Mike on Crime (15 page)

Defence lawyers called another expert to detail the dangerous side effects of the types of chemicals being used on farms in the 1950s and 1960s, most of which are now banned. Dr. Donald Ecobichon—a Canadian who had taught at several universities and authored three books on toxic chemicals—said young children like Rodriguez would have been most vulnerable. “The toxicity of these chemicals weren't appreciated in their early use,” he testified. He described several possible impairments from exposure, including poor judgment, anger management and aggressive behaviour. “People can recover somewhat over time. But they're never back to normal,” said Ecobichon.

Rodriguez turned to drugs and alcohol in his mid-teens and eventually more serious crime landed him in prison for much of his adult life. After being released from prison in May 2003, he returned to Crookston to live with his mother until his arrest later that year for Sjodin's slaying.

“There were no problems at all [when he came home]. I was happy. I had someone to help me with chores around the house. I was glad he was with me,” Dolores said.

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 13, 2006

The seeds were planted early for Alfonso Rodriguez to grow into a serial sex predator and killer. Sylvia D'Angelo repeatedly wiped away tears as she described the horror of watching her little brother get molested inside a church when he was only four years old. They had been staying together in Minnesota at a summer camp for migrant children when Rodriguez had his innocence stolen by a woman who was working with the kids, she said. “I remember there was light coming through [the church] and reflecting off the Virgin Mary as he was [receiving oral sex],” said D'Angelo, who was only six years old at the time.

D'Angelo described another incident later that summer where Rodriguez sacrificed himself in order to stop a young adult man from sexually assaulting her in an outhouse on their rural farm property. “Tito would say ‘leave her alone, I will do it,'” said D'Angelo, adding the sex assaults occurred against her brother on several occasions. He also protected her when they were a bit older from a drunken caretaker who would try to attack her. “He'd try to fondle me but Alfonso wouldn't let him. He would always hide me under a pile of clothes and say I wasn't home,” she said.

Dr. Marilyn Hutchinson, a psychologist who had met extensively with Rodriguez over the past year, told jurors this sort of horrific abuse left Rodriguez confused and angry. Those emotions began to manifest themselves in various disturbing ways. Rodriguez was smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol by age nine; was one of several boys to have group sex with a 19-year-old when he was just 11; began using drugs like LSD, along with sniffing lighter fluid, paint and glue by his early teens; and started making obscene phone calls to girls when he was 14. Rodriguez was suffering from “very confused sexuality” and began having fantasies about having sex with strangers, said Hutchinson.

“He became very angry that women had the power to make him aroused. When he gets angry, he either has sexual thoughts or he explodes,” she said. “Remember, he had people who wanted sex from him when he was just a little kid.”

Hutchinson said Rodriguez continued to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder caused by his childhood experiences, which also included racial taunting from other children at school. Rodriguez recalled an incident where kids threatened to pour white paint on him because his skin colour was dark. He danced with a young white girl in the fourth grade at a school event, only to watch as the girl's mother grabbed her away and said “wash your hands because you touched him,” said Hutchinson.

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 2006

A prison official admitted Alfonso Rodriguez's unusual request to be kept in supervised care beyond his mandatory prison release date was ignored—opening the door for him to kill.

Ted Mickelson, Rodriguez's former caseworker, told jurors he had serious concerns Rodriguez posed a threat to the public in light of his three prior sex-related convictions, lack of sexual-offender counselling and the fact Rodriguez himself feared being let out into the community. “I really didn't think he would reoffend, but his history was so severe he shouldn't be released,” Mickelson testified. Rodriguez had approached him in early 2003 and asked to be sent to a treatment centre through a civil process in which he could be further detained following the expiration of his 23-year sentence in May 2003. “He was experiencing some anxiety, some concerns about being released,” said Mickelson.

Mickelson told Rodriguez that senior Minnesota justice officials had already ruled in late 2001 he wasn't a candidate to be “civilly committed”—the designation some high-risk US sex offenders receive through the courts if they are still deemed a risk to public safety. Mickelson admitted he thought Rodriguez should be detained beyond May 2003 but never voiced his concerns—or said Rodriguez was asking not to be freed—to prison officials in the hope they would take another look at his status. He also didn't make officials aware of the fact Rodriguez had also gone back on a promise he'd made to seek sex-offender programming as his release date approached.

“He wasn't interested in treatment and he refused to meet with the psychologist,” said Mickelson. Instead, Mickelson referred Rodriguez to a prison psychologist to deal with his concerns. “I couldn't argue with what they had already decided. I didn't think anything had changed to the point they'd take another look at it,” said Mickelson.

“But they didn't have this new information. Weren't there alarm bells going off in your head at this point?” asked defence lawyer Richard Ney.

Mickelson said he would have taken stronger action if Rodriguez had voiced specific thoughts about reoffending. “He never indicated to me or anyone else he had any intention to go out and hurt anybody,” he said. “If he had, I would have been on the phone right away.”

Rodriguez was granted his mandatory release that spring. And Sjodin would quickly become his next victim.

Ruth Johnson, the program director of an inmate community integration program based out of Minneapolis, testified about phone conversations she had with Rodriguez's concerned sister just months before his release.

“It was the first phone call I'd ever received from a family member saying we don't want him released from prison,” said Johnson. Sylvia D'Angelo had asked Johnson about potential halfway houses her brother could go to as opposed to being simply cut loose in the community with no conditions. “She said he really felt like he needed to be in a structured environment,” said Johnson. She told D'Angelo she wasn't aware of any such programs in the Crookston area and took no further action.

Mickelson said Rodriguez also asked him about a halfway house. “I told him he wasn't eligible,” he said.

Rosa Rodriguez also testified she was concerned—and confused—about her brother's future pending his release from prison. “I couldn't understand why someone would want to stay locked up forever,” she said.

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 20, 2006

Clutching a grainy black-and-white photo of Alfonso Rodriguez as a toddler, defence lawyer Richard Ney made a passionate final plea to jurors to show the convicted killer some mercy and spare him a death sentence.

Rodriguez was once a sweet, innocent child who wasn't given a fair shake at life because of several factors beyond his control, said Ney. “We're dealing with an individual here who wasn't starting out at an even level. This is not someone who's functioning as well as you or I. We as a society don't execute people who are striving to be good,” Ney said in his closing arguments. “You have the capacity to say ‘I can be merciful here.' Mercy is just something we would give a fellow human being who tried to be good but failed.”

Ney also echoed emotional pleadings to jurors from Rodriguez's family members. “Sure, you will be killing the man who murdered Dru Sjodin. But you'll also be putting to death that little boy who was exposed to neurotoxins, who couldn't keep up in school, who was exposed to racism and poverty, who was hungry, who was sexually abused,” said Ney. “Death here would just break one more mother's heart, just devastate one more family.”

Several Rodriguez family members burst into tears when Ney talked about the specifics of execution. “The government is asking you to put a living, breathing human being to death. And if that's what you decide today, make no mistake. That is exactly what will happen. He will be taken from his cell and strapped to a gurney,” said Ney. Ney also took aim at federal justice officials for failing to stop a killer. “The better angels in Alfonso Rodriguez cried out to the people who could stop his release and said ‘Stop.' But nothing was done. There was a system failure here,” said Ney.

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 22, 2006

The verdict was in. Alfonso Rodriguez would lose his right to live. On the third day of deliberations, jurors sentenced Rodriguez to die by lethal injection. The stunning decision was the first of its kind in North Dakota in more than a century.

“Justice has been served,” proclaimed Allan Sjodin in a tearful news conference following the long-awaited end. “For Dru's sake, this needed to happen.”

Linda Walker thanked everyone who followed the difficult case and she hopes her daughter's legacy lives on. “I know it wasn't easy for the jurors. But Dru's voice was heard today and will hopefully be resounding around the world. We won't tolerate violence against women, much less our children,” she said.

Prosecutor Drew Wrigley said Rodriguez was getting what he deserves. He also acknowledged the rarity of such a penalty. “And we hope the need doesn't arise for another 100 [years],” Wrigley said. “But as I told the jury, ours is a gentle area. The people of this region are loving people,” Wrigley said. “It is the defendant's acts of the last three decades that have brought us to this place, at this time. In the end, we believe this is justice.”

Rodriguez showed no visible reaction to the decision when it was read aloud by the court clerk shortly after 11 a.m. His mother and two sisters burst into tears. One juror was also crying, while the rest had stoic looks on their faces. Sjodin's family and friends embraced outside court. In the end, it appeared Wrigley's passionate argument that such a chilling crime cried out for the ultimate punishment was accepted.

“The jury decided this case with the care, dignity and integrity that Dru deserved,” Chris Lang said outside court. “These matters have been decided today. But don't forget Dru. Celebrate her life as long as yours. She was beautiful, she was wonderful. Keep her in your thoughts forever.”

A
lfonso Rodriguez is still alive as of the writing of this book. Like pretty every inmate condemned to death, Rodriguez is exhausting every single avenue of appeal in hopes of finding a court that might overturn his fate. His lawyers have repeatedly pushed the theory that Rodriguez is “mentally retarded” and therefore should be exempt from execution. They have lined up several medical experts to bolster their argument. They are also relying on a decision released by the US Supreme Court in the spring of 2014 that strikes down rigid intelligence tests used to determine if a prisoner has a mental disability.

Prosecutors, of course, take a much different view of Rodriguez's brain. And they have their own experts who support their position. The legal fight may drag out for a few more years, at various of levels of federal court.

Meanwhile, Dru Sjodin's legacy lives on. “Dru's law” came into effect in 2007, requiring convicted child molesters and those convicted of violent sexual offences to be listed on a national online database and face a felony charge if they don't update their current whereabouts. A memorial website, which includes additional background on the case, the legislation and detailed updates on Rodriguez, can be found at
www.drusvoice.com.

JUSTICE WASN'T SERVED

I
t was an eight-year legal odyssey unlike few others in Manitoba history. A botched police investigation. A controversial plea bargain. A damning public inquiry. An explosive criminal trial. And so much more. But it all began with a situation that is all-too-familiar— a senseless, completely preventable tragedy where alcohol is involved.

I've lost track of how many of these cases I've covered over the years, of how many tears I've watched be shed in courtrooms from grieving family members, of how many sputtering apologies I've heard from the guilty party that was behind the wheel. And yet drinking-and-driving remains an epidemic. In many ways, this case represents a perfect storm of everything that could possibly go wrong, on so many levels.

WEDNESDAY MARCH 2, 2005

The cross of yellow and purple flowers was laid gently on the median. A small group of people huddled at the intersection while police blocked off traffic. Someone began reciting the Lord's Prayer. A
Winnipeg
Free
Press
reporter stood to the side, observing the solemn ceremony.

Robert Taman stood stone-faced, his three adult children by his side. Several other family members and close friends were also present. Many were choking back tears. All of them wore the same pin on their coats, bearing the name of Mothers Against Drunk Drivers. Taman had just buried his wife, Crystal, at a service attended by more than 700 people. Crystal had been killed just a few days earlier at this very intersection, where Lagimodiere Boulevard meets the north Perimeter Highway.

“How do we go on living knowing that this could happen to any of us?” Rev. Don McIntyre had asked the congregation. “Life is not always fair.”

The pain was still raw. There were so many unanswered questions about what had occurred. Crystal had been on her way into work as a dental assistant, taking the same route she travelled all of the time. She had done nothing wrong. She was stopped at a red light in her convertible. Then along came another vehicle—a Dodge Dakota pick-up truck—with catastrophic results. It slammed into her from behind, crushing her vehicle and killing her. Crystal's two daughters drove by the scene moments later and witnessed the horrific aftermath.

Police had made an arrest. And the Taman family was stunned to learn who was behind the wheel of the vehicle which had killed Crystal. Derek Harvey-Zenk, 31, was a constable with the Winnipeg Police Service. He was off-duty at the time of the tragedy. And he was now facing several criminal charges: refusing a breathalyzer test, dangerous operation of a motor vehicle causing death and criminal negligence causing death.

“Sometimes a person is forced to step up,” Robert Taman said at the roadside service. “We want to get through this day. We will have more to say.”

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 22, 2007

The wheels of justice had been moving very slowly. And now, two-and-a-half years after a high-profile deadly crash, Manitoba justice officials had struck a plea bargain with the killer driver. It was only serving to inflame an already irate public.

Alcohol-related charges had been dropped against Derek Harvey-Zenk. In exchange, he pleaded guilty to a lesser offence of dangerous driving causing death. It was a deal that was likely going to keep him out of prison, thanks to a joint-recommendation Crown and defence lawyers made to the judge calling for a conditional sentence to be served by Harvey-Zenk in the community.

“This is so messed up. The system has let us down in a way that is so bizarre,” said Robert Taman. Justice officials—including a special Crown prosecutor hired by the province—hadn't told the family what went wrong. “We're being kept in the dark here, but we know this is as a result of the East St. Paul police. I don't know what happened here, but you start to wonder about the brotherhood that exists among police officers,” Taman said.

He said the drunk driving charges should have stuck against Harvey-Zenk unless police “put a gun to his head” in making a demand for a breathalyzer—which he refused. “They made that law so that people can't just refuse and get away with it,” Taman said. He recalled the words of the former East St. Paul police chief, Harry Bakema, who assured him: “He refused a breathalyzer, he's guilty,” following the arrest. “Had all of the evidence been shown in this case, we wouldn't be dealing with a joint-recommendation here,” Taman said. “I'm very disappointed. I believe this is a slap in the face to Crystal.”

Details of the tragedy were revealed in court for the first time. Harvey-Zenk and other officers had gone to a lounge in northwest Winnipeg following the completion of their shift the night before the crash. After the bar closed, Harvey-Zenk and his colleagues went to a fellow officer's house in East St. Paul to continue partying. Harvey-Zenk admitted to having some drinks but he denied being drunk. Harvey-Zenk was coming back to the city alone on Highway 59 about 7:10 a.m. when he failed to brake and smashed into Taman's vehicle. Taman died of massive head injuries. The crash also injured the wife of a Winnipeg police inspector who was in another vehicle.

Special prosecutor Marty Minuk, along with defence lawyer Richard Wolson, made a joint recommendation for a two-year conditional sentence. But chief provincial court Judge Ray Wyant expressed concern about the deal and reserved his verdict. He said there should be a “higher standard of conduct” from those involved in the justice system and also questioned the fact Harvey-Zenk refused a breathalyzer. Both Wolson and Minuk told the judge he must disregard that because the Crown dropped the charge, along with charges of impaired driving causing death and criminal negligence causing death.

Minuk didn't give an explanation as to why the charges were dropped. However, he said there were problems with the case that had forced it to drag out so long. Minuk admitted he also recommended an “independent investigation” be done on the East St. Paul police probe. Outside court, Wolson said he believed East St. Paul police made the breathalyzer demand on his client without evidentiary basis for it. Wolson said Harvey-Zenk may have fallen asleep just prior to the crash and added that alcohol wasn't a factor. East St. Paul police Chief Norm Carter—whom the Taman family said was the lead investigator—wouldn't comment.

Harvey-Zenk, who joined the Winnipeg Police Service in 2000, had been suspended without pay shortly after the crash. He had since resigned and moved to Brandon with his wife and son. “I've taken someone away who was so loved and cherished and for this I'm profoundly sorry,” Harvey-Zenk said in a brief statement in court.

FRIDAY AUGUST 24, 2007

They had been called incompetent, unethical and incapable of handling even the simplest of assignments. One local radio commentator compared them to the gun-toting buffoons portrayed in the popular Police Academy movies. Others had suggested they should hang up their handcuffs for good and make way for a “real” police service such as the RCMP. So it was safe to say the East St. Paul police and administration had seen better days.

“It's been a rough week,” admitted Michael Wasylin, the deputy reeve of the municipality that oversees the operations of its police service. “It seems like everyone who's ever got a parking ticket from us is now coming out of the woodwork with a complaint.”

The 10-officer East St. Paul detachment—with a history dating back to 1916—now found itself the subject of intense public scrutiny and a pending judicial review that would likely put its future on trial. Manitoba Justice Minister Dave Chomiak—citing a series of recent controversies and scandals—said the only way to “restore public confidence” was with a thorough review of the force's operations. The icing on the cake was the handling of the Derek Harvey-Zenk investigation.

“We want our residents to have the respect they should for their police department. We've implemented a number of recommendations, policy changes, all for the better,” Wasylin said. “But we want to know that our policies make sense, that the people we have in place are the right people and that our officers can be counted on.” He said the old-boy's-club mentality that dominated for years was gone, giving way to a fresh perspective.

Police Chief Norm Carter, Reeve Lawrence Morris, Chief Administrative Officer Jerome Mauws and citizen's protection committee member Gerry Jennings, a retired Mountie, were also speaking publicly.

“It's important to know that council has full confidence in Norm and his department,” Wasylin said. Wasylin, who works as a defence lawyer, said senior East St. Paul officials were confident in their message: Their police detachment had changed from two years ago. One of the biggest changes, said Wasylin, was the screening process used to hire new members. This became a major issue following an embarrassing revelation in June 2006 that one of their former members, Michael Sandham, had been arrested and charged with murdering eight Bandidos bikers in southern Ontario in April 2006.

Wasylin said what many members of the public forget was that Sandham was fired from the force in 2002 after it was learned he'd been secretly providing security for local biker events. “As soon as we found that out he was gone within a day,” Wasylin said. Still, the stench of employing a man who would eventually become a high-ranking biker and get involved in one of the worst mass killings in Canadian history lingered.

Wasylin said another troubling issue for East St. Paul was a sudden rise in Law Enforcement Review Agency complaints against its officers. “We had probably gone about 10 years with maybe one or two complaints, but all of a sudden, in a short period of time, we had like eight or nine,” he said. “That indicated to us we had a significant problem.” The complaints from members of the community largely involved excessive use of force. Several were settled out of court, a few were dropped and a couple were pending.

Wasylin and his fellow administrators were now pointing the finger of blame squarely at Harry Bakema, a former Winnipeg police officer who took over the East St. Paul detachment in 2004. Bakema was fired in February 2006 following an in-camera meeting of the municipal council. Wasylin said Bakema's actions during his short tenure as chief left them no choice. “He no longer had the confidence of his officers. He certainly didn't have the confidence of the administration,” Wasylin said.

The Harvey-Zenk controversy had been quietly brewing behind-the-scenes for nearly 30 months before it bubbled over when reaching court. Wasylin and other community members, including the present police chief, wouldn't disclose what went wrong. But they said Bakema, who was the lead investigator, failed “to follow proper investigative techniques.” “What happened here is inexcusable. For our part in that we feel sorry,” Wasylin said.

Bakema fired back later in the day through his lawyer, Hymie Weinstein. He denied any wrongdoing in the Harvey-Zenk case. Weinstein said his client spoke briefly with Harvey-Zenk at the scene of the fatal crash, observed him to be in a “state of shock” but didn't smell any alcohol. He turned Harvey-Zenk over to another East St. Paul officer and remained at the scene for the rest of the day, Weinstein said.

Bakema said he recognized Harvey-Zenk, having worked with him in the North End district of the Winnipeg Police Service prior to working in East St. Paul. However, Weinstein said his client never worked directly or socialized with Harvey-Zenk. He said suggestions from East St. Paul police and administration that Bakema was fired based on his actions in the Harvey-Zenk case were false. “That was a whole different issue,” said Weinstein, who didn't want to provide any further details. Bakema was now selling real estate.

Wasylin said it was Carter—then a sergeant in East St. Paul—who first voiced concerns about Bakema's conduct and other problems within the service. He said that alone should give the public confidence that serious changes had been made.

East St. Paul had launched a review of its police department a year ago, with retired RCMP officer Robert Tramley finding evidence of “unprofessional behaviour by officers, poor police practices and use of excessive force.” He also discovered examples of some officers downloading pornography onto police computers.

Wasylin also revealed that RCMP were called in to investigate East St. Paul police and their handling of Harvey-Zenk's case the previous year. The Mounties forwarded their finding to an independent lawyer, who ruled that no criminal charges should be laid.

MONDAY AUGUST 27, 2007

The truth was slowly beginning to emerge. And the scandal was starting to grow. Former East St. Paul Police Chief Harry Bakema was now being accused by fellow officers of ordering them in advance not to refer in their notes about Winnipeg police officer Derek Harvey-Zenk's alcohol consumption.

A justice official—speaking to the
Winnipeg Free Press
on the condition of anonymity—shed new light on the increasingly alarming situation. “[The officers] said they were told not to put anything in about the alcohol, to go light on what they saw at the scene. Harry [Bakema] told them what to put in their notes,” said the source. “It was because he [Harvey-Zenk] was a city cop.” The source said the revelation about Bakema influencing the police notes came on the eve of Harvey-Zenk's preliminary hearing in 2006 from Norm Carter, who took over as East St. Paul chief after Bakema was fired.

The retired RCMP officer who spearheaded a review of the municipal detachment following Bakema's firing was also joining the chorus, calling the controversial plea-bargain with Harvey-Zenk a “travesty.” “If there's going to be an inquiry here, [the province] should look at their own department and how they handled this case,” said Robert Tramley. He believed the case should have gone straight to trial where the truth about what happened would have come out.

The source said the revelation about Bakema influencing the police notes came on the eve of Harvey-Zenk's preliminary hearing in 2006 from Norm Carter, who took over as East St. Paul chief after Bakema was fired.