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00:03This program is rated 14 plus and contains scenes of violence and mature subject matter.
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00:12So I left a message. I said, Rita, honey, I said, you got to call somebody. You got to tell
00:16somebody where you're at.
00:18Her friend had called me and said we think she's missing.
00:21Footprints of life have stopped. Things aren't looking great for Rita Jordan being found alive.
00:27With no answers, her family says they're desperate.
00:31We're here because we love our sister and nobody else is looking for her so we feel that we have
00:36to.
00:36We have some theories, some ideas, but we want to eliminate people.
00:42He takes her cell phone and sends a text message to her friend saying, gone in town.
00:49When it was first all going down, you went and you checked his house. You had warrants for his house.
00:54And I remember saying, check the work truck.
00:57There are like two hours left or so.
00:59They decide, let's bring Rita's mother, Donna Jordan, into the interview.
01:04I forgive you.
01:05And she went in and she kept her composure and confronted him.
01:10Do we believe everything that he told us about how things went down? No, we don't.
01:17Welcome to Crime Beat. I'm Anthony Robart.
01:19In the spring of 2013, 34-year-old Rita Jordan vanished without a trace.
01:25When she first disappeared from her home just outside Halifax, Nova Scotia, investigators found themselves facing a troubling mystery.
01:33No crime scene, no witnesses, and no indication of what had happened to her.
01:39But as investigators dig deeper into Rita's disappearance, they uncover a trail of lies and deception and the terrifying lengths
01:48someone went to to hide their brutal crimes.
01:53Here now is Gone in Town.
02:00Back in 2013, this was the residence of Paul Cowan.
02:05It was his family home where he lived with Rita Jordan at the time.
02:08Normal type house.
02:10Two car garage that's detached probably about 20 minutes from Halifax downtown.
02:15It's a nice, quiet neighborhood.
02:16You never know that something tragic happened here.
02:22Rita Jordan has been missing for 30 days.
02:26As a result of their investigation, there's still a lot of questions that are not answered, with the big one
02:31being, where is she?
02:33They've checked possible locations, bank records, private residence, numerous things, but still no answer to where she is.
02:41If you have any information surrounding any activity, whereabouts of Miss Jordan, to the investigators are more than open to
02:49speaking with you.
02:50Rita's family declined an on-camera interview, but I did speak with her sister, who says that Rita is very
02:56much loved and missed, that she's never gone missing like this before.
03:00Concern is growing.
03:02I was texting her, no answer, calling her phone, messenger, no answer.
03:08Mrs. Rita just looking like a baddie, she was just beautiful, never had to do much, it was just natural.
03:14Bold, beautiful, strong, crazy, some would say, center of attention.
03:24Did she get in trouble? Did she go away somewhere? Maybe she just didn't want to be found.
03:29We're talking to her family members to find out, like, when did people actually last talk to her, see her?
03:34I talk to her all the time on messenger, so March 10th.
03:40It was the usual, we used to play games on Facebook, and she would be like, send me this, and
03:46I would just send her to play her games, just normal stuff.
03:50Generally, missing person cases, they don't usually take very long.
03:54Most of them are solved fairly quickly, within a day or so.
03:56They usually get found.
03:57Rita Jordan's case was a little different.
03:59Yeah, she did it often.
04:00She would go for a week, come back.
04:02Most of the time, she would message me, so whether it was for a game or going to mums later,
04:07there was always activity on there, from her to me.
04:13We want to build a timeline.
04:14We want to look at social media.
04:16We want to look at her phone records.
04:17We want to talk to people that know Rita Jordan.
04:20This is just a general statement, and we're going to talk about a girlfriend of his by the name of
04:25Rita Jordan.
04:26We learned that she's living with a guy named Paul Cowden.
04:29And how old are you, Paul?
04:30I'm 50.
04:31He's an older male, a little bit older than Rita, maybe 15 years or so.
04:35And she's living with him in Hammond's Plains.
04:38She was with him for a while, and we'd talk very highly of him, how she's addicted to Paul, and
04:43she was so happy.
04:44Can you tell me, Paul, how long you've known Rita?
04:49It's about seven years, I would say.
04:51She would say, I had her at hello, and I said, yeah, you got me at hello, too.
04:56She wasn't living with him right away, actually.
04:58She just hung out with him a lot.
05:00He came to pick her up a lot.
05:01He's a professional guy.
05:03He's a plumber.
05:03Nothing really out of the ordinary with him.
05:05He's divorced.
05:06What's the last day you saw her?
05:08It would have been Monday morning.
05:10Calling her three times a day and twice in the evenings.
05:13Like I told you earlier, it was Thursday when her phone was open for voicemail.
05:21So I left a message.
05:22I said, Rita, honey, you got to call somebody.
05:25You got to tell somebody where you're at.
05:28Her friend had called me and said, we think she's missing.
05:31Her best friend, Krista Andrews, she had not heard from Rita Jordan in approximately 10 days or so.
05:37She had already filed a missing persons, and they said they're not going to do anything because we haven't really
05:42called.
05:43They needed somebody that, like family, I guess.
05:46So I was like, okay, well, yeah, I'll call.
05:48If you haven't seen her, we haven't seen her.
05:50So I put in a report.
05:53It was March 28, 2013.
05:56Unfortunately, police were 10 days behind the last time somebody's talked to Rita.
06:01I mean, I'm so happy when Krista called me up.
06:03She says, I'm going to call missing persons.
06:07I said, yeah, please do.
06:08She asked me, well, why didn't you go?
06:10I said, well, okay, if she left and her clothes were all there.
06:14I said, well, okay.
06:16Someone abducted her.
06:17When she left with all her clothes and stuff, well, she found somebody that is going to take care of
06:23her better than I did.
06:24I don't know.
06:24I mean, Rita's a part of my life, too, but what she was into and stuff like that.
06:31And, you know, like, I don't know.
06:34I'm just trying to keep my good appearance, I guess.
06:37You know what I mean?
06:38There were some flags with her type of lifestyle, unfortunately.
06:41I actually met her on patrol in my early patrol days in downtown Halifax.
06:46Just an all-around wonderful person that battled addiction.
06:50It usually happens to the best of us.
06:52I'm not sure how things started for her in that world, but then she got involved with, like, harder drugs.
06:58She had worked prostitution, walking the streets.
07:01All those things are risk factors for us in the police world.
07:05I had picked her up one evening.
07:07November 010 is when my wife left me.
07:11And then it was February 011.
07:15Rita first spent a night with me.
07:17Previous to that, it was just, I would call her up and...
07:21Make a meet.
07:22Make a meet.
07:23So she would be classified as a vulnerable person.
07:25She wasn't out there hurting people.
07:28I thought, oh, she's out doing her thing, which was maybe a Dark Knight binging, or who knew?
07:35But right away, I really didn't feel like she was met with foul play, or I didn't think that.
07:42Police investigated it for the first while as a missing person.
07:45And that's important, because if all you have to do to get away with murder is get rid of the
07:50body,
07:52then that's going to be the end of it, isn't it?
08:06Welcome back to Crime News.
08:08It's been several weeks since Rita Jordan was last heard from,
08:12and investigators are now working to reconstruct her final known whereabouts and determine who she was with.
08:18Aware that Rita had been intermittently involved in the sex trade,
08:22Halifax police are worried for her safety.
08:26We now return to Dawn in Town.
08:31This is your Aunt Rita and Papa and Sebastian in the in-cube in the hospital.
08:39This is when she was 16.
08:41When she had her first kid, I was only 12.
08:43She was 16.
08:45He was always with his father.
08:46One of the things Rita taught me was to not trust anybody and know my surroundings at all times.
08:53She taught me how to fight, taught me how to be rough around the edges.
08:56So you left for work that Monday morning at 6, and Paul was still there with her?
09:00Mm-hmm.
09:01So she has clients, and we start to learn some of those names.
09:04She got up and, uh, see me to the door.
09:07She said, that's Paul's car out in the driveway.
09:09We learned that Paul Moulton, who is a close friend of hers, he stayed overnight smoking crack with Rita Jordan
09:16at the house where she lived with Paul Cowden.
09:17And Paul Cowden was home that night as well.
09:19So that's the 17th of March leading into the 18th.
09:23So, okay, you're working all day.
09:25What did you find when you go home?
09:27He told investigators that he worked until about 6 o'clock at night.
09:31Well, I got in the door and said, hey, Rita.
09:33I didn't get no answer.
09:34The kitchen was cleaned up, and I went downstairs.
09:38Rita was not there, and her belongings were gone.
09:40Jesus Christ, where'd she go?
09:42So I go back upstairs, and there's no sign of her boots anywhere.
09:46Jackets are gone, so then I called Paula, and I said, Paula, you don't know where Rita went to?
09:53There's also a drug dealer that came by in the afternoon that Paul Moulton told us about.
09:59He said, no.
10:00He goes, I left around 3 o'clock.
10:01He did confirm that he went out to the Hammonds Plains residence, and Paul Moulton was there, and Rita Jordan
10:07was there, but she was fine when he left.
10:09And she was outside in your garage, cleaning the bench off.
10:14So there's a little window in there of, like, 3 o'clock, mid-afternoon, Paul Moulton sees her, and then
10:226 o'clock, Paul Callen comes home, and she's gone.
10:25So from the 19th forward, you haven't had any contact with her?
10:29No contact with her whatsoever.
10:31So one thing we do in missing person investigations is we send out media releases that we're looking for somebody
10:37that they're missing, if the public has information to contact us.
10:40So we were getting some information, like she went to Newfoundland with somebody, she was seen at the liquor store,
10:46she was seen on a bus.
10:47We tracked down these people.
10:48We crossed those off the list as not valid.
10:53The vice unit starts checking with CBSA, did she leave the country, did she take flights, crossing all those things
10:58off the list.
10:59There's no record of her leaving the country, she's not in hospital, she's not in jail.
11:03She just disappeared.
11:09The vice unit, they were able to get some preliminary phone records back.
11:12And as far as you know, she didn't take the phone with her, but you don't have it?
11:15No.
11:16No, I didn't see anyone.
11:17I like to call it, Footprints of Life have stopped March 18th.
11:21Her cell phone towers were in the neighbourhood where she lived with Paul Counten.
11:25That's where she was on the 18th, the 17th.
11:28It didn't move all over the place.
11:30Everything's coming back to March 18th.
11:33Things aren't looking great for Rita Jordan being found alive.
11:37With no answers, her family says they're desperate.
11:40So today, they took it upon themselves to keep looking.
11:44We're here because we love our sister and nobody else is looking for her, so we feel that we have
11:49to.
11:50We would anyways.
11:52This was her last whereabouts, and so we decided this area would be the first we would check.
11:59The sisters say they're frustrated with police who they feel have simply given up.
12:05Because we're all anxious, we're all wanting to know, we all had questions.
12:09At the time, yes, it feels like it goes like molasses, like nobody's doing anything for you, nobody's there.
12:16Public's perception was like, oh my goodness, this took like a long time for this to get to homicide investigation
12:21look at things.
12:22They should have done that right off the start, right?
12:23And this was an integrated investigation with Halifax Regional Police and Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
12:28But this isn't a normal homicide investigation.
12:31We don't have a body.
12:32No body at this time, but it's still very much an active investigation.
12:36I know that they're diligently working on this case.
12:39Meanwhile, her family is holding out hope.
12:41They say what they really want is closure, and to find out what happened to the young mother.
12:46If anybody anywhere knows anything, they need to speak.
12:51She's a human being, doesn't matter of her past.
12:54She's loved by a lot of different people.
12:57We have some theories, some ideas, but we want to eliminate people, cross them off the list.
13:04And one of those ways we can do that is through polygraph.
13:06We still had Paul Moulton, Wade Weeks, and Paul Cowden all in the mix.
13:12Wade Weeks was a close friend of Rita Jordan.
13:15They were probably in some kind of relationship also at some points in time, but they were friends.
13:23So we offered a polygraph to Wade Weeks.
13:26He came in, and his results were truthful in what he told the police.
13:33We did a polygraph to Paul Moulton.
13:36He came in, did a polygraph.
13:38Again, he was truthful.
13:42Then it came to Paul Cowden next.
13:43We offered Paul a polygraph.
13:48And the results of his polygraph were deceptive.
13:52Back on the 18th Monday there, when you come home from work, everything, her stuff was gone, except what we
13:56saw in the laundry there today.
13:58And then she forgot to take the stuff in the laundry, I guess.
14:00Her mother thought it was a little odd that she took everything.
14:02I think Emily was talking to you, and you told her that.
14:06And they said, you know, she's been to a lot of places, and when she finds another guy, she's up
14:11and goes.
14:11She doesn't take anything with her.
14:12So they thought there's something wrong, right?
14:15It's time to search Paul Cowden's house where Rita Jordan lived.
14:19Is there a crime scene there?
14:20We knew that Rita Jordan was last at the residence in Hammond's Plains Road.
14:24Did something bad happen in that house?
14:28So it was May 2013.
14:30The RCMP Forensic Identification Unit, they do the search for us.
14:33One of the investigators reached out to Paul Cowden.
14:35He brought the key to the investigator and turned over the key.
14:38They did not find anything of a crime scene, so nothing that showed, like, some kind of incident that happened
14:43in the house.
14:43And they looked outside and outside around the property and everything like that, and Rita was not at the house.
14:50When it was first all going down, you went and you checked his house.
14:54You had warrants for his house, his property, but you didn't warrant his work vehicle when he was driving it.
14:59He came to give you keys, and I remember saying, check the work truck.
15:03Can you please check the work truck?
15:05Check the work truck.
15:07We had nothing to really say that something might have happened in the truck kind of thing.
15:11Like, there's nothing that really gave us grounds to go look into vehicles.
15:16Like, he was always in his work truck.
15:18Like, why wouldn't you check what he lives in?
15:21Goes to work in it every day.
15:36So the first time I came to Paul Callen's residence, it was during the investigation.
15:44I started watching the residents a little bit.
15:46We did a canvas of the neighborhood.
15:48Didn't tell us anything.
15:50Nowadays, there's a lot more doorbell cameras out there, but in 2013, it wasn't as popular as it is now.
15:57And there was one witness, a friend of Paul Callen.
15:59Paul Callen told them that he lied to the police.
16:04It was actually 3 o'clock when I got home, not 6 o'clock.
16:07Why would Paul lie about that?
16:08You and Rita fight much?
16:11Well, I mean, you have your arguments here and there, but nothing.
16:14Actually, Donna told me about a fight you guys had in the third place.
16:17But we're starting to get some pieces of evidence, the phone records.
16:21Everything's not so nice with Paul Callen and Rita Jordan.
16:25So there were these text messages between Rita Jordan and her friend, Wade Weeks.
16:42And we also have an indication that he was saying he would kill himself if she left him.
16:51And those are things you do see in cases involving intimate partner violence.
16:58I'm sure you and Rita get a little violent at times.
17:01No, I'm not violent.
17:02No.
17:02No, I never hit a woman or, you know, never.
17:07I think I'm going back to my mom's.
17:10What's going on?
17:11What happened?
17:11You were around.
17:12Just let me know everything all right.
17:14Can't wait to see you.
17:16Did he hurt you?
17:17He tried.
17:17I'm tough, though.
17:19She called mom and said I wanted to come home.
17:22And mom feels horrible because she had my other sister staying there for the moment.
17:30And she said, you could sleep on the coach.
17:32Come sleep on the coach.
17:33And Rita was like, hell no.
17:36And then we haven't seen her after that.
17:37So there's a lot of guilt there.
17:42She was the oldest sibling.
17:44She most definitely was the band leader.
17:46Yep.
17:48This is our sister group.
17:50Four girls.
17:51Too cute.
17:52Rita being the oldest, me being the youngest.
17:54This is me.
17:55This is us going to school.
17:58First day of school, probably.
17:59The mullets.
18:01Mm-hmm.
18:01We were always teasing, yeah.
18:03Like, always playing, always putting on concerts.
18:06She would tell us how to dance and what we were doing, what parts.
18:09This was your Aunt Rita.
18:11The Christmas party in 2013.
18:15A couple months before.
18:16My last one with her probably was the most I remember, probably because we were older.
18:23And it was Shoot by Salt-N-Peper.
18:24And it was Christmas morning.
18:28My little girl got a karaoke machine.
18:31And, yeah, that was the last one.
18:34So it was a blast.
18:37So sometimes people lie by admission.
18:39He didn't mention anything about their relationship not going well.
18:42He knew that Rita Jordan was planning to leave him, that she didn't want to be with him anymore, that
18:48he was a trick.
18:48And that she was planning to take some of Paul Counton's property.
18:52I'm talking to somebody now that will be interested in buying the four-wheelers.
18:56They're talking about the Corvette.
18:58Is there anything else of value in the garage?
19:00And Rita's like, no, there's no value there.
19:02I already have his gold.
19:04We don't really believe in coincidences, right?
19:06Like, she's going to leave on the 18th, and she disappears on the 18th.
19:10Global News has learned Rita worked at this sporting goods outlet in Burnside.
19:14She left early this winter.
19:15We would work night shifts 3 to 11 at Hallie Hansen together.
19:19And it would just be a great night.
19:20Just, like, using all the things that you're not supposed to use just to be funny.
19:25And, like, we were just having so much fun.
19:27And singing songs from across the room just when we're doing the whole line work.
19:32And it was always fun.
19:34Never a dull moment.
19:35We grew up together, and we had a duplex on Duffus Street.
19:38And she rented the other side.
19:40We were always together.
19:42She had everything that she wanted at that moment, you know?
19:46And he didn't like that.
19:48He was no longer the one, so.
19:53She was working.
19:54She straightened her hair, got all her teeth fixed.
19:56She was beautiful.
19:57She was ready.
19:58She was ready.
20:00And he wasn't.
20:01Well, I mean, I was hoping she would give me a call, right?
20:03I can see took out on the board.
20:05So investigators know they're going down the right path.
20:07We're looking at the right person.
20:09It's just figuring out, how are we going to prove that Paul Counten's the person, right?
20:13So they do come up with an investigative plan to arrest Paul Counten.
20:16Summer, I believe.
20:17I was part of the arrest team, so we arrested him as he finished work.
20:22He was calm.
20:24We only have a 24-hour clock once we arrest somebody.
20:27He was going to walk out the door in 24 hours.
20:30There's going to be two things going on at the same time.
20:32We're going to interview him and try to get him to tell us what happened.
20:36And we're going to have undercover operators with him when he's not being interviewed down
20:41in cells, because sometimes people will talk and disclose details of the crime that they've
20:46been arrested for.
20:47Neither one of those things is getting us to admissions or a confession.
20:52I think we would have did anything at the time.
20:54I think mom was pretty desperate.
20:55I think we were all pretty desperate for any type of answer.
20:59And then the interviewers have another idea.
21:02Bring in a family member of Rita Jordan.
21:05There are like two hours left or so.
21:08They decide, let's bring Rita's mother, Donna Jordan, into the interview.
21:12I'm just torn now.
21:14And she went in and she kept her composure.
21:17You have to let go.
21:19And confronted him.
21:20And I know it was a mistake.
21:22Did you have to help us get closer?
21:25I forgive you.
21:32Knowing what she knows now, it makes her feel horrible because she said some things to him
21:37that weren't necessarily true, but she needed her daughter.
21:39I know, you must be so scared.
21:46You're a good man, you probably know what's right.
21:51You know right from wrong.
21:53It's killing us, not knowing where she is.
21:57Donna Jordan went into the interview room, sat down, and began interviewing Paul Cowan,
22:02and asked him and begged him to tell her what happened.
22:19And you have to understand, a family member that's lost another, and then they go even
22:28farther, and they go into a room only inches away from the person who was essentially a
22:35member of the family, went to birthdays and so forth, and talked to him about the details.
22:39She has to be probably one of the strongest people I've ever met.
22:42Let the words come out.
22:44She's right here, supporting you, sitting there, holding your hand, begging, begging for you.
22:51Telling you she's not going to leave your side.
22:53She's not going to abandon you.
22:57We have to start together today.
22:59Her ashes are in the lake down in Sherbrooke, next to the boogie.
23:08Ashes?
23:10Thank you, Paul.
23:16It's okay.
23:18It's all right, Paul.
23:22It's all right.
23:25She couldn't even speak, and she said he burnt her, and then just cried.
23:35He put her ashes at the lake in Sherbrooke, where Rita Jordan's family have a cottage.
23:42Went out to the boogie where the family would dive and swim, and he put her ashes in the water.
24:03Welcome back.
24:04After a tearful confession to Rita Jordan's mother, Rita's boyfriend, Paul Kalin, has admitted
24:11to disposing some of Rita's remains in a lake by their family cottage.
24:15Investigators must now determine if it was murder or an accident.
24:22Here now is Gone in Town.
24:29The first time that I actually was inside the house was the day after Paul Kalin was arrested
24:35in June.
24:36He agreed to come out with us and agreed to do a reenactment.
24:41He had been charged already with the murder of Rita Jordan and indignity of human remains.
24:45He took us through his version of events, walked us through the house.
24:48It's sad to think that something terrible happened here to Rita Jordan.
24:53It's almost peaceful.
24:57Rita!
24:58And I'm there to remember, he's in custody, but he's not handcuffed and then he's walking
25:03through.
25:04So I'm there to make sure he doesn't try to escape or anything like that and to take part.
25:11She's usually down in the bedroom, so I go, Rita.
25:17So what we know is March 18th, Paul Kalin came home that afternoon.
25:22When he came home, her stuff was packed.
25:25I'm walking down.
25:28I don't know, probably hear I say Rita.
25:31And her room is down here.
25:33Goes downstairs, talks with Rita.
25:35She was sitting over there on the computer, so I say hi to her.
25:40So just for me to clarify, Paul, I'd take you out of time.
25:42Are you guys arguing at this point in time?
25:43Um, yes and no.
25:46Not, not fully arguing yet.
25:49But the other guy's just shared some, he shared some, some crack.
25:52Yeah.
25:53They come upstairs, they're arguing.
25:55So I'm just going up the steps.
25:57He found his laptop in her bags by the door.
26:00He found his gold ring that she was going to plan to take with him.
26:03Now she's standing, talks with her truckers.
26:06Right here?
26:07With her back to the steps.
26:08So as I'm going like this, she takes a swing at me.
26:11And I went like that.
26:12He said it was a total accident.
26:15He said she was at the top of the stairs.
26:17She took a swing at him and fell down.
26:19Yeah, definitely her right hand.
26:20So she takes a swing.
26:21Yeah, and then go like that.
26:22Yeah.
26:22And she fell backwards down the steps.
26:25This way.
26:26I'm not sure if it was backwards.
26:27His version is that she swung at him and fell down the stairs.
26:31On some very padded stairs.
26:33And at the bottom of the stairs, she died what appears to be instantly.
26:37So then she's going down the steps.
26:39So geez, I run down.
26:40Let's just go slow right here.
26:42Now this is very important so that we can get clear.
26:45You notice that she's gone down over the stairs.
26:47Yeah.
26:48How far down does she go?
26:50Before we go down there, take me three of us down there.
26:52She's to the bottom.
26:53Like her feet are pointing up.
26:55All the way around the turn.
26:57Yeah.
26:57Down here and then down again.
26:59Yeah.
26:59Right to the hardwood or the lavender floor.
27:01Yeah.
27:01Down four stairs, turn down two more stairs, turn fell down more stairs.
27:05Like that was his version.
27:06She was dead at the bottom of the stairs.
27:08Okay.
27:08So your head is down.
27:09Well, I'm not sure how she was falling here because I was ducking to get out of her way.
27:14Yeah.
27:16But when I got down here, her head was here.
27:20Okay.
27:20Her head was here and her rest of her body was like up the steps.
27:25Up the steps.
27:25When it gets to the details of what actually happened to Rita and how she died,
27:30it's more like he's pausing, thinking because it doesn't flow smooth, right?
27:35And I listened for an air out of her mouth and there was none.
27:42So I tried resuscitating her mouth to mouth.
27:47I'm going like this.
27:49And you're pulling her up.
27:50I don't want to pull her up.
27:51I did get her up here and then checked to see if she was still dead or not.
27:56They kept going back and saying, I wanted to check to see if she was really dead.
28:01You would think the normal response would be kept hoping that she was still alive.
28:07And you really want to know that you run up the stairs and you call 911.
28:13Oh yeah, I'm talking to her, I'm slapping her in the vault and I'm listening for her.
28:17I didn't actually check her pulse.
28:19Okay.
28:21Actually, yesterday I checked her neck.
28:23So then from there I took her and put her in the truck.
28:26And then he outlined the details of what he did to dispose of her body.
28:31The person that he said he loved apparently died right before his eyes.
28:36And his reaction was to take her to the woods and dump her.
28:42The day that Paul Callen killed Rita, he put her in his blue truck in the front seat of the
28:47wheel well, wrapped up in a blanket.
28:49He drove around for a little while.
28:51That would match up with the cell phone last tower of Rita Jordan.
28:53And ultimately, Paul Callen decided to take her body to Ingramport, 10, 15 minute drive at most.
29:02This would have been all gravel road.
29:04This is roughly the spot where we believe Rita Jordan was put.
29:11We never did actually find her remains here.
29:15And this would have been where he put her the day he killed her.
29:19Until he came back the next day, he could see her body, her elbow.
29:24So he moved her deeper in the woods.
29:27We never did find the exact spot.
29:30And unfortunately, Paul Callen changed his mind because we were going to come out this way and get us to
29:36show us exactly where he had put her.
29:39Somewhere along here.
29:41We'll never know exactly where.
29:43He had taken her belongings that she had packed up and had taken them out there and burned them.
29:49It was around this area over here by the power lines is where we found a couple of little burn
29:54sites.
29:56The only thing that was left that we could find was pieces of metal, some pieces of the bags.
30:02A month later, the police came to his door and said, this is now a homicide investigation.
30:08Paul Callen leaves that night, late at night, goes back to the spot where he disposed of Rita Jordan in
30:16the woods.
30:17He wraps her up in a tarp.
30:19He puts her in the back of his truck and drives out to Muscadabat, which is completely another direction.
30:24He gets stuck.
30:25And while he has her body in the back, calls a tow truck.
30:29He continues on.
30:30He takes the body out and he burns the body in the woods.
30:34But the police call.
30:36He then puts the body out, wraps it up in a tarp and drives back to his house where the
30:43police are.
30:44So they search the house.
30:45Paul Callen says he waits till they leave.
30:48He takes the body into his backyard and then he burns the rest of the remains.
30:53He's taking chances of getting caught.
30:57Somebody could come over and see him in the backyard doing this, right?
31:00It shows me that he was motivated.
31:02Looking back, like, huh, if he had the crystal ball, if you could have put surveillance on Paul Callen,
31:07you would have got him going and getting the body later on.
31:10You would have got him going to Pleasant Valley and you might have caught him with the body maybe, right?
31:17And I just remember being so upset.
31:19Why wouldn't you have just said, listen, I need to check the vehicle.
31:22Now I'm without my sister.
31:24The lead investigator and I, we did go to the family cottage in Shearbrook with the RCMP underwater recovery team.
31:32And they were describing, like, pieces of the ashes and bone was in the water sitting up among the weeds.
31:38And they would go to try to get these ashes and they would just start to disintegrate in the water.
31:43But they were able to come up with a few pieces.
31:46They couldn't say 100% that it was human.
31:49There was no DNA that could have been extracted.
31:51But with Paul Callen telling us where he put her ashes and remains, there was no doubt that what we
31:57did find eventually,
31:58that was what was left to Rita Jordan, unfortunately.
32:05How does a human do it?
32:06I don't even know how it was possible that we don't have a single stitch of her to bury.
32:12Well, that's why we have graveyards, right?
32:14So people can go in the morning and talk to their loved ones.
32:16We don't have anything.
32:20So something would be nice.
32:24Yeah, we haven't been able to do anything.
32:27He went far beyond what anybody could even imagine somebody would do to hide a body.
32:33And we asked ourselves, why?
32:36Who would go into these extreme lengths to get rid of a body if it was an accident, right?
32:42There was something about that body that he needed to destroy down to bone and ash.
32:51There was something about that body that said she didn't fall accidentally down the stairs,
32:56that would convict him of second degree murder.
32:59Obviously, we had a lot more questions, but we had to get him to court.
33:03Investigators weren't done with Paul Callen.
33:05He had more information to tell us.
33:16Welcome back.
33:17Paul Callen admits to burning Rita Jordan's body,
33:21but maintains her death was accidental, claiming she fell down the stairs and died instantly.
33:27But police feel the lengths he went to to get rid of her body tell a much more sinister story.
33:35We now return to the conclusion of Gone in Town.
33:40Today was the first day of testimony in the second degree murder trial for Paul Trevor Callen.
33:46The Crown had the chance to give its opening arguments this morning.
33:49Callen has pleaded guilty to indecently interfering with human remains,
33:52but not guilty to causing Jordan's death.
33:56And I'll never believe a story that's told to me, ever,
33:59because my sister isn't here to tell me that.
34:01It's not enough for me.
34:03Because I didn't really like him.
34:07The way he looked at you through his glasses, never liked him.
34:11Nearly a dozen members of Jordan's family were on hand for the opening day of the trial.
34:15The Crown plans to call dozens of witnesses
34:17and introduce a variety of evidence as part of their case.
34:20There was his defense that he took cocaine.
34:24His brain was fueled by coke and he wasn't thinking clearly.
34:27But what he did was very calculated.
34:31Each time I looked at the fact that he said he was high on drugs,
34:36it was almost laughable that somebody could say that.
34:39The next day you go to work, I'm working with tools, I don't think I'm so high that I'm still
34:44panicking.
34:45And certainly he was thinking well enough when the police came asking the first time about a missing persons.
34:51He seemed relatively calm and cool there and was able to lie to them.
34:56He was calm and cool certainly just after the homicide when he called a friend to say,
35:01I haven't seen Rita, do you know where she is?
35:04You're probably the last person that was with her.
35:06I wasn't the last person with her.
35:08And we're not talking over a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, or a couple of days.
35:13This is a long period of time for somebody to reflect about the person they love.
35:18Very shortly after the incident, he takes her cell phone and sends a text message to her friend, Wade Weeks,
35:26saying gone in town.
35:28You can see after the fact that he is putting in place what he's going to try to make his
35:36defense so quickly after he kills her.
35:40He was taking rational steps to hide what he had done.
35:43Paul Cowanlin, I think, definitely used crack cocaine after Rita Jordan was dead.
35:52That's probably his coping mechanism for the things he was doing.
35:57We don't believe that he was high on cocaine, crack cocaine, when he killed her.
36:02This was the scene outside of Paul Trevor Cowanlin's home.
36:05Forensic units sifting through the wooded area just behind Cowanlin's house.
36:09The police did an excellent job of going over the crime scene.
36:12If she indeed died inside that house, we don't know for sure.
36:18We did involve the medical examiner on a couple fronts.
36:20Nothing's ever 100%.
36:22But the type of fall that Paul Cowanlin described Rita Jordan taking, it's very, very, very unlikely that that would
36:31end in instant death.
36:32Because there's no evidence that there's damage to walls.
36:35And it's not a straight staircase, 10 steps straight down kind of thing.
36:40May have been different.
36:41If you're talking about somebody on a straight shot, 14 stairs down, you know, at the bottom is concrete.
36:47The police went over those stairs.
36:48There wasn't any evidence at all that somebody had fallen down those stairs and no blood, no marks on the
36:53wall.
36:54When you go down the first set of stairs, somebody going down those stairs would have hit that wall with
36:59some force.
37:00There was nothing to indicate that that wall had been fixed.
37:04Then the next wall, only a couple of stairs down.
37:07Once again, no blood on the stairs, and they went over every inch.
37:10I don't think it was any kind of blood related trauma because if there's any amount of bloodletting, like it's
37:17very, very difficult.
37:18If it's like blunt force trauma or serious amounts of bleeding, like a stab wound or you were shot or
37:25hitting with objects, like it's very, very difficult to clean up all that blood.
37:31Or we would know, like, well, something's missing here, or the cart was torn up, or there's evidence of clean
37:37up.
37:37There was none of that.
37:39It's more likely close contact, strangulation.
37:44End of the day, we did not have a body.
37:47Making headlines today after three weeks of graphic testimony and four days of intense deliberations.
37:53The verdict in a high-profile murder case is finally in.
37:56Natasha Pace has the latest in the trial for Paul Trevor Kalman.
38:06Emotion filled Nova Scotia Supreme Court this morning as the family of Rita Jordan heard the news they've been waiting
38:12three years for.
38:13Jury found him guilty of second-degree murder and indignity of human remains, and he got sentenced to life in
38:19prison.
38:20Yeah, second-degree, I believe, was the appropriate charge.
38:22There was nothing really substantial to say that he was planning on killing her.
38:28In addition to the mandatory life sentence, he imposed a concurrent five-year sentence for indecently interfering with human remains.
38:36All the waiting was worth it, and justice has been served.
38:39These are tears of relief.
38:41The only thing is, I wish that would bring my daughter back, but it never will.
38:46But at least for her, she...
38:49She'll rest now.
38:50She'll rest now.
38:51The Jordan family was present every day of the three-week trial, desperate for closure in Rita's death.
38:56Yesterday it was terrible, but today is great.
39:02I'm so happy.
39:04I think the thing that stood out the most about the case was Donna Jordan.
39:08I can't imagine what she went through during this trial.
39:13Rita was my firstborn.
39:15She was a caring, loving, beautiful, curly-haired girl that we miss very much.
39:23She was a beautiful human being, and we remember everything about her, and she's still with us.
39:29She'll always be with us.
39:31The family wore purple ribbons to court in memory of Rita.
39:34Purple is against domestic violence, and so that's why we wear them.
39:39What you see more recently is all of society getting more involved in realizing just what a plague this is,
39:48and the incredible seriousness that can come, the outcome that Rita Jordan faced.
39:55Whatever they may or may not have said about Rita Jordan, an intimate partner of violence, it never justifies the
40:04level of violence at any point in time.
40:07She packed her bags, she was leaving, which she had a right to do, and he didn't like that, and
40:13she was killed because of it.
40:15We never, ever thought he was capable of doing such monstrous things, like we didn't believe it until.
40:25The Kalanen family did not wish to speak following the sentencing, but the defense confirms they will be appealing the
40:31murder conviction.
40:32There's 30 days from today, basically, to file the appeal, so it'll definitely be filed before the 30 days is
40:37up.
40:37I would say about 20 seconds after the verdict, I knew that they were going to appeal, based on our
40:44use of the after-the-fact conduct, and how the jury used it to convict him.
40:50Rita Jordan's family had been hoping that a guilty verdict would mark the end of their ordeal.
40:56But with the appeal, Rita's family worried her accused killer could go free.
41:01The primary ground of appeal for Mr. Kalanen was the use of what's called after-the-fact evidence.
41:08And after-the-fact evidence is anything that the accused says or does after the commission of the offense.
41:15But Paul Kalanen's lawyers argued it should not be allowed as a way to prove intent.
41:21The majority of judges sided with them and decided to overturn the conviction, ordering a new trial on the lesser
41:28charge of manslaughter.
41:29However, one of the three judges disagreed.
41:34In this case at the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal, it was a split decision.
41:37And that's why this case and the decision out of the Supreme Court of Canada is influential, why it's precedent
41:44-setting,
41:44is because it really clarified how courts could use after-the-fact conduct to help make their decision about innocence
41:53or guilt.
41:54Prior to this case, the Supreme Court of Canada had always been consistent that we could use evidence of after
42:01-the-fact conduct.
42:02However, some of the lower courts were getting away from that, in which they were limiting it,
42:07that they were trying to say it would be neutral as to intent.
42:10It is the extraordinary nature of that and the risks that Mr. Kalanen took in that, that lead to an
42:18inference of intent here.
42:19And the position that we took was that this was highly relevant.
42:23The danger would be that if this evidence wasn't indicative of intent, that if it was somehow neutral and we'd
42:31never be able to get it in,
42:32that you would be able to commit the perfect murder if you were just able to completely destroy the body.
42:38And that simply can't be the case.
42:43Many, many, many, many nights at MUM's, talking about it, crying about it, watching the news together.
42:53Yeah, many, many, many, many nights.
42:55I just remember every single trial was horrible.
42:59I had to listen to it over and over.
43:04There was a very real possibility that they would be faced with another trial.
43:10Thank both counsels for your very helpful and able submissions.
43:13We'll take this matter under reserve.
43:16With the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, the conviction was reinstated and the matter was finally closed.
43:23The jury didn't believe him and the Supreme Court of Canada didn't believe him.
43:27I mean, we were more happy that he got what he deserved.
43:31He deserves much more, but yeah, it was a good day.
43:35It continues to be an important case.
43:38Here's a woman who's working.
43:40She's trying to make a life for herself.
43:41She's trying to change her circumstances that she was in with Mr. Callan, and he killed her.
43:50And then this is our family picture.
43:53But yeah, there was no worry then.
43:55We didn't know that cruel things were in the world.
43:59And if it was, it only happened in the movies.
44:02So right there, we were pretty content.
44:04And we were pretty damn happy.
44:07As you can see on both of my parents' proud faces.
44:11I want her to be remembered how everybody remembers Rita.
44:14She was beautiful, kind.
44:17She had anybody's back.
44:19She was rough around the edges.
44:22She was smart and wise.
44:25Rita Jordan was Rita Jordan.
44:27She was just a beautiful person.
44:32We reached out to Paul Callanin in prison to ask if he had anything more he wished to reveal about
44:38what happened to Rita.
44:39Specifically, where her family may find any more of her remains.
44:43He declined to speak with us.
44:46And so, Rita's family remains without answers.
44:50Finding solace only in the memories of Rita from happier times.
44:57Thank you for joining us tonight on Crime Beat.
45:00I'm Anthony Robart.
45:03Want more episodes of Crime Beat?
45:05Listen to the Crime Beat podcast now for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favourite podcast.
45:13And for past episodes of Crime Beat, go to the Global TV app, visit globaltv.com, or check out our
45:21Crime Beat YouTube page.
45:24Crime Beat.
45:30queencer.
45:31There are still much Kızarsys.
45:31You burn too, so you feel connected.
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