Susan Clairmont: Retired Hamilton detective testifies about a homicide witness and a missed opportunity

Forensic science can play a critical role in a murder investigation.

But so can instinct. And leg work. And luck.

Those three intangible elements demonstrated how they can make - or break - a case at the first-degree murder trial of Jermaine Dunkley on Friday.

Detectives in the homicide unit are always having to prioritize. Old cases are never closed until they're solved, but fresh cases are always coming in.

Joe Stewart, now retired, testified about that juggling act and the work he and his team did in the hours and days after Michael Parmer was gunned down in September 2005.

Michael was a 22-year-old casino worker from Niagara Falls, N.Y. He and his friends had been at CDs Sports Bar on Ottawa Street North, then followed the crowd to a nearby parking lot after closing.

Michael was shot, dying hours later in hospital.

The Crown's theory is Michael was killed by Dunkley because he had flirted with Dunkley's girlfriend.

Dunkley is appearing at his judge-alone Zoom trial from prison, where he is serving a life sentence for an unrelated murder.

Stewart laid out to Justice Joseph Henderson some of the steps his investigative team took: they secured the scene; located witnesses; searched roof tops for evidence; used the collision reconstruction unit to process the scene using its surveying equipment; notified next of kin; attended the post-mortem exam; searched the car Michael travelled in; submitted cigarettes butts and pop cans from the scene for forensic testing; gathered telephone records and did wiretaps; prepared media releases; asked the FBI to assist with American phone records; reviewed data from red-light cameras near the scene; asked the OPP to enhance security video ...

By 2008, the leads were exhausted and there were new murders to attend to.

Stewart thought he'd try one last thing.

It was a Hail Mary," he testified.

Buried in the paperwork he had seen a reference to an intelligence report in which two Hamilton officers had met with a confidential source a month after the murder. The source - who has become the Crown's star witness at this trial - said she'd heard Dunkley was the shooter. It wasn't much to go on.

The woman - a self-described crack dealer - cannot be identified at due to a publication ban.

Stewart and another detective did some digging and tracked the woman down on March 6, 2008.

Time has a way of changing relationships," he says. Bonds the woman may have had two and a half years earlier may have changed.

That's why I decided to go and speak with her."

The woman told Stewart she didn't just hear about the murder. She saw it.

She provided intimate details of what she observed."

That included that Michael had been shot in the eye, a fact investigators had held back from the public.

Stewart asked her to do a video statement.

She was going to consider our request, but she first wanted to talk to a person who she trusted."

That person turned out to be a dirty cop named Craig Ruthowsky. The trial has heard the woman testify that he told her not to co-operate with homicide detectives. She alleges that was because Ruthowsky and Dunkley were running a cocaine enterprise together - Ruthowsky would raid drug dealers and turn seized cocaine over to Dunkley to sell, sharing the profits.

Ruthowsky was convicted of corruption charges and sentenced to prison time. He is on bail pending appeal and faces another set of corruption charges.

The woman didn't give Stewart a statement in March.

But on July 2, 2008, she reached out to him. They played phone tag and didn't connect. On July 16, he got a voice message from her.

The murder was weighing on her conscience, she said. She would be moving out of the province the next day and wanted to give a statement.

I'm willing to do it," she says, but I need to speak to someone today.

Stewart met her.

She was pregnant, broke and wanted money.

Stewart refused.

There was a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Michael's killer, but Stewart wasn't in a position to offer compensation up front.

I reminded her that she was the one who contacted me because she wanted to do the right thing and clear her conscience," court heard. I explained to her that the process of doing a formal interview would be quick."

They were near the east-end police station and she agreed to go there to do a proper video statement.

Stewart drove her, parking in the back lot at her request. They made their way to the second floor where the one video-equipped interview room was.

But there was a problem. As luck would have it, the room was being used.

They waited. But the woman said she needed to go home to deal with a personal matter. She said it would take 30 minutes, then they could do the statement.

Stewart dropped her at home. She called him to say she needed more time.

Then more time.

Then she went downtown.

And she stopped answering her phone.

They never talked again.

It would be another nine years before the woman gave an interview about the murder to police and Dunkley was arrested.

Susan Clairmont is a Hamilton-based crime, court and social justice columnist at The Spectator. Reach her via email: sclairmont@thespec.com