In a quiet Ontario town. In nineteen eighty four, nine year old Christine Jessup vanished, but her remains would soon be discovered. Her brutal murder shook the community to its core, and a man hunt for the killer began. What followed was a tale of wrongful conviction, flawed justice, and secrets that would take decades to uncover. This is the story of Christine Jessup and the man who was wrongfully accused of her murder.
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked.
And Grim, a true crime podcast.
Warning the following podcast and material intended more mature audience. Listener Discretion's advised, we're here.
Where else would we be? I know, we could be in Mexico right now, or or we.
Could be at the Taylor Swift concert.
Oh no, Aris tour is over.
It's over there, but I don't know if anyone else is. Are, Like, well, so she just played three concerts in BC, like Vancouver. Yeah, and so I just feel like my whole feed is like Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift. But it is like it was very exciting for a lot of people to go to that.
I'm sure it was, But in all honesty, I can't believe we're talking about Taylor Swift on our show. All I've heard for the last week is fucking Taylor Swift.
Oh man, Okay, let's change the subject.
It even been playing Taylor Swift music and talking about it during Canucks games because yeah, happening at the same time. Different.
Yeah, there was games like being played the same day as the concertain stuff, so yeah makes sense.
Yeah, I'm glad she had a great tour. Glad everyone who attended had fun. But as a non swifty, I kind of want to move on a non Swift I'm a non swifty.
Can you actually admit that?
Oh yeah, I can admit that.
That's funny, don't be wrong.
I have nothing against Taylor herself. Fantastic artist, fantastic she seems like an amazing person.
She does.
I'm just not a swifty.
Yeah, I mean, that's fine there. I don't think there's any shortage of swifties out there, so.
I don't think so. Because she made over two billion dollars gross in that eress too, I know she's wild.
Wow. Well it was also over the span of a more than a year.
So still Anyways, we digress. This isn't the Taylor Swift podcast. This is the Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast. Yeah, and we're drinking coffee this morning because we need to wake the fuck up.
Yes always.
I don't know.
Fine, well, I think I like I have it's part tea in here, So tea does have caffeine in it, but not as much as coffee.
Yeah, I've just got coffee, just black coffee. And we just did a little pre show over on Patreon and we were talking about like how tired we have been recently. And I'm not sure if it's just like the holiday season or what. And I'm not sure if you guys are feeling it too, but we are just like drained of energy. Yeah, and it sucks. But caffeine does help.
You know, Honestly, summer does. With summertime like does come more energy.
I feel like, oh hell yeah.
Right, it's like warm, you're not using your energy to.
Stay warm, so it's warm. It's what you're saying warm.
It's lighter out, it's it's more sunny, and it's happy.
It's just got that all around good feel, right.
It does like usually you're traveling a little more. Yeah.
Yeah, but Christmas has a happy time too.
It does, but it also can't touche I feel like, and people don't talk about that.
To Schee. It's okay to not be happy during the holidays, it's okay to be alone, It's okay for all those things. Yeah, just if you need help, of course seek it right. So we do have a lot of patrons. We got to thank today who of course they're going to be hearing that little bit of a pre show we did over on Patreon, So thank you and shout out to Haley Bumpus, Sarah Lily, Barbara O'Brien, Sarah Griffin, Chloe, Anna Conterras,
Christine Sales, Gabriella and Angie West. Thank you so much for signing up over on Patreon.
Supporting us fantastic list. We've had a lot of people sign up lately like we have. Is just warm in my heart.
We have and we've been a little bit shying away from Patreon the last couple of weeks too. We've been well, not shying away from it, we just have been a little on the inactive side. We got to get our butts back in gear. We've just been really busy lately, but we're we're gonna bring the hammer down here, especially around Christmas. But I got some ideas that's gonna be poppin'. We're gonna have a good time.
I think we should do like a fun Christmas merch giveaway or something over on there. Okay, done, I think we should give away something for Christmas here in there.
Let's do it.
Yeah, let's do it.
Let's do it.
We have almost six hundred patrons now, which is pretty cool. Yeah, that is just like, oh, it's amazing.
So thank you so much. Yeah, if you want to go join Patreon, you can go ahead and check out the link in the description of this podcast. You can find all of our stuff down there. You can find your way over to Patreon sign up. You can get all the good behind the scenes, the extra episodes that we do over there for exclusive Patreon content, and of course the giveaway that we're about to do that Nicole just decided right now, so I guess we're going to be doing a giveaway.
I think we should. All right, let's do it.
Okay, well, the giveaway Patreon. All that aside, we have quite the case today for you here today, and it is a two parter and it is a Canadian case.
Oh man, ding dang okay, ding dang, ding dang. I like those Canadian cases.
Yeah, this is one that, honestly, I mean, it's fairly big in Canada. But when I was doing my research, it's like this story hasn't really been told a whole lot, which is surprising to me. Oh yeah, So I'm really happy to actually talk about this one because of that. It's always good to give some publicity to the cases where you know, those victims need their story told a little bit more. So that's exactly what we're doing today.
Okay, that's awesome.
So this story takes us to Toronto, Ontario, which, of course, if you don't know, is a bustling city within Canada. The population is approximately two point eight million people, so it's quite a bit of people. But our focus shifts just beyond the city of Toronto into a quiet rural area that would soon be at the center of this whole tragedy. Okay, So it's like, you can say this happens in Toronto, but technically speaking, it's just a small town just outside of Toronto.
Okay.
So on December thirty first, nineteen eighty four, the Durham Regional Police were called to a property near Sunderland. Sorry, I almost said Sutherland. It's Sunderland, which is a small town roughly hour drive of northeast of Toronto.
Did you say December thirty first, like New Year's Eve?
Correct?
Oh Man?
Okay, yeah, so tis the season, right, I guess.
So.
Fred Patterson was a local resident in the area and he'd been outside searching for his dog with his two daughters. So they're on their large property. It's kind of a wooded property, right and you know, got some acreage to it. And while they're walking through the area, they came across what at first seemed like a pile of garbage. Now Fred was curious and he kind of approached it and you know, checking it out, and he soon realized that this was something far more grim than just a pile
of rubbish. He found a badly decomposed body.
Oh geez, okay.
The remains belonged to a nine year old girl who had been brutally murdered.
Oh Man.
Her body showed multiple stab wounds to the chest, so severe that the knife had gone very deep and all the way through, piercing her spine. In fact, the official cause of death would later be determined as these devastating stab wounds. The girl was dressed in a beige turtle neck sweater, a blue pullover, and a blouse that was missing some buttons. Nearby her right foot lay her underwear.
Oh no, in the grass. Not far from her body was something else, a small plastic recorder, you know, the kind of like in musical instrument, like the little flute that kids learned to play music like their elementary school days or whatever. And the recorder had a name written on it. Christine Jessop now Christine Marion Jessop was born on November twenty ninth, nineteen seventy four, in the small community of Queensville, Ontario, about sixty two kilometers from Toronto.
Queensville was a tiny, quiet place with a population of only around seven hundred people. It had the essentials, you know, a general store, a cemetery, a church, a community center, some homes, and playground that served as the heart of the neighborhood for the local kids. Now Christine's family included her mom, Janet, and her dad Bob, and her older
brother Kenny, who was five years older than her. Bob worked as a led Sorry a lead installer for a telecommunications company that wired phone systems for business businesses and the area, and through his job, he became friends with Calvin and Heather Hoover, a couple who had also worked at the same company. Calvin was an installer and Heather handled dispatch. The Hoovers lived about fifty kilometers away and
had four boys of their own. The two families grew close over time, spending weekends together whenever their schedules allowed it. They had barbecues, you know, tea parties and playdates that were you know, a regular part of their dynamic, and Christine adored Heather, affectionately calling her Anti Heather, while Janet jokingly referred to her friend Heather as goofy Newfie, which is a nod to her New Newfoundland roots. Right, So, if anyone who doesn't know, you know, Newfoundland people are
often referred to as Newfees. It's a shorter term of saying, you know Newfoundland. So yeah, she's goofy Newfie. It was the kind of relationship that their family had, right, tight knit, you know, kind of friendly and just having fun together sort of thing. On October first, nineteen eighty four, Janet Jessup was visiting her friend Heather, So she's over at her house for tea. Now, at the time, Janet's husband, Bob was actually serving an eighteen month prison sentence. Oh
shit for defrauding elderly family members. Oh yeah, No, the exact details. I didn't really dive too deep into or anything, but it's clear he was stealing some money, is what he was doing.
Okay.
So during their tea, Janet mentioned that she and her son Kenny were planning a trip over on October third to go and visit Bob in the detention center. So, I mean, even after his you know, conviction in jail time, these two families are still obviously very tight, right because they're going to go and visit him. So the trip was going to overlap slightly with the time that Christine was getting home from school, and Janet was worried about
leaving her daughter alone for a little while. It would have only been about fifteen minutes that she'd be alone, but still, you know, she didn't want to do that, but it seemed like it was the only way. So from the time that Christine got off the bus at four pm until Janet and Kenny would come home. She estimated, yeah, four fifteen would be around when she would arrive at home.
So that day came and on October third, nine year old Christine plans to meet her friend Leslie at the park at around four pm when she got off the bus, since she knew her mom and brother would be home right away. The park was just across the street, you know, from a local store as well, so Christine planned to stop home, grab some change for gum, head over to meet her friend, head over to the local store, grab some gum,
and then come home shortly after. So that afternoon, Christine got off school, got onto the bus, and went home. Just as usual, Janet and Kenny arrived home from the detention center a little while later. Christine would have arrived home at about four o'clock on the bus, and these two got home at around four to ten pm, so a little earlier than she expected. So Christine was alone for about ten minutes and when she arrived home, Christine
was nowhere to be seen, but it was fine. She knew she'd return soon from her gum buying venture with her right yeah. So however, by five o'clock, Janet started to get worried when Christine still hadn't showed up at home. Now, Queensville is a small, quiet place with only a handful of spots that Christine was likely to go, the store, or the playground, or the cemetery behind their house, which
was sometimes an area they liked to play it. And soon Janet noticed that Christine's bike was still at the house, and she also noticed that Christine's jacket was hung neatly on a hook inside the home.
Oh shit, and both those things would be gone if she went to get gum most likely.
Most likely for sure, especially considering this is October, right, okay, yep, so she's probably gonna need her jacket. Now. This is the jacket being hung on the hook is a particularly interesting one that struck a chord with Janet. See it was hung on a hook, yes, but it was not hung in a hook that was like it was normally done. It was hung in a hook that seemed to be higher than Christine would ever be able to even reach,
or that she'd ever use. Oh shit, almost like someone else hung her jacket for She also realized that the mail in the newspaper, still in its plastic bag, had been brought inside, so someone was there clearly. Whether it was Christine or someone else, it's up for debate. But someone brought in the paper, the mail and Christine's jacket was hung up on a hook, arguably on a hook higher than normal by all accounts. It seemed as though Christine had made it home, but she was nowhere to
be found. Christine, now, she was a sweet, spirited little girl. She was sensitive, but feisty, independent and full of energy. She loved baseball, her older brother Kenny, her dolls, and all the animals that surrounded herself with Her favorites included pet frogs, baby chicks, and most of all, her beloved beagle named Freckles. Christine was absolutely adorable and there was no way that she would have just run away. Janet
knew this. She's like no, so she didn't go off on her own, and as the sun began to set evening, Janet's worry was growing more and more. Finally she called the York Regional Police for help.
Oh shit, that's just like you're just watching the clock exactly, and your stomach is just sinking and sinking and sinking.
Yeah, she was just hoping that at any moment Christine would come through that door should scold her daughter, and for not taking her jacket right and saying where were you? Should let me know, but she never walked through that door. Police immediately treated Christine's disappearance as an abduction. The problem was the York Regional Police had never handled an abduction case before, and mistakes were made right from the start.
The scene that the jessup home quickly became chaotic. Police officers, neighbors, and friends and family came in and out, freely touching
things and unintentionally compromising potential evidence. For instance, the newspaper Christine had brought inside, still in its plastic bag, was thrown away before anyone could test it her fingerprints what really Yeah, So, despite the early missteps, if you will, the police set up a command post at the local fire hall and managed to rally volunteers from the community
for an extensive search. Bob, still serving his sentence at the Toronto Detention Center, was released on humanitary grounds so he could join the efforts to find his daughter. Investigators began operating at the assumption that most abductions aren't random and that the person responsible usually knows the victim. As a result, they asked the jess ups to provide a list of everyone who had access to their home without supervision.
Okay, I just have to say that's kind of amazing that they let the data out, yeah, to help. Hey, because could you imagine being in that situation where like, I mean, he's serving time, but you're locked in, you can't do anything right, and your child's missing.
I do think like, if he was a danger to the public, yeah, he probably wouldn't have been. Really, if he was like a murderer or something, Yeah, yeah, he probably stole a few thousand dollars or something like that, and it's like, hey, you got to serve your time and pay that back and a fine, and it's like your daughter's all of a sudden missing, and it's like her life is in danger. I mean that takes priority over a few thousand dollars. Yeah, Now, don't quote me
on a few thousand dollars. I'm just giving that as an example. I don't know how much he stole, but yeah, So the list of suspects naturally included Calvin and Heather Hoover, the friends of the family, right right, And this is of course given their close relationship. So as the search continued, Heather came by to check on Janet. At the same time, police Sergeant Raymond Bunce questioned her about where she and
Calvin had been around the time of Christine's disappearance. Heather said that she had been at work and Calvin was at home with the boys. However, their alibis were actually never verified and Calvin was never formally questioned. Time ticked by, and Christine's tenth birthday came and went on November twenty ninth without Christine. A month later, Christmas arrived, but still it wasn't anything joyful for the jess of family, no kidding. The absence of their sweet, lively, little girl cast a
heavy shadow on this holiday season. And then shortly thereafter, on December thirty first, the unthinkable happened. Fred Patterson, while searching for his missing dog, as we already discussed, stumbled upon Christine's remains.
And this wasn't even in the same little town, right, No, like, it was close but not.
Yeah, so she had been missing for ninety days and her body was found fifty six kilometers east of her house.
Okay, yeah, not super far, but far enough.
Yeah, yeah, far enough. It's about a half an hour's drive worth and if you yeah, Canadians, No, we judge everything not by distance. It's how long to get there. That's how we judge time. Sorry, travel is how long is the drive? By time?
That's funny.
So, because this Sunderland fell under the jurisdiction of Durham Regional the Durham Regional Sorry, the case was handed off to the during Regional Police. So the York Regional Police passed along their investigation notes, but these officers in the Durham office dismissed them immediately, calling the work to amateurish use.
Okay, I'm sure there would have been something helpful in.
There, well potentially, I'm sure they went through it all, but it was Remember these police had never talked an abduction case before, and a lot of things at the beginning were mishandled and was probably not of any worth.
But you think something they collected or did, you know, would have been helpful, but who knows.
Well, I'm sure they took in the evidence and stuff as best they could, but for the most part the notes and stuff were just like it was too amateurish really for anything for them to do. So basically, it effectively meant that they've investigated. Investigations started over from scratch.
Oh that is not good, it's.
Not and this is ninety days later, Yes, exactly so. Inspector Robert Brown took charge of the case. One question haunted him, and it was why christine germains were found so far from her home fifty six kilometers. Brown assigned two detectives, Bernie Fitzpatrick and John Sheppard, to dig into the case and focus on identifying potential suspects. The investigators followed up on several leads, including a family friend, a
neighborhood kid, and even Christine's own mother, Janet. They questioned relentlessly, and Janet was no exception to this relentless questioning. In fact, they asked the same thing of her many times, in many different ways, so much so that she began to doubt her own recollection. At first, she was sure, and I mean one hundred percent positive. She got home at four ten pm. She remembered very clearly looking at the clock and knowing that she had to call her husband's
lawyer at five or sorry, four fifteen. Sorry did I say five to ten earlier? It's four ten.
I don't know. I don't think so much she was.
One hundred percent sure she got home at four ten, and she remembered looking to clock, knowing that she has to call her husbands Loawy at four fifteen because he's right at the time in jail.
Right, Well, you would probably remember, like you, you would probably remember if you had something to do, you know, in five minutes, you would probably remember the time.
Well, no, not five to fifty. Sorry, not four fifteen, four fifty.
Okay, okay, but still and you're like, okay, I have this much time before I could do this.
Yeah. And three days prior to this actual day when her daughter went missing, she was having tea with her friend, right, yes, saying, yeah, we're going up to the prison to visit Bob and she's going to be left alone for about fifteen minutes, right, So she's very adamantly knowing and trying to mitigate that fifteen minutes. So she's very much so aware on that
time span totally. So when she got home, I'm sure she would have noted four ten, Yes, okay, you know that wasn't very long ten minutes exactly, So I have no doubt in my mind that she knew that time. But after so much pressure, from detectives. She actually began to question it herself, wondering if she'd actually arrive later, oh maybe four twice or maybe even four thirty four
to thirty five. But eventually she she stuck with her original statement, saying that no. Four to ten was accurate, but she did waiver and questioned herself along.
The way, Well, that can happen if people are like really prying at yeah, exactly.
So the police were certain Christine's abductor was someone that she knew, that Christine knew, given that she was shy and you know, kind of not the most outgoing individuals to strangers or anything. But weeks of searching turned up no solid clues despite anyone that they interviewed. However, one name eventually came up in the investigation, and that was twenty five year old Gee Paul Morin, a neighborhood sorry, a neighbor who lived next door to the Jessop family.
So Ghee seemed like an unlikely suspect at first glance. He was a second child of Alphonse Morin and his wife, with no criminal record, just a couple you know, speeding tickets, right. He was a talented clarinet player, a member of three different jazz bands and had a reputation for being very polite and very respectful. He helped his parents keep honeybees and often gave jars of their homemade honey to the
Jessup family as gifts. He also worked on cars with his dad, who taught him how to weld, and he didn't smoke, he didn't drink, and he lived a relatively quiet life. When detectives asked him about his interactions with Christine in the past, he said they were minimal. He was sixteen years older than her and he wasn't about to go you know, just like starting a relationship with a child sort of thing.
Right.
Yeah, So he'd only spoken to her twice, he said, once about gardening and chips, and the other time he helped her find her missing beagle freckles chips.
Yeah, that sounds so innocent, table, I know, talking about chips. I mean, who doesn't like a bag of chips? One? Oh?
Well, I could go for a bag right now.
Yeah. But you know, this was just making me think if something bad happens to someone like in your life, that how you can You're just a suspect, you know, like even just being a neighbor and stuff. That's it's kind of scary. Yeah, I've never really I mean I've thought about that, but it's just yeah, like you could just literally be someone's neighbor and then all of a sudden, be something bad happens and you have nothing to do with it. But like you're you're like a big ass suspect there.
Yep. But I mean nowadays, it's easy to rule people out. Like you have your cell phone, like they ping you and they can track you and timestamps here and there, like emails all that sort of stuff online it's all tracked. So I mean police can figure out your whereabouts pretty damn easy.
I guess. But I mean if he was home and stuff, it could still.
Be bad, you know, I'm sure, touche, But yeah, this is this is in the eighties, so they definitely didn't have that sort of stuff to track your whereabout right as easy. But when he was he pressed on that he hadn't helped. Sorry, but why he hadn't helped search for Christine when she disappeared. Gee explained that he had been busy helping his father install weeping tiles around their homes foundation and as for his whereabouts During the time
of Christine's abduction. He told police that he'd been at work, had a furniture manufacturing facility called Steels and Wesson, which is about fifty seven kilometers south of Queensville, and he clocked out at exactly three point thirty two PM, which by his estimate, would put him home at around four fourteen,
which is actually after Janet would have gotten home. Right. However, he had actually stopped for groceries and gas that day, so he didn't actually get home until about five point thirty, which is way later.
Yeah, she was like already missing at that point exactly.
When asked about what he thought about Christine, his response was odd. He said, she's sweet and innocent, but sometimes they grew up to be corrupt. I mean, he's not wrong, he's not wrong, but it's an odd choice of words to tell the police that.
About someone, especially who's like missing, yeah, or murdered and yeah.
Yeah, So basically what you say, she's a very nice girl, but she's kind of a little shit sometimes is probably what he's trying to say.
But yeah, he would hear a lot probably about maybe how she was a bit naughty at sometimes, as kids are you know.
Oh, definitely probably heard her screaming in the backyard or something like that a couple of times. Who knows. But when he described Christine this way, the police labeled him as odd and someone who didn't quite fit in, and it only fed their growing suspicions about him as a suspect.
And I don't know, I don't know. Maybe he did do this, but like he could also have been nervous. I would be nervous if I was being interviewed about this, even if I had freaking nothing to do with it.
Right, I agree. Now, soon the FBI was brought into help and create a psychological profile of the possible perpetrator. So, according to this profile, the suspect was likely a white male between nineteen and twenty six years old and dressed in a sloppy manner. Investigators believe that the person lived in Queensville, since they were convicted. Convinced that Christine had
known the abductor. I'll also suggest that the perpetrator might have acne, a physical disability, a history of voyeurism or even arson, and an exaggerated macho type attitude. Now in this profile was released to the public and Guy's father Alphon saw this on TV. He joked with, sorry, Gee, not Guy. It's spelled Guy, but it's pronounced Gi. So he joked with Gee, that quote this sounds like you.
Oh yeah, well, I feel like that's so random. Some of the description in there, like how would they know that the person had acne?
I know?
And how would they know they're sloppy dressed and stuff?
I know.
Okay, just as you were reading that, I'm like, this makes no sense.
That's the thing is it almost seems influenced.
Like they were just saying it's basically him.
Yeah, okay. Now, when Ghee's father said this after seeing a profile on TV, it was a harmless joke comment. Right, he's just goofing around with this kid, right. No one believed that Gee could be involved. I mean, honestly, his was quite firm, like his stamp out from work, his receipts for groceries, all that sort of stuff placed him
away like he couldn't have done it. And the family found like this kind of almost comical that Gi was like, hey, it sounds like you ha ha ha ha, Right, they're just goofing.
Well, yeah, his alibi does seem pretty solid.
It was, but the police. Though they weren't like his family, they weren't laughing. As the investigation dragged on, with no O the leads, they began to focus solely on Ge. It wasn't long before confirmation bias was setting in heavy. They stopped looking at other possibilities all together and began building a case solely around him. Evidence that didn't fit
the theory was dismissed or even disappeared. Like, for example, there was a cigarette that was found at the crime scene and they're like, oh, you know what, here's like we can get your DNA off a cigarette. And it's like, hold on, gee, doesn't smoke. That cigarette vanished from records.
Oh whoa, Yeah, that's terrifying.
Yep. After they couldn't pin that cigarette on him, that cigarette was just gone.
Well, and I also have to say, if she was a bit shy and stuff and didn't really have a relationship with this neighbor, it doesn't make sense either that he would be like, you know, going in the house and hanging her jacket or whatever.
Well no, I mean, it never really makes sense when someone attacks or of ducts.
But that she would be okay with him, well, I don't know.
She'd be comfortable with a neighbor. Maybe he came up to the story of Oh, your mom told me while you're.
Yeah, I get them alone.
I'm going to come watch you for ten minutes.
Who knows, right, yeah, or your mom phone she was there, gonna be later she was a bit nervous, or yeah.
Exactly now to keep going on with this kind of like bias that was setting in, One officer reportedly even kept two notebooks, one with all the evidence that was found and another containing only details that supported their suspicions of God Ghee. So I keep saying guy, his name's Gee. Yeah. The case against him, though, was thin at best, but
authorities clung to whatever they could. They did find a single dark hair tangled in Christine's necklace when her body was found, and they also found semen that was detected on her underwear.
Right.
These pieces of evidence were sent to the Center of Forensic Science in Toronto, where forensic scientists Stephanie Misnik analyzed them. Now, to compare the hair from the crime scene, police needed a sample from Ghee in a so she decided she needed to go undercover. So she posed as a cosmetology student conducting a study on hair samples. She attended one of Gee's band practices where she willingly handed over a sorry, where he willingly handed over a sample believing it was harmless.
So she kind of goes over to where the band is practicing, being like, Hey, I'm a cosmetology student. I'm collecting hair sample so I can look at some stuff, and blah blah blah. Got a hair sample from each of the band members. Gee was one of them, and now she has a willing sample delivered from him that she can now compare to.
The other hair Weird Okay, I feel like if they just asked, he might have just given it to them too.
He might have. Yeah. Now, the analyst determined that the hair from the scene matched Gee's hair both visually and under a microscope. This was presented as solid evidence, even though the hair analyst at the time was far from exact science because we are talking the eighties, right, So with this supposed evidence in hand, police made their move. On April twenty second, nineteen eighty five, as Gee was heading to band practice, fourteen police officers apprehended him and
he was arrested on the spot. His life from then on was turned upside down. At first, Ghee was confused. He couldn't understand how he'd been tied to Christine's murder. He's just wondering what's going on. And then at the police station he spotted someone familiar, the woman who posed the cosmetology student and collected his hair sample. It all clicked. He immediately began claiming that he had been framed, so he had no other choice but to retain a lawyer.
That lawyer's name was Clayton Ruby, a well known and skilled defense attorney. Ruby focused on Gee's alibi, which seemed very solid. Guide clocked out of work at three thirty pm and didn't get home until five thirty pm because he stopped for those groceries and gas along the way. His family fully backed up this timeline as well, so he not only has, you know, all this confirmation of his whereabouts, but also you have witnesses to back it up.
And his family is probably like they were kind of joking about this, right and now it's all of a sudden, like really serious.
Exactly now. I do want to say one thing. I did say that he most likely has receipts, and I do want to focus on most likely. I don't know. If he did have receipts, okay, he would more than certainly been able to prove walking out of work. But I don't know if he has receipts for groceries and gas. I'm assuming he does, okay, But at the very least he does have his family backing up when he got home, right and his story of groceries and gas, so he
at least has third party witnesses potentially has receipts. Now, the Crown psychologists tried to try to paint a different picture. They claimed Geese family was conspiring to lie about his whereabouts on that day of her disappearance. It was a bold accusation, basically saying that they're flat out lying in court. But I mean, things against Key didn't just stop there. The so called forensic evidence, which also included the hair
found in Christine's necklace, began to crumble under scrutiny. The hair analyst at the time was completely unreliable, as we know it's in its infancy stage at the time, and particularly for identifying someone rather than excluding them. The hair from the scene had been exposed to the elements for ninety days. It was degraded lightened by the sun, sun bleached right, and the root bulb had decomposed completely. This
made it impossible to make any definitive comparison. Declaring it as a match both visually and microscopically had been a major mistake because it simply wasn't holy. The case didn't improve for the Crown when it was revealed that red fibers found in Christine's body had actually supposedly matched fibers from Geese car in comparison, see the source of these fibers was actually a red sweater worn by a forensic scientist, someone who didn't wear a lab coat, contaminating the samples.
Why.
Yes, So someone in the lab is not wearing a lab coat but instead wearing a red sweater and is checking out samples I'm assuming found on Christine's body and is like, there's red fibers here. His car has a red interior. Those match. Meanwhile, he's standing there wearing a fucking bright ass red sweater and they did think of any sort of contamination day.
Okay, Yeah, this doesn't seem like it's going well here for them, like actually getting solid evidence.
No, this is a classic case of instead of following the evidence is trying to make the evidence fit your theory.
Yeah for sure.
Now things got even stranger when a planted undercover officer was put in Gee's jail cell. So an individual by the name of Gordon Hobbes tried to draw incriminating statements from him inside the cell, even asking casual questions like what's your favorite movie? Just trying to get things out right.
Okay.
Now, Gee was a little bit flustered at the time, and when was unable to recall the name of the movie he was trying to think of. In hindsight, it was The Shining by Stephen King, and he said, you know, the one with the scary kids in Red Rum, And he patted his heart and admitted that it scared him. He's like, you know, the one with like the kids and Red Rum. He's like, it got me, It scared me. Yeah.
But this Hobbes individual twisted this comment in court, saying that Gee had allegedly said he wanted to read Rum the Innocent and stab them in the chest. Yeah, not at all what he said. It's a complete fabrication, twisting his words again making it fit.
Oh brutal, that's scary too.
Yeah, despite the mounting evidence of police mishandlings and questionable practices. The Crown pushed forward, but Ghee's lawyer, Clayton Ruby, was sharp and persuasive. Ruby picked apart the weaknesses in the prosecution's case and challenged the unreliable forensic evidence and of course the dubious tactics tactics used by investigators. In the end, the jury saw through the cracks. Ghee Paul Marine was
acquitted as innocence preserved for the moment. Okay, So even though he was acquitted, he went back home to his small town of Queensville. But everyone thought he was guilty, right. Media were constantly at his house. There were nasty notes left in his mailbox, beer bottles even thrown through a window of his house at one time, and it all just seemed horrible for his life, even though this whole acquittal had happened.
Well, yeah, and he's living right next to the I don't know what the neighbor like, what the mom and stuff thinks, but still that is just uncomfortable.
Yeah. Now, despite this solid acquittal in court, the Crown appealed in May of nineteen ninety due to a technicality based on instructions from the judge to the jury regarding reasonable doubt, and it all went back to trial again. It's hard to believe, but the second trial was actually even more flimsy than the first trial due to the poorly managed Forensic Science Center of Toronto. This time, two of Christine's bones were missing, actually displaced her remains. What Yeah, and.
I cannot believe that. Yeah, like that they need to be buried together and stuff. Holy frick.
Okay, Yeah, and there was up to two hundred different hair and fiber slides that were missing as well, so slight like microsopic, microscopic slides. Yeah, there was a box. Those just gone. Don't know where they are missing? Really, yes, So they have her some of her remains and some evidence is just gone.
Oh.
I feel like if I was the parents. Hey, I know.
Now.
This time, they presented the theory that Ghee had lured Christine into his vehicle to show her his clarinet. I mean, she's got this recorder. Maybe she's learning to play it. Maybe he's like, hey, you know, we can play together or something.
Right. Yeah.
Ghee did take the stand for both of his trials to plead his innocence, and unfortunately because he didn't look at the jury during his testimony. This time, the jury took this as a sign of his guilt, and so they found him guilty, and the thirty two year old was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of nine year old Christine Jessup. Gee was sent to Kingston Penitentiary and he protested his innocence the entire way and
said that he was going to appeal. Now, we all know that child killers and anyone who focuses a crime on a child, let's just put it that way, are usually harshly treated in prison. However, in this case, thankfully, one of the big brute, toughest guys in prison had actually followed Gee's case pretty closely, and he knew Gee was innocent and told everyone there to leave him alone.
Okay. I thought that was going to go a different way. I'm like, holy shit, like he's going to die in prison. No, he' an innocent man or something.
You have the biggest brute toughest criminal in prison and he knows Geez innocent and he tells everyone to leave him alone, okay, and everyone did.
Okay, So like he has has some luck. If you say, if you will, I guess on his side there.
Yeah, and that's where we're gonna stop today in part one.
Right, Okay, Sorry, Well, I'm just like very invested in this.
I know you. Yeah, I knew you would be I am trust me.
Damn. This is a case and a half.
Okay, just wait to hear the rest of it, because it's, uh, it's interesting. It's I don't know how this case hasn't been like done on more podcasts and stuff or like you know, those like makeup gurus on YouTube who like you know, do their makeup and true them at the same time. I don't know how any of them haven't covered it. But it's a good one and we'll talk all about how this moves on from here.
Wow, Okay, okay, I mean yeah, we're gonna wait.
Sorry, you seem so disappointed in that.
I'm not disappointed in you. I'm just like, dang, because I have some thoughts and stuff, but I'm going to just hold on to them.
Well, you can go ahead and say your thoughts. I will not respond. I will say okay at the end, that's it. Okay, go ahead and say your thoughts.
Well, I kind of feel like the actual attacker may have been that the family, the other family that was really close to them and like one of their boys. Maybe. Okay, I don't know why I think this, but that's just something I feel. Okay, do we actually get to find out who the hell it is?
Okay?
Oh gosh, Okay, this is this game isn't fun, so you have.
To tune in your part two to figure it all out. You're good? Okay, I should have seen that coming.
Wow.
All right, Well, thank you guys for being harolfully enjoyed this part one of this story. Like I said, it's one, it's a doozy. It's worth turning into part two for We'll talk to you about that on Friday.
Yeah, I mean that's not that far away. We got this, We got that.
It's only a few days and you know what, rounding out the end of the week with a good end to a story. Well I'm not saying a good end to a story, but you know, like hearing the end of the story and wrapping it all together and understand you know what I mean?
So well, yeah, with her name's Christine, right, yes, Christine. And it would be good if Christine, for some reason wasn't dead. But we were very aware.
She is so yes, very much awful, but yeah, so if you want to check out part two, it's coming out Friday. If you haven't listened to any of our other episodes, we have a giant library, over two hundred episodes backlogged. We've evolved over time, so some of the earlier ones, I know, I used to curse a lot at a very heavy, heavy tongue back then. I lightened up a little bit in recent years. But you can go back check out all of our other episodes. We
have Patreon where we have exclusive content. We've got our social media. All that's in the description of this podcast. If you want to give us a rating, we'd really appreciate it. A review helps out the show. We are an indie show. It's us. We built the show from nothing. We produce, we research, we write, we talked. All of it is done by myself and Nicole. We are the ones who own the show.
So we sure are we are so until part.
Two, until part two, thank you for being here, Thank you for support. I stumbled in that your support, for your support, And until part two, stay wicked.