Case Summary
Casey Armstrong, a 48-year-old Medicine Hat, Alberta man, was found murdered in the bathtub of his trailer home on May 22nd, 2011. He had been stabbed to death.1
Armstrong was last seen on Friday, May 20th, at a local pub. He left at around 11:00 p.m., telling the pub manager, Terry Lynn Russell, that he was going to watch a hockey game. The next day, Russell saw two women, one of whom had “reddish hair”, outside Armstrong’s trailer.2 Russell’s impression was that both women were white. They were placing a garbage or duffle bag into the trunk of a red car.3
On Sunday, a friend of Armstrong’s went to his residence, having tried to contact him several times with no response. He found Armstrong’s body and called 911.4
Initially, the Medicine Hat police investigation met with little success. No DNA samples or fingerprints were retrieved from the scene. Investigators found a bloody footprint but were unable to identify the matching footwear. Police interviewed the former owner of the red Grand-Am that they believed had been outside Armstrong’s home; however, she had sold the car before the murder, to a drug dealer known to her only as “Ginger”. Police were never able to locate the car.5
The police “ran out of leads after eight months investigating the murder.”6 A different officer, Sgt. Brent Secondiak, was then tasked with leading the investigation.7 Sgt. Secondiak reviewed the evidence and honed in on statements made by 29-year-old Wendy Scott, who had been interviewed on December 6-7, 2011. At that time, police had concluded that Scott was not connected to Armstrong’s murder, but Sgt. Secondiak believed that she had lied in her statements.8 At least one confidential source had just provided information linking Scott and another woman, Connie Oakes, to the killing. An inmate at the Edmonton Institution for Women told police in December 2011 that Oakes, an Indigenous woman who was also serving a sentence there, had confessed to the crime. The inmate also claimed to have seen Scott and Oakes driving in a red car together.9
Sgt. Secondiak decided to charge Scott with obstruction. She was arrested on January 10, 2012, and interviewed again.10
Scott, who had a severe intellectual disability, struggled greatly with learning and processing information. She would later be assessed as having an IQ of 50, with verbal comprehension and functional memory scores at the 0.1 and 0.3 percentile rank, respectively. Scott had “an inability to understand and recall complex matters” and would often become confused regarding straightforward subjects.11 She tended to mix up times and events. Scott’s friends knew her as “a kind-hearted girl who would do anything for anybody,” but was “easily used” and “known for lying.”12
In the course of Scott’s several police interviews, officers told her a number of falsehoods: that Oakes had named her as the killer; that Scott’s DNA had been found in Armstrong’s home; and that a surveillance disc showed her involvement, in support of which a “dummy” disc and surveillance report were brought in as interview props.13
At first, Scott named three different people, one of whom was “Ginger”, in connection with Armstrong’s murder. Later, she changed her story, stating that Oakes and Scott had gone to the trailer together, and Oakes had then killed Armstrong while Scott stood by.14
Both women were arrested and charged with first degree murder.15 If convicted on that charge, Scott faced life in prison with no parole eligibility for 25 years. However, she could be paroled in 10 years if she were convicted of second degree murder instead.16
On November 8, 2012, Scott pled guilty to second degree murder, in exchange for the Crown’s agreement to drop the first degree murder charge. A statement of the facts that supported her plea was read out to the court. The statement asserted that Scott and Oakes had entered Armstrong’s home, Oakes had stabbed him, and then Scott had helped clean up the crime scene: they placed their bloodstained clothes in a garbage bag, changed into fresh ones, and left the residence. Scott was sentenced to life in prison with no parole eligibility for 10 years.17
Oakes maintained her innocence and stood trial for Armstrong’s murder. Scott, the Crown’s star witness, gave “the only evidence identifying . . . Oakes as the murderer.”18 As Scott’s testimony unfolded, numerous problems emerged. Her account was internally inconsistent, contradicting itself on many occasions. Her story evolved in real time and changed significantly under cross-examination. Moreover, Scott herself stated that she had lied, sometimes under oath, several times.19 Indeed the Crown acknowledged that Scott’s demeanor was “childlike”, but argued that this fact enhanced—rather than undercut—the weight that the jury should place on her evidence.20
In November 2013, the jury found Oakes guilty of second degree murder. She was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for 14 years.21
Not long after Oakes’ conviction, Scott called Kim Pate, then the director of the Elizabeth Fry Society (a support and advocacy organization for incarcerated women), to ask for her help. She told Pate that she did not believe that Oakes had murdered Armstrong. Scott also retained counsel, Deborah Hatch, and swore an affidavit that she had falsely confessed because she was “very scared” and wanted “to be safe.”22 She stated that police had told her she would receive a 25-year prison sentence unless she confessed to the crime.23
In addition, Hatch realized that the statement read out to support Scott’s guilty plea did not disclose a proper basis for her conviction. As Hatch put it, simply “[g]oing along with someone who does all sorts of things . . . is not being a party to murder.”24 The trial judge had therefore erred in accepting Scott’s guilty plea, since the evidence before the court did not establish that she had committed this offence.25
Scott appealed her conviction to the Alberta Court of Appeal. The Crown conceded the appeal in light of this serious legal error. On October 16, 2015, the court overturned Scott’s conviction and ordered a new trial.26
Oakes then appealed her conviction as well, requesting that the Alberta Court of Appeal consider the fresh evidence of Scott’s successful appeal and recantation of her false confession.27
On April 6, 2016, a two-to-one majority of the Court of Appeal found that Oakes’ conviction was a miscarriage of justice and ordered a new trial. (The dissenting judge would have upheld the conviction.)28 The majority found that to reach this decision, it needed only consider the fact that Scott’s conviction had been overturned.29 The Crown at Oakes’ trial had placed “repeated emphasis on . . . Scott’s own guilty plea to the murder as vouching for her testimonial truthfulness.”30 Oakes’ conviction could not stand given the jury’s potential reliance on Scott’s guilty plea as support for her frail evidence.31 Moreover, Scott had apparently identified Oakes “only after the police told [her] . . . that her own DNA was found in the Armstrong trailer” and that Oakes had said she was responsible.32
Rather than try her a second time, the Crown stayed the proceedings against Oakes on April 28, 2016. Meanwhile, Scott remained behind bars, waiting for her new trial to move forward. For months, the Crown did not fulfill its obligation to disclose the required materials for defence counsel’s trial preparation, despite being criticized by the court for this delay. Finally, on January 13, 2017—15 months after her conviction had been overturned—the Crown stayed the charge against Scott as well.33
Police claimed after Scott’s stay of proceedings that they had not known of her cognitive problems when interviewing her because “she did not present herself . . . to the investigators as someone who was developmentally delayed.”34 In an excerpt from her interrogation videos that has been made public, however, Scott says to police that she lied “my whole life pretty much.”35 When asked why she would seek this form of attention, Scott responds, “I don’t know. Psychiatrists, I really don’t know.”36 Shortly after, she explains that “[e]very time I get things mixed up in my own head and that’s why, that’s why I have been in special needs because I get things mixed up in my own head.”37
Kim Pate, who had since been appointed to the Senate, called for a public inquiry into Scott and Oakes’ wrongful convictions. She stated that Oakes, Scott, their families, and Armstrong’s family all deserved to know how this miscarriage of justice came about. Pate further observed that “prosecutors are supposed to be officers of the court, not individuals who are seeking convictions at all costs.”38
In May 2018, the Alberta Department of Justice issued a short statement that no inquiry would be held.39
Casey Armstrong’s murder remains unsolved.40