Photo: CTV News

Gerald Klassen shown in an undated image.

A Kamloops man who spent 26 years in prison for a murder he did not commit has filed a lawsuit seeking compensation from the government, alleging negligence in the police investigation and a malicious prosecution.

Gerald Klassen, 63, also alleges in his notice of claim that the B.C. government refused to give him a full exoneration in order to avoid “public embarrassment.”

In 1995, a Kamloops jury convicted Klassen on one count of first-degree murder following a trial in B.C. Supreme Court. He was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.

Klassen was convicted of killing 22-year-old Julie Delores McLeod, who was found dead near a Highway 5A rest stop on Nicola Lake in December of 1993.

During his trial, a forensic pathologist told jurors McLeod likely died as a result of a severe beating — testimony that has since been called into question.

Tunnel vision?

Klassen’s lawsuit alleges police zeroed in on him after he told them he had been hanging out with McLeod before she died.

He said they drank beer and talked at Nicola Lake, had sex and then argued.

“Mr. Klassen indicated that he pushed her at one point during the course of this argument and she fell down,” the notice of claim reads.

“He also advised [police] that she refused an offer of a ride back from the lake and he had not seen her since he left her there — alive.”

Klassen had something of an alibi. His wife said he arrived home at 11 p.m. the night of McLeod’s death and nothing seemed out of the ordinary about his appearance or his demeanour.

'Clearly biased'

At trial, the Crown theory was that Klassen beat McLeod as part of a violent sexual assault, then dragged her into the lake, where she died of hypothermia.

A key witness for prosecutors was pathologist Dr. James McNaughton, who testified McLeod had been severely beaten and left to die.

“Expert evidence obtained after the trial indicates that there was no forensic evidence to support a conclusion that Ms. McLeod sustained a beating,” Klassen’s lawsuit reads.

“Accordingly, McNaughton’s aforesaid evidence at trial misled the presiding justice, who in turn mis-instructed the jury regarding the alleged beating, who then in turn convicted Mr. Klassen."

The suit alleges McNaughton “drastically” altered his story ahead of the trial, which caught Klassen’s defence lawyer off guard.

“This change in opinion was clearly biased in favour of the Crown’s case and shown to be a significantly incorrect assessment of the cause of death,” the claim reads.

“McNaughton’s evidence was a critical factor in Mr. Klassen’s conviction, and he must be held accountable for same."

Wants full exoneration

In 2022, after more than a decade of work by the UBC Innocence Project, Canada’s attorney general ruled Klassen’s case represents a “likely” miscarriage of justice. He ordered a new trial.

Crown prosecutors quietly stayed Klassen’s first-degree murder charge the following year, but he is now arguing that was done improperly.

According to Klassen’s lawsuit, the Criminal Code of Canada requires a “judicial determination” and an open hearing when a case is sent back after ministerial review.

The decision to stay Klassen’s charge was made behind closed doors, though prosecutors later told Castanet it was made because the forensic evidence tendered at trial is now considered “inconclusive” and “insufficient.”

Greg Rodin, Klassen’s lawyer, wrote in his notice of claim that the decision by the Crown to stay the charge rather than leaving it up to a judge “has deprived the plaintiff of a clear and public record for his exoneration, and the basis for it.”

“Mr. Klassen remains in the eyes of the world guilty as charged, despite the fact that the post-trial forensic evidence from both sides clearly indicates otherwise,” the lawsuit reads.

Rodin said in the document that the decision to stay the charges was made to avoid "public embarrassment" and a lawsuit.

Nine defendants named

The lawsuit names nine defendants, among them Premier David Eby, who was B.C.’s attorney general in 2022, and McNaughton, as well as former RCMP officers Richard Brent Gardiner, Murray Harold Smith and Michael Skinkaruk, and Will Burrows, who prosecuted Klassen's murder charge.

Also named as defendants are the federal attorney general and the B.C. Coroners Service.

Klassen’s notice of claim was filed on Friday in Vancouver. Defendants will have three weeks to respond once they have been served.