All language subtitles for A.U.S01E03.Travesty [eng]

(ominous music)

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] A murder
in a major Canadian city

on the prairies.

- Her property is strewn
about the area like her boot.

Other things, like her purse
with her identification,

is found inside a garbage can.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Police
have no suspects

but have previously warned
of a sexual attacker.

- The police were aware
of the sexual attacker

who'd been operating in
Saskatoon in the fall of 1968.

- [Narrator] A police force
pushing for resolution.

- Because in this case,

people dug in so hard.

Many are still dug in.

- [Narrator] Lives can be ruined

through the pursuit of
one unwavering idea.

(dramatic music)

- It's so bad.

When the system fails like this,

it's just so bad.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] And the
tragedy doesn't always end

with the murder victim.

(dramatic music)

- The unsolved ones
we have to stand up.

- And approach these cases
in a way outside the box.

- Let the world know

those out there that
did commit a murder,

there are people that
are coming after you.

- There's just a
lot of good people

trying to do the right thing.

(muffled radio chatter)

- Because it's something that

you have to be passionate about.

- Solve this and bring some
peace to the family at least,

I'm just doing my job.

(dramatic music)

(gavel banging)

(eerie music)

- [Narrator] A Canadian
prairie city in mid-winter.

In the early morning,

people go about their routines,

getting ready for
work and school,

with no idea about the
tragedy that has occurred.

- The morning of
January 31, 1969,

in Saskatoon it was
minus 40 degrees.

There was ice mist in the air,

and what they encountered,

school children, I believe,
on their way to school,

found the body of Gail Miller

(eerie ominous music)

in a snowbank in a back lane.

- [Narrator] The
children run home

to tell their parents
about what they found,

and the local police
receive a call soon after.

(suspenseful music)

The police are on the
scene in the early morning.

They find Gail Miller with her
stockings down by her ankles

and only wearing a single boot.

Until she goes in
for an autopsy,

they can only guess
whether or not

she has been sexually assaulted.

- Beyond looking at the
evidence on the body itself,

such as stab wounds to the
victim's abdomen and neck,

investigators will have
to scoured the area

for possible evidence.

The snowy Canadian winter
is a double-edged sword.

Things like blood can be
easily seen against the white.

Other evidence can easily
be concealed or missed.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] These kinds
of assaults on women

have been happening
with enough frequency

that warnings are
issued to the public.

- The police had published a
warning in December of 1968,

warning women about an attacker

who was sexually
assaulting women

in a particular
area of Saskatoon,

and then this happens.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Saskatoon is the
largest city in Saskatchewan,

the province found in the
center of the Canadian prairies,

known for its wonderful summers,

but long, brutal winters.

- Gail Miller was
a nurse's assistant

who was going to school
and working in Saskatoon.

- [Narrator] Gail shows
a passion for working

with children from a young age.

She is born in 1948,

and grows up in Laura,

a small community just
west of Saskatoon.

When she is 12, she
begins babysitting

for a baby that's
terminally ill.

- By all accounts,
a wonderful person,

and starting to lead her
life and pursue a career.

(gentle music)

She lived in a home
about a block away

from where her body was found.

She had, I think, two
or three roommates.

- [Narrator] There
is little doubt

a promising future had
been stolen from Gail.

(dramatic music)

The area where Gail lives
and her body is found

is familiar to the police,

as it's where they've
previously warned

of a sexual predator.

- The police, obviously,
went to the scene.

They canvassed the whole area.

- [Narrator] The first officer
on the scene finds a sweater,

that looks to be torn from Gail,

along with her missing shoe.

- They were able to identify
items belonging to Gail Miller.

The contents of her
purse, identification,

some of her clothing
it was strewn in a way

leading away from where
she had been located.

- Her property is strewn
about the area like her boot.

Other things, like her purse
with her identification,

is found inside a garbage can.

(dramatic music)

- When they were seizing
biological samples

from the clothing
of the deceased,

from the body of the deceased,

they found some
residue in the snow

that was supposedly semen.

They wouldn't have the same
sort of DNA level technology,

but they had tools at the
time, and they used them.

- [Narrator] The police
scour the neighborhood

for any information
they can find,

anything that might lead
them to a possible suspect.

(dramatic music)

- You never know
who might have seen

or heard something when
investigating a case,

and when a murder
happens in an alley,

there's at least a chance

that a passerby
witnessed something

that could assist the police
in their investigation.

It doesn't always lead anywhere,

but it's a starting point.

(gentle dramatic music)

- [Narrator] While
the case is focused

on Gail Miller's murder,

there is still a sexual
predator on the loose

and more women being assaulted.

- People inside the
police department

had developed what they
called a modus operandi,

an MO for how this attacker
had attacked his victims.

What were some characteristics

of what did this person
do when he attacked?

They wrote to the
RCMP to try to see

if they had some
resources available

that could help them
build a profile.

- [Narrator] But even
with a profile in mind,

they still don't have
anyone to link it to.

Although their
identity is unknown,

police still believe the killer

could be linked to the
recent sexual assaults.

(eerie music)

With no major suspects,

they begin offering
a $2,000 reward

for any information
leading to the conviction

of Gail's murderer.

(tense music)

After offering the reward,

more women come forward
reporting incidents.

The police eliminate
160 possible suspects

and are still no closer to
finding a person of interest.

Finally, the investigators
think they have a break

when a man walks
in with information

that is exactly what
they are looking for.

A month after Gail's death,

police are approached by a man

named Albert Shorty Cadrain.

Cadrain claims that his
friend, David Milgaard,

visited him on the morning
that Gail was murdered.

- Milgaard had driven
overnight with two friends

from Regina to Saskatoon
to visit a friend

who by crazy coincidence
happen to live

about a block away from
where Gail Miller's body

had been found.

They were having trouble
locating the friend's home.

They stopped at a motel.

They help some people who
were stuck in a back lane,

and then eventually they got
to where they wanted to go,

and then carried on.

They then traveled
on further west

just having sort of
a carefree road trip

of 16-year-old,
17-year-old kids.

How Milgaard gets onto
the police radar screen

is that, yes, they post
a reward, and Cadrain,

the friend that Milgaard
had gone to visit,

goes in and implicates Milgaard.

And says that he had seen
blood on Milgaard's pants

the morning of the murder,
and that changed everything.

- [Narrator] Milgaard is accused

of being seen with
blood on his clothes

soon after the murder is
known to have taken place.

If this blood belongs to Gail,

the police may already
have their culprit.

(dramatic music)

(tense dramatic music)

(gentle somber music)

(dramatic music)

On a late January
morning in 1969,

children on their way to school

are met by a terrible sight.

Gail Miller's body is found

in the snow and down an alley.

(dramatic music)

Soon after, the police
arrive on the scene.

Gail is a 20-year-old
young woman

working as a nursing assistant

in a pediatric ward
of the local hospital.

Her life is
unfortunately cut short.

When the police
offer a $2,000 reward

for information leading
to a conviction,

their first major
suspect comes to light.

- Milgaard had driven
overnight with two friends

from Regina to Saskatoon
to visit a friend.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] After
Cadrain approached police

implicating Milgaard, they
begin a search for him.

Milgaard is found in his
home city of Winnipeg

and is brought in
for questioning.

(tense dramatic music)

- When police
require investigating

an accused person in a
different jurisdiction,

it requires assistance from the
police in that jurisdiction.

So generally they just
reach out to them,

and then they will
work together to get

the alleged criminal
off the streets.

- Cadrain reveals to the police

that Milgaard and
his two friends

had visited his
house that morning,

and all three of them
get interrogated,

and all three of them say,

"I don't know what
you're talking about."

And Milgaard was
very cooperative

and tried to reconstruct
where he'd been.

It was dark and he didn't
really know his way around,

but he tried to
reconstruct his way around.

And he was trying to be
as helpful as possible.

- [Narrator] David
tells the police

about his time in Saskatoon,

how he and his friends got lost,

and how they had helped someone

who had gotten their
car stuck in the snow.

(dramatic music)

The friends that David had been

traveling with are interviewed.

Their stories match much
closer to what David has said

than the version that
Cadrain had told.

- Separating witnesses
during questioning

is extremely important.

It allows the police
to corroborate details,

and even small details
and differences

between people's stories
can have a huge impact

on how the case goes.

Separating them allows the
police to do their job properly.

Not only do they
corroborate evidence,

it really shows if
they're hiding anything.

Those details that are
hidden will come out.

- Everybody, his
friends as well, said,

"You know, nothing happened.

"We'd gone into Saskatoon.

"We got lost.

"We finally found
our way to Cadrain's,

"and then we headed
off to Edmonton."

(dramatic music)

- This was a group of kids

picking up a friend
for a road trip.

They were in Saskatoon just
a short period of time.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator]
According to Cadrain,

Milgaard showed up to his home

with blood stains on his pants

and acted suspicious the
rest of the road trip.

(eerie music)

With no leads on the sexual
attacker in Saskatoon

and pressure mounting,

the police decide to dig
deeper into Milgaard.

- The police start
to harden their view

that Cadrain might be correct.

If that's true,

then in the police's mind

when Milgaard and his friends
said nothing happened,

it must mean that they weren't
telling the whole story.

So the police created a
roadmap of what they wanted

or believed they could get from
Nichol John and Ron Wilson,

the two friends, and they
took them to Saskatoon.

- [Narrator] Milgaard's
friends are questioned again

and admit that there
is a 12 minute period

where they don't know
where Milgaard is.

(tense music)

After helping one driver
get unstuck from the snow,

their own car breaks down,

and both David and one friend

go in opposite directions

in search of help.

(suspenseful music)

- Twelve minutes
might seem like a lot,

but it takes far less than 12
minutes to commit a murder,

and 12 minute window
when there's no witnesses

or any suspects to
see what happened,

it's enough to
build a case around.

- Then they put Nichol John
into a women's prison overnight,

and they put a polygraph
operator in with Ron Wilson,

and they started
working on them.

Gradually, the police got
them from, "Nothing happened,"

to Wilson implicating Milgaard

saying he saw
blood on his pants,

and Milgaard making admissions

that he had stabbed
her or had fixed her

or whatever his words were.

And they got Nichol
John to the point

where she said that
she was an eyewitness,

and saw Milgaard do it.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] The police get
enough from David's friends

that they are able to
put together an idea

of what happened on the
morning of the murder.

- There's no question
the police put a lot

of pressure on both Ron
Wilson and Nichol John.

- [Narrator] Even with his
friends going on record

as to what David has done,

he continues to deny everything.

- The police were aware
of the sexual attacker

who'd been operating in
Saskatoon in the fall of 1968,

and they were quite
public in the media

that they were linking that
sex attacker to the murder.

(sinister music)

- [Narrator] Four months after
the murder of Gail Miller,

David Milgaard is
officially arrested

and charged with her murder.

- One of the unique aspects
of the case was that

in Canada currently
the law is that

when you have a
preliminary inquiry,

there's a publication ban.

The media can't publish

the evidence of a
preliminary inquiry.

Milgaard's preliminary
inquiry happened

just before that
law took effect.

So all the evidence at
the preliminary inquiry

was on a daily basis published

in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.

And then when it went
to trial, obviously,

there was plenty of
coverage as well.

It was kind of a big
deal in the local media.

(eerie music)

- [Narrator] Things only
get worse for Milgaard.

While being transported
to testify at the trial,

Ron Wilson tells police he
hears from Lapchuk and Melnyk,

who were partying with
Milgaard in a Regina Motel

just four months after
Gail Miller's murder.

Milgaard is teased
about being responsible.

He responds by asking
for his pairing knife

and acts out how he
stabbed her 14 times.

- It became sort
of this large part

of the final nail in
his coffin at the trial.

- [Narrator] Milgaard's
trial garners much attention,

and over 40 people testify.

(tense music)

- And the Crown kind of
gave a general theory

about how this
homicide had occurred

and how Milgaard fit
into that picture.

You know, the defense, I guess,

tried its best to
try to rebut that.

So the jury was just left
with this sort of still image.

And once they had
that information,

then they were
fully on the rails

to go and arrest and
prosecute successfully,

and they convicted.

(tense dramatic music)

(gentle music)

(tense dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Late January, 1969,

kids on their way to school

find Gail Miller's
body in a snowy alley.

The case looks to be going cold

until a $2,000 reward prompts
citizens to come forward.

- Cadrain, the friend that
Milgaard had gone to visit,

goes in and implicates Milgaard,

and says that he had seen
blood on Milgaard's pants

the morning of the murder,
and that changed everything.

- [Narrator] After a
series of interrogations

of Milgaard and his friends,

the police have
eyewitness testimony

that Milgaard may
have been responsible.

- The police got them
from, "Nothing happened,"

to Wilson implicating Milgaard.

- [Narrator] When Milgaard
and two acquaintances

learn of Gail's
murder on the news,

Milgaard jokingly acts
out that he stabbed her.

- The police start
to harden their view

that Cadrain might be correct.

- David Milgaard is
convicted exactly one year

after the murder of Gail Miller.

(gentle music)

Milgaard spends the
next decade in prison

before getting a glimpse
of freedom in 1980.

- After he got convicted,

the family was resigned.

Like what are they going to do?

And not a lot happened
for many years,

nine years roughly.

Then what happened
is David escaped.

(gentle dramatic music)

- [Narrator] After
a decade in prison

for a crime he swears
he did not commit,

David Milgaard is
desperate enough to live

a life on the run if
it means his freedom

and not having to
go back to prison.

(suspenseful music)

Milgaard is let
out on a day pass

to attend a family
barbecue in Winnipeg.

- David was on a
temporary absence

from the prison and
didn't come back,

and he was leading
a life in Toronto,

had a girlfriend, and
was selling jewelry

and stuff on the street
in 1980s era Toronto.

They were obviously
looking for him,

and David sensed the
presence of law enforcement,

and he ran,

and he got shot.

(gunfire blasting)

(heartbeat pulsating)

(somber music)

- [Narrator] His mother Joyce

is immediately by his
side at the hospital.

- When he was in the hospital,

Joyce decided that she
had to do something,

and so in 1980, she said,
"I'm not going to wait."

They'd tried to get lawyers.

They'd tried to get some help.

- [Narrator] Milgaard's
desperate attempts to be free

has led not only
to him being shot,

but a mother's
resolve to prove that

the Saskatoon Police
really did have it wrong.

Basing the case on
loose timelines,

flawed interrogations,
and unreliable tips,

David's conviction, being
one of tunnel vision,

and a system that
clearly was wrong.

- Nobody was interested,

"in something he didn't
do," as the lyric goes.

And then she took it on herself.

And so she posted.

She put up a reward,

and posted the reward
all through Saskatoon

saying, "Anybody who has
any information tell me."

(gentle music)

My first week at work was
the week of March 3, 1986.

Day three, the Wednesday,

was when we met Joyce Milgaard,

and in walks Mrs.
Milgaard, and my boss,

Hersh Wolsh, hauls me
out of the hallway,

and says, "Asper, get in here,"

and introduces me
to Mrs. Milgaard.

She's pointing her
finger on the desk,

and going, "My son is innocent."

He had 17 years in at the time.

She says, "You need to
do something about it."

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Joyce
tells David Asper

about what her son
has gone through,

the trip that led to his arrest,

the interrogations,
and his conviction.

- When Mrs. Milgaard
first came to see us,

she gave us bags and
boxes of documents,

and there were
sort of two piles.

One pile was his life in prison,

and the second was all the trial

and sort of all the court stuff.

And I didn't know
where to start.

And I started with
his life in prison.

It still affects me to this day

to have read through the words

of Corrections Canada describing

a somewhat scattered
17-year-old kid

gets sucked up into that
system and not do well,

which understates what
his experience was.

- [Narrator] David
Asper travels to prison

to meet with David Milgaard.

(dramatic music)

- I was actually
shocked when I met him,

because on paper
you read this whole

horrible story of
his incarceration,

and you're not sure what
you're going to get.

And in popped this
very affable, friendly,

very engaging human being.

And I was really surprised.

It's one of the
most enduring things

that people should
understand about him

is that, he would
say it quite openly,

the system took him,
but it didn't own him.

It owned him maybe
for a little while,

and then once he
got on his feet,

it didn't own him.

Wouldn't let them.

- [Narrator] David Asper has
a lot of work ahead of him,

but after seeing David
Milgaard's resilient attitude

and his mother
Joyce's dedication,

he's motivated to prove
Millard's innocence.

(pensive music)

Back in Winnipeg,

David Asper continues
to build his case.

- I mean, the first thing I did

when I began my
representation of David

was I read the trial transcript,

and I could see, on its surface,

I could see how he could
have been convicted.

I can see that,
and I said to him,

"Okay, tell me why.

"You know, tell me
what's wrong here."

Whether you say that
it was an illegal

or an overbearing interrogation,

isn't really the point.

The point is that it
had enough pressure

that two young kids went
from, "Nothing happened,"

to becoming the core
of the Crown's case

against David Milgaard.

And how did that happen?

And we know there were
questionable techniques.

The police brought in
a polygraph examiner

to work on Ron Wilson.

And you can see in some
of the police documents

where they were clearly
of a view that either

Wilson was a witness
or he was involved.

Okay, what does that mean?

So now it means that the
police are saying to Wilson,

"You're either a co-killer with
Milgaard or you're innocent

"and maybe you have
some evidence for us.

"What's it going to be?"

- Sometimes when involved
in an interrogation,

more needs to be done than
simply asking a question

and getting the truthful answer.

But the fact of the matter is,

using scare tactics and
twisting the words of children

is not going to be good
police interrogation

no matter what the
ultimate conclusion is.

- It's a reworking
of a universal lie

that's known in
polygraph, which is,

if I ask you, "Have
you ever hurt anybody?"

If you say no,

that's probably not
a credible answer.

If you say yes,

I'm going to use it to say,

"Well, if you hurt
somebody before,

"maybe you hurt somebody in
the back alley in Saskatoon."

I don't think police want
to get the wrong person,

but there's this psychological
switch that clicks

without malice where the
mindset completely changes,

and then everything becomes
about sort of fulfilling

that theory of the case to the
exclusion of everything else.

And that's what happened here.

(gentle dramatic music)

- [Narrator] A key
piece of evidence

in David Milgaard's trial

was the testimony citing
his alleged reenactment

of the murder in a motel room.

But the moment is
called into question.

If it happened at all,

it appears to have been
teenagers joking around.

- That evidence came out of the
blue for the Crown attorney,

where Milgaard supposedly
reenacted the murder.

It came from two people
charged with robberies,

who got stunningly low sentences

for pleading guilty
to those robberies.

- [Narrator] These are
the same two people

Ron Wilson mentions to
police, Lapchuk and Melnyk.

- It was early in the
case, and I had a witness.

We had a witness whose
evidence initially was,

"No, that never happened."

And then it evolved,

"And maybe it did happen,

"but it was all a joke."

By this point, Milgaard
had been questioned

and whatever happened in
there is sort of irrelevant

because he didn't
commit the crime.

To this day, I
think the one thing

the jury didn't have the benefit

of understanding or seeing,

which is that if you take
what the Crown said happened

and you locate everybody,
it's not a diorama.

It's not like a frozen image.

It's dynamic.

And when we took

what the Crown said
happened on its face

and set it in motion,
it made no sense.

(dramatic music)

And so I took my own
little VHS camera,

and I went myself.

I did all the walking.

I did all the
movement and timed it.

And when I did that
and videotaped it,

it just hit me
like, "Holy smokes,

"like there's no chance
any of this happened

"the way it was
portrayed for the jury."

Okay, it didn't happen that way.

It couldn't have
happened that way.

That's when I kind of knew that

there was something
seriously wrong here.

- [Narrator] Lawyer David
Asper and Joyce Milgaard

are certain that David
did not kill Gail Miller,

but the question then
remains, who did?

(tense dramatic music)

(gentle music)

(dramatic music)

Gail Miller is found dead

on a winter morning in 1969.

Exactly one year later,

David Milgaard is
convicted for her murder.

David Asper is
brought onto the case

by David Milgaard's mother
in hopes of freeing her son.

- My first week at
work, day three,

was when we met Joyce Milgaard.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] And going
over the evidence,

reveals holes in the
original court case,

including questionable
tactics that were

put to use when witnesses
were being interrogated.

- It had enough pressure

that two young kids went from,

"Nothing happened,"
to becoming the core

of the Crown's case
against David Milgaard.

- [Narrator] But just
believing David is innocent

isn't enough to get
him out of prison,

and no one is working
harder to prove

his innocence than
his mother Joyce.

Since Milgaard was
put behind bars,

his mother Joyce
has been leading

the charge to free her son.

- And she was relentless.

She was analytical.

I don't know there
was ever a moment

where she wasn't focused on
getting David out of jail

and get getting this
whole thing undone.

And they believed from day
one that he was innocent.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] Their
strategy changes

from trying to just
prove David's innocence

to trying to find
another suspect.

(gentle dramatic music)

A big break finally comes
when Asper and Joyce

get a tip about a man
named Larry Fisher.

(sinister music)

- We'd been taking
all these steps,

and we initiated contact with

the Federal
Department of Justice.

(gentle dramatic music)

And then out of the blue
one day we got a tip,

and credit to Joyce because
as soon as we heard the name,

she remembered seeing that
name buried in the reports

when police were canvassing
the neighborhood.

Sure enough, we went back.

We're looking at all
the handwritten notes

from the police officers,

and there it is,
February 4, 1969,

police talked to Larry Fisher

at the same bus stop that
Gail Miller took to work.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] At the
time of the murder,

Larry Fisher wasn't a suspect.

He was only questioned

as to whether he had
witnessed anything.

However, he did give the police

one interesting
piece of information.

- And he gave his address
the same address as the home

that Milgaard
visited that morning.

- [Narrator] There's
a strange connection

in the house that
Fisher lives at.

He also regularly waits at the
same bus stop as Gail Miller.

- We got the tip,

and we had to go and do
our own investigation.

The Department of Justice
assigned the RCMP to it,

and they certainly
didn't produce

what we ultimately produced.

- [Narrator] Larry Fisher
is in and out of prison

throughout the 1970s and
80s for sexual assault

and attempted murder.

For all intensive purposes,

his MO seems to match what
happened to Gail Miller.

(gentle dramatic music)

- When we prepared the chart
of Larry Fisher's crimes,

we had sought outside advice
from very, very wise lawyers.

We were confident that you
could actually prosecute

Larry Fisher on the basis
of what's known in law

as similar fact evidence where
somebody's MO is so unique

and so consistent that you
can show previous incidents

to prove something that he
did that he's accused of now.

So we believed
that we could show,

based on the whole pattern
of Fisher's activity,

that he had murdered
Gail Miller.

And we went public in a way.

We were on every talk show,

TV, radio, coast to coast.

(gentle dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Taking it even
further in front of the media,

Joyce approaches Justice
Minister Kim Campbell,

Campbell being the head of the

Department of Justice of Canada.

- I'd just like
to give you this.

- Madam, if you want your
son to have a fair hearing,

don't approach me
personally, I'm sorry.

- Kim Campbell was coming
out of an elevator,

and Joyce had set up
all the media cameras.

When the Minister of Justice

was coming out of the elevator

and there was Joyce
standing there

with a binder of materials,

she said, "Please, Minister.

"Please, will you talk
to me about my son?"

And she just blew her off,

and walked right by.

And all the cameras
were rolling,

and it just looked heartless.

And it was on the national news,

and it was a huge
story, and it triggered,

like I've never seen at any
other point in that case,

because it was the
Minister of Justice

not even having the courtesy,

regardless of the substance
of what she should see,

just blew right by Joyce.

(dramatic music)

I honestly believed that
we would do our work.

We would summarize the case,

and we would contact the
Department of Justice.

And we would link arms

and march together
to get justice.

When I could see that,

that wasn't going to happen,

and not only was it
not going to happen,

but that the attitude of
the system was adversarial

to the idea, just
to the very idea,

that there could be a
wrongful conviction,

I was pretty resolute
that I was not,

I was invested in not
letting the system

once again grind
down the Milgaards.

(gentle music)

- [Narrator] David
Asper and the Milgaards

are continually disappointed
by the justice system

after their first wrongful
conviction review is dismissed,

but they don't give up.

- When we got turned down,

I had to go tell
David in the prison.

At the time they'd
put him in the hole,

which is administrative
segregation

or dissociation for
he was behaving badly,

and he was not in a
good state mentally.

And he gave me a pep talk.

Like I was the one.

I was seriously upset.

And he said, "Okay,
we got to try harder.

"Keep going."

And he gave me the "Buck
up, little soldier" speech.

Joyce was all over
it, and we said,

"Okay, if we'd been
fighting a little bit

"with the Federal Department
of Justice up to that point,

"we're going to take
it up to volume 12."

(tense dramatic music)

I was invested in not
letting the system

once again grind
down the Milgaards.

It did in the
original proceedings.

It did because nobody would
touch them or talk to them

through the 70s or the 80s

until the mid-80s
when we got involved.

And I just wasn't going
to let that happen.

We got mail from people
all across the country,

not so much declaring
Milgaard's innocence,

but who had concluded
that there was enough

that a court had to have
another look at this.

It was heartwarming
because I remember I got

a particularly poignant
letter from a veteran

who equated this battle
with democratic principles

of justice and fairness
and what was the war for

if the system's going
to build such a wall

to protect itself from people

who it might have hurt.

(suspenseful music)

- [Narrator] Being let
down at every other step,

Joyce goes all the way
to the top and speaks

to the Prime Minister of
Canada, Brian Mulroney.

- A little while later,

when the Prime Minister
Mulroney's in town,

and he pulls up and his
motorcade pulls up to a hotel,

it's lots of security and the
media cameras are all there

and Joyce is there and he
walked straight over to Joyce,

and he expressed
concern for her.

And I hear he
talks about hearing

how David is struggling
in the prison,

"And I know the
Department of Justice

"is looking hard at your case."

He's warm.

He's the opposite
of Kim Campbell.

And then things
started to happen,

and all of a sudden
we were given

a reference to the
Supreme Court of Canada,

and then we got to have our say,

and the conviction
was overturned.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] After more
than 22 years in prison

for a crime he did not commit,

David Milgaard is free.

- It was the first day of
Passover, April 16, 1992.

Passover, of course,
is the celebration,

the Jewish celebration
of the exodus from Egypt

from Pharaoh, from
the evil Pharaoh,

And I will never forget
going to our family Seder,

our Passover dinner
that night having

achieved exodus
for David Milgaard.

(eerie ominous music)

- [Narrator] With David
Milgaard set free,

the media attention on the case

forces Gail Miller's family
to live through it all again

and wonder if her killer will
ever be brought to justice.

(tense dramatic music)

(gentle music)

(dramatic music)

In 1969, the body of Gail Miller

is found in a snowy
alleyway in Saskatoon

after being murdered.

A year-long case leads
to the conviction

and imprisonment
of David Milgaard.

(dramatic music)

But his family spends the next

22 years proving his innocence

and getting his conviction
eventually overturned.

- We were given a reference to
the Supreme Court of Canada,

and then we got to have our say,

and the conviction
was overturned.

- [Narrator] But even
with David released,

there is still the matter of
Gail Miller's real killer.

(dramatic music)

Her murder follows
the same patterns

of similar crimes around
Saskatoon at the time,

and the whole time
David is locked away,

Larry Fisher is in
and out of prison

for the same types of crimes.

(gentle music)

Now that David Milgaard is free,

his lawyers must
expose Gail Miller's

real killer to
exonerate Milgaard.

- They said that
the fresh evidence

of Larry Fisher mattered,

and don't forget.

Larry Fisher testified
at the Supreme Court,

and we prepared.

Hersh Wolsh and I,
prepared for Larry Fisher.

And Hersh did an amazing job
of getting Fisher to actually

walk through every
single one of his crimes

and was actually
correcting us on things

that we might have missed,

but in correcting us was
actually bolstering the profile.

- While the technology
wasn't what it is today,

they were still
taking DNA evidence

found at the scene
back in the 60s.

Having a suspect to test

that evidence
against years later,

can be a nail in the
coffin on a cold case.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] Semen found at
the scene of Gail Miller's

murder is tested against
Larry Fisher's DNA,

and it connects him
directly to the crime.

(dramatic music)

- And guess what?

When they finally had the DNA

sophistication or technology
to read the semen samples,

Larry Fisher did it.

Everybody except the Minister
of Justice knew that,

and then he was convicted.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] In proving
David Milgaard's innocence,

David Asper talks to other
victims of Larry Fisher.

His victims go beyond the
scope of the Gail Miller case.

- Just remember like you've
got Gail Miller murdered.

You can't talk to Gail Miller.

Who I did talk to was the
one he nearly murdered,

(dramatic music)

and literally she's got
a scar from ear to ear

of where he slit her throat
while he was attacking her.

It leaves a pretty
lasting impression

about the person
who did that to her.

Like monster,

monster's just a word.

It's beyond monster.

(dramatic music)

- [Narrator] In June, 2015,

Larry Earl Fisher dies
in a prison hospital.

- There's multiple victims.

There's Gail Miller.

There's the earlier victims

who never got their closure.

There's the subsequent victims.

Milgaard is a victim,

individually, David is.

- [Narrator] Because
the police choose

to focus all of their
attention on facts

to fit the story as they
thought it happened,

David becomes another
victim in the situation

while Larry Fisher's
other crimes

at the time remained unsolved.

(somber music)

- It's so bad.

When the system fails like this,

it's just so bad
on so many fronts.

I am certain that
I cannot imagine,

I've read, but I can't imagine

what it must have been
like for David in prison.

I can't imagine what it's
like to have a child,

a sibling murdered.

Like you can't imagine that.

Unless it's happened to you,

you can't imagine it.

For the public at large,

you can sort of shake your head.

You can think and
try to empathize,

but these are deep, deep
personal human wounds

that get inflicted
when the system fails.

The shocking coincidence is that

the house where he went
to visit his friend

was the place where they were
renting the basement suite

of that home to the person
who ultimately was convicted

of the murder of Gail Miller.

They could have solved the
crime when it happened,

if they'd stayed on the
path, on the theory,

that the killer was the rapist.

That was right in front of them.

(light somber music)

- [Narrator] But for
David just leaving prison

doesn't rewrite the
decades that he lost.

- There's no dollars
and cents value

on the kind of
things that are lost.

- Like I say there was
no transitional planning,

and you've got a very
complex psychology

from the time he was
17 until the time,

how ever old he was when
he got out 40, almost 40.

And he had trouble.

He had a lot of trouble.

(light somber music)

- [Narrator] In May of 2022,

David Milgaard passes away

of complications from pneumonia

leaving behind a wife
and two children.

From the time he was released
from prison until his death,

David Milgaard fought for the
rights of the incarcerated

to help ensure that
no one would have

to relive his brutal experience.

- He was advocating
for a system,

a better way, a better
way of resolving

these kinds of
wrongful convictions.

And the government of Canada
keeps saying, "Yes, yes, yes."

And I've participated
in consultations,

and, "Yeah, we're going
to change the system."

Six commissions of inquiry
have been consistent about

what the changes need to be.

Still no change.

And so, it would appear that
the government is content.

That the system is imperfect,

and the way that we remedy

those imperfections
is also imperfect.

- [Narrator] If not for the
determination of a mother

to prove her son's innocence

and a lawyer's persistence
to finding the truth,

justice for Gail Miller
might never have been found.

(dramatic theatrical music)

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