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Murder She Solved S01E06
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00:002001, North Vancouver, on Canada's west coast.
00:07Do you know how to feel for a pulse?
00:10It's hard to see if you can feel for a pulse. Do you know how?
00:13We've got the ambulance on the way. I've got several police cars on the way.
00:17A man is shot at point-blank range.
00:21I can see a river of blood coming from him down the pathway.
00:26The victim is Wally Deconich, a 41-year-old father of two, murdered in cold blood.
00:34Seven years earlier, the parking lot of a downtown Vancouver apartment building,
00:3943-year-old heroin dealer Joseph Geyser is dead.
00:44Shot in the back of the head by someone he knew.
00:49Two gruesome shootings, years apart.
00:53The circumstances and victims, very different.
00:57Together, they'll lead a rookie cold-case cop on a high-stakes journey
01:02into a deadly criminal underworld.
01:05He was cold and not ruthless.
01:08Ripping open one of the biggest murder cases in Canadian history.
01:12I'm the one that had to take responsibility for this, whether it went good or it went bad.
01:18I'm the one that had to take responsibility for this, whether it was a crime or suicide.
01:23I'm the one that had to take responsibility for this, whether it would be a crime or a crime.
01:28A quiet residential neighborhood on Vancouver's North Shore.
01:45shore, home to 41-year-old father of two, Wally Dekinich.
01:51Like many North Vancouver residents, Wally was raised here.
01:55And he will die here a lot sooner than anyone expects.
02:02Tom Cattermole was Wally's best friend.
02:05I had met Wally originally back in, I'm guessing, about 72 or 73.
02:08We played some minor hockey together.
02:11But it wasn't until Tom transferred to Wally's high school that he found out what Wally was really made of.
02:17He kind of took me around the next few days and introduced me to everybody he could think of in school.
02:22And from there, we just became really close, really good friends.
02:26And Wally Dekinich was an easy guy to like.
02:29If there was a GQ magazine for juniors, Wally would have been on the cover.
02:33He was athletic, he was handsome, he had a pretty good sense of humor.
02:37He was just the kind of guy that he always wanted to be part of that inner circle with him.
02:40And I was lucky for a few years that the inner circle was me and Wally.
02:43So it was just a terrific time and a terrific guy.
02:49After high school, Wally worked as a fisherman.
02:52Then with a young family to support, he turned his talents to the more lucrative stock market.
02:58Wally got involved in the stock promotions in a smaller level in the mid to late 1990s.
03:07And by 2000, 2001, he was promoting a couple of different Vancouver companies.
03:14And not all were wise investments.
03:17A lot of stocks in Vancouver, including those that Wally was promoting, were highly speculative.
03:23Most of them end up in oblivion.
03:25Taking a lot of people's money with them, including Wally's.
03:29It is known that he had run up substantial personal debts, including a quarter million dollar debt to a Canadian bank.
03:41Bottom line, Wally's broke.
03:44Then, one of his big investments goes belly up and he and a friend lose a lot of money.
03:50Now, Wally's desperate.
03:52That's when he discovers something that he hopes will help them both recoup some of their losses.
03:57He'd inadvertently come across some information.
04:01There was some money missing that wasn't being reported.
04:07When he found this out, he tried to get money out of the people that were responsible.
04:16And so he was saying, you should pay us some money back or I'll report this.
04:23But Wally's associates don't like being threatened.
04:28And now they've sent trouble to his front door.
04:34When these people approached Wally at his house, there was a brief meeting where they wanted him to stop what he was doing.
04:43And he said he wasn't going to.
04:47So they've decided to shut him up for good.
04:57A neighbor discovers Wally and calls 911.
05:00Do you know how to feel for a pulse?
05:02I have to see if you can feel for a pulse. Do you know how?
05:04Okay, feel carefully for like 10 seconds, see if you can feel for a pulse.
05:10I do not know. I do not know.
05:12We've got the ambulance on the way. I've got several police cars on.
05:15Okay.
05:16The killer makes his getaway.
05:20You heard footsteps running away.
05:22Yeah, but you don't know what direction.
05:24You did not hear a car taking off. Is that correct?
05:26That's right. I didn't.
05:2741-year-old Wally Deconich is dead.
05:32The father of two was shot at point blank range on the doorstep of his North Vancouver townhouse.
05:38Police don't know it yet, but the man who killed him will be the focus of another investigation.
05:45A seven-year-old unsolved homicide reopened by rookie cold case cop Lee Bergerman.
05:52Getting onto the unsolved homicide unit was a huge goal for me.
05:57Now, after 14 years as a police officer and undercover agent, Bergerman has just been promoted to this elite squad.
06:06The man who hired her is Doug Henderson.
06:09With Lee, I was quite impressed with her past record.
06:13I'd done sort of my due diligence on her and it looked like she would be a good prospect for the unsolved homicide unit.
06:22I was excited about it, but I was apprehensive because you're working with all these really experienced and significant homicide investigators and you're kind of the new kid on the block.
06:32So it was nerve wracking.
06:34Even though it was the year 2000, she was still a woman police officer coming into a very male dominated area.
06:44So she certainly was going to be under the scrutiny and the microscope of the people.
06:51And Bergerman's first cold case is a doozy.
06:55The unsettling and unsolved murder of Vancouver drug dealer Joseph Gaja.
07:00I started reading and just really wrapping my head around about what happened seven years ago.
07:07A residential street in Vancouver's West End.
07:12A passerby makes a grisly discovery.
07:23Original investigating officer Dave Aiken was one of the first on the scene.
07:28A long weekend of 93, my partner Steve Pranzel and I were called out.
07:35We found a small car parked nose in.
07:40It turned out to be a stolen car and there was a white male in the passenger, front passenger seat slumped over.
07:47Belted in, obviously dead.
07:52When we searched through the car, we found lots of interesting things.
07:56There was a couple of shell casings in the back, obviously a small caliber handgun.
08:02It's a caliber of bullet that typically doesn't exit the body.
08:07And especially with a head shot, will bounce around in the skull cavity and causing damage and is going to be fatal.
08:17There was a small amount of blood on the outside of the driver's door.
08:22But no one to whom they could match it and little chance that was going to change.
08:28We seemed to have no witnesses who were going to talk to us.
08:33Joe Gaja's side of this scenario, his girlfriend and all of his associates, none of them were willing to give us anything that we could conceivably take to court.
08:46You've done everything you think you can.
08:49You've gathered the physical evidence, you've analyzed that.
08:52You have to look at what your chances of success by carrying on.
08:56And the new ones keep coming.
08:59Aiken and Prenzel moved on to other cases and the Joseph Gaja murder got shelved in the cold case unit of British Columbia's RCMP.
09:10Now, seven years later, it's Lee Bergerman's job to drag it out of hibernation.
09:17By reading the timeline and the daily log and witness statements and I went over and over and over it again.
09:24It was just one of a rash of Vancouver murders, all with the same M.O.
09:31The quick hit, the stolen car, the lack of fingerprints and not a single witness.
09:39I thought it was professional, like a contract killing.
09:42They do surveillance on their targets, they hire a driver, they have the car stolen, so it's an organized process for them.
09:54It's only when Lee Bergerman turns her attention to the crime scene photos that she begins to think it may not have been the work of pros after all.
10:04A package of cigarettes on the floor, a lighter, he was shot sitting slumped over in the passenger seat.
10:12So to me, it looked like he was just about to light a cigarette because it was all on the floor.
10:19Whoever he got into the car with, he was somewhat comfortable, he knew them or was business associates with them.
10:28Bergerman pours through the evidence yet again.
10:31In addition to the victim's blood in the car, remember that small amount of blood on the outside of the driver's door?
10:38It belonged to someone else and contains DNA that might well lead police to the killer, but only if they have a suspect to whom they can compare it.
10:48Now, Lee Bergerman may have found one.
10:51Buried in the witness statements, the passing mention of a man who may have had reason to rub out Joseph Gaja, Mickey Smith.
11:00Word had it, Gaja knew Smith and knew Smith's wife even better.
11:06One of the witnesses had explained to us that Mickey Smith was upset at Joe Gaja because of something that Joe Gaja had done or said about Mickey Smith's wife.
11:21Though Lee Bergerman doesn't know it yet, she's on the cusp of cracking open one of the biggest and most shocking murder cases in Canadian history.
11:32What she does know is that her first cold case as lead investigator is turning out to be a brain teaser.
11:39Seven years earlier, drug dealer Joseph Gaja was shot in the back of the head, his body left in a stolen car in a downtown Vancouver garage.
11:49Though it looked like a contract killing, Bergerman believes Gaja knew his killer.
11:55Whoever he got into the car with, he was somewhat comfortable.
12:00And suspect Mickey Smith fits that bill.
12:04Not only did Smith know Joseph Gaja, he may even have had a reason to kill him since Gaja was rumored to have had an affair with Mickey's wife.
12:14Bergerman hopes DNA results from blood at the scene of the crime will link Mickey to the murder.
12:21In the meantime, she wants to talk to Smith, but first she has to find him.
12:26We started checking every single previous address that we knew for him to see if we could find him.
12:35Once that came up short, we started looking for his ex-wife, places where she had lived over the years.
12:45We set up surveillance on a residence that we knew Mickey Smith's ex-wife lived there, hoping that eventually that would see Mickey Smith either coming or going from the residence.
13:00It's a long shot lead in a case going nowhere fast, but it's Bergerman's only option.
13:08The first to keep watch, Vancouver police officer Alan Catley, armed with an up-to-date picture of Mickey Smith.
13:15There was a static surveillance where, you know, you just turn up, sit there for 20 minutes.
13:20If there's action, if there's not, there's not.
13:25Was parked in an unmarked unit at Lakewood in Hastings.
13:32And as I was looking out the front of the windshield, he walked past.
13:41They had found their prime suspect within the first 20 minutes of their first day of surveillance.
13:47When I told Lee, it was ecstatic.
13:50Nobody can pin him to an address. It was luck.
13:53And it may well be a major turning point in Bergerman's investigation since Smith is their only suspect in the Joseph Gaja murder.
14:04I was so excited because I have been looking for this guy in every conceivable way and getting discouraged.
14:12And then right away, it's making plans to set up extensive surveillance so that we can learn what kind of guy he is, what he does with his life.
14:27Police observe Smith as he hops on a bus and makes his way to Vancouver's North Shore.
14:33Little wonder it took so long to locate him.
14:36Mickey Smith had found the perfect hideout.
14:39The last place I would have looked for him was in a trailer park under the Lions Gate Bridge.
14:47For the next few weeks, police don't take their eyes off Mickey Smith.
14:52He sleeps little and drinks a lot, hopping from one bar to another.
14:57That was the style of life he enjoyed.
15:01He was dysfunctional in lots of ways.
15:04Just kind of going from day to day, picking up money wherever he could.
15:08It is hardly the profile of a murderer.
15:11Perhaps Mickey Smith is nothing more than advertised.
15:14An unassuming former insurance salesman with the unfortunate nickname, Bozo the Clown.
15:21Bergerman needs to loosen his lips.
15:24The goal is to make him feel comfortable so he will talk about his crimes.
15:30Specifically, the murder of Joe Gaggia.
15:36Her plan, to have an undercover operator befriend Smith and draw out his secrets.
15:43And she happens to know just the guy, undercover agent Rod Lazenby.
15:47Once you leave home in the morning to come to work, you are a criminal.
15:51Think like a criminal.
15:52Be a criminal.
15:53Dress like a criminal.
15:54Talk like a criminal.
15:55Lazenby will play the part of a mob boss from a fictional Toronto crime family.
16:00Dressed in an organized crime uniform, which would be a leather jacket, sports-type light, high collar shirt, nice pants, nice shoes, hairs combed back with grill cream.
16:14Bergerman has Lazenby spend time at Mickey's favorite haunts, chatting up the locals, becoming a familiar face.
16:22Now, everything hinges on their first meeting.
16:26We call it a cold approach.
16:27It's the most difficult part of an undercover operation at the very beginning of the operation.
16:33For you to be introduced by yourself to the target.
16:37If Smith smells a setup, it will derail Bergerman's investigation and put her cold case career on ice.
16:45It's nerve-wracking and it's a risky process because you've done all this work.
16:50And if you get shut down or there's no engagement, it's difficult to go back.
17:04So I walk up to him and say, hey, listen, do you know where this place is?
17:08He says, yeah, I know where it is.
17:10I say, well, can you take me there?
17:11I'll give you some money.
17:12I'll give you 50 bucks.
17:13Take me to this place.
17:15He said, no, I'm not going to get involved.
17:18Their worst fear seems to be coming true.
17:21Mickey isn't taking the bait.
17:24That's when his buddy stepped in and said, listen, take it.
17:26It's 50 bucks.
17:27This guy's a good guy.
17:29He said, okay, I'll go.
17:30He gets up.
17:33We go out to the Cadillac.
17:35And as soon as he saw that, he was intrigued.
17:48He was starting to talk about his criminal past before we even got to the other bar.
17:52He mentions to our undercover operator that he was in a book called The Canadian Connection.
18:01It was his connection to Fats Robertson, who was a significant criminal figure in Vancouver.
18:07That was to impress me, because I should know who Fats Robertson is if I'm an organized crime from Toronto.
18:12Lazenby passes the test and will spend the next few weeks building a bond with Mickey Smith.
18:20The bar is also the perfect place to get a DNA sample from Smith, one police hope will match the blood found on the car door at Joseph Geisha's murder scene.
18:31He was a drinker of beer and he was a smoker of cigarettes.
18:36He'd smoked a lot of cigarettes, whether he was in a bar or in the car.
18:40Whenever he left that area, when I was by myself, I could take one or two or three of those cigarette butts and put them in an envelope, stick in my pocket.
18:50While they wait for the DNA results, Bergerman has Lazenby offer Smith some supposed mob work,
18:56including smurfing, depositing crime money in amounts of less than $10,000 to avoid unwelcome questions from the authorities.
19:06I'd be driving the Cadillac. He'd be sitting beside me. I'd be giving him big wads of money and say,
19:11go into that Royal bank, go into that bank, go into that bank and deposit.
19:15Here's a deposit slip for you. That's going to one of our accounts. That's one of one of our companies.
19:19So that's what he did. And he thought he was laundering money.
19:22And they hope they're gaining Smith's trust.
19:26That was the thing with Mickey. He never told any lies. He never fabricated anything.
19:31The only thing I never really got at him at any time was he always talked about his boots.
19:35And I said to him, yeah, wear some shoes, man. Get rid of the boots.
19:38No, I've done a lot of things in these boots and these boots have got history with me.
19:42I'm keeping with the boots.
19:45But Smith did seem prepared to clean up his act in other ways.
19:49His self-esteem had gone up. You could tell a big difference in him and the way he dressed and the way he carried himself.
19:57Cleaned himself up. Hands were clean. Nails were clean. Hair was combed. He even got a few haircuts with him.
20:04So his demeanor was better because he was somebody.
20:07We could tell that he was believing what we were doing and it was very exciting.
20:14Lee Bergman went to a store or to a warehouse and she would buy big boxes full of cigarettes and a bunch of cases of booze.
20:24And that's what we put in the back of a rented truck and that's what we moved around.
20:27So it was all legally purchased and legally taken back.
20:31We would just put it across as being stolen property props for this scenario.
20:36Their ultimate goal is to get Mickey to feel comfortable enough to talk about the killing of Joseph Geisha.
20:46But to do that, undercover operatives can't afford to relax, not even for a moment.
20:52We couldn't make a mistake and all of a sudden start talking to him like policemen or that kind of authority.
20:58He would pick up on that.
21:00Any kind of activity that would look like a straight shooter, straight John as they say on the street, he would pick up on that.
21:06If we're criminals, we better be a criminal organization because he knows what a criminal organization is.
21:11He lived it.
21:12So that's what we had to portray.
21:14They even went as far as to stage a murder of their own.
21:20An execution of a woman who supposedly ratted the crime family out.
21:26The way it was going to work, I was sitting in the back seat of the Mercedes and I had the gun and I was going to go do this scenario.
21:34And he was in the front seat saying, no, no, boss.
21:37I should be doing that.
21:39That's below you to do.
21:41I should be doing that.
21:42And I said to him, no, I brought her into the organization.
21:46I take her out.
21:47Lazenby has Mickey stand guard while he heads into an abandoned building.
21:55He was a pretty cool cucumber.
22:04While we were supposedly whacking this girl, he was picking the fluff off his jacket.
22:10Then he'd get out in the car and I was checking my face if there was any blood spoils in my face.
22:14He said, no, boss, you're okay.
22:16But Mickey still doesn't admit to the seven-year-old killing of Joseph Gasha.
22:23And to make matters worse, the comparison of Smith's DNA to that found at the crime scene is a bust.
22:31The blood doesn't match.
22:32I mean, we'll figure out, you know, it has to be explained, but sometimes it just can't be.
22:39Um, so yeah, that was a bit of a disappointment.
22:42Perhaps Bergerman has had it wrong about Mickey all along.
22:51Lead investigator Lee Bergerman and her team have been working Mickey Smith trying to tie him to the 1993 murder of drug dealer Joseph Gasha.
23:01But after months of bonding with Smith and paying him for fake mob work, undercover cop Rod Lazenby has been unable to squeeze a confession from their only suspect.
23:13Even a staged murder of a supposed crime family snitch didn't loosen Mickey Smith's lips.
23:20Worse still, DNA found at the scene of Joe Gasha's death seven years earlier doesn't match Mickey's.
23:27Which raises the question, are police chasing the wrong guy?
23:32And now, just when they can least afford to let up on their investigation, Lee Bergerman learns that Rod Lazenby has to go out of town to testify in a whole other case.
23:43We had to make arrangements for, you know, days off where there wasn't going to be any interaction with the undercover operator and the target, Mickey.
23:55Which brings us back to the beginning of our story and Vancouver's tranquil North Shore.
24:01Father of two, Wally Deconich is settling in for an evening at home alone.
24:07The small time stock promoter is under a lot of pressure.
24:11He thinks he's uncovered a fraud, missing money that's found its way into the pockets of his business associates.
24:18Now, Deconich is threatening to expose them unless they cough up some cash.
24:23It is a calculation that will cost him dearly.
24:27Across town, a killer sets out by car for North Vancouver.
24:36His destination, Wally Deconich's home.
24:39His mission, to shut the stock promoter up forever.
24:43It is late afternoon when he arrives at the entrance to the townhouse complex.
24:53He cruises by repeatedly, waiting for it to get dark.
24:58Just after 6pm, the assassin pulls on a pair of woolen gloves and walks to Deconich's door.
25:07In his hand, a .22 caliber pistol equipped with a silencer.
25:13The
25:17While the killer makes his getaway, a neighbor discovers Wally and calls 911.
25:25You heard footsteps running away.
25:26Yeah, but you don't know what direction.
25:27You did not hear a car kicking off.
25:28Is that correct?
25:29That's right.
25:30I didn't.
25:31Do you know how to feel for a pulse?
25:32I had to see if you can feel for a pulse.
25:33Do you know how it...
25:34Okay.
25:35Feel carefully for like 10 seconds.
25:36See if you can feel for a pulse.
25:37Do you know how it...
25:38Okay.
25:39Feel carefully for like 10 seconds.
25:40See if you can feel for a pulse.
25:41I do not know.
25:42I do not know.
25:43I do not know.
25:44We've got the ambulance on the way.
25:57I've got several police cars on the way.
26:00Okay.
26:02The attending cop is an RCMP trainee who's been on the job just a month.
26:05As we pulled up to the unit, the gun is up to the police.
26:08As we pulled up to the unit, I could see a male lying in the doorway.
26:15It seemed to be half in the door, half out.
26:21I could also see what I described as a river of blood coming from him down the pathway.
26:30He wasn't moving.
26:33There was a lot of blood, but it was coming out from underneath him.
26:35So I was sort of kneeling down beside him and had him turn over onto my lap.
26:44I couldn't tell if he was breathing.
26:47I don't think he was breathing at the time, but I could feel a faint pulse.
26:51And so I began to talk to him and say, you know, help is coming.
26:56Try and hang in there.
26:58But shot four times in the chest and head, Wally Deconich doesn't stand a chance.
27:05I clearly remember that when I was holding him that his heart did stop beating because
27:10I couldn't feel a heartbeat anymore.
27:12It was very upsetting for everybody that lived there.
27:24It was very unusual.
27:27It's a beautiful place to live.
27:29It's a safe neighborhood.
27:32Someone deliberately planned and deliberately killed Wally.
27:36Just, you're Wally, yes, anyone home, no, boom, kills him.
27:42They were serious criminals.
27:45While North Vancouver police search for Deconich's killer,
27:50RCMP cold case investigators resume their sting operation into the 1993 murder of drug dealer Joseph Gatchett.
27:58And Rod Lazenby, back in his role as a mob boss, meets up again with suspect Mickey Smith.
28:04I pick him up.
28:06We get in the car.
28:07We're driving away.
28:08And he says, I took care of business while you were away, boss.
28:11And I said, what do you mean you took care of business?
28:14Well, I took care of business.
28:16And he goes like this in the car.
28:19I said, you shoot somebody?
28:20He said, yeah.
28:20I'm a little taken aback when we're talking about this.
28:27Really?
28:28Mickey Smith has proof.
28:31He showed me his thumb.
28:33Well, through his thumbnail was a hole.
28:37Lazenby has heard about the Deconich murder.
28:39Now Mickey is bragging about having committed it and giving Lazenby a play-by-play of the killing.
28:47First, he pumped a shot into Wally's chest.
28:51But Mickey tells Lazenby his victim fought back.
28:54He come at me.
28:55I grabbed a hole of him.
28:56They shoot him again.
28:56And I said, I was so excited.
28:58I shot myself through my thumb.
29:00Pissed me off so bad when I shot myself through my thumb.
29:03I shot him twice more and he was on the floor.
29:06They are details only the killer would know.
29:09And Lazenby is gobsmacked.
29:11They wanted Mickey to admit to a previous murder, not commit a fresh one.
29:16Lazenby breaks away at the first opportunity and gets word out to the RCMP.
29:24That's huge.
29:25That's massive to get information like that coming in.
29:28It was right spot on.
29:31I knew that without a shadow of a doubt in my mind, that was the guy.
29:34I felt bad.
29:38I felt terrible.
29:40What signs were there that we should have known this?
29:44Did he ever say anything, you know, that would give us an idea?
29:49But he never said a word.
29:50We had no idea that he was up to anything of any sort.
29:54There was nothing.
29:58Mickey Smith has become a serious liability.
30:02Maybe he's got more contracts.
30:04Maybe he won't ask us and more people are going to die.
30:06So we had to bring it to an end.
30:07Lee Bergerman would have been under some pressure there at that point.
30:11The pace of this investigation became very, very quick.
30:17Unable to arrest Mickey based on a casual confession, Bergerman arranges for him to travel to Toronto,
30:26where he'll meet what he thinks is the head of the crime family.
30:29But it is, in fact, an elaborate Mr. Big sting operation.
30:34What we want to do is set him up in an environment where he's talking to our undercover operator's boss.
30:41And we want details of the murder in North Phan and the Joe Gage murder.
30:50On a chilly winter afternoon, Rod Lazenby takes Mickey to the outskirts of Toronto and an empty warehouse.
31:01For the sting to be a success, Smith must not only provide more detail on the recent murder of family man Wally Deckenich,
31:10but he must also confess to the 1993 Gage killing.
31:22Bergerman and her partner watched from above.
31:25It was like an addict watching this from kind of a bird's eye view.
31:29We can't make a peep.
31:31We can't move.
31:32We can't sneeze.
31:33Nothing.
31:34And we were right above it watching this all unfold.
31:38I introduced him to them.
31:38Shake hands with the boss.
31:42He shakes hands with the boss.
31:43And we had it all wired up so that we could intercept the conversation.
31:48Mr. Big tells Mickey he's got big plans for him.
31:52Maybe he got a job for you.
31:54Can you do this?
31:55This is how much we're going to pay you.
31:57Yeah, I can do that for you.
31:58He was told by the undercover operators that this contract killing may involve women and there might be a couple of kids around.
32:08He said that he had no problems with that.
32:11So that's pretty cold.
32:13But the crime boss, who's really a police officer, tells Mickey that in order to bring him into the organization, he needs Mickey to provide details on all his crimes.
32:24If he had anything to do with the Gaggia homicide, this was going to be the time that he's going to talk about it.
32:31Smith delivers.
32:33He tells Mr. Big that he killed cold case victim Joseph Gaggia because he was rumored to be cooperating with police.
32:41He reveals that he drove the car because his accomplice couldn't drive a standard.
32:47And then Smith inadvertently called the fatal shot.
32:51He said, geez, you better watch out.
32:55Those cigarettes are going to kill you.
32:57And this was right before he was going to light a cigarette.
33:00And the who was supposed to be the driver is now in the backseat thought that was the sign to shoot him.
33:06So he did.
33:07And though it was the driver that pulled the trigger, Mickey makes it clear that he was the main man behind the killing and the cleanup.
33:17And he says, we wiped off the steering wheel and the handles and we took off.
33:21And that was the Joe Gaggia homicide.
33:24Then Mickey Smith admits to the murder of Wally Deconich.
33:29Smith had heard through his criminal contacts about a stock promoter with a mouth that was too big.
33:34And a contract to kill him that paid too little.
33:37He said, $10,000 just isn't enough anymore.
33:42And I just told him, I need $30,000 because you've got to hire a driver.
33:48You've got to do this.
33:50So it was, you know, he was talking about it like it was a contract for painting an apartment.
33:57Mickey's callous confessions are everything police had hoped for.
34:00We had him for, you know, the Gaggia homicide and now we've got him for this fresh one.
34:06Suspect Mickey Smith has been fooled by an undercover operation,
34:15confessing not only to the seven-year-old murder of drug dealer Joseph Gaggia,
34:20but also the recent killing of Vancouver stock promoter Wally Deconich.
34:24Watching the sting from the attic of the Toronto warehouse is cold case lead investigator Lee Bergerman.
34:31It was incredible.
34:33It was pretty exciting.
34:35But Mickey has more to say, and the undercover operatives who are posing as big-time criminals can hardly believe their ears.
34:45The man they've been shadowing for months is no common criminal, but a ruthless and pathological killer.
34:51A guy who murders without hesitation or remorse.
34:55Mickey Smith is a hitman.
34:57He was 19 when he committed his first killing.
35:02The year was 1969, and he'd been hired by a criminal bigwig.
35:07The target was 58-year-old mobster Lucien Mayer.
35:11Mickey attacked him in a restaurant parking lot, beat him, and slashed his throat.
35:17Five months later, he killed Jack Tadic in a Burnaby hotel room.
35:22Tadic was rumored to be a stool pigeon.
35:24Mickey stabbed him more than 40 times.
35:27Then in 1999, Paul Sollick, who was alleged to be ripping off a biker gang, goes missing.
35:35Mickey boasts about how he made him disappear.
35:38He shot him, and then he dismembered him, cut him up, and he gave graphic details about how he dismembered this guy.
35:48Five brutal executions over a span of 32 years.
35:52Who'd ever thought, when we opened up the Gaza homicide seven years after, that we would end up, you know, five months later, a guy confessing to five.
36:05If what Smith is saying is true, these murders will set in motion one of the biggest criminal prosecutions in Canadian history.
36:14The confession alone from Mickey Smith about all these murders that he talked about mean nothing unless you can corroborate it.
36:28Because a confession in an undercover scenario, the judges will tell a jury that they're inherently unreliable.
36:38Because of this whole bragging and bravado thing that these guys will do.
36:46To convict Smith, police will need the murder weapon he used to kill Wally Decanich.
36:52Mr. Big instructs him to return to Vancouver to get it.
36:56Mickey knew he was flying back to go and retrieve the gun that he used in the Decanich homicide and give them to our undercover operators so that we could dispose of them properly.
37:13After landing at the Vancouver airport, Lazenby and Smith head out by car.
37:20Unbeknownst to Mickey, they're being trailed by an arrest team.
37:26After five nerve-wracking months, the success of the entire operation hangs on what happens next.
37:35It's nightfall when the two reach their destination.
37:41They drove out to exactly where Mickey said he had the gun hidden.
37:48It was a yard-wrecking area of Langley.
37:53He went out of the car.
37:56And he walked in.
38:06He dug it up.
38:10They were wrapped in a big towel that was full of blood.
38:13Brought the gun to the car and gave it to me to get rid of.
38:18So there was the gun and the silencer.
38:20The weapon that killed Wally.
38:23The most important piece of evidence handed over to the police by the killer himself.
38:27Well, then we went from there, we're just having some conversation.
38:31Hey, let's go have a few drinks, celebrate.
38:34You're with the family now.
38:36Let's go have a few drinks.
38:37I'll buy.
38:37But this would be Mickey Smith's last taste of freedom.
38:43It's always like a big take down.
38:53Just like you'd see in the movies.
38:55The guns and all that stuff.
38:56Hit the ground, hit the ground.
38:57And it looked like they arrested all of us.
39:01And the way we went.
39:01I go my way and Mickey goes his way.
39:09Mickey was very surprised when he got arrested.
39:12He actually thought he was embarking on this incredible new criminal life.
39:20The guns he turned over tested positive as the murder weapon.
39:26And the towel wrapped around the guns was full of his blood.
39:31Which is consistent with the story about shooting himself when he did the hit.
39:37It will be enough to convict Smith of one count of murder.
39:42But Bergerman's biggest satisfaction is still to come.
39:46The first time I ever saw Mickey after he was arrested was when I went and saw him when he was in remand in Vancouver.
39:55And we got to advise him of the other four murder charges that were being laid against him.
40:03But it would be two and a half years before the investigation team would come face to face with their suspect.
40:09In one of the biggest criminal cases the Canadian courts have ever seen.
40:14The first time I got in the witness box there was eye contact and you know he's just smug and ornery is how I would describe him.
40:26When I get up and say my name is Rodney Francis Lazyny a regular member of the Royal Canadian Mono Police.
40:30He knows.
40:32And we looked at each other and he smiled and I smiled and we never had any conversation at all.
40:37Nor is he likely to, ever.
40:42On October 10th, 2003, Mickey Smith is found guilty of five counts of murder.
40:48He is sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
40:52It consumed three years of my life, that investigation.
41:01So it's pretty rewarding to have a guy like that in jail and never getting out.
41:08Mickey Smith's killing spree is over and lead investigator Lee Bergman has finally solved one of the biggest murder cases in Canadian history.
41:18Not bad for a rookie cold case cop.
41:23Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think when you got this box that had gadget and the file number on it that three years later you'd have a contract killer who's been doing it for 32 years in jail for five murders.
41:43Never.
41:43Lee Bergman was promoted to sergeant in October 2003 and became an inspector in June 2007.
41:52As for Mickey Smith, he won't become eligible for parole until the age of 78.
42:13Oh, believe me.
42:14wanted to be able to olacak a detective in school.
42:15Are you ready?
42:15He why Trump does he have a killer?
42:19No, wheatे, HP.
42:20He's mean to be 103.
42:23He wants to be 7he and 109, hayat.
42:28Have you Jungle House?
42:29Will?
42:31Dare.
42:32Yes, of course, google his.
42:33Stay, wait whom?
42:39I can see you guys.
42:40You can see you guys.
42:41Wow.
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