Defence alleges that Robert Kociuk is not the real killer

Woman's real killer bragged: defence

Questioned confession focus of murder trial

- Defence lawyers in a Winnipeg rape-and-murder trial allege the real killer is a criminal who did in 1999.

- Robert Kociuk, 68, is on trial, accused of raping and stabbing Beverley Dyke, 48, to death in 1984 and leaving her half-naked body in a wooded area near Winnipeg's Richardson International Airport.

- Defence lawyers say that Leonard White, who died in 1999, was the real killer of Dyke. 

- His former cellmate and lover, Ken Kirton, told court that White would brag about killing people all the time. 

- “He would boast: ‘I killed before and I can kill again.’ When he was getting punked off or didn’t feel like a man, ... he would say he killed just to make himself look good.” White and Kirton were cellmates at Saskatchewan Penitentiary when, in 1988, White told Winnipeg police he had killed Dyke.

- Last week, retired detectives David Shipman and Ron Morin told jurors they did not believe White’s story. Shipman said White had a history of falsely confessing to crimes whenever he was up for parole and he also told of his alleged accomplice, Ricky Morris, who it turned out, did not exist anywhere according to police records, which supports the theory that White was lying.

- Kirton said Monday he and White were cellmates and sex partners for three or four years.

- Whenever White was approaching parole eligibility, he would confess to a murder, to ensure that he would stay in prison and not leave his lover.
- White's two statements to police -- taken in 1988 and 1998 -- are the focal points of a first-degree murder trial against the man accused of the slaying.
- Retired Winnipeg police detective Robert McQuat testified Monday how he was sent to interview White in 1998 as police continued to probe Dyke's unsolved slaying. McQuat was aware White had claimed responsibility for the attack in 1988 but was never charged based on the belief he was lying.
- White offered to give a blood and saliva sample for DNA comparison but refused to discuss Dyke's killing in any detail. White grew agitated when police suggested they read his previous statement to him.
- Jurors also heard Monday from White's former parole officer, who said the inmate seemed content to stay in jail, because he didn't want to be separated from his lover with whom he shared a cell with in the Saskatchewan prison.

This is a very interesting case. It's hard to tell right now, whether I believe Leonard White or not.  

Man falsely confessed to the murder of Beverley Dyke, jurors told

Jailhouse lover reason for confession: ex-cop 

Confession contrived 

An inmate gave a false confession to the 1984 rape and killing of Beverley Ann Dyke because he wanted to stay in prison with his gay lover, a former Winnipeg police homicide detective, David Shipman said Friday.

"He did not do this murder. Leonard White was not our guy," said Shipman, insisting that Kociuk was the one who killed Beverley Dyke. 

He was arrested in 2005 after DNA testing matched semen found on Dyke to a sample taken from him following a robbery conviction in Ontario, in which he was required to provide a DNA sample. 

Kociuk now admits he had sex with Dyke, but denies killing her. He originally denied having sex with Beverley or even knowing her.  

The 48-year-old woman was raped and stabbed 13 times. Her body which was nude from the waist down, was found in a wooded area near the city's airport by a jogger. 

Leonard White, who died in 1999, confessed in a 1988 interview in a Saskatchewan prison, that he murdered Beverley Dyke. 

He had a history of habitual lying.

Shipman said that White would always tell a fictious story right before his parole eligibility because he wanted to stay in prison; he had a boyfriend their. 

White told detectives about elements of Dyke's case, that she had been sexually assaulted, suffered several fatal stab wounds to the chest and where her body was found.

"But Shipman said all of that information had been released by police to the general public as police searched for answers to the unsolved mystery."

"Obviously I hate women. I hate myself for hating women... for being gay," White explained as his motive for randomly selecting and killing Dyke, who he claimed he met at the Maryland Hotel.

 

White claimed another man named "Ricky Morris" raped Dyke, but Shipman could find no evidence such a person even existed, let alone raped and killed a woman. 

If Morris had hung around White, he would likely have a criminal record, but nothing showed up. 

"He (Morris) raped her, I stabbed her. Right in the chest, she tried to stop me, I kept stabbing away, stabbing away. When you're mad, you just want to keep on going."

 

No legitimate evidence to charge White, who wasn't able to reveal any key facts only the killer would have known. He didn't know enough about the murder that could prove he was the real killer. 

Shipman said everything White knew about the murder he could have learned from media reports.

Kociuk’s lawyers argued White knew more than he could have learned from news reports and that his history of violence against women made him a strong suspect in the killing.

At the time of the interview, White was serving an 8 year sentence for aggravated assault in which he forced a knife down a woman's throat and almost killed her.

Kociuk was initially interviewed as a potential suspect because he was seen by police in the area where the killing occurred on the day before Dyke's body was found by a jogger. Kociuk had been under police surveillance for armed robbery and claimed he was meeting someone to buy a gun for his next heist on the day of the murder.

They had the semen sample from Dyke's body, DNA testing didn't exist at the time which meant that Kociuk could not be linked to the murder of Beverley Dyke, which would remain a cold case for more than 20 years.

So far, I believe that the confession made by Leonard White, was a false one and that he is not the real killer. In court on Friday, defence lawyer Roberta Campbell read out newspaper reports about the murder from the 1980's and all the information that White told police, was mentioned in those media reports.