The RCMP Investigation

Following Mr. Weaver's five-day review, I spoke with the RCMP officers conducting the investigation into the assault on Mr. Caziere. Sergeant Bruce Brown and Corporal Gordon Gavin are veteran officers with over fifty years between them in the Force, and they have conducted a number of investigations at William Head. Their preliminary investigation had led them to the view that Mr. Weaver was not involved in the assault on Mr. Caziere. This was based on a number of factors. Sergeant Brown advised me that no blood stains had been found on Mr. Weaver's clothing, nor did his boots match any of the bloody footprints at the scene of the crime. A search of Mr. Weaver's room at F-7, pursuant to a search warrant executed on February 16, had found no incriminating evidence.

The RCMP had also interviewed several of the prisoners Gary Weaver said could corroborate his whereabouts on the evening in question. They had found that these prisoners' accounts were credible and therefore confirmed Mr. Weaver's alibi. Of importance in their assessment that Mr. Weaver was not implicated was the high degree of improbability that he could have committed the assault given (a) his corroborated telephone calls to Lama Margaret until 9:27 p.m. and (b) his corroborated presence in F-7 from 9:30 to 9:40 p.m. Even discounting (b), the RCMP pointed to the virtual impossibility that Mr. Weaver could have completed his telephone call to Lama Margaret, gotten to Upper G Tier, participated in the assault, gotten rid of any incriminating evidence, gotten back to F-7, showered, dressed and then made his way over to C-unit to inspect the damage he was supposed to have done, all by 9:37 p.m.

There was another highly significant element in the RCMP's belief that Mr. Weaver was not involved in the assault. The RCMP had first interviewed Mr. Caziere shortly after the assault, when he was taken to an outside hospital. He had told them then that he could not identify his assailants. Seven days later, following his return to the institution's Health Care Unit, he was re-interviewed by the RCMP and at that time identified Gary Weaver as one of his assailants. Sergeant Brown and Corporal Gavin told me they had the gravest concerns about the reliability of this identification. Prior to their second interview with Mr. Caziere, he had been visited by a William Head staff member who told him which prisoners had been placed in segregation following his assault. In the RCMP's view, this communication not only made the identification unusable in a court of law but rendered it unreliable in assessing the allegations against Mr. Weaver. It also came to light in the second interview that the assailants had been masked. This further undermined the reliability of Mr. Caziere's identification. The RCMP also advised me that to further their investigation and to provide Mr. Weaver with an opportunity to clear his name, they would arrange for him to be assessed by a polygraph examiner. Everything the RCMP told me they had already conveyed to the IPSOs' office at William Head.

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