
You’ve heard of valium brought into inmates in packages, thrown in over the walls and given during field day. Sheldon had been really sick for three days and then one night he done a lot of valium. The guards had known about that and Leander was the one going to the kitchen to get Sheldon his juices. Sheldon had a shower and a few more valium. It was more nerves with Sheldon than the flu. The penitentiary was like the flu. He wasnt eating and he was sweating to the point where you could take his bedclothes and wring the water out of them. Sheldon had difficulty with getting out of bed to associate on the unit. The pressure of it all. The night Sheldon asked Leander to bring a pen and paper to Sheldon’s cell, Leander knew he was going to write something. He brought a writing tablet that he had in his cell. There was a verse of the Our Father underneath the pictures. They had designed it on a piece of cardboard. Sheldon took the picture on his knee, Leander remembers him taking his wrist, he did not grab it or physically hurt him or anything, he just took his wrist and he said, Dolly do you think I murdered Donna? Leander said Sheldon listen I think you loved her too much for that and Sheldon closed the cell door and told Leander a story. Leander had a can of pop, Sheldon had a coffee.
Sheldon was in quite an emotional state. He asked Leander that night did he like him as a person. When Leander said that I’m not the type of person who likes everybody, Sheldon kept repeating but do you like me in a different way. Leander thinks he meant could he be emotionally close, could he relate to him on a personal basis. He said yes because Leander more or less feared to upset Sheldon—he needed to talk to someone because he was upset and crying. When Leander said yes, he stopped.
Sheldon just wanted reassurance that Leander wouldnt betray him. Leander assured him that whatever he said or discussed would be kept in confidence. Sheldon asked him to take Donna’s picture from the wall and Leander gave it to him. Looking at her picture, he said that he never loved anybody this much, he had been planning on starting a family with this woman and she was his only reason for staying out of trouble. Sheldon told him first that he found out that Donna Whalen was having an affair with Jacob Parrott and because of that he stabbed him.
SHELDON TROKE
Jacob Parrott was never stabbed. Go ask him.
LEANDER DOLLYMONT
That Friday night Donna Whalen dropped Sheldon off and told him the relationship was over and she didnt want to see him any more. Sheldon went into his mother’s house. His mother noted him being emotional. He went upstairs to the washroom and shot up. He felt dizzy. He sat on the bathtub to regain balance. He came downstairs, called his brother Paul at Cathy Furneaux’s house. He told Paul that he was going to act on the discussion he had in the park on the previous day.
Sheldon asked his mother to return him to Donna’s. His mother obliged, but Donna was not home. Leander doesnt know how Sheldon gained entry. When Donna returned home she had a male companion with her. Sheldon said that he hid in Cory’s room, until the man left.
Sheldon confronted Donna and she threatened to charge him with break and entry. Sheldon was on parole at the time. Sheldon said they had a heated argument in the kitchen. She grabbed a knife from the drawer. He was sobbing. He said Dolly I wrestled with her I didnt know what I wanted to do. He got the knife and stabbed her continually. He said I dont remember anything else till Paul was standing there, Paul came in and moved the body into the living room. Then Paul took him to Iris’s house and he returned to clean up the murder scene. Paul moved the body into the living room. He did this alone.
BERTHA TROKE
She doesnt know Leander Dollymont, but she did hear tell of a Dolly. One time Dolly phoned the house looking for Paul. At the time Bertha did not know who it was, and she gave Paul a smack and told him it was an old woman on the phone about sixty-five years old and could he do any better than that. She left the bathroom door open to hear the conversation because she really thought it was a woman and she did hit him and he hit the wall because he was mad. She sounds like she’s drunk, she said, sixty-five years old phoning you.
Bertha did not drive Sheldon from her house down to Donna’s house that night. If Sheldon had to want a run anywhere Clayton would be the one that drove because Bertha doesnt like night driving. Her car wasnt out of the driveway that night. Sheldon didnt ask for a run. If there was something like that going on Sheldon wouldnt have come home in the first place.
LEANDER DOLLYMONT
Leander asked him, Are the police going to get anything? Sheldon said they can never get anything, Dolly, the clothes and the weapon theyre with Donna. Sheldon worked in a graveyard with Donna’s father. He done repairs to graves, so he assumed Sheldon buried the clothes and the weapon.
After Sheldon cleaned up he returned to the murder scene. Paul met him on the steps and didnt allow him inside. Everything had been taken care of and it was time to be getting out of there. The next day Sheldon went to work at the graveyard and waited for the news of her death.
PAUL TROKE
Paul doesnt know Leander Dollymont. He does know a Dolly. He knows him from jail. Dolly doesnt have any reason to lie about him. Paul’s never done anything to him.
His hair in June was blond. It’s no different than the way it looks now. In summer the sun lightens it a bit. Paul’s not the only guy who goes downtown with blond hair. He’d have it shaved on the sides very close to his head.
One of these assaults involved Eugene Driscoll. Paul hit Eugene in the face with a beer bottle three or four times. Eugene come in the house after Paul’s girlfriend Trisha. Eugene was giving Cathy
Furneaux a hard time too. Paul was asleep on the couch when they got home and when he went down Eugene was inside the house. Paul asked him what he was doing there and he started getting saucy and wouldnt leave and Paul flicked a beer bottle at him. He never held on to it, he hit him with it.
GARY BEMISTER
This was the graveyard where Sheldon Troke worked. That graveyard is on Blackmarsh Road. Gary Bemister cut and rolled up some sods and dug in the ground. They didnt do the entire cemetery. The police disturbed about twenty graves. It took about six hours. There were no exhibits taken.
LEANDER DOLLYMONT
Leander grew up with money, he didnt do fraud for money. He could be like his brother today, he could be home with a sportscar. He wasnt the type for suicide and that’s all he will say on it.
Leander would not betray Sheldon Troke for money, but if there’s something through Corrections Canada to help him get on his feet when he gets out, he’s willing to accept it.
They became very close. Leander helped Sheldon many times with canteen. Private things too, such as what he signed for Jim Lythgoe or conversations he had with his mom. Leander cared for Sheldon Troke a lot.
At first Sheldon portrayed an image of how much he loved Donna Whalen and to see the person that committed such a horrible crime brought to justice. But on the night that he told Leander that he murdered her Sheldon said that Donna had been having an affair and that she was going to leave him for Jacob Parrott. He couldnt handle losing her. At a party there was an argument. Sheldon and Donna and Jacob Parrott. Donna went to the washroom. When she came back Sheldon took her on his knee. Jacob made a gesture towards him in hauling her off. Sheldon went to stand up, Jacob pushed him back into the chair. Sheldon came to his feet again and Jacob pushed him into a glass cabinet. The glass door broke and Sheldon went right through the glass door. He got an antique knife from the cabinet and struck Jacob once in the head and twice in the stomach. Jacob was brought into the hospital and never named Sheldon or pressed charges. That’s when Jacob started talking about moving to Toronto. It was just a short period of time before Donna’s death. Sheldon was experiencing quite a high when he told Leander this.
Donna was going to Toronto to share a relationship with Jacob Parrott there. He couldnt deal with the fact she was going to leave him.
SHELDON TROKE
This never happened.
LEANDER DOLLYMONT
One evening on the news the police had impounded a car found near Glovertown. This car was owned by Paul Troke. Sheldon walked across the unit and said that fucking car had fucking nothing to do with Donna’s death. The inmates like to watch Here and Now, it keeps you intact with society and what’s going on in the court system. Who is coming to the penitentiary. The first question that arose in Leander’s mind was if you had nothing to do with Donna’s death, how do you know that car had nothing to do with it.
SHELDON TROKE
The first time the car come on TV Sheldon said it’s about time. He made a phone call to his mother after the news and he learned that the car was his brother’s. Sheldon said, What the fuck are these people doing? It come on again. This car is owned by Paul Troke, Sheldon’s brother, and then Ches Hedderson was on talking about him.
When that car first come on, Sheldon had no idea who owned the car. If that car come on again five days later, he may have shouted then. Leander Dollymont was on the range. He heard the rumours going around. People down there would ask questions. If Sheldon could, he would have answered their questions.
LEANDER DOLLYMONT
On the night that he shared with Leander what he had done to Donna Whalen, Sheldon needed a shoulder to lean on. A towel over the door is a sign of privacy—if other inmates see a towel over your door they know theyre not supposed to enter, they should knock or it’s a sign of privacy, it’s a sign that youre doing something that other inmates should not be involved in. No one else entered Sheldon’s cell that night.
DONALD SAUNDERS
A private conversation is fairly easy in a unit like 4A. The prisoners have ways of sending messages to each other—internal messages that are quite opposite to the rules. If an inmate puts a towel over his door, this is a sign that the inmate wants some privacy.
Prescription drugs in the prison is impossible to prevent. They hoard medication and then use it all at once. The lack of cavity searches is one of the main reasons for that.
Quite a number of inmates are functionally illiterate and can’t write. Those inmates get a friend to write a letter for them. Also, an inmate might be able to write but simply requests somebody else to write it for him in terms of style or content. Unit 4A it might be easier to get correspondence out without there being any record of it than it would be in the SHU.
Letters to lawyers, to ministers, to different government officials, they are just sent in the mail. That’s privilege mail and nothing happens other than it’s mailed as quickly as possible. There is a booklet that’s given to inmates with a full list of those people. There is no way that you can check who that letter is actually going to. We have to go by the name of the person which it’s being written to.
There’s a dry cell at the penitentiary. If they have reason to believe that an inmate has drugs concealed in a body cavity they place that person in a dry cell and leave him there until theyre satisfied there is no drug or contraband item concealed or until it’s found. The duration is usually seventy-two hours. A dry cell has got no plumbing and when a person wishes to use the washroom there is no toilet so he’s given a bucket. The bowel movement is checked for drugs. The common way of concealing drugs is ingesting a condom or a balloon and the other way is insertion through the anus.
He is issued a towel. There are no hooks to hang up towels. Sometimes the towel is hung on a door and they try to stop that. It is against the regulations to hang a towel on a door and the reason is it’s a security one. A towel hung on a prison door will cause damage to the hinge and locking mechanism if the door is closed because the towel forms a wedge and when the door is pushed to it sprains the hinges and throws the locking mechanism out of proper position. It’s a constant battle, you dont permit inmates to do that.
A correctional officer can see the lobby. There’s no blind spots unless doors are wide open. However, when a person goes in the cell you cannot see in there unless you go into this lobby area and look into the doorway. Correctional officers are expected to do that, go in and actually remove the towel.
LEANDER DOLLYMONT
Sheldon was taken out to the graveyard by the corrections officers at Her Majesty’s Penitentiary, to Donna Whalen’s grave. It was raining. When he came back from the grave he said that Donna’s family had been there waiting for him and he sobbed in the room and sat and stared at her picture again for a while. Sheldon couldnt stand losing Donna, especially to Jacob Parrott.
When Leander was released it was Thanksgiving. He went up to the Southern Shore for about ten days. He did not acquaint his parole officer of his whereabouts. He was on the run and drinking and cashing bad cheques. He was at a bar called Harold Hayden’s Lounge. That’s in Calvert. He had some money on him. The RCMP of Ferryland came to arrest a man who had a verbal argument with his wife. When they arrested him, they took Leander because he had been at the house. Then they discovered who Leander was and that there was a warrant out, so he was held in custody. Leander had spent time alone with this man, Eugene Driscoll. It was not a sexual relationship. Leander was drunk at the time. He wasnt falling around but if he was given a breathalyzer he’d be considered drunk. They placed him in the Ferryland lock-up. Leander knew that he was going back to HMP. The guard on duty questioned him on why he was emotional and he took Leander out to his office to have a talk. Leander told him, Constable Kelly, about his childhood and getting involved in crime. He did not want to go back to the penitentiary. Some very negative things occurred there, he said. Kelly asked Leander in relation to what. A bank robbery and a murder, he said. Are you referring to the Troke
case? Leander told him yes.
They had a discussion about Sheldon Troke, that he had murdered Donna Whalen, but Leander did not say that he’d had a relationship with Sheldon Troke. Leander’s family was deeply hurt by his going out and doing fraud, so he could very well imagine how much it would hurt their pride to know that he had a relationship with Sheldon Troke. It’s true that from the age of eighteen he had proclaimed to his family that he was a homosexual, but that dont mean you have a relationship with someone of less your character. So he lied about the relationship between himself and Sheldon Troke. He said they were just friends. He’s aware that there’s a lot of mixed feelings towards homosexual activity. Leander wanted to clear his conscience of what he knew about the death of Donna Whalen without causing any damage to his own character.
That first statement to Kelly he refused to sign because he knew he had lied. He was intelligent enough to know what that meant if it was later discovered. He didnt sign it because he wanted all his conditions met. He asked for two things. To receive federal time in a western Canadian penitentiary—federal time is two years plus. Second, that he receive counselling for being a child sexual abuse victim.
He did not want to spend time in a closed environment such as an RCMP lock-up. He was experiencing a lot of emotional things and didnt see it as being a very healthy environment. There is no access to counselling or getting out of the cell for exercise.
He wanted closed court for his testimony and his identity not made public. He looked at it as being something damaging to his family’s character. He has a brother and a sister whom he loves and cares about. They would be deeply hurt by all of this. He’s deeply hurt himself.
The Death of Donna Whalen Page 20
