Prison-killing cold case falters again
Mother ‘devastated’ police can’t get witness to give sworn statement
The OPP investigation into the 1999 prison killing of an Ottawa holdup man has hit another dead end after detectives couldn’t secure a sworn statement from an eyewitness who offered the only inside account of how Donald Mongeon was slain.
The witness was one of 25 inmates in Unit One at Collins Bay Penitentiary in Kingston on Jan. 16, 1999, the day Mongeon, a onetime Citizen cafeteria worker, was knifed to death in cell No. 18.
The witness’s co-operation was key and was the only time someone had broken the code of silence among prisoners.
He came forward after he found himself in trouble with the law again and was looking to make a deal.
The witness told the Citizen he wanted the police to drop his drug-trafficking charge or, at minimum, have it reduced. He gave police his account of the killing but, when it came time for him to give a sworn statement, he refused because the OPP said they couldn’t help him out with his new criminal charges.
The witness’s account included the same suspects in the police theory, but his inside version of the motive is at odds with what detectives had believed. Either way, it was the first time in years that the investigation had unearthed new evidence.
The dead man’s mother, Susan Mongeon, says she was told, in an Oct. 28 meeting with detectives, that police had again tried to secure a sworn statement, but that it was too late because the witness had already resolved his criminal case and was no longer interested in giving evidence about what happened in Unit One, the worst block of the prison, which closed after the killing.
“I was devastated by the news. They had this witness in the palms of their hands since 2011 and now he’s gone,” Mongeon, 60, told the Citizen on Sunday.
Not even the $50,000 OPP reward could prompt his co-operation. He said he didn’t want to wait for his money, which is awarded only after a conviction in a case.
Earlier this year, police turned to prosecutors to see if there was enough evidence to warrant charges against four men police believe got away with murder. No charges have been filed against the suspects, two of whom are still in prison, while the other men went off the grid after they were paroled.
In 2010, the Citizen published the names of the two men, saying one of them had simply boarded a plane and returned to Jamaica, his homeland, when he was released. In the case of the other man, police investigating the case don’t know where he is living. He is thought to be in Canada, but his name doesn’t appear on any government databases, according to a police source.
Mongeon, 27, was six months into a five-year sentence for armed robbery when he was found dead in his locked cell. His body lay undetected in a pool of blood for six hours after the 11 p.m. lockup, even though guards said they checked on him during their hourly overnight rounds.
Mongeon was knifed at least 26 times, once in the heart. The killers wrapped his head with a garbage bag, then stuffed his body under the cell bunk. The floor, the ceiling, walls and furniture of his cell were spattered with blood.
The guards said they didn’t hear or see a thing and reported nothing wrong that afternoon. The next morning, when a guard did report something wrong, he reported it as a suicide.
The guards also didn’t notice a trail of blood on the handrail of the catwalk outside the cells on the upper tier in Unit One. This is the same walkway that guards said they used on their hourly checks and reported nothing out of the ordinary.
In the past, detectives have gone to prosecutors for a case against the guards as potential accessories to the killing. No criminal charges were filed; the guards were charged internally and suspended for negligence.
In a confidential police report obtained by the Citizen, a detective theorized that the guards might have been an accessory to the homicide.
“Both theories represent deliberate actions with the only purpose being to muddy the waters on the day of the homicide. The question that must be answered is, was this done to obstruct the police in their investigation to cover up the fact that officers working the evening shift on Jan. 16, 1999, did not do their job or were ... these officers involved as an accessory to the murder for reasons unknown to the investigators at this time,” the detective wrote.
Though the suspected killers were already locked up, they have so far escaped prosecution in a case that has been thwarted, it seems, from beginning to end.