Skip to playerSkip to main content
  • 1 day ago

Category

📺
TV
Transcript
00:00plus and contain scenes of violence and mature subject matter viewer discretion is advised
00:10on a day off from school this sidewalk near koreen's townhouse would be filled with children's
00:15laughter but today a somber mood has moved into the neighborhood koreen if you're watching please
00:21tell 911 you know what please come home please babe come on punky phone us do something punky
00:32i was just hoping that they'd both find her that she's still alive today it was confirmed
00:39koreen was kidnapped sexually assaulted and smothered to death
00:43the task now is to find koreen's abductor each of them has just a license number on them the police
00:55were absolutely flooded with tips and it was driving the two investigators this was their first big case
01:01it was utterly overwhelming the fact that it's been almost 14 months now and it hasn't happened again
01:08might lead some to believe that our suspect is no longer here it wasn't until a decade later
01:15thanks to new technology the police decided let's take another look i just cried i had hope all day
01:23every day i thought this would be the day that the former ring said that they caught the guy
01:32welcome to crime beat i'm anthony robart tonight teams of police and volunteers hunt
01:38for any trace of kareen gustafson known affectionately by her friends and family as punky a six-year-old girl
01:45who goes missing while playing in her yard but it would be years before the terrifying truth finally emerged
01:55here now is jamie doll
02:01it was a sleepy sunday morning on the labor day weekend in 1992
02:07a hint of the changing season hung in the air it was chilly day it was a quiet morning
02:15one of the one that was up with me and ray and and koreen
02:20families in this northeast edmonton neighborhood were settling in to a new school year
02:27in rundle park village six-year-old koreen punky gustafson bounded out of her townhouse
02:33eager to play with her friend just two steps away from the porch got up in the morning she was already
02:41out playing with the neighbors i told koreen to come and have breakfast and then
02:47they she wanted to go back outside my dad just got out of the hospital the day before and i forgot to go
02:56get him some stuff so i i said okay i'll be right back and you gave her something right i gave her a
03:03two dollar bill i went to bingo the night before and i said if i win we'll we'll give his money and
03:12we'll go to the store together i left the door and i went to my dad's i was just getting a coffee
03:18when i looked out the door and couldn't see her or the neighbor girl lindsay i went running to the next
03:31door and she said lindsay's here but koreen's gone so i ran all over the neighborhood looking for
03:42koreen lindsay told me that koreen was taken i told the neighbor lady to call the cops while i was out
03:55looking for her ray had phoned and asked if punky came with me and i went we said no and he said well
04:03then somebody took her
04:07so i hurried up jumped in my dad's truck and i took off and i went home
04:12and she wasn't there
04:17i just went crazy i just
04:20banging my head and just
04:23something i want i want my girl back and they come home
04:28she was crying and i told her that i went looked all over the neighborhood she just didn't
04:37it couldn't be found i just want to break down the tears i couldn't get it in my mind who it would have
04:49been she was playing at the door when i left the door and she asked me where i was going
04:55and i said i was going to go to the purpose to fix the tv and i was going to come back and take a
05:00shopping and she said i'll see you after i said yeah and that was it that was the last time i've seen her
05:09you don't know what's what's happening and i cried and cried and cried kept on saying i hope you
05:14know whoever took her would drop her off she would find her way home or somebody would find her
05:24police soon arrived at rundle park village after speaking with the young witness and punky's parents
05:30they launched their investigation into the abduction of kareen gustafson apparently that
05:36guy just grabbed her and put his hand around her mom so she couldn't scream
05:42and kareen dad loves you mom loves you please come home just wait and hope that she's alive
05:53able to come home once we found out it was an abduction we went full gear it was like okay somebody's
05:59abducted this little kid and all they had to go on was this the five-year-old's testimony but that
06:04was enough for to get police moving and us too as soon as we put that on the six o'clock news it was
06:11our phone lines just lit up the switchboard lit up that was terrifying we didn't have stories like
06:16that very often that happened here in edmonton the old city was checking all the parks in our
06:23neighborhood i was hoping that they would both find her a playmate is the only person who saw kareen
06:32gustafson picked up and taken away sunday afternoon by a man with three earrings in his left ear somebody
06:38in his early 20s with a light brown skin with light actually brown hair short on the side short on the
06:47top and apparently there's some white stripes uh something like died probably on his hair she did
06:55call him the boogeyman um punky's friend called him the boogeyman that's how she saw him this was
07:00any parent's worst nightmare at that time there were no amber alerts everybody was just well we have to
07:05find this little girl like what has happened to her i think everybody was just setting on pins and needles
07:11police received a tip from a young neighbor who said they saw a man get into a blue van with the
07:16little girl that morning so you're driving around looking for a blue van hey could it be that one
07:22well it could be that one i got to know roads in the city that they didn't even know existed
07:27and i did every dirt road cow pasture just looking for a blue van
07:38you recognize that girl she's about your age and looks almost kind of like you with long blonde hair
07:43corinne is six years old she has blonde hair and is approximately four feet tall when she disappeared
07:49she was wearing a purple full-length coat black and white polka dot pants and white runners she goes
07:54by the nickname of punky corinne if you're watching please dial 9-1-1 you know what please come home
08:02please babe come on punky phone us do something punky none of the men in this group have ever taken
08:13part in a search like this nor do they know the little girl but they're out here for one simple
08:18reason they care you can't have nothing more important than to go and look for somebody else's
08:23child you know that's the way i feel halfway through those trees one at the top of the trees
08:28well i've got two kids of my own and uh yeah i'm sure most people tend to have an uneasy feeling
08:34when it involves a defenseless young child this is uh her graduation picture from uh from kindergarten
08:42and she just started grade one this year she's six years old they were going through hundreds of
08:48volunteers they organized to go through ravines and neighborhoods and they were looking for this little
08:54girl i remember the intensity of that time i remember there was a raft of really horrible murders
09:06at that time in edmonton do we have to keep our kids in the house because you know somebody some
09:11wacko to put it nicely as you know decided to terrorize the neighborhood whoever has her um can you
09:18please bring her home because i love her and i want her to come home i'm not a sound sleeper like i'm
09:25a very light sleeper so any little noise i i wake up because i kept on hearing footprints in the house
09:33we always thought that would be corny it's the footprint her saying mommy i'm home nothing
09:48i'm home nothing but i don't know if i'm home nothing but i don't know if i don't know if i'm
09:54welcome back to crime beat a little girl has been snatched from her parents yard the only witness her
10:00five-year-old friend now panic grips the city of edmonton as hundreds of volunteers join the search for
10:06little kareen clinging to hope that she'll be found alive
10:10we now return to jamie doll with stolen the boogeyman took punky
10:26she was my baby i have my oldest daughter and then my son and i had corina and her her nickname was
10:33punky her hair had sticking up all over the top and we'd seen that move show punky brewster and
10:45we called her that punky all the time what was she like i love lovable
10:52she loved like even bugs and she was just a outgoing girl she always wanted to be outside
11:06doing things she always wanted to ride her bike she was just she was so bubbly and cheery that uh
11:13yeah she just you're drawn to her that's what it was she was just starting grade one yeah just
11:19starting grade one she liked it she wanted to go even on like on that weekend um she i'm going to
11:28school no it's a weekend you don't go to school on the weekends on a day off from school this sidewalk
11:33near kareen's townhouse would be filled with children's laughter but today a somber mood has moved
11:39into the neighborhood i hope you know she whoever took her would drop her off she'll find her way home or
11:47so i mean we'll find her i just hoping that they'd both find her
11:59but she's still alive
12:07rcmp were called to the sherwood park industrial area at a quarter to five
12:11two days after punky disappeared the agonizing hours of searching came to a grinding halt a horrific
12:21discovery was made on the outskirts of the city less than 10 kilometers from her home a passerby found
12:28the body in this storage lot behind a trucking firm the owner of the company who refused an interview
12:34said the body was that of a young girl someone who worked there came and he saw something he thought
12:41it was like a doll covered in mud and dust is how he put it and he immediately went to the police and
12:49reported him the body was found clothed i don't know whether it was partially clothed or fully clothed
12:55but clothed and the clothing does match the description of kareen gustafson's clothing the body was
13:00found between two truck trailers after a crime scene investigation the body was taken away by the
13:06medical examiner's office for an autopsy
13:13shortly after police made a visit they had hoped they'd never have to make
13:20they just knelt in front of karen and they said you know i'm sorry we found her and she's gone and
13:26that's and then you know karen was screaming in her head and uh and then it didn't take long after
13:33that i had to take karen to the hospital because i thought she was going to have a nervous breakdown
13:36i was banging my head against the wall i was doing everything so they tried to calm me down and i couldn't
13:46my heart went right out of my chest it's like somebody tore my heart around the chest
13:58told me that they found her
14:04punky's dad and uncle rushed to the trucking yard then eventually the morgue
14:09i just wanted to hold her and just wanted to go see what she had to go through wondering what she felt
14:21when she died
14:29i just couldn't get through my mind i just want to get revenge
14:36it's when they came and gave us the news that they uh that she was deceased
14:47i think that's when the light and the life of pretty much everybody in that household just
14:54disappeared for a while and then you kind of go numb the body of the little girl has been
15:02uh positively identified as kareen gussison
15:12today it was confirmed kareen was kidnapped sexually assaulted and smothered to death
15:19it scares the hell out of me you know it's kind of hard how do you say your friend ain't coming back to
15:25school it's really hard students have an understanding this morning that the kareen has gone from us and
15:31she is she is dead and and she won't be with us any longer what is normal after after we've lost one of our
15:37our children
15:47thanks to all the volunteers that's all i have to say thanks
15:54to all the people in the city i'm helping no more
15:57so she was just right here five minutes before and looked in the patio window and i see i was
16:07right there and then all of a sudden she was gone just a nightmare cops are going to get you
16:14pretty soon or one of these days you woke there
16:20you look at this because you are gonna hurt
16:23this was national news by this time as soon as her body was found everybody wants to know who is
16:29the monster behind this where is he and will he strike again a few days after kareen's little body
16:36was found her parents were interviewed once again by police they put us in a little room
16:44at the police station there and asked us a bunch of questions and it was hard
16:49i told him i didn't have nothing to do with it i couldn't understand why i'm being resting
17:00and taken away from the family
17:03welcome back to crime beats two days after six-year-old punky gustafson disappeared from outside her
17:22northeast edmonton home her lifeless body was found in a trucking yard that was police hunt for her
17:28killer her family has the painful task of saying goodbye
17:35we now return to jamie doll with stolen the boogeyman took punky
17:50weighed down in shock and grief one week after the murder family friends and members of the public
17:56of the public of the public of the public of the public of the public of the public of the public
18:00to take someone's life to destroy this beautiful gift that god has given
18:05is the most evil act that a human being could ever commit
18:14just because the light went out doesn't mean she is gone she will be in our hearts now and forever
18:21investigators told us that they had surveillance at the funeral that maybe it's somebody that's sitting
18:30and watching were you scared that it could happen again yeah the task now is to find corinne's
18:38abductor police are scouring the area for any possible clues they found a few tire tracks but that's
18:44about all what they'd really like to find is the pair of white canvas runners corinne had on when she
18:49was kidnapped they're missing besides that police have only a sketchy description of a suspect to go
18:55on darker skinned individual with dark hair five foot six to six foot tall slim build with a patch of
19:02white hair on the crown of his head three three earrings in his left ear with a blue and white jacket and
19:08possibly glasses police have already received more than 300 tips on the abduction the stumbling block
19:14is that the only eyewitness to the incident is a five-year-old girl when punky disappeared from
19:19a northeast edmonton neighborhood witnesses believe the suspect fled in a blue van but when searching
19:25the sherwood park trucking yard where punky's body was found police were able to lift tire tracks not from
19:31a van but from a second vehicle at the scene where corinne's body was found these tire prints were found
19:38these tire prints cannot come from a van police believe the killer dumped the body from a car
19:44a car similar to a dodge aries chevrolet cavalier or a ford tempo each of them has just the just the
19:51license number on them just follow those up when they come back just the attached report goes into
19:56the box right here the police were absolutely flooded with tips and it was driving the two investigators
20:02terry elm and al sove like they were these were young guys this was their first big case and it just
20:09it was utterly overwhelming investigators terry elm and albert laher agreed to sit down with us to
20:16discuss intricate details of the case they politely declined an on-camera interview saying the memories
20:23are still too triggering to relive in front of the lens both men had children close in age to punky at the
20:30time and added while they were able to watch their kids grow up punky didn't get a chance you know
20:37that these officers the men and women of the police force they took that case home every night to their
20:42families too and then they they never let it go you could see it was mentally draining in this room in
20:50the police station 50 officers a day work on the case full-time following up tips it's an important case
20:56to police and they're not ruling out any means necessary in solving it i'm going to forward this
21:01to homicide police were relentless in their pursuit of the killer from sending out questionnaires to
21:06offering a 40 000 reward for information leading to an arrest okay cameras rolling even reenacting the
21:14gruesome story on camera hoping to ignite anything to help capture the suspect
21:20police and actors are recreating the crime complete with a kareem gustafson look-alike crime stoppers that
21:28would run every single night in our six o'clock news i'm just traveling inside right now just thinking
21:33about it i just couldn't believe it especially in broad daylight you know but anyway i hope they get
21:40the sicko that did it 23 days have passed since punky's body was found three dozen police are hunting the
21:48killer around the clock punky's picture was wallpapered across the province the billboard campaign was
21:56huge it just swept right across edmonton do you have any information at all leading to something that
22:03would lead to the arrest of finding a suspect it was hard it was hard even with my kids when we
22:09we took a bus and we took a bus and mom this corby yes
22:15every bus had a picture and it was what it said was somebody out there knows
22:20because i was the one that said it that somebody out there knows it was just eerie
22:26this is the worst imaginable crime her picture her pretty little face is on the picture front of
22:31every newspaper it's just it made people crazy how can this evil be in our city it was an awful time
22:38in edmonton and it haunted people meanwhile investigators were still dissecting every inch
22:47of the scene where punky's body was found police discovered a pubic hair on kareen's ankle but
22:53scientists were unable to get a full genetic profile of the suspect the technology just wasn't there
23:00it wasn't all the killer left behind in the trucking yard they also found his shoe prints
23:07with the baseball cleats in them he tried to hide the the evidence the tire tracks and his his own
23:14footprints but he's in such a hurry that he didn't do a very good job so they were able to get really
23:18good look and pictures of footprints and tire tire tracks it was the same cleat the same shoe size
23:28that was found at her home in northeast edmonton when she was grabbed so they found the same one in
23:34soft mud beside the houses that she was taken from they determined it was probably a something called
23:39a mitre brand baseball cleat and they started to go through every uh one who played baseball in that
23:47area at the time there had been a baseball tournament so they tried tracking everybody down based on the
23:52evidence and the type of crime police believe they were dealing with a solo perpetrator we're working
23:57on that uh karene gusterson on the side you guys see you play baseball yeah size eight feet huh so
24:02you know about it were you in a tournament at all that weekend well some officers checked with baseball
24:07teams the search for the suspected vehicles that car with bald tires and a blue van carried on
24:16they run on a diet of phone tips this is tip 2849 a blue van that hasn't moved since september
24:24turns out it's been cleared before good evening and thanks for joining us tonight four months after
24:30punky died two of edmonton's largest television stations came together for an unprecedented half hour
24:37special this is such a horrific story let's get cfrn together with itv global was itv at the time and
24:47let's team up and put all the resources get all the police and let's really go it was january of
24:531993. it was about a two-day period in the time between when corinne was abducted and they found
24:58her body what happened in that two-day time period was she killed at the site where you found her
25:04so we don't know exactly how long she'd been there however we do know that she wasn't killed at that
25:08location we do believe that corinne was killed at another at another location yes i was talking to one
25:16of the detectives i remember thinking and i looked at him and i said you think the killer might be watching
25:21us right now and he looked at me and he went there's a very good chance the killer's watching us
25:26right now as this broadcast is happening and a chill just went up my back now thinking about
25:42i think the minute after they found her in the trucking yard was i was put to the top of
25:58their list because i know the area i gave them my dna i gave them a police report as to where i was
26:06the night before and what i was doing up until the time i think these guys are grabbing it ron davies
26:11emerged from his six-hour interrogation with police badly shaken and angry i got 15 nephews and nieces
26:21they think i'm capable of doing that to one of them they're crazy there's no way how many times were
26:28you brought in battle five six times there's one interrogation that he will never be able to shake
26:35they threw all the pictures across the table of her laying underneath that trailer in the mud
26:45her body just plain as day right there and it was like
26:52i did not need to see that that's the one thing the family never got to see until that day at the rcmp
26:59when they threw out the pictures and you see that tiny little body
27:10and then it was like he slaps his hands on the table and he says you know you did it
27:18let's confess so we can close this case and i can get on with another one
27:22police said they had 400 suspects but months went by with no concrete leads
27:31action american program unsolved mysteries even came to town police hoped it would cast a wider net
27:38in their search for evidence the fact that it's been almost 14 months now and it hasn't happened again
27:44might lead some to believe that our suspect is no longer here we're not at the point where we can say
27:50that yet investigators told us they traveled far and wide to follow up on tips detective terry elm said
27:56he even flew to an advanced forensic lab in england with the hair sample found on punky to see if it
28:03was connected to another suspect in a similar case in british columbia it wasn't a match they had just
28:10intense pressure mostly put up by themselves but other cops too everyone had a theory everybody
28:16you know get out you guys are young cops get out there on the street more bang on the doors bang
28:21some heads you know the old school thinking and like they were doing everything they were being
28:26heavily criticized from within the force from other people more experienced police officers about not
28:31solving this for punky's parents grief grew into desperation parents supposed to go before the kids died
28:42and i just felt like it heard being dead i just didn't have nothing to live for
28:56what were some of the thoughts you were having i was going to jump over the bridge i was going to go
29:02do something so i could be with car beat towards the end said you know there's still police officers
29:13out there that think you did it he says we could put this all to rest if you would just agree to doing
29:19a polygraph i went in and did the polygraph and he came back out and he says you passed the polygraph i
29:27said i told you i would i had nothing to do with this without any leads the case went cold and then
29:34new technology brought new hope 10 years later thanks to new developments in dna technology and
29:42testing and the dna data bank they were able to go back the police decided let's take another look
29:48punky's family was the first to hear what police believe could eventually solve the decade-old murder
29:58the pcr test had come into being so they could use smaller and smaller bits of dna to identify
30:06killers and they just thought well let's just give it one more go let's send uh all of punky's clothing
30:13in to get it tested one more time at this new lab that's at the forefront of this new these new
30:19techniques and let's see if they can find anything and they did they found a dna sample on on punky's
30:25panties when i talked to the scientist who who eventually came up with the complete profile he says
30:31terry says i've got i've got your killer and uh and i'll tell you i'll tell you that was uh that was
30:39the best news i'd heard in years we are sending uh dna samples to the lab so we're hopeful that by
30:47reviewing these tips and from any information we may now receive that will be compared to
30:53the profile we have one week later the family marked the 10th anniversary of punky's death
31:00she was buried on my son's birthday
31:02she'll be hard on him it's only going to take one tip that will catch the guy that did this we live
31:10for the day that they catch him and six months later that day finally arrived about 10 years after the
31:21murder new technology allowed investigators to create a dna profile of punky's killer but nobody matched it
31:28then came federal legislation allowing for the creation of a national dna data bank many convicted
31:34criminals became compelled to offer a dna sample including clifford slay convicted of a different crime
31:41and then came word slays dna matched the dna profile of gustafson's killer i just cried
31:48i had hope all day every day i thought this would be the day that the phone would ring and said that
31:56they caught the guy and it happened punky's 20 year old sister roseanne promised her baby sibling the
32:08family would never give up hope we just went to the grave site every year and just paid um sort of how much
32:15we loved her and how much we were wishing that we would catch the guy big relief i tell you those 10
32:21pound bricks are off my shoulders this is the by far the best day i've had in over a decade 40-year-old
32:30clifford slay was already serving a 13-year sentence for two sexual assaults and forcible confinement
32:36at the bowden institute south of edmonton there was 26 convictions in all he was clearly a psychopath
32:43just a cold machine like in human being who did not experience regular emotions according to parole
32:50board documents slay had amassed 26 convictions mostly for property related offenses impaired driving
32:58breaches of trust escape unlawful custody and numerous violent offenses with his most concerning
33:05behavior involving his pattern of predatory sexual assault
33:09police first met slay weeks after punky's murder not as a person of interest but a potential witness
33:19two months after the crime they they sent a detective to where slay was moving with the woman he was with
33:29and she had told the police in one of the tips that her boyfriend clifford slay said oh he had been out
33:37driving around that morning and he saw someone who he thought might have done it someone in a van
33:42so they went and they they tracked down clifford slay and they asked him about that story and he denied
33:48anything about that he had come to our attention earlier on in the investigation from another investigation
33:58that was unrelated in the spring of 1993 while detectives were interviewing slay about one of the
34:04sexual assault cases they brought up the gusterson case and asked for a dna sample something they had
34:10been asking a lot of potential suspects to provide they also searched slay's home they found a baseball
34:20cleat in the closet but when they took it to forensic it didn't match his story was that he was babysitting
34:26um route for relatives and they checked out and uh because of that um and the cleat they he was taken
34:34off like you know as a as a suspect essentially he was right there in front of them but he uh his family
34:40ended up covering up for him they came up with an alibi so that kind of led to led police to go well
34:46maybe we don't have the right guy let's keep looking in another direction with the dna match secured
34:51investigators told us officers confronted slay's former partner who had provided an alibi
34:58she admitted slay hadn't been with her the whole weekend
35:11welcome back about a decade after punky gustafson murder the creation of a national dna data bank
35:18finally gave police a match to her killer now it was time to confront the man they believed was
35:24responsible already serving time for other crimes we now return to the conclusion of stolen the boogeyman
35:34took punky police paid clifford slay a visit in prison they set the stage letting him know his dna was
35:45on punky's clothes they also took another dna sample at the request of the crown
35:51it didn't take long for slay to unravel what did you talk about what did you say
36:00oh she asked me where i was taking her okay
36:04i just ignored her i didn't answer it so it wasn't a conversation
36:21i didn't say nothing and she just gone quiet just wanted to try as far as if it understood
36:27that i would drop off to sleep but when i realized that there was no traffic in this area
36:34it seemed very secluded you know i just to put on myself to um i guess
36:43i don't have sex up there you know you don't use the terminology to rip but i had no intention
36:49to kill it you have no intention to kill it you have no intention to kill it my hopes were that
36:52uh so i would find it right uh it's basically i didn't expect to die from what i caused i think that
37:04was some of the first times that we had really heard what had happened to uh to punky gustafson
37:10and through the words of the man who had done it 40-year-old clifford matthew slay is now facing
37:16first degree murder charges in connection to the death of punky gustafson i got the first view of
37:22him when they drove him down into the police department in the back seat of that car slowly
37:28just enough to get the so that the media and that could get his picture looking at that point
37:38that guy has no soul his eyes are just dark
37:46the trial was set for may 9 2005.
37:52punky gustafson's family walked into the law court's building together prepared to face the little
37:57girl's alleged killer for the first time
38:03dressed in blue overalls slay heard the charges against him first-degree murder and kidnapping
38:08charges in connection with the disappearance of six-year-old kareen gustafson back in september 1992
38:15punky's mother quietly stared at slay in the prisoner's box while other family members openly
38:20wept in a surprising move slay pleaded guilty to kidnapping not guilty to aggravated sexual assault
38:27and tried pleading guilty to manslaughter but the crown didn't accept the manslaughter plea opting to
38:32continue with the first-degree murder trial the whole trial took a bit of a turn he's now admitting
38:37that yes i was there i caused the death of punky gustafson the question now is did he murder punky
38:43gustafson in court he just sat there was sitting on his arms and his head down never moved the whole
38:50time if i could have i would have smacked him uh and that was why i just wanted to get at him to
38:56to make him suffer pain like she did i always wanted to just uh you know what there and you know
39:02strangle him do something to him
39:07punky gustafson's family left court stunned the description of the young girl's injuries forced
39:12some of them to leave the room and some jurors to tears the forensic examiner thought the most
39:19likely cause of death was from the rape itself from internal bleeding from the rape it's essentially
39:25she was raped to death by clifford slay
39:36clifford slay had got into a fight with his common law partner he was very mad at her and wanted to go
39:42and hurt her his partner had a young daughter and so his idea was that he was going to go and sexually
39:49assault his common law partner's daughter but the problem with that plan was that she wasn't there
39:54right then so instead he just went out to look for somebody else she's sitting in her yard playing
40:00with a friend he describes how he just goes and snatches her slay told investigators he took corrine
40:08simply because she was the closest to the fence to have that confirmation and to see just how random
40:15this was a bit of a jaw-dropping moment in a case filled with jaw-dropping moments
40:20two weeks after the trial began on may 25 2005 a verdict was reached on the eve of karen's birthday
40:32we caught him and she rest in peace now okay
40:37they said first degree it just felt like it was
40:40it was a big load off of our shoulders relief now finally coming to an end we're able to see
40:48justice done i think you guys are always part of our family always welcome i was in homicide unit for 10
40:55years and this was the case i followed right through and i had the opportunity to continue on
41:00the investigation even after i retired so yeah you know because of that i have i have i have some closure
41:08with it as well clifford slay was given the maximum sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole
41:14for 25 years the most dramatic moment of the sentencing hearing came when slay addressed the
41:20court slay started by saying i just want to apologize and say i'm sorry then for the first time in the
41:27trial clifford slay showed some emotion he began crying at that point punky's cousin stood up in the
41:32back of the courtroom and said don't cry for us we don't need your remorse it's over now he's a little
41:38bastard he shouldn't be able to go back to court he should be the service time okay that's it
41:48you tore a family apart and now we get our justice and i hope that you rotten
41:55rot for me it's a few moments in the courtroom you know um having a daughter and thinking about that
42:08crime that has a big emotional impact on me but for them who lived it
42:18it would be overwhelming to talk about it again to think about it you know even after 30 years it still
42:23hurts you see kids doing certain things that she used to do and then you think what she would be
42:32like today right so it never goes away it's there the pain's there i won't know what she would be like
42:39today if she would have got married you know and had kids what do you miss the most her hugs
42:47i'll say goodbye good night i'll see you later
42:55this is the walkway
42:59where he took her from ah baseball members
43:03that two dollar bill karen gave koreen the last time she saw her
43:14was found by police still folded up in punky's little coat pocket i told them i want i want
43:20they thought that i wanted her clothes i want no i want that two dollar bill so they put it in the frame
43:27in 2015 ray had punky's body moved to the small alberta town of castor two and a half hours away
43:37from edmonton it's where most of his family members are buried he's already picked out his final resting
43:44place right here right next to her she's the love of my heart i'll never get over it even
43:54even the odds have taken to my grave this is koreen's tree
44:06that they planted
44:10for her and her memory
44:14while karen now has to drive a long distance to visit her daughter's grave
44:18she finds solace here on the grounds of punky's old school
44:22kareen is watching over us at this time
44:28wherever i go i think she's out there but she's our angel now
44:37clifford slay can apply for parole in 2028. kareen gustafson's family has vowed to do everything
44:45they can to prevent that from happening as they continue to keep the memory of their beloved punky
44:52alive
44:55thank you for joining us tonight on crime beat i'm antony robart
45:01want more episodes of crime beat listen to the crime beat podcast now for free on apple podcasts
45:08spotify or wherever you find your favorite podcast and for past episodes of crime beat go to the global tv
45:15app visit global tv.com or check out our crime beat youtube page
Be the first to comment
Add your comment

Recommended