Murder at McDonald's (30 page)

He did, however, provide an explanation of a third shot on Burroughs: Darren, he said, had run to the safe and come back with the gun. This matched Derek Wood's version, but MacNeil picked up Muise's movements where Wood could not see them. “He said, ‘The bastard won't die, he'll fuckin' die now'—and he shot him from about one-and-a-half to two feet. He stood right over him and shot him.”

But MacNeil was not quite so vivid when it came to the moment he shot Jimmy Fagan. “Darren said, ‘Shoot him,' and I think he put the gun in my hand, and I think it was my hand that pulled the trigger. Derek took the gun and said, ‘We got to get the hell out of here.'” The shocked and confused participant MacNeil described as he implicated himself did not quite fit with Wood's portrayal of a man who wanted to return to the basement to ensure that Arlene MacNeil was dead, but it was a confession that tied him to the murders of Burroughs and Fagan.

After the statement was completed, Cleary wanted to know why MacNeil had become involved. Wood had told Scharf he shot his co-workers because he was afraid, and now Cleary wanted to know what led Freeman MacNeil to take part in such a grisly crime. “They asked me to drive, and I needed money,” he said. “I am unemployed.”

“What do you feel?” asked Cleary.

“Terrible,” MacNeil replied.

This wasn't an explanation that satisfied Cleary, but there was no time to consider it; there was still work to do. With confessions from two of the suspects in hand, investigators began to concentrate on Darren Muise, whose interrogation had been proceeding without success for a very long time—more than twelve hours. After talking freely with Corporal Stoyek about his past and his plans for the future, Muise had returned to his tough-but-polite stance, which he maintained hour after hour, each time the officer tried to move the conversation in the direction of the McDonald's murders.

At one point, when Stoyek tried to explain the need for getting his side of the story out, he interrupted with: “Ah, 'scuse me, could you tell me what time the food will be here—do you have an approximate time?” Muise was interested in breakfast, not in answering questions about the case. As Stoyek continued to press the issue, Muise began ignoring him blatantly, playing with his pop bottle and other items on the table, and even picking at the cut on his wrist. He was not being budged one inch by the big officer. He went so far as to joke about the inconvenience the police had caused him in the past couple of days. When Stoyek tried to suggest that Muise was losing sleep over the murders, the young man insisted he slept just fine—then quickly corrected himself: “Well, actually, I haven't, 'cause people keep waking me up in the morning … I'm a night person.”

Knowing that Muise wanted his approval—that was clear from the suspect's casual conversations—Stoyek tried to appeal to his sense of responsibility. “None of this bothers you at all?” he asked. “There's only two ways you can have it, Darren. There's only two possible ways you can have it, O.K.? Does what happened at McDonald's bother you?” There was no answer. The eighteen-year-old looked at the officer, deeply inhaled his cigarette, and blew smoke rings.

Brian Stoyek and Dave Trickett had been in and out of the interview room for hours. By 7:30 a.m., Stoyek was alone with the suspect, but he decided he too needed a break, and left Muise to have his breakfast. Outside, the two officers regrouped, and shortly before eight, Trickett returned to the interview room. He tried to explain the situation to Muise, telling him he was the only one left who had not told his side of the story. That wasn't true; Freeman MacNeil's confession had not yet been obtained by Cleary and Murphy, but the police wanted Muise to feel he had nothing left to protect—and they did have MacNeil's statement from the previous day, implicating him. Again and again, Trickett tried to make the point that police already knew what Muise had done, but just wanted to be fair and hear his version. But it was no use. Muise was apparently under the delusion that the police were lying to him, trying to trick him into confessing.

Trickett could not believe this young man with no criminal record could possibly be this tough. “Darren, do you believe what I told ya? Answer me. Answer me, Darren. Do you believe what I told ya? Don't play your games with me, trying to stare me down; that's garbage. I'm not even gonna play your silly games, bud. You've lost. You've played the game, you've given it a good shot, but you've lost. You can blow your smoke.”

“I don't mean to blow smoke in your face.”

“I don't care whether you blow. That doesn't bother me in the least. I'm tellin' ya I know your games. You can blow your smoke, you can play with your matches, you can play with this, you can play with that.”

“Believe what you wanna believe.”

Trickett soon realized that he, like Stoyek, was not getting through to Muise, and he left the interview room just before 9:00 a.m. As Muise dozed off in the room, police planned a new approach. How could they make Muise see that it was in his best interest to tell his side of the story? Although Derek Wood's confession placed Muise inside the restaurant, Wood had said he was not sure if Darren ever used the gun, or if he even used his knife. Even if Wood had placed all the blame on Muise, it was unlikely Wood would testify against him—and there was very little physical evidence. The police decided they would use what little they had to shake Muise's confidence. Henry Jantzen got a call to bring over some of the exhibits he had collected—the bag of money retrieved by Wood after his confession, and the deck shoe that had been found at the Grantmire Brook. Muise's parents, who had been at the Reserve Mines detachment all night, identified the shoe as their son's.

Sandy and Gail Muise had been sitting for hours in an open area in the detachment office, watching officers come and go, and wondering what was happening to their lives. At one point, Darren walked past with an officer and smiled at his parents. His voice confident, he told his mom not to worry. But how could they not worry? The police wouldn't even let them talk with Darren. It took a long time for them to accept that their youngest son would not be coming home with them, but the Muises were finally convinced by police that Darren had in some way taken part in the McDonald's murders. Back home, incredulous and shocked, Sandy Muise took some of his son's belongings to the back yard and burned them. As the heartbroken father stood there and watched the smoke rise, he was fully aware that burning the items would not remove Darren from his life; in fact, he knew he didn't want to do that. He just needed to act out in some way, to direct his anger at something. For the past week, he had heard a continuous stream of comments from passengers in his cab, a common theme being that whoever was responsible for those brutal McDonald's murders should be taken out and killed. No punishment was too severe, he agreed, although that was an easy answer—like everyone else, Sandy Muise had an image of the killers as hardened criminals who had managed to find their way to Cape Breton. But now everything was different.

Across the street, Kris Granchelli's mother woke him to tell him that his friend had been arrested for the murders; word of the late-night visit by police to the Muise home had spread quickly through the tight-knit community. Kris looked over towards the house and saw smoke billowing from the back yard. He had to reach out to the Muises somehow, so he went over to their house. Darren's parents welcomed him to their home, as always, but the visit was filled with an awkward silence. Kris could say nothing to comfort them; he could see the shock they were experiencing, and he felt some of it himself. He left them to their grief. Gail Muise later said she thought it would have been easier if Darren had been one of the victims; she could not understand how her son could be involved in such a horrid crime. But whatever role Darren played, the Muises decided—even if he held the door open or drove the car—he should be punished.

Meanwhile, Muise remained defiant. Even when Brian Stoyek returned, at about 11:30, to tell Muise it was all over—they had evidence, they had the deck shoe, they had the money, and they had confessions from his partners—Muise just wasn't buying it. He knew they had his shoe, because he had heard about the evidence recovered from the brook and seen TV reports showing divers searching the area. It didn't seem to matter to him. About twenty minutes later, Constable Henry Jantzen entered the room. He said nothing, just looked at Muise, went over to the table, and plunked down the shoe, the plastic bag filled with money, and the shovel handle used by Freeman MacNeil. Muise looked at the items but said nothing; Jantzen picked them up and walked out. Now Dave Trickett pressed ahead, hoping the evidence had shaken Muise's confidence, weakened his resolve to remain silent. They didn't even need Muise's statement, Trickett told him; everything was falling into place: “Freeman has been in, Woody has been in; Greg Lawrence, Michelle, Kristine—everybody has said their piece, and it's time for you to do the same thing, Darren. It's time for you to tell the truth, my son.” Trickett was trying to persuade the young man that it would be better for him to tell his story now, because if he waited for his trial, a judge would be more inclined to believe his partners' versions. They were giving their side now; why would a judge give any credence to someone who was only telling his story at the last minute?

Muise's confidence was broken by the sight of the bag of money. He knew there was only one way the police could have found that. Still, he couldn't believe Derek had sold him out. Muise decided he'd better talk to his lawyer again, and told the officers he might make a statement, but that they had to turn off the video camera beforehand. He also made sure there were no reporters outside the interview room before he left the room. Muise met with his attorney for about an hour and a half. He was obviously trying to determine if in fact his partners had sold him out, because his lawyer left the meeting and asked police if he could see what Wood and MacNeil had said. He was shown copies of the Wood confession and the statement taken from Freeman MacNeil the day before; although that statement didn't include MacNeil's own involvement, it clearly implicated Muise. While the lawyer read through the papers, Muise returned to the interrogation room with Stoyek and Trickett. Shortly afterward, he came and told his client that police were telling the truth; he had been implicated in the statements by Derek Wood and Freeman MacNeil. But even then, Darren Muise was not ready to give in. Maybe he would say something, but first he wanted to be left alone to eat supper and think. He was given a meal and left alone for an hour.

Muise was sitting in silence with his food at the very moment Freeman MacNeil was finally giving his full written confession to Pat Murphy and Kevin Cleary. When word from the North Sydney detachment reached the officers in Reserve Mines, they felt renewed pressure to somehow persuade the young man to stop going around in circles. It wasn't going to be easy. At Muise's request, the video camera had been kept covered while he ate his meal, but the audio tape was left running. Muise knew the microphone was live, and spoke into it at 4:50 p.m., saying he wanted to go to the washroom. Brian Stoyek took him there, and Muise told Stoyek he wanted to talk with Dave Trickett alone. Clearly, Darren Muise was in complete control of the situation: he was not free to leave, but he was making sure the police did exactly what he wanted. And they were willing to give in to his whims because, no matter what they were telling him, they needed that statement.

Dave Trickett tried again, but it quickly became apparent that Muise was not in the mood to give a statement. He just wanted company; he tried to get Trickett to talk about other things but avoided discussions of the murders. “Nothing about police,” he said. “I wanna talk about your average Joe stuff. I wanna relax for a minute.”

“O.K., I can appreciate you wanna relax, Darren, but the reason we're still here is to take this statement. We don't have time to relax.” Still Muise avoided the issue, questioning Trickett about where he would be kept in custody. Earlier in the day, police had told him it would probably be in the detachment building, and now he wanted to make certain that had not changed. Trickett said he thought that was still the case, but that it was not his decision.

Finally, the officer got Muise on track and had him sign the written police warnings. Then he asked, “Darren, what can you tell me about the robbery and shootings at McDonald's Restaurant in Sydney River?”

“O.K., you understand I'm nervous.”

“Yes. I understand you're nervous.”

“Um, it all started, um, two or three weeks ago, when Derek mentioned about McDonald's. I guess we all agreed, but I was wary. One thing I'd like to say is that I never pulled a trigger … I kinda remember when we first went in. I knew Derek had a gun, but I never thought he'd use it. I remember hearing shots and my mind went blank … I feel sorry for the families. F' some reason it seems like my fault, but I know it wasn't.”

Dave Trickett was not satisfied with the statement. It was a start, but Muise was claiming he had blacked out in the restaurant and could not recall anything that happened. Trickett pushed for more detail, but Muise insisted his statement was over; he wanted to talk one-on-one with Trickett, but not about the robberies. Trickett refused, and Muise declined to answer any more questions, so the officer left the room. He and Brian Stoyek, like many veteran police officers, had heard similar confessions involving supposed amnesia, and they felt Muise was still trying to protect himself and his partners in crime. Stoyek decided he would make one last attempt to reach Muise before a new team of interrogators was sent in; he walked back into the interview room at 6:20 p.m. Angry and frustrated, he aggressively challenged Muise about his blackout—but the suspect remained adamant in his indifference, informing the officer that he had said all he was going to say.