Canadian True Crime - Bonus: Interview with Bret McCann (Travis Vader case)

Episode Date: March 14, 2019

As promised, this is the follow up to episode 41. This Impact Statement episode that features an interview with Bret McCann - the son of Lyle and Marie McCann, who were murdered by Travis Vader.Subscribe to Impact Statement so you don't miss an episode.See you tomorrow - March 15 - for the next scheduled episode of Canadian True Crime!Support the show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

My name's John Weir. You don't know me, but you're gonna, because I know the people that have been watching you, learning about you. They know you've done well for yourself, that people like you and trust you. Trust you. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all that information that you've freely shared with the whole world. Now imagine what they're gonna do with all the information you have at it. Yeah, I'll be in touch. In the last episode about Travis Vader and the murder of Lyle and Marie McCann, I mentioned that their son Brett McCann had been interviewed for the Impact Statement podcast. The episode was released yesterday, and I've got permission to release it here too so you can listen, because this is a good one.

Impact Statement is an important project, because it gives families an opportunity to talk more about how a life-altering event has affected them. Through an interview with Brett McCann, this episode of Impact Statement takes a look at what's happening with the Travis Vader court case now, provides some insights into the McCann family's personal experiences, and also covers Brett's work with the proposed, no body, no parole law, which could potentially apply to Travis Vader. The McCann family desperately want Vader to just tell them where Lyle and Marie are. After you've listened to this episode, I hope you subscribe to Impact Statement podcast. Charlie does amazing work. Thanks for listening, and don't worry, these episodes are always bonus content for those interested, not intended to take the place of a regular Canadian True Crime episode.

I will be seeing you again tomorrow as per the schedule, Friday the 15th, with my next episode. Lyle and Marie were leaving the next morning for their first summer trip in their RV. Their plan was to leave their home in St. Albert, Alberta and arrive a week later at the Abbotsford International Airport outside of Vancouver, British Columbia to pick up their daughter and granddaughter. When they didn't arrive at the airport, the family became concerned. Lyle and Marie were in their 70s, and the family worried there was an accident, or perhaps they had gotten lost. The police announced a person of interest in their disappearance, and this began a six-year winding road through the legal system that isn't entirely over yet. I'm Charlie, and this is Impact Statement. When a crime ends in a conviction, the victims or their families are often allowed to give a statement to the court about the impact of the crime on their lives.

But when these life-altering events go unsolved, do not end in a conviction, or maybe aren't crimes at all, the victims and their families do not have this opportunity. The stories on this podcast are their Impact Statements. Lyle and Marie McCann grew up on farms on the Canadian prairie of Alberta. They married on July 30, 1952 and welcomed three children, two boys and a girl. They first lived in Edmonton, the capital of Alberta, but moved to a town just about 20 minutes outside of the city called St. Albert. And that's where they settled. Here is their oldest son, Brett. You know, my memories of growing up are very fond. You know, my parents were both, you know, excellent parents, I think, in retrospect. My dad was a, most of his life he was a long-haul trucker, so he'd be gone most of the week, like most of the nights of the week he'd be out of town driving.

He drove until he was into his 70s on a truck. Being a long-haul trucker was something that Lyle loved. For example, he had this regular route from Edmonton to Prince Rupert, which is a two-day drive, three-day drive there and back with a long-haul truck. And he did that, I would say, for 10, 15 years, which is, you know, it's a very long way. But when I went with him, he would remember, you know, he'd point out this, he'd be watching what happened on this farm over the seasons. He sort of knew everything along that whole trip, and when we stopped at coffee shops and so on, everybody knew him. That was his life, and he just loved it. Lyle and Marie brought this love of long trips to their family vacations.

When Brett and his siblings were young, the family always owned a camping trailer and would travel south to California and Arizona during the winter. In the 1980s, after their kids were grown, Lyle and Marie bought a motor home that they would then tow their car behind. They joined a camping group and would escape the Edmonton winter by spending it down in the United States. But as they aged, health care costs prevented these long stays in the States, and they began traveling more within Canada. Their first trip for the summer of 2010 was to the Vancouver area. As they often did, Brett and his wife went over to Lyle and Marie's house to spend time with them before they left on their trip. Like Marie, my wife and I, we made a conscious decision to move back to St. Albert, which is where my parents live. We moved back there in the 90s because we wanted to be close to my parents and, you know, look after them as they got older and so on.

So we made a point of going over there at least once a week for dinner or they would come to our place for dinner. So that day that, I think it was July 2, 2010, we'd gone over that day to have that evening to have dinner with them. And my wife had gone sort of garage shopping, garage sailing with my mom that afternoon. So I'd gone over there by myself to play snuffer with my dad, and then my wife and my mom came home with Kentucky Fried Chicken for supper that night. Like my mom had gotten the motorhome ready, it was parked in there, it was parked in the driveway that week, so she'd gotten it all ready for the trip that week before. And we brought over some miniature golf clubs to take to my grandson. My grandson, my son's family lived in Vancouver, so they're going to take some presents to them. So we'd loaded it into the motorhome.

And then we said goodbye, and we knew that they were going to travel through the, through BC, through the Okanagan, take about a week before they got to meet my sister in Vancouver. Lyle and Marie had a cell phone with them on their travels, but they considered it an emergency tool. They generally left it in the vehicle's console. When they were away from home, they would call occasionally to check in with their family, but it was common for them to go a week or more without calling anyone. So it wasn't until they were supposed to meet their daughter and granddaughter at the airport on July 10 that the family learned there was something wrong. My sister and her daughter were waiting at the airport. My parents were going to meet them, and they were going to, they were all going to spend a week together in, at Campground near, near the airport where they picked her up. At Cultus Lake, actually, which is in the lower Fraser Valley in Vancouver.

So my sister was waiting there at the airport. Like she'd just flown from Calgary to meet them there. And, you know, it's unbelievable that my parents weren't there in the first place to meet them when they got off the plane. But she, you know, I just can't, I really have a hard time. You know, my sister, you know, the stress she went through before she, you know, so she finally, she started flying. She phoned the campground, she phoned, she phoned my brother who lived in Edson, and then she finally phoned the police. And finally then she phoned my, my wife, and she came to where I was working. I was in this meeting at work and interrupted me, interrupted the meeting.

And, you know, her life just changed at that point. But Brett and his family did not know was that there was a much earlier sign that something was wrong. Two days after Lyle and Marie had left their home, their motor home was found burning about two hours east of Edmonton at a campsite at Minow Lake. The police, they found the registration papers in the fire, so they knew who owned the vehicle. And they phoned the detachment in our town, apparently. And somebody went and knocked on my parents' house on their door, didn't check with the neighbors, didn't do anything, didn't follow up. And so it wasn't until my sister phoned the police to, you know, find out if they knew anything that they finally connected the dots between this burnt motor home and my parents' disappearance. I mean, there was this weak story that put out by, I think, the superintendent of the RCMP in that area that vehicles get burned all the time.

But, you know, I still find, you know, that 200,000 vehicle doesn't get burned every day. You know, that's crazy. So the constable that actually didn't follow up on it was heavily disciplined by the RCMP. I still don't, I don't know if he's still with the RCMP. So there was that initial kind of screw up by the police at the beginning. In spite of the fire, the family's initial concern was that the couple was hurt or possibly lost. As the RCMP conducted their own investigation, the family searched the area where their motor home was found extensively, looking for Lyle and Marie. And there were two other things missing.

First, their cell phone. And second, the car that they towed behind their RV. The green Hyundai SUV was found abandoned and partially hidden less than a week after the RV was found. The description of the vehicle had been on the news extensively, and a man told the RCMP that he knew exactly who had been driving that vehicle shortly after the McCants went missing, a man named Travis Vader. Travis was known to the police. He was wanted on outstanding warrants, in fact. The RCMP found forensic and circumstantial evidence that tied Travis to the McCants SUV and also to their cell phone. Travis was named a person of interest, and then later a suspect in the presumed murders of Lyle and Marie McCann.

Brett said that even with this announcement, it took the family some time to process that this was not a case of Lyle and Marie being victims of an accident. And to accept that the couple had been killed. Some of the families I talked to have had experiences with the police that left them feeling alone in a complicated legal system. But that wasn't the case for Brett and his family. There was a lot of angst and frustration, and what are we going to do through that whole period? I mean, through this whole thing. I would like to say that we were dealing with people from the police, the Royal Canadian Model Police there. And they were very good, I thought.

I mean, our family met with them regularly every month or six weeks for five years there. It was frustrating, but they were keeping us informed and they're keeping us in loop. And they were very dedicated and very helpful and very supportive. Travis Vader was arrested on the outstanding warrants and remained behind bars pending trial. The legal proceedings are long and somewhat complicated, and I know this because I read hundreds of pages of court documents on this case. Most of you know me as a podcast host, but I also freelance as a researcher and writer for other shows. Recently, I was hired to research and write an episode for Canadian True Crime on the story of Lyle and Marie McCann. It was through Christy, the host of Canadian True Crime, that I connected with Brett for this episode.

The episode I wrote for Christy is about an hour and a half long. If you want to hear more in-depth coverage of the Travis Vader side of this case, I recommend going to Canadian True Crime and listening to episode 41. But this episode is focused on the McCanns, so I'll give the abbreviated version. In 2012, Travis was formally charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Lyle and Marie McCann. The trial was set to start in- Do you have a passion project that you're ready to take to the next level? Squarespace makes it easy for anyone to create an engaging web presence, grow a brand and sell anything from your products to the content you create and even your time.

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Like all of the evidence has to be disclosed to the defense prior to the trial happening. So a month or two months before, the RCMP and the crown discovered there was this huge gigabytes of data that hadn't been disclosed. So the crown saved the charges and normally that's like canceling the charge here in Canada. In Canada, a stay of proceedings is technically a pause button on the case. But like Brett said, most stays are the end of the case in Canada because there is a one-year limit to reactivating the charges. In most cases, the stay is never lifted and the case is dismissed at the end of that year. But by the end of 2014, Travis was recharged with the murders. It took another 15 months to go to trial and there were times it looked uncertain if it ever would as Travis's defense team challenged how long it had taken to get to trial.

He was first charged in 2012 and his trial wouldn't begin until the spring of 2016. Under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, he had a right to be tried within a reasonable amount of time after the charges were laid. The judge, however, ruled that this case would proceed. The trial began on March 8th, 2016. It was expected to last six weeks. It lasted for 15. The family was there for the entire trial. The defense strategy for a lot of this was to challenge every piece of evidence.

Challenge the trail or the audit trail on every piece of evidence, like from DNA blood stains to fingerprints. And normally, as I understand it, the defense just, all that evidence is admitted. It's assumed that the chain of evidence was intact. But so the defense was challenging everything. And there was sort of weeks upon weeks of lab analysts on the, you know, in the witness stand, tracking, you know, receipt of evidence from this lab to that place to that place. You know, I'd say half the trial was taken up with this sort of absurd tactic. In addition to listening to hours of testimony about who handed what evidence to whom, the family also had to testify. The defense was trying to show that there was reasonable doubt about Travis' involvement.

And one alternative theory they presented was the idea that Lyle and Marie chose to run off to get away from their family. So they questioned Lyle and Marie's children about their family's relationships in depth. This hurt the family, who are also victims of this senseless crime, to have what are very normal ups and downs in family relationships be blown up into something so terrible that their elderly parents faked their own deaths just to get away from them. This trial was incredibly difficult on the family. It was long and it was complicated. Travis Vader was tried in front of a single judge rather than a jury, and the Honorable Denny Thomas took the summer to render his verdict. The trial began in March, and it would take till September to get a verdict. In an unusual move for Canada, Justice Thomas allowed the verdict to be televised.

On the two counts of first-degree murder, I find you, Travis Edward Vader, not guilty. But Travis Edward Vader, I do find you guilty of the lesser and included offense of second-degree murder of Lyle and Marie McCann near Pierce, Alberta, on or about July 3, 2010. I enter convictions on each of those verdicts on count one and count two in the indictment. In his ruling, Justice Thomas cited section 230 of the criminal code, which allowed for a second-degree murder conviction if the killing occurred during the commission of another crime. Justice Thomas found that one of the McCanns was murdered during the commission of a robbery. The other was killed because they were a witness. However, this ruling was challenged immediately because section 230 had been ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1990, 26 years earlier. However, the law remained on the books.

They call it this zombie law problem, and there's a number of other laws that are still on the books, like in this criminal code, such as, for example, laws against witchcraft and very obsolete laws. These things still exist in the criminal code, which is what judges and lawyers use to determine law. I've looked at these books that have the criminal code, and there's clearly a footnote on that section in the book that says that it was deemed unconstitutional. He made this mistake, and the government should maintain the criminal code to be correct, and if something has changed or deemed unconstitutional or something like that, they should correct the criminal code. That's the point. About a few months after this all happened in the fall of 2016, a local member of parliament, I guess equivalently a congressman in the states, a local House member of parliament contacted me and wanted to know if I'd be interested in doing a press conference with him, suggesting that these criminal zombie laws should be eliminated. That's kind of one thing I've been working with him on. The justice minister in Canada at that point initiated a bill to eliminate zombie laws, in particular that law.

Obviously, if something needs to be corrected. Justice Thomas had a few options. One, he could declare a mistrial, which is what the defense asked him to do. His second option would be to find another justification for the second degree murder convictions, which is what the crown asked him to do. Or a third option. He could change his ruling entirely, and that's what he did. He vacated the previous murder convictions and found Travis Vader guilty of two counts of manslaughter. Travis was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole for seven years. In Canada, the non parole period starts at the time charges are laid, so Travis only has to serve four years before his first parole hearing. We often think of an impact statement as a single moment when friends and family of the victims have an opportunity to speak about the impact of a crime on their lives.

But for families who are facing parole hearings, this can be a repeated process. The correctional service here in Canada, they have this victims service where they'll notify you if there's a parole application, when the hearings are, and so on. So apparently, his first parole hearing is in March of 2020. So we'll have a, if that proceeds, I intend to be there and I'm going to make another victim impact statement. Y'all revised my impact statement from what I said at his trial. And I think other people from my family will be there as well, so hopefully we can have his parole application turned down. In addition to his work at getting the so-called zombie laws off the books, Brett has been working on another law that has been enacted in some states in Australia. It's called, No Body, No Parole.

They have this law that if you're convicted, you know, the perpetrator is convicted of a murder. And the body, you know, he doesn't say where the body is or they can't locate the body or the remains. That he would be denied parole until he provides the information to the authorities. So that's called No Body, No Parole. And there's, so that's happening in Australia. There's an initiative in England. I think it's called Helen's Law. So I think it's a terrific idea, myself. You know, there's a lot of these questions, like what if he doesn't, what if the perpetrator doesn't know, doesn't remember, can't prove it, can't show it.

I mean, there are those sort of issues. But I would say if, you know, if the perpetrator, if the authorities deem that the perpetrator made an effort to, an honest effort to, you know, provide that information, then he should be eligible for parole, I think. But if he doesn't, then he should not be eligible. And I think it provides an incentive to the person to, you know, acknowledge their crime. And I think it's really an important first step in rehabilitating that person. It's important that we don't forget that Lyle and Marie, they're still missing. There was a lengthy and painful legal process the family endured. They've had to move forward with their lives having lost both of their parents at once.

But they still don't have them back to bury them properly. A year after the couple went missing, the family had a memorial service on what would have been their 59th wedding anniversary. And in October 2017, a permanent memorial to the couple was erected in a park not far from their home in St. Albert, celebrating their love for nature and for each other. The money for the memorial came from the reward money for information as to the location of Lyle and Marie McCann. After the trial, we decided to repurpose, again, this mayor of St. Albert suggested we repurpose the reward money into public art. So St. Albert has this whole process to, you know, put out a RFQ and solicit bids from artists. And so we were part of the jury on that and my wife and I were part of the jury on that. And that was a whole interesting process.

And we selected these artists that were in Vancouver and we visited them while they were building the sculpture. And then it was installed in St. Albert in a park. It's a very nice sculpture. It has these two bronze looms sort of taking off from a large sort of sculptured rock. Travis Vader is the only person who can tell Brett and his siblings where their parents are. I mean, I sat next to him. I sat 10 feet from him for months there during this trial. And I'm not sure he ever will. I mean, it's all about him. He's the victim. Travis Vader had his appeal heard on November 30th, 2018, in front of a tribunal of three judges.

A decision is expected any day now. The next hurdle for the family will be the parole hearing sometime next year. I will keep you updated as this case continues. A special thank you to Brett for speaking to me and Christy from Canadian True Crime for putting us in touch. You can find Canadian True Crime in your preferred podcast app and can hear the whole legal saga of Travis Vader there. If you are interested in sharing your story on Impact Statement, please email impactstatementpod at gmail.com or find me on Twitter at StatementPod. Thank you for watching. Yeah, I'll be in touch.