Suspicion | The Billionaire Murders: The hunt for the killers of Honey and Barry Sherman - S1 Death in a Small Town | E6 Shattered Faith

Episode Date: June 20, 2022

The small-town rumour mill is in overdrive. When Rose-Anne and Kent see a police car they expect to be pulled over.  Their extended family is torn – some say fight on, others say drop it. Then, an eerily familiar request from police. Come to the station, we have news. 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. From the Toronto Star, I'm Kevin Donovan, and this is Death in a Small Town, Episode 6, Shattered Faith. Today's date is February 14, 2017, time now at 12.02 pm. I think Detective Sergeant Todd Amlin and Detective Constable Joan Wilson will be having a discussion with Ken and Rosamma Clelland. They requested this meeting in Petrolia as a result of some urgent information that's come forth.

The voice you have just heard is Todd Amlin, the lead Ontario provincial police investigator on Nathaniel's case since the OPP took over from the Strathroid detectives. It's 16 months after Nathaniel died. Amlin, a detective sergeant, recorded this without telling Rosanne and Kent. The audio is a bit muffled. I think the officer tucked a recorder inside his sports coat. Hello, ladies. Hey, Joe.

Come here. Yeah. I figure if, uh... to recorder inside his support coat. The meeting is in Petrolia, 45 minutes drive west of Strathroi. They are getting together there because Amlin is now area crime supervisor in Petrolia, but he still has carriage of the McClellan case. He's the detective who did the interview of Roseanne after Nathaniel's funeral, the one Roseanne called an interrogation. Amlin is very tall, slender, mid-forties, bald.

He speaks casually, doesn't sound like a cop. The, hello ladies greeting, it was directed at Roseanne, Kent, and their nine-month-old son William, who Roseanne was directed at Roseanne, Kent, and their nine-month-old son William, who Roseanne was pregnant with when Nathaniel died. I think Amlin was just trying to put everyone at ease. How's everybody? What's going on? Good.

Look at that little whip with snapper. You know this? You put them up on the table with tomorrow. Roseanne has brought William into the station in a car booster seat. She takes him out and holds him. At one point during the discussion, William decides to crawl around on the floor of the police interview room. Kent gets down on his hands and knees and follows his son. After what happened in Nathaniel, Rosanne understandably won't let William out of her sight. After some small talk, Rosanne and Kent tell Amlin why they have asked for this meeting.

They have serious concerns about the integrity of the police investigation. Now to fix the time period in your head, this meeting takes place in the first part of 2017, about a year and a half after Nathaniel died. Police, first Strath Roy, and then the provincial force, the OPP, consider Rosanne and Kent the prime suspects for most of that time. Lately, the McClellans were hoping things had changed and they were trusting Amlin to find out what really happened to their son.

A casual conversation at a Strathroid hockey rink had changed all that, put them on edge. Roseanne tells Amlin and his partner she had just got her boys onto the ice that day, when a woman she knows, her name is Charlene, approached her with a story. She said, shortly after Nates' death, late in 2015, probably December, May 8, 2016, but she thinks in December 2015, as a very long after the Piano Guide. Charlene was at the hairdresser's, a woman by the name of Jeannie McWire. This woman Jeannie is married to a carceral Michael Mike McWire, on the Strathroid Fair. The police force, Genie, informed Charlie that at the end of the death, had been real

and accident by the police, and that the investigation was over. Constable Mike McWire was a veteran Strathroid police officer. He'd worked Nathaniel's investigation as a major case file coordinator for a time. His wife, Genie, is a hairdresser in Strathroid. Nathaniel's investigation as a major case file coordinator for a time. His wife, Jeannie, is a hairdresser in Strathroy, Constable McGuire, as Roseanne and Ken knew, lived across the road from Megan Van Hoof, the woman who ran the home daycare that was looking after Nathaniel the day he went to hospital. For the McClellans, this was yet another indication of what they had long believed was a cozy

relationship between the babysitter and the local police. And then Genie, this wife of Principal Mike Beguire went on to tell the following story of what happened to me and always the police provided for my friends like Beguire. So, in the morning, on the day of the accident, this is Shirley's point. Nathaniel was behind the door at the McLean Hall. Where Nathan knows that I'm putting in my own name. She was a thank you. Nathan didn't know Nathaniel was behind the door. And when Nathan pushed the door open, and knocked Nathaniel down, and he did it. Nathaniel cried, and where Nathaniel told him.

When Nathaniel stopped crying, Nathan took him to the megastate that morning. And then I said, I asked if it was to show him that morning. Which is that Mrs. Pope was told by Jeannie that the door had to happen. She said, and that's okay. I did not think there was anything wrong with me as she was not crying. So Roseanne just dropped him off for the day, not thinking they were taking him wrong.

And so then he went and caught his other sitters and it went from there. As Roseanne speaks, Amlin rubs a hand over his forehead, lowers his head and size. The story Rosanne has heard has the detail about the door bump, but the timing is different. The McClellan's have insisted the door bump was minor and it happened the night before Nathaniel went to hospital. If you recall, the timing of this door bump was key, because if it had been severe enough to be fatal, Nathaniel would have been in distress long before he arrived at the sitters. In this version of the story, the one told to Rosanne at the hockey rink, the door bump happened on the Tuesday morning, just before Rosanne dropped Nathaniel at Megan's daycare.

Rosanne feels both confused and betrayed. You told me that, but others people can't answer the file. But you said, other police officers don't know what's going on in your case. Other police officers wouldn't know what I, for ten will do in our interview. How does this guy? What is so upsetting to the McClellans is not just that the rumor mill has the story wrong. It's that Strathroid officers, Mike McGuire in particular, seem to have details of the case that only the OPP were told.

Amlin raises his head, looks at his partner, then at Roseanne. In an act of investigation, please are not supposed to talk about a case. Mike McGuire was on the file. We don't know. We have no names. So maybe time for us to get to the next. Well, no, it's not. But he was involved in the investigation at the fly. We don't know. Do we have no names? So maybe time for us to get to the next. Well, no, it's not. But he was involved in the investigation at the beginning.

No, do. That's his fact. That's all I'm saying. I'm not commenting on anything you guys are talking about. I'm just saying he was on the fly. Detective Amlin takes Roseanne over the story a second time. For Roseanne and Kent, who believe they are on the way to clearing their names in the community, this is a setback. Kent gets emotional. He tells Amlin how he feels like he is up against the police. fight for my son and fight against. Not just the people that should be fighting for him.

This is not the first time Rosanne and Kent have heard stories of their son's incident passed around as gossip. They try not to be paranoid, but every time they see a police car in the rearview mirror they get worried, wondering if they are being followed. Kent, in terms of you being scared, is it in relation to what you feel is going on with Stratroi PD internally more or less? Yes. You don't know what length they'll go to.

I mean, this to me is quite a serious, this is a major crime. There's some more chit chat at the end of the meeting with Rosanne apologizing that she may have made a spelling mistake in the note she was handing over to Amlin. And Amlin saying, no problem, he's an English major. He can fix them. Amlin says they will look into the allegations and pass them on up the chain of command to his boss, Detective Inspector Heidi Stewart.

All this information we put into a report that I will do today and tonight. up the chain to command to his boss, Detective Inspector Heidi Stewart. Okay, she does not take that kind of stuff like that. I'll tell you, not that she takes anything lightly as a DI. Not long after, detectives Sergeant Amlin was taken off the McClellan investigation and a new officer, Detective Inspector Pete Liptrot, was put in charge. Liptrot had more seniority and experience, and as possible the force decided it was time for fresh eyes. Amlin wrote a short note to the McClellans saying that because of the complaints they were making about the investigation, he was off the file. In an unrelated situation, Amlin was criminally charged with sexually assaulting a female OPP officer over an incident that took place a decade before at the OPP Academy training facility.

In his guilty plea, he admitted to entering a female officer's darkened room, jumping on top of her and, quote, dry-humping her. Amlin received a 12-month probationary order from the court and is still with the OPP, and according to the force, has maintained his rank. In her victim-impact statement, the veteran female officer told Court that the night it happened she was in her underwear, asleep on her bed in the dormitory at the police training academy. Someone, she's referring to Amlin and her statement, entered her room. She wrote to the Court,

I believe I was about to be raped. Being a victim of rape is my biggest fear, as it is for most, if not all women. As I was fighting to get free of my attacker, my attacker released me, and only then did I see it with you. What did you do at that moment? You stood there and laughed at me. We'll be right back. It's fair to say that news of the charges against Detective Sergeant Amlin further weakened Roseanne and Kent's faith in police. They had trusted Amlin. Now there was a new officer they did not know involved.

This officer, Pete Lipptrot, had told the McClellins that he had decided to get a new medical opinion. This one from experts at the hospital for sick children in Toronto. The McClellans, having already heard the opinion of London experts, which backed their version of what happens in Nathaniel, wondered at the need for a second opinion. As time passed, Rosanne and Kent were convinced that Nathaniel's death was being forgotten. They pursued a series of complaints to a body that investigates police, questioning the

conduct of both the Strathroy and OPP detectives. We pursued a series of complaints to a body that investigates police, questioning the conduct of both the Strathroid and OPP detectives. In one section of their complaint, the McClellan's alleged that some Strathroid officers were friendly with a babysitter's family. An OPP officer, Nelson de Costa, was assigned by the independent police oversight body to investigate. Now this was not a criminal investigation by DeCosta. It was more of a review of police conduct, and the McClellan say they would have preferred

a truly independent probe. DeCosta's two reports, one for each police force, cleared all of the officers involved, calling each allegation by the McClellan's unfounded. I've read those reports,, in my opinion, they fall short of a complete investigation. Some of the key officers had retired and, as was their right, they declined to give interviews to DeCosta. Megan Van Hoof, the babysitter, also declined. I tried to speak with all of the police officers involved. The only one who would talk to me

was retired Strathroid Cosball Mike McGuire. He was the one who was the original major case file coordinator on Nathaniel's investigation. McGuire lives across the street and down a few houses from the Van Hoves. I was in my car driving down to speak to the McClelland's in Park Hill one day when McGuire called me three years after

I first started trying to interview him. He was responding to yet another message from me, this one telling him that I was close to publishing an investigative series on the case in the Toronto Star. I was with Stafford and Carrotock Police retired back in 2016. McGuire had a long career as a police officer and was for many years ahead of the local police union. He was well known and well connected. He'd also been one of the officers assigned to that baby riker case, the one I told you

about in a previous episode. That's the case where the 20-month-old boy died of complications after being scalded with hot coffee. That boy's mother and her ex-boyfriend were convicted of criminal negligence causing death and sent to jail. Soon after finishing that case, McGuire was assigned to the Daniels. What I'd like to say to you is, I think there's a lot of misinformation going on concerning my involvement or lack thereof in this investigation.

Um, because of the questions that you were posing, and then other questions that people have been asking around town. I ask if there is any truth to the allegation that he was friends with Megan Van Hoof and her husband Brian. I do not know the bad foods at all. To the best of my knowledge, I have never spoken with them. You don't understand me, but Brian Van Hooth, they live across from you just down a couple of on head street. Yeah, they live up by now there's three houses. I know they live in one of three houses across the street and north of me,

but I don't know which one of those three houses it is. I do not know them. I do not socialize with them. I don't think I I asked McGuire about NASCAR racing parties, but some of the local guys host, including McGuire. I don't think they've ever been at my house. No. No. No. I mean, I'll be honest, I'm sitting here racking my brain about that. I guess there's something going on that I have a little recollection of and no. Like, um, they've never been at my house.

I've never socialized with them. Okay. I would not be, I would not know her at all. Like, absolutely. I wouldn't have, I have no idea who she is. McGuire told me his job on Nathaniel's case was to be the major case file coordinator, a job that entails keeping track of all interviews and pieces of information that came in.

He said he was a year from retirement, didn't need the overtime, so he asked to be removed. I went back to my regular duties, and I'll be very honest along being very honest with you. I specifically never asked any questions about this investigation of any of the officers that were working on it out of our office because I asked not to be involved there. How then, I asked, did his wife, Jeannie, a hairdresser, come to know information about Nathaniel's case, including having specific, though factually wrong, information

about Nathaniel's injuries, and when the door bump occurred. Here's the exchange we had. Did you ever hear that there was an allegation from the family that I believe I've getting this correct, that your wife had somehow had some information about the previous injuries and had spoken about it at her hair salon? I, well, I think what was said was that my wife had information that the investigation was no longer going on. Not that she knew anything above the investigation,

just that she had heard it, you know, it was over. And how would she had heard it, you know, it was over. And how would she learn that? I don't know where that information came from. My wife and I never spoke about that. I have no recollection of ever telling her that. And I didn't know anything about the investigation. So when it, I didn't know the only time I knew that that investigation apparently was was slowing down or over or I don't know where it was was right shortly before I

retired. So they've seen them boxing it up in the office. I heard lots of stories of small town chatter about Nathaniel's case. It's clear to me that officers who were not supposed to be talking about the investigation were. Strathroid is a small town. I know some Strathroid officers do know the Vanhoves, but I was never able to prove that there was any sort of special influence exerted. I do think Canton Roseanne were treated as outsiders. It's funny, they just live 30 minutes away, but they're not native to Strathroid.

What I can tell you is that the more the McClellins kept asking questions, kept pursuing answers to their son's death, there was some significant, collateral damage in relationships very close to their home. A family rift developed, with some members of the extended McClellan family urging them to continue asking questions while others counsel them to move on with their lives. My name is Richard Van DeWill and Roseanne is my daughter. We're sitting in Richard's kitchen in his home in Langton, Ontario. Richard has craggy, strong features, wispy light brown hair,

tinge with gray, and he's got sharp blue eyes. If he was an actor, he'd get all the FBI agent rules. But like his daughter, and most others in the family, Richard was a teacher. He eventually left the classroom, became a tobacco farmer, had 110 acres at the height of it. He's retired now. His first wife, Rosanne's mother, passed away years

ago and Richard remarried to Veronica. I ask him to describe Roseanne. She was like most other little kids, I guess. She was always a good student and she enjoyed school. She was good in athletics, but with her sports track and field running. I like to run myself and so the kids all got in the cross country, but Rosanne was fast as well as distance. So, and she played basketball in high school and did very well there.

If I competitive I guess you say. And she worked on the farm. She say. She worked on the farm. All our kids worked on the farm with us. They started on the young side, I suppose, but they did a good job. Nathaniel's passing was a terrible shock, Richard has so many memories of his grandson. He had a very loud voice. I can tell you that. I was sometimes surprised when I would hear him go. I remember in church

when Gabe was an altar server and he saw him and they were near the front of the church not right the front, and he yelled out, hi, Gabe! He just had a loud booming voice for his size. He had a big voice and he was a nice little guy. You know, I even liked to play and he was wrestling with his dad on the floor, all of them were there. It was, it was It was nice Just learning a few words, you know what would happen Richard has his own theory.

You wonder how it could happen. And my first thought when I actually found out how serious it was, was that there would have been a man. It almost had to be a man. You know? Like, that was my first thought. How would a woman hit that hard? It's not, they don't do that. And, but they never, as far as I know, they never looked into that. It just, to me, it seemed like the damage was so bad that that, you know, that doesn't happen by falling downstairs, you know?

And he had no bruises anywhere else on his body. As a father and grandfather, Richard has concerns that go beyond what happened to Nathaniel. Those concerns caused a rift that would be raw for years. Knowing his daughter, he was not surprised how focused Roseanne was digging into the case. I tell Richard, I met a lot of grieving relatives over the years, but never one quite like Roseanne. Richard said, it's in her nature to get the answers to questions grieving relatives over the years, but never one quite like Rosanne. Richard said, it's in her nature to get the answers to questions, but in the beginning, she was scared. They were just plain in the beginning, they were afraid of the police.

Rosanne was afraid to go in the Strasse Royce, they were afraid of the police. And the police has a tremendous amount of power. You know, you do not want to get a policeman mad. And it's frustrating in one way, but when you say she's good at finding out things, I rather expected that she would get so wrapped up in it, that my fear was that she wouldn't be paying enough attention to the family that's there. And so I sort of got on the wrong side of her to start with because they said,

you know, careful what you're doing here, this. You're dealing with police and people don't win when they go against the police. That made for some uncomfortable conversations. Richard would get on the phone to Rosanne in a fatherly way, try and get her to spend less time on the son she had lost, and more on the family she still had. It was one of those times when he observed how the role of a parent changes with time. As the kids grow older, it always pretty will happen. You may say the same things, but they don't listen as well.

They don't pay as much attention anymore. It's just a fact of life. And in this case, a case like this, the people she wants to be around with said the people who agree with her. You know, it's, it's, and if you hold back a bit, then she'll get angry. Our conversations on the phone now, mostly about Miss Annual. She just talks and talks about Miss Annual. mostly about Miss Annual. She just talks and talks about Miss Annual. Say hi to all the kids and everything, you know, but when you talk to Roseanne, the loan, it's just going to be about Miss Annual. And she doesn't come on the phone

as often. The relationship has changed a bit. And Kent is very, very busy. And that's how he handles it. He just keeps himself so busy. And again, the kids are missing out there. I haven't seen them wrestling on the floor since it happened. It has a profound effect on the family. It's hard to explain. I'm not a good talker, but things change. That conversation I had with Richard was a while back. Things between Rosanne and her dad really did improve with time, with both of them figuring out the hot buttons and how to avoid them.

And Rosanne can't are good parents of that I have no doubt. But I have to say, I had similar thoughts when talking to the McClellins over these many years. Wondering, myself, was this the time to move on? Can't call me one day to tell me how he felt frozen from something that had happened. He'd taken the older boys to a local ski hill one day, got them in their gear, and onto the hill, but he just could not join them. A sort of mental paralysis had gripped him.

He sat in the car thinking of Nathaniel while his living children were out enjoying the snow. Can't reach out to me later that day to talk over his feelings. Sorry, that was really well, but it, yeah, it just was one of those bad days, and I really do love it. It just, a reason just didn't work today.

But every time they came down the hill, they saw me and waved and I got to see them do jumps and turns and everything. They're a really good day. Richard, Roseanne's dad, worries as any parent would. We've lost something, you know? We've lost something there. Do you think you you get it back?

I really don't really think so. Not the way it was. I don't think they'll ever know what happened. In June 2021, a year and a bit into the pandemic, the Toronto Star published my five-part series, Death in a Small Town, Exploring Nathaniel's Case. I'd worked on it on and off since 2017. The OPP and Strathroid Police were still refusing to speak to me, saying only that it was an ongoing investigation, and they were still awaiting a medical opinion from the hospital for sick children in Toronto. I gave the police one month's warning, telling them what was going to be in the story,

waited as long as I promised, and then the series hit the front page. Exactly one week later, the McClellan's received a call from a senior OPP officer. How are you? Good, how are you doing this morning? It's Wednesday, June 23rd, 2021. The McClellan's are rushing around home, getting ready for a big day. Luke, the second oldest McClellan boy, is graduating grade 8. Now there was a police officer on the phone, a senior officer, detective superintendent Tina Chalk of the OPP. It was a chilling call to receive. Years ago, an innocuous call like

that led to what Roseanne and Kent say was a grueling interrogation by the OPP. So I just wanted to let you in on a little bit about why we wanted to meet. And we've been trapped, you know, typically. And especially, we really wanted to meet you a person to give you the kind of news that we're giving you today. Next time on Death in a Small Town. Members of the Strathorary Care Doc Police Service and the Otero-Virgincial Police under the direction of the OPP Criminal Investigation Branch arrested a Strathorary resident following a joint investigation in a death of a 15-month-old child. 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 O'Leniac, music and sound design for the series created by Sean Pattenden.