With a grey knapsack strapped to his back and clutching a red-and-blue Adidas bag, Shannon Leonard Murrin hurried toward the front door of the Vancouver courthouse yesterday, his face a changing landscape of awe, joy and relief.
Minutes earlier, a 12-member jury had acquitted Mr. Murrin of the 1994 slaying of eight-year-old Mindy Tran. Mr. Murrin, a 49-year-old drifter from Newfoundland, jumped to his feet and gave two thumbs up to jury members.
Now, after five years of pretrial custody, Mr. Murrin was free. When he stepped into the damp January air, his chalk-white face broke into a wide smile.
"I got released 'cause I got two really good lawyers," he said before his lawyers, Peter Wilson and Paul McMurray, packed him into a waiting car.
"The jury's right on," he added.
Last night, Mr. Murrin celebrated with a steak and beer before flying home to St. John's. "I can't explain it," he told a TV reporter. "It's just like being reborn. . . . You're free."
In St. John's, his mother, Laura Murrin, burst into tears when she heard the verdict. "I knew in my own heart that he was not guilty," said Mrs. Murrin, 79.
She said her son planned to fly home as soon as he can. Asked about his future, she replied: "It's up to him."
While Mr. Murrin appeared overcome, his lawyers were more sombre.
"It's an emotional time," Mr. Wilson said. "But I believe in this system. I believe in juries. So, I'm content."
Mr. Wilson said he feels terrible for Mindy's family, who face the prospect that their daughter's killing may never be solved.
"It's emotional for everybody. It must be especially emotional for the Tran family and that's who I think about now. My heart goes out to them because they have to start again and that's very sad."
Mr. Murrin's acquittal is a huge blow to lead Crown attorney Josiah Wood, a former B.C. appeal-court judge hired for the sole purpose of trying Mr. Murrin. The grim-faced prosecutor waited for his colleagues in the lobby of the courthouse yesterday morning, refusing to speak to reporters. He would not say whether the Crown will appeal.
The acquittal also shines a spotlight on the conduct of the RCMP in Kelowna and is likely to revive the theory that Mr. Murrin was framed by police detectives who were frustrated that their high-profile investigation had stalled.
The Kelowna detachment of the RCMP yesterday defended its pursuit of Mr. Murrin. At a news conference, Constable Garth Letcher said police believe the "appropriate person" was charged in the case because the criminal-justice branch of the Attorney-General's Ministry reviewed the evidence. The RCMP said they accepted the verdict and did not intend to reopen the case.
Corporal Greg Heck broke down in tears as he read a prepared statement from the Tran family.
"Regardless of the outcome of the trial, our great sorrow is that we will never have our daughter, Mindy, back with us," it said. "She is in our thoughts every day and will live on in our memory forever."
In the statement, the Trans said they were unhappy with the verdict. "It is hard to believe this outcome with all the evidence."
Mr. Murrin's acquittal also calls into question the reliability of two kinds of evidence that formed the backbone of the Crown's case: use of jailhouse informants and reliance on mitochondrial DNA, a still-developing science that the Crown said linked Mr. Murrin to Mindy.
Police conduct will surely come under scrutiny now, in particular the role of former Sergeant Gary Tidsbury, the lead investigator in the case.
Defence lawyers said the retired Mountie was so bent on nailing Mr. Murrin that he leaned on witnesses to change their stories about his whereabouts the night Mindy disappeared. One by one, he turned Mr. Murrin's friends against him, the lawyers said, and even persuaded three to beat a confession out of him.
Mr. Tidsbury was in court for the verdict and quickly left. He said he was disappointed but had faith in the jury system. He declined further comment.
Mindy was last seen riding her bike outside her house in the early evening of Aug. 17, 1994. Her disappearance touched off a wave of panic in Kelowna, a picturesque town in the B.C. Interior. Hundreds of volunteers joined the search and Mindy's parents made televised appeals for her return.
Six weeks later, a psychic using a divining rod led police to Mindy's body in a shallow grave in a park just 10 minutes from her house. She was partly clothed and buried under a pile of leaves and twigs. She had been sexually abused and strangled.
By then, Mr. Murrin was the only suspect. The Crown argued that Mr. Murrin sexually assaulted and killed the girl, stuffed her body into a suitcase, then took it to Mission Creek Park and buried it.
According to the Crown theory, Mr. Murrin killed Mindy between 6:45 p.m. and 7:15 p.m.
From the beginning, Mr. Murrin's lawyers insisted that the Mounties had gotten the wrong man. They said Mr. Murrin didn't have time to assault the child, dispose of her body and return home at the time neighbours said they saw him.
The lawyers said the murder investigation had stalled and that Mr. Murrin, with his criminal record and unkempt appearance, was an easy target.
Mr. Murrin's future is uncertain. The attempt to beat a confession out of him in 1995 left him with permanent brain damage. He has trouble concentrating, suffers problems with his memory and has difficulty keeping his emotions in check.
Both his lawyers and even his mother concede that Mr. Murrin was no saint. He had served substantial jail terms for armed robbery and assault and had long periods of unemployment.
He arrived in Kelowna in the spring of 1994 after his brother-in-law said there was work in the Okanagan town. Mr. Murrin found a job as a mechanic and boarded with a family, the Mugfords, down the street from the Trans. Their daughter, Charmaine, was Mindy's favourite playmate and Mindy was last seen running up the stairs of the Mugford house.
Mr. Murrin was among dozens of neighbourhood residents interviewed the night Mindy disappeared, and he told police he was at the house of a friend when the girl was last seen.
By December of that year, Sgt. Tidsbury was telling Mr. Murrin's friends that police believed he killed Mindy. In January, 1995, three of those friends confronted Mr. Murrin in his house. Mr. Murrin pulled a gun on them but the men overpowered him, threw him in the back of a truck and took him to the site where Mindy's body was discovered and beat him unconscious.
Mr. Murrin spent 11 days in hospital recovering. At one point, doctors cracked his skull to insert a draining tube to relieve pressure from his swollen brain. Two days after he was released, he was charged with pointing a firearm at his attackers. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years in prison. He remained in custody until yesterday.
Throughout the police investigation, Mr. Murrin maintained his innocence. At one point, he dared police publicly to charge him.
His parents in Newfoundland did not attend the trial but said they supported their son.
Mr. Murrin's acquittal also raised the issue of the reliability of jailhouse informants. One of the Crown's star witnesses was Douglas Martin, who testified that Mr. Murrin confessed killing Mindy within hours of meeting him in a cell they shared at a prison in Mission, B.C.
A man with 107 criminal convictions -- including one for perjury -- Mr. Martin was paid $4,500 for his information.
In the end, it appeared the jury couldn't square the conflicting evidence. The Crown alleged Mr. Murrin killed Mindy, then dragged her body to the park. But there was no crime scene at the Mugfords. There was no blood, no trace of a struggle and no sign of a cleanup.
The trial also marked the first time mitochondrial DNA had been used in a criminal trial in Canada.