In the 1990’s, Dr. Charles Smith was the head of Ontario’s pediatric forensic pathology unit. Now an inquiry has described his work as bordering on the ‘bizarre’ and has called into question his testimony in dozens of cases. Pathologists from Britain and Alberta have determined that Smith made errors ranging from subtle to extreme, some …
In a rare occurrence, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office asked the courts to dismiss all charges against five men previously convicted of the rape of a female jogger in Central Park. The men, all between 14 and 16 years of age when the attack occurred in 1989, had confessed – more or less – to …
Robert Pickton may be Canada’s worst serial killer. The fifty-five year old pig-farmer faces 27 counts of first-degree murder. That number may rise as investigators continue to sift through hundreds of tones of dirt from Pickton’s farm. Pickton is suspected in the disappearance of more than 60 women, mostly drug-addicted sex-trade workers from Vancouver. The …
When we hear the term “child killer” we usually think of an adult who preys on children. This is an exception. In London, UK this month, British police arrested two girls and boy, 11 and 12 years old, on suspicion of attempting to murder a five-year-old boy. The boy, Anthony, suffered serious injuries when the …
William Mullins-Johnson was convicted of killing his four-year-old niece in 1994. There were tissue samples that may have exonerated him, but those samples went missing before they could be examined. Now they’ve been found, in the office of a Toronto pathologist, raising the specter of wrongful conviction, not just for Mullins-Johnson, but in a number …