Murder at McDonald's (7 page)

Kevin Cleary, now a sergeant with the New Minas RCMP, joined the Mounties as a teenager, fulfilling a childhood dream. [RCMP photo.]

Kevin Cleary was six-foot-two and weighed 210 pounds. He was a policeman's policeman who, after almost twenty years of service, still walked with the erect posture of a cadet in training. Cleary had joined the Mounties at nineteen, fulfilling a childhood dream; by the time he started his training, in Regina, Saskatchewan, he knew the RCMP was for him. He thrilled at the physical challenges the training presented and truly enjoyed the mental discipline instructors demanded of cadets. Cleary, now a corporal and soon to become a sergeant, still loved his chosen career; he still felt he was providing a worthy service to the community.

As Cleary prepared to head home, something caught his attention. He heard communications officer Stan Jesty radioing a patrol car. Jesty had taken a report on a possible shooting near the Sydney River McDonald's from the taxi dispatcher and was asking Constable Henry Jantzen to check it out. Jantzen, who had been on patrol in Howie Centre, another bedroom community outside Sydney, turned around and headed for the restaurant—a five-minute drive on Highway 4. Cleary, as the senior officer on duty, would have to respond if the report was genuine, and he was even closer to the restaurant than Jantzen, so he ran out to his patrol car and set out for McDonald's.

Not that he believed there was anything to the call. Almost every police office can recall at least one incident of chasing down a report of a gunshot, only to find that a car was backfiring or someone was target-shooting in the middle of the night. Besides, Cleary thought, it would make sense that this was another case of a car backfiring. The Sydney bypass ran behind the restaurant, and Kings Road was in front of it; both major arteries would have some traffic, even at this hour. Still, Cleary drove quickly towards McDonald's. He would check out his theory in person.

“Detachment. Three-zero-seven.” That number identified Cleary's car—307. He was radioing Stan Jesty.

“Three-zero. Go ahead, Kevin.”

“Stan, could you phone that location and get someone on the line, please?”

“… four.”

As he neared the end of Kings Road, Cleary could see McDonald's. He thought the place looked strangely dark but wrote the impression off to anxiety. Trying to put his mind at ease, the corporal radioed Jesty again

“Three-zero. Any response there, Stan?”

“No, no answer, Kevin.” Jesty, busy with car-radio traffic, had not noticed that the line ringing through to McDonald's had finally been picked up. John MacInnis had tried to answer it when he discovered the body of Donna Warren, but no-one was on the other end.

For Kevin Cleary, the report that the call had gone unanswered set off a series of alarms. He lived near McDonald's; he had passed the building at all hours and was certain there was always someone working inside. Cleary pulled up the driveway to find Daniel MacVicar still in his car, where he'd remained after radioing to confirm that his passenger had been shot. MacVicar was staring at the back door, where his buddy John MacInnis had gone into the restaurant. A third cab driver, Cyril Gillespie, had arrived and was trying to help Jimmy Fagan.

Cleary pulled his car next to the taxi, and MacVicar quickly told his story—how he had heard the “firecracker” and seen two people run—and he pointed towards Fagan. Cleary ordered MacVicar to pull over to the back of the lot and wait until someone took his statement, then went to the door to investigate. He was approaching the building just as MacInnis came screaming out the back door, almost knocking over his fellow driver; Cyril Gillespie was still with the fallen Fagan. Gillespie backed away at the sight of MacInnis's terror-stricken face.

“They're still in there—I heard them!” MacInnis shouted. “There's bodies everywhere, and they're still in there!” MacInnis started away from the building, and the officer grabbed him, trying to calm the frightened driver and direct him to stay with Daniel MacVicar.

Then, Corporal Cleary pulled out his gun and made his way towards the door. He checked James Fagan and could hear him struggling for breath, and see the tiny bullet hole in his forehead. Cleary had to make a quick assessment of the situation. The excited driver had given him information to work with: there were other bodies, and although the driver had not seen an assailant—or assailants—he had heard sounds from the basement and was under the impression that somebody dangerous was still inside. He also knew, through Daniel MacVicar, that at least two people had run away, which could mean that the people left inside were all victims. Cleary radioed Stan Jesty to make certain that ambulances were on the way; MacVicar had said they'd been called by the taxi dispatcher, but Cleary wanted to be certain.

Next came the question of going inside. Henry Jantzen would be there any second, but Cleary still needed to decide whether or not they would go in. His first reaction was to call for Emergency Response Team backup, but that would take more than a hour—even if the team was able to fly from Halifax on a moment's notice. The Sydney RCMP subdivision once had its own ERT, but it had been disbanded; the Halifax-based squad now handled the entire province. ERT members were trained to deal with armed assailants inside a building, but Corporal Cleary knew his first duty as a policeman was the protection of life—and there were injured people inside. Cleary decided to sweep the building alone. Grabbing the portable radio he'd taken from his car, he reported his intention. “I'm going in to see what's in there. We have several injuries at least.” Cleary's throat was dry as he released the transmit button and prepared to go in. Before he could move, his radio came to life with a response. “You want me in there with you?” It was Henry Jantzen. The burly, heavy-set constable was on portable radio as he ran across the parking lot to join Cleary. The corporal's “Yes” was the last radio transmission Stan Jesty would hear from the two officers for several agonizing minutes.

The first ambulance rolled into the parking lot behind McDonald's as Kevin Cleary and Henry Jantzen inched inside the restaurant with their guns drawn. At the same moment, Derek Wood ran out from between an Irving gas station and the Sydney Video Entertainment store on Kings Road, about a half-kilometre away from McDonald's. He ran across the road and headed for a tiny strip mall that housed a fried-chicken franchise, a submarine sandwich shop, and Kings Convenience, a twenty-four-hour variety store with video poker machines that Wood had played a few times before. On familiar ground now, he burst through the door of Kings and ran to the counter, demanding to use the phone. The startled clerk was irritated at first—Wood had interrupted a couple purchasing cigarettes—but when he recognized the young man and saw the state he was in, he left the other customers. “There's been a shooting at McDonald's. Call the cops. I need to call the cops,” Wood blurted as he reached the counter.

The clerk checked the list of emergency numbers next to the phone, dialled, and handed Wood the receiver. Wood thought the clerk had made a mistake—he didn't think he was talking to the police—but by then he was genuinely panicked and couldn't be sure. It sounded more like the guy said “Ambulance” when he answered, not “Police.” Whoever it was, the guy said they had people on the way, so Wood hung up. He paced and lit a cigarette and worried, and finally decided he should call the police again. This time a second clerk dialled the RCMP number from memory. Whichever call connected Wood to police, it was Stan Jesty he reached. Jesty recorded the incoming call at 1:21 a.m.

“RCMP Sydney. Emergency.” Jesty's voice was clipped; he was in the process of directing officers to the scene and was waiting to hear from Cleary and Jantzen.

Derek Wood quickly got Jesty's attention. “Hello, yes, I just called a … like, reported fellows shooting.”

“Yes.” Jesty was listening.

“I was wondering, like, I'm fuckin' scared shitless here, eh, 'cause I, like, fuckin' I was there.”

“What's your name?”

“Ah, Derek Wood.”

An officer stands guard outside the employees' entrance to the Sydney River McDonald's, where Jimmy Fagan's body was found. [RCMP crime scene photo.]

“Were you at McDonald's, Derek?”

Wood seized the opportunity he had hoped to create. “I don't know. I was, like, in back having a smoke, and I heard a shot.”

“Were you inside the restaurant or outside?”

This was Wood's chance to explain the bag. “I was outside with the door, like, the doors are open, and the metal door there. All I heard was ‘Bang!' and it was, like, from inside.”

Jesty asked for Wood's address and phone number; he felt he had a witness on the line. Wood gave the officer the address and number of his brother's apartment in Sydney. The teenager was staying there, but would soon have to leave; like many other young Cape Bretoners, Derek's brother David had lost his job and decided to move away from the island in search of work. Just as Wood asked what he should do next, Jesty was interrupted by a call from Corporal John Trickett, whom he had phoned after hearing Kevin Cleary's transmission indicating several people were injured at the scene. Jesty knew Trickett and his police dog, Storm, would be needed, and now the dog master was en route to the restaurant, wanting to know what he was driving into—was there any danger, or could he take Storm directly to the building? Trickett usually had time to get such information earlier, but he lived only moments from the restaurant and knew he'd be there before he had a chance to gather his thoughts. As Jesty informed Trickett he was not yet certain of the situation, the radio came alive with other requests from the officers at McDonald's. Jesty had his hands full, so he told Derek Wood to go home, where officers would contact him in the morning. In fact, the police attempted to reach him within the hour, but Wood had not gone back to his brother's place.

While Derek Wood was reporting the shooting at McDonald's, Kevin Cleary and Henry Jantzen were discovering its horrifying aftermath. Once they had moved a few feet inside the doorway, the two officers parted. Jantzen headed down the stairs and slowly pushed the steel door open, looking to see if anyone was waiting for him on the other side. What he found was Arlene MacNeil, gasping for breath; she was inhaling blood from a puddle that had formed around her face on the floor. He rolled her over to ease her breathing, then notified Cleary by portable radio that he was standing guard over a victim who showed strong signs of life and needed medical attention, and fast. Upstairs, Kevin Cleary moved slowly, turning to the right around a corner near the entrance to the drive-through service area, his body in a crouched position as he proceeded. The restaurant had to be secured before he could let the ambulance attendants come in. First he saw blood on the floor, and then, as he inched closer, he saw Neil Burroughs.

The pool of blood was still widening around the fallen man's body, but there were no signs of life. Just then, Cleary noticed an unusually powerful odour, something he had never encountered in any of the murder investigations he had carried out in the past. Then he realized what it was—a smell of fresh blood and gunpowder, a sickening combination, which he would never forget. The realization reinforced his biggest fear, that he was at a crime scene so fresh that the criminal or criminals were still inside. After seeing Jimmy Fagan and Neil Burroughs, Kevin Cleary realized he was dealing with killers like none he'd ever contemplated. At any moment, he could join the victims on the floor with a bullet in his head: whoever was responsible would not stop at killing a cop.

Every nerve in Cleary's body tingled as he continued his crouched advance towards the front of the restaurant, sweeping his gun ahead of him at every step. He turned left and found himself inside the main service area of the restaurant; tucking his head down, below the counter that held the cash registers, he made his way to the other side of the kitchen. At the far end of the service counter he turned left again, heading back towards the basement stairs, where Jantzen had headed. On his right, through an open door, he saw a foot. Another victim.
My God,
he thought.
It's got to stop.
Cleary took a deep breath and moved forward again. There was an open safe door beside the foot, and then he could see two feet, and legs. It was a woman. Cleary put his back to the wall outside the tiny office and peered in through the door.

What Kevin Cleary saw inside that office continues to haunt him to this day—an image that clearly depicted the savage, senseless nature of the crime. There on the floor lay a pretty young woman with a hole in her right eye; a large black stain surrounded the eye, making it appear that she had been hit in a fight. But this was no bruise; it was gunpowder stippling and sooty discharge, telltale marks left on a victim when a gun is discharged at close range. Blood stained the wall behind Donna Warren's head, and her hair was matted with blood where her head had slipped closer to the floor. Then Kevin Cleary was shaken to his core. On the floor in a pool of Donna Warren's blood was a crumpled five-dollar bill and a mixture of change.
God, no! There was no way this could be about money. It had to be about more than money.
Cleary took another deep breath and got back to his job. This was no time to allow himself to feel anything—not sympathy and not anger. He had to think clearly.