The Steven Truscott Trial Trivia Quiz

Answer: Lynne Harper

Lynne was reported missing by her parents on the evening of June 9, 1959. Her body was discovered in some woods nearby two days later. Steven was arrested on June 12 and charged with murder on the 13th.

Isabel LeBourdais was a journalist who wrote the 1966 book "The Trial of Steven Truscott". Jocelyne Goddette was a witness for the prosecution and Noble Sharpe was a doctor who re-examined the forensic evidence years later.

Answer: 14

Truscott's account of what happened on the evening of Lynne's death was that he gave her ride on his bicycle down to the highway. He said he saw her get into a car as he was riding away.

Answer: 12

One of the main criticisms of the police investigation into the crime was that it was simply done too quickly. Truscott was arrested less than 24 hours after the body was discovered. There was no attempt to look into any other suspects.

Answer: Yes

Her official cause of death was strangulation, but she was raped as well. According to the autopsy, her wounds from the sexual assault showed no haemorrhaging - meaning she was raped post mortem.

Answer: Clinton

The Harper and Truscott families lived on an Air Force base just outside of Clinton, Ontario. When the base was decommissioned it was renamed Vanastra, Ontario. It is believed that one of the reasons the investigation was so speedy was because Lynne's father, an officer of the Air Force, pushed the police for an arrest.

Petawawa is home to a Canadian Armed Forces base within the Ottawa Valley. Guelph and Windsor are bigger towns, home to minor league hockey teams and universities.

Answer: stomach contents

Time of death was the most key aspect of the crime - it would either implicate Steven or exhonorate him completely. Based on Lynne's stomach contents, the original coroner placed her time of death about an hour after she ate supper - sometime between 7:15 and 7:45, during the half hour or so that Steven voluntarily admitted to being with Lynne.

Years later, the same coroner said perhaps the time of death could have been as much as two hours later. As of January 2007, Lynne's time of death is still being investigated. Other pathologists have examined the original evidence and have concluded that Lynne may have died as late as 24 hours after being with Truscott. Lynne's body was exhumed in April 2006, but no viable evidence could be lifted from the corpse. Beginning in July 2006, the Ontario Attorney General's office began working with entomologists to determine a time of death with the presence of maggots on the body.

Answer: less than six hours

The trial lasted for 15 days. In addition to doctors providing testimony, both the prosecution and the defence used local children on the stand. 12 year old Gord Logan established an alibi for Steven by saying he saw Steven and Lynne ride by, and then Steven returned alone a few minutes later. Significantly, he told this to the police a day before Lynne's body was even found; but afterwards the police dismissed his account as a fabrication to protect Steven. On the prosecution's side, they used 10 year old Philip Burns.

The police claimed that, to prove that Steven took Lynne into the bush, all they had to do was prove that at some point they weren't on the road. Philip said he was on the road at the same time that night that Steven and Lynne should have been there - and he never saw them.

The prosecution also used Jocelyne Goddette, who told the court that Truscott had attempted to get her to come into the bush with him before. However, there was evidence that it was Jocelyne who had wanted to make the dates with Steven and other boys as well. Also, years later people would come forward to testify that Jocelyne had admitted about lying under oath on the witness stand.

Answer: True

Truscott was sentenced to death by hanging in September 1959. In January 1960, his appeal was dismissed, but at the same time his sentence was commuted to life in prison by Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker. The Truscott case was a major step to abolishing the death penalty in Canada, because there were so many doubts about his guilt and nobody wanted an innocent boy to be sent to his death.

Answer: Alexander Kalichuk

In the mid 1960's, a file was uncovered that detailed Sgt. Kalichuk - he had been psychologically evaluated as a sexual predator and potential killer. He had two counts of indecent exposure on his record before ever arriving in Clinton. Three weeks before Lynne's death, he was arrested and charged for attempting to lure three young girls into his car. The charges were dismissed due to lack of evidence. The very day that Lynne disappeared, Kalichuk's co-workers had been discussing his liking for alcohol and little girls. He had recently been charged with another count of indecent exposure in a neighbouring town. Kalichuk's vehicle also matched the sketchy description provided by Truscott of the car he saw Lynne get into. Kalichuk died of alcoholism in 1975 and police have never said whether he was investigated or not.

John Penistan was the original coroner who examined Lynne's body. Richard Gelatly was another local boy who was said to have seen Steven and Lynne that night. George Edens was the local man who found her body.

Answer: 1969

After his release, Truscott moved to Guelph, Ontario where he lived under an assumed name. He got married and had three daughters. Not even they knew of his identity until 2000, when Truscott came out of hiding for the CBC documentary. On August 28, 2007, Truscott was finally acquitted of the crime he always maintained he did not commit. An Ontario Court of Appeal said that the trial in 1959 was a "gross miscarriage of justice" and they came to the decision that if a new trial were possible today, Steven would not be convicted. Truscott's lawyers wanted him declared innocent; however without being able to find the real killer that would be impossible.

Instead, the Court of Appeal has simply said that there was not enough evidence to convict Steven Truscott of the murder of Lynne Harper beyond a reasonable doubt.