Suspicion | The Billionaire Murders: The hunt for the killers of Honey and Barry Sherman - S1 Death in a Small Town | E1 Just Another Day

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Roll out of bed, get the kids to school, then off to work. Just before noon, disaster. A mysterious injury to young Nathaniel McLellan puzzles doctors at two hospitals and sparks what would become a six-year police investigation. Audio sources: Toronto Star, CTV News London

The following content contains discussions of child injury and death, including frank discussions and displays of emotion surrounding that loss. Lister discretion is advised. A criminal investigation is underway into the death of an area toddler. Please say the child was discovered with injuries on October 27 and died in a London hospital. Do you know what a Russian nesting doll is? Those are the sets of wooden dolls. They're usually beautifully painted Each one smaller than the other. Take the top off one

There's another one inside. Take the top off the next one, there's another doll, take the top off, you get the idea. They're also called Matryoshka or Motherhood dolls and they date back to the late 1800s. That's really what this story I'm about to tell you is a Russian nesting doll. It's a story of layers and complexities and beautiful things and sad things and really quite awful things. At the center, well in the tradition of the nesting doll, that's where the secret is, that's where we find the truth, or get as close to the truth as we can. For almost six years now, I've been trying to find out what happened to a young boy named

Nathaniel McClellan, and why the same mistakes in investigations like these keep repeating, again and again. Our story begins in Strathroy, a town nestled in farm country in southwestern Ontario. The town logo reads, Urban Opportunity, rural hospitality. Built on the banks of the Sidenum River, Strathroy was a milling town in the 1800s, and now growing corn, soybean, and raising poultry, that's still where the money is. Locals sometimes call Strathroy the turkey capital of Canada. It's a quiet community of 15,000, a really good place to raise a family.

El, as a Veto and his wife Lisa, they've been in Strathroy their whole lives. That week I was on holidays, And that morning, late morning, I remember going to a pizza place here in town to grab pizza for my wife to bring home for lunch. Exact time I can't give you, but it was around noon. On my way home on Head Street, I was heading north. I observed a woman holding a child in an on-orce-adoxed way, and I say that because it just looked very, very unusual.

One child running uncontrollably on someone's front lawn. If you were walking along Head Street in Strath Roy on Tuesday, October 27, 2015, that's what you would have seen, a woman hurrying along the sidewalk, pulling a wagon with one hand, holding a small child with the other arm. Another toddler running up and down lawns and across driveways. Al Azaveto is one of those people who notices things. He pays attention to small details. Al is a big man, powerfully built, mostly bald with a neatly trimmed beard and piercing dark eyes. The adult, I believe in question here is Megan Vanhoof, was pulling a wagon.

There was something in the wagon like a, I want to say a knapsack or a bag. And there was a child in her left arm, and she was holding this child. The child was facing away from her so forward and was drooped forward. Like, as if you buckled, her arm was not quite underneath the armpits, but were up that high,

and so the face of the child, they could not see. The child was looking towards the sidewalk that they were walking on. I remember that vividly because I thought, wow, knowing that she's a daycare provider, how is that child being held like that? And why isn't it in the wagon? The child and the woman's arms were green pants that are onesy, but he wasn't wearing a coat or shoes.

All of this was imprinted on Al's mind and the time it takes to have a coat or shoes. All of this was imprinted on Al's mind and the time it takes to have a sip of coffee. Al keeps driving, not seeing enough to make him stop, but wondering what was going on there. He turns left and heads home, pizza for him and his wife cooling on the seat. Behind him, a white GMC Yukon comes around the corner

and slams on the brakes. A woman with a massive dark curls jumps out of the driver's seat. She angsts open the door behind her, grabs a child's car seat and runs toward the woman with a wagon holding the child. There's a brief conversation. The woman with a massive curls takes the child from her arms and races back to the Yukon. She is sobbing, but determined, moving with urgency. She tries to buckle the child in, but as limbs are stiff,

his eyes are closed and his body is moving awkwardly, contorting. She gets into the driver's seat and roars off to the hospital. From the Toronto Star, I'm Kevin Donovan, and this is Death in a Small Town, episode one, just another day. It took Roseanne McLellan four minutes to drive from head street to the Strathroid hospital. In the back, her son Nathaniel lay across the car seat. As she blew through stop signs, she looked back at his stiff form. That's crying.

And I was telling you, why are we going to game up? I'm going to help you. First, we're going to throw games. I'm just going to throw games. Just throw them on me. Please. A few minutes before, Rosanne, a teacher, had been preparing for a visitor from public health

who was going to tell her students about dental hygiene and healthy brushing habits. That morning really had been just another day for Rosanne, her husband Kent, and their four children, four boys under the age of ten. The McClellan family live in Park Hill, a 30-minute drive away from Strathroy. Kent, the father, made oatmeal for everyone, plus some Cheerios for Nathaniel, the youngest boy, who giggled from his high chair. Kent headed to work, and the three older boys traipsed down the road through the cornfield to meet the school bus. Roseanne got ready to leave for school in Strathroy. She gave Nathaniel's

face a last wipe, brushed her almost uncontrollable mass of dark brown curly hair, and buckled him into the car seat in her white GMC Yukon. In Strathroy, she dropped Nathaniel at the home of Megan Van Hoof, who had just recently started looking after Nathaniel, Tuesdays and Thursdays, part of a daycare plan cobbled together by busy parents. Then it was off to her school before the first bell. Just before noon, a phone call from the office alerted her that Megan, her son's babysitter, was on the line. Nathaniel was not well, he was falling asleep and not making sense. They

agreed to meet halfway. Rosanne arranged for his substitute to take over her class, grabbed her purse and car keys and wheeled out of the parking lot toward Megan's. Seconds later, that's what Ella Zavato saw on his way home for lunch. Roseanne stopping her Yukon, grabbing Nathaniel, and then speeding off. At the hospital, Roseanne stopped underneath the red emergency side. The only other time Nathaniel had been there was when he was born 15 months earlier. Rosanne grabbed the child car seat with Nathaniel laying over top of it and raced for the ER doors. Inside, she was confronted with a lineup. It was a busy but normal day for the ER,

an assortment of stomach illnesses, cuts and bruises. Rosanne put the car seat down, picked up Nathaniel, and out of sheer force of habit, reached down for her purse to get his government health card. So I went to pick it up and when I did that, he had no tone. He just flopped backwards like he was lifeless. A nurse ran up to her, then a doctor. Everybody came running. Everybody came running. They took him from my arms. They put him on the stretcher.

They wheeled him back, and I was praying to my mom because she's gone. And I was pacing and I walked out and I locked myself out. So I had to walk back around. When I came around, my purse and the car seat and everything's on the floor all over the main entrance of the emerge. I gathered that up, it back, and they were all just crazy working. Dr. Brian LeMenchick was the attending ER physician that day. He was working in his office at 12, 13 pm when he heard a commotion. The job of an ER physician typically involves long periods of downtime, interspersed with bursts of action, both frightening and exciting.

Lamanchek, who was fairly new at the time, hurried out of his office. He saw a nurse, Angela Swenson, run up to a woman who was holding a child in the middle of the waiting room. That was when I started screaming for help. And I was screaming, I think I was screaming, please help my baby. Oh my God, oh my God, please help my baby. That's what I think I was screaming, please help my baby. Oh my God, oh my God, please help my baby.

That's what I think I was saying. I was screaming a lot. What follows is based on accounts given to police by the doctors and nurses who treated Nathaniel. None of them would agree to speak to me on the record, citing issues of medical confidentiality and the police investigation. Dr. LeMenechec ran up to Rosanne and together he and Nurse Swenson took Nathaniel and

disappeared to the doors of the ER suite. Nurse Swenson helped Dr. LeMenscheck put Nathaniel on a stretcher and get him into bed six, the curtained acute care bed for severe injuries. Nathaniel was posturing, pushing his arms and legs outward, then pulling them into his body. Nurse Swenson looked him over. The boy was tiny, dressed in green pants over a onesie, and nothing else. She and the doctor looked at Nathana's eyes,

studying his pupils. They were blown, a medical term that means not reacting to light. We'll be right back. The posturing and the blown pupils were tell-tale indicators of brain damage. But from what? There was a red mark on his left temple. Could that be the cause? There was also a pattern of what looked like scratches on the skin around Nathanios left

the ear. A nurse got the little pair of pants off, then struggled to remove the onesie. Hard to do because of the little boy's contortions. The Daniel's body was pale white. He did not appear to be breathing. Pam Brown was a charged nurse in ER. One of those terms that means exactly what it sounds like. She was the boss.

On lunch break, as she was about to grab a bite in the cafeteria, loud cries pulled her back to her post. She saw hospital staff taking a dark-haired woman into the ER's quiet room. Bed 6 was a flurry of activity. Nurses and doctors working on the small form on the white sheet, now wearing only a diaper. Dr. LeMenechek stood at the top of the bed, holding Nathaniel's head to protect what is commonly referred to as the sea spine. Keeping the cervical spine inside the neck

immobilized is a precautionary measure to prevent paralysis. Nurse Brown started an IV, inserting a needle into the bone of Nathaniel's leg, allowing fluids to enter his body more quickly than an IV into a vein. She too noticed the red mark on his left temple. She told a nurse to page the anesthesiologist on duty. She also noticed the posturing. This looked like a brain injury. Called the ambulance, Brown told another nurse.

Strathroid was a good intermediary hospital, but she knew from experience that this child would have to be transported 30 minutes down the road to the children's hospital at the London Health Sciences Center. Nurse's Terry McCarthy and Bill Ateo came into the room. Nurse McCarthy had done pediatric intensive care all over the country. She noticed that Nathaniel's knees were modeled, discolored, kind of a marbling effect. That means the young boy had been down, meaning little or no blood circulation for quite some time. The anesthesiologist, Dr. Elachiva Chernick, who had been in the middle of an operation and had to summon a replacement, rushed in and sedated Nathaniel,

then intubated him, sliding a tube down his throat to help him breathe. Down the hall in the quiet room, Roseanne sat alone. She didn't know it, but every action she took that day would be scrutinized. When I brought Nathaniel in, it was life a death and I wanted him to live. And I knew that I was a circle and screaming and crying and having a mother standing well, these people are trying to save his life, is not going to help them concentrate and do what they need to do. Nurse Kim Jenkins, the manager of the hospital, heard the emergency page for the anesthesiologist and knew something critical was happening. She went into the quiet room and sat with

Roseanne, who said she wanted to call Kent, her husband, and needed to use a hospital phone. At the time, Roseanne did not own a cell phone. To upset to speak, her hands were shaking too much to even dial. She gave Nurse Jenkins Kent cell number. Kent owns a heating and air conditioning business and spends his days going from one installation or repair job to another, checking on his team. The nurse in Rosanne waited a few seconds for Ken to answer. I was in the drive through Umburgur King and I had just given my order and I was in line

and waiting until there was a car ahead of me. For some miraculous reason, I was in Strathroid. I'm not usually in Strathroid, but I had a job in Strathroid. And my guys were already at the job and I was coming to the job from Betroya. I was in line and I got a phone call from the hospital saying they called and it was weird

because they didn't say come quickly, there's been a horrific accident. She just said, can you come as soon as you can? There's been an incident with me. Can you please come like right away? So I hung up the phone and pulled up, got my burger and drove to the hospital. Kent parked his truck outside emergency and hurried in. He was taken to bed six. He was unconscious and they had him strapped, like secured to a stretcher. I remember, so if you're looking at him, I remember on the left, so on this side of his head. His left side. His left side. I remember a bruise and I thought, man, you fell. You fell, you hit your head here. I remember because it it was so close to this temple. And growing up, I remember my dad or somebody saying, if you get hit here, it's bad.

Kent joined Rosanne in the quiet room. They called Kent's parents, Wayne and Judy, who lived just a bit more than a stone throw from their rural house in Park Hill. Wayne and Judy jumped in the car and headed for the Strathroid hospital. They said, the f Nathaniel has really been hurt and to get them ready to send them to London. It was utter incomprehensible that their little son was hurt at the babysitters.

But nobody knew what happened. He just said he was hurt real bad and he was unconscious. And Roseanne, I remember her saying, and crying, he's not going to make it. He's not going to make it. The Strathroid medical team was readying Nathaniel for transport to London. But Dr. LeMencheck was seeing something that just did not make sense. Yes, there was a red mark on the left temple that was developing into a bruise, but that would not account for what was obviously severe brain damage. There was no facial trauma, no fractured

nose, no goose egg on the scalp, and no depression in his skull. The continued posturing of arms and legs indicated pressure developing in Nathaniel's brain. He was given medication to reduce the pressure and prevent further seizing. The doctor went to see Rosanne and Kent, both now in the quiet room, where they had been joined by Kent's parents. Dr. LeManschec told them the prognosis was not good, that Nathaniel could die. After doing their best to comfort Roseanne and Kent, Wayne and Judy left the hospital and headed back to Park Hill. They had to meet the other three McClellan boys when they got off the school bus. Two paramedics burst into the ER. Nathaniel was shifted to a mobile stretcher and wheeled out the door.

Dr. Lamentzek and Nurse Bill Atayo climbed in and the ambulance sped off at the 30-minute drive. The Nurse Manager, the one who'd been sitting with them in the quiet room, drove Canton Rosanne to London in her own car. The parents sat in the back, stunned. From the time Rosanne brought her son into emergency to the time he headed down the highway, a total of just 69 minutes elapsed. Back at the hospital, as doctors and nurses returned to treating less urgent patients, a uniformed Strathroid Caridock Police Service officer arrived, parked under

the red emergency side, and walked into the ER. One of the Strathroid nurses had called police, reporting that a child was being treated with unexplained injuries. The Strathroid officers spoke to the nurses on duty and seized the green pants and the onesie that had been removed from Nathaniel, sealing them in an evidence bag. Following police protocol, the officer locked the evidence bag in a storage locker at police headquarters. This would assure what is called chain of evidence if it turned into a criminal case. A team of doctors and nurses were waiting at the ambulance bay doors in London. The paramedics brought Nathaniel into the ER and the medical team took over, rushing

Nathaniel to the CT scan room, hoping that a series of cross-sectional X-ray images would solve the mystery of what was going on inside his head. Family began to arrive, Rosanne's parents, siblings, cousins, and some friends. They gathered in the pediatric critical care waiting room. It was tough to know what to say, what questions to ask. Canton Rosanne sat side by side. At one point, Rosanne got down underneath and prayed. One of the family members who rushed to the hospital was Pamela's spreet, Roseanne's

cousin and close friend. Pamela is a nurse in the newborn unit at the London hospital. She was home after a night shift when Roseanne called and told her what had just happened. I interviewed Pamela in a busy coffee shop. There were voices in the background, so the audio is not that clear. Nathaniel's had a fall. We are on our way to Victoria Hospital. He may not make it.

That's what she said. Pamela got in the car and headed to the hospital. She found Rosanne and Kent in the waiting room. They didn't look well. They looked like great parents, obviously. Very quiet. And just thinking, you know, like what's going on when you asked what happened. I don't know, as Anne said.

He was outside and had a fall or something. She's like, I don't really know what happened. Rosanne asked Pamela to send a text message to Megan, the babysitter. Telling her they were at the London hospital that Nathaniel was in the critical care unit, and they would let her know his condition when they had more information, making texted back almost immediately. And so she said, thank you for letting me know. I was worried about him.

She said when she sees her next, she will give her a giant hug. As they waited for news from the London doctors, a tall, balding man with a thick mustache arrived, wearing a sport coat. He identified himself as Sergeant Jill Philion a tall, balding man with a thick mustache arrived, wearing a sport coat. He identified himself as Sergeant Jill Phylion of Strathroid Care Dog Police Service. He told Canton Rosanne he needed to ask them some questions, and he would be speaking to

them individually, in a small boardroom at the hospital. Kent was told he would have to wait in the hallway for 20 minutes, so the detective could be one-on- one with Roseanne. Then, it was Kent's turn. The detective had placed a small tape recorder on the boardroom table. It's red light blinked brightly. As he did with Roseanne, detective Phillian took Kent through the day. I walked inside down, he turned the recorder on and he said, tell me about the morning. And so I said everything I said to you,

picked him up, run him back to the room, barrel rolled him into the bed. Took him out of his sleeper. Took him out of the sleeper. You took him out while I was in dress and then came down here, fed him, did everything, and I left for work at maybe 22. Yeah.

Something like that to any... Like, great clothes to wear to kids again. So got just to goodbye. Then, a great close to when the kids got so got just to go by. Then a more pointed question. And then he said, do you have a life insurance policy on your side? I said no. Next time on death in a small town.

To be perfect, we Frank, the injuries were so widespread on the MRI, death in a small town. To me, that's still the cessation of non-accidental trauma. Death in a small town was researched, written and narrated by me, Kevin Donovan, and produced by Radyo Mooder, JP Fozzo, and Sean Pattenden. Additional production was done by Andrew McDonald, Kelsey Wilson, and Brian Bradley. Photography by Lucas Oleniac, music and sound design for the series created by Sean Paddenden. From the Toronto Star, I'm Kevin Donovan, and this is Death in a Small Town. you