The youngest Canadian ever to face execution is receiving C$6.5 million (US$6.4 million) in compensation nearly five decades after being wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a schoolmate.
Ontario Attorney General Chris Bentley said on Monday it had been a long journey for Steven Truscott, who was sentenced to hang when he was 14 years old after being convicted of killing 12-year-old Lynne Harper in 1959.
Ontario’s top court declared Truscott a victim of a miscarriage of justice last August and acquitted him.
The court heard evidence that the original autopsy conclusions allowed for a time of death much later than cited by the prosecution, perhaps a day later — when Truscott was in school.
Truscott’s death sentence was commuted three months after his conviction because Canada’s government at the time feared the country’s image would suffer if it allowed a 14-year-old to be executed.
Truscott was given a life sentence and was paroled after 10 years in prison. After his release in 1969, Truscott lived quietly under an assumed name and raised a family. He is now 63.
Bentley said Truscott’s wife Marlene will receive C$100,000 (US$98,000).
The Truscotts called the government’s announcement the “final and long-awaited” step in recognizing his innocence. In a statement, the Truscotts called it “bittersweet.”
“No amount of money could ever truly compensate Steven for the terror of being sentenced to hang at the age of 14, the loss of his youth, or the stigma of living for almost 50 years as a convicted murderer,” the Truscotts’ statement said.
Truscott’s ordeal helped bring the abolishment of Canada’s death penalty in 1976, as those who favored abolishing executions cited the near hanging of a boy many people considered to be innocent.
Truscott was convicted three months after Harper’s body was found in a wooded area in southwestern Ontario.
He said then that he had given the girl a ride on his bicycle, then saw her get into a passing car on a rural highway. Prosecutors argued he took the girl down a path, where he raped and strangled her.
Truscott’s legal saga was an “unprecedented” and “extraordinary” journey, Bentley said.
“We are doing what we can to conclude this journey,” he said.
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