ASSEMBLY POLL '98
COMMENTARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ELECTIONS '98
ARCHIVES

Pre-teen's murder case kept open despite Indian's conviction

A Special Correspondent in Victoria, British Columbia

Though an Indian-Canadian is already condemned to serve at least 25 years in prison for a 20-year-old murder of a pre-teen girl in a small town 150 miles from Victoria, the police last week said the file is staying open. They believe that one more person could have joined the guilty person in the kidnap and murder.

One of the most sensational murder stories in British Columbia, the case was assigned -- among more than 50 unsolved murder cases -- to a special division of the Royal Mounted Canadian Police about five years ago. This is the first case cracked by the special division.

Meanwhile, lawyers for Gurmit Singh Dhillon, 48, found guilty of first degree murder in the abduction, rape and murder of Carolyn Lee on April 14, 1977, have filed an appeal saying that the DNA evidence used against Dhillon had been corrupted.

One witness, Alice Lazorko, testified that on that evening, a vehicle driven by an East Indian passed her on Third Ave with a Chinese girl and a blond-haired man in the back seat. Dhillon used to frequent local bars in his hometown of Port Alberini, and used to be seen with a lot of hard-drinking men, newspaper reports said.

"I was flabbergasted at the conviction," his lawyer, Russ Chamberlain said. "In all my 31 years as a lawyer I've never seen anyone convicted on this kind of evidence."

He said when the jury delivered its verdict on December 3, after deliberating for three days, he thought: "May God have mercy on their souls."

"They could easily have convicted an innocent man," he said.

Lee was abducted after leaving her dance class in Port Alberni, on that day.

Her beaten, partially clad body was found near a lake outside town the following day. Dhillon was initially a suspect but offered an alibi for the time of the murder. Chamberlain says the alibi was very tight but the police wanted the murder to be solved and kept on going after his client, particularly after he was sent to prison for two years about 10 years ago for sexual assault.

The police on the other hand say they could nail down Dhillon because the DNA procedure has advanced considerably --and his former wife testified against him.

The RCMP reopened the file and analysed physical evidence using new scientific techniques. Dhillon was charged last year after a blood sample was taken for analysis.

The jury heard four weeks of evidence, much of it relating to DNA testing.

Crown experts testified that the DNA in semen swabbed from Lee's body matches DNA in Dhillon's blood.

But Chamberlain said the experts also testified the match could be made only if it could be determined there was only one contributor to the semen sample, and they testified that couldn't be determined.

Tell us what you think of this report