Bernd Goericke and Andrea Scherpf Pt. Two

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:29):
Welcome back to the Path Went Chile for part two
of our series about the murders of Burned Gerica and
Andrea Shirt. Robin, do you want to catch everyone up
on what we talked about in our previous episode?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Well, this crime took place in British Columbia, Canada in
nineteen eighty three. Burnt Gerica and Andrea Shirt were a
couple from West Germany who were doing a hitchhiking and
backpacking trip through Canada, but they missed the return flight
home and they would be discovered murdered in a remote
section of British Columbia. They've both been shot to death
and most of their personal items have been stolen, and

(01:03):
it would later turn out that Andrea's travelers checks had
been used at various gas stations located hundreds of kilometers
south from where the crime took place, so it seemed
obvious that their killer was responsible and using her travelers checks.
The case remained unsolved for over five years, but then
they looked at a suspect named Andy Rose, who had
been living in that region of British Columbia in nineteen

(01:24):
eighty three. Pretty much the only evidence against him was
the testimony of a woman named Madonna Kelly, who had
been friends with Andy and BC back then, and claimed
that he had shown up at her trailer one night,
howling at the moon, covered in blood, claiming that he
had killed a couple. But of course, there was no
other corroborating evidence to support her story, and even though

(01:46):
the cops recorded a phone call between Madonna and Andy,
he never revealed anything incriminating or confessed to the crime.
But in spite of this, he still got arrested, even
though he insisted that back then he was so poverty
stricken that he didn't even own a car, so how
can he have driven one hundred kilometers south in order
to be able to use those travelers checks? But in

(02:07):
spite of this, he was found guilty at trial, he
got his conviction overturned because the judge had given improper
instructions to the jury, but he was found guilty a
second time in nineteen ninety five. By this point, they
finally started doing forensic testing. They had found a pair
of bloody genes near the murder scene inside a waste
basket and tested the blood, and even though it matched

(02:29):
the two victims, none of the blood or the physical
evidence on the genes belonged to Andy. They're planning to
take on a trial again, but of course this was
a big setback for the authorities, so they tried to
entrap Andy and is what is known in Canada as
the Mister Big sting operation, which is actually illegal in
the United States because it is technically entrapment where a
bunch of undercover cops will pose as criminals and offer

(02:52):
things to their suspect in hopes of recording them making
a full confession of the crime. And that's exactly what
they did with Andy. They were saying, saying that we
will make your problem go away. We will get rid
of the evidence to ensure you don't have to go
on trial a third time, just as long as you
tell us everything about yourself and confess to the murder.
And Andy pretty much just gave our sarcastic yeah, sure

(03:13):
I did it, but then later recanted it and said
that I was only telling them what they wanted to hear.
And at the time we left off, Andy third trow
was about to begin and even though his defense he
wanted to get the Mister Big confession suppressed as evidence,
the judge denied it, so as we're going to start
off here. He's about to go on trial with the
third time and his future is still uncertain.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
So Andy's defense team filed emotion to have his Mister
Big confession suppressed. His evidence at his third trial were unsuccessful.
As a result, their plan was to bring in a
forensic psychologist with expertise in the subjects of police interrogations
and false confessions, who would testify that Andy had been
manipulated and coerced. They also planned to bring in Willedine

(03:58):
Hill and her daughter to testify about vance Hill's alleged
confession to the murders. The trial finally began in January
of two thousand and one, but by this point even
more evidence had emerged to support Andy's innocence. Advance forensic
testing on the blood stained genes revealed traces of DNA
belonging to three people. Of course, two of these people

(04:20):
were burned in Andrea, as the blood spatter wound up
matching them, but traces of genetic material, including a scalp hair,
were found in the pants cuff. The DNA on the
material belonged to a male, but Andy was excluded as
being the source. Before the trial could be completed, Crown
Prosecutor Gil McKinnon decided to consult with the British Columbia

(04:42):
Attorney General, and on January twenty third, he announced that
the murder charges against Andy were being stayed. McKinnon stated
that given the amount of evidence which seemed to point
away from Andy, he would have felt uncomfortable if the
jury reached another guilty verdict. The Crown had a year's
reactivate the murder charges against Andy, but they chose not to,

(05:04):
meaning that he was finally exonerated. In two thousand and nine.
The story would be featured on an episode of the
Canadian investigative journalism program The Fifth Estate. By that point,
Andy was working in a warehouse in Edmonton and had
managed to start a new relationship with his son, who
was less than two weeks old when Andy was arrested
for the murders. Andy said that he now spent most

(05:26):
of his time alone and as far as I can tell,
he's never received any compensation for his wrongful incarceration. Unfortunately,
the investigation has not had much luck identifying the real perpetrator.
As it turned out the DNA evidence on the blood
stained jeans did not match vance Hill either. In addition,
even though these genes were assized thirty four, Hill was

(05:50):
known for wearing pants that were as size forty or
forty two. Since none of the missing identification or property
that belonged to the two victims has ever been recovered,
the RCMP has urged anyone who might have found them
or has information to come forward. But after four decades,
the murders of Burned Gerica and Andreas Sharp continued to

(06:11):
remain unsolved.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
So I guess you could say the path went chili.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
Okay, So to back up and look at why Andy
was actually accused in the first place, It's because this
woman says that at some point he showed up bloody
at her house and said he had killed the two
of them.

Speaker 2 (06:27):
Correct, Yes, that's pretty much it. That is the only
evidence against him, and they never found anything to corroborate
this story, and Andy always denied it.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
Yeah, it's really interesting because they convicted him on that, right.
This is how they got him in prison in the
first place. And so when you're looking here, Andy, there's
no evidence pointing to him. But then you start to
have evidence like you just described where it points away
from him, And I feel so much empathy and sadness
for Andy because he said, you know, now I spend

(06:59):
all this time alone, I missed out on time with
my family, and there's likely no compensation here. A wrongful
you know, a false confession is something that it's very
difficult to understand. If you didn't do something, why would
you say you did. Let's say Andy showed up intoxicated
at this lady's house and said that he had gotten

(07:20):
into a fuss with somebody and had killed someone. I
don't even know at that point if I'd believe that confession,
but we don't know that that even happened. There was
no way of them validating what this woman had said
or what her motivation could have been for coming forward.
So I feel really just upset. You guys know how
I am about wrongful convictions, that that's the only piece

(07:41):
of evidence they had in the first place. It's incredible
that you start to see these forensic facts come out,
because so many people don't have that luxury when they're
in prison for something they didn't do, but Andy did.
Andy had things that started to come out. The DNA
didn't match that, there were things that pointed away from him.
He had people that were able to testify and put

(08:03):
him somewhere else, and so Andy actually ended up being
quite blessed in some ways, but he still has to
deal with the fact that part of his life, part
of his character, was killed. It was taken away from him,
and so how do we go back and ever make
that right, even when there is financial compensation, But for Andy,

(08:24):
he didn't even get that.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
Yeah, and this is not the only wrongful conviction case
we've done where a wrongfully convicted person has been separated
from their child and has tried to reunite with them
once they're finally released. And we talked on our last
episode that back in the early eighties, Andy was kind
of a drifter. He drank too much, he was always
getting into fights in trouble. But by nineteen eighty nine,
he had turned his life around. He had a good job,

(08:47):
he had good relationship, and he had a two week
old son, so he was ready to start over and
live a good life. And then he just suddenly gets
arrested for this murder that took place six years ago
that he had nothing to do with it. And this
boy who was only two weeks old when he was arrested,
is now like ten eleven years old when he finally
gets out of prison, and now he has to rekindle

(09:07):
a new relationship with them. So that's got to be
extra difficult when you know that you missed so much
time with your child because of this. So we've covered
a number of wrongful conviction cases on the Path Went Chile,
and this is our first Canadian one. And while wrongful
convictions are nowhere nearest prominent in Canada as they are
in the United States, the country still has serious issues

(09:28):
with them, and this story is definitely an example of
the Canadian justice system going horribly wrong. Quite frankly, the
Crown's case against Andy Rose for the murders of Burnt
Gerica and Andreas Shirp might be one of the weakest
cases I've ever seen which resulted in a guilty verdict.
And the fact that two separate juries at two separate
trials felt that the evidence against Andy was strong enough

(09:50):
to convict him beyond reasonable doubt he is pretty terrifying.
On both occasions. All the prosecution really had was Madonna
Kelly's testimony that Andy shsh She showed up at her
door one night covered in blood and confessed to the murders,
and that's literally it. There was no real evidence to
corroborate Madonna's story, but there were a number of holes
in it, as well as several logistical issues which made

(10:13):
it seem impossible that Andy could have committed this crime.
There's also the fact that Madonna never came forward and
told the police about this so called murder confession, as
they did not hear about it until nearly six years
after the fact. You might be wondering how two juries
were able to overlook the considerable logistical holes of Madonna's account,
but she was apparently a very convincing witness who had

(10:35):
a history of making false stories sound believable. While describing
Madonna's testimony on the aforementioned Fifth Estate episode, Andy's sister
and Collette stated, quote, she looked like the virgin Mary
on the stand, but she's no Virgin Mary. End quote.
The Fifth Estate was hoping to have Madonna pear on
their episode, but she refused to do an interview unless

(10:57):
they paid her thirty thousand dollars to say The show
declined her offers, So we may never know her reasoning
for doing what she did, but personally, I have to
wonder if the whole thing may have been a lie
which wound up escalating out of control. Remember, Madonna did
not voluntarily come forward and shared this story with the
police on her own accord. The only reason to even

(11:18):
found out about it was because she happened to share
the story with Tom Martin, a drug informant, who decided
to pass it along to the authorities. Andy has acknowledged
that there could have been one incident where he showed
up to Madonna's trailer in the middle of the night
while he was drunk and had blood on his clothes
because he got into a bar fight. For reasons unknown,
Madonna may have chosen to exaggerate this story and told

(11:41):
Martin that Andy showed up in this condition and confessed
about a double murder. However, when Martin took this information
to the RCNP and they started questioning Madonna and pressuring
her into testifying against Andy, she may have felt there
was no turning back, so she had no choice but
to stick to her original story. Hell, maybe she legitimate
believe that Andy committed these murders and convinced herself that

(12:03):
she was only lying to help put a guilty man
in prison. I'm sure madonn and Ever envisioned that the
whole ordeal would drag on for over a decade and
she would be forced to testify at multiple trials.

Speaker 3 (12:15):
And the credibility of everyone involved in this is questionable.
You had Tom Martin, who's a drug informant, and when
we look at people who are paid informants, who are
informants who are getting something in return from law enforcement,
when we look at jail house snitches, when you have
all of these these informants who are placed in positions

(12:35):
to benefit and lessen the consequences of their actions, there's
it's a massive contributor to wrongful convictions. They're being incentivized
to get information which may or may not be there,
and they often will make up information even if it's
not part of the case they're assigned to, to bring back
to police to gain favor. And so when you have

(12:58):
someone like Tom Martin and then you have Madonna who's
paired with him, I guarantee you whatever stories started, it's
like a story of telephone in the first place, because
Andy told Madonna. Supposedly Madonna then told Tom. Tom then
told the people he worked for. Those people then told
the prosecutors so it's this whole little trail of information

(13:22):
from unreliable sources who are also potentially benefiting themselves by
sharing it. I think it could be completely made up.
I think there's potential Madonna could have had an issue
with Andy and said something, maybe in jest, and then
it got blown out of proportion, and then, like you said,
who knows, maybe Madonna actually created this story in her head,

(13:44):
or at some point the story became very real to
her because she had told it so many times. But
there's also a potential that by the time it gets
to police and prosecutors that there's some misconduct going on
as well, where they're basically told what that's story will
now be, and that's created to be their truth from

(14:04):
a third party telling them what they're truth is going
to be.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
I'm really curious what you both make of the whole
Fifth Estate thing, because this is Canada and our programs
aren't going to pay anyone thirty thousand dollars to appear,
especially if you're the witness for the prosecution in this trial.
It just it doesn't seem it's not like this is
somebody who is as high profile as like a Karla

(14:27):
Hamoka or something like that where I don't know if
programs would even pay her. It just doesn't seem like
a very Canadian thing to do. So was her objective
when she set this thirty thousand dollars minimum because she
just knew that they wouldn't pay, and she was like,
I don't want to have to go up against these
investigative journalists because whenever she's in court, she's being coached

(14:50):
by the prosecution and she's getting everything in line because
they're helping her to do so, and they're helping her
to remember what she said previously. But she wouldn't have
that an intro.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Yeah, I've wondered about that because I can believe that
she never intended to have Andy send to prison, that
it was just kind of her lying to a friend
of hers and it spiled out of control because she
never expected Tom Martin to go to the police. But
then you hear about like ten years after the fact,
that she's trying to profit from it. It almost sounds
like by demanding money that I'm pretty sure the Fifth

(15:22):
of State is never going to pay because this case
is not high profile enough that they're going to pay
off a prosecution witness. So I do wonder did she
legitimately think she was going to become wealthy over this
case or was she just using as an excuse to
avoid saying no to the interview because she was probably
going to be uncomfortable and thought, well, if I demand
to make the money and they say no, then what

(15:43):
are you going to do? They can't say that I
was the one who rejected the interview.

Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah. Absolutely, And I think here when when you look
at her and you see where this started from, I'm
with you, Jules. I think it started as something not
a grand idea and Rob and like you said, I
don't know that she really intended for Andy to go
to prison or even truly believe this story to start,
but it gets ballooned out, it gets magnified, and it

(16:10):
becomes these sole piece of evidence in this court story.
And so when you hear this fact over and over again,
and you're Madonna and you're Tom and you literally are
the crux of this case, there's so much pressure, there's
so much validation put on you, and you're almost encouraged
and amped up that you're this hero that you've provided

(16:32):
this information they needed. These are two people who are
going to get justice because of your bravery and your story,
and let's make sure your story is right again. And
like I said, it's like a fictional retelling. I'm just
gonna tell you what I need you to say on
the stand. I'm going to tell you what I need
you to repeat while we're doing this interview. I'm going
to tell you what I need you to hit on.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Right.

Speaker 3 (16:55):
It's like someone coaching you in a script. But this
is someone's life on the other end of it. This
is someone Andy's sitting on the other side going what
are they talking about? This isn't true. But again, it's
confirmed so many times throughout this lineup of people that
at the end of the day, Madonna's sitting there going, Okay,
I'm just going to tell this story. But she's just

(17:16):
as selfish as anybody else. She says, Hey, I can
actually capitalize on this. I could maybe make some money
on this. And like you said, this is going to
be a very vulnerable spot. Had they said yes to
her thirty thousand dollars offer, which is crazy, had they
said yes, would she have done well? Would she have
told the same story? Possibly yes, because it had been

(17:38):
told to her so many times, and she had recanted
it so many times. But like you said, if she
didn't bring her attorney with her, if she didn't bring
a representative with her who's coaching and helping her, would
you start to see holes in that story. It would
have been fascinating to hear her version on some public
television show and see if it actually lined up the
same way it did in court.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
It's it's very unfortunate for Andy the DNA profiling was
still in its infancy back in nineteen eighty nine, because
if they had been able to perform testing on the
bloody jeans right at the outset, he may never have
been taken to trial in the first place. Even if
you disregard that Madonna's story contained so many holes that
there's just no way both juries should have convicted Andy.

(18:23):
The most obvious issue is that Burned and Andrea were
likely murdered while being picked up hitchhiking, and their bodies
were found over thirty kilometers outside of chetwind But even
though Andy was residing in Chetwynd back in nineteen eighty three,
he didn't own a vehicle at the time, and it
sounds like he was living a pretty nomadic lifestyle just
bouncing around from place to place and taking whatever work

(18:45):
he could find, but any money he earned would go
right back towards his drinking. Even if Andy managed to
borrow someone else's vehicle, There's still a major discrepancy with
the fact that Madonna described him as wearing bloodstained jeans
when he showed up outside her trailer, Yet bloody jeenes
were found in a trash bin over thirty kilometers away.
It makes zero sense for a guy who committed a

(19:07):
double murder to wear the incriminating evidence around in public
and then decide to travel all the way back to
the murder scene to get rid of it, especially if
they don't even own a vehicle. And while we're on
the subject of Andy driving great distances, I really don't
see how anyone could have legitimately believed that he committed
this crime, as Andrea's travelers checks were used at numerous

(19:31):
gas station locations hundreds of kilometers away in the days
following the murder. Putting aside Andy having no mode of transportation,
employment records showed that he was working in Chetwyn on
the days those travelers checks were used, So how could
investigators possibly explain that away? It sounds like the Crown
tried to account for this at Andy's trials by acknowledging

(19:52):
that someone else did use those checks, though I'm not
entirely sure what their rationale was. Were we supposed to
believe that Andy committed the murders and then inexplicably gave
the Travelers checks to someone else, or by pure coincidence
did another individual just happen to stumble upon Andrea's body
and steal the checks from her. There's also the fact

(20:14):
that both Burned and Andrea had a number of possessions
on them which were never recovered, such as camping equipment
and a guitar for someone who was perpetually broke. It's
surprising that Andy didn't steal these items, and there's no
record of him ever having attempted to sell them.

Speaker 3 (20:31):
Right, all the things that Andrea and Burned needed they
didn't have on them anymore when their bodies were discovered.
Someone took their things. In fact, I think what happened
is they were hitchhiking, They get into the car with
someone who's very used to trying to manipulate and lure
somebody in. They're charming there, I would say, clean cut

(20:51):
well put together, and they easily convinced these two young
people to jump in the car with them. And when
they start fussing right in the truck, because there's a
truck scene with them with the checks. When they start
fussing with him, or maybe he makes a move on Andrea,
all of a sudden there's a confrontation, and I believe
it led to their murder. And those checks I believe

(21:13):
were taken by the killer and then attempted to be
used elsewhere. Remember, the person using the checks can calmly
explain away, Oh you know, I'm getting this for a friend.
This is why the name on there is Andrea. If
there's no anxiety, there's no worry. That is not Andy.
Andy's not the person being described there. This is not

(21:34):
Andy in the truck. And he doesn't have transportation. Like
you said, he would have killed these people, gotten in
a car that he had to borrow from someone without
getting blood all over it. Get to Madonna, tell her
this crazy story. Then get back in that borrowed car,
drive all the way back and discard of those genes.

(21:54):
Ride back with no pants on. Use these checks in
this truck right. All the things that just don't make
any sense. It's impossible in my head to figure out
where and how The crown says, oh, yeah, let's move forward,
let's prosecute this man. You have Madonna who doesn't have
all of her stability to her. You have an informant Tom,

(22:16):
and that is it. Everything else tells you you need
to look somewhere else. This doesn't make sense. Step back
and look at the bigger picture. This is not fitting.
And instead it's like every other wrongful conviction where they say,
guess what, we made our decision. It's Andy, and now
we're just going to ride that wave and finish it
without paying attention to all the facts that do not

(22:38):
fit that narrative.

Speaker 2 (22:40):
Yeah, we see that as a recurring pattern in wrongful
conviction cases, where they'll charge a suspect but not do
any research beforehand. And of course this is one where
you should have checked Andy's whereabouts, like you should have
checked his time sheets to make sure he was not
working on those particular days that the travelers checks were used.
But I'm guessing they didn't do that until after they
read to them and then had the mentality, well, we

(23:01):
can't admit we were wrong. There's no turning back here,
so they still decided to move forward at trial even
though the whole case had fallen apart. So before we
start talking about alternate suspects, I suppose we should address
the notorious mister bing Sting operation, which could have conceivably
led to Andy being convicted for the third time. I've
already mentioned that the Mister Big technique is one of

(23:23):
the most controversial elements of the Canadian justice system, so
much so that its use is actually prohibited in criminal
investigations in a number of other countries, including the United
States and Great Britain. The whole thing was originally developed
by the RCMP and has been used by them in
hundreds of cases, and I will acknowledge that it has
led to the successful conviction of a number of guilty suspects.

(23:47):
But since the Mister Big technique is often considered to
be a last resort which is only used to close
unsolved cases where the evidence isn't particularly strong, even the
most successful examples may wind up being surrounded by contra
For instance, if you've seen the Netflix true crime series
The Confession Tapes, you're probably familiar with the convictions of
Sebastian Burns and a Tiefrafe, two young men who received

(24:10):
life sentences for the murders of Rafe's parents and sister
in Belle w Washington in nineteen ninety four. Even though
Burns and Refee were Canadian citizens who lived in Vancouver,
they wound up being charged with the murders after the
RCMP launched a Mister Big sting operation in which undercover
officers secretly recorded both suspects confessing the involvement in the crime.

(24:32):
Of course, they've always maintained that their so called confessions
were false, and even though the Netflix series tried to
present a case for Burns and Refee being wrongly convicted,
I personally believe they are guilty of this crime. But
even so I can understand why there has always been
debate about the legalities of their convictions, because the crime
technically took place on American soil, and the arrests were

(24:55):
made possible by a Canadian sting operation which was based
around a technique that a mayor or law enforcement are
forbidden to use. One case which was a major turning
point in this whole controversy was the murder conviction of
Nelson Hart, a Newfoundland resident who was charged with drowning
his twin three year old daughters, Karen and Christa. In
two thousand and two, once again, Heart's arrest was made

(25:17):
possible following a videotape confession he made to an undercover
RCMP officer during a Mister bing sting operation. When Heart's
attorneys appealed his conviction and argued that his confession should
not have been admissible, the Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court
of Appeal agreed and ruled that Heart was entitled to
a new trial. The case wound up making it all

(25:38):
the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, and in
July twenty fourteen, they released a ruling in which they
expressed air concern that all confessions obtained through the Mister
Big technique were quote unquote, presumptively inadmissible. The ruling stated,
quote the Crown must establish, on a balance of probabilities
that the probate of value outweighs its prejudicial effect. The

(26:00):
rebatea value does not outweigh its prejudicial effect, then the
statement will be excluded. End quote. As a result, the
murder charges against Nelson Hart were withdrawn and he was
released from prison.

Speaker 3 (26:12):
Okay, but let's back up and look at Andy specifically,
and this mister big sting operation. Andy had struggled with alcoholism,
and they used alcohol correct when they were talking to him.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yes, like they invited him to like a hotel and
then invite him down into the bar to have some beers.
So he was getting intoxicated before they were trying to
make him confess.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
Right, So okay to me that right there is problematic
when you take somebody's medical, mental health kind of issues
and you say, hey, let's exploit that, let's lower his inhibitions.
How many of us have heard someone or even maybe
personally have said something incredibly ignorant or offensive or wrong

(26:57):
or lied while we were under the influence of something.
I think you have. There's a reason why, right, It's
an impairment when you are intoxicated. And so to say, hey, you.

Speaker 2 (27:09):
Know what we're going to do.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
We're going to just loosen his inhibitions. It doesn't just
do that. It plays on other mental health issues and
other concerns and other psychological effects when someone is intoxicated.
And so to say, then we're going to get the truth,
and we're going to just get him to say what
he actually did. I think is ignorant in many ways,

(27:30):
and it's very immoral. Let's say it's legal, who cares.
I think it's it's immoral when you think about doing that, like, hey,
let's take someone who struggles with their sobriety and let's
feed him some alcohol and see what he says. Also,
like we've talked about before, the setup, in and of itself,
it's like dudes sitting around bragging and teasing and bantering

(27:53):
and trying to one up one another. And everyone's witnessed
conversations like that where you are pretty sure everything out
of everyone's mouth is a lie. But it's like, I'm
just gonna one up you. I'm gonna kind of measure
myself against you by being better than you, bigger than you,
badder than you. So I could easily see people saying,
oh yeah, I killed a guy, Oh yeah, I killed

(28:13):
these two people when you're feeding them and trying to
prompt them that their value worth need to you would
be how big of a man they can be, how
bad of a man they can be. And so it's
the whole concept in and of itself is wrong. But
with Andy specifically, once they turn to that alcohol use
and they say, hey, we're going to add that layer

(28:36):
to me, that's not someone in their right mind talking
to you.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
It makes it so complex when you take somebody with
it's what it sounds like in alcohol use disorder, and
then you put them in this situation where, like you said,
all of these people are saying basically, we want to
know this, and people in like you said, ash when
they're inebriated, will often tell tall tales. And if you
feel like these people who are in power and there

(29:02):
is a power imbalance, if they want you to say
a certain type of a thing, and you very much
are going to get that feeling. And I don't know
if either of you, Robin, you likely have seen the
Sebastian burns and a t for fe mister big video.

Speaker 2 (29:18):
I have.

Speaker 1 (29:18):
Yes, Yeah, it's pretty intense. I mean, there's no argument
for me that those two did it. But the type
of pressure and the type of scenario in situation where
you're going to be sharing this information, they very much
tell you what they need to hear, not in the details,
but in that we need to hear that you committed

(29:40):
this crime or committed a crime, and we need details
of it in order for you to enter this organization,
So it's very much set up to confess whether you
did it or not. And like Ashley paralleled it to
the read technique in part one, and I think that
is a really valid comparison.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
And even with Andy's they were trying to get him
to reveal details which they he felt might incriminate him,
like how did you get a hold of the gun
that she used to kill burn and Andrea? And he
never was able to do that. He just said, oh, yeah,
I had a gun. I had a gun, But he
was not able to offer any specific details that were
not public knowledge which showed that he committed the crimes.
So it really just showed that they were reaching and

(30:17):
they wanted him to confess, but they didn't want to.
They were not able to make his confession convincing and
get him to reveal anything that would approve and he
was the killer.

Speaker 1 (30:26):
Now we can spend several podcast episodes debating the ethics
of the Mister Big technique and the guilt or innocence
of the suspects who'd been convicted by it. However, I
think it's safe to say that Andy Rose was one
of the most clear cut examples of an innocent person
being railroaded by the process, and what separates his story
from other Mister Big cases is that he had already

(30:49):
been tried and convicted of his crime on two separate occasions.
Since Andy's defense team were in the midst of performing
DNA testing and there was an eyewitness claiming that another
suspect confessed to the murders, it seemed clear the RCMP
was worried that Andy might not get convicted this time around,
so the whole thing was a very desperate, last ditch

(31:10):
attempt to fabricate evidence against him. During the fifth Estate episode,
one of Andy's defense attorneys was interviewed and said that
she was livid when she first learned that Andy had
admitted to the murders on tape, but once she watched
the recording, she had a better understanding of how Andy
could have been coerced to do this, even if he
was completely innocent. If you watch footage of any of

(31:33):
these Mister Big sting operations, one recurring pattern you might
find amusing is it undercover cops loved to insert F
bombs into pretty much every sentence during their conversations. It
often comes across as if they're trying way too hard
to portray themselves as tough criminals, but they're also establishing
a constant pattern of abrasive, abusive, and intimidating language in

(31:58):
order to exert pressure on the set expect and compel
them to confess. But what's particularly troubling about andy sting
operation As the undercover officers were feeding him blatantly false
information about his upcoming trial, such as the fact that
will Adine Hill was possibly going to recounter story about
her former husband confessing to the murders. They made Andy

(32:21):
believe there was a genuine chance that he would get
convicted again, when in actuality, investigators feared that Andy might
not get convicted unless they coerced a confession out of him.

Speaker 3 (32:33):
I think I've told you guys before that when I
first started dating Rebel, he'said no one would ever falsely confess,
you know, And now I've taught him well, But he
teases and he says, oh my god, please don't ever die.
Because if I'm getting interrogated and they use some of
these techniques we've seen, I can understand how people will
get confused and overwhelmed and feel like they need to

(32:57):
try to get themselves out of this or even start
to believe that something could have happen and that they
don't remember, because, like you just said, well, they'll give
blatantly false information. Here in the US, they're trained to
use that as a mechanism. So they could say, hey,
you know, rebel, Reagan is in the other room and
she said that she heard you get up in the
middle of the night. She heard her mother scream rebels
stop right, rebel no, and then we found your wife, right,

(33:21):
And so they can sit there and say people who
love and care about you are using and telling information
that incriminates you. That people who you trust and people
who would validate what you know is true are in
the room next door saying that that's not true, right,
that you are the killer and that you had done something.
And so it's insane. That's what mister Big is doing.

(33:43):
They're sitting there feeding information, they're making up lies. You know.
They could say, hey, Rebel, we actually have your DNA,
we have your fingerprint and blood around her neck, you know,
whatever it is, And then he's going, how did that happen?
And Reagan's saying, I did it, Oh my gosh, Okay.
So in some ways I think just the same way,
these mister big sting operations could almost inflate someone's imagination

(34:08):
to a point where they might even believe that they
have something to tell that is not real. But more so,
I think they create this hyper masculine or kind of
importance or grandiose nature of the person that's being framed
here basically and allows them to feel like there's somebody

(34:30):
to people they want to impress, and that's it. I
don't always think that these kinds of operations are resulting
in someone being confused or even telling the truth. I
think it's more to show off and to show out
in Andy's case specifically, and in many other people's And
then could you get troops out often?

Speaker 1 (34:48):
Sure?

Speaker 3 (34:49):
Absolutely, But does it set you up to also create
false narratives and false stories? Yes, And if that's the case,
it's not a good technique. It's not something that should
be used because if there's one guilt he or one
innocent person is going to prison on this, and ten
are getting convicted using this fairly, that one person, right,

(35:12):
that's a problem. And here Andy just happened to be
that one person who's being manipulated and tells a story
that ends up getting him in big trouble.

Speaker 2 (35:23):
Yeah, like you just mentioned, that's what a lot of
people who have falsely confessed have said that if the
police lie to them and tell them stuff like oh,
we have a witness who saw you do this, or
we have your DNA on there, that even if it's
a blatant live they start questioning themselves. And they've even
said that they reached the point where're like, well, maybe
I did do it, but I blocked it out of
my memory and I just can't recall it, so maybe

(35:44):
I did it, And that's why they decide to confess.
So yeah, that's why people doing it, even if they
originally go in there being one hundred percent sure that no,
I did not do this. That if you've got a
skilled interrogator, they can start questioning themselves and maybe think,
well maybe I did this after all.

Speaker 3 (35:59):
Yeah, it's either that or they have this. It's either
that or they have this idea that I will tell
them whatever they want to hear. Right now, I am exhausted,
I'm scared, I'm tired, i'm grieving, I'm hurting. I need
to get out of here. So I'm going to tell
them whatever they want to hear. Because clearly it's a lie.
Everyone will know it's a lie, and I'll get a
good attorney who can prove it's a lie. That's not

(36:20):
how our justice system works. So either they convince them
that they actually might just not remember right, and they
start to actually orchestrate in their head a reality where
maybe they could have done it because they trust the
police and they trust that what they're telling them is true,
or they get to a point where they say, screw it,
I'll tell you whatever you want to hear, and then
I got to get out of here.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
Let's also not forget that when Andy was first charged
with the murders in nineteen eighty nine, the RC and
P had secretly recorded a phone conversation between Andy and
and Donna Kelly. Even though Andy did not have any
idea that he was being investigated as a suspect at
that point, he still did not confess or reveal anything
incriminating this conversation, which I think is further evidence that

(37:03):
as mister Big confession was bogus. I know that Andy's
third trial was halted before it reached the jury, but
even though the case against him was fraught with problems
and the defense tried to discredit his confession, there was
always a risk that the jury still could have found
him guilty. Back in two thousand and one, the general
public was not as well versed on the subject of

(37:23):
false confessions, so they still might have put a lot
of credence into the fact that Andy admitted to the
murders on tape. However, I do have to credit Crown
Prosecutor Gil McKinnon for not letting things get to that
point and staying the murder charges against Andy after he
learned that all the DNA evidence excluded him. McKinnon was
not the prosecutor at Andy's first two trials and stated

(37:45):
that he just had this uncomfortable feeling that he might
be putting the wrong man away, which is why he
didn't want to put the case into the hands of
the jury. Believe me, I've seen enough wrongful conviction cases
to note that it can usually be difficult, if not
outright impossible, to get a prosecuting attorney to admit to
a mistake and drop the charges against a defendant, even
if the evidence overwhelmingly points towards them being innocent.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
Yeah. Absolutely, when you look at the idea that someone
has been convicted, that means multiple players in our justice
system have done an entire case, an entire trial, and
convicted an individual, thinking and believing that they have done
their best, brightest professional work to date right. No one

(38:32):
wants to step back and say, did we make a mistake.
The mentality is we do our job, we get it right.
We're convicting that person, we provided justice. We're done. And
to then ask them to question it. They struggle to
question it throughout the process. To start with right, they
lock in on somebody and they just double down to
prove it. But once they've been convicted, it's like this

(38:54):
official check market says, we got it right. Look the
jury thought we got it right. We know we're correct
in our assessment. So then to ask everyone in that
process to step back and look at could they have
gotten it wrong? It's nearly impossible. Judges don't want to
take on cases where another judge has signed off. Prosecutors

(39:15):
get really you know, overwhelmed, and they think, wait, they're
going to show that I falsely imprisoned somebody. Heck, no,
I would have never taken the case if I didn't
believe that person did it, So no way is it
that I'm wrong you know, the only people that are
often advocating for someone's innocence is the person themselves and
a defense attorney. And clearly you say, well, everyone in

(39:38):
prison is innocent, right, every defense attorney wants the money
to defend somebody and say that they're wrongfully convicted. But
that's not the truth. We know that so many people
because if eyewitness identification, false confessions, informants, all of this,
you know, prosecutorial and police misconduct, faulty forensic science, all

(39:59):
of that puts people well wigh when they didn't do
the crime they're being held accountable for. And so we
have to be in a position where we're willing to
say we can get it wrong, and I'm willing to
look at it again. And you do see integrity units
popping up, especially in the United States, where integrity units
are being hired by prosecutors' offices saying review some of

(40:21):
these cases where they're claiming these are wrongful convictions. Could
we have messed up? And when you have someone who
has a high moral and ethical bar who's willing to say,
I don't always get it right. I'm human, I make mistakes,
and I'm not the only player in this game. Police
give me information, you know, the witnesses give me information,
and I trust it at the time. But if you

(40:41):
can prove to me that this is incorrect information or
prove that this person couldn't have done it, I'm human
and I'm willing to tell you I messed up. That's huge.
There are people, there are units out there that'll do it,
but very rarely do you see teams that are willing
to say, let's look at this again.

Speaker 1 (41:00):
They seem to go from the perspective of like the
sunken cost fallacy, where we have invested so much time
and energy and a lot of our reputations into these cases,
and I think the fear of what lies beyond when
they actually examine the cases, when you see prosecutors retry

(41:21):
and retry and retry, and it's like, why don't you
look into this case a little bit deeper? But it
becomes more about that time invested, reputation invested, and how
it will appear if they lose, because it all does
come down to the numbers, especially with prosecutors, and there
should be other motivations that underscore why people are doing

(41:43):
what they're doing, and like what actually just brought up
it's great when they have these integrity units which are
going to provide some checks and balances with regards to
these situations. And we do see the odd case where
you see a prosecutor go, WHOA, I think I got
that wrong. What was the conic, Junior.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Yes, that was the murder of Crystal Champagne by a
wrongfully convicted man named Damon Thibodeau. And that was one
where the prosecutor, Paula Konic Junior, actually helped out the
defense when they reinvestigated the case and came to the conclusion, Yep,
this is an innocent man. We should release him. And
he was willing to admit he made a mistake and
it didn't ruin his career because he has been re
elected I think seven or eight times over the past

(42:24):
three decades, so making this mistake has not caused the
voters to turn on him and decide that he should
be run out of office.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Sadly, so much focus was put on the wrongful conviction
of Andy Rose that the two victims burned in Andrea
almost seemed to be an afterthought in this story. However,
their missing personal possessions makes me believe that robbery may
have been the primary motive for the crime, particularly since
there's no indication that Andrea was sexually assaulted. Usage of

(42:52):
the travelers checks gives off the impression that the killer
may not have been from the area where the murders
took place and was just passing through, so Burned and
Andrea were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
We do know that the perpetrator was traveling south through
British Columbia when they used the travelers checks, so for
all we know, they could have been heading towards the
US border and eventually drove into Washington State. After all,

(43:17):
the RCMP performed a check on all pickup trucks in
British Columbia which matched the description of the truck that
the killer drove, but they came up empty. And since
the witnesses who interacted with this man described him as
having a slight American accent, perhaps he was not even Canadian.
It sounds like the last reported sighting it Burned in
Andrea took place in Dawson Creek, which is about one

(43:39):
hundred and thirty kilometers from where their bodies were found,
so we have no idea if they first crossed paths
with their killer there or at another location.

Speaker 3 (43:50):
Yeah, exactly. We're not sure that that's even where they
were killed, right or where they were first finding this
individual in the first place. So we don't know a lot,
but we do know about those travelers checks and that truck.
And so when you look at the fact that we
can't identify who that was, to me, that is the
person that you have to find. Andy didn't have transportation.

(44:14):
No one came forward to say Andy burrowed any kind
of vehicles from them. Madonna and Tom couldn't describe how
he got a vehicle like that. And so when we
look and especially at the behavior of the individual who's
using the Travelers checks, we have a personality, We have
almost this picture of who this person would be, and

(44:34):
after all this work, they simply cannot locate the individual.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
We've covered so many cases from several decades ago in
which victims went missing or murder, will hitchhiking, and I'll
once again reiterate that it was just a much different time.
It's pretty remarkable to look at the timeline of Burned
and Andrey as nearly two month treks through Canada, as
they literally traveled thousands of kilometers through multiple provinces and
at least one American state, and their primary mode of

(45:02):
transportation was hitchhiking. This story is a bit reminiscent of
another case I covered on episode number two twelve of
The Trail Went Cold about the murders of Marie Lillienburg
and Maria Viln, two Swedish nationals who were murderable hitchhiking
through California, and eerily enough, that crime took place in
July of nineteen eighty three, less than three months before

(45:24):
this one. That's not to say that the same killer
was responsible for this crime, but in both cases, the
original media coverage put a heavy emphasis on the cultural
differences between Europe and North America, as hitchhiking was considered
to be a safer form of transportation in the victim's
host countries at that time, which is why they had
no qualms about doing it when they traveled overseas and

(45:47):
speaking of the world being a much different place back
in nineteen eighty three, the man who murdered Burnt and
Andrea sounds like an incredibly lucky individual because they managed
to get away with using a traveler's check with a
woman's signing. Nature on it no less than five times,
and none of the witnesses who saw him or his
pickup truck managed to take down the license number. Now,

(46:08):
what's interesting is that if you watch the fifth of
State episode, they showcased two separate composite sketches of what
appeared to be two separate men. However, it's not entirely
clear to me if two men were actually seen together
cashing these checks, or if the descriptions provided by the
different attendants from the different service stations were so divergent
that the authorities felt the need to create two separate sketches. Honestly,

(46:32):
given that it would have been difficult for one killer
to control both victims, it would not surprise me if
more than one man was involved in this crime. But
whoever the perpetrator or perpetrators might have been, it sounds
like they completely disappeared off the radar after the last
travelers check was used.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
What's really interesting when you have these two different attendants
who are telling you, right, they're at different service stations,
but they're telling you about different encounters with these individuals
using the checks. Right, two different sketches come forward, It's
possible multiple things are happening. That the memory's just simply wrong, right.
There could have been two people there. But we go

(47:12):
down diatribes every single time we talk about IWANN to
S identification. It's very possible that if you ask me
to recount someone coming into my store thirty minutes later,
in all honesty, I won't be able to provide an
accurate description. Think about how many people come in and
out of a gas station. It's very similar to the
retail store that I own and I work in. I

(47:34):
see people all the time. They're like, oh, yeah, we
were in yesterday, and I go, oh, okay, you know,
you see hundreds of people a day, and so if
they were asked to recall that information, it is possible
it's the same individual coming into both service stations and
they're describing the person they saw to the best of
their ability. But both recollections are just off right. They

(47:57):
don't match each other because one or both of the
people recalling the facts don't have the proper factual information.
That's simply the way our brains work. It's not a
video camera. You're asking someone to recall these little details,
and so I think it could have been two different people.
But it's very possible. Those two attendants down the road
were asked to recreate who they thought they saw, and

(48:20):
they just came up with two very different versions of
the same individual. It's really scary because this person I
believe killed two people. The way that he acted, I
almost feel like he had done it before because there
was such confidence, not only with the you know, getting
these people in his car and his truck, but also
the way that he had such ease using their checks

(48:42):
and not even worrying that he was going to get caught.
It seems like someone who's very experienced and or who
had an accomplice.

Speaker 2 (48:50):
Yeah, I am inclined to believe it was just one
man and that all these attendants saw the same man
and just provided different descriptions because of faulty memories, and
the authorities probably thought, well, we don't know which sketch
is the most accurate, but to cover all our bases,
let's just release both of them publicly anyway in case
one of them turns out to be right.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
For years, the most promising alternate suspect was vance Hill,
but since the DNA evidence on the bloody genes did
not match him either, it sounds like the authorities no
longer belief he was involved. The ironic thing is that
the evidence against Vance was pretty much exactly the same
as the evidence used to convict Andy, as all we

(49:29):
had were the claims from his former wife, who said
that he once made a drunken confession to the murders,
and in both cases, the female witness never willingly came
forward with this information, as they only shared their story
with another person who then decided to contact the police.
The key difference is that since vance Hill died back

(49:49):
in nineteen eighty five, he never got to refute any
of the allegations his wife made against him. Vance had
been living in British Columbia for sixteen years and then
just suddenly to decided to relocate to the United States
in the weeks following the murders. Shortly after, he was
arrested by the RCMP and served time in jail on
an unrelated charge That might look suspicious on the surface,

(50:12):
but given the Vance's wife and children had decided to
return to California, you can understand him wanting to move
there to be closer to them. Even if you discount
the DNA evidence, there are still a number of holes
in the theory that Bance was the killer. Willardeine Hill
said that her husband told her that he picked up
a male and female hitchhiker at a bar in chetwind Well.

(50:34):
The problem is that Vance was living in Prince George
at the time, which is three hundred kilometers south, so
what would you be doing in chetwind to begin with.
During her statement to the RCMP, Willardeine specifically said that
the hitchhikers asked Vance for a ride to Dawson Creek.
While the last confirmed sighting of Burned and Andrea took
place at in Dawson Creek, It's located one hundred kilometers

(50:57):
east of chetwind whereas their bodies were found thirty kilometers
west in the opposite direction, So it makes no sense
for the couple to want to ride to Dawson Creek,
particularly when they were heading south towards Vancouver in order
to catch a flight home days later. Investigators did acknowledge
that even though Willadine got the time period in locations

(51:17):
of the murders correct, during her statement, she also shared
a number of details which were inaccurate, though to be fair,
she was only passing along a story she'd supposedly heard
from her husband thirteen years earlier. It sounds like Vance
was driving a pickup truck when he lived in British
Columbia in nineteen eighty three, though it's unclear if it
was a late nineteen sixties Chevrolet style model which matched

(51:40):
the description of the killer's truck. But it does not
sound like Vance matched the description of the man seen
using Andrea's travelers checks, as he was believed to be
around forty years old, whereas Vance would have been about
fifty five at the time.

Speaker 3 (51:55):
Well, I mean that's really hard too. I mean, aging
somebody's very difficult unless he had a receding hairline. And
you know, even if he had fully gray hair, A
lot of people at age thirty five have gray hair,
you know, and so forty fifty five, I don't know,
that's really difficult to nail down somebody's age. Dance does
seem like a very good fit to this crime. And

(52:17):
like you said, are there holes in her story? Are
there things that don't necessarily make sense? Yes, But remember
she's recalling this thirteen years later. Her husband had written
a suicide note that she found that had all of
these details in there, and she doesn't bring it up
because God knows, you know, that's scary. She's overwhelmed, she
doesn't know what to do. He wants to end his

(52:38):
own life, so she doesn't mention it. And then eventually,
when he does die, he doesn't mention it in those
letters right of what happened to these two, But she's
kind of haunted by the fact that at some point
he basically had a written confession that he had killed
these two individuals. And so I think she's doing the
best of her recollection to provide truthful information. Did he

(53:04):
even get all the facts right? Is she recalling what
she saw accurately? I think she has enough information to
definitely put a red flag on Vance and to make
him seem as though he's a pretty good fit. He
was driving a truck at the time. I'd be really
interested to know his mo of his personality. Is he

(53:24):
calm and collected? Is he charming? Was he somebody who
is clean cut and well put together that would fit
that description of who we know likely picked these kiddos up.
And you know, to me, I believe her.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
Well, it's easy to assume that Vance's eventual suicide was
the result of being overwhelmed with guilt over what he
had done. He was going through a number of serious
issues at that time, such as the end of his
marriage and chronic alcoholism, so I'm sure he could have
chosen to take his own life for other reasons. It's
odd that he would be willing to make a full
confession about these murders to his wife but then not

(53:59):
make any mention of them at all in his suicide notes. Look,
I'm not saying that Willodein completely fabricated this entire story
about the confession, as is possible that Vance may have
become so intoxicated one night that he convinced himself that
he committed a double murder and then decided to blab
about it. Willidin even said that she thought it was
nothing more than one of her husband's quote unquote drunken fantasies,

(54:22):
which seems to indicate that he did that sort of
thing all the time whenever he was inebriated. All the
speculation about Vance being no longer even be necessary since
the DNA testing excluded him, and I think it's likely
that the real perpetrator was someone who has never even
popped up on the radar as a potential suspect.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yeah, that's possible too. When we have the idea that
oh wait, DNA didn't.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
Exclude him, it did exclude him, like it didn't match
the DNA on the genes.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
Well, then when you look at that, I mean, you
have this idea that Vance likely could not have been
the perpetrator. And or if we go with that idea
of could there have been a second person, Maybe it's
the second person's DNA, but I'm more likely to think
that the killer killed alone. And so if those genes
are linked to the two victims but not to Vance,

(55:10):
then now we have to go say, Okay, who's this
third person? Who? It's not Andy, it's not Vance. Who
else could have been the suspect? And what's crazy is
at the time, when you have hitchhiking as a common
mode of transportation, it could have been anyone. It could
have been anyone. It could have been someone visiting from

(55:30):
the US and traveling through. It could have been some
you know, someone who's a local where the killings took place.
It could have been someone driving across the you know,
across Canada. So it's nearly impossible to say, how do
we look for this generic description of a truck at
a man who's aged forty. I mean, you're basically describing
a large portion of the population. And so it's one

(55:54):
of those cases where, if it's not these suspects that
are coming forward, your net is so wide it would
take something like genetic genealogy or phenotyping or something that
gave a face or a name to that DNA that
was found on the genes to make a breakthrough.

Speaker 1 (56:10):
The good news is that authorities do have DNA on
the bloodstained genes that belongs to the killer, so there's
always the chance that genetic genealogy could identify him. In fact,
nearly five years ago, this exact scenario took place in
another infamous wrongful conviction case from Canada, and that was
the nineteen eighty four murder of nine year old Christine Jeffa.

(56:32):
An innocent man named Guy Paul Moran wound up being
wrongfully convicted for the crime until he was exonerated by
DNA testing, and in October of twenty twenty, it was
announced that genetic genealogy had linked DNA evidence from the
victim's underwear to another suspect named Calvin Hoover. Even though
Hoover had died in twenty fifteen. This provided beyond a

(56:53):
shadow of a doubt that he was the killer, so
the case could officially be closed. The same thing made
very well happened in this case someday, as genetic genealogy
can make it possible to positively identify burned and Andrea's killer,
even if they are already deceased. So until this case
is solved, it will continue to remain a tragic situation

(57:14):
for everyone involved. Andy Rose is currently seventy six years old,
and even though he's been a free man for over
two decades, I'm not sure if he was ever compensated
for his wrongful incarceration. Well, he'd always lived a fairly
difficult life. It sounds like things were going fairly well
for him in nineteen eighty nine, since he had a
stable job, a stable relationship, and had just welcomed his

(57:37):
first child into the world. But then his entire existence
was yanked away from him when he was charged with
the murder that he didn't commit. If this hadn't happened,
who knows how Andy's life ultimately would have gone. But
I hope he's found some semblance of peace.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Absolutely, it's really complex when you think about everything this cost.
Andy had this woman come forward who said, hey, he
should have in my house. He was bloody, he said
he killed these two people, and that's Andy saying that's
not what happened. I never did that, And somehow he
gets in this trap where eventually he even says, hey,

(58:14):
I did do it. And when it's proven he could
not have been the perpetrator, Andy is released and quote free,
But how free are you when you've been behind bars
and you've been labeled a murderer and you've lost all
of the things that you had tried to build, no
matter how big those things are. Again, Andy had overcome.

(58:35):
Andy was trying to move forward. He had good things
in his life and those were taken away. So when
you look at someone trying to rebuild after being in prison,
after having a label on them, whether the courts say, hey,
he didn't do it and or we can't reprosecute this
because we don't have enough evidence. Even if everyone came
forward and said he could not have done it, then

(58:58):
you still have people in the community that say, remember
that's the killer, that's the guy who did that. There's
still a cloud over Andy, and it doesn't go away.
Even if he had been compensated financially, you still never
can escape that. That is part of now your story
and part of the way people view you.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
As for the families of Burned and Andrea, the whole
situation must have been an absolute nightmare. As I'm sure
it's the most helpless feeling in the world to have
your loved ones become the victims of an unsolved crime
in a foreign country thousands of miles away. It must
be particularly difficult to believe that the responsible party was
convicted of this crime, only to find out years after

(59:39):
the fact that it was the wrong person all along,
and that the real perpetrator has gotten away with it.
And this is why the victims' families deserve a conclusive resolution.
So if you happen to have information about the murders
of Burnt Gerica and Andrea Shirp, please contact the Chetwynd
branch of the RCMP at two five zero seven eighty
eight nine two T two one. That's two five zero

(01:00:02):
seven eight eight nine two two one, or you can
call the Canadian Crime Stoppers tip line at one eight
hundred two two two eight four seven seven that's one
eight hundred two two two eight four seven seven Jules
Ashley any final thoughts in this case, Well.

Speaker 3 (01:00:19):
It's another one of those cases where you say, look
at these two individuals who went on this life adventure.
They were having fun, they were exploring, they were about
to head home, and because at the time it was
commonplace to trust individuals to give a ride to you,
these two people looked at whoever drove up to them

(01:00:40):
and said, he looks safe, he looks like he would
take us where we need to go. I'm not scared
of him. In fact, Andrea and Byrne had to look
at each other and say, I trust this person. And
that simple act of just being a human who is
vulnerable and open on this kind of care free trip

(01:01:01):
cost them their life. Someone prayed on that, someone took
advantage of that, and in my gut, Andrea became a
target in that truck. Burned, stood up for him for
her and got attacked, got you know, offended the person
who was driving, and they both struggled and lost to
this person who took their life. It's wild when you

(01:01:23):
think about people who have been killed and that we
have someone who's walking around who's responsible for that. Here,
you also have other victims too, though. I feel really
sorry for will Is it will Adeine?

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Will Adeine? I feel sorry for her. She has this
this guilt and this heaviness that she carries around wondering
if her husband could be or could have been a murderer.
She also has this kind of weight of saying I
hate to even put that out there because if I'm wrong,
I'm also you know, preventing investigation into somebody else. I

(01:01:58):
feel so sorry for Anne and for the relationship he
had before he was arrested, for the child that he
brought into this world that you know, the relationship was
impacted by his arrest and subsequent imprisonment, and you think
about the community at large. Somebody prayed on these two
individuals and has so far gotten away with it. It

(01:02:18):
is my prayer that scientific breakthrough is whether the offender
is alive or not. Now that the DNA can be
the key in this case, where we say, you know what,
it's becoming more accessible, it's becoming easier. We have bigger databases,
we have more people volunteering to share DNA information to
try to link themselves to criminals and to their own

(01:02:41):
family treat I think it's amazing, it's fascinating, it's exciting,
but it's difficult to say how frequent and how often
this case specifically might get a chance of that. But
I'm praying that maybe we get answers just from the
advances in science, because this has the evidence sitting there,
we just have to match it to somebody.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
I truly feel for Burned and Andrea's families. I can't
imagine what it would be like having to deal with
all of the complexities of a case like this and
it going on overseas. I don't know how well and
if they speak English, but it would be a really
difficult landscape. And then when you're dealing with Andy Rose

(01:03:22):
being convicted and then it being a wrongful conviction and
feeling like you have that justice taken away from you.
Like actually just said, I truly believe that in the future,
I hope this will be like Robin's you know list
versus article where he went through all of these different
Jane does and nine other ten of Jane and John does,
and nine out of ten of them have gotten their

(01:03:44):
identities back through the views of DNA and genetic genealogy.
And I think that this is a case where we
might look back in retrospect in like five years or something,
and Robin is going to have this big list of
cases that he's going to go down and they're going
to be the ones that we've spoken about, and they'll
be solved because of genetic genealogy in the future. That

(01:04:06):
is my hope for this case and so many others
that we've covered.

Speaker 2 (01:04:10):
Yeah, I mean, we just mentioned the Christine Jessup murder
from nineteen eighty four, one of the most infamous wrongful
convictions in Canadian history, and they solved it just under
five years ago and found a suspect who was never
on the radar, who was already dead. But at least
they could say, now we can prove that this guy
was the killer. And for a long time I never
thought that case would be conclusively solved because in so

(01:04:32):
many wrongful conviction cases, once the wrongfully accused is released
from prison, the investigation just dies. But there is a
possibility of solving this one because there is genetic material
belonging to the killer on the pair of bloody jeans
that were found, and if they were matched up to someone,
even if that person is already deceased, they can still
say beyond a shadow of a doubt that this person

(01:04:53):
did this, because even though Andy Rose had the charges
against him drop, you can never really be fully xon
erted unless they find the real killer. And so even
though like he's recognized as a wrongly convicted individual, he
will never receive full vindication unless they find out who
did this. But yeah, it's a heartbreaking case because Burnt

(01:05:15):
and Andrea just felt they were on like a once
in a lifetime trip getting to backpack through Canada, and
they made it two months and were nearly home before
they just ran into the wrong person and was killed.
And usually in wrongful conviction cases, the victims get overlooked
because when they put the wrong person in prison, they
become the focal point of the story and their families

(01:05:35):
are told, yes, this case is solved, you have finally
receive justice, only to find out years later know they
got the wrong person and that the real killer is
still out there. So yeah, I mentioned that this is
one of the weakest cases that I've ever seen, and
in a guilty verdict in conviction and the fact that
it happened to Andy Rose twice with two separate juries
where the only evidence was an incredible story from Adonna

(01:05:57):
Kelly is just a major travesty. I think if this
crime had taken place years later, he never even would
have been charged and gone a trial to begin with.
So yeah, major tragedy. But I do hope somewhere down
the line the usenek genealogy to identify the perpetrator so
that Burnt and Andrea will finally receive justice and Andy
Rose will finally receive vindication.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
Robin, do you want to tell us a little bit
about the Trail Went Cold Patreon?

Speaker 2 (01:06:23):
Yes. The Trail Cold Patreon has been around for three
years now, and we offer these standard bonus features like
early ad free episodes, and I also send out stickers
and sign thank you cards to anyone who signs up
with us on Patreon. If you join our five dollars
tier Tier two, we also offer monthly bonus episodes in
which I talk about cases which are not featured on

(01:06:46):
the Trail Went Cold's original feed, so they're exclusive to Patreon.
And if you join our highest tier tier three, the
ten dollars tier. One of the features we offer is
a audio commentary track over classic episodes of UNSAWD Mysteries.
You can download an audio file and then boot up
the original Unsolved Mysteries episode on Amazon Prime or YouTube

(01:07:06):
and play it with my audio commentary playing in the background,
where I just provide trivia and factoids about the cases
featured in this episode. And incidentally, the very first episode
that I did a commentary track over was the episode
featuring this case. So if you want to download a
commentary track in which I make more smart ass remarks
about Jewel Kaylor, then be sure to join Tier three.

Speaker 4 (01:07:28):
So I want to let you know a little bit
about the Jeweles and Nashty patreons. So there's early ad
free episodes of The Path Went Chili. We've got our
Pathwent Chili mini's, which are always over an hour, so
they're not very mini, but they're just too short to
turn into a series, and we're really enjoying doing those.
So we hope you'll check out those patreons.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
We'll link them in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (01:07:48):
So I want to thank you all for listening, and
any chance you have to share us on social media
with a friend or d rate and review is greatly
appreciate it. You can email us at The Pathwentchili at
gmail dot com. You can reach us on Twitter at
the Pathway. So until next time, be sure to bundle
up because cold trails and chili pass call for warm clothing.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
Music by Paul Rich from the podcast Cold Callers Comedy

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