Murder at McDonald's (33 page)

About twenty minutes before the suspects were to arrive, police parted the barricades to allow an elderly couple, a young woman, and two young men to walk through—the Fagan family. For Al and Theresa Fagan, this was their first exposure to the criminal courts, and they were nervous. The Mounties had explained the process to all the victims' families, but there was still that uneasy sense that accompanies an unknown quantity. The family was escorted to the front door of the courthouse and quickly taken to an empty courtroom that had been set aside to keep them and the other families out of the media glare. All the relatives of the victims had followed the advice of the RCMP up to that point, refusing to do more than politely acknowledge reporters and then decline to make any comment related to the murders.

Excitement rippled through the crowd outside as a motorcade approached the building. The RCMP was providing an armed escort for the sheriff's-department vans transporting the three young men to court. Marked and unmarked RCMP squad cars and police-dog trucks swept into the courthouse parking lot as onlookers, forced to stand behind those who had arrived early and lined the barricades, craned for a better view. Dozens of officers jumped from their cars, looking over the crowd as the vehicles carrying Wood, MacNeil, and Muise backed close to the prisoners entrance.

The young men were hustled into the courthouse, past a phalanx of television crews and newspaper photographers. Cape Breton County Sheriff Wayne Magee had set aside an area for photographers in order to prevent a last-minute dash by some overzealous camera operator trying to get a better shot. He wanted everyone to have the same access, and he wanted no-one getting in the way. Derek Wood came first, clad in a dark, conservative suit, white shirt, and tie. Wood ignored the cameras as he walked, his hands cuffed in front of him, an officer on either side. I noticed no emotion, no sense of fear or shock at being where he was. Freeman MacNeil was next, also wearing a stylish, conservative suit and ignoring the cameras. Had it not been for the handcuffs, MacNeil would have fit in quite comfortably with the police officers guiding him. He looked casual and relaxed, with a slight edge of seriousness that matched the expression of the police escorts. The final suspect led inside was a different story: Darren Muise pulled a blue blazer over his head to hide from the throng of photographers and the hundreds gathered outside. He was whisked to the holding cells behind his two co-accused, and the three men awaited their appointment with the judge.

For the relatives of the victims, the court appearance would be the first opportunity to see what kind of people had brought so much pain into their lives. Julia Burroughs, clearly still in shock over the loss of her husband, slowly made her way towards the courtroom. The Fagan family paused in the courtroom doorway to allow deputies to quickly search them with metal detectors, a process that was repeated for everyone entering the room. Because of the large numbers of relatives—in particular the angry young men, brothers of James Fagan and Neil Burroughs—extra precautions were also taken inside the courtroom. Courtroom Four is a small, carpeted room with churchlike benches lining both sides of the centre aisle. The victims' relatives were instructed to sit on the right side of the aisle, and only five members of each family were permitted to enter; there were not enough seats to accommodate more. The few relatives of Derek Wood, including his brother, were placed on the left side, behind the front rows, where the suspects would sit. They sat huddled in the centre of the row, not looking towards the twenty people crammed into the seats on the other side of the aisle. Reporters jammed the back row on the left side and stood at the rear. Before the court went into session, a line of RCMP officers walked into the room and stood one behind the other, creating a human wall down the centre aisle. Other officers took up positions in front of the seats the accused would use, and in the row behind. Then the doors swung open, and the three men were brought in. They conferred briefly with their lawyers. I was standing near the door where the three had entered, and I watched as Al Fagan and his sons craned forward to see beyond the wall of Mounties separating them from the killers. After a few minutes, some of the other family members in the section similarly attempted to get a better look at the three suspects.

Everyone stood as the judge entered and opened the court. The process took only seconds: the charges were read, and dates were set for the next appearance, when the suspects would enter their pleas. A first appearance in a murder case usually includes a Crown request for the court to order psychiatric assessment of the suspects with the agreement of defence counsel. But in this case, the question of sanity or fitness to stand trial would not be an issue. The judge read the charges and adjourned the matter until June 11; the span between arraignment and plea would allow defence lawyers to confer with their young clients.

The procession of police vehicles leaves the Cape Breton County Courthouse after the first court appearance by the three men charged in the McDonald's murders. [Print from ATV video tape.]

The atmosphere in the tiny courtroom was intense as the RCMP prepared to take the suspects back to the correctional centre. From the perspective of the victims' relatives, it was all too much; these three well-dressed young punks showed no sign of remorse, no sign of anything. Pandemonium broke out as the victims' relatives began to shout, then jostled the Mounties in an effort to get closer to the killers. “You took my baby's father away!” came a woman's voice. The agonized cry of Julia Burroughs could be heard in the hallway outside, as could another cry: “Five minutes! Just give me five minutes with them!” Sheriff's deputies stationed outside the courtroom moved towards the closed doors, but the hallway was full of people, and they soon had trouble there as a young man lunged towards the doors. One of Neil Burroughs's brothers, who had been unable to enter the room because of the limited number of seats, heard Julia's cries. It was more than he could bear. Johnnie Burroughs is a small man, but it took three sheriff's deputies to drag him away from the door as he screamed: “I'm your worst fuckin' nightmare! Do you hear me, you pricks? I'm your worst fuckin' nightmare! I'm gonna get you, do you hear me?”

The Mounties assigned to transport the prisoners literally lifted them from their seats as soon as the trouble started, and raced them out past the TV cameras and towards the waiting vans. The three suspects no longer looked calm and in control. They looked shocked, and Darren Muise forgot to hide from the cameras. As the glass doors swung open, the crowd outside began yelling, as though they had somehow picked up on what was going on inside. “Killers!” “No-good bastards!” “May you rot in hell!” “Fuckin' killers, hope you hang!” These people had kept silent when the three suspects were taken into the court, but their anger built as they talked about how terrible the crime was, and how much shame they felt that it had happened in Cape Breton. One of the subjects of discussion along the barricades was the rumour, still circulating around Sydney, that torture and ritualistic abuse had been part of the murders. Despite the insistence of the RCMP that robbery was the motive, many in the area felt there had to be more, and were ready to believe anything said about the killers—for example, that Muise, MacNeil, and Wood were the founding members of a Satanic cult lurking beneath the surface of the teen subculture. By the time the crowd outside had discussed this and all the other prevailing theories on what had precipitated the murders, many no longer thought of the suspects as three young men. They were monsters, and they should be dealt with as such. That opinion was not shared by everyone outside the courthouse. A small group of young men stood quietly aside, watching the procession and the outburst. They were friends of Derek Wood and Darren Muise. I talked to them briefly and interviewed one of them for my report. He was shocked, and said he could not understand how his friends had become involved in this crime. He insisted that they were normal kids, not unlike the group he was with. They had never done anything to suggest they were capable of shooting innocent people and then proceeding to cover up their acts with no signs of remorse.

In the history of Cape Breton, there had never been so much security surrounding a court appearance, but the outburst inside and outside the building convinced police they had made the right decision, one they would make again as court proceedings continued. For the Mounties who had found themselves trying to restrain the relatives of the victims, it was a painful and draining experience; they understood the anger but had to protect the suspects. Back inside the courtroom, defence attorneys and prosecutors felt similarly numb, but prosecutor Frank Edwards soon recovered, and had the room cleared of everyone but the victims' relatives. Edwards explained to them that he understood what had happened, but told them it could not be repeated. The court process that had begun would be a long one, he said, and the families would have to be patient if they wanted to see justice done. There would be no deals in this case, he told them; it would be first-degree murder all the way, and he would make sure these three men got what they deserved. But the families would have to help him by controlling themselves. Many of them had seen Frank Edwards before; he was regularly interviewed on TV at the conclusion of major trials in the Sydney area. He was the senior prosecutor on Cape Breton Island, and if he was going to get first-degree murder convictions in this case, then they would have to do their part to make sure he succeeded. Ken Haley remained quiet as his boss talked about getting first-degree convictions, but he worried about the remark. The police file was not yet complete, and he knew that it was a problematic clain to make. Well, he had not made the promise, and he would not be the lead prosecutor, so Haley figured he wouldn't have to explain anything to the families if Edwards found that the evidence didn't support the promise.

The suspects' June 11 court appearance was much quieter, although security remained tight. The families of the victims kept their word and remained silent, while outside the courthouse, only a few shouts were heard; the community was beginning to set aside some of its anger. But the curiosity remained. People wanted to know exactly what had happened at McDonald's, and they wanted another glimpse of the young men who had been charged. Inside the courthouse, very little was accomplished. In the weeks since the arraignment, Darren Muise and Freeman MacNeil had hired new lawyers. The conflict within the Legal Aid office, which arose because Art Mollon had been retained by Derek Wood, prevented them from choosing a local Legal Aid lawyer, but under Nova Scotia Legal Aid provisions, suspects can obtain certificates to finance a defence with an outside attorney. MacNeil's new lawyer was Kevin Coady, a Cape Bretoner who now practised in Halifax, while Muise retained Joel Pink, a high-profile defence attorney from Halifax, who had handled many murder cases. Pink attended the June 11 court appearance and spoke to reporters afterward. I asked him how Darren Muise felt about the anger he'd seen on the first court date; Pink replied that his client was afraid, not only because of the public outrage, but also because of what was happening at the Cape Breton County Correctional Centre—inmates were openly joking and making bets about which of the three suspects would be killed in jail first. The three were still being held in isolation, and that kind of jailhouse banter ensured that they would remain in protective custody. In the interview, Pink also stated categorically that there was no evidence to suggest any of the three were involved in a cult.

Because new lawyers were involved, the case was adjourned until August 12 to allow attorneys time to review the Crown evidence and decide how to proceed on behalf of their clients. Meanwhile, Corporal Kevin Cleary was adjusting to the new focus of his involvement. As the legal informant in case, it was his job to prepare the police file to the satisfaction of Frank Edwards. The Crown had based its charges on the confessions of the three suspects and the statement of Greg Lawrence, but much more would be needed before the file was complete. Edwards had a reputation as a tough courtroom attorney who won most of the major cases he handled; he was also a stickler, and insisted on knowing everything there was to know before he got to court. Cleary worked on the file every day until the end of July, when he was finally ready to present it to the prosecutor. By then, the file had more than six hundred subfiles—interviews with prospective witnesses, from taxi drivers and police officers who had entered the restaurant, to friends of the accused men who could reveal what they said and did before and after the murders. The file was a good one, but a detailed examination made it clear that the success of the trials would depend on the confessions being admitted in court; there was no physical evidence linking Muise, Wood, and MacNeil to the crime itself. One set of footprints in the basement matched the tread pattern on Derek Wood's sneakers, but that was not enough; he
had
been working at McDonald's, after all.