Tragedy x2: Gail Miller and David Milgaard (Part 1)

Episode 224: In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, on the morning of January 31, 1969, a 12-year-old girl on the way to school stumbled upon the body of Gail Miller, a 20-year-old nurse’s aide, lying in the snow in an alley. Gail had been raped, murdered and discarded in the snow by her killer. As there had been a number of sexual assaults in the city, police were under enormous pressure to solve the murder and soon their attention turned to 16-year-old David Edgar Milgaard. He’d been in the neighbourhood and at a home nearby the alley where Gail’s body lay on the morning of the murder. Witnesses later claimed he’d seen blood on David’s clothing and gave other incriminating information to police. Milgaard was subsequently arrested and charged with Gail’s murder.

Exactly a year after the murder, Milgaard was convicted of the murder and sentenced to a term of life in prison — justice, it appeared, had been served. We’ll find out, that was not the case at all. After serving 23 hellish years in prison, David Milgaard, who’d always maintained his innocence, was finally exonerated by DNA evidence that pointed to another man as Gail Miller’s killer.

Sources:

Saskatoon.ca

INQUIRY CALLED INTO WRONGFUL CONVICTION OF DAVID MILGAARD | News and Media | Government of Saskatchewan

Commission of the Inquiry Into the Wrongful Conviction of David Milgaard

David Milgaard – Innocence Canada

Reference re Milgaard (Can.) – SCC Cases

R. v. Milgaard, 1971 CanLII 792 (SK CA), < https://canlii.ca/t/g7c3z >

R. v. Fisher (L.E.), 1999 SKQB 88 (CanLII), < https://canlii.ca/t/g95sx >

Justice Miscarried by Helena Katz – Ebook | Scribd

Shrunk by J. Thomas Dalby, PhD, Editor, Lorene Shyba, PhD, Editor – Audiobook | Scribd

Wrongful Convictions in Canada | PDF | Miscarriage Of Justice | Law

David Milgaard – Wikipedia