Wrongly convicted man ‘good-natured person’
Romeo Phillion confessed to murder and then spent more than three decades behind bars protesting his innocence before he was freed and his conviction overturned.
Friends and supporters said he died Monday from chronic lung disease, a day after his admission to hospital in Mississauga, Ont.
“For someone who went through what he did and was wrongly convicted like that, he wasn’t a bitter person,” said Howard Gelfand, a friend and eight-year housemate who had been caring for Phillion.
“He was a very good-hearted person. He loved animals. He just enjoyed life.”
Phillion, 76, was convicted in 1972 of second-degree murder in the stabbing death of an Ottawa firefighter, Leopold Roy, five years earlier. The conviction was based largely on Phillion’s confession, which he recanted within hours.
He was imprisoned for life but always refused to seek parole, saying it would amount to an admission of guilt. By the time he was released on bail pending disposition of his case in 2003, he had spent 31 years behind bars, becoming Canada’s longest-ever serving inmate to have a murder conviction thrown out.
The federal government ultimately referred his case to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which, in a split decision in 2009, quashed his conviction and ordered a new trial.
The Appeal Court heard that police had initially verified an alibi that he was nowhere near the crime scene — but never told the defence about it. Investigators would later say there was no obligation to pass that information on because they had, on further investigation, found the alibi to be untrue.
The Crown, arguing too much time had passed to try him again, withdrew the charge.
“His big disappointment was that they didn’t give him his full exoneration,” said Gelfand, whose late girlfriend was Phillion’s niece.
Phillion, who once said he wanted the “cloud” of suspicion over him lifted once and for all, never explained publicly why he confessed.