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There were many unanswered questions following the investigation of Mindy Tran's murder. The only suspect was acquitted due to a series of blunders made by the RCMP. Was the right person charged? Were the mistakes really accidental or were they deliberately made due to the suspects protected informant status? There is a huge amount of evidence available upon which to base some educated conclusions. The devil is in the detail.  

At the time of Mindy Tran's abduction, Shannon Murrin  had already been implicated in, or was suspected of being involved in, many other serious crimes right across the country. Everywhere that Murrin was known to have been, there is a suspicious pattern of unsolved rapes, child abductions, and murders. 
Murrin's other crimes:  

Mindy Tran's murder investigation began with a search for a suspicious vehicle. The police asked reporters to withhold all reports of the original vehicle description and the Kelowna newspapers complied. This diverted the public search away from identifying the driver, a key witness who had followed the suspect and could have identified the killer. That driver has since come forward and identified himself as the new witness. These are the original news reports of the vehicle search.
First vehicle reported
Complete vehicle search 

The search for this vehicle also diverted the murder investigation away from Shannon Murrin. Mindy Tran was last seen alive knocking on Murrin's door. Eye witness reports from day one, identified a suspicious man being seen carrying a suitcase towards the park where Mindy's body was found. Pre trial court records confirm that it was Shannon Murrin carrying the suitcase and that he had been identified with absolute certainty by witnesses who knew him and did not have to guess or speculate as to his identity. 
see quote from court document-

Even after Mindy's body was found in the nearby park, the RCMP  investigation continued to focus public attention on an elusive white van with the RCMP claiming they were sure it was involved. There was no public disclosure or request for information about the suitcase carrying suspect until five months after the abduction.
see news report- 

Immediately following this request for information, Shannon Murrin was taken into custody for questioning.  Curiously, he was released for the night based on an agreement that he would be brought back the following day to be charged with murder. That very night, he was beaten on the pretext of attempting to obtain a confession by people connected with the same RCMP investigator who had arranged for his release. The beating kept Murrin from being presented in a line up where as many as twenty witnesses were waiting to identify him. A photo line up was delayed for an even longer time. These are links to the original news reports of the main events of the murder investigation as it unfolded. The lead investigator was involved in many other unusual and suspicious activities during the course of the investigation. 
 RCMP Investigation

Two weeks after the beating, Murrin had recovered but was only charged with weapons offences arising from the night of the beating. What had changed in this short time? At the same time as Murrin's beating in one Kelowna park, a key witness was found shot in the head in another Kelowna park! He was the very first person who had reported a suitcase carrying suspect to the RCMP. The RCMP claimed that his death was a suicide. An extremely suspicious pattern of witnesses obstruction began to emerge. There were at least four other witnesses who never made it to court. An RCMP investigator who admitted to having performed illegal activities for Sgt. Tidsbury during the investigation, turned to his superiors and then to the media for assistance. His concerns were ignored and he was later reported as an attempted suicide himself. 
witness stories:

After a highly controversial trial, Shannon Murrin was acquitted and returned to Newfoundland where he took up residence with a female juror from his trial. The juror, Kathy MacDonald, is the daughter of a former RCMP member. She wrote an account of the RCMP investigation in an attempt to prove Murrin's innocence and justify her relationship with him. MacDonald has inadvertently published additional evidence which has helped to confirm the identity of Mindy Tran's killer. Among other things, she has provided confirmation that the RCMP are in possession of, and have been concealing, witness reports of an undisclosed suspicious vehicle just as the new witness has been claiming. Murrin has been using this report to allege  that the driver of this undisclosed vehicle could be the killer. 
see- Murrin and MacDonald's information

The physical DNA evidence was once available to confirm the killer's identify. The conclusive Nuclear DNA evidence was washed from the victims clothing by the RCMP before any samples could be taken. Murrin claims that he has been exonerated by DNA results, not true. This is what was left of the DNA evidence by the time it was presented in court. 
DNA Results
These are links to evidence contained in the D.N.A. voir dire and a variety of earlier court records.
Court Documents

The role of the media was also unusual in this case. The press acknowledged that they had been gagged after Murrin's beating and that they had been following orders from the RCMP. Kelowna's CHBC television station once tried to publicly question the prime suspect's status as an informant but were quickly stopped. A suspicious "suicide" of a top CHBC manager curiously coincided with these queries. A secret collusion was later found to have existed within the Kelowna newspapers at the time.
see- Kelowna media 

So who killed Mindy Tran? Combining the new witness information with all of the existing evidence fills in the gaps and corroborates many other witness accounts. The actions of the suitcase carrying suspect witnessed at different locations and times can now be tracked, linked and  understood. Murrin is caught in a lie. 
see- Murrin's alibi 

The RCMP presented a completely flawed time line of events to Crown prosecutors and then to the jury. Obviously the evidence would not fit. The Crown could not prove their case when the physical evidence and eye witnesses accounts contradicted the very theory that this case was built upon. The RCMP and the Crown were aware that witnesses had previously testified to seeing Murrin at a time contrary to their theory of events. These were the same witnesses who knew Murrin personally and had provided statements to the RCMP confirming that it was Murrin carrying the suitcase. A simple revision of the time line of events would have brought all of the witnesses into agreement with the Crown's case.
see- revised time line

A curiously flawed prosecution strategy was also exposed. Why the Crown would structure this case using Thomas Sophonow's case as a basis is telling. Sophonow had been wrongfully convicted. The same informant used to falsely implicate Sophonow was again being used to implicate Murrin. The implications to a jury were obvious. A great deal of information was obtained by comparing Thomas Sophonow's wrongful conviction case with Murrin's case. A pattern began to emerge and the players to show themselves.
see- Murrin/Sophonow comparison

It was later established that Sgt. Tidsbury had been a veritable expert on wrongful convictions at the time of the Tran investigation. He had been involved in re-interviewing informant/witnesses for the David Milgaard wrongful conviction case from 1990- 1994, and then worked together with the investigator of Terry Arnold, the prime suspect in the murder for which Thomas Sophonow was wrongfully convicted. If anyone knew how to, or, how not to structure a case to appear as a wrongful prosecution, it was this investigator. 
An inquiry is now underway in the Milgaard case. The involvement of Sgt Tidsbury, is noted.
see inquiry- (pg. 63)

The RCMP claim that this case was lost due to what they are terming mistakes. All of the so called "mistakes" follow the same pattern of evidence tampering, evidence destruction, and witness obstruction found in many of the wrongful conviction cases. The obstructing actions of the RCMP investigators, thinly disguised as misguided attempts to obtain a confession, are obvious and well documented. The suitcase carrying suspect identified as RCMP agent Shannon Murrin, was the sole beneficiary of each and every one of these RCMP mistakes.
see-RCMP admit mistakes aided Murrin
Quote: An internal RCMP report released a year ago said police made mistakes in the case, but concluded that those mistakes hurt the prosecution's case rather than leading to a false accusation.

The RCMP went way out on a limb by permitting Sgt. Tidsbury to continue on as the lead investigator long after his conduct warranted his removal. Gary Tidsbury was not removed from the investigation at the time, and has not been charged for any of his illegal activities since. An Alberta investigative review said that Tidsbury should have been removed from the investigation.
see- RCMP Review

Sgt. Tidsbury's boss, Gary Forbes, Kelowna's RCMP superintendent at the time, refused to initiate a code of conduct review of his members actions. 
see- Forbes refuses to call code of conduct review

Bev Busson, the current RCMP Deputy Commissioner, condoned the decisions and actions of these members and again refused to initiate a code of conduct review or to release the investigation report on RCMP conduct. 
see- RCMP blacks out report

Despite blowing any chance for a conviction in this case, Sergeant Tidsbury went on to receive the Investigator of the Year award before retiring in 1999. It is obvious that Sgt. Tidsbury would not have received this honor if he were not ‘following orders’. Murrin’s status as a confidential RCMP ‘agent’ was preserved and his acquittal ensured as a result of Tidsbury's actions. It is highly improbable that Sgt. Tidsbury had the ability or the resources to have organized and implemented this level of obstruction on his own. The only question left was why the RCMP would be facilitating this blatant and highly unusual pattern of obstruction when the crime was so serious and the victim so young. The ugly answer to that is hidden behind the doors of the confidential informant handling division of the RCMP. A similar pattern of obstruction is emerging in other cases involving suspects also identified as RCMP informants. Murrin is not alone!
see-  Sanctioned Killers

This  is an ongoing public inquiry. If you have any additional information or evidence to either confirm or dispute what is published here, please submit it and this site will be updated accordingly. Send to the email address below or: 
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