Lawyer unveils new evidence in Cape Breton teen's death 27 years ago
Blair Rhodes | CBC News | Posted: July 10, 2017 7:56 PM | Last Updated: July 11, 2017
Lawyer for family of Clayton Miller says search crews didn't find body in creek bed
The lawyer for Clayton Miller's parents says he has new proof the Cape Breton teen was not lying in a creek bed the day before his body was discovered in that spot.
Ray Wagner called a news conference in Halifax Monday to unveil his new evidence in the 27-year-old case.
The evidence came in the form of a videotaped interview with Bryan McDonald, who led the Cape Breton ground search and rescue team that combed the area where police raided a drinking party on Friday, May 4, 1990.
Teenagers at the party scattered when police arrived. Some returned to the scene the next day to retrieve things they dropped as police moved in. For nearly three decades, they've maintained that they did not see Miller's body on that Saturday. He was discovered face-down in a brook near the scene of the party on the next day, Sunday.
"I find that awful funny. How could he be there?" McDonald asked in his videotaped interview with Wagner.
"We had a team there and searched. We didn't find no body. And that's all I know."
'They were making us look like we're lying'
McDonald did not attend Wagner's news conference. The lawyer said the search team leader is in poor health and he couldn't travel to Halifax. His interview was recorded in his Cape Breton home a couple of months ago.
Wagner said McDonald came forward when he discovered there was no record of his team searching the area.
"They were making us look like we're lying," McDonald told Wagner. "We just did a search there and there's no body and all of a sudden police officer walks up, just gets out a police car and there's the body laying there."
Wagner said McDonald's story is important to the overall case.
"It's a very important piece, because if Clayton's body wasn't there, obviously he's deceased, he can't put himself there, so somebody else has to be involved in the moving of the body," Wagner told the news conference.
Former officers not co-operating with lawyer
Experts have determined Miller died either late Friday evening or very early Saturday morning, although his body wasn't discovered until Sunday.
Wagner wouldn't speculate on who might have been involved. He said he has reached out to members of the former New Waterford police force to see if they will shed any light on the case. He said they have responded with a lawyer's letter, refusing to co-operate.
Clayton Miller's father, Gervase Miller, welcomed news of the new evidence.
"It took a while for it to come out," he told reporters at the news conference. "See, we have to be careful with what we say because we know a lot more. We know who beat Clayton so bad but there's going to be more press conferences over the next while."
Wagner said he has planned two more news conferences over the next few months to reveal more information in his investigation of the Miller case. He said the next one will likely focus on forensic evidence.
"My son's worth it," Maureen Miller said of her fight to reopen the investigation. "I couldn't look at myself in a mirror if I didn't fight for him."
SiRT responds
The head of the agency which investigates complaints against Nova Scotia police forces said he was unaware of the new evidence Ray Wagner was going to unveil.
Ron MacDonald spent months reviewing the Miller case as director of SiRT, the Serious Incident Response Team. In a 2015 report he calls "exhaustive and transparent," MacDonald concluded there was no evidence to support assertions that Miller might have been beaten by police officers the night of the raid.
Miller's official cause of death is a combination of alcohol consumption and hypothermia.
MacDonald said the new claim that a search was conducted of the area "does not challenge the conclusions reached that Clayton Miller did not suffer any injuries that caused his death."
MacDonald questioned why SiRT wasn't informed of the new evidence. He said he will look into the new claims that a search was conducted of the area and release his findings as soon as possible.