Further reading for episode 91: The Murder of Lynne Harper/ The Ken and Barbie killers:
Steven Truscott and the Murder of 12-Year Old Lynne Harper
June 9, 1959, Clinton Canada, 12 year old Lynne Harper did not return home after her Girl Guides (think Canadian Girl Scouts) meeting. Her parents immediately worry around 11:20 that night her father calls the base (it’s an army base type town) to report her missing. It comes out that at 7 pm that evening, the last person to have seen Lynne alive was her 14 year old classmate Steven Truscott, he said he had seen her at a park close to their school with other kids, when she asked him for a ride on his bike handlebars to a spot near highway 8. She said there was a house on that road with flowers that she wanted to see, he dropped her there, turned his bike around and started back the way he had come. Steven said after about 400 meters he looked back over his shoulder and saw Lynne getting into a car.
On Thursday, June 11th the military organized a search party to find Lynne, sadly her body was found hidden by bush, she had been sexually assaulted and her own blouse had been used to strangle her. Because Steven was the last known person to see and interact with Lynne he became the main suspect in her death, he was interrogated by police for 7 hours and yet he stuck to his story of biking away and seeing her get in the strangers car.
At the trial, the police didnt have much of a case against him other then Steven having been seen with Lynne, so instead they peppered the trail by using the children that went to school with Lynne and Steven as witnesses. One girl stated that she had arranged a date with Steven to meet in the bush where Lynne’s body had been found but she had called him and cancelled, so he must have taken Lynne instead. While if the kids didnt give the answers the police hoped for, it was a matter of they were lying to protect their friend.
The biggest theory that the prosecution had, was that Steven never dropped her off as he claimed and that it was the time line of her death that solidified his guilt. According to the autopsy, it was between 7:15 and 7:45 that Lynne died, at this time nobody could bear witness to where Steven was, after this time however he went home to watch his sister. There were also shoe prints near the body that appeared to match Steven’s, but there weren’t any picture evidence or plaster casing made to prove the match.
In the end Steven was found guilty of murder and sentenced to hand on Dec 8th, this was then postponed and commuted to life imprisonment.
By 2006, however Steven is released from prison and the innocence project is trying to find the real killer.
The heavy hitting Barbie and Ken killers, Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo are covered again, these two never get old or any less gross.
Episode 91
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