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Crime Story | Someone Knows Something: The Christine Harron Case, Episode 1

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: Hey, listeners, it's Kathleen here. We've got a special preview of the new season of Someone Know Something, hosted by David Ridgen. In the spring of 1993, Christine Harron said goodbye to her mom and left for school. She was never seen again. More than 30 years later, there is still no sign of her. In the latest season of Someone Know Something, David Ridgen picks up Christine's case and comes face to face with the prime suspect in her disappearance. Here's the first episode, Chrissy.

The Christine Harron Case, Episode 1: Chrissy

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[river water flowing]

DAVID RIDGEN: I'm at another river. This one flowing through a southwestern Ontario town on a clear but darkening springtime evening. I recorded these nature sounds well over a decade ago for a TV documentary, using the same microphone I now use for the podcast. This thing always seems to be standing between me and the unknown. Somehow oddly comforting.

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DAVID RIDGEN: Just crouching at the riverside here in a park in Hanover, Ontario. This is the Saugeen River, which, the mouth of the Saugeen actually empties out into Lake Huron. It's about 60 kilometres downstream, I think. River's flowing clear, but there's lots of debris kind of pushed against the shoreline. There's a, obviously a pretty high flood plain here. There's an old gazebo, a swing set. There's an old gate.

DAVID RIDGEN: I remember focusing on the sounds these things made here. Chains on a swing. Muddy logs at the high-water mark. Brushy grasses along the path. And that metal gate. I wonder if these objects or the sounds they made ever held any actual comfort for anyone.

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DAVID RIDGEN: At one time, this park was Christine Harron's favourite place in the whole world, I've been told. If I'd been here before May 18th, 1993, I might have seen her down here catching frogs or fishing... Nobody here today. Just this path next to the river.

DAVID RIDGEN: The sounds I've recorded here don't reveal any secrets, but I feel pulled back to places like this again and again. Pulled back into long-term investigations, their grief and the hope. Even after some questions have been answered, there's always more. And more difficult ones. Over 30 years ago, just one week after her 15th birthday, Christine Harron disappeared. And her full story has yet to be told. I'm David Ridgen, and this is Someone Knows Something, Season 9: The Christine Harron Case. Episode 1: Chrissy

DAVID RIDGEN: I first learned about Christine in the late 2000s, as I was scanning through some of the many unsolved cases out of Ontario. I was preparing to make a documentary series for CBC television's news program, The National. I sorted Chrissy's case into a much smaller pile. A short list of sorts. Cases that for some reason spoke to me.

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[church service music]

PASTOR: We gather here this morning for a celebration of life. The life of Christine Harron.

DAVID RIDGEN: I learned that a memorial service was being held at a church -- 17 years after Christine disappeared. So I travelled west to Hanover in the springtime of 2010.

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PASTOR: Let us pray. Loving God, look with mercy on those who mourn for Christine, who has died by the violence of our fallen world. Be with us as we struggle with the mysteries of life and death...

DAVID RIDGEN: Framed photos of Christine in curly dark hair and glasses sit on a small table at the front of the church, next to the minister. There are others, sad people whom I assume are her family, standing close by. Including the woman that I know is her mother, Mary Ann.

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PASTOR: Described by her mom as a bit of a loner, Christine didn't have a lot of close friends. In our culture, her loner mentality meant that she was viewed as being different. She wasn't someone who was hung up on appearances, or who was doing what with whom. She had other things to do.

DAVID RIDGEN: This minister's words, his impressions of Christine, fill me with a chill of sadness. Tears suddenly rolled down my face for this young person I'd never met. And right there, I decide that I'm going to do this case.

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MARY ANN: This is the last place Chrissy had lived.

DAVID RIDGEN: I would take several more months of information gathering before I contacted Chrissy's mother, Mary Ann.

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MARY ANN: 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.

DAVID RIDGEN: I've got Mary Ann framed up in my documentary camera on a cool windy day. Pale-skinned, in glasses, with meticulous makeup and shorter hair, Mary Ann stands in front of the small brick two-storey she'd been renting back in the spring of 1993 at the time Chrissy disappeared. Mary Ann gestures to where she says Chrissy walked away from home that day.

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MARY ANN: 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.

DAVID RIDGEN: Mary Ann says she watched from an upstairs window as Chrissy turned the corner. On the way, Mary Ann thought, to Grade 9 classes at John Diefenbaker High School. Not that far away. It was sometime between 1:30 and 2 p.m. Chrissy had not felt well that morning, so stayed home. She'd been known to skip classes and didn't want to go to school that afternoon either. She and her mom had argued about it, and Mary Ann suggested that perhaps Chrissy should get a job instead. Chrissy walked out saying, "See you later," and slammed the door. She was wearing blue jeans, a jean jacket, black running shoes, plastic glasses with a broken nose piece on one side, and possibly a silver bracelet.

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MARY ANN: She was in a good mood that morning. But she was mad that she had to go to school. She even-- we were in the process of packing and moving to another place. And she says, Well, even let me stay home and I'll pack all, all the time instead of going that day. But I said, You can't, truant officer's waiting.

DAVID RIDGEN: There were other tensions in the household at the time as well. Chrissy had been deeply troubled by her parents' divorce years earlier. Her father, Lorne, lived in western Canada at the time of Chrissy's disappearance and has since passed away. Chrissy got along with her younger brother named Shawn, but did not always see eye to eye with her step-father, who was also named Shawn -- Shawn Russwurm. Who was then aged 26.

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: Well, she didn't like keeping her room clean and [Mary Ann laughs] she's kind of a tomboy.

MARY ANN: Yeah.

DAVID RIDGEN: Russwurm is a large man in a T-shirt, sporting a mustache and smudgy blue-line tattoos on each shoulder. Back at their current home, he and Mary Ann are settled into a couch. Two chihuahuas named Chloe and Angel sit on their laps.

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[a chihuahua barks]

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Well, as long as they behave then maybe they can stay.

[barking grows louder]

MARY ANN: You know the best thing to do is to hand her to you...

DAVID RIDGEN: Yeah.

MARY ANN: And let you hold her.

DAVID RIDGEN: Yeah. There you go. That's a good girl.

MARY ANN: There, Angel. See?

DAVID RIDGEN: Mary Ann hands me Angel, the extra small one, so she can get used to me and stop barking. I walk around the room a bit with the dog in hand, looking at some photos of Chrissy spread out on a coffee table. With a yellow lunch pail on her first day of kindergarten. Blowing out birthday candles in red-ribboned pigtails. And Christmas tree moments.

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DAVID RIDGEN: I'm just going to try something with that light behind you.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Okay.

DAVID RIDGEN: Okay, good.

DAVID RIDGEN: The dogs seem calm, and we start talking about Chrissy.

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: She liked to take stuff apart. When her and I was--

MARY ANN: And put it back together to see what made it work. She loved kids. Books.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Real bookworm.

MARY ANN: Love going for walks. And to creeks, catching frogs and what have you.

DAVID RIDGEN: I see Chrissy seeming to watch me through her big glasses in the photos.

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DAVID RIDGEN: I love those glasses.

MARY ANN: [laughs] She hated them.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: There was times where other people would pick on her younger brother Shawn, and then Chrissy would be right there sticking up for her brother. Chrissy was right there and punched out a couple of boys that were picking on Shawn. This was in public school already. [MARY ANN: Yeah.] So she can hold her own. She was feisty and... when she needed to be.

DAVID RIDGEN: Shawn admits that his relationship with Chrissy was sometimes strained, and he says that he is bipolar and sometimes can be aggressive. But he says that one of his last memories of Chrissy is her helping him replace the spark plugs in his car.

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: When we started to get closer, she'd uh, come out to the garage and ask me if she could use my tools. Yeah, they're right there. If I go to help, 'No, no, I...' She'd want to do it herself.

MARY ANN: But she wasn't one to go out to parties or anything like that. Like, she'd come home a couple times and said, Well, they're drinking so I left.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: So she left.

MARY ANN: She was against smoking, she was against drinking.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: And we commended and told her we were really proud of her for that.

MARY ANN: Yeah. She was close to her grandma. My mom.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Very close.

MARY ANN: Yeah. They spent a lot of time together.

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GRANDMA SACHS: We always had a good relationship. For any reason if she just wanted to talk, she'd call me. She used to spend a lot of time over there with me.

DAVID RIDGEN: Grandma Phyllis Sachs, at her home.

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GRANDMA SACHS: And then when '93 we moved to Guelph, that's what upset me so bad because I felt she-- if she's out there, she's gonna try and reach me. Because she always did if she wanted something or other. And I thought, when I move away she won't have my phone number, and that upset me. And once I moved away, I couldn't even look at her pictures anymore for a long time. It really upset me bad.

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[family home video]

GRANDPA: It says grandma.

CHRISTINE: No, it says grampa.

GRANDPA: It says grandma.

CHRISTINE: Grampa!

GRANDPA: Well, I don't think so.

CHRISTINE: See, G-R-A--

GRANDPA: I don't think so.

CHRISTINE: --M-P-A. Grampa.

GRANDPA: I thought it said grandma.

CHRISTINE: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

DAVID RIDGEN: Christine sits around a Christmas tree with her family in 1990. I watch the grainy archival video as she quietly makes sure that everyone has a gift to open before she does. Then the footage shifts to a Santa theme park, and Christine's pretending to be a reindeer in front of a big red sleigh. A mischievous strength to her every move, just three years before she walks off into oblivion.

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GRANDMA SACHS: Well, I got a new sewing machine. I remember bringing her out and letting her use it. She made an apron the one time she was out. And we'd bake and we'd just play games. We always used to go do worm hunting and picking with her too, and she'd go fishing. I just couldn't believe it when she disappeared and she didn't call me. But it's something you can't never forget. I don't know. No matter what, you can't forget about it.

DAVID RIDGEN: Mary Ann reported Chrissy missing to Hanover police at 9:21 p.m. on the day she disappeared. May 18th, 1993. Chrissy was known to have a poor sense of direction and would get lost easily, but despite this and her habit of skipping classes or sleeping over at friends' houses, Mary Ann and others say that Chrissy would always call home and never go far.

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MARY ANN: When she didn't show home, I started phoning her friends and my family. Just to see if maybe she went to one of her friend's house after school or something.

DAVID RIDGEN: The story of Christine's case, at least in the beginning, is a familiar one. A teenager leaves home, supposed to be somewhere -- school -- but never makes it. Local police, investigatively inexperienced, finding nothing. And flying in the face of what a mother knows.

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MARY ANN: And nobody had seen or heard from her, so. Then the family and I, we started going out and looking for her. Looking in parks and in the area just to see, you know, if she was someplace else and just hadn't come home yet. We had phoned the police and they said it was too soon yet to do anything. What we actually got from the Hanover police chief himself was that his daughter runs away a lot, takes off for days, so mine probably did the same thing. So, she never showed home and I sat up all night and waited for her. And worried and... I even had the feeling, too, all along, that she was down there by the park somewhere. I kept trying to get them to search more. And the church and I, we even got together and formed our own search. And we wanted to search down there and they wouldn't let us. They made us go in the opposite direction.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: And the town police was very upset when we...

MARY ANN: Yes.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: When we set that up, they were not impressed.

DAVID RIDGEN: That you had set up a search?

MARY ANN: Yes. They didn't want the public to panic.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: We were told if we went anywhere near the park that weekend, the very first weekend she disappeared, there would be consequences and repercussions.

DAVID RIDGEN: Who told you that?

MARY ANN: The police.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: The police.

DAVID RIDGEN: There had been an antique car show on at the park that coming Victoria Day weekend, and police were concerned about disrupting it according to Mary Ann. The Hanover police and fire department did eventually co-ordinate and conduct a single search using volunteers on May 23rd, 1993 -- five days after she disappeared. The search encompassed the Hanover park, the south shore of the Saugeen River going east, and the town water tower. No trace of Christine was found.

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MARY ANN: I think everybody just wanted to believe she was a runaway. Nobody would actually think of her as something had happened. Not in a small town. Not to their town. So everybody just told us, No, she's a runaway, she'll come back when she's ready. Even when we were putting up posters, people would take them down. They just didn't want to believe it.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: The town police took them down.

MARY ANN: Yeah. But nobody would believe it. I actually got phone calls from people, you know, 'Stop making such a fuss. She'll come back.' Yeah.

DAVID RIDGEN: Did you ever cast any suspicion or doubt... suspicious of people in town or anything?

SHAWN RUSSWURM: No.

MARY ANN: No.

DAVID RIDGEN: Mary Ann and Shawn didn't have any suspects. But almost a year later, they had to be ruled out as suspects themselves.

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MARY ANN: Yes, we all were at one point.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: We all were.

MARY ANN: They asked us to take polygraphs. And I agreed just to rule out being a suspect so that they would get on with the case and find the person that did it. I did it willingly knowing that it would clear me and would help the case. I would do-- would have done anything at that time. And you went through two of them.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: I went through two. The first one was, uh, fairly basic. It didn't bother me too much. The second one was at a very, uh, tense time in my life. My employer at the time was on strike in 1999. I had the interview over at Mount Forest OPP station in I believe it was October of 1999. And I was interviewed by one of their forensic people from Kingston, supposedly one of their head people. It was very, very intense. It was about a four- to five-hour process, and they accused me in many different ways of murdering Christine. Um, strangling, rape. Um, shooting her, drowning her. And just everything they could to push my buttons. What pushed my buttons the most during this process... I know that they were videotaping and recording the session. They mentioned that they had Paul Bernardo in another room. They wanted to know what my thoughts were.

DAVID RIDGEN: Paul Bernardo was a serial rapist and murderer in Ontario in the 1980s and 1990s. He and his partner, Karla Homolka, horribly murdered two young women. Bernardo had been arrested and jailed months before Chrissy disappeared, so using his name here was a tactic to get Shawn talking.

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: And with my, myself already being bipolar and things that were going on in my life at that time, I completely lost it. I jumped out of my seat. I seem to remember throwing a couple of things around. I just said, 'Let me at the son of a bitch, 'cause only one of us is going to walk out of the room alive.' I completely lost control. They tried to calm me down. I shook them off. All I had in my mind was looking for Paul Bernardo and wanted at him. And I wanted him dead. And that's the last I can remember.

DAVID RIDGEN: Russwurm had been at work until 3 p.m. in Durham, Ontario, at the time Chrissy disappeared -- about a 15-minute drive away from Hanover. After work, he drove to Mary Ann's, where he heard that Christine had left for school shortly before he arrived.

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DAVID RIDGEN: And what did they tell you about the results of either of those polygraphs that you took, Shawn?

SHAWN RUSSWURM: That I was cleared. As far as they were concerned, I had nothing to do with it. But they said they had to do what they had to do to prove that I was not guilty.

DAVID RIDGEN: Shawn and Mary Ann did pass their first polygraph tests, according to documents. And neither was ever arrested or charged in Christine's case.

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: Do I wish anyone to ever go through a process like that? No, it's hell. It's not a very nice process. But they did everything that they needed to do and I commend them for doing it. I just still wish that we had something more to bring justice and bring Christine home.

MARY ANN: 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: There weren't many Christine Harron news reports to look at early on in my investigation. Items I could find talked about the local Hanover police making no headway in Christine's case, claiming even a year later that there was no evidence of foul play. Even though Chrissy had left her house without her ID, any extra clothing or the $80 in birthday money she had just received, police continued to suggest that she was a runaway. That there were sightings of her. Christine was in Toronto with skinheads who had been seen in Hanover. She'd dyed her hair blond and shaved the side of her head. Or she'd left home to go live with her father, Lorne, out West. But she never appeared there. Or Toronto. Or was seen anywhere else again after May 18th, 1993.

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: Mary Ann and I spent a lot of time. The first six months to a year we went to Kitchener, London, Toronto... [sighs] Where else did we go, dear? I can't even remember.

DAVID RIDGEN: Even if police weren't looking for Christine, Mary Ann and Shawn were trying their best.

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: Every chance we had, going to places that we probably-- We checked shelters. We went into... I'm not sure if it's a halfway house or a drug house or what it was.

DAVID RIDGEN: The media would report on these supposed sightings of Chrissy and helped to generate more rumours. And to make matters worse, according to Mary Ann, the few articles that were written were often filled with inaccuracy.

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MARY ANN: I found that whenever you tried to tell them something, they twist it into something else. It was never what you were trying to explain. They always just took bits and pieces and made their own sentences.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: It wasn't always...

MARY ANN: It was never the truth.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: ...the truth that we had said. So it became frustrating and upsetting. To the point where we just had to refuse to speak with them. We were so scared of jeopardizing Christine's case that we shut out all reporters for quite a while. Until now.

MARY ANN: I've kept most of the clippings from the newspapers all these years. Got those--

SHAWN RUSSWURM: There here somewhere.

MARY ANN: --and uh, the posters and... yeah. [praising her dog] That's a good girl. Yes.

DAVID RIDGEN: So do you think that there's a chance in this case still, or what's your aim then? Justice or--

MARY ANN: I want it solved. Justice and solved.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: I think there's still a chance. And now I hope... [emotional] I hope this will bring her home.

DAVID RIDGEN: Well, we'll do our best.

[Mary Ann quiets one of the dogs]

SHAWN RUSSWURM: I'm sure you will.

MARY ANN: But Hanover does not feel like home anymore.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: Not to us.

MARY ANN: Ever since she went missing, no.

SHAWN RUSSWURM: No, not to us.

MARY ANN: It's not our home.

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CINDY: We had the same homeroom in Grade 9, so the only desk was right beside her. So that's how I met her. And, uh, from there, we pretty much were, like, fast friends. Like, Chrissy was very shy.

DAVID RIDGEN: Cindy Geilen-MacPherson. One of Christine Harron's school friends.

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CINDY: And if you didn't know her, it took a long time to kind of get to know her. And, um. A lot of people liked to pick on her 'cause she was really easy to pick on.

DAVID RIDGEN: How so?

CINDY: If somebody said, 'Well, why don't you go do this,' she'd go and do it 'cause she wanted to be accepted. People would, like, throw her in a locker. She'd just stay there until, like, they were gone and I'd come and be like, okay, you can get out now. She really wasn't one for conflict either. If people were fighting or if there was a chance that there could be fighting, she was out of there.

CINDY: We'd hang out pretty much every weekend. The day she disappeared, I phoned her house and her mom answered, and I'm like, Is Chrissy there? She's like, No, she hasn't gotten home from school yet. I thought it was kind of weird. And I'm like, Well, she didn't-- she wasn't at school. And her mom's like, Oh. Okay. And then I think it was about two hours later I got another phone call and she's like, Are you sure Chrissy isn't there? And I'm like, No.

DAVID RIDGEN: Cindy and her father drove the roads that Chrissy might have travelled to get to their farm.

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CINDY: We didn't see her, so my dad's like, Well, we can't stay out, you know. So I went home. And I phoned her mom and I said, Well, we didn't find her on any of the roads coming from Hanover.

DAVID RIDGEN: Cindy had spoken to Chrissy on the phone the night before she disappeared. They were planning the May long weekend where Chrissy was supposed to come to Cindy's farm.

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CINDY: So, like, I was the last person to talk to her. And, like, everything seemed fine. She was excited. She loved being at my house 'cause of all the animals and everything like that. Being May, we had baby goats and sheep and calves and pigs, and she was excited to come and see them and... and I didn't really think anything was up.

DAVID RIDGEN: Okay. So the police then, did they talk to you?

CINDY: Every couple of years they come...

DAVID RIDGEN: Cindy says she spoke to police several times over the years, and that sometimes they would insist that Cindy knew more. That she knew where Chrissy was. But, she didn't. The best Cindy could do was tell police about what Chrissy was like, her routines and habits, certain places she liked to go.

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CINDY: Chrissy used to go and sit on the swings at the park and just think. She said that's what she liked to do when she wanted to think, was go and sit on the swings. Like, Chrissy was a very good friend to me. And it kind of hurts me to know that she's missed out on a lot of stuff that I've gotten to do.

DAVID RIDGEN: Mm-hmm. And what's your theory? Everyone's got one.

CINDY: I think somebody picked her up, 'cause she would've gotten into a car with somebody.

DAVID RIDGEN: You think that she would've gotten into a stranger's car?

CINDY: If they were nice to her? Probably. She was, like, just striving for some sort of, like, adult approval. So if you were older and you were nice to her, she would, like, move heaven and earth to keep that, like, that, um... I don't even know the word I'm looking for.

DAVID RIDGEN: That kind of attention.

CINDY: Yeah. To keep that attention on her.

DAVID RIDGEN: So, you think she got into a car, and you think that it was the wrong car?

CINDY: I honestly do.

DAVID RIDGEN: It should be noted here that some feel Chrissy would be shy of strangers, or even run away from them if she were alone.

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CINDY: It just... for sure she would have phoned me if she was still alive. Like, for sure she would have phoned me. And I kind of knew deep down. I had the-- I'm like, she's not around anymore. She's dead.

DAVID RIDGEN: I'm sitting in the passenger seat as Shawn and Mary Ann give me a short tour of Hanover. Main Street, the river, the school, the park. Population about 7700, Hanover rose and then fell as a furniture-making capital of Canada, with much of that business gone now overseas. A town at the time of her disappearance down on its luck, but where Chrissy called home. Shawn and Mary Ann moved not long after Chrissy disappeared, to shelter themselves from what sounds like an onslaught of neighbours.

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MARY ANN: They were very rude with us and...

SHAWN RUSSWURM: A lot of them. A lot of negativity.

MARY ANN: Yeah. I actually had phone calls. You get a lot of calls in the middle of the night were hang-ups, so, we had the Hanover police put a trace on our phone. So they could try and find out who was doing the phone calls. But they never did.

DAVID RIDGEN: A brief flurry of police activity surrounded a call that a boy going into Grade 10 named Mark Kuntz received in July 1993, a couple of months after Chrissy disappeared. The call, Kuntz told his parents and police, came from someone who said they were Chrissy. The girl on the other end said she was calling from a pay phone, and that she was near one of the abandoned factories in town. The person on the phone said she had run out of money and asked Kuntz to meet her behind a shed near the school. She also told him that she wanted to have sex with him. Kuntz says the person sounded like Chrissy, but when he went to the shed with police standing by, nobody appeared. Later that night, another call came in where the girl's voice asked Kuntz if he had told police. He said he had, and the voice said, "Thanks a lot," and hung up. Kuntz admitted later that he had previously received crank calls on other topics, and also that he had not heard Chrissy's voice for well over a year, and barely knew her or saw her even then.

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: We had asked for the OPP to be able to step in. We pleaded with the Hanover police to bring the OPP in. They said no, it's their jurisdiction, they don't have to bring an outside source in. And it turned out to be six years later before we were able to have the OPP come in.

DAVID RIDGEN: In 1999, Hanover police requested the assistance of the Ontario Provincial Police on Chrissy's case. At that time, a cataloguing of the case was undertaken by the OPP, and new interviews were conducted along with re-interviews. DNA samples were taken from Mary Ann and a profile obtained for Chrissy from a tube of her lipstick. A reward fund for $30,000 was renewed on the 10-year anniversary of Chrissy's disappearance. In 2003, one of the original investigating officers on the case, Stanley Edwards, is charged with several criminal offenses, including robbing a bank, forcible confinement and sexual assault. None of the charges were connected to Chrissy's case.

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DAVID RIDGEN: Just going to move back now. Those dogs are being nice and quiet for us. Uh, did you ever receive any documents from the OPP about the case?

SHAWN RUSSWURM: No.

MARY ANN: No. The OPP wouldn't let us know anything.

DAVID RIDGEN: And since that time -- we're now in 2011 here -- what, what has the OPP done to your knowledge? How have they communicated to you?

MARY ANN: They followed up on some other leads, but we've never been told any results from those. We haven't heard from them so as far as I know, the case is closed.

DAVID RIDGEN: I'll get into telling you what I know, myself. I'm going to leave you with some today that you guys can read.

DAVID RIDGEN: Back at Mary Ann and Shawn's place, I share some documents with them that the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General has sent me. The basic story that they tell is known to Mary Ann and Shawn, but the crucial details have remained hidden and out of reach, until now. Details about a local man named Anthony who had a frustrating night at an August 2004 party. He'd had a few drinks, and then confessed to killing Christine Harron.

[Music: Closing theme]

DAVID RIDGEN: This season on Someone Knows Something, The Christine Harron Case:

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SHAWN RUSSWURM: The Crown attorney told us it was a slam dunk at one point. He was 90% sure he was going to be convicted.

DET. INSP. MARK WRIGHT: Listen to me very carefully. Right now, you're under arrest for the murder of Christine Harron because you told that police officer that you killed her.

UC OFFICER 1: This story here, and you and me? Till the day I die, fucking doesn't leave these lips.

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[knocking at a door, door opens]

DAVID RIDGEN: Did you know Christine? …Did you kill Christine? …Why did you confess to her murder?

DAVID RIDGEN: Someone Knows Something is hosted, written and produced by me, David Ridgen. The series is also produced by Katie Swyers. Sound design by Evan Kelly. Natalya Ferguson is our transcriber. Emilie Quesnel is our Digital Producer. Chris Oke is our Story Editor. Our Executive Producer is Cesil Fernandes. Tanya Springer is the Senior Manager and Arif Noorani is the Director of CBC Podcasts. If you want to help new listeners discover the show, please rate and review wherever you listen. Find us on Facebook by searching 'Someone Knows Something' or on Instagram @cbcpodcasts. You can hear next week's episode now by searching for the CBC Podcasts' channel on YouTube. If you're looking for more investigations, check out the past seasons of Someone Knows Something. From a deadly bomb hidden inside a flashlight, to two teenagers killed by the KKK. There are eight seasons of Someone Knows Something you can binge-listen to right now, wherever you get your podcasts. You've been listening to Someone Knows Something ad-free on Apple Podcasts. Thanks for subscribing.

[Music: Closing theme]

KATHLEEN GOLDHAR: You can listen to episode two of Someone Knows Something: The Christine Harron Case right now on YouTube and everywhere you get your podcasts. Just search for 'Someone Knows Something.' You can also get the entire series ad-free by subscribing to CBC True Crime Premium on Apple Podcasts.

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Transcript: Crime Story, Episode 57

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