TRUTH AND HONOUR-Greg Marquis

host journalist and author Dan Zufanski. Good Evening, Truth and Honor explores the twenty and eleven murder of Saint John businessman Richard Oland of the prominent family that owns Moussaid Breweries will police investigation and the arrest, trial, and conviction of the victim's son, Denis Oland for second degree murder. Oland's trial would be the most publicized in New Brunswick history. What the trial judge called a family tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.

This real life murder mystery included adultery, family dysfunction, largely circumstantial evidence, allegations of police incompetence, a high powered legal defense, and a verdict that showed and shocked the community. Today, the Oland family members maintains Denis Oland's Innocence. Author Greg Marquis, a professor of Canadian history at the University of New Brunswick Saint John, leads readers through the case from the discovery of the crime to the conviction and sentencing of

the defendant. Offering multiple perspectives. Truth and Honor explores this question, was Denis Oland responsible for the death of his father? The book they were featuring this evening is Truth and Honor The Death of Richard Ohland and the Trial of Dennis Oland, with my special guest, Professor and author Greg Marquis. Welcome to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview. Greg Marquee, Hello, thank you very much.

where she works and Richard Olan does his business. Tell us who Maureen Adminson Adamson is, and tell us just what happens when she goes to the building that morning. What's her typical routine, and tell us what happens that day.

the other door was open. That normally wasn't a big deal. But when she got to the top of the stairs, the sort of inner door to the office was open, which was not usual because usually she's the first one in. And when she entered the room, she immediately smelled a terrible smell, and she noted that a lot of things were out of place, and she soon glimpsed a leg on the floor sort of under her boss's desk, and she panicked and ran downstairs for help.

You know, at that point they thought maybe if someone had a heart attack or an accident, and he soon since that no, this is a fatality. As was revealed in court later, that had a real traumatic effect on mister Chason finding that body. He seems to have suffered

from some post traumatic stress. They called nine one one within minutes, both emergency services sometimes called paramedics in Canada and the local police were in the building with two minutes, three minutes, and they soon determined that this was an individual who was dead and could not be revived.

forensic officers on the Sant John Police force. Only one was uly available, so he was They were kind of undermanned and so anyway, they they also had to deal with, you know, securing the body and and and removing the body eventually. So there was the crime scene on a second story office, but there was a front set of front stairs leading down to the fronts to the streets in the front Canterbury Street. But there was also a

back alley on a back alley door. It turned out that no one thought to write down in their notebook whether that back alley door was opened or closed, or if it was closed, was it locked or unlocked on the morning of the investigations starting. The crime scene was only photographed a bit later. So they eventually did swab for blood on the i hoping that maybe some of the perpetrator's blood was there. Because the victim was attacked with blunt force trauma, there was a lot of blood.

There were over forty injuries to his head, and so they hoped the investigators that there might be some of the attacker's blood there as well. They dusted for prints. There were simply too many prints in the office, which was a working office, to have anything distinct. But there were a few things, a few investigatory lapses for sure, in terms of things that weren't photograph, often time notes that weren't taken, gloves that were not worn, and also crime scene not being totally secure.

actually penetrated into the skull, into the brain. Others were more superficial. They're also round, thatched patterned blows to the head, which could have been made by something like a dry wall hammer or a roofer's hammer. No murder weapon was ever found. There was a lot of blood around the body, particularly the head. There were defensive wounds to his hands, which suggested that he tried to fend off the attack. It looks like he was probably sitting at his desk,

either reading or looking at his computer when attacked. His body. Depending on whose timeline you believe, his body was there either from uh six thirty in the evening until nine o'clock the next day, or that's the Crown that's his prosecutions theory. The defense theory is sometime after seven point thirty he was possibly he was attacked and anyway, the body was there for several hours, so they couldn't determine a cause of a time of death. And he had

you know, massive blows, massive blows to his head. And again one of those mysteries about this case is that no murder weapon and a surprising lack of trace blood in the other parts of the office. There were no blood detected on the stairs, on the on the door handles, on the doorframes. You know, There's a lot of blood

around the body. There's a lot of blood spatter, some of it you know, nine feet away from the body, but other than that, there was a one level a surprising lack of blood at the scene.

They had been involved for several years. It was kind of a bit of an open secret within the family. Richard still lived at home with his wife in a Ross, which is a sort of an upscale suburban community outside of Saint John, and he gone on trips with her and things like that, and people who worked in the office knew about the affair, but it was kind of a don't ask, don't tell situation. Richard Olan had been involved directly with the Moosehead Brewery. You can buy Moosehead

in the United States. It's Canada's biggest independent brewery, located here in Saint John. Its roots go back to eighteen sixty seven. It has quite a brand recognition in Canada. Anyway. Richard had sort of had a fallen out with his own father in terms of control of that company in the eighties. He sort of lost out to his brother Derek, who recently has signed over the running of the company to one of his sons. But Richard did have shares in the company and also in the eighties, and I

believe nineties. He had a very large trucking company that benefited by hauling moosehead beer to the United States and so forth, so he sort of benefited from that. He was worth about thirty five million dollars at the time of his death, and he was a fairly wealthy man. By New Brunswick's standards revolved. A lot of charities had been recognized by the government of Canada with an honor called the Order of Canada. So he's a pretty prominent victim.

gatherings and things like that. So one of the things that was stressed in those interviews was a lot of this pressure came on Dennis as the only son, and so the police were sort of given kind of a bit of a negative narrative about the father's son relationship. They also realized, or came through their own conclusion that Dennis was the last person to see the victim alive. Is Dennis, you know, admitted going to see his father

the evening of the crime. Dennis also something that the police dug into a bit and it was certainly important in the later investigation. Dennis had been advanced money from his father. Dennis was an investment advisor, sort of a stockbroker. His income was up and down. He was trying to live an upper middle class lifestyle, living in his grandparents' house, which he had purchased with his former first wife, but

his income was not always great. He was having some cash flow problems in twenty eleven, and the police determined that that may have been a factor in the crime.

pleasant conversation. But she also testified that Dennis was not in the habit of visiting his father that often, at least at his place of work. And although Dennis did act as a bit of a financial advisor, you know, making investments for his father. Sometimes Dennis dropped by. He had a carrying a bag with him, a reasonable shopping bag, and she mentioned to him Richard was happy to see his son. Richard had just returned from a trip and what they were going to talk about was family history.

So you know, Maureene within ten minutes of Dennis getting there, kind of did her closed down routine, you know, shutting off computers, walking the back door, things like that, and then she left the two men chatting, presumably about family history, which one thing the two men could talk on without quarreling apparently was genealogy, and she thought that things were

going well. She she mentioned to Dennis that there was a log book, which it was basically a log like an entry log from a family camp that had been I think on the mother's side of the family nearby on an island in the Kenneba Cases River, very beautiful river uh in the area, and over the years, different visitors had signed their name in that camp log, and Richard had borrowed that from another family member to scan it, and he was a little late getting getting it back.

So missus Olin, Richard's wife, had asked Uh Maureen to put her aside, and so Marine asked Dennis when he showed up, well, can you could you take this this this this family log book please and give it to your mother, and so you know that the logbook also had a role to play in the forensic evidence as it turned out.

of the accused as well. It would be the only real direct forensic evidence that, according to the prosecution, you know, place Dennis Owen at the crime scene in terms of blood in DNA.

from his wife, and then he drove home. But on the way home he stopped at a wharf on on that Kenne of Cases River. And so once the police heard that, for example, they dispatched an officer that night. This is an hour into Dennis's interview. They sent an officer out just to do a quick sweep visual sweep of that wharf area. Later they would return with divers and search dog team and things like that. They also did,

you know, routine things they ran his uh. They ran his name through the vehicle identification a system to get you know, the registration and plate of his car in case they could pick up any uh, visuals of a vehicle, you know, through cameras on the street. Uh. They also checked to see if he had a criminal record, you know, standard investigation, you know. So it wasn't that he was considered a suspect that early, but they were doing some

routine things to check on him. And if you watch, you can watch that in the interview, it was all voluntary. You can watch that interview on YouTube. It's it's been posted there. But it was about a five hour interview where he came in at first to so of talked to the police about his father, see if he can come up with any people who might want to harm him and things like that, tell us about the victim. And about two and a half hours into the interview,

it's clearly moving into more of an interrogation. The police investigators have determined that Dennis is a suspect and they give him a caution. They give him a caution. He has through the course of the evening he is allowed He's given two calls to his lawyer, actually wasn't a criminal lawyer, but a lawyer who advised him not to speak later, So for the second half of the interrogation he doesn't. He exercises his right to silence and they let him go. He's not you know, he's not charge

of anything. One of the tactical mistakes the police made was not asking if they could have his shoes and clothing, because he claimed in an interview to have worn the same shoes and the same pants the day before. He also spoke about the jocket. We can talk about that later. The other thing that shows that he was a suspect by eleven o'clock that evening. This is the same day the body has found is that they put a tail

on him. They put him under surveillance for the next week, although we didn't really hear anything in court about that surveillance in detail.

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for judge to sign off. So they executed the search warrant a week after the murder on the residence of Dennis Old and a large team of officers. In his in the master bedroom, they found a dry they found and you know, the jacket. By this time they knew from video surveillance that he had been He had been wearing a brown jacket the day of the day of the visit to his father, where when he talked to the police the next next evening he claimed he had He insisted he had been wearing a blue blazer, so

that came up at trial as a possible lie. But so the police had jackets on their mind, and this man was a professional. He had a large number of jackets and dress shirts and things like that in his closet. So when they when they the only thing of note that they found uh in his in the master bedroom was a brown jacket and a dry cleaning bag with

a dry cleaning tag on it. They also found on the dresser, the corresponding tag and the sales slip, and it showed that the jacket had been taken to a dry cleaner in ross and New Brunswick, the community where the old Ones live, around nine o'clock the morning after the police interrogation that last that went to eleven pm.

So that you know, looks suspicious to investigators. So they seized that jacket and they sent it away to the crime lab in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which is a nearby province, And the crime lab was run by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and they did a series of tests on that jacket looking for forensic traces. And what did they find. They didn't really confirm to twenty and twelve that they found four specs of blood on the jacket. And I

don't always obvious places. I forget the exact places it might have been, like, you know, inside the cuffs on the lower back, that type of thing with very minute traces of of DNA in the DNA matched that of the victims, Richard Owens. So the prosecutors, however, still waited about a year before they pressed charges, so they were being you know, and the public was quite concerned. You know how come and arrest hasn't been made. We're now into twenty twelve, were now into twenty thirteen, but the

prosecutors wanted to make very sure. In New Brunswick we have a policy where all prosecutions are cleared higher up the food chain, so to speak. If there's a good if there's if there's a good chance that you're not going to get a conviction, they will not prosecute. So, you know, they had to kind of sign off on that. So they so this was the key forensic evidence DNA evidence that was used in the in the subsequent prosecution.

uh And. But that trust could be dipped into. One of the little ironies is at Denis ol And was one of the trustees who helped manage that trust. He was also a co executor of his father's estate. So when missus Owen passes away, and she seems to be very healthy and very nice lady, then the will determines well, the dictates that the surviving children, Dennis and his two

sisters would each inherit an equal share. Unless we have this long Canada, I think, unless he's convicted of murder of the dead man and in which I don't think he could inherit that share. But anyway, so we don't know, but certainly a very high profile legal team by New Brunswick standards, I mean, New Brunswick is a small province. It's located next to Maine. The state of Maine is very similar, you know, kind of rural, you know, population,

small cities, that type of thing. So the typical trial here, it does not involved that sort of high profile legal team, you know. You know mister Allen Gold, one of the top criminal defense lawyers in Canada who's based out of Toronto, and for the second trial, Michael Wacey, another slightly younger but another very prominent and very skilled defense attorney. And outwardly the family was very supportive issuing statements to the media.

Sometimes the lawyers would issue press releases. I mean, this is very very rare for Canada, where things tend to be a bit more on the British side of things, we're very understated. You know, prosecutors do not give interviews to the press, the issue very terse statements and everything is supposed to be sort of understated. And so we had a little here was a little bit more, a bit of a pub a bit of a pr war as well. I guess you could say.

And at some point in the in the early evening, before and before nine, they heard thumping from upstairs, and it came from the general area of Richard Olan's office, not only his office but his desk area. And of course Ainsworth knew the building because he had owned it since the eighties. Shaw was a little less familiar, but so they both but they didn't think it was important enough to go check out, you know, And then he went back to work. Another man looked at his watch,

were at a clock. But they both told police and later in court that it happened sometime before eight o'clock that night, because at eight o'clock a young gentleman came in and asked if they would send a fact for him. Shaw was fairly certain that the thumping was took place between seven thirty and eight, maybe even more like seven forty five to eight. Ainsworth at first said that to the police, but then and then he said, well, you know, I'm a little less certain. I think it's some sometime

between six and eight. So the significance of that is that the timeline is important because cameras and other evidence clearly shows that Dennis Olin is not in the office or in Saint John at seven thirty or eight forty five. He's he's been home since seven o'clock or so, and he's been captured on store cameras, you know, seven twenty five, seven thirty, you know, twelve twelve miles away in that Rossy area. So that that, in a sense, the testimony of Shaw is sort of an alibi for Denis Olin

being involved in the crime. On the other hand, Ainsworth, it also works that Ainsworth says, you know, it could have been up to eight, but he also pushes it earlier, you know, six o'clock, and he's a little less certain, so he was That difference in those two witnesses was I think a very big factor in the first trial. Second trial it's a factor too, but it's more complicated.

Olin's son. And the reason why that media outlets we're going to court and asking judges to release certain aspects from the information to obtain documents that were used to get the search warrants, because there are other warrants as well that we're used here to seize computer equipments and things like that. So the argument being that once a warrant is served, then the information behind that warrant becomes

public property. So normally this doesn't happen, people don't really care, but in this case, it was kind of a celebrity family, right, so we kind of knew things. You know. For example, the victim was the victim had lent five hundred thousand dollars to the suspect the victim. The suspect was the last known person to see the victim alive. So it's kind of like I call it, almost like illegal strip tease that over the months, more and more details were

revealed without naming names, and finally you know it's the sun. Well, there's only one son. So he's charged with second degree murder because there is no proof of premeditation. In Canada, we don't have capital punishment anymore, so first degree murder. If you're convicted of first degree murder, it's a minimum of twenty five years in penitentiary before you can be considered for parole. Second degree murder, I think the minimum is ten years in prison before parole, but it can

go up to twenty five case by case. So he was charged with second degree murder, so it was convicted. He's facing a minimum of ten years. He's a man in his forties at the time. One of the little interesting anomalies or weird things about the case is that first degree murder would have to be built on pre meditation, planning and that type of thing. But you know, the victim was killed with a weapon. The weapon was never found. It was deemed it was speculated to be a hammer

or a hatch or something like that. Those types of tools or weapons are not normally laying around in investment offices. So you know, if someone had to bring that weapon, the killer had to bring that weapon into the office, that implies premeditation. Right. So again, but the best the prosecution can do was was second degree charge. Right.

really held against you? In the mail hearing, but there had been uh uh, there had been a kind of a pattern New Brunswick that you know, they didn't didn't think that an accused murderer, even though they had no prior chrominal record ever been released on bail, right, so uh and so so he you know, but he but he was released. Sorry I'm getting I'm geting ahead of myself a person who had been convicted but who was

appealing their sentence. I got ahead of myself there. So basically he had he had a clean record, he was he was he was released on bail. Uh, we can't you know, I wasn't at the bail hearing and the and the mail. The judge who presided over the bail here hearing will not release the transcript. So I would have loved to have known him. Because this was all under a publication ban, everything prior to the actual trial.

It probably works similar in the United States. Everything prior to the actual trial was under a publication ban, so so it wouldn't so nothing could leak out to prejudice the the defense. Right. So, but yeah, he was relucent bil but he had a surrenderous passport and he couldn't leave the country. But he was free to live, he

was free to work. Ironically, as I point out in my book, one of the places he worked at was as a director of one or more of his father's companies, and so he you know, for a while he was going in and we don't know how long it lasted, but he was going in to the to the murder scene and right into the small office where his father had been brutally murdered and working there in some capacity.

But again, that evidence didn't come into court directly, but we do know that Dennis was doing that because one of the things that happened to him after he was arrested is that he was fired by the company, the investment company where he worked. So he presumably got some sort of buyout and presumably sold his book of investments to another investment dealer or stockbroker. So he was basically, you know, he didn't have a job after his ear although he wasn't bail.

Richard Oldin from time to time. So that's a couple of things. The other one is that the missing the missing iPhone, the cell phone evidence and radio frequency engineer evidence, and that type of thing was introduced in the pre trial hearings and at the trial to suggest that the victim's phone registered on a cell tower in Ross, New Brunswick within a few minutes of Dennis leaving his self

admitted time that he lost around six thirty pm. Within a few minutes an incoming text message from Richard's mistress made his phone ping or register off of cell tower in Rosse, which is quite close to the wharf where Dennis Oland had stopped, supposedly to see if his children were swimming either that night. So that sort of put that connects the missing foam with Dennis and his root home. And then things such as the dry cleaning, you know, taking the taking the the the jacket for dry cleaning.

It seemed to suggest you know, a guilty mind. They crown, they called the prosecution. You hear the crown. You know, it's kind of the British connection, right, so the crown attorney Uh in Canada, you you were prosecuted by the Queen or the king. That's what it says in the document, right. So, Uh, it's not the people versus owen. It's it's our meaning Regina I think, meaning the Queen. So they also the Crown also suggested that he lied about which jacket he

was wearing. He wasn't mixed up about the jacket. He he clearly knew he was wearing the brown jacket, but he wanted to you know, he wanted to cover that up at the investigation, right, and said and so instead he said he wore the blue jacket. And then and then the DNA on the jacket, right, the DNA evidence. So they kind of put it all together in a story that you know, would convince a jury that you know that Richard Olen was a difficult man. Often this

was a crime of passion. There was some sort of dispute to escalate it into a violent encounter. Uh and uh and his son. You know, it's circumstantial, but all all these sort of bricks in the wall, so to speak, point towards Dennis Olan as the as the the killer. And again the real legal, real legal issues. You know, what's the identity of the killer. That's the old, real real issue in the crown or the prosecutors that it's Dennis Olan.

we can talk about without getting into an argument. Right, they relax, they joke, They you know they both had turned into genealogy freaks that basically the only family had a connection with England, and Dennis had gone on a trip to England, he had documents, but the Crown, the prosecution, Dennis was using the visit as a pretext to engage in another conversation, Dad, I need money right now. There

was no proof of that, no direct proof. There were no emails, letters, phone calls, uh, you know, other other people who could confirm or deny that. But that was what the Crown was asking the jury to believe. So they put together kind of a circumstantial evidence argument based on that, based on the situation, and and you know, get it, and you know that that was kind of

a powerful argument I think put in front of the jury. Yes, and the father you know, and and again the inference of the father not refused and maybe said something nasty and things escalated and boom mm hmmm. Yes, us as an opportunity, Greg to stop for a second to talk about our sponsor, which is ship Station. When you're selling online, getting your orders out can be a real pain, time consuming, expensive,

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talking about the trial itself. Yeah, interesting feature of any trial is when a defendant takes the stand, tell us about this this first trial, tell us about his turn on the stand, right, And I just might interject to to explain to American listeners and people from other countries that in Canada you can't have any cameras in the courtroom right right point. And also you can't you can't talk to jurors after a trial, so it really makes a little more challenging to do the researching.

the stand as well. That created a lot of interest because here we have an elite family whose intimate secrets you know, were being pried into by the media, and so we weren't sure if they were it was if it was going to be character witness sort of testimony.

But in the end that didn't happen. Dennis himself went on the stand and he, you know, he was He was examined by one of the senior lawyers, Gary Miller, who was a new Brunswick lawyer, very seasoned, and it started with the first question was did you kill your father?

day as well. But also in contrast to the more negative father son relationship that was stressed by Dennis and his original police police interview back in twenty eleven, this right gave a kind of a rosy review of the father's son relationship that you know, old Dad was a bit of a character, but you know he was, he was, you know, at many levels I admired him. He was you know, you know, we had a lot in common.

We love cars, we like you know, skiing boats, whatever. Right, So so that you know, I think that was trying to sort of repair that damage that possibly the defense saw the police interview having created. It's interesting in the second trial, the defense tried to have a whole interview excluded, right,

So obviously they saw that as a problem. But the interview went in the first two and a half hours, one end, and again, as I mentioned earlier, after he had been cautioned and given you know, ready his rights so to speak, by the police, although he was not arrested. Uh then Dennis didn't talk very much. But you know, it's it's also possible to to you know, a lot of people like to read the body language and things

like that. People have all different views of that. But you know, if anyone's interested, they can find that Dennis Olen interview on YouTube and latch it themselves and see what they think. Mm hmm.

expecting it was going to be an acquittal. But I was there in court that Saturday, just before Christmas, too, which is you know, added another layer of emotion perhaps to the outcome. The jury came in and announced that he was convicted, and you know, understandably some people in

the family are quite upset. And the judge then, you know, ordered him to stand up and taken raid into custody and then to be brought back in the new year for sentencing because as in the States, I'm sure there had to be a pre sentenced reports and recommendations on sentencing, right, and so then he was whisked away and he was held in over Christmas in provincial jail, and then after sentencing. He was actually he was sent to a federal correctional institution.

which still is quite a shock for a man. And is you know, a middle class man or anyone really to be to be heading in for ten years in federal correction where you're you're in there with convicted murderers, rapist.

they assaulted him. He had to go into sort of a sick bay or whatever there and he didn't press charges, but to the institution pressed charges and eventually those two young men who were in their twenties, who were in for fairly serious crimes, they pleaded guilty to assault and they were sentenced to four months to be served concurrently

with their much longer longer sentences. Dennis Olan did not put any put in any victim impact statement to that incident, So getting back to early so he's convicted December twenty sixteen.

They prior to the sentencing as well hearing, the defense announced that it was applying for leave to appeal, and they did appeal to the New bruns Of Court of Appeal a number of grounds about the fairness of the trial, and the New bruns Of Court of Appeal agreed to hear that appeal, so that appeal was heard in Frederick and New Brunswick, which is the provincial capital in the fall, and by this time, of course, Dennis has been in

federal prison for several months. They also launched the defense also launches an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada because of an issue of bail. Memory. We talked about bail before, but Dennis was in prison having been convicted of second degree murder. It's always argued that when he's launching an appeal, she should be freedom on bail, and that had almost never happened in Canada, definitely not in New Brunswick, so that wasn't there. So there were two

appeals underway. One was to try to get a new trial or to have the first trial overturned, and appealingly all the way to Supreme Court of Canada to establish a legal test for bail.

instructions to the jury at trial. And it had to do a very technical thing. It had to do with reasons why a defendant might not be telling the truth. And a lay person would find this hard to maybe get the nuance of. But it had to do with there could be other reasons why someone is lying that aren't related to the crime. Right, So a very narrow thing. But that was the justices and the new Bruns of Court of Bile thought that the trial judge had made an error that the trial had not been there, so

a new trial was ordered. In the meantime, both sides appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. The Crown or the prosecution wanted the Court of Appeal ruling to be overturned and wanted the conviction to be restored. They didn't want to fight a second trial, and the defense, although they had scored a win on one level with the Court of Appeal, they wanted the Supreme Court of Canada to say, wait a minute, now, this guy should be freed, right,

no new trial, Let's just have acquittal. But the Supreme Court in the summer of twenty seventeen informed the two sides that they were not going to hear that case. So then the two sides started planning for round two. In the meantime. Dennis, he's out unbailed, doesn't have his passport, can't travel out of the country, but he's free to work, uses both whatever he wants to do with his family and friends.

Lisa set up a vintage clothing business which seemed to be successful for a bit high end. I say vintage, you know, it's gently used things like Louis Vauton handbags and you know, Hermie scar office or whatever. And they and he bought a boat. He bought a used cabin cruiser, I forget the brand, but a fairly big boat. And

he went on some trips, you know, several trips. And so again it for a guy who's body was broke, it just seemed a little jarring from the point of view or researcher that he was doing these things before he was arrested, so he wasn't laying low. And we don't know where the money came from, but again, he probably had some sort of buyout and wife went on. His kids were you know, in high school and university,

and his wife was involved in the business. She also got involve with an art gallery in uptown Saint John and the other owner and manager of that gallery was the wife of Dennis's cousin. I think possibly Andrew Owen, who's his cousin who eventually took over Moosehead. I think I'm correct on that one anyway, So you know, life went on and the the family, you know, Dennis and his wife attended social events, They're involved in different things, and they belonged to two yacht clubs, and they had

their boats. They had their circle of friends at least that was involved in these two businesses. So they didn't seem to be sort of hiding out before or after the arrest right in thirteen.

it decides what were the send things a trial. We have pre trial hearings on evidence called varniers, and we had at least seven, at least six of those for the second trial, and you know, so it adds up. So we don't know. But the family that you know, we haven't There hasn't been any you know, we haven't heard of anyone in the family or the family circle saying anything in public about doubting Dennis's innocence, and he's had shows of support from friends and things like that.

At the sentencing hearing in February of twenty sixteen, he had, you know, there were a number of prominent people there, including he didn't come into the building, but standing on the steps outside was a person who was a Canadian senator at the time, just speaking more about what the

family was going through. So a lot of the attention at times seemed to go on Dennis, and sometimes some people pointed out that there wasn't much attention to the victim, although with the second trial, I think the family tried to pay more attention to the victim who was a member of the family.

tons and tons of newspaper, TV and radio reporting. There was a national broadcaster, CBC Canada had a one hour long documentary the Fifth Estate called Murder in the Family. There's a documentary film crew working in the case now, right, So they get, you know, we can't get a fair trial in Saint tom. So they did some polling. They hired a company again hit the speaks to the deep pockets. They hired a company to do polling of opinion on what I think of Dennis Olan. They try to get

judge alone, and they couldn't. The judge ruled against them. Then just oh yeah. What they did get though, they got more robust, robust questions to ask potential jurors. It's called challenge for cause we have a different system in the States. Yours is way more intense and laborious we have. You know, it's a kind of old school. The jurors

come in, they're asked three or four questions. The two sides get us a few challenges get you know, how many defense gets and how many the Crown the prosecutors get. But you know, it's a somewhat I wouldn't call amateurish, but it's an old fashioned jurors screening system here. What they wanted was to bring in social science evidence the defense to try to do to allow the people who were quote trying jurors or selecting them to screen them

for potential bias. And so they did win that. They got a more robust system of juror selection questions, so they got a jury. They also they called five thousand people to get a jury of fourteen and two spares. That's a large number of people by Canadian standards. Then

the twist, there's two twists coming. The big twist is just before trial was was going to begin with this new carefully screened jury, the Crown the defense found out that the police officer, who was kind of like the file officer records officer in the case, had overstapped himself by using a crime management system database to check on

the jurors. Now, it's perfectly legal and appropriate for the police to check jurors to see if they have a criminal record, because sometimes they will not always say right and Canada, you're not supposed to be on a jury

if you have a Corona record. So he was just doing his due diligenary double checking, but he went a step above and used this internal database which showed any involvement with the police at all as a victim, as someone who phoned in that there was a cat in tree, someone who was pulled over for having a bad tailwight, you know, that type of thing, and so so there's a whole issue of disclosure there and that type of thing, and then possibly painting the process. So turned into a

bit of a drama. So it was all behind the scenes. Of course, the lawyers and the judge conferred, and so when the juror walked, jury walked into the room day in November to start with, to begin what they thought was going to be a trial that would last several months and possibly deprive a man of his liberty for several years. After they were thanked by the judge and told that they could go home, and he declared a mistrial.

And so the option was either do you start over to try to get another jury and call another five thousand people, or do you go to judge alone? And they in the crown, with great reluctance, agreed, because in Canada, the Attorney General has to sign off in any request for judge alone, right and so, and that wasn't being done so anyway, so they decided they're going to go hit judge alone. And the trial started judge alone, which is exactly what the defense had wanted the second time.

And so this missed up by the officer sort of gave them an early Christmas presence, you know, to use that sort of figure speech. So then the trial went on. It stretched over several months. It didn't sit as many days as the first trial, but it stretched over a longer period of time judge alone trial. They did a lot of mutual agreed upon statements of fact. They replayed video evidence rather than bringing witnesses. They actually just replayed some of the video of witnesses from the first trial.

They had more exhibits, right, there were a few things that were different, but from the Crown it was basically the same case. By the Crown. There were a few different tactics, a few different witnesses and in the end Terrence Morrison rendered his decision. It was about one hundred and forty page written decision. So that's different because the jurors juris here don't give reasons why they e quit or convict. In the fact that they do, they can

be arrested. Here you have one hundred and forty page document explaining every aspect. And the judge ended up acquitting Dennis Olan of first degree murder and he was a free man. And that was you know, just recently, right. Yeah.

think he might be guilty, that's not good enough. Right. So the judge in the second in this decision actually has several passages in his written decisions saying I didn't totally believe Dennis Olan on this point. That point, on this point, he was incredible, you know, on that point he was incredible. However, overall, I believe that the prosecution did not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and

he picked apart different aspects of the prosecution's case. For example, he thought their theory of motive was not really proven by the evidence introduced in court. He believed that the blood the blood expert for the defense, was more credible than the blood spatter expert for the for the prosecution. And the difference being there is that the blood expert for the defense said, well, wait a minute, based on my many years of experience working for the RCMP, you

would have more blood at the scene. And also the attacker would have been covered in blood, their clothing, their shoes would have been covered in blood, Whereas the crown witness said, well, there have been cases where someone gets close in with a close in weapon, there's an attack and it's and the attacker is not always covered in blood. They also the judge also believe that the cell phone evidence, which many people thought was very crucial, was not that credible.

He didn't, you know, he agreed with He agreed with a lot of the defense counterattack on that cell phone evidence because a lot of that cell phone evidence was based on modeling and predictive mapping of how cell towers communicate with with with cell phones in their radius, and it's not one hundred percent accuracy, it's more of a forecast, and so that created doubt in the judge's mind as well.

He found that the financial aspect as well. He says something like, well, maybe the average person would have been upset and stressed by their financial situation if they found themselves in the same situation at Dennis Oland, but it's not proven that Dennis Oland was actually upset. Right, So those are three or four key sections in his decision that think was interesting to a lot of people in

the community. Of course, the defense was always attacking the police investigation for being inadequate and insufficient and amateurish and that type of thing. The judge did acknowledge some of that in his decision, but he said ultimately that didn't that that's a neutral factor in my decision. Incredible.

DNA right to follow that. But he he agreed with the defense that there could have been other reasons to explain why how that blood in DNA material got there, nose bleeds whatever, right, So so he didn't he again, I think with him that the lack of evidence, the lack of visible blood right on the victim's clothing, on his shoes, in his car, because you know, he you know, he got immediately after seeing his father, you know, he left the building, took a phone call, you know, at

six thirty five, got in his car and drove home. There was nothing in the car. The car was searched for fifteen or sixteen hours. There was nothing in the red grocery bag, no blood or DNA. So, you know, I think a few people might scratch their heads at that passage in the decision. But he argued that this other evidence seems to kind of almost wipe out or

undercut the DNA and the DNA. It's yes, it is the victims DNA, but there's no proof how it got there and how long it had been there, and of course those two things are impossible to prove of current DNA science. The timeline is also the timeline. I don't want to take up one last thing. The judge was also, he said, because the timeline is so conflicted, he can't determinate time of death, and that's a very crucial reason in his decision.

there's only circumstantial evidence. Canada, the Canadian judicial system seems to put much more weight on the solving or the answering of certain questions almost to seem the reversal of how a prosecution or a judge might view It's this judge almost seems to dismiss some of the evidence brought by the prosecution, like you say in favor of the defense and says, well, there isn't proof.

on the possible area that they might look at. Who knows, but you know, because this is one case, I can't say how it stacks up against other DNA cases. Uh and uh, because you know DNA is supposed to be the magic bullet. But obviously, you know, in this judge's mind, all the all the all the pieces of the puzzle are not sufficiently strong for you know, for uh, for a conviction, although he sees a lot of merit in

in aspects of it. Uh. And again Uh, all the language in both cases was his idea of building building a wall with bricks. Like circumstantial evidence by itself is is it can be good evidence, but there has to be enough of it, right. And obviously the jury in the first trial thought there was enough. Right. The jury in the first trial thought there was enough. Uh. This judge uh disagreed. Right, So interesting, same evidence jury in one case, judge in the other.

into a talking book. And I just found out last week that we're doing an updated version, an updated paperback that this sounds crazy, will be out in October because they just asked me to do it last week. So so there'll be you know, there'll be a kind of a third edition. I also, you know, if you Google you'll find you know, different aspects of YouTube and things like that, and in different news clips and things like that.

But yeah, so there's still be sort of three at some point soon, there'll be three different editions of my book. I think it was released in the States. I know I've done a little bit of radio promo there in the past. So, uh, you can order from from from Amazon, you could order from the publisher, or just ask your local bookstore.