The unravelling of a case that left 2 men wrongfully convicted of murder for 4 decades

Nearly 40 years ago, a jury found two Saint John men guilty of a murder they didn't commit.

On Thursday, a New Brunswick judge finally acquitted Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie, thanks to work by lawyers who showed that the jury in their 1984 trial was never privy to crucial information about two Crown witnesses.

Those witnesses, Janet Shatford and John Loeman Jr., were the only people who testified to seeing Mailman and Gillespie commit the murder.

But what the Saint John Police, as well as the Crown prosecutors failed to tell defence attorneys at the time, was that Shatford and Loeman had something to gain by offering their testimony.

"There was undisclosed information in relation to financial benefits paid to Ms. Shatford and financial benefits given to Mr. Loeman Jr," said Jerome Kennedy, one of the lawyers who worked on getting Mailman and Gillespie acquitted.

"So that obviously would affect their credibility, something that the jury should have been aware of."

Sentenced to life

Mailman and Gillespie were convicted of second-degree murder in May 1984 for the November 1983 homicide of George Leeman.

The two were sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 18 years, but have always maintained their innocence.

Following unsuccessful appeals and efforts to get their case reviewed, federal Justice Minister Arif Virani announced last month he was overturning the convictions and granting Mailman and Gillespie new trials. Virani said new information led him to believe "a miscarriage of justice likely occurred."

On Thursday, New Brunswick Court of King's Bench Justice Tracey DeWare found the men not guilty of the charge from 40 years ago, and on Friday, issued a written apology for what happened to them.

Tunnel vision from the start, say lawyers

When George Leeman's bludgeoned and burned body was found in Rockwood Park, Saint John police were already convinced Mailman was the one responsible, according to a brief filed in court Thursday by Kennedy and his colleagues from Innocence Canada.

"This was a case where the ends justified the means," they wrote, in the brief.

Robert Mailman. who is thin and has been weakened by terminal cancer, declined to speak on Thursday, after the acquittal. (Graham Thompson/CBC)

Leeman's body was found by a jogger in the Fisher Lakes area of the park at approximately 5 p.m. on Nov. 30, about 100 yards into the woods.

A pathologist who conducted an autopsy of the body concluded Leeman had been killed at another location, and that he'd been dead for 24 hours or more.

According to the brief, police made little progress in the investigation until Jan. 18, 1984, when John Loeman Jr., 16 years old at the time, told police he witnessed the murder.

A day later, police charged Shatford and Gillespie with second-degree murder, and two days after that, charged Mailman with the same.

'I feel good,' was Walter Gillespie's response outside the courthouse when asked how he felt. (Graham Thompson/CBC)

At the trial in May 1984, Crown prosecutors called on Loeman Jr., who testified to seeing Mailman hit Leeman in the head with a shotgun behind an apartment on Coronation Street. He also testified to seeing Janet Shatford at the same time hitting Leeman in the head with an axe.

Loeman Jr. also said in court that Gillespie was not actively involved in the assault, but was standing nearby holding a bucket with a gold-coloured liquid in it.

Shatford also testified as a Crown witness in the trial and told jurors that Mailman and Gillespie took part in Leeman's killing.

Shatford told jurors that Mailman was discussing debts Leeman owed to him, before hitting him with the butt of a shotgun. She said Mailman then asked her to hit Leeman in the head with an axe.

Before giving her testimony, however, she was allowed by Crown prosecutors to plead guilty to the reduced charge of manslaughter and received a sentence of 13 years, which was later reduced on appeal to six years.

Payments to witnesses

In a criminal case, Crown prosecutors are obligated to present to defence lawyers all evidence gathered in the investigative process by police.

However, it turned out that didn't happen in multiple examples, Kennedy said.

One of those examples included payments by Saint John police officers to Shatford and Loeman Jr., ahead of the trial or during it.

In Loeman Jr.'s case, he was offered $400 and put up in hotels while the trial was ongoing.

He was also promised protection and more money once the trial was over, Kennedy said.

"There was money involved. That was enough for [Loeman Jr.] that could have affected his credibility.

"And as for Ms. Shatford, no, there weren't great amounts of money paid, but again, any amount of money being paid by the police … or financial benefit being paid to her, certainly could affect the credibility."

Statements to police

Also left out from the evidence disclosed by police were statements they'd received from Loeman Jr. and Shatford ahead of the trial, Kennedy said.

Before Loeman Jr. told police on Jan. 18, 1984, that he'd witnessed the murder, he told police a month earlier that he had no knowledge of what happened to Leeman.

He told Saint John police detective Willard Carr that the last time he saw Leeman was about a week before his body was discovered.

Loeman Jr. gave statements to Saint John police on two more occasions and neither were disclosed to Mailman and Gillespie's defence lawyers.

Shatford also spoke to police, including participating in a polygraph test, in which she said she had no first-hand knowledge of — or involvement in — Leeman's homicide.

That was not disclosed to defence lawyers.

"We have undisclosed statements of these two witnesses, which could certainly have impugned their credibility before the jury," Kennedy said.

Evidence corroborating alibi

Before a jury found Mailman and Gillespie guilty in May, 1984, a trial two months earlier had resulted in a hung jury.

At the first trial, Kennedy said defence lawyers presented multiple witnesses who testified to the alibis Mailman and Gillespie had given, which placed them away from the scene of the crime when it supposedly happened.

According to Kennedy, the two men went to buy a car part at a shop outside the city.

Jerome Kennedy, lawyer for Mailman and Gillespie, said there were a number of pieces of evidence the Saint John police and Crown prosecutors failed to disclose to the two men's defence lawyers ahead of their trials. (Graham Thompson/CBC)

Crown prosecutors attacked the credibility of the alibi. However, after the first trial, police investigated the alibi and uncovered evidence that wasn't presented at the second trial.

"They investigated this alibi, and they had their own evidence but they didn't disclose that," Kennedy said.

Recanted testimony

Loeman Jr. and Shatford weren't reliable witnesses, and that came out through the several recantations they've made about their testimony in the years since, Kennedy said.

Kennedy said the first time Loeman Jr. recanted his testimony, Mailman and Gillespie tried using it to appeal their convictions. The New Brunswick Court of Appeal rejected their applications.

Shatford also recanted her trial testimony, first in an interview with journalist Gary Dimmock in 1997 and then to an Innocence Canada investigator in 2012.

"In the recantations, both the witnesses said that the police pressured them to to say that [Robert] Mailman was involved," Kennedy said.

"They approached [Walter] Gillespie, according to Mr. Gillespie, and offered him a deal if he testified against Mr. Mailman. So everything here fit in with the theory of the defence, even back then, that the the police were out to get Bobby."

The Saint John Police Force has declined to provide any interviews about Mailman and Gillespies acquittals, but says it will be seeking the final results of the Department of Justice's review of the case.