Police say “tunnel vision” was the main reason why two men spent years in prison after being wrongfully convicted in a 1983 murder in Saint John.
An independent review looking at how the Saint John Police Force handled the George Leeman murder investigation was released on Friday.
Chief Robert Bruce ordered the review after Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie were acquitted of second-degree murder just over a year ago.
“Once the investigators focused on Mr. Mailman and Mr. Gillespie, they stayed on that track and looked for evidence that would support their case,” Bruce told reporters on Friday.
“There was no malicious intent to railroad people. They were following the course of justice that they had at the time.”
The body of George Leeman was found by a jogger in a wooded area of Saint John’s Rockwood Park on Nov. 30, 1983.
Mailman and Gillespie were sentenced to life in prison without parole eligibility for at least 18 years after being convicted of second-degree murder.
Both men had their appeals to the New Brunswick Court of Appeal dismissed in 1998, and Gillespie was denied leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1994.
Gillespie served 21 years of his sentence before being granted parole while Mailman served 18 years.
In late 2023, Canada’s justice minister ordered a new trial after “new and significant information” led him to believe there were reasonable grounds that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred.
Court of King’s Bench Chief Justice Tracey DeWare found the two men not guilty in January 2024 after Crown prosecutors advised the court that they would not be presenting any evidence.
“The failure of this investigation is largely attributed to police tunnel vision, defined as a negligent and narrow focus that distorts the interpretation of evidence and actions,” read the summary report by Allen Farrah, a retired RCMP officer.
“The detectives relied heavily on a witness whose cooperation and statements were inconsistent and lacked corroboration.”
Some information was also not disclosed to the defence, according to the independent report, including that the principal witness received money from the police.
James Lockyer is a lawyer with Innocence Canada, a non-profit organization that worked for years to exonerate Gillespie and Mailman. He said the case should never have made it to trial.
“If full disclosure had been made at their trial, it would have been abundantly obvious that the only two Crown witnesses to say anything to implicate either of these men in the murder were not just unreliable but false,” Lockyer told reporters in January 2024.
The review also found that the wrongful conviction would have been less likely today due to “significant changes in law, rigorous policies governing law enforcement practices, increased checks and balances, and the arm’s-length relationship between police and the Crown.”
“The investigators at the time didn’t have the specific training. The way we handled witnesses and informants were completely different. Disclosure was different. How we tracked and traced alibi evidence was different. There was no kind of major case triangle that we had with a commander, an investigator and a file coordinator,” said Bruce.
“I have great confidence that for this to ever happen again would certainly be a rarity, but I would never stand up here and say I could guarantee that because we all know that the justice system isn’t perfect.”
Mailman and Gillespie reached a settlement with the province in the weeks following their acquittal, although the details remain confidential. Gillespie died a few weeks later in April 2024 while Mailman is terminally ill.
“I regret that they had to go through this. It’s a tragedy that it lasted this long. Unfortunately, Mr. Gillespie wasn’t able to enjoy much of his life after that, and it’s a tragedy that he and Mr. Mailman didn’t get to enjoy their lives in this process,” said Bruce.
