Friday, October 29, 2004
JULIAN SHER
Special to The Globe and Mail
GUELPH, ONT. -- There were tears, but not the tears of joy they
were expecting.
The champagne bottle was left unopened, the cake uncut.
Steven Truscott's family and a dozen friends gathered in his small
home hoping to hear at last that his name would be cleared, that
the Justice Minister had called for a new trial. Instead, they
were crushed to learn the case will drag out a few more years.
"It was tense. It was sad. It was anger. It was a lot of
different emotions rolled up into one," said Lesley, Mr.
Truscott's 30-year-old daughter and the mother of his three grandchildren.
"It was a letdown. I don't think we were prepared for it,
because it was built up so much that we were expecting a new trial,"
she said.
The man at the centre of the battle took the setback the best.
"They had sentenced me to death once, so anything else is
a plus," Mr. Truscott told The Globe and Mail. "You
get up in the morning; you look around; you breathe. It's another
day. I'll be vindicated. It will just take longer."
When Mr. Truscott's oldest son, Ryan, who lives with his parents
and has been the most active in their public battle, seemed overcome
with disappointment, his father consoled him.
"He made a point to come down when we were upset and said:
'Don't worry, we'll turn around. We'll fight and we'll keep going,'
" Ryan Truscott said.
The family's spirits were lifted. They heard Canada's Justice
Minister for the first time say the words "miscarriage of
justice" in describing the case. For them, that's at least
a start.
"Dad always told us we had to be a close, tight-knit family
because he never got to enjoy that family life at all," Ryan
Truscott said. "The justice system took that away from him."
Many supporters could not hide their bitterness.
"Disgust. That's how I feel," said one close friend
who has known Mr. Truscott since childhood.
"It's a disgrace. A disgrace," another said.
Others were more philosophical. "Sure, justice is long overdue,
but it gives Steven an opening," said Dave Mills, one of
several prison officers who befriended Mr. Truscott in the 1960s
when he began serving time at age 14 for the rape and murder of
a classmate. "He hasn't really changed; he's still Steve.
He still has the twinkle in his eye. He is a credit to humanity
for the years that he has put up with this; it would put most
people around the bend."
Robert Lawson, the farmer on whose land Lynne Harper's body was
discovered, drove all the way from Clinton, Ont., to be with the
boy he always thought was innocent. He said the town that once
spurned Mr. Truscott as a murderer now heralds him as a hero.
"He's got a lot of support. There are a lot of people behind
him," said Mr. Lawson. "But I'm afraid a lot of us have
lost faith in the system."
Throughout the afternoon, Mr. Truscott's three grandchildren scampered
around in white T-shirts that student supporters had made. It
listed the names of other wrongly convicted men in Canada -- Guy
Paul Morin, David Milgaard, Thomas Sophonow -- with a red check
in a box next to the name under the title "Cleared."
But "Steven Truscott," at the bottom of the list, had
no check mark yet. The grandchildren may have to wait a few more
years to see it.
Their mother, Lesley, said she had learned patience from a father
who spent four months on death row and 10 years behind bars.
"It's a new fight. As we talked about it, we figured it's
going to be okay in the end," she said. "It's going
to take us longer, but we may even get a better result in the
end."
