Lynne Harper Murder

Lynne Harper was just twelve years old when she was murdered in Canada in 1959. A fourteen-year-old boy was arrested for her murder and sentenced to be hung.

The cell is lonely
The cell is cold
October is young
But the boy is old;
Too old to cringe
And too old to cry
Though young,
But never too young to die.
We’ve a national law
In the name of the queen
To hang a child
Who is just fourteen

Pierre Berton

Patrick Feller from Humble, Texas, USA / CC BY

Location

Lynne Harper was 12 yrs old and living on Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Station Clinton. Steven Truscott was 14 and lived on the same base. They were friends and classmates. 

Lynne Harper Disappears

On Tuesday, June 9, 1959, at around 7 in the evening Steven Truscott saw Lynne Harper at a park close to the school with some other kids. She asked for a ride on his bike to a spot near Highway 8. There was a house along that road that had ponies and she wanted to go and see them. He was headed that way anyway to see if any of his friends were playing down by the river. 

The went from the park down a country road towards Highway 8 passing other kids along the way. They crossed a bridge and when they arrived at Highway 8 Steven let Lynne off and turned around to go back down the lane. When he got to the bridge about 400 meters down the road he turned and saw her getting into a car.

By the next morning when Lynne Harper had not returned home her father began driving around the base looking for her and asking if anyone had seen her.  He stopped by the Truscott’s and learned that Steven had dropped Lynne off the previous day. Local law enforcement then questioned Steven late Wednesday morning. 

He told them about the vehicle that had picked her up and that he hadn’t seen her since. 

Lynne Harper’s Body is Found

On Thursday, June 11th the military organized a search party and her body was discovered in Lawson’s Bush, which they had passed on their bike ride on Tuesday. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with her blouse. By Friday evening police had picked up Steven Tuscott. An officer pulled up to him and told him to get in the car. 

The Investigation

Steven now says, when you’re 14, especially back then you look up to the police You do what they tell you. Police interrogated him for 7 hours with no lawyer. They were trying to pry a confession out of him. 

He stuck to his story about staying by the bridge and watching the other boys play in the water. Unfortunately, he got two of the boys’ names wrong. Police tried to convince him that he. could have molested Lynne but blacked out while he was doing it and that’s why he can’t remember. 

Police also requested that he be examined by a physician. The doctor found a lesion on his penis that he said: “could be caused by forced penetration of an underdeveloped female.” The next day another physician at the jailhouse examined him and stated that there was no injury, but this examination was never brought up at trial. 

Police charged him the next day. Inspector Harold Graham headed the investigation. “I was well aware of the judge’s guidelines, that it is preferable to have a parent or social worker present when you are questioning a juvenile. I was also aware that it would be an exercise in futility, so I chose to disregard those guidelines.”

The Trial

The trial started in September and lasted 2 weeks. They didn’t have much of a case besides Steven having been seen with Lynne Harper so the prosecution depended on eyewitness testimony. Police were trying to prove that he had not taken the road to the highway at all, but had turned off before going into the bush where Steven attacked her. 

A girl named Jocelyn Gaudet said that Steven had arranged a date with her and that when she had called to cancel, he must have taken Lynne Harper instead. 

There were two witnesses that indicated that they saw them crossing the bridge together which would mean that he couldn’t have attacked her in the bush. One of them had given the information to the police on the Wednesday before the body was found.  These witnesses have stuck to their stories throughout.

The police later said that he had been making it up to protect Steven and that he couldn’t possibly see the bridge from where he was in the river. Later, a police report was found showing that the police did test this scenario and were able to correctly recognize someone from that distance. 

At trial, the prosecution convinced the jury that they were part of a conspiracy to protect Steven. 

Time of Death

There was also forensic evidence brought to the trial as to the time of death. If Steven had killed Lynne Harper it would have been between 7:15 and 7:45 pm because he then went home to babysit his little sister. 

The coroner, placed time of death exactly in that window based on the stomach contents. Experts now say that stomach contents may tell you about the last meal, but it can’t give you the precise time of death. The coroner who performed the autopsy later said that he could have been right, but the evidence could have also shown a later time of death, up to 12 hours later. 

The police also said that the fact that Steven’s mother washed the pants that he was wearing that day was “proof” that there was something incriminating on the pants and that’s why she washed them. 

Steven recalled in his book Who Killed Lynne Harper?, “As the trial progressed, however, my adolescent optimism began to fade. I realized it had been a complete farce from the beginning”.

Verdict

He was found guilty and sentenced to hang on Dec. 8th. Steven recalls a morning when he woke up hearing construction going on outside and was convinced that it was a scaffold. 

Death Sentence Commuted

His hanging was postponed to the next year and in early 1960 it was commuted to life imprisonment. He was in a youth facility but was moved to Collins Bay which is known as the Gladiator School. 

He insisted on his innocence and suggested that the correctional institution could do whatever tests they wanted. Psychiatrists used truth serum and LSD to try and get him to “tell the truth”. Isabelle Labourdet wrote, “Is Steven Truscott Innocent” which was a critique of the investigation. In 1966, after public pressure, the Supreme Court reviewed his case but determined that he didn’t deserve a new trial.

Release

He was released in Oct. 1969 when he first became eligible for parole. He changed his name, moved away, and started a new life marrying his still wife, Marlene in 1970. 

The Innocence Project

In 1997 the Innocence Project CA started working the case and filed an appeal to have the conviction overturned.

They presented evidence that conflicted with the original time of death as well as the cause of the lesions that had been found on Steven. In 2007, his conviction was overturned stating it had been a miscarriage of justice. In 2008, he was awarded 6.5 million in compensation for having spent 10 years in prison and 45 years as an innocent man stigmatized as a rapist and murderer. 

Alexander Kalichuk

A dossier was found in the 1960s on a Sergeant Alexander Kalichuk. Alexander had served in both the Royal Canadian Army and the Royal Canadian Air Force. He was a troubled man that drank a lot and had committed a number of sexual offenses. 

In 1957 Alexander Kalichuk lived in a farmhouse with his wife and children about 20 minutes away from the Clinton Air Force base. Alexander had moved to another base about an hour away but would make frequent trips back to the Clinton base where Lynne and Steven were living. Three weeks before Lynne Harper’s murder he had stopped a ten-year-old girl on a country road and tried to lure her into his car by offering her girls panties. He drove away when he saw the girl’s father coming but was later arrested and charged. A week later the charge was dismissed due to a lack of evidence.

Meanwhile, earlier that same day someone on the base he was stationed at went to a superior officer to report an indecent exposure accusation.

Sexual Deviation Diagnosis

On July 2nd he was reported to be suffering from overwhelming tension, anxiety, depression, and guilt. The doctor diagnosed him with sexual deviation and anxiety reaction and he was admitted to the hospital. 

He was released and moved to another base. There are military reports showing that incidents in that location were beginning to pop up in the local papers. Police began warning families and young girls of an unknown molester prowling the area in a car. 

In the mid-1960s a military officer found a report on Kalichuk and began an investigation trying to find any links showing that Kalichuk had sold his car shortly after the Lynne Harper murder. He tried to bring the information to Harold Graham, but he said he wasn’t interested. 

Kalichuk died in 1975 after years in and out of psychiatric hospitals.

Resources

• The anniversary of Steven Truscott’s death sentence: From guilt to innocence
• Sgt. Alexander Edward Kalichuk.
• Case not closed: The enduring tragedy of the Harper – Truscott murder case – Canadian Military History
• Lynne Harper murder still affects Lawson 56 years later
• Steven Truscott

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