The popular resort town of Banff was rocked when a young female taxi driver was found murdered in 1990. Investigators worked tirelessly to come up with a viable suspect, but the case went cold.
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00:15He followed her outside the cab and killed her in the middle of the street.
00:21And it was senseless.
00:22My mom called and she was crying and yelling on the phone and telling me that she had died.
00:29This was a true whodunit.
00:31The race was on to try to find a match or try to compare DNA samples.
00:36How your knife could have got into the body of the victim.
00:42It's a pretty graphic question there.
00:44We go back and we review all of the files again to see if we've missed something in
00:49that investigation.
00:50There's no way I could sit with that and not do anything about it.
00:59Welcome to Crime Beat.
01:00I'm Antony Robart.
01:01Tonight we take you back to 1990.
01:04A horrific robbery gone bad created a murder mystery.
01:08Now it was a real whodunit with no clear suspects for police to focus on.
01:14A case went cold until investigators were able to use new technology to zero in on the
01:21killer.
01:23Here now is Nancy Hickst with Murder in the Mountains.
01:32The breathtaking beauty of Banff in the heart of the Rocky Mountains surrounded by glacier
01:38fed lakes and streams attracts millions of visitors from all over the world every year.
01:46Tourism is Banff's economic lifeline and seasonal workers thrive on the jobs it creates.
01:55In the spring of 1990, Lucy Turmel, a young woman from Quebec, was working as a taxi driver.
02:04Midway through her shift, early in the morning on May 17, 1990, she pulled up to the condo
02:11she shared with her boyfriend.
02:13She stopped and discussed her day's activities and at that time she had mentioned to him
02:20that it was a very slow night and I think she had made about $130.
02:25So that's basically what she was travelling with and I guess give him a kiss goodnight
02:31and she had to work until about 3 o'clock in the morning and then she would see him
02:39the next morning.
02:40Their conversation was interrupted by her dispatcher.
02:45She had fares waiting for pick up at the Banff Springs Hotel.
02:49It was a male and two females who got into her cab.
02:53Lucy Turmel left the Banff Springs Hotel at about 1.40am.
02:59Minutes later, her radio went silent.
03:03At about 2 o'clock in the morning, Larry from Taxi Taxi, he's the other driver at the time
03:09in Banff, Alberta, was trying to get a hold of Lucy Turmel.
03:13There was two cabs on that night.
03:14It was a fairly quiet night and he was radioing her and couldn't get any response.
03:22Lucy's coworker drove to the residential address she'd radioed in as her destination, but she
03:28wasn't there.
03:30He then drove past her condo and still no sign of Lucy.
03:36Shortly after that, he was coming down going, I believe it's north on Banff Avenue, which
03:42is the main thoroughfare in Banff, where all the stores generally are, and he noticed the
03:48white Taxi Taxi of Ford Crown Victoria going south and it was heading towards the forestry
03:57office across the bridge and there was a male driving it.
04:03It wasn't Lucy.
04:04So he was calling on the phone, he got a hold of dispatch.
04:10A chase through the winding roads of Banff ensued.
04:14He followed this cab, he heard a Huey on Banff Avenue and followed the cab up Mountain Avenue
04:21and at that time, obviously the driver of the vehicle, the individual that was probably
04:26responsible for the crime, you know, pulled the vehicle over to the left shoulder and
04:33then threw it in the park and then off he ran into the bush, heading in kind of a direction
04:39that was towards the Banff Springs Hotel, because that's a very heavily bushed and treed area.
04:47The driver lost track of the stranger, but a closer look at the cab revealed something
04:54very bad had occurred.
04:56There was blood on the door of the car, on the turn signal and the steering wheel.
05:04At that same time, across town, police made a disturbing discovery.
05:10One of the officers in Banff came across the body laying on Squirrel Street.
05:15Of course, the call comes in to us at Major Crimes and very early on in the morning, a
05:22number of us strike out to Banff, Alberta.
05:27The victim was Lucy Turmel.
05:30Her body was located just one block from the condo she shared with her boyfriend.
05:37She had been murdered outside the cab and was laying in the middle of the street, right
05:42across from an elementary school on Squirrel Street.
05:46We were able to determine that she had been stabbed 17 times, so it was very vicious.
05:51She had been stabbed once in her leg, once in her chest, and a number of times on the
05:56left side of her throat.
06:0118 hours later, a third crime scene was located in a driveway between two residences, not
06:09far from where Lucy Turmel's cab was abandoned.
06:13The owners of the residence on Nahami Drive, I believe it's called, came out and saw the
06:19weapon laying between the two driveways was about a six-inch hunting knife, and it was
06:25covered in blood.
06:30Investigators believed Lucy was killed for her taxi fares.
06:35There was no money in the cab left.
06:38She had a wallet that she carried, and that had all of the tips and all of the money that
06:44she would have garnered from various fares.
06:47There was nothing there.
06:48Her trip sheet was there.
06:50There was an amount on the trip thing in the cab, which notified $8.50.
06:58The killer got away with very little cash.
07:02You know, it's one of those things where you just kind of shake your head and say, for
07:07probably $130, she lost her life.
07:19Welcome back to Crime Beat.
07:25The stabbing death of Lucy Turmel left residents and tourists on edge.
07:30The heavy presence of police investigators was little comfort, as the killer was still
07:36out there.
07:37Here again is Nancy Hickst with Murder in the Mountains.
07:44Across the country, in the city of Lévis, Quebec, Lucy Turmel's family was shattered.
07:51My mom called, and she was crying and yelling on the phone and telling me that Lucy had
07:58died.
07:59And I was not sure to understand properly what she was trying to tell me.
08:04And it didn't go well.
08:07I was kind of in a shock.
08:11Lucy was the youngest of three siblings.
08:14I'm the older, Louis.
08:16My brother is Simon.
08:18And my sister was the little kid, Lucy.
08:23The three of us were quite bigger than my parents.
08:28The main reason is we were adopted, the three of us.
08:31From a very young age, Lucy had an adventurous spirit.
08:37She wanted to be a little bit of a free-minded person.
08:40She wanted to travel.
08:42She wanted to see the world.
08:44She didn't want to fit in the box, as sometimes society wants us to be.
08:50She went to be a nanny in a Russian family in Toronto.
08:55She wanted to learn English, but she realized they spoke Russian.
08:59And she moved to a different family after that.
09:03And from there, she got the bite of traveling and seeing outer world.
09:08So she went to different places and ended up in Banff.
09:14Lucy got a job at the iconic Castle in the Rockies, the Banff Springs Hotel.
09:20From the Banff Springs Hotel, she went after that working for restaurants
09:25when she met her boyfriend, Jeff.
09:30And she also worked for a taxi company.
09:33And she wanted to drive.
09:35One of her dream jobs was to drive the big bus that goes on the ice.
09:41And, well, she had to go through different trainings.
09:46And so they wanted her to train on the taxi.
09:52And, well, that's the job she had.
09:55She loved the situation.
09:57She was in love for the last year.
10:00And she liked it.
10:02She felt she was free.
10:04She could do a bunch of things.
10:07In the spring of 1990, Lucy and her boyfriend moved in together.
10:13They were still in the process of unpacking boxes when she was murdered.
10:19A forensic examination of the cab revealed
10:22that none of the blood found inside of the vehicle was Lucy's.
10:27Police believed Lucy tried to fend off the attack
10:31and in the process injured the offender.
10:34It was in her personality to fight back.
10:38She was raised with two boys.
10:41We played rough games as kids.
10:44So she knew how to fight.
10:46She was not going to be a silent victim.
10:49So she had a fight with him, but she lost the game.
10:53But she did try to stay alive as much as she could.
10:58And we know the result.
11:06There was only one man who caught a brief glimpse of the killer,
11:11a taxi driver who saw him run from Lucy's stolen cab into the woods.
11:17He knew it was a male.
11:19Probably, you know, when Larry said it was under 25,
11:22we were looking at probably under 35 and down,
11:26with the skinny build and dark hair.
11:30Officers retraced Lucy's route.
11:33All the neighborhood inquiries there,
11:36it was only houses on the one side of the street on Squirrel Street.
11:40The elementary school was on the other.
11:42So we only had those limited amount of houses,
11:45but nobody heard any screaming or anything.
11:47And this is at probably quarter to 2 or 2 o'clock in the morning.
11:51So you would think if she was yelling and screaming and running for her life
11:55that somebody would have heard, but no.
11:58Nobody heard a thing.
12:01They went to the Bamp Springs Hotel where she had picked up her final affairs.
12:06And interview all of the manager and all of the staff there.
12:11And do they recall anybody else there?
12:13So those names are all generated and a file made up on them.
12:17We then go down to Cougar Street and talk to all the residents there,
12:21trying to determine who the one male and the two females were,
12:26which may lead us to how this guy got into the cab or whatever the case might be.
12:32And that wasn't very successful.
12:35One man who worked at the Bamp Springs Hotel
12:39and lived in staff accommodations said his roommate had a knife.
12:44There was two other kids that stayed in that same room at the attic, Bamp Attics.
12:49And they said, well, here's this knife.
12:52There's no knife, but here's the sheath.
12:54But this guy isn't even here because he had already left.
12:58He'd catch a plane back because he's going to a family reunion.
13:00So he wasn't even in Bamp.
13:02You just branch out and other names surface.
13:05And so they're interviewed.
13:07And it's a very transient area.
13:11So very quickly, that night or the next night,
13:14we had an individual from Quebec with a knife
13:19threatening people in one of the other nightclubs.
13:22And of course, I interviewed him the following morning.
13:26And lo and behold, he admits to the crime.
13:30Days into the homicide investigation, there was a break in the case.
13:35Lo and behold, he admits to the crime.
13:38The guy said, well, I think I killed her.
13:41And so I said, OK, well, what do you recall?
13:44And where is the knife that you had?
13:46So the knife was obviously dropped in the bar.
13:49As it turned out, it was a knife that had been used to stab the victim.
13:53And it was a knife that had been used to stab the victim.
13:57So the knife was obviously dropped in the bar.
13:59As it turned out, it wasn't the knife at all.
14:02And as it turns out, he wasn't the guy responsible.
14:06So yeah, that was just drugs and alcohol delusions.
14:12Officers pushed forward and once again came up with another viable suspect.
14:19And there was another individual that was actually a Calgary resident.
14:23He had kind of an extensive criminal record for violence and so on and so forth.
14:28So I met with him a number of times here in Calgary.
14:31He was not very cooperative with us.
14:33He admitted being out in Banff during the time of the homicide.
14:37But he refused to give us any blood sample.
14:42Could DNA evidence prove his innocence or guilt?
14:47Well, it was a whodunit.
14:49They knew at that point that the blood in the taxi cab did not belong to the victim.
14:54So the area in which the blood was found was on the steering wheel, on the seat,
14:59on the side panel of the door, I think on the rocker panel as well.
15:03Based on the conversations I had with them, I told them what type of samples would work best.
15:09A pulled hair sample, a mouth swab, a blood sample.
15:14So the police had to use their investigative techniques as best they could
15:18without alerting the suspect that they were trying to seize a DNA sample from him
15:23in order to be comparing the profile to the blood in the taxi cab.
15:28Then we did an undercover operation on him to get a DNA sample from him.
15:34Samples were sent to the RCMP forensic lab in Ottawa.
15:39Back in 1990, it took between 10 and 14 dates for initial results of the DNA comparisons.
15:47A lot of young guys out there cooperated with us because they weren't responsible.
15:52So they were helping us out. They gave us DNA samples.
15:57This individual refused to.
16:00So now you have to stop the wagon and say,
16:04OK, well, let's get this guy either eliminated or else he's our prime suspect.
16:10It turned out that the suspect's lack of cooperation didn't equate to guilt.
16:17DNA cleared him.
16:19And then subsequently I went back and saw this guy here in Calgary and said,
16:23you're not the guy.
16:25He says, oh, thanks very much.
16:27I said, you could have helped us big time if you would have done it right off the bat.
16:32The investigation extended beyond Banff,
16:36given the tens of thousands of people who visit daily from all over the world.
16:42We also sent out letters to everybody that actually stayed in Banff during that period of time.
16:51So I think we took a couple of days prior to the homicide and then went to three or four days after the homicide.
17:00And we sent out letters to everybody that were from overseas and U.S.
17:07that were in Banff during that period of time.
17:10Sent them letters. Did they see anything?
17:12Did they know anything about this?
17:14So that was kind of like the start of the canvas.
17:16So then the other thing is, is to generate more tips,
17:20is to put out these posters of what Lucy Trammell looked like, the knife that we found.
17:27This went out to gondolas, to, you know, every place that would put this thing up.
17:33And all the businesses were very cooperative for us.
17:37Just to get that extra, somebody to tell us, come forward and say,
17:41listen, this guy had a knife very similar to that, and this is his name.
17:45The knife was also examined.
17:48The blood on the weapon was Lucy's.
17:51No fingerprints were recovered.
17:54And then we had that analyzed right down to the nth degree.
17:57We sent it to a knife expert in the U.S.
18:00to try to determine, like, who would have manufactured this knife?
18:03You know, was there a distributor here in Canada for those knives?
18:07You know, I mean, these are all things, investigative areas that you're going into.
18:12Tips poured into the RCMP.
18:15Each one needed to be looked at, and each potential suspect cleared.
18:21I think we're up to almost 200 people that we've taken DNA samples from.
18:26Probably the lab is getting a little upset here.
18:29You know, here's another sample.
18:31The testing took place over several months.
18:33As the police were sending me samples from different suspects,
18:37I would batch those samples, and once I got a result out,
18:41I would immediately inform the police that, you know,
18:44these samples did not match the blood in the taxi cab.
18:48That would then lead to the police looking at other avenues of investigation,
18:52and they would look at other samples and send me another batch of samples.
18:57Time passed.
19:01And seasons changed.
19:05The case went cold as Lucie Termel's killer continued to elude police.
19:12It was a little bit more tough for my mother.
19:16She was scared of that person, if that person would come and try to kill her.
19:23She had that in mind.
19:25And I said, no, I just said, for some reason it just happened,
19:29and it's not going to run after you.
19:31But she got a few times calls that there were nobody at the end,
19:37and certainly not him, but it was, she associated with him.
19:42So it was a long years.
19:48Then, more than a year and a half later, one man's curiosity provided a new lead.
19:56Yeah, I was 20 years old living here in Ontario, just finished high school.
20:00Shortly after that, I had a girlfriend move out to Banff, Alberta.
20:06I went out there to stay with her.
20:08My girlfriend was working at the top of the Sulphur Mountain gondola,
20:12and first or second day out there, after I got settled, I went out there to see her for lunch.
20:17Duane Jung rode the gondola up the mountain, witnessing spectacular scenery
20:23and a breathtaking view of Banff.
20:26But his attention was stolen by a poster about a homicide.
20:32What I noticed about the poster is I've always been intrigued by true crime.
20:35That's the type of book I would read. That's the type of show I will watch.
20:38The picture of Lucy Turmel herself and the murder weapon, and it drew me to it.
20:43I just read the short description on the poster itself.
20:46He met his girlfriend at the top of the gondola.
20:50I met her at her lunch break.
20:52We went over to the little cafe area and sat and had her lunch and a quick bite to eat,
20:59and just came up about the Help Wanted poster, the details on it,
21:04how it hadn't been solved.
21:05I believe the crime took place in 1990, and the police were basically at a standstill
21:10and had no further leads on it.
21:12She made reference that she knew somebody who had some information about the incident itself.
21:17I asked her, well, how does she know about it?
21:20And she told me that her roommate's family was family friends of the gentleman.
21:27I was very intrigued.
21:29I was asking questions.
21:31I was asking, how did she know?
21:33Why did she not go to the police?
21:34Why did she not confront the family about it yet?
21:38That night, Duane asked his girlfriend's roommate what she knew about the murder in the mountains.
21:46She was very open and upfront about it.
21:48She did tell me that, yeah, I know who it was.
21:52And I asked her, obviously, how do you know?
21:55And if you look at the Wanted poster at the time, it had a very distinct knife.
22:00That was the murder weapon used to kill Mr. Mel.
22:02And she said, I know where that knife came from.
22:05It was very distinct.
22:06It was a present to the murderer from his parents on a recent trip that the families took to Mexico.
22:14And the knife was a very Mexican, very detailed, very artistic type of knife.
22:19I'm very drawn at this point.
22:21And I asked her, I said, are you sure?
22:23And, of course, she said, yeah.
22:25She said, that is definitely the knife that was given to Ryan.
22:28And I said, well, how come nobody said anything?
22:31The police are at a standstill.
22:32And this poor young lady lost her life.
22:35And her answer to me, that, and it didn't sit very well, was that, well, it's family.
22:40And I can't bring it up because it's family.
22:44And she was very comfortable that I did bring forward to the police.
22:48I think she was very happy that somebody did.
22:50She couldn't do it herself.
22:52But I think she did feel there was no hesitation when I did tell her I was going to go to the police and talk to them about it.
23:00I got his full name, obviously, Ryan Love.
23:03And she had no hesitation, as I said, with giving his name.
23:09Duane Jung contacted the Banff RCMP.
23:12Obviously, they asked how I came up with that name, where I got it from, the background story.
23:18And I shared with him exactly what I've just told you, that traveling here from Ontario, saw the poster, asked my girlfriend.
23:26Girlfriend knew the friend, and the friend provided the name of Ryan Love.
23:30He did ask how certain I was, how certain she was.
23:34She was very certain that that was the knife that belonged to Ryan.
23:39In 1991, more than a year and a half after the murder of Lucy Turmel, investigators finally had a possible break in the case.
23:48A fresh tip and a name.
23:51When officers reviewed their files, they realized Ryan Love was not the killer.
23:59During the initial door-to-door canvas.
24:02That was one of the persons that worked at the Banff Springs Hotel and stayed at the annex.
24:08We were able to determine that that person that owned that sheath, that was a leather container that you would carry the knife in,
24:16was the killer.
24:18And that was the person that was responsible for the murder.
24:22That person that owned that sheath, that was a leather container that you would carry the knife in,
24:28had gone, left Banff, and was going to a family reunion in Thunder Bay, Ontario.
24:36Ryan Love's friends told police they believed he left Banff before Lucy Turmel was killed.
24:43But Love was never interviewed or officially cleared as a suspect.
24:49He was an 18-year-old young guy.
24:52That basically, when we saw photographs of him, really fit into kind of the physical profile as well.
25:00And so now we know that that's his knife sheath.
25:04There's no knife.
25:05We have the knife.
25:07But now we have this person saying, well, Ryan Jason Love always had this knife and he carried it with him.
25:14So now the bells and whistles are going off all over the place.
25:19BC RCMP officers interviewed Ryan Love at his parents' home on Vancouver Island.
25:26The date is the 31st of December, 1991.
25:30The time now is 3.43 p.m.
25:34This is Constable Dave Bate.
25:36And present with me is Constable Brad Sawchuck.
25:40And Ryan Jason Love.
25:44Spelled L-O-V-E.
25:46Now, Ryan, we'd like to talk to you concerning a knife which we think you owned at one point at least.
25:55And which may have been used in the murder of Lucy Turmel, who was murdered on the 17th of May, 1990.
26:04Bringing pictures of the knife and then he identifies the knife as, hey, that's my knife.
26:09And identifies it from a mark that he used to jump a person's car with his knife.
26:15And it sparked on, you know, so it left an indication on the knife.
26:20So he said, oh, yeah, that's my knife.
26:22Where did you find it?
26:23I haven't seen it since Banff.
26:25Okay.
26:26So when was the last time you did see the knife?
26:29Oh, God.
26:30Who knows?
26:31Our room was a mess.
26:32I remember the sheets being there, though.
26:34Were you in Banff when the murder happened?
26:38I think so.
26:40I'm not sure because I left for...
26:42Like you would have no doubt heard.
26:44There must have been lots on the news about it and things like that.
26:46Everybody would have been talking about it.
26:47Yeah, but I left for Ontario, too.
26:50Do you recall if you were actually in town when it happened?
26:54I don't know.
26:57Could have been, I mean, it's hard to say.
26:59I think you say the 17th to me and I go, when was the 17th?
27:04Basically, what we're about right now is to ask you how your knife
27:08could have got into the body of the victim.
27:12That's a pretty graphic question there.
27:15Pretty morbid thought, isn't it?
27:16Well, yeah.
27:18I see where you're going with something.
27:21That's what we're here to find out.
27:23Yeah, you're getting into real touch here.
27:27I'm asking you if you have some explanation or ideas on how that could have happened.
27:32I mean, obviously it left my place and somebody took it.
27:35I imagine this is a big examiner with a big break in the case kind of thing.
27:39But, I mean, any fool can see that you're pointing at three possibilities.
27:43There's one, somebody took it.
27:44One, I went and took it.
27:47And the third one, what's the third one?
27:50Okay, two possibilities.
27:52Somebody took it and then I took it, yeah, or I'm involved in this somehow.
27:56The interview continued for nearly an hour.
28:00In the end, investigators asked Love if he would provide a blood sample.
28:05I don't know if you've heard about DNA testing or not,
28:07but it allows the lab to basically say yes, that was him, or yes, or no, it wasn't.
28:13Okay, well, I think I'll talk to the lawyer before we go.
28:16Blood samples and stuff.
28:19Okay, well, we'll conclude the statement for now.
28:21The time now is 4.26 p.m.
28:24Over the next few months, police visited Love's hometown of Duncan, B.C.,
28:29on a number of occasions to try to get a voluntary sample of his DNA.
28:35I went and interviewed him with his father was there.
28:40Again, Love refused.
28:43We're not going to let this thing die, and that's what I said to Ryan.
28:46I said, you know, until we eliminate you, Ryan, you're number one on our hit list.
28:54By then, all suspects except Ryan Love had been cleared.
28:59Police decided to try something more covert.
29:03Ryan Love became the target of an undercover operation on Vancouver Island.
29:09They ended up meeting up with him and some of his buddies,
29:14and then they went out later on to this place called the Stone Church.
29:19They were discussing cow licks, unbeknownst to me,
29:24but to get rid of a cow lick, you just pull it out.
29:27And so one of the operators reached across and said, well, that's how you get rid of it.
29:31And they pulled out, got four or five hair strands.
29:35And, of course, that's with the roots, so that's exceptionally good evidence.
29:39But you see, Ryan, because we always ask for a blood sample from him,
29:44so he was under the auspices that if I'd never give them a blood sample,
29:48they'll never figure out that I'm the bad guy.
29:51And little did he know.
29:53The sample was sent to the RCMP forensic lab in Ottawa.
29:58Would Ryan Love be eliminated, or was he Lucy Chermel's killer?
30:04I had a record of the profile from the DNA from the blood sample from the taxi cab,
30:10and then I proceeded to compare it to the DNA profile that they had obtained from this suspect,
30:14the hair sample that they obtained from the suspect.
30:17And right away, I looked at it, and I said, we've got a hit.
30:22We've got a match.
30:24Forensic scientists found not only was Love a match,
30:28they uncovered another rare genetic characteristic.
30:33Typically, when you're looking at a DNA profile, you're looking at two bands,
30:36two bands of DNA, two fragments of DNA.
30:39You inherit half your DNA from your mom and half from your dad.
30:43Typically, you're looking at these two areas of interest for DNA, for each profile, for each person.
30:48In one specific test, the individual had three profiles.
30:52I had a three-banded pattern for one test that matched the suspect,
30:56and his known sample had the same three-banded pattern.
30:59So just looking at the odds of that happening, it was astronomical.
31:03More than two years after Lucy Chermel's murder, DNA identified her killer.
31:10But Ryan Love wasn't arrested.
31:13The hair sample taken by undercover officers was flagged as a potential problem.
31:20It was the way that it was taken.
31:22It wasn't that it was taken by undercover officers.
31:25It was that he didn't really consent to having his hair pulled from his head.
31:30It was done as part of a joke, but he hadn't consented to that.
31:34Undercover officers headed back to B.C., this time to the Sunshine Coast.
31:41Now the new scenario is we bring him across to Horseshoe Bay,
31:47and then the operator takes him up to Gibson's, and we do a number of scenarios up there.
31:56Ryan Love partied with his new friends at Cedars Inn.
32:00The plan was to rob a fishing boat, and so they were getting ready for that,
32:06and as part of that they were staying in a motel room,
32:09and an RCMP officer was the chambermaid for the hotel room,
32:16and he made sure that there were clean bedding, clean bags in the garbage, and that sort of stuff.
32:23They were partying a bit, and yeah, so they're sitting around.
32:27Fortunately enough, Ryan blew his nose and threw the tissue not in the toilet, but in the garbage can.
32:35Now we have two samples now.
32:37Well, then I get a new sample in the form of tissue paper with nasal mucus on it, as it was reported to me.
32:45I proceeded to extract DNA out of that and take it through all of the various steps of our protocol,
32:50and then I tested it for the DNA profile,
32:54and sure enough, at the first test, the DNA profile matched that of the blood in the taxi cab,
33:01as well as it matched the DNA profile from the hair sample they had received previously from the suspect,
33:07so everything matched.
33:21Welcome back.
33:22Years after Lucy Turmell was violently stabbed to death in the popular tourist town of Banff,
33:27police finally had DNA evidence that identified the killer,
33:31but in the early 1990s, DNA was a relatively new science.
33:36Would it be enough to convict Ryan Love of murder?
33:41Here now is Nancy Hicks with the conclusion of Murder in the Mountains.
33:48When Lucy Turmell was killed in the spring of 1990, it was the first homicide Banff had seen in 20 years.
34:02Ryan Love was arrested and flown back to Alberta to face justice.
34:08It was the first glimpse of the accused killer.
34:17Andrew Pohl, Calgary Police Service.
34:21Almost every major police department across the country has, in one way or another, offered us assistance.
34:27Now officially charged with second-degree murder, Ryan Love was again interviewed by police,
34:34but even after being shown the evidence against him,
34:39You know, he's an interesting kid, you know, because he's about, I think, just late 19, maybe early 20s,
34:48and so he thought that everything was a big joke,
34:52and that's the kind of the impression I got sitting in the interview room.
34:57He said, you know, he thought that everything was a big joke,
35:01and that's the kind of the impression I got sitting in the interview room.
35:05And that the people that he's been hanging around with were undercover police officers.
35:10You know, I think he just thought that this is a big joke,
35:14that I haven't given you a blood sample, so you're not going to be able to do anything.
35:19In 1994, four years after Lucy Turmell was killed,
35:25her parents traveled to Alberta to attend the trial.
35:29It was a lengthy trial in front of Court of Queen's Bench Justice.
35:34What we could put before the court was that Ryan Love worked at the Banff Springs Hotel,
35:39and he lived in staff accommodation at the Banff Springs Hotel,
35:42and he lived there at the time of Lucy Turmell's death.
35:45And so we were able to put him on trial.
35:48He was charged with second-degree murder.
35:51He was charged with second-degree murder.
35:54He lived in staff accommodation at the Banff Springs Hotel,
35:57and he lived there at the time of Lucy's murder.
36:00We could establish that the next day he left Banff, went to Calgary,
36:05caught a flight to Thunder Bay, Ontario for a pre-existing family reunion,
36:11and we could establish that he had some injuries to his hand afterwards,
36:17and a doctor confirmed that he'd suffered an injury to his hand.
36:20One of the injuries was perhaps not related to the murder.
36:25The other is we don't know.
36:27We never got close enough to look at that.
36:30By the time the RCMP looked at his injuries, they were just scars.
36:33The prosecution alleged Lucy Turmell was killed for $130 in fares
36:40and a $20 float she carried that night.
36:43The blood found inside the stolen cab was key evidence.
36:48Probably the biggest reason that we were able to solve this case
36:52is because of Lucy Turmell herself,
36:55because it was apparent that she had fought her assailant,
37:00because her assailant had obviously suffered wounds significant enough
37:05to leave a fair amount of blood in the cab that he had stolen.
37:09And so the last thing she did before she died
37:12was to help gather the evidence that would be necessary down the road.
37:17It ended up giving the evidence that we needed,
37:19because if he hadn't been injured during the killing of Lucy Turmell,
37:26we would have had no DNA evidence.
37:28There would have been no case.
37:30There would never have been a suspect developed.
37:32The prosecution's case centered exclusively on DNA.
37:37It was the justice's first DNA trial as well,
37:40so we spent a lot of time educating the court
37:43on DNA typing, DNA profiling, the whole process involved in that,
37:49because we had to make sure the judge understood the evidence
37:52in order to make an intelligent decision about the evidence.
37:56In my testimony, based on the information I've discussed with you earlier
38:01about the three-banded profile
38:02and all the other matching DNA profiles in the different tests we used,
38:07I could only conclude that to a very high degree of scientific certainty.
38:12The blood from the taxi cab came from the suspect.
38:16What was significant was that DNA was the only evidence.
38:19So it wasn't just DNA was helpful, DNA was the entire case.
38:23So it was a case that pushed DNA to the forefront
38:26and really tested the science of DNA forensic typing
38:32and the population genetics aspect
38:34that are part of developing the statistical likelihood numbers.
38:40I think the way we probably argued it to the judge
38:43was that effectively, because of those statistics,
38:47it likely meant that there was no one on Earth
38:51that had ever lived on Earth that would have had that pattern.
38:55Ryan Love was convicted of the second-degree murder of Lucy Turmel.
39:03The judge was satisfied that the knife that had been recovered
39:06was the murder weapon because Lucy's blood was found on it.
39:09He was satisfied that robbery was the motive.
39:12And ultimately, once he was satisfied
39:15that it was Ryan Love's DNA found in the cab,
39:21then he was satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt
39:24that there was no other conceivable explanation
39:28other than Ryan Love was the killer.
39:31Love was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 20 years.
39:37But Love didn't accept his conviction.
39:40The biggest issue in this case, aside from identification of the profile
39:45as being the defendant's profile,
39:48was the constitutionality of the undercover operation.
39:52And so the trial judge ruled that the evidence was admissible.
39:57There was a charter application to exclude it.
39:59He ruled that it was admissible.
40:01After the conviction, the case was appealed to the Alberta Court of Appeal,
40:06and the Alberta Court of Appeal decided in a 3-0 decision
40:11that the trial judge had erred with respect to the Stone Church hair sample.
40:17At the Stone Church, officers plucked several hairs from Love's head
40:22to get a DNA sample under the guise of fixing a cow lick.
40:28But officers later went to Cedars Inn,
40:31where they obtained a cast-off sample from Love
40:34after he threw away a used tissue.
40:36The Court of Appeal ruled that because of the way in which that hair sample was obtained,
40:41that was constitutionally impermissible.
40:44And so they excluded that evidence,
40:46but they were fine with the tissue sample,
40:49and we only needed one of them.
40:50So the tissue sample was more than enough to justify the conviction.
40:55Ryan Love's conviction was upheld.
40:59Dwayne Jung followed the case
41:02and takes some comfort in knowing he helped bring a killer to justice.
41:07In the end, a young lady lost her life,
41:09and I had information through my girlfriend's friend from wherever.
41:13But I had information that could help, and it did help.
41:16And reward or not, there's no way I could sit with that and not do anything about it.
41:22It wasn't about the money at all.
41:25I did my good deed.
41:27I helped take a murderer off the street.
41:30But Jung's tip was rewarded.
41:33I believe it was $10,000.
41:36$5,000 was put up by Banff Taxis, the company that Mr. Mel worked for.
41:41The other half was put up by the town of Banff itself.
41:45And it was Constable Patterson that, when he told me they got a conviction,
41:49he did stay in contact.
41:51He informed me that the reward would be paid out.
41:54By that time, I was back here in Ontario.
41:57We had moved back, and I did get checks in the mail.
42:01While serving his prison sentence,
42:04Ryan Love admitted he robbed and killed Lucy Turmel.
42:10He was first released on parole in 2011,
42:1419 years after his arrest for murder.
42:18Since then, Love's release has been suspended and revoked.
42:22The sad thing is he had a chance to, by the prison systems,
42:29to be a better person, and he ended up to be a stupid jackass.
42:35So it was already in his blood, I think, to take bad decisions,
42:42and his history by time showed that.
42:46According to the Parole Board of Canada,
42:49Love presents a low to moderate risk for violent reoffending
42:54and has successfully completed recommended programming
42:58with good reports of progress.
43:01In the spring of 2024, he was again granted day parole.
43:07Lucy's murder had a devastating impact on her family.
43:12My father died two years ago.
43:15My mother is 94 right now.
43:18It was hard for my mom.
43:22Pop was...
43:25It was hard for him, but I think he managed it a little bit
43:31with less impact on him than it was hard on my mom.
43:36She had issues going to bed.
43:39She was scared of different things.
43:42She got over it by times,
43:46and she moved on, but it had more impact on her.
43:57Lucy Turmel's brother honors her by living his life just as she did,
44:04filled with adventure.
44:07You never know. You can talk about yesterday.
44:10You can dream of tomorrow.
44:12The only thing you have is today.
44:14You can plan. You can have an agenda.
44:16You can have dreams about different things,
44:19but the only thing you really have is today, so live it.
44:26We now want to take a moment to remember Constable Nigel Patterson.
44:30He was a veteran member of the RCMP,
44:33served in Banff twice during his 25-year career,
44:37and was the file coordinator on Lucy's case.
44:41He was heavily invested in this investigation
44:44and tragically passed away during the making of this episode.
44:47We offer our condolences to his family
44:50and is remembered for his dedicated service to the RCMP and the community.
44:58I'm Antony Robart. Thank you for joining us tonight on Crime Beat.
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