(tense music)
- [Narrator] She was supposed to meet a friend
to go play outside after school,
but where is Christine Jessop?
- The pain is unendurable.
The worst part is not knowing.
- [Narrator] A nation is gripped by her disappearance.
- They were convinced they had the right person at the time,
and that's what they went with.
- Fiber analysis is not a precise measuring tool.
There's a greater risk of misinterpretation.
- [Narrator] It takes 21st-century investigative technology
to finally get close to the real killer.
- The advancements into genealogy started to come into play.
This takes months, sometimes years
to get the results back.
It was a waiting game.
- [Narrator] A game that hopefully would bring justice down
on the killer and some kind of closure
in the tragic Christine Jessop case.
(tense music continues)
- The unsolved ones. We have to stand up.
- And approach these cases in a way outside the box.
- Let the world know is those out there
that did commit a murder,
you know, there are people that are coming after you.
- There's just a lotta good people trying
to do the right thing.
- Because it's something
that you have to be passionate about.
- Solve this, bring some peace to the family, at least.
Just doing my job.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] October 3rd, 1984.
Queensville, Ontario,
39 miles north of Toronto.
Sometime between 7:00 and 8:00 PM,
Janet Jessop calls police
to report that her daughter hasn't come home
from school yet.
- There's no such thing as an Amber Alert in 1984.
So when young Christine Jessop disappears
from her home near the largest city in Canada,
the search for her grabs the attention of the country.
- [Narrator] Queensville, Ontario, Canada.
This sleepy village an hour's drive north of Toronto
is home to about 400 people.
- It's the early 80s.
Kids are given more freedom. (tense music continues)
Parents let them go free and play outside.
Come home when you're ready.
Even play in a local cemetery.
- [Narrator] Janet Jessop and her son, Kenny,
return home from visiting Bob Jessop,
who is in jail for misappropriating funds
from elderly friends of the family.
- When Janet Jessop and her son, Kenny, get home,
they expect to see Christine there.
(tense music continues)
- Janet expects to find
her nine-year-old daughter, Christine,
but Christine's not home.
- A mother's going to worry,
but Janet knows Christine had plans
to play with her friend, Leslie.
So she's not worried yet.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] To her family, she's known as Chrissy.
Chrissy is a spunky, adventurous kid
who loves playing outside.
She's a vivacious, happy, sensitive kid,
and her family says she wouldn't harm a fly.
Chrissy loves animals,
especially her pet beagle, Freckles,
and her frog Harold, who she keeps in the basement.
- Christine's family says she loves baseball in school,
as well as playing with dolls
or spending hours at the local playground
or nearby cemetery.
(tense music)
- Janet knows that Christine planned
to play with her friend, Leslie Chipman, that day.
But as time goes by, she calls her parents
and finds that she never met with Leslie.
- [Narrator] Police quickly piece together a timeline
of the hours leading up to Janet's phone call.
Christine gets off the school bus
with a plan to meet her friend, Leslie,
at the nearby park around four o'clock.
It's an exciting day for Christine
because the music teacher has handed out recorders,
something she can show off to her friends and family.
She leaves her backpack along with the household mail
on the kitchen counter.
(tense music continues)
Christine heads out on her bike
to the general store not far away.
- A witness tells police
that Christine went to a local store
and bought gum sometime between 4:00 and 4:30.
- [Narrator] Janet Jessop tells police
they arrive home from visiting her husband
in prison at about 4:10 PM.
- The timeline's really important here
because there are overlaps
where Christine could be really close
or she could be long gone. (tense music continues)
So every minute counts
and people are guessing what time they did or saw something.
- [Narrator] 3:50, Christine gets off the bus.
Four o'clock, Leslie waits at the park.
4:00 to 4:30, Christine buys gum.
4:10, Jessops arrive home.
After weeks of desperately searching,
Christine Jessop is nowhere to be found.
(tense music continues)
Police set up a command center at the local fire hall.
Janet relies on the comfort of a family friend,
Heather Hoover, until Bob is released
from jail on compassionate grounds.
(tense music continues)
- Thanksgiving passes, then Halloween, then Christmas,
and still police don't have any answers
for the suffering family. (tense music continues)
The worst part is not knowing.
The pain is unendurable. (tense music continues)
- [Narrator] An hour's drive away and months later,
the answer no one wants to know is discovered.
(tense music continues)
December 31st, 1984.
Sunderland, Ontario.
Fred Patterson calls for his dog
as he walks through the wooded property next to his home.
His two daughters are with him
when they stumble upon a gruesome scene.
(tense music continues)
- He thinks he sees a pile of garbage in this wooded area,
which is unusual.
He moves closer to inspect it
and finds it's the body of a young child.
- [Narrator] Fred Patterson calls the police.
(tense music continues)
- It's an awful scene.
Even the most seasoned police officer
is gonna be disturbed coming upon it.
Some time has passed,
decomposition has taken place,
and animals have gotten to the body.
It's a hard scene to describe.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Not far from the girl's body,
police find a recorder
with the name Christine Jessop written on it,
confirming their fears.
They have found Christine Jessop.
(tense music continues)
- Christine's remains are badly decomposed.
She has been stabbed multiple times in the chest,
some of which are deep enough to sever the vertebrae.
(tense music continues)
Her underwear is found beside her right foot.
She's been sexually assaulted and then stabbed to death.
- [Narrator] Christine is laid to rest
in the cemetery where she used to play,
not far from her family home.
- The attention of an entire nation is bearing down on them.
The family is desperate
to know who did this to their little girl.
(tense music continues)
- This case has the attention of a nation
and a family desperate for answers.
The pressure is on police.
(tense music continues)
Police are gonna use every tool at their disposal
to find the killer,
especially if there's a chance that they could strike again.
- [Narrator] Ontario police get assistance
from their southern neighbors at the FBI
who send criminal profilers north
to help develop a possible profile
for the man they're after.
At the same time,
they employ the best forensic tools
that they have available.
(tense music continues)
- In 1985, the cutting edge-forensic technology
is the study of trace evidence.
Fibers from fabric and hairs.
- [Narrator] Police retrieve a single black hair
from Christine's necklace, which may belong to her attacker,
along with the fibers they believe could be
from clothing the attacker wears.
(tense music continues)
- Law enforcement would have collected all of the clothing
and a plastic recorder found at the scene.
They would also have the autopsy results,
combined with numerous interviews
and an FBI profile would be developed.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] The profile, created by the FBI
with all the information provided to them
by the regional police,
describes a man who is young.
He would be known to Christine
so she would trust him enough to go with him.
- Elizabeth was visiting her therapist.
and who knew there was an opportunity
to take Christine while there was no one home.
(tense music continues)
- The profile suggests
this person may have already spoken with police
and possibly helped in the search
to look like they are cooperating
and deflect suspicion from themselves.
Investigators see a man who may fit the FBI profile
in some ways. (tense music continues)
- [Narrator] With pressure on the police, a suspect emerges.
A man who lives just next door.
- The more they look at him,
the better the evidence seems to fall into place.
They're convinced they've got their man.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Police zero in on the neighbor
with hopes in finding some answers.
His name is Guy Paul Morin.
(tense music continues)
(eerie music)
(tense music)
A three-month search for missing Christine Jessop ends
with a nightmarish discovery.
Christine's body is discovered
in a wooded area far from home and brutalized.
Ontario police enlist the help of FBI profilers
as they work urgently to find Christine Jessop's killer.
(tense music continues)
- It's 1985.
The state-of-the-art tool for analyzing trace evidence
is a really good microscope.
- [Narrator] Police find a hair not belonging to Christine
in the necklace she wears,
along with fibers that could be from the killer's clothing.
But police believe they already have their killer.
The Jessops' next door neighbor, Guy Paul Morin,
fits the profile supplied by the FBI
of a young man with strange behaviors and low education.
- The investigators are constantly under pressure
to have answers to solve the case,
to reassure the public that everything is being done,
and to bring someone to answer
for killing an innocent child.
(tense music continues)
Plus, there's also their own internal pressures
as well that are, you know, emotional on them
as well as the investigators wanting to solve the case
and find out who's responsible for murdering a child.
Like that's an enormous amount of pressure
to place on someone to solve these cases.
But at the same time, the pressure is there,
but the pressure also motivates them
to work and work and work and find the person responsible.
(tense music continues)
- The strategy for investigators is
to use interviews and the FBI profile
to find persons of interest,
then use the physical evidence to confirm their suspicions.
- [Narrator] 25-year-old Guy Paul Morin
is brought in for questioning.
He hasn't participated in the searches for Christine
and doesn't attend the funeral or wake for her.
He generally keeps to himself,
fixing things around the house.
He strikes police as suspicious.
- When police ask Guy Paul Morin
about what he thought of Christine,
he says she was, "Sweet and innocent."
And then he says,
"But they sometimes grow to be corrupt."
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Guy Paul Morin doesn't have a criminal record
and doesn't smoke or drink,
but police believe he fits the profile
and focus their investigation on him.
Police discover that Morin had worked his shift
at a furniture factory south of Queensville
the day Christine disappeared.
(tense music continues) (clock ticking)
He punches out at 3:32 PM.
Police determine that the soonest Guy Paul Morin
could have been in Queensville his 4:14 PM.
- This doesn't quite fit
the timeline police have established, but it is close.
Police go back to the Jessops to confirm
they returned home at 4:10. (tense music continues)
- [Narrator] After talking it over with police,
the Jessops changed the timing to a general range
that makes sense to police.
- All those timelines came into place
when they were looking at persons of interest or suspects
that try and determine why that location
and whether or not it would fit a timeline.
- Guy Paul Morin fits their profile.
And according to their timeline,
he had the opportunity.
Now all they need is some physical evidence.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] At his jazz band's practice,
a band mate says her friend is doing a project
on hair analysis for her cosmetics class
and asks for samples from everyone in the band.
- Everyone in the band consents and offers up a hair sample,
but no one knows the friend is an undercover police officer
and all other samples are thrown away.
(tense music continues)
- The lab in Toronto comes back
with a report saying the two hairs
are macroscopically similar and microscopically consistent.
- [Narrator] Along with the hair analysis,
red fibers found on Christine's sweater
are also reported to be in Guy Paul Morin's car.
Police charge Morin with the murder of Christine Jessop.
(tense music continues)
Morin is steadfast in his claim that he is innocent.
The defense says that Guy Paul Morin didn't get home
to Queensville until well after 5:00 PM
on the day of the disappearance,
and they explain how the hair
and fiber evidence don't hold up.
- The hair found in Christine's necklace
was decomposed by the time it was analyzed,
and basically it was just the same color
as Guy Paul Morin's.
That's it.
The defense also suggests
that the red fibers don't necessarily prove
that she had been in Guy Paul Morin's car.
The fibers may have come from a contaminated lab.
That is enough for a jury to return a verdict of not guilty.
- [Narrator] The verdict means
that police don't have their man,
the Jessop family doesn't have justice for Christine,
and a whole town continued to live in fear
that their child might be next.
(tense music continues)
- Prosecutors appeal on a technicality
and a retrial is granted by the Supreme Court of Canada.
- [Narrator] At the second trial, Christine's mother, Janet,
says that after Christine's funeral,
she and several others hear a man's voice screaming.
- She says the voice belongs to Guy Paul Morin.
(tense music continues)
- This time, the trial lasts nine months
with more witnesses saying that Morin acted
in a guilty manner,
all while using the same physical evidence.
- [Narrator] This time, Guy Paul Morin is found guilty
of first-degree murder.
Finally, law enforcement delivers a guilty verdict
for Christine Jessop.
(tense music continues)
- For law enforcement,
they've done what they can to convict Guy Paul Morin.
But they and the public at large have a sneaking suspicion
that Guy Paul Morin should not be imprisoned.
- What you have is statements from people.
They didn't have video back then.
They didn't have DNA.
They didn't have any other fingerprints
or anything like that.
They had basically circumstantial evidence.
The hair, the timelines,
the proximity where Christine lived,
himself, the way he presented in the interview,
the answers he gave.
You combine all that together
and it gave the view of he was the one responsible.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] The advent of DNA technology
could confirm that they've got their killer
or could it lead them down a whole new road?
(tense music continues)
(eerie music)
(tense music)
A nine-year-old girl in rural Ontario vanishes
without a trace for three months in 1984.
The murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop
sends shockwaves through North America.
Police look to Guy Paul Morin,
a quiet neighbor who says strange things,
as the prime suspect. (tense music continues)
They build a case around him that confirms their suspicions.
- Guy Paul Morin is found not guilty by a jury,
but the Crown Prosecutors appeal.
- [Narrator] A second trial lasts nine months,
and Guy Paul Morin is finally found guilty
of first-degree murder. (tense music continues)
As Guy Paul Morin heads to prison,
there's a growing sentiment
that police have convicted an innocent man.
In 1995, the Supreme Court of Canada agrees
and a third trial is ordered.
- This case is the most expensive case in Canadian history,
even before the third trial starts.
And it threatens to become even more drawn out
as lawyers begin to battle over details for a third time.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] But the results
of new DNA testing changes everything.
- Semen samples are taken
from Christine's underwear found at the crime scene.
The DNA's compared and analyzed to the samples.
Guy Paul Morin volunteers.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] The DNA testing proves beyond any doubt
that Guy Paul Morin is not guilty.
1995, after serving 18 months in a federal penitentiary
for a crime he didn't commit,
Guy Paul Morin is fully exonerated.
(tense music continues)
- Investigators can't have tunnel vision.
Finding your suspect and then collecting evidence
to convict can lead to exactly what happens here.
A killer escapes justice. (tense music continues)
- Guy Paul Morin and his family go through 10 years of hell.
After three trials and 18 months in a federal penitentiary,
he's finally exonerated in 1995.
- They were convinced they had the right person at the time
and that's what they went with.
It's unfortunate how it unfolded.
I think a lot was learned from that case
for investigators all around,
talking about tunnel vision
and the use of hair as an investigative tool
is no longer in play.
We don't use that at all anymore
unless it's got a hair follicle on it
and there's actual DNA on it.
- Guy Paul Morin has become collateral damage.
Christine Jessop's family still don't know
who killed their daughter
and police don't know if that killer struck again.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] After more than a decade,
the Jessops still don't know who took Christine
that fateful day in 1984.
An inquest determines
that existing biases gave investigators
and forensics lab scientists tunnel vision.
Their desire to convict Guy Paul Morin led them
to the wrong conclusions
and even to the fabrication of evidence
to support their case.
- An undercover officer claims he has a jailhouse confession
from one of Morin's cellmates,
but that story doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
It was made to look like a smoking gun,
but there was no confession at all.
(tense music continues)
- When the justice system fixates on Guy Paul Morin,
they start to collect evidence
with the aim of supporting their theory of who did it,
instead of letting the evidence lead them to a suspect.
- This is a perfect example of tunnel vision
and a recipe for a wrongful conviction.
Police are under great pressure
to find Christine Jessop's killer
and they change the timeline
to fit their view of who they think killed her.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Guy Paul Morin
is awarded $1.25 million in Canadian as compensation
and 119 recommendations are given
to change how investigations are conducted in Canada.
Police are back at square one.
(tense music continues)
- Investigators reevaluate the evidence gathered in the case
and try to approach the case with a wider scope.
- Because of the distance,
the only possibility is that she was transported by vehicle
to that location.
And, of course, you know,
why that location was part of the focus
of the investigation as well
and the timeline of how long it would take
to get from the Jessop house to that location.
And I believe that the person responsible for the,
or the actual person, did have ties
to that area in Sunderland where the body was found.
He had either a relative or he had a friend
that lived in that area or something that,
so he was familiar with that area.
(tense music continues)
- Due to the semen collected at the scene,
they don't need an FBI profiler
to tell them they are looking for a man
who is a child predator and murderer.
He knows that Christine Jessop
would be home alone after school that day.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Using the semen samples
from Christine's underwear found at the crime scene,
investigators begin processing the killer's DNA
in order to track him down
with the hope
of finally bringing Christine Jessop's killer to justice.
(tense music continues)
- DNA can catch a killer, but it still takes police work.
They need to match the killer's DNA with another sample,
either taken from Christine's body
or from evidence at the crime scene.
But at this point,
there's no database of criminals to go through.
There's also no DNA at the disposal of law enforcement
that constitutes a match. (tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Police look again
at the profile developed by the FBI.
They're looking for a person who Christine trusts,
a young loner with some personal problems
and a low level of education. (tense music continues)
The suspect would also have selected the place
where Christine's body is found
to commit his horrific attack.
Using the original case files,
all persons of interest go back on the list.
(tense music continues)
A local teen who worked in the graveyard
where Christine played and exhibited violent tendencies,
A local mechanic who was found scrubbing the inside of a van
and disappeared without picking up his last paycheck.
A neighborhood youth who carried a knife.
(tense music continues)
- One by one, these leads are exhausted.
Wherever possible, DNA samples are taken
and compared to the DNA from the semen stain
and suspects are eliminated.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Samples are taken from more than 300 people,
each of whom are eliminated
from suspicion through DNA testing.
(tense music continues)
- DNA science is very precise and reliable.
So if you can't find a match,
all you can do is wait for more samples to be submitted
to that data bank in order for that future comparison.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] The case goes cold for another 20 years.
(tense music continues)
2020.
Another advance in technology leads police
to a man who had been known to the Jessops all along.
(eerie music)
(tense music)
Nine-year-old Christine Jessop vanishes
without a trace in October, 1984.
Three months later, her body is discovered.
She's the victim of a vicious sexual assault and murder.
- Tunnel vision develops
when police are under pressure to identify a killer,
and that's what happened
when they identified Guy Paul Morin.
- [Narrator] Finally, after two trials
and a decade of legal battles,
along with 18 months of a sentence being served,
the man convicted of Christine Jessop's murder
is completely exonerated. (tense music continues)
- Christine Jessop's murder remained one
of the most high-profile investigations in Canada,
and tips continue to flow into the cold case unit.
They pursued leads,
but these leads continue to lead to dead ends.
- [Narrator] The case goes cold for more than 20 years,
despite police efforts to correct the mistakes
they made in the investigation.
In 2011, Detective Stacy Gallant
takes over the cold case unit of the Toronto Police.
(tense music continues)
- When I took over the cold case unit in Toronto,
one of the first tips that came in to me
as the new leader in that office
was on the Jessop case.
And Christine Jessop's mother, Janet, she would often call.
She would come to the station and visit,
and, you know, I'd spend time with her,
sit down and chat with her every time she came into town.
And anytime she'd call, I'd have conversations with her.
And you know, as I said,
that was the first case that I got any tip on
as now the new lead and running the cold case unit.
And, you know, for that type of case,
it wasn't Toronto's case originally.
It happened outside our jurisdiction,
but it was through the inquiry
that happened after Guy Paul Morin was acquitted
and there was the inquiries that were done.
It was then given to Toronto to take over the investigation
and have carriage of the investigation moving forward.
And over the course of years,
the Toronto unit, cold case unit,
had been looking at it and reviewing it
and following up on information that came in.
I would get regular tips coming in
on the Jessop case all the time.
And anytime there was any media surrounding the Jessop case
or Morin or anything that kinda came even close to,
or another missing child would happen,
there would be tips coming in on the Jessop case
about who was responsible,
who may have been responsible.
And my office, I would have people follow up on those.
And generally it was going out
and getting DNA samples from, you know,
persons of interest or suspects
that were named in these tips.
And dozens of those came in.
That was one aspect of it. (tense music continues)
The other aspect was going through the case file,
which was huge,
and looking at who we did not yet have DNA from,
and trying to see whether or not we could go out
and get DNA from those people
to eliminate them or include them as being responsible.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] In 2018, the cold case unit
of the Toronto police sees the conviction
of the Golden State Killer in California
thanks to genetic genealogy.
Cold case detectives send a DNA sample to labs in Texas
to determine a family tree.
- A centimorgan is a measure
of the likelihood of your genes being present
in another person's genes.
Your DNA has about 7,400 centimorgans.
A family member will have 50, 25, or 3%
of shared centimorgans.
Shared centimorgans establishes DNA genealogy
or that likelihood of how someone is related to you.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] When test results come back,
there are two relatives with only 50 centimorgans each
shared with the killer.
- A complete family tree that includes these two people
and the killer would include about 33,000 names.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] With genealogical data,
the cold case unit sets out to find and identify
the killer of Christine Jessop.
- This is like a needle in a haystack.
It's going to take some intensive 21st-century police work.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] A member of the force, known only as James,
sets up a unit working separate from detectives.
He enlists the help of retired police officers
with an interest in genealogy to help him trace the lineage.
- The cold case unit deliberately keeps James
and his team separate from the case.
(tense music continues)
- He was a police officer with Toronto.
He knew the case.
He was working on his own time with genealogy
and had an interest in this type of work.
So it was a natural fit for him to assist on this.
It is an art form
because you have to actually study the lineage of people
and, you know, first cousin, second cousin,
third cousin twice removed from the mother's side
and the father's side and, you know, all that stuff.
It's not a straight line.
It's like a tree, really. (tense music continues)
It's a lot of research and, you know,
trying to figure out where that line goes
and then who it might be.
It could be the son of this person.
It could be this person.
It could be the grandson of this person,
this person, this person.
Like they can give you a range of people that it may be.
And then what you have to do as the investigator
is you have to go out,
you have to find those people,
and go and somehow get their DNA
and check it against your unknown DNA sample.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Over the course of eight months,
James' team works with the Texas lab
to whittle down the possibilities
until they get somewhat close.
- They discover the great-great-grandfather of the killer,
a man who lived in Ontario named Henry Hoover, born in 1804.
- [Narrator] The lab in Texas then matches the DNA
of what they believe is the mother of the killer
using genealogical databases. (tense music continues)
- By cross-referencing the two likely branches
of the family tree,
the investigation points them towards two brothers.
(tense music continues)
One of them is Calvin Hoover,
who is a friend of the Jessops.
- [Narrator] Calvin's wife, Heather Hoover,
is a friend of the family who consoles Janet
when Christine goes missing.
With four children of their own,
the Hoovers and Jessops got together often
for family barbecues and birthdays.
Heather and Janet became particularly close.
- In 1984, Heather and Calvin Hoover both worked
at Eastern Independent Telecom
where Bob Jessop was the lead installer.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Calvin Hoover was the husband
of a family friend that the Jessops had long forgotten.
Calvin Hoover is 28 years old
when he kidnaps, rapes, and murders Christine Jessop.
He's a hard drinker and drowning in debt.
He suffers from depression and other mental issues.
(tense music continues)
- The Hoovers lived 50 kilometers away
from Queensville in Oshawa.
(tense music continues)
Calvin even joined a search party for Christine
and remained a family friend long after her killing.
- [Narrator] With genetic genealogy working independently
from the cold case unit
and coming up with a name associated with the case,
investigators are confident they have their killer.
- What they need is a DNA sample from Calvin Hoover
to confirm that he is the person
whose semen is found on Christine's underwear.
- [Narrator] Despite acquiring his DNA,
Calvin Hoover would escape arrest
for Christine Jessop's murder.
(eerie music)
(tense music)
Playful and caring, nine-year-old Christine Jessop
goes missing from a village in rural Ontario, Canada
on October 3rd, 1984.
When Christine's mother, Janet,
and brother, Kenny, return home that day,
Christine has vanished. (tense music continues)
Police believe they finally have solved the 1984 kidnapping,
sexual assault, and murder of young Christine Jessop.
Calvin Hoover, a family friend,
becomes the prime suspect in 2020
after genetic genealogy connects him to the crime.
(tense music continues)
Months of painstaking research narrows down
the ancestry test results to a specific family tree
and then cross referenced
with the facts police know about the case.
- At the time, Calvin Hoover had issues
with alcohol addiction and depression.
And he knew Christine Jessop would be home alone.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Knowing that Christine's mother and brother
would be visiting her father in jail that day,
Calvin Hoover gets Christine to come with him.
Police then discover Calvin Hoover
has a friend not far from where Christine's body is found.
- It's likely that Calvin would be familiar with the area
because of his dealings with the friend.
Police can only speculate where Christine was abducted from
and the sequence of events afterwards.
They do know that, at some point,
the killer and Christine crossed paths on that fateful day.
- [Narrator] But Calvin Hoover escapes justice,
never to be arrested for Christine's murder.
In 2015, Kelvin Hoover dies by suicide.
- No one can say for sure why Calvin Hoover killed himself.
He's clearly troubled,
but maybe he knew forensic science
would finally catch up to him.
- Maybe he knew someone in his family
was doing these type of ancestry things
and realized that that could be, you know,
that could be coming to an end and it weighed on him, maybe.
And he took the easy way out.
Never to be able to answer the questions
that we all have about this case and how it happened
and the timeline of things and why.
And we'll never know.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] The cold case unit acquires two vials
of Calvin Hoover's blood
and uses it to confirm the genetic genealogy.
- He wasn't on the National DNA Data Bank.
He hadn't been convicted of any crimes
that would've led to a DNA sample being on the data bank.
But when he committed suicide, there was an autopsy.
And, for some, reason the coroner's office still had access
to the samples that they took upon doing the autopsy
of him when he died.
So there still was a sample of his DNA
in the coroner's office. (tense music continues)
- After the blood test, the police know the odds
of Calvin Hoover not being their killer
is one in 3 trillion.
- [Narrator] While he is never arrested,
police inform the public that they finally know
who killed Christine Jessop. (tense music continues)
- As forensic science evolves and changes,
so does the investigation into Christine's murder.
Fiber analysis, unlike fingerprint and DNA analysis,
is not a precise measuring tool.
There's a greater risk of misinterpretation of the results.
Therefore it led to the wrong man, Guy Paul Morin.
Then the breakthrough of DNA finally sets him free.
And our latest breakthrough in forensic science,
the use of genealogy and ancestry,
leads police to the real killer of Christine Jessop.
(tense music continues)
- There's so many people that went through this file
and I'm sure every one of them would say,
you know, how did we miss that?
You know, his name was in there and we knew it.
And, you know, I think about the investigators,
the original investigators and, you know,
their motivation behind solving it
and wanting to solve it.
And it must tear at them. (tense music continues)
But, you know, end result, even though it took this long,
I think this case is pretty much a legacy case
for a lot of reasons and it will continue to be,
especially here in Canada.
This is pretty much the launchpad
for this new investigative technique
to be used on other cases.
(tense music continues)
- [Narrator] For the Jessop family,
knowing that a family friend is the killer brings closure,
but little solace.
And a message from an old neighbor
who is innocently dragged into the public eye.
Guy Paul Morin, living in seclusion,
sends a message to the Jessops through his lawyer
after the Calvin Hoover press conference.
- Morin says he is relieved
that the Jessops finally have this closure.
- [Narrator] "When DNA exonerated me in January, 1995,
I was sure that one day DNA would reveal the real killer.
And now it has."
- Having the knowledge
of who killed Christine doesn't bring her back.
However, law enforcement can finally close the case.
- [Narrator] But a question still remains
for cold case investigators in Ontario.
- If Calvin Hoover murders Christine Jessop in 1984
and gets away with it for three decades,
what else has he done? (tense music continues)
- [Narrator] Police in Ontario continue
to look through DNA evidence
to make sure Calvin Hoover's DNA is not present
at any other cold case crime scenes from that era.
- Could he possibly be responsible for more? Yes.
I would say not any of the ones that are currently known,
because we would've had that connection.
(tense music continues)
(tense music)
(tense music continues)