When there is insufficient evidence or cooperation from the suspect - what’s left for authorities to try to get a conviction? The 'Mr. Big' technique is often a last resort for police to solve a murder. But the elaborate tactic to elicit confessions from suspects is under fire. The technique has become so controversial that some countries have gone as far as to ban the practice. Reporter Jayme Doll delves into a number of high profile cases and examines: how far should undercover police go to catch a killer?
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00:00This program is rated 14 plus and contains scenes of violence and mature subject matter.
00:08Viewer discretion is advised.
00:10I end up taking a little bit of anger out on my daughter.
00:17That's what happened.
00:18How's it going?
00:19Good.
00:20How are you?
00:21I'm stressed.
00:22Mr. Big comes in.
00:23He is supposedly the head of this criminal organization.
00:27In fact, he's a senior police officer.
00:30You want my help?
00:31Yes.
00:32If you want my help, I need to know what the f**k happened.
00:34It's almost always a case where there's very strong suspicion, but there just isn't the
00:38evidence to prove it.
00:39Watch out.
00:40Now is the time.
00:41Watch out for Mr. Big.
00:42Yeah, I agree 100%.
00:43They got absolutely nothing but Mr. Big.
00:44You knew this guy or no?
00:45Just told him, right?
00:46Did you?
00:47I went too far.
00:48Well, I think.
00:49Oh, well.
00:50We'll take it over with you sometime, I guess.
00:55It's effective.
00:56It can be very useful.
00:58Right there, yeah.
00:59That's where he went off.
01:00One each.
01:01However, there's a risk of wrongful convictions because of false confessions.
01:08Welcome to Crybeat, I'm Anthony Robart.
01:14When there is insufficient evidence or cooperation from a suspect, police are often left with
01:20few options.
01:21And that is when they may turn to one of their more controversial tools, the Mr. Big Sting.
01:27This is an undercover operation aimed at getting confessions.
01:30Tonight, in a special edition of Crybeat, we take you inside the world of Mr. Big and
01:37explore why this tactic continues to spark debate across the country.
01:43Here now is Jamie Dahl with the Mr. Big Playbook.
01:48911 for what city?
01:52Calgary.
01:53Do you need fire, police or ambulance?
01:54Ambulance.
01:55My daughter fell down the stairs and she's not there.
02:01She's not conscious.
02:04November the 13th, 2011, at about 7.18pm, EMS and CPS responded to a resident and on
02:15arrival found six-year-old Mika Jordan unresponsive and in full cardiac arrest.
02:22She had abdominal trauma, head trauma, she had bruising throughout her body, a severe
02:31burn on her left hand, matted hair, obviously not an injury but an interesting note.
02:37Are you making a video?
02:39I am.
02:40And she had a torn frenulum and lip and usually that's the result of a blow to the mouth.
02:46There you go.
02:47Good job.
02:48Try again.
02:50Mika was kept on life support until the next day and at approximately 1.47pm on November
02:58the 14th, and I'll never forget it, Mika passed away.
03:02The first time we got to see her was when we finally realized how serious of a situation
03:09it actually was.
03:11I was extremely shocked.
03:13As soon as we came into the hospital room and I'd seen the machines and the tubes and
03:22just all of that stuff, I just kind of made an imprint in my own mind that this is not
03:31going to end well.
03:33Mika lived half the time with her biological mother and stepfather and the other half with
03:39her biological father and stepmother, Spencer Jordan and Marie Magoon.
03:45Mika was staying with them the weekend she was rushed to hospital.
03:48Her stepmother said she fell down the stairs, but police say her bruised and battered little
03:53body told a much more sinister and horrifying story.
03:59Police can now reveal that the blunt force trauma injuries sustained by Mika were to
04:04her head and abdomen.
04:07They're not consistent with a fall down the flight of stairs.
04:10Internal injuries, blunt force injuries, third degree burns, at some point you're not even
04:17discussing abuse, you're talking about torture.
04:21Police don't believe Spencer and Marie's version of events, but they needed the evidence to
04:25prove it.
04:27Spencer was unemployed and had been for quite some time.
04:31They were relying on a number of social agencies in order to pay the bills, but there's a lot
04:39of bills outstanding.
04:40They were in financial dire straits.
04:43The couple's situation played perfectly into the new chapter undercover police were crafting
04:48for the pair.
04:50Investigators launched what has become known as a Mr. Big Sting operation, a Canadian invention
04:55created in the 90s by RCMP in BC.
05:00The police will usually engage in Mr. Big operations when they say to themselves we
05:05have a very good suspect.
05:07We believe this is the person who committed the crime, but we have done our best to be
05:12able to prove that and we simply aren't able to prove it.
05:16The police create their own fictitious criminal gang and then seduce the target into joining
05:28it.
05:29What the role of the criminal gang brings to the target, material benefits, companionship,
05:38steady work.
05:40They engage in what look like criminal activities to the suspect, although they in fact aren't.
05:47They're all mock situations and the purpose of the exercise is to get the suspect to confess
05:55to the crime that they believe he committed.
05:58The case facts dictate the approach they're going to have to this, who the target is,
06:03what the nature of the crime is and what the location that they're operating in.
06:07And so there's a basic, call it a script, but in a sense it's non-scripted because they
06:12have to be very reactive to how things unfold.
06:16It was actually on the day that Mika died that we codenamed this operation SASH, S-A-S-H,
06:25which stood for Safe and Sound in Heaven.
06:28In this case, undercover officers spent eight months whining and dining Spencer Jordan and
06:33Marie Magoon.
06:36Doing fun things like going bungee jumping and going to hockey games.
06:41The couple were willing participants, but they'd still have to come clean about their
06:45past to Mr. Big in order for him to help them.
06:49How's it going?
06:51Good, how are you?
06:53Stressed?
06:54Mr. Jordan, he is supposedly the head of this criminal organization.
06:58In fact, he's a senior police officer.
07:01And the working officers in the organization convinced the suspect that he needs to confess
07:11the crime they believe he committed to Mr. Big.
07:14Because if they share each other's crimes between them, then it means that none of them
07:20will betray the others.
07:23The psychology of human behavior is a fundamental thing to undercover operations.
07:27That's what you're doing is you're manipulating people's behavior and motivation.
07:31So it's all a manipulation game.
07:34On this day, Mr. Big told Spencer Jordan he had information the police were going to lay
07:38charges in Mika's death.
07:42They're coming to arrest you.
07:43They're going to throw your ass in jail.
07:45That's what I figured.
07:46But the subtext is, I can do something about that.
07:50I can help you out of this.
07:52And the target knows that.
07:53So they're going to be forthcoming with the details.
07:57I end up taking a little bit of anger out on my daughter.
08:02No, I didn't hit her.
08:04I more or less just pushed her.
08:05But I remember her falling back on her hard tile floors.
08:10And she smoked her head pretty good.
08:22Welcome back to Crime Beat.
08:27Six-year-old Mika Jordan is deceased.
08:30Her own father, Spencer Jordan, is a prime suspect along with his partner Marie Magoon.
08:36Well now investigators turn to a Mr. Big operation hoping to uncover the truth.
08:43We now return to Jamie Dahl with the Mr. Big playbook.
08:49I hit her.
08:50I hit her somewhere in the stomach area.
08:55And she fell over.
08:57I hit her heart.
08:58So I guess the best way to put it is I didn't hold back.
09:04Hours into the conversation, Spencer Jordan finally came clean.
09:10The absolute foundation of psychology for Mr. Big is what's called Maslow's hierarchy
09:15of needs.
09:16There's a triangle of basic human needs from the beginning as just a matter of survival
09:22then all the way up to being accepted and then finally being at the top of the totem
09:26pole.
09:27These Mr. Big things are staged on multiple layers depending upon the case facts and the
09:33vulnerability of the target, how suitable the target is.
09:37We did a second Crime Boss with Marie during that covert confession, if you will, provided
09:45more details as to the injuries that she had inflicted to Mika.
09:49That's what happened.
09:50I burnt her.
09:51Not part of it, but that's what happened.
09:54She admitted that she had put Mika in between her legs, grabbed her one hand and with a
10:02lighter with the other hand burnt the whole palm of the hand for 30 seconds.
10:06She wasn't doing as she was told and they put in Spencer and Spencer would push her,
10:14push her pretty hard.
10:15She, he was maybe there and the kitchen cabinets were here.
10:20She hit the cabinets.
10:22I was standing on top of her holding her hand and kind of more of a, getting mad and shaking.
10:32You know what I mean?
10:33Yeah.
10:34I was on the stairs with Greg because of me a couple of times and it was my fault.
10:38Did she hit her head?
10:40Oh yeah.
10:42That's Mr. Big at its finest.
10:45My impression was that they're getting more than just a confession to wrongdoing.
10:52They're getting a narrative which contains details which could be checked against the
11:01forensic evidence.
11:05A year after Mika's death, her father and stepmother were arrested.
11:09The couple was charged with first degree murder but there was no guarantee their confessions
11:13would make it into court.
11:15No guarantee of justice for Mika.
11:21A year before the case went to trial, in 2014, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled confessions
11:26obtained through Mr. Big Police Sting operations tend to produce unreliable confessions,
11:32are open to abuse and must be presumed inadmissible in court.
11:38Every time they said they committed X act, we look to the medical evidence to establish
11:44that this in fact did happen, that it's consistent with.
11:48We would look at each injury and the consolation of injuries on Mika and argue that it was
11:55corroborative evidence.
11:57That's part of it.
11:58The other part of it is establishing that the will of the suspect was not overborne
12:05to the extent that they felt that they had to confess to Mr. Big.
12:09So we look at financial inducements, we look at any kind of vulnerabilities they might have
12:15and the way that the undercover operation handled those vulnerabilities, whether they
12:21were exploited or not and how those vulnerabilities were handled.
12:25The Mr. Big evidence was admitted as being fair and truthful.
12:32They were convicted of second degree, which is intentional but not planned and premeditated.
12:38In a rare move more than five years after Mika's life was taken, the Alberta Court of Appeal
12:44upgraded the convictions from second degree to first degree murder.
12:49It's finally over.
12:51One of the best things I've ever heard in my life.
12:54It's probably one of the toughest cases that I've had to deal with.
12:59I say that on a personal level, on an emotional level and on a professional level.
13:04And the toll these Mr. Big operations can take on those involved can grow the more layered
13:09the sting is.
13:11An elaborate operation unfolded in Ontario in September of 2014.
13:16Do you require a police fire ambulance?
13:22Hello, there's a fire on Belberstone Crescent.
13:24Okay, where do you see the fire?
13:26In the garage.
13:27The visibility was still of course quite low and as we moved into the garage,
13:32we had to get very down right onto our hands and knees to get very close.
13:38That's when we determined that there actually was somebody in the garage.
13:43As we were removing the deceased, I noticed a strong odor of gasoline.
13:48Mother of two, Carmella Knight's body was found amid the rubble of her burnt out garage.
13:54The pathologist explained that there was no soot in her throat,
13:59which means that she was dead at the time of the fire.
14:02She also advised that there was blunt force trauma and also a neck compression.
14:09So she had determined and classified it as a homicide.
14:13The information we were getting from the family was there's a big problem here.
14:17They believe he's involved in the death of his wife.
14:21They're making allegations that there's quite a bit of strife going on between David and Carmella,
14:26that they were looking to get divorced.
14:28There was money issues.
14:30They believed he killed her.
14:34We kept calling her and calling her and there was no answer.
14:40So I knew.
14:43I knew that he had done something.
14:46Carmella had filed an emergency motion for an order of exclusive possession of the home
14:51and for custody of the children.
14:53And that hearing was to occur that Thursday.
14:57Fire being on the Monday, this hearing was to occur on the Thursday.
15:03Something was going on obviously, but we knew David was at the hockey arena.
15:06We knew pretty well immediately that he was not near the scene.
15:10Police believe there may have been other people potentially involved in a plot to kill Carmella.
15:16Suspects connected to David Knight, including his brother Matt and friend Graham MacDonald.
15:22At this point in the investigation, we were also considering doing an undercover operation.
15:27But police needed to be strategic when picking their target.
15:32Mr. Big operations usually focus on highly susceptible and highly vulnerable individuals.
15:39Some of them are pretty sophisticated criminals and they won't bite on it.
15:43So if you get some, like to target a full patch Hell's Angel for instance,
15:49there's no way those guys are going to bite on a Mr. Big.
15:52We had David who was obviously very knowledgeable about police,
15:57how we investigated things.
16:00We knew he wasn't going to ever talk to us again or didn't want to.
16:03We had Matt who was in Florida, so he was out of the picture completely for us.
16:07And then we had Graham.
16:09We chose him because he was so rattled by this investigation.
16:13The fact that he had misled the investigation by providing this alibi of being in Toronto
16:20when in fact there was nothing to suggest he was in Toronto.
16:24So he appeared to have some involvement.
16:26We arranged for Graham to unknowingly meet an undercover officer
16:30and the two of them became friends.
16:32It developed into a relationship with Graham helping out in certain jobs,
16:37like just real easy things to do.
16:41As the undercover officers groomed Graham MacDonald,
16:44investigators discovered surveillance footage of David Knight purchasing jerry cans of gas
16:49on two occasions on the day of the murder.
16:53But I did see two red gas canisters.
16:56David Knight is coming up to the pump, there's a passenger in the car
17:00and the passenger appeared to be Graham.
17:03We showed that photograph to the undercover officer
17:06and he felt that it was in fact Graham
17:08and also suggested that the shirt that he was wearing, he had seen that shirt before.
17:12So we now know that Graham is with Dave just prior to him leaving for hockey.
17:19We were getting little pieces of, like yeah there's a police investigation,
17:25my buddy's wife was murdered.
17:28Stuff that we already knew.
17:30We were kind of at a dead end with Graham.
17:43Welcome back.
17:44When the Mr. Big Playbook doesn't deliver the results
17:47investigators are hoping for, the operation often shifts.
17:51They adapt, they evolve and sometimes they bring in new characters to turn up the pressure.
17:57Well that is exactly what happened in the high profile investigation
18:01into the death of Carmella Knight.
18:05We now return to Jamie Dahl with the Mr. Big Playbook.
18:11The undercover starts speaking about this mentor that he has
18:17and it's an older fellow, older than the undercover officer
18:22and he called him Uncle Dan.
18:24Uncle Dan invited the men to go ice fishing.
18:28En route, they got pulled over.
18:30It was undercover officers that were portraying as police officers.
18:35The officer approached the car and through the police radio
18:39he run the police check on the driver, the undercover and Graham the passenger.
18:44The return on the radio said that Graham MacDonald
18:48was a subject in a homicide investigation.
18:51There's two techniques that go on in these.
18:54They're called stimulation, that the operators are doing something
18:57to stimulate a behavior or an action.
18:59And there's another one called heating them up.
19:01All of a sudden making them really on alert.
19:04So therefore, because the cops are heating this guy up
19:07the target is then going back and telling the story to the undercover team
19:12who he is convinced are the real gangsters.
19:15Now he needs the help of them to protect him.
19:17The help of the fictitious mobsters or gangsters to protect him.
19:21He was asking the undercover his advice as to what he should do next.
19:37All of my life, there was something I've gone through for a bit.
19:41I thought about it for a bit.
19:43Like it was planned.
19:45Yeah.
19:46How much were they going to give you?
19:48A hundred grand.
19:49A hundred grand?
19:50Who came up with the f***ing idea?
19:52Like in terms of what to do?
19:54He did for the most part.
19:56And he said, you do this for me?
19:58Cover up with a f***ing fire?
20:00No, I was the last one.
20:02Why did he want to f***ing do that?
20:04Well, apparently he was not sharing some money.
20:06The undercover then said, well,
20:08I don't know if Uncle Dan can help you or not,
20:11but he is also ice fishing,
20:13so I could maybe ask him to come over if you'd like.
20:16And Graham accepted that,
20:18and then Uncle Dan made his way to their ice hut.
20:21It's a stressful situation.
20:23No f***ing shit is stressful.
20:25Okay?
20:26You want my help?
20:27Yes.
20:28If you want my help, I need to know what the f*** happened.
20:30How much are you involved in this?
20:32To a good extent.
20:35But did you kill this bride?
20:37Because if you did, then that's the first step.
20:40We've got to fix that.
20:42Did you kill her?
20:45Are you nodding your head yes?
20:47Yes.
20:48Okay.
20:49What do you want from me?
20:50You just want this to go away?
20:52Yeah.
20:54In the final act of the play police were performing,
20:57Uncle Dan came up with a grand plan
20:59to make Graham MacDonald feel like he had a way out.
21:03And investigators found their way in.
21:06The idea was that they had a person in their friend group
21:09who was about to pass away with an illness,
21:13and that he was willing to take the fall,
21:15but Graham had to ensure that his children were taken care of,
21:19so he asked him to do a trust fund for each of his children
21:24in the amount of $10,000.
21:27That's a common Mr. Big Ploy.
21:29They have someone to take the hit instead of him.
21:41It was decided that Graham would hide in the house
21:45and await for Carm to come home from work.
21:48He spoke about David already having the gasoline there.
21:52She defended herself and she fought,
21:55and he eventually got her down onto the ground
21:58and he strangled her.
22:15It was set up that Graham should approach Dave
22:17and ask him for the money that he's owed.
22:20It was then David paid Graham $5,000 toward the murder.
22:25Graham also told him about the dying man
22:27who was willing to take the fall,
22:29but he first needed something of Carmella's.
22:33They had a further meet and Dave then gave Graham a rosary
22:37and said that it belonged to her, belonged to Carm.
22:41So as a result of him paying him and passing off this rosary
22:45and their conversations during their meet,
22:48we felt that we had enough evidence against Dave
22:52to draw him into this conspiracy.
22:54On that particular day, they were both arrested,
22:57charged with first-degree murder,
22:59conspiracy to commit murder and arson.
23:02The charges came five-and-a-half months after Carmella died.
23:06More than four years later,
23:08David Knight and Graham MacDonald
23:10were convicted of first-degree murder.
23:13For his part, David's brother Matt
23:15pled guilty to accessory after the fact
23:18and received a sentence of time served.
23:22And I just cried, you know,
23:26because I never had a doubt,
23:29but it was just like,
23:32why?
23:34Why did you do this?
23:37For what?
23:40In this case, the Mr. Big Sting helped get convictions
23:44and there are many more stories like it.
23:48You knew this guy or no?
23:50Just told her, right?
23:51Just your duty?
23:52I went too far.
23:53We were laughing.
23:54Oh, well.
23:55A little too good of an OBD sometimes, I guess.
23:57In a dark Calgary alleyway,
23:59Tyler Stura and Robert Reitmeyer
24:02randomly, without any motivation,
24:04beat a complete stranger to death in 2010.
24:08Mark Mariani was just 47 years old.
24:12The undercover operation
24:14ultimately, I think, led to
24:18the justification for why this occurred
24:20to be simply because they could.
24:23A disgusting reason.
24:25But it truly was as a result of
24:29Mark Mariani entering into the alley that night.
24:32Two men, hateful and full of rage,
24:36who had been drinking,
24:38fueled an attack against Mark
24:40that ultimately took his life.
24:43For no good reason other than they could.
24:46The killers knew of the Mr. Big technique.
25:04He didn't know it then,
25:05but at the time, Stura gave that warning,
25:07he was already deeply woven into Mr. Big's web.
25:12In March, the co-accused in this case,
25:14Tyler Stura, pled guilty to second degree murder.
25:17He was sentenced to life in prison
25:19with no chance of parole for 10 years.
25:21Reitmeyer's trial is expected to last three weeks.
25:24The jury decided that Mr. Reitmeyer
25:28was an active participant in the murder of Mr. Mariani.
25:33He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
25:37His parole ineligibility was set at 13 years.
25:42While the technique has had big wins,
25:44it also comes with some big risks.
25:47It's effective.
25:49It can be very useful.
25:52Some bad guys have been caught and convicted
25:57who would otherwise have probably gotten away with murder.
26:02No dispute on that.
26:05However, there's an aspect to it
26:08which creates a risk of wrongful convictions
26:12because of false confessions.
26:24But anger was put aside for anguish today.
26:27The congregation heard about a girl
26:29who was going to be student body president.
26:31Friends called her a bundle of energy.
26:35Small town Manitoba, shattered
26:37after a murder at a music festival in 1990.
26:41When I arrived at the scene,
26:43approximately 10.50 hours yesterday morning,
26:45the body was floating half submerged in the water there.
26:48Woodstick will be remembered as the first and last
26:51concert 60-year-old Brigitte Grenier ever attended.
26:54The terminology I was given was the asphyxiation
26:57due to strangulation and associate causes
27:00were sexual assault and blunt force to the head.
27:03After interviewing more than 300 people,
27:05late today, a break in the case,
27:07police had arrested a 19-year-old man,
27:10Kyle Wayne Unger, a former classmate
27:12and friend of the slain teen.
27:14A 17-year-old who can't be identified was also arrested.
27:17Both have been charged with first-degree murder.
27:20But the charges did not stick initially.
27:24Now, six months later, the charges against Unger are stayed.
27:28Supposedly, his teeth, teeth marks
27:32linked him to the victim,
27:34and the best experts have offered
27:37conclusive opinion that it was not his teeth.
27:42The case is not closed.
27:44In fact, the police investigation is continuing,
27:46and charges against the 17-year-old remain.
27:50According to court documents, on June 13, 1991,
27:54undercover RCMP officers staged a Mr. Big Sting
27:57where Unger believed he was being recruited
28:00to join a criminal organization involved in the illegal drug trade.
28:04Kyle Unger is as good an example of a vulnerable person
28:09being sucked into a Mr. Big operation as you can imagine.
28:13He was essentially penniless, homeless, and easy pickings.
28:20Suddenly, he's with these people who are giving him
28:24thousands of dollars and offering to give him
28:27thousands more in the future.
28:30Details in the court documents explain,
28:32on four separate occasions, Unger advised operatives
28:35he had been wrongfully imprisoned for murder.
28:38The operatives made it clear that in order to be part of the organization,
28:41they needed someone that they could trust.
28:44Kyle Unger confessed to the murder of Bridget Grenier
28:47nine days into the 10-day operation.
28:50Manitoba prosecutors managed to successfully prosecute Kyle Unger
28:56for a crime he had nothing to do with,
28:59and you only had to look at the case to realize he had nothing to do with it.
29:03The Crown also argued a hair found on the victim belonged to Unger.
29:08That, along with the undercover confession,
29:11would be enough to seal his fate.
29:14After 15 hours of deliberations,
29:16the eight-man, four-woman jury found both 20-year-old Kyle Wayne Unger
29:20and 18-year-old Timothy Lawrence Houlihan guilty of first-degree murder.
29:25Both men appealed their convictions.
29:27Houlihan was granted another trial.
29:30He died by suicide in jail before it started.
29:33Kyle Unger's appeal was dismissed.
29:37And in the early 2000s, it finally did.
29:41During a sweeping review of cases in Manitoba involving hair evidence,
29:45that DNA testing showed that hair on the victim's clothing was not Unger's.
29:51On October 23, 2009, Kyle Unger was acquitted.
29:56I'm very happy I can start my life now.
29:59I can now start my brand new life.
30:01Unger says he was pressured to confess
30:04and wants Canadians to know he did not kill his high school friend.
30:09When you're young, naive, and desperate for money,
30:12they hold a lot of promises to you.
30:16So you say and do what you have to do to survive.
30:20Since the early 90s, the Mr. Big technique has been used widely across Canada.
30:25But in 2014, a case out of Newfoundland would change the rules
30:29on how Mr. Bigs can operate and be used in court.
30:36Nelson Hart was convicted a cold-blooded child killer.
30:41Officers posing as gangsters got him to confess to drowning
30:45his three-year-old twin daughters in Newfoundland in 2002.
30:49There were no witnesses to what happened,
30:51so police recruited Hart to join a phony crime network,
30:54all part of a Mr. Big operation.
30:57Nelson Hart was poor, socially isolated,
31:02and he was subjected to an invasive Mr. Big operation that lasted four months.
31:11He came to see his membership in the gang as his ticket out of poverty.
31:17So when Mr. Big asked him why he had killed his daughters,
31:21he said the drownings were an accident.
31:24Mr. Big didn't believe him.
31:27Mr. Big accused him of lying.
31:30Hart then capitulated.
31:33He admitted killing his daughters by pushing them into the lake.
31:38Hart's first-degree murder conviction was initially overturned on appeal in 2012.
31:43The Supreme Court of Canada upheld that decision
31:45and ruled the confession he gave to undercover police posing as mobsters
31:49cannot be used against him.
31:52Hart's lawyers argued he's a social outcast
31:54who felt pressured to make a false confession.
31:57The court agreed, writing Mr. Big operations can become abusive
32:01and they can produce confessions that are unreliable and prejudicial.
32:05Until Hart was decided, Mr. Big confessions went in automatically.
32:11However unreliable they were.
32:14They changed the burden of proof to be on the crown for prosecutor
32:18to prove that they were admissible.
32:20That means they cannot be put into evidence, Mr. Big confessions,
32:25unless the prosecution can show a reliability
32:30by showing the content of the confessions
32:34reveals that the individual knows more than he would
32:41unless he had committed the crime in the first place
32:45and secondly that the confessions were not caused
32:50by improper inducements or threats of violence.
32:53Before Hart, the confession itself would be enough to get a conviction
32:59because most murder trials are jury trials.
33:03Now you need independently corroborative evidence accompanying the confession.
33:09Is it difficult since Hart even to get cases to remain inadmissible?
33:14In my view it can be far more difficult than it should be.
33:18Four years after the Supreme Court's decision on Nelson Hart,
33:22Calgary police initiated a Mr. Big sting in an effort to solve a murder case
33:27that had gone cold for 16 years.
33:30When the first responders arrived at the house,
33:33they found Terri-Ann deceased by the front door inside the house.
33:37They also found three children that were locked in the rooms in the house as well.
33:41But certainly looking at the victim, it was pretty clear that the victim had been killed.
33:58Welcome back.
33:59A young Calgary mother has been found murdered in her own home,
34:03leaving her family searching for answers and justice.
34:07As investigators work to uncover the truth,
34:10police launch a covert Mr. Big operation involving a close relative.
34:17We now return to the conclusion of the Mr. Big playbook.
34:23Terri-Ann Dauphiné was only 24 years old.
34:26The meaty mother of three had a dream of being a doctor one day,
34:30but her life was suddenly taken in late April of 2002.
34:34The autopsy later determined that the victim had been strangled
34:39and it was pretty clear that we had a homicide.
34:51I can say that there was no doubt within the homicide unit that this was our suspect
34:55and it was the only person that we were looking at at that time.
34:58In talking to the Crown Prosecutor's Office at the time,
35:01they didn't feel that there was enough evidence to charge anybody,
35:04even though we had a suspect, which was the estranged husband.
35:09So we released him without charge.
35:14In 2018, investigators concocted a Mr. Big sting, dubbed Operation Homefront.
35:21The undercover members befriended Mr. Dauphiné
35:24and in the course of befriending him,
35:28they offered him a job and took him out for some meals.
35:34Basically, it was an organization that was involved in trucking,
35:41but that they had a couple of side businesses involved with illegal gun trading
35:51and the sale of forged passports.
35:55In the presence of this undercover officer,
35:57he received a phone call from a homicide detective, again all set up,
36:01saying, listen, we're going to bring in on the murder of your wife.
36:06That's when Ken Dauphiné met the perceived leader of the criminal organization, Mr. Big.
36:13Mr. Big says to him, like, I need to know the details
36:16because I have connections with police, with judges, with prosecutors,
36:20but I need detail so that we can make sure we get you out of this,
36:25or we can move you someplace where they'll never catch up with you.
36:29It's not just lucrative paid work that gets the target's attention.
36:35They forge a personal connection with the target.
36:39They let him know that they like him, they trust him.
36:44I know it's hard to talk about tonight.
36:46Well, you know, I can only talk about so much.
36:49I hope you can appreciate that.
36:51I'm not going to lay out a confession for you.
36:54That's just bullshit all over again.
36:57That's...
37:00That's nothing.
37:01So you have zero recollection that you had anything to do with Terry's murder?
37:05Correct.
37:06Except that I feel that it's all my fault.
37:09Why do you feel it's your fault?
37:15Because I'm the head of the house.
37:17Mr. Dauphiné never made a full confession to Mr. Big,
37:22and everything that was spoken would be inferences,
37:26would have to be drawn from it.
37:28So his friend, the undercover officer, is then saying to him,
37:31okay, look, we've got to, we can't let you get arrested,
37:34we're going to move, we're going to hide you.
37:36And they're going from hotel to hotel.
37:45I think it was because I was leaving.
37:48And I think I just grabbed her and tossed her,
37:51and she went down funny.
37:55And that was...
37:58Like...
37:59Panicking.
38:01A day after that conversation,
38:03Ken Dauphiné was arrested.
38:06The Crown's theory was that at some point on the evening in question,
38:13Ken Dauphiné got angry and put the children in the bedrooms
38:19and strangled Terri-Ann and left her dead.
38:26But authorities were relying heavily on the evidence gathered in the Mr. Big sting.
38:30And before the trial could even start,
38:33a voir dire was held to determine if key evidence,
38:36including the Mr. Big sting, would be allowed.
38:40The hardest thing that he said in terms of evidence against him
38:44was that he grabbed her and that he knocked her out of the way
38:49and that she fell down funny.
38:53He then went into panic mode and he left.
38:59So, although that certainly implicates him,
39:05it's not the strongest confession by any means.
39:10Our position was that this evidence was not admissible
39:15primarily because it was unreliable,
39:18that there wasn't any corroboration support
39:21for the things that Mr. Dauphiné was saying to the undercover police officers.
39:25And so it really could have been the result of just the inducements,
39:28him wanting to stay involved with these undercovers and their gang.
39:33They can create a very credible fantasy world,
39:37and that's what they do.
39:39And this manufactured make-believe cinéma vérité
39:48is what the target is seduced into being part of.
39:52You don't get to pressure people unfairly.
39:57And that was one of the problems for the police in Mr. Dauphiné's case,
40:01that they had pressured him so that there was actually physical changes to him,
40:06personality changes over four days where they had him on the run.
40:10Nearly two decades after Terri-Anne Dauphiné was killed,
40:13the then Court of Queens bench justice, Rosemary Nation,
40:17ruled the Mr. Big operation was inadmissible.
40:20In her decision involving the Mr. Big operation,
40:23Justice Nation noted Dauphiné never gave much detail,
40:27nor did he describe what happened on the evening of Terri-Anne's death,
40:31other than a few fragments of memory.
40:34She added the totality of the interrogation led to confusing and contradictory answers
40:40against a background of the accused constantly reaffirming
40:44that he has no or limited recollection of events.
40:49She set everything out fairly,
40:51and then was actually critical of the police for the tactics they had used in this one,
40:57for them using involving the teenagers at Mr. Dauphiné's home,
41:02with no one being there and telling them dad was going to be charged with killing their mother
41:06and just sort of leaving them on their own to sort that through,
41:09however emotionally, physically it took a toll on the children.
41:14She was highly critical of that, as she should have been.
41:19With the key evidence ruled inadmissible,
41:21the prosecution decided to stay proceedings, essentially halting the court process.
41:27Some people who don't understand the justice system have trouble with it.
41:31They think, well, if it wasn't Mr. Dauphiné's, he's not guilty, then someone else had to do it.
41:36But if there is no somebody else, then it had to be Mr. Dauphiné and he should have been found guilty.
41:41But that's not how the system works.
41:43The system works this way.
41:45If someone is charged with an offense,
41:47the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the person did it.
41:54And I respect the legal system.
41:55It just personally is heartbreaking that I feel that we weren't able to give that closure to the family.
42:06From my perspective, I'm super proud of all the work that went on to get answers for Terri-Ann's family.
42:14I just want her to be remembered as a really kind person who loved her kids.
42:19I just want her kids to understand at some point in their lives that they had a wonderful mother that they didn't get a chance to enjoy.
42:26That's what it comes down to.
42:28It's more important to me than anything.
42:31Mr. Biggs remained controversial.
42:34In the United States, while there have been cases where undercovers lure terrorism suspects into criminal activity,
42:40the tool is often seen as teetering too close to coercion and entrapment.
42:45In Canada, the method to solve homicides appears to be here to stay.
42:50For now.
42:52They're certainly intrusive.
42:55Even if unsuccessful, what is the legacy to the accused person from having endured several months of state-financed deceit and a change in the trajectory of your life?
43:18I'm not a philosopher.
43:21It gives me pause.
43:23Do you think Mr. Biggs are still necessary?
43:26Absolutely, in the right circumstances when there's no other avenue and you're dealing with a very serious crime.
43:31They have to be dealt with on a big dose of common sense.
43:34I don't think they should be banned.
43:36I think they can be important investigatory tools and they can solve murders that would otherwise remain unsolved.
43:49That no confession should go in that doesn't contain information that could only be known to the perpetrator.
43:57Polarizing or not, the Mr. Biggs playbook continues to play out.
44:02Perhaps even right under our noses.
44:05One day, since in my retirement, I wandered into the middle of the Mr. Biggs thing, which I know it had written all over it.
44:15I could see what was going on.
44:17And then as I walked on the ferry, I could see where the cover team was.
44:21I made a slight eye contact with the main operative who was with the target at the time.
44:26And I gave just a slight thing like this.
44:29He knew that I made him.
44:31A cop can smell another cop, right?
44:33You know them.
44:35And he just gave me a very slight wink and carried on.
44:38You never know.
44:41Well, despite its controversial use and mixed outcomes, Canada isn't the only country using this method to solve homicides.
44:51Law enforcement agencies in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands have all adopted the technique.
45:00I'm Anthony Robart. Thank you for joining us tonight on Crime Beat.
45:05Want more episodes of Crime Beat? Listen to the Crime Beat podcast now for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find your favourite podcast.
45:16And for past episodes of Crime Beat, go to the Global TV app, visit GlobalTV.com or check out our Crime Beat YouTube page.