News 1. New council “The new regional council was sworn in at a socially distanced ceremony at the Halifax Convention Centre Thursday night, ushering in a more diverse era of municipal politics in the city,” reports Zane Woodford: There were fewer than 100 people at the event in the big ballroom at the convention centre […]
Nova Scotia premier asks for criminal investigation of police in wrongful conviction case
Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil wants police acts in the Glen Assoun wrongful conviction case referred to the Serious Incident Response Team (SIRT) for a possible criminal investigation. SIRT is the province’s independent police oversight body; its mandate is “to investigate all matters that involve death, serious injury, sexual assault and domestic violence or other […]
Justice Minister Mark Furey: an apology to Glen Assoun is “premature”
It’s two weeks today since a Nova Scotia court unsealed documents that help explain why Glen Assoun spent 17 years behind bars for a murder he did not commit. The documents pertain to both the Halifax Regional Police’s initial Halifax police investigation into the 1995 murder of Brenda Way, and to a later RCMP re-investigation […]
Dave Moore’s work could have cleared Glen Assoun of murder; here’s how and why the RCMP destroyed it
The RCMP’s spin on the Glen Assoun wrongful conviction makes no sense. That is the view of two former RCMP officers who are familiar with the case. It is now established that in 2004, the RCMP deleted information on a computer database that would have made the case that serial killer Michael McGray — not […]
The Assoun wrongful conviction: How Halifax police, RCMP, and prosecutorial misconduct sent an innocent man to prison and kept him there for nearly 17 years
Part 2: a botched Halifax police investigation, and then an RCMP coverup.
For background on this story, see my 2016 series, “Dead Wrong.” In the late 1990s, Halifax police were dealing with a disturbing number of unsolved murders, and in 1997, an RCMP–Halifax police task force, “Operation Full Course,” was established to look at cold cases. Operation Full Course was primarily focused on Andrew Johnson, a man picked […]
BREAKING: RCMP destroyed information that would have suggested serial killer Michael McGray murdered Brenda Way; that destroyed information likely would have cleared Glen Assoun in the murder
This is a breaking news story. More information will be published later today. Newly unsealed court documents in the Glen Assoun case reveal that: The actual killer • serial killer Michael McGray was the likely killer of Brenda Way. The RCMP deleted, destroyed, and lost information that linked McGray to the Way murder • RCMP […]
UPDATED: Supreme Court Justice James Chipman rules for media group in Assoun document case
Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice James Chipman has indicated that he will grant a media request to gain access to sealed court documents in the Glen Assoun case. Assoun is the man who was wrongly convicted for the 1995 murder of his former girlfriend Brenda Way. That murder and Assoun’s conviction were the subjects of […]