Murder at McDonald's (38 page)

The backpack marked escape, which Derek Wood forgot when he and the other killers fled McDonald's. His nametag, which was in the pack when police found it, was identified in court by a restaurant manager. [RCMP crime scene photo.]

The final witness on the third day of the trial, May 12, was McDonald's manager Phyllis Kowalczyk. Her testimony, too, was difficult for the victims' relatives to hear, because it brought home in stark terms what they already knew—that all four victims could, and should, have been somewhere else when the robbery occured. Jimmy Fagan would have been on the witness stand, not in a grave, if he had come to work on time instead of an hour early. Neil Burroughs, who had been off work for more than two months after injuring his back in a car accident, could have stayed away a little longer, but instead traded shifts with Jimmy and took the easier workload. Arlene MacNeil had finished her work, and should have left at the same time as Derek Wood and the other evening-shift employees. And Donna Warren, who was scheduled for the day shift, took the swing shift for another manager.

For Derek Wood, the fifth day of his murder trial marked the end of his teenage years. Wood's lawyers brought a birthday cake to the courthouse so their client could celebrate his twentieth birthday over lunch. It was a birthday he also shared with his father, a quiet, dark-haired man in his forties, who had been sitting in the hall outside the courtroom since the beginning of the trial. The short, shy-looking George Wood had asked to be near his son during the trial, but the defence team said no. Apparently, Derek didn't want his father to hear the testimony against him. For the first couple of days, Mr. Wood's presence had pretty much gone unnoticed by the victims' relatives and the reporters; however, it wasn't long before we discovered the identity of the gentleman in the grey leather jacket, who was always leaning forward on a bench and staring at the floor. The sheriff's deputies told us who he was when we asked if he was a witness, and they also identified the woman who joined him one day—Derek's stepmother. The couple sat quietly, listening to the conversation swirling around them—all about what a frightening monster their son was supposed to be. George Wood knew all too well about the pain and outrage being felt in the community, especially in the area around the Sydney River McDonald's; he worked in a grocery store less than a block away, and was constantly reminded of the terrible crime. The pain George Wood felt was as obvious in his posture and his sad eyes as it was in the expressions of the victims' parents. He too had lost a child.

Emotions ran high again on the afternoon of Derek Wood's birthday, as Kevin Cleary took the stand, using a pointer and an architectural model of McDonald's to describe the scene he found on the morning of May 7, 1992. The $15,000 scale model had been built for the three trials to help witnesses with their testimony, but its presence didn't make Cleary's job easier on him emotionally. Cleary wanted to provide the jury with a clear picture of what had happened, but as he talked of finding the bodies inside, he could hear the relatives of the victims crying in the gallery. Each sniffle or quiet moan sent a chill down the officer's spine, but he forced himself to continue, aware that the families wanted justice and certain he could only help them by being as detailed as possible in his testimony, regardless of the effect.

By the fifth day of the trial, I had worked out my routine for this trial and the two that would follow. Early each morning, camera operator Gary Mansfield and I arrived at the courthouse to get a new shot of the suspect arriving. At the noon break, we rushed back to the station to do a live report on the 1:00 p.m. news. Then, back to court, where I would try to persuade one of the Crown or defence attorneys to make a comment on the morning session. I needed a fresh on-camera comment each day, and the victims' relatives were still rejecting requests for interviews. At 4:30 p.m., it was back to the station again, to pull together a two-minute report on the day's testimony, including the reactions of the spectators. The schedule kept us running and, unfortunately, prevented me from getting as close to the relatives of the victims or of Derek Wood as I would have liked. It seemed that every time there was a break, I was running for a phone or racing towards the truck to get back to the station.

Still, I was getting in some brief chats with Olive Warren, a very friendly woman who happened to know Gary; the cameraman grew up with Donna in the industrial suburbs of Sydney. Olive had wispy fine hair, glasses, and an expression that varied from a bright smile to deep sorrow, depending on the day and the testimony. She always wore a bright purple jacket with a faded ribbon pinned to the lapel—a tribute to Arlene MacNeil. The committee raising money for Arlene's rehabilitation had given out the ribbons months before, and Olive continued to wear hers; she told me she would only remove it when Arlene was well enough to come home. Each morning as we arrived, Olive would come over and ask Gary if he had managed to get a good shot of Wood being led from the prison van. He couldn't appear before the camera too often, as far as she was concerned.

While Olive would not yet agree to give me an interview, she did talk privately about her concerns and fears—and began to include me in a morning ritual of hers. Every day, before the doors opened, Olive would make the rounds of all the victims' families, handing out peppermints from an apparently endless supply she kept in her purse. The mints were also offered to security officers, and now Gary and I were on her treat list. When I realized that Olive was also giving candies to the prosecutors each morning, I began to tease her. She had often told me that she'd welcome the chance to get Derek Wood alone and teach him a lesson about what he had done, so one time I told her I knew what she was really up to: “I know what you're doing,” I said. “When the final day of this trial comes around, you're going to slip everyone a knockout pill instead of a candy.” Olive smiled conspiratorially. “Don't tell on me,” she said, “and I'll keep you awake.”

After my morning visit with Olive, I would try to chat up the other relatives. Al and Theresa Fagan were very friendly, and apologized for their reluctance to agree to an interview; they did not want to be rude, but they had been advised not to talk to the media. The morning also offered a few minutes to ask Ken Haley about his plans for the day—the witnesses he intended to call, and the insights he hoped to reveal through their testimony. To my sorrow, I learned that Haley had more than the trial on his mind as he arrived each day. He was spending his evenings at the home of his father, a well-respected and hard-working community volunteer who was fighting a losing battle with cancer.

On the sixth day of the trial, the jury heard from Corporal Lead-better, who provided one of only two pieces of physical evidence linking Wood to the crime—the first being the kitbag found propping open the basement door. Leadbetter said the footprints from that door into the restaurant matched impressions made by the sneakers Wood wore that night. It was a tiny chink in the armour Derek Wood had worn since the trial began—the well-dressed, clean-cut young man, chatting quietly with his lawyers or with the guards beside him. It was difficult to believe that he was responsible for the horrific crime being re-created in gory detail for the jury. Whenever he entered or left the courtroom, he kept his head down and his face expressionless; even the jurors who watched the evening news saw only a subdued-looking, quiet young person. But when the jury was out for a break, and Wood was talking with his lawyers, he showed a little more emotion, even laughing at times. This irked Gary Mansfield, who took a great deal of pride in his work and was becoming more and more frustrated with the ever-present image of Wood with his head bowed in apparent sorrow. He wanted people to see Wood's face clearly—to see his eyes.

“As soon as I put the camera down, he comes to life,” Gary told me one day. “Maybe if you stand in front of me, and I shoot over your shoulder, he won't notice.” We both laughed at the suggestion. More than six feet tall, Gary packed about 225 pounds of solid muscle developed over many long hours in the gym. At five-nine and 145 pounds, I was hardly the one to block Gary Mansfield from anyone's view—especially when he had a TV camera on one shoulder and a large video-recorder on the other. “Fine,” said Gary, “but I'll get the shot even if I have to find a full-grown reporter somewhere else.” Mansfield did get his shot that day, while Wood was talking with his lawyers during a break. He didn't get anyone to block for him, though; he simply adjusted his camera for available light, quickly moved into the doorway, and aimed the lens into the courtroom. He managed to catch a few seconds of the smile on Derek Wood's face before Wood saw the camera, at which point his face went blank and his head lowered. It was another chink in the armour; Derek Wood wanted to be seen as a quiet and serious young man, and his efforts had been thwarted.

A hint of a smile compromises the serious look Derek Wood assumed for most of his trial. One of his lawyers, Allan Nicholson, is behind him. [Print from ATV video tape.]

On May 18 and 19, the jury also saw a very different Derek Wood, as they watched the video tape of his interrogation. This was a defiant Wood, arguing with and scoffing at Constables Wilson and Mahoney as they tried to persuade him to confess. They could also see a clear change in the young man's demeanour when he did confess—from an angry teen with an attitude, to someone clearly enjoying his conversations with police. The big-screen confession was the most telling evidence in the case, and Art Mollon and Allan Nicholson promptly set out to discredit it. In cross-examining the officers who had interrogated Wood, they showed that many details of the crime had first been revealed by the police, not Wood. For their part, the officers insisted they were trying to convince Wood that they knew what had happened, and that it was in his best interest to cooperate. But the defence team argued that the details police provided, coupled with Wood's obvious concern for the incarcerated Mike Campbell, could have prompted him to invent a confession that would help his friend. In his effort to create reasonable doubt—did Wood commit the crime or did he just repeat what police had described to him?—Allan Nicholson spent hours questioning Jim Wilson. The big, friendly constable shifted uncomfortably in the witness chair as he lived through every police officer's nightmare—a defence attorney who will not let you off the stand. The heat and humidity in the crowded courtroom added to Wilson's obvious discomfort; still, he handled the questions well, insisting he was certain that Derek Wood confessed because he was guilty. The cross-examination also gave Wilson a chance to say in public how he really felt about Wood. He may have been the one befriending the suspect in the interrogation room, but that didn't mean he was a member of the Derek Wood fan club. When Nicholson suggested that Wood responded to officers' appeals to his conscience by admitting to more than the minor role he played, Wilson flatly rejected this image of a guilt-ridden teenager. “I don't feel he has a conscience,” the officer said. “When he finished his statement, he says he's sorry. That's about the only conscience he has.”

Wilson spent the better part of two days on the witness stand, and near the end of his cross-examination, Neil Burroughs's sister Francine began crying quietly in the courtroom. I asked her later if she was upset because she felt the jury now believed Wood was innocent. But her concern was for Jim Wilson. “I just feel so bad for him,” she said. “It's not fair for them to treat him like that. I just wanted to run up to the stand and give him a big hug.”

The Crown rested its case after calling the police witnesses, and Art Mollon took over. Like many defence lawyers, Mollon doesn't give an opening statement, preferring to save his arguments for the summation. He began by calling four people to testify on behalf of Derek Wood. These witnesses came to Mollon's attention about halfway through the trial, when he received a phone call from a young woman who had been at Kings Convenience with her boyfriend on the morning of the murders. She remembered Derek Wood running into the store, and after hearing reports from the trial indicating that the time he arrived at the store was at issue, she felt compelled to call.