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Uncover S5: Sharmini – Searching for Justice

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

[Crickets chirping and footsteps]

VOICE 1: On March 20th…

VOICE 2: Run!

[Heavy breathing and running]

VOICE 1: ..only one movie experience this year will make you afraid to breathe.

VOICE 3: You won’t survive.

VOICE 2: We have to try.

VOICE 1: A Quiet Place: Part II. In theatres March 20th. Tickets on sale now.

[Music]

ANNOUNCER: This is a CBC podcast.

[Singing]

[Speaking alternate language]

MICHELLE SHEPHARD: This is Sharmini.

These recordings were made more than two decades ago when she was a little girl. Songs and public speeches on cassette tapes. Her mother has played them over, and over, and over again in the 20 years since she was murdered.

[Sharmini speaking alternate language]

TRANSLATOR: Hello.

I am going to talk about mothers and fathers.

A mother gives milk, sings lullabies, and sacrifices her own eating time and sleeping time to take care of the child.

A mother is like a candle. When a mother sings lullabies, she gives her child her Tamil culture and language.

Give good advice and show us the path with love.

Who else, other than a mother, could be more proud of a child's accomplishments?

We are Tamil. We respect our mothers and fathers like God.

[Sharmini speaking alternate language]

[Music]

ATUSA BULBULIAN: As immigrants all our parents ever told us was, we left everything behind for you to have a good education here. And for someone to leave their country to come here for it, to have a better life and for that to happen, like...

[Sniffles]

ATUSA: It's probably like a parent's nightmare.

COLIN BRADDOCK: I mean, we talk about justice. Well this time, unfortunately, it was never served.

MATT CRONE: The interesting thing is, especially when you're dealing with a young person, is when you talk to the parents, they describe a person for you. And you talk to the teachers they describe a person for you. When you talk to the friends, they describe a person for you. And there are three different people. But this was odd. You always got the same person with this. This is just a nice kid, hardworking, lots of fun, bright, funny, enjoyed life.

KATHEES ANANDAVEL: I remember the last time I saw my sister. I was at home by myself with her and my parents weren't there. She said I'm leaving for the job, so I walked outside the door with her and she got in and she left.

[Music]

MICHELLE: I'm Michelle Shephard, and this is Uncover: Sharmini. Chapter Six: Searching for Justice.

[Music]

MICHELLE: I've never heard Sharmini's voice before. It's hard to imagine covering any tragedy today and not finding some video or audio of the person, something posted online.

We live public lives in a way we didn't 20 years ago. When I met Sharmini's brothers, they mentioned they had their sister's voice on these cassette tapes and they kindly offered to share them.

[Sharmini singing softly]

[Music]

MICHELLE: The lobby of the Lord Elgin Hotel in Ottawa is full of high back leather chairs, grand portraits and marble floors. There's a busy Starbucks at one end, and a brightly lit restaurant at the other.

It's not the perfect spot to set up for an interview. There's a hollow echo from the floors and you can't escape the music being piped in from hidden speakers.

But it's a central place that makes the most sense to meet Dinesh and Kathees.

Do you want me to get us some coffees or something?

DINESH ANANDAVEL: There's a Starbucks right there, I can--

MICHELLE: No, no. Let me get them. I'll be right back. What do you drink?

Over the years I had stayed in touch with Sharmini's dad. We would email each other once in awhile, and I still have some of our correspondence.

Here's one from 2005.

"Hi Ms. Michelle," he wrote. "She would have been 21 years old."

"Kathees is in Carleton University, doing 2nd year doing biochemistry; Dinesh is in graphic design. We never forget you. Say hi to your family and other staff. May god bless you and long life."

When I approached Sharmini's dad about the podcast, he gave us his blessing, which I'm grateful for. I asked if the family would take part to record an interview, to tell us about Sharmini and how her death impacted their lives, but he worried a sit-down interview was too difficult, and I get that.

[Music]

MICHELLE: But after a few months, I got a text from Dinesh. He and his brother had changed their minds.

DINESH: The only thing that I really wanted to say was positives that I took out of it. That there was a lot of people that helped us. The community came together, people came together, people tried to help, and I find that generally with when bad things happen, people get together to help. So-- which is really great.

MICHELLE: Both brothers are warm and gentle, like their parents. And very close. In fact, they married sisters. They live near each other, and they see their parents all the time.

KATHEES: Yeah. I mean, you know, and the other thing like having this conversation makes me want to like go back and look at that stuff.

Look at the pictures.

MICHELLE: The brothers tell me that they've never talked about Sharmini's death in this much detail before.

KATHEES: And one of the things I like-- I've had an always kind of struggled with things like having kids and telling them that I had a sister at one point, so that's been like...it's been weird.

MICHELLE: Kathees gave his daughter, "Sharmini" as her middle name, and his four years old son is starting to ask about the girl in family photos that are all over his grandparents' house.

DINESH: A lot of the behaviour, attitude I still remember.

MICHELLE: Dinesh tells me about what he remembers about Sharmini.

DINESH: And just there's a, like a strong attitude she has. When I say attitude, not in a negative thing, but positive one would say. That's what I remember.

MICHELLE: Kathees and Sharmini were closer, and he remembers the two of them ganging up on their older brother.

KATHEES: Actually, I was just telling my son a couple of weeks ago, I was like, "Oh your uncle's a bully!"

[Laughter]

KATHEES: He would, like, take the TV remote and he would just change the channel to whatever he wanted and so we would always, like, tag team against him. I don't know. I mean, like, we were young. She was young.

She was a good sister.

MICHELLE: Both brothers have difficulty recalling that time in their lives. Dinesh was 17 when his sister disappeared.

DINESH: My biggest problem is that-- a lot of the memories. I have no idea on the details, and a lot of the things I've forgotten or lost somewhere.

MICHELLE: Kathees was even younger; 13 when he lost Sharmini. Sitting across from him now, I can still see some of that little boy. The one who I watched sitting so quietly beside his sobbing mother.

KATHEES: Yeah, definitely the same for me. It's like a complete block. I don't remember almost anything from that time. I have a couple of random, very specific memories.

MICHELLE: What, what are those that you do remember?

KATHEES: Well, I mean, I remember the last time I saw my sister. I was at home by myself with her. She said, "I'm leaving for the job”, so I walked outside the door with her.

She went to the elevators pressed the button. I stayed there talking to her, and then she told me like, reminded me to do the laundry. And I just said, like jokingly as I always do, I just say, "No, I'm not going to do it."

And then she kind of, I don't know what she said, but then she got in and she left. So, I remember that. I remember like, you know, during the time that she was missing like, every time we'd be driving somewhere, or I'd be sitting in the car, I would look outside and I'd always I imagine...

Oh, you know, what if she was, like, she was like right there, driving down the highway and you'd look outside like, oh, you know. What if she was right there and it was over, you know, that would happen over and over again. And then the worst one was when I went to school...like, I think I didn't go to school for a while.

MICHELLE: Eventually Kathees did have to go back.

KATHEES: So, at that time there was a lot of people who were collecting Pokémon cards and that was like the big thing at the time, so I had Pokémon cards. And on the first day back, like, my class had put together this binder of Pokémon cards. Yeah, that they had like all put together. And so, it was-- it was super nice. Coming home after school, that was the day that we found out for sure. That you know, she was killed, or that they had found her...and I remember just going in and, in the hallway, there was like lots of shoes.

And I remember walking in, the whole house was filled with people...

MICHELLE: It's hard not to cry as he tells this story. Such a sweet gift from his class; a moment to be happy after four months of agony.

You can picture him, hugging that binder as he comes home to show his parents, only to see a hallway full of shoes and find out that his sister's remains have been found.

KATHEES: You know, the reason she wanted to get a job is because she wanted money because we weren't well off. It also makes me think, like, well, if you were more well-off maybe you wouldn't have wanted to go get the job. And then this wouldn't have happened.

MICHELLE: And on the day that she went missing you believed that it was-- the job she was going to have been arranged by Tippett.

KATHEES: Yeah, 100%.

MICHELLE: Kathees says he was with Sharmini when Tippett would offer her a job.

KATHEES: I was so close to my sister and I knew-- I knew when she left. I knew why she was leaving. I was there with her when we used to go to, like, the swimming pool with this guy. You know, I was there. It was me and her talking to him so, I was part of those conversations of him telling her he's going to get her a job. So, like I knew exactly where she was leaving and knew exactly who she went with so that nothing else was really even remotely a question in my mind.

MICHELLE: He denies now that he ever took you guys swimming.

KATHEES: I mean, yeah. Yeah.

MICHELLE: But you were there. So, he did...

KATHEES: Yes. Totally. Yeah. 100%. I mean, I can't tell you how many times we went with him, but we definitely went. Several, several times we were with him, just the two of us and him alone.

MICHELLE: Kathees also remembers thinking something else about Tippett.

KATHEES: I guess I was young, and I believed that he was a cop, like, you know, and I think he showed us a badge at one point.

MICHELLE: This. This is the moment when the weight of the case against Tippett really hits me. Sharmini's brother was barely a teenager when she was killed, but there is no doubt in his mind that the job his sister was going to was arranged by Tippett. Tippett has always denied giving Sharmini that job. He denied it 20 years ago, and he denies it today. All he did, he told me in our 1999 interview, was to give her an application for a job at the local swimming pool.

But he never denied knowing the kids in the building, or the fact that he took Sharmini and her brother swimming. So why is he denying it now? Kathees remembers it. He was there. And I wrote about it in that article, because Tippett told me he did. Talking to her brothers about Tippett and how he led the kids in the building to believe he was a cop, reminds me of the application police found in Sharmini's bedroom, the one for the fictitious Metro Search Unit.

MATT: One of the things that we had; we had a job application that was in her possession that we believe Stanley gave her.

MICHELLE: I go back to the interviews I've had with Matt Crone, one of the lead detectives in Sharmini's case.

MATT: We can't directly connect that to him, but it was...if you looked at the writing on it and, you know, the spelling mistakes and, you know, it looked like a made up thing.

MICHELLE: Yeah, and it looked like something that someone in grade 4 had made.

[Music]

MICHELLE: There was something else Matt told us. That, at the time should have seemed more significant, but we got caught up with all the other details.

MATT: So, we gave it to the CFS...

MICHELLE: That's the Centre of Forensic Sciences.

MATT: ..and more or less said, "We don't know what we're looking for on this but here are the circumstances. Just whatever you can do, whether it's the type of paper, the type of ink, the font, whatever information that you can develop from this", and they couldn't do a lot for it. And unfortunately, what happened was they stored that and its heat-- that heat active paper, activated paper.

MICHELLE: I don't know what that is.

MATT: It's they used to use it on printers where the keys were actually heated and when they strike, it's the heat of the key that turns the paper dark. So, they stored that in a warm place and the whole thing turned black. So unfortunately, we lost all of that evidence.

[Music]

MICHELLE: Heat activated paper, or thermal paper. Historically, getting fingerprints from this type paper was difficult because of its unique chemical makeup. But, here's the sad part; in recent years, new methods have been developed which now make it possible to lift fingerprints off that type of paper. So, if the application had been preserved properly, maybe, just maybe, something could have been found.

I phoned Matt again.

That must have been obviously a mistake in how they stored it. They must have known.

MATT: Yes...that's the polite answer; yes, that would be a mistake.

MICHELLE: I reached out to the Centre of Forensic Sciences, to see if they would talk about this...

..They wouldn't.

[Music]

[Crickets chirping and footsteps]

VOICE 1: On March 20th…

VOICE 2: Run!

[Heavy breathing and running]

VOICE 1: ..only one movie experience this year will make you afraid to breathe.

VOICE 3: You won’t survive.

VOICE 2: We have to try.

VOICE 1: A Quiet Place: Part II. In theatres March 20th. Tickets on sale now.

[Music]

STACY GALLANT: Okay. My name is Stacy Gallant. I'm a detective sergeant with the Toronto Police Service.

MICHELLE: Stacey Gallant is the detective sergeant in charge of Cold Cases for the Toronto Police.

STACY: We have over 650 current cold cases in Toronto.

MICHELLE: Sharmini's is one of them. She's listed as Homicide Number 36, for the year 1999.

STACY: We don't reinvestigate cases in the cold case office. Homicides are investigated by top level investigators from start to finish. By the time it becomes a cold case that really means that everything that could have been done during the case has been done and the investigation has no more leads to follow and there's nothing left that the original investigators can do.

MICHELLE: Gallant confirms to producer Kathleen Goldhar something Matt had mentioned. That after the original 1999 investigation, the cold case squad took another look into Sharmini's murder.

KATHLEEN: We're talking about the reinvestigation in 2011. What prompted it?

[Pause]

STACY: Um, I would say...new information that came in.

KATHLEEN: Can you tell me what that is?

STACY: No. Unfortunately, between the two investigations that happened, they were unable to bring it to the point where any anyone could be arrested, or a prosecution could be mounted.

MICHELLE: Although Gallant won't talk about the new information which prompted this second investigation, we know it coincided with Tippett's dangerous offender hearing.

So, you have somebody in a homicide who's a person of interest. They don't get convicted for this crime. They go on and commit a whole bunch of other crimes that have very similar um, similar details to the one you're looking at. Can that be used to put a case forward to the Crown saying...

STACY: Similar fact evidence can be used in certain circumstances, but I don't think that in and of itself is enough to mount a prosecution against someone that's going to lead to a conviction in court.

MICHELLE: But if you were so close, with the original homicide investigation, you had so much circumstantial evidence, and now you have this, could it be enough to hypothetically tip it over?

STACY: That's not my call. That's up to the Crown's office. That's up to, you know, a judge to decide, you know if-- I think you need more than circumstantial evidence, you need more than similar fact evidence. You know, without some direct evidence it's very, very difficult to convict someone of a murder.

[Music]

[Car door slams]

MICHELLE: So, how have you been?

PAUL CULVER: Good.

MICHELLE: It's been a long time.

PAUL: Well, I retired ten years ago but I didn't really retire...

MICHELLE: Paul Culver spent many years, decades actually, prosecuting some of Canada's most infamous murder cases.

PAUL: I was employed as a Crown attorney in Toronto for 35 years, and over the course of that time I did I think 38 murder trials and everything else related to criminal law and oversaw an office of 105 assistant Crowns.

MICHELLE: We know police believe it was Tippett who killed Sharmini. But it's the Crown Attorney, Canada's prosecutor, who advises police on whether there's enough evidence to bring someone to trial. And then of course, it's up to a judge or a jury to decide if he's guilty.

PAUL: I think I told you, I had no personal involvement in this case.

MICHELLE: I walk Paul through Sharmini's case. At the time what we knew was that Sharmini disappeared. She was on her way to a job. What we know from the witnesses we've tracked down, and I describe Detective Matt Crone's theory. And the theory was whoever had offered her this job, who they believed was Stanley Tippett, had offered this as some sort of ruse...

And why Matt thinks Tippett is the one who killed her.

If you were the crown at the time, what would you say you needed that they didn't have, or having described that, do you think, I might've risked it. I might have, I might have gone for it.

PAUL: Well, the test for laying a charge is reasonable prospect of conviction. The test for finding someone guilty is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and somewhere in between, you have to weigh what are the consequences of laying the charge and taking it to the trial. So, without knowing all the details, there must have been something here that was missing.

MICHELLE: Tippett could account for his whereabouts for most of the day Sharmini disappeared, except for about two hours when he said his car overheated, and he took a break cutting lawns to let it cool.

I think the big holes in the case were that nobody saw them together that day. No one could actually place them together. And then the lack of forensic evidence, because her remains were found four months later. It was a really hot summer. It was near a coyote's den. So, there's very little that was left. Would that, those two factors alone be enough to say there's no reasonable prospect of conviction?

PAUL: They could be. Circumstantial cases are like putting a puzzle together. You have to get all the pieces and if the part in the middle is missing, then that can-- that is a problem with your proof beyond a reasonable doubt. So, in this case, I would think that there was a missing link that just made the police and the Crown at that time not want to proceed.

[Music]

MICHELLE: Beyond the possible lack of evidence, Matt Crone thinks there might be another reason why the crown was apprehensive to lay charges in 1999...

MATT: Guy Paul Morin.

[Music]

MICHELLE: Guy Paul Morin. In 1985, he was charged with the brutal killing of nine-year-old Christine Jessop. He was portrayed as her "creepy neighbour," and eventually convicted of first-degree murder. It would take 10 years before he was exonerated.

NEWSCASTER 1: Guy Paul Morin was grinning from ear to ear, celebrating his acquittal. Morin has always insisted he did not kill nine-year-old Christine Jessop, and this morning, the courts agreed with him.

MICHELLE: A public inquiry into his wrongful conviction condemned the officers and prosecutors for their "tunnel vision" and single-minded belief that Guy Paul Morin was the killer.

[Music]

MICHELLE: Christine Jessop's actual killer has never been found.

[Music]

MATT: I came onto this case fresh off of leaving the Christine Jessop re-investigation. So, all the sore points that we kind of got stuck with from Christine Jessop and Guy Paul Morin were still very fresh. So, quite frequently when we started the investigation, you know, we'd asked the team, like, is there any other explanation? Are there any other suspects? Should we be looking at an alternative theory? Should we be thinking of something else? And the responses I get were like blank looks going "What, are you stupid?"

And it was-- it was, kind of overwhelmingly, all roads lead back to Stan.

MICHELLE: So, you go through all this and now you have a case where you're worried you have perhaps the same tunnel vision and is Stanley Tippett the Guy Paul Morin. How does that impact you, or how did it impact you at the time?

MATT: Well, we knew that if we were going to put ourselves into a position where we could prosecute Stanley Tippett for this, that the evidence we had to have had to be that good, that compelling. The problems we had with that was that there was no physical evidence. It just wasn't there.

MICHELLE: You just think the threshold has been placed way too high because of that?

MATT: I think sometimes there are triable cases and I think that part of the issue is the public has a right to hear some of these cases and I understand the need to avoid wrongfully convicting people. And you know, people say, like, one of the things you used to fear when you were a cop, number one is charging the wrong person.

MICHELLE: Police did lack forensic evidence, and Sharmini told different people different things about the job she was going to on the day she disappeared. Those conflicting stories could be problematic for the Crown during a trial. And we don't know of anybody who said they saw Sharmini and Tippett together on the day she disappeared. But still, even with these holes, the investigating officers felt they had a strong enough case and brought an extensive file to prosecutors. They decided the case wasn't winnable, and whether or not Guy Paul Morin influenced that decision, we don't know. No charges were ever laid. We know that using similar fact evidence, the details from crimes that Tippett committed after Sharmini was killed, is tricky. And former Crown Attorney Paul Culver also noted that it's just generally more difficult to prosecute a cold case. Witnesses may have died, or can't be found, or could forget details.

PAUL: You have to also take into account what the practical effect would be if this person is declared a dangerous offender. If you're a dangerous offender, there's potential for you never getting out of prison. So, you'd also have to look at, you know, how much evidence still remain from earlier on what the practical effect would be of prosecuting this person.

MICHELLE: We asked the current chief crown attorney to talk us about Sharmini's case, but he declined our request.

[Music]

MICHELLE: If Stanley Tippett did kill Sharmini, does it matter if he's charged? He's off the streets, declared a dangerous offender, so there's a good chance he'll never get out of prison, never be granted parole.

KATHEES: To me, I actually--I really don't care.

MICHELLE: Sharmini's brothers are among those who believe Tippett was the killer. This is Kathees.

KATHEES: I don't care whether he gets charged, specifically, for my sister. I'm quite happy knowing he's in jail. If like, he was getting out tomorrow and this would make a difference to put him in jail, that I care more about. And I wish that he was put in jail a lot sooner because he got caught again several times let go and caught again. And so, if he could have been put in jail right away. Like, you know, that would have been what I would have wanted but today, I don't really care.

MICHELLE: Sharmini's older brother Dinesh, feels the same.

DINESH: About him being in jail or not or not? For this case? It doesn't really bother me at all. But if he got out, it would bother me a lot more. At least for any other cases as long as it is-- as long as he is not out there taking a chance on somebody else.

MICHELLE: Everyone else we talked to wanted Sharmini's killer to be held responsible in a court of law.

COLIN: To me, justice was never served for her. Honestly. That's always how I felt. This is nothing against the police or anything like that. I'm not saying they didn't do their job. I'm just saying, truthfully, it was never served.

ABI: I personally think it's important that regardless of whether he's already in or not, if there is enough to prove that he was part of this, he has to be made to pay the price.

ATUSA: Just to know that there is closure in that case. It solidifies it, and I feel like that, as a parent, I would want. I would demand that.

JODY WHITE: Matters to me. Matters to all of us. I think to you, too. I want him to be accountable. I think that when we know what happened, it helps us to move on and if we don't know what has happened, then we're stuck. And I feel stuck. And I think many of us are.

[Music]

MICHELLE: Matt Crone, who tried for so many years to build a case against Tippett, has also had a hard time letting go.

What would that-- what would that mean to you if for some reason he now gets put on trial?

MATT: When I retired, I found myself apologizing to the Anandavel family that we never we never solved this. We never resolved this issue for them. I think they deserve resolution for this which they haven't had, which nobody's given them. So that would probably mean more to me than any anything more you could do to Stanley Tippett.

[Music]

[Sharmini speaking alternate language]

[Music]

MICHELLE: We called this podcast "Sharmini," because we wanted to honour her memory. I know so much more about her today. Victims tend to be lionized in public, no matter their background. But everyone, everyone we talked to had only beautiful memories of Sharmini.

By all accounts, she really was a sweet, smart, kid. Months before we started writing this podcast, I met with Sharmini's father in Ottawa. I couldn't believe how little he had changed. He was as warm and open as he was two decades ago. I reminded him about that picture of Sharmini, the one he gave me. The one of her in the gold sari, which I kept at my desk. And I told him about Tippett, and how the article I wrote in 1999 had stuck with me. It was just such an unfinished story. He responded with his thoughts on reincarnation; that justice doesn't always come right away. I'm really happy to see that he's at peace. As much as you can be when you lose a child. I think, like Matt Crone, I just wanted to give Sharmini's family some sort of ending to this horrible chapter in their lives. Maybe...there isn't one.

[Sharmini singing]

[Music]

MICHELLE: Uncover Sharmini is written and produced by myself, Michelle Shephard and Kathleen Goldhar. Our Associate Producer is Ilina Ghosh. Our Audio Producer is Mitchell Stuart. Our Digital Producer is Judy Ziyi Gu. Chris Oke is our story editor. Our video producer is Evan Agaard. Transcripts by Rasha Shehata, Varad Mehta and Carol Park. Translations done by Kirthana Sasitharan. Our senior producer of CBC Podcasts is Tanya Springer and the Executive Producer is Arif Noorani. A special thank you to Jahanara, Shamhan Booyan and Bornomala Sayeda. Sarah Keonig, for her advice, our lawyer Danielle Stone, Cecil Fernandez, CBC's reference library, Brian Sempowski, Joe Levin, Laura Satin, Jen Knox, Magali Simard, Justine Keyserlink, Jim Rankin and Neal Hall. Thank you so much for listening to our series, Sharmini.

Just a quick heads up; we'll be back in the coming weeks with an update to our investigation. When news of our podcast spread, someone reached out to me. Someone who has never spoken publicly or to homicide detectives about this case.

JOE: I was just looking at the people crossing in front of me, you know, and I saw Sharmini, who I recognized immediately when I saw her picture on the news reports later. And I saw her and a man walking across the road. I was looking at the guy, because he caught my eye. The thing is, I gotta stress, it's not something that I saw recently and then remembered it from 20 years ago. It was something that I knew right away at the time who I'd seen, and it's the fact that she was subsequently murdered really like...something that's stuck in me to this day.

[Music]

MICHELLE: We're looking into his statement now, as are police.

Thanks again for listening.

[Music]

[Sharmini singing]

ANNOUNCER: For more CBC original podcasts, go to cbc.ca/originalpodcasts.

TRANSCRIPT: UNCOVER: SHARMINI - EP 6

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