The family of Lynne Harper finally broke their silence Wednesday to talk about the "mental distress" they have suffered while watching the acquittal of the man they have always believed to be her killer.
Steven Truscott, who was convicted as a teen of raping and murdering 12-year-old Lynne in 1959, was cleared of the charges Tuesday in a unanimous judgment of the Ontario Court of Appeal.
The court stopped short of declaring Mr. Truscott innocent, but nevertheless gave him reason to declare victory in his long-fought legal battle.
While Mr. Truscott and his supporters celebrated in Toronto, on the other side of the continent, Lynne's 90-year-old father, Leslie, had to take the news sitting down in his private room at a nursing home in the western United States. When he heard the verdict, he said, his legs went numb.
"All I can think about is the cruel 50 years of mental distress," Mr. Harper said, hoarse-voiced in a telephone interview Wednesday. "The joy, the jumping up and down on the streets where he [Mr. Truscott]was yesterday, it doesn't sit too well.
"I'm numb, as a matter of fact. I'm to the point where I don't feel as if I can even stand up or walk."
Mr. Harper, whose wife Shirley died several years ago of a heart attack, stayed up all night before the 300-page judgment was released.
When his eldest son, Barry, called him about it, Mr. Harper was stunned.
Mr. Harper passed up the opportunity to speak directly to Attorney-General Michael Bryant because he prefers to hear news about Lynne's case from Barry.
While he still possesses all of the faculties required to digest the thick document that contains the court's rationale for acquitting Mr. Truscott, the elder Mr. Harper says he doesn't have the stomach for it.
"A little girl was never given an opportunity to live," he said.
He and the rest of his family have believed that Mr. Truscott was guilty since he was first convicted as a teen in 1959. Even after all these years, Mr. Harper cannot force himself to say Mr. Truscott's name.
The Harpers have been haunted by Lynne's murder since the day her body was found. "He still has things that belong to my sister that he picks up on a daily basis," Barry said of his father. "He's never gotten over his sorrow."
At the time of Lynne's killing, the Harpers had only been living at RCAF Clinton, a base in southwestern Ontario, for about two years. Mr. Harper was a flight lieutenant. His wife, Shirley, stayed home to care for their three children, Lynne, 12, Barry, who was in Grade 10, and Jeffrey, who was only four years old when Lynne's body was found in Lawson's Bush.
"I think my sister was just in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Barry, whose recollection of the days before and after Lynne's killing are pristine. Still, he's shied away from speaking publicly about them - aside from a deposition he gave during a two-year review of the case in 2002 - because the courts, until now, have upheld Mr. Truscott's guilt.
"Years ago, when the Supreme Court threw the appeal out, I thought that was the end of it," Barry said. "The thing has got a life of its own."
Now, Lynne's funeral still runs like a movie reel through Barry's mind.
"The funeral procession went from Clinton all the way to St. Thomas. That's got to be about 60 or 65 miles," he said. "There were Brownies and Girl Guides standing on the sides of the street as the [hearse]went by. It was something that kinds of sticks in your mind."
Six months later, when Mr. Truscott was convicted, he was only 14. Still, he had already earned a reputation among the youngsters at RCAF Clinton as being more interested in schoolgirls than books, Barry said. Although he was closer to Steven Truscott's older brother, Ken, Barry remembers being paired as a defensive line mate with Steven. "I grew up with that guy," he said.
Now an engineer for an auto-parts manufacturer in the United States, Barry still keeps a cache of newspaper and magazine clippings documenting his sister's case, which has been immortalized in several movies and books, although he rarely needs to refer to them. He's carried with him for nearly 50 years the memories of his family's destruction.
"My dad wouldn't talk to anybody. He'd go to work and come back and sit in the chair and think about what happened, I guess."
Barry said that after the killing, the muted family remained on the base, but their only outings were for Sunday dinners at the base dining room.
"I don't think they did any socializing," he said. "From the time of the trial to the time we moved, we didn't do much of anything."
After Mr. Truscott's conviction, the Harpers left for a month-long respite in New Brunswick. They avoided as much as possible speaking to the media while working through their terrible pain. Eventually, they moved to a different air force base in Langar, England, where they tried to get on with their lives. But over the years, as Mr. Truscott pressed on with his campaign for exoneration, healing became impossible.
"You never want to see someone who was innocent convicted of something," the elder Mr. Harper said Wednesday. "But this is about money."
The Harpers have long felt that part of Mr. Truscott's motive in continuing the efforts to clear his name has been to win a hefty compensation package from the government.
On Tuesday, Mr. Truscott's lawyer, James Lockyer, said his client should "get every penny he can out of the government after what he has been through." Former Appeal Court judge Sydney Robins has been appointed by the provincial government to review the issue. However, he said he must first decide whether Mr. Truscott, who has not been deemed innocent, is entitled to an award.
"The issue turns on the fact that there was no explicit finding of factual innocence in the case," Mr. Robins told The Canadian Press Wednesday.
Both Harpers said they will try to block any payout to Mr. Truscott. Barry said he has spoken with provincial officials to notify them that he and his father both plan to make written submissions to Mr. Robins on why they think compensation should be denied.