Jessop family calls for independent probe
Investigation urged into why girl’s killer wasn’t on police radar
Relatives of murder victim Christine Jessop are joining the call for an independent review into how the man identified as her killer evaded police suspicion for 36 years.
“I want it all out,” Kenney Jessop, Christine’s brother, said in an interview Wednesday. “We’ve got an answer of who it was, but there’s no justice.”
On Wednesday, Kenney Jessop and his mother Janet added their public support to a call this week from Innocence Canada — an organization that advocates on behalf of the wrongly convicted — for the provincial government to launch an independent review into why Calvin Hoover never became a suspect in Jessop’s October 1984 murder.
Kenney Jessop says the family’s prayers were answered when Toronto police announced earlier this month that Hoover — once a family acquaintance of the Jessops — had been identified as the likely killer through a combination of DNA evidence and genetic genealogy.
But the knowledge of who killed Jessop has since raised “a million questions” about why Hoover was never before on the radar, he said. Now that the news has settled and the shock subsided, “the anger has kicked in.”
“This was someone so close to our family, and they supposedly investigated everybody and all their movements,” Kenney Jessop said. “How’d they miss this?”
Police have confirmed Hoover, who was 28 at the time of Jessop’s slaying, was never a suspect in the death.
Instead, Durham Regional police zeroed in on Guy Paul Morin, Jessop’s then-neighbour, leading to his wrongful conviction — a miscarriage of justice overturned through DNA evidence in 1995.
That year, Toronto police took over the investigation, launching a task force that saw police interview more than 300 people and obtain DNA from men to compare to a semen stain left on Jessop’s underwear found at the crime scene.
Police say Hoover was never a person of interest and that his DNA was not obtained; the task force disbanded in 1999.
Since naming Hoover as the presumed killer, Toronto police have received dozens of tips about his whereabouts between the 1984 killing and his suicide in 2015.
Investigators are looking into whether he may be linked to other unsolved crimes.
Spokespeople for Durham Region and Toronto police say they would co-operate in any third-party review that may be launched.
A spokesperson for Ontario’s Ministry of the Attorney General said on Monday that it is “premature to consider a public inquiry” while Toronto police continue an investigation.