Two men were finally acquitted Thursday, more than 40 years after a murder in New Brunswick for which they were wrongfully convicted.
In 1983, authorities found the brutally beaten and partially burned body of jogger George Leeman in a wooded area near Saint-Jean.
In the months that followed, Robert Mailman and Walter Gillespie were arrested for Mr. Leeman's murder and sentenced to life in prison, despite having good alibis, summarized Innocence Canada, which campaigned for the two men's acquittal.
Robert Mailman, now 76 and terminally ill with cancer that left him only months to live, spent 18 years behind bars before being paroled. Walter Gillespie, 80, spent 21 years in prison and currently lives in a halfway house in Saint-Jean.
According to a report in the Globe and Mail, Innocence Canada became interested in MM's cases. Mailman and Gillespie in 2018, last month both men finally got a new trial. However, on Thursday, the Crown made no arguments in favor of convicting her of murder, leaving Judge Tracey DeWare with no choice but to acquit her.
“We all need to look at what went wrong and why it stayed that way for 40 years before we tried to put things right.” It's too late to fix many things. These men will never regain their lost years. “Mr. Leeman's family will never see justice for his murder,” Innocence Canada vice-president Ron Dalton said at a press conference after the verdict.