Christine Jessop - A Murder and Wrongful Conviction - Part 2

This is the story of Christine Jessup and the man who was wrongfully accused of her murder. But this is part two. Be sure to check out Part one that's already released before you listen to this episode. But if you're ready for part two, let's dive into it.

My name's Ben, I'm Nicole and you're listening to Wicked Ingram true crime podcast. The following.

Material intend for a matial audience listener discretion.

You're ready for this?

What am I ready for this?

It was like a solid b effort.

There no I'd give that a soliday really okay holiday. It was suspenseful but not anti climactic, you know it was. It wasn't bad. We're sharing a drink sharing a drink today.

Sharen, I might have actually taken more than half.

That's fine, it's fine. I think we kind of need to share a drink today. Will not necessarily share drink. It's right for the beverage that we have a beverage today because this case is man oh man. We are in for a good roller coaster and a wrap up on part two of this. And not to mention that right now it is Friday the thirteenth, Holy shit. It is Happy December Friday, the thirteenth, leading up to Christmas, so cheers. Hopefully you guys have some good luck here

Don't flew into that. Well. Actually, when I played sports in high school often I was thirteen. Like I was like, there's nothing with this number, no no one ever wanted it, and I was like, I'll take it.

Yeah. That was the same as me. I had number thirteen as playing soccer once and it was like my best year on soccer ever. So I was like, okay, thirteen is my lucky.

Number then, yeah, yeah, nothing against the number, that's for sure.

I've never had thirteen be unlucky for me, So Happy the Friday thirteenth. Hopefully it's not unlucky for you out there as well. But I do have to say my apologies. I got in a lot of trouble. Oh yeah, for not announcing that this trouble this case was a two parter. In my defense, I kind of did tell you, well, I didn't tell you. We did talk about it being a part one and part two in our pre show over on Patreon.

And then got confused that we hadn't announced it in the legit like the actual show.

Yeah, so in my brain I had already announced it, but no, we didn't announce it. We only announced it on Patreon. So that's my apologies. But yeah, this is now part two of this case, and going forward, I will be in I will do my best to ensure I continue with letting you know when it's part one and not.

Well, I think you forgot to put in the title too.

So I did.

It was just we have a lot going on, and it was it was it was just forgetting like it wasn't It was just slipping else.

Yeah, but there's nothing wrong with the good, suspenseful episode now and then hopefully you guys got to the end of that episode and you're like no, and now you're just amped for this part too.

I like, how was your few days? Were you feeling that a lot of people cursing you?

There was a few. There was a few, for sure. We had some messages and some comments and stuff. But I think it's going to be worthwhile. I mean, hey, it is Friday, it's the end of the week, and now you're listening to the rest of the story.

Right, good old Friday the thirteenth. Yeah, that makes me happier. I didn't even put that together. I love that.

Well, here we are, but let's get into this. So if you remember part one at all, in that last episode, we discussed the death of nine year old Christine Jess So. She initially went missing on October first in nineteen eighty four. Her family searched for her, but unfortunately to no avail. That is until someone stumbled upon her remains on December thirty first in nineteen eighty four as well. So that was approximately ninety days later, I believe. Right now, the

Then even at when he was in jail, they were setting him up too right to like admit it. Or maybe that was the first time around, but they planted someone in there to try to get him to confess.

So that was the first time around there. They planted someone in there to try and get evidence out, and the guy was twisting his words.

Yes, yeah, it was wild, oh okay.

Yeah, Now he's in there, and even the people in the jail like they had that big, tough guy in jail who's like, I followed your case. Yeah, I believe you're innocent. No one harmed this guy, yeah, because you know, he allegedly hurt a child, and people who hurt children in jail don't generally do well. But he had the back of someone who was big and bad in jail believed he was innocent. So yeah, now that his way to prove his innocence.

His only first string of lacke I guess.

No kidding. So in nineteen ninety three, Gee was well, with the help of some new lawyers, was filing his appeal. He was granted bail on February ninth, nineteen ninety three, but by then he had spent years battling the justice system already that seemed, of course, determined to label him

Wow, okay, those are some good parents, so hey.

Yes, no kidding. This time though, the court would not rely on botched detective work. They were not going to go along with claims that went alongside circumstantial evidence that were like forced puzzle pieces jammed together. They weren't gone with any of that this time. It was evidence. This time there was something more coming to the trial. See, there was a revolutionary new tool that came into play,

It didn't go well at all when they did the hair samples right now.

However, Ghee was not concerned one bit with this testing being done. In fact, he actually began saying, no, test it. Yeah, He's like, we need to test this one hundred percent do it. He knew that it would prove his innocence instead of proving him guilty. So he's determined to prove his innocence once and for all, So let's do it. So in January of nineteen ninety five, the DNA testing came through and the new test conclusively told that Gee's DNA was not a match found on the sample of

It's a Gee guy, Like, it's like potato potato or potato potato. You know what we mean here? Yeah, it's the same thing kind of thing.

No, it's Ghee. I'm sorry, I keep messing it up. I'm probably going to keep messing it up, but I'm going to do my best, GhIE. So yes, the test excluded Ghee as the murderer, and on January twenty third, nineteen ninety five, the appeal trial concluded swiftly with a judge delivering a verdict of acquittal on all charges.

Wow.

Yeah, the DNA evidence, which all parties agreed was accurate. By the way, So it's not just like the defense and the whole courtroom whatever. It is basically just like, yeah, no, this is this is concrete. He didn't do it. There's no one disagreeing. It's firm. It proved his innocence beyond

For them to get help kind of once it is proven that they were actually innocent.

Well I'm not too sure how much they actually work with. Maybe there's individuals who are behind bars who believe they're wrongfully convicted and they can seek help or advice or counseling. I don't know. Maybe it's during trials, maybe it's during sentencing, but it would most certainly be afterwards for sure. But anyways, I digress. I thought it was a little piece of

It's been that long. He lost that long of his life.

Yeah, so nearly ten years of his life since he's been arrested, shit, convicted, re sentence. Sorry, it was he went to trial twice because this third time when he was actually appealing, the DNA came back just before the third trial was set. Okay, so he'd actually gone through the legal court system twice and about two on the third time as well before Yeah, it all came crashing down. So almost ten years.

So he's entitled to some money or something of sorts.

He did receive compensation one point twenty five million dollars, so one and a quarter million dollars compensation from the Ontario government, you know, on a partial attempt to rectify the impact of the wrong conviction of him.

Right, I just have to say really quickly, like time though, I feel like the majority of people, if they were a million dollars verse ten years of their life, they would probably choose the ten years of their life. Probably a lot of people, the majority, I'm thinking, right.

So that well, if you talk to someone on their deathbed or whatever, they probably trade that money for one more day.

Yeah, So that just it doesn't seem good enough.

Yeah. Now, he also reportedly gave half a million dollars to his parents to relieve that financial burden that they dug themselves into to help him out as well.

Right, yeah, so that money is going like harly nowhere. Then that's being paying for all the shit.

Yeah, right back to the government.

Wow. Wow.

Now he did have freedom, however, didn't come very easily, of course, because you have whole ten years of his life, right, But that also didn't mean that the life after those ten years was very easy either. See the stigma of the case that had lasted for nearly a decade followed him. Wherever he went, he struggled to find work, and he actually went on to eventually buy a farm, got married

Oh so they're now taking it on his.

Children, his kindergartener, which is what a five year old?

Oh yeah, what?

Yeah, they're even feeling the repercussions of this wrong. That's fiction.

Insane though, because he got it was like proven that he was innocent, So what the hell right? People aren't letting him move on.

They're not well, I'm sure there's individuals out there who still believe he actually did do it because they haven't found the real killer yet. So meanwhile, the hunt for Christine's killer did continue. In nineteen ninety eight, after three years of investigating, the Toronto Police Superintendent Neil Tweety and Detective Steve Rehill, they just kind of didn't know what else to do. The case was just cold once again.

Okay, I just have to say, that's a good person to take it over, though, no kidding, really good because they're gonna, you know, it affected them and so they're going to just have that extra likom to.

Try to get that investment investment into the case, right. So that's one hundred percent what it was for him. He was invested, not only of course with his job, but there's this personal attachment of you know, she was my age or whatever. I grew up hearing about this. It was in the paper, My mom or neighbor whoever was crying talking about it. I saw the posters as she was missing. I attended Surge Park like things like that. Yeah, and this is the individual who is now taking it over.

Okay, that's so good.

Yeah. So Smith had recently completed a forensic genology course and saw an opportunity to apply this technique to Christine's case. So you see, the Human Genome Project or HGP, launched in nineteen ninety and completed in two thousand and three. It was a monumental scientific endeavor that mapped all genes in the human genome and determined the complete DNA sequence. We've talked about this a few times on our podcast before, and it was done. I mean, it has done wonderful

Right, yes, and we've done that one.

Yes, have we done the Golden State?

I thought we did? Didn't I do that one?

Maybe?

I'm pretty sure.

We're over two hundred and twenty five episodes and it's hard to remember everything.

We've all hard to remember them all.

But I do know the case for sure, and yes, this was something that helped actually identify the Golden State, and this is what we're looking at now. So Smith soon contacted the Texas based genetic genealogy company, offering to collaborate on this case. However, they were willing, but they were only going to allow him to submit one sample for the project, just one. See, he had many cases that we're going across his desk, right, Okay.

I was like, what's exactly the problem here? Okay?

Yeah, many cases, many individuals that he would like to see take advantage of this opportunity, and he only is allowed to submit one. So, after much thought, he chose to submit Christine's.

Okay, that's tough.

Yeah, it wasn't a decision he made lightly by any means, No, I'm sure not. Yeah, and especially considering like no Canadian court had ever used forensic genealogy in a criminal case before, so if this were to come back and be some evidence that could go into court, it would be a first in a Canadian criminal justice system. So, using the DNA collected from Christine's clothing, the team uploaded the profile

So that's narrowing it down quite a bit, but that's that's still a bit. That's still a huge pool.

See, what they're doing is basically saying this could be anyone in Ontario, and now you're like, it's anyone related to this pool, and now it's a gene pool instead of like a population pool, you know what I mean. So it's narrowed it down, but that's still a lot of people to look through.

So then you can narrow that down even more, I feel like, potentially to people who are in that area at the time and stuff you could.

You could potentially, but you also have to it's going to take a lot of investigating to get that narrowed down, right. It could take years to get that narrowed down to even like half of its size, for example. So it's a broad spectrum still, but it's a step in the

Oh man, this is giving me chills here.

So this attempt yielded an additional three third cousins. However, these ones were reportedly much closer to the killer. Okay, now this is one of the genetic hits from the genealogy. It turned out that these were from the maternal side of this killer. So this breakthrough actually allowed the detective and his team to narrow that list down from the potential thirty three thousand suspects down to about four hundred.

Okay, now we're talking here.

Now we're talking. That could have taken a decade to do alone. Yeah, Instead he submitted to another platform and here we are. So with newer information at hand, Detective Smith, along with a Toronto police genealogist and a couple of genealogy experts from the Texas based company, spent the next eight months building an intricate family tree, you know, connecting person from person to person and a family all over.

Okay, have we been introduced to this person? I'm like having trouble recalling that.

This is where you're going to have to recall back to part one.

I know, and I can't remember this name.

And this is a really good reason why I'm so happy this was a part two case because I almost get to reintroduce you. So before we're going to talk about who Calvin was. Okayt so. Calvin Hoover was born in nineteen fifty six and grew up in the Scarborough area. As a child, he frequently spent time near Sunderland. Now the same Sunderland that Christine's body was found. This is

Well, I'm just like pretty because I'm wondering if I know who this person is. So I'm just like intently listening.

Fair enough. So. At the time of Christine's murder in nineteen eighty four, Calvin would have been twenty eight years old. He had no criminal record, and there was little to suggest he was capable of such a crime. However, his darker tendencies began to emerge over the years. In nineteen ninety ninety one, seven years after Christine's death, Calvin and

Which is just like, wayed, I don't know, put your trauma on to now your son, right, Yeah, to find something like that, I feel like, would be horrible.

Well, and the son also found one more thing on the bathroom mirror. There was also a post it note that simply read, I hope you all have a good life.

Holy shit? Really yes, huh okay that made my heart just sink completely. Yeah.

Around, It's a sad situation for sure, and no individual should have to find anyone and like that, let alone their parents. Who knows the struggles of someone who's you know, having to self delete like that. But yeah, I mean it's terrible.

Well, I mean, this dude should be struggling though, if, like, if he's actually the one that did this. Like, I'm kind of glad that he didn't just like have this amazing life for.

Well, that's kind of what I'm happy many years, you know, I'm hoping that his guilty conscience was part of that. I'm don't get me wrong. I'm not sitting here hoping that anyone's gonna, you know, string themselves there. I just hope that Christine got to him.

Yeah, well that he like, that's so much guilt that he should be living with, and so for him just to be able to have how many years of happy life is not all right?

Yeah, Now, after his death, it wasn't until decades later that Calvin was actually identified as a man responsible for Christine Jessop's tragic murder. Though Calvin Hoover could never face justice in a courtroom for his actions upon an innocent nine year old girl, his identification brought some semblance of closure to her family and a case that haunted Canada

And was home alone, like hardly anytime or she was alone.

Yeah, and this was not a normal thing to happen. She wasn't alone for the small window of time every day after school. It just so happened on this day. There was plans that created this, right, So on this day she would be home alone for upwards of approximately fifteen minutes. So according to Christine's mother, Christine would arrive home at about four pm from the school bus and she herself would arrive home at about four to ten, so there was about ten minutes that she was home alone.

Right, Oh shit, is this literally the family that had the four boys? Dude?

Her friend's name was Heather Hoover.

Oh okay, isn't this not? Did I not? Predict that it was going to be one of them.

I believe last episode you claimed your thought was going to be one of the sons.

Yeah, is this one of the sons? Or is this the dad? Holy shit? I can't okay, I'm I'm getting mixed up here now.

Well, at Heather Hoover's home or at the Hoover's home. It was here that investigators believe Heather's husband, Calvin Hoover, may have overheard the conversation holy shit. Yeah. So Janet's talking to Heather saying, yea, you know, on this day, I'm gonna go visit my husband Bob, who's currently in jail for yeah, some some theft stuff.

And like he would have been friends with Bob.

Yeah, And she's like, Okay, you know, I'm worried about Christine. She's gonna be alone for a few minutes, but it'll be nothing or whatever. And this is where they believe Calvin got the information on when she would be alone.

What the actual fuck?

Yeah?

Oh you're serious? Ey oh man, Okay.

No, I'm lying. Yes, I'm serious.

That is just shocking.

You was shook to your core right now?

Yeah, I don't understand that.

Well, police suspected that Calvin heard this and use this as his opportunity to abduct Christine. So on the day of October third, Christine disappeared precisely during this window of opportunity. Now, whether she willingly went with Calvin because she trusted him or was taken by force, remains unknown. Christine was just forty pounds and was rather small. She's a nine year old girl, right.

He's a grown ass man.

That makes it very easy for an adult to overpower her if they wanted to. From there, investigators believe Calvin took her to Sunderland. In this area, which is a place where he knew well from his childhood. It's dense forest and remote backroads provided a seclusion that he needed to commit his heinous act without fear of being interrupted or seen. So it was there that he would have raped and murdered nine year old Christine.

Oh my gosh.

Despite his actions, Calvin Hoover managed to avoid suspicion for decades.

What a complete piece of shit. Sorry, I'm still processing.

It's all good. It's all good. He helped in group searches for Christine, he attended her funeral and even offered his condolence to the Jessup family at her wake, he blended seamlessly, never drawing attention to himself, and at the time police were photographing and monitoring attendees both at the wake and funeral, hoping to catch any unusual behavior that might be popping out amongst the crowd of people. Calvin's lack of criminal record and his unremarkable demeanor just kept

I just don't think that they would ever figure that out, really, Like, that's so shocking. It's so shocking because they were family friends, and I mean, I know it's often people you know and stuff, but still you would never think that it would be like a dad of a family friend.

True, but like investigators were thinking that it must be an individual that they had known, and rewinding back to part one, police just honed in on Ghee right away, and Heather and Calvin were never really looked into at all. In fact, Janet even told them of the conversation that she had with Janet.

At their house, right, Yeah.

But they weren't looked into. They were just too fixated on pinning it on Ghee. So when you say that they never would have found that out, I disagree.

I guess yeah, they could have, you know, it just I just can't stop. I just can't stop thinking about this, and like, was he waiting for this opportunity? Had it been like something that he had been thinking about doing. I just that is so disturbing. It's ridiculously disturbing.

That's only something we can speculate on. But I'm thinking.

Because she could have been his child, like quite easily.

Oh yeah, No, he was twenty eight and she was nine, So I'm thinking there's two options. He had this attraction to her and then he heard this opportunity and was like, hey, I could take advantage of the situation. Or he was waiting for an opportunity and this was it.

So you don't think that it was that he just heard this. He there would have been some sort of attraction or something before just hearing this random thing, Like you there must have been think you would just get this idea after hearing that a kid's going to.

Be there must have been. I don't think it's far fetched to say that he could have heard it and then just came up with this all after the fact of hearing it. But I think most likely there was some prior thoughts.

About that, yeah, which I don't want to say into miners.

Yeah, and not the kind that like dig underground.

I have my armpits joke. I'm sorry. My armpits are like sweating right now. I'm so upset and disgusted.

I know I'm rather uncomfortable too.

It's it is just mind blowing. Actually back on.

Track though, Despite his death and the DNA tests already being done, Detective Smith wanted to see if he could do one final test. So, if you remember, the DNA testing that pins Calvin to this crime is taken off for clothing, right, So he reached out to the coroner's office to determine if there was any biological samples from Calvin's autopsy that had been preserved. He wanted a final confirmation, a stamp of one hundred and ten percent this is the connection.

Right, Well, good for him.

Yeah, And it turns out there was a little bit of a luck on his side because the coroner still had two vials of Calvin's blood.

Okay, I have no idea, like they go about keeping this shit and stuff. I don't know.

I'm clearly they do, or at least in some cases they do. So in September of twenty twenty, the blood samples were sent to Detective Smith, who secured your judicial permission to have them tested. Forensic scientist Kelly Bowie at the Toronto Forensic Science Center conducted the DNA analysis. The results were conclusive. Calvin Hoover's DNA match the seamen found on Christine Jessop's underwear beyond a reasonable doubt. It was one hundred and ten percent his DNA because yeah, you.

Could almost wonder, well, maybe it was one of his kids, right, and that could be why he was like, I need to get like concrete evidence exactly.

This genealogy testing. Yeah, it's it put them like almost certain, maybe even certain, but just to have no room for any doubt. Now this is it.

Because I still have trouble believing, and I'm because I'm just it's so far fetched that the father would do this.

What he did.

Oh Man.

On October fifteenth, twenty twenty, Detective Steve Smith announced Calvin Dana Hoover as a man responsible for Christine's murder, but before making the news public, Smith himsel self personally went and informed Ghee, Paul moore In and Christine's family Heather, Janet, Bob, and her older brother Kenny about the news. Now, when police arrived at Gee's doorsteps, he felt a wave of anxiety after years of being wrongfully accused and the sight

Oh that just gave me chills. Yeah, really, he'd go and visit the fucking grave with Heather and that's disgusting.

Now, Janet Jessup Christine's mother barely remembered Calvin at all. By this point, she had just tried to move forward, and she and Bob had divorced, selling their family home. Going their separate ways. Janet moved into an apartment in Kenswick, north of Queensville, where she was focusing on her volunteer work, and Bob had remarried, found work in Sutton, and was grateful that these years of torment were finally over. Kenny,

Well yeah, yeah, no, I mean it's mind blowing, but the closure is good.

Yeah. During this investigation, detective Smith discovered that Calvin's address at the time of Christine's murder had been listed in the original case files buried in the database all along. This discovery led Smith to investigate Calvin's other addresses over the years. So Calvin's job as an installer for an electric electrical company allowed him to travel frequently for work, which gave him, Yeah, your eyes just got real wide,

Paul Marvin, Well, that is just a doozy of a case right there. Yeah, And it doesn't feel I don't know, it's just I feel it's still so heavy, like it just I don't know. Lots of times when the person's found it's like, oh right on, but it doesn't like I don't feel happy about it at all for some reason.

Well, I think there's there's two main reasons. One, he was a trusted family friend, right, most likely he didn't have to.

Overpower like apparent figure.

Yes, because if you think of it this way, remember part one, the mail was brought in, Christine's jacket was hung up higher on a hook than it was before, So he most likely entered the house with her willingly most likely, and then left with her willingly. So I think that's one reason why it's unsettling, because he was supposedly a trusted family friend.

Yeah.

And secondly, he got off easy. Yeah, he did not have to live life with that stigma on him as being a murderer. He didn't get jail time. Someone else got that stigma in jail time, some of the jail time.

Yeah, Like he he just let someone else, Like he was probably thrilled. Yeah that someone else was, you know, having to go through this and being had this pinned on them exactly. So this case, this case has got me real good here.

Yeah. So fuck Calvin. No shit, he's a piece of shit.

He's a douche canoe eat piece of shit.

And uh yeah, I hope that the Jessup family and he and his family can all move on from here as best as they can. I wish him nothing but the best.

Well, yeah, you'd hope at least. I mean, it hasn't really even been that long, right, it was like twenty nineteen or something. Yeah, but yeah, you'd hope that these last five six years, I guess now almost it's been kind of like a breath of fresh air at least a little bit for him, like he can finally like take a deep breath, you know.

Yeah, maybe, huh. It's not only that he was wiped of all his convictions, he was exonerated, if you will. It's that there was someone else who was found to be the real perpetrator. So there's no room for doubt when people can say, yeah, you're out of jail, but we still think you did it. Yeah, there's the actually, here's the real evidence. Here's the real fucking killer. I did not do it, and there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt I didn't and he did.

This case is just to me, if I'm being honest, like with the fact of today's but then last one too, where he was just he was just the neighbor, like living his life. Yeah, and then his life just got completely ruined for no reason. Yep, huh okay, well let's carry on with our day.

Yeah after that, I know, I'm still just picturing like gee, because he like did some like beekeeping and stuff in the backyard and gifted the Jessup family honey occasionally.

His family wasn't his family had the bees or yeah.

Yeah, he helped his family do some beekeeping and stuff and just like work around the house. And he loved music and he was in jazz bands and he got arrested on his way to practice. Like it just he was living his best life. He was close with his family, doing what he loved, getting outside, being active, learning and it just came crashing down.

Yeah, it's like the candle just got blown out. Yeah done, uh, well well done on this one.

Thank you, I appreciate it. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this episode. Hopefully it was worth the wait for the second part here. I will make sure that in the future I do my best to inform you if it's a part one.

Well, mommy, usually very good. It's just some one off thing.

Yeah, well, I used to do in the beginning of this podcast. We used to leave it hanging and not tell everyone.

Oh yeah, I guess, oh holy heck.

Smooth.

Yeah, at the beginning, but lately yeah, quite some time.

Oh no, Yeah, we used to do it where it was like, oh, we'd leave you on a cliffhanger in Part two is coming out next week. But now it's like, okay, we'll let you know if it's a part one and that way because there's people who like to listen to part one and two in one city, which it totally.

Gets fair enough.

Yeah, yeah, anyways, thanks for being here. We appreciate you being here. Hopefully you have a fantastic Friday the thirteenth. If you want to check out any of our stuff for links and socials, it's all in the description of this podcast. We're in any podcast, we produce, we write, we do everything. So thank you so much for supporting us. Supporting us is supporting us direct, not other big overseeing

It do it do it really does it? Do it really does?

Nicole had the final sentiment of it do And I think we'll leave it at that. It do And until next time, stay wicked.