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The Current Transcript for October 12, 2016

Host: Piya Chattopadhyay

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Listen to the full episode

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

The storm was very bad. It take away everything. My house is destroyed, everything gone. As you could see, we’re waiting for help. There’s nothing left.

PIYA CHATTOPADHYAY: He says there's nothing left in southern Haiti and what could still be in store in the wake of Hurricane Matthew is equally fearsome: starvation, cholera, unyielding devastation, more illness and almost assuredly more deaths. First up today, we are going to Haiti to get the latest on the ground but also what if you want to donate to help patients, but have been hearing warnings about where to send your dollars? We'll look into those warnings and do our best to help you decide how and where to give. Also on today's show…

SOUNDCLIP

Everything has built-in obsolescence and the minute it breaks, people have to get the new one and they throw the old one away. And we don't have to live like that.

PC: Instead, you can repair—fix your clothes, fix your appliances, fix whatever you're tempted to take to the curb. She's part of the burgeoning fixer movement and not only is it good for the environment and your budget, we'll hear about efforts in Sweden to actually give a tax break to fixers. Fighting back against planned obsolescence in half an hour. And then we'll revisit a cold case more than a decade old that's finally come to a close.

SOUNDCLIP

I did know before the night was over she was dead though. Call it mother’s intuition or whatever. I knew she was gone.

PC: David Ridgen first brought us the story of the murder of Christine Harron back in 2012. It featured the only media interview ever by the man accused in her death. And yesterday, that man was sentenced to life in prison. David Ridgen will be by in an hour. Hello, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and this is The Current.

Haiti devastation post-Hurricane Matthew pose challenges for aid organizations

Guests: Carel Pedre, Hossam Elsharkawi, Marylynn Steckley

SOUNDCLIP

As you could see, everything gone. The town, all the town, destroyed. So we need the international support because every families are very poor. They have no water. They have no food. They need medicine.

PC: In Haiti there are pleas for aid and they're only growing louder. At least a thousand Haitians were killed and much of the country left devastated by Hurricane Matthew. And for the residents of the poorest country in the Americas, the aftermath of the storm could be even worse. Cholera and starvation loom large, threatening the survivors and the United Nations has appealed for $119 million in emergency aid but it can't arrive fast enough. All of this after an earthquake devastated much of Haiti in 2010. Carel Pedre is a Haitian journalist who has just returned from the hardest hit southern parts of Haiti. We've reached him today in Port-au-Prince. Hello.

CAREL PEDRE: Hello.

PC: Carel, first of all, just how bad is the damage in the areas you visited?

CAREL PEDRE: It's definitely not something that you can imagine. And seeing the pictures, seeing the videos, yes you can maybe feel pain and everything but when you get there and have to talk to people in that environment, it's hardworking. And I never saw something like this and I think that we're facing a bigger disaster than what we have in 2010 because Matthew was the strongest hurricane to hit Haiti in decades. And what's happening right now is like people—they lost everything. For example in 2010—I can say just two for comparison—we had houses destroyed but people had food to eat in those region. But now they don't have anything and it's really sad and I think that we're facing a biggest disaster than what we just got from Matthew.

PC: Carel, so you’re saying like after the 2010 earthquake, compared to that, this time people—they have literally no food?

CAREL PEDRE: They have literally no food because all the crops are gone. They don’t have anything. And those people, they’re not living [unintelligible]. So they’ve been living from that, from the trees, from the [unintelligible], all the plantations are gone. And when you're watching like in their face, of course, yes you can give them food right now, but what about—what's going to happen in the next two or three months? What's going to happen in six months? And we don't know. And now we have also the cholera outbreaks striking up right now. It’s crazy.

PC: What about water? Do people have water yet?

CAREL PEDRE: They didn’t have water before the hurricane and now it's worse because now all the rivers are definitely contaminated. And now they’re trying to give them, to find a way to give them clean water. And that's one of the biggest challenge also, besides food and shelterS.

PC: What are people telling you Carel, when you talk to them?

CAREL PEDRE: People are desperate. They just need food and shelters and clean water right now. And they're very concerned about the future because they don't really know what's going to happen because they're afraid that right now, there's a lot of people coming to help out and maybe after two weeks everybody will be gone and they’ll be forgotten.

PC: Are they scared?

CAREL PEDRE: Yes. Definitely, definitely. And you can see that in the eyes of the kids especially, because there’s a lot of children affected by the hurricane as well. And they can’t go to school and they don't have anything. We are a poor country and the rural areas are the poorest and those are the areas that are affected right now. For example again, the earthquake hit the capital of Haiti where you can see like people were living. I can say most of them are [unintelligible]. But now we are in a situation where people who didn’t have at first electricity, they didn’t have clean water, they didn't have woods, they didn't have anything basics and they were hit by a Category Four hurricane and they lost everything. Like everything. We have a town completely destroyed. We have areas completely destroyed. And it's—I don’t know, it's catastrophic and I think that it's—to repeat the president, it’s apocalyptic.

PC: What type of aid is getting in to these southern areas right now? What did you see?

CAREL PEDRE: A lot of aid, there’s a lot of solidarity, especially coming from Haitians. There's a lot of Haitian organizations getting themselves together, collecting aid and go to distribute them. We have food, we have medical supplies. We have water and we have water containers because people need to have a way to keep clean water. That’s the type of aid that we saw. But the biggest problem is the organization of the aid. It is the same way that they did it in 2010. It was like everybody's coming but no one is leaving. And everybody is trying to help. It’s normal because it's a really huge disaster. It's normal that you go and help. But I think that we need some little organization. We need to know who is doing what, where, when and why. You know? And if we can't answer those question right now on a bigger scale, we're facing another big disaster because when all the aid is being given away, what’s going to happen? And I think that right now we need also to think about the next three to four months: How are we going to keep feeding those people? How are we going to keep giving them hope and how are we going to help them rebuild everything they lost and try to bring food to the table as well? And not food that we're going to distribute—food that they can produce themselves. And that’s the biggest challenge.

PC: Carel, thank you for making time with us today. Thank you.

CAREL PEDRE: It's a pleasure.

PC: Carel Pedre is a journalist in Haiti. We reached him in Port-Au-Prince. Well, the humanitarian disaster in Haiti right now will recall the devastating 2010 earthquake there, when Canadians donated millions to the Red Cross to help. And many are interested in helping again. But warnings posted to social media against donating to the Red Cross may have left would-be donors confused about how or even whether to send funds. The warnings are related to a 2015 report from ProPublica and NPR, claiming that despite raising nearly half a billion dollars for Haiti earthquake relief, the Red Cross built only six permanent homes and that its housing projects were plagued by mismanagement and a shortage of qualified staff. Lesley Schaffer is the regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the American Red Cross. Here's what she had to say.

SOUNDCLIP

There's really no validity to the media reports that the Red Cross only built six houses. In fact, we have helped more than 22,000 families move into safe homes. We’ve constructed or equipped more than 22 hospitals and clinics. We’ve invested heavily in the cholera prevention and treatment. There are many, many things the American Red Cross has done in Haiti that have not been fully represented. So now it’s back in the headlines and now is not the time to dredge up stories that are really not true and potentially hurting an important opportunity to get resources to people who need them.

PC: That's an American Red Cross spokesperson Lesley Schaffer. For his take on the role of humanitarian organizations in Haiti, we're joined now by Dr. Hossam Elsharkawi. He's vice president for international operations at the Canadian Red Cross. He's in Ottawa. Hello.

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: Good morning.

PC: What do you want to say to people who have concerns about how effective the Red Cross has been in Haiti?

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: Let me just clarify: the stories I think you're referring to were very specific to one aspect of the American Red Cross’ work. American Red Cross is a separate and distinct organization from the Canadian Red Cross. And for the Canadian Red Cross’ work, I can assure Canadians that the contributions, the support—now and in the past—has done a tremendous job in helping rebuild parts of Haiti.

PC: Can you give me an example what the Canadian Red Cross has done on the ground in Haiti since 2010?

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: Oh absolutely. I was on the ground in Haiti in 2010 two days after the earthquake. And from day one, we started with emergency medical assistance and as the food distribution, blankets, plastic sheeting, emergency shelter and as the years went by. Today we have built 7,400 shelters in Haiti, homes for people. We have constructed a new hospital where the hospital was destroyed in the south of Haiti. We have provided training specifically for the Haitian Red Cross staff and volunteers so they can be better responders themselves. We are still in Haiti. I was there three weeks ago. We responded to the cholera outbreak in Haiti with a field hospital. So we are still there.

PC: So I just want to be clear: if I had gone to Haiti prior to the hurricane, I could physically go see aid working on the ground that Canadians donated to the Canadian Red Cross.

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: Oh absolutely. Absolutely. Those programs continue. When we responded after the earthquake, we had presence in Haiti, in fact working with the Haitian Red Cross before the earthquake as well, on first aid training and water safety programs. But importantly we realized the earthquake was so massive in its destruction to the country's infrastructure, to the people, just the casualties over 200,000 people. We realized this would be a five to 10 year rebuilding endeavour. This wasn't something that was going to be resolved in a year or two.

PC: I want to just clarify one more thing. The Canadian Red Cross, every country Red Cross is specific to that country. So you have no—it's not like if I donate money to the Canadian Red Cross, my $25, that it goes into a pool that is managed by the International Red Cross in Haiti. There is no sharing of the money that I gave to the Canadian Red Cross, with say the American Red Cross.

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: No. There isn't like that. Sometimes we will engage in joint projects where the American Red Cross for example, did contribute some of their monies raised to help build the hospital that we built in Haiti. So we coordinate. But the monies, because we are subject to the laws of Canada, the monies are overseen and directed by the Canadian Red Cross and by our teams on the ground.

PC: Alright. So here we are in Haiti after Hurricane Matthew. What are the most critical humanitarian issues to address in the wake of the hurricane for the Canadian Red Cross?

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: Well, as your previous speaker has said, I mean he's painted a picture that is very tragic and in fact it is the reality that is Haiti. I could only add to that that even pre-hurricane, pre- earthquake as well—I mean Haiti was a very fragile state. The issue of access: no roads, no bridges, no electricity, safety and security were concerns to Haitians all the time. Three weeks ago, what I still observed in parts of Haiti, remote villages and so on, that daily—life is a daily struggle of finding food and water, still, for thousands and thousands of Haitians and thousands and thousands of small communities in Haiti. So this, the hurricane just made it worse. The reality is yes, here we go again. They didn't get a break. We need to help them surge the response, provide importantly the life-saving assistance now in the form of food, water, medical assistance and shelter. But importantly, information to prevent the secondary disaster that could come in a flare up of cholera right now. This is our main concern as well on that side. And third, begin to look at the rebuilding which we know now is going to take years as well. It took us years to build earthquake resistant, hurricane resistant homes that I just talked about, the 7,400 units.

PC: Do you have any idea how many of those are still standing?

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: The news is that every one that people have been to are all standing.

PC: And how many are that about? If you’ve been to four, four were standing.

[Crosstalk]

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: Several hundred.

PC: Yeah. Okay.

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: Several hundred. And we have teams on the ground that are actually visiting to determine for us because this is also part of our insuring that we are learning and evaluating that the measures that we put in place, the codes, the building codes that we put in place into these units have actually survived a Category Four. And indications so far is that that is in fact the case. But these are things we take very, very seriously as professionals and humanitarian assistants.

PC: Dr. Hossam Elsharkawi, good to talk to you. Thank you.

HOSSAM ELSHARKAWI: Thank you.

PC: Dr. Hossam Elsharkawi is vice president for international operations with the Canadian Red Cross. We reached him in our Ottawa studio. For one more perspective, we reached Marylynn Steckley, an assistant professor of global and international studies at Portland State University. She lived in Haiti for more than five years doing research and working with the Mennonite Central Committee. And we've reached Marylynn Steckley in Portland, Oregon. Hello.

MARYLYNN STECKLEY: Good morning.

PC: What do you make of concerns about donating to the Red Cross or other aid organizations in Haiti?

MARYLYNN STECKLEY: I think I would say that we're in a situation that's very complicated and the fact that aid is not as effective as it could be is really no excuse for not giving. I was speaking with my mom the other day and she had someone say to her I think we've given Haiti enough aid by now and that's a really inhumane response. I think we need to look at Haiti's history of aid to make sense of how we should be acting in light of Hurricane Matthew. So the state has been hollowed out over the past two centuries or so. We had the debt repayment that Haiti had to pay to France for properties lost in the revolution and then in the 1950s and sixties and seventies, we granted loans to Haiti's dictatorship, the Duvaliers, who siphoned off money from the government. The democratically elected president Aristide was overthrown twice, in 1990 and 2004. And then in the past 30 year, Haiti has been compelled to accept loans from international financial institutions which have had conditions on the state of austerity, so to reduce spending on public services. It’s in this absence of the state that the proliferation of NGOs has really happened and they are doing a patchwork response. And I think that's the fundamental problem here. There's no overseeing body. There's no unity of aid.

PC: And Marylynn, when you were in Haiti, you've seen aid come in, like on the ground. How well do you think it's delivered in Haiti? I don't know if you've been to other places where you've seen aid come in but maybe you can just tell us. Is it getting to the people who need it and helping them along the way?

MARYLYNN STECKLEY: There's two problems here. On the one hand, I think, and I talked to my friend who's a Haitian last night, and he said in each case that we've seen over the past 15 years or so, Cyclone Jeanne 2004, four cyclones in 2008, the disaster, NGOs are operating, they’re doing aid from a business perspective. They want to be seen, they want to be visible, they're competing for funding. And oftentimes, this happens to the detriment of the dignity of Haitians themselves. So emergency aid is often handed out by what they call blanc, by white foreigners, or by UN military soldiers with machine guns in town centres or on the road where people are really forced to put their hand out to foreign officials or organizations in a way that makes them lose their dignity. I think there's certainly struggles of international NGOs who are operating on the ground in Haiti right now: problems of isolation, centralization of resources, as I said the hollowing out of the state. But there is a way that aid could be done better.

PC: How?

MARYLYNN STECKLEY: I think it's by working with local organizations. So my experience after the earthquake was that those organizations that make the most significant humanitarian difference—who changed people's lives—were Haitian organizations on the ground. Emergency aid should be given through those organizations and they can distribute the aid in a way that's appropriate culturally into their communities rather than making people stand in line begging. I want to say again that I think that even though I'm saying that international aid hasn't been as effective as it could be, I really don't think that's an excuse for not giving. The situation in Haiti, as your first guest said, is really deteriorating quickly. Cholera cases are up, infections from wounds are skyrocketing, food supplies are low. This is a disaster that could be even worse if there is no response and I think we're really compelled to act.

PC: I think the frustration for some Canadians, and probably Americans too, of not giving is some of the things that you've raised, which is I'm happy to give my money if it actually helps.

MARYLYNN STECKLEY: Right, right.

PC: But if it gets caught up in large aid organizations and the bureaucracy and the blancs, as you said Haitians call them, I don't want to just give my money.

MARYLYNN STECKLEY: Right.

PC: And we know that there's been a lot of talk around donor fatigue. So for those listening wondering what they should do right now to help Haiti, what's your recommendation?

MARYLYNN STECKLEY: So we need to work with the resources that are there on the ground right now. And those are imperfect for sure. But we still need to give. And the earthquake really taught us that we need to give critically. We need to be choosy about who we don't donate to and then we need to follow up. So each of us is going to make decisions to support organizations based on different, our own personal beliefs, but I think it's really important to check in, to follow up with whoever it is you choose to support, to keep international organizations accountable to the claims that they make. The Haitian embassy has also created a list of best practices for disaster relief in Haiti and that's a great tool for people who want to donate funds. So you can ask about whether the organization has had long term connections on the ground, whether they partner with Haitian institutions, how long the organization has been operating in Haiti, who's giving out the aid. Are they trying to work with the state and empower local organizations and local officials? These are all things that I think we need to do our part to be more engaged in the aid that we give over the long term.

PC: Marylynn, thank you very much.

MARYLYNN STECKLEY: Thank you so much.

PC: Marylynn Steckley is an assistant professor of global and international studies at Portland State University. She was in Portland, Oregon. Alright, the news is next. Then reduce, reuse, recycle and repair. We'll be focusing on that fourth R and making a habit of repairing rather than replacing. I'm Piya Chattopadhyay. You're listening to The Current. We're back in just a bit.

[Music: Sting]

Sweden offering tax breaks to repair - not replace - broken objects

Guests: Per Bolund, Kyle Wiens

PC: Hi, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

PC: Still to come, Christine Harron was just 15 when she disappeared forever from her small Ontario town back in the early 1990s. CBC radio host David Ridgen of Someone Knows Something first reported on her cold case for The Current five years ago. Now the suspect he interviewed for that documentary has been sentenced to life in prison. David Ridgen joins me in a half an hour to update us. But first, a fix for our throwaway culture.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: Yeah, this one came in not working at all. But it looks like it might be because of the pin is loose here. So if we replace the cord cap, it'll probably go.

[Sound: Metal clanking]

There you go.

VOICE 2: You're probably wrong but... [chuckles]

VOICE 1: Well, thanks a lot.

VOICE 2: No problem.

PC: Meet Rick and Craig Butler, the father-son duo behind Butler’s Appliance Service in Toronto. The shop has been in the family since 1927. Rick's wife works there as well. After many lean years, business in their fix-it shop is on the mend, but not all of the Butlers’ competitors survive the tough times when replacing rather than repairing was the norm. Throwaway culture may still be all around us, but there are small signs that things are starting to change. The Current’s producer Karin Marley chatted with the Butlers about progress and why the obstacles are still in their way.

SOUNDCLIP

CRAIG BUTLER: It's a $700 vacuum.

KARIN MARLEY: How much is that going to cost them to repair?

CRAIG BUTLER: Probably 10 or 15 dollars labour and I think it's four dollars for the part and he's got his $700 vacuum working tomorrow.

KARIN MARLEY: That's kind of worth it.

CRAIG BUTLER: Yeah. When you buy quality, you know you put the effort of getting it fixed. If this was a $49 special, you probably would have thrown it out for a four dollar part.

[Sound: Drill]

RICK BUTLER: It's getting better but a lot of people are still in the throwaway stage. No doubt about that.

CRAIG BUTLER: Right now, we're doing a ton of repairs. We're busier now than we've been in the last 10, 15 years. There's a big push on now to repair instead of throw out.

RICK BUTLER: Maybe the younger generation is trying to keep things going rather than fill the dump all the time. But some manufacturers still don't make parts for their units so we can't fix them. We have a recycler come IN every week and it takes a couple of garbage cans full of appliances that we can’t repair.

[Sound: Metal clanking]

CRAIG BUTLER: I definitely wouldn’t advise you to take something apart and try it yourself. In most cases people do more damage than good. Some people have a hard time tying their shoe in the morning you know, and then there are some people that are just naturally talented with their hands. Okay, so $10 deposit first, so $30.

[Sound: Cash register printing receipt]

PC: Rick and Craig Butler of Butler’s Appliance Service in Toronto. Fix-it shops, like theirs, used to be a fixture in every community. And politicians in Sweden have made it a priority to help them thrive again. The government in Sweden is introducing tax breaks to make it easier for consumers to fix what they already own. Per Bolund is Sweden's deputy finance and consumer affairs minister. And we've reached him in Stockholm. Hello.

PER BOLUND: Hi.

PC: What are the tax breaks you're introducing for repairing rather than replacing products in Sweden?

PER BOLUND: Well, there's actually two different schemes that we're introducing. One is that we take down the VAT tax, value added tax, on repairs on bicycles, shoes and clothes and textile from 25 per cent tax to 12 per cent tax. And the other is that we are introducing a tax deduction on repairs on goods in your home, so refrigerators, stoves, washing machines and the likes. And then you get a 50 per cent deduction on the labour cost of repairing them. So we hope that this will lead to a more sustainable consumption and it’s also part of a greater strategy for introducing sustainable patterns of consumption in Sweden.

PC: Compared to some other environmental concerns, repairing may seem like a small issue. But it also seems important enough for the Swedish government to feel the need to tackle it directly. Why is that?

PER BOLUND: Well, several reasons. One is that we've managed quite well to reduce the emissions within Sweden, so we've cut them by a quarter since 1990. But when we look at the emissions from consumption, they're going the other way. They're going up. So in order to really take responsibility on the global scale, we need to focus on consumption issues. And the other is that we also see this as a policy that could lead to new business opportunities and to new jobs since we know that repair is labour-intensive and it can also open up new labour markets for people who may not have a very long education but are handy. So we believe that this could add to the employment policy of Sweden.

PC: Hmm. So here in Canada, you know as I said earlier, fix-it shops used to be much more of the norm. What's it like in Stockholm? Are there fix-it shops everywhere?

PER BOLUND: Well, there are and there are opportunities to fix our goods. But in our opinion from the government, they are used too little so we have to encourage people to use them more. And we see that there is a growing interest in the consumer community trying to decrease our environmental impact and there is an interest in sustainable consumption. And there's also a growing maker movement and stronger sharing economy. So we see many signs that people want to make a difference and want to try to be responsible as consumers. And from the government side, we’re trying to encourage that.

PC: And do you—you know in North America we have a culture that would be described by many people as a throwaway culture and one, a throwaway culture that has been thriving for years. And I think sometimes we, from over here, look to Europeans and especially Scandinavian countries of not having that much and sort of their ethos. Does Sweden have a throwaway culture?

PER BOLUND: Well, it has grown in the past decade so I think we've gotten used to more of a throwaway culture as well. And of course, one of the reasons is that imported goods have become cheaper and cheaper and that's partly because of low labour costs in other parts of the world and also because of a growing automization, so more robotization in the factories. But we believe that people are seeing the negative sides of this as well. And for example, many people feel that we perhaps have too many goods in our homes and for example, the self-storage industry is growing quite rapidly in Sweden. So people are actually paying to get rid of all the goods they have in their homes. So that's a sign that perhaps people are looking for other solutions such as, for example, sharing their goods or repairing goods so that they last longer. So we believe that these policies will be positively received and that many people will use them in order to actually make an impact on the global scale.

PC: What about you? Are you a fix-it guy?

PER BOLUND: Yeah, well, I like that very much to fix in my home and my goods as well. So I'm definitely going to use this and I've used it already. But I think that many more people will see the opportunities and this also will lead to new businesses and new jobs growing in the Swedish labour market and that is something that is always welcome.

PC: Hmm. What's your favorite item that you've fixed?

PER BOLUND: Well, of course clothing is always the goods that we—you need to be in style and at the same time you need to be aware as a consumer and that's quite hard to match sometimes. So I like to get my jackets re-sewn and my suits and to make sure that they are in style and still you can use them for a longer time. So that's a very good example.

PC: Fair enough. Well, thank you for joining us. I appreciate it.

PER BOLUND: Thank you.

PC: Per Bolund is Sweden's deputy finance and consumer affairs minister. He was in Stockholm. There may be no tax breaks on this side of the ocean, at least not yet, but there is already an enthusiastic community of amateur repair enthusiasts. They’re known as the fixer movement and you can find them at work at repair cafes. The cafes got their start in the Netherlands half a decade ago, but they are popping up here. We visited one repair cafe in Toronto and we got a tour with one of the group's co-founders.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: My name is Fern Mosoff. We're at a repair cafe at Hart House. And the volunteer fixers help the visitors learn to repair—all for free. We have today a couple of jewellers, we have a few sewers, we have a few appliance repairs, and we have a computer fixer. There’s a demand we can't quite keep up with.

VOICE 2: So Vivian, I think what we're going to do is I'm going to try to see if you can do everything. So I just plugged it in so you might want to just pick it up and turn the switch on and off.

[Sound: Buzzing noise]

VOICE 2: There we go, right?

VOICE 3: I'm really interested in just learning how to repair things because I've never, I wasn't taught how to growing up.

VOICE 2: This is a skill set that I have that I'm happy to offer and it's a bit of a thrill when people get to see that they've fixed something and it's a nice sense of—a way to interact with your community.

VOICE 1: Repair skills are very much undervalued in our society. They're being lost. Well, there's just, there's a lot of joy. I mean maybe it's not for everybody, but certainly the people who enjoy it. And when people wouldn't know that they would enjoy it unless they weren't exposed to it. So it's the idea of exposing the opportunity. We were talking with a school that ended up doing a stuffie repair, like a stuffie hospital. So the kids, young kids, brought their stuffed animals. That's a way of introducing the concept of repair and the skills to younger people.

VOICE 4: It's not the neatest mending in the world but it's better than how it was before. He came with a broken zipper and now he has a fixed zipper. So there.

VOICE 5: Wow, thank you!

VOICE 1: We ring the bell when something gets fixed.

[Sound: Bell ringing]

PC: So repair cafés are not-for-profit groups with the goal of adding repair as the fourth R alongside reduce, reuse and recycle. But there are young repair enthusiasts who see money to be made in the repair business, although using a different model than the classic fix-it shop. Kyle Wiens is a co-founder and CEO of the website iFixIt. He is in San Luis Obispo, California. Kyle, hi.

KYLE WIENS: Hello.

PC: How's business going on iFixIt?

KYLE WIENS: Oh, things are going very well. Every day we help tens of thousands of people learn how to fix things. People Google for what is broken and it's our job to make sure that Google has a good answer for you.

PC: Okay. You're a software engineer by training, right?

KYLE WIENS: Right. Yeah. So I build websites and iFixIt is a website that's designed to make it easy to learn how to fix things.

PC: And how did you make the transition from software engineer to fixing things engineer?

KYLE WIENS: Well, I was trying to fix my laptop and having a hard time finding information online. And you know the first time you take something apart is a challenge, you don't know where all the screws go, you don't know where all the local plastic tabs and latches. So I struggled with the repair and I thought man, this would be a lot easier if somebody had already shared their experience. So once I got it back together, I knew how to do it so I decided to take it apart again andtake some photos and post instructions online. The instructions got really popular and so we decided to just keep doing it. And I've been for 12 years now.

PC: Give me a sense of how it's grown over the last 12 years.

KYLE WIENS: I have a dashboard up here right now. Right now there are 2,300 people on iFixIt learning how to repair things at this moment.

PC: Right now?

KYLE WIENS: Right now. And they're looking at everything from how to replace the spark plugs in their car to how to fix the screen in their iPhone, to maybe how to upgrade the battery in an old iPod. It's really varied. We're now the biggest repair manual in the world and everything is free.

PC: So I've never gone to your website. But is it like written instructions or is there like a video? Because I'm not very bright at fixing things so I might need more help than sort of the traditional, you know instruction manual that comes with my product.

KYLE WIENS: Right. So sometimes there's videos walking you through it. Sometimes we do step by step follows and text. The instructions are designed for someone who's never done that repair before, for someone who's never taken something apart before. The writing is generally at a fourth or fifth grade reading level, so the idea is that we want to make it really accessible. We have kids fixing iPods for their parents. We’ve got parents fixing iPhones for their kids. It's really designed to be accessible.

PC: My parents still have a working alarm clock that sits next to the bed. I love it. It’s got a wind-up flippy kind of display. I love it. It's going to die at some point. It's been you know working for 40 years but whenever I look it, I'm like that's going to die one day and I'm going to need to fix that because I want it to keep working. So how hard—can you help me fix really old things?

KYLE WIENS: [chuckles] Yeah. A lot of the times, the older stuff is easier to fix with electronics, that's mostly just because it's bigger. So like taking apart an old alarm clock is usually pretty easy. It may be a bit of a challenge to get components, but we've seen alarm clocks come into repair cafés a lot and people are very successful at repairing them.

PC: You know I have a boxful—and everyone has this somewhere in their house—where they have a box full of manuals that they got with various products and they just shove them in there, you know may need to use it one day. But how hard is it nowadays to find instruction manuals from the manufacturers? I mean do they make them easy to find?

KYLE WIENS: Right. This is the biggest problem, is that the instruction manual that comes with the product is how to use it, it’s not how to fix it. Everything used to come with a repair manual and the manufacturers stopped doing that. And in a lot of cases, they're actually using proactive legal threats to prevent people from having access to repair manuals. So what's happened is that the manufacturers have realized that repair maybe takes business away from people buying new products and very few manufacturers are really proactively trying to prevent people from fixing things.

PC: And I imagine planned obsolescence plays into this as well.

KYLE WIENS: Right. Yeah, they feel like their new products are competing against their unused products and so if they can figure out a way to make those used products obsolete, they're going to. A very common thing manufacturers are doing now is they glue batteries in. They have a finite life. They only last a year or two and after that you need to swap out the battery. But if they glue the battery in, they make it really hard for people to swap them out themselves.

PC: But you have a fix-it for that, don't you?

KYLE WIENS: We do. So we develop all kinds of techniques for getting in and loosening glue. One thing that loosens glue is heat. So you can use a hairdryer and like a paint scraper and just pry the—loosen the adhesive and it’ll come right up. As product design has changed, some of our repair techniques have changed. It's not just use a screwdriver to get inside something. You need—maybe you need to apply a little bit of heat and a little bit of prying but it works out pretty well.

PC: And so you know you said some manufacturers sort of do this purposefully, make it difficult for consumers to repair things. But is that changing in any way? Are you finding some manufacturers who do want to work with the likes of you?

KYLE WIENS: Yes. There are definitely manufacturers that are interested in doing the right thing and building products that have a long product life. Patagonia is a US clothing company that has a lifetime warranty on all their products and you can mail into them and they'll repair it and send it back. But they also have—we worked with them on getting repair manuals written for all their stuff as well. So if you buy a luggage or a jacket from them and you want to replace the zipper, they'll send you a new zipper for free and show you how to install it.

PC: Let me broaden out with you a bit. I mean do you consider repairing a lost art?

KYLE WIENS: I think that there are certain mechanical repairs that are very challenging, where there are a few people that know how to do it. You know the trades, working with your hands isn't as valued. We've told everyone that you have to go to college and that working with your hands isn't as important as working with your mind and it turns out it's just as intellectually challenging to pull some of these things apart and repair them, figure out what's wrong, as you know, writing the latest doctoral thesis. Some of this stuff is very challenging.

PC: Hmm. You know when I think of repairing something, putting a zipper on a jacket or I don't know maybe even an old toaster, isn't as daunting for me as repairing a smartphone, for example. But are there still skills we can learn from the classics—grandfathers tinkering and fixing stuff in their basements—to apply to today?

KYLE WIENS: Yes, I think so. There's a huge amount of knowledge out there. And it's interesting because you have different perspectives. Like for me, replacing the battery in a cell phone is much, much easier than getting a sewing machine out and I'm afraid I’m going to run over my finger or something with the needle. So everybody has different perspectives. The current generation has much lower levels of sewing skills than the previous generation and that's something that maybe we can fix by just bridging the gap, by getting sewing machines into more classrooms, by teaching more people. And then the same thing: the younger generation has more electronic skills that maybe we can teach in the other direction. There's an opportunity to bring people together and they use all of the objects in their life as an opportunity to build connections, to teach each other things and to remove a little bit of the mystery from the products that we surround ourselves with.

PC: I would argue that traditionally, repair and fix it was seen as sort of the domain of men—grandfathers, fathers—and I'm curious about what the gender balance is like with people who use your site.

KYLE WIENS: We do everything that we can to equalize things. We have a wonderful lady who runs our video channel and she's teaching people how to fix things. She's teaching people how to fix electronics. And then we have a guy who teaches sewing repair. So we try to bridge that that gender divide because there absolutely are some perceptions around the types of repairs that people are specialized in. I think it has more to do with the types of objects that people associate and identify themselves with.

PC: What's the weirdest thing you've been asked to help people repair?

KYLE WIENS: I got given an espresso machine the other day, who is called the Starbucks Barista and I thought this is weird that they named the machine the barista. But so I went ahead and I took apart a barista.

PC: [laughs]

KYLE WIENS: And I took some pictures and there's instructions online.

PC: Right. So you figured out how to fix it. Now you've shared that.

KYLE WIENS: We figured it out, yeah. And I got an email from someone saying hey, thanks so much for helping me fix my Barista, so it's happening. It's working.

PC: You heard in the tape from earlier, Craig Butler from the Toronto fix-it store Butler’s Appliance Service say you know what, repairing isn't for amateurs. Leave it up to the professionals. I'm guessing that you disagree with that.

KYLE WIENS: Well, every repair shop has had an experience where someone you know tried to fix something themselves and brought it to them when they failed. And I think that's okay. I think that getting this dialogue going is good. There are some things where if a repair is going to take three or four hours. I might be willing to do that myself because it’s something that I care about but I can't necessarily afford to pay somebody $50 an hour to spend that amount of time. Lamps are a good example, where if you go to repair cafes, people are fixing lamps all the time but it's really hard to justify paying someone a lot of labour to fix a lamp. On the other hand, it can be an heirloom. It's something that you care about. I mean there's room for both, where people understand things better and also understand the value, the skill that's involved in repairing and they're willing to pay for it.

PC: You heard earlier from Sweden's deputy finance minister talking about the changes that they're making there to give people tax breaks so they can repair more and to entice them to repair more. Are you working with legislatures to try to make it easier to repair products, to make it—to incentivize people?

KYLE WIENS: Yes. So there's two really important angles to this. One is changing the tax situation and reducing taxes on labour because we want to employ more people and so what Sweden is doing by reducing the tax on repair services makes a lot of sense. It shifts the balance in that direction. On the other hand, even if the labour is inexpensive, there are things that the repair shops don't have that they need. There is access to parts, there's manuals, there's circuit schematics. And those are things that the manufacturers have been systematically removing from repair shops and from consumers. So there are a number of US states that are considering right to repair laws, where it would require that manufacturers share parts and information with consumers and independent repair shops.

PC: Have any states passed that?

KYLE WIENS: Yes. So last year there were four states introduced it. They didn't quite make it all the way through this year. There's going to be even more. It's looking very likely something is going to happen. The last state that passed a right to repair law was Massachusetts in 2012, but it was only for automobiles. So that said that if you're going to sell a car, you have to make parts and information available to independent mechanics. And that law's been very effective and working very well. Car mechanics have the access to things that say, TV repair guys don't. So this is something that we hope as we expand, what Massachusetts has done to other kinds of products will have a big impact.

PC: And Kyle, why do you think it’s—you know this is taking off now? What's behind this sort of like, I don’t know, culture of repair that seems to be making a comeback?

KYLE WIENS: Well, we've shifted from, you know for a long time it was about buying as many things we could. Now I think we're realizing that may be having fewer things that are higher quality is more satisfying. Also there's an environmental imperative where we’ve realized that the amount of embodied energy in manufacturing products is significant. It takes over 500 pounds of raw material to make a cell phone. It's a vast amount of embodied energy and resources that's not really readily recoverable in recycling. So in the environmental world, there's consensus that we have to shift away from a manufacturing base society and towards a society where we're repairing and extending product lifetimes.

PC: Before I let you go, you know it's very satisfying when I or anyone else you know fixes something. You get this great sense of satisfaction, like I did it. So what's the best reaction you've ever seen from someone who has had something repaired?

KYLE WIENS: Well, I was at a cafe in Stuttgart, Germany the other day and a woman came in who had a four or five year old iPod. And this has been her entire music experience. It’s clear she'd spent hundreds of hours using it. And she’d used it so much that the battery was completely dead and it wouldn't turn on at all. And so she brought in. like this is her last hope. You could tell that she had so much emotion and so many memories tied up in this thing. And it was a very challenging repair. The latest newest iPods that Apple made were glued together. They're really hard to pull apart. It took her about two and a half hours to take it apart and then the button inside had gotten pushed in and they were able to get it back together. And she was just beaming when she was done. She was so excited. She gave the fix-it coach who was helping her a big hug. And I’d never seen somebody more happy walking out of a repair cafe.

PC: Kyle, good to talk to you. Thanks a lot.

KYLE WIENS: Thanks for having me.

PC: Kyle Wiens is a co-founder and CEO of the website iFixIt. He joined us from San Luis Obispo in California. We'd love to hear from you on this one. Do you repair phones, blenders, radios or is it all just too intimidating to try? Send us an email. Tell us your stories. Give us your fixes and your hacks. Go to our website www.cbc.ca/thecurrent. Once you're there, click on the contact link. That's how you email us. You can also find us on Facebook. You can search on Facebook.com/thecurrent and on Twitter our handle is @thecurrentCBC. My personal handle is @piya, P-I-Y-A.

[Music]

PC: Alright. Coming up in our next half hour, David Ridgen of CBC Radio’s Someone Knows Something will be here. David's 2010 documentary that he made for The Current called “Confession to Murder” brought new heat and light to a decades-old cold case. And yesterday the suspect that David had interviewed for that doc was sentenced to life in prison. David Ridgen will be by to explain what happened in court yesterday. And we're going to revisit his doc “Confession to Murder.” I’m Piya Chattopadhyay. You're listening to The Current. We're back shortly.

[Music: Sting]

Decades-old cold case investigated by David Ridgen finally closed

Guests: David Ridgen

PC: Hi, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay and this is The Current. A harrowing and decades-old cold case finally concluded this week with a guilty plea. Yesterday, Anthony Edward Ringel was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Christine Harron. In 1993, when Christine was just 15 years old, she went missing from Hanover, Ontario and no trace of her has ever been found. The path to justice has been littered with obstacles and with mistakes. Back in 2012, award-winning filmmaker and host of CBC's popular true crime podcast Someone knows Something David Ridgen investigated this cold case and he produced a documentary for The Current called “Confession to Murder.” In it he talked to Anthony Ringel, the only time Ringel ever spoke publicly about the case. We're going to rebroadcast David’s documentary in just a few minutes. But first, David’s with us here in the studio to talk about how we got here. And just a warning that the details of this case are disturbing. Hi David.

DAVID RIDGEN: Hi Piya.

PC: First of all, I understand that Anthony Ringel confessed as part of a plea deal. So what did he agree to?

DAVID RIDGEN: Yes. He confessed to murdering Christine Harron and he was originally charged with first degree murder with an aggravated addition of sexual assault. So that makes it first degree even if it was unpremeditated. So in the plea deal he had his charge knocked down to second degree murder and then that allows him to have a parole option at 12 years in.

PC: Twelve years in. So a life sentence with a parole option for him, in this case 12 years in.

DAVID RIDGEN: That's right. Yeah.

PC: Okay. Before we talk about his confession, I want you to take us back because this story has so many twists and turns and many of them dramatic. What prompted you in the first place to investigate this case?

DAVID RIDGEN: Well, when I look at cases, I look to see that there's sort of a viability factor, so is there somebody there who we know is a likely perpetrator? Has someone been named as a perpetrator? Are there family members are willing to come forward and talk about it? And are police willing to cooperate? This case had a lot of those, a lot of those elements. There were news reports of Anthony Ringel coming forward in August 2004 and confessing to OPP that he had killed Christine. And then suddenly the news reports kind of stopped because of a publication ban. And then there was a pretrial two years later and the case was thrown out of court. And I wondered why. So I went up to the Walkerton courthouse and got a lot of the documents from the pre-trial and I learned that it was thrown out of court because of this particular OPP officer’s malfeasance in the investigation. And his name was Mark Wright. And so the case basically languished for many years. Nothing seemed to be going on.

PC: That's where you came in. You were like I'm going to figure this thing out. [laughs]

DAVID RIDGEN: Yeah. I mean there was a little bit of sort of negotiation with the family and I talked to the police originally and the timing of making the production came about to be—I think 2011 is when I started working with the family. And then in 2012, I believe is May 18^th, The Current broadcast in 2012 this first documentary you’re about to hear.

PC: You also had an encounter with Anthony Ringel. So set that up for us.

DAVID RIDGEN: Okay. So Anthony Ringel at the time that I was doing the investigation had sort of lived in different places and at the time that I was able to speak to him, he was living in a trailer park in Chesley, Ontario. Actually had some relatives that he was also living with, so he was going back and forth between the trailer and the relative’s house. I spoke to the relative and Anthony. So I approached him alone at the trailer with cameras rolling in the car and—truck actually, van—and filmed him with my phone and talked to him for a long time, I felt—20 minutes or so. It was an interesting conversation. He said he did not kill Christine but some of the other aspects of what he said were kind of interesting— which you'll hear—and intriguing. So yeah, it was—

PC: What was it like talking to him?

DAVID RIDGEN: Well, it was just weird?

PC: [laughs]

DAVID RIDGEN: Knock on the door, and it's always weird when you go into those kinds of confrontational, semi-confrontational—but it didn't actually end up that way—experiences with people that may have been involved in a crime. You're trying to measure them. You're trying to weigh what they're saying. Are they really telling you what they think they're telling you? Are they lying or are they trying to be deceptive? And the whole time you're trying to think of what's the next question? What's the next—how can I keep him talking? How can I keep this conversation going to get some actual information?

PC: And so, then this documentary airs here on The Current May of 2012. What happens after the doc airs here?

DAVID RIDGEN: So in May of 2012, the documentary aired on The Current and the next month, June 2012, the OPP begins an undercover investigation in the trailer park. So what they do is they have some undercover operators go into the park and they build a rapport with Anthony. They start talking to him over a number of months and eventually in February 2013, Anthony utters, on two different occasions, a very similar confession to what he did back in 2004. So what you'll see and what you'll hear in this documentary, many of the details that you'll hear are actually the confession he gave them in 2013 as well. So you're actually going to hear what he confessed.

PC: And he was re-arrested the following year, right?

DAVID RIDGEN: That's right. He was rearrested in February 2013, just a few days after he had given these confessions.

PC: And he's been in jail since that time.

DAVID RIDGEN: That's right. So he's been in jail for almost three and a half years, so with time served, credit one and a half times I think, he'll probably serve six or seven years and then be eligible for parole, which he may or may not choose to apply for.

PC: Right because again, the sentence for second degree murder is life in prison in Canada.

DAVID RIDGEN: That's right.

PC: What has he confessed to? Why did he say he did this?

DAVID RIDGEN: Well, I mean his explanation, Ringel: “I just went for a walk and all of a sudden I bumped into this chick.” This is—I'm quoting him. “I didn't even know her name.” Ringel advised that he was sexually frustrated and “opportunity knocked.” So he basically refers to Christine as an opportunity. She had a bracelet and a ring and was wearing jeans and a white top and jacket. The other thing is Ringel tells undercover officers that Christine didn't yell for help and sort of seems to blame her in fact. He says here, “A 14 year old should know better. It wasn't all his fault,” he says. “There were people in the park. She could have screamed.” And he added, “If you were a female, wouldn't you struggle?” And this is all part of Ringel's discussion with the undercover officers. So this is the kind of person we're dealing with here.

PC: Who's now gone to jail for the rest of his life conceivably. David, thank you.

DAVID RIDGEN: Thank you.

PC: David Ridgen is the host of the CBC podcast Someone Knows Something. And now let's take a listen to David's documentary that was first broadcast on The Current in 2012. This is “Confession to Murder.”

[Music: Piano]

[Sound: Traffic noise, car sounds]

DAVID RIDGEN: Busy little town here. Hanover is a small Western Ontario town with a river running through it.

[Sound: Ball bouncing on ground]

DAVID RIDGEN: A boy with a basketball on the way to school. A town employee raking leaves. People driving through on the way to somewhere else. It was here on May 18^th, 1993, that 15-year-old Christine Harron disappeared.

[Sound: Bird cawing]

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: This was the last place Chrissy had lived.

DAVID RIDGEN: Christine's mother Mary Ann points out their last home, a place they were moving out of at the time of her disappearance.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: That front window was the living room and that's where her and I had spent the morning together watching television, with her laying her head on my lap. And then she left to go to school. She walked down the other side of the street and around the corner. And that was the last I seen of her.

[Music: Piano]

SHAWN RUSSWURM: I don't remember the ages here yet because I wasn’t—

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: I don't remember neither.

[Crosstalk]

SHAWN RUSSWURM: I wasn’t quite on the scene then.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Unless it’s on the back. It’s not on the back?

DAVID RIDGEN: Mary Ann and Christine’s stepfather Shawn Russwurm have lived with the burden of Christine's unsolved case for 19 years.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: That one was in Hanover.

DAVID RIDGEN: We’re sitting around a heavy wooden kitchen table.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: What’s the age on the back? Does it have one? No.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: No.

DAVID RIDGEN: Looking at photographs of Christine.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Well, she didn't like keeping her room clean. She’s kind of a tomboy.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Yeah.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: She liked to take stuff apart.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: And put it back together just to see how, what made it work. She loved kids. Little ones. She loved to babysit and be around them.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: She loved to read.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Yeah. She loved her books.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: A real bookworm. Loved to read.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Loved going for walks in the creeks catching frogs and what-have-you. I did know before the night was over she was dead though. Call it mother’s intuition or whatever. I knew she was gone.

DAVID RIDGEN: Despite Mary Ann’s intuition, Christine's body has never been found. But her case, first taken on by the local Hanover Police in 1993 then handed on to the Ontario Provincial Police in 1999, is tragic not only for Christine's disappearance but for what happened after that. Surely one of the strangest stories of police bungling in OPP history, all of it unreported until now.

[Sound: Car noises]

DAVID RIDGEN: Driving in another small town in Ontario, I move carefully up next to a wispy haired man riding a bike. He has a royal blue baseball cap, a jacket and track pants.

[Sound: Car beeps]

DAVID RIDGEN: Hey Anthony. I just wanted to ask you one more question. Hang on a sec. But Anthony looks at me and rides off. Eleven years after Christine's disappearance in 1993, this man, 43-year-old Anthony Edward Ringel came forward and confessed to his mother, relatives and the OPP that he sexually assaulted and then killed Christine Harron. But today, Anthony Ringel remains free.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: The Crown attorney told us, he told us it was a slam dunk at one point.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: They screwed up. They screwed up.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: He was 90 per cent sure Ringel was going to be convicted.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: I've got more anger towards the OPP and the town cops than I do Ringel.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Well, my, my—yeah, I don’t—

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: And nobody understands that.

DAVID RIDGEN: Neither the OPP or Hanover Police departments have agreed to speak on the record about this case and all that is known about it is contained in court records previously subject to a publication ban that has now run out.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: We do know the OPP made a mistake. They didn't have a lawyer present for Anthony at the time. And that's why his testimony got thrown out. So they did admit to that.

DAVID RIDGEN: Did they tell you that?

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Yes.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Yeah.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Yes.

DAVID RIDGEN: When did it tell you that?

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: After the case was over.

DAVID RIDGEN: did you ever receive any documents from the OPP about the case?

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: No.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: No.

[Sound: Papers shuffling]

DR: So that's the ruling of the Superior Court on the case of Anthony Ringel. But the documents that I share here with Mary Ann and Shawn for the first time tell the shocking story of many OPP mistakes made in the wake of Anthony Ringel's confession.

[Sound: Cars passing by]

DAVID RIDGEN: It all starts on the night of August 22^nd, 2004. A 36-year-old Anthony Ringel is at a party in Elmwood, Ontario, a small crossroads on a main highway. After consuming about five beers, he walks a female cousin a short distance to the house she is staying at. Upon his return to the party, he proceeds to tell relatives and others that he murdered Christine Harron. He dials 911 and hangs up. Then confesses a short while later to OPP Officer Brad Lipsky, who arrives to check on the aborted emergency call. Ringel approaches Lipsky hands held out, as if to be handcuffed, and says I did it. Take me away. I killed Christine. I can show you where I buried her. “Christine who,” says Lipsky and Ringel replies, “Christine Harris. Christine Harron.” A confession, 11 years after Christine went missing.

[Sound: Video playing]

DAVID RIDGEN: In a family video from a Christmas long past, Christine plays with her new Polaroid camera, trying to pose her joking non-cooperative family for a picture.

SOUNDCLIP

CHRISTINE HARRON: Over. Shift over this way. Shift!

[Sound: Laughter]

DAVID RIDGEN: She loves the camera and probably holds up the photo when it's all finished.

[Sound: Polaroid camera printing photo]

DAVID RIDGEN: Just a few short years before her disappearance.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: He was older than her. Christine was 15 at the time and Anthony Ringel I believe was 24. I did not know Anthony Ringel myself. I don't believe anyone in the family knew Anthony. I don't recall Christine knowing Anthony Ringel.

DAVID RIDGEN: Back at the party in Elmwood in August 2004, Officer Lipskiy arrests Ringel for murder and drives him to the Walkerton detachment. He reads him his right to counsel and advises him he can speak to a lawyer if he wants to. Ringel replies that he does. Lipsky calls legal aid for Ringel and then contacts his superiors. This call brings in several OPP investigators, including veteran detective inspector Mark Wright, the man in charge and also the most important reason why the case is left in ruin. Ringel speaks by phone to legal counsel on three occasions and tells police repeatedly he has no comment. Regardless under command of Detective Inspector Wright, police proceed to interview Ringel several times after his initial confession, each time eliciting statements. During these interviews, officers do not always read Ringel his rights, as they are required to. They’re also required by the courts to take notes and record interviews with audio or video. Sometimes the OPP does this with Ringel, sometimes not. These are breaches of normal protocol and the Canadian Charter. But probably the most egregious error is when the OPP, led by Mark Wright, takes Ringel to Hanover to look for Christine's body, late on the evening of August 23^rd, after Ringel repeatedly tells them that a lawyer has advised him not to go because, as he says, it will hurt him more.

SOUNDCLIP

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Okay.

[Sound: Car door open and close]

[Sound: Footsteps]

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Watch, it’s slippery.

DAVID RIDGEN: This is the first time Mary Ann and Shawn have seen the area that the OPP came to with Ringel eight years ago. On the trees and bushes, blue and red tags marked OPP still remain from their intensive searches.

[Sound: Water lapping]

DAVID RIDGEN: We're on private land next to the Saugeen River. It's thickly forested and swampy, in an area that would regularly flood each spring with fast moving water. Across the river is Hanover's public park, one of Christine's favorite places. According to the available documents, including interviews with Ringel, police testimony and other courtroom statements, this is what is alleged to have happened the day Christine Harron went missing.

[Music: Dramatic piano]

DAVID RIDGEN: On May 18^th, 1993, Anthony Ringel sees Christine in the Hanover Park, close to a gate at the entrance to a rough path along the river. He approaches her and says something to the effect of, “I wonder what's back there.” He and Christine then follow the path through to a bend in the river where Ringel says they were able to cross. Once on the other side, apparently in or close to a marshy lagoon, Ringel reportedly raped Christine and drowned her. He allegedly returned to the area a following day to bury her, face down and naked in a makeshift grate.

[Sound: Footsteps, birds chirping]

DAVID RIDGEN: Not only does the OPP bring Ringel to these locations against the stated wishes, but they do so without taking proper notes or any recording of the entire trip. They stumble through thickets, swamp and mud at dusk, slipping in their suits and dress shoes with Ringel leading the way. When it gets too dark to see and Ringel cannot find the location on the floodplain of the Saugeen River where he says he buried Christine so many years ago, they abandoned the trip and returned to Walkerton.

[Music: Dramatic strings and piano]

DAVID RIDGEN: Judge Thompson, in his pre-trial ruling, throws out all statements from Ringel from the moment Mark Wright arrives on the scene, including the entire search for Christine's remains. About Detective Inspector Wright, the judge says either he had no knowledge or understanding of the Charter of Rights, despite his high rank in the OPP, or he deliberately chose to trample over Mr. Ringel's rights as a Canadian citizen in defiance of the law. What he hoped to accomplish would be pure speculation, but what is known is that his improvident actions will undoubtedly hinder any attempt to prosecute Mr. Ringel. After 22 months in prison awaiting trial, Ringel was freed after Crown Prosecutor Michael Martin stays the case against him. After a year with a stay in place and no new evidence brought forward by police, the case against Ringel crumbles to nothing as if it never happened. And the questions remain around Ringel: Did he actually do what he said he did?

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: We’ve never had any answers to any of our questions to know what really happening. This morning we're going to see Anthony Ringel will speak to me. Just try to get answers out of him. If he actually did something to Christine or why he confessed if he didn’t. Just find out what was in his mind at that time.

DAVID RIDGEN: Anthony Edward Ringel grew up labeled as a slow learner. He worked at the Hanover Canadian Tire and was considered a top employee, even having an article written about him in January 2003 that appeared in the local paper. But research shows that Ringel had a previous record of vandalism and break and enter. In a break and enter just days after Christine disappeared in May 1993, Ringel was found to have brandished a starter pistol and in the court date that follows pleads guilty. He is issued a court order to stay away from a young woman who was apparently a victim of the incident. In his pre-trial ruling for Christine's case, Justice RM Thompson finds that police did not exploit Ringel's deficiency and that Ringel knew exactly what he was saying.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: I'm not interested in him speaking with me but if he did do it, I was hoping out of human decency, he’d try to explain what he did. Like I said in earlier and other times, if it’s an accident, please try and explain and help us understand what happened and why.

DAVID RIDGEN: We drive to the small town where Anthony Ringel lives to see if he will speak to Mary Ann.

[Sound: Car door shut, beep]

DAVID RIDGEN: [To Mary Ann] You’re good. Mary Ann rings the bell and Anthony Ringel’s sister answers the door.

[Sound: Door open, dog barking]

RINGEL’S SISTER: Hi.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Hi. Is Anthony home?

RINGEL’S SISTER: He’s still sleeping.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Is he? Could you wake him up? I just want to talk to him.

RINGEL’S SISTER: Okay. Who are you?

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: It’s Mary Ann.

RINGEL’S SISTER: Mary Ann?

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Russwurm. I just want to talk to Anthony for a little bit.

RINGEL’S SISTER: About what?

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: I just want to ask him some questions to do with Christine.

RINGEL’S SISTER: I’m going to say no.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Can we leave it up to him and see if he’ll talk to me?

RINGEL’S SISTER: I already know he’ll say no.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Just ask him and see.

[Sound: Door slam, dog barking]

RINGEL’S SISTER: Nope.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: No, not at all? Has he talked to you about it at all?

RINGEL’S SISTER: That’s enough.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Yeah? Because I just need some answers for closure. That’s all I’m after. I'm not here to be nasty or anything like that.

DAVID RIDGEN: You can understand that you know it was a pretty difficult case, and Anthony confessing to murdering Christine is a pretty substantial part of it. Did he ever confess anything to you? I understand he confessed to other family members on that night in August.

RINGEL’S SISTER: Yeah. That was other family members.

DAVID RIDGEN: Not to you.

RINGEL’S SISTER: Not me, no.

DAVID RIDGEN: So how has it affected you though, like in terms of, like it must have devastated you as well. You must have questions of your own as to why.

RINGEL’S SISTER: Yes, but I’m in the same situation. If I want to find anything out, I got to speak to his lawyer.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: He won’t just actually talk to you?

RINGEL’S SISTER: He will not talk to me.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: You’re his sister, right?

RINGEL’S SISTER: Yes.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: Yeah.

[Sound: Car sounds]

DAVID RIDGEN: So what do you think of that, Mary Ann?

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: I think he's afraid. He's afraid he's going to say the wrong thing and come up on charges again.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: I’m a little disappointed but it might take a bit more time.

DAVID RIDGEN: But on another occasion, without Mary Ann and Shawn along, I find Anthony Ringel at a trailer park.

[Sound: Door knock]

DAVID RIDGEN: Hi. How are you? Are you Anthony?

ANTHONY RINGEL: Yep.

DAVID RIDGEN: I'm Dave Ridgen. I work for CBC. I'm a journalist. I wanted to ask you about your confession regarding the murder of Christine Harron on August 2004. Can you tell me a little bit about that? Why you confessed to that murder. No?

ANTHONY RINGEL: I can’t answer that question.

DAVID RIDGEN: No? No?

ANTHONY RINGEL: No. [chuckles] I’m just kind of putting that all behind me.

DAVID RIDGEN: Did you know Christine?

ANTHONY RINGEL: No, I don’t.

DAVID RIDGEN: You didn’t know her? Did you kill Christine? Here, Anthony says no, with a slight shake of his head. [To Anthony] Why did you confess to her murder? What happened that day? Like it seems like such a strange thing to do. No explanation?

ANTHONY RINGEL: No.

DAVID RIDGEN: I noticed—I was searching for you on the Internet and I noticed that your mother has passed. I’m sorry to hear that. Loretta.

ANTHONY RINGEL: Yes, she did. She died on the highway.

DAVID RIDGEN: My understanding is that you had confessed to your mom that night on August 22^nd, 2004, about killing Christine Harron. You were in jail for two years because of your confession. Did you see Christine in the park that day? Didn't even see her down at the park? Where the river is there? Have you been interviewed by the police since then?

ANTHONY RINGEL: No.

DAVID RIDGEN: They haven't come to talk to you since you got out of jail? No?

ANTHONY RINGEL: Just trying to stay normal.

DAVID RIDGEN: Try and stay normal?

ANTHONY RINGEL: Yeah.

DAVID RIDGEN: You never met Christine Harron before in your life?

ANTHONY RINGEL: No.

DAVID RIDGEN: Didn’t even know what she looked like? How did you know her name? How did you know to say that you had killed her? You ever talk to anybody in your family about that time? No? Did your mom ever talk to you about why you said that? Did you have a chance to tell your mom before she died that—what you say that you didn't, you didn't kill Christine? Did you ever tell her that? So she died thinking that you might have murdered her?

ANTHONY RINGEL: [Murmurs]

DAVID RIDGEN: Pardon?

ANTHONY RINGEL: I didn't talk about it.

DAVID RIDGEN: No, you didn’t talk about it.

ANTHONY RINGEL: To nobody.

DAVID RIDGEN: Nobody? Her mother's wondering what happened. She doesn't know either. And the conversation ends with more questions.

MARY ANN RUSSWURM: I have a lot of patience now with the case. You learn it over the years. You learn how to deal with it your own way so that you can move on. But it never goes away. Today is same as it was that day for me. It’s still there. You just deal with it a different way. I’m still going to wait patiently. Sooner or later, justice will happen. I believe that.

[Music: Dramatic piano]

PC: We've been listening to the encore broadcast of the documentary “Confession to Murder.” It first aired here on The Current in 2012. It was produced by David Ridgen, the host of CBC's true crime podcast Someone Knows Something. Eight months after David's documentary originally aired, police launched an undercover operation to elicit two confessions from Anthony Ringel. And yesterday in a plea deal, Ringel was sentenced to life in prison. Alright. That is The Current for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q. Candy Palmater convenes the q pop culture panel once again this week. Stephen Marche of Esquire magazine and journalist Rachel Giese share their thoughts on some of the most discussed entertainment stories and debates of the past week. Now tomorrow on The Current, I'll speak with Fadumo Dayib. She's the only woman running to be president in Somalia with elections less than two weeks away and she is getting death threats. Yet she's still campaigning. She fled Somalia as a child, grew up as a refugee in Finland but she has always imagined she'd return to Africa. And now she's very passionate about trying to end the corruption and violence in Somalia, the country that she was forced to flee.

[Music: Ending theme]

PC: So tune in for that tomorrow. Until then, I’m Piya Chattopadhyay. Thank you for lending us your ear here on The Current.

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October 12, 2016 full episode transcript

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