The Bulldog and the Helix Page 11

  But Bill C-94 died on the Order Paper when the 35th Parliament was dissolved on April 27, 1997. In the meantime, the re-examination of crime scene evidence continued in the background.

  ON APRIL 16, 1997, Arid Lacis, an electron microscopy specialist, received a number of previously examined pieces of evidence. Those included Exhibit 27 (the footprint on Carolyn’s jacket), a soil sample taken from the murder scene, an earring taken from the victim (Exhibit 20), one from Sharon McLeod (Exhibit 37, found in Dhillon’s truck), and one provided by the Lee family (Exhibit 40). Three months later, Lacis would receive further soil samples from the E Division Serious Crimes Unit. Lacis was subsequently unable to find any evidence from his examination of the earrings.

  But he struck pay dirt in his examination of the grit from Carolyn’s jacket. The analyst had been asked to examine it for the presence of carbonaceous particles, such as coke or coal, that one could expect to find on a foundry floor. Examination under a stereomicroscope revealed nineteen dark or black particles that were (possibly) the type he was looking for. Eighteen of these particles were irregularly shaped. One particle (tagged as Particle no. 8) was different than the others—it was a round bead. Further examination of the particles revealed a distinct difference between Particle no. 8 and the other eighteen particles. Particle no. 8 was an iron bead that originated from “a location where ferrous metals were cast, welded, or flame-cut.” Like a foundry.

  On May 7, Dhillon appeared in Port Alberni provincial court to set a date for a preliminary hearing. That hearing was set to last for five days, starting on January 16, 1998.

  The next day, Tommy George appeared for sentencing on the Evenson killing, on the reduced charge of manslaughter. At the request of Crown counsel Steve Stirling, Madame Justice Downs imposed “dangerous offender” status. Under dangerous offender status, the convicted offender remains in custody indefinitely until the court rules he or she is no longer a threat to public safety. As it later turned out, George’s “dangerous offender” status was quietly rescinded, and he would return to the community.

  A PERSON OF INTEREST

  On July 25, 1997, as the first anniversary of Jessica States’s killing approached, investigators identified another person of interest. He had already attracted the attention of his former principal and a sequence of fellow students and educators.

  Tom McEvay was the principal from 1987 through 1992 at the Port Alberni school then known as E.J. Dunn Junior Secondary School, where he first encountered an angry young man named Roderick Patten. For a professional educator, it is difficult to concede that some students are beyond reaching. Over his thirty-four years in the public school system, McEvay says he can count four individuals (including Tommy George) whose behaviour foreshadowed a violent future.

  “You knew there was something wrong, other than they came from a rough background,” he said. “These are the ones that—at the time nobody was going to say it—you wondered, are they socio-pathic? Are they psychotic? What are the issues they face? How they perceived the world and how they perceived other people was so different. Other people, to them, were just pieces of meat.”

  Roderick Patten had accepted an invitation to join the school wrestling team, and there were hopes he would benefit from the program despite the numerous red flags. “Roddy had many barriers working against him for success in the school system and also for coping with society,” McEvay said. “[He was] tough and wiry, and I thought we had a really raw product on our hands, and, maybe, wrestling can be one of those salvations for this kid, where he is able to channel that aggression and toughness into something positive.”

  But in a program that placed a premium on mutual respect and social responsibility, this was a young man who made no pretense to fit in, and he eventually dropped off the team. “With Roddy, you could tell there were issues that went well beyond inappropriate behaviour. It went further than just seeing things in a different way. He really struggled with respecting others and taking responsibility for his own actions.”

  Over the years, Patten would show a range of different faces, depending on which situation he happened to be in. That was a pattern that developed in his early school years, according to Georgina Sutherland, who attended school with Patten, first at Eighth Avenue Elementary School, then at E.J. Dunn, where Tom McEvay was principal.

  Sutherland said that being one of the few Indigenous children in her middle-class neighbourhood was difficult enough, and she was especially self-conscious that she didn’t look like or dress as well as her non-Indigenous classmates. As she explained, when she first encountered Patten, she felt sorry for him. A bond gradually developed between the two children based on their mutual outsider status as Indigenous kids. She noted that while Patten’s propensity for spontaneous violence didn’t become apparent until junior high school, the tripwires were well established while he was still in elementary school. Eventually, she had to dissociate herself from the troublesome teen.

  “I felt I already had my labels; I had felt discrimination. I was already poor and not well-dressed . . . Native with short, ugly hair and stuff like that. I didn’t want to get painted with that same paint-brush. I thought, if I didn’t want to keep getting bullied like he was, I couldn’t continue to stick up for him.”

  By junior high, Sutherland had developed into a talented multi-sport athlete. So while she continued to be self-conscious about her clothes and appearance, her athletic prowess gave her increasing status among her peers. Being associated with Roddy Patten had become a liability. “I didn’t want to be the one who was getting picked on in the locker room for being the one that was sticking up for him.”

  For many years, the Alberni school district ran the Boys Project School, which provided alternative education for boys who were unable to function in the regular system. With a history of bullying and inexplicable incidences of violence that began while he still attended Eighth Avenue Elementary School, Patten was a natural candidate for the program, which taught basic trade skills in a flexible learning environment.

  Jim Lawson taught at Boys Project when Patten was admitted to the program. Lawson taught Patten for one and a half years, and quickly realized that this was a young man who needed close supervision, especially after he was involved in several disturbing bullying incidents.

  “He was the kind of guy who really relished that power of being able to dictate the emotions of another kid by using intimidation and physical force.” Lawson described Patten’s obvious ability to make other students fearful of him but noted that he also had “the charisma to get people to stand beside him or behind him while he went ahead and bullied somebody else. He had some pretty refined skills in doing that.”

  Lawson said staff members at Boys Project were generally spared the sort of violence and abusive behaviour that some of their students were capable of dishing out. And despite showing symptoms of disruptive and antisocial behaviour, it was obvious that even hard-core students like Patten felt connected to the program. “It didn’t mean there weren’t blow-ups. But as soon as that smoke blew over, they’d be back. I mean—we played roller hockey every morning. We had relationships with kids where they mattered to us. Roddy thrived in that environment.”

  An incident during one of those morning roller hockey games on the wooden floor at Glenwood Centre would play out years later when Roddy Patten went to trial for murder. Lawson and Patten inadvertently collided and the younger player went down hard, striking the back of his head. “It was obvious that he’d had his bell rung, and he sat out the rest of the game. Of course, we didn’t know as much about concussions in those days.” Lawson said he was later amazed to discover that, years later, Patten’s defence lawyer, Jim Heller, suggested at trial that the collision at Glenwood Centre had caused a significant brain injury that rendered his client not criminally responsible for his behaviour.

  Looking back, Lawson said that, given the circumstances of Patten’s childhood and the likelihood that he suffered from a serious
personality disorder, it is unlikely that he ever had a chance to live a normal life. “At the time, I thought that he was a bully and a bit of a thug—and a kid who didn’t have much of a conscience. If you can’t ever make a breakthrough with a kid and have them realize a sense of empathy, then they are in serious trouble.”

  LOW-PRIORITY SUSPECT

  But when Patten became a person of interest in the States case, he was just one of hundreds. “He was part of a circle of friends, all accusing each other of being the one who killed Jessica,” Dan Smith said. When investigators attempted to obtain specific information from members of the group, they got nowhere. “It was like nailing Jell-O to a wall. Finally, we thought the best idea would be to get a DNA sample from the bunch of them to put the matter to rest once and for all.”

  When Smith initially asked Patten to provide a consent DNA sample, he balked, saying that he had to consult with his father (Patten was seventeen at the time). Finally, after several further approaches, he provided a sample, which went into the growing pool of blood and saliva samples at the RCMP lab in Vancouver. But as Hiron Poon, the DNA analyst, explained, with no particular red flags on his file, Patten’s sample was given a low priority. “Patten was Sample 700-something,” he explained. “His profile was about the second-to-last batch.” He was, in Serge Cashulette’s terminology, just another Sierra Romeo, and his DNA sample was taken purely on spec. Testing was still being done by hand, in batches of twenty-four, and the crime lab had plenty of active investigations requiring immediate action. As the Gurmit Dhillon trial approached, the Patten DNA was successively bumped down the line. It would be nearly two years before it set off the alarm bells at the RCMP crime lab.

  Shelley Arnfield said that, as time dragged on, prioritizing suspects became more difficult. “When Serge transferred, I got placed as the exhibit person. At that point, we sent in samples twenty-four at a time. If you had a sample come in that was ‘a stronger person of interest,’ you might send it alone. But that only happened a couple of times. One night, I was looking at my exhibit book, and I had 152 blood samples left, and I thought, ‘This is nuts!’ Sending twenty-four off, waiting to get the results, packaging off the next twenty-four, sending them off . . . I said, ‘The lab can deal with them all.’ I packaged them up—all 152 of them—and sent them in. Everything we had left, and that included Roddy’s.”

  Despite the number of samples and the ponderous analysis process, Stefano Mazzega has suggested the two-year delay raises questions. Patten was considered low priority at the time the sample was taken. Most likely, he believes, the voluntary blood sample was repeatedly passed over until the switch to PCR analysis.

  When PCR technology was certified at the Vancouver lab, the cumbersome RFLP system was eliminated almost immediately. Those samples that were still in play were routinely retested in PCR. That included profiles for both solved and unsolved cases, which were subsequently filed in the National DNA Data Bank. “The PCR technology arrived at our lab in 1998. [When Patten’s sample arrived], we probably had our RFLP shut down, and we were rejigging for the new system,” Mazzega said.

  It wasn’t about the crime scene sample, however. While PCR does provide better results from cast-off DNA, Mazzega said the RFLP technology available in 1996 was perfectly adequate to obtain a DNA sample from a discarded piece of chewing gum. Looking back, however, Hiron Poon said it was the vaginal sample that was critical in determining Patten as the perpetrator of the crime. Poon explained that the lab had both the semen sample and the chewing gum collected at the crime scene. The chewing gum would be expected to produce a better DNA result, but forensically speaking, all it meant was that the suspect had spit out a piece of gum near the scene of the crime.

  The vaginal sample, however, linked the owners of that DNA directly to the crime. That being said, the vaginal material collected would contain DNA from both the victim and the perpetrator, as well as a plethora of biological materials, including bacteria, from both. Poon revealed that the description of the crime scene sample as “chewing gum” is deceptive. The type of chewing gum raised a number of strategic questions for investigators.

  “The chewing gum results came in after the vaginal sample, and we found it was a mixture of two people, Jessica and Patten. But this was bubble gum. And I didn’t think an adult would be chewing bubble gum. That made me think it could be [from] a juvenile. In retrospect, I think maybe we should have been looking at juveniles first.”

  How the bubble gum acquired two distinct DNA profiles is a matter of question. There are a number of possibilities, none of them pleasant. In one scenario, Jessica is chewing the gum at the time she is attacked. Somehow, perhaps in an act of dominance, Patten takes the gum from her mouth and chews it himself, then spits it out. More likely, Patten was chewing the gum when he delivered the “suck marks” later described in the autopsy report, and obtained genetic material from the victim. “Or he tried to kiss her,” Poon suggested, with obvious distaste.

  The large wad of gum was found under the victim’s body at the crime scene. Poon said it is also possible that in the violence and terror of the moment, there was enough genetic material on Jessica’s bare skin to transfer her DNA onto the gum. “That’s what I think—her body DNA was transferred onto the gum. But definitely, his DNA was there.”

  While the integrity of Patten’s DNA sample was relatively straightforward to prove, by the time Gurmit Dhillon went to trial, his defence team would challenge every aspect of the DNA evidence chain—even the validity of DNA science itself.

  The Argyle Street landscape, from an extensive series of streetscapes taken in 1976, the year before Carolyn Lee was abducted from this area and murdered. Somass Hotel at left, Carmoor Building at right. ALBERNI VALLEY MUSEUM

  The Somass Hotel at the corner of Argyle Street and Kingsway in 1976. It was gutted by fire and demolished in 2014. ALBERNI VALLEY MUSEUM

  In 2018, the Arrowview Hotel, with its checkered history, still loomed over the building that once housed the Pat Cummings School of Dance. Carolyn Lee attended her last dance class on April 14, 1977. SHAYNE MORROW

  Looking north on First Avenue toward the MacMillan Bloedel Somass Division sawmill complex. In 1976, when this was taken, the sawmill had 1,100 full-time employees. ALBERNI VALLEY MUSEUM

  Carolyn Lee and her sister Brenda pose for a family photo shortly before Carolyn disappeared. ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES, COURTESY BLACK PRESS

  The Pine Café in 1976, at Third and Mar, just blocks from the dance studio. Carolyn Lee was abducted on her way to the restaurant. The building is still there, now for sale. ALBERNI VALLEY MUSEUM

  Carolyn Lee crime scene. ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES, COURTESY BLACK PRESS

  At the Lee crime scene, a pair of RCMP divers conduct a search for any object which might have been used as a murder weapon. ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES, COURTESY BLACK PRESS

  An RCMP tracking dog, brought in from Vancouver, at the Carolyn Lee crime scene. ALBERNI VALLEY MUSEUM, COURTESY BLACK PRESS

  On March 14, 1997, one month short of twenty years after Carolyn Lee disappeared, Inspector Andrew Murray, the Port Alberni RCMP detachment commander (right), announces the arrest of Gurmit Singh Dhillon on one count of first-degree murder. At left, RCMP media spokesman Sergeant Peter Montague. SHAYNE MORROW / ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES

  This now-familiar photo of Jessica States, which the family gave to the Alberni Valley Times the morning after her disappearance, was first published while the search was still active. ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES, COURTESY BLACK PRESS

  Dianne and Rob States with a remote-control aircraft “piloted” by daughter Jessica. COLIN PRICE, COURTESY DALE DJOS

  A softball among the flowers at a memorial set up immediately after Jessica’s body was found across the street from Recreation Park. ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES, COURTESY BLACK PRESS

  For some time, the tree at the centre of the memorial was referred to as “Jessica’s tree.” ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES, COURTESY BLACK PRESS

  Sergeant Dale Djos,
head of the Port Alberni General Investigation Section, January 4, 1997, at a press conference about the States investigation. SHAYNE MORROW

  A weary Dan Smith updates the media on the States investigation at a January 4, 1997, press conference. SHAYNE MORROW

  Dianne and Rob States at the January 4, 1997, press conference to announce progress in the case. SHAYNE MORROW

  Sgt. Dale Djos and Corporal Dan Smith at the permanent memorial erected for Jessica States, across the street from Recreation Park. COLIN PRICE, COURTESY DALE DJOS

  A stricken Rob States at the tree where a permanent memorial is now located. ALBERNI VALLEY TIMES, COURTESY BLACK PRESS

  Landmark Trial Moves Forward

  ON JANUARY 21, 1998, after five days of testimony, Provincial Court Justice Sid Clark ruled there was sufficient evidence to take Gurmit Singh Dhillon to trial on a charge of first-degree murder. Clark set a date of February 6, 1998, in the provincial court in Nanaimo to fix a trial date. The judge then ordered a change of venue to the Supreme Court in Victoria. On February 16, Dhillon’s trial was set to begin on November 3. At this point, the trial was expected to last four to six weeks. That would later increase to nine weeks.