April 16, 2025 • 33 mins
In 1993, a teenage girl vanished on her way to school in a quiet town in Ontario, Canada. That morning, she’d argued with her mother, Mary Ann—nothing serious, just one of those everyday fights about going to school. It would be the last time they ever spoke.
Her name was Christine Harron. She never made it to class.
The case went cold for years—until filmmaker and podcast host David Ridgen started asking questions. He dug into old leads, uncovered long-buried secrets, and eventually helped bring a killer to justice.
But even now, one question remains... Where is Chrissy?
Listen to David Ridgen's podcast, Someone Knows Something, here.
CREDITS
Guest: David Ridgen
Host: Claire Murphy
Producer: Tahli Blackman
Audio Producer: Jacob Round
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. In nineteen ninety three,
fifteen year old Canadian Chrissy Harn was being a typical teenager.
She didn't love school. In fact, she had a history
of skipping classes. She was messy, a bit of a tomboy, and,
(00:30):
according to a friend, a bit of an easy target
for bullies too. She'd been struggling with her parents' divorce.
Her dad lived too far away for regular visits. She
didn't really get along with her new stepdad, but she
was trying. Amongst the arguments, there would also be moments
where they would connect, helping him out in the garage
replacing the spark plugs in his car. A sensitive and
(00:53):
shy girl, Chrissy wasn't a partier. In fact, her parents
had praised her when she'd returned from an event because
she said she felt uncomfortable with her peers drinking and smoking.
Chrissy loved her mind Mary Anne, but like any teen
parent relationship, they also fought, and so when her mum
told her to get to school on the afternoon of
(01:15):
May eighteen, nineteen ninety three, she put on her jacket
and reluctantly started the short walkover. Mary Anne will remember
this moment for the rest of her life like a
scar that never heals, because that argument would be the
last time she would ever speak to her daughter.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And then she lacked to go to school.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
She walked down the other side of the street and
around the corner, and that was the last I've seen
of her. I'm Claire Murphy and this is True Crime Conversations,
a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
(01:59):
to the people who know the most about them. It's
a parent's worst nightmare, a missing child, a police pease
force who thinks every teenager is a runaway, and a
mother who desperately searches despite the roadblock she faces from
the authorities. The case of missing Ontario teen Chrissy Haron
(02:19):
would not be one sold in a year, not even
a decade on from her disappearance, but a shock confession,
a botched court case, an undercover sting, and more than
twenty years later, someone would finally be held accountable for
her death. Chrissy Harron's body has never been found, but
(02:39):
the person who took her life is paying for his
crime thanks to the dedication of a mother and one.
Independent film and podcast maker David Ridgan worked alongside Chrissy's mother,
Mary Anne for more than fifteen years as they brought
her killer to justice. The host of the Someone Knows
Something podcast sat down with us to tell us how
(03:02):
a mother's undying love can outlast at all. Before we
dive into the interview with David, there are a few
key points you should understand to fully grasp Chrissy's story
and David's investigation. Police kept Anthony Ringle in custody for
thirty seven hours, five hours of that was before he
(03:25):
was even read his rights. He was allowed phone calls
to lawyers after he requested legal representation, spending a total
of around twenty minutes only on calls with them, but
no lawyer attended the questioning. When asked to explain himself
on the record, Ringle would only say no questions, no comment.
(03:45):
Despite this, police continued to question him, often without taking
notes or recording the conversation. A second officer stepped in
to take over the interrogation after it had seemingly wrapped up.
Ringle said he did not want to continue and said
he was advised by the lawyer not to take them
to the place that he had had initially told the
(04:07):
officer after calling nine to one one that Chrissy's body was,
but they took him anyway. The list of questionable police
conduct was adding up as Ringle's confusing and sometimes barely
audible responses continued. He would switch from admitting to the
murder to no comment. When asked why he would confess
(04:27):
to it if he didn't do it, he gave no
real answer. Several undercover police officers would infiltrate the trailer
park where Ringle lived. They connected with him by telling
him how they too were victims doing it tough in life.
Then one night they sat down and watched the documentary
about him. In the footage taken over many hours, Ringle
(04:48):
would get upset with what he said were inconsistencies in
the documentary's telling of his story. He would say they
got it wrong when they claimed he drowned her. He had,
in fact, more suffocated Chrissy by pushing her face down
into the mud. He explained how he'd used her jacket
to restrict her hands as he had nothing to tie
(05:09):
her up with that enabled him. He said to remove
her pants. He described the location where it all took place,
just across the river, and how he had just come
across her in the park that day, a place she
used to frequent. He explained how he left her out
there the first night, before returning to cover her body
with sticks and logs the next day. Ringle also told
(05:32):
the undercover officers how he'd thought about doing it again,
but in almost attempting to justify the crime, Ringle said
that by only doing it once and never again, essentially
he'd been a good person. He even went as far
as to say that he hoped he had the opportunity
to apologize to Chrissy in the afterlife, where he would
ask her was her life better before or after he
(05:56):
did what he did. I know you've been investigating the
case of Christine or Chrissy as she was known harn
For gosh, it must be getting close to two decades now,
but I'd love to take you back to the beginning.
When did you first hear about her story and what
led you to really focus in on this.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
One for Christine Herron. I'm a documentary filmmaker before I
was a podcaster, and I had been looking at cold
cases in general for television since two thousand and four,
and at the time I found out about Chrissie's case,
I was developing some television documentaries for CBC, the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation in late two thousands. I think about cold
(06:38):
cases obviously, and I recall Chrissie's case made the shortlist
pretty much right away for several reasons. I attended a
memorial service for her in Hanover, which is a small
town here in Ontario, southwest Ontario, just to do some
initial research and something about the service for her, her
photo up there on the stand, how people spoke about her,
(07:00):
the whole atmosphere, it was very thick. It made me
want to try to help, and I remember I remember
saying to the associate producer who was there with me
at the time, that Chrissy was someone I wish I
had been able to meet. And I remember actually crying,
and I remember feeling this kind of heat of frustration
about the case. You know, I just kind of knew
(07:21):
that I wanted to help on it, but I wasn't
able to at the time. There are other cases took
over in the early stages, but eventually I did get
to Chrissie's case as the fourth in a series of
films I made for CBC, and then the podcast kind
of came after that, So there's several stages of production
that went into Chrissie's case.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, talk to me a bit about what it was
about Chrissy that made you feel like she was someone
that you wanted to meet. What was she like and
what did you learn about who she was as a person.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Christine was fifteen at the time she disappeared. She was rebellious,
she didn't like school, but she enjoyed her walks outside.
She liked the natural world, she liked reading, she liked
being around children. She had that kind of, like I say,
kind of counterintuitive nature that maybe she didn't get along
(08:13):
with everybody, but she was very kind and I could
just tell the way people were talking about her. But
that's what she was like. And you know, when I
met her mother, Mary Anne, I saw some video of
Chrissy at the time and it was quite touching around
the Christmas tree and things like that. It's hard to
explain really what makes me want to take on a case.
There's some other factors that were interesting as well, but
(08:37):
mainly just the way it struck me at that ceremony
for her.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, let's delve into Chrissy's story. It's May eighteen, nineteen
ninety three. You mentioned there that she didn't love going
to school, and she'd woken up that morning and claimed
to be unwell. Whether she actually was or not is
a question many parents ask themselves about their children when
they're trying to get out of going to school. But
her mum was a bit concerned about the truancy officer
(09:00):
Maryann who you mentioned, and insisted her daughter does go
to school that day, so she kind of sends her off.
What was Chrissy's reaction to her mom trying to force
her to go to school that day.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, I think it's like anything, if you try to
make it happen, the opposite happens. If you try to
force that idea out of your head, it's actually it
galvanizes the idea in your head. So I think that
by trying to get Chrissy to go to school, she
was less likely to want to go. But eventually I
think maybe it formulate a plan formulated in Chrissy's head
(09:33):
that Okay, I'll go to school, but not go to school.
You know, I'll go to school the school the long way,
and it turned out that on that morning she was sick.
And it was May eighteenth, nineteen ninety three. As you said,
they had an argument and the obtruancy officer called, and
so it was I guess it was around one or
(09:53):
midday in the afternoon that Chrissy finally said okay, got up,
left and slammed the door. And this was allegedly on
her way to school. Mary Anne saw go down the
street and turn the corner and that was the last
that she ever saw of her. And it turns out
that Christy didn't go to school that day.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Was her mother, then, the last person to actually see
her alive, apart from the person who would take her life.
Did anybody else spot her in the aftermath of her disappearance.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
There was nobody else that came forward at the time.
Nobody else reported to police or buy police in to
my knowledge, and I've looked through thousands of pages of
investigative information over two different police departments, the local department
and the opp the Ontario Provincial Police which took over
in nineteen ninety nine. Nobody else saw Christy that day
(10:43):
to my knowledge or anybody else's except for the person
who killed her.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So Marianne does what most parents would do in this
situation where their kid, who is known for skipping classes
at school, does calls all their friends. Doesn't have a
big circle of friends, but she know none of them
have seen her. Police states too early to really do anything,
but she does report it to police later that What
was the police's initial response to mary Anne's request for
(11:11):
them to search for her daughter.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, initially, police, and in many cases this happens, right
or wrong, police suggests that she'll come back, you know,
so she's a runaway, and usually that's a pretty temporary
maneuver by police. Usually it's give it some time. Unfortunately,
everybody knows in the true crime world at the first
seventy two hours and blah blah blah are important, and
(11:32):
they are. And in this case though the police kept
to that story, kept to that narrative. The local police
chief his daughter had a habit of departing, apparently according
to him, so he was saying, citing these kind of
anecdotal stories of she'll be back, my daughter always comes
back kind of thing. But that went on for like
a year, and there were these false sightings of Christy
(11:54):
and Toronto police kept, you know, suggesting that maybe she
was with those people that were being seen in Toronto,
or she was with a bunch of punk rockers or something.
But basically, nothing ever came back of a real true
sighting of Chrissy, and in the meantime, important time was passing.
If you get to know the story, you'll realize that
this was a massive mistake at this time because they
(12:18):
could have probably found her if they did a proper search.
They only undertook a rudimentary search around town and they
never found any trace of her. But if they had
taken it a little bit more seriously, I'm not sure
what would have made them take it more seriously, maybe
more experience. It was a very small force, local town
(12:40):
force they had over police. In fact, the guy, the
man who investigated the case in the beginning, was later
arrested for you know, some kind of horrible crimes he
himself committed, So I'm not sure how great of an
investigator he was. The Ontario Provincial Police when they took
over the case, reinvestigated everything, They reinterviewed everybody, They talked
(13:02):
to other people that they hadn't talked to before, and
the other investigation, but still nothing happened. You know, that
was nineteen ninety nine. This happened in nineteen ninety three,
so nothing the police did really made any difference to
the case.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with David Ridgan, host of the podcast Someone
Knows Something about the case of Chrissy Haron. Next, David
and I dive into why Marianne searched for her daughter
was derailed and how the community in Hanover, Ontario not
only failed to help, but actually told her to give up.
(13:45):
Do you think the police's attitude to Chrissy's disappearance contributed
to how the community responded to Marianne and her other
family members in that time, because Marianne spoke to you
and said that she would put up posters asking for
information about the whereabouts of her missing daughter that would
get torn down, and that people kept telling her to
kind of let it go, and that you know, Chrissy
(14:07):
was just off, you know, being a rebellious teenager. Do
you think the police's attitude didn't help that the community
didn't seem to rally around them.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, I'm not sure that it did. Help. I think
the communities tend to have kind of a singular mind sometimes,
and if one person thinks that something, then many of
them will think the same thing. You know. They definitely
Chrissy and Marianne were not wealthy people. They were not
from a wealthy background or family, working class family very
(14:37):
much so. And I'm not sure how much that impacted
the case, but I can only imagine it. Did you know,
this person's not as important as everybody else, which is
another part of the reason I thought the case was important. Yeah,
I mean, if police take it seriously, other people will
take it seriously too.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
We did mention that eventually the opp does take over
the case from the local police, but that is six
years down the track. Do we know what actually led
to that being escalated beyond the local police.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I think that I think the local police in Hannover asked,
but I also think that there was some pressure from
Marianna and her family about this case, and I think
that that eventually took over. See, the OPP in Ontario
at that time was expanding and they were trying to
basically user small town forces and take over them and
(15:30):
be paid by the municipality instead of the small town force.
So they would argue, for example, we're a force of
a thousand members investigators, we have a huge forensic team,
and we got lots of money. Why would you want
to have four men or four people, you know, policing
your city or town of six thousand when you could
have you know, uber force taking over. But you know
(15:52):
a lot of times towns did pay to have OPP
come in and then we're unhappy because the sort of
roster or menu of what they were going to be
providing investigatively was not what they expected. However, in this case,
the OPP took over the case and I think eventually
took over policing in the town, just like many other
small towns on Ontario at the time. So I guess
(16:14):
it was part of an expansionist effort. So it kind
of worked into the parents requesting that the OPP take
it over. So you know, it might have been the
thin edge of the wedge that allowed the OPP to
kind of start to make their move on that town
as well. I maybe talking out of my ass on
that one. I'm not exactly sure about that history, but
that's pretty much what I think happened.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
What Chrissy's family told anything about these investigations, like how
much information were they given after the escalation to the opp.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Very little, and that's not abnormal. But when you hide
things from parents, you do it to help protect the
case to some extent. I understand the impulse to do that.
You don't want to distribute information to somebody who you
think might then tell someone else that there's a suspect
or that you're talking to this guy or you know,
(17:04):
and then that information gets sed it around the community
and soon enough, everybody's pointing at the same guy just
because the police said they're interviewing him to somebody. Right,
So you're kind of seeding the information, the poisoning the
case by giving out too much information. But you would
think that at some point police would learn to trust
family members and realize that they kind of need the
(17:27):
information to kind of help them get through their day
to day, you know, they need something to hold on to.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
You can see how that might be an issue because
the place where they live is not big, right, It's
not a huge community of people. It's less than ten thousand,
and that's pretty small town mentality when you think.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
About it, right, Yeah, it's pretty small. It was a
pretty big industrial base when it started, it was like
a furniture making place in Ontario. I think a lot
of German settlers moved in at one point and lots
of furniture production. But when I started working there and
when Chrissy disappeared, it was kind of a shadow of that.
Most lot of abandoned buildings and old factories around, and
(18:09):
it was a small town down on its luck to
some extent. Yeah, when I got in there.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
We mentioned out factories. What's a really interesting piece of
evidence was that a young man in that community claimed,
in the aftermath of Chrissy's disappearance that he received a
phone call from someone claiming to be her and that
she was in fact at one of these old abandoned factories.
Did anything come of that?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Nothing came of that, and in any of the documentation
I've read extensively on that, it feels like somebody was
playing a joke on this guy. I'm sure he got
the call, but it felt like somebody was making a
prank call on him, and I think that's what police
figured out at the end as well. I mean, obviously
Chrissy didn't show up. It was two or two months later.
(18:51):
I think she would have had no resources. It's a
small town, like, yeah, you can hide in a building
for a couple of days, but it's not credible. And
there was some other issues with the person who got
the call, which I'm not going to mention now, but
it seems like that it wasn't the first time that
crank calls were made. What's to say, Well, let's fuss forward.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Eleven years has passed since Chrissie's disappeared. It's August two
thousand and four. There's finally a breakthrough in the case,
but it does not come from any police investigation. Can
you talk us through a bit of the surprise confession?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Part of the reason I was intrigued by Chrissy's case.
The other part is because there appeared to be a suspect.
But this is a suspect that the police had not found.
Up until August of two thousand and four. Police had
no idea what happened to Christy, as I just talked about.
And remember, Christy disappeared, as he said, eleven years ago,
eleven years before in May of nineteen ninety three. So
(19:49):
in August two thousand and four, at a party with
his family members, a man aged thirty five at the time.
Near the end of the evening, after some drinks and
some kind of upset he had with his family, started
telling people that he had killed Christine Herron. He picked
up phone, he dialed nine one one and then he
hung up. He changed his mind, but the police responded anyway,
(20:12):
I don't know what happens in Australia, but here, even
on a hang up to a nine one one call,
they will respond to find out what the hang up
was all about. So the police officer arrives, the man
notices and starts walking down the stairs towards him, holding
his hands up as if he wants to be handcuffed,
and he confesses again I killed Chrissy, says I killed
(20:34):
Chrissy to the responding officer, and he says, I can
show police where I left her. And at the same time,
eleven years earlier, when Chrissy disappeared, the guy would have
been twenty four years old at that time, and his
name was Anthony Edward Wringle. And this is a guy
police said no and was not on the radar. Local guy,
local guy. And he was born on December tenth, nineteen
(20:54):
sixty eight, one of six children five for nine or thereabouts,
blunt features, thin browning hair, and he had worked at
the local Canadian Tire which is like a hardware store
that yes does sell tires here, but he was unemployed
at the time in May nineteen ninety three when Chrissy
left the house to allegedly go to school that May,
and when I met him, he was living between locations
(21:18):
like at a family member's house, couch surfing, and at
a local trailer park. So Anthony Ringo goes through the
stages that what would have been a murder trial in
two thousand and six. They took him to the police
station and interrogated him, but the judge throws the case
out basically because of police mistakes. So this is two
(21:39):
thousand and six, and I heard about the case in
two thousand and nine, so the case has stayed in
two thousand and six for a year. So basically it
sits in suspended animation until new evidence is brought forward.
But no new evidence was brought forward, so Ringo is
freed and nothing new happens, and it just sits there
from two thousand and six onwards, And at the time
(22:00):
Anthony still lived in the area. Nobody did anything. There
was very little reporting on it, like there was like
article in the paper about this, No reporter talks to him,
no police action can be seen happening still two thousand
and six, and then add three years more and I
come on the scene two thousand and nine, church service,
et cetera, and I begin working with Chrissy's mom, Mary Anne.
(22:23):
Police barely assist me, but regardless, we're able to uncover
many of the court files and investigative documents from the case.
By freedom of information. Mary Anne for the first time
learns what's actually happening or what happened, why did it fail,
why did the case get thrown out? Some of what
Anthony said, and we go from there. That's the television
(22:44):
doc part. So that's what I'm shooting with my camera
for television. So the podcast covers that and takes over
with the new process. So throughout the process we have
mary Anne confronting the murderer, Like we try to go
to visit him, he won't talk to us. It doesn't
work out the scenario the way we had imagined it.
(23:05):
So I go try to speak to this guy myself,
Anthony Wringle, I do meet him. I knock, cold knock,
on his trailer door at a trailer park, the same
trailer park. We speak for a long time and I
ask him the direct and pointed question did you kill Christine?
And you'll hear the answers and podcasts. So all that
information about the case, the court drama, talking to Ringo,
(23:25):
all that stuff goes into a twenty minute doc made
for CBC goes to air in the spring of twenty twelve.
And then shortly after the documentary went to air the
television documentary, police start an undercover operation on Anthony Wringle
in the same trailer park where I met him. So
then the podcast takes over and tells that story and
(23:46):
picks up with the TV show left off because nobody
knows about this on an undercover operation. This is all
brand new news that this podcast is breaking.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Basically, So do police actually tell you that your documentary
is the catalyst for this undercover operation? Do they say
why they actually start this when they've left this case?
Kind of just sit this as.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I long, I can only assume that it had something
to do with it, because it basically the documentary exposes
a ton of police errors and mistakes, and it's very
embarrassing for the opp who's been telling people that they're
such an amazing investigative force, and to some extent, they are.
So it picks up tells the story of the undercover operation,
(24:27):
and it shows directly that the work Mary and I
did is literally used by police so they can arrest
Anthony again. So the film is literally used so they
can get them again in February twenty thirteen. So except
this time, the trial in twenty sixteen goes forward and
he's convicted and now is serving a life sentence here
(24:48):
in Ontario in a federal penitentiary, a second degree murder.
They got him on and yeah, I feel good about it.
That's the next question. How do you feel about that?
And it's pretty amazing that the work did its job,
So that's all I can say about it. You know,
I think people have to listen for themselves. But it's
a real up and down roller coaster and quite satisfying.
It's over fifteen years of work.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So what's really interesting too, is you know that work.
You have worked alongside Marianne for that entire time, and
without you, she would not know the majority of the
things that happened during the first court case or even
(25:32):
during the second because she was considered a potential witness,
so wasn't allowed to sit in court, so she never
got to see any of those undercover videos that were
recorded by police. You actually played them to her? What
was that like? Because Ringle goes into quite a bit
of detail about what he actually did, and that would
have been heartbreaking to show to her.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
It is heartbreaking and it's awful, and Marianne wanted to
see it, and I still didn't show her. She knows this.
I didn't show her everything because some of it is
just too it's really hard. It's one thing that you
know that somebody killed someone, there's the perpetrator, but when
you hear them talking about it in such great detail
(26:14):
in the confession that they gave to the undercover officer
and they don't know they're being filmed, it's a real
vulnerability that they kind of expose everything about what they're
thinking was and it's quite dark in a way that's
blacker than black, you know, in terms of that kind
of darkness. So I didn't want to expose Marianne to
that level. But I do think, and she believes too,
(26:38):
that confronting the stuff actually helps. So we made the
decision to watch it together some of the confession just
to kind of get the story of what happened that day,
like why did you take her? Et cetera. And I
mean the answer why is like I hate mondays, you know,
like why did you do it? I mean, that's not
really that interesting actually to me, and I don't think
(26:59):
to Marianne, but it's more sort of tell me what happened,
you know, what happened that day. So I think that's
what she had in head. And we watched some of
the undercover stuff together. I try to talk about the
other things that I didn't show her sort of in
a general way, and I think it did help her.
I mean she's told me it has, That's all I
can go on. And she's told others that it has.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
So she does say to you though that and she
said this to other Metia outlets too, that not even
Wringle ending up with a life sentence is closure for her.
That you can never truly get closure in a case
like this, but you have been trying to help her
kind of get as close as possible to that. Right.
Has Ringle ever agreed to sit down and speak with
(27:43):
Marianne about what happened.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
That day, not yet. I mean, for I think closures
bullshit myself, and I think Marianne kind of agrees. But
I think it's kind of a media presentation, what the
idea of closure, because it kind of adds an ending
to a story. I don't think closure is actually possible.
I think it's more acceptance that you're looking for and
trying to be able to move away from having to
(28:06):
try to solve the case every day and every second
in your head. It's okay to walk away from that,
and it's okay to have a good time. It's okay
to live my life again, you know. And I don't
think that means closure. I just think it means that
you have to accept this thing in you that's horrible.
You know that you're this lost. You have to accept
that and just live with it like a bubble inside
you that's never going to go away, and then continue.
(28:29):
And that's that's what she's looking for. But also she
wants to know where Chrissy is. And that's one of
the things that I've found in many cold cases or
with the families of missing people, is that they don't
care about the perpetrator. They don't give a fuck about
that person. They don't give a fuck about what that
person wanted to do or what they did. They just
(28:50):
want to know where their loved one is. They want
to know where their daughter is. Bring her to me.
I don't care about you, you know, bring her to me,
Tell me where she is. And I think if some
perps knew exactly how simple it might be to help
themselves and help the families, they could just tell that
(29:10):
a little part of the equation, you know. So I've
been trying to help Marianne find Chrissy because we know
where generally she was led to by Wringle that day,
very specifically actually, and we did try with kadaver dogs.
Kim Cooper, whom I'm known to be, you know, to
work with and on other cases, came with me, and
(29:34):
we went too late in the season because the ferns
were almost above my head and the dogs. It helps
to have an open area dogs. It can't be closed
in like big umbrellas over the ground. It has to
be open so the smell moves around. So we're going
back on Good Friday actually this month, because the ferns
won't be opposite high I actually don't even think they'll
(29:56):
be emerged that be what they call fiddle heads here,
which is like the tiny one foot high things, but
that will be much more preferable. I think we have
a good chance of getting scent and maybe finding Chrissy
or some element of Chrissy's remains, So we're going to
go back and try again.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
David, How do cases like this impact you personally? I mean,
you see something like this where it is it is
literally people's worst nightmare that a stranger will come out
of nowhere snatch you or snatch your child and horrifically,
you know, rape and murder you or your child like
that is the stuff of nightmares. How do you personally
(30:38):
emotionally get through that, especially when you're there with mary
Anne with her mum, and not take some of that
emotion on board.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Well, I guess there's no real secret. I guess I
do take it on board, and I don't really deal
with it, you know, Like I think at a younger
age in this process, I might have thought that I
could get through it without getting affected. But the truth is,
like I can just keep pushing things downstream, and then
when the work's over, maybe six months later, that wave
catches up and I often feel sudden, a sudden panic
(31:11):
attack or can't breathe, or moment where it's just overwhelming
sleep problems. And I've got another case i'm working on
right now, and several more planned. I don't know how
much more I can do. You know, I'm not a
younger man. I think people think I'm like twenty five.
But I've done a ton of these, and I feel
like I've work cases just as hard, if not harder,
(31:33):
than some police investigators have, and certainly been as exposed
or maybe even more to some of the stuff because
of the relationship with the family and how close and
how long the relationship is. But I did choose this.
It's not, oh poor David, you know, like I chose.
I choose to be in the seats talking to you,
and it's you know, the families and the police that
experience these cases have my sympathies, and I'm, you know
(31:57):
that part of the reason. I know what they're feeling,
and I know that this situation, I can help the situation.
So I feel like I'm using the things I've learned
and helping them to help myself, which.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
If that makes sense, David, It's been nearly ten years
since Ringo pled guilty back in twenty sixteen. What do
we know of him now? Is there any chance of
him getting out of jail anytime soon? Any possibility he
might let the family know what happened that day or
where Chrissy is.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
We've been trying to get in touch with him. I
think that eventually he will get out. There will be
an opportunity to be released. He may or may not
make that opportunity on the first time or two. Eventually,
I think he will be released, and I think eventually
we will be able to talk to him, Like I'm
not giving up on that approach to him. Once he
gets out, he'll be in the community again. He'll be
(32:52):
right back, probably in the same trailer park. And I'm
just going to go back up and knock on the door.
If I'm eighty, I'll do it, you know, like I
don't go away, which is part of the problem, but
it's also part of the promise that I make. So
that's how I get into these cases.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Thanks to David for helping us tell this story. True
Crime Conversations is hosted by me Claire Murphy and produced
by Charlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown, thank
you so much for listening. I'll be back next week
with another true crime conversation.
True Crime Conversations acknowledges the traditional owners of land and
waters that this podcast was recorded on. In nineteen ninety three,
fifteen year old Canadian Chrissy Harn was being a typical teenager.
She didn't love school. In fact, she had a history
of skipping classes. She was messy, a bit of a tomboy, and,
(00:30):
according to a friend, a bit of an easy target
for bullies too. She'd been struggling with her parents' divorce.
Her dad lived too far away for regular visits. She
didn't really get along with her new stepdad, but she
was trying. Amongst the arguments, there would also be moments
where they would connect, helping him out in the garage
replacing the spark plugs in his car. A sensitive and
(00:53):
shy girl, Chrissy wasn't a partier. In fact, her parents
had praised her when she'd returned from an event because
she said she felt uncomfortable with her peers drinking and smoking.
Chrissy loved her mind Mary Anne, but like any teen
parent relationship, they also fought, and so when her mum
told her to get to school on the afternoon of
(01:15):
May eighteen, nineteen ninety three, she put on her jacket
and reluctantly started the short walkover. Mary Anne will remember
this moment for the rest of her life like a
scar that never heals, because that argument would be the
last time she would ever speak to her daughter.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And then she lacked to go to school.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
She walked down the other side of the street and
around the corner, and that was the last I've seen
of her. I'm Claire Murphy and this is True Crime Conversations,
a podcast exploring the world's most notorious crimes by speaking
(01:59):
to the people who know the most about them. It's
a parent's worst nightmare, a missing child, a police pease
force who thinks every teenager is a runaway, and a
mother who desperately searches despite the roadblock she faces from
the authorities. The case of missing Ontario teen Chrissy Haron
(02:19):
would not be one sold in a year, not even
a decade on from her disappearance, but a shock confession,
a botched court case, an undercover sting, and more than
twenty years later, someone would finally be held accountable for
her death. Chrissy Harron's body has never been found, but
(02:39):
the person who took her life is paying for his
crime thanks to the dedication of a mother and one.
Independent film and podcast maker David Ridgan worked alongside Chrissy's mother,
Mary Anne for more than fifteen years as they brought
her killer to justice. The host of the Someone Knows
Something podcast sat down with us to tell us how
(03:02):
a mother's undying love can outlast at all. Before we
dive into the interview with David, there are a few
key points you should understand to fully grasp Chrissy's story
and David's investigation. Police kept Anthony Ringle in custody for
thirty seven hours, five hours of that was before he
(03:25):
was even read his rights. He was allowed phone calls
to lawyers after he requested legal representation, spending a total
of around twenty minutes only on calls with them, but
no lawyer attended the questioning. When asked to explain himself
on the record, Ringle would only say no questions, no comment.
(03:45):
Despite this, police continued to question him, often without taking
notes or recording the conversation. A second officer stepped in
to take over the interrogation after it had seemingly wrapped up.
Ringle said he did not want to continue and said
he was advised by the lawyer not to take them
to the place that he had had initially told the
(04:07):
officer after calling nine to one one that Chrissy's body was,
but they took him anyway. The list of questionable police
conduct was adding up as Ringle's confusing and sometimes barely
audible responses continued. He would switch from admitting to the
murder to no comment. When asked why he would confess
(04:27):
to it if he didn't do it, he gave no
real answer. Several undercover police officers would infiltrate the trailer
park where Ringle lived. They connected with him by telling
him how they too were victims doing it tough in life.
Then one night they sat down and watched the documentary
about him. In the footage taken over many hours, Ringle
(04:48):
would get upset with what he said were inconsistencies in
the documentary's telling of his story. He would say they
got it wrong when they claimed he drowned her. He had,
in fact, more suffocated Chrissy by pushing her face down
into the mud. He explained how he'd used her jacket
to restrict her hands as he had nothing to tie
(05:09):
her up with that enabled him. He said to remove
her pants. He described the location where it all took place,
just across the river, and how he had just come
across her in the park that day, a place she
used to frequent. He explained how he left her out
there the first night, before returning to cover her body
with sticks and logs the next day. Ringle also told
(05:32):
the undercover officers how he'd thought about doing it again,
but in almost attempting to justify the crime, Ringle said
that by only doing it once and never again, essentially
he'd been a good person. He even went as far
as to say that he hoped he had the opportunity
to apologize to Chrissy in the afterlife, where he would
ask her was her life better before or after he
(05:56):
did what he did. I know you've been investigating the
case of Christine or Chrissy as she was known harn
For gosh, it must be getting close to two decades now,
but I'd love to take you back to the beginning.
When did you first hear about her story and what
led you to really focus in on this.
Speaker 2 (06:16):
One for Christine Herron. I'm a documentary filmmaker before I
was a podcaster, and I had been looking at cold
cases in general for television since two thousand and four,
and at the time I found out about Chrissie's case,
I was developing some television documentaries for CBC, the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation in late two thousands. I think about cold
(06:38):
cases obviously, and I recall Chrissie's case made the shortlist
pretty much right away for several reasons. I attended a
memorial service for her in Hanover, which is a small
town here in Ontario, southwest Ontario, just to do some
initial research and something about the service for her, her
photo up there on the stand, how people spoke about her,
(07:00):
the whole atmosphere, it was very thick. It made me
want to try to help, and I remember I remember
saying to the associate producer who was there with me
at the time, that Chrissy was someone I wish I
had been able to meet. And I remember actually crying,
and I remember feeling this kind of heat of frustration
about the case. You know, I just kind of knew
(07:21):
that I wanted to help on it, but I wasn't
able to at the time. There are other cases took
over in the early stages, but eventually I did get
to Chrissie's case as the fourth in a series of
films I made for CBC, and then the podcast kind
of came after that, So there's several stages of production
that went into Chrissie's case.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Well, talk to me a bit about what it was
about Chrissy that made you feel like she was someone
that you wanted to meet. What was she like and
what did you learn about who she was as a person.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Christine was fifteen at the time she disappeared. She was rebellious,
she didn't like school, but she enjoyed her walks outside.
She liked the natural world, she liked reading, she liked
being around children. She had that kind of, like I say,
kind of counterintuitive nature that maybe she didn't get along
(08:13):
with everybody, but she was very kind and I could
just tell the way people were talking about her. But
that's what she was like. And you know, when I
met her mother, Mary Anne, I saw some video of
Chrissy at the time and it was quite touching around
the Christmas tree and things like that. It's hard to
explain really what makes me want to take on a case.
There's some other factors that were interesting as well, but
(08:37):
mainly just the way it struck me at that ceremony
for her.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
Well, let's delve into Chrissy's story. It's May eighteen, nineteen
ninety three. You mentioned there that she didn't love going
to school, and she'd woken up that morning and claimed
to be unwell. Whether she actually was or not is
a question many parents ask themselves about their children when
they're trying to get out of going to school. But
her mum was a bit concerned about the truancy officer
(09:00):
Maryann who you mentioned, and insisted her daughter does go
to school that day, so she kind of sends her off.
What was Chrissy's reaction to her mom trying to force
her to go to school that day.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
Well, I think it's like anything, if you try to
make it happen, the opposite happens. If you try to
force that idea out of your head, it's actually it
galvanizes the idea in your head. So I think that
by trying to get Chrissy to go to school, she
was less likely to want to go. But eventually I
think maybe it formulate a plan formulated in Chrissy's head
(09:33):
that Okay, I'll go to school, but not go to school.
You know, I'll go to school the school the long way,
and it turned out that on that morning she was sick.
And it was May eighteenth, nineteen ninety three. As you said,
they had an argument and the obtruancy officer called, and
so it was I guess it was around one or
(09:53):
midday in the afternoon that Chrissy finally said okay, got up,
left and slammed the door. And this was allegedly on
her way to school. Mary Anne saw go down the
street and turn the corner and that was the last
that she ever saw of her. And it turns out
that Christy didn't go to school that day.
Speaker 1 (10:09):
Was her mother, then, the last person to actually see
her alive, apart from the person who would take her life.
Did anybody else spot her in the aftermath of her disappearance.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
There was nobody else that came forward at the time.
Nobody else reported to police or buy police in to
my knowledge, and I've looked through thousands of pages of
investigative information over two different police departments, the local department
and the opp the Ontario Provincial Police which took over
in nineteen ninety nine. Nobody else saw Christy that day
(10:43):
to my knowledge or anybody else's except for the person
who killed her.
Speaker 1 (10:48):
So Marianne does what most parents would do in this
situation where their kid, who is known for skipping classes
at school, does calls all their friends. Doesn't have a
big circle of friends, but she know none of them
have seen her. Police states too early to really do anything,
but she does report it to police later that What
was the police's initial response to mary Anne's request for
(11:11):
them to search for her daughter.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
Well, initially, police, and in many cases this happens, right
or wrong, police suggests that she'll come back, you know,
so she's a runaway, and usually that's a pretty temporary
maneuver by police. Usually it's give it some time. Unfortunately,
everybody knows in the true crime world at the first
seventy two hours and blah blah blah are important, and
(11:32):
they are. And in this case though the police kept
to that story, kept to that narrative. The local police
chief his daughter had a habit of departing, apparently according
to him, so he was saying, citing these kind of
anecdotal stories of she'll be back, my daughter always comes
back kind of thing. But that went on for like
a year, and there were these false sightings of Christy
(11:54):
and Toronto police kept, you know, suggesting that maybe she
was with those people that were being seen in Toronto,
or she was with a bunch of punk rockers or something.
But basically, nothing ever came back of a real true
sighting of Chrissy, and in the meantime, important time was passing.
If you get to know the story, you'll realize that
this was a massive mistake at this time because they
(12:18):
could have probably found her if they did a proper search.
They only undertook a rudimentary search around town and they
never found any trace of her. But if they had
taken it a little bit more seriously, I'm not sure
what would have made them take it more seriously, maybe
more experience. It was a very small force, local town
(12:40):
force they had over police. In fact, the guy, the
man who investigated the case in the beginning, was later
arrested for you know, some kind of horrible crimes he
himself committed, So I'm not sure how great of an
investigator he was. The Ontario Provincial Police when they took
over the case, reinvestigated everything, They reinterviewed everybody, They talked
(13:02):
to other people that they hadn't talked to before, and
the other investigation, but still nothing happened. You know, that
was nineteen ninety nine. This happened in nineteen ninety three,
so nothing the police did really made any difference to
the case.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
You're listening to True Crime Conversations with me Claire Murphy.
I'm speaking with David Ridgan, host of the podcast Someone
Knows Something about the case of Chrissy Haron. Next, David
and I dive into why Marianne searched for her daughter
was derailed and how the community in Hanover, Ontario not
only failed to help, but actually told her to give up.
(13:45):
Do you think the police's attitude to Chrissy's disappearance contributed
to how the community responded to Marianne and her other
family members in that time, because Marianne spoke to you
and said that she would put up posters asking for
information about the whereabouts of her missing daughter that would
get torn down, and that people kept telling her to
kind of let it go, and that you know, Chrissy
(14:07):
was just off, you know, being a rebellious teenager. Do
you think the police's attitude didn't help that the community
didn't seem to rally around them.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, I'm not sure that it did. Help. I think
the communities tend to have kind of a singular mind sometimes,
and if one person thinks that something, then many of
them will think the same thing. You know. They definitely
Chrissy and Marianne were not wealthy people. They were not
from a wealthy background or family, working class family very
(14:37):
much so. And I'm not sure how much that impacted
the case, but I can only imagine it. Did you know,
this person's not as important as everybody else, which is
another part of the reason I thought the case was important. Yeah,
I mean, if police take it seriously, other people will
take it seriously too.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
We did mention that eventually the opp does take over
the case from the local police, but that is six
years down the track. Do we know what actually led
to that being escalated beyond the local police.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
I think that I think the local police in Hannover asked,
but I also think that there was some pressure from
Marianna and her family about this case, and I think
that that eventually took over. See, the OPP in Ontario
at that time was expanding and they were trying to
basically user small town forces and take over them and
(15:30):
be paid by the municipality instead of the small town force.
So they would argue, for example, we're a force of
a thousand members investigators, we have a huge forensic team,
and we got lots of money. Why would you want
to have four men or four people, you know, policing
your city or town of six thousand when you could
have you know, uber force taking over. But you know
(15:52):
a lot of times towns did pay to have OPP
come in and then we're unhappy because the sort of
roster or menu of what they were going to be
providing investigatively was not what they expected. However, in this case,
the OPP took over the case and I think eventually
took over policing in the town, just like many other
small towns on Ontario at the time. So I guess
(16:14):
it was part of an expansionist effort. So it kind
of worked into the parents requesting that the OPP take
it over. So you know, it might have been the
thin edge of the wedge that allowed the OPP to
kind of start to make their move on that town
as well. I maybe talking out of my ass on
that one. I'm not exactly sure about that history, but
that's pretty much what I think happened.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
What Chrissy's family told anything about these investigations, like how
much information were they given after the escalation to the opp.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Very little, and that's not abnormal. But when you hide
things from parents, you do it to help protect the
case to some extent. I understand the impulse to do that.
You don't want to distribute information to somebody who you
think might then tell someone else that there's a suspect
or that you're talking to this guy or you know,
(17:04):
and then that information gets sed it around the community
and soon enough, everybody's pointing at the same guy just
because the police said they're interviewing him to somebody. Right,
So you're kind of seeding the information, the poisoning the
case by giving out too much information. But you would
think that at some point police would learn to trust
family members and realize that they kind of need the
(17:27):
information to kind of help them get through their day
to day, you know, they need something to hold on to.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
You can see how that might be an issue because
the place where they live is not big, right, It's
not a huge community of people. It's less than ten thousand,
and that's pretty small town mentality when you think.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
About it, right, Yeah, it's pretty small. It was a
pretty big industrial base when it started, it was like
a furniture making place in Ontario. I think a lot
of German settlers moved in at one point and lots
of furniture production. But when I started working there and
when Chrissy disappeared, it was kind of a shadow of that.
Most lot of abandoned buildings and old factories around, and
(18:09):
it was a small town down on its luck to
some extent. Yeah, when I got in there.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
We mentioned out factories. What's a really interesting piece of
evidence was that a young man in that community claimed,
in the aftermath of Chrissy's disappearance that he received a
phone call from someone claiming to be her and that
she was in fact at one of these old abandoned factories.
Did anything come of that?
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Nothing came of that, and in any of the documentation
I've read extensively on that, it feels like somebody was
playing a joke on this guy. I'm sure he got
the call, but it felt like somebody was making a
prank call on him, and I think that's what police
figured out at the end as well. I mean, obviously
Chrissy didn't show up. It was two or two months later.
(18:51):
I think she would have had no resources. It's a
small town, like, yeah, you can hide in a building
for a couple of days, but it's not credible. And
there was some other issues with the person who got
the call, which I'm not going to mention now, but
it seems like that it wasn't the first time that
crank calls were made. What's to say, Well, let's fuss forward.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Eleven years has passed since Chrissie's disappeared. It's August two
thousand and four. There's finally a breakthrough in the case,
but it does not come from any police investigation. Can
you talk us through a bit of the surprise confession?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Part of the reason I was intrigued by Chrissy's case.
The other part is because there appeared to be a suspect.
But this is a suspect that the police had not found.
Up until August of two thousand and four. Police had
no idea what happened to Christy, as I just talked about.
And remember, Christy disappeared, as he said, eleven years ago,
eleven years before in May of nineteen ninety three. So
(19:49):
in August two thousand and four, at a party with
his family members, a man aged thirty five at the time.
Near the end of the evening, after some drinks and
some kind of upset he had with his family, started
telling people that he had killed Christine Herron. He picked
up phone, he dialed nine one one and then he
hung up. He changed his mind, but the police responded anyway,
(20:12):
I don't know what happens in Australia, but here, even
on a hang up to a nine one one call,
they will respond to find out what the hang up
was all about. So the police officer arrives, the man
notices and starts walking down the stairs towards him, holding
his hands up as if he wants to be handcuffed,
and he confesses again I killed Chrissy, says I killed
(20:34):
Chrissy to the responding officer, and he says, I can
show police where I left her. And at the same time,
eleven years earlier, when Chrissy disappeared, the guy would have
been twenty four years old at that time, and his
name was Anthony Edward Wringle. And this is a guy
police said no and was not on the radar. Local guy,
local guy. And he was born on December tenth, nineteen
(20:54):
sixty eight, one of six children five for nine or thereabouts,
blunt features, thin browning hair, and he had worked at
the local Canadian Tire which is like a hardware store
that yes does sell tires here, but he was unemployed
at the time in May nineteen ninety three when Chrissy
left the house to allegedly go to school that May,
and when I met him, he was living between locations
(21:18):
like at a family member's house, couch surfing, and at
a local trailer park. So Anthony Ringo goes through the
stages that what would have been a murder trial in
two thousand and six. They took him to the police
station and interrogated him, but the judge throws the case
out basically because of police mistakes. So this is two
(21:39):
thousand and six, and I heard about the case in
two thousand and nine, so the case has stayed in
two thousand and six for a year. So basically it
sits in suspended animation until new evidence is brought forward.
But no new evidence was brought forward, so Ringo is
freed and nothing new happens, and it just sits there
from two thousand and six onwards, And at the time
(22:00):
Anthony still lived in the area. Nobody did anything. There
was very little reporting on it, like there was like
article in the paper about this, No reporter talks to him,
no police action can be seen happening still two thousand
and six, and then add three years more and I
come on the scene two thousand and nine, church service,
et cetera, and I begin working with Chrissy's mom, Mary Anne.
(22:23):
Police barely assist me, but regardless, we're able to uncover
many of the court files and investigative documents from the case.
By freedom of information. Mary Anne for the first time
learns what's actually happening or what happened, why did it fail,
why did the case get thrown out? Some of what
Anthony said, and we go from there. That's the television
(22:44):
doc part. So that's what I'm shooting with my camera
for television. So the podcast covers that and takes over
with the new process. So throughout the process we have
mary Anne confronting the murderer, Like we try to go
to visit him, he won't talk to us. It doesn't
work out the scenario the way we had imagined it.
(23:05):
So I go try to speak to this guy myself,
Anthony Wringle, I do meet him. I knock, cold knock,
on his trailer door at a trailer park, the same
trailer park. We speak for a long time and I
ask him the direct and pointed question did you kill Christine?
And you'll hear the answers and podcasts. So all that
information about the case, the court drama, talking to Ringo,
(23:25):
all that stuff goes into a twenty minute doc made
for CBC goes to air in the spring of twenty twelve.
And then shortly after the documentary went to air the
television documentary, police start an undercover operation on Anthony Wringle
in the same trailer park where I met him. So
then the podcast takes over and tells that story and
(23:46):
picks up with the TV show left off because nobody
knows about this on an undercover operation. This is all
brand new news that this podcast is breaking.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Basically, So do police actually tell you that your documentary
is the catalyst for this undercover operation? Do they say
why they actually start this when they've left this case?
Kind of just sit this as.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
I long, I can only assume that it had something
to do with it, because it basically the documentary exposes
a ton of police errors and mistakes, and it's very
embarrassing for the opp who's been telling people that they're
such an amazing investigative force, and to some extent, they are.
So it picks up tells the story of the undercover operation,
(24:27):
and it shows directly that the work Mary and I
did is literally used by police so they can arrest
Anthony again. So the film is literally used so they
can get them again in February twenty thirteen. So except
this time, the trial in twenty sixteen goes forward and
he's convicted and now is serving a life sentence here
(24:48):
in Ontario in a federal penitentiary, a second degree murder.
They got him on and yeah, I feel good about it.
That's the next question. How do you feel about that?
And it's pretty amazing that the work did its job,
So that's all I can say about it. You know,
I think people have to listen for themselves. But it's
a real up and down roller coaster and quite satisfying.
It's over fifteen years of work.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So what's really interesting too, is you know that work.
You have worked alongside Marianne for that entire time, and
without you, she would not know the majority of the
things that happened during the first court case or even
(25:32):
during the second because she was considered a potential witness,
so wasn't allowed to sit in court, so she never
got to see any of those undercover videos that were
recorded by police. You actually played them to her? What
was that like? Because Ringle goes into quite a bit
of detail about what he actually did, and that would
have been heartbreaking to show to her.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
It is heartbreaking and it's awful, and Marianne wanted to
see it, and I still didn't show her. She knows this.
I didn't show her everything because some of it is
just too it's really hard. It's one thing that you
know that somebody killed someone, there's the perpetrator, but when
you hear them talking about it in such great detail
(26:14):
in the confession that they gave to the undercover officer
and they don't know they're being filmed, it's a real
vulnerability that they kind of expose everything about what they're
thinking was and it's quite dark in a way that's
blacker than black, you know, in terms of that kind
of darkness. So I didn't want to expose Marianne to
that level. But I do think, and she believes too,
(26:38):
that confronting the stuff actually helps. So we made the
decision to watch it together some of the confession just
to kind of get the story of what happened that day,
like why did you take her? Et cetera. And I
mean the answer why is like I hate mondays, you know,
like why did you do it? I mean, that's not
really that interesting actually to me, and I don't think
(26:59):
to Marianne, but it's more sort of tell me what happened,
you know, what happened that day. So I think that's
what she had in head. And we watched some of
the undercover stuff together. I try to talk about the
other things that I didn't show her sort of in
a general way, and I think it did help her.
I mean she's told me it has, That's all I
can go on. And she's told others that it has.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
So she does say to you though that and she
said this to other Metia outlets too, that not even
Wringle ending up with a life sentence is closure for her.
That you can never truly get closure in a case
like this, but you have been trying to help her
kind of get as close as possible to that. Right.
Has Ringle ever agreed to sit down and speak with
(27:43):
Marianne about what happened.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
That day, not yet. I mean, for I think closures
bullshit myself, and I think Marianne kind of agrees. But
I think it's kind of a media presentation, what the
idea of closure, because it kind of adds an ending
to a story. I don't think closure is actually possible.
I think it's more acceptance that you're looking for and
trying to be able to move away from having to
(28:06):
try to solve the case every day and every second
in your head. It's okay to walk away from that,
and it's okay to have a good time. It's okay
to live my life again, you know. And I don't
think that means closure. I just think it means that
you have to accept this thing in you that's horrible.
You know that you're this lost. You have to accept
that and just live with it like a bubble inside
you that's never going to go away, and then continue.
(28:29):
And that's that's what she's looking for. But also she
wants to know where Chrissy is. And that's one of
the things that I've found in many cold cases or
with the families of missing people, is that they don't
care about the perpetrator. They don't give a fuck about
that person. They don't give a fuck about what that
person wanted to do or what they did. They just
(28:50):
want to know where their loved one is. They want
to know where their daughter is. Bring her to me.
I don't care about you, you know, bring her to me,
Tell me where she is. And I think if some
perps knew exactly how simple it might be to help
themselves and help the families, they could just tell that
(29:10):
a little part of the equation, you know. So I've
been trying to help Marianne find Chrissy because we know
where generally she was led to by Wringle that day,
very specifically actually, and we did try with kadaver dogs.
Kim Cooper, whom I'm known to be, you know, to
work with and on other cases, came with me, and
(29:34):
we went too late in the season because the ferns
were almost above my head and the dogs. It helps
to have an open area dogs. It can't be closed
in like big umbrellas over the ground. It has to
be open so the smell moves around. So we're going
back on Good Friday actually this month, because the ferns
won't be opposite high I actually don't even think they'll
(29:56):
be emerged that be what they call fiddle heads here,
which is like the tiny one foot high things, but
that will be much more preferable. I think we have
a good chance of getting scent and maybe finding Chrissy
or some element of Chrissy's remains, So we're going to
go back and try again.
Speaker 1 (30:14):
David, How do cases like this impact you personally? I mean,
you see something like this where it is it is
literally people's worst nightmare that a stranger will come out
of nowhere snatch you or snatch your child and horrifically,
you know, rape and murder you or your child like
that is the stuff of nightmares. How do you personally
(30:38):
emotionally get through that, especially when you're there with mary
Anne with her mum, and not take some of that
emotion on board.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
Well, I guess there's no real secret. I guess I
do take it on board, and I don't really deal
with it, you know, Like I think at a younger
age in this process, I might have thought that I
could get through it without getting affected. But the truth is,
like I can just keep pushing things downstream, and then
when the work's over, maybe six months later, that wave
catches up and I often feel sudden, a sudden panic
(31:11):
attack or can't breathe, or moment where it's just overwhelming
sleep problems. And I've got another case i'm working on
right now, and several more planned. I don't know how
much more I can do. You know, I'm not a
younger man. I think people think I'm like twenty five.
But I've done a ton of these, and I feel
like I've work cases just as hard, if not harder,
(31:33):
than some police investigators have, and certainly been as exposed
or maybe even more to some of the stuff because
of the relationship with the family and how close and
how long the relationship is. But I did choose this.
It's not, oh poor David, you know, like I chose.
I choose to be in the seats talking to you,
and it's you know, the families and the police that
experience these cases have my sympathies, and I'm, you know
(31:57):
that part of the reason. I know what they're feeling,
and I know that this situation, I can help the situation.
So I feel like I'm using the things I've learned
and helping them to help myself, which.
Speaker 1 (32:09):
If that makes sense, David, It's been nearly ten years
since Ringo pled guilty back in twenty sixteen. What do
we know of him now? Is there any chance of
him getting out of jail anytime soon? Any possibility he
might let the family know what happened that day or
where Chrissy is.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
We've been trying to get in touch with him. I
think that eventually he will get out. There will be
an opportunity to be released. He may or may not
make that opportunity on the first time or two. Eventually,
I think he will be released, and I think eventually
we will be able to talk to him, Like I'm
not giving up on that approach to him. Once he
gets out, he'll be in the community again. He'll be
(32:52):
right back, probably in the same trailer park. And I'm
just going to go back up and knock on the door.
If I'm eighty, I'll do it, you know, like I
don't go away, which is part of the problem, but
it's also part of the promise that I make. So
that's how I get into these cases.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
Thanks to David for helping us tell this story. True
Crime Conversations is hosted by me Claire Murphy and produced
by Charlie Blackman, with audio design by Jacob Brown, thank
you so much for listening. I'll be back next week
with another true crime conversation.
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