- 2 days ago
In the summer of 2000, a woman goes missing. When her body is found 3 weeks later, police have little to go on.
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00:03This program is rated 14 plus and contains scenes of violence and mature subject matter. Viewer
00:08discretion is advised. Everyone seemed to like her and everyone seemed to know her. Her father
00:15I think had a lot to do with that because they were very close. The body had been found. We
00:21knew
00:21that there was an active search for her. We pretty much knew at a gut level that that's got to
00:29be her.
00:30One piece of evidence that they did collect was a cigarette butt, very close to her body.
00:36So the undercover officer picked up the cigarette butt that he had discarded.
00:39Not long after we received it, there was a hit.
00:42So in a strange twist, the DNA they collected in Windsor actually tied him to an unsolved murder in Toronto.
00:51I go to the cells. He's lying down. I told him that he was going to be charged with first
00:55-degree murder.
00:56He just looked at me and said, yeah, yeah, and lay back down and went back to sleep.
01:06Welcome to Crime Beat. I'm Anthony Robart.
01:08In the summer of 2000, a woman vanishes in Windsor, Ontario.
01:13But as investigators dig deeper into her disappearance,
01:16they uncover a string of other crimes, all leading back to one man.
01:23Here now is She's Still Gone.
01:32It was a day not unlike any other.
01:35Extremely hot. It was humid. It was raining on and off.
01:40It's sweltering, typical Windsor summer.
01:42Heat wave. It's over 30 degrees. It's hot. It's sticky.
01:48A guy is walking his dog near the Ford factory on Jullard Road in Ford City.
01:55It's a patch of roughly an acre, overgrown, waist-high weeds, you know, trees.
02:00But there is a path that goes through there, and this guy walking his dog finds the body.
02:06So he reports it to the Ford security guards. The police are called.
02:11When we arrived at the scene, there was a lot of activity already.
02:16Patrol officers were there, containing and managing the scene.
02:19Forensic identification officers were there.
02:22Command posts and other detectives were already there prior to our arrival.
02:28There was, in our minds, a female of slight build
02:32who has been in the elements for a lengthy period of time.
02:37The scene itself was one quadrant of an intersection between Trenton and Jullard Road.
02:43And that quadrant is a vacant or abandoned field.
02:48I think there was a little bit of homelessness going there, but mostly it was a path.
02:52A walk away from one corner to the opposite corner, which was a bus stop.
02:57The body was found not far off the path.
03:00So in my eyes, it would have been difficult to imagine somebody walking by it on the path and not
03:06seeing it.
03:07It was just odd to me that it had never been reported until it was.
03:13But when I saw the body, it could have been easily missed because it was badly decomposed.
03:20Basically skin over bone and some hair.
03:24And naked except for a bra.
03:26The position of the body definitely caused suspicion in our view.
03:31The female was on her back, her legs were bent, and her bra was unclasped.
03:39So we felt that there was foul play almost immediately.
03:48Windsor back in 2000 was, you know, not much unlike what it is now.
03:52There was crime, typical, you know, break-ins, robberies, odd shooting or violent crime.
03:58We didn't, you know, we averaged a couple of murders a year, maybe.
04:03So it was front page news when it happened.
04:06When they found the body, it was badly decomposed, had very little evidence to offer.
04:12So Windsor police, you know, they started basically a shoulder-to-shoulder search through this abandoned lot.
04:18And they find some evidence and they don't really say much about it at the time.
04:22We're looking for any type of evidence or something that may seem unusual.
04:27And we found some peculiar items next to the body.
04:31One was a pile of her clothes, or what we surmised to be her clothes, fairly neatly folded.
04:37And a stick on the other side of her, close to her body.
04:41So we didn't know the significance of those items at the time.
04:45Police, you know, later said it was staged to look like a sexual assault.
04:49We would take those types of details and hold them back.
04:53We wouldn't report on them because those things only the suspect would know.
04:58One piece of evidence that they did collect was a cigarette butt, very close to her body.
05:04The clothes, the stick, the cigarette butt are seized and bagged and put into evidence for further analysis
05:13through the Center of Forensic Sciences.
05:17So the first steps of any investigation like that is to confirm the identity of the person.
05:23That was not so easily done because there was no forms of identification with the person and the decomposition.
05:30Immediately we follow our data bank and we find out is there missing persons in this neighborhood.
05:39Uniform officers are already talking with neighbors that show up, asking is there someone that they know is missing.
05:47It would have been a few days before the time of autopsy, but the rumors on the street and the
05:54information that people were sharing on the street among neighbors was that it was Michelle Charette.
06:00Michelle Charette was this diminutive 40-year-old woman who lived in Windsor's Ford City on Jullard Road.
06:11And on July 25th, 2000, her sister saw her near St. Clair College and then she disappeared.
06:19That was the last time anyone saw her.
06:22Michelle was reported missing on July 31st by her father, George.
06:29When he first learned from his other daughter that Michelle was missing, he attended her residence, which was on the
06:36second story of a couple of businesses.
06:39And what did he find was a mailbox stuffed full of envelopes and paper and mail, and it was overflowing.
06:47So he knew that she had not picked up the mail in a long time.
06:51So George called the police and the police used force and opened up the door.
06:58And there was nothing inside that would suggest there had been violence perpetrated there or that she had been living
07:06there for the last few days.
07:09So weeks pass and it starts to get publicity. The winter star starts writing about it, but no one can
07:14find her. It's a mystery. Her dad starts to wonder if she got abducted.
07:20She used to go outside of her apartment and smoke a lot on Drillard Road, which at the time was
07:25kind of a rough neighborhood.
07:26So he really started to wonder, did she go for a smoke and someone kidnapped her?
07:30And she also spent a lot of time trying to help people who were less fortunate or had problems with
07:35the law or whatever.
07:35So another concern he had was that maybe someone she was trying to help did something to her.
07:43Back in 2000, Drillard Road was a pretty rough neighborhood. A lot of transient people. There was some drug use.
07:49There was a prostitution.
07:50It had been down on hard times after the Ford plant closed.
07:55Houses that were abandoned, abandoned businesses here and there. And this is where Michelle was living at the time.
08:01Because of the total circumstances surrounding her death, plus the neighborhood in which she was in, it wouldn't be unusual
08:09to think that someone in the neighborhood was responsible for Michelle's demise.
08:14And sure enough, it was within a few hours of the canvas beginning that we got the name of a
08:21suspect.
08:35Welcome back.
08:36Three weeks after Michelle Charette went missing, Windsor police discover her remains in a field just a block from her
08:44home.
08:44Staged to look like a sexual assault, the scene contains almost no evidence.
08:49So, officers begin canvassing the neighborhood and within hours, they've got the name of a potential suspect.
08:58We now return to She's Still Gone.
09:04So, Michelle was 40 years old, one of six siblings from Windsor family.
09:09It was evident to us very early on that Michelle was the type of person that befriended everyone.
09:17Didn't care what your stripes were in life. Everyone seemed to like her and everyone seemed to know her.
09:22Her father, I think, had a lot to do with that because they were very close.
09:27Michelle was a member of several churches and spent a lot of time doing charitable work, trying to help people
09:33who had been down on their luck or in trouble with the law.
09:40Yeah, I don't remember the exact time I first met her, but there was a genuine warmth about it.
09:46Maybe we should move over one spot once.
09:50Michelle had a warm smile, warm eyes, a compassionate heart.
09:56She really did care about people in the margins.
10:01She wanted to see people discover a relationship with God, but during church services and community meals, she'd be here
10:12and she'd participate.
10:13If we were tidying up or something, she'd pitch in.
10:18When we were serving community meals, if she could help clean up, she'd do that.
10:25She would come to our worship services and I have memories of her just with her eyes closed and singing
10:33quietly.
10:34She knew she was connected there.
10:38She didn't talk a lot about her background or her family.
10:43We knew her as a loner, discovered that she had a deep-rooted faith in God, but in a bit
10:51of a troubled package.
10:52She had some boundary issues around men.
10:56At that time, we had a big old hotel bar that we were meeting in while we were renovating it.
11:03And she would often come here through the day and there'd be different work projects going on.
11:10You know, sometimes we had to say, no, you can't come freely and go everywhere you want.
11:15This is a work site and we have residential apartments upstairs.
11:19And she'd wander upstairs and knock on people's doors and say, no, you can't do that.
11:26The other thing, she moved on to the street and she had a second floor apartment above a building.
11:32And two o'clock in the morning, she'd be sitting out on the sidewalk in this rough neighborhood in a
11:38lawn chair.
11:39By herself, you know, going out to have her smoke and didn't seem to have a good regard for, I
11:46should probably be careful.
11:49Too open. She was, she was vulnerable.
11:54Once it was reported that a body had been found, you know, at least a couple of weeks had gone
12:00by and we knew that there was an active search for her.
12:04We pretty much knew in, at a gut level, that's, that's gotta be her.
12:10As a community, we were in shock. This was, you know, on our doorstep.
12:16She lived literally across the street.
12:21Where her body was found is one block away.
12:25The police came around and there were several people connected to the church that they interviewed to try and piece
12:34together what happened.
12:36As a result of the autopsy, we were able to determine the cause of death being strangulation and that it
12:44was Michelle through the dental records.
12:47People, when they learn something like that, they want to talk about the person.
12:51She was a super friendly, likable person.
12:54And that's why so many people came forward.
12:57You have to understand this is not a neighborhood where people readily assisted police in investigation.
13:04They would kind of be tight-lipped and that sort of thing.
13:07But not so with Michelle.
13:09So very early in the investigation, the name of Peter Dale McDonald comes up.
13:14Peter Dale McDonald was originally from Prince Edward Island, but he was a drifter.
13:19He was suspect at the time of the canvas because of the fact that we determined he knew her.
13:27He was with her.
13:29Perhaps on the last day she was seen alive and he had a propensity for violence.
13:35The canvas, the interviews with neighbors, all pointing fingers in one direction.
13:42At the time of Michelle's death, he was living in Windsor, but had been coming back and forth between Windsor
13:47and Toronto.
13:48He was a man with a long criminal history, a violent history.
13:51Some people in the neighborhood knew this.
13:53And very quickly after Michelle's body was found, a couple of people that knew him suggested to police that they
13:59look in his direction.
14:01The couple owned a small diner and Peter lived and used their facilities while he had been in Windsor.
14:09So he would dine at their restaurant.
14:11He lived in one of their rooms that they had above the diner.
14:17And they were not hesitant to say that Peter, to them, was intimidating.
14:22He was violent.
14:24He was new to the neighborhood.
14:26All of these things came forward from others as well on the street.
14:30Day three or four of the investigation, I had occasion to stop in at the diner where the elderly couple
14:37was.
14:38As I was speaking with them, they were very friendly, very cautious now because of the fact that Peter was
14:44named as a suspect and he hadn't been arrested.
14:47There was no one else in the restaurant and I was talking to them over the bar.
14:51I looked down to my left and Peter was walking into the restaurant.
14:56And he sat down on a stool right beside me and he could have reached out and touched me.
15:00He didn't say a word.
15:01I said to him, Peter, get up and walk out or you're going to go to jail.
15:05You know, he stared at me for a few seconds and then he just got up and walked out.
15:10You know, never knowing who I was, but knowing I was a police officer, have the nerve to do that.
15:17Like, incredible.
15:19Peter's motive there was to impress upon those two that he's still out of custody and that he can intimidate
15:26them and bully them whenever he wants.
15:30Don't be cooperating with the police because I'm still here.
15:34That's the way I read it.
15:35We had limited alternatives and Peter was a big guy with a propensity for violence, serious violence.
15:43Murder is one thing, but it's murder by brute strength and physicality.
15:48There's not a lot of people that will do that.
15:50He seemed to be on the run showing up here with no other family members or connections to the city.
15:56We kind of felt that he was the guy.
15:59We wanted to develop quickly solid evidence that either eliminated him as a suspect or gave us the grounds to
16:09arrest.
16:13The detectives at that time requested that the Mobile Surveillance Unit follow Mr. McDonald to see what his behavior and
16:20his activity was,
16:21as well as obtaining a DNA sample if we could get one in case there is something to compare it
16:27to from the crime scene.
16:29McDonald was very erratic. He'd go from place to place. He didn't go to work. I never followed him to
16:35his house.
16:36He would just walk around in the downtown area. There were times where we would just leave him at Jackson
16:41Park.
16:42He would just stay there at night and we would just pick him up the next day.
16:48So on the day that I was assigned to follow Mr. McDonald, I relieved the day shift surveillance unit at
16:55this location right here,
16:56which is 880 Victory in the town of La Salle.
16:59Mr. McDonald exits the La Salle address and gets into a late model pickup truck, which turns out to be
17:07stolen,
17:08and we follow him into the Windsor area.
17:13We followed Mr. McDonald to the liquor store. He grabbed a bottle of liquor and then made his way to
17:20a bar on the West End called Hurricanes.
17:23We pulled him into the parking lot, watched him park his truck, and ultimately we went inside and had a
17:31seat next to him.
17:34He was talking to another person and I just started to get into the conversation. I had probably a couple
17:40beers with him.
17:40He didn't talk much. It was small talk, but we became, you know, friendly.
17:48During our conversation, Mr. McDonald got up to go to the washroom. I had to make a decision.
17:53Do I stick around and continue the conversation? It wasn't going anywhere. It was just small talk.
17:58Or do I take the opportunity to seize the DNA that I knew that I could get?
18:03So Windsor police, they didn't find a lot of evidence, but one thing they eventually did reveal, about six feet
18:09from Michelle's body they found a cigarette butt.
18:11So the undercover officer picked up the cigarette butt that McDonald had discarded, and they sent it to the Centre
18:16of Forensic Science, hoping to get a DNA match.
18:19In the meantime, to cast off DNA, it is submitted to the data bank in Toronto.
18:26Not long after we received it, there was a hit.
18:29So in a strange twist, the DNA they collected in Windsor actually tied McDonald to an unsolved murder four months
18:36earlier in Toronto.
18:51Welcome back.
18:52Windsor police suspect Peter McDonald of killing Michelle Charette, but can't connect him to her murder.
18:59The surveillance team manages to get a piece of his DNA, hoping for a match to their crime scene.
19:05Instead, a hit comes back to a homicide almost 400 kilometres away in Toronto.
19:13We now return to She's Still Gone.
19:18It was April the 29th, 2000.
19:21We arrived here.
19:22The officer's uniform car was already on the scene.
19:25It was parked outside the building here.
19:27The information that we had was that there was a deceased person in apartment 608 here at 99 Tyndale Avenue.
19:35He was lying on the opposite side of the bed, in the bedroom, on the floor, naked.
19:41And there was some white powder substance that was spread on him.
19:44A slice of cheese that was found near the body.
19:47Some sheets that were rolled up on the end of the bed.
19:50This Brian Mulrooney doll was sitting on the pillow, along with an Ontario hospital cart in the name of James
19:57Campbell.
19:58There was a living room area there.
20:00On the couch, there were a couple of beer bottles.
20:02There was a tumbler.
20:03There were signs that something had happened that night, that there was some drinking going on.
20:08Whether it was just the deceased by himself, or was he with somebody?
20:12These are all questions that you have in the back of your head.
20:14And standing at the bedroom door, I could see the white powder that the officers first saw when they arrived.
20:20We didn't know what it was.
20:21Didn't appear to be any scent to it.
20:23But later on, they found that it was talcum powder.
20:26Why that talcum powder was spread over him, I don't know.
20:30To this day, I don't know why.
20:32And when I saw the cheese, I started to think, whoever may be responsible for this, maybe they were leaving
20:37some sort of signs behind.
20:38I don't know.
20:40It was just bizarre to me.
20:42There was no signs of any blunt force injury to Campbell at the time.
20:48We could see that there were no cut marks to him from a sharp edge object.
20:53There were no bullet wounds to him.
20:55There didn't appear to be any bruising of any sort.
20:58So we really didn't know what James Campbell had died from.
21:02The Forensic Identification Services officers began to collect the evidence.
21:06And what we were hoping for was to locate some sort of blood or bodily substance of some sort, looking
21:13for DNA.
21:14The autopsy indicated that James Campbell's cause of death was manual strangulation.
21:21One other thing that was collected during the autopsy were fingernail clippings, looking for possible DNA from anybody else
21:28that he may have come into contact with.
21:30The canvassing, I don't believe there was any video cameras set up at that time at 99 Tyndale.
21:35So we didn't have the video at all, people coming and going.
21:39There were some people that did come forward that indicated that he would frequent the Gladstone Tavern,
21:45a bar called the Dufferin Tavern.
21:47He would frequent that as well.
21:49He would meet with friends, have a beer.
21:51He seemed to be a pleasant fellow.
21:53And of course we would speak to the family as well.
21:56And I believe the last time they had heard from James was on April the 25th.
22:00So a few days before he was found deceased.
22:04There was no real leads.
22:06It was a real whodunit murder.
22:10We started to get some DNA results back.
22:13The beer bottles were an unknown source.
22:16The tumbler, Campbell, was identified along with an unknown source.
22:21They were able to find bodily fluids on the sheets, including blood.
22:25Some of it was from Campbell.
22:26Some of it was from an unknown source.
22:29The same person on all these items.
22:31So we were ahead a little bit, but not by much.
22:35Once the DNA is extracted by the CFS, then they would submit it to the National Data Bank,
22:40where all DNA samples from all crime scenes would sit until there were some matches.
22:47On April the 5th, 2001, I received a call advising me that they had a match from our crime scene
22:53to an investigation that was being conducted by the Windsor Police Service.
22:59While they were surveilling Peter Dale McDonald, he threw away a cigarette butt.
23:05That was the DNA that matched our crime scene.
23:08That name never came up in our investigation, Peter Dale McDonald.
23:13We had no idea who this person was, but we found out that he had a lengthy criminal record.
23:17He had been incarcerated many times and that he was in custody here in Toronto
23:22at the East Detention Centre on other charges unrelated to Windsor, unrelated to our homicide.
23:31So on June the 1st of that same year, we go on and visit him.
23:36We asked the jail staff if they could have McDonald's removed from his cell so that we could speak to
23:42him.
23:43The guards later come back to us and said he refuses to come out of his cell, doesn't want to
23:47talk to you.
23:50On June the 25th, we find out that he's making an appearance in court down at the Old City Hall.
23:57I go to the cells, McDonald's there, lying down.
24:02I asked him to get up, asked him what his name was, told me it was Peter McDonald.
24:07I then told him that he was going to be charged with first-degree murder of James Campbell.
24:11He just looked at me and said, yeah, yeah, and lay back down and went back to sleep.
24:23In Toronto, there was a hit, but we still didn't have a piece of DNA that connected him to our
24:28crime.
24:29We received a bit of a break about a year later.
24:32A man who had been living across the hall from McDonald came to police and said that he had admitted
24:39to killing her.
24:40He had gone through his treatment program with McDonald, and they were drinking one night,
24:45and basically said, I beat this woman to death and dumped her body in a field.
24:52He had some level of detail, the informant did, of what happened.
24:57In addition to the circumstantial evidence we had, we felt that we could lay the charge.
25:02So there was a charge of second-degree murder laid on Peter.
25:08About a year later, after a preliminary hearing, the Crown Attorney, Gary Nakoda, withdrew the charge.
25:14The case against McDonald was actually dropped because the DNA evidence ended up being inconclusive.
25:22Unfortunately, there was no DNA able to be reproduced from the cigarette butt that was seized at the scene.
25:29There was some biological matter, but it wasn't suitable enough for DNA analysis.
25:35You don't want to prosecute, lose the case, and then you've lost the ability to retry him if new evidence
25:42becomes available.
25:43While disappointing at the time, it was probably a good tactical move.
25:46But the DNA that couldn't convict him for Michelle's murder ended up convicting him in the Toronto murder.
25:55McDonald and Campbell had met each other in a park near where Campbell lived on Tyndale.
26:01And from there, they went back to Campbell's apartment.
26:05They had some sort of sexual interaction.
26:08Things got out of control, and McDonald ended up strangling Campbell to death.
26:16At trial, the evidence is called, witnesses are called, forensic officers are called.
26:21The nail clippings, we found DNA from not just Campbell, but we also found it from McDonald.
26:26Obviously, there was some sort of contact between the two of them.
26:29At the end of all this, after the jury deliberated, they came back with a verdict of guilty of second
26:35-degree murder.
26:36Justice Epstein set his parole eligible after serving 13 years.
26:44It's a rough several years for Michelle's family.
26:47They don't have answers.
26:48She's been murdered.
26:49No one's responsible for it.
26:50There's no closure.
26:51And her father, George, is getting old.
26:53He starts to worry, am I going to live long enough to see my daughter's killer brought to justice?
27:02And so years pass.
27:04And in 2009, new investigators are assigned to the case.
27:09I went about my career and wound up landing in our major crime unit as a homicide detective.
27:14And Michelle Charette's homicide was one of my cases assigned.
27:17I knew that there was a cigarette butt located six feet from Michelle Charette, which was unusual.
27:24It's not someone that's just going to pass by and discard their cigarette butt.
27:27It's going to be the killer cigarette butt.
27:30There were other people that had dealings with Michelle, but nothing that would arouse our suspicion into committing such a
27:38heinous crime.
27:41Everybody knew her, so it wasn't hard to find out who was hanging around with Michelle at certain times prior
27:47to the murder.
27:48And it all led to Mr. McDonald.
27:51We knew we could resubmit the forensics, and that was going to be done.
27:56But the decision was made to pay Mr. McDonald a visit in Kingston Penitentiary.
28:04When you walk by Paul Bernardo's cell to get to Peter McDonald's cell, you know you're in a bad place.
28:10In 36 years of policing, that's probably the most uncomfortable position that I've ever been in.
28:15He doesn't know what's going on, and we introduce ourselves, and we want to talk about Michelle Charette.
28:20Well, he doesn't want to talk to us about it.
28:22He shuts us down right away and asks to leave the room.
28:26So we left him a business card, say, listen, if you change your mind, just give us a shout, and
28:30we can have a conversation.
28:32We got up and left.
28:34A few weeks later, he calls them.
28:36So the officers go to Kingston to meet him for a second time.
28:40The conversation didn't go very well from the beginning.
28:43It became apparent to me that the only reason that he wanted to talk to us was for him to
28:49get something out of this interview.
28:51It was self-serving.
28:53He wasn't there to talk about Michelle.
28:55He made allegations that the guards were picking on him.
28:58He wanted out of Kingston.
28:59He wanted to be transferred to a nicer institution.
29:04That went on for about an hour and a half.
29:06Him denying it, him wanting to be moved, and us saying,
29:09We're not moving you. We want to talk about the homicide.
29:14After an hour and a half to two hours of interviewing him, he started to break a little bit and
29:19started to talk about Michelle.
29:20She'd always hang around me. She was always bothering me.
29:23She was always, you know, talking church with me.
29:27And she was just getting on my nerves.
29:29And ultimately, he told me that she had bothered him so much that he couldn't stand it anymore and that
29:35he put her in a chokehold and choked her out and killed her.
29:38So he confesses, you know, he's charged with a murder.
29:41Crime is solved.
29:44Then he recants it.
29:45Now they're back to the square one.
29:47You know, they have to build a case against him again without a confession.
29:50Not long after he's charged with Michelle's murder, there's another Toronto connection.
29:55Police in Toronto now suspect him of the murder of three sex workers in the mid-90s.
30:12On July 7th, 1994, we received a call with regards to a female that was found down by Sunnyside Beach.
30:20This is the area here where Julianne was found.
30:23This is the dock. It's not quite the same as it was back then.
30:26But her body was found on the right-hand side.
30:29But her torso was just under the dock.
30:32And her clothing was found by a galvanized fence just on the east side of the building.
30:37Patrick Middleton was 30 years old when his sister Julianne was strangled, partially disrobed, and thrown into Lake Ontario.
30:44No, she didn't deserve what happened to her.
30:46It was July 1994 when Middleton, a sex trade worker from Parkdale, was killed.
30:51It appeared initially that it was possible it could be a drowning or suicide.
30:56But there were some red marks on her body around her neck and other parts of her torso.
31:03But that was consistent with her body sort of moving up against the dock from the flow of the water,
31:09the breakwater there.
31:11The following day on July the 8th, a post-mortem examination was conducted.
31:16What initially looked as though it was reddish bruising was starting to become a little darker.
31:23The cause of death was officially listed as drowning, but the factor of the strangulation became part of that.
31:31The investigation lasted a number of months initially, but eventually the leads went cold.
31:38When Middleton's father learned that another prostitute had been strangled and dumped in the lake just three months after his
31:44daughter's killing, he feared there was a serial killer on the loose.
31:48That woman was 33-year-old Virginia Coote.
31:50Three years later, 35-year-old Darlene McNeil, another prostitute, was murdered in the exact same way.
31:55The other homicides were directly east of here. They were within the range of about a kilometer.
32:02The second scene is at the east side of the Palais Royale, between that and the Boulevard Club.
32:09And then you go further east and it's at the rear of the legion by the water where Darlene's found.
32:16So, at that point, it's pretty obvious. We have someone in our minds that's responsible for all three.
32:24We needed to set up some kind of a task force. So, Doug Grady was put in charge of Project
32:31Breakwater.
32:33Around 2000, we started to review these cases. These victims, they were last seen 11 o'clock in the evening
32:40to about 2 o'clock in the morning
32:43by peoples in that area. We didn't have much to go on because nobody saw them walk away with anybody
32:50in particular.
32:51Back in that time, police services across the country were stopping people on a regular basis
32:55and recording that information in whatever form they used.
33:00In Toronto, we used a particular contact card, I'll call it.
33:04And in it, police would write time, date, location. The name of the person, date of birth, home address,
33:09reason they're being stopped, perhaps what they were wearing. We got all the contact cards for those areas in 2000.
33:17And it gave us an idea of who was out and about in the hours we were looking at.
33:21So, we went through everybody that came in contact with the police and went and interviewed them.
33:26And our reason was not to say all these people were suspects in the murder.
33:30We were looking for anybody who may have had contact with either the victims or a potential suspect.
33:38With respect to Middleton, there was DNA evidence obtained.
33:46Further leads are followed up. Persons of interest come to light. DNA samples are taken to eliminate them.
33:55And from our investigation, a name that came out was Newf. Somebody was going by Newfie or Newfoundlander.
34:02And from those contact cards, we started to get a particular person who was using that name in that area.
34:09That was a man I now know as Peter Dale McDonald.
34:13There was a worker at a hotel that said Newf used to be around here all the time.
34:19And he wasn't for a while. And then he came back.
34:21Our murders were in 1994 and 1997.
34:25So, being around in 94, not around for a while, and then back, that was unusual and perked our interest
34:32a lot.
34:33There was one incident where somebody yelled out the name Newf when one of the young ladies was seen walking
34:42near the time of her murder.
34:43But nobody saw anybody. In the end, we found a location in the east end of Toronto where he had
34:50been staying.
34:51And at their address, I spoke to a gentleman who had known Peter Dale McDonald for a while.
34:58At least the last few months, he had lived with him, but he wasn't there.
35:02He gave us a lot of information, and he said he would probably see him in a while,
35:06but he didn't know where he was at the time that I was talking to him.
35:10What I learned about Peter Dale McDonald's criminal history is he had 20 convictions.
35:14He had been sentenced to at least 14 years in jail, armed robberies, break-and-enters.
35:19I would say petty crimes, but they were more robbery with violence and break-and-enters to commit indictable offences.
35:25He was an active criminal who had been in jail in Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, Ontario.
35:31He was a parole violator routinely, or a probation violator.
35:36Whatever he was on, he never complied with anything.
35:39During our investigation, we had to talk to parole officers and coordinators
35:43and various custody locations where Peter was.
35:48It turns out that even though he is registered as being in Dorchester, New Brunswick prison,
35:54he was actually paroled to a halfway house in downtown Toronto for about a two-year period,
35:59where on our file, it looks like he's in prison, but he's being stopped in the street using various aliases.
36:07When he hit our radar, he became quite clearly somebody who we should be concerned with.
36:12There was DNA evidence from one of the victims that may have given us a lead that Peter Dale McDonald
36:19was involved.
36:21Peter Dale McDonald's DNA came back to Julianne Middleton.
36:26Unfortunately, she had several DNA samples that were evident, and we could not put sole proximity on Peter.
36:35So it was frustrating.
36:36We went to the Crown Attorneys, and it was quite clear that we did not have enough to go forward
36:43with a case for exclusive opportunity
36:46and for a chance of a conviction.
36:49It wasn't a strong case.
36:51We had examined every potential lead at that time.
36:55Once the project breakwater concluded, we did not have any viable suspects.
37:02Eventually, the three cases go into the cold case squad.
37:05Today, 16 years after his sister's murder, the family finally got to look at the man accused of killing her,
37:1152-year-old Peter Dale McDonald.
37:12When police were asked why an arrest took so long in the case of the three prostitutes.
37:17We need evidence that will allow us to lay a charge, and over the past 16 years and within the
37:23last little while,
37:24we've managed to come up with that extra piece that we needed to charge him.
37:28It's a case that's haunted those who live in Parkdale.
37:31Everybody got scared in the neighbourhood, especially all the prostitutes.
37:34Today, relief, there's been an arrest.
37:36That's wonderful, and some closure for the families of these girls.
37:40McDonald, who remains behind bars serving life in jail, won't go to trial here in Toronto,
37:45until he stands trial first in Windsor.
37:58Welcome back.
38:00At the end of 2010, convicted killer Peter McDonald is facing four more murder charges.
38:05Already serving a life sentence for strangling James Campbell,
38:10he now stands accused in the deaths of three sex workers in Toronto and Michelle Charette in Windsor.
38:16But will all these families finally see justice?
38:21Here now is the conclusion of She's Still Gone.
38:28In Toronto, the charges involving the sex workers were ultimately dropped.
38:33In July of 2011, the Crown Attorney withdrew the charges based on no reasonable prospect of conviction.
38:43Whether it was insufficient evidence, loss of witnesses, they felt that it was not viable to pursue a trial.
38:53The case against McDonald in Windsor, after he basically admitted to this murder,
38:58he then recants, says he didn't do it.
39:01We needed more evidence other than a confession,
39:03because sometimes confessions don't hold up in court, confessions are thrown out.
39:09We knew that DNA testing had come a long way since the homicide.
39:13So six months after the confession, after being charged,
39:17we submitted the cigarette, but for further analysis, it came back to Mr. McDonald.
39:22It was pretty phenomenal to think that the cigarette butt had been discarded in an overgrown field,
39:27sat there for weeks, heat, humidity, rain, you name it,
39:31and there's enough integrity in that DNA more than a decade later to get a hit.
39:36Not just get a hit, but like a solid hit that, you know, police said this is within billions.
39:41It's this guy. This is our guy.
39:43I was very happy that I came back.
39:46What else can you say now? You've confessed, you're in the middle of a field where nobody goes,
39:51and your cigarette butt is six feet from Michelle's knee?
39:55How do you explain that when in court?
39:58So he's charged, and it hasn't gone to trial yet, but there's a speak to day.
40:03He's up in court to discuss whether he's mentally fit to stand trial.
40:07That's a defense tactic.
40:09And everyone thinks, oh, it's just a regular court day.
40:12It's not a trial.
40:13That comes weeks or months away.
40:15There was a lot of people in that courtroom.
40:17There was family. There was a lot of press.
40:19He's brought into court shackled, surrounded by tactical officers,
40:23and he's charged with second-degree murder.
40:24And he's asked, how does he plead?
40:26And out of nowhere, he pleads guilty to manslaughter.
40:30I think there were gas in the courtroom.
40:32I covered a lot of crime, a lot of courts over the decades, and this was like a dramatic moment.
40:38Michelle's father was not expecting that.
40:40Even the Crown, I think, later said that he wasn't expecting it until moments before it happened.
40:45And I believe the defense lawyer was just as shocked as everybody else was.
40:49So police did tell us at one point that when he initially confessed,
40:52he said he strangled her because she was trying to help him.
40:55And in his eyes, she was just nagging him.
40:57He had a temper. He had a quick temper, a violent temper.
41:00And he just snapped and strangled her to death.
41:03So this woman was 4'10", 125 pounds, like a tiny girl.
41:07And he was a Hulk. He was this big, muscular, bruising, tattooed guy.
41:11You can only imagine just the fear she was going through.
41:14Like, this guy had his hands wrapped around her throat, right?
41:17And literally crushed her windpipe.
41:20It was unexpected. He did take ownership of the case.
41:23But when the Crown attorney went through some of the facts in the case,
41:28Mr. McDonald interrupts the Crown on numerous occasions because he doesn't like what's being said.
41:33It makes him look really bad.
41:35He was interrupting and talking about how it's being sensationalized and this is unfair to him.
41:39And he was actually silenced by the judge.
41:42I remember the judge saying, you know, that was a horrible thing you did that day.
41:47But today, somewhat makes it better by taking ownership of it.
41:52And I accept your guilty plea.
41:55He's immediately sentenced that day.
41:57He's already in prison serving time for the Toronto murder.
42:00But they add seven years to his sentence to be served concurrently.
42:04On Thursday, February 23rd, Peter Dale McDonald, 54 years, entered a guilty plea to manslaughter in relation to the death
42:11of Michelle Charette.
42:13Was there ever a motive in this killing?
42:14Mr. McDonald is a lifelong criminal with a very violent background.
42:22So my experience with Mr. McDonald is that he has a bad temper and he just snaps as an indication
42:29of his last conviction for a second degree murder.
42:33He's just, he loses control and kills people.
42:37He didn't have much to say about why he did it except that he said he wanted to give Michelle's
42:42father some closure.
42:43And he also said something like, for what it's worth, you know, Michelle said he was a good dad.
42:48Dad was emotional. He was surrounded by reporters outside the courthouse.
42:51It was a bittersweet day. It was a sad day.
42:53But in some way, like, he found a little bit of closure, a little bit of justice.
42:57Very emotional because he thought he was going to die and never know who did this to his little girl.
43:03What's it like after all these years?
43:05After all these years, what's it?
43:07It's, it still plays a toll on me, you know.
43:11I think I've gained ten, aged ten years from this.
43:15I didn't think I'd ever see the end of the, the closing to this case.
43:19But, with McDonald admitting he killed her, that kind of gives me, it gives me a relief, but she's still
43:27gone.
43:27You don't expect a barrier, one of your own.
43:31But the waiting time until they found her, that was, that was a hard part.
43:36And then when we did find her, then we had the, the wait and that.
43:41I never thought we'd ever, we'd ever find the killer.
43:45We knew who he was, but we couldn't prove it.
43:47So, it's a good feeling that we know the man committed it and bitted it.
43:54And, but that don't bring yourself back.
43:57She had that willingness to want to help people, but without the discernment it would have been the, the very
44:06thing that would lead her to Peter McDonald.
44:10Her heart put her into a vulnerable spot.
44:14She couldn't foresee, this is what could happen to me.
44:19She had the heart of a lamb, but she didn't have the eyes to see a wolf.
44:29George Charette passed away in March 2019, seven years after Peter Dale McDonald was convicted of killing his beloved daughter.
44:38McDonald became eligible for parole in 2017.
44:42However, according to the Parole Board of Canada, his most recent application in May 2022 was denied.
44:50To this day, nobody has ever been convicted in the deaths of the three other women in Toronto.
44:57I'm Anthony Robart.
44:59Thank you for joining us tonight on Crime Beat.
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