Larry Fisher's rape victims

Oddly enough, Joyce Milgaard's computer broke down at the same time as my own, and I rely on her to send me weekly updates. So I have a legitimate excuse for not posting for a while.

Last week, several women who were raped by Larry Fisher testified at the Milgaard Inquiry. Two of them said that they were never told by the police that Fisher had been arrested for assaulting them; instead, they heard this news from Joyce Milgaard decades later.

Reporting from Saskatoon, Tim Cook described an unnerving tale about a woman who was groped on the same morning that Gail Miller was killed. She realized that Fisher was her assailant when she saw his picture in the newspaper in 1991. The woman -- who cannot be named due to a publication ban -- then contacted Milgaard's lawyers.

It is interesting that the woman's police report was filed in the Miller file rather than in a separate file of its own. What is in question here is whether or not the police deliberately withheld information about Larry Fisher's arrest and his modus operandi to the public, Milgaard's defense attorney, and to the victims themselves, so as not to have to reopen the Milgaard case. (Fisher was convicted of multiple sexual assaults in 1971 whereas David had been convicted in 1970.)

One more of Fisher's survivors is scheduled to speak on Wednesday. Then the Inquiry will adjourn for the month of May. When they return, police officers who investigated David's case will testify. The role of Justice Edward MacCallum, the inquiry judge, is not to "assign blame," according to Cook, but rather to make recommendations to prevent further miscarriages of justice from happening in the future.

Sigrid Macdonald. Copyright 2005. All Rights Reserved.