Mike on Crime

by Mike McIntyre

  Mona Lisa Ristorante Italiano in Winnipeg was a favourite among inmates, with orders from the prison coming in at least once a month, owner Joe Grande confirmed. Veal, pasta and the Italian desert tiramisu are among the most-requested items, which Grande would personally deliver to Rockwood’s gates. “They’re allowed to order whatever they want on the menu. They order good food—they’re not exactly going for a greasy spoon here,” said Grande. “It’s good for us, and I suppose it’s good for them.”

  Tania Morrow, the unit manager at Rockwood, confirmed that steak is supplied at the prison, and that Rockwood inmates were also allowed to order take-out on rare “special” occasions. However, the take-out meals were paid for by the inmates, not the taxpayers, she said. “The idea is to prepare them for entrance into the community, so we promote independence and responsibility,” said Morrow. Convicts are allowed to choose from a list of groceries, but must ensure their allotment of food stretches out over a week for the six to eight inmates lodged in each cabin. Morrow said there were limits as to what an inmate could order, although she wouldn’t go into specifics.

  Hickey denied being the source of importing lobster and challenged jail officials and police to find the evidence to charge him. “It’s totally ridiculous. I want to be charged, or moved back to Rockwood. These are serious allegations, and let me have my day in court and put up a defence,” he said. “I believe you should be able to face your accusers.”

  Rockwood officials stood by their claims but admitted they hadn’t recovered any lobster carcasses from within the jail. “Contraband of any kind is not sanctioned by administration, and we acted on the information we received,” Morrow said. “I’m sure you can appreciate the nature of minimum security, and we’re constantly gathering intelligence to try and put a stop to this sort of thing.”

  Hickey said he heard rumours in the jail that he was smuggling red wine into the facility. “Everyone knows you only drink white wine with seafood,” he said. He also questioned why urine samples weren’t taken to prove he hadn’t consumed any alcohol or drugs. He suggested stool samples could be taken to prove the existence of lobster, which he admitted to eating regularly when he wasn’t in prison. “I’m a seafood person. I love lobster and crab,” he said.

  There’s a funny footnote to my coverage of the Ronald Hickey saga.

  Charles Adler was the morning show host on top-rated CJOB in Winnipeg and invited me on the air to talk about “Lobster-gate” in 2002. He liked the story he read in print and wanted to bring it to his radio audience. It was the start of a great relationship, as Charles began having me on the air as a regular guest. We also developed a strong friendship that remains to this day, and Charles played a key role in both inspiring me and assisting me in getting my own radio talk show in 2004.

  Charles also decided to give me a nickname after that initial radio appearance—something he often did with guests he was fond of. Given the subject matter, it was a no-brainer. I was quickly dubbed Lobster Boy. The nickname has stuck to this very day, to the point I never know when I’ll be hit with it.

  Exhibit A: A few years back, while running in the Manitoba Marathon, I turned a corner down a residential street, aching and tired and wondering how I was going to make it to the finish line, when a complete stranger screamed “Go Lobster Boy!” It was all the motivation I needed to keep going.

  So thanks, Charles. And thanks Ronald Hickey. I’m just glad it wasn’t crab you were smuggling into Rockwood, as I don’t think that nickname would have gone over quite as well.

  CHAPTER 7

  THE FINAL GOODBYE

  It was one of the first big cases I ever covered for the Winnipeg Free Press. It also remains, all these years later, one of the saddest.

  Bert Doerksen was the type of person you could spend an entire day just talking to, soaking in his wisdom and life experience, and still find yourself wanting to know so much more. Of course, I met Doerksen under the most tragic of circumstances. And there’s no doubt he was plenty lonely and happy for the company. And so I listened intently during what would become several lengthy visits to his Winnipeg home. They were conversations I will never forget. And the fact he trusted me to share some of his most personal thoughts and feelings at an unbelievably trying time in his life is a responsibility I didn’t take lightly.

  Doerksen’s case made national news and triggered debate on a controversial issue that still very much exists today. It was truly an honour to tell his story.

  Bert Doerksen’s handwriting is remarkably neat as he begins to describe the heart-wrenching end to his 59-year marriage inside a tidy Winnipeg bungalow. But the printing becomes sloppier, the ink less bold, as he tells exactly how the love of his life, Susan Doerksen, took her own life in November 1997 by sitting inside the couple’s Oldsmobile that Bert helped fill with carbon monoxide. The eight-page diary was penned weeks later. At first, it would only be shared with immediate family members. Eventually, it would be released to the world. It tells a story of love, loyalty and deep loss.

  A quick trip to Canadian Tire to buy some aluminum pipe. Fumbling around in the cold car to hook it to the exhaust pipe. Warming up the car so Susan would be comfortable. The short walk to the garage that seemed to last forever, arm in arm. A final plea to reconsider. A rejection. A last kiss and a hug. The sound of the ignition kicking in. And then the waiting.

  Bert, sitting in his kitchen, staring at a clock, hoping to hear the sound of a honking horn signalling Susan had changed her mind. Nothing. Only silence.

  “She never blew that horn, and I really did not expect her to. So I sat and watched the clock. After the longest 10 minutes of my life, I went to Susan,” Bert wrote in his diary. “When I opened the door to the garage, she waved me back to go away. I blew a kiss to her. She tried to blow one back but could not quite raise her hand to her mouth,” he continued. “I made no effort at this point to change her mind because I knew she was brain damaged. I waited ten more minutes and then opened the car door. There was no pulse. I kissed and hugged her for the last time.”

  Bert knew there was nothing he could do for Susan, who had long been plagued by chronic back pain and, in later years, by other serious health problems. Her ordeal was over. “I went inside and poured a straight whisky,” Bert said of the moments immediately following his wife’s death. Eventually, he called his daughter Jeny, who arrived followed by the ambulance, then the police. The paramedics wanted to work on Susan. Bert wouldn’t let them, thrusting her living will in their faces.

  Only hours earlier, Susan had been worried the pills she had swallowed weren’t working. It was noon. “All this time I still wanted to call an ambulance. The answer was still no,” Bert wrote. “Susan wanted to do something more drastic, such as slashing her wrists in the kitchen. I would not allow this, no way! No way!” he wrote. “She tried putting a plastic bag over her head but she could not do this either. By one o’clock she wanted to go into the garage and run the car. I would not let her do this either. Then, very suddenly, all her pain was gone. We hugged and cried and almost laughed.” Their joy lasted only an hour.

  “We were laying and holding hands, then the pain came back with a vengeance. Susan said to fix the exhaust, like we had once long ago talked about.” With heavy heart, Bert reluctantly went to the cold, barren garage, using a rubber hose from their Shop-Vac. It melted in the exhaust pipe.

  “I came back in and said every effort had been made and it had failed. Maybe there was a God after all and she should let me call an ambulance. But she would not hear of it. She wanted to know if I could not buy something at Canadian Tire. So after two hours of stalling, I went,” Bert wrote. He bought aluminum dryer pipe, returned home, rigged it to the exhaust and ran it through the rear window of the car.

  “I warmed the car up nice and warm, removed my key and shut it off. I went inside to Susan and begged once more not to go ahead. She asked me if it was ready. I said yes.
She asked if anything would happen to me and I said no, she was going to do everything herself,” Bert wrote. “We went arm in arm to the car. I was very careful walking down the three steps to the garage level as she had taken all these pills. Susan picked up her own car key, opened the car door, inserted the keys and started the car. We kissed and hugged once more.”

  They met in the Dirty Thirties—Bert tall and handsome, Susan elegant and charming. “By 1936 we were known as a couple,” Bert wrote in the diary. Two years later they married. Bert was conscripted into the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942, shortly after the birth of their second child. Being away from Susan and the kids was rough, but Bert had a lot of company to soothe his sorrow. But the toll of raising two children by herself was too much for Susan, who began experiencing terrible back pain stemming from an injury in her teens when she was kicked by a horse. By 1946, she was desperate to bring her husband home. Bert was given a compassionate discharge from the RCAF, returning home to Winnipeg to help with the daily grind. A third child soon followed—exactly the number Susan wanted. Bert had hoped for six, but gave up his dream as his wife’s injury persisted. “It was very hard on her back, but she carried on,” Bert wrote.

  Life was fairly unremarkable, Bert working in construction while Susan stayed home with the kids. There were good days and bad days with Susan’s back, but the bad began to outweigh the good in the 1970s after the couple was forced to evacuate an airplane in Denver by sliding down the emergency chute. “As time went by it reached the point that very often there were only partial good days,” Bert wrote. “By the 1980s she often talked about wishing to die. Then Susan got breast cancer.”

  She began radiation treatments, becoming violently ill after her 13th. She stopped wanting to go, missing two further treatments. “It took all my begging and the cancer clinic personnel to continue. She did finish all her prescribed treatments, but by this time Susan made no bones about it that she wanted to die,” wrote Bert. “By suicide if need be.”

  Susan began attending the Health Sciences Centre pain clinic, but the positive effects wore off after about four years. She would occasionally return for painkillers, but they would barely mask her agony, Bert said. “By 1997 she had taken painkillers for over 15 years,” he wrote. Susan regularly asked her doctors about having back surgery, but was told there was a 50 per cent chance of becoming wheelchair-bound, according to Bert. She wanted to risk it, but the doctors did not.

  In 1994, the couple stopped taking their regular winter trips to Phoenix, where the dry air helped ease some of her pain. “Susan still did her crafts and baking, etc., during this time and some cooking. But by three years ago [1995] I did more or less everything, such as all the housework—floors, washing, making beds and most of the cooking. Susan still looked after the flowers,” wrote Bert.

  On Christmas Eve 1996, she suffered a major heart attack and spent 16 days in hospital. “It was downhill on a fast track from here on in. She wanted to die so desperately, even if by suicide. She asked, and I promised, that I would not stand in her way if she ever made that final commitment. These were terrible times and these promises were made with tears flowing from both of us,” wrote Bert, who took over his wife’s gardening chores. Susan became bedridden by October 1997, then had one mild heart attack followed by a severe one while lying in bed one night.

  “She would not let me call an ambulance, much as I begged. She became almost unconscious and I just held her in my arms. After about half an hour she sort of stabilized,” Bert wrote. She remained in bed for days, but was adamant that she finish two baby blankets she had been working on for expectant friends. “There was a great deal of urgency in her activities. I sort of knew deep down that Susan was preparing to die,” he wrote.

  Susan never did finish the blankets, giving up her efforts and asking Bert to get her sisters to do them once she was gone. Discussions about death became frequent. “Susan requested that I do nothing rash and stay in our home for at least a year,” he wrote. “It is lonely here but it would be elsewhere as well,” he said. Rather than give them to his sisters-in-law, Bert finished Susan’s baby blankets himself.

  Bert railed at the Canadian medical system, saying people suffering chronic pain should have access to stronger painkillers such as morphine. Doctors refused to give Susan morphine because she wasn’t terminally ill.

  “On that day, Nov. 26, ended the longest day of my life. I am in a great deal of mental pain,” Bert concludes his diary. “My great comfort is that my love, wife, the children’s mother, is without pain for the first time in 53 years. Susan, Rest In Peace.”

  TUESDAY JANUARY 27, 1998

  It was a day Bert Doerksen knew was likely coming. But seeing the front-page headline—SUICIDE CHARGE A FIRST—drove home the reality of the situation. Manitoba justice officials did, in fact, want their so-called “pound of flesh.”

  Allan Fineblit, assistant deputy attorney general, confirmed that his office had authorized police to lay a criminal charge against Doerksen. It marked Manitoba’s first-ever assisted suicide case. And it was sure to spark intense debate.

  Martin Glazer, a prominent Winnipeg defence lawyer hired by the Doerksen family, came out swinging. “Mr. Doerksen is a decent, law-abiding war veteran who has never been in trouble with the law in his life,” he said. “He lost his wife of 59 years. He’s not Paul Bernardo. He’s living a nightmare.” Glazer said comparisons to another infamous Canadian case out of Saskatchewan were unfair. In that instance, Robert Latimer killed his severely disabled daughter. Latimer was ultimately charged and convicted of second-degree murder. “This woman [Susan Doerksen] had her own free will and made her own choice to die,” said Glazer. “Even the Crown isn’t saying this is a murder.”

  There was quick public reaction on both sides of the issue. Theresa Ducharme, a disabled-rights advocate in Winnipeg, applauded the move. “We must have the same rules. Just because we’re aging, is that supposed to mean you should be excused from any litigation?” Ducharme told the Winnipeg Free Press. “If I was a Crown attorney, I’d treat him like anyone else. They have to be charged to the maximum. I’m getting frustrated because increasingly we don’t know if there is a law protecting people like myself.”

  Barney Sneiderman, a law professor at the University of Manitoba, disagreed. He felt the Crown ought to have used their judicial discretion in this unique and tragic case. “It seems to me if there is ever a case not to proceed with, it’s this case,” he said.

  Fineblit said there was no question his office had plenty of sympathy for Doerksen. But he said they must follow the letter of the law—specifically section 241(b) of the Criminal Code. The assisted suicide charge carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. Doerksen would be invited to attend a city police station the following day to voluntarily turn himself in. Police would then immediately release him on a promise to appear in court. There would be no handcuffs. No confrontations. No “perp walks.”

  “This is taking its toll on him. He’s not happy, and it’s causing a lot of stress,” said Glazer. “We’ve already had one suicide here. We don’t want another.”

  WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 25, 1998

  He wanted to grieve in private, to be left alone with his thoughts and memories. But Bert Doerksen couldn’t escape the public spotlight these days, now a month after police had formally arrested him for helping his wife commit suicide. His lawyer, Martin Glazer, knew the court of public opinion seemed to be siding with his frail, elderly client. And so Glazer continued to push the envelope. Doerksen sent the Winnipeg Free Press a letter—with Glazer’s blessing—in which he lashed out at justice officials.

  In my mind, I did not assist Susan to commit suicide. She did have a right to die. Now in my agony after losing my wife, lover, companion and friend I also have to put up with the so-called law to prolong my healing like salt in a wound. We were married 59 years and were a couple 2 1/2 years prior to our marriage. Af
ter 62 years the Minister of Justice should leave me alone. It is my sincere belief that the Minister of Justice and possibly he alone is responsible for all or most of my problems.

  He advocated as much on CBC radio, which was broadcast nationwide. I have at this time pleaded not guilty. I feel I am not guilty. It is possible that this plea could change and not because of guilt.

  If I carry on it could very well bankrupt me as my means are modest. The state has endless tax dollars including mine to persecute me. I do not mean prosecute. The Minister of Justice is in charge of all this. I do not qualify for Legal Aid.

  My children have already spent thousands of dollars since Susan’s death and will spend many more if I go to trial. The family is very supportive but they have their own life to live and I do not wish to place any more burdens on them, which are already great.

  Should I be convicted, what would the state do with an 80-year-old man who is partly crippled and has other medical problems as well? The Minister of Justice would then be victorious. It would seem that just to satisfy his beliefs and ego it would at best be only a hollow victory.

  After 53 years of pain and the last year of pain beyond belief, no one or state can deprive Susan of her freedom now.

  So I say, get your pound of flesh. You can not increase my agony. You can only prolong it. The police have been outstanding and have shown nothing but kindness and compassion, as well as our neighbours, friends, etc. I am hard of hearing so forgive me to all that call.

  Doerksen then followed up on the letter by sitting down with the Free Press at his home for an exclusive interview. “I want them to leave me alone to grieve by myself, rather than have the whole world looking at me. I’m a good citizen. They’ve got no right to do this to me,” Doerksen said through tears. “It’s already a terrible thing to lose your wife. This just makes the agony worse.”