Taken: The Tragic Case of Christine Jessop
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In a small town north of toronto, canada, a school bus called the side of the road and an eight year old girl stepped off in front of the time, just like SHE did every day after school. But on this day, the pattern ended. The girl disappeared.

Her tragic case would unleash a decades long nightmare for her family, destroyed lives and leave a community shaken until it's chilling resolution some thirty six years later. Part one, taken in early october of one thousand and eighty four, a newspaper story on page forty two announced that a search was underway for a missing girl. Nine year old Christine Joseph was missing from queens ville, a small town in york region in our north of toronto, to at the time, around five hundred children under the age of fifteen went missing each year in york region and in the city of toronto.

The number was closer to five thousand, but according to police, most were found within hours. Some wander away from home. Others were found at neighbor od mills or at friends home.

Still others were afraid to go home because they were in trouble with their parents. One officer commented that these children would often sneak home once the search for them had to begun. More than once, he found a missing child hiding under their bed, but Christine jesup was not hiding under her bed at just forty pounds.

And with a cheerful attitude, Christine stepped off the school bus in front of her home at about three thirty in the afternoon. On october third, one thousand hundred and eighty four, SHE was Carrying a recorder given to her by her music teacher, which he had been taught to play in class earlier that day. One's home.

Christine wrote her bike to the queens ville general store just down the street from my home, and bought a nickel's worth of gone by. Now the time was three, forty five pm. SHE was supposed to meet a friend at a park nearby four P.

M. Her mother, Janet, had taken Christine adopted brother Kenneth to a dentist appointment. But when the bear arrived home a half hour later, they would find her bike parked in the backyard, but no sign of Christine as far spread through the community.

The story of Christine disappearance moved from page forty two to page one search parties called the multi pastries and woodlock surrounding the village. Eighty volunteers, thirty police officers and several tracking dogs were aided by a weather helicopter long down by a local radio station. When SHE vanished, Christine was wearing a blue sweater, blue chords and blue and gray running shoes.

The searchers looked for any clue that could shed light on the girl's whereabouts. By day two, the search party had swelled to three hundred fifty volunteers, made up a family, friends, citizens of queens ville and seventy five high school students who were bust in the help. Some searchers were on horseback and others on motor cross bikes, and the radio station helicopter was now joined by other aircraft.

But despite the days and nights of searching, no clues were found. At a command post set up in the local fire hall, volunteers prepared food and coffee for the searchers, but the mood was grim. One volunteer commended that there was a feeling of disbelief that something like this could happen in their close in small town.

The volunteer said people are frayed. At queens ville public school, where Christine was a great for student, there was no more need for a school bus since her disappearance. Every child was picked up by their parents.

After the bell, the school yard was empty. Meanwhile, at the jasp poe, jane Christine's mom was in shock. Family and friends and a local minister huddled with her.

He waited answers, and Kenneth just have wondered if he would ever see his little sister again. All I can do now is weight, and that's what hurts. He said Christ's dad, Robert Jessica, was unable to help in the search for his daughter because he was behind bars at metro east detention center.

When Christine vanished. He had served just three weeks of the eighteen months sentence for this appropriation of funds through a telephone and from behind plexiglass. He said.

Irl on day three, Robert was released from jail on compassionate grounds. He arrived home in the evening in an unmarked police car. Janet and Kenneth, who were waiting on the front line, the three embraced, then walked inside without comment. The days passed in, the search continued, but still know physical evidence was found.

Janet contacted the spirit to a list in montreal who believed that Christine was still alive, safe and with someone the police believed Christine had been abducted and to began investigating known child molesters, strangers to the area and unfamiliar vehicles on day for the family faced the press. A tearful Robert josep said, we want our daughter back. He appealed to the public for any information that might lead to her safe return.

He disclosed that Christine was destroyed, that he was going to jail for such a long time, but that he was trained to avoid strangers. He said SHE might have gone with someone who said they would take her to me. He was certain that her disappearance was in some way linked to his troubles.

For Robert IT was too coincidental that he was taken at the same time he was in jail. Then on day five, the police called off the search, and a team of detectives took over the firewall command post. While no physical evidence had been collected, some tips had come in.

The police followed up on sightings of children that resembled Christine, and even on telepathic and psychic leads. By now, twelve days had passed since Christine was last seen alive. R two killer on the loose at queens ville public school, Christine music teacher recalled how difficult the weeks following the little girl's disappearance had been.

The Youngsters were unable to concentrate on their lessons. They would blurt out ideas about where Christine could be. SHE was all they could think about IT at the firewall command post.

The team of detectives packed up and moved back to their station. They were frustrated by the lack of clues. One officer said. It's like SHE vanished in the thin air.

Meanwhile, worried parents flocked the child identification session at local, where they had their children fingerprinted and photographic, with paranoia and fears spreading in the wake of Christine disappearance. Parents wanted to have materials ready to aid the police should their own children go missing. Crime stoppers offered a reward of one thousand dollars for any information leading to Christian's whereabouts.

A reenactment of her disappearance was broadcasting on television, but still the police had no leads to go on. Then, just over a month since Christine just have vanished, two children were found murdered in a community in our southwest of queens ville. Seven year old Daniel bao and his nine year old sister moni asked to stay home while their parents took their older brother into his hockey game.

The parents left at five pm and returned at seven forty five pm, but they found the house empty. They called neighbors than the police search parties found out across the town. And five hours later, the two siblings were discovered behind a portable classroom in a nearby school yard.

They had both been strangled to down, with the babo children's killer ate large. Could the same person be responsible for Christine's disappearance? Seven weeks had passed with no evidence or clues to her daughters whereabouts.

Ts, Janet, just up, like in her experience to a hell on earth, SHE said. There are days when I just cry for morning tonight. And despite the massive searches and in eight hundred page file on Christine disappearance, investigators had no idea what happened more than ever.

Janet believed someone had taken Christine away on november ninth. Pristine turned ten years old, whatever he was. But three, the body Christmas came in, went to, just upon hold. No one was in the mood to celebrate.

Then, near the town of thunder land, some twenty five miles from queensland, a farmer and his children went for a walk on new year's eve in a forested area. They stumbled upon what looked like human bones. Christine Joseph had finally been found.

He had also been stabbed repeatedly and sexually assaulted along with her remains. The police would find bits of her clothing, and the recorder SHE had taken home to practice the afternoon of her disappearance. A week later, and under a cold and gray winter sky, hundreds of Warners gathered for Christine funeral at queens ville united church.

While family and friends crowded into the church, the police took pictures of cars and noted license plate numbers. Janet just upset if there's anything good. It's that now know what Christine is.

I don't have to wonder any longer. Later, a small casket was lowered into the ground in the cemetery behind the Joseph family home. And again, while police saw answers and tried to find out who could be responsible for Christine's brutal murder, parents were fearful the killer would strike again.

The term and york regional police forces offered a fifty thousand dollar reward to help find the killer. Another dramatization of the case aired on television, and the viewers were encouraged to call a hotline if they had any information about the crime, but six weeks after Christine's body was found, the police still had nothing to show for their efforts. Part for the accused frustrated detectives on the case looked stateside to the FBI.

They needed a profile of Christians killer after studying the case, and FBI special agent said the man responsible would be somebody Christine felt comfortable with. IT would also be White between age twenty and twenty six, and he would have had recent family problems. The Joseph next door neighbor keep all morning was twenty five White and lived with his parents.

He had also recently lost his job. But more than that, gay all and his family were considered odd by the community. They were just different, like the final puzzle piece, give ball more in fit the fps profile.

On April twenty second, one thousand nine hundred eighty five, just over six months since Christine vanished, people was arrested on his way to band practice and charged with first degree murder. The morning home was searched and boxes of evidence scarred away. His sister event was interviewed by officers who brusa for incriminating information about her brother.

SHE also mentioned seeing an unfamiliar White car at the josep ouse the day Christine vanished in january of nineteen, nineteen eighty six, the first degree murder trial got under way, and keep all pleaded not guilty. The crown stayed out its case against the accused, which was largely based on testimony and secret tapes made by an undercover officer who posed as ga polls summit. The officer testified that keep all used the term red rum in reference to his frustrations.

The undercover officer asked for clarification, and gate ball told him to write down red run and look in the mirror is spelled murder. The officer also said the geek hall told him he had a monkey mind and could push unpleasant thoughts to the back of his mind where they wouldn't bother him. When gay pal was held in protective custody, another inmate justified that he heard the accused cry out confession in the middle of the night.

The crown also presented trace evidence. Hairs found on the crime scene matched e balls, and they knew this because an undercover officer had posed as a hair dresser at one of deep balls band practices. SHE told the band he needed hair samples to practice dying hair and had clipped some of deep balls.

And fibers found at the crime scene were also found in the accused car or refine details of the murder. Ene came out at the trial. Two Christine clothing had been removed, her body was badly decomposed, and IT appeared that animals had to feed on her, and strAngely, her head was a short distance from her body and wrapped in a ball of clothing.

In the past courtroom, Christine's bloodstained clothes es were held up as evidence, while gay ball looked on, expression less high profile defense lawyer clin ruby represented the accused and went to work on the crown's case. Catton attacked the prisoner, who said he overheard deep's confession in police documents. The prisoner asked to be released to a halfway house in exchange for a statement against keep, and there was an explanation to the fibers found in geek al's car.

And at the crime scene, the Josephs and morns did their laundry. At the same laundry mat, the fibers could easily have been transferred there. And as for the hair matches, clent reminded the jury that hair cannot be used like fingerprints.

When gee pal took the stand and was asked what the meaning was behind red run, a word from a popular horror film he's seen, he simply replied, it's just a movie and about his movements. On the day of Christians disappearance, gi paul's father remembered his son arriving home at five thirty. That night, gpl finished work at three thirty, went to buy groceries and drove home.

Clinton told the jury that gay pal would not have had the time to leave work, drive to queensferry and abduct Christine, then drive to sAnderson and murder her, clean up by groceries and return home. And finally, in a controversial move, catton ordered a psychiatric assessment of deep all after a ten hour interview, a psychiatrist believed that keeps ball suffered from schizophrenia. A the doctor labeled him in odd loner.

A deeply sick person who liked the daydream in deep pal told the doctor he wanted to build a perpetual motion machine, then live in the woods with his two dogs, said he had no need for people. Lawyer catton ruby was quick to note that the schisti st. Assessment was not an admission of his client's guilt.

Schizophrenia a should not be confused with guilt. The jury believed him. After deliberating for fourteen hours, they came back with their decision not guilty, while the packed courtroom, including the Joseph family, that in stunned silence keep all morning walked free.

But back in queens feel the citizens decided they did not want the morons staining their town with the suspicion of murder, even though gay ball had been acquitted. People signed a petition asking the family to leave. He pa's father said he moved to queens ville for piece of mind, but it's been hell.

And back in the courts, the crown appealed the verdict. And one sixteen months after he walked out of court of free man deep, all was requested and would be tried again for first degree murder. In a bail hearing, gpa's lawyers asked the judge to allow their client to be paroled while he awaited his second trial, the judge agreed.

And forty thousand dollars later, kee pall was again a free man. Then, over seven years after Christine jesup went missing, gee pal morn faced a second trial. And this one would reveal perjury, incompetence and a sadly deepening tragedy. The police officer in charge of the collection of evidence in Christians case was accused of having two sets of notebooks.

IT would be charged with perjury and face a sixteen year prison sentence, but poor health men in narrow ly escaped punishment, also a cigarette, but was found at the crime scene along with a disposable lighter to details that never came up at the first trial on the stand, a police officer claimed not to remember collecting the bud. Another claimed the bud was from his own cigarette and said the lighter fell out of the covers he wore at the crime scene. The court also heard that the first time the police interviewed gpl was in the back of a cruise er one of the cops little cigarette and offered in one, but keep all refused.

He didn't smoke. Is that why the cigarette te butt and lighter vanished from the crime scene items mentioned during the first trial where the police trying to fit the details of the crime to keep off again? Forensic experts testified that the hair and fibers found at the crime scene were close, but not identical to those found in deep balls car.

But the match was strong enough that keep all could not be ruled out as a suspect. When cannes Joseph took the stand, the court also heard shocking testimony that he and several friends had molested Christine in the years leading up to her disappearance. The second trial revealed police and competence burgundy tunnel vision towards the accused and even suggested alternative suspects.

But in july of nineteen ninety two, a full eight years after Christian's disappearance, the jury came back with its verdict. Gay pm. Morn was guilty. But after these two very public trials, many now believed to gay all was innocent.

Even the people of queensland who had once tried to bully the morning family to leaving down, or now undecided, maybe deep ball was innocent after all. Gay balls team planned to appeal the guilty verdict, but because of delays in the court system, the appeal trial date was set for two years. In the future, gay ball would have to sit in a cell for all that time.

They petitioned the judge to let him go free while he awaited his bail hearing, even though he was a convicted murderer in the first degree, the judge agreed and let keep all out on bail. And just as he did after his first trial, gpl returned home to his house and queen's fell next door to the just house. Then two years later, critical results came in from a lab in boston that worked in the relatively new area of DNA testing.

Biological evidence found at the crime scene had been sent to the lab, along with a DNA sample from deep all there was no match gay polls ten year or deal was finally over. He received an apology and at one point two five million dollars settlement for the government for his wrongful ll conviction while gee pal suffering was over, the justice families or deal continued and if IT wasn't geep all that, who killed Christine jesup? Part five, thirty six years later, thirty six years after that october morning, when Christine jasp stepped off the school bus, rode her bike to buy a nickel's worth of bubble gun, then vanished into thin air.

Her case had turned cold. IT was now one of seven hundred unsolved murders that the cold case homicide team was working on. One of the detectives on the case attended a conference by the team that had crapped a decades old cold case when they apprehended the golden state killer.

They had used an innovative new technology that combined DNA and genetic geneology. The cold case team decided to give them a try, but many years past, and they were worried that DNA from biological evidence at the crime scene that had exonerated people might be too degraded to be useful in finding the true killer. The team approached a taxi based company, which was able to extract enough DNA from the sample to submit the geneology websites.

Then, based on the data they received, the detectives worked with genetic geneology sts to build out two family trees. The team went through historical records, documents and conducted interviews to build a long list of possible connections based on the crime scene. DNA, a name appeared in the second family tree.

IT was familiar to the detectives. The name was calvin hover. His wife ever had been interviewed following Christine's disappearance. The hovers were friends of the family, but by now IT was twenty twenty. And the detectives discovered that kelvin hover had died by suicide five years earlier.

How could they get a DNA sample from him to prove he was the killer? Would they have to assume his body? There was one place that might have the answer.

The detectives contacted ontario sector for forensic sciences. Amazingly, they found that the center had saved several files of hovers blood when they did his autopsy. Calvin's DNA was a match to that found at the crime scene.

Calvin hover was Christine murderer. The police announced their discovery and posted a mug shot of calvin from a nineteen ninety six driving under the influence charge. The tips the police wanted from the public thirty six years ago finally started boring in they had their man, even if he was dead.

Kenneth Joseph said his mother, Janet was happy with the news, but that she's upset. IT was someone we knew so well part six, thirty six years earlier, in one thousand nine hundred and eighty four either. And calvin, who were worked at a telecom company either was a display cher and calvin was a cable and dollar on the job.

They met Robert Jason, who was the installed as lead hand. The Josephs became friendly with the hovers. They had them over for barbecues at their queens vill home and the whole her children at play dates with Christine.

But then Robert was arrested for this appropriation of funds and was sentenced to eighteen months in jail. Young Christine was destroyed at losing her father for so long. Janet planned to see Robert on october third, nineteen eighty four.

IT had been three weeks since Robert left to start his sentence, and jannet and Kenneth wanted to see him. There was no trip to the dentist. The pair went to see Robert and jail.

Of course, pristine was eager to see her down too, and wanted to join them. But Janet didn't feel IT was right to take her. He was too Young to go into a jail.

Janet t. Confided in hether hover about her difficult decision. Did SHE also mention that Christine would be alone for under half an hour? Did either share the information with her husband, calvin? All we know is that somehow he found out Janett would tell the police that just three people knew he was taking Kenneth to visit his father in jail, and hether hover was one of them.

After getting her bubble gum Christine seat off on her bike that SHE see kelvin's car pull up, his vehicle would have been familiar to her from visits and play day, gee balls sister event and others had told the police they saw an unfamiliar car, silver or White, in queens fill that day. Calvin owned a one thousand nine hundred eighty gray pty ac. phoenix.

When Christine disappeared, Robert Jessie believed he had something to do with his troubles. He also felt that his daughter would go with someone who said they would take her to him. Did galvin told the Young girl he would take her to see Robert? Is that why he had her record with her? Was SHE going to play IT for her dad? The police would later learn that calvin hover had a friend who lived in the thundering area, and at the pair spent time they're hiking in the woods.

Calvin knew the area like the final puzzle piece, everything fit together just far too late. At six the afternoon, a close friend of the jeans, calvin, whoever took part in the searches for Christine and even attended her funeral and wake, he continued to be a good and supportive friend to the sept. Family, all the while keeping his horrific secret, talked away in the back of his mind.

When gee pl was arrested, calvin must have felt immense relief. The heat was off. But ten years later, when the queens film man was exhaled, orated outed calvin quel, his growing benning, we know he started drinking heavily, visiting pobs and bars, gambling and using cocaine.

A year after deep balls exaggeration, calvin pleaded guilty to a drunk driving charge and had his license suspended for a year. The next year, e and either divorced. Three years later, kelvin began telling police he was contemplating suicide.

He crashed his truck but survived the accident. Then he made a failed suicide attempt. This next would be successful.

In twenty fifteen, calvin hover SAT alone in his car inside his garage. With the engine running. He would die of his fixation.

Later that day, calvin son arrived home from a wedding and discovered his father's dead body. He also found a yellow sticking note on the bathroom mirror. IT read, hope you all have a good life for Robert jasp.

His daughter's abduction and murder destroyed his family. He said. There were a lot of victims in this either, who faces the trauma of knowing that her x husband was a rapist and a murder.

Keep on morn lost a decade of his life and his family had their lives up, ended by police and media and the accusation of murder. Kenneth just tried to kill himself and suffered from substance abuse. Janet jasp died in April of twenty twenty four after living for forty years with the burden of an unthinkable tragedy.

And then there is Christine, a girl with a beautiful smile full of life and love, the one who suffered the most in december of two thousand, one at queen's veiled public school, students, iron staff and people from the community gathered to rededicate a tree. A maple tree had been planted in Christians honor after her death, but IT had died from salt damage. The group gathered to plant a new tree, this time a red oak, Christina's music teacher, who had given Christine the record to practice the day he was murdered and which was found next to our body, also attended the ceremony. Long retired SHE recalled that Christine was such a sweet girl and that he could almost hear her running in the park way.