On a summer afternoon in 1959, 14 year old Steven Truscott gave his friend Lynne Harper a bike ride.
That was the last time anyone except her killer saw her alive. And today, for the first time, we can definitively and under the law, say we do not know who her killer is. And that, surprisingly, is a reason for celebration for at least one family.
Shortly after Lynne died, Steven Truscott was convicted in her murder and sentenced to hang by the neck until he was dead. Three months later, his sentence was commuted to life in prison. He was released after 10 years. For the next 30 years, he lived quietly under an assumed name in southern Ontario with his wife and children. 7 years ago he publicly appeared and said, I am innocent.
The public already believed he was innocent. Books were written. Plays were staged. Features published. We saw this for the travesty it was. And finally Truscott himself said it publicly. Free me from the mantle of this shame that I do not deserve to bear.
It took 7 more years. The Crown fought it tooth and nail. Nobody understood why. In the end, they lost their fight.
Today, Steven Truscott was acquitted in the charge of murder.
Steven Truscott can now live, for the first time, as a free man under his own name.
May those of us who have never had to question our own right to live our own lives in freedom, give thanks and redouble our efforts to ensure this never happens again.
