Copied from the new link dotr posted. This part really struck me:
Was she targeted by some predator? Was she simply in the wrong place at the wrong time? Is a killer at large and a threat in that semirural community or to Hamilton in general? At this point, there’s a better than even chance we won’t get answers to those questions, since the case is getting increasingly cold, the only suspect released due to a lack of sufficient evidence. David Scott, a troubled, often homeless man battling schizophrenia, was identified as a prime suspect early in the investigation, but released when lack of evidence — including DNA — made the Crown utter the dreaded indictment: “No reasonable prospect of conviction.”
Police don’t talk about murder investigations, certainly not unresolved ones, and certainly not ones where the case may have been mishandled to some degree. So those questions linger. Why the intensive, nearly exclusive focus on Scott? Why weren’t other suspects scrutinized to the same extent, even if just to rule them out? Granted, Scott’s demeanour, location and history were cause for suspicion. But standard investigative procedure is to compile massive evidence that will stand the scrutiny of a trial, and that didn’t happen in this case. How early in the process was the Crown’s office consulted? Because the standard of proof is higher for the Crown than for police, it makes sense for that higher standard to be applied early in an investigation, to identify weaknesses in the case early. Again, that didn’t happen in this case, and ultimately the Crown acknowledged the evidence was insufficient. So it was back to square one, or as Wells put it, “perhaps even further back than that.”
That meant starting from scratch on an ice-cold trail. It meant re-interviewing witnesses who have now had many months to forget relevant information, or to be influenced by subsequent events, so their recollections and testimony will almost certainly be weaker. It meant much more time has elapsed for the perpetrator to cover his tracks, perhaps even lose himself, and/or to strike again. Hopefully, Audrey Gleave’s story won’t end here. She deserves better, and so do the rest of us.
Howard Elliott
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